Romancing the Dead

by Tate Hallaway

  As I dug my key from my purse, I heard Barney yowling. She sounded like the time she’d been cornered by a neighborhood cat that had slunk up the back stairs into the apartment. “Barney? You okay?”

  I cautiously opened the door a crack, not wanting to startle her. I was greeted by more deep-throated warning growls and a hissing spit.

  “You’ve got an attack cat?” Micah asked, amused, from above my shoulder.

  “Not usually,” I said, still trying to catch sight of what was going on inside. “It sounds like there’s something inside she doesn’t like.”

  “Maybe it’s me,” Micah guessed.

  As if in answer, Barney let out another territorial yell— not unlike the “I don’t want to go to the vet, you can’t make me” screaming I hear annually.

  It occurred to me that Micah could be right. Barney didn’t like magic and, given that the last time I peeked at Micah’s aura I nearly fell over, Barney might be pitching a fit over that much raw power waltzing over the threshold. I closed the door. “Let’s do this in the backyard.”

  Micah stiffened. “You take orders from a cat?”

  Ah. That could be the other part of Barney’s literal hissy fit. Micah spent part of his time as a dog—or at least a doglike being. Barney did not like canines of any sort. Magical dogs—well, she’d just see that as insult on injury.

  More to the point, besides the fact that Barney rightly considered the house half hers, she was my familiar. As such, she acted as guardian. If she put up this much fuss to keep Micah out, maybe she had a reason. Given my trust/not trust in him, I was apt to agree. “In this case,” I said, “I do.”

  He shook his head at me as if he couldn’t quite believe the absurdity of it all. “It’s your call.”

  After tucking my purse inside of my apartment, I shut the door without locking it and guided Micah back down the stairs, through the communal hall to the back door. A cedar privacy fence surrounded my backyard. I had a clay chiminea on cinder blocks in one corner, a little too close to the house and the wood to satisfy the fire marshal. But my landlord liked it, so we both pretended we used it “for cooking,” which was the exception that would make its placement fall into legal parameters.

  He also gave me free rein when it came to gardening, being especially thrilled that Sebastian was a “Master Gardener” and a part-time horticultural instructor at UW.

  The pride of our efforts this season was the herb garden along the far wall. Tufts of sweetgrass and mounds of curly parsley formed the edges of the garden. Tall, stiff stalks of white betony poked up among pink, puffball onion chive flowers. Dark-leaved chocolate mint aggressively crowded the delicate red, tubular blossoms of the peach pineapple sage. The air smelled of French thyme and basil.

  “Oh,” Micah said, after taking it all in with a deep breath. “This is lovely.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Though we had no trees in the yard proper, much of the lawn was shaded by the neighbor’s oak, whose thick branches stretched high over the fence, nearly touching the spire of the tower. Even on hot days, the backyard stayed relatively cool. When it was really scorching, I commandeered the kiddy pool that the downstairs tenants had bought and mostly forgotten about. Currently, it was stashed under their kitchen window, filled with brackish water, leaves, and dead and/or drowning bugs.

  “Where shall we . . .” Micah started, and then looking down at his feet, he added, “Never mind, I see. Here is good.”

  We stood in the center of a natural circle. Early in spring, Sebastian and I had dug a nine-foot diameter ring and filled it with creeping thyme, which had stayed mostly invisible until the white, star-shaped flowers began to bloom. Now the image stood out starkly from the blue-green of the grass.

  “Cool, isn’t it?” I couldn’t resist a little brag, but not wanting to force flattery from Micah, I quickly continued. “I haven’t gotten a chance to really use it yet.”

  Something about that made Micah’s perpetual smirk deepen. I could see the hint of dimples. “Virgin, eh?”

  I rolled my eyes at him, but I felt a twinge of guilt at the thought of using this circle first with someone other than Sebastian. I reminded myself that we were planning on casting a spell to help find him, and if any place was invested with Sebastian’s energy it was the garden he’d planted with me.

  “Let’s get started, shall we?” I said.

  “Au naturel too, I like that,” Micah said as though we were talking about sex instead of a magical ritual. “No fancy tools or special outfits. I like that kind of rough-and-ready witchcraft.”

  “You would,” I said with a smile, despite the sense I had that encouraging him was a bad idea.

  “So let’s get down to it, girl,” he said, holding out both hands for me to grasp.

  I took them and felt a hard shock, like static. Between our feet, a small eddy of wind like a dust devil swirled. Startled, I glanced up into Micah’s eyes, and saw the obsidian glint of Coyote looking back at me.

  “Bring up the Goddess,” he demanded in a sinister, yet soft, almost loving, command. “Let me see Her.”

  I hesitated. There was too much power here. The grass stood on end under my shoes, shivering in the preternatural breeze.

  “For Sebastian,” he reminded me. “You want to find him, don’t you?”

  I did. Even if Micah had only offered to assist me because he wanted to see Lilith in action, it didn’t negate the fact that adding his strength to Hers was an expedient solution. If Sebastian was in trouble somewhere, this would help.

  Closing my eyes, I woke the dragon.

  It began as it always did, like a sudden jolt of heat between my legs. Myth would have it that Lilith was a seductress, a succubus, that entranced men in their sleep, and I could believe it. Her rising within me bordered on arousal.

  Micah seemed aware of the changes inside me. He purred appreciatively, and his grin grew impossibly more magnetic and tempting. I could feel my body reacting under his gaze.

  Lilith surged along my nerve endings. My muscles trembled with fiery awakening.

  Micah stepped closer, so that our bodies touched. He was hard and hot, and my knees began to tremble with a desire to merge with him sexually and magically. I tipped my head back, and my lips parted without my volition.

  He leaned down. I could feel his breath tickle my skin. I started to push away, but an unseen force held me firm, willing me to submit. The more Lilith rose, the less control I could exert. I felt my arms weakly push against him, even as the rest of my body began to yield. When his lips touched mine such intense fire reared up I thought I might orgasm on the spot. His tongue darted inside me, first tentative, then hard, almost violent, violating.

  Wind roared in my ears for a split second before I surrendered my consciousness.

  I dreamed of running. Wolves surrounded me. Jaws snapped and teeth glistened yellow in moonlight. Spruce trees, erect and dense, blocked the starlight. The pack closed in. Terrified, I sprinted. Feet pounded on uneven ground. Leaping over a fallen log, I fell onto four feet, running faster now. The night brightened, and the air tasted crisp and clean. Those who had pursued became companions, running closely alongside,encouraging me to greater speeds, to test limits, dance on the edge—play. Something that had been held back released with a crash of thunder.

  Rushing faster than ever before, the world blurred. The forestturned into a green smear, objects barely discernible, except one that caught in the corner of my eye—a saint, tied to a tree, pierced with arrows.

  “Sebastian!”

  Rain poured down in sheets from an eerily green-yellow sky. I blinked the water from my eyes. Soaked to the bone, I shivered and looked around for Micah. I stood alone in the circle. My flowers were battered to the ground by drops of rain so heavy and fast that mud splattered. The tops of the trees bent in the wind. A pop of lightning flashed, followed by a boom of thunder so near it rattled the fence.

  Then, I heard a wailing sound so low that it took my br
ain a few moments to distinguish the noise from the spray of rain and rush of wind. Then, it came through clearly: sirens.

  Tornado sirens.

  I bolted for the back door, slipping in the slick, oversaturated grass. Water flooded in as I swung the screen open. The wind ripped the handle from my grasp and banged the aluminum frame against the house. I scrabbled for it, wrestling it closed. As I secured the lock and shut the heavier wooden door in front of it, the sky outside blackened ominously.

  I flicked the light switch several times before I realized the power was out. I took two hesitant steps into the darkness. Thunder rattled the house again, and this time I thought I could hear a thin, plaintive meow.

  Oh, great Goddess—Barney!

  I galloped up the steps, my clothes pressing heavily against my skin. My shoes soaked the hardwood. The wind screeched around the gables. My ears popped.

  That did not seem good.

  I wrenched the knob on the back door and nearly pulled my arm out of its socket before I realized the door was locked, and I’d left my keys in my purse. I could go around to the front, but the tornado was imminent; there was no time. I rattled it several times uselessly. “Barney,” I yelled. “Oh Jesus, Barney!”

  I knew I was freaked when I reverted to my pre-Wiccan oaths. My verbal slip jolted me out of my panic momentarily. I felt I couldn’t run back down and around to the front door in time. I had to break down this door. Lilith had helped me crack locks before. She could do it again.

  Trying not to hear the sound of tree limbs splitting from the force of the gale, I closed my eyes and reached deep down for the familiar strength.

  Nothing.

  My hand stroked my abdomen. “Come on,” I whispered. “I know you’re in there.” But suddenly, I wasn’t so sure. A cold fear settled in my guts in Her place.

  A sound came like someone emptying a gigantic bag of ball bearings onto the roof. Hail exploded against the landing window so hard I thought the glass would shatter any moment. Barney cried pitifully somewhere beyond the door.

  Fuck Lilith. I braced my back against the half wall of the stairwell and gave the spot just above the doorknob a swift kick. Dumb luck and a cheap lock conspired in my favor for once, and the door burst open with a bang.

  “Barney!” I shouted once I recovered my footing. I wasn’t quite sure what I was expecting—my cat had never before come when I called. Despite the danger, she didn’t this time either. I raced through the apartment checking all her favorite hiding places. Under the bed? No. Behind the couch? Damn it all, no.

  “Where are you?” I shouted, as menacing white clumps of hail burst against the windows. I checked behind the fridge, grateful she hadn’t squeezed herself back there. I’d moved one mountain for her already today; I didn’t think I had enough muscle to move another. Just when I was beginning to think I’d have to abandon her, I remembered my bedroom closet. I found her wedged on top of the boxes of my winter clothes. I grabbed her, despite her protests, and scrambled for the basement.

  Downstairs, three skanky-looking guys sat huddled around a flickering tea candle. One with greasy curls drooping from underneath a dirty stocking hat cradled a bag of Doritos like a teddy bear. Another, whose shaved head showed off blue-ink, abstract tattoos, drank deeply from amber liquid in a Mason jar. The last had a blond Afro and a soul patch on his chin. Soul Patch waved at me. “Fugitive girl,” he said.

  I let Barney slip out of my arms, and she disappeared into the shadowy corners to hunt up spiders. To Soul Patch, I said, “Sorry?”

  “That’s you: fugitive girl,” he said, emphasizing the last as though it were my superhero moniker. “Running from the FBI and stuff?” His tone shifted as though he suddenly didn’t trust his memory.

  I probably should have denied my past dubious involvement with government agents, but I felt sort of sorry for the guy. Besides, he was my neighbor, and it was the one bit of shared history we had in common. “Yeah, that’s me.”

  He broke into a loopy grin. “Dude!”

  My eyes strayed to the plant stalks whipping frantically in the wind outside the basement window. The stems bent this way and that, and suddenly stood straight up. When a tree branch crashed somewhere outside everyone ducked in sympathy.

  “Man, I hope that didn’t bust up the house,” Tattoos said, taking another swig and passing the jar to Doritos.

  “Dude, you don’t even live here,” Soul Patch said.

  “Right,” Tattoos said, as though the fact had only just now occurred to him.

  Leaving the brain trust, I started searching the room for a radio. Last time I did laundry I thought I remembered seeing an AM/FM radio stashed along one of the shelves above the washing machine. Instead, I found a flashlight missing its batteries, two dead sow bugs, a jar full of coins, and a lot of empty bottles of detergent.

  My hand rested on the wet fabric of my shirt near my tummy while I scanned the shelves. Could Lilith really be gone? I hugged myself tighter as water sluiced from my soaking clothes.

  “Are we supposed to leave the windows open or something?” Doritos asked around a mouth full of chips.

  “Southeast corner,” said Soul Patch. “I think we’re supposed to go to the southeast corner.”

  I smiled to myself listening to their chatter. Honestly, I was surprised they had made it to the basement, what with the state they were in. I continued shuffling though the shelves, automatically cleaning and organizing as I moved along. I unearthed a single ice skate, a terrarium with a dusty rodent wheel, and a roll of paper towels.

  Pushing a clump of dripping hair from my eyes, I shivered. I found myself still clutching my abdomen, as though protecting an open wound. I hadn’t been without Lilith’s presence for over a year and a half. She was part of me. How could She disappear?

  “Under the doorway, I think. Or is it a staircase?” said Tattoos.

  “I think we’re supposed to get in a bathtub.”

  “Man, that’s only if you don’t have a basement.”

  “Ditches are bad.”

  “No, ditches are good. Bridges are bad. And mobile homes, nobody wants to be in a trailer. You’re doomed.”

  They all bobbed their heads in agreement to that. As the wind made a sound like a jackhammer, I rubbed my arms. My clothes clung to me, cold and soggy. Where had Micah run off to? Did he take Lilith with him? A crack of thunder made me jump. Was this weather a result of our magic somehow?

  My dream/vision had left me more certain than ever that Sebastian was in trouble, possibly even being held captive somewhere. I wanted to go out to find him, but I was stuck in a basement with a bunch of stoners desperately trying to remember their weather safety courses from sixth grade.

  “This is kind of weird, right?” Soul Patch was saying. “I mean, ten minutes ago it was sunny and shit, and I didn’t think this part of Wisconsin had that many tornados. You know, because of being on the edge of the Driftless Zone and that.”

  Everyone, including me, stared curiously at Soul Patch.

  “The Driftless Zone?” He seemed to ask us for confirmation, but no one said anything, so he continued hesitantly. “You know, where the glaciers split during the second Ice Age. It’s why we have standing rocks and the Dells and stuff.”

  “Man, you’re like a geologist or something,” Doritos said in awe.

  “Dude, it’s my major.”

  Okay, so I was impressed too. Thunder crashed, but the wind seemed to push the grass around less frantically now. Hail turned back to rain.

  “What we need is a meteorologist,” Soul Patch said.

  “Or a radio,” suggested Tattoos.

  “Don’t you have one of those weather-alert radio things up in the bathroom, Tom?” asked Doritos of Soul Patch.

  “Yeah,” he said, and so they all decided to head back upstairs to fetch it. I pressed my chin up against the crumbling, wet basement wall to try to peer up at the sky through the window well. All I could see was crabgrass and gravel and lots of rain. Sti
ll, I thought the stoners’ instincts were correct; the danger of the storm had passed.

  A quick search found Barney asleep on top of the dryer in an empty plastic basket of mine. I scratched her head, and she gave an annoyed chirp at having been awakened and laid her head back down as if to say, “Five more minutes.”

  “Now,” I said.

  “M-now?” she repeated, sounding unhappy about the prospect.

  “Yes, now.” I was anxious to figure out what had happened to Lilith and Micah. “We have a dog to track down.”

  Barney squiggled as I held her against my wet shirt and headed up the stairs. I snuggled her tightly as I stepped gingerly around the shattered remains of the backdoor. The apartment was dark, though from the blinking, red twelve o’clock on my kitchen radio and microwave, I guessed that the power had come back on at some point. Letting Barney leap from my arms once I got to the dining room, I felt for the wall switch.

  The light revealed a figure sleeping on my couch in the living room. I screamed, thinking it was an intruder, which it was, but as he sat up in alarm, one I recognized, “Mátyás?! What are you doing here?”

  He reached over to flip on the floor lamp near the couch. It was an overly-familiar-with-my-stuff kind of gesture, especially given that I’d never, ever invited him into my home before. Rubbing his eyes, he stretched. “I let myself in. Your door was wide open. You really should be more careful. Anyone could wander in.”

  He’d said the last bit sarcastically, and I rolled my eyes. “Clearly. Seriously, why did you come all the way here?” Then, fear seized my stomach. “Has something happened? Have you heard from Sebastian?”

  “In a way,” he said, though he looked strangely embarrassed about it.

  “Tell me,” I demanded. “Or are you going to spout a bunch of malarkey about hell again and go all cryptic and silent on me?”

  With a sneeze, Barney shook the water from her fur onto Mátyás’s crisply pressed pants.

  He crossed his hands in front of his chest. “I have information about Sebastian. Do you want it or not?”