Chasing Magic (18 page)

“Oh no.” Elder Griffin shook his head. His eyes when they met hers were so full of sadness that she felt it like a hand around her throat. “No. I do not suspect for a moment that he would. That was clear to me. My fear is not for you. It is for him.”

Her hands fell still. “What?”

“My dear …” He leaned forward farther. “What did you do to him?”

Holy fuck.

The world stopped; for a moment she thought her heart was going to follow suit. What had she done? He was going to want an explanation and she couldn’t give him one, how was she supposed to give him one?

I don’t know what you mean
was on the tip of her tongue; deny. Deny, deny, deny, deny everything. She even began to say it, her mouth opening to form the words, but when she met his eyes again she couldn’t.

He knew. He’d shaken Terrible’s hand and he’d felt something—those sidelong glances at the wedding, the surprise on his face when his skin touched Terrible’s, made sense now—and if she lied she’d only make it worse.

But how the hell was she supposed to even start to explain? Much less admit to him what she’d done.

She’d killed a psychopomp. She could be executed for that. And there she sat in front of an Elder. An Elder who, no matter how fond of her he might be, had both the authority and the obligation under Church law to report her crime.

Would he believe sex magic? Or maybe that she’d
done something, some sort of ritual to make Terrible stronger? Something like that? She couldn’t say that she’d let him come into intimate contact with her blood in an unlicensed marriage; he’d know it was a lie, because her own energy hadn’t changed. What could she tell him, what could she say, what the hell was she going to do?

She’d have to leave the Church. She’d have to go immediately, she’d have to run, assuming Elder Griffin let her leave his house after she confessed. She’d go straight to Terrible’s place and stay there, and he’d help her figure out what to do.

Leave the Church … leave her home. Her palms felt sticky and hot. Her entire body felt sticky and hot, the space behind her eyes tingling and aching.

“Please tell me. He felt … I felt your magic in him.”

Still she said nothing. That was that, then. Time to do what she’d hoped she would never have to do, time to act on the choice she’d already made in her heart—the choice she’d made the second she pulled Terrible’s gun from his waistband that night to shoot the hawk coming for his soul.

“It will stay between us. I ask you to trust me. Let me help you. Let me help him.”

“Why?” It came out in such a dry sort of whisper, she wasn’t even sure at first that it was audible.

He shook his head, a sad kind of shake like a man hearing news of a tragedy in another part of the world. “Because I care. Let me help you because I want to.”

Her cheeks itched; when she raised her hand to rub them she realized they were wet. Great. Crying. It would have pissed her off if she’d been able to feel anything but fear, anything but pain, so strong it pushed right through her high and refused to let her escape.

Elder Griffin sighed. “Cesaria … I know what soul-binding magic feels like.”

A fresh packet of tissues sat in a pocket of her bag; she pulled one out, wiped at her eyes. Not that it mattered. The tears weren’t stopping, weren’t slowing. It was too late to stop them.

And it was too late to lie, or to hide. It was the end. The end, and she could at least face it with some dignity, and with Truth. “You remember the night, that night when I got shot? When Kemp shot me, you remember.”

Elder Griffin nodded. And kept nodding while she told the story, each word scraping at her throat as it came out, making it hurt even more. The ghost whores, the house, the psychopomp birds she’d managed to bring under her control. Kemp, naked, his skin covered with magical tattoos, coming out from the darkness with a loaded gun and shooting. All of that, Elder Griffin basically knew.

What he didn’t know …

When she got to the part about killing the psychopomp, he gasped. His face paled, almost as if he still wore the white Church makeup designed to make the Elders look like spirits, to emphasize their dominion over them.

Might as well finish the story. She didn’t think she could stop at that point, anyway, not when the images kept coming, not when she saw Terrible on the pavement with his eyes closed and his blood spreading in a dark pool around him, as if it was all happening again.

Her voice shook, a low dry rasp cracking the still air between them. “I used my knife. The sigil, the one they used to use, the one you told me about. Not the changes Oliver Fletcher made, just the original one, the Church one. I carved it into his chest and I activated it. I couldn’t—I couldn’t let him die, I couldn’t stand it, and, and I can’t even say I’m sorry because I
am
sorry but I’d do it again. I need him. I can’t … I
need
him.”

He sat without moving, without speaking, for a long
time. Chess didn’t say anything, either; what more was there to say? She’d confessed. They said it was good for the soul, but hers was so covered in shit she didn’t think anything would make a difference, and she sure as fuck didn’t feel any better for having told him.

What she felt was sick, and scared, and what she felt most was the desire to go home, to climb into bed with Terrible and lie there while he kept her safe. Or to visit the pipe room, to claim a section of sofa and smoke Dream until the world faded away, became a not-very-interesting TV show with the volume turned way down.

“I see,” he said finally. “I see.”

Another pause.

“Have there been any … effects from this? Has anything changed about him?”

“No. He’s … well, no, not his personality or anything. But dark magic—if he gets near it, touches something made with it, he passes out.”

“I see,” he said again.

That package of tissues wasn’t going to last much longer. She’d already used up about two-thirds of them.

He stood up. Shit. He was going to pick up the phone, he was going to turn her in. And she couldn’t blame him for it, because she’d killed a psychopomp to keep it from performing its duty. She deserved to be punished for that.

She deserved to be punished for a lot of things.

“I am getting a drink. Would you care for one?”

She shook her head.

He left the room, heading into what she guessed was the kitchen; she used the opportunity to crunch up two more Cepts, fast, swirling water from her bottle in her mouth to try to cut the horrible bitterness on her tongue.

It didn’t help. Nothing would help. But it soothed her, at least a little, and at that moment she could use whatever she could get.

What she should probably be doing was throwing herself out the door, tearing across the grounds to her car, and hauling ass back to her apartment or Terrible’s, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. The Church was her home, the Church had rescued her, given her a future, made her something real. And before Terrible had come along, the Church had been everything she had; well, the Church and her pills had been everything she had.

The thought of leaving it made her heart feel as if it were made of wet sand, sluggish and heavy. She wouldn’t do that until she had absolutely no other choice; she wouldn’t do that until all hope was gone.

She should have known better than to hope, yeah. But it kept happening, anyway.

Elder Griffin reappeared, holding two cans of Coke. He opened one and set the other on the table in front of her. On a coaster on the table, rather. Any other time she would have smiled.

“So,” he said. “I confess I have very little idea what to say. What you have done … It is a grave crime, Cesaria. Grave indeed.”

How was it possible that her entire body was numb but the sharp cold ache in her heart grew worse with every second?

Not just because he could turn her in, not just because she could be executed. She realized, looking into his sad blue eyes, his serious face, that ever since Terrible had found out about her sleeping with Lex, Elder Griffin was the only man she cared about—the only
person
she cared about—in the entire world who didn’t know about a bad choice she’d made, a bad thing she’d done. The only one who didn’t know who she really was, that she was a junkie, that she was a slut, that she was a failure, that she was worthless and disloyal.

Elder Griffin had believed she was special. He’d believed
she was good. The disappointment in his eyes hurt.

“ ’Twas a selfish thing you did.” His gaze left hers; he stared at the ceiling. “I am … I am shocked to hear this. I am disappointed to hear it.”

Fuck. She was crying in earnest now, crying from shame, crying because she’d lost something valuable. Something she’d always known was valuable but hadn’t realized how much she counted on. He was right to call her selfish. He was right to be shocked and disappointed in her. Aside from everything else, what she’d done had broken the oaths she took when she was officially inducted into the Church.

And she still couldn’t say she was sorry. Because it would be a lie.

“I never would have expected such a thing from you.”

Enough. Death would almost be preferable to hearing more, to hearing how badly she’d fucked up again.

Another tissue. “I know you have to turn me in. It’s okay, I understand. I just … maybe you could let me go, and I’ll, I’ll leave Triumph City or something.”

“No.”

He wasn’t even going to let her run away. He didn’t even care enough for her anymore that he’d let her live. “Um, okay, can you, can I call Terrible and tell him—”

“I have no intention of repeating this to anyone.”

“I know it’s your— What?”

He looked down at his hands clasped together in front of him, like in pictures she’d seen of people praying when they still believed the old religions. “I have no intention of turning you in, Cesaria. You know what the penalty is for killing a psychopomp. I cannot … I cannot do that, though I know I should.”

Relief made her dizzy—relief or the first flush of happiness from her pills, or both. She didn’t know and she didn’t care. Instead she sat there, her tears starting
afresh, faster than before, feeling relieved and slimy to be feeling relieved. Sleazy.

“Thank you,” she managed. Shame. More shame, piling on what already lurked in her heart and soul. Shame because he was going against something he believed—she knew he was—and shame because he was doing it for her. “Thanks.”

He acknowledged her gratitude with a dip of his head, gave her another minute to stop sniffling before he spoke again. “You do know what that sigil could do? Why it’s making him vulnerable to dark magics?”

“It could— It makes him more vulnerable to possession, right?”

Anger flashed across his face. “How could you be so— You knew what the consequences could be, I told you the story and—” He stopped himself, pressed his hand to his forehead for a minute and sighed.

She’d never seen him angry, aside from one moment in the battle in the City of Eternity months before. She’d never heard him yell. Maybe he would yell. He certainly should.

He didn’t. Small cabinets flanked the couch; Elder Griffin leaned over to open one of those, from which he pulled a large blue ashtray and set it on the table. “Feel free to smoke. Keith does on occasion.”

It hadn’t occurred to her before, but suddenly she was dying for a smoke. She could use a line, too, but she didn’t think she’d get one until she got home. Yeah, she could bump up in the car if she had to, but she had a feeling that wouldn’t be enough.

He watched in silence as she lit up, then he spoke. “The sigil broadens his own magical powers slightly, and, of course, because you activated it with your blood it gives him a minute amount of your power. But it weakens his natural defenses, because it uses his energy to bind his soul to his body. So when he comes in contact
with magic, it affects that energy and changes it, because he is not powerful enough to handle it. He doesn’t know how.”

“It changes the energy that’s holding his—it changes that energy?”

He nodded.

Her hand shook as she dragged off her cigarette. “That means the energy isn’t effective, right? When it changes. It’s not doing its job, binding his soul to his body. That’s what you’re saying, right?”

Another nod.

“So that means he’s not passing out. He’s— His soul is …”

“Escaping, yes. The sigil prevents it from leaving entirely, but there is an extremely brief time period—I would guess the merest fraction of a second—when the bond breaks. Cesaria … he’s not fainting. He’s dying.”

Her stomach churned. She was going to be sick, she was going to be sick, she couldn’t stop it.

But at least she made it. At least she managed to choke out the word “Bathroom,” and at least she was able to hear and understand his response over the ringing—the
screaming
—in her ears. And at least she made it.

Dying. Dying every time. Would his soul always come back, what if one day it didn’t? How could his body take that, how long would it be able to—did his heart stop when it happened, was his fucking heart stopping, was his breath stopping, what if one day it didn’t start again, how long could he go without oxygen? Was his body dying when his soul left it?