Blood Magic (15 page)

By the time I’d crawled far enough away from the smell to get to my feet, it was so late that the sky in the east was tinged with the first trace of light. As I stumbled across the front lawn, Reese’s truck pulled into the drive, wheels crunching over gravel. It was still the worst sound in the world. Blood on my hands, in my nose, on the gravel—if I shut my eyes, I’d see it all again with perfect clarity.

Reese climbed slowly out of his truck. He shut the door carefully and turned around, obviously trying not to wake Judy or me. When he saw me, he jumped back so that his elbow slammed into the truck. “Silla?” Shaking his head, he walked toward me. As he peered through the shadows, his steps slowed and then picked up until he ran the final feet. “Are you okay? What happened?”

He tried to grab me, but the knife was clutched in one of my hands and the Tupperware in the other. “Silla? What are you doing with that knife?” His tone shifted into wariness, as if I was a wild animal.

“I killed a rabbit.” I offered him the Tupperware.

Automatically, he took it, then nearly dropped it. “Jesus!”

“It’s just blood.”

“You …” He stared at me, eyes wide, then at the container, and back at me. “You sacrificed an animal?”

“Mr. Meroon would have killed it anyway.”

“And eaten it! Jesus.”

“I fed it to the forest.”

I could see him steeling himself. His fingers twitched and he clenched his jaw. “Okay, bumblebee, you’re freaking me out a bit. You sound totally psycho.”

“Like father like daughter.” Dizziness swamped my head and I almost floated away.

Reese ignored my raving and put the Tupperware on the ground like it was poison, then daintily removed the knife from my hand. “You’re covered with blood.” He bent to stab the knife into the ground.

“More on me than in the Tupperware. Mom would disapprove.”

His eyes darted to mine, sharply. “No shit.”

We faced each other over two feet of nothing. We were the same height, though he was broader, thanks to that Y chromosome and years of football. Mom used to say we had Dad’s eyes. Pale and curious. I thought, suddenly, that the rabbit blood would never work now. It was old and dead. Wasted. I said, “You should check your phone messages.”

He frowned. “I did. You got home fine … didn’t you?” As he spoke, he reached into his jeans pocket for his cell.

“Yeah,” I whispered, “but …”

He flicked it open with his thumb and pushed a button before putting it to his ear.

I walked, feet heavy as concrete, and sat on the porch steps.

Reese’s eyes flashed wide. He stared at me, mouth pressing together. I shrugged and leaned my head against the railing.

“Jesus Christ, Silla!”

He was right in front of me, hands on my shoulders, dragging me up. “You’re okay? What else happened? Who did it?”

“I don’t know.” My head shook involuntarily.

“Take me out there.”

“I’m too tired. Wait … wait a few hours. Until the sun is up high enough to burn away all the moon shadows.”

“Jesus.”

I leaned forward against him, my head on his shoulder with my arms crossed, hands fisted against my ribs. “I don’t think it will work.”

“What?”

“The rabbit blood.”

“Sil, you—”

“It’s dead now. Old. Not used quickly enough. And God. A rabbit. What was I thinking?”

Reese wrapped his arms around me and pulled me with him back to the porch, where we sat beside each other. I put my head down on his shoulder.

“Tell me what happened.”

I did. Everything from kissing Nick to the flowers to finding the desecrated graves. To hoping—needing—for there to be some truth about the magic that didn’t lead straight back to my blood.

When I finished, Reese was so quiet I had to open my eyes and look at his face. He was glaring off toward Nick’s house. “Oh, Reese.”

“He made you bleed, goddammit.”

“That isn’t the point of this story.” I took his chin in one hand and forced it toward me. “Stop being overprotective.”

Reese jerked out of my grip. “Never.”

I held his gaze, trying to make my expression as stern as possible.

Finally he nodded.

“Good, because he’s coming over this afternoon to work with us. To try.”

“Silla!”

“It will be good to know if he can do it. If it’s just our blood or anybody’s.”

Reese actually growled in frustration. But after a moment, his curiosity made him admit through his teeth, “You’re right! It’ll be good experimentation.”

I put my head back on his shoulder and, as casually as possible, said, “I’ve been thinking how the magic could have been used to kill Mom and Dad. Since we know now that somebody besides us can do it.”

His jaw clenched. I felt the muscles move against the top of my head.

“The possession spell. Dad’s notes mention birds, but why couldn’t you do it to a person, too?”

“Holy shit, Silla.” Reese drew away from me. He blinked slowly, his brain’s version of the egg timer that shows up when the computer needs you to wait while it processes something. Then he said, “That makes sense. There are a lot of stories about witches possessing other animals, and people, too. Witches, and the demons, of course.” His voice was soft, and he
looked away. “You mean that someone possessed Dad and made him kill Mom, then shoot himself.”

“Yeah.” I settled back against his shoulder.

“But who, Silla? Who would do that? Who could?”

“I don’t know. Another wizard, maybe.”

“Sil, this isn’t
Harry Potter.
”

“It’s weird to call Dad a witch.”

“The Deacon calls him a magician.”

“Like Houdini.”

“Maybe.” Reese bonked his head lightly on mine. “Houdini was into the occult.”

I grumbled and tightened my arms around myself. Reese put an arm around my shoulders.

“We have to try the possession spell. To see if it works,” I said.

“That’s too advanced, Sil, we should keep working up to it.”

“There might not be time.”

“Maybe there’s a way to protect against it.”

“Like one of the protection-against-evil charms?”

Reese sighed. “But Dad had to have known all of them. And he was vulnerable.”

The thought made me grab his hand and squeeze. “We have to do something.”

“We should focus on finding out who it is.”

“I wonder if we could alter the spell for finding lost things. Whoever it is is sort of lost. From us.”

“Maybe.” He yawned widely enough to crack his jaw.

It passed to me, and as I yawned, I pressed closer to my brother.

Our house faced northwest, so all the stars were visible, and would be for at least an hour. I picked out the constellations I knew. The Big Dipper. Perseus. The cool dawn air smelled of dank leaves and dry smoke. And perfume. “You smell like perfume.”

“I was with Danielle.”

“Gross.”

“Oh, yeah, after your escapades with Nick Pardee, you don’t get to throw stones.”

“I guess.”

“You really trust him?”

“Gram likes him,” I said in a small voice.

Reese sighed. “We’ll figure it out, Silla. We have to.”

I just kept watching the stars. I wanted to see them move. I always had.

June 14, 1905

I have seen our destiny!

Philip took me out into the forest today and taught me the art of Possession. He cautioned me first, as he tends to do, that while possession is a valuable tool for learning, it is a dangerous and tempting weapon. I adore temptation
.

I expected it to be so difficult, because Philip struggles, despite his vast practice, to claim his spirit’s ownership over even a small jaybird. But I—I leap into it as though I had always known how to fly! When I tumbled out of the sky and back into my body that first time, I was laughing and exhilarated. Philip lay beside me, watching as I stood and twirled. “You are not exhausted?” he asked, leaning up on his elbows. I stopped and smiled at him, at the blond hair falling over his forehead, at his unbuttoned vest and the long stretch of his legs. I shook my head. “I am alive,” I said, collapsing beside him and flinging my arms around his neck. I kissed his lips through my smiles
.

“Josie,” he protested, pushing me back. I showed him my greatest pout, and had him chuckling as he shook his head and touched my hot cheek. “Josie, you are drunk on the magic.”

“Yes!”

Philip laughed. “I have never been good at possessions. They leave me laid out and ruined for hours. I suspect you could take a person, if you liked, for as long as you liked.”

“A person?” The thought flared through me, faster than lightning. A million ideas for pleasure and mischief battered inside my mind
.

But Philip shook his head. “Josephine, it is not a game. In the Deacon’s time, men and women were killed for this—for everything we do.”

“Killed? Why should we be murdered for the magic? For healing and finding charms?”

“We’re witches, little sprite.”

My hands flew to my mouth, and I glanced all around at the shadows in the forest. I had thought it but never spoken the word aloud. “Witches.” I said it again, more calmly. “But our magic is not from the Devil.”

“You don’t think I’m your Devilish familiar? Teaching you dark secrets?”

“I know you’re not—you won’t even kiss me.”

He laughed, and his eyes lowered to my lips. I know he will kiss me soon
.

I thought about what he said about our kind being killed, but I am not concerned. I have real power—no one could keep me chained, because my blood can transform iron into water. I could walk through walls if I needed, and now—now I know I can throw my mind into another’s, and how easy, then, would it be to unlock any cage? We are invincible, Philip and I. Like unto God. Or the Devil
.

I have forgiven Philip everything, for all that he has shown me. When he closes us into his workroom or takes us out of the city to collect herbs and stones and rich earth, I think perhaps that he will love me as well as I adore him. Our fingers brush and our blood blends together
.

I slept with my window open, and by the morning I was wrapped up in my sheets like a burrito. That stupid dog dream had woken me up (again), so it was a pain in the ass to drag myself out of bed when my cell phone blared its techno-beat alarm.

By the time I was dressed and downstairs, I only had time to grab a Pop-Tart before running outside to meet the tow truck. I was in such a hurry, I tripped on Lilith’s gardening boots again.

I wished she’d keep the damn things somewhere else, as I picked them up and put them several feet away from the door. It wasn’t like she needed to be gardening right now, anyway. It was practically November, and the ground was freaking cold.

After dealing with the joy of sitting in the tow truck cab with a dude in a flannel shirt, trying to avoid telling him that actually, no, I didn’t give a crap about the St. Louis Rams having a game on Sunday and could he please just ignore me so that I could stare out the window and think about Silla, I met up with Eric at Mercer’s Grocer. It was right next to the mechanic
slash gas station. And the Dairy Queen. And the bar with the neon Budweiser frogs in the window. And a hardware store. And a trio of antique stores already throwing open their doors for customers. Okay, pretty convenient to only have to walk a block for anything in town. If you needed old furniture or beer or hammers.

Just inside the sliding glass doors of the grocery was a little coffee cart run by a Mrs. April McGee, and there was a line at 9:45 a.m. on a Saturday.

“Color me shocked,” I said. “The Dairy Queen
isn’t
the only hangout for the youth of Yaleylah.”

“For that, you’re buying, asshole. I like two packs of sugar in mine.”

Laughing, I did, and joined him across the street in the hardware store a few minutes later. Handing him the cardboard cup, I stood next to him and stared at the wall of tools. “What are you looking for?”

“Hammers.”

I grinned.

“What’s so funny? You don’t have hammers in Chicago? Or you don’t know what one looks like?”