Cantrips: Volume #2: Minor Magics Crafted to Amuse and Entertain

by Joey W. Hill

  “You’ve watched us do it for forty-two cycles. I’ve seen your lips move with the words as you stood in the shadows, your hands lift and fingers spread like bird wings as you imitated my movements…” Agnes reached out and Grace drew close, letting Agnes touch her face with a shaking hand. Grace clasped it as Agnes focused on her. No, this wasn't delirium. Agnes's green and gold eyes were sharp as a hawk's right now.

  “So tired and pale, even for you,” Agnes murmured. “Yet always so beautiful. The Lord will come for you, Grace. I know He will. Promise me you will do it. You will do the ritual from beginning to end. If nothing happens, then it doesn’t. But it is worth a try. The Black Death may take our bodies, but loss is taking our souls. We cannot lose our souls...you have always protected us. You must do this. Please…"

  Grace’s stomach clutched as Agnes shuddered from the stress, pain suffusing her features. Agony tore through her self-restraint. The pustules sometimes hurt worse as they gathered under the skin, before they even made themselves known. With horror, Grace noticed the other hand Agnes held against her body. The fingers were blackening, the gangrene other victims had displayed before they died.

  “Sshh, Agnes.” She gathered her close, and Agnes clutched her bodice with her unaffected hand, rough nails cutting through the lacings to Grace's flesh beneath. “Calm down, sweetling. Yes, I will do it. I will do it.”

  It took some time to settle her again. When the spasm passed, Agnes was weak in her arms. But her fingers tapped against Grace’s chin and she looked down to see tears leaking out of the woman’s eyes, rolling down her temples to dampen her hair. The chestnut color was streaked with silver, the color of gray clouds lit by moonlight. Agnes’s eyes sparked, her twisted mouth getting a hint of the rebellious moue Grace knew and loved.

  “See. It’s not so hard…to order a vampire around.”

  She was wrong, Grace realized. She did know what it was to be in love as Dan and Agnes had been. Perhaps as close as a vampire could get to it. She dipped her head and pressed her fangs, very lightly, against the top of Agnes's damaged hand.

  “When you get better, moppet, I will take a strap to you like your mother did.”

  Agnes chuckled, though it was a strangled sound. Grace eased her back to the pallet, registering the soaked and fouled bedding beneath. “I'll get you fed and cleaned up. Then you can walk me through what I’ll need to know that I may have forgotten.”

  “You probably remember it better than I.”

  “We’ll see.” She was probably right, but the anticipated task made light flicker in Agnes’s eyes, giving her a sense of purpose, at least for the next hour. If she believed Grace would do it, she’d fight to see how it turned out. So maybe for the next forty-eight hours, the Grim Reaper would not visit. Agnes would drive back the symptoms that had taken the rest into the grave. Grace refused to believe anything else. "Food first."

  One of the few benefits the second mark seemed to be providing was that Grace's blood helped settle Agnes's stomach enough to consume gruel and small bits of solid food. While the gruel was heating over the fire, Grace lifted Agnes out of the unclean bedding and took her to her mother's rocker, a family heirloom Lars had made for Mary before he died. Sitting down in it, holding Agnes close, Grace was reminded of that first night, when Mary had handed her Agnes as a six-year-old. Her feelings since then had changed from love of the child to love for the woman, but this deluge of feeling was a mix of all of it. It was all the love she'd felt for her, from the beginning to now, in all its changing yet perpetual forms.

  In health, Agnes had a fine round backside and generous breasts, but the hardship of this illness, the toll it had taken on the village, had drawn weight from her even before the plague hit. She'd helped Grace until the disease felled her as well. As such, she felt far too insubstantial in Grace's arms.

  The first couple times she'd fed Agnes, Grace had put her blood in a cup to offer it. It was how the witches always offered Grace their blood, at her suggestion. A vampire's nature was to take control, and sexual domination was the sweetest of all seasonings in offered blood. To have her mouth on a bared throat, drinking straight from the vein...just the thought of it could quicken her loins and accelerate her blood lust, making her want to take, to conquer. If she desired the giver uniquely, as she did Agnes, that craving to demand surrender and sexual submission expanded to a throbbing roar in the body and soul. Her fangs would grow sharper and longer, her eyes would glitter with hints of crimson, and her body would ready itself to take full pleasure from her prey, and make them surrender to their own desires.

  From the other women, she could take a cup of blood without that feeling overpowering her formidable discipline. They'd chat like women did over a hot cup of tea, only she was sipping their blood. Yet Agnes was different. So many times she'd stared at Agnes's throat and hungered for that mouth-to-skin intimacy, imagining a million ways it could expand into something far different. Tongues tangling, bodies pressed together, her hand sliding between the soft pillows of Agnes's thighs to find the delights of slick flesh.

  Grace had her own small dwelling in the village with a roomy cellar room. She'd tried to respect Agnes's privacy, but there were times she couldn't help taking advantage of the second mark connection. Particularly on nights when Agnes and Dan were making love, she'd listen to Agnes's gasps of pleasure, her muffled cry, her lips pressed to Dan's broad shoulder as she climaxed. Often Grace would stroke herself to release while immersed in the woman's mind.

  So not just because of Dan, but because of her own feelings about Agnes, she'd never drunk from her throat directly. She rarely took her blood at all and, since the women didn't compare notes on how often they donated to her, assuming she was rotating equally among them, it didn't cause comment. Agnes's silence on the subject, her lack of questions, had acknowledged what they couldn't say. Grace wouldn't open a door that would make things more difficult for Agnes with her husband.

  Though Dan likely never realized it, Grace had cared deeply for him. She'd wept over his body and that of Agnes's son, Peter, because Agnes loved them, and they had loved her. Dan took good care of Agnes and knew just how special she was. Grace wished Dan knew that she'd never resented his hold on Agnes. In the vampire world, it wasn't unusual for human servants to have human lovers, though their first loyalty was to their vampire. Agnes's heart was wide enough to include Grace, Dan, her son, and the sisters of her coven. While Grace didn't deny her own possessiveness, she'd learned when one felt like this toward another, those baser, darker cravings sometimes gave way to more enlightened ways of loving.

  Nothing about her feelings at this desperate moment was enlightened, though. If anything, those primitive, more savage feelings she'd kept at bay all this time were strengthening in full force. If Dan were alive, she might have snapped at him like a wolf over her mate, interpreting anyone else near Agnes as a threat. And that included Death.

  Holding Agnes in her lap, she guided the woman's braid over her shoulder, though she kept her hand wrapped in the rope of it as she nicked her own throat with a knife. Setting it aside, she brought Agnes up higher, directing her lips to the vein. If Grace closed her eyes, she could imagine Agnes's hair loose and flowing, clutched in her hands while her body eagerly strained against Grace's, and not just for the nourishment. She'd rather focus on that than how weak the pull of Agnes's chapped lips was against her neck. She tightened her hold on the braid, on the woman's body, holding her closer. No. She's mine. You can't have her yet. Please...

  Agnes's hand had fallen on her breast, was massaging limply against it. She was so sick, it was the instinct of an infant, that remembered comfort of kneading a mother's bosom. Hot tears clogged Grace's throat, even as her breast responded the way a mother's wouldn't, the nipple tightening as she thought of holding Agnes's head there, making her suckle her until the point was hard and aroused. Then she'd push her down onto her knees to put her soft, clever mouth to work between Grace's legs.

  Why she
was having such irrelevant thoughts made no sense, unless it was in defiance of the current reality. Or maybe, all the sexual fantasies she'd harbored were surging forth because the chance they might have to explore them were so close to being lost. She should be ashamed of herself, but with Dan gone, she couldn't help but think that nothing would hold Agnes back from exploring those things with her except Agnes herself. But Grace was too tired to censor herself, and it was far too likely they would never be anything but fantasies. She would take what comforts the moment offered.

  I can do this now, talk in your mind for no reason.

  Grace started out of her absorption, briefly and absurdly panicked that she'd opened her mind to Agnes. But she didn't see anything in Agnes's mind but a drifting haze of words.

  You could always do that, moppet.

  No. I did it only when practical before, because otherwise, it was too intimate. Wasn't it?

  Grace's eyes closed. She had opened her mind to her. And the answer to Agnes's question was such an unequivocal yes, she couldn't voice it, even in her mind. Fortunately, Agnes was continuing.

  Sometimes when you'd look at me, I could feel that heat. It was how Dan would look at me when he was thinking about that. He'd be eating his dinner, but his gaze would catch mine, hold, and I couldn't wait until it was time to go to bed, until we heard Peter's breathing even out. Grace... I so wanted the time to have that with you as well. I...even now, so sick, I ache for you...is that the second mark, that makes me think of such things even when my body just wants free of this disease? I miss my boys, so much... Goddess, I just want to lose myself in you, cry until my heart stops feeling like it's breaking. Until I feel like you're all around me, holding me together, keeping me safe as you always have. Am I being punished for loving you and him both? For not loving him enough to love only him?

  Agnes sucked in a breath, her whole body stiffening as the pain invaded again. Standing inside Agnes's mind, it was as if Grace could follow and see all the points in her body where the swollen glands hidden beneath the skin were stabbing her, an attack Grace couldn't stop.

  "Cease," Grace murmured, her own throat aching. She rocked her servant--she would no longer think of her any other way--stroked her back, her hip and backside, and returned to her nape, cradling her skull as Agnes's head fell back into her palm, her lips stained with Grace's blood. Grace licked it off, sucked on her mouth gently, then kissed her, soft, easy busses while Agnes's fingers tightened on her breast in dazed reaction, holding onto Grace's succor in the midst of her struggle.

  No. A vampire doesn't sit back and let things like this happen. I am not subject to a human's will. I know how to fix this. Lifting her head, Grace cupped the side of Agnes's face in firm fingers, making her look at her. "You will let me third mark you, Agnes. I'm done waiting. You could recover entirely. I will not accept your refusal any longer. Even if it makes you hate me, I won't lose you to this."

  Agnes's gaze sparkled, a welcome hint of fire, even if it was also evidence of her stubbornness. "After..." she said, her voice faint. "It's not for me, Grace. The village... I cannot take something I want so much before we try, to offer everything...for hope."

  "I don't care. I'm doing it."

  Agnes shook her head, pushed at her. "Please, Grace. I know...you can force me, and I could call it that, to make it all right in that moment, but we know it wouldn't be. And the guilt I'd feel if tonight doesn't work...it would kill me...destroy your soul...we have to do it the right way. Please. You have to listen...oh...Goddess..."

  The plea became a moan, the pain shuddering through her. Agnes's stomach hitched under Grace's hand, the woman swallowing and eyes going glassy as if she was about to vomit up the blood she'd taken. Damn it, damn it. Grace cursed herself and held Agnes, stroking her to soothe the spasm, futilely willing the pain into her own body. I would bear anything for you, Agnes, but how can I bear losing you... "Ssshhh, it's all right. Okay, listen to me, moppet. It's okay. I won't push. I won't. I promise." Though if I lose you, I might not want to keep living.

  Agnes managed to keep the blood down. She had the strongest will Grace had ever encountered, and she showed it now, depleted as she was. Any other person, feeling this sick, having lost the husband and son she loved, might have just given up. Grace could say it was her own will responsible, her refusal to let Agnes give up and let go, but she knew that only went so far. The strongest strand of the tether holding Agnes to life was Agnes herself, specifically her sense of responsibility for the village. Her fingers, despite their lack of strength, had tightened on Grace, and her words underscored Grace's thoughts.

  "Promise me...you'll do the Rite. It's important. The only chance we may have. Or rather...the only thing I can think of that might help. And I know you have felt that connection to the Lord and Lady. You can do it. I know you can."

  Grace had never claimed to have any special powers beyond the physical powers of a vampire. She'd attributed anything else to the energy the women had woven around their village for so many years. But she couldn't deny that these past few weeks she’d been seeing…things. She'd called it the symptoms of a fatigued mind because exhaustion could eventually affect even a vampire. Yet moving from hut to hut during the nighttime hours, she’d often felt riffles of movement against her clothing, seen gray wisps like tendrils of fog that slipped around the sides of the huts, under doorways, or hovered in the air above the village. Silent, waiting specters.

  Spirits of the dead, watching their families continue to suffer, or agents of Death, waiting to claim the next soul? Since she hadn’t been sure, she'd been torn between sad grief for the former and hatred for the latter, as misplaced as it might be. Sickness surely had a demonic spirit behind it, because it was incomprehensibly desolate that it was indifferent chance, the deer hit by the hunter’s arrow. Yet if it was intended, part of a higher power’s plan, that was almost worse than thinking it was beyond anyone’s control.

  How hard it must be for the women of the coven, those who had touched the true Power of the Lord and Lady with every turn of the moon or phase of the seasons, to see this happen and try to make sense of it. She was losing as many to grief as to plague now. Lucille had died alone in her hovel, her husband and children all gone before her. Dan and Peter had passed within an hour of one another, Dan's grip on his son's hand never slackening. She'd felt the deep, gut wrenching fear of seeing the light die out of Agnes's eyes as she had out of theirs. But Agnes was still fighting. She would fight for the village, if nothing else.

  "Grace?" Agnes's voice was thin, anxious, reminding her that she hadn't answered her question. As if Grace could refuse her anything.

  "I should have let the wolves eat you as a child. Yes, I promise. Damn the Lord and Lady. I promise you. If you die before you take my third mark, I will be very angry. Forever. You will be the first soul haunted in the afterlife by the living."

  Grace realized Agnes's choking sound was a laugh, one that became a horrendous hacking cough. Then Agnes vomited up the blood, which meant Grace wouldn't get any gruel in her. Her body was rejecting sustenance. As Grace held her over the basin, she was in a dark realm beyond tears. She let Agnes finish, wiped her mouth, and held her close once more, the two of them on the floor. Grace's fingers gently supported Agnes's hand where the fingers were turning black. When the woman's body stopped convulsing, she tucked Agnes's head under her chin and willed herself to concentrate on what needed to be done. Grace could only keep moving forward, trying to save the ones whose lives remained in her hand. For Agnes.

  A deep breath, and she pulled herself back onto her feet, lifting Agnes and placing her on a folded blanket on the floor until she cleaned the bedding. Then she cleaned up Agnes and put her fevered body back on the pallet. Grace settled her into a fitful sleep with the promise to come back prior to the ritual, so Agnes could give her any final instructions. As Agnes drifted off to sleep, mumbling, Grace trailed her fingers over her hot brow. She wanted to offer her a blessing, but Grace couldn't
think of a power that might be listening other than her own aching heart. It would have to be enough.

  When she stepped back into the night, it seemed both an eternity and only a blink later. Grace took a breath of harsh cold again, baring her fangs and offering a hiss to the uncaring world. From the heat that swept through her, she was sure her eyes had morphed to crimson irises. She would do the Rite, yes, she would. And maybe she'd demand some answers from Those who had abandoned the women who worshipped them so faithfully.

  She was a creature of Darkness. She would not be cowed by beings of Light, particularly those who wouldn’t even deign to protect their own.

  * * *

  She made her rounds, caring for, feeding and cleaning the others who struggled to live. She also burned three more bodies. A village of one hundred and ten souls was down to thirty-eight.

  Her gaze slid from the pyre up to the slice of moon, the rudely twinkling stars, too far away from her concerns to care that their light was inappropriately cheerful. She needed to go to Agnes and then head for the ritual site. The Great Rite was usually conducted at midnight. She still had no clue how she was supposed to accomplish it without a male counterpart, but Agnes seemed to think it was possible. If it wasn't the fever talking.

  Grace...

  Agnes's voice in her head was barely a whisper. A distressed whisper. Grace was in motion in an instant, covering the quarter mile of ground between the burial fire and the village in less than a few heartbeats. She burst through Agnes's doorway and immediately wished she'd never left her side, no matter who else would have suffered for her neglect.

  Agnes was crumpled on the floor. Despite Grace's earlier efforts, the hated fetid smell of the plague's poison saturated the small space again. Grace knelt beside the woman and turned her in her arms. Agnes's face was drawn so tight, she looked like a skeleton covered by a thin layer of skin. Her breath rattled in her throat. She'd had swellings beneath both arms and they had burst, the fluid staining the armpits of her nightgown like an obscene berry juice.