A Feather of Stone #3 Page 4

  Then Melita had raised her head, had turned to look at him. She’d wiped mud out of her eyes as he’d stared at her, speechless. She had laughed at him.

  Enraged, he’d raised his mattock again—but she’d thrown out one arm, speaking dark words that whipped around him like strangle vine. And just like that, she’d taken hold of his soul.

  And she’d kept it, for years and years.

  Thais

  I pulled off my cute school top and searched for an old T-shirt, suitable for drudgery. “How about strawberries?” I asked as Clio came and lounged on my bed. “Planting strawberries—I could get behind that.”

  “Too late in the season,” Clio said.

  I rummaged through a drawer. “When will Petra be home?”

  Clio groaned. “Who knows? Once she was gone for almost thirty hours, and then one time she went out to a case and was home in an hour. She said the baby just popped out.”

  I made a face at the mental image, and Clio grinned wryly.

  “Listen,” she said. “We still have to figure out who was trying to harm us. I mean, it seems like the attacks have maybe stopped, but it would strengthen our position to know who was actually behind them. Let’s do another reveal spell before Nan gets home.”

  “Oh, that’s a good idea. What else needs burning down?” Last time we had tried working magick, we’d almost destroyed our home.

  “Very funny,” Clio said, then sat up. “Hey, maybe we should do it right outside Luc’s apartment. I bet lightning would hit it or a meteor would drop on it or something.”

  I tried to smile. Luc was still a very sore subject, despite how hard I was working to put him out of my mind.

  “What do you mean, strengthen our position?” I asked. “Our position on what?”

  Not answering, Clio raised one arm and trailed it along an Indian-print bedspread that I had hung over my window. It was weird, seeing myself performing these natural but dramatic gestures—like a hyper-feminized me.

  I pulled on an ancient tie-dyed T-shirt. “Waiting, here.”

  Clio looked at me. “The whole immortality thing.”

  “What about it?” I asked warily.

  “Have you been thinking about it? I mean, this whole huge possibility was just dropped into our laps, and we haven’t really talked about it.”

  I stared at her. “Yes, we have. We talked about how we didn’t want any part of it, how Daedalus was awful or crazy, how we wanted the Treize to leave us alone.”

  “No, we didn’t,” Clio said seriously. “Maybe you said something like that, but we haven’t really talked it all out. I’ve been thinking about it more and more.”

  “Again I ask, what about it?” I wasn’t liking the direction this conversation was taking, and I headed out of my room and went downstairs.

  In the kitchen I took an apple from the bowl on the table and bit into it. “Man, apples suck here,” I muttered. Clio came in and poured us a couple of glasses of iced tea. She and Petra didn’t drink sodas much—they called them soft drinks and never bought them at the store. Maybe they weren’t natural enough or something. “You haven’t tasted a real apple till you taste an apple in the north, where they’re grown.”

  “Okay, someday I’ll make a point of it. Thais, don’t you want to be immortal?”

  There. She’d said it. Now I couldn’t ignore the white elephant in the room. “Well, no.”

  The expression on her face said she couldn’t believe I had said that.

  “Thais! Immortality! The more I think about it, the more I want it. I want to freeze right here. I don’t ever want to die. And I don’t ever want you to die.”

  “I don’t want us to die either,” I said. “But the idea of the rite terrifies me, especially considering what happened at Récolte! There’s no way I would go through the actual rite. We have no idea what could happen!” Wishing she would just drop it, I got up to put more curtains in the washer. Then I paused, suddenly seeing Petra’s face in my mind but unsure why.

  “I feel—” I began as I heard the front door open. I realized what it had been. “Petra? I sensed you!” I said, amazed. “I sensed you before you came in!”

  “Hi, girls,” Petra called, heading back to the kitchen.

  Excited, I glanced at Clio, but she looked upset and even angry. “We’ll talk about this more later,” she said, and started loading the dishwasher.

  “Pretty cool, huh?” said Petra, entering the kitchen. “You sensed my aura. It’s easier the better you know someone, but you can do it with strangers too or even animals if you concentrate.”

  “Huh,” I said, impressed.

  “And hello to you too,” said Petra, kissing Clio on her cheek. “Your powers are awakening, my dear. As time goes on and you learn more, your powers will increase. Then having a heightened awareness of everything about you will be second nature.”

  She dropped her large macramé purse in a chair. “I noticed the front garden. You two have been working hard.”

  “It was Clio,” I said. “Clio and Melysa. She said to tell you she’d talk to you later.”

  Petra poured herself a glass of iced tea and leaned against the counter, looking tired.

  “Hard day?” I asked, gathering an armful of curtains off the table. I opened the back door to get to the tiny room attached to the side of the house where we kept our washer and dryer. The outside walls of the little add-on room had been scorched, but luckily the appliances inside were fine.

  Back in the kitchen, Petra put her empty glass down. “Yes, it’s been a long one,” she replied. “I’m going to change. Then we can think about dinner.” Giving us a smile, she went into her small alcove room under the stairs.

  “Thais,” Clio whispered. “Please, just think about it. This is really important to me. Say you’ll think about it.”

  I sighed. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”

  Clio nodded, then went back out to the front yard.

  Leaving me feeling totally uneasy.

  Not to Be Trusted

  Axelle rang the doorbell. On the second floor, a casement window cranked open, and Sophie leaned out.

  “Oh—hi,” she said. Axelle knew why she was surprised—she and Sophie and Manon didn’t usually socialize. But then again, this wasn’t exactly a social call.

  “Can I come up?”

  In answer, Sophie pressed the buzzer that unlocked the downstairs door.

  Upstairs, Axelle looked around. “This is nice,” she said. There was one large room, a small kitchen off it, and then a hall that Axelle assumed led to bedrooms. “Do you get tired of moving?” she asked, surprising herself. She didn’t usually give a rat’s ass about what Sophie or Manon thought.

  Manon came down the hall, wearing a short silk dress. Axelle had the fleeting thought of the huge sum Manon could make as a child prostitute, then felt a little abashed. Manon never would, of course. But she could make a fortune, and it wasn’t like she was actually a child, anyway.

  “What’s up?” Manon asked, sitting in an armchair.

  “Axelle just asked if we were tired of moving,” Sophie said, seeming confused.

  “That’s not what I’m here for,” Axelle said, sitting on the couch. She leaned back against the arm and put her feet up.

  “Do you want something to drink?” Sophie asked politely.

  “God, yes,” said Axelle. “What do you have?”

  “Um, tea or . . . or we have some wine open, and I think we have some Cointreau. Manon was cooking with it.”

  “A little Cointreau would be nice,” said Axelle. “ Thanks.”

  “What’s this about our moving?” Manon asked.

  “No—I’m here to talk about Daedalus,” Axelle said, taking the small glass from Sophie. “Thanks. It’s just, when I walked in, I thought about how many apartments I’d lived in over the years, and I had a one-second thought about whether anyone else got tired of moving.” Now she felt exhausted, having this stupid conversation. This was why she didn’t sociali
ze with Sophie and Manon.

  “I get tired of it,” said Manon, leaning her head back. Her fair blond hair spread across the chair like in a shampoo commercial. She would have been a knockout as a grown woman. It was too bad.

  “There was a place in Provence, before it became popular,” Manon went on. “We loved it there.” She looked at Sophie, and Sophie smiled and nodded. “We would have stayed forever, but after a couple of years, people always start to wonder why I’m not getting older.”

  A dark bitterness lay beneath her words. For the first time it occurred to Axelle that Sophie and Manon might have different agendas. She glanced again at Sophie, saw her face was drawn and sad, though she was trying to hide it. Axelle took a slow sip of her drink, inhaling the intense orange scent, letting the liquid burn slowly down her throat. Frankly, she preferred vodka. Vodka you could just knock back.

  “I know what you mean,” Axelle said. “The longest I ever stayed in one place was eight years. It gets tiresome, moving all the time.” She paused, shifting. Did it matter to her plan if they wanted different things? Should she approach this differently? She didn’t know. She was tired of thinking about it. Might as well throw it out there. “So, when Daedalus told me of his plan, of finding the twins—well, it all seemed to make sense to me. We all have something to gain from doing the rite, no? But lately I’ve been wondering if Daedalus perhaps has some other plan that no one, not Jules nor I, knows about. To tell you the truth, I’ve been wondering if he can be trusted.”

  Sophie and Manon just looked at her solemnly.

  “And not only him—Petra also. She’s so concerned about the twins and their safety that she might not be seeing the big picture. She might not care what Daedalus is up to as long as the girls are safe. I’ve been worried. I feel like I need a backup plan. Like we all need a backup plan. What do you say?”

  “What do we say to what?” Manon asked, eyebrows drawn together.

  “Forming an alliance,” Axelle said, impatient. “The three of us. If we know that we’re guarding each other’s backs, we might be able to relax a bit, not worry so much. I mean, we’re dealing with the Treize here. Who among them can you trust?”

  “Yes, I see,” Sophie said slowly.

  “I don’t know what Daedalus is planning,” said Axelle, putting her empty glass on the coffee table. Her stomach felt pleasantly warmed by the Cointreau. “I don’t know what anyone is planning. I want to talk to everyone, away from Daedalus. I want us, at least some of us, to be standing together when his plan goes down.”

  “That makes sense,” said Manon, looking at Sophie.

  “Well, you think about it,” said Axelle, standing up. She smoothed her Lycra skirt over her hips and slipped her feet back into her high-heeled sandals. She remembered the horrible, ugly shoes everyone wore during World War II and shuddered.

  “Think about it, talk it over, and let me know, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Sophie, walking her to the door. “Thanks for coming to talk to us about it.”

  Axelle paused, one step down, and looked up at Sophie. “You and I are different and always will be,” she said. “After this drama is over, we might not speak again for sixty years. For the most part, I don’t care what your life is like or what you two do with it. But if this situation is dangerous, if Daedalus is planning to use us for something, the way Melita did, then we need to stand together, tightly together, you know?”

  “Yes.” Sophie nodded, seeming sad again.

  “Okay. So, later.” Axelle went down the stairs and out onto the quiet neighborhood street. She took a deep breath, then stopped to light a cigarette. Goddess, that had been hard. It was so much harder to be sincere than to spin a web of half-truths that wouldn’t hold up to the light. It was so unnatural. She shook her head, blew out a long stream of smoke, and headed to her car.

  Clio

  Thais would take some convincing. That much was clear. I needed to come up with Thais-like reasons for her to do it. Like, if she were alive long enough, she could figure out how to cure cancer. Something like that. Or if we were immortal, we’d never have to worry about anyone attacking us again. We could laugh at muggers and light posts. How could she not want that, and right now?

  I would talk to her about it later and maybe do some more research. But first I had my other quest, my other spell.

  In my vision of Cerise dying at the rite, I’d seen runes and sigils glowing on the ground for a split second, right before the lightning hit. They had burned like fire. Some of them I’d recognized—some I hadn’t. But they all had to do with Melita’s spell—

  “Clio?”

  So much for my sensing skills. I jumped at Nan’s voice, then turned to see her in the doorway of my room.

  “Sorry—didn’t mean to startle you.” She looked a bit bemused that she’d been able to.

  “Working on my ROA,” I said, gesturing to my Book of Shadows, the notes spread everywhere.

  “Then I hate disturbing you,” she said. “But could you do me a favor? I’m showing Thais some basic centering spells, and I’ve realized we’re all out of blue candles. I really think they’d help.”

  “You want me to run to Botanika?” I said, loving the idea of getting out.

  “Would you? If you get the candles, we can keep working till you get back.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, sliding my feet into some kitten-heeled mules. I did it slowly, hoping Nan wouldn’t wait for me. She smiled and headed back downstairs, and I whipped over to my bed, shoved all my notes back into my BOS, then spelled it and put it on my desk, very casual looking. I took a page of unknown symbols and stuck it into my miniskirt pocket, then hurried downstairs.

  “Back in a few,” I said, passing through the workroom.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” said Nan. “Be extra careful.”

  “Gotcha.” I grabbed my purse and car keys and headed out the front door into the night. It was warm but not awful, and I was thrilled to get out for a while. I’d been so housebound lately, what with all the Cinderella-ing, coupled with the humiliating lack of boyfriend. I mean, I always had someone around. But not since I’d met Luc. No, since that whole train wreck, I’d been alone, pathetically advising my sister on date-wear while I sat home knitting. Okay, well, metaphorically knitting.

  I drove down Magazine Street to Botanika. Inside, I got myself an iced latte, then took it into the store section. They had the best collection of occult books in New Orleans, which was saying something.

  First I looked in the spellcraft section. I found a couple of books that were a bit over my head, but even they dealt with spell forms I’d heard of before: the basic “cast circle, call on elements, delineate spell and its limitations, call power, enact spell, disband.” Familiar stuff and then some variations, including an interesting one that relied on natural limitations, like phases of the moon. It seemed somewhat risky to me, but nothing hit me as very dangerous or dark or super-powerful.

  I glanced around, but no one was paying attention to me. There was another, restricted area of the book section: a short, dark passageway lined with bookshelves. At one end was a fire exit. A gold cord and a sign blocked entrance from the store. Not open to minors, due to the sensitive nature of the works within.

  I slipped under the cord. My eyes adjusted almost immediately to the dim light.

  Small, faded paper labels identified some shelves. There were sections for Biography, Spellcraft, Grimoires, Books of Shadows, Witch’s Tools, Tantric Power, and so on. Biography of a Dark Witch was one title, and my eyes widened with interest. But first I needed to see what else was here. Don’t Invoke Danger seemed pretty forbidding. There were more: Celestial Omens, Personal Power, The Thin Line Between Light and Dark, and one titled simply Dark Magick.

  All of them looked incredible, and I couldn’t believe I’d never been in here before. Actually, I wasn’t sure they would sell me any of them anyway. I could try. But I wasn’t finding anything about immortality, channeling lightning, or somet
hing. I would know it when I saw it.

  I didn’t have much time. Nan would give me only so long, then call my cell phone, worried. I would have to come back another time. Quickly I stooped down and looked at the dark-spined books on the lower shelves. Many of them were in different languages. Curious, I pulled out one called Mastering Life, which I thought might be about immortality. It kind of was, but it didn’t seem to parallel Melita’s spell in any way.

  A book called Forbidden Symbols caught my eye, and I pulled it out. Flipping through it, I saw one and then two of the unknown sigils from my vision. I tucked the book under my arm. I would try to buy it, and if they wouldn’t sell it to me, then I’d come back later and copy its information. I was about to leave when I saw a thin, falling-apart volume shoved toward the back of one shelf. I could see it only from above—at eye level the other book’s spine covered it. I eased it out carefully, its binding practically crumbling in my hands. Once it had been dark red, but now it was so old and grimy, it was almost black. I opened the cover.

  Being the Personal History of One Hermann Parfitte; and How He Learned to Subvert the Power of Others, I read silently. Subvert the power of others? Bingo. That was more like what Melita had done. I tucked that book under my arm too and stood, and just as I did, a rush of heat and awareness made me think—Richard.

  I whirled and saw . . . Luc. Watching me from the entrance of the restricted area. As usual, a flush rose in my cheeks and my heart started beating fast. Keeping my face neutral, I walked right toward him and ducked under the cord, forcing him to step aside. I brushed past him and headed for the candle section.