by Shannon Page
“You didn’t…miss your father?” Logan sounded as if her heart was about to break. I knew why, but it was not my story to tell.
“Oh, he visited, from time to time.” Jeremy shrugged again with a casual smile that was very nearly convincing. “There is cost as well as privilege in having such an accomplished father.”
Well, that resonated with me. I shifted uncomfortably, beginning to suspect I had misread that earlier smirk. This warlock was actually seeming like a nice guy.
“But my foster parents were very kind,” he went on. “They let me have the run of our small town and the surrounding countryside; I spent far more time exploring caverns and trying to tame mountain goats than I did missing my birth parents.”
“Even so.” Logan shook her head. “What a difficult thing.”
Jeremy gave her a kind smile, and she blushed again, clearly thinking she’d overstepped. In the awkward pause which followed, Marcus leaned in, gave me a smoldering look, and asked, “How’s your sex research going, Callie?”
I hadn’t run into Marcus in a while. Brown-haired, trendy little goatee, nicely dressed, a bit shy of sixty. Not bad looking, I supposed, but what a loser.
“It’s going great, Marcus. Currently, I’m working on developing alternative eicosanoids and cytokines to address the regular inflammatory response resulting from prostaglandins produced during oogenesis.” While he chewed on that, I turned back to Jeremy and Logan.
“Gracious,” Jeremy said. “I knew you and my father did similar work, but I confess I understand very little about it. That sounds astonishingly complex.”
“Oh, I can explain it far more simply than that,” I said with a quiet smile. “And the truth is, it’s not going all that well. I’m about to see if I can arrange a consultation with your father.”
“I am sure he would be delighted to assist.”
Niad leaned in more closely to Jeremy, flashing rather a lot of cleavage for such a skinny witch. “So, we should be heading to Spandau soon. Our reservations…”
“Logan’s work is fascinating too,” I cut in. “She’s making a study of human belief systems and their potential for magical interface.”
“I am not!” she protested. “I just read their tarot cards.”
I shrugged. “You see? And modest, too.”
Marcus and Niad both grimaced at her mention of the cards, and Paolo stifled a snort, but Jeremy gave a happy laugh. “Tarot cards! Now there’s something I’d like to hear more about. Another drink for the birthday girl!” he called out.
Logan blushed even deeper. “Oh, gosh, no.”
“You don’t want another drink?” he asked.
“I do,” Paolo said, turning around to look for the waitress, as Marcus said to Niad, “I love Spandau. I’ll go with you.”
Niad glared daggers at Jeremy, who did not seem to notice. He listened intently to Logan as she struggled to explain to him why he did not care about her life’s work. I sat back, enjoying the show.
After a minute, Niad rose on Marcus’s arm. “I will catch you later, darling,” she said to Jeremy.
He sprang to his feet. “You truly don’t mind if I stay? I would be delighted to try that restaurant another time, but…”
She flashed him a perfect smile. “Of course not. Do enjoy yourself.”
Jeremy kissed her hand, released it, and sat back down with us as she left with Marcus. “She has been very kind to me, showing me around and introducing me to everyone, but I confess, the pace is rather wearing me out.” He frowned. “I hope I have not offended her.”
“I expect she will recover,” I said dryly.
He watched me carefully, then gave a small smile. “Good.” Then he turned back to Logan. “But it’s fascinating—it sounds like working with humans is actually increasing your potency. In the Old Country, tools such as tarot would never even be considered. To our loss, I suspect. Interlacing your divinations with human energy—I do want to hear more about that. I’m very interested in interwoven power and nontraditional juxtapositions.”
Wow. Gregorio Andromedus’s son. I shifted in my chair, looking around the crowded room. Where were those drinks, anyway? The cocktail waitress was having a hard time keeping up, even with magic to assist her in carrying all the extra glasses. “Glenna seems awfully busy,” I said. “I’ll just go to the bar.”
When I got back almost ten minutes later, Logan and Jeremy were still deep in conversation. Paolo had turned his chair around and was flirting with an adjacent table of witches. I set his Bulgarian frog brandy down beside him; he gave me an absent nod.
“Balszt, more or less,” Jeremy said as I sat back down at our table, referring to the Old Country’s capital. “Actually, a small village about an hour outside the city; you would not have heard of it.”
“My parents came from a small village near Balszt,” Logan said, her voice filled with wonder.
“Really?”
“What was your town’s name?”
“Dolènja.”
Logan frowned. “No, that’s not my parents’ village. It started with a Z.”
“Zchellenin?”
“Right! That’s it.”
“It’s not far from Dolènja; I wonder if we have mutual friends.” Jeremy glanced at me. “Callie! It seems we have an Old Country connection!”
I nodded, wondering if Logan had told him yet.
She gave me a small, helpless look, then said to Jeremy, “I…doubt we have any friends in common, actually. My parents went back there many years ago, and…vanished.”
“Oh, I am so sorry. What happened?”
Logan bit her lip. “I don’t know.” She took a sip of her drink, seeming to not even taste it. “They came here when I was born—to get away from the troubles. For a long time I had no idea about any of that. We are very sheltered here, you know.”
Jeremy nodded, frowning.
Logan went on, “Then, when I was in coven school, my parents got an urgent plea for help from a very good friend there. They tried to keep it from me, but a child knows. Even if they don’t know exactly, they know.” She sighed. “They agonized about it, but felt they had to help him. So they went, telling me they were taking a short vacation. They left me with the coven school. I…haven’t seen them since.”
“That is awful.” Jeremy looked deeply moved. “You were how old?”
“Almost sixteen.” She took another absent sip. “Our coven school mother had some highly placed friends there. They searched extensively, but found nothing.”
“They are not in the Beyond?”
“No. So they must…” She trailed off. They had not passed over, but could not be found on this plane. “A fate worse than death” is a cliché among humankind; for us, it was something in which the Iron Rose specialized.
“Oh, Logan. How dreadful for you.”
Logan turned abruptly to me. “Callie, look what I’ve done to our party. You must teach me how to make small talk.”
“You must not,” Jeremy said. “This conversation is far more engaging than the inane chit-chat we are usually surrounded with. You speak of things that are real—your magical work, your parents. Unlike…” But he was too polite to finish the sentence, even with Niad already gone.
Logan shook her head, but she was also blushing. “Um, thank you.”
“And I hope you do not think I make light of your tragedy,” Jeremy said.
“Oh, gosh, no,” Logan protested. “You are being very kind.” She gazed down at the table a moment, then looked up. “It’s just so frustrating, to be so separate from the Old Country. Even after all this, I know almost nothing about it.”
Jeremy looked somber, almost angry. “I know that, and I must say, I do not entirely agree with the reasons our Elders give for keeping witchkind so fragmented like this.”
“Well, it’s supposed to keep us safe,” I said, remembering what I’d learned in coven school.
“And yet it does no such thing.”
“What is it
like there, really?” Logan asked. “Are the troubles still so…pervasive?”
Jeremy sat forward. “Well, no—and yes. Day-to-day life goes on much like it does here, though with a more, I don’t know, rural European flavor perhaps. But the threat of the Iron Rose is never far from anyone’s mind.”
She shivered. “I feared as much.”
“Just a few months ago, there was an ugly exchange in the town of Frezt. A potter was found dead in his shop—cause unknown. In retaliation, four masked and shielded individuals broke into the home of the deputy mayor and brutally murdered him, along with his wife and daughter. Only their young son escaped, hiding in a closet. The attackers must not have known there was a second child.”
“Oh.” Logan’s face was paler than ever. “How awful.”
“Will there be retaliation for the retaliation?” I asked, disturbed as well. He may have disagreed with the Elders’ reasons for keeping us separate, but nothing like that happened in San Francisco. At least, not to witchkind.
“Sadly, that is all too likely. As is the way of such things. In fact—”
Paolo’s conversation at the next table erupted into laughter, and Shella, one of the witches there, leaned over to share the joke with us.
We laughed politely, but the somber mood was broken—which was probably for the best. Logan was right: this was hardly birthday-party conversation. The room was growing more crowded all the time, and soon the two vacant chairs at our table were claimed. I’m certain the witches were just looking for a place to sit, and not angling to meet the exciting new warlock, not at all. In any event, he continued to have eyes only for Logan.
She was an introvert at heart, though. Near midnight I could see, even without looking magically, that she was spent.
“Doing all right?” I whispered to her.
“Super great,” she whispered back, her face pale but wreathed with smiles. “But I should have left hours ago.” She gave a small, regretful sigh. “What a guy. I wish I had more energy. I’d love to get to know him better.”
“He’s not going anywhere—he’s just moved here. You’ll see him again.” And he’s clearly interested, I thought. “Want me to help extract you?”
She was probably fine to take the ley lines, but there was no sense in her burning even more energy. I saw her into a taxi, then stood savoring the cold night air, trying to decide whether to go home myself. This had been a fun distraction, but on the quiet sidewalk, thoughts of the rest of my life rushed back. What should I do about Raymond? I didn’t want to push him away. But I could not tell him I was a witch—a real witch. How could I let him in further, but keep him out of everything that made me who I was?
Why did I have to fall in love with him? Why did things have to be so complicated?
Was it love?
Of course it was. The thought of letting him go sent a stab of pain to my heart.
But…
What was the matter with me, anyway?
The bar door opened, letting a burst of noise out. Then Jeremy stood beside me.
“Having a smoke?” he joked.
I laughed politely. “No, just wondering if I should hit the hay. It’s been a tough week.”
“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow. “I am sorry to hear that. Anything I can do to help?”
No, not you. “I…no, just work stuff, life stuff. It’ll all work out, I’m sure.” I glanced up at him. “I know Logan would love to see you again,” I blurted. Oh, very smooth, I thought with a cringe. “I mean, it looked like you and she had a lot to talk about.”
“I greatly enjoyed our conversation. She is a remarkable witch. One doesn’t meet many true independents.”
Interesting—so they had talked about her covenless status? I must have missed that when I was getting drinks. “Yes. I’m living in my own house at the moment, but Logan’s lived alone forever. Since coven school.” I shook my head. “She’s amazing.”
“She does seem a strong soul.” He paused, gazing down the street. A distant cat rummaged through a garbage can. “So, have you made up your mind?”
“About what?”
“Are you running off, or may I buy you another drink?”
I laughed. “Oh, why not? One more won’t hurt.”
I stayed for three more. Or possibly six.
It takes a lot to get a witch tipsy, but I managed. When I finally staggered back onto the sidewalk, squinting into the sunrise, I could barely manage to find a ley line, and almost let an early-rising human see me vanish.
“Ahh,” I sighed a minute later, as the clean unwarded air of my house settled around me. The coven house, bristling with its magical defenses, always felt so…confining. Like a corset, strung tight. The quiet, calm openness here was—
A piercing cry shattered the solitude. I clamped my hands over my ears and turned to face Elnor. “Blessed Mother, must you always do that?”
She gazed at me with unforgiving yellow eyes, their message clear: DINNER TIME AND BREAKFAST TIME BOTH, NEGLIGENT WITCH!
I headed to the kitchen. It would be far more costly not to. Little black-and-white tyrant. Why hadn’t I taught Petrana to feed her? Some mistaken notion about my bond with the miserable feline, I supposed.
“Some witches dispense with familiars altogether, you know,” I told her, opening a can of tuna. “They just go it alone. Like warlocks.”
Elnor ignored me, paying full attention to her meal. She knew a lie when she heard one.
“Well, they should, anyway,” I muttered.
— CHAPTER FIVE —
After sleeping a few hours, I worked most of the afternoon in the lab, having barely more success than I’d had earlier. I could not figure out how to keep the little creatures alive. I’d seemed to make progress once I tried bending the æther around the Petri dishes just a bit to shield them from stray magic in the air. But that hadn’t lasted—the æther slipped back to normal as soon as I let go of it. Now the creatures seemed to be petering out even faster than before.
That would be no solution anyway; I wasn’t going to sit around holding my experiment together forever.
“Well, crap,” I said, pushing my hair out of my eyes yet again. I’d braided it as usual, but I was exerting so much power, it kept busting loose and crawling all over the place.
From her corner by the window, Elnor glanced up at me. Beside her, Petrana also gazed back at me impassively, looking as much like a machine as ever. I stifled a sigh of disappointment. Yes, I knew what a golem was; surely it had been unrealistic of me to imagine I’d created a being with any intelligence.
“Come here, kitty,” I called to my familiar. Elnor rose, stretched, and came to stand at my feet. “No, jump up.” I patted the lab bench.
She gave me a quizzical look—I didn’t usually let her up among the potions and reagents—but did as I bid.
“Sniff this,” I said, pointing at the latest Petri dish. “See if there’s anything alive there, if I’m missing anything.” Maybe it was there, but just too subtle for me to detect.
She bent down and smelled the dish thoroughly, whiskers twitching. After a minute, she looked back up at me.
I began petting her, opening my awareness to hers, letting my energy meld with her feline senses. She arched into my hand, welcoming the communion. From her, I gathered impressions… confusion at first about what I wanted, mingled with willingness to help her mistress; displeasure at the strong scent of the reagent; a fleeting thought about her food bowl downstairs, and was that a mouse in the wall?; followed at last by the distinct sense that the Petri dish contained no life whatsoever, and why was I having her sniff it?
With a sigh, I gave her a final scritch around the ears and set her back onto the floor. “Thanks, kitten.”
She went to investigate the wall, found nothing, and returned to her patch of sunlight.
I began again, mixing a fresh batch of potion, adding two drops of pneumative, then reaching for my supply of tanglefoot hellebore leaves. “Oh, damn.” Empty.
I set the beaker down and frowned at it.
“Do you need me to run an errand, Mistress Callie?”
The voice startled me badly, making me almost knock the beaker over as I spun around and stared at my golem. “Did you…how…?” Did Petrana just take initiative? She looked back at me, blank as ever. “How did you know I needed something?”
“Your beaker is empty. I can fetch the materials you need, if you give me instructions.”
I continued to stare at her. Okay, that was tempting, even encouraging. But weird, and unprecedented. Was she growing, becoming… something more? Just minutes after I had wished her to?
Coincidence, surely.
In any event, I probably should utilize her for troublesome errands. But not this one, not yet. She should be started on much simpler tasks first. “No, thank you, Petrana. You remain here.”
“Yes, Mistress Callie.”
Shaking my head, I grabbed a satchel and slipped out and onto a ley line.
Once in ley space, I sent my senses around until I found the line I wanted, and flowed onto it. It took me to the far end of Golden Gate Park, beyond the Polo Field, out near the ocean. Here there were fewer tourists and picnickers; the cold and fog discouraged them.
I walked along a narrow path, between some ancient cypress trees. After a few minutes, I made sure that no human saw me as I left the path, walking straight toward a seemingly impenetrable thicket of brambles. The vines parted as I approached, opening the way, though barely.
After another minute or so, a rusted iron gate came into view. It looked locked, but again, I knew better. I did not slow, raising my hand to it as I drew closer. It opened at my touch, swinging open with a gentle protest of its creaking hinges. I wondered whether the gate would even open for Petrana, a witch’s creature, as it opened for a witch.
Most witchkind houses, even ones without a botanical focus, kept magical gardens. I would be doing some planting myself in the backyard, when I got more settled. Yet this garden was something else. The herbs and strange night-fruits that grew here were too dangerous for anyone’s private yard. I did not like coming here, but I went when I had to, as all witches did.
