Barbed Wire Heart

by Alexes Razevich

  I offered a love potion, the marid said, but she wouldn’t take my gift.

  “As if I couldn’t brew a potion myself,” Petra scoffed. “But I wanted true love. Love that was freely given. Mich would have loved me if only John Broadhurst hadn’t wanted her all for himself. Selfish bastard. He wouldn’t allow her to love me too.”

  Things were falling into place now. Broadhurst had to die because Petra thought he stood between her and Mich. I didn’t think he’d stood in the way at all, but truth hardly mattered in the midst of obsession.

  Petra sniffed and drew herself up tall where she sat on the couch. “I didn’t want her that way he did—all the time and panting like a whore in bed. I just wanted to be near her. To have her listen to me, to stroke my head and say she understood and loved me. It was so little to ask, but Broadhurst—he wouldn’t even allow me those crumbs. I knew that if I could get him and his influence over her out of the way, Mich would be free. Once she was free, she’d see how much I loved her and would love me back. So, the marid killed him.”

  At your order, the marid said.

  Petra hiked a shoulder in a careless shrug. “You know you enjoyed it.”

  The marid answered with a shrug of his own.

  I didn’t know which of the two was less sane and more dangerous—the crazed fan-girl wizard or the enslaved marid who enjoyed the bloodier aspects of his work. I had the sinking feeling that sooner or later I was going to find out.

  “Why Sudie?” I asked. “Did you know her? Did Mich know her?”

  “I did, and I’d taken Mich along with me to the shop a number of times,” Petra said.

  She went silent a moment and then huffed angrily. “Mich went to her for a potion to dissolve my affection. Can you imagine? Even with Broadhurst gone, his influence was still strong over her. I saw Mich go in and saw her come out. Every wizard in town knows the spell to open Sudie’s door, and I’d shared it with Mich. I shared everything with Mich.”

  She tilted her head. Her voice lost its furious edge. “Did you know Sudie well?”

  “No. Only on a professional level.”

  Petra grinned. “You know, she and Diego Adair . . . “

  I shrugged. “A long time ago. He was plenty pissed about her murder, though. He’s not a man you want angry at you.”

  Petra laughed. “Oh, my dear girl. You didn’t know until this moment that I had anything to do with her death. You aren’t going to have any opportunity to share this tantalizing knowledge with him.”

  20

  My heart hammered against my ribs. Maybe she was only going to put a forgetfulness spell on me.

  Yeah, right.

  “Well,” Petra said, crossing her feet at the ankles and leaning back in the sofa, “if you didn’t know her well you might not have known that Sudie was a dog’s own fool for chocolate. That day wasn’t the first time I’d seen Mich go into Sudie’s store to do or get who-knows-what, but I’d come prepared. After Mich left, I walked in with a box of chocolates in a bag, as though I’d bought it along the way. I offered Sudie a piece. I knew she wouldn’t say no. I’d slipped a little truthsayer potion in along with the butter cream filling.”

  My lady wizard is nothing if not clever, the marid said in my mind.

  Petra smiled briefly at the marid’s words, then her face clouded. “Sudie told me what Mich had wanted—a potion to destroy my feelings for the woman I adored. I couldn’t have that bandied about town. Who would respect me if they knew that the person I loved had bought a potion to block my attentions?”

  Petra rubbed her arms as if suddenly cold. “Why would Mich do that? John Broadhurst was already out of this life, though I kept him around in the in-between. For amusement.”

  I pushed one hand through my hair and tried not to let my fear show. It seemed Petra was as cruel as she was crazy. I didn’t want to join John Broadhurst as an ‘amusement.’

  “Mich should have turned to me,” Petra said, anger back in her voice. “Instead she goes to see someone who was as well-known for being a gossip as for her never-fail spells and potions.”

  She huffed at a quick breath and her face brightened. “So, the marid killed Sudie.”

  “At your order” I said.

  Petra shrugged. “I’d brought him along. He sees to his master’s needs.”

  She sat back, sinking into the sofa as if it were her own, and let out a satisfied sigh. “So, my dear, now you know all my secrets.”

  Keep her talking, I thought. As long as she’s enjoying telling me about her exploits, she probably won’t be turning the marid loose on me.

  “Not all of them,” I said. “Why did you send me the rowan tree box that matched your own?”

  I needed a plan for when Petra’s words ran out, but so far nothing was forming in my brain.

  Petra smiled. “You are a clever one, aren’t you, to have figured that out? For the intrigue, of course. I studied you and Diego Adair quite a while before choosing you to hunt for my dear Mich. There were other candidates, you know. I picked you two because you had the best chance of success, in my estimation. You should be flattered. I knew you couldn’t resist a little extra intrigue and unanswered questions. Who sent the box? What does it mean? How does it tie to the box Petra received? Is someone stalking me? Who is it? How do I stop them?”

  Anger flared through me. I pressed my fingertips into my palm to damp my anger down before it showed on my face. She’d pegged me pretty well. No one likes being played for the fool. I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of knowing she’d completely sucked me in with her tricks.

  But I was beginning to have a pretty good sense of who she was as well and the sorts of tactics she leaned to.

  “You sent the marid in the guise of a beast with a human body and an elk’s head. You figured we’d look harder if we thought someone was actively trying to stop us from finding Mich.”

  Petra tilted her head in admission.

  “It didn’t work quite as planned though,” I said. “I felt the truth that whoever had snatched us very much wanted us to find Mich.”

  Her face clouded a moment and then lightened. “The outcome was the same, though. You looked for her. I think you found her, and you’re going to tell me where she is.”

  “I didn’t though,” I said, lying through my teeth. “I have no more idea where she is today than I did the day I met you. Which was also rather clever of you. How many nights did you sit sobbing in that empty office until I showed up?”

  “None,” she said. “Though I did trail you for several days to learn your schedule. I knew Diego had been poking into that handbag manufacturer. When I saw you haul the cleaning-lady stuff into your car, it was easy enough to guess where you were going and get there first. I thought you would be with the wizard, you seem to always be together, but when it was only you, well, so much easier to convince a woman of heartbreak than a man and a woman together.”

  “Why is that?” I was truly curious.

  Petra screwed up her face. “Enough questions. It’s time for Sam to have his fun. Or maybe you’re thinking you can be an inquisitive Scheherazade, asking question after question to keep yourself alive.”

  I ignored her jab and glanced at the marid. “Sam?”

  Petra shrugged. “Not his real name, but his sort have names we mere mortals could never pronounce—unless we could make the sound of crackling kindling and reproduce perfectly the whoosh of a sudden flame fanned by the wind.”

  I glanced at Sam. His expression was as bland as Wonder Bread. I tried to peek inside his mind, but it was so foreign I couldn’t find a way in. We could communicate mind-to-mind, but I couldn’t read his thoughts.

  My own mind whirled, lining up defenses in case one or both of them attacked. I had some spellcraft, thanks to Dee, and the extra magic he’d given me last night. But if Petra was the extremely powerful magician Dee’s Magic Police friend had warned about, my pitiful little spells weren’t going to be much protection.

  “One
last question,” I said. “The last secret you’re holding.”

  Petra cocked her head, waiting for my question.

  “What’s your real name?”

  Petra’s chest puffed up. “Heather Brown. You’ve heard of me, I’m sure, given how much time you, a mere psychic, has spent among the truly magic-adept.”

  I shrugged. “I may have heard your name, but only in the context that Natalya Vasiliev was better at spellcraft.”

  It was a petty comment and I was stupid to make Petra/Heather angry— color had risen in her cheeks—but sometimes I couldn’t help myself.

  Besides, she needed to be taken down a peg—just because.

  Her jaw clenched then relaxed. She laughed softly and glanced at the marid.

  “Something else you don’t know,” she said, turning back to me. “Sam isn’t fond of the idea of killing, but he does dearly love the actual act.” She looked at the marid. “Don’t you, Sam?”

  I swallowed hard and shifted my gaze to the marid. His outline was blurring, fading, becoming translucent. Beneath his skin his true form began to show—the leaping flames that made his kind.

  I’d been standing all this time, barely inside the parlor. I pivoted and raced down the hall toward the kitchen.

  “Catch her,” Petra said.

  The calm tone in her voice scared me more than if she had yelled.

  The fire-sounds of the marid were close behind me. My house wasn’t that big. If I could reach the kitchen—

  The smell of burning hair assaulted my nostrils. My hair. The flyaway strands touched by the marid’s flame. I leaned forward and ran faster.

  Hope propelled me across the kitchen. The sink was on the far side of the room. I drew in a quick breath as flames touched the skin on the back of my neck. Just a few more steps. And then a moment to turn on the water.

  Heat radiated up my body as my shirt began to smolder. He could catch me, I thought. He’s holding back. Why?

  For the game of it.

  I reached the sink and grabbed the pull-down faucet head with one hand and turned the water on high with the other. I wheeled and faced the marid. Water gushed from the faucet onto the floor. The marid’s eyes were wide. He knew what I would do if he came a step closer. But he was Petra’s creature, in thrall to her, helpless against her commands.

  “Burn her to ash,” Petra said. She stood in the doorway, a look of triumph on her face.

  The marid wavered. I turned the faucet on myself, dousing the smoldering fabric of my shirt and then dousing myself head to toe, doing what I could to protect myself from the marid’s fire. The fire was coming; I saw it in his face. He was compelled to obey his master even at the risk of his own destruction.

  The marid leapt toward me. I turned the faucet so the full blast of water hit him square on. The marid screamed and threw his arms in front of his face to block the onslaught. Steam rose from the shoulders and head of his human outline.

  And then the water seemed to hit an invisible barrier, protecting him.

  I glanced at Petra who smiled slyly. She could have protected him from my first watery blast but hadn’t—showing him, and me, who had the power.

  The marid roared, not in pain but in anger. He reached his flame arms out to embrace me, meaning to do what Petra had ordered and burn me alive.

  His arms hit the barrier and couldn’t pass through it. Whether Petra meant it to or not, the same spellcraft that protected him from my water also protected me from his fiery touch.

  I was pretty sure one of them would figure a way out of that if I hung around. I threw the faucet, the water still pouring out, into the sink and dashed for the back door.

  I had the knob in my hand and was yanking open the door when a thought struck me. Petra may have told me all of her story, but I hadn’t told her all of mine. She felt sure I knew where Mich was—and she was right. She wasn’t going to let the marid kill me and she wasn’t going to do it herself, either. Not as long as I had that precious information tucked up safely inside my brain.

  Of course, there were loads of other unpleasant things she could do to try to get the location from me.

  I bolted onto the back porch. At the bottom of the two concrete steps from the house to the yard I pulled up short. Rats ran everywhere on the grass. I had no idea why they’d come, but I was very glad to see them.

  Maurice called up from where he stood next to my left foot. “I’d keep running if I were you.”

  The rat had never given me bad advice in the past. I wasn’t going to stop listening to him now.

  “Watch out for the djinn,” I said as I pulled open the gate to the alley behind my house. “And the wizard. She’s a bitch.” I slammed the gate closed and ran.

  Three or four blocks down, when I knew no one was following me, I slowed to a fast walk. I had no idea why the marid hadn’t kept coming after me, except that maybe Maurice and his crew had found a way to stop—or at least delay—them. Petra might have some nasty surprise planned for me further up the road. I couldn’t worry about that now. All I could do was keep moving.

  I patted my pockets in the dim hope I’d grabbed my cell phone without realizing it, but no luck.

  I couldn’t call Maurice anyway. The rat had many talents but working a cell phone wasn’t one of them. It was going to be a while before I’d find out if he and his crew were okay and what had happened after I left.

  I couldn’t call Lyft for a ride. There were usually taxis waiting up on Hermosa Avenue near Tenth, ready to take the beach or bar crowds home, but I didn’t have any money with me either, and no assurance that when I got where I wanted someone would be there to pay the driver. Wherever I was going, it would be on foot.

  But where could I go? To the Beach House hotel to warn Mich seemed obvious, but I thought better of it. Petra/Heather wasn’t psychic herself or I’d have felt it in her, but she’d met me a few times and been in my home—she might be able to follow my personal frequency.

  Every human had their own frequency they vibrated to. Once you homed in on it, you could follow a fresh trail pretty easily. I’d taught Dee how to do it, so I knew the ability wasn’t limited to psychics. If one wizard could manage it, who was to say another couldn’t as well?

  If she had a gazing bowl nearby, she could find me pretty easily that way.

  I supposed I knew there was really only one place to go. I started the walk to Manhattan Beach.

  I walked north on Hermosa Avenue to the Plaza and turned up Pier. It was uphill all the way and I pushed hard to walk as fast as I could, gliding around pedestrians the way I skimmed around opponents on the ice rink: fast and silently.

  I was almost to Pacific Coast Highway, just passing the parking lot at the Civic Center when a black Mercedes with windows tinted so dark I was sure they were illegal made a sharp turn into the lot driveway in front of me.

  The passenger door flew open. The marid jumped out and grabbed me, wrapping his arms around my torso in an unwelcome bear hug. The heat from his fiery core felt hot enough to singe my skin. I tried to scream. There were people around. They’d hear me. Surely, they’d help. But the marid must have had some spellcraft of his own or Petra was helping him because no sound came out of me no matter how hard I tried. Now I knew exactly how frustrated John Broadhurst had been when Petra silenced him against his will.

  The marid dragged me through the upper, street level parking lot and down the ramp to a back lot, me kicking and fighting all the way to no avail. The Mercedes slowly followed us—Petra at the wheel. Probably it was her spellcraft muffling my cries. Not that it mattered which of them had silenced me.

  I twisted and turned in the marid’s hold but couldn’t break free. I kicked out, my boot-shod foot connecting hard with his shin. A dim “Umph” was my only reward. The marid’s hold didn’t budge.

  I am stupid sometimes. One of the first spells Dee had taught me was for escape. The Slippery Eel used my body’s perspiration and oils to make me hard to hold. Any moisture would pain
the fiery marid. Win-win.

  I cast the spell. The marid yelped as my body moistened. His hold loosened. I slipped from his arms and ran.

  And hit smack into some sort of invisible cage. I could feel the posts and crossbars, the thin open space between them, but could see nothing. This was magic beyond anything I was familiar with.

  Petra parked the car and got out. The smile on her face would have done a hyena proud.

  “Stupid girl,” she said, meaning me.

  My voice was still locked in my throat. I couldn’t have given her a smart retort even if I’d thought of one. I put my shoulder to the wall and ran counterclockwise, figuring out if I was inside or outside the cage—inside, what a surprise—and how big the thing was.

  It was circular, maybe twelve feet across. Not a lot of room for me to maneuver in. Nothing felt like a gate or door, but a cage manifested from magic didn’t need one.

  The marid and I were locked in it together. I glared at my opponent.

  I wondered how much, if any, free will the marid had. Petra seemed the type to keep a tight hold on her creatures. Petra was all about control. Her obsession with Mich probably came from her inability to make Mich do what she wanted.

  If I could speak, maybe I could get the marid on my side. Maybe that’s why he or Petra had silenced me.

  I could think to the marid though. I didn’t think that had been blocked.

  She doesn’t give a damn about either of us, I thought to him.

  The marid shrugged and thought back, Doesn’t matter. I am bound to her. I must do her will.

  “You know where Mich is,” Petra said to me, not a question but a statement of fact. “You’re going to say the words eventually. You might as well save yourself the pain and do it now.”

  I was pretty sure she could make me. A truth spell. Not so hard to cast. I need my voice back though first for that to work. And maybe someone would come by and I could scream for help.