Spells of Blood and Kin (29 page)

MAY 30

  
WANING GIBBOUS

Stella danced through the pub with even more than her usual brio. Rafe watched her for a second, eyebrow up, and said to Lissa, “Like a five-year-old who's got into the jelly beans. What did you do to our kid?”

“Our kid?”

“Well, sure. You're the big sister, I'm the boss; she's our kid.”

“We're getting along,” Lissa said, even though she knew he hadn't been looking for a serious answer.

“You're not shipping her back to Daddy?”

“She told you that?”

Rafe grinned. “Let's just say you're the quiet one in the family.”

“It was never up to me,” Lissa said. “She's the one who decided to stay here.”

“In your house.”

“Well, yeah, I guess that part was up to me.”

Rafe reached out and took the tip of Lissa's braid in his fingertips. “You're doing good by her. In case you wanted my opinion. Which you probably don't.”

Lissa made herself look at him. “She's your kid too, right? Someone's got to make sure I don't mess her up.”

Rafe seemed to think she was joking. He laughed and tugged her hair and leaned across the bar to kiss her cheek. “Want to get brunch tomorrow? It'll be breakfast for me, but you're probably a disgusting early-morning person, right? We could meet up at that place on College at noon.”

“Sure,” Lissa said, dazed. Another date. Where were all these people coming from? People in her life, making plans with her, making jokes—had they all been waiting somewhere until Baba was gone?

She had one more drop-off for the church ladies tonight, and she wouldn't mind sleeping late herself. She pictured warm morning air, the light sheet covering her, sun slanting at the window—the anticipation of brunch at the patio on College—and what if it was more than a brunch date later? Would she someday ask Rafe to sleep over? Would they wake side by side in the big bed, tangled in sheets, hands touching?

Lissa felt heat wash over her face, and she gripped her hands together under the bar, arms tight to her sides. Rafe wasn't looking at her; he'd gone to take someone's order at the other end of the bar. She was not allowed to have these thoughts. She was not permitted. What would Baba think?

She slipped off the stool and slung her bag over her shoulder. One pint and look where her mind had gone. There was work to do, and she had to call and check up on Maksim.

She didn't cancel the date, though. She only mouthed, “See you tomorrow,” to Rafe and waved to Stella, and then she was outside in summer heat, and it seemed as if, all the way home, everyone she saw was holding hands.

 

Nine

JUNE 1

  
LAST QUARTER

Nick knocked too hard on the witch's door and split his knuckle again.

“Crap,” he said, and he sucked the blood away. It tasted faintly like Maksim's blood. He wondered when he had stopped finding this creepy.

A wad of Band-Aids bulged in his pocket. Maksim and Gus between them had told him twenty times already that he needed to be careful not to contaminate anyone else. He peeled one and covered the cut and, for good measure, smeared the door clean with his fingertip and licked that too.

Then he knocked again, more decorously.

The sister opened the door. Nick was the luckiest son of a bitch ever. Stella was just as tall and peach-skinned as he remembered from the other day, and she smiled at Nick in a hesitant way that made him wonder how old she was.

“Hi,” he said. “Remember me? Nick Kaisaris.” He held out his unbloodied hand. He knew he was rumpled from living out of his backpack; he had not shaved today and maybe not the day before, and he smiled at her with all his usual ease. Somehow in the last few weeks, he'd lost the need to excuse himself for anything.

“I remember. We weren't properly introduced, though. Stella Moore.” God, that classy English voice, and her hand felt clean and warm.

“I had a question for your sister, but I'm glad to find you instead.”

“She's not in,” said Stella, angling her torso to block the doorway. She didn't look like her sister at all, except for the body language. That much was the same.

“I'll wait,” said Nick, showing her his open hands. He wasn't the kind of person who'd knock a girl aside to get into her house, not like Gus.

“I can't let you in,” said Stella. “But I'll wait outside with you, if you want. She shouldn't be long. I suppose I shouldn't offer you a beer.”

Nick didn't ask why he didn't rate a beer. He sat down cross-legged on the porch boards and leaned back on the cool yellow brick. After a minute, Stella came outside, handed him a glass of lemonade, and arranged herself just beyond his reach.

“What were you going to ask my sister?” she said.

“Witch things,” Nick said and laughed. He wondered if he laughed too much these days, with nothing exactly funny but everything so marvelously strange.

“Eggs? I can do that. Which ones did you get the other day? The sleep ones?”

“Not for me,” Nick said. “I tried one. I don't need it; I can handle myself.” The egg had felt like quicksand, he thought; he'd been hoping for a pleasant, lazy high, like a Vicodin or something. But it wasn't at all similar. He didn't know how Maksim could stand it.

“For Maksim?” Stella asked. “Is he okay?” She leaned forward so that Nick caught the scent of her hair.

He swayed closer himself, entranced. “He's not so good. He doesn't eat. He doesn't even drink water unless you remind him.”

“Since his accident?” Stella said.

“That's right; he's not healing up very well, either. Gus is worried. I'm supposed to…” He could smell the sweat that gathered in the hollow of her throat and the blood that ran beneath her skin. “What was I saying?”

Stella pursed her lips. “Drink your lemonade.”

Nick did. It was delicious. He probably hadn't been drinking enough water himself, what with all the bourbon he'd been putting away, taking turns with Gus watching Maksim sleep. He probably reeked of it. He was not a credible person anymore, and he could not bring himself to do anything about it.

“Anyway,” he said to Stella, “I wasn't bound for greatness. I would have got a job in a call center. Or a chain bookstore. And they would have had to fire me sooner or later.”

“You were telling me about Maksim,” she reminded him. “You need to focus. Tell me if he needs medical care.”

“No,” said Nick. “It wouldn't do any good.”

“And you?”

“Me?”

Stella rolled her eyes. “Are you always this spacey, or is there something wrong with you? Look, never mind. You're above my pay grade, anyway. I'll let it pass until Lissa gets here. You just drink your lemonade. It's good for you. It's got vitamins and electrolytes.”

“You remind me of Hannah,” said Nick. “Wife material.”

“Not for a couple of years yet,” Stella said, laughing. “Who's Hannah? Your sister?”

“My best friend's girl,” Nick said. “I've lost both of them.” His eyes spilled over, and he wiped them on his wrist. “I don't know what's wrong with me. I can't have a reasonable conversation anymore. No one told me about that part.”

“Hey. Hey.” She touched his shoulder. “We'll do what we can.”

Nick tilted his head back against the bricks and pressed until his scalp felt like it would split. That was better. He would not cry now. He would be nice and sane and charming for the witch's sister.

He raised his head and looked at Stella's peach-pale face and scented her perfume again and the fresh sweat of her body. In it all, the very faintest trace of thundercloud.

“Are you a witch too?” he asked.

Stella's face lit. “I'm learning.”

“I think I like witches. I don't think I'm supposed to. Gus doesn't.”

“Her loss,” Stella said. “More lemonade?”

While she opened the door, Nick shut his eyes tight and smelled the breath of the house: dry wood, oil-based paint, lemon polish, and a much heavier blast of the witch scent. It chilled him.

By contrast, Stella smelled like a spring storm, the kind that sweeps in gladly with a fresh, hard wind to crush the petals.

She stepped out of the house again with a pitcher in her hand and leaned down to refill Nick's glass.

He caught her arm and pulled her down beside him, where he could press his face to her jawline. She was trembling, or maybe it was the strong thrum of blood through her body.

“Look, I'm pretty sure you're harmless,” Stella said, “but what you're doing is really inappropriate.”

Nick tasted, just barely, the lobe of her ear.

“Fair warning,” said Stella. She fumbled for a moment at the neck of Nick's shirt.

Something cracked. Chill slimed the small of his back.

Nick jolted back against the wall.

Stella slid back out of reach.

Nick went to follow. He tripped on the toe of his sandal and hammered his knee into the porch flooring.

“You egged me,” he said wonderingly. “It's a strong one.”

“It had better be,” Stella said. “My sister made it. Just sit there. I have more where that came from.”

Nick shook his head. Sleep fumes curtained his eyes: the heavy, inexorable sleep that comes with sickness. “Damn it,” he said. “You didn't have to do that.”

“You wouldn't listen,” she said. She examined one of her fingernails and buffed it lightly against the floorboards.

Nick lolled back, blinking. He thought he might feel better if he got the mess of egg out of his shirt and waistband, but he could not quite be bothered. He rubbed at his eyes and face; his skin was half-numb and prickling.

“I've just crossed the ocean to get away from a presumptuous tosser,” Stella told him. “I'm not in the mood to put up with more of the same from you.”

“I didn't mean to be a tosser. Sometimes I can't stop myself.”

“Erick always said that kind of thing too. Show me you're different.”

“So sure of yourself,” Nick said, and he shut his eyes; beyond his lids, the summer sun loomed bright and vague.

“I know what I know.”

She couldn't know. She was young, younger than he was. She'd find out; he wasn't some annoying little shithead like her ex. He was powerful. He could make things great for her, or he could make them awful. Nick wanted to tell her, to warn her; to take away the calm confidence from her face; to put fear into her, proper fear. No, that was not right; why should he be the one to take away the fresh strength of her? Why should he want to be cruel all of a sudden? Had he always wanted to be cruel?

He said none of this. He forced his eyes open again and plucked a lilac bloom from the tree and tore at the petals with fingers gone clumsy and cold.

JUNE 1

  
LAST QUARTER