DEATH AND THE FASHIONISTA
Faith Hunter
The sun was setting when I slipped out of the house and over to the pile of boulders jutting on the crest of the hill. Sitting on the boulders gave me a clear view of the skyline in every direction, of the mountains that arched high and the valley that fell low, bright with the lights of Asheville. Of the sickle moon rising and the few early stars glittering, of the last of the sunset in the west, a scarlet reminder of the day.
If I turned my head, I could see inside my home, the lights glimmering through the windows, my children at the table with their father. The TV’s muted laugh track sounded, stagnant and repetitive.
I ran my hands through the herbs planted around the boulders in the rock garden, releasing the scent of rosemary, basil, thyme, and chives, and pulled my ratty house sweater close against the autumn chill. Night birds called. Something crashed in the underbrush. But I was paying attention to one thing only—the forest I had killed.
I stared at the bare trees, bark sloughing off, revealing the pale wood beneath, limbs broken and pointing at the sky. Pointing at me as if in judgment. The accusation of death. Everything alive there had given itself to the pull of my new and unwanted death magics; the cursed gift had destroyed every blade of grass, every tree, vine, bird, lizard, snake, deer, squirrel. Everything.
With my native earth magics I had blessed and nursed that woods for years, bringing the trees from saplings to full grown and healthy, and then I had killed it all in a slow attrition of leaking Death. Since that time I had managed to encourage a honeysuckle vine to grow there. One vine. A few blades of scrub grass. Nothing else.
I came out here often to remind myself of the dangers of my cursed magics. To remember that if I didn’t tamp down my curse-gift, strangle it, I might kill something more precious than the woods. If I let go, I might kill my husband. My children.
The power was seductive, forbidden. With it I would curse and kill, withering the land and bringing death to the ones I loved.
I massaged my belly and the baby who resided there, a magic user of undisputed power but unidentified future abilities, and I shivered. Night in the heights of the Appalachian Mountains was cold. Or maybe fear made me tremble. That was always possible. Death and fear rode the same horse and, for witches, pregnancy came with the likelihood of peril and sorrow.
As if in answer to my thoughts, the baby kicked. At the same instant, I heard the clop of hooves, two horses, iron shoes on the asphalt road. I pulled on a seeing working. The outer ward was still active, still in place, a pale reddish ring of protection around the house and grounds. A stronger one surrounded just the house. Double wards were difficult to maintain, but with Big Evan’s and my magic combined, not impossible.
The back door opened and Angie poked out her head. “Mama!” she whispered, the word magically amplified by her will and desire. “Company’s coming.”
At her side, EJ, her little brother, stuck out his head. “Com’pee com’n.”
They couldn’t have heard the horses’ hooves, not with the TV on, but Angie was a dangerously strong witch. The clopping grew louder. Closer. I climbed to the ground. “Who?”
“Don’t know his name,” Angie said. “But the lady is Sally.”
“Sauwee,” EJ repeated.
“My angel says she’s a ‘piece a work.’ What’s a piece a work? And he says, ‘Death is the Truth and the Lie. And Death can be cheated.’ My angel’s confusing, mama.”
Confusing. Yeah. And the warning made about as much sense as anything else ever said to me by a supposedly celestial being—which was no sense at all. I clenched my sweater tighter across my chest and rounded belly. “That’s it?”
Angie tilted her head. “Yep. Cheating’s wrong, right mama?”
“Right. Take EJ back inside. Tell Daddy what you told me.” Angie took her brother’s hand and closed the door. I walked around the house to the front, to the darkness at the edge of the driveway, and the sound of horse hooves, getting closer. Cue scary music, I thought.
The outer ward dinged smartly and juddered as horses turned into the drive and stopped.
The security lights came on, illuminating a man on a…a yellow horse. A heavy warhorse in daffodil yellow, its coat gleaming, its feathers, mane, and tail a brilliant white. The man atop the gelding wore black: a leather jacket and pants, Western boots, black saddle, while his flowing hair matched the horse’s white mane. The man was gorgeous and color coordinated, like something out of an airbrushed Ralph Lauren ad.
Beside the yellow horse was a blood bay mare, a woman on the mare’s back, her clothing matching the red horse: scarlet moto jacket, leather pants, boots that came to mid-thigh, matching riding gloves, and lipstick. Her scarlet hair was piled high in an eighties style. She carried a red leather handbag slung over the Western saddle horn, the kind of pricey handbag my sisters loved. Sally and the man were improbable, ill matched, and doing a poor job of aping human. When paranormals came calling, it meant trouble.
Something gleamed on the sole of the man’s boot, darkly glowing, reflecting the silver moon. A taint of hellfire and brimstone. The man had been walking where he shouldn’t. These two were far more dangerous than they looked.
When she saw me, the woman on the blood bay mare laughed. It was the sound of bones dancing, of dead bodies floating on still water, of ravens on a battlefield, laughter that ruined her harmless eighties style statement. Terror skittered up and down my spine at the sound and the thoughts stimulated by her laughter. I dropped my arms and put back my shoulders. Holding my comfy, shabby sweater closed was not saying good things about my self-confidence.
The woman in red looked me over and lifted her eyebrows, mocking. “You’re not what I expected, Molly Megan Everhart-Trueblood.” She had a caustic high-class Southern accent, maybe Georgia. Rich, old-money-Atlanta. Servants, cotillions, and finishing school money. “Such a tacky cardigan.”
“What’s it to you, Sally?” I said.
The woman’s gaze razored in on me, and when she spoke, the words went rough and sharp, like broken glass, her silly eighties façade cracking. “How do you know my name?”
I didn’t answer. “What do you want, Sally? And who’s your pal?” I glanced at the man. His face was pale, his eyes the bright white of the moon.
I heard the front door open, and Big Evan’s air sorcery lifted my hair. We had created the wards to allow him access to air currents and weather outside the magical protections. He whistled a long note and the security lights brightened about a hundred percent. The two uninvited visitors turned aside, blinking. “I asked you a question,” I said to the woman.
“Two,” the man said. “You asked her two questions. Specificity is vital to such as we.”
I tilted my head slightly. “Fine. I asked two questions. I still haven’t received replies.”
Behind me, Big Evan’s whistling trilled. A harsh wind sprang up and blew back Sally’s scarlet locks, whirling, playing havoc with the mounts’ manes and tails, wrapping the man’s hair around his face. The chilled breeze fluffed my own red curls. The heavy animals danced from hoof-to-hoof.
The woman sniffed, scenting the magic, and focused on my hubby standing on the porch. “You know my name,” Sally said, sitting forward in the saddle and gathering her reins into one hand, “but you don’t know his?” She flicked a thumb at the man.
Her question and change in posture sent more fear skittering across me, and I had no idea why. She swirled the fingers of her free hand, amassing power, curling it into her palm. In response, Evan started to hum. The ward began to glow a pale red at the corner of my witchy-eyed vision. My eardrums fluttered as if the barometric pressure had changed with a fast-moving weather front. Sally’s magic spread around her in a slow spiral. I had no idea what she was, or what her gift was, but she was powerful. Fear skittered up my spine like baby spiders hunting.
I wanted to gather my own power, my earth magics, which were still available to me, but Death magics taunted, whispering of the brimstone on the man’s boot. So easy to blast these unwelcome visitors and be done. So easy, it whispered. Just reach and out crush the threat.
But death magic was powerful, a nuclear arsenal compared to the slow, life-giving energies of my earth magics. I might use it—but at the risk of destroying everything. My earth magics were weaker, but came with a much lower price.
I shoved down the desire to rip the visitors apart and said, “All I know about you two is that Death is the Truth and the Lie. And you are a piece of work, Sally.”
The magic in Sally’s hand tangled, fell to the ground, a reaction I felt as much as saw. Eyeing me the way a cat eyed a goldfish in its bowl, Sally said, “No one insults a Death.”
“It isn’t an insult if it’s the truth.” I pressed my small advantage, repeating, very carefully, as if in some mild warning or threat, “What. Do you want. Sally. And who is your pal?”
The pretty man smiled. “I am Death come riding, one of Seven am I. Not youngest nor eldest, Death of Magic, I cry. Untested, unconquered, waiting beyond the veil. Till a ruby haired lass calls, ‘Death Magic, Avail!’”
Riddles. I hated riddles.
Sally said, “You know what your sister thinks about prophecies.”
“Death of War is tired,” the man said, his eyes on me. “What she wants will soon be unimportant. It’s my time to rule.”
I narrowed my eyes at the two, absorbing and dissecting the riddle and the banter. I had red hair; so did my child. There was no way I’d avail myself of death magics. “Death of Magic. Death of War. Titles, not a names.” It wasn’t sneering, it was stalling so Evan could finish whistling up his working. I added, poking the bear only a little, “Death of Magic sounds like a Marvel comic character.” Evan chortled on a breath and went back to whistling softly. In the sky clouds started to build. “Do you kill all magic or everyone who has magic? Either way, you die, too, and no one left alive likes you much.”
Sally said, “Death of Magic has come to offer you a bargain and assistance.”
I said, “Not interested. Not now, not ever.” A cat interrogative sounded. KitKit mewled, winding around my ankles, her tail looping, a steady caress.
“A pet,” Sally sneered. “I expected more of you.”
KitKit leaped at the ward, claws spread, ears back, fangs showing. She hit and screamed a challenge, sticking to the magics for just a moment. The blood bay bolted. The yellow gelding sat back on his haunches, nearly unseating the man. Sally used her entire body to regain control of her mount and Death lunged forward, his arms around his horse’s neck. KitKit slid and dropped to the ground. I laughed as my non-familiar cat sat, lifting her back leg to clean her nether regions, bored. “Name,” I said, taking my cue from the cat and sounding jaded. When neither answered, I said, “Come,” to the cat and turned my back on the uninvited visitors. The man growled at my pointed insult. I kept walking, KitKit loping in front of me. Big Evan’s eyes were on me, my husband not questioning my decision to toy with predators, but offering support and protection. In the distance, I heard the howl of wind. KitKit raced inside.
I climbed the steps and stood beside Big Evan, his bulk and height dwarfing me. I took his hand, his magic surrounding me, surrounding us. Rising, humming with power. My earth magics responded and the ward, the upgraded hedge of thorns 2.0, was glowing so brightly red now that any witch could have seen it even without a seeing working. Even a human could have seen it.
“Tell me,” Big Evan said.
“Brimstone on his boot.”
My husband muttered an imprecation. The two looked a bit silly. They weren’t. Outside, the wind grew stronger.
The man had dismounted and was standing before the ward, hair and clothing blowing in Evan’s wind, his arm up, his palm open, flat. He placed it on the ward. A single loud dong rang, the warning of protection. He pressed, his power creating a prism of hues, iridescent blacks, like oil on ink. The ward gonged again, deeper, heavier. The wind whipped. The black iridescence of his attack spread, the shape of the hand growing, as if he claimed the ward.
Behind him, the horses moved restively, hooves dancing in distress. The wind blasted across them. Sally fought to keep control and slid to the ground, to hold the reins close to their heads.
I watched as hedge of thorns’ energies coalesced at the bottom boundary, where they entered the ground. The red haze of the ward grew thick and bisected the black energies with a sizzle of power, like scarlet lightning. Death’s attack fractured across the dome of energies and fell apart.
Death jumped back, eyes wide. The wind fell, leaving the world silent and still. Death studied the working. I turned my back on him again and slipped past Big Evan, almost into the house.
Death of Magics shouted, “Sam! My name is Sam! And your children are in danger!”
My belly twisted and the baby kicked. Right on my spine. I nearly fell to my knees, but there was no way I was going to appear weak in front of an enemy. I caught myself on the jamb and turned around slowly. “What threatens my family?” I growled—the tone of a mother when her child is endangered.
Death said, “A demon newly freed from the inner circle of Hell has scented you and your bloodline. Your children have gifts too strong to be contained in mere mortal bodies. They will die at the hands of the demon and it will eat the children’s souls. I know this. I am Death of Magic. But I can save them from the demon’s attack. For a price. A small price.”
Death of Magic was either a very bad negotiator or he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Or both. But stupid people could be dangerous. Deadly even.
“Save us for a price? Did you think an earth witch might miss the brimstone on your boots? You set this deception in play to barter for your own needs.” He had said it was his time to rule. He wanted power. I stepped back to the lawn and began to pull the energies of the earth up through the ground. Taking just a fraction-of-a-fraction of life force from every living thing for a hundred miles.
“Oh shit,” Sally said. “I told you this wasn’t going to work.”
“Molly,” Evan said, a gentle warning in his tone. “Be careful. His name is Death. What if this is what he wants?” Meaning, what if they wanted me to get mad, lose my temper, and pull on death magics. Right.
“I’ve got this,” I whispered, thinking, all life. Only life. But I broke out in a sweat, hot and stinking in the night air, straining to hold onto my earth magics and keep the death magics at bay. But … death magics would destroy this threat so easily.
Sam vaulted into the saddle, watching me across the intervening space.
“Sam?” Sally warned.
“Molly?” Evan asked, in nearly the same tone.
“They need to know we’re not without claws.” I shaped the magic of life into a spear point, a knapped and wicked-sharp weapon. I pulled Evan’s magic behind it, like a shaft, to give it distance and force. And I focused on the being that threatened my children. “Now,” I whispered.
Big Evan dropped the outer ward. In the same instant I threw the gift of life. It shot through the air. Toward Death. The point pierced Death’s chest.
Sam fell off his horse.
Through the hole in the ward, something entered. Something dark and cold and seeking destruction. It saw me. It saw my death magics. It saw my blood. The blood demon spread its claws, a cobra hood expanding around its blacklight face. It snapped the hood closed, opened its mouth, rocketed at me. Aiming for my belly and the child within.
“Sam!” Sally shouted. “Don’t!”
“Stop,” Sam said from the ground, a hand out.
The demon stopped, hanging in midair, a foot from me. I backed slowly up the stairs, and through the inner ward on the house itself. The magics composed of the life force of Evan and me, woven together, slid around me and snapped into place.
Evan followed. The magics sealed behind him, too, leaving the demon just beyond our door. Evan turned out the inside lights and we fell together, holding each other. I was shaking, sweating a greasy film of fear, sick to my stomach, pressing gently on the baby with both hands. We stood in the dark, Evan’s arms around me, and watched through the windows. I lay my head against my husband. “I messed up,” I whispered, my voice barely a breath of fear. “I just wanted to make him go away. Mess with his pride a little.”
“I agreed with showing a little power. Get him to back off,” he said. “I didn’t sense the blood demon either.”
“Sam?” Sally asked, leaning around the yellow horse. “You okay, Sammy Boy?”
“I’m hurt.”
“What kind of hurt?” Sally asked.
“I’m green.”
“Gre—” Sally interrupted herself as Sam walked around his mount and up to the hedge of thorns. “Shit, Sam.” She pulled a cell phone from her big purse, aimed it, and took a couple of shots of her partner.
“Stop that!” he yelled at her, just as a toddler might to his nanny. To the house, he shouted, “What have you done to me, witch?” He was still pretty, but now he had green scales, like a snake, and brown hair like dried vines. There were leaves unfurling from his hairline, darker than his scales, and daffodils bloomed from one arm and the right side of his head. Earth magics at work, though the working wasn’t designed to last long. “Make it stop!” he shouted to me, panic in his voice. Yeah. A child. Death of Magic was a grown up child, pampered, spoiled, and not overly bright.
Sally put away her cell, giving me a glimpse of a silver zippered kit of some kind and what I could have sworn was a hair dryer in the red bag. “Sorry Sam. But it’s part of my job. Your daddy will be pissed.”
“You tell Death of Flood about this and I’ll rip out your eyeballs.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. We talked about the demon getting free but you said you could hold it. I told you this was a stupid plan to get close to the witch. Can you get the demon back?”
“No. My gift is…wrong, now.”
“How wrong?” Her tone went jagged again.
“When I call the demon nothing happens.”
“And if you just let it go?” she asked.
“It’ll kill all the Everhart-Truebloods and steal their magic. And then it’ll come after me.”
My shaking worsened.
“Well shit. You really screwed up. Again.”
Death of Magic stared at the snakelike blood demon hanging in the air. “I… I…”
Sally shook her head and to the house shouted, “Little problem out here.”
Little problem. The idiot went to the circles of hell, let lose a blood demon, attacked my house, and set the blood demon on my family. If the demon got free, the result would be even worse than if I had used my death magics—everyone I loved would be dead, their souls sucked into the demon, giving him power. And I still didn’t know what Death wanted. I’d have cried except that the demon whipped his head to me and writhed in the air. Sam, if he ever had control of the demon he had summoned, was about to lose it.
“Sam…” Sally warned.
“I—I—I—” He stopped, swallowed.
My Hubby whistled, the note low and vibrating, like air blowing over a jug. The demon’s motion stuttered to a stop.
I risked a look around and spotted the children on the sofa, sound asleep. In a seeing working, I followed Evan’s blue magics tying our babies into slumber with a rope of our own gifts. It was hasty but powerful work, their own bourgeoning magics reinforcing the working. Death wanted to use them for some purpose of his own, but if we died, our magics would augment the bindings and the tiny ward around them. The demon could get to them through their blood, but Death could never get to the children now. Half the threat beaten. “Good work. What should we do about flower boy, his nanny, and his demon?”
“Fear,” Evan said, his lips scarcely moving, his long red beard shaking slightly. “That’s Sally’s job, Sally’s title. For which info you may thank your sisters.”
I spotted my cell phone in his shirt pocket. “Is it on speaker?”
Evan whistled a soft note. “Two way speaker now.”
Cia said from Evan’s pocket, “We’re both here. And we’re on the way, ETA seven minutes. Faster if Liz wasn’t a wuss driver.”
“Not a wuss. Just want to arrive in one piece on mountain roads,” Liz said.
Boadicea and Elizabeth Everhart—Cia and Liz—were twins, and excellent researchers of witch oral tradition. The twins were the babies of the family, fearless, gorgeous, and always trying spells they shouldn’t.
Cia was a moon witch, nearly powerless at the young sickle moon; Liz was a stone witch, weak from nearly dying, crushed beneath a boulder in a fight with a demon. “Okay. What can you tell us?” I asked.
“The Deaths are an obscure legend tied into oral witch history,” Liz said, her voice tinny over the cell. “There was the first death, Death of Eden and his only son, the second Death—Death of Floods. The legends say Death of Floods has seven children: Death of Starvation, Death of Plague, Death of Childbirth, Death of Age, Death of Misfortune, Death of War, and Death of Magic, who hasn’t used his power since the end of the Burning Times.”
The Burning Times was also called the Roman Catholic Inquisition. So many witches had been killed that our race nearly died out. I stared into the dark and the two standing before the outer ward.
“The Deaths each rule over a form of human death,” Cia said, “except the Death of Eden and the Death of Floods, both of whom retired after they harvested millions all at once. In Flood’s case, according to oral tradition, only eight people escaped.”
“Noah, his family, and his animals,” Liz said.
“So what do we do?” I asked.
Outside, the demon quivered. What might have been a tail whipped hard, hitting the outer ward. The ward emitted a deep and panicked dong, before Death of Magic got the demon in hand again. At the moment we were fine. But if that thing got lose, this could go bad, fast.
“I think we have to invite Death of Magic inside the outer ward,” Evan said, “and use his power to help bind the demon. Then we have to kick Death’s ass.”
I shook my head, not liking that idea at all. But not seeing any alternatives.
“Do we have time to draw up a contract?” Cia asked.
“Would a Death honor a contract?” Liz asked.
“Death can be cheated,” I whispered. “That’s what Angie said.”
“If a witch cheats on a contract the three-fold repercussions are bad. So instead of a contract, we plan on cheating Death and just fly it,” Evan whispered back, miming throwing a paper airplane.
“Good by me,” I muttered. Raising my voice, I called out, “Death of Magic, and Fear. If you come in peace, you are welcome inside the outer ward.”
“We come in peace,” Sally said. “Can I come in and use your powder room? That wind played havoc with my hairdo.”
“Hairdo?” Cia said. “What century is she from?”
“The eighties, from the looks of her,” Liz said. “Evan sent us pics.”
“She has a Hermès bag,” I said.
“Oh. My new best bud, then.”
I called back to Fear. “Pee in the woods. We’ll drop the outer ward and you’ll walk in. Leave the horses on the other side. ”
Fear blew out a breath and pulled hobbles from her bag. She strapped each of the horses’ front legs together, leaving the mounts unable to travel far.
I contemplated the demon again. It had big teeth, gleaming talons, a long tail and scales, but without the dragon charm. And mad, mad eyes in a shade of burning purple tinged with emerald. There was no bargaining with demons. No negotiation. There was also no way to kill them. They were immortal. We’d bind it back to hell or die trying. Even a Death couldn’t kill a demon.
Sally and daffodil-blooming-Death stood at the edge of the outer ward, Sam staring at the demon, his brow covered with sweat, his hands trembling. The demon shifted, and a stench of burning sulfur trailed into the air.
Evan said, “I’ll handle the inner ward. Liz, Cia, when you get here, take over the temporary bindings on the demon. Molly, you figure out how to bind that thing.”
I nodded, the gesture shaky. My sisters agreed. I heard the hum of a Subaru climbing the hill and caught a flash of car lights through the trees.
“Offer them tea. Put the kettle on,” Evan said, giving me something to do to keep me from worrying as I tried to figure out how to save us. Busy hands and all that.
I went to the kitchen and started the electric kettle because it was faster than regular heat on the AGA stove. I heard them still talking as I worked, getting out a teapot filter and a good strong black tea. There would be no nodding off tonight.
“A tea party,” Liz said, “with Death and Fear and a demon, oh my…”
“Alice in Wonderland meets the Wizard of Oz,” Cia said.
Liz said, “Evan, your house wards are sparking.”
“I see your car,” Evan said.
As I put tea together, I also gathered necessities from my kitchen: the silver spoon working I kept in the kitchen for emergencies, quickly powering it with the rosemary plant I’d killed and then brought back to life. Long story. But the important thing was that now the plant seemed to be able to store a lot more earth power than it should. And … the solution came to me. I broke off one needle-shaped leaf and tucked it into a pocket. “Thank you,” I murmured to the plant.
“Getting ready to drop the outer ward, ladies,” Evan said. “You drive straight in. On three. One. Two. Three.”
I felt the ward fall, the magics lashing back through the ground and through my bones. It stole my breath and froze my chest. The magics twisted and curled into the inner ward, reinforcing it. It was so heavy now, that air and weather wouldn’t pass through. Once I got out of the house, there might be no getting back inside until Evan dropped the ward.
Putting a hand on my baby bump, I said a protective working over my unborn child. Though I didn’t pray often, I added a prayer to seal the working and then whispered, “Hayyel, I could use some backup on this one.” Angie’s angel didn’t respond. I heard the Subaru rolling into the drive, over the lawn, and up to the door. My sisters had gotten between the unwanted visitors and us. Smart. The car engine died and the doors opened. I forced myself to keep moving, keep thinking, and got out mugs.
Cia’s voice called out, “I got it. Lasso working is in place on my end.”
Liz said, “Lasso on my end. We need something stronger for its teeth and claws.” Louder she added, “Hey, Death. Get off your ass and lend a hand here.”
Cia shouted, “Fear, pull something out of that fancy bag and tie off its tail. It’s getting free.”
“I don’t do magic,” Sally said. “I do hair and fashion and terror. And Fear of Death.”
“Well the fashion is seriously out of date,” Cia said. “Big hair hasn’t been around since the eighties and Peg Bundy. If you can’t help, then get the hell out of my way.”
“Witches. So snarky,” Sally said. But her eyes hinted at her ire and fear. They coiled together on the night wind like asps, stinging. She was attacking us all. I fought the fear she caused and breathed my way through it.
“Liz, can you pull from the earth?” Cia asked.
“We can try. But it didn’t work so well last time.”
I poured water over tea leaves. The aroma of tea rose, soothing. I stirred the leaves with the silver spoon, the stored working moving from spoon to the tea. Softly, Evan said, “Mol? You need to see this.”
I set the oversized teapot on the tray with mugs, linens, silver, sugar and cream, and carried it to the front. I felt better having done something, even something so simple as tea. I placed the tray on the table near the door and took Evan’s hand. The ward on the house zinged through me, and I realized he had it looping through his own body. It was a dangerous tactic, but it also gave him total control over the energies and the maths of the ward, allowing me in and out more easily than I had feared. It wasn’t something I could do while pregnant without harming my child. I squeezed his hand.
His voice rumbled in his barrel chest. “You know I’d never let you out of this house if I could do it myself,” he said. “I’m good but I can’t protect the kids, hold the wards, and dispose of a demon that wants your blood.”
“I know. Of the two jobs, the one you left for me is safer for the kicker.” I patted my belly. “And Cia and Liz and I can work a triangle inside the existing outer circle. What did you want me to see?”
“Their lasso working.”
I did a small seeing working and focused on the magics they were using to bind the demon. “Ohhh,” I breathed. “It’s tinted with the same shade of energies as the stuff on Sam’s boots.”
“Yeah. They’ve been messing with something dark. Not enough to coat their souls or tint their auras, but enough to bring them more power than they ever had before. You be careful.” He paused before adding, “I love you to the moon and back.”
“I love you most of all,” I said. It was a way of saying goodbye. I lay my head on his arm for a moment, took a deep breath, and stood away. Giving him a mug, I picked up the tray, took a steadying breath, and pushed though the ward. The magics coated my body and hair and pulled through me like electric taffy. The energies were attuned to me, and usually walking though wasn’t a problem, but there was so much energy coiling through it now, far more than it was designed to hold. And it all looped through Big Evan, which was the only reason I could get through. Dangerous for my husband, but we’d deal with any repercussions later.
I opened the back hatch of the Subaru and set the tray down inside. Poured tea into mugs. Carried mugs to each of my sisters, then to Death of Magic, who looked like he needed the entire pot. Sam was shaking with exertion, and drained the mug in a single gulp. I studied the shape and form of his snare working, the incantation holding the demon. It was vastly different from a witch lasso working, but there were enough similarities for me to harness my workings to it. “Stabilize your working and then get out of the way,” I said. “And I’ll need your Tony Lamas.”
“I’m not giving you my boots.”
“I’ll buy you another pair, Sammy-pie,” Sally said. She was standing at the back of the Subaru, drinking a cup of tea, one I hadn’t offered her. I gave her a sunny smile, which seemed to startle her. “Just give the little witch what she wants. I have to be back across the veil by dawn. I’m doing one of the Waters’ hair at ten, and I need at least some beauty sleep.”
“Hope you don’t give her broccoli hair like yours,” Liz snarked.
Sally snarled and stared daggers at my sisters, but nothing happened. A look of surprise and then horror crossed Sally’s face. My lips twitched as she looked down into the mug she had drained. Looked back at my sisters. She snapped her fingers. Neither witch sister showed the slightest bit of fear. I felt my own lingering terror lift too, and my smile took on a measure of satisfaction. The scarlet-haired sidekick’s power had been neutered. Well, that’s what you get when you take a mug that was never offered you. The quick little happiness working from the silver spoon had been for me, Evan, my sisters, and Death, to negate our fears. That same working had stopped it at the source. Sally wasn’t used to being happy.
Fear-Fettered slammed her expensive bag on the back of the Subaru and pulled out a makeup kit, a brush, a mirror that was way too large to actually fit within the confines of the bag, and started to make herself presentable after all the wind. I got a good look inside and there were also three knives with crosshatched hilts and two semiautomatic handguns. The brush was spelled and the mirror was a scrying surface. Sally, the Fear of Death, was a fashionista killer. I hadn’t forgotten they were here after my children. I gave Evan a significant look, mimed putting a purse over my shoulder and mouthed, “Her bag.” He nodded.
“Boots,” I said to Sam holding out a hand.
Death of Magic sat on the ground and pulled off his boots, the smell of the sweat of Death strong on the air. As he was yanking off the expensive footwear, I took over his working and wove the threads of my own earth magics into it. And into my sisters’ lasso working. Death’s magics felt warm, slippery, unstable in my hands. Foreign. The power in the magics skidded up my hands and wrists to my arms, enveloping my own cursed gift. It was a yearning, a wooing, a siren song of desire to join my gift with his magics. To…to become a Death myself.
Not Death of Magic. But Death of All. All humans. All plants. All animals. To do to the entire world what I had done to the hillside nearby. My mouth went dry with fear. If I lost control…if I let it ride me…I’d kill. I’d be a Death and my own fear would have won.
Sally looked at me and then at Death. “Oh, Sam. It wasn’t the kids. It was her.”
I understood. This was what Sam had wanted. Death magics. Not my children. They had thought the kids were the carriers. They had intended to trick us into helping them trap the demon, allowing them in close, so they could get at the death magics.
But my daughter’s guardian angel had said I could trick Death. I shook my head, trying to force my earth magics to the forefront of my mind, to satisfy my magical needs. I accepted Death’s boots, the brimstone and darkness on his sole shining bright. Brighter than the moon. The brimstone picked up my own curse. Pulled on my curse. The boots glowed.
“Mol?” Cia asked. “What’s happening?”
“Nothing,” I lied, jerking my attention away from the evidence of darkness. I had to end this quickly. “Binding?”
“Blood of angels,” Liz said, naming the working. “Places, everyone.” Holding the temporary bindings, I moved to the north. Cia walked to a position sixty degrees to my left, close beneath the sickle moon, now high in the sky. Liz took the place between us. We spread the energies we were working into the full one hundred-eighty degrees of the equilateral triangle. Then we backed away, spinning the magics out until we touched the permanent circle of the outer trench, and sat—not so easy when a baby was in the way.
I pulled out the rosemary needle-leaf and placed it between my knees. Cia and Liz each placed their elemental focal between their knees. Cia invoked the circle, “Dùin.” It was Scottish Gaelic. The circle rose around us, enclosing the half-bound demon, Death and Fear, and three Everhart sisters, but excluding my home, husband, children. Everything I held dear was safe. Except my sisters. I mouthed my thanks to them and got a wink from Cia and a nod from Liz.
“Faoi dhraíocht,” Cia said. Bound by a spell. Her hands braided the energies, twisting, pulling, sliding them through her fingers.
“Hhí ceangal na gcúig gcaol air,” Liz said. He is bound hand and foot. She plaited the energies she held with her twin’s. They grew bright, a lovely blue and lavender tinted with paler pinks. The demon screamed, his howl full of anger and pathos and thwarted desire.
A cheangal, I thought, calling on my daughter’s angel. I wove my death energies—no. I wove my earth energies and Death’s own energies in with my sisters’. You said I could cheat death, I thought to Hayyel.
I gathered Death’s magics, magic he had passed to me freely with his boots, into my own and tied them to the single rosemary leaf. I scraped the brimstone off Death’s boot; at the same time I wiped sweat from the inside, onto my fingertips. I rubbed the darkness and the sweat together and took up the weaving, letting the magics pull through the mixture. I wove the dark energies and the sweat of Death’s foot into the binding mix. Softly, I said the words, “Mallachd dha! Mallachd dha! Mallachd dha!” three times. Curse him, to hell with him in the language of my mother’s, mother’s people.
Death stood up fast. His eyes blazed with golden light. He glowed. Ravens began to call, the crowing of blackbirds out of place at this hour, screeching, screaming.
Fear reached into her Hermès bag and pulled two weapons, the slides schnicking into place as she chambered rounds. She aimed the weapons at me. Big Evan laughed, the sound all wrong, too deep, too heavy. The hedge of thorns on the house shivered and flashed a nearly black and sapphire blue. The weapons didn’t fire.
Sam stretched out his hand to me. To the death magics he had come for. The death magics he wanted to steal to rule. I said a final time, “Mallachd dha!”
Death screamed, his cry like that of the ravens. Sally, Fear of Death, screamed with him. Their wails rose, a crescendo that cracked across the air and made the boulders out back shift and slide in a grinding tumble. Fear and Death both vanished.
The demon wailed and screeched, writhing against the bindings. It began to stretch and twist and pull, the power of brimstone dragging the demon after them in a long twirling trail of dark energies. With it went all the power in the equilateral triangle, then in the outer circle. Our own magics snapped back painfully. Liz and Cia swore at the sting.
There was only the final echo of the ravens. Silence settled upon the night.
I slid sideways and lay on the chilled ground.
Cia stood. So did Liz. Big Evan dropped the house ward and was by my side faster than he should have been able to move. He picked me up as if I weighed no more than his daughter and carried me inside. Liz and Cia gathered up the Hermès bag, the weapons, and led the horses to the backyard and grass to eat.
* * *
My sisters and my husband fed me tea and microwaved soup while they drank Evan’s best single malt. The Everharts helped Evan unwind my babies from the sleepy time working and put them to bed. It was too late for the girls to make the trek back down the mountain, so they crashed on the oversized couches in Evan’s man cave. I curled up in my husband’s arms in the bed we shared.
“Your magic is different,” Big Evan said. “It’s cooler. Less barbed than before.”
“I think…I think I figured out that death magics belong in hell,” I said. “I think I channeled them, well, most of them, there.”
“Temptation to use them is gone?” he rumbled.
I let my mouth pull into a wide smile. “Yeah. Your turn. Your magics feel different too. Hotter. More barbed.”
Evan nodded, his beard tickling my shoulder. “I never wanted to kill anything before, not with my magic. But this time, with you and the baby and the kids…” He stopped, his breathing ragged. “This time I wanted to hurt them. I wanted them to be dead and gone forever. It’s still roiling under my skin.”
I nestled closer. “Part of that is the nature of Fear of Death. It’ll go away soon enough. But if you can’t sleep, the baby’s nursery needs another coat of paint.”
Evan chuckled. “Later. Tonight, I just want to hold you.” He kissed the top of my head.
“Cia and Liz got Sally’s bag and everything in it.”
Evan sighed. “More trouble. But that’s a problem for another day.”
“We cheated Death,” I said.
“And Fear. Nothing wrong with cheating the bastards. It’s what life does every day.”
That’s my hubs. Full of wisdom. And strength. And all good things. “Night,” I whispered.
“Good health and happiness. From now on,” Evan whispered. I smiled into the dark. It was the Everhart blessing. And it was good.