covencraft 04 - dry spells (21 page)

“You’re a long way from home, witch,” she said.

Jade glanced quickly at Seth and then back at Mnemosyne. She was beautiful in the same way Sakkara was beautiful. Only Mnemosyne had jet-black eyes that glittered with the red light of the room. Her perfect eyebrows arched over them even as she raked her gaze over Jade.

“I am.”

“Seth tells me you’re here on an errand.”

Jade’s eyes flicked over to Seth. She felt his tail wrap around one of her ankles and squeeze. Hard. She’d have a bruise for sure. “Yes, correct,” she stammered out. “Something or someone. The Gorgon.”

Mnemosyne’s eyebrows went high and a smile teased across her gorgeous pink lips. She looked from Jade to Seth, who averted his eyes from Mnemosyne and focused on his shot glass. “Really? Medusa?”

“Yes, really,” Jade replied, watching the two of them.

“I thought you indicated the Dearth had to freeze over before you willingly went back,” Mnemosyne said to Seth. “I remember your exact words were-“

“I know what I said,” Seth growled. “I don’t need Memory herself to remind me. I wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for…” He waved his hand at Jade.

“It’s not like you to do favors,” Mnemosyne said. She eyed him up and down contemplatively. “You know, there is an auditor looking for you. I couldn’t think of a reason why there would be, but now…”

Seth didn’t look pleased. “The bureau always has pencil pushers about.”

“I don’t remember you ever being audited.”

“Well, if it had happened, you would of course remember.”

Mnemosyne tilted her head, examining Seth.

“I’m thousands of years old. It was bound to happen.”

“Hmm,” replied Mnemosyne, still eyeing Seth speculatively.

“Trust me, I’m not doing any favors here. I’m bound until Possum here gets what she came for.”

Mnemosyne eyeballed him again, her dark eyes moving over him as if checking for the veracity in his words. Her gaze zeroed in on Seth’s shoulder, then over to Jade. Jade felt the runes Sakkara had burned into her skin flare, sending an unpleasant zing through her, as though she’d been whacked really hard on the funny bone. It wasn’t at all funny, despite the name. It sent a reverberation of sensation through her body: unpleasant and cold. Seth looked about how Jade felt; his jaw was tight, his ears moving back and laying flat against his head, like a dog.

Mnemosyne laughed, clapping her hands together. “Oh my, you
have
been bound. And you have to stay until you see Medusa?” She laughed again and if Seth could kill with his eyes, she would have been dead. Jade looked down at the table, not wanting to be on the receiving end of his glare in case he turned his eyes her way. “This is honestly the most exciting news I’ve heard in eons. Drinks on the house!” Mnemosyne called. Instead of merriment, there was a general sense of grumbling and disgust, the patrons seeming none to happy to have a free beverage. “No one leaves until they finish!” she commanded.

“Why is that so funny?” Jade asked, directing her question at Mnemosyne.

Mnemosyne raised an eyebrow. “They’ve got history. Seth and Medusa.” She winked at Jade, one impossibly-lashed eyelid flicking down and then up.

“You know Medusa?” Jade accused Seth.

Seth took another sip of his shot. “Knew. Past tense. Very past. Ancient.”

Mnemosyne tsk-tsked. “Darling, you sound like the very paradigm of an ex carrying a torch. Why don’t you keep protesting and I’ll keep sitting here not believing a word of it.”

“Medusa is your ex?” Jade couldn’t help how loud the words came out and Seth immediately hissed at her, hand snapping out across the table to grab her wrist and twist it painfully.

“Keep your voice down.”

“It’s not like there’s anyone in the Dearth that doesn’t know,” Mnemosyne added, brushing imaginary dust off the table. The runes across the top lit up orange and red as she did.

Jade tried to yank her wrist back and Seth gave it one more good twist before releasing her. She pulled her arm back into her lap, wincing. It didn’t look bruised, but how would she even know in the Dearth?

“Why are we here if you know her?”

Seth ground his teeth together, the muscle of his jaw flexing. His ears twitched on top of his head. “I don’t keep tabs on her.”

“Don’t you?” Mnemosyne asked with knowing eyes.

“No, I don’t,” Seth replied, turning to face Mnemosyne slightly. “So if you know where she’s living know, that’d be a help.” Each word was spat out, the consonants sharp and biting. Mnemosyne and Seth engaged in a staring content, neither one of them blinking. For something to do, Jade picked up her shot glass and sipped at the liquid again, before remembering how vile it was. She wrinkled her nose and put the glass back down. The liquid was heavy in her stomach. Like rotten Jell-O.

Mnemosyne tapped the table idly. “She’s still in the same place. I’m sure you remember it. If not, I can help with that.”

Seth held up a hand quickly. “None of that, Memory dear.” He sighed, sounded resigned and long-suffering. “All right. We’ll need transportation.”

“I’m sure you will.” Mnemosyne watched Seth with calculating eyes.

“What do you want?”

Mnemosyne smiled, looking at Seth and then turned her gaze to Jade. “Witch blood.”

“Done,” Seth replied.

“Whoa,” Jade said, knowing exactly who the blood was supposed to come from. “I didn’t agree yet.”

Seth gazed at her. “We need transportation. Unless you’d like to spend the rest of your life traveling through the Dearth trying to walk to Medusa’s.”

“No, but…” She glanced between the two of them again. “How much blood are we talking here?”

Mnemosyne pursed her lips. “Hmm. Two containers?”

“How big is a container?”

“Standard size, darling. No worse than going to the doctors.”

“What will you do with it?” Jade asked.

Mnemosyne winked. “You really don’t want to know.”

“Go get your tools. I’ll deal with this,” Seth said. Mnemosyne slid out of the booth and Jade pinned Seth with her eyes.

“Deal with this? Are you kidding me? Is she going to use my blood to… I don’t know, end the world or break space-time?”

“Possum, you’ve an overly inflated sense of self,” Seth scoffed. “At most she could use your blood to bind another witch or a demon.” Seth made a see-saw motion with his hand. “Maybe a minor space-time bend, but nothing that will end the world.”

“I feel so much better,” Jade said dryly. “I thought I couldn’t even bleed here.” She recalled what Seth said about being mortally wounded and not dying in the Dearth.

“Oh, you can bleed. You just can’t die.”

“Don’t we have something else to barter with? Something of yours?”

Seth patted his pockets. “Oh, look at that. I’ve nothing on me. Seeing as I was pulled into the Dearth unwilling by a temperamental witch.” His eyes flashed gold and Jade’s stomach rolled at the sight. “Possum, you’ll bleed and you’ll be happy to do it. We need transportation and this will get it for us. If all you have to do is open a vein, consider yourself lucky. This is the Dearth. You have no idea what things could happen.”

Jade swallowed. She didn’t know if Seth was bluffing or not. But she didn’t want to find out. “Fine.”

Mnemosyne came back with a small black box. “Everything agreed upon here? Blood given freely is so much more powerful than that taken by force.”

Seth looked at Jade, his eyes a warning. “Yes. Given freely,” Jade said. Seth and Mnemosyne waited expectantly and it took Jade a moment to realize they were waiting for her. “What?”

“Your arm. On the table please,” Mnemosyne said.

Jade placed her arm on the table, soft, fleshy underside down. Mnemosyne took her wrist carefully and flipped Jade’s arm over, exposing the tender skin of her inner arm.

“You have lovely veins. So blue and green against your skin.” Mnemosyne pet Jade’s arm and Jade had to resist the urge to pull her arm back.

Mnemosyne opened up her small black kit, pulling out a scalpel, a hypodermic needle and two vials. The heavy liquid she’d drank sat thick in Jade’s stomach. Mnemosyne deftly handled the scalpel, quickly slicing down Jade’s forearm. Jade was hit with a sense memory of doing the same thing. Of sitting in a bathtub, hearing Lily’s voice in her head, telling Jade she couldn’t do it anymore, couldn’t be two people anymore, couldn’t live with both of them fighting for dominance anymore. She remembered her skin so white and pale, the blade so sharp and almost pretty in the light. The memory was sharper than it had ever been; so clear and pristine in Jade’s mind, it was like she was watching it in high-definition.

“The memory pull is part of being in contact with me,” Mnemosyne said idly as she worked. “A side effect of my touch. Anything you remember while I’m touching you will be stronger, more visceral.”

Jade remembered being unable to deny Lily anything and when Lily had said she couldn’t go on anymore, Jade hadn’t been able to say no. Hadn’t been able to fight for the right to live, to go against Lily. She never could say no to Lily. She remembered how conflicted she’d felt, how guilty and at fault. If she’d known, at the time, that her actions would mean she’d wake up alone, more solitary in the world than she’d ever been…

“A moment longer, darling,” Mnemosyne said.

Despite Seth’s assurances that her biological functions wouldn’t work in the Dearth, Jade felt nausea bubble up her esophagus as she watched Mnemosyne slit the thin skin of her underarm. Unlike her memories, no blood welled to the surface, no dark liquid swelling up to fill the newly created gap. There was only the reddish edges of skin splitting under the sharp knife, pulling slightly apart and showcasing the fleshy inner layer of fat and subcutaneous tissue. Mnemosyne didn’t cut long or deep enough to create a mortal wound, only making a small slit hardly enough for Jade to bleed from or worry about. And yet, Jade couldn’t take her eyes from the pink-red edge of skin on her arm. She remembered a longer slit that had left no scar. A pristinely white bathtub turning pink with blood mixed in water and the soporific, hypnotic feeling of drifting away…

Mnemosyne grabbed her arm and squeezed, using enough force that Jade gasped in surprise. Blood started welling up, forced by the pressure she applied. Feeling his eyes on her, Jade looked up to find Seth watching.

“Bad memories, Possum?” He asked like he knew. Like he knew
exactly
what Jade was remembering. That awful, awful day when Lily had made her…

“There now. All done.” Jade pulled her eyes from Seth to find Mnemosyne already placing a lid on the container with her blood. Jade stared at her blood in the container: dark, deep, almost beautiful in its morbidity. Mnemosyne pulled out a sharpie and carefully inked something on top, the runes flaring black and blue before fading away. “Unless you’d like to trade something else? Perhaps you’d like to get rid of the memory you just had,” Mnemosyne said, and then her eyes moved up and down Jade. Jade felt like she was exposed to her gaze. “Or others that you no longer wish to have.”

Did she? Jade wondered what it would mean to lose that memory, or another one she carried around with her everywhere. Did trauma linger even if the mind forgot? She shook her head. She couldn’t be distracted. She was here to face the Gorgon and there was no telling what kinds of things she’d have to trade for any sort of deal with Mnemosyne.

Mnemosyne smiled, patting Jade’s hand. “Well, pleasure doing business with you,” she said as she slid out of the booth. She pulled a set of keys out of her pocket and tossed them at Seth. He caught them deftly. “Your friends are welcome here, Seth. Bring them by again,” Mnemosyne added, giving a pointed look to Jade.

“We’re not friends,” Jade replied at the same time Seth began sliding out of the booth, motioning for Jade to follow.

“Put something around that cut, Possum. Or it’ll get ripped open when it catches on something.”

Jade stared down at the open cut on her arm, seeing how it gaped open. Not bleeding, not oozing, but completely and unhygenically open to the entire demon world. Shit. She was probably going to face Medusa only to return back to the real world and die of a staph infection.

“Come along,” Seth called over his shoulder, heading for the door. “Oh, and driver picks the music.”

#

Paris knocked on the door to Josef’s house and waited, tucking his hands into his wool coat. It was slightly windy out; a sharp, biting winter wind that cut through the fabric and settled in his bones.

Josef’s face upon opening the door and seeing Paris was grim. “Well. I suppose it can’t be good news to have the Coven Leader show up on your doorstep.” He turned away and gestured for Paris to follow. “Come in and settle your bones.”

Once inside, Paris stood in the foyer, not sure what to do. Josef’s house was one of the oldest in the Covenstead - worn wood planks, smaller windows, low-watt bulbs because the circuits couldn’t handle more. Paris supposed Josef could upgrade it all, if he wanted, but he didn’t seem to be that sort of man.

“I assume this is about Jade,” Josef said, his voice coming from the small sitting room off to the side of the front door. He settled himself into a large chair, clearly well-lived in from the look of the scratched up, buttery leather.

Paris, not bothering to remove his coat, nor his shoes, took the seat Josef offered across from him. “Yes.”

Josef nodded. “Is she dead?”

“No,” Paris answered quickly.

Josef took a deep inhale and then exhaled, as though he had to acclimatize himself to the news. “Seeing you on my doorstep, that was my first thought.”

“Not dead. But missing. After a fashion.”

Josef’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

It was Paris’ turn to sigh. “Josef, how well did you know my mother?”

Confused by the seeming non-sequitur, Josef frowned. “As well as anyone in the Coven, I suppose. She was Coven Leader for most of my life here. And after Josefina - Jade - died, she stopped by often to talk to my sister. Consoling her. Not that it helped in the end. She was heartbroken by Josefina’s death.” Josef’s gaze went distant for a moment - staring slightly beyond Paris, into the past. “Why do you ask?”