Bound Powers

by Saruuh Kelsey

  “Yep?”

  “It’s Gabi.”

  “Oh, shit. Hey Pride. What’s up?”

  “I…” How to word it? “I might have found something, but I also could be deluding myself. Are you busy this morning? I could really use a second opinion.”

  “Yeah.” There was a thump, then a groan. “Just let me fall out of bed and break my arm and I’ll be right there.”

  Alarm shot through Gabi. “You broke your arm?”

  “Probably just twisted it. I’ll be fine. I can soldier on heroically.”

  “It’s not bad at all, is it?”

  Gus laughed. “Look at that. You’re getting to know me.”

  Gabi rolled her eyes. “I’m in my flat upstairs but I’ll leave the back door open. You know how to get around?”

  “Yeah, ish. I’ll figure it out—I’m a clever boy.”

  “Clever could be stretching the truth.”

  “Don’t be rude, Pride. See you in fifteen?”

  “Thanks, Gus.”

  “Yep.” He put the phone down.

  Joy

  Joy shot awake with her heart in her throat, the sun in the completely wrong place. It was late. Afternoon? How had she slept so long, and why had she dreamt that horrific scene? She rubbed her eyes, trying to burn the image of Perchta, her long, wicked claws buried in Gabi’s chest, carving out flesh and blood and agony. It had felt as real as watching it happen the first time and it made Joy just as sick. She barely scrambled out of bed and made it to the bathroom before bile hit the back of her throat and vomit hit the toilet bowl. After, she sat shivering, her head against the bathroom wall, her mouth awful. Tears built in Joy’s eyes and she let them fall. Maybe if she ignored them, they’d stop quicker.

  It took a long time for her to scrape together the effort to haul herself off the floor and rinse her mouth with water. It wasn’t the first time she’d dreamt of that day, but it was the first time she’d seen those claws in Gabi’s body, so close up Joy could make out the shredded skin and gore under Perchta’s nails. She hugged herself as she went downstairs, the herb and incense smell of the house a bare comfort as she padded into the kitchen. She couldn’t get it out of her head, the blood, the nails, but she stared at the blinking time on the microwave until her eyes blurred. She remembered Mrs. Nazari saying he sent her and found it hard to breathe.

  A long, sudden scritch at the back door made Joy jump out of her skin, shrieking. Her heart kicked into a sprint and her hands were instantly shaking as she reached for her wand, her eyes filling with tears. Those claws flashed behind Joy’s eyes again, followed by Perchta’s pretty smile, and Joy shook harder. She couldn’t stay here alone much longer; it would break her, this fear.

  Yow, a high voice cried and the scratching at the door became more insistent.

  All Joy’s breath left her at once and she shook as she calmed down. The cat. It was the cat. Not a killer witch, not some other murderer or nightmare come to hurt her. The cat.

  Joy straightened, hoping the action would chase off the last of her fear—it didn’t-and unlocked the door, letting in a rather large and irate bundle of grey striped fur.

  Yow, it said pointedly as Joy locked the door.

  Joy was not in the mood to be yelled at. “Last month a witch was hunting people in this town, and I was nearly killed. You expect me to hear someone scratching at the door and rush to see who it is?”

  The cat lowered its head as if it understood. Her, and she, Joy remembered. The cat was female if she’d read her meowing correctly. Joy paused. Was this madness? Talking to a cat and assuming she spoke back? Joy had always been able to communicate with her mum’s cat Molly but she’d been her mum’s familiar and more aware than regular cats. Joy shrugged it off. She’d worry about signs of insanity later.

  Before Joy could offer to feed the cat—she’d got a tin of cat food just in case she made an appearance again—a tentative knock sounded at the front door and the lock clicked as someone used their key. Eilidh, then, judging by the gentle knock. Ever since Perchta, they’d all stopped leaving their doors unlocked, just in case, and had exchanged keys. Joy had a set hanging above the sideboard in the hall, each painted a different colour so she knew whose was whose. Gus still hadn’t got around to giving her a key yet, but she made a mental note remind him—it was important they could easily reach each other. Just in case.

  “Hello? Joy?”

  “Kitchen,” Joy called through the open door, feeling less afraid for hearing her voice.

  Eilidh smiled when she saw Joy, something she was doing more and more often. Her happiness was still strained because of the loss of her cousin Freya, but it was coming back slowly, and she was returning to the Eilidh Joy had known for a year and a half—Eilidh being the latecomer to Joy’s coven.

  “Oh!” Eilidh began making cooing noises. “Joy! When did you get a cat?”

  Joy shrugged. “I think she got me, really. She’s not mine.”

  The cat yowed in disagreement.

  “She just keeps turning up,” Joy went on. “This is the second time now. The first time I came home and found her already inside.”

  Eilidh knelt on the lino. “Who’s a pretty, fluffy boy?”

  The cat pointedly did not yow.

  Eilidh’s smile slid at the glare from the cat. “Uh? Does he know what I’m saying? It kinda seems like he knows what I’m saying.” She gasped and stood quickly. “You don’t think … he’s not like Maisie, is he?”

  Joy paused in the act of turning the kettle on. “I never thought of that.” But it did explain how she seemed to understand Joy. “And she’s a girl.”

  “Oh,” Eilidh said as if everything made sense now. She resumed kneeling and said, “Who’s a pretty, fluffy girl?” The cat sat higher, her chest puffed out as Eilidh stroked her.

  “You get your UCAS application in?” Joy asked as she put tea bags in two cups.

  “Huh? Oh. Yeah. Done and sent off.”

  “Good.” Joy nodded, even though her stomach caved in on itself at the thought of losing another friend and witch sister. But college was good, and Eilidh was excited to go and study Art and Design. Joy could be happy for her, even if it meant losing her to Leeds the same way she’d lost Gabi to Liverpool. But this time she’d do it right. She wouldn’t argue and spit awful things that should never have been said. They’d part on good terms, as friends, and Joy would visit every month or every other month—it was only two hours away on a train. They wouldn’t lose contact. And they could skype every week if Eilidh had the time between studying, and Eilidh could come home for every break. Besides, it was only January and Joy had another seven months left with Eilidh before she left Agedale.

  But a voice in the back of her mind asked if Eilidh would find another coven while she was away, and if she’d never come back.

  “Thinking about Gabi?”

  Joy blinked, realising Eilidh was no longer on the floor fussing with the cat. “Yeah,” she replied because it was easier than explaining what she’d really been thinking about.

  “You want to get back with her.” Eilidh pulled out a chair at the table and Joy dragged herself out of her thoughts and finished the tea, setting it in front of her friend.

  “I don’t know what I want,” Joy disagreed, sitting opposite. “It’s … complicated.”

  “Isn’t that what everyone says when they know what they want but they’re too scared it’s gonna go wrong?”

  Joy took a drink instead of answering, agitated for a reason she couldn’t place. “I just don’t want to lose her as my friend, okay? I like where we are now. I have her back in my life. I should be happy with that.”

  “But you’re not?” Eilidh asked in a soft voice. Her green eyes were wide with sadness. “You realise everyone can see it, right? You love each other. The way I see it, if your feelings lasted six years with you apart, they’ll keep lasting. Even if you don’t get together, you’ll still love each other. And even if you get together and it goes wrong,
you’ll love each other. You're still gonna be friends at the end of it.”

  Joy shook her head. She had no way of knowing that.

  “Seriously.” Eilidh laughed softly. “If you’re friends now, after that huge argument you keep obsessing about, you’ll be friends no matter what happens.”

  To that Joy could find no argument. Eilidh was right, then—it was fear, not logic, not sense, holding her back. Joy propped her head on her chin and frowned at the table.

  “You took down Perchta,” Eilidh said, stumbling over the name. “You can ask Pride out.”

  Joy met Eilidh’s eyes. “I think this is scarier.”

  “But you’re brave enough.” Eilidh’s smile was bigger and realer than normal. “You’re really brave, Joy. You got this.”

  Joy tried not to let her doubt show. What she couldn’t figure out how to explain, how to word right, was that having Gabi as her friend now was a dream she’d harboured for years but never imagined would come true, and she couldn’t risk wrecking that dream. She didn’t think she’d survive losing Gabi again in one piece. And she didn’t want to be broken.

  Pride

  “Are you aware there’s a six pack, a bunch of flowers, and some kind of stew in a Tupperware on your doorstep?” Gus took his jacket off and slung it over the back of a chair, sitting on the rug by the coffee table despite the empty chair opposite Gabi.

  Gabi shrugged, crossing her legs on the sofa. “They keep leaving me stuff.”

  “Thought it was fairies kids were meant to leave gifts for.”

  “Not kids. Little old ladies.”

  “Nice. What’ve you found, anyway?”

  Gabi sifted through the paper until she found a badly printed post mortem photo of the woman from the news. She’d zoomed as far as she could on the rash on the woman’s neck. “This,” she said, handing the paper to Gus. “It’s a rash or mark of some kind. I’ve seen it before.”

  Gus squinted at the page and handed it back. “So? People get rashes all the time.”

  “People get rashes and then die in their sleep all the time?”

  “Huh? You think this rash killed a woman? That’s reaching a bit far.”

  “I don’t know what I think.” Gabi scrubbed a hand over her face. “It just … reminded me of something I’d seen. I’m not saying the mark kills, but it’s strange. And that makes two people who’ve died under similar circumstances. And they’re both women around the same age.”

  “Wait.” Gus stared at her. “Died in their sleep? You mean Joy’s mum is one, don’t you?”

  Gabi shrugged, ducking her head. “It’s a very similar mark. I’m not saying the same, I’m not even saying they’re connected for sure, I’m just … it’s a weird coincidence. The cause of death, even if it’s natural, and the rash.”

  “Right.” Gus didn’t look convinced.

  “This is why I asked you to come look at this. I wasn’t sure if I was making something out of nothing."

  “Well it’s not nothing,” he allowed. “But it’s not exactly something. Don’t you need to collect information and make a crime board or something?”

  “Probably.” Gabi massaged her temples, a headache brewing.

  “Did the other woman come from Agedale?” Gus looked at the photo again. “I’m pretty sure I’d have heard of something like this.”

  “No,” Gabi sighed. “And I don’t know if there are more from other places, if they’re all witches or supernatural. If even more women died in their sleep and it looked natural, it wouldn’t even get seen by a detective or put in the database.”

  “You think there’s more?” Gus scratched his jaw. “You need to find a link, don’t you? Between them all? I’ve seen Criminal Minds and CSI and shit.”

  Gabi snorted. But yes, she did need to connect them. “They’re both women, middle age, from the UK. That’s something at least.”

  “And the weird rash.” Gus was thinking about it now, she could tell. “What if the rash has nothing to do with them dying, but something they did before they died?”

  “Like?”

  “This is the worst example ever, but it’s all I can think of to explain it. Say they all went to the same gym and it’s got a bug on the door handles. They would have died separately but gone to the same gym.” At her expression he added, “I said it was the worst example ever.”

  “True. You did. And I get what you mean. I’d already thought of that.”

  “You’re a Pride,” Gus said with a wry smile. “Course you’d already thought of it.”

  “So you think this might be something?”

  “Begrudgingly, yeah. Is there any food around here? I skipped breakfast.”

  “Downstairs. And if you’re going, bring up the tin of biscuits.”

  “Only if I can eat them too. Is there anything sandwich-y?”

  “There’s bread,” Gabi said. “And cheese.”

  “That’s sandwich-y.”

  Gabi laughed under her breath and woke her laptop, resuming reading the page where she’d left off.

  They had to pause their theorising and reading of files at ten a.m. when Gabi opened downstairs for open hours and a parade of people came in with various grievances.

  “Don’t you have things to be doing?” Gabi asked late afternoon as she took a tea break. Gus had sprawled across the rug, his legs under the coffee table, a stack of papers on his stomach. Gabi definitely wasn’t supposed to let anyone else see the confidential files but she’d technically registered him and the rest of his coven as consultants back when they started tracking down Perchta. If this turned out to be an actual case, she’d register them as consultants again, so she didn’t feel so bad about bending this rule.

  “Me?” Gus laughed. “Things to be doing?” He laughed again, but there was something behind it that wasn’t full amusement. “Actually no. I’m a man of leisure now.”

  Gabi frowned. “What?”

  “I took too much time off to find Perchta, and after fighting her and all that shit. My boss didn’t like that much and fired me.”

  “You got fired?” Gabi burned with indignation. “But you helped keep the town safe!”

  “Yeah, honestly, Pride? My boss has been waiting for an excuse to sack me. And no one else will take me on because they don’t want to upset Paulina, their head bitch. Sorry—witch. Either that or they’re as bigoted as she is.”

  Gabi winced. As much progressing as humans had done in the past decade, witches had stayed very firmly the same. They were the least inclusive community she’d ever known, but then again she’d never known the fae community—they seemed the worst, from the outside. “How are you paying rent?”

  “I’m not.” Gus shrugged and pretended to be busy reading.

  Gabi set her work aside. “You’re being kicked out?”

  “End of the month, yeah.”

  “Shit.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Right.” Gabi nodded, a decision made. “You and Maisie can move in here. There’s a sofa downstairs, or this one, and I can make up something for Maisie.”

  He ducked his head. “Pride, it’s fine. I’ll figure something out.”

  “I’ve already figured something out for you. You’re moving in here.”

  “Pride.”

  “No.”

  Gabi—”

  “Augustus.”

  He shook his head. “So you’re not taking no for an answer, huh?”

  “I am absolutely not.”

  “Thanks. I’m pretty annoyed about it but thanks.”

  Gabi tried not to smile. She hadn’t realised that Gus was just as proud and stubborn about help as she was. Not that she could avoid getting help lately—those old women were insistent and determined.

  Gus quickly changed the subject. “How would we find any women who were put down as natural causes?”

  “I’ve been thinking of that. And I have no idea.”

  Gus lifted his head, looking at her again now his pride had settled. “K
eep going through the police database?”

  Gabi nodded. “Looks like the only way forward.” That and sending out a hopeless probe on the supernatural police forums.

  “And when are you going to tell Joy about this?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know. When I know for sure. I don’t want to upset her if this turns out to be nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing. Joy’s mum could have died from the same thing this other woman did. But I get you. She doesn’t need any more grief.”

  Gabi agreed. She’d do anything to protect Joy from reliving that day, clinging to her mum’s cold body as Gabi tried to guide her away, and then screaming as Gabi’s dad turned up to declare the death official. Joy had howled as she was pulled out of that room, and that had turned to keening sobs. Gabi had felt like her heart had cracked apart and would never be put back together. She was still healing from that week, from Mrs. Mackenzie’s death, the arguments, her and Joy’s hateful break up.

  “Brooding?”

  Gabi blinked. “What?”

  “Are you brooding? You have that broody, haunted kinda look on your face.”

  “I’m not brooding.” Gabi scanned her laptop to look busy. “I’m fine.”

  “Right.” Gus drew out the word with heavy doubt. “You realise if you don’t make the first move, Joy never will right?”

  “This subject is off limits.”

  “Right. Noted. But seriously, she’s too worried you don’t even like her or you don’t want her back to say anything.”

  Gabi’s eyes locked with his. “She’s said this?”