Spellbent (9 page)

“Irrelevant. Present your counter.”

“We, uh, we don’t have one, but Mr. Jordan—”

“Irrelevant.” The Virtus flared bright as the sun, and the proud men cowered in its harsh light. It was a truly beautiful scene. “If you do not have a counter, you have no right to the girl.”

The Virtus’s plasma tentacle shot down and drew a burning circle around the house. “You shall not cross this line without permission from my kind, or you will be expunged. Leave this place now, or I will remove you.”

Jordan’s men couldn’t get back to their vehicles fast enough.

“Thank you,” Karen said to the Virtus as she knelt before it.

“Why have you spent your token on such trivia?” the spirit demanded. “Kings have warred for the artifact you possessed to save their entire tribes, and you use it for a single girl?”

“It seemed like the thing to do at the time,” Karen replied, her voice shaking.

“Foolishness,” the Virtus replied, and disappeared back into the night sky, leaving behind only the smell of ozone and the smoking ward circle.

Karen got back to her feet, more slowly this time. “Well, that’s that.”

She dusted herself off as best she could with the backs of her hands, then looked past me into the house. I turned to follow her gaze; her teenagers were clustered on the stairs, smelling frightened.

“Nothing more to see, kids,” Karen said, sounding profoundly tired. “Everybody go back to bed. But since you’re still awake, Jimmy, please help me get my hands cleaned up. .

The Luckiest Girl in Ohio

I gradually woke up in a bright, sunlit room; I didn’t really
want
to be awake. My face was wrapped in gauze, and the slightest movement hurt like hell. It took me a moment to realize I was in Mother Karen’s guest suite.

The ache from my bandaged left eye spread back through my skull; both temples throbbed. My left arm was bandaged up under my breasts. I tried to shift my legs but couldn’t. A fat calico cat dozed between my feet.

“You’re awake?” Pal popped up beside my pillow.

“Sorta.. . ,“ I mumbled.

“She’s awake!” Pal chirped to the cat, who stood up, gave a leisurely stretch, and hopped off the bed. I guessed she had gone off to fetch Mother Karen.

I licked my cracked lips; my tongue felt as though it had been coated in glue. “How long was I out?”

“Thirty-six hours,” Pal replied. “You nearly died.” Pal quickly told me about everything that had happened while I was unconscious.

“Jesus,” I said. Calling down the Virtus was no mean feat, and was a tremendous drain on anyone’s magical reserves. The summoning was supposed to be limited to fairly senior wizards when they had a life-or-death issue that needed mediation.

“I mean, I know things got screwed up something fierce, but I tried to fix it,” I said. “Couldn’t they have waited till later to try to question me?”

“I don’t believe they really meant to question you,” Pal replied quietly. “I suspect they meant to take you someplace where your body wouldn’t be found and leave you to die.”

“Fuck me,” I said.

“Language, Jessica, language!” Mother Karen stood smiling in the doorway with a steaming mug in her hands. Her cheer seemed forced.

“What’s going on, Karen? Why did those guys want me dead?” I asked.

“Oh, nonsense, of course they didn’t want you
dead,”
Karen said lightly, casting a quick, irritated glance at Pal. “It was all a huge misunderstanding, and. . . well, you haven’t done a thing wrong, and so you shouldn’t worry about anything.”

Karen came to the side of the bed and helped me sit up a little. “Drink this,” she said, bringing the mug to my lips, “and when you wake up, you’ll be feeling much better.”

The healing potion tasted like frosted mint brownies. I just had time to think that Karen made the best-tasting potions in probably the entire country before I fell fast asleep.

I woke with a mighty need to pee. I sat up, and a nauseating wave of dizziness made me immediately wish I hadn’t.

“Right on time,” Karen said. She was knitting a long blue scarf in a wooden rocking chair by the bed.

“I’m gonna burst,” I said as Karen set aside her needles and helped me get out of bed.

“No you’re not. The toilet is just over here.” Karen led me out into the guest bath.

“Sorry can’t be polite gotta go.” I fumbled down my pajama pants with my free right hand — when did I get into pajamas? __ and plunked down on the toilet.

“No problem, covering my eyes, won’t look,” Karen replied.

Sweet relief. “Thank God. Hey, nice ducks,” I said, noticing the cute blue-and-white duck-patterned wallpaper for the first time.

“Oh, thanks,” said Karen. “We put that up last month.”

An awkward silence as my cascade continued unabated.

“By the way,” Karen said, “did you know that the human bladder can hold nearly a liter of urine?”

“Oh, well that would explain a lot right now,” I replied. “Not to be a nitpickei but why didn’t you magic some of this out of me while I was asleep?”

“I did. Twice.”

“Oh.” I finally finished, wiped, and pulled on the flannel pants.

“You had a lot of poison in you. You’re lucky to be alive.” Karen helped me wobble to the sink.

“So Pal says. Speaking of, where is he?”

“Curled up with one of the cats, I think.”

“No, I’m here.” Pal humped into the doorway. “I felt you wake up, but Snoogums was sleeping on my tail.”

I gave Karen a look. “You have a familiar named ‘Snoogums’?”

“Oh goodness no, it’s just a pet. The five-year-old named him. I had nothing to do with it.”

I paused. “Is there any news about Cooper?”

Mother Karen shook her head.

“So who’s gone looking for him?”

“Nobody, as far as I know.”

A swell of fear and frustration rose in a hot tide inside me. “Someone’s got to go after him, he could be—”

“Wait.” Karen held up a hand, took a deep breath. “Listen. Worry about Cooper later; we need to take care of you first. I need to take off your bandages to make sure you’re healing up properly. I. . . couldn’t fix as much as I wanted to. There were some complications with the governing circle.”

“The men came back again,” Pal said. “With a scroll from a different Virtus.”

I felt sick all over again.

“I don’t want you to worry, no matter what you see, okay?” Karen said quickly. “It can all be fixed. Later, when things are sorted out.”

Karen got a pair of scissors out of the drawer under the sink. She cut the sling-like bandage binding my left arm to my body, then unwound the wrapping on my arm.

Five inches below my elbow, my forearm ended in a stub of puckered, purple scar tissue. My knees went rubbery.

“My hand. But I . . . I can still feel it,” I stammered.

“That’s normal. Your nerves are still inflamed, and so your brain doesn’t know it’s gone yet,” Karen said gently.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do without my hand?”

“Listen!” Karen’s tone was worried, but stern. “I wanted to give you your hand back, but right now I
can’t.
The representatives from the governing circle came here last night; they summoned the Virtus to put me under a geas. I am forbidden under pain of death from doing more than necessary to get you healthy again until the head of the governing circle says I can.”

“Mr. Jordan did this? Why? What the fuck did I ever do to
him?”
Tears streamed hot and bitter down my right cheek to
my
lips.

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t. I think this has to do with Cooper. Where is he? What happened to you two down there?”

“We were calling the storm, and—and something went wrong. Cooper accidentally opened a portal; I think it sucked him in. A demon came out. A Wutganger. Someone put an isolation sphere on us, and—”

I broke down sobbing. “Oh God, it got so fucked up. Cooper’s gone, and I don’t know how to get him back. These poor guys got killed by the demon, and
I
got poor Smoky killed and he was just trying to help us oh God I didn’t know what I was doing and i-just made it worse—”

Karen hugged
me.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay, it’s all over—”

“No it’s not, if it was all over, I’d have my hand back. I’d have Cooper back.” I took a shuddering breath and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to stop myself from crying.

“This is maybe not the best time, but unfortunately it can’t wait. I need to take the bandages off your face,” Karen said.

I stood still and miserable. Karen carefully cut the gauze away and peeled it off. Her own face went pale.

“I think maybe we should put you back to bed for a little while no honey please don’t look in the mirror—”

I stepped past Karen. And looked. And wished the demon had killed me after all.

My left eye was not still covered by a patch, as I’d hoped. My eyeball had been eaten out of my head by the Wutganger’s blood; a white plastic ball held my lidless socket open. The flesh of my left cheek had been melted practically down to the bone; the skin and muscle Karen’s potion had regrown was thin, red-streaked, and pitted.

“It’s fixable!” Karen said. “Please don’t freak out,
it’s
fixable. Really. This didn’t turn out like
I
hoped; that tissue will sunburn like crazy, maybe they’ll let me do a bit more under the terms of the geas . . .“

“I—I’m a monster,” I whispered. The Wutganger had made me into a version of itself after all.

“No you’re not, you’ve just got a bit of a scar—”

“A bit of a scar?” I began to laugh hysterically. “Oh yes, and I am just the Princess of Luck, too, aren’t I? I am just soaking in luck! Sweet Jesus on a pogo stick, I can’t go out in public like
this.”
I shook my stump at my reflection. “I can’t go to work like this.”

Oh God.
Work.

I turned to Karen, my heart pounding. “What day is it? ‘What time is it?”

“It’s Wednesday, a little shy of seven AM.”

“Crap in a hat, I was supposed to work yesterday. You didn’t call me off, did you?”

Karen shook her head. “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”

“Oh hell, rent was due yesterday, I am
so
boned—”

“Please, Jessica, calm down. You’ll make yourself sick.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Look, your supervisor and landlord should understand; you’ve obviously had a bad accident.” I suddenly realized that I didn’t have enough money for rent in my checking account, and I didn’t know how to access Cooper’s account. “You wouldn’t happen to have two hundred I could borrow until I can get the rainstorm money from the farmer’s co-op, do you?”

Karen shook her head. “That would violate the terms of the geas as well.”

“Motherf—” I stopped myself and took another deep breath. There was no sense in taking my frustration out on Karen. “Could you write me a note for my boss?”

“That I think
I
can do.”

“So what else do you have to do—or not do— because of this geas they put you under?”

“Well, at eight AM sharp I have to call Benedict Jordan’s office to tell him that you’re well enough to meet with him. And then presumably he’ll be out to see you.”

“About what? About Cooper?”

“I wish I knew,” Karen replied.

Meeting Mr. Jordan

I didn’t feel like going back to bed. I didn’t much feel like doing
anything,
really, but curling into a ball of uselessness wasn’t an option. I had an hour to get a hold of myself, cowgirl up, and see what it was that Mr. Jordan wanted.

Karen brought me an old gray T-shirt and a pair of one of her older teens’ jeans to replace the clothes ruined by the demon’s blood. She taught me a simple shoelace-tying charm, then left to start breakfast. I took a shower and got dressed, and then Pal and I went into the conservatory to wait for The Man.

“What does Jordan want with
me?”
I asked Pal. “He can wave his pinkie finger and have a hundred guys snap to it. There’s nothing I can possibly do for him that he can’t get already.”

Mother Karen had put us in the conservatory sun- room off the formal dining room so we’d be out of the way of the kids as they got ready for school. I had a hard time keeping track of exactly how many kids Karen was fostering; it was at least twelve and maybe as many as twenty. The house was tucked away on a dead-end lane that backed up into the woods lining the Olentangy River. Anyone who saw it from the Street would just think it was a standard three- or four-bedroom Old Worthington colonial. Inside, it had been enchanted, expanded and re-expanded to give every child a bedroom, plus an enormous indoor playroom and a big fenced backyard equipped with a sound-dampening enchantment so that Karen’s elderly neighbors wouldn’t be disturbed.

“I expect he wants an explanation for what happened the other night,” Pal replied. He was perched on a chessboard on the rattan coffee table. “The man on the TV news said that the tornado destroyed the Riffe Tower and critically damaged the Ohioana Bank Building and part of the Statehouse. The heart of downtown is closed and they don’t yet know when it can be reopened. This disaster has cost a lot of people a great deal of money.”