He crossed the gravel and held out his hand, taking one of Karl’s in both of his.
“Just in case I forgot to say it down south, thank you for saving Amber.”
“We were both there,” said Karl. “If we hadn’t known CPR …”
“You think?” said Smoke again and leaned against the door. “That’s not the way she tells it, or what I saw. I know that you saved her life. First on the scene. Kept your head. All the other witches were hanging around, wringing their hands and talking about which Goddesses are in charge of cardiac failure.”
“Aphrodite,” suggested Karl, and Smoke laughed.
Against his will Karl felt his mouth twitch in response. His arms full of books Karl started toward the house.
“You’ve been doing some reading,” said Smoke.
“Yeah. I guess. Didn’t have much else to do while waiting … Amber … how is she?”
“Driving us crazy. Which isn’t anything new, I will tell you. The doctor wants her to rest and she is carrying on about getting another computer if you don’t get here with hers soon enough.” Smoke stared off into the distance. “Though I’ll take it as a personal favor if you’d tell her it’s still in police lockup for another couple of days. She really should be taking it easy.”
Shaking his head Karl dumped the box on the stairs.
“What actually happened to her? No one in the coven could tell me.”
Smoke stared off into the distance.
“She opened herself up to universal energy – which in our family we refer to as Elemental energy. Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit. Most of the time that isn’t a problem since we take it in and let it out at the same time. But she took so much through her, so much … power that it burned her out. Imagine taking a sun into your mind. It would destroy you from the inside out.” Smoke closed his eyes and tears glittered on his cheeks. “She would have died, Karl. You saved her. Thank you. I can never repay you for that. If you ever need something, you have only to ask.”
Karl looked away. He’d known the very moment that her heart stopped. Known immediately. His own heart had tried to join hers. If she’d died he would have followed. His mind skittered away, unwilling to feel the pain of grief that magic and medicine had made unnecessary. Amber had lived. He held tight to that knowledge.
“There’s something you could do for me,” said Karl. At Smoke’s raised eyebrow he continued. “Talk the house into fixing the color on my car. I was stopped twice on the way back. I told you red was a bad color for a sports car.”
“Sounds like Amber’s see-me-not spell faded.” He laughed at Karl’s stunned expression. “What, you didn’t know our lead-footed Amber used magic to avoid speeding tickets? How did you think she still had her license?”
Karl chuckled. “Maybe that’s the reason the house kept giving her the slow car.”
Both men laughed. Karl stopped at the door to glance back at the Mustang and almost dropped the box.
“Black? Black?” He turned to glare at the rose patterned stained glass door. “What’s wrong with white, for heaven’s sake?”
“No idea,” said Smoke, “if you want something different, take it up with the house. I think it’s kind of dramatic.” He waited until Karl was inside the house before adding. “Goes really nice with your hair!”
Amber drew ten cards out of the pack and arranged them over her bedspread. Nothing. No insight, no vision. Even the tarot cards were resisting her. Or the spirits were trying to tell her a new recipe for chocolate chip cookies. She turned one card upside down and contemplated the arrangement. She’d never seen such a crazy jumble of cards. She gathered them together again, shuffled, closed her eyes, and tried to focus. Reaching out to the spirit of Air for insight she again felt a gentle but firm pressure push back into her own body before the pain began.
The house was showing its opinions again.
She tossed the cards onto her bed with a snarl and sank back against her pillows.
The door to her room opened slowly and a familiar mass of white curls appeared around the edge.
“They said if you were sleeping I wasn’t to disturb you,” said Karl softly.
“Come in. I’m up and wanting to be active. The cousins are being stubborn and overprotective.”
Karl entered, roses in one hand, a large box of candy in the other.
“It’s official,” said Karl. “Hospital rooms are now our song.”
Amber snorted and pulled one of the roses out of the bunch and held it to her nose.
“That’s gonna make it inconvenient for anniversaries.”
“We’ll find a way around it.”
Her color was better than when he’d last seen her, but hell, anything was better than that last view. Eyes closed and deathly still, being loaded into the ambulance, oxygen mask covering her face.
“Thalia, Sandy, and the rest say that if you frighten them again like that they will … make you regret it,” Karl smiled and added. “How exactly do ethical witches threaten each other?”
“We cast a spell that has your family turn up for a visit for Samhain and not leave until Beltaine,” said Amber.
“What the?”
“Arrive for Halloween and not leave until Valentine’s Day?”
“Oh. Nasty.”
“Well now, what’ve you been up to the last few days?” asked Amber.
Karl sat beside her on the high white bed.
“I had to work with Thalia to get our stuff back from the cops. They said sorry, by the way. They’re currently working on the theory that Gloria’s bodyguard inflicted the injuries as part of a get sympathy from the voters stunt.”
“Uh huh. Well, if that is what they want to believe, I’m not going to argue,” said Amber. “What else?”
“Um … You’re still weak.”
“Don’t kid a kidder,” snapped Amber. “Come on, you guys have conspired to keep the news from me. Gimmie!”
“You can’t hold it against us. You died, that tends to make your loved ones tend toward wrapping you up and protecting you. You may not need it, but hell, we do.”
Amber snorted and continued to run the rose across her skin and wiggled her fingers at him.
“Give!”
Karl watched the little wrinkle appear and vanish from her nose. He would spend his life telling her jokes just to watch that little wrinkle appear.
“They’ve kept the newspapers away from me,” complained Amber. “What happened here in the real world?”
“Okay, if you insist.” Karl pulled a sheaf of newspaper clippings from his pocket. “Now for the latest news. Senator Thomas – Republican Presidential hopeless – had heart failure and died the same night as his wife. Suicide is suspected in the case of his wife. His controversial campaign manager died in what police are investigating as a case of smoking in bed, but conspiracy theorists are divided between spontaneous combustion and yet another suicide. I have looked around for other articles, but no one else involved in the wolves’ coven seemed to be important enough to rate newspaper ink.”
“Spontaneous combustion. Cool. Scientifically impossible, but who are we to argue?”
“Your friend Davie called and I sort of …” he leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “I outed you. He knows you’re a witch.”
“Aw, Karl!” She didn’t seem worried, just … resigned.
“Take it easy. Davie won’t pass it on. He promised. He was so worried about you while you were unconscious that he actually called me without using his voice modifier!”
“Wow, you were honored.”
Karl laughed.
“He said you should bring chocolate ice cream over and the three of us can talk about our near death experiences.”
“In person? My, my, my, we have all been honored. What else?”
“He checked – Running Nose had a heart attack, so he’s gone, too. And your dad called,” Karl winced and watched Amber closely. “He called so many times that … really, I had to call him bac
k. I know my mother would beat me for bad manners especially since he didn’t know about me, but I couldn’t let him just sit around for days wondering. I called him back and chatted with your mom as well. Told them about us. You’d better call soon.”
Amber gave him a suspicious look.
“Now, that’s something I’d like to know. What did you tell him about us?”
He ignored her question and continued to caress her fingers.
In only a few days Karl’s body had already taken on flesh. Instead of deathly pale his skin glowed. It hadn’t been obvious before, but he had a nice natural olive tinge to his skin. That and his dark eyes, now with a healthy glow instead of sunken, made the white hair more dramatic a contrast. He was stronger and moved with an athletic grace that caught her attention.
There was a bruise on her chest that they told her had been caused by Karl’s determined CPR. Both the doctors and the witches swore that he’d saved her life.
Despite everything, despite his aversion to magic he’d labored, for half an hour they told her, trying to pull her back. Wouldn’t stop even when the ambulance crew said half an hour without breathing was … dead. He’d continued. So had the coven.
He might have worked so hard out of a sense of obligation. She had saved him, he saved her; but she didn’t think so.
This was the first time she’d seen him with all the spells gone. Her first opportunity to meet and talk with the real Karl.
Karl continued to sit, gently cradling her hand in his. He smiled at her, but didn’t say anything. Maybe he was working his way up to a let’s-be-friends speech.
“We’re getting married,” said Karl.
“Excuse me?”
Karl laughed. “God, you look adorable when you’re stunned. I told your parents we were getting married. Your dad is pissed as hell, but polite about it and spent so much time asking about my background that he forgot to worry about you being in the hospital. We were supposed to go and see them on our way back home, but Smoke kidnapped you and now I expect your dad’s going to be upset about that as well.”
“Too – effing – bad. And Mom?”
“She asked if you were still human, then she was really nice to me to make up for your dad being a dad.”
Amber nodded then ran the conversation through her head. “Exactly when did I agree to marry you?”
“You haven’t. Not yet, but you will. First of all, I should tell you … I spoke to my mom as well. She reminded me that I used to …” he blushed, actually blushed before continuing. “I used to … I had, have a large collection of Native American mysticism books.”
Amber laughed. “No. Really?”
“Yeah. I used to talk about wishing I could go on dream quests and do sweat lodges. I had planned to celebrate college graduation by doing a tour of the sacred sites of the Northern Indian tribes. Those that survived.”
Amber tilted her head to one side. “You were interested in mysticism … as a teenager?
“Yeah. That’s one of the things that Gloria took away from me. She must have realized that if I were properly involved in magic I’d be stronger than her. She had to attack me, drive all interest in magic away from me before I realized my danger.”
“I am sorry, Karl.”
“Don’t be, you saved me! Now, I have to ask …”
She held her breath.
Karl hesitated, “Will you train me? Magical training?”
Amber stared at him blankly. That was not the question she was expecting. “What … no … will you marry me?” she demanded.
“Oh, we’re getting married.” He smiled, then gave her puppy eyes, his head tilted to one side with his curly hair hanging over one eye. “Or are you the type to use a man and leave him weeping into his pillow?”
“Oh, pu-leeze …”
“Then, what about it? Can I be your Paduan apprentice, Amber?”
“I don’t know if I can teach,” said Amber seriously. “I used a lot of energy fighting with Gloria. There are probably alien creatures on the other side of the universe looking around and asking each other what was that loud noise. While I was waiting for you to visit, I was thinking that the upside of the way I feel right now is that I probably won’t be able to perform magic. I feel … torn up. The psychic pathways are so sensitive that if I try to raise power I’ll scream. I thought if you still hated magic and I couldn’t perform it, then we could be together.”
Karl laughed and pulled up a section of the bedspread to wipe her face.
“Amber, love. I want you and need you. And if I’m not going to let you get away from me by dying, then magic is not going to keep us apart, either. Now, do you have to perform magic to teach?”
“Are you serious? I can’t do magic and you want to?”
“I figured if I have this potential for magic and don’t learn what to do to protect myself then sooner or later someone is going to try and take advantage of me again. I am finished with being a victim. I want to be a protector.” He ran his hand over her face again. “If I’m not a magic user I am fresh meat on the hoof. Once was quite enough, thanks.”
Amber twisted the fabric of her skirt between her fingers.
“This is an important decision, Karl. Our tradition might not be the best one for you.”
“It’s your family tradition, Amber. I like your family, those I’ve met. Let’s stick with what we know works.”
“I want you to be absolutely certain. Once you make a commitment to the Elementals you won’t be able to take it back.”
“I’m certain.” He gripped her hands in both of his then tightened his hold.
Amber gasped. Her body was trembling. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she arched back, then collapsed. Karl hugged her to him, for a moment he feared it was the reaction to overuse of magic again. As he held her he felt a strange vibrating tightness wrap itself around both of them.
Warm. Bright and welcoming. He blinked rapidly then opened his eyes.
“Where are we?” demanded Karl.
A naked Amber rested in his equally naked embrace while an iridescent glow overlaid the world turning under their feet.
Bright silver cords reached from their navels toward the earth.
“Ah,” said Amber, “this would be the Ethereal Planes. You will learn about that in Astral Travel 101.”
A bright light approached them, breaking into a rainbow that flowed around, between, and over before coalescing before them into five columns of colored light.
“And these,” whispered Amber, “would be the Elemental Beings of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and Spirit.”
Karl bowed deeply to the shimmering spirits and hissed at Amber, “What the heck? Why are we here?”
“I told you we used a lot of energy. We seem to have attracted their attention.”
The Spirit Elemental raised an arm and pointed into the distance. Amber and Karl stared as directed. Karl watched the rippling flow of color across the sky. It reminded him of photos he’d seen of the Northern Lights, colors twisting, writhing. Pretty.
“Ah,” said Amber, not happily.
“What?”
“You’ve never seen the Ethereal before. Usually it’s this soft calm pearl grey. Smooth as a pond. This is changed.”
“And this would be bad?”
“Oh, yeah,” Amber shivered. “All the energy is confused and turbulent. That is not good. All the magic that people try to perform is going to be mixed up, churned up. And beginners trying to make their way on the Ethereal might end up lost or hurt. And … and a whole lot of things too complicated for mere mortal minds to comprehend might be messed up.”
“And we’re being held responsible?”
“We are responsible. I’m responsible. The fight with Gloria has disrupted the … well, forgive me if it seems over the top, but we’ve upset the universe.”
“Ah, then this would be very bad.”
“Yes.”
Before Amber could think what to do next Karl floated toward the E
lementals.
“I apologize, my … uh … Help me, Amber. What do you call them?”
“Something polite and respectful.”
Karl shot her a glance. “That is not helpful.”
“They don’t have names that I’ve ever heard,” she whispered. “Just say what you mean and hope that they understand your intention.”
“Fine. Okay. Weird.” Karl turned back to the Elementals. “With all due respect, Elementals, Amber was acting to save the lives of many thousands of people … and me.”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Amber before the Elementals could respond. “The universe is huge. Eternity barely notices the human race. Our whole history and existence is nothing. I had to act, as a human, to stop Gloria’s ambition. To get rid of the web that was interfering with the balance of energies of the Ethereal Planes. But I did a piss poor job of it.”
“Yeah, but …” began Karl.
“Yeah, but nothing,” said Amber. “Look around. Look at the mess I’ve made. I channeled so much Elemental energy into her that the Elementals themselves noticed. I have made a disruption, probably worse than anything Gloria might have done.”
“Oh,” Karl looked around at the rippling glow.
“Which means,” continued Amber, “as an ethical witch, I have to put it right.”
“How?”
“Ah …” She paused. “I’m not sure.”
The Spirit Elemental bent toward her, waiting.
“But I will find out,” said Amber. “And I will continue working until it is repaired.”
The Spirit leaned back then turned to regard Karl.
“I’m helping. I might be new to the magic biz, but if you’re going to hold Amber responsible for this mess, you’re holding me as well.”
The Spirit inclined toward them and extended a … hand? Amber glanced down at the sudden warmth surrounding her arm. The multicolored bracelet was back. Karl raised his arm to show he had one as well.
“Okay, our oaths have been heard,” said Amber, then turned back to the Elementals. “Before you go … my aunt Lucinda. You know her. What happened to her? I didn’t feel her as part of the web.”
The Elementals regarded her for a long moment, then turned and departed.
First Destroy All Giant Monsters (The World Wide Witches Research Association) Page 39
