Ignite the Fire: Incendiary

by Karen Chance

  What wasn’t in question was that she was no longer around to help, we were a world besieged, and I couldn’t fight Zeus in her place!

  But that was looking more and more like what people expected me to do. Because great Artemis, the famed virgin goddess, might have overtasked herself in the fight with the other gods and eventually faded, but she’d left behind a single, half-human child in her stead. Just another one of the kids that the gods had littered about all over the place, most of whom had come to a sticky end.

  I didn’t know why she’d done it. Maybe it had been an oops moment, a little sexual healing with a mortal that got out of hand. Maybe it had been deliberate, the result of her wanting someone to cling to in those last few years of life, because the one thing the gods didn’t seem to know how to do was to die. Or maybe she’d actually hoped that I’d finish what she’d started. Like so many things with her, who the hell knew?

  All I did know was that I’d taken waaaaayyyy more after the human side of things than the divine, to a completely unfair degree considering the nifty gifts that other demigods had gotten. I wasn’t a brilliant warrior like Achilles, off to cover himself in glory in the Trojan War. I wasn’t a supernatural strong man like Heracles, determined to prove himself to his divine father and join the ranks of the gods. I wasn’t a famed monster-killer like Perseus, battling gorgons and assorted other terrors. I was just Cassie, a clumsy, occasionally clairvoyant, mostly clueless nobody and I couldn’t do this!

  I shouldn’t have to do this!

  A sudden rush of anger overtook the fear, causing me to throw off the blanket and stumble out of bed. And then to stumble again because I was dizzy as hell. I grabbed Gertie’s bedpost and held on while the room swirled violently around me. I stared back at it resentfully, at the rush of brown and mauve and brilliant, yellow sunlight, and wished, not for the first time, that my mother was here so I could yell at her.

  But somebody else yelled instead.

  “Get off! Get off with ye! Rotten beasts!”

  It was coming from the street outside, so I staggered drunkenly over to the window and threw up the sash. And discovered the local pie man on the street down below, in a fresh white apron and soft cap, on his way to a nearby park. My mood lifted immediately.

  He wasn’t one of those highly dubious streetside sellers who had populated the Victorian age, with “meat” that could be anything from unwanted off cuts, many also old or diseased, to . . . well, whatever stray was handy. No, this one owned a respectable shop a few streets over, where I’d eaten a couple of times. And just took his extras to the local park to sell to the Saturday crowds for a little extra cash.

  Unfortunately, today he’d come along at the same time as another entrepreneur: the neighborhood cat meat seller.

  That wasn’t as bad as it sounds. The guy in the blue apron and beat-up stovepipe didn’t actually carve up any kitties, at least not that he admitted to. He sold meat for cats, and dogs, as well. It was horse meat, from some of the thousands of dray horses that died in the city every year, and was colored a bilious green or a sickly blue so that it couldn’t be resold for human consumption. It substituted for the commercially produced pet food that no one had invented yet.

  And the kitties knew it.

  Roving gangs of strays and escapees from fussy old lady parlors ganged up to patrol the streets, and to lie in wait for the cat meat guy to come by. And then to do what they were currently attempting, while the peddler beat at them with his hat. It did not appear to be helping, and neither did the pie-man’s yelling, which increased in volume when a large, stray dog darted into the fray, stole a pie, and ran off down the street with it.

  I stopped watching the spectacle, fun as it was, and started looking for my purse. It was a gift from Gertie for whenever one of our training sessions took us outside, so that I’d have some local money on me. I found it on the top shelf of the wardrobe, with a few coins still in the bottom.

  Score!

  Somebody had stripped off my tattered pink silk number and put me in a thin, dove gray dressing gown. I pulled it close about the throat and scurried to the window again. I caught sight of myself in the mirror over the washstand on the way, and it wasn’t pretty. My hair was everywhere and my face was deathly pale, except for my cheeks. They were bright pink from sleep and smeared with the makeup from yesterday, or whenever the hell I’d gotten dressed for a ball I’d never made it to.

  But there was no chance to fix it now. I stuck my head out the window, in time to see the cat food seller running down the road as fast as his legs could carry him, his wheelbarrow-like vehicle bump, bump, bumping over the cobblestones ahead. Most of the gang of fat felines and tough looking street dogs were in pursuit, leaving the pie man only a couple of freeloaders to chase away. Not that that was going well.

  “Be off wi’you, you mangy cur. And don’t come back!”

  The dog he was addressing was the same one that had already snagged a pie, and looked ready to try for another. But the cat meat guy had dropped some of his wares in his hurry to get away, and the pie man frisbeed a few of the larger scraps at the dog. It adroitly caught them in mid-air, rewarding the man with a sloppy grin and a wag from its stump of a tail. Then it trotted off, looking smug and chewing on its latest prize.

  I didn’t have a prize, but I wanted one. Only I needed permission first. “Pie?” I asked my power hopefully.

  The Pythian power was not, as I’d once believed, merely some kind of supernatural battery. It had a consciousness all its own, one it had developed in the centuries after Apollo sliced off a bit of his energy to give to his priestesses at Delphi, the original Pythian Court. He might have assumed that it would help to keep us in line, but the power had had different ideas. It had taken its duties seriously, and become as much a guardian of the timeline as we were.

  It was a symbiotic relationship, with the Pythias serving as its eyes and ears through our clairvoyance, and it serving as the source of our power. It sent us wherever there were problems with the time line, and we did our best to fix them. And it compensated for whatever we screwed up in the process.

  Or, at least, it tried.

  But there were things it couldn’t fix, and you never knew what those things might be. A man dying could end up being less problematic for the time line than something seemingly trivial—like buying a pie. So, I’d learned to ask, whenever I had a chance, before I put my foot in it. And although the power didn’t speak, it had ways of letting me know if I was about to make a serious mistake.

  But it was seemingly indifferent to me buying breakfast, so I shook my purse to get the pie man’s attention, and saw his eyes zero in on my window.

  He made a big to-do about doffing the flat cap that he’d just put back in place, and sketched a bow. “Send your servant out, miss, and I’ll send her back with the best pies in London!”

  “What kind of pies?” I asked breathlessly, my stomach growling.

  “Why, whatever kind you like. Minced meat and gravy; eel; beef with eel liquor—really stick to yer ribs, they will; steak and kidney; good old chicken; ham and leek—”

  “One of each, except the eel,” I said, trying to talk while salivating.

  “Right you are, miss. Just send out your girl—”

  “Can’t we do it from here?”

  He paused, probably because I was on the second floor and there was a significant gap between the house and the street due to the sidewalk, and then to the stairs that went down a flight to the servants’ entrance below street level.

  But I didn’t give him a chance to say no. I threw him the purse, even though it contained way more than necessary, and saw his face transform. The guy wanted to sell some pies. Which was perfect, because I wanted to eat some! I was freaking starving; I was always freaking starving anymore, and that was when I hadn’t missed a meal or two. My stomach grumbled plaintively, and loudly enough that I was surprised he didn’t notice.

  “I’ll take ‘em down to yer kitchen maid
,” he offered, and started for the servants’ entrance.

  “No! No, I mean, that won’t be necessary.”

  The confused look was back. “Well, how am I supposed to get ‘em to ye?”

  “Can’t you just, um, toss them?”

  “Toss ‘em?” He sounded like he wasn’t sure he’d heard me properly.

  Which was fair, ‘cause this was crazy. But while Gertie had a kitchen, I didn’t know why I was here, or how much of a blessing out I was likely to get before anyone let me eat. I wasn’t supposed to just show up without warning, much less phased out of my mind. It might be hours before I saw breakfast.

  “Yes, toss them!” I called. “One at a time. I’ll catch.”

  The pie man looked at me, looked at the purse in his hand, and did the tradesman’s shrug. The one that said that the customer was crazy, but what did he care? He was getting paid.

  “No take backs if you drop ‘em,” he warned.

  I started to point out that I’d just given him enough for a couple dozen pies, maybe the whole damned cart. But I didn’t. I wanted him to be careful. I didn’t want to have to explain to Gertie why the side of her house was plastered with pies.

  “I won’t drop them,” I promised, and watched him carefully select a pie, wrap it in a bit of rag, and toss it at my window.

  I almost fell out trying to catch it, because somebody had put a bandage around my hurt hand, and it made me even clumsier than usual. I’m pretty sure I flashed him, given his expression when I looked back up, but I had a pie! I put it on the washstand, fixed my robe, and here came another.

  And another and another, and God, I was going to feast. They smelled heavenly, and didn’t even look too bad. Maybe I should have gotten an eel one, too, I thought, right before a knock came at the door.

  I looked up, panicked, and quickly threw a towel over my stash. Just in time, because the door opened and there she stood: Agnes, Gertie’s heir apparent and my predecessor in this crazy job. Which translated to a deceptively demure looking brunette in a long, white dress who didn’t bother with the sweetheart act around me.

  Around me, she always looked like she smelled something bad, and today was no exception.

  Today she actually sniffed and then frowned. “What is that?”

  “What is what?”

  “That smell. That disgustingly greasy smell.” She eyed me. “Is that you?”

  “No! And what do you want?”

  “To know what you’re up to.”

  “Nothing—”

  “Liar. You’re always up to something.”

  “I’ll try to make sure I don’t disappoint you,” I said dryly. “But as you can see, I just got up, so if you don’t mind—”

  “You’re wanted downstairs,” she said sourly. “Try to dress appropriately for once.”

  “I always dress appropriately,” I started indignantly, and then cut off. Because Agnes had crossed the room, zeroing in on the washstand, and was reaching for the towel.

  “What have you got there?”

  “Nothing!” I said, and moved to stop her.

  But I didn’t stop her.

  The pie man did.

  I guess he’d gotten tired of waiting for me to reappear in the window, because another of my purchases came shooting through the open space a second later, and nailed Agnes broadside. She went down, I think more out of surprise than anything. And then shot back to her feet, because there was nothing wrong with her reflexes. Her head, on the other hand, was now covered in crust and what looked like—

  “I didn’t order eel!” I yelled out the window, only to have to duck because another oily package was incoming.

  “What the—” Agnes said from behind me, and then cut off when she got nailed again, full in the face this time.

  “Always give a baker’s dozen, me da used to say,” the pie man called up. “That way, they’ll know y’run a proper business.”

  “A dozen?” I said, and turned around from staring at Agnes, only to get nailed in my own right.

  Damn; I had said one of each.

  “What is this?” Agnes demanded, glaring at me.

  I swallowed and licked my lips. “Apple?”

  She smushed half of a chicken pie in my face, really grinding it in, and then left before I could retaliate.

  Not that I wanted to.

  I had pie to eat.

  Chapter Five

  I emerged into the hallway a while later, freshly scrubbed and wearing an awful, Edwardian era frock, which had been the only thing hanging in the wardrobe. It was a white lace, high-necked, torture device with a too-small waist, especially now. It was also scratchy as hell.

  It had been hard to get into with my hurt hand, which had a couple dozen strips of bandages wrapped around it, probably by Gertie. It wouldn’t be the first time she had fixed me up. Pythian training tended to be a little . . . intense.

  Like that, I thought, recognizing the unmistakable sounds of a duel taking place somewhere nearby.

  It was hard to tell where, because the hall outside my bedroom was a long, claustrophobic cigar box, wood paneled and unornamented, except near the stairs at either end, where some uninspired silhouettes tried to gussy the place up. I headed toward the back stairs, where the sounds seemed to be coming from, and which opened onto a landing with a larger cigar box below. Unlike the marble foyer and grand reception rooms in front, this part of the court was rarely seen by outsiders. But it was impressive in its own way, all gleaming hardwood except for where a gorgeous old Persian rug covered part of it.

  The sounds continued as I reached the landing, but they weren’t the rapid-fire snick snick snick of a rapier fight, or the crashing clang of metal on metal of the broadsword variety. There were thuds, yes, like of a body hitting a floor. But those were followed by strange cries, the ahhh . . . ahhhs of exclamations being cut off as people shifted, and then completed as they reappeared somewhere else.

  It was the sound of a Pythian duel, which wouldn’t have been so bad, because the acolytes were always dueling, learning about their power by using it to beat the crap out of each other.

  Only, this time, one of them was mine.

  “Rhea!” I said, after catching sight of her off the landing.

  She looked up, a dark-haired girl in another long, white gown. Only, instead of my usual variety of hot mess, she looked like she ought to be gracing a Victorian era painting of a woman embroidering in a garden, entitled “Sweet Gentility”. Or maybe not, I amended, catching sight of the half tumbled down chignon and the rent in her gown, which showed off a reddened shoulder.

  But her eyes were bright, and her face was suffused with a combination of relief and happiness as she caught sight of me. Until the wild-haired bitch across the foyer leapt up and threw a spell, that is. And Rhea froze as if she’d turned into stone.

  “Damn it!” I said.

  Agnes, the bitch in question, cackled and looked up. She appeared to have washed all the pie off, although I thought I saw a few suspicious brown smears on her bodice. Was that why she was beating up my acolyte?

  “What are you doing to Rhea?” I demanded.

  “What she asked for.” She grinned. “She took exception to something I said.”

  Yeah, probably about me. Agnes had decided that I was a disaster, and didn’t mind saying so. That would have been fine, since I mostly just ignored her. But Rhea was fiercely protective of me, and had a short fuse—especially where Agnes was concerned.

  “She should have learned by now to avoid distractions,” the bitch continued.

  “So should you,” I said, because Rhea’s hand—the one holding a wand—had just twitched.

  Agnes’ eyes flew back to her opponent, but not quickly enough. A bolt of energy hit her, sending her staggering backward, and Rhea tore out of the time spell and pursued. Her face was grim and determined, and her hair was tumbling down around her shoulders as the fat bun gave up the ghost and began crackling with energy. Loose, it looked a lot like
Agnes’.

  Fair enough; daughters often favored their mothers.

  I still found it a little hard to believe that Agnes, by far the biggest stickler for the rules that I had ever met, would one day have a daughter. Who she would then hide away from the supernatural community, because Pythias weren’t supposed to do the horizontal mambo with the head of the Silver Circle, the world’s leading magical authority. Or anybody else, for that matter.

  Pythias didn’t have lovers, or so the story went, since that might compromise their neutrality. The arbiter of the supernatural world needed to be impartial, not favoring one group over the other, including whichever one her lover might come from. That was why Pritkin and I snuck around like a couple of teenagers trying to avoid a vengeful father.

  In reality, Pythias often had partners, although children were far rarer as having them required sacrifices of both mother and child—sacrifices that only one of them had any say in. Rhea had a number of issues with her mother as a result, but couldn’t work through them in our time because Agnes was dead. It was one reason I’d requested that they start training together; the other being that Agnes was a better duelist than I was.

  Or at least a more vicious one, I thought, as she shifted behind Rhea, and when my heir spun about, shifted back to where she’d started and cursed her—or tried to. But Rhea hadn’t fallen for it, and had just shifted herself behind Agnes. Ha!

  I laughed in delight as she froze her mother, because Agnes very rarely had to endure the kind of crap she dished out. Rhea looked up at me again, her face shining with pride. Very short-lived pride.

  “No!” I yelled, and Rhea started, remembering how this had all begun. She hit the floor, just in time to avoid a spell bolt that toppled a bust across the room, and then Agnes jumped her. The two girls started wrestling around the floor, Pythian training forgotten, with a whole lot of cursing, punching and kicking going on.