The Lie Spinners (The Deception Dance) (39 page)

“
You
told me last summer that black magicians come by their power by
torture and murder.” I remembered this. “So, if someone
hasn’t tortured or murdered people, and then they drink demon
blood, would they still get magical powers?”

“
Raw
power, yes,” he whispers, “Anyone who drinks Demon blood
would gain access to raw power. There are two types of magic wielders
in this world, natural witches, those who have a natural ability and
can gain power naturally, and unnatural witches or magicians, those
who need to use spells and can only gain power by stealing it. Those
born with abilities gain it from their genetics, it’s part of
them, in their blood and bones, and these women always have some sort
of elemental affinity-earth, water, fire, air, ice, wood, metal,
electricity-they can call and work to their will. But it’s
limited and complicated. From what I understand there are six
abilities in natural magic: creating, renewing, decaying,
transforming, moving, and moving through their elements.”

“
Renewing,
would be like turning dirt into rock?” I ask, remembering what
Madeline did to Jones.

“
Yes,
or recomposing a corpse, both could be done by an earth-witch who
could renew or reverse age.”

“
Humans
are part of the Earth?”

“
Magically,
yes,” Stephen says.

“
But
most witches will only have one ability, sometimes two, the most
common is being able to move their element, and I believe that
renewing is the second to the least common ability; the rarest is
being able to create. Madeline has five of the six abilities, all but
being able to create Earth. She’s considered an exceedingly
able witch, perhaps the most able witch alive.”

“
I’ve
seen her, she’s powerful,” I say.

“
Actually,
she’s not.” He shakes his head. “Able, yes. But,
she’s one of the least powerful witches out there.”

“
I’m...
confused,” I say.

“
Power
is separate,” Stephen clarifies. “Power is like fuel. The
way a natural witch gains power is through gathering their element’s
energy flow; but Madeline refuses to gather energy from the natural
passing of animals, people and plants, as she’s meant to.
Madeline gathers most of her power from herself; she’ll gather
it over months of meditation or through small natural power
excretions of plants and animals by being in their presence.”

“
But
unnatural magicians kill to get power?”

“
Yes.
It takes years of training, but a person born without a natural gift
can become an unnatural magician; however, the only way they can gain
power is to steal it from living beings. An unnatural or black
magician will murder a person or animal, then capture that energy
through a very complicated and dangerous process, and feed that
stolen energy directly into a spell. They have no power or ability on
their own. And as I understand it, there are two main abilities
spells can achieve, moving and transforming. Transforming would be
like transforming small spiders into giant spiders or transforming
oneself to be more spider-like so that they can…I’m not
sure, perhaps, control spiders. They can also use stolen power to
call forth a demon.”

“
Was
that what you did last summer?” I say, a little taken aback,
“When you called forth
Fenrisúlfur
?”

“
No,
what I did was different; I more lured him into a protective circle.
It was like inviting rather than forcing him to come in, forcing a
demon to do anything takes a large quantity of power.” He rubs
his forehead with his hand.

“
So
drinking demon blood gives people raw power?” I repeat, still a
little confused.

“
Yes.
Power, only raw power. Or, more it gives them access to Hell’s
power; the greater the demon they drink from and the more they drink,
the more power they have access too. Raw power makes a body stronger,
faster, more durable, but doesn’t give the drinker any ability.
The Spider has access to a great quantity of power but no
natural
ability
;
everything you see he has created through spells: the giant spiders
that do his bidding, the transformation he’s done to himself,
it is all from spells and conjuring. And my guess is that these
powers you are observing from May and Kasem are because The Spider is
so powerful that he leaks power to the people closest to him. From
what I understand, even though it’s flashy and showy, moving
objects or people is the simplest form of spell work. I’ve
never heard of power leaking happening before, but The Spider has
unprecedented access to power...”

“
What
happens if a natural witch drinks demon blood?” I whisper,
thinking of Madeline. Stephen might say that Madeline gained her
power from yoga or whatever but she did a pretty dramatic display of
power in the airport.

“
The
Leijonskjöld say that’s what happened to Atlantis,”
he whispers back, “A water witch drank a demon Count’s
blood.”

I
stare at him, my mouth gaping open. “Are you joking?”

He
shakes his head.

“
Couldn’t…couldn’t
The Spider be some kind of earth—”

“
No,”
Stephen says.

“
How
do you know?”

“
Natural
male magicians are always stillborn, always have been. Not one male
natural magician has been recorded in history. If a witch births a
living male baby he is always without abilities, but many times a
carrier of the abilities. Even natural-witches with any substantial
abilities are very rare; Madeline’s family requires anyone with
more than two abilities to have three female babies with distant
cousins.”

I
gasp involuntarily, making Stephen glance around.

“
Her
family is breeding her?” I whisper, “That’s
disgusting.” I might hate her (like a lot), but no one should
be… bred. And this makes her omitting the truth about Stephen
not being the father of her baby more understandable. She was
probably relieved that we assumed that someone she’s in love
with impregnated her rather than a second-cousin. The more I think
about it, the less plausible her being evil is…desperate and
selfish, sure; but evil magic felt essentially and fundamentally
different than her earth magic—I knew that, I can admit that
maybe I just wanted to believe that she’s evil.

“
It
is a different culture, the natural witch culture.”

“
Are
natural witches common?”

“
Not
whatsoever, one in ten million, and even less than that have more
than one ability. The Leijonskjöld keeps close track of the
natural witches; we even have a…” he shrugs his
shoulder, “…I guess I would call it a long-standing
quaky-alliance with the earth witches.” Stephen squeezes my
arm. “It was a good theory.”

I
shake my head and smile. “Don’t patronize me.”

“
I’m
not,” he whispers, “you’re ideas are very good. If
we both keep working on it, we’ll figure all of this out.”
He lightly touches my chin. “Okay, I’m going to climb
into the empty bed now, goodnight.”

Don’t
go
.
I want to say, but I don’t. All I want is for him to wrap me in
his arms, to press his body against mine, to fall asleep in his
comfort, in his warmth; but if I ask him not to leave me it’ll
just be confirming in his mind that he should. I totally shot myself
in the foot with this one.

So
I give him a (probably unconvincing) smile and whisper, “Goodnight.”

Before
he climbs to the other bed he whispers, “Think about how we can
lose Kasem for a couple hours, alright? I am going to be trying to
come up with a plan also.”

“
Don’t,”
I say, “I want your surprise to read as real—I’m
not going to risk them blaming you and reassigning you or worse. I’ll
come up with a plan. Just…just trust me.”

“
I
trust you,” he says.

I
nod and turn away; feeling rather than watching him crawl off my bed.
Grabbing the Bible Stephen gave me, I clasp it to my chest (for all
the wrong reasons); and eventually, I fall asleep.

Day
Twenty

Water
splashes up my ankles as the ocean rolls in, it pulls back a few
feet, and then over my feet. Each print I press into the sand makes a
little foot shaped pool, which lasts only until the ocean pounces on
it and obliterates my path. As I walk I twist the new spiral-shell
ring I bought on my finger.

I’m
doing this for Linnie,
I remind myself. Stephen and Polite Goon keep a couple paces behind
and up the beach; Stephen has his mandatory cigarette hanging from
his mouth.

When
I reach a group of kayaks and canoes on the sand in front of the Blue
Monkey Bungalow (the next hostel down the beach from ours), I pause.

This
morning when I told Polite Goon that I was going for a walk he wore
his usual three piece suit, all the better for me. Stephen, however,
wears swim trunks and sandals—which might not be to my
advantage. I’ll just have to hope that all my years of swimming
in the Northern California surf will make me a better ocean swimmer
than his years swimming in the rather calm North Sea. Though this sea
is about as calm as you get: no waves, crystal clear, just a gentle
lapping.

“
I’m
going for a swim,” I say, pulling off my T-shirt, but keeping
my new board-shorts on.

When
I look back, Polite Goon purses his lips like he’s going to
object; but from what he told me, I know he can’t restrict me
from doing anything or going anywhere I want on this island.

He
looks over at Stephen. “Nathan,” he says, “Stop
looking at her like that and go swimming with her.”

I
can’t help it, I glance over at Stephen. His gaze blazes into
mine with unrestrained admiration. He instantly closes his eyes and
gives his head a little shake.

Not
real. Not real.
I
remind myself that he’s acting out
the
Nathan show: the Norwegian flirt and womanizer
.

Yet
I can’t help but decide that the little blue bikini top I
bought yesterday is a keeper.

Stephen
puts out his cigarette on the sand and hands the butt to Polite Goon
(who to my surprise takes it). He pulls his shirt over his head and
it’s my turn to stare, but not at his lean muscles or his
muscled shoulders; no, what I can’t help but stare at is the
ruby red diamond on his lower torso, the diamond that I’m
positive is on his front and back. And I can’t help but
remember that moment… one of the worst moments in a long and
growing line of horrific moments in my life.

Andras
shook
his head and smirked. “I think not,” he whispered, and
then leapt forward to thrust his sword through Stephen’s
stomach.

I
didn’t scream, I didn’t even move, it happened fast, so
fast. One moment Andras was so close to me the heat from his
furnace-hot face was drying the saliva in my mouth, the next, his
sword was thrusting down and impaling Stephen.

Madeline
healed Stephen with magic, but obviously her magic didn’t erase
what happened.

“
Wake
up,” Stephen says. He grabs one of my hands. “I thought
you wanted to go for a swim.”

I
look up into his face; and try to even out my breathing. Somehow,
that memory was so much more disturbing than the previous times it
surfaced in my mind. Stephen impaled. Stephen dying at my feet. And
more disturbing still because there’s a twinge in my arm, right
on the mark
Räum
gave
me.