A Sword in the Sun

by Shannon Page

  He walked on, but more slowly. Listening. Cooling down, too, no doubt. Finally, he slowed more, and I caught up with him.

  “I haven’t felt good about things for a while now,” he murmured. “I haven’t understood it all—I don’t have the centuries of experience in the lab that he does, that any of them do. So at first, I figured I was misinterpreting things. I admired Dr. Andromedus so much…” He trailed off, looking away.

  You and me both, honey, I wanted to say.

  “I don’t know what he said exactly—those conversations happened at higher levels than any I ever got to participate in—but I was given to understand that there is a new syndrome popping up in the Americas. That, because of excessive fraternization with humans, witchkind is in danger of becoming diluted.”

  My heart leapt in fear at this; it hit rather too close to the bone for me. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m not clear what exactly the mechanism was supposed to be, because of course witchkind and humans can’t cross-breed, but that somehow, too much intimate proximity was draining our essence? I don’t know, it sounds foolish to say it aloud, but there was a strong sense that we needed to develop the means to measure and isolate essence.”

  The big wallop of adrenaline was still dissipating through my system. On my chest, Rosemary woke up and started to wiggle around, reaching for me. At least she wasn’t reaching for my hair this time. “That, um, does sound pretty foolish, you’re right,” I told Helios. “What, our essence is just supposed to leak out of our pores or something when we spend too much time with humans?”

  He snorted softly. “I don’t know. Like I said, I didn’t get to sit in on the high-level meetings. But I did participate in building several enchins that were able to extract essence. Just for calibration purposes, of course; but it occurred to me that it would be easy to misuse the technology.”

  “To not put the essence back.” I felt sick to my stomach. This very thing had happened to Logan…and in my house. How had Gregorio done it? He hadn’t hauled a huge machine into my formal dining room.

  Well, he’d done it somehow. And I was going to figure this out.

  “Right.” Helios sounded as ill as I felt. “And I…” He paused, shaking his head. “I fear that I contributed one of the most pernicious elements to an already pernicious design.”

  “What did you do?” We turned another corner and started down an aisle we’d been down too many times already; someone was going to notice. I grabbed his sleeve and added, “Let’s go this way. Can we just walk down the street? By the river maybe?”

  “I suppose,” he said, distractedly, but he followed me. We left the Spanish Market and went down a narrow, cobblestoned street. It got quieter around us. He dropped his voice even lower. “It occurred to me that the spirit, the soul, might be in danger during the process of removing and measuring the essence. So I, I,” he swallowed, “I designed a device to extract the soul and hold it safe. It looks a bit like a bell jar…”

  I sucked in a breath. “The enchin aberra.”

  “Exactly.” He shook his head, gazing straight ahead. Even in his nondescript-witch disguise, I could see the anguish on his face. “I was trying to protect witchkind. You must understand, you must believe me.”

  “I do.” And I did, so help me.

  “I never imagined it would be put to such, such wicked use, and that is on me. I was naïve, foolish,” he said bitterly. “Dr. Andromedus was so impressed with my contribution! He heaped praise upon me, and it blinded my eyes to what he really wanted to happen. I didn’t even see it.”

  “He fooled a lot of us,” I said, patting his arm.

  Helios pulled his arm away from me, almost recoiling. It felt like self-loathing, especially as he went on: “Dr. Andromedus even intimated that he might invite me to study with him in his laboratory in America. I’ve always wanted to go to America! The Old Country…” He waved his arms around, indicating the picturesque city street we were walking down, the ancient houses crowded together, the trees leaning over the river. “Witches here don’t even pretend that warlocks are important anymore.” He gulped and glanced nervously at me. “I mean, no offense, but—”

  I had to laugh, but I tried to keep it gentle. “No, stop, I do under-stand. Warlocks have spent so much time thinking they’re at the top of the heap…and I say this with all affection and kindness…it’s going to be an adjustment, learning to share the world with witches.”

  He was silent.

  I went on, “I mean, what did the warlocks think, letting witches have control of gender selection and letting conception become so darn hard? Of course we were always going to choose to have daughters.”

  “Ma-ma-ma-ma,” Rose put in, tapping more insistently at my breasts.

  “Do you mind?” I asked Helios, even as I was unbuttoning my blouse and shifting Rosemary so she could reach a nipple.

  “No, of course not,” he said, but he turned away, his cheeks reddening.

  Well, I couldn’t worry about his delicate sensitivities. I had a hungry baby here.

  Once she was suckling, I tucked my blouse over her as best I could and said to Helios, “So, where are the souls?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I looked at him. “The souls that your machine extracted. I found a whole room full of spiritless bodies in Gregorio’s laboratory building. Witches and warlocks who had gone missing.” And my best friend. “Dead-but-not-dead, essence and spirit drained, bodies mysteriously still alive. Like suspended animation. I came here to get to the bottom of it—and to find the souls.”

  His eyes widened. “I don’t know. To the best of my knowledge, that capability was never used.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure it was,” I said, trying not to pour too much sarcasm in my voice.

  He nodded. “Yes. I see. Er, yes. That’s terrible.”

  “It is.”

  We walked in silence for a minute while I let him digest the news. It couldn’t have been a complete surprise to him, but it’s one thing to suspect something awful, and quite another to learn that it actually came to pass.

  Eventually, he gave a deep sigh. It was starting to weird me out a little, that he still looked like a middle-aged witch, but oh well. “There’s an old building on the Grand Laurel Merenoc property that would be the first place I’d look, were I searching for a collection of lost souls,” he said, as if casually.

  I perked up. “Oh?”

  “It’s very old, actually; it was the first, the original. When we built the new manufactory, the one you visited last night, the operation moved, but we never tore down the old building. It’s used mostly for storage now, but…” He glanced away, at the river. Clearly deciding how much to tell me. “Well, I’d look there.”

  “Can you get me in?” Before he could answer, I added, “No, Dr. Mar will have the whole property guarded, I’d trigger something the moment I set foot across the boundary line.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  We strolled on. I shifted Rosemary to the other breast; she settled in contentedly. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to pop in and have a look around for me, would you?” I gave him a hopeful smile.

  “Calendula, I’m taking enough of a risk already. And only because…” He shook his head.

  “You really do want to leave here, don’t you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what I want anymore.” His voice was full of dull despair. “I thought…I’d thought everything was different. But the world isn’t at all as I’d been told, as I’d always understood it to be.”

  I knew that despair. Knew it very well. “I’m sorry,” I told him, “I really, truly am—you have no idea. I’m at least as disillusioned as you are, about—well, a lot of things. But I’m doing something. That’s why I’m here: I’m not giving up. I’m trying to solve this mystery and make a new life.”

  He gave a sad chuckle. “You’ve already made a new life,” he said, nodding at my daughter at my breast. “And she gives yo
u something to live for—something to fight for.”

  “You must have something too,” I insisted. “You just, I don’t know, haven’t figured it out yet.” An idea hit me. “So you don’t want to stay here, and coming to work for Dr. Andromedus has lost its luster, but Zchellenin and San Francisco aren’t the only two places in the world. I passed through a really interesting community in Canada on my way here. Just as an example.”

  “Canada?”

  “Yeah, big country, north of the United States, lots of snow—”

  He snickered. “I’ve heard of Canada, yes. I just never considered emigrating there.”

  “Well, of course not. That’s my point. There’s a whole world out there. You had one idea, and it’s not working out. That’s not the end of the story.”

  “I suppose.”

  Rosemary finished nursing. I gently extracted her and covered back up, then turned to Petrana, still ambling along behind us. “Do you mind carrying her for a while? I could use a little break.”

  “Of course, Mistress Callie.” She stepped forward and took the baby in her arms. Rose, already half-asleep, nodded off.

  Watching Helios Spinnaker, disguised as a witch, watch my golem, set wheels spinning in my head. I’d already laid glamour and illusion over Petrana before, many times, so she could walk in public without attracting attention. And we were magically connected, could already communicate silently: I could likely rig up a system where I could see through her eyes.

  “I have an idea,” I said.

  Helios turned to me. “I don’t even know you—I met you yesterday—but I already know I don’t like that look on your face.”

  — CHAPTER NINETEEN —

  It was tempting to try it in the light of day, for the unexpectedness of it, but in the end, I reluctantly admitted that midnight was best. I couldn’t afford to lose the power of the night. This was going to be tricky enough as it was.

  Fortunately, the remade Petrana was even easier to access and manipulate than she had been the first time around. And we’d been working with each other long enough, and intimately enough, that I found her magical channels a cinch to explore and set my senses in.

  Since only warlocks worked at the manufactory, I dressed her in dark robes, bound her hair in a tail behind her, and laid the appear-ance of a dull, middle-aged, middle-powered warlock on her, then added a big ole deflection spell on top of that. If this worked, the eye would slide off her just like mine had off Helios in the Spanish Market.

  If not…well, I’d figure that out when the time came.

  “I’m not sure about this,” Helios whispered to me. We stood in the woods about a half-mile from the old, original Grand Laurel Merenoc building, staring at my golem. Or trying to stare at her; the deflection spell was working really well.

  “I’m not sure about anything,” I told him, “except for the fact that if we do nothing, more witches—maybe even more warlocks—are going to die. Or whatever that is, that isn’t even death.”

  He gave a shiver, nodding, biting his lip.

  “Just do like we practiced,” I told him, encouragingly. “You’re taking some expired supplies to put in storage. You carry a pile of boxes out there, put them in the building, leave the door unlocked, walk away. Petrana comes in after you’re gone, and looks around, with my guidance. If we find anything suspicious, she either carries it out herself, or she comes and gets us and we decide what to do from there.”

  “I know, I know.” He paced back and forth in the dim, silvery moonlight. “I just…have a bad feeling about this.”

  “You don’t have to help me any more,” I told him, seriously. “You’ve already done plenty. I can…figure something out from here.” I was already thinking about just having Petrana bust into the building. She was strong, she didn’t feel pain…

  “No, I’m in this,” Helios said, standing a bit taller. Somehow, he’d reached in for his emotional bootstraps and given them a tug. “Can we check the lines of communication one last time?”

  “Sure, but the less we use them, the less likely we are to be detected.”

  “I know.”

  But I’m happy to test them again, I sent him.

  Thanks. He smiled at me. And the golem?

  Petrana, please send us both a message, I said.

  Yes, Mistress Callie, Dr. Spinnaker. What would you like me to send?

  That will do.

  I turned back to Helios. “Okay?”

  He rolled his shoulders up and down, loosening some tension. “And you’re sure the baby won’t cry?”

  “I’m not sure of anything in life, but she hasn’t yet.”

  “Yeah, I haven’t heard her cry all day. That’s why I asked—she’s bound to get fussy sooner or later.”

  “No, I mean she hasn’t yet, ever, in her life.”

  Helios gave me a puzzled look. “That’s…weird. Isn’t it?”

  “Extremely weird,” I said lightly. “I’m trying not to worry about it, and I really don’t want to get all focused on it right now, okay?”

  “Okay, sorry!” He gave me a sheepish grin. “I’m just—nervous, is all.”

  “Yeah. Of course you are. I am too.”

  “You don’t look nervous.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve been through a lot lately. Believe me, I’m all jumbled up inside.”

  “Oh, well, that’s good then.” We shared an awkward smile, and I patted him on the shoulder.

  “Go on,” I finally said. “It’s chilly; I don’t want to stand here all night. Get going.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  And my golem and a young Old Country warlock I’d met twenty-four hours ago slipped off into the night.

  The first thing that happened was a bunch of waiting. I opened my vision to watch the channel through Petrana’s eyes, though I didn’t want to ride her too much. It took energy, and there was a slim chance my presence would be detectable through her. So I just peeked through to make sure it was working. She walked toward the unused building and stayed hidden in some trees a few dozen yards away from the back door.

  Any passive protection wards or spells would have triggered if a warlock, witch, or even human walked across the boundary, but Petrana was not alive, so she didn’t register as much as even a deer would have.

  At least, that was what I was counting on. If a warlock were actively guarding the building for some obscure reason, he would see with his plain old eyes that something was not as it should be.

  So here was hoping that didn’t happen.

  Mostly, I paced quietly around the little patch of the woods Helios and I had decided was a safe (or safe-ish) place to wait: outside the Grand Laurel Merenoc property, not under open sky, not near any significant ley lines. It was indeed chilly, and I was indeed nervous. If I kept moving, I kept Rosemary entertained and myself warmer, and burned off some anxious energy in the process.

  Elnor hated it, though. She wanted more than anything for me to sit down and make a lap. I could tell this by the way she swiped a claw-laden paw every time I passed the rock she was sitting on.

  “Sorry, kitty,” I said to her, dodging so she wouldn’t scratch me again. She was going to ruin my new snaky pants if she kept this up. “I guess I should have left you in the hotel.”

  She gave a low hiss and turned to look into the dark woods, as if suddenly detecting an approaching bear.

  “You could have snoozed on the bed this whole time. But no, you wanted to come along.” At least, I was presuming that she’d wanted to, by the way she was not letting me step more than two feet away from her. “Life is full of hardships, and we all have to live with the consequences of our decisions.”

  And now I’m lecturing to my cat, I thought. Great life choices.

  I did send my witch-sight to following her gaze, though. I mean, I was pretty sure there was no bear there.

  But wouldn’t it be inconvenient if there was?

  I am heading out to the building now, Helios sent me.


  I sprang to alertness. Good. Keep me posted when you can.

  He didn’t answer, which was fine—we were keeping communication to a minimum, after all; I shouldn’t even have answered him.

  I never said I was perfect.

  I see the warlock, Petrana sent me, a few minutes later.

  Good. I opened my visual channel to her again, briefly, just to take a peek. Yes, there was Helios, carrying an armload of boxes. He walked up to the front door of the building, shifted the boxes to one hip, and did something with his hands—probably the spell to unlock it—before opening the door and going inside. I left the visual channel, though I so wanted to keep watching.

  Then, more waiting. A little breeze came up, making me realize how nice it had been when the wind wasn’t blowing. Ha, I’d thought it was cold before. I was dressed warmly, but it felt like I was wearing gauze; the icy breeze wasn’t strong, but it chilled me to the core.

  Apparently that smart witch who’d solved the climate in Balszt hadn’t seen fit to bestow the same favor on the ’burbs.

  I paced around faster and considered using some power to heat up my core, but I didn’t want to waste any in case I needed it later. But I would if Rose needed it. I put a hand on the top of her head, under the little cap I’d bought for her in one of the markets near my hotel. Nope, she was still toasty-warm.

  Lucky witchlet.

  Mistress Callie, more warlocks approach, came Petrana’s terse warning.

  What? I opened the channel again.

  Four robed figures approached the building’s front door.

  Who are they? I sent to Petrana.

  I do not know.

  Stay hidden.

  Yes, Mistress Callie.

  I watched as they tested the door—finding it unspelled, unlocked?—opened it, and went inside.

  Helios, I sent, hoping this wasn’t a terrible idea. But he would need the warning. Four warlocks just walked in. Watch out.

  He didn’t answer.

  Did he not answer because he was trying to keep a low profile, or because he was in trouble?

  I couldn’t stand it. I had to stand it. The worst thing I could do right now would be to rush in there and screw everything up. I had to trust that Helios could handle himself, that he knew what he was doing. He worked here; he almost certainly knew those dudes. We had planned for this. He was taking boxes to the storehouse, and storing them there, no big whoop. We’d even discussed his taking stuff that was random and unrelated, so that he’d have an excuse to spend more time in the storehouse, to poke around in several different rooms. He could talk his way out of this.