A Fistful of Charms th-4

by Ким Харрисон

  Brett cocked his head. "You're not going to give it to me. You're stalling for time."

  Jenks took my elbow before I fell over, and I forced myself not to show my angst. "Maybe, but he's going to kill you all the same." I arched my eyebrows and tried to look tough. "What do you owe Walter, anyway?"

  The Were dropped his eyes. I turned aside, shaking; he had acknowledged me as his superior. Damn. "God help me, Jenks," I whispered as I tottered to the door. "I hope he does it."

  "He will." Jenks glanced over his shoulder at Brett. "Walter will tear him apart slowly." His green eyes met mine. "That was slick. Where did you learn so much about Weres?"

  "If you're beaten up by them twice in one week, you start to pick things up," I said, leaning heavily on him.

  Jenks was quiet, then, "You want me to have Ivy call her vampire friend?"

  Nodding, I dropped my cup in the trash on the way out. I felt as if a noose was closing even tighter, but I didn't see any other options. Already my mind was making a list: call Ceri for the recipes I wanted that I didn't already have, check the yellow pages for a spell shop that carried raw materials. Somewhere I'd have to sleep and come up with a plan.

  Maybe, I thought as Jenks opened the door for me and I stepped out into the late afternoon sun, I'd get lucky and dream of one.

  Twenty-seven

  It was one of the oddest charm outlets I had ever been in, nothing like the richly scented earth magic shops I usually frequented, being brightly lit against the dark and spacious, and having a small spot up front to sit in cushy chairs and sip the marvelous coffee the owner made. The shelves were glass, and ley line paraphernalia was arranged like knickknacks. Jenks would have had an orgasm of delight.

  There were only a small section of earth magic charms, and the traditional redwood scent was largely overpowered by the aroma of ginger coming from the proprietor's coffeemaker. I felt strangely out of place, thinking the banners with dragons and white-bearded wizards next to the crucibles made everything look silly. An earth witch would have sneered at most of the ritual stuff in there, but maybe that's what ley line magic used. Something was off with the merchandise, though. It didn't smell right. Literally.

  Ivy was halfway across the store with my basket of goodies after I snarled at her that I was fine and to stop hovering. Now I was sorry, but she had been acting weird since picking Jenks and me up at the mall—depressed almost, avoiding me but always near—and it was getting on my nerves. It didn't help that I was feeling vulnerable, my knees shaky from blood loss again now that Jenks's street-grade Brimstone had worked itself out.

  I had found the shop in the yellow pages, and after I showered and stuffed myself on an entire box of macaroni and cheese, Ivy drove me over. She'd insisted, saying the Weres would know the moment I put my toe on the street. They had, and we'd been followed by two street racers glowing blue and green neon from underneath. It was worrisome, but between the thirty-six hour truce, my magic, and Ivy's presence, they'd probably leave us alone.

  As I hoped, Walter had backed off. Jax had said the trio of Weres in fatigues who picked Brett up was rough, but the lie that Brett convinced me to release the statue to him alone had kept him alive. I don't know why I cared. I really didn't.

  I think Walter was using the time as I was: fortifying defenses and getting everyone in place for a last attack if I reneged on our arrangement. I was, but if I did it right, he'd never guess it had been my intent from moment one. The packs could not have the focus. The thing was demon crafted, and any power gained from it was artificial and would ultimately lead to their damnation, dragging most of Inderland along with them, probably.

  My phone was to my ear while I shopped with Ceri, five hundred miles away and standing in my kitchen with Kisten. Ivy had asked him to watch the church and field the calls, and I didn't want to know what my kitchen looked like with nothing between it and pixy chaos but a vampire. Ceri was off checking some point of charm, and I could hear Kisten talking to Jenks's kids. The muted familiar sounds of home were both comforting and depressing.

  I picked up a large smoked bottle of generic fixative I could use for the demon transference curse, blanching when I saw the price. Holy crap. Maybe I could get away with the smaller bottle. I turned the smoked bottle over in my hand and squinted at the liquid. It was supposed to have camphor in it, but all I smelled was lavender. I didn't like buying pre-made stuff, but I was pressed for time.

  Seeing me holding the bottle, Ivy started my way to put it in the basket, halting when I returned it to the shelf and frowned. God help her, but I wasn't that weak. I could hold a stinking bottle of fixative without a Brimstone boost.

  I had fixed my own lunch today, after the sandwich Ivy gave me made my fingertips tingle. I don't know how she managed to slip Brimstone into it without me realizing, but I was still mad from the two of them dosing me up without my knowledge, even if the high from Jenks's street-grade Brimstone had made the difference in where I was sleeping tonight.

  Picking up the smaller bottle of fixative, I sighed, feeling my knees shake. Maybe I should just accept the Brimstone Ivy kept pushing on me and let it go. I was tired from simply walking around. Ivy wouldn't tell me how much blood she'd taken, and Jenks was no help, seeing as he thought a bleeding hangnail was reason for panic.

  Shades of gray, I thought, knowing I was slipping into places I had vowed I'd never go. Damn it, I used to be able to see black and white, but things got fuzzy right about the time I found my last I.S. paycheck cursed.

  My gaze drifted to the window, black with night and acting like a mirror. Seeing my reflection, I adjusted the collar of my little red jacket. It went great with the black STAFF shirt from Takata's last concert. Thanks to my last pain amulet, nothing hurt, but looking at my slumped stance, I decided I didn't look tired, I looked sick. My gut clenched when I realized I looked like a vampire's shadow, well-dressed, thin, sophisticated—and ill.

  Pulse hammering, I turned away. No more Brimstone, I thought. Ever. There is black. There is white. Gray is a cowardly excuse to mix our wants with our needs. But I wasn't sure I could believe it anymore as I stood in a charm shop buying materials to twist a black curse. Just this once, I thought. Just this once, and never again.

  Phone still tucked to my ear, I set the fixative down. I would have hung up and called her back later, but I was enjoying hearing the sounds of normalcy, soft and distant, five hundred miles away. It seemed farther. Relaxing, I reached for an elaborately inlaid wooden box. It was beautiful, and curiosity and a love for fine workmanship prompted me to open it to find it held magnetic chalk. It was ungodly expensive, and its presence solidified that there was a population of practicing ley line witches nearby.

  I abruptly realized the proprietor was watching me over her coffee mug, and I intentionally kept fiddling with the chalk, inspecting the seals as if I was considering buying it. I hated it when they watched me as though I might steal something. Like the illegal hex above the door that would give you zits wasn't enough of a deterrent?

  Technically a black spell, I mused. So why didn't I turn her in?

  "Magnetic chalk?" Ivy said from my elbow, and I jumped, almost dropping the phone between my ear and my shoulder.

  "I don't need it," I said, trying to cover my surprise. "Especially in a box like that. Salt works just as well, and you only have to vacuum when you're done."

  Reluctantly I let my fingers slip from the beautifully crafted container. It was dovetailed, the only metal on it the hinges, latch, and reinforced corners of black gold. Once the chalk was gone, it would make an excellent place to store anything that needed extra precautions. It was the nicest thing in the shop, in my opinion.

  My eyebrows rose at the package of herbs in the basket that I hadn't put there. "Is that catnip?" I asked, seeing the cellophane printed with little black footprints.

  "I thought Rex might leave Jax alone if she had something else to do." Brown eyes showing embarrassment, she dropped a step away. "You okay? Do
you want to sit down?"

  It was the third time she'd asked since leaving the motel, and I stiffened. "I'm fine," I said. Liar, I thought. I was tired, weary in heart and body.

  The soft clatter of the phone being picked up rustled in my ear. "Ceri," I said, before she could say anything. "Just how much fixative do I need for the transference curse?"

  The sound of the pixies shrieking diminished, and I guessed Ceri had moved into the living room. "A thumb drop," she said, and I gratefully took up the smaller bottle.

  "My thumb?" I complained. "What is that, about a teaspoon? Why can't they use normal measurements?"

  "It's a very old curse," Ceri snapped. "They didn't have teaspoons back then."

  "Sorry," I apologized, my eyes meeting Ivy's as I placed the fixative into the basket. Ceri was one of the nicest, most giving people I knew, but she had a temper.

  "Do you have a pencil?" the elf in hiding said politely, but I could hear her annoyance at my impertinence. "I want you to write this down. I know you have the inertia dampening curse in one of the books with you, but I don't want you to translate the Latin wrong."

  I glanced at the proprietor—who was starting to eye Ivy skulking about—and turned my back on her. "Maybe you could give me just the ingredients right now." The clutter in my basket was odd enough already. If the proprietor was worth her salt, she'd be able to tell I was making a disguise charm. The only difference between my legal disguise charms and the illegal doppelganger spells was a point of law, a few extra steps, and a cellular sample of the person to copy. I didn't think she'd be able to tell I was also going to twist a demon curse to move the power from the statue to something else. What she would make of the ingredients for the inertia damping demon curse was anyone's guess. Ceri said it was a joke curse, but it would work.

  Joke curse, I thought sourly. It was still black. If I was caught, I'd be labeled a black witch and magically castrated. I wasn't fooling myself that this was anything other than wrong. No "saving the world" crap. It was wrong.

  Just this once, echoed in my thoughts, and I frowned, thinking of Nick. Telling Al about me had probably started with just one harmless piece of information.

  Ceri sighed. "All you need for the joke curse is dust from inside a clock and black candles made from the fat of the unborn. The rest is incantation and ritual."

  "The unborn?" I said in a horrified, hushed whisper. "Ceri, you said it wasn't that bad."

  "The fat of an unborn pig," she reiterated, sounding angry. "Honestly, Rachel."

  My brow furrowed. Okay, it was a fetal pig, the same thing biology students dissect, but it sounded close to the slaughtering-goats-in-your-basement kind of magic. The transference curse looked harmless apart from the black it would put on my soul, and the disguise charm was white—illegal, but white. The inertia-dampening curse was the worst of the lot—and it was the one that would keep Jenks alive—a joke curse. Just this once.

  I was so stupid.

  Stomach roiling, my thoughts flicked to Trent and his illegal labs, which saved people so he could blackmail them into seeing things his way. He, at least, didn't pretend to be anything other than what he was. Things had been a lot easier when I didn't have to think. But what was I supposed to do? Walk away and let the world fall apart? Telling the I.S. would make matters worse, and giving the statue to the FIB was a joke.

  Angry and sick inside, I sidestepped Ivy to get to the candles. I'd already been there to pick out my colored candles for the transference curse. Behind the carved castles and colorful "dragon eggs" were the real goods, arranged by color and size, branded at the bottom with either what the fat had been rendered from or where they had first been lit. The woman's selection was surprisingly good, but why they were hidden behind such crap was beyond me.

  "Taper or barrel?" I asked Ceri, crouching to reach one with PIG scratched on it. You can't light a candle in a pig, so it was a good bet that's where the fat had come from. I'd never been in a ley line charm shop other than the university's, and that didn't count since they only carried what the classes needed. Maybe there was a spell that used "dragon eggs," but I thought they looked lame.

  "Doesn't matter," Ceri answered, and with the smallest taper in hand, I turned and rose, almost running into Ivy. She winced and backed up.

  "I'm fine," I muttered, setting the candle in the basket. "Did you see any packaged dust?"

  Ivy shook her head, the tips of her black hair shifting about the bottom of her ears. There was a rack of "pixy dust" by the register that was just glitter. Jenks would laugh his ass off. Maybe the real stuff was behind it, like the candles.

  "You sound tired, Rachel," Ceri said, question high in her voice as I moved to the rack.

  "I'm fine." Ceri said nothing, and I added, "It's stress." Just this once.

  "I want you to talk to Kisten," she said firmly, as if she was doing me a favor.

  Oh God. Kisten. What would he say if he knew Ivy had bitten me? "I told you so," or maybe "My turn"? "Ceri," I protested, but it was too late, and as Ivy fingered a display of amber bottles that were good to store oil-based potions in, Kisten's masculine voice came to me.

  "Rachel…How's my girl?"

  I blinked rapidly, the threatened tears shocking me. Where had they come from? "Ah, I'm fine," I said, missing him terribly. Bad things had happened, and I'd been carrying the pain since. I needed to talk to him, but not standing in a charm shop with Ivy listening.

  Ivy had stiffened at the sudden emotion in my voice, and I turned my back on her, wondering if I should tell her that the glass container shaped like a full moon in her grip was generally used to store aphrodisiac potions.

  "Good," he said, his voice going right through me. "Can I talk to Ivy?"

  Surprised, I turned to her, but she had heard him and shook her head. "Uh…" I stammered, wondering if she was afraid of what he'd say to her if he knew what had happened. We were both chickenshit, but we would be chickenshit together.

  "Ivy, I know you can hear me," Kisten said loudly. "You have a big problem waiting for you when you get back from your vacation. Everyone knows you're out of the city. You're his scion, not me. I can't go up against even the youngest undead. The only thing keeping a lid on this is that most of them are my patrons and they know if they act up, I'll ban them."

  Ivy walked off, her boots loud against the hardwood floor. Her passive response surprised me. Something was really bothering her.

  "She walked away," I said, feeling guilty Ivy had come up there to help me.

  Kisten's sigh was heavy. "Will you tell her that there was a riot in the mall downtown last night? It was at four in the morning so it was mostly living vampires, thank God, and some Weres. The I.S. handled it, but it's going to get worse. I don't want a new master vampire in the city, and neither does anyone else."

  I stood before the rack of pixy dust and rifled through the hanging vials, reading the tiny cards attached to each. If Piscary lost control of Cincinnati, Trent would have free rein. But I didn't think it was a power play by the undead vampires or Trent. It was more likely that the riot had been the Mackinaw Weres looking for me. No wonder Walter had agreed to a thirty-six-hour truce. He had to get his pack together.

  Tired, I let the vials slip through my fingers. "I'm sorry, Kisten. We have a couple of days before we can call this done. It depends on how fast I can do the prep work."

  He silently took that in, and I could hear Ceri singing with the pixies in the background. "Can I help?" he asked, and my throat tightened at the concern in his voice, even as I heard his reluctance to leave Cincinnati. But there wasn't anything he could do. It would be over one way or the other by tomorrow night.

  "No," I said softly. "But if we don't call you by tomorrow midnight, we're in trouble."

  "And I'll fly up there in two hours," he assured me. "Are you sure there's nothing I can do? Call someone? Anything?"

  Shaking my head, I fingered a book on how to knot love charms from hair. These things were illegal. Sm
all towns have very little in the way of policing witches, but then I saw that it was a fake, a novelty item. "We have it okay," I said. "Will you feed Mr. Fish for me?"

  "Sure. Ivy told me."

  "He only needs four grains," I rushed. "Any more and you'll kill him."

  "Don't worry about it. I've had fish before."

  "And stay out of my room," I added.

  He started making a fake radio hiss, whistling and popping. "Rachel? The connection is going bad," he said, laughing. "I think I'm losing you."

  A smile, the first in days, touched me. "I love you too," I said, and he stopped.

  There was a suspicious hesitation. "Are you okay?" he asked.

  Worry slid through me. He was starting to pay attention. "Why?" I said, realizing my hand had gone up to cover my neck. "Um, yeah," I reiterated, thinking it had sounded guilty. "I'm just stressed. Nick…" I hesitated. I couldn't tell him Nick had been playing kiss-and-tell. It was embarrassing to have been that stupid. "I told Nick to kiss off, and it bothered me," I said. Not really a lie. Not really.

  He was silent, then, "Okay. Can I talk to Ivy?"

  Relieved, I exhaled into the mike. "Sure."

  I handed the phone to Ivy—who had come up behind me to listen, presumably—but she closed the top and handed it back. "He can handle it a few days more," she said, then turned to the counter. "Do you have everything? It's getting late."

  Tension edged her voice. She was trying to hide her mood, but not doing very well. Concerned, I took the basket from her. "Everything but the dust. Maybe she has some behind the counter. God, I'm tired," I finished without thinking. Ivy didn't say anything, and I put the basket on the counter, eyeing the aphrodisiac bottle Ivy set by her catnip.

  "What?" Ivy said, seeing me look at it.

  "Nothing. Why don't you put your stuff in with mine?"

  She shook her head. "I'm going to get something else too, but thanks."

  The woman behind the counter set her coffee on her stained hot plate, her fingers reaching to take my things out of the basket. "Will that be all then, ladies?" she asked, hiding her wariness of Ivy behind her professionalism.