Cate Tiernan - A Chalice of Wind

Daedalus sent his message, smiling at his own creativity, proud of his strength. Marcel could deny what he was; Daedalus never would, Ouida could ignore her powers, the same powers that Daedalus reveled in daily, Sophie could fill her time with learning and other intellectual pursuits, Daedalus spent his time harvesting strength.

Which was why he was greater than they; why he was the sender and they the receivers.

In the monastery, Marcel's thin shoulders hunched over his manuscript. The beauty of the art in the margins was filling his soul with a too-pleasurable torment-was it a sin to feel such human joy upon seeing the work of men before him? Or had their hands been divinely guided, their illuminations divinely inspired? In which case Marcel was only paying homage to their God by his admiration.

His lips barely moved as he read the Latin words. But-he frowned. He blinked and rubbed a rough sleeve over his eyes. The letters were moving,… Oh no.

Panicked, Marcel looked up. No one was paying attention. He shielded the book with his body, keeping it out of sight. He would never escape. And never was such a long time. Now he accepted that the fine-edged black letters had rearranged themselves. He read the newly formed words. Urgent Come to New Orleans at once. Daedalus.

Marcel brushed his rough sleeve across the cold sweat dampening his brow. Then he sat, struggling to feel nothing, as he waited for the words to disappear, to become again a prayer in Latin, lauding God, He had to wait a long time.

The last storm had stirred the waters so that fishing or crabbing was pointless. Better to wait till the water cleared, a week, maybe two. Besides clouding the waters with silt, the storm had littered the sandy beaches with all manner of driftwood, dead fish, an empty turtle shell, uglier human detritus: a bicycle tire, someone's bra. There was a story about that, Richard bet.

He wanted a smoke, but last time he'd lit up, four different people had given him hell. Whether it was because he looked so young, despite the pierced nose, pierced eyebrow, and visible tattoos, or because they were just worried about this part of the world being polluted, he didn't know.

Might as well give up for now. Go back home, sleep, whatever.

An unexpected tug on his line caught Richard by surprise, and he almost dropped his pole. But his fingers tightened automatically and he quickly turned his reel. He hoped it wasn't a catfish. They were a bitch to get off the line, and ones this big weren't good eating. The flash of sun on silver told him it was something else.

The reel whirred while he pulled. Long, slender body, shiny silver, with spots, Spanish mackerel. Under the length limit-it would have to go back, Richard pulled the line closer, running his fingers down the wet line to unhook the fish.

Its mouth opened. "Richard," the fish croaked, Ree-shard.

Richard blinked and then started to grin. He glanced around-unlikely that anyone else could hear his talking fish. He laughed. What a funny idea! A talking fish! This was hysterical.

"Richard," the fish said again. "Come back to New Orleans, It'll be worth your while, I promise. Daedalus "

Richard waited a moment, but the fish had exhausted its message, apparently. Quickly he slipped his fingers down the hook, flipped the fish off it. It dropped the eight feet to the cloudy olive-drab water, its flanks flashing,

Hmm, New Orleans, It hadn't been that long since he'd been back. But long enough. He grinned, A road trip. Just what he needed to cheer himself up.

Daedalus laughed softly to himself] watching Richard gather his gear. It would be good to see him again. Probably.

A sound downstairs drew Daedalus s attention. Moving deliberately, not quickly, he doused his candle and put his glass globe in the cupboard, draping a square of black silk over it. He smudged the circle of salt on the floor, erasing its lines with his foot, then smoothed his hair back.

He felt drained, hungry, thirsty. He'd done a lot in one day-perhaps too much. But there was no time to waste.

"Yeah, so she was pissed."

Racey reported, flipping her streaked hair back. She leaned against the wall in the tiny curtained dressing cubicle and took a sip of iced coffee.,

"Yeah?'

I asked absently, unhooking my bra so I could try on a tie-dyed halter top. "What'd she say?"

"She said the next time I missed a circle, my ass would be grass," Racey cocked her head, which made her short, asymmetrical haircut look almost even.

I gave a quick grin-Racey's mom was a riot. More like an older sister than a mom. My grandmother was cool in her own way, but you couldn't get away from the fact that she was a grandmother. True, she was aging well-in fact, her looks hadn't changed much for as long as I could remember. Those were the genes I wanted to inherit-those and Nans force de magie. "And she'd be the lawn mower?" I guessed.

"Yep. Turn around so I can see the back"

"I'm going to look" I pushed open the Indian-bedspread curtain and stepped out to look in the full-length mirror mounted on one wall. I loved Botanika-they always had cool stuff. Food, coffee, tea, witch supplies like candles, oils, crystals. Books, music, incense. A small selection of retro clothes, tie-dyed and batik and funky. Plus it felt so normal here, I'd told Racey about my horrible vision, but only a bit, and I hadn't really told her how freaked I'd been. Even now, days later, I felt a bit weird, like something was about to happen. It was stupid.

Outside, the mirror was cheap and warped, so that I had to stand on my tiptoes to get a good view of the halter. I looked at myself, thinking, I so lucked out Conceited? Well, yeah. But also realistic. Why should I pretend that I didn't enjoy my natural assets? I tugged the shirt up so my silver belly ring showed. Cool.

"Was your grandmother mad?" Racey asked, stirring her coffee with the straw.

"Oh, yeah." I grimaced. "She was burned. I had to vacuum the whole house."

"Poor Cinderella." Racey grinned. "Good thing you have a small house." The contrast of her dark brown hair streaked with white gave her a faintly camouflaged look, like a zebra or a tiger. Her big brown eyes were rimmed in teal today. She'd been my best friend and partner in crime since kindergarten. It helped that her parents and my grandmother belonged to the same coven. The coven we had blown off, the night of the new moon, so we could go bar hopping in the Quarter.

"But it was worth it," I said firmly, checking out my rear view. "I love Amadeos-full of college guys and tourists. Didn't you have fun?" I smiled, remembering how I hadn't needed to buy myself a single drink-and not because I was working on those guys with spells. It had been just good old-fashioned female charm,

"Yeah, I did, but my magick wasn't worth crap the next day. The alcohol."

"There is that" I admitted, deciding to buy the halter. Someday I'd have to find a way around that annoying truth. I pushed my black hair over my shoulders, then saw how it looked against my skin in back. Excellent, Thanks, Mom, Nan had one picture of my mom, and I looked like hen black hair, green eyes, and the weirdest thing of all, we both had a strawberry birthmark in the exact same place, I was still trying to decide if I wanted to get it lasered off-it was on my left cheekbone and looked like, well, frankly, what it looked like depended on how much you'd had to drink. Sometimes a small thistle flower, sometimes an animal footprint (Racey said a very tiny three-toed sloth), sometimes a fleur-de-lis. And my mom, who had died when I was born, had had the same thing, Quelk bizarre, nest-cepas?

I was heading back into the cubicle when I felt, literally felt, someone's gaze on me, I looked through the few clothing racks out to the main part of the store. And saw him.