Holiday Magick (16 page)

“You haven't figured it out yet, have you?”

I glanced at his face again. It was mesmerizing, despite how threatening his words sounded. My feet stayed in place.

One step from him closed the space between us. One motion, so quick I could hardly see it, had me in his arms. One breath, and we were kissing.

I was drowning. And not in the good way that you read in those romance novels.

It felt like cold, wet rain was swirling into my lungs. There was still pleasure from his touch, which seemed to be everywhere—my neck, my hips, my arms. Inside my ribs, though, a chill crept through me. I felt a hissing in my chest, like water being poured over a campfire. He dragged his teeth down the curve of my neck as I tried to convince myself to stop.

As if it oozed from my pores, the scent of wet smoke made me gag. My chest shuddered like I'd been pulled into freezing water. That shocking cold lent me strength, and I pushed away. His hands, moving faster than I could imagine, wrapped around me, pressing me to him. I could feel every part of him trying to move against me,
within
me.

This wasn't what I wanted. As amazing as it felt, I'd rather throw myself onto a burning
ninot
. And, with that, wisdom from the school's self-defense classes for women flashed into my head.

I stomped with all my might on his instep. We were both in flip-flops, but he wasn't expecting it. I shoved the heel of my hand into his nose with all my might—I felt a warm liquid with that—stomped again, then ran, shouting. I turned at the nearby crossroads, away from where my friends had gone. I wasn't going near any place he might be.

Mind you, it's damned hard to run on cobblestone sidewalks in flip-flops. The face-plant, less than a block away, was inevitable.

The noises he made were inhuman. Snarling, gurgling, and then a cold roar. It felt like a wave of water soaked over me. There were no bars on this road. No partygoers. Or rather…they had all disappeared.

There were plenty of signs and lit windows, but all the doors were closed. And I was dripping wet, for no reason I could figure.

I spat out blood as I shakily picked myself up off the sidewalk. Pain radiating from my mouth and nose covered everything with a veil of moving shadows. My knees didn't seem to be working properly. And I was shivering from the water.

I managed to push myself onto hands and feet—one flip-flop bending below the ball of my foot, the other having flown to…somewhere I couldn't immediately locate. The tips and tops of my toes burned where I'd scraped them. I didn't get to find out if they'd hold my weight; Makaio was behind me. He gripped my hair by the nape of my neck, lifting me from the ground. I reached behind, both hands scraping and hitting. I kicked in the general area of his groin and shins, but he was expecting it. He easily avoided any real injury.

“It doesn't have to be like this.” His voice was soft, almost kind. “We don't need more fireworks tonight.”

“Let me go!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Help me!
¡Ayúdame!
Rape!”

“This is my territory.
My
people run this part of town.”

I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but I certainly wasn't going to goad him. Inside my chest, I felt myself getting hotter and hotter. When I had first touched him, I remembered he'd winced—like my skin burned him. My thumb found the nerve ending or whatever where his thumb met his wrist. I dug in with all my strength, feeling the heat inside me rush to where I gripped him.

I don't know what he said or in what language, but he released his hand enough for me…to fall right back on the ground. I smelled hot steam. I don't know what I had done, but
something
had worked. Now, I just needed to escape. Kicking my other flip-flop in his direction, I scrambled away fast enough to avoid his next grab.

The ground was dry only a few feet away. I would have glanced over my shoulder, but I was afraid I'd fall again.

I could hear him behind me.

In the distance, I heard cheers and cries and fireworks. Binding them all together was that beautiful song of the crowds and the bands all melded together. My feet slapped the cobblestones and pavement in perfect time with it.

I could smell hot gunpowder and sulfur on the wind that reached out to dry the wet clothes that slowed my running.

I wanted to make it back to the fires.

The snarl was right at my ear now. Searing pain, like salt on wounds, tore down my back, through my tank top and bra. The scent of brackish, sour ocean water competed with the dry burning scent I wanted to reach.

I knew pumping arms let me move faster, so I fought the urge to hug my shirt to my breasts. I just ran.

I
needed
to make it back to the fires.

I pictured it in my mind, the towering
ninots
, the curling flames. I yearned to be nearer to the smoky scent. I turned down roads blindly, just smelling, feeling hotter, hearing more of the festival's burning song. I no longer felt my feet hitting the ground.

I couldn't quite tell when Makaio stopped following me and when I'd made it back to the crowds. I just remember finally feeling my feet. They hurt.

“¡Óye, chica!”
A hand came out and grabbed me.

“Get away!” I screamed, stumbling into the people.

My focus snapped back. Many eyes were on me. I hugged myself, holding my shirt and the remains of my bra to my chest. My back was still burning and stinging. Each step sent needles of pain through my scraped feet. My face flared in embarrassment. What must they all think?

I tried to be invisible, ducking around people and down alleys. I didn't know where I was going; I was just moving. My eyes shot this way and that, searching for Makaio, any of his friends, or my roommates.

The crowd thinned more as I turned down another alley. It didn't worry me, though the pain from Makaio's attack was starting to set in. I was exhausted, hurting…but I kept moving in time to the song I felt all the way to my bones. One more turn, and I faced a
ninot
not yet burned. It was small, and only a handful of people stood around it.

The
ninot
reminded me of one of those Georgia O'Keeffe paintings. Bright red roses blossomed as eyes from the fifteen-foot skull. A pile of red and pink petals spilled from the mouth. There were no floodlights on this
ninot
, though, so it was hard to make out the details.

I stared, watching the men chop holes and add fireworks.

Motion on the float caught my eye, and I felt a sense of
déjà vu
, only it wasn't birds. Within the petals, the shadows were moving. I shuffled closer, and my eyes seemed to adjust as if there were light shining, though I didn't know where it shone from. Upon the float, wrapped in shimmering red and gold robes, a woman looked like she was panting. Her knees were up and spread, like she was…giving birth? No barricades were around this
ninot
, and the crowd didn't look like partiers. With a deep breath, the woman threw her head back and released an ear-piercing scream.

An older woman clucked from the sideline, hands holding the wrists of a nervous-looking man.

What the hell? On the sidelines, men were lighting torches. They couldn't set the float on fire with a person on it! I broke into a run. “Wait! Stop!”

The people turned to me. Their eyes! I stumbled in surprise, stubbing my toe on a cobblestone and falling back to my hands and knees. Yelping in pain, I started to shake. Their eyes, all their eyes, seemed to be alight with golden fire. It was almost like the reflection of animal eyes in headlights, only it wasn't a reflection.

One of the torch-bearing men—this close I recognized his pecs and arms and back—handed his flaming stick to another and came over to me.

He helped me up and wrapped his arms around me. He was warm and smelled like autumn, spicy burning leaves, and incense. Fuses hissed and fizzled as I heard them still lighting the fireworks on the float. Balling my hands into fists, I punched at him, to push myself away and ran toward the float again. “What are you doing?!” The woman was still on there, and the man from the crowd was up beside her, kissing her forehead as sparks flew from fuses.

“¡Éspera, cariña?”
Señor Shirtless grabbed my wrist.

“I'm not your
cariña!
” I tried to twist away, but he grabbed my elbow, keeping me from escaping.

He shook his head in surprise at my words. “Please, just listen to me,” he spoke in English. “Marta is there by her own choice. Look.” Moving his hand from my wrist, but still holding my elbow, he led me even closer to the
ninot
.

The fireworks continued to sizzle and explode, bathing us in colored light and sulfurous smoke. The explosions did not hurt my ears as much as I thought they would, even this close. Small tongues of flame licked the blackened edges of the float.

The woman, Marta I figured, was pushing the man away. She was speaking too quickly, interrupted by cries of pain, for me to understand much more than that she wanted him to be there for their baby and that she loved him. The older woman that I'd noticed earlier stepped onto the edge of the float, kissed the woman's forehead once more, then took the man's arms, pulling him back. He kissed the woman's mouth before stepping off the float. In flashing greens and purples and reds, I saw tears running down his face. Another man, maybe a brother or best friend, embraced him as he shook with sobs on the sidelines, his fiery, crying eyes locked on the woman.

I felt myself shaking. The man holding me pulled his arm from my back and gasped. “You're hurt.”

I sniffled and nodded, unable to tear my own eyes away from the woman, who arched her back and screamed with another cry of birth. I could see as much flame as float now. As the contraction receded, the woman seemed to relax; I saw her smile.

“Come nearer.”

I let myself be led even closer to the fire. I took a deep breath of the smoke, gunpowder, and dry heat. Flames licked the woman, danced on her skin. I thought I
ought
to smell…something…like cooked flesh—the thought alone made me gag—but I didn't. There was a hint of amber and a spice, maybe cinnamon. It was like incense in one of those touristy New Age stores.

The flames encompassed the whole float now. I no longer heard Marta screaming; the crackling roar was too loud. This fire seemed brighter—much brighter—than the others I'd seen. Maybe it was because I was so close. I had to close my eyes.

My—companion? I still didn't know his name—pushed me even closer to the fire. “Let it caress you, but no more.”

My logical brain didn't exactly understand his words, but something else within me did. He released me. Holding my arms out, I took half a step closer. Only half a step, something inside me said that was
right
. I couldn't get any closer than that. Though my eyes were still closed, in my mind, I saw the fire reach out and wind itself around me. Flames flickered and kissed my flesh, every inch of it. It felt good—not sexy-make-out-good, but a different kind of good. My clothes fell from me in glittering embers; they were not made to handle this. But my skin, my skin started to glow and shine, as if it were bronzed or coated in that gold-leaf body paint. I could feel my hair swirling up, caught on the waves of heat. In my mind, it, too, looked almost metallic, shimmering copper—though I knew it was really more like brown.

After a moment, I felt a touch, more substantial than the fire, on my shoulder. It pulled me back. The chill felt welcomed this time. I opened my eyes as my companion quickly wrapped his shirt around my now-naked body, his eyes averted.

The float was barely more than a heap of smoking glimmers. I searched for the remains of the woman, but I didn't see bones or anything. Had I been dreaming?

The spicy smell was in the air, still. And I was only wearing this strange man's shirt. No, definitely not just a dream. I took a few steps closer to the float's charred carcass. So did the others around me.

The song I had heard earlier—never stopped hearing, it occurred to me—seemed to ring out in a clearer, higher note. It came from the burned float.

The man they'd been restraining ran over the glowing coals toward the pile of burnt wood and paper. The pile of ash where the rose petals had been started to tremble. He paused in front of it, muscles tense. Though the only nearby light came from the glow of the embers, I could see more clearly than I ever could remember seeing. The man swallowed, and his two companions joined him. Walking around him—how did the burned wood hold all their weight?—the older woman went to the pile of ash with a blanket in her arm. She gently blew, and soft ash flutters flew like snowflakes from the pile, revealing a tiny flame.

No, not a flame…well, maybe…even this close, I couldn't quite tell. She reached down with the blanket and scooped it up. As she lifted it from the pile, it seemed to solidify.

Tiny, so tiny it fit into the hands holding the blanket, the…the bird, yes, it looked like a bird, stretched out wings covered in what looked like pure gold fluff, and raised its head to the sky. From its beak burst the song I'd been hearing all night, pure and clear. I could actually
hear
it this time, not just in my head or in the surrounding noise. It sang, and the sound drew tears to my eyes.

The woman carefully wrapped the baby bird in the blanket and handed it to the man. Its
father
, I somehow understood. As the man cradled the bird in his arms, it glowed even brighter. The swaddled blanket seemed to grow in his arms. As it changed, so did the song. Within moments, he held a swaddled, fussing baby. He kissed its forehead and face as the woman and his other friend helped him down from the float.

“What…just…happened?” I asked.

“The first new phoenix in a very long time,” my companion said, taking one of my hands in both of his.

“Ph-phoenix?”