A voice rang out suddenly from the front of the lobby.
“I think you should give me back that ring.”
5
The words, spoken with steely authority, cut through all the other chatter in the lobby. Lil swore under her breath, pocketing her phone. I snapped my head in the speaker’s direction.
Standing near the main entrance was the white-haired figure from the photo at the bistro. Momma Tuscanetti. She wasn’t particularly tall, with her shoulders hunched and rounded with age. Draped in a shapeless black dress that dragged on the floor, she leaned heavily on a gnarled wooden cane. She looked every bit the storybook witch, her seamed and leathery features fixed in an expression both haughty and implacable. Her black eyes shimmered like twin oil slicks, and I could taste the acrid bite of her power from where I stood.
“Now you did it,” Lil breathed. She touched a hand to a charm she was wearing, and simply disappeared.
“Good to know you’ve got my back on this,” I spat, glaring at the empty air. I resisted saying anything more. Lil wouldn’t pop back up until she was good and ready.
“I’ll ask again nicely,” Momma Tuscanetti said. If she’d noticed Lil—or her disappearing act—she made no indication. She merely extended an arthritic hand, fingers beckoning. “The ring. Now.”
She stood like a squat, black rock in the middle of a river, as all the foot traffic in the lobby parted around her. The mortals were oblivious to her presence. The filmy energy of a spell stretched like gauze upon the air. Something bitter threaded through the fluttering power. I faced off with her, my own power ramping up.
“What are you doing to them?” I demanded.
The crone smiled, revealing teeth yellowed by an untallied burden of years. “The malocchio accomplishes more than curses, boy.”
“The Evil Eye?” I asked. “You turned it into perception magic?” Color me impressed—that was some powerful stuff to casually drop onto everyone in the lobby.
“A simple spell, fueled by their desire to remain ignorant of all the things moving around them in the dark,” she explained as she shuffled forward, her tone resonating with both pride and derision.
“Things like me and you,” I ventured. Rigidly, I remained poised beside the chair, my mind racing around all the possible ways this could go poorly if I fought her—not just for me, but for the mortals.
The crone pursed her lips, their edges dragging with disapproval. “You I don’t know so much about yet.”
“You better not hurt them.”
“Such a cheeky boy, already making demands of me,” she crowed. She lifted her chin, the gesture sending a quiver through the folds of wrinkled flesh dangling at her throat. She still held one hand outstretched, and she turned it to point accusingly. “Do you think it’s your place to protect them?”
“It might be,” I responded. Decision made, I palmed the ghost’s relic and shoved both fists deep into my pockets. The leather of the jacket would hide the first glimmers of light as I gathered my own power. Silently reciting three potent syllables, I strode purposefully toward the wizened matron.
Zah… qui… el.
My Name was song and light and fury. I clamped down on the cowl I’d put back into place after escaping the restaurant, hoping the cloak of energy would further obscure what I was doing. But I shouldn’t have underestimated the Streghoneri. Her eyes narrowed before I’d taken five paces.
“All these people are safe for now,” she warned. Her own slow advance halted. The fingers of her outstretched hand twisted in an arcane gesture. “That will change should you choose to attack me.”
She might as well have pulled a loaded gun.
I froze, holding the notes of my Name on the nearest edges of conscious thought. I didn’t want to drag all these innocents into our fight—not if I could help it. Black motes of scintillating energy contracted around the old woman and the stink of her power intensified.
Where the hell was Lil? She could at least tell me what to expect from old Endora here. Swiftly scanning the crowd, I searched for any sign—either of Lil or the spirit animals that attended her.
Nothing.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” I stalled. “Aradia’s clearly a family-run place—Benny, the little hostess. I caught the resemblance. But I didn’t see Dom anywhere. Did he have the night off?”
The crone regarded me stonily.
“How long has it been since you’ve seen him?” I pressed. “It must kill you knowing that you went to such lengths to protect your bloodline, yet still lost your son.”
The old witch spat a wad of stringy spittle on the tiles at her feet. I half-expected it to sizzle.
“Self-appointed protector of humanity,” she sneered in a low voice. “And now you presume to judge me.” Her flat slit of a mouth trembled with indignation.
“Like you said, I’m cheeky,” I responded. “So, was killing her worth it?”
“Who sent you meddling in my business, boy?” she demanded. “I hope they armed you with more than smart words.” Dark whorls of energy danced around her knotted fingers. I took a purposeful step forward, still keeping my own power hidden as well as I could manage.
“I don’t want to beat up an old lady,” I said, “but I’m walking out of here with this ring.” A couple of bystanders shot me strange looks. It seemed like the cone of silence didn’t cover my half of the conversation.
“The hard way, then,” she muttered. Her eyes glinted as she took the measure of my features. “Let’s see what you really are, so bold and full of spleen.”
With a twitch of her fingers, she flung something at me—a compact orb of black flame. It arced across the lobby, rushing straight for my head. Moving faster-than-human quick, I brought my arms up to shield my face. I tried to side-step the impact, but the gleaming projectile matched both my movement and my speed. When it smashed against my forearms, I expected it to hurt—but the writhing sphere of magic simply dispersed like smoke, rolling across the edges of my cowl.
“What the hell was that?” I managed.
Momma Tuscanetti snapped her fingers once, and the clinging wisps of smoke ignited in a bright but heatless flash-fire. It consumed the cowl entirely, and my own power flared diamond-bright. I could feel an answering blaze burning behind my eyes. Released from the obscuring veil of energy, my wings unfurled in a rush of gleaming light.
For one glorious moment, they felt real in the flesh-and-blood world. Then the moment passed.
“Sweet Consort of the Lady,” the matron gasped. She swiftly crossed herself.
“Surprise,” I said. “I’m really not the guy you want to piss off.” My voice resonated on three notes at once, each word a perfect chord. It didn’t sound remotely human.
Suddenly, the mortals milling through the lobby stopped what they were doing. Thirty heads swiveled toward me as they stared.
“A Fallen Star?” Momma Tuscanetti said. “What could you possibly want with one dead mortal woman?” Her expression hardened again. “No matter. There is fear enough here to snuff even your flame.”
She raised her arms, gesturing expansively. With a sharp command, she sent the spinning motes of energy careening throughout the crowd. The glimmering power shifted from black to a dull, angry red. An echo of the bloody light kindled in all the mortal eyes, and their faces convulsed with rage and disgust.
One woman cried, “Monster!”
Another shrilly declared me a terrorist.
I heard “maniac” and “murderer” and “rapist,” each insult magnified to a thunderous degree by the acoustics of the soaring arches overhead. The mortals hardly seemed aware of what they were saying, spittle flying from twisted lips as they shouted.
“Every mind?” I demanded, ducking a shoe thrown at my head. “How can you be controlling every mind?”
“I’m not controlling them, Fallen One,” the crone chortled. “All I have to do is influence what they see. Their own assumptions do the rest.” She remained effectively invisi
ble while the mob in the lobby fixated on me. Spitting and screaming, they railed as if I’d won Shirley Jackson’s version of the lottery. The red glare of energy trailed behind them as they moved.
I was immortal—but only on a technicality. My physical body was as prone to dying as the next guy’s. My flesh could take a little more punishment than the average person, but this many mortals beating the crap out of me might be more than it could handle. I needed an exit strategy, and quickly.
If I’d been standing on the Shadowside, it would have been simple—one solid downstroke, and I could fly out of harm’s way. The lobby’s vaulted ceiling gave me plenty of room to maneuver above the crowd, but my wings didn’t translate to the flesh-and-blood world, and without a Crossing, I couldn’t step from one side to the other.
A big guy shoved his way from the back of the crowd, nearly climbing over the others in his frenzy to get at me. The extremity of his fury distorted his features, but I still recognized him—Mr. Bulldozer. With a maddened roar, he launched himself at my back, landing like a sack of bricks.
I staggered under the impact but managed to remain standing. Hitting the floor with a mob like this clawing at me would’ve been a sure way to leave the hotel in an ambulance, if not a body bag. The man clung like a rabid animal, teeth snapping at my ear as he worked to lock his arms around my throat.
The crone cackled as I struggled to get out from under the guy without causing him serious injury. I finally pried him off and flung him bodily into the crowd. Half a dozen people stumbled backward as he crashed into them, but even more lunged at me from the sides. I shielded my head with my forearms, shoving hard when a few grabbed for me. The thick leather of my biker jacket took the brunt of the blows.
They punched and ripped and clawed. I pushed them back again and again, but held my power tightly in check. Stronger and faster than any mortal, I could kill them if I wasn’t careful. I didn’t want the lives of this many innocents on my hands—but I didn’t want to lie down and let them beat the snot out of me, either.
There had to be a way clear of this mess.
“Still trying to protect them, even from yourself?” the crone taunted. “You could always hand over the ring.”
6
The ring. It was a relic—tied to a death and saturated with human emotion. It straddled the two sides of reality, which was how I’d picked it up in the first place. Maybe I didn’t need a Crossing after all. And if I could do it—use the ring as an anchor to pull myself from one side to the other—I had an idea of how to deal with both the crowd and the crone in one swift maneuver.
I murmured my Name, shaping a coalescence of power with as much finesse as I could muster. It hooked like a burning sphere just under my ribs. With a hoarse shout, I released it, throwing my head back as light erupted in every direction. Mortals couldn’t typically see the magic, but that didn’t make them immune to its effects. The crowd staggered in the wake of the noiseless concussion, and the nearest were shoved bodily backwards into the others. It cleared a space about eight feet around me, giving me a little breathing room.
As the mob recovered, I slipped my hand into my pocket and closed my fingers around the ring. I pictured the face of the dead woman as vividly as possible, and though I still didn’t know her name, witnessing her death had given me a tie more intimate than mere words. With lightning strokes of memory, I painted her tragedy in my mind—the struggle at the restaurant, the stricken look when her attacker had divested her of the ring. All the pain and betrayal and terror that thrummed in the precious loop of metal even now…
Holding all of it close, I shoved.
The air thickened around me, then parted with a sudden ripping sensation.
I stepped across.
The crowd all but disappeared. On this side, they were smudges at best, human-shaped, but indistinct. The roiling storm of their fury held more substance than they did. I stood at the epicenter as this whirled around me, tugging at my wings. The crone was visible—squat as a toad in an old nightgown, a stream of oily black power erupting from her hands and head.
Unfurling my wings, I took a running leap, straining against the current of dark energy. With a little work, I broke free of the frenzied whirlpool, rose high as the vaulted ceilings would allow, then turned and dropped like a stone on the witch.
The rest was easy. I maneuvered behind her Shadowside presence, then stepped back through before she could even react. I threw my arms around her stooped figure, catching both her wrists in my hands, then pulled her arms tight across her chest and clung in a bear hug. She squirmed and tried to strike me with the head of her walking stick, but the angle was all wrong. Her grip faltered, and the cane clattered noisily to the floor.
The crowd pivoted at the sound. The motes of the perception spell still swarmed around me, drawing the mob’s collective rage. As one, they took a lumbering step forward. It was just as I’d hoped.
“Better turn it off, or they’ll tear both of us to pieces,” I hissed. She stank of earth and oil and—oddly—licorice.
The mob advanced. Momma Tuscanetti strained again in my grip. Her bones felt delicate as dry twigs under my fingers, but I didn’t let up.
“You wouldn’t risk your life for one forgotten human,” she grated.
A woman in a flirty little black dress pulled to the head of the pack. Her hands were hooked like claws as she glowered at us, and her glittery manicure looked as if it could do some real damage. The main doors to the lobby stood only a few paces behind us, but I stood my ground, holding the old woman like a body shield in front of me.
“I’ll come back,” I whispered. “Will you?”
Momma Tuscanetti refused to answer. The lady with the festive nails drew so close, I could see the individual hearts painted on the acrylics. Mr. Bulldozer started shoving again until he was only a few steps behind her.
“I could hurt them,” she croaked.
I bore down on the frail bones of her wrists. “I could hurt you.”
She grunted, but refused to cry out. The red embers of power swirling around the mortals stuttered.
“What do you propose?” she responded, a little breathlessly.
The riot of mortals wavered as she asked the question, but they didn’t stop. I spoke quickly. “I want the ring. I want the girl. Let her go.”
“Why her? Why now?” Momma Tuscanetti craned her neck to glare at me. Her depthless eyes were locked between fury and bewilderment. “No one’s seen that girl in sixty years. No one cares.”
“I care,” I said. “She asked for my help.”
The crone tensed against me. “Is that all it takes, Fallen One?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Call me Zack.”
Her eyes lingered on mine, so dark I couldn’t distinguish pupil from iris. The pall of her power tightened, tugging at my breath as if I stood in a vacuum. She whispered something, and I felt that power expand, rushing out to touch every person in the lobby of the Renaissance. They wavered, blinking, as if waking suddenly from a dream. The red glare of the energy bled slowly away.
A heartbeat later, they were just a lobby full of people again, chatting, laughing, and flirting with all the bravado inspired by the holiday.
“This close, I know the taste of your power, Fallen One,” Momma Tuscanetti mused. “Benny thought he recognized you.” She stopped struggling and simply stood in my arms, passive and unhurried. “Am I to believe we fell into your path by chance, Zaquiel?”
I twitched as those syllables rolled from her lips.
“I’ve heard your name before.” Dry laughter rasped from her throat. “So let’s not pretend this isn’t personal.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. Again, she twisted her neck to stare at me with her unnerving obsidian eyes.
“No, you don’t.” She chuckled. “How interesting.” She shrugged her shoulders against me. “Let me go, and we’ll deal.”
“Just like that, you’re willing to bargain?”
<
br /> “I don’t want to die today, and there’s no hope in killing you—not permanently at any rate,” she said sourly. “So, yes. We bargain.”
I relaxed my grip and gave her a little shove, moving her away from me. Yet I held my power at the ready, alert for any sign of duplicity. Momma Tuscanetti bent creakily and retrieved her walking stick. An oily sensation clung wherever I’d been in contact with her, and that licorice smell lingered cloyingly on my clothes.
“How about I just walk out of here?” I said. “I’ve got the ghost’s relic. I can figure out the rest.” With that, I started for the doors.
“I know where to find Dominick,” she called.
I whirled at this announcement. Smiling sweetly at my expression, the crone continued, “Come, Zaquiel. Regardless of the things dividing us, you don’t imagine I would lose track of my first-born son, hmm?”
Folding my arms across my chest, I regarded her from my full six-foot-three. Apparently I was invisible now, too—we might as well have been alone in the lobby. The mortals parted unconsciously around us, no sign in their faces that they remembered the insanity from moments before.
“And what will it cost me?” I asked.
A haggler’s grin tugged at the edges of the crone’s withered lips. “A favor.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
“This favor,” I responded. “I’m not killing anyone for you.”
“You say that like I’m some kind of monster. Yet, I suspect I’ve killed less often than you have, Fallen Star.” Momma Tuscanetti canted her head like some black-winged bird of prey. “Let’s make this simple. Favor for favor, action for action. If I call upon you in the future, I will ask for no more than what you have done in aid of this girl’s spirit.” She riveted her eyes to mine. “A fair bargain?”
“You’d give up your dirty little secret, just like that?” I demanded, suspicious and confused. “You know I’ll tell Dominick the minute I find him.”
Mortal Sins (Conspiracy of Angels short story) Page 4
