Cate Tiernan - A Chalice of Wind

A minute later, they were all gone, and Thais and I were standing in the street. Amazingly, no neighbors had come out to see what the shouting was about, but they might have been spelled to stay indoors.

"Come on," I said, barely understandable. My tongue filled my mouth, and I knew we needed help fast-we'd both been stung hundreds of times.

Thais was shaking, sobbing, her eyes shut, her grossly bloated arms still covering her head. I took her shoulder and started towing her back to the house. In my mind, I sent one of my teachers, Melysa, an urgent help message, I couldn't talk on the phone at this point, and I didn't know how much time we had.

Before now, I'd always had Nan to help me if I was in trouble or hurt, I'd depended on her to fix everything. With her gone, I had to be the strong one, the one who saved us.

"I hate this place!" Thais sobbed thickly. "Sheets attack you here, trucks drive through streetcars, and now killer wasps! This place is a death trap!"

"Shh, shh," I said, gently pulling Thais through our garden gate. We stumbled up the porch steps, and I had a hell of a time stuffing my hand into my pocket to fish out the house key,

I was barely able to turn the key, and then I felt Melysa coming, running down the street. She lived only three blocks away-she was one of Nan 's best friends, one of the top witches in our coven, and had been tutoring me in healing spells for the past year.

She burst through the gate, her full, wavy gray hair flying. "Clio!" she exclaimed, looking at us.

I made a mumbled "uunnhhh" sound.

"Inside, inside," Melysa said, careful not to touch us,

I was starting to feel dizzy, light-headed, and oddly cold, I couldn't think straight, couldn't explain Thais to Melysa or even tell her what had happened. My world was narrowing, growing chilly and black around the edges, and then I felt myself falling, falling in slow motion.

Aheavy weight was on my chest, making it hard to breathe. Alarmed, I opened my eyes.

A broad white furry face was looking back at me, Q-Tip.

"Jeez, kitty-you've got to take dieting seriously," I murmured, easing him off my chest. Ah, I could breathe again.

So I was at Clio's. This must be Nan's room. I got out of bed and moved slowly to the door, feeling like I'd been hit all over with a baseball bat. Out on the landing I suddenly remembered the whole horrible night before. It had started with finding out that I had meant nothing to Luc and ended with wasps almost killing me, I glanced at my arms-I had faint pink spots all over me, hundreds of them, but they were hardly noticeable.

I looked into Clio's room. It was empty.

Downstairs, I padded barefoot into the kitchen, Clio sat at the small table, her hands wrapped around a mug. When she looked up at me, her green eyes were clear and weirdly calm,

"Coffee?" she asked.

"God, yes," I said, and poured myself a cup.

"Tell me again what you said last night about being attacked by sheets and streetcars and stuff? she said,

"Oh my God, Axelle!" I remembered, my hand over my mouth. She was going to be furious! I'd stayed out all night-

"Melysa called her," Clio told me, "She knows where you are. Its cool. And I called us in sick this morning to school."

School-jeez, school was the last thing on my mind, "Was Melysa the woman with gray hair?" I asked, barely able to remember what she looked like, only that she had been calm and kind and had taken all my pain away. She was no doubt a witch, I thought with resignation.

"Yeah," Clio answered. "She's one of my teachers. She's a healer, and she lives close by, so that was lucky. She left early this morning."

I sank down into a chair, shivering at the memory of the wasps. "That was very bad," I said, and Clio nodded.

"Yes. Now tell me again what you said last night. What's happened to make you think New Orleans is a death trap," Clio pressed, calm and unstoppable. She seemed unlike herself this morning, older somehow, less offhand. Well, near death can do that to a girl.

"I had a bad dream," I said, still hating to think of it. "An incredibly realistic dream where I was in a swamp. A huge snake came and wrapped itself around me, choking me. I felt like I was dying, couldn't breathe. Somehow I yelled, and then Axelle came in-though my door was locked-and she woke me up. My sheet was twisted into a thick rope, and it was wrapped around my neck tight enough to choke me. I had bruises for days, as if I'd been strangled." I shivered. Clio was listening intently, following every word.

"And then on the second day of school, I was on the streetcar, going to school. A teenager driving a pickup truck jumped the curb and hit a light post. It snapped off and crashed through a closed window on the streetcar-right where I'd been sitting until like a second before. If I hadn't moved, it could have killed me. And now the wasps. I mean, God."

Clio nodded, thoughtful.

"Why?" I said.

A few nights ago, a mugger pulled a knife on me," she said. "He didn't even really try to rob us, me and Delia, Eu, and Racey. What he really wanted to do was knife me. Me in particular. And then the wasps last night. And your dream and the streetcar. I mean, suddenly it seems so clear, right? Someone's trying to kill us. Someone from Nan's old famille has found out about us and is trying to kill us because we're twins."

My stomach dropped. "You're right" I said, shocked. "That has to be it. But who? If Axelle wanted to kill me, she could have done it a long time ago. She's the one who saved me from my dream. Same with Jules and Daedalus-Axelle isn't always there. They could have gotten to me far more easily before now"

And it's not Nan," Clio said wryly.

"Who else is there?" I asked, trying to think.

Clio shrugged, "It could be anyone from their famille. Which could be, +, lets see-there were fifteen original families three hundred years ago. Now we have all their descendents. It could be more than a thousand people''

"Great" I said, wanting to race back to Welsford on the next plane. But they'd found me there-I wouldn't be any safer now,

"Nan isn't here to ask" Clio said, "Of course, now I wish I'd told Nan about being mugged."

"Well, I can think of one place to start," I said, 'Axelle,"

We found Axelle standing in the kitchen, eating cold leftover Chinese food out of its carton,

"Are you all right, then?" she asked, examining me, "Yes," I said, "But it wasn't pretty, This is Clio," Clio looked around the apartment-it had quite a different ambience than the comfortable, homey place she shared with Nan,

Axelle studied Clio, "Interesting," she said, and I realized that Clio and Axelle were somewhat alike in their personalities. They were both kind of showy and used to getting their own ways, Axelle was just a more exaggerated version,

"We want some answers," Clio said coolly. She pulled up a chrome-and-leather bar stool and sat down, Axelle looked at us both, a little smile playing around her lips.

"Such as?"

"What other members of Petra 's famille are here in New Orleans?" I asked,

Axelles glance turned speculative, "Why do you want to know?"

"Look," Clio said tightly, "Were twins. Nan has explained that we're probably setting off mass hysteria in members of her original famille. But there's more to it than that. We're in danger. We want to know what's going on. And you're going to tell us "

Axelle smiled wider, as if she approved of Clio's take-no-prisoners attitude. Great, I thought. She can come live here with the leather queen, and I can go live with Nan,

"Well," Axelle seemed to come to a decision, "Maybe you're right," she said, "Maybe its time for you to be let in on the whole enchilada,"