Something Magic This Way Comes

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  Down the alley, a silver nose poked out from under the shadow of a box.

  The woman stopped in front of Missy, the bright light casting stark shadows across her face. Short, dark hair tumbled out from under a light, unadorned ball cap. The woman’s face was serious, but not angry, although her features were more than scary enough beneath the fairy light. For a moment, Missy quailed beneath the woman’s measuring gaze, but then the odd sorceress ran her tongue over her left eyetooth and sucked noisily at it.

  “So,” she said as if they had just met at a party, “you must be Missy, right?”

  Missy gave a hesitant nod, dumbstruck. The woman twisted her lips to the right thoughtfully as her eyes moved up and down.

  “Well, you aren’t much to look at,” she said at last as the silver cat slinked up to her ankles, “but damned if Tommy wasn’t right. You throw off more thread than any twelve kids I’ve ever seen.”

  “Thread?” Missy asked as she swayed on her feet.

  A pounding pain had started up behind her eyes. The woman reached out and wrapped one of Missy’s strings around her index finger.

  “These,” she stated flatly as she pulled the pale yellow strand down and held it out to Missy’s nose. A fragrance of lavender played along with a hum like a flying wasp’s wings. “Threads of power? Foundation of magic? Boon of Magecraft? Any of this ringing a bell?” Missy shook her head.

  “Oh, come on!” the woman snapped at her as she tossed off the yellow string. “Word I had was that Tommy had seen you weave a stealth glamor and a fire glyph. You don’t learn that sort of stuff on the street. Who taught you to do that?”

  “My . . . my Gram showed it to me,” Missy answered defensively, stung by the woman’s vehemence, “just before mama got mad and moved us just outside of Dallas.”

  “And who’s your . . .” The woman paused, closed her eyes, and sucked on her teeth again. “Nope. Don’t want to know. My contract was to bring you back to Houston, and to Houston you’re gonna go. I’m not getting paid enough to play good Samaritan.”

  “But I want to go home to Gram in Denton!” wailed Missy, the tears boiling up again as her head throbbed. “I want my room back and my stuffies and . . .”

  The woman reached out and clamped a hard hand on Missy’s wrist and yanked her toward the streetlights at the end of the alley. “I don’t give a hoot what you want, kid. You’re not paying me.”

  Missy twisted and kicked out with her left foot at the woman’s shin, connecting through her target’s raincoat with a wet thud. The woman yelped and jumped back, her grip coming loose in the process.

  Missy tore free and ran toward the street.

  “Why you little . . .” she heard the woman snarl behind her, but Missy only ran faster. The exit was only a few yards away. She was going to run into the Chinese restaurant and start screaming her head off.

  A tall, sparkling shadow appeared from around the corner and stepped into the alley.

  Missy screamed and tried to stop but her feet slipped, turning her run into a splashing slide toward the shadow. The flickering darkness loomed above her, as though gauging how much of a meal she might make. A smell of mildew appeared in her mind, dark and tainted, accompanied by the aural impression of fingernails on a chalkboard. Missy flopped on her belly and scrabbled for a grip on the wet asphalt. Houston suddenly sounded like a fine place to visit.

  “Dibs!” shouted the woman as she hobbled forward, pausing once to shake the leg that Missy had kicked. “I got here first.” The shadow twisted, morphing to focus its attention on the sorceress.

  “Gerard,” it breathed, the disgust plain despite the wheezy softness of the voice.

  “The one and only,” the sorceress answered back with a jut of her chin. Missy managed to half fall, half lunge to flop in front of the woman. The cat appeared in front of Missy’s face and growled.

  “You better sit still, kid,” Gerard warned. “O.G.’s wet and unhappy. He might give you a nip if you don’t mind.” The rain slacked off as Missy ignored the woman’s advice and struggled to scoot behind the sorceress’ leg. Once there, she leaned around Gerard’s left to peer back at the flickering specter.

  “This is none of your concern, Eleuran,” the shadow interjected in its creepy voice. “Leave her to me and I will let you live.”

  Gerard hunched her shoulders and wiggled her fingers at the shadow. “Woo! Leave off the ‘dark rider’ hocus and dire threats, Prentice. She’s scared enough as is, and you sure as hell don’t freak me out one bit.”

  She cocked her head quizzically at the shadow. “It is Prentice, isn’t it? Not Practice or Prickwise or Pornhick or something more suitable like that?”

  The shadow melted away before the fairy light globe, leaving a thin young man in a baggy business suit with long, sopping wet hair that might have been blond when it was dry.

  “You have a smart mouth, Allison Gerard,” he said in a nasal voice that was nothing at all like the sepulchral tones of the shadow, “and you’re quite a bit off your reservation, aren’t you?”

  The woman reached down and back, grabbing Missy by the shoulder of her jacket and pulling her to her feet, but the sorceress never looked away from the man.

  “So I’ve been told . . . about the mouth, anyway. As for being ‘off the reservation’, well, it’s a free country, and I’m at most one thirty-second Cherokee, so the tribe cut me off.”

  The man snorted. “Always the quick comeback. You might want to reconsider your attitude, smartass. Beaucomp’s influence isn’t quite as pronounced here as in Houston. Besides, he’s got no right horning in on this action.”

  A brief tightening of Gerard’s eyes gave the only clue Missy could see that the man’s words meant a thing to the sorceress, but she could sense a highpitched sound coming from her erstwhile protector, like that of some great spring being wound too tight.

  “I’m an independent contractor, Porkwit, and this job doesn’t belong to Beaucomp. Despite what you think you’ve heard, he’s just an occasional customer. There’s no chain on me.”

  “Whatever,” the man said carefully as he pulled a sodden glove off his right hand while stretching his fingers. “Oh, by the way, it is Prentice. Robert Prentice.”

  “Well, Bob, if you’re thinking of taking me on, you can’t be serious,” Gerard mocked. “You’re not even within sight of being in my league. I don’t care how many poor souls you’ve tagged to boost yourself.”

  “Always room for one more,” Prentice said softly, and then he snapped out his bare hand, not at Gerard but at Missy. A pale blue string flowed out and away from his fingertips, streaking across the darkness and aimed directly between her eyes.

  Before she could move or even scream, a wall of violet flame erupted between Gerard and the man, obscuring the faint string and hiding Prentice from her sight. The occult flames burned against the black for a handful of seconds before disappearing as suddenly as they had erupted, leaving Prentice sucking his fingertips and Gerard smiling cruelly.

  “Ah, ah, ah,” she chastised him as she wagged a finger. “That was very naughty. I told you I had dibs. No free samples.”

  Prentice raised his right eyebrow and lowered his hand from his mouth. Shrugging, he began putting his glove back on.

  “Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he said, nonchalant.

  “Oh, hell yes I can. Time for you to shove off, bucko, or you’re really going to irritate me.”

  The man straightened, as if pulling himself up for a speech. “I challenge for personal decision.”

  “What?” Gerard blurted out in disbelief. “Are you out of your gourd? Not only is she underage, she doesn’t even know who we are!”

  “Nonetheless, I challenge.”

  “You might want to know that I’m currently having a very hard time not incinerating you!”

  The man snorted. “Now who’s bluffing? I know you’d never start a one-woman war with any of the Stephanos families, even here in Dallas. That’s the problem with be
ing a lone wolf, even if one happens to be an archmage like you. No backup.”

  Gerard’s hand clamped down painfully on Missy’s shoulder. She looked up at the sorceress and caught just a faint glimmer of sparkle around the curls of hair that had escaped the hat. The air felt greasy in a way that only existed in Missy’s mind, and she could not get the smell of burning rubber out of her nose.

  “Fine,” Gerard spat out finally, “but I’m making sure the playing field is level.” Her hand snapped out and flare of silver light filled the alley. Missy had an impression of something bright streaking up into the sky and disappearing.

  “Missy?” asked the sorceress, again without looking away from Prentice.

  “Uh huh?”

  “This man gets to try to convince you to go home with him.”

  “I want to go back to Denton!”

  “That’s a fine thing to want, but I don’t think it’s going to happen tonight. Anyway, by our laws, he gets to have a say. If you decide to go with him, I can’t stop you. Just remember one thing . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Tommy.”

  “Hey!” Prentice snapped. “No coercing the candidate!”

  “Is that kind of like ‘no terrorizing the candidate’? ’Cause if that’s the case, I think you can just sit on it and spin, Pratfall.”

  Missy could hear the man grinding his teeth behind his thin lips.

  “Fine,” he said venomously after glaring at Gerard for several long seconds. She stepped to the side, leaving Missy facing the man as he closed his eyes, shuddered slightly, and then made an air-clearing gesture with his hands.

  “Let’s just start over shall we?” he asked at last, opening his eyes and fixing his attention on Missy.

  “Miss Watkins, I represent a powerful cartel of mages who are interested in recruiting your talents. If I am not mistaken, your life lately has not been particularly pleasant. Because of your rather unique potential, my employers are willing to provide you with excellent housing, education, and liberal benefits while you learn to become an integral part of our organization.”

  A snort came from Missy’s right side. She and Prentice both glanced over to see Gerard stifling a reply behind her hand. The sorceress raised her eyebrows in mock embarrassment.

  “Oh, sorry. Don’t mind me.” Prentice let out an irritated sigh.

  “In any case,” Prentice continued, clearly annoyed, “you will be treated very well and given every comfort. You have the potential to become a valuable asset to our cartel, and we would like to give you every opportunity to attain your full potential.”

  “Is that the same deal you gave my sister and her children as you drained them like human batteries during your last battles of succession?”

  The voice came from behind the small group and was accompanied by purposeful, splashing footsteps as a substantial matron wearing rubber farm boots walked into the range of Gerard’s fairy light. Her white hair had been hastily pinned into a crude bun, and a ratty gray raincoat had been thrown over her green paisley pajamas. Despite this harried appearance, however, her expression matched the looming threat of the black clouds still lingering overhead.

  “What the hell is this, Gerard?” Prentice demanded in an outraged voice. “Bring-your-own-geezer night?”

  The sorceress barked out a surprised laugh before favoring the mage with a canary-fed smile. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she said as she waved a hand at the matron. “This, Porkloin, is really and truly balance.”

  “Gram!” squealed Missy as she turned and ran for the woman. She could hear Gerard’s chuckle and Prentice’ hiss of indrawn breath behind as she charged into her grandmother’s embrace.

  “Hello, puddin’,” Gram whispered to her. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Missy wanted to pour out her heart to Gram, tell her about all the pain and horror that she had seen and experienced since their last parting, but all that came out were sobs and tears. So she settled for burying her face in the wet comfort of her grandmother’s raincoat and felt safe for the first time in a month.

  Gram straightened but kept on hand protectively on Missy’s head.

  “Allie,” she said conversationally.

  “Hello, Becca. Long time. Things are making more sense now.”

  Gram patted Missy and then pried her free from the raincoat. “Punkin? I need you to go stay by Miss Gerard for a bit, okay?” Missy shook her head.

  “She’s scary!” Her emphatic pronouncement drew a chuckle from her grandmother.

  “Oh, she’s all right, once you get to know her. I asked a friend of mine for help, and he sent Allie. I need you to go stand with her for just a bit until I deal with this young fella.”

  Gram gave her a gentle push toward the side of the passage where Gerard had taken up a perch on a closed dumpster. O.G. was grooming himself with a smooth silver tongue as he sat on a cement stoop in the doorway next to his mistress. Missy stepped hesitantly toward a spot on the wall between the dumpster and the cat before turning to look back at her Gram and Prentice.

  “You’re in for a treat,” Gerard told her in a perfectly audible stage whisper. “Not many folks get to see the White Witch of Denton in action.”

  Prentice went even more pale in the blue light; his mouth opened in shock, then worked silently as he tried to find his voice. “You!” he managed to gasp out at last as he raised a shaky finger to point at Gram.

  “Me, you sorry excuse for a soul leech.” Missy had never seen a smile as cold as the one Gram gave the now shaking mage. Even she wanted to run away from that horrible expression. Glancing to her right, she saw Gerard grinning in unabashed enjoyment.

  Whether driven by fear or desperation, the mage wasted no more words. He snapped his hands forward, wrist to wrist with fingers outspread. A rush of cold filled the alley as an oily black cloud shot out from his palms toward Gram. Missy screamed and made to move forward, but some sort of invisible tether materialized about her waist, binding her to the door.

  “Just watch,” came Gerard’s gleeful voice.

  The horizontal oil slick rushed toward her Gram leaving frost on every surface as it passed except where Gerard, Missy, and the silver cat watched.

  Missy’s stomach seemed to fill her throat as the grayhaired matron raised a single hand and flicked her wrist disdainfully.

  Light that seemed to be drawn from a high summer noon in Denton flared to life in front of the cloud, the vertical pillar of brilliance slicing the chill away and dissolving the mage’s attack into coalescing puddles of ink. For a moment, Missy thought she could see the weave of the black spell coming unraveled in the flying remnants as they evaporated in the rain.

  Just as the last of the casting closest to the mage’s hands was about to come undone, though, a hidden glyph erupted from the black . . . the brilliant crimson of the firebird!

  “No!” she screamed as she stretched out her own hand. Heat scorched her face as a firebird erupted from her own threads, screaming out to intercept Prentice’s surprise scant inches from her grandmother’s face.

  “Stupid little bitch!” Prentice snapped. Another firebird streaked from his fingertips, this time directed at Missy. Her eyes widened as the glyph roared through the darkness aimed seemingly at her nose.

  She struggled to find another firebird like the one she had conjured for Gram, but nothing answered her call.

  I’m going to die, came the realization. I’m not even twelve and I’m going to die.

  A wall of pale blue ice appeared between Missy and Prentice’s attack. His glyph struck the barrier with an ear splitting crack, but the frigid shield held.

  To Missy’s left, Gram straightened, bringing her hands up to her chest and then down in a clearing gesture. Ice, fading firebird, and sunlight pillar all disappeared with an ephemeral “pop.” Her right hand strayed back up to her hair to tuck a loose strand of gray behind her ear.

  “My turn,” she said so softly that Missy just barely heard. Prentice, app
arently, had heard all too well. He cringed back before turning to run hell bent for the alley entrance.

  Her attention drawn by Prentice’s attempt to run, Missy did not see what Gram did. A rush of air and the sense of something enormous passing by were unmistakable, though. The fleeing mage bent backward with a crack as some powerful force slammed into him from behind. His feet left the ground as he lofted out of the alley and into the street following a rising arc.

  A flash of blue and white appeared on the street from the left, and Prentice disappeared from sight as the impact of a bus radically altered the mage’s ballistic trajectory with a wet crunch. Missy stared at the now empty alley opening in shock. Against the background noise of a squealing air brakes and tortured tires, a polite cough came from Gerard’s perch.

  “That was . . . elegant,” said the younger woman as she hopped down with a splash. Panicked voices started shouting out in the street. Missy looked up to see the young witch’s wry grin, then looked back toward her Gram. The older woman chuckled and brushed her hands in a gesture of finality.

  “All a matter of timing and situational awareness, Allie,” the old woman said as she joined them near the dumpster. “And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge down in Escobedo I’d like to talk to you about.”

  Gerard chuckled. “And I think Missy there is a chip off your block. She didn’t even have to weave that glyph before she cast it.”

  The sound of her name released Missy from her shocked trance. She threw herself back against Gram’s sopping raincoat. “I want to go home!” she pleaded.

  Gentle hands appeared on her head, slipped to her shoulders and held her tight.

  “Oh, puddin’,” Gram said softly, “I know you do, and I wish I could take you back and make it all better.”

  Missy pushed back and looked up in disbelief at her grandmother. “You . . . you’re not taking me home?”

  An expression of pain and despair washed across Gram’s wrinkled face.

  “Hon, I want to, but I can’t,” she said as her eyes began to glitter in the fairie light. “The folks that varmint worked for have been after me for a long time. I thought that if I stayed low and out of sight, they’d leave me and mine alone, but that doesn’t seem to be the way of it. I think they killed my boy and then used that grief to twist your mom up and ruin her life. Reckon they thought that if they caused enough pain, I wouldn’t fight ’em.” She sighed and pulled Missy into a tighter embrace.