A Fistful of Charms (10 page)

His wings drooped. “Sorry.”

Ivy held her arms close to her and frowned, her aggression clearly misplaced worry. “Can we get on with this?” she asked, and I dropped my head to the print again.

Exhaling, I stretched my awareness past the clapboard walls of the kitchen, past the flower beds already feeling the light presence of pixies, to the small underused ley line running through the graveyard. Touching it with a finger of thought, I stifled a tremor at the jolt of connection. It used to be that the flow of force into me had been slow and sedate. Not anymore.

The surge of energy coursed through me, backwashing through me in an uncomfortable sensation. It settled into my chi with the warmth and satisfaction of hot chocolate. I could pull out more and spindle it in my head to use later, but I didn't need it, so I let the heavy, resonating wash of energy find its way out of me and back into the line. I was a net through which the ley line ran, flowing free but for what I pulled out.

It all happened in the time between one heartbeat and the next, and I lifted my head, my eyes closed. My hair was moving in the wind that always seemed to be blowing in the ever-after, and I ran a hand over my loose curls to tame them. I thanked God that it was daylight and I couldn't see even a shadow of the ever-after unless I stood right in a line. Which I wasn't.

“I hate it when she taps a line,” Ivy whispered to Kisten in the corner. “You ever see anything freakier than that?”

“You should see the face she makes when she—”

“Shut up, Kist!” I exclaimed, my eyes flashing open to find him grinning at me.

Standing with her teacup perched in her fingers and the sun streaming in around her, Ceri was trying to keep a scholarly air about her, but the snicker on her face ruined it.

“Is it going to hurt?” Jenks asked, gold pixy dust sifting from him in a steady stream.

I thought back to the gut-wrenching pain when I had turned into a mink and cringed. “Close your eyes and count down from ten,” I said. “I'll hit you with it when you get to zero.”

He took a breath, dark lashes fluttering against his cheeks. His wings slowly stilled until he came to a rest on top of the cleared island counter. “Ten…nine…” he said, his voice steady.

Setting the book on the table, I stood. Light and unreal from the line running through me, I reached out and put a hand over him. My knees were shaking, and I hoped that no one saw it.
Demon magic. God save me.
I took another breath.
“Non sum qualis eram,”
I said.

“Eight—”

Ivy gasped, and I staggered when Jenks was encased in the swirl of gold ever-after that had dropped from my hand to encompass him.

“Jenks!” Matalina cried, flying up into the utensils.

My breath was crushed out of me. Stumbling, I put a hand behind me, searching for support. I gasped when a torrent of line energy slammed into me, and I shoved the helping hands away. My head seemed to expand, and I cried out when the line exploded out of me and hit Jenks with a crack that had to be audible.

I fell, finding myself on the kitchen floor with Ivy's arms under my shoulders as she eased me down. I couldn't breathe. As I struggled to remember how to make my lungs work, I heard a crash in the hanging utensils, followed by a groan and a thump.

“Sweet mother of Tink,” a new, lightly masculine voice
said. “I'm dying. I'm dying. Matalina! My heart isn't beating!”

I took a clean breath, then another, propped up in Ivy's grip. I was hot, then cold. And I couldn't see clearly. Looking up past the edge of the counter, I found Kisten beside Ceri, frozen as if unable to decide what to do. I pushed Ivy's hand off me and sat up when I realized what had laid me out. It wasn't the force of the line I had channeled but the shit-load of intent-to-pay-back that I had just laid on my soul. I had it, not Jenks, and it was going to stay that way.

Heart pounding, I got to my feet, my mouth dropping open when I saw Jenks on the counter. “Oh—my—God…” I whispered.

Jenks turned to me, his eyes wide and frightened. Angular face pinched, he looked at the ceiling, chest heaving as he hyperventilated. Ceri was at the sink, beaming. Beside me, Ivy stared, shocked. Kisten wasn't much better. Matalina was in tears, and pixy children were flying around. Someone got tangled in my hair, pulling me back to reality.

“Anyone younger than fifteen—out of the kitchen!” I shouted. “Someone get me a paper bag. Ivy, go get a towel for Jenks. You think you'd never seen a naked man before.”

Ivy jerked into motion. “Not one sitting on my counter,” she muttered, walking out.

Jenks's eyes were wide in panic as I snatched the bag Kisten handed me. Shaking it open, I puffed into it. “Here,” I said. “Breath into this.”

“Rache?” he gasped, his face pale and his shoulder cold when I touched him. He flinched, then let me hold the bag to his face. “My heart,” he said, his words muffled around the bag. “Something's wrong! Rache, turn me back! I'm dying!”

Smiling, I held the bag to him as he sat on my counter, stark naked and hyperventilating. “That's how slow it beats,” I said. “And you don't have to breathe so fast. Slow down,” I soothed. “Close your eyes. Take a breath. Count to three. Let it out. Count to four.”

“Shove it up your ass,” he said, hunching into himself and
starting to shake. “The last time you told me to close my eyes and count from ten, look what happened to me.”

Ivy returned, draping the first towel over his lap and the second over his shoulders. He was calming down, his eyes roving over the kitchen, darting from the ceiling to the open archway. His breath caught when he saw the garden through the window. “Holy crap,” he whispered, and I pulled the bag away. He might not look like Jenks, but he sounded like him.

“Better?” I said, taking a step back.

His head bobbed, and as he sat on the counter and concentrated on breathing, we stood with our mouths hanging open, taking in a six-foot pixy. In a word, he was…damn!

Jenks had said he was eighteen, and he looked it. A very athletic eighteen, with wide innocent eyes, a smooth young face, and a blond shock of curly hair all tousled and needing to be arranged. His wings were gone, leaving only wide shoulders and the lean muscles that had once supported them. He had a trim waist, and his feet dangling to the floor were long and narrow. They were perfectly shaped, and my eyebrows rose; I'd seen his feet before, and one had been terribly misshapen.

I silently cataloged the rest of him, realizing all his scars were gone, even the one he'd gotten from fairy steel. His incredibly defined abs were smooth and perfect, making him utterly lanky with the clean smoothness of late adolescence. Every part of him was lean with a long strength. There wasn't a fleck of hair on him anywhere but for his eyebrows and atop his head. I knew. I had looked.

His gaze met mine from under his mussed bangs, and I blinked, taken by them. Ceri had green eyes, but Jenks's were shockingly green, like new leaves. They were narrowed with anxiety, but even the fading fear couldn't hide his youth. Sure, he had a wife and fifty-four kids, but he looked like a college freshman. A yummy college freshman majoring in oh-my-God-I-gotta-get-me-some-of-that.

Jenks rubbed his head where he had hit the overhanging rack. “Matalina?” he said, the cadence of his voice familiar
but the sound of it odd. “Oh, Matalina,” he breathed when she dropped to land on his shaking hand, “you're beautiful….”

“Jenks,” she said, hiccuping. “I'm so proud of you. I—”

“Shhhh,” he said, his face twisting in heartache when he found himself unable to touch her. “Please don't cry, Mattie. It's going to be okay. I promise.”

My eyes warmed with unshed tears as she played with the folds of her dress. “I'm sorry. I promised myself I wasn't going to cry. I don't want you to see me cry!”

She darted up, zipping out into the hall. Jenks made a move to follow, probably forgetting he didn't have wings anymore. He leaned forward and fell to the floor, face first.

“Jenks!” I shouted when he hit with a dull smack and started swearing.

“Le' go! Let go of me!” he exclaimed, slapping at me as he wedged his legs under him, only to fall back down. His towel fell away, and he struggled to hold it in place and stand up all at the same time. “Damn it all to hell! Why can't I balance right?” His face went ashen and he quit struggling. “Crap, I gotta pee again.”

I looked pleadingly at Kisten. The living vamp swung into motion, easily dodging Jenks's flailing arms and hoisting him up off the floor by his shoulders. Jenks was taller by four inches, but Kisten had done bouncer work at his club. “Come on, Jenks,” he said, moving him into the hallway. “I've got some clothes you can put on. Falling down is a lot more comfortable when you have something between your ass and the carpet.”

“Matalina?” Jenks called in panic from the hall, protesting as Kisten manhandled him to my bathroom. “Hey, I can walk. I just forgot I didn't have wings. Le'me go. I can do this.”

I jumped at the sound of Kisten shutting the bathroom door.

“Nice ass, Jenks,” Ivy said into the new silence. Shaking her head, she picked up the second towel Jenks had left behind, folding it as if needing to give herself something to do.

My breath came from me in a long exhalation. “That,”
I said to Ceri, “has got to be the most fantastic charm I've ever seen.”

Ceri beamed, and I realized she'd been worried, waiting for my approval. “Curse,” she said, her eyes on her teacup as she blushed. “Thank you,” she added modestly. “I wrote it down in the back with all the supplemental curses worked in on the chance you'd want to use it again. The countercurse is included, just as it's supposed to be. All you have to do is tap a line and say the words.”

Countercurse,
I thought morosely, wondering if that meant more black on my soul or if I had taken it all already. “Um, thanks, Ceri. You're incredible. I'll never be able to do a charm that complex. Thank you.”

She stood in front of the window and sipped her tea, looking pleased. “You returned me my soul, Rachel Mariana Morgan. Making your life easier is a small thing.”

Ivy made a rude sound and dropped the folded towel on the table. She didn't seem to know what to do next.
My soul. My poor, tarnished, blackening soul.

My mouth went dry as the enormity of what I had done fell on me. Shit. I was playing with the black arts. No, not the black arts—which you could go to jail for—but demonic arts. They didn't even have laws for people practicing demonic arts. I felt cold, then hot. Not only had I just put a bunch of black on my soul, but I had called it a good thing, not bad.

Oh God, I was going to be sick.

“Rachel?”

I sank down into my chair feeling shaky. Ceri had her hand on my shoulder, but I hardly felt it. Ivy was shouting something, and Ceri was telling her to sit down and be still, that it was just the delayed shock of taking on so much reality imbalance and that I was going to be okay.

Okay?
I thought, putting my head on the table before I fell over.
Maybe. “Rhombus,”
I whispered, feeling the eye-blink-fast connection to the line and the protective circle rise around me. Ceri leapt forward, joining me before it finished
forming. I had practiced this ley line charm for three months, and it was white magic, damn it, not black.

“Rachel!” Ivy cried as the shimmering band of ever-after wavered into existence between us. I pulled my head up, determined not to spew. I wanted to see what I had done to my soul, and though I couldn't see my aura, I could see a reflection of the damage in the shimmering band of ever-after.

“God help me,” I whispered, feeling my face go cold.

“Rachel, it's all right.” Ceri was crouched before me, her hand gripping mine, trying to get me to look at her. “You're seeing an artificially inflated shade. It hasn't had a chance to soak in yet. It really isn't that bad.”

“Soak in?” I said, my voice cracking. “I don't want it to soak in!” My aura had turned the usually red sheen of ever-after to black. Hidden in it was a shimmer of gold from my aura, looking like an aged patina. I swallowed hard.
I would not spew. I would not spew.

“It will get better. I promise.”

I met her eyes, the panic subsiding. It would get better. Ceri said so; I had to believe her.

“Rachel!” Ivy cried, standing helplessly outside the circle. “Take this down!”

My head hurt and I couldn't get enough air. “Sorry,” I breathed, breaking my link with the line. The sheet of ever-after flickered and vanished, and I felt a surge through me when I emptied my chi. I didn't want anything extra in me right now. I was too full of blackness.

Looking embarrassed, Ivy forced the tension from her shoulders. She blinked several times, trying to recapture her usual placid calmness, when I knew what she wanted to do was give me a slap and tell me I was being stupid or give me a hug and tell me it was going to be okay. But she couldn't do either, so she just stood there, looking miserable.

“I gotta go,” I said abruptly, surging to my feet.

Ceri gracefully stood and got out of my way, but Ivy reached for me. “Rachel, wait,” she protested, and I hesitated, vision swimming as she gripped my elbow.

I couldn't stay there. I felt like a leper in a house of innocents, a pariah among nobles. I was covered in blackness, and this time it was all mine. “Jenks!” I shouted, yanking out of Ivy's grip and heading for my room. “Let's go!”

“Rachel, what are you doing?”

I went to my room, scuffed my shoes on, grabbed my bag, and pushed past her and into the hall. “Exactly what I had planned,” I said, ignoring her, pacing far too close behind me.

“You haven't had anything to eat,” she said. “You're still reeling from invoking that…spell. It won't kill you to sit down and have a cup of coffee.”