He sighed, walking toward the Pyramid. “You did good, Red. I don’t want them to take that away from you. You should have been First Witch.”
“The ranking doesn’t matter,” Red said. She was more concerned for him. “I mean, it’s a smack to the ego, you know. To get beat by an eighteen-year-old. But she’s been studying this stuff since she was a kid. It’s not exactly a surprise that she can do some fancy magic.”
“Fancy can get you killed,” Vic said, pausing to glare up at the giant banyan tree. Ravens regarded him from the drooping branches. “Even just the tactics in that last fight… She went for the distraction. You went straight for the witch.”
Red crossed her arms, soaked shirt clinging to her. Freezing in the air conditioning, she shivered. She told herself it was that and not the memory of that shadow presence, alien and sentient, above the circle of bones. “Damn, Trudy is packing heat. I saw her witch fight when she saved that girl, but that was next level conjuring.”
“Yeah, what was that?” Vic scratched his forehead, palm propped on his hip.
“I thought she was in textbooks at the Bard university.”
“I must have skipped that class,” Vic said. “She was doing down and dirty shadow shit. What other tricks are up her sleeve?”
Red wanted to pinch her nose, but she needed to bleach her hands first. Trudy had gotten permission from the academy to do the spell, not dropped it in for kicks. She spun the conversation away. “Are we still getting that victory dinner with Lashawn? It’s just a regular dinner now, but still.”
“Do you even still want to?”
“You know I need to eat after all that,” Red reminded. He had seen her hoovering granola bars in the van, then passing out after using even a bit of magic. Tonight, she had outdone herself even if she lost. “Plus, I love seeing Lashawn. I just have to spray this medicine on me, pop an Advil, and shower. Actually, reverse the order.”
“Meet you in the lobby after you change.” Vic spun away to march to the portal platform.
Red went up to her dorm suite, ignoring the gawkers except to thank the one adept who turned the spiral dorm stairs into an escalator for her. She sighed in relief to see that Hannah hadn’t returned yet. She had no hard feelings for the girl, but she wasn’t up for conversation until she took care of herself. Her stiff upper lip was softening.
Gingerly peeling off her clothes, she examined the burns on her arm and legs. They were shaped like a giant octopus’s sucker. What hell dimension did Trudy conjure that thing from?
She cranked down the shower’s heat for the sake of her burns as she lathered, rinsed, and repeated to get the cold rain and ghoul grime off her. Maybe it was the fact that she had wrestled in the mud, but Red couldn’t just wear her usual black shirt and jeans. She tossed on a cute top after she had sprayed on the rest of Doctor Finch’s green potion. The medicine soothed the burns instantly. She dried her hair and dabbed on more makeup than she had worn in a week.
She couldn’t wait until dinner, so she nibbled on a handful of crackers in the suite’s kitchenette. If she didn’t, she’d feel unbalanced and twitchy while they waited for food. The magic lessons must have sunk in because she had regulated her energy well with crystal and herbs. She didn’t have that usual flu feeling like when she had done magic in the past. She was just hungry. Super hungry.
Magic use could leave a witch unsettled until she balanced herself between the mystical and the mundane. She might not have gotten top marks for her magic, but she had used a lot tonight. Food, exercise, a long sleep, or sex—things like that centered the energies. A steak would do the trick, and if not, there was a dance floor in the Nostradamus. She didn’t have a good option for the last cure, so she didn’t think about it. Tossing a stake and a small cylinder of were-mace in her black purse, she trotted out of the suite and down to the lobby of the Circle Casino.
Vic pushed off from a pillar not far from where they had seen Ezra in his one and only performance. “Were we supposed to dress up?”
“I felt the need to be groomed,” Red said primly, sweeping her hair over her shoulder.
“Red!”
“Lashawn!” Red spun around, hearing Vic’s younger brother. She rushed up to the waving man in the sweater vest and thick black-framed glasses, giving him a hug, muffling his hellos. Vic had been taken in by Lashawn’s father Henry Constantine when the boys were eight and nine. They had both been trained as hunters by their Bard father, but Lashawn had forged his own path. She hadn’t seen him since a hunt over a year ago in Utah. When some meth-dealing vampires put her in the hospital, he hadn’t left her side.
She pulled away to check him out. He looked so much like the few pictures she had seen of his African American mother, but he had the late Henry Constantine’s blue-gray eyes. His khakis and white collared shirt looked crisp against his dark skin, but his face had a fatigued cast. “You look so business casual.”
“That’s the accountant’s uniform.” Lashawn chuckled, an arm over her shoulder as he glanced around. “Where’s Vic?”
Vic stepped forward, smile almost shy. “It’s a Saturday. You could be casual casual.”
“I didn’t even think. I was still looking for a…” Lashawn put a knuckle to his lips and his hand to his hip. His eyes shined with sudden tears. He stared at Vic’s legs before pulling him into a bear hug. Taller than Vic, he smushed his brother’s face and mullet against his chest.
“I’m glad to see you too.” Vic pushed away, wiping at his eyes roughly. He brushed back his mullet, straightening his denim jacket. “You can tell I got a haircut.”
Lashawn chuckled. “Tell me all about it over dinner. The last conference session went into overtime. Haven’t had more than a banana since lunch.”
Vic leaned over and read the lanyard around Lashawn’s neck. “Lashawn Higgins? Using your mom’s name?”
“Professionally, yes. If you met the ghouls in my HR department, you’d want to keep the famed Constantine name out of it.” Shoulders tensing, Lashawn said it lightly, like a man stepping over a landmine.
“Speaking of, I fought some today.” Red tossed the segue like a lifeline to Lashawn.
He grinned, relief relaxing his posture. “Regale me with the tale. At length.”
The trio passed by the casino floor and the Nostradamus lounge on their way to the steak restaurant. The conversation lulled as they watched a guard turn away belligerent tourists from a roped-off hallway. The annoyed leader of the booze cruise knocked over a sign listing the new amenities under construction.
“We don’t need to watch them get 86’d, Vic.” Red tapped her foot. “I’m starving.”
Wiser than Vic in the face of a hangry woman, Lashawn quickly had them seated in a booth in the dimly lit steakhouse. Red sat on the booth’s edge, blurting out her order (“Yes, rare is fine, whatever gets it out quicker”) after Vic uncharacteristically took forever to figure out his order beside her. Bless him, Lashawn made his decision like a man who had already looked up the menu beforehand.
The conversation turned to his work after the waitress left. Lashawn used a lot of terms she didn’t understand with metaphors she didn’t quite get about investments and spreadsheets. Something about deductions and subsidiaries. Nerdy yet considerate, he was jazzed about his job but also knew that few could withstand more than fifteen minutes of it. He folded his hands on the table, smiling at Vic across the table. “I know you don’t want to hear about my conference because even in a magical casino, it’s still accounting. Tell me about your new case.”
“How do you know there’s a new case?” Vic buttered up a piece of table bread in the time it took Red to inhale two.
“There is always a new case. What does the Brotherhood have you doing this time?” Lashawn asked, smile slightly forced. “Hopefully, they’re giving you healthcare now. Considering.”
Vic froze beside her on the booth bench.
Red stuffed more bread into her mouth. Vic had already told her to zip her lip
s about his sacking. Staring across the dining room where jazz twinkled over the well-dressed patrons, she tried to summon the waitress with her mind. It wasn’t a spell, but their food arrived a minute later. She nearly bowed her thanks. Hunched over her steak, she chewed, too busy to throw Vic a conversational lifeline.
“It’s not the Bards this time. Even though there is one that I’d like to…” Vic stabbed at his steak before he continued telling the story about Hannah and the Lopes gang.
“…well, you can’t set out wolfbane hidden in cans of dog food like you did when we were kids.” Lashawn laughed.
Red enjoyed her meal and wine as she mostly listened to the brothers’ banter, only adding the sporadic comment. Full and sleepy, she could almost ignore the returning ache to her burns. This easy conversation had been hard won.
She remembered the brothers’ last fight in the hospital parking lot in Utah. She had been dipping in and out of a painkiller haze, but it had looked ugly from her perch in the front seat of the Millennium Falcon. The brothers worked like a well-oiled unit in a fight, yet something about that hunt had been too much for Lashawn, already half out of the life. He had grabbed his go-bag, yelled something about Vic hunting instead of visiting the hospital, and left in a taxi. Then radio silence. They’d only reconnected last month in Arizona. It made her heart feel fuller to see the two men getting along so well now.
Chuckling, Lashawn nearly had to arm wrestle Vic for the bill.
“I’m the big brother, here!”
Lashawn dropped the cash directly into the waitress’s hand with a word of thanks. He smiled. “My firm pays better than the Brotherhood.”
Red elbowed Vic. She had a feeling about why it was so important to Lashawn to show he was doing alright out there. Brotherhood kids generally followed in their parent’s footsteps. “Let the big spender impress us.”
“I’m just a kept hunter here.” Vic hung his head over his beer glass.
“You told me your conspiracy theory about Red getting cheated out of glory,” Lashawn commented as he finished up his espresso. “My sympathies.”
“The flan made up for it.” Red patted her stomach. “Thank you!”
Lashawn propped his elbow on the table, shrugging. “But I still don’t get something. Why do you really hate this Trudy Fox?”
“She got me fired from the Brotherhood.” Gruff voiced, Vic hung his head. “One too many complaints about being an asshole interfering with another Bard’s territory, I guess.”
“That’s great… I mean, It’s awful, but now you’re free. You did your tour of duty, and now you’re out.” Lashawn grinned, hands lifting to the side. “Time for a normal life. Not the freakshow that Dad set us up for.”
“This is my normal life,” Vic said, voice pitched dangerously low.
Red felt the vibes curdle as the brothers squinted at each other from across the table. Vic had a very uncomplicated relationship with his adopted father, Henry. He idolized him. Lashawn might have been the man’s biological son, but the two had different views of their childhoods. Raised to fight demons, they had spent more time on the road than in school after Lashawn’s mom died. Red had heard all about it in Utah.
Vic jabbed his finger on the table. “It was your normal life until you ran away.”
“I got away with all my limbs functioning.” Lashawn winced. He shook his head, pushing his black glasses farther up his nose. “You almost didn’t. Now’s your chance.”
Vic cleared his throat. “Red, I think me and my little brother need—"
“Already gone.” Red got up and waved to Lashawn as she left with another muttered thank you. Fingers crossing, she hoped their fragile peace didn’t shatter. In the meantime, she needed to drop by the doctor before bed.
Each step rubbed her clothes against the burns on her ankle and arms as she left the steak restaurant. It switched her focus from Vic’s lousy day to her own. She needed to do something fun soon. Walking by a mural of the moon phases to a hidden door to the academy, Red double-checked her mental calendar. It was full tonight. Werewolves could shift at any time, but they were strongest in the nights around the full moon. She didn’t think the Lopeses would be around for long, but she didn’t want to worry about it. Merging into a crowd of people streaming out of the nearby casino theater, she noted the show times. There was enough in the Circe Casino and its secret academy to occupy her.
If infection didn’t carry her off first, Red thought grimly as she trekked into Pyramid Hall and down the corridor toward the medical office. She didn’t like thinking about the bacteria she had been covered in during the ranking. The instructions for the medical spray recommend not bandaging the wounds, but she wasn’t sure. She had run out of it anyway.
The lights weren’t on in either the medical office or the attached apothecary, but the door was unlocked. Red poked her head inside. Only a single light shined from the end of a hall by the front desk. A low voice echoed off the shiny floor.
Red could have sworn she heard Doctor Finch. She stalked toward the light, quiet so she didn’t interrupt what she assumed was a phone call while the man finished last-minute tasks. He had seemed sympathetic in the Ranking Court. She figured he wouldn’t mind loading her up with more burn supplies. The doctor rattled off a list of potion ingredients as she crept to his cracked-open office door.
“That elixir will fortify you, but Ms. Fox…” Doctor Finch said, his voice gentle even in reproach. “You’re a learned witch, you know what effect such powerful magic use has on your condition.”
Red pressed against the wall near the door at the name. She screwed up her eyes. Oh shit, did she just learn that Trudy was pregnant?
“It’s terminal cancer, doctor. The direction is the same,” Trudy said, tone brisk as she dropped the mind-blowing statement.
Ezra snapped, “Well, the speed isn’t, Mom!”
Red covered her gasp, her feet planted to the ground. Had she really heard that? Hannah hadn’t mentioned…
“I’ve gotten used to having you around, Mom.” Ezra’s voice wavered. “I’m ready to take care of you, you can take it easy now.”
“I am not an invalid. I don’t need a nurse,” Trudy said, coolly indignant.
Doctor Finch began, “But rest is essenti—"
“I’m not dragging you to a hospice, Mom. I just don’t want you to drain yourself summoning shadow creatures.” Ezra pitched his voice calm like a peacemaker, but a thread of fear masquerading as frustration wove through his words. “I’ve saved up enough money. You can actually enjoy yourself for as long as you…” He paused, audibly swallowing his sorrow to continue in a firmer voice. “You don’t need to work is what I’m saying.”
“Work? I have been called to my last service to the Brotherhood,” Trudy said. “It’s an honor to answer that summons.”
“You want a fight. Why not for your life?” Ezra pleaded, tugging at Red’s heart.
“I already fought for it. Then the cancer came back, and not even magic can stop it. Another round of chemo would sap my strength and then what use would I be?” Trudy said, cold logic chilling her blunt words. “I’m here to train Hannah Proctor and whatever my order asks of me. You’re thinking of my life. I’m thinking about my legacy.”
“I’m thinking of my mother!”
Doctor Finch coughed, the sound desperate as if more for attention than any ailment. “You are both right. The medicinal and the mystical have limitations that no reasonable person would pass. This is a time to make yourself comfortable.”
“Comfort is secondary to the duty from my Brotherhood. Hannah must not know,” Trudy ordered.
“Mom…” The sound of a shifting chair drifted through the cracked open door.
Red seized up. They would find her eavesdropping once they opened the door. She could explain how she got there but not why she stayed… Except morbid interest and horrified sympathy. Somehow, she doubted that would go over well. She tiptoed back out of the medical office swiftly and closed t
he door quietly behind her to retreat to the Pyramid.
The sight of the banyan and the nesting swans didn’t soothe her as usual. Not after what she had heard. Forcing herself to slow down in the giant atrium, Red tried not to look like she had just broken into the campus health center and violated doctor-patient confidentially. Nothing to see here, folks. Just a witch on a walk. She tried to be discreet, but it was hard when conversations about her followed. But sadness hung over her, too thick for self-consciousness to penetrate.
Ian saluted her, standing next to another Gendarme member collecting silver keys disguised as poker chips from people disappearing through an archway.
She nodded, giving a little wave as she moved on. The night felt like too much suddenly. It wasn’t the burns. It was everything else. She didn’t look up until she had pushed open the door of her dorm suite.
Hannah sat on the couch, brown hair pulled into a messy braid. Burn spray and a skincare collection lay on the small coffee table in front of her. She smiled tentatively. Raising a pack of makeup remover wipes, she pulled one out. “We haven’t had a chance to do my face cream blessing. Want to watch a movie with me and try one?”
“That’s the best thing I’ve heard today.” A wan smile twitching at her lips, Red closed the door on all of tomorrow’s worries.
Chapter Ten
The next morning, Red woke to an excited voice message from Hannah that they had the day off and she was at the pool (“It’s so nice out!”) Grumbling, Red pressed her face to the pillow, texting back blindly. She had been right. The teen had bounced back quickly from the ranking exam. Red passed back out after that thought and didn’t wake up until noon.
After rummaging around the dorm suite kitchenette for food, she decided she would see a movie. Maybe even go wild and see two. Still grossed out by her encounter with the ghoul, she scrubbed hard again in the shower, careful around the already scabbed-over burns. She used more of Hannah’s spray on them. Puttering around watching TV, checking her emails, and loafing on the couch, Red enjoyed having nothing to do and nowhere to go.
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