Hart & Boot & Other Stories

by Pratt, Tim

  I set up the investigative ritual again, this time putting the geode at the focal point of the objects I arranged around me.

  When I lit the last candle and said the last word, the room thrummed with energy, and the crystals in the geode began to turn black, one by one, as the power stored within them dissipated.

  I closed my eyes. The ritual worked. Knowledge fell upon me.

  ***

  The vision is difficult to describe. There were voices, images, and implicit knowledge seemingly dropped into my mind, all in the service of answering my questions: Who had attacked me? How had they wrought this harm?

  The main thing I saw in the vision was Komodo dragons. You’ve seen them on television, probably, if not at the zoo. Native to Indonesia, they’re the largest lizards on the planet these days, weighing in at up to 300 pounds, twelve feet long, carnivorous, carrion-eaters, relentlessly predatory, snouts full of teeth so sharp and protruding that they actually slice open the flesh of their mouths every time they bite down. Most importantly, the mouths of Komodo dragons are acrawl with some of the world’s nastiest bacteria—fifty different kinds, at least half a dozen of them septic. Any animal a Komodo dragon bites dies, even if it escapes immediate evisceration, because the resulting infection from the bite is so virulent. It’s not venom, not like snake poison—it’s just germs. Komodo dragons are the perfected form of natural biological warfare.

  The bacteria are nasty, but the Komodo dragon’s own immune system has no difficulty keeping the germs under control; otherwise, the dragons would die the first time their teeth broke the skin in their own mouths. A lot of doctors are interested in Komodo dragons for that very reason, hopeful of finding a human application for the dragons’ supercharged immune systems.

  Komodos eat people, sometimes, but then, they eat anything they can rip apart and swallow, and they aren’t picky about avoiding hooves, skins, or entrails. They can swim, too, which a lot of people don’t know, especially people who jump into the water to try to escape a hungry one. They’re vicious, wicked, relentless, single-minded—perfect predators for their environment.

  And, according to my vision, I’d recently had sex with one in human form.

  It was possible that Kasan was some sort of Komodo dragon spirit, or a sorcerer who’d fully taken on the totemic powers of a Komodo dragon, or something even stranger. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. The effect on me was the same. After the ritual, I went to the bathroom and looked at my shoulder in the mirror. The place where Kasan had bitten me was still red, but didn’t look obviously infected. It probably wasn’t infected, not physically, but Kasan’s bite was the magical equivalent of a Komodo dragon’s bite, and it had corrupted me psychically. No wonder my magics had failed. My body would likely have died, too, if not for the protective power of the fictive, which had melted in my place. I was lucky to be alive, but my spirit-body was still swarming with magical infection.

  I went back to the living room and looked at the geode, all its crystals turned black, all that carefully hoarded power spent on the ritual. I was powerless again.

  No. That was the wrong kind of thinking. I was magically powerless, but there were other forms of power.

  I went to a cabinet and opened the bottom drawer. Inside, nestled in velvet, were my ritual knives. They were meant for occasional personal bloodletting, for cutting up sacred ingredients, and for other magical purposes, but they were also sharp, curved, and perfectly adequate for other uses. Using them on a person would taint the blades, make them profane and unfit for magic, but with luck, I wouldn’t have to use them, just make the threat.

  Still, the knives felt good and familiar in my hands. I slid two into sheaths on my ankles, beneath my long black skirt, and tucked others into my waist. If they became tainted with the blood of Kasan the Komodo-man, I’d have to consecrate new ones. With luck, I could convince him to fix what he’d done to me, and I wouldn’t need to resort to violence.

  The visions had given me knowledge of Kasan’s whereabouts, an image of him in his home, a run-down little one-story house, and I could recite his street number as if I’d known it for years.

  I went out, afraid but determined, and wondered if that was the way all dragon slayers felt as they set out on the hunt.

  ***

  I knocked on Kasan’s door, and when he opened it he was clearly surprised to see me. Even knowing what he was, I still thought he was cute.

  “Oh,” he said. “I didn’t expect to... Shit. Melanie, right?”

  I seethed. “Delanie,” I corrected. “What did you do to me, Kasan?”

  He leaned against the doorjamb, as if we were having a casual conversation. “Bit you,” he said. “Didn’t mean to, didn’t plan to, but it happens pretty much whenever my self-control slips.” He frowned. “I don’t usually hear from the people I bite again, though.”

  “That’s because they usually die, Kasan.”

  “Yeah, well.” He scratched his head. “It’s not like I go back to check or anything. I don’t quite have the hang of being human yet, but I’m working on it, you know? I’ll get over the biting thing eventually. I’ve only been doing this for a few months. I didn’t mean for anybody to die.”

  “Why did you give me fake phone numbers?”

  “Like I said, I’m learning how to be human. That’s what men do when they have a one-night stand, right? Give the girl a fake phone number?” The expression on his face was almost painfully earnest, as if he were worried about being reproached.

  I’d give him more than reproach if he didn’t start saying something useful. “Sure, asshole, lesson well-learned. But I’m not a typical girl, and here I am, seeing you again. I need you to fix me. Give me the antidote, or suck the poison out, or do whatever’s necessary to make me normal again.” I paused. “Or else.”

  “I would if I could, really, but I’ve got no idea how to undo the effects of the bite. You should be impressed that I manage to pass for human, don’t expect me to be some kind of doctor, too. I bit you. You’re infected. Most people just die, I guess, like you said. I don’t know what’ll happen to you if you stay alive. Maybe you should get a blood transfusion or something. Or maybe it’ll pass.”

  “Infection doesn’t just pass, you idiot. And this is a psychic infection, it’s magical, so I don’t think a blood transfusion will help. I’ll probably get the supernatural equivalent of gangrene, and all my magic will rot off.” At least, that might happen if I was going to live longer than two weeks, which seemed unlikely.

  “You’re some kind of witch, right? So can’t you... do something witchy?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Human sacrifice is starting to sound appealing. You’re not strictly human, but you’ll do.” Kasan was useless, whether he was a lizard-god or something stranger. He didn’t know how to fix me. Killing him wouldn’t change that, but it wouldn’t hurt anything, either, and if I was going to age unto death, I didn’t want to be the only one who died. I slipped my hand into my waistband to pull out one of my knives.

  “Look, I’m sorry about the bite, but I can’t help you. Sex with strangers is risky. You know that.”

  I don’t think Kasan even noticed I was going for the knife. He just shut the door in my face, apparently tired of talking to me. I stood there for a moment, holding my knife, then I rattled the knob, but it was locked. The windows were barred—this wasn’t a great part of town—so breaking one of those wasn’t an option. I pounded on the door with my free hand and shouted. If I’d had my powers, that door would have been splinters, and Kasan wouldn’t have fared much better.

  “I’m calling the police!” he shouted, and appeared briefly at his barred window, showing me the phone. Then he closed the curtains.

  I kicked his door, then turned and stalked off. I couldn’t decide if Kasan was malicious or genuinely clueless, if he was really trying to be human and just following the wrong role models—certainly there were plenty of men out there who treated women the way Kasan had treated me. I wondered if
he could be shown the error of his ways.

  I can’t help it. Even at my most furious, I’m a romantic at heart. When I make love to someone, I want very much to like them afterward. Even, apparently, when they bite me and poison me and take all my powers away.

  ***

  I walked the block from the bus stop to my apartment building, but stopped on the far side of the street from my front door. There was something wrong. I may have lost my power, but my senses were as good as ever, and my well-developed awareness noticed certain things out of place—curtains had moved in some of the fictives’ apartments, the doormat on the steps was askew, and there was the faint suggestion of a shape on the far side of the pebbled glass in the front door.

  Something was inside my building. Up on the third floor, in the apartment where I lived, a curtain twitched, and I caught a glimpse of something red and slick touching the cloth, leaving a blood-colored splotch on the fabric.

  I faded back fast, half-hiding behind a line of newspaper boxes. My apartment building had been breached. The protective spells had faded, and now my enemies—the long-lived, nonhuman ones, creatures I’d bested or cheated or outwitted in battles long ago—had come looking for me, creeping through my rooms, profaning everything they touched. The red thing in my apartment was not the smartest or the most aggressive of my enemies—thus, he’d been stupid enough to show himself. But if he was inside, then there were certainly others, more dangerous ones.

  I couldn’t go home. It was getting dark, and I was tired, and dispirited, and I couldn’t even go home.

  I walked another few blocks and caught another bus, paying with the last of my change. I rode to the lake, and made my way to Barry’s glade. I collapsed among the trees, curling up on a bed of leaves. Barry fussed around me, making the branches sway, trying in his wordless way to comfort me and offer whatever solace he could.

  I thought about dying there, just laying in among the trees until my age caught up with me. I’d used up my only reserve of power, and now I had nothing left, nothing to fall back on, nowhere to turn.

  I dozed in the dirt, my body exhausted, my mind overwhelmed, and Barry gently swept a covering of leaves over me, the best blanket he could muster. His efforts made me smile, wanly, and I said, “Thank you, lover.”

  And suddenly I was wide-awake. I sat up, scattering leaves all around me. I put my hand on the egg-shaped stone that had once marked the resting place of my reserve power. I’d always thought that was the only thing I’d managed to save up over the years, my only rainy-day protection. But that wasn’t true. I’d saved up something else, too.

  “Barry,” I said. “I need you to deliver a message for me. Several messages, actually.”

  ***

  The next morning, I rode in a limousine to Kasan’s house. I’d slept in a bed that night, and had a fine meal earlier in the morning. I was still poisoned, still dying, but I was no longer as bereft as I’d been.

  When we arrived, the chauffeur opened the door for me. His face was a tenuous blur, his body almost transparent in places. Both the chauffeur and the car were mere ghosts, but they were solid enough to take me and the others to Kasan’s house in style.

  I walked to Kasan’s door alone, but with a legion prepared to come forth if needed. I knocked. No one answered. I had the idea that Kasan slept in. So I knocked again, and this time the sound reverberated deep into the house, rattling the windows. I heard swearing inside the house, and a moment later the door opened, revealing Kasan, sleepy-eyed and still damnably cute. “Delanie,” he said. “You couldn’t wait until after noon to come and try to kill me again?”

  “I’ve been thinking about Komodo dragons, Kasan,” I said. “They have tremendous natural immune systems, as I’m sure you know. Doctors have been studying them for a while, trying to find out how those hyperactive immunities work, hoping to develop a way to use them to help humans.”

  “Great,” Kasan said. “That explains why I never get colds.” He started to shut the door. I stopped it with my hand. Kasan pushed harder, and though he should have been able to force me back with his superior physical strength, the door didn’t move.

  “It explains more than that,” I said. “Since your bite has magical consequences, I think your immune system does too, and that you’re immune to magic—to your own, at least, the same way Komodo dragons are immune to their own bacteria. That’s a pretty useful ability. It’s so useful, I want it for myself.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Sympathetic magic. I want to borrow some of your power. Not steal it—just borrow it. To save my life, among other things.”

  “Uh huh,” Kasan said. “And does this involve chopping me up, wearing my guts as a belt?”

  “No. Just a ritual, some magic, some words, some concentration, some sex. We fuck, you bite me again, I bite you, I take in your blood, you take in mine.”

  “If I’m immune to magic, how are you going to cast a spell on me?”

  “I can temporarily suppress your immunity,” I said. “I have a potion.” I patted a pouch at my waist.

  Kasan frowned. “So why should I do this? What’s in it for me?”

  “This is your chance to be a good guy, Kasan. You’ve gotten the hang of being an asshole, but there are other options available to an astute student of human behavior.”

  “Hmm. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that people are liars. I think you’re probably lying to me now. I bet you do want to wear my entrails for a belt. I saw those knives you brought last time. So you’d better take off, before I call the cops again.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Plan B, I guess.” I stepped off the porch.

  And two score of my old lovers stepped forward. Well, some of them stepped—others floated, or shifted into this visible plane, or rose up from puddles of shadow, or precipitated out of the air into a cloud of shimmering gray particulates, or made their presences known with the jingle of little silver bells, the smell of cut lemons, a sensation of sudden dry warmth.

  Kasan tried to slam his door again, and still failed, though this time there was no one visibly holding it open.

  “I thought you’d lost your power,” Kasan said, backing away, into his house.

  “This isn’t my power,” I said. “These are just my friends. Old lovers, who remember me fondly. You might want to take notes, because this is something else humans sometimes do—we make friends, we inspire loyalty, and we do things for each other.” I’d realized it the night before, lying in the dirt—that I’d saved up a lot of goodwill over the years, and I didn’t necessarily have to deal with all my problems alone. I’d made love to these men and women, and helped them become their better selves. My old lovers weren’t perfect people. Some of them were short-sighted, temperamental, self-centered, judgmental, and lazy, just like any cross-section of the population, but they all had good qualities, things in them that I could love, and there were things in me they loved in return. And this particular two score of my old lovers were even more exceptional, because these were the ones who had longed to rise above their limitations and flaws, who’d wished in their deepest hearts to be something more than engines of appetite and guilt—these were the ones who didn’t care about having the most money or fucking the most people or getting revenge. They had wished for transcendence, and I’d done what I could to help them toward that goal.

  They all still loved me, a little. And like anyone who feels fond toward an old lover, they hated to see me hurt by a new lover.

  They swept into Kasan’s house, and with their arms of light and shadow, their hands of wind and invisible weight, they held him down on the floor. I came into his dim, shabby house, and set up candles and cloths, items my lovers had brought me the night before and that I’d hurriedly consecrated. The ritual was prepared. Now all I had to do was pour the potion down Kasan’s throat—my old lovers would make sure he swallowed it. Then I could tear open his clothes, climb on top of him, and...

  I slumped on the
carpet, put my head in my hands, and said, “Damn it.”

  My old lovers stirred and fluttered, unsure what to do. They released Kasan, who sat up, wary, and looked at me. “What’s happening?”

  “I can’t do it. I can’t take you against your will. I won’t rape you. That’s what it would be, even if it is to save my life. It goes against everything I am. I could murder you more easily than I could fuck you against your wishes. I thought I could, if I had to, if you wouldn’t see reason, but...” I shook my head. I could have raped Kasan, and gone on living, but I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself afterward, and it would have tainted all my powers forever. Maybe it would be better to just kill myself. That might be more pleasant than being killed by the monsters in my building, or hiding out, waiting to age and die.

  Kasan looked around the room. “All these... things... they’re really your old lovers?”

  I nodded, wiping my tears away. “Old lovers, old friends. They wanted to help me.”

  “They used to be human, and you helped them become what they are now?”

  I looked around, smiling despite myself, because it made me happy to see how well they were all doing. There was Michael, a little djinni of air and dust in the corner, who’d left the broad deserts he loved exploring to come help me. There was Serafina, a swirling shadow creature, who in her bodiless dark form sprawled across the galaxies, tasting the space between stars. Carlo, who lived in the space between universes, endlessly conversing with the vast, strange intelligences who held conflicting realities at bay. Martindale, who’d been a brewmaster in his mundane life, and who’d learned how to make magical potions—he was the one who’d concocted the magical-immunity suppressant I’d planned to force-feed to Kasan. They were here, and so many others, and this didn’t even count my lovers who weren’t here, the ones who had retained their human forms, who I’d helped pursue their dreams to create art, or to live in the deep woods off the produce of the land, or to grow grapes in the south of France. My lovers made it possible for me to live forever, and I helped them live their own dreams. “Yeah, of course I helped them. We had fun, and we cared for each other. It was good.”