He reached out, wrapping an arm around my waist and tugging me closer.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Go ahead, try to get away from me. You don’t need to be scared.”
I turned my face to the fire. “I understand the point you’re making, but you might be underestimating me, you know, when I’m determined.”
“Tippi, look at me.”
When I didn’t turn back to him, he cupped the back of my head, forcing me to.
“I’m telling you, I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.” He massaged my scalp in a soothing caress.
I gave up denying a fear he could so clearly read on me.
“If you were capable of stopping me, you would’ve done it the first time. I can be very resourceful, but it’s my problem, and I’ll work it out.”
“But I did stop you. I just didn’t do it fast enough. I saw it happening and didn’t do anything about it. You’re always saying I’m trying to control everything, so I backed off. I was trying something different, and it clearly didn’t work. That won’t happen again. You want to see determination? This is what it looks like.”
Hawk, the same Hawk who tried to tell everyone what to do always, had tried to not be controlling? Was that what he was saying? And now it was so clear he was mad that he hadn’t been, that if I did survive this, he’d probably be worse than ever. I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry at the possibilities.
It welled up as a giggle and then broke into a full-out laugh.
He smiled down at me. “What’s so funny about that?”
“I don’t know. That you tried to not be controlling for maybe the first time in your life? Or that it turned out horribly and the monster you might become because of that? I’m not sure myself what I’m more afraid of right now, the hill or you.”
“I’d put your money on me.” He smirked.
His eyes grew intent, the hand at my waist pulling me upward.
I knew what was coming, and like clockwork, my spine arched and my lips parted. I opened my eyes again when his lips didn’t touch mine.
His gaze was on the back door.
He looked back down at me, dipping his mouth to mine and delivering on what I’d been waiting for until my knees were weak and I was ready to spin up the stairs to his room.
He unwrapped his arm from my waist. “I’ve got to go handle something. Get some sleep.”
24
I grabbed my jacket, trying to ignore all the eyes on me. They were looking at me as if I were some fragile statue that was teetering on the edge of a shelf. The slightest nudge, the smallest draft, I might topple and shatter. I pulled my coat on, steeling myself, trying to give them, and me, a sense of confidence that I didn’t feel.
Not long ago, I’d been riding the high of beating immigration. I’d gone up against Dread and come out on top. I’d felt so confident, like I could take on anything or anyone. Now I was afraid to walk across Xest, to a grassy hill, because I might turn into a wallowing mess of need. I might lose myself.
“I’m ready.” Hawk met my gaze, and I looked away, remembering the pathetic, needy creature who’d been a bundle of nerves last night.
He tilted his head and then walked into the back room. I followed, a little too eager to hear some sort of reassurance and angry that I was so desperate for it.
He pulled a necklace with a glowing red amulet out of his pocket and went to lift the chain over my head.
“What is that?” I asked, stepping back before he could place it on me.
“It’ll block anything that might be there. I made it this morning.”
He’d made me a magical security blanket, like I was a scared kid. I didn’t know if I should be thankful, insulted, or embarrassed. Probably a bit of everything, but I had too much pride to take it. If I did take it, I wouldn’t know how vulnerable I was, and that was crucial going forward. It was one thing to have a weakness and a completely different thing to not know how bad that weakness was.
I shook my head, taking another step back.
“I appreciate that, but I don’t want a crutch. I need to face whatever is there and know that it can’t get me.”
He watched me for a few moments and then tucked it into his back pocket without objecting. He didn’t push it any further. He hadn’t wanted me to use it either.
We walked back into the office.
“Let’s go,” Hawk said to Oscar. “Bautere is meeting us there.”
We took Hawk’s door and were there a few minutes later, Bautere waiting as expected.
Hawk, Oscar, and Bautere spread out slightly, as if trying to each cover a certain area.
“We’ve all been over this area but haven’t picked up anything. What would you normally do?” Hawk said.
My heart began to pound as snow crunched underfoot along the familiar trail, a worn path still there. I stopped as the feeling in the pit in my stomach began to creep into my psyche. A familiar longing reached out, calling me closer. That was when my feet refused to take another step. I wasn’t sure if I could move if I wanted to, knowing what lay ahead.
“Whatever it is, it starts here. It’ll get stronger as I walk closer to the spot over there.” I pointed to the area that no longer had snow cover from me kneeling for so long. “Do you need me to keep going?”
“No, stay right there,” Oscar said. He wasn’t the strongest in our group, but he was by far the best tracker. He walked over and then knelt beside me, putting his hand on the ground where I stood.
“There’s something here for sure.” He took another few steps, reaching down again. “Oh yeah, something is definitely off. It’s specific to her. I can feel it pulling at her now that she’s close.”
“Can you pick up a signature?” Hawk asked, walking over.
I stayed right where I was, sorting through the feelings and cravings in me, seeing how far they would push and pull at my psyche.
“No. Whoever or whatever did this was smart about it. It used her magic to cloak any trace of theirs. Hers is too potent to distinguish anything beyond it.” Oscar grazed the snow in different spots with his hands.
“Are you saying there’s nothing you can pick up?” Bautere asked.
“No.” Oscar felt about the area for another few moments before standing, his eyes still on the trail.
“There’s nothing?” I asked.
“If you were to think of magic like a perfume or cologne, as it leeched your magic, or perfume, it washed out its own. Yours is so strong that it obliterated any trace of it. I’m sorry, but I just can’t tell.” Oscar spread his hands.
My magic was perfusing the area instead of pulsing through my veins. I felt like I’d been robbed, because I had.
“So it might’ve been anyone?” I asked.
“Not anyone,” Oscar said, shaking his head. “This is high-level stuff. Not many witches or warlocks could pull this off, and I know all of the ones that could. None of them would attempt to do this. My guess it was Lou or Xazier or someone associated with them.”
“If it was them, they’ll be answering for this,” Hawk said.
Lou or Xazier. It was as if hearing those names helped break the attraction of what was calling me. It was like having an addiction to sweets but knowing someone was holding out a poisoned candy. The urge to connect was still there, but my desire for vengeance superseded it.
I stepped closer to the area where I’d kneel on the hill. Hawk immediately blocked my path.
“What are you doing?” he asked, even though it was very clear.
“I want to see if I can break it, whatever it is.” I looked past him to the spot, refusing to believe I couldn’t undo what had been done. If not from magic, then from my will alone. They say adrenaline can make you many more times stronger than you are. Fury was bringing me to a whole new level.
“No.” Hawk wasn’t budging from his spot in front of me.
I could feel the spell pulsating toward me, urging me forward. All it was doing now was building the anger i
nside of me. I couldn’t let it remain here, whatever it was.
I directed my attention to Hawk. “You don’t understand. I need to break it. I can do this.”
Hawk shot Oscar and Bautere a look.
Bautere left without saying a word.
“I’m going to check out the area over there. I didn’t test that spot,” Oscar said, walking away.
Hawk dropped his voice to nearly a whisper. “We don’t know what happened or what kind of trap was laid. It’s too dangerous to play around with. Once we know more, it’ll be safer. This isn’t the right time.” He was standing like an immovable wall in between me and the place I needed to be.
“Whatever spell this spell is, it has to be destroyed. I can’t leave this place knowing it exists.” I’d thought I could come here and be all right, leave after testing the waters. Turned out I couldn’t, but not for the reasons I’d feared.
“It will be destroyed.” He grasped my shoulders. “But not now.”
There was no way I was going to get past him. The man that watched me lure Dread to this same hill, using my very life source as the bait, wouldn’t let me get anywhere close enough to test my mettle against this new threat. That was how pathetic I must seem after what happened. He didn’t look at me like the woman who could do anything anymore. I was the pathetic girl from Rest who needed protecting.
It felt like the ground had dropped out from underneath me and I was drifting into a chasm of bleakness. I groaned, shaking my head. I would’ve taken a step back if he didn’t have a hold of me.
“You think I’m too weak?” It was a question I already knew the answer to.
“Never weak. Just not ready. First, we get answers. We question Lou and Xazier, see what Mertie can find out, and then we act.”
“I can do this.”
I looked to the clearing, knowing there was no way I was going to get past him.
25
Breakfast had cleared out but Hawk was lingering, watching me.
“I called for Lou and Xazier to come later on tonight,” he said when we were finally alone.
I’d known this was coming. It was a logical step. Now that we knew more, we could push harder. See if one of them cracked or gave up some information. Didn’t make me want to see either of them anymore, especially knowing that one of them might be behind it.
“Okay,” I said.
“I can handle it alone if you want,” he offered, his eyes dropping down to where I’d fisted my hands.
“No. I’ll be here,” I said, before I walked into the office to work, or do something that didn’t include punching random objects. I’d already looked out of my mind enough in the past couple of weeks. I couldn’t add beating up a bookcase to my resumé.
Bibbi walked into the office fifteen minutes later. “Sorry! I don’t know how I overslept.”
I did. I’d heard the noises coming from her room last night. Oscar had gotten back a few minutes before me, and he hadn’t wasted his time.
She pulled up a chair by my desk. “Well? How’d it go?”
I was fairly certain she’d gotten all the details already, but I wasn’t bringing that up either.
“It was okay. I mean, I felt it, but knowing what would happen, that it was a trap and not something good? It got rid of any urge I had from before.”
She let out a long sigh. “What a relief.” She tilted her head. “Why don’t you look happy?”
“I’m happy that I was able to resist it.” That part was true.
“But?” Bibbi rolled a hand in a go on motion.
I shook my head. “Nothing.” Or nothing I was ready to talk about. As much as I wanted to go back to the hill, wipe out whatever was there, what if Hawk was right? I was too weak to do it, especially now. Maybe if I gave it some time, my magic would regenerate to its former level. I’d get stronger, and it wouldn’t matter.
“What is it?” Bibbi asked again.
I drummed my pencil on the surface in front of me, trying to sum up everything. But I didn’t know how to sum up all the problems, or what to do about them. Everything I’d thought was the right move had backfired. I dropped the pencil, my beat as off as my decisions lately.
“I don’t know what the right thing to do is anymore,” I said.
“Then do nothing?” Bibbi cringed, waiting to see if that sounded good to me. Obviously she wasn’t too keen on any direction either.
“Yeah, maybe.” I shrugged, starting a drumroll again, this one somehow sounding ominous even with a pencil.
“Bibbi, you know where the newsflash papers are?” Zab called from across the room.
“I’ll go get them. I wouldn’t mind the walk.” I tossed the pencil on the desk as I stood up.
Zab froze.
“She’s fine, Zab,” Bibbi said. “She’s got the monkey off her back. No more weird staring, either.”
Musso softly laughed on the other side of the room.
I was walking across Xest, coming back from getting supplies, when it seemed I was doomed to be stalked by one kind of monkey or another. The No Evils were walking in my direction, dressed like they were a band from the seventies with matching little fur coats and sunglasses.
“Hey, it’s Tippi,” See No Evil said. “How’s it going over at the broker building?”
“Heard we got outta there right in the nick of time,” Speak No Evil added, before taking a swig from his tiny flask.
“Word’s out the food took a hard nosedive,” Hear No Evil said.
“Total wipeout hard. Like, no survivors hard,” Speak No Evil said. “Zark has its pitfalls, but he makes a mean buttered bun.”
The three of them launched into cackling laughter.
“Well, you heard wrong. The food is great. I can’t imagine who you’ve been listening to.” As soon as I got back, I was going to have a long talk with Mertie. It was bad enough how she acted at meals. Did she have to tell all of Xest that Betha’s new meals were bombing? How would that help Bertha launch her new business?
“Man, you still can’t lie worth a damn. Aren’t you practicing?” Speak No Evil said.
“You gotta practice, especially when you’re that bad,” Hear No Evil said.
“A lot, too. Stand in front of the mirror or something. Everyone needs practice,” See No Evil said.
“Well, it was really nice to see you, but I’m running late.” I took off before I picked one of them up and squeezed until their little head popped off.
As I walked away, Speak No Evil said, “She’s such a mess. I’m glad we broke out on our own. Helping her was a major drain.”
I walked into the office a few minutes later like a heat-seeking missile. I located Mertie pouring herself a tea in the back room.
She glanced at me as I headed straight for her.
She went back to stirring her tea as she said, “Why do you look like someone spat on your buttered buns?”
I leaned on the counter so I could get a good look at her face when I asked, “Are you telling people Bertha’s new food is bad?”
“I’ve told several people. Why do you ask?” She looked up at me, clueless as to how that might be an issue. If she wasn’t a retired demon, and technically from hell, and I hadn’t seen her bad behavior on many occasions, I might not believe her ignorance. But she was a demon, and she was from hell, and she really had no idea.
“You can’t do that,” I said, feeling like I was arguing with a two-year-old about throwing their food all over the floor, knowing they’d do it again less than a second later.
She squinted as she took a sip of her tea. It took her another few seconds to digest what I was saying. “Why not? It’s really bad. I’m not talking so-so, either. The worst offenders in hell got better than that fare. Just saying, it feels like I’m being punished at every meal.” She took her tea and made her way over to the couch, still nonplussed over anything I was saying.
I followed her. If I fixed nothing else in Xest, I was going to fix this issue.
“For
the same reason you can’t say it at dinner. It’s mean.”
“You know, I could see that my speaking the truth was bothering you, but I’m still not entirely clear on why it’s a problem.” She picked up one of the gossip magazines Bibbi kept reading. She pointed to a famous actor on the cover. “Just so you know, sold his soul. I wasn’t privy to that deal, but word gets around.” She started flipping through it.
“Because it hurts her feelings and it’s not nice,” I said.
She laid the gossip mag down on her lap and looked at me as if she could barely contain her eyeballs in her head. “It’s going to be much more painful when she tries to sell that sawdust and no one wants it. You people all lying and acting like you don’t want to vomit after the first bite are the ones screwing her up. I think telling her the truth would be doing her a solid.”
I took a deep breath, trying to see a way around her rationale. She did have a solid point.
She was leaning forward with a gotcha look, smiling smugly. “See? You agree. When you think of it, you’re the one not being nice.”
I held out for a couple of seconds before I relented.
“Look, you might have a point that maybe some criticism might not be a bad thing. Perhaps we should say something, but there’s no reason to tell anyone else in Xest. What happens when she launches her business and it flops?”
“If she keeps cooking like that, it’s going to and it’ll have nothing to do with me. I’m the one that would’ve warned her.” She threw her hands up.
“That’s not the point. Promise me you won’t talk to anyone else?”
“You know, for everyone’s complaints about hell, it was a lot easier to get along there. You people have a lot of rules about what’s right and wrong and nice and nasty. Too many rules by far.” She huffed, reopening the magazine and kicking up her hooves onto the coffee table.
For some reason, they always sounded like they weighed more than normal feet. Like when she walked, the floor reverberated with her steps.
“Why did you leave hell anyway?” There must be some story. It wasn’t like you saw demons walking around all over the place. It couldn’t be that bad of a gig.
Witch of All Witches: Tales of Xest #4 Page 15
