Although she had no doubt that if the Maitresse wanted to lop off any of their heads, she wouldn’t hesitate. Mama tigers were still tigers, after all.
Many years ago, Asanti had seen the Maitresse present as maiden. She had not been a naive virgin; she had been closer to Artemis, with passions flaming high with regard to retribution and vengeance and joy and wonder. Whatever she had felt, she felt totally. It had made her alluring and dangerous.
Asanti didn’t want to encounter that aspect again.
The Maitresse waved her off. “I know what you were before. That is who you are to me. Those children,” she waved her hand toward the backyard, “know only burning. They don’t respect magic, or me, as you do. There’s no honor, no curiosity. Bag and tag, right?”
Asanti clenched her jaw, torn between feeling full agreement with an old friend’s opinions and knowing what it would mean if she voiced them. She represented the Church, and had a job to do. “We all have a role to play in the grand dance.”
The Maitresse smiled slightly at her. “Indeed.”
“We need to know more about what was taken from you,” Asanti said.
“Not yet,” the Maitresse said. She put a kettle on top of the stove and threw a fresh log inside the belly to heat it up.
• • •
“At least it’s warm,” Sal said, studying the strange phenomenon of being able to enjoy the beauty of the snow-thick woods while sitting in a springtime backyard.
The garden was beautiful, as if cultivated by an herbalist grandmother. The flowers grew thick and almost on top of each other, bunches of lavender and basil and vines of morning glories and tall sunflowers and tons of others she had never seen before.
In the center of the yard was a stone fountain of three women, carved from colored granite. A purple woman, a yellow woman, and a red woman danced, each with a hand held high. Their fingers intertwined above their heads and water bubbled up from their palms. Grace stood at the edge, studying the faces of the women. The spray from the fountain created a rainbow effect around her.
Liam frowned at the fountain. “Now I really do have to pee,” he said.
“Don’t do it here,” Sal warned.
“Like I’m so dumb that I would piss in a mage’s garden,” Liam said, leaning over to sniff a big flower.
• • •
“We don’t have time for tea,” Asanti said. “Neither of us does. Your need is urgent, and so is ours. Our Orb is broken. We’re flying blind without it. That puts us at risk.”
“And the whole world!” the Maitresse said grandly, throwing her arms wide and laughing. “As if the Vatican’s teams are the only ones fighting.” She shook her head. “Will they ever listen to anyone’s reason but their own?”
“No,” Asanti said. “Not in my lifetime, I don’t think. Menchú will do his best, but he’s better at fighting demons than politics.”
“How did you get into that position, Asanti?” the Maitresse asked, her voice soft. “You could have been my strong right arm. The market wouldn’t have survived and become what it is now if it wasn’t for you.”
Asanti felt uneasy, thinking about this—it was something Menchú must never know. She had uncovered a plot to attack the market decades before, and she had stopped it, back when she and the Maitresse were much closer. They aided each other however they could, then, the Maitresse sharing with Asanti a tiny fraction of her knowledge.
Asanti opened her mouth to respond, but something outside caught her eye. Liam was flailing about, only his legs visible, with the other half of him being ingested by a large flower that looked like a giant version of the carnivorous plants she had seen in nurseries. She wondered where Grace was, but then saw the fountain that she and the Maitresse had purchased together, only now it showed four dancing stone women where there had only been two when they had placed it in the Maitresse’s garden. One of the women was Chinese, and did not wear a flowing dress.
Sal was nowhere to be seen.
Asanti flicked her eyes back to the Maitresse, who watched her like a cat waiting for a mouse to run for it. She had a brief feeling of vertigo, a feeling that some sort of balance was at stake. She had to trust in the rest of the team right now, and play by the Maitresse’s rules.
“I was recruited to the Vatican,” she finally said, eyes firmly on the Maitresse’s violet gaze. “Through you I saw only the good things magic could do. Through the Order’s eyes, I saw the devastation it could wreak. I knew I would never be as powerful as you are, so I decided to go the route of regulation instead of absolute knowledge.”
“Not to mention you now have access to one of the greatest magical libraries in the world,” the Maitresse said.
Asanti forced a laugh. Through the window, she heard Liam’s muffled swear. “If by “access” you mean ‘the directive to put books on shelves and never touch them again,’ then yes, I have access. Still, some of the resource books are good reads.”
“That’s not the only reason you left,” the Maitresse said.
Asanti looked levelly at the woman. “No, it’s not. I couldn’t stand being with you.”
“I’m sorry for breaking your heart,” the Maitresse said.
Asanti shrugged. “It’s the past. Worse things have happened to me since, and much better things. Life goes on. Now, are you going to tell me what’s really going on or not?”
The Maitresse sighed. “I have been the subject of a specific attack. Someone… took something from me, and I need it back.”
“So you said. We need more information,” Asanti said.
“She took something from my private vault,” the Maitresse continued. “The one where I keep intangible things.”
Asanti closed her eyes, remembering. The Maitresse had done all the magic work herself, securing and warding a room in the vast network that functioned as her “cellar.” Asanti had negotiated the deal with a sprite to guard it. Inside the vault went the Maitresse’s most precious treasures, small items that she had imbued with certain secrets she didn’t want anyone to magically take from her.
Grace had been right, then. It was a secret that was missing.
“If you go against the thief directly, she’ll reveal the secret,” Asanti guessed.
The Maitresse smiled tightly. “Yes. Now she is looking for a buyer. But she will see me coming if I move.”
“So we have to go in and secure the item, and she can’t know that we are doing this for you.”
“I knew you would understand.”
“And my debt to you?” Asanti reminded her.
“We’ll see,” the Maitresse said.
• • •
Sal didn’t know where to look. Too many terrible things were happening at once. Grace had reached to touch the water in the fountain and Liam had bent to smell the giant red flower. Common sense told Sal that her friends were very stupid to do these things, but she wondered if the lures had some sort of attraction spell going on.
With a rustle and a chomp, the flower grabbed Liam, lifting him into the air as if to slide him down its gullet, which looked a lot less like a flowering vine now and more like a throat.
Before Sal could react, Grace climbed into the fountain and lifted her hand to join the dancing women, becoming soaked in the water. In an instant, she was silver stone.
Sal swore and leaped to her feet. She doubted Grace could get into more trouble at this point, being already turned to stone. Liam could still be saved.
Grabbing at Liam’s legs only had her eating one of his boots when he flailed in panic at this new attack and kicked her in the face. She let go and fell into the grass, wiping blood from a split lip. “Dammit,” she said.
More flowers rustled around her. Were they drawn to the blood? Sal scooted back toward the middle of the garden, an idea forming.
“Hang on, Liam!” she yelled, and dashed around the house. She was back in an instant with Liam’s boxes of smoked salmon. She ripped open one of the vacuum packs and tossed a piece into the
flower bed. Two flowers came to life and began snapping at the salmon.
Excellent.
She started throwing fish directly at the pod that held Liam. It had pulled him in nearly to the knees, and his boots still kicked. Keep fighting, angry Irishman, she thought. A piece of fish landed on the petals that formed the plant’s lips, and the lips quivered. She threw another one at that spot, and it twitched. It reminded Sal of a dog with too many tennis balls as it tried to somehow snap at the fish without letting Liam go. One whole box was gone, and she opened the other one. She had two handfuls of the stuff when the thing spat out Liam and began snapping at the pieces of salmon.
Sal threw the final hunks of fish—and the boxes, for good measure—into the garden, and ran to grab Liam by the feet as the pods all came to life to snap at the new offering of meat.
Liam was swearing a blue streak, his eyes closed, with some sort of thick digestive film covering them. “You’re okay,” Sal said, dragging him out of the radius of the flowers.
“What the fuck happened? Why can’t I see?” he asked, wiping at his eyes.
“You got eaten by a flower,” she said simply. “Now you have to help me, Grace is in trouble.”
“What ate Grace?” Liam asked, then opened his eyes. He squinted, then his eyes went wide. “Oh. Shit.”
“Near as I can tell, we can’t get close to the water. She touched the water, and then she was in the fountain and then she was stone. You were getting eaten at the same time. It was hard to figure out what was going on.”
Liam watched the flowers clean up the rest of his smoked salmon. “What a fucking mess. Where’s Asanti?”
“Still inside. I’m pretty sure we’re on our own for now.”
“Wonderful.” Liam reached for his pocket to get his phone, and then swore again. He stood and marched over to the edge of the flower garden. “You can eat me and try to digest me, but no one messes with my fucking phone! Cough it up!” He kicked at the lavender.
“Idiot, we’re out of fish—how am I supposed to save you a second time? We have to get Grace out of this,” Sal hissed, pinching his ear and pulling him back. He yelped in pain but came with her.
Sal placated him by giving him her phone to mess with. She tried not to compare him to a toddler, but he was fine once he had a toy in his hands. He began walking around the garden, looking at the phone, staying out of the way of the larger flowers.
“You’re not going to get any signal,” she said. “We’re at the house of a powerful magic user.” Liam stalked around, raising the phone as if that would help. “Would it kill you to not check Tumblr for five minutes? Your anime fan art sites will still be there when we get back to civilization.”
The back of his neck turned red, and he turned around and rejoined her. “I wasn’t looking at Tumblr,” he said. “I was trying to send a text to Menchú. Maybe he’d have an idea about Grace. And if she’s not going to fill him in on all this, we need to.”
He had jerked his head toward the house when he said she’s.
“She has a name,” Asanti said from the doorway.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Liam asked, striding over to her. “While you were off hanging with your girlfriend, we were getting eaten and turned to stone and”—he gestured to Sal’s bloody face—“whatever happened to Sal.” He paused. “What did happen to you?”
“You did,” Sal said. She focused on Asanti. “We’re afraid to touch the water; we think that’s what got Grace. How do we get her back?”
Asanti glanced inside. Behind her, the Maitresse was kneading bread.
“We need your help,” Asanti said to her.
The Maitresse looked up. “Children shouldn’t play in strange gardens,” she said. She wiped her hands on her apron and joined them outside.
“You told us to wait here,” Liam said, seething.
Asanti shushed him. “Maitresse. Please.”
“This will be another debt,” the Maitresse began, but Sal interrupted.
“No. Just flat-out no,” she said, crossing her arms and facing the Maitresse. “Basic hospitality rules all over the damn world, magical and regular, put us under your protection so long as we remain where you invited us to be. We stayed in the garden. You didn’t say not to touch the fountain or the plants. Bring her back.”
The Maitresse quirked a smile at Sal. “You know hospitality rules aren’t magically binding, right? That’s only in stories.”
“Yes. But I’m asking you to have basic decency. You gave a child a knife to play with and now want to charge the parents for a bandage when she gets cut. That’s not fair in any realm.” She hoped she was right.
“You’re quite eloquent when you want to be, Detective,” the Maitresse said. She looked at Asanti. “I can see why you have her on the team. Very well. Grace, I will set free.”
In an instant, Grace was stumbling out of the fountain, falling to her knees and coughing.
“Who is the other woman?” Asanti asked. “When you got that fountain, there were only two ladies.”
The Maitresse waved a hand as if it didn’t matter. “A rival for control of the Market. She’s irrelevant.”
Grace got to her feet, murder in her eyes, but Sal stood in front of her. “It’s over. You’re safe. Don’t make this worse. We’ll explain everything later.”
“I need to punch something,” Grace said through gritted teeth.
“I get that. But she set you free with a thought. I’m pretty sure she can put you back there before you could reach her,” Sal said. “You can’t win this one.”
“No. But I’ll remember it,” Grace said. She sent a withering look to Asanti, and stalked out of the yard.
Liam watched her go. “Did you get rental insurance on the car?” he asked.
“No, why?” Asanti said.
They heard a crash and some breaking glass.
“No reason.”
“The Maitresse,” Asanti said, clearing her throat, “has offered you her bathroom to freshen up. She is also baking bread for our trip.”
Sal laughed in surprise. “No, thank you, after this afternoon I don’t think any of us will be eating magical food.”
“It’s not—never mind. Go use the facilities if you need to, and then we’ll leave,” Asanti said.
Sal could sense Liam’s desire to wash, and she burned with curiosity to see the inside of a powerful mage’s house, but didn’t want to press their luck any further. She shook her head. “I’m good.”
“Then let’s go.”
3.
They had to stop at a fuel station thirty minutes after leaving the Maitresse’s house for washing up and snacks. Asanti made grumbling noises that reminded Sal very much of a father during a family road trip, complaining about unplanned stops. Considering the whole thirty minutes had been spent in miserable cold, since Grace had smashed a window, and with Liam shouting at Sal to stop calling him Seymour, it wasn’t too far off base.
At the station they bought some tape to cover the window, and Sal began patching it. When she was done, she dabbed some cream on her split lip and then devoured a chocolate bar.
Asanti returned with a bottle of water and a box of smoked salmon. Sal raised an eyebrow. “I thought it might serve to patch things up with Liam,” Asanti said.
“I’m pretty sure he’s off salmon for a while,” Sal said. “Where to now?”
Liam approached Asanti and snatched the box away. “I researched that phone you described. It’s a brick—a failed device put out that no one bought. Literally. Apparently the company donated all of the phones to an unspecified charity.”
“Then how did the Maitresse get one?” Sal asked.
“I think ‘unspecified charity’ in this case means ‘a bunch of magic users.’ Because the only place in the entire world to get a case for this phone is in a mall kiosk in Reykjavík,” Liam said.
“And phones are mostly devices to hold information,” Sal said, rubbing her swollen lip and wincing. “It’s wort
h checking out. I mean, when are we going to get to Reykjavík again?”
“Never,” Grace said, shouldering past them and opening the car door, then collapsing into the passenger seat.
“I’m actually pretty excited that we’re raiding a Hot Topic for magical items,” Sal said. “I’ve always wanted to tear apart one of those places.”
Once they were all in the car again, Asanti resumed driving. “So if the thief is associated with this kiosk, she is likely selling the secrets from there. We have to recover the secrets and return them to their owners at best, destroy them at worst. And the woman was smart enough to get into the Maitresse’s private vault, so she’s got to have allies.”
“Just point me at someone,” Grace said. She looked odd in her sweatshirt with a smoking mountain and I survived Eyjafjallajökull printed underneath, paired with too-long gray sweatpants. She had shed her wet clothes and thrown them away. Grace wanted no reminder of the day, it appeared. She dug her a journal out of her bag, wrote down the date and “The Awakening,” and then began writing.
“That’s one of the problems,” Asanti said. “Malls are full of civilians.”
“Does Team Two know what we’re up against?” Sal asked.
Liam fiddled with Sal’s phone again. It hadn’t left his hands since he’d gotten reception again. “They do now,” he said, hitting send. “But you don’t need to worry about people; we can cut their line to the grid, cause a power outage, shut down all the registers so people have to go home, or—”
“—Or just pull the fire alarm. Christ, Liam, you really like to do things the hard way, don’t you?” Sal said.
He glared at her and began another text to Menchú. The phone pinged and he stopped typing to read. “Menchú says go ahead with the mission.”
“Was there ever a question that we weren’t?” Asanti asked.
Bookburners The Complete Season Two Page 18
