A Feather of Stone #3 (16 page)

Trees. Above him were trees. It was barely light out, but whether it was dawn or twilight, he couldn’t tell. He was being dragged somewhere. He was alive. Tears escaped his eyes and rolled down the drying mud on his face. A rolling boom of thunder made him tremble, and then warm rain was pelting him through the trees.

A face looked back at him. A white face, with orange hair and blue eyes. A boy. The boy was dragging him on a plank over the ground. The boy would take him back to the farm, turn him in, collect his ten dollars.

Crying, he’d raised his hands to his face, but the manacles were heavy and he banged himself on the nose. The white boy looked back at him, then rested the plank on the ground and came to kneel by his head. He tried to stop crying, tried to look brave, like a man, but he wasn’t a man—he had no name.

The white boy spoke in French.
“Vous serez récuperer, m’sieu,”
he said in a soft voice.
“À mon ville, pas loin. Calmez-vous.”

Those words made no sense.

That had been Marcel who’d found him in the swamp, dying, and fashioned a travois out of a plank and dragged him three miles to Ville du Bois. Twelve-year-old Marcel turned him over to Petra, the healer. Jules burned with fever for a week, hallucinating, rigid with terror. Petra made him teas and soups, some bitter, some not. She washed the swamp mud off him, put salve on all his injuries. The smith came and broke the manacles off his hands.

“Vous vous appelle Jules,”
Petra murmured one night, late, just after his fever had broken.
“Vous vous serez appeller Jules maintenant.”

A dark-haired man came in. Armand. He explained things to Jules in English. And when Jules recovered, as Marcel had said he would, he stayed there, in the Ville du Bois, living as one of them, as a person, for the first time in his life. It was a hidden paradise. Jules never ventured far from the village—misery and pain waited outside. He never wanted to leave—everyone was so kind. M. Daedalus taught him to read and write. Everyone, even the children, helped teach him the natural religion, the
bonne magie
. It fell into place in his life, like tumblers in a lock being set into place with the right key.

One day, some ten years after he’d arrived, he talked to Claire for the first time. He knew what the village said about her—that she had loose skirts—but it wasn’t like back in the other world, where she would have been beaten or exiled.

Jules had been walking home, a string of catfish over his shoulder. As he walked, he murmured a litany of thanks for everything he had, everything he saw around him, every scrap of happiness he felt. He gave thanks for all of it as often as he could.

Not far from the village, he heard voices raised in anger. Several more steps showed him Claire and a young man—Etienne somebody—arguing.

Claire slapped Etienne with her free hand. Fury washed Etienne’s face with an ugly red hue, and he raised his fist above Claire’s head. Just as he was sweeping it down, Jules grabbed it from behind.

“Now, now,” Jules said, keeping his own anger firmly locked away, “you know we don’t hit women.”

“Mind your own business, old man!” Etienne snapped.

“This
is
my business,” Jules said. His strong fingers pried Etienne’s hand off Claire’s arm, and she fell to the ground, then scrambled to her feet. “I’m stopping you from making a mistake that will haunt your soul. You know the threefold law.”

Etienne sneered. “That’s only for magick, old fool!”

“No,” Jules replied, shaking his head. “It’s for everything, all the time.”

“You’d best let me go,” Etienne snarled, “and continue on your way. This is between me and my girl.”

“I’m not your girl!” Claire said.

“You’re everybody’s girl.” The disdain on Etienne’s face pained Jules. The younger man turned back to him. “Last warning. You let me go now, or—” He showed Jules his clenched fist.

“I’m not a girl you can threaten, boy,” Jules said mildly. “And my fist is bigger than yours.”

It was almost twice as big, in fact: Jules was a much bigger man than most of the villagers—the little French people, as he thought of them.

Etienne looked at Jules’s huge fist, with its fingers that had been broken and not set properly. He looked at Jules’s face, which was not mean but iron hard. Jules saw the moment when the boy realized that Jules was maybe seven inches taller and had about fifty pounds on him.

The fight faded from the younger man. The fight, but not the fury.

“Have it your way,” he spat, and wrenched his hand loose.

“I’ll be upset if I hear you’ve bothered this young lady again,” Jules said.

“She’s no lady,” Etienne tossed over his shoulder.

It deserved no response.

“Are you all right?”

Claire nodded. “Thank you.” She seemed embarrassed and unsure of herself, very different from the brash, flirtatious girl Jules saw around the village.

They began walking together.

“It’s a shame our paradise is marred by one like him,” Jules said.

“Paradise!” Claire stared at him. “You mean prison! I would give anything to leave! In fact, Etienne had promised to take me to New Orleans if I lay with him. But he was lying.”

“This village is the last Eden on earth,” Jules said seriously. “The world out there is full of pain.”

He saw her glancing at his scars from back on the farm.

“I’m smothering here, day by day,” Claire said. “I’ve got to get out.” She stopped in the path and looked at him, her eyes clear and without guile. “If you ever leave here, take me with you.”

He almost lost his breath. What was she saying?

Oh. That she wanted someone to protect her on the way or a mule or horse to ride, if he had one.

“I won’t be leaving,
mamzelle
,” he said gruffly. “You take care now.” He split off from the path and followed another to his own little house, his sanctuary.

“Hey.”

Jules jumped as Claire shuffled up and reached for a coffee cup. It was now again, and the memories of then twisted away like leaves in a breeze.

“Time is it?” she mumbled, pouring coffee.

“Not quite noon.”

Her magenta hair smelled like cigarette smoke. She had four small silver rings in her left ear. Jules was thankful she’d let her brow piercing heal over.

“How was it last night?” Jules asked.

Claire shrugged, leaning against the kitchen counter. “All right. Ran into Marcel.”

“Then Daedalus will want to convene the Treize soon, now that you two are here.”

Claire’s face looked bleak as she sipped her coffee. “Yep.”

Clio

I lay on my bed, my wet hair making my T-shirt soggy. Thais and I had both had hot showers, and Melysa and Ouida had made us valerian-and-catnip tea. Now I lay on my bed, feeling Melysa and Thais’s presence downstairs.

Richard was the one who’d been trying to kill us. Richard, who I’d jumped just two days ago and practically slept with.
How could he?
He had actually tried to
kill
me.
And
sleep with me. He was a total
psychopath
. It was terrifying—especially since I hadn’t seen it in him, hadn’t felt it. Hadn’t seen it in his eyes or felt it in his touch. What was wrong with me that I hadn’t picked up on it? The same thing with Luc—they had been both pursuing me and simultaneously betraying me. The two of them.

What was wrong with me? Here’s what was worse: knowing Richard had tried to kill us made me feel pretty murderous myself. And goddess knew Luc was still on my “forget it” list.
Yet
—I still wondered what was wrong with me that they didn’t just love me. Which was so twisted and pathetic and unhealthy that I started bawling all over again, pressing my face into my pillow so no one would hear.

Luc had wanted me because I was the missing part of Thais. Petra wondered if Richard trying to kill us had anything to do with our looking like Cerise, whom he had loved. Did he only see me as a modern version of Cerise?

I almost cried myself sick, working through half a box of tissues, crying until my guts felt twisted and raw. How many times was I going to cry over guys? It had already been too many.

Another question: when could I escape to go confront Richard myself? Because I was going to rip his lungs out. Somehow I didn’t feel afraid of him now, or worried about what he might do next. It was like knowing who it was had granted me immunity from his attacks. I was burning with fury, itching to take it out on him. As soon as I got a chance.

Someone Unseen

Daedalus opened his eyes slowly. The sky had clouded over significantly in the hour since he’d started his spell. The sounds of the swamp were intensifying as twilight neared—animals were foraging, birds going on the hunt—he was making magick. The palm of his right hand tingled, and even before Daedalus looked, he knew what he would see there: a small, glowing green orb that hovered right above his skin.

It had worked.

He’d never done this spell before—he’d found the form in an ancient text at the Oxford library in England. It had been mistranslated from old Persian, and Daedalus had hired a modern scholar to retranslate it. His hunch had paid off. As far as he knew, no one had manifested a locator orb before, not in centuries.

“Go,” he whispered. “Find the circle of ashes.”

Fifteen minutes later, it did.

Once again Daedalus stood inside the charred circle that was such a visceral reminder of that night so long ago. The night of creation and destruction. Now he had a full Treize, the circle, the rite. He was ready at last, after centuries of waiting.

His goal had been achieved, but he knew that others had helped him get here. Jules through the years, Axelle, others. And lately, someone unseen had helped him. Someone who would possibly rejoin the Treize, rendering one of the twins superfluous.

The Endless Cycle

By the time Petra got to Richard and Luc’s apartment, she was nursing a deep, smoldering rage.

Richard answered the door, wearing ragged jeans too big for him and an unbuttoned, faded denim shirt.

“Hi,” he began, but Petra stepped forward and slapped him across the face as hard as she could. He staggered backward, taken completely off guard, and almost fell against the hallway wall.

“Are you
nuts
?” he exclaimed, one hand over his cheek. He straightened quickly, but not before Petra hauled off and smashed her fist into his ribs. “Ow! Stop it, you crazy old bat!”

Now totally alert, Richard danced away from her.

“I’m going to skin you!” Petra hissed, advancing on him. “And then I’ll sew you back into it! You lying
bastard
! You son of a
bitch
! You murdering monster!” Belatedly, Petra had the fervent hope that Clio’s vision hadn’t been wrong.

“Uh,
what
?” He sounded incredulous, staring at her, still with his hand to his face.

“The twins’ spell finally worked,” Petra spit out, trying to corner him. “They
saw
you, you bastard!
Saw
you watching the streetcar, summoning the wasps, blowing up Clio’s car! It was
you
all along! You tried to kill
Clio
! Clio is my child! I raised her! And Thais, an innocent! They’re
my
family! And you stood there and
lied
to me, said they were safe! Said you wouldn’t hurt them! You’re lucky I don’t strike you down where you stand!” She raised one hand in the air, as if to call down a spell that would split him in half.

Richard backed away and held up both hands, ready to ward her off. “I didn’t blow up Clio’s car,” he said quickly. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, good, look concerned,” Petra sneered. “Last night Clio’s car exploded. Congrats. Your spell worked. But you must know that.”

“Her car explo—is she okay?”

“You do surprised concern very well.” Petra’s voice sounded like acid dripping. “You missed your calling—you should have gone onstage.”

“Is she all right?” Richard’s face was stony.

“I’m sure it’s a disappointment for you.”

Richard stepped forward and grabbed both of Petra’s arms, his grip biting into her. “Is. She. All. Right?”

Petra looked at him. This was weird, even for a murderous, lying son of a bitch. “She jumped out a split second before the whole thing went up in flames.”

He released her and stepped back, rubbing his fingers across his forehead. “So she’s okay. And it wasn’t an accident?”

“What are you playing at?” Petra exclaimed. “Of course it wasn’t a bloody accident! You know it wasn’t!”

“I didn’t do it,” he said strongly, looking at her.

“They
saw
you,” Petra said. “The twins did a spell, and they saw you do those things.”

“They didn’t see me blow up the car because it wasn’t me.”

“You’re saying you didn’t almost impale Thais on a light pole, didn’t summon the wasps, didn’t send a guy to mug Clio?” Going through the litany made her anger burn again.

“I’m saying I didn’t blow up Clio’s car yesterday.”

Petra looked at him, at the tight line of his body, his shuttered face, the tattoo she could see on his chest. She shook her head. “You’ve lost me. You didn’t blow up the car, but you did the other things?”

He frowned and moved away from her, walking down the hallway to the kitchen. His tan feet were bare and made no sound on the wooden floor. She followed him.

“If I’d brought my
athème
, I would be cutting out your liver now.”

He shot her a glance as he filled a dish towel with ice. “You’ve become unexpectedly bloodthirsty in your old age, Petra.” He held the towel to his cheek, wincing slightly. “Bloodthirsty and weirdly strong.” He moved to a cupboard and got down a glass. There was a new bottle of scotch on top of the fridge, and he filled the tumbler half full. “I’d offer you some, but—”