The Library, the Witch, and the Warder

by Mindy Klasky

  The salamander queen absorbed that news without changing expression. “I expected you to come with the loup-garou.”

  “He’s a shifter. Not a werewolf. And he’s standing guard outside.” No reason for her to know Connor shivered on the shore of the creek. At least David hoped he was still alive to shiver.

  “He sent you in to do the dirty work.”

  He didn’t rise to the bait. “Give me the Collar, Apolline.”

  “The werewolves stole my karstag.”

  “You would have gotten it back on the night of the Hunter’s Moon.”

  “So your loup said.” Apolline pouted in Gallic dismissal. “But the moon came and went, and we saw no karstag.”

  “Connor was ousted after your fire circle. The new alpha chose not to return your knife.”

  He couldn’t tell if she already knew Connor was out. In the end it didn’t matter.

  Connor had offered to broker an honest deal. Apolline could have had her karstag if she’d waited a few weeks. She’d even held David’s Torch as security.

  But she’d chosen to stir up chaos instead. Like an arsonist setting fire to a country church, she reveled in her ability to destroy. Salamanders were true to their nature, just as shifters were true to theirs. Warders, too.

  “I’ll ask you once more,” David said. “By the Guardians of Fire, give me the Collar.”

  She laughed as if she’d never heard of the Elementals. “Why don’t we try… Comment dit-on? Double or nothing.”

  “I’m not a gambling man.”

  “You’ll want to wager for this.” She reached into her corset and extracted a small brass key.

  Another branch crashed upstairs, this one loud enough to sound like an entire tree trunk coming down. Soot drifted from above, and David fought to keep from choking.

  Apolline clearly wanted him to ask what the key was for. He refused to give her that satisfaction—just as he would not wipe ash from his face or labor to draw a full breath in the chamber’s close air.

  Crimson flames surged to her knees before she smothered her disappointment. With a moue of resignation, she forfeited the round. “The key is for a post office box, in the Kalorama station. You and your lapdog visited my home near there, n’est-ce pas?”

  He smothered his rage at the memory. “We met Brule there. We worked a fair trade.”

  Her lips puckered, as if she were annoyed. Or maybe she didn’t care at all. “There are documents in the box. Proof that John Brule set up the…aventure beneath the Mall. The EBI would drop all charges against you and the loups if they read those papers.”

  His heart soared at the possibility of vindication, but he had to ask, “Why would you keep that?”

  Her lips quirked in a wicked smile. “What would your cub say? To keep John on a…short leash.”

  David wouldn’t waste time feeling sorry for Brule. The double-crossing salamander had chosen his mistress a lifetime ago. He must have known the cost of his service.

  Apolline affirmed: “John knew I could give this key to anyone, anytime. Revenge if he betrayed me.”

  As she spoke, the fire climbed to her waist. She thrived on her power, reveled in her cruelty to an ally who had done nothing but serve her well. Her eyes gleamed like lava in the darkness.

  David shed the last of his concern that the salamanders had been unfairly denied the return of their karstag. Apolline was anarchy personified. Even if she had her knife, Apolline would likely keep the Collar. Keep the Collar or find some other pretext to wreak havoc on the Washington Pack.

  When David didn’t respond, Apolline slowly clicked her tongue. “I grow weary of this game,” she said. “My key and my Collar—I’ll give them both to you.”

  He tensed, knowing this was the true heart of their negotiation. “And what do you want in exchange?”

  “You.”

  “Me?” The single syllable threatened to choke him.

  “With Brule gone, I need a new lieutenant. You’re the perfect man for the job.”

  David started to laugh in disbelief. Apolline flouted the Empire’s rules and regulations. She set fire to anything resembling decency among all imperial society. She maintained a blackmail file on the man she claimed to value.

  But his laugh caught hard in his throat.

  He’d already toppled rules without regard for consequences. He’d just ignited a supernatural fire in the heart of DC’s largest public park. He’d trained a witch, when he had no business acting as a magister. He’d framed Pitt.

  Apolline Fournier had every reason to think he’d serve her.

  The salamander queen’s laugh rippled through the tiny room, crawling down his chest like a finger tracing his sternum. “Think of the power you and I could share together. We salamanders have secrets you warders have never seen. Even the petty Bureau tyrants can’t find all our lairs. No prosecution for acting according to your true nature… No penalty for being your real self…”

  Brule had betrayed him.

  Apolline had lit a fire circle at his feet.

  The salamanders were the worst imperials he’d ever seen, pure viciousness untempered by any form of respect. He looked into Apolline’s dead eyes and said, “Never.”

  She howled in outrage, a soprano ululation that echoed like a battle cry. At the same time she cast off her human shell, transforming into an unbound imperial. Her skin darkened to jet traced with crimson hieroglyphs. Her face elongated into a snout, and she opened her mouth to reveal a long, forked tongue. As her clothes burned away, she unfurled sinuous limbs, multi-jointed arms and legs that ended in burning claws. The Collar still swung from her smoking neck.

  “Dance, Warder,” she hissed as the last of her human jaw melted away. “Dance!”

  The throne burst beneath her, its volcanic glass shattering in the untamed heat of the salamander’s rage. David shielded his eyes from obsidian shards, reflexively falling to the floor to avoid the shrapnel.

  The air was too hot to breathe. His shirt was smoking, its cotton scorching his back. He reached behind to pull the garment from his waistband, desperate to tug it over his head. His fingers brushed against the bodyguard’s dagger he’d shoved into his belt.

  He clutched the blade, tightening his grip despite his sweat-slicked palm. He heard O’Rourke whisper in his memory: “Point one: Don’t keep your grip loose, even if the weapon’s lighter.”

  Forcing himself to his knees, he gained all the height he needed in the narrow chamber. O’Rourke growled inside his head: “Point two: Small spaces call for small moves.”

  His hair began to kindle. The knife was too hot. It seared against his palm.

  He dropped the dagger then brought his open hand up, sharp and hard. As he crushed the salamander queen’s larynx with the base of his palm, he heard O’Rourke’s last lesson: “Point three: Don’t rely too much on any blade.”

  Apolline rasped for breath, a hideous chitinous sound that grated against his ears. One blow wasn’t enough. He had to pick up the knife. He had to scorch his palm.

  Clenching his teeth against the scalding pain, he buried the obsidian blade inside her chest.

  The knife was too short to reach Apolline’s heart. He couldn’t kill the salamander queen. She pointed her claws at his face and rained crimson fire on his head.

  Thrashing against the agony, he leaned into his weapon with all his weight. The knife was caught on something—leathery skin or splintering bone or sheer, ornery stubbornness. “Sweet Hecate!” David cried. “Goddess give me strength!”

  Power surged from the Torch nestled in his pocket. Magical energy coursed through his body. Cool grey washed over his flesh, soothing his burns, healing his blistered wounds. He was sheathed in power, armored, protected.

  As Hecate healed his body, she cleared his mind. He was washed clean, balanced in a place of perfect peace, ideal calm. He’d felt that way before—stable and centered, confident in all his power as a warrior for his goddess. He’d touched perfection when he complete
d his meditation of Snake Form, when he’d taught Kyle Hopp how to fight.

  He offered up his conscious thoughts as a sacred gift to Hecate. He let each twitch of his muscles pull him deeper into his body. A pulse of violet light drifted into birdsong. The trilling sound melted into the flavor of vanilla. The sweetness coating his throat swirled into the sharp scent of juniper.

  His senses merged. He felt the knife; he was the knife.

  He guided the salamanders’ obsidian blade through the warders’ ancient fire form of fighting. The knife shifted a fraction of an inch, digging deeper.

  Another flash of perfect unity—seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling the perfection of battle. The blade shifted again.

  One more blast of wholeness, all of his senses melted into one solitary state of being.

  The obsidian point pierced Apolline’s heart.

  The salamander queen’s animal face crumpled. She threw back her head to hiss in anguish. For a heartbeat, fire flared green around her, bright as an emerald’s soul, and then it faded away to nothing.

  Plunged into absolute darkness, David fumbled in the ashes where Apolline had stood. His first find was easy—the Collar’s heat drew his fingers. His annealed fingers closed around the iron links, protected from burning by Hecate’s magic.

  His second dive into the pile of ashes was harder. The brass key was so small… So delicate… It might have melted in Apolline’s final conflagration. It might be destroyed forever.

  But no. The key remained, trapped in the shattered base of the queen’s abandoned throne. He thrust it into his pocket before he lost it in the dark, letting it settle beside his Torch.

  Staggering to his feet, David was panting, desperate for a single breath that didn’t stink of smoke. He turned around, trying to remember the direction of the tunnel back to the surface of the earth. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t breathe. He fumbled for his Torch, thinking to call on Hecate one last time. Before he could form the words, though, a single shaft of light cut through the darkness.

  He blinked, thinking his eyes were failing, but then he made out the shadow of a hand.

  “David?”

  Connor’s voice was hoarse and cracked and sweeter than any other sound in the world.

  “Here!” he managed, stumbling forward.

  The shifter’s fingers closed around his own, guiding him out of the salamanders’ hell.

  46

  David stood in the garden of the Peabridge Library, shivering as a blood-colored sunset glinted on the cottage windows. His brain knew it wasn’t on fire, but his heart took a moment to catch up.

  He’d already weathered a dozen rounds of panic since climbing out of the hole in the middle of Rock Creek Park. Only now, at the end of the longest day of his life, was it becoming reflexive to shut down the memories, to remind his body that he was alive, that all was well.

  Hecate had rescued him. Against all odds, he was alive.

  Connor had guided him to safety. He’d blinked in the shifting sunshine under the trees, wondering if he’d hallucinated everything that had happened underground. The salamanders’ lair had completely collapsed, consumed by ward-fire. The creek flowed fast and clear in its usual bed as if it had never been diverted.

  Despite their exhaustion, he and Connor had searched for the remains of more than two dozen salamanders to hide all evidence of their supernatural battle. Bodies should have fetched up against banks. Corpses should have been trapped in the curves of the stream. But it soon became clear there was nothing to find. Ward-fire—or Hecate—had scoured all evidence clean.

  The only thing left was a hole in the ground, the chamber where Apolline had died. Looking up from the newly channeled stream, David and Connor could scarcely discern the gap in the forest floor. They dragged a few branches over the place, enough to keep the shaft from attracting casual hikers.

  After that, David had used the last of his energy to wrap his arm around Connor’s shoulders. Taking as much support as he gave, he reached for the farmhouse, pulling the shifter with him across the astral plane. He couldn’t remember staggering into the house, up the stairs, and into his own bed, where he’d awakened several hours later.

  He’d limped downstairs to find Connor asleep on the living room floor, his back pressed up against Spot. The lab had looked up when David entered the room, his tail hitting the floor in slow even sweeps. David nodded and headed back upstairs for a shower and clean clothes.

  Now, as he stared at Jane’s home, the door swung open. Neko waited on the threshold, a shadow barely distinguishable from the living room inside. As David entered, the familiar sniffed delicately, as if he could still make out the scent of smoke. Neko, however, graciously declined to comment.

  “You got her home?” David asked.

  The familiar cocked his head as if David had just told a joke. “She got herself home. She’s good at that sort of thing.”

  “What happened up there?”

  “How much could you follow?”

  “I caught Jason’s name. And a lot of self-flagellation. I gather the Imaginary Boyfriend left something to be desired?”

  “The Imaginary Boyfriend was someone else’s Actual Husband.”

  David winced. He’d known the guy was off from the moment they’d met. But he’d never wanted those bragging rights. Not where Jane was involved. “She didn’t deserve that,” he said.

  “No one does.”

  David looked around the darkened cottage. “She’s asleep now?”

  “I think so. She’s in the basement.”

  “What’s she doing down there?” David took three whole steps before Neko got a hand on his sleeve.

  “Not using her powers,” the familiar assured him. “She’s working through some things. About Jason. About Scott. About a certain familiar who might not have restrained himself when he came home to an unlocked door and a very tempting superannuated tetra.”

  “You ate Stupid Fish?” David asked in disbelief. “I warned her about that, but I never actually thought…”

  Neko dropped his head, as if he felt actual remorse.

  “Wait,” David said. “Who is Scott?”

  “An old boyfriend. An old fiancé actually. She hasn’t told me a lot more than that.”

  “He must have been a controlling SOB.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She called me Scott when I was pressuring her to work on the crystals.”

  Neko smirked. “She did, didn’t she? Well you were a little…domineering. I guess that’s not surprising. You must be under a lot of pressure to present yourself to Hecate on Samhain.”

  “I’m not presenting myself to Hecate.”

  “Of course you are!”

  “I’d need a witch to ward.”

  “You’ve got one. She’ll get tired of living in the basement. I give her three days. Four at the most.” Neko spoke with all the confidence of an experienced familiar.

  “She’ll never accept me as her warder,” David said.

  “She already has.” At David’s wordless expression of disbelief, Neko said, “She has! It never occurred to her to choose anyone else.”

  Of course it hadn’t. Jane hadn’t been trained in a magicarium. She didn’t belong to a coven. She didn’t have the first idea of how to be a witch.

  Neko stared at him as if he were mad. “Come on!” he said. “You felt her when she was all the way up in Connecticut.”

  “I’d feel her anywhere,” David said, before he realized how much he was admitting. He crammed his hands into his pockets. His thumb brushed against his Torch. The metal was warm to his touch.

  “There,” Neko said, with a familiar’s absolute certainty of facts he couldn’t possibly know. “You’re still a warder. Hecate clearly thinks so.”

  Hecate, who primed his Torch. Hecate, who’d answered his prayers in Apolline’s chamber of horrors. Hecate, who sanctioned the entire idea of a warder who stood outside of the Academy, outside of reason and expec
tation, outside of order.

  Hecate, who hadn’t abandoned him, even after he’d built his lies about Pitt.

  “There’s only a week till Samhain,” Neko said. “You can still change your mind.”

  Only a week. Seven more days of living a life out of balance. If only Hecate willed it so.

  He nodded toward the basement. “Let me know if she needs anything?”

  “Of course. We’ll see you on Samhain, if not before. After your ritual.”

  The familiar sounded so certain, David couldn’t imagine there was anything else to say. He let himself out the front door and reached for home.

  47

  Life without a day job kept David busy.

  On Monday, he took Apolline’s key to her post office and collected the documents she’d held against Brule. Everything was in order, and he delivered them directly to the Empire Bureau of Investigation.

  On Tuesday, he helped Connor move into a condo in the trendy NoMa neighborhood. The shifter would be deprived of his possessions, his beehives, and the companionship of his pack, but at least his one-bedroom came with windows on two sides, for better viewing of the moon.

  On Wednesday, he tracked down a pair of gnomes to fill in the riverside hole in Rock Creek Park. It cost him two pieces of new-minted gold, but he considered the coins well spent.

  On Thursday, he visited Linda for breakfast and told her he was prepared to offer himself to Hecate, presenting his bond to Jane as proof of his worthiness. She blinked away tears and told him she was proud of him. Immediately after that, she asked if he’d come to dinner with his father, but he declined. Of course.

  On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, he prepared for his ritual. He fasted, purifying his body in service to his goddess. He drank nothing but pure rainwater collected in a silver basin on the night of a full moon. He bathed at moonrise and moonset, embracing the rhythm of the natural world, taking care to scrub away the last possible scent of his fiery ordeal beneath the earth.

  For the entire week, he worried about Norville Pitt. He should have heard about the court’s action by now, steps they’d taken to handle their wayward official. Kyle should have filled him in even if no one else did. The cadet knew enough about the bad blood between David and Pitt.