By Moon

by T Thorn Coyle

  Told to bring it, was all he had said. And that sort of thing was never good. Right?

  And then there was Joshua. With his warm red lips peeking from the middle of his goatee. With his warm brown eyes. His cream, open-collared shirt and gray linen waistcoat. Gorgeous.

  And Selene felt that nervous sweat again, despite the AC. Damn it.

  Maybe your body is telling you to take a chance? they thought.

  Couldn’t be it. Why would Joshua be interested in Selene, anyway?

  “You ready?” Raquel asked, breaking Selene from their reverie.

  “Not really.” Selene gave a little sigh. “But we’ve got to do this. And I’m the only one with an in to the poor servitor that nasty man constructed.”

  “Wait a minute,” Joshua said. “I just thought of something.”

  He rocked to one side, reaching into the right pocket of his black trousers, pulling out a small, brown glass vial. “He touched this. Held it for a couple minutes.”

  Holding it out, he leaned toward Selene. Their fingers touched his palm as Selene lifted it gingerly, only touching the black cap. His palm was warm.

  Selene exhaled, then tried to tune into the vial. There was definitely something around it. And it felt unsettlingly familiar.

  “What do you think?” they asked, turning first to Brenda, then Tobias. “I wish Lucy was here.”

  “We should be able to use it as a focus,” Brenda said. “It might even help me follow you in, if necessary. If nothing else, it’ll help the rest of us stay centered on the Alchemist.”

  Having a focus was good, though Selene still wasn’t sure what the hell they were going to do once they found the servitor again. Selene placed the vial in the center of the space, smack in the middle of the candles.

  “Remember,” Tobias said, placing a hand on Selene’s shoulder, “this is just reconnaissance. We just need more information. Don’t go all hotdog on us.”

  “When have I ever ‘gone hotdog?’”

  “Ahem.” Tempest fake-cleared her throat. “Like that time you were just supposed to push the Nazis out of the park, but set them on fire instead?”

  Selene grinned at that, then shook out their hands. There was too much energy gathering and nowhere to put it. And Joshua was sitting way too close for comfort.

  Selene could smell him. Today he wore some mixture of sandalwood and cedar, topped with a high note of rose. Selene wanted to bite him, right where his neck met his starched collar.

  Instead, they inhaled and tried to return to center. This magical operation was no joke. They sent a quick thought to the moon, just barely waning. It was still full enough to be a strong ally for the work ahead.

  The sun, too, Selene supposed. But they really weren’t ready for that much brightness yet.

  Raquel lit the candles. Tempest snapped her fingers in the four cardinal directions, then above and below.

  Selene felt the wards that protected the space flare, then activate themselves with a low, pulsing hum.

  Funny, Selene didn’t usually sense things like that so clearly. Something was changing, but there was no time to think about that now. They adjusted themselves, feet on the floor, knees supported by the cushion. Spine rising freely from their pelvis. Head aligned on top of spine.

  “I’m ready,” Selene said. Then sent their spirit out, following the scent of tobacco, and a thick, twining rope of energy, hopefully leading to the servitor.

  20

  Joshua

  He looked across the circle at Legis. The Thelemite seemed surprisingly unperturbed, though there was no way this was his usual magical jam. The man sat, stoic on his cushion. Solid. Just waiting to be called upon if there was need. It made Joshua realize just how little he actually knew about the man. Maybe it was time to change that. Become actual friends with some people again.

  Joshua knew Arrow and Crescent worked like this all the time, though he’d only been party to one of their magical operations once before, and that was more as a bystander, though he’d done his best in the moment.

  He’d actually acted as if he was a man who still worked magic then. As if he hadn’t abdicated his will to disillusionment, drinking and dancing and sexing his way through the local Goth scene.

  Arrow and Crescent did that to people, though. They brought the best and strongest out of you, regardless of what you thought of yourself.

  So here he was, back to basics with people who had real mastery. He just hoped when it was time to throw down, he didn’t mess things up.

  Selene looked almost ethereal, sitting tall on their own cushion. Damn, they were gorgeous. Raquel had moved him across the circle from Selene, saying that since he’d had the only actual physical sighting of the man, that he and Selene needed to balance out the circle, not consolidate at one quadrant.

  Whatever that meant. But it made some sort of intuitive sense. The two strongest connections to the Alchemist needed to have a clear path to each other across the space.

  His eyes traced the contours of Selene’s face. The high cheekbones. Their dark eyes, closed now. The lips, only lightly painted today, in a ruddy shade of plum. On down to the soft rise and fall of their chest beneath an open-necked black shirt. Collarbones. Silver necklace with a silver skull pendant.

  Selene’s skin had a slight tinge of what some people called “olive,” making Joshua wonder where their people had come from, generations ago.

  Selene gave a slight shudder. Joshua could almost feel them as they began to travel, tracing the path of the brown tobacco rope they said was inside of Tabitha. The one Selene had cut, and tasted.

  Oh, and hadn’t that pissed off Tobias and Raquel.

  “You’ve just put yourself in danger of magical poisoning! Or worse!” Tobias had actually shouted at Selene. Selene had held firm. It was their magic, and they knew what they were doing. So badass.

  Joshua’s gaze rested on the brown glass vial in the center of the flickering candles. He could almost see a faint miasma rising from the surface of the glass. That was strange. The swirling energy seemed to be increasing.

  He looked at Selene again. They seemed so far away. Brows creased.

  Selene frowned. Something was wrong. He tried to tune into them more closely. Tried to sense what they sensed. See what they saw.

  Closing his own eyes, he slowed his breathing down. Tried to remember what it felt like to leave his body. To let his spirit travel on the æthers. Joshua could hear his heartbeat, as loud as if he held a stethoscope to his chest. His body felt heavy. His head pulsed and hummed. Up and out, he thought.

  Buoyancy. Lightness. Slipping out the crown of his head, Joshua found himself floating above the room, bouncing up near the apex of the attic ceiling.

  He saw the circle. Everyone’s unique smudge of color and vibration. He saw Selene, saw the shimmering cord connecting soul to body. Saw the road they traveled.

  Saw Selene facing what looked like a small, desiccated little brown being. Stubby arms and legs. Squat feet and face. It looked as if energy was passing between them. As if they were having some sort of communication.

  Nothing to help with. He pulled his vision back to the room itself. Down to the central space. The candles. The…

  Joshua was looking at the vial. It glowed. Oh shit. A swirling miasma reached out, headed toward Selene’s body. The Alchemist must have booby-trapped the vial.

  Wrenching his consciousness back into his body, Joshua lurched, instant headache spiking through his skull.

  “Tobias!” Joshua shouted. “Do something! Legis! Protect Selene! The Alchemist! He’s coming to get them!”

  Joshua flung his body at the center of the circle, scattering candles. One of them tipped, extinguishing itself.

  Raquel’s strong brown hand wrapped around his wrist.

  “Don’t touch that,” she said, voice flat.

  “But…”

  Legis lifted his sword, and plunged it point down in between Selene and the vial.

  The energy sn
apped; the brown vial shattered, shards flying. Selene rocked on their cushion. Joshua ripped his wrist from Raquel’s grip, and, knocking aside the rest of the candles, held out his arms.

  A nasty crunch. Sharp pain in his left knee. The glass.

  And then Selene was in his arms, shaking, his head was screaming, and he was easing them down onto the cushions, barely aware of Raquel cursing as she stomped the edges of a smoldering cushion.

  Moss and Tempest were doing something. Something important… The circle. It had to… remain solid. Protect.

  The pain in his head spiked. Joshua’s sight went gray, then black. He felt Selene, solid in his arms.

  Then nothing.

  21

  Selene

  Raquel had tucked Selene up on one end of the overstuffed red living room couch, with Brenda at the other end to keep an eye on them. If it hadn’t still been eighty degrees outside, Selene swore Raquel would have wrapped them up in a throw, too. Joshua was ensconced in one of the chairs flanking the impressive fireplace, dressed in a bathrobe that clearly came from Raquel’s new boyfriend, Charlie. It swamped Joshua’s thin frame.

  Huh. The robe must mean Charlie was sleeping over, and that Raquel’s son, Zion, must be cool with it.

  “Where’s Zion, anyway?” Selene asked, still groggy from the magical backlash. They’d been yanked from the æthers by Tobias. That was never fun. Could have been worse though, and was, from the looks of Joshua, who had passed out from the pain of it.

  Tempest was doing some sort of energy healing work, focused on Joshua’s head. His color was slowly returning, but he still didn’t look so great, a little sweaty despite the air conditioning. There were dark pouches beneath his closed eyes. He looked a little like something that wandered in from a children’s fairy tale, and not one of the nice ones.

  Selene should have given Joshua the couch. He was clearly in a lot worse shape than they were.

  Apparently Joshua had gone astral traveling without warning, then slammed back into his body when he figured out Selene was in danger. That sort of thing always left a headache, and sometimes nausea, too. You wanted to exit and enter the body very slowly, in a measured way. That was what coven training had taught Selene. And Selene had no idea how thorough Joshua’s training had been. They had a feeling he was one of those scattershot, auto-didact, half-trained people with a lot of natural talent.

  Nothing wrong with that, except when it exacted a steep price.

  And magic always exacted some price, whether the witch or magician was aware of it or not.

  Magic could be tricky, even in the best trained people’s hands.

  Selene was thinking of the servitor. It turned out it didn’t particularly like being a servitor. The Alchemist had messed up.

  A servitor was basically magical AI. Creating a servitor—at least what Selene had studied, they’d never done it themself—required the magician to infuse it with a certain amount of intelligence. Too much, and it could develop its own ideas, and maybe even, eventually, its own will.

  Despite being a creation of the Alchemist, this servitor had somehow decided it was more strongly aligned to the spirit of tobacco than to the man who made it. Probably because tobacco was the food the Alchemist was giving it. You always had to feed a servitor something to keep it going. Tobacco was the obvious choice here.

  Selene bet the Alchemist had no idea the servitor was gaining in autonomy. That could prove useful. At least they hoped so.

  Anything they could use to track the dangerous idiot and stop him from poisoning more people, the better.

  Goddess. Poor Janice. No way did she deserve to die because this idiot had some who-knows-what plan. Or was just a psychopath who decided magic was a great way to control people.

  Meanwhile, Tobias sat on an ottoman, carefully picking tiny glass shards out of Joshua’s knee. They’d had to cut his lovely trousers off—hence the robe—because there was no good way to take the pants off and get to the wound without grinding the glass in further. Joshua hissed periodically.

  Moss came into the room, carrying a brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide, along with a tube of antiseptic and some gauze. He set them on the coffee table and grabbed a chair.

  Legis sat silently on the floor and watched. Selene didn’t see his sword. They wanted to ask about it but were too tired.

  “What are we going to do about those classes he’s teaching?” Raquel asked. She set a bottle of wine on the table, along with some glasses, then flopped down in the other chair, corkscrew in hand. “In my mind, that’s almost as dangerous as the tainted flying ointment. Yemọja knows what he’s doing with those people.”

  Raquel worked the corkscrew into the bottle of Oregon Pinot, and waggled the bottle first at Brenda, then at Selene.

  “I’ll take a splash,” Brenda said, and then looked at Selene. “I’m not sure you should have any.”

  “Is there any iced tea?” Selene asked. Brenda was right. Alcohol was the last thing they needed.

  Raquel started to rise. Moss waived her back.

  “I’ll get it,” he said.

  “Who is this guy, anyway?” Tobias asked. “I mean, where’d he come from? Has he been hiding out somewhere, doing his own thing? Did he just move here?”

  Brenda tapped a ringed finger on her wineglass. Selene followed her gaze. Her eyes were trained on the amazing oil portrait of a young Zion as the Tarot card The Sun. A young Black boy, carefree and smiling, running arms upraised, surrounded by golden light.

  Illumination. There was something about it Selene would pay attention to if only their head wasn’t filled with cotton wool. Something…damn it. Exposure. Too much light. They still wanted to retreat to their favored velvety darkness, lit only by stars and the light of the moon.

  But the world kept telling them to step into the sun and be seen.

  “If you read cards or runes, or use astrology,” Raquel had told Selene early on, “you can also learn to read the patterns right in front of you. In your self. And in your life.”

  Well fuck. This was a pattern emerging, wasn’t it?

  “What I wonder is why?” Brenda was asking. “What’s his end game? What is he trying to achieve?”

  Moss came back in with a clinking, blue-glazed pottery pitcher of iced tea and some glasses on a tray. Brenda leaned forward and moved wineglasses to make space on the coffee table.

  “Who cares?” Moss said. He set the tray down with a thunk that caused the tea to slosh in the pitcher. “He’s an asshole who wants a taste of power and is getting it by abusing people. His endgame is probably just to feel like he’s the king.”

  “That’s it.” Tobias and Selene spoke simultaneously.

  Selene had spoken out of some inner sense of rightness, but couldn’t articulate why.

  Tobias dabbed at Joshua’s knee with the hydrogen peroxide, then secured gauze over it with medical tape. Selene just waited, hoping Joshua would chime in.

  Tobias set aside the tape and extra gauze and poured himself a glass of tea. Moss jerked, seeming to recall why he’d brought the pitcher in the first place. Moss poured a second glass and handed it to Selene with an apologetic smile.

  Selene nodded a thanks and smiled back.

  “He really wanted me to be cowed and frightened. Or even angry.” Joshua’s voice sounded raspy and far away, as though he was still halfway on the astral. No wonder he hadn’t been chiming in. He was barely in the room.

  Brenda noticed. “Someone grab Joshua’s feet.”

  Tobias set his tea down and grasped Joshua’s ankles, then placed the palms of his hands on the tops of Joshua’s feet. He would be pressing downward, while simultaneously imagining Joshua’s spirit filling his whole body.

  “Joshua,” Brenda continued. “Imagine drawing your spirit all the way down to your toes. Follow Tobias’s energy, okay? Breathe deeply, and fill your body all the way back up again.”

  Joshua heaved in a huge breath, then coughed, shuddering slightly. Then his breathing e
vened out, deepening. More color returned to his skin. He started looking more like a handsome dandy and less like a night hag.

  He opened his brown eyes. They had a golden tinge Selene had never noticed before. Brown and gold, like a tiger’s eyes. A dapper, slender tiger.

  “Thanks,” he said, voicing sounding a bit more solid. “Tea?”

  Moss poured him a glass. Tobias handed it over.

  Joshua’s hand shook slightly, ice clinking in the glass as he drank.

  He coughed again, then spoke. “What I meant to say is, the man just wanted a reaction, to prove he was controlling me. That’s what Moss meant by king, I think. That the Alchemist wants to know everyone he encounters falls under his thrall, just because he wills it.”

  “Well, this Black woman isn’t making anyone her king, let alone a white man. So what are we going to do about this asshole?” Raquel said.

  Everyone fell silent for a moment.

  Selene took another sip of tea. Thinking, like everyone else in the room. Joshua closed his eyes, resting his head on the back of the chair. A lock of dark hair fell over his forehead. Selene wanted to stroke it back into place.

  No time for that right now.

  “I think his servitor isn’t completely under his control. And it certainly doesn’t seem to like him much,” Selene said.

  Every head but Joshua’s snapped their way.

  Brenda and Raquel nodded.

  “That’s good. Very good,” Raquel said.

  “So, how do we convince the servitor it’s in its best interests to help us?” Moss asked.

  “That’s what we need to work on, isn’t it?” Selene replied.

  And they had no idea how. Or if any of these vague ideas were even going to work.

  A voice rumbled from the corner. Legis. Selene had almost forgotten he was even there.

  “First, we need to figure out what exactly the servitor’s task is. If its only job is funneling life energy from the poisoned people to this Alchemist ass, we can probably just figure out how to interrupt the flow. It’s more complex than that, but that’s a good starting point.” He scooted forward and snagged the wine bottle and a glass. While Legis poured the ruby liquid, Moss spoke.