Robyn Bachar: Blood, Smoke and Mirrors

“What?” I asked, raising a brow. “Move so I can bus the tables.” I nudged him in the gut with the side of the bin.

“Hug first,” he countered.

I couldn’t argue with that. I set the bin down and hugged him, letting him comfort me. It lifted some of the weight in my chest, and I took a deep breath. “I’m still mad at you,” I warned him.

“I know.” He nodded and let me go.

Picking up the bin, I walked past him into the room. I breezed from table to table, loading the aftermath of late-night meals into the plastic bin as it balanced against my hip. “You really shouldn’t let Maria walk all over you like this. Cleaning up is part of closing. Hot dates are not appropriate excuses for leaving early. And you know she’s gonna leave early every night you’re gone on your trip. You’re lucky I was free tonight.”

“Just let it alone. I didn’t call you in to clean. You know, you could’ve at least tried to be civil to him.” Mac sounded weary, but I shrugged his suggestion off.

“No, I really couldn’t. He’s lucky I didn’t stab him with a salad fork.”

“Cat, what happened to you wasn’t Lex’s fault.”

Yeah, like that was going to fix things. A few words from Mac couldn’t heal that wound, especially now that Maureen was gone. She’d been my last connection to my own kind, the only witch brave enough to speak to the disgraced outcast. Now I was truly alone, and I had Lex to thank for that.

“I trusted him, damn it, and he arrested me. Lex hauled me off and paraded me in front of those dried-up old hags and let them condemn me just ’cause I wasn’t willing to roll over and let myself be killed like a good witch would.”

“Because they ordered him to, not because he wanted to. You don’t think it killed him to do it?”

“Just drop it, Mac. I don’t want to talk about this again.”

I heard him sigh, and then he retreated to his office and shut the door behind him. Like a good soldier I marched from table to table, making mental notes on what else needed to be done to set the room to rights. I considered pouring myself a cup of coffee, but the warmer had been switched off and the two carafes were empty. Just as well. I really didn’t need the caffeine right about now. Hell, what I needed was a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream and a carton of smokes.

Maureen had been a coffee addict too, but she took it black. No frills, no nonsense, no decaf cappuccinos for that woman. She’d always been sensible, which was why she stuck by me. Maureen thought the council was crazy for sentencing me with such a severe punishment for using magic in my own defense-she even spoke on my behalf. They could’ve censured me-should’ve censured me-but instead they chose to cast me out. Apparently the council thought I couldn’t be trusted not to do it again and considered me to be too great of a risk. A bad seed, thanks to my necromancer father. It didn’t matter to them that I hadn’t seen the man since I was ten years old, when my parents divorced. Bad blood was bad blood.

The second round of dishes left the tabletops clear, and I grabbed a bucket from underneath the sink and filled it with warm, soapy water. There were a few spots on the tiles in front of the café that needed some scrubbing attention. Grunting with effort, I heaved the bucket up out of the basin and hauled it out of the kitchen and all the way to the front of the restaurant. Suds sloshed over the side and onto my white sneakers, soaking the tips. My white shoes never stay white for very long. You’d think I’d learn my lesson and buy a more durable shade.

Mud had worked its way deep into the grout between the deep green tiles near the hostess station and underneath the bench we have for customers to sit on while waiting for a table. Grabbing the scrub brush, I knelt next to the bucket and set to work. It had rained more than usual the past few weeks, which for the Chicago area is really saying something-six more inches and I’d consider building a boat and rounding up the animals in the Brookfield Zoo. I attacked the dirt with gusto to avoid thinking about Maureen.

I couldn’t picture anyone who’d be able to fill her shoes as Titania. I certainly couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to do it, damn it. Relentless, I scrubbed faster, grinding the bristles into the grout, until a series of loud pops outside startled me. Glancing up, I saw a spectacular shower of sparks sailing out from the streetlights, raining down like fireworks onto the pavement up this side of the block and down the other across the tracks. Eyes wide, I sat back on my heels, and the brush slid out of my hands and clattered to the tiles.

“Oops,” I said. Probably one of the greater understatements I’ve ever uttered. It had been years, years , since I’d had a magical accident that severe-not since I was a teenager, learning how to control my magic while battling the interference of surging hormones. Aside from the flickering streetlights earlier, I usually have excellent control, so this was especially eye-opening.

I heard the sound of the office door opening, but all I could do was stare out the windows of the Three Willows into the darkness. In an area like ours, which stresses the urban in suburban, the night never gets truly dark. Streetlights, illuminated store signs, headlights and of course the lights from houses all keep the deepest shadows at bay and provide a feeling of security-though it’s often false. And I’d just zapped that security.

Mac stood behind me. Still too stunned for even a sarcastic quip, I continued to stare outside.

“Catherine,” Mac said quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Maybe you should take a break. Come back into my office.”

I lurched to my feet, wincing as my joints popped and cracked. Drying my hands on the seat of my jeans, I followed Mac into his office and flopped down into one of the chairs in front of his desk.

I love Mac’s office-any magician would. Mac is a librarian, one of the oldest and most respected of the nine subsets of magiciankind. The walls of his tiny office were lined with shelves that were crammed with books. They’re all considered safe for public viewing, since the Three Willows caters to the non-magical majority most of the time. It wouldn’t be good for one of our regulars to wander in and find a bunch of spellbooks lying around.

The chair creaked as Mac sat down and leaned back. Deciding this would be an ideal time for another smoke, I dug out my pack and liberated another cigarette from it. I glanced up at him over the flame of my lighter as I lit the end of my smoke. “Sorry ’bout that,” I mumbled around it. The cig bobbed up and down between my lips as I spoke, and then I inhaled.

“Never seen that one before.”

“Yeah, I’m just full of surprises today. It was an accident.”

“I’m sure the city will have a fun time trying to figure out what caused it,” he replied dryly. Mac wasn’t mad, which was a good thing, but there was something on his mind. We sat in silence as I puffed away. I kept trying to quit for monetary reasons, not health ones. I’m not afraid of lung cancer-all magicians are immune to most diseases, one of the reasons we’re so long lived. And hard to kill. If your blood is potent enough, like mine is, you can heal a broken bone in a few days, sometimes even hours if it’s something small like a hairline fracture. Of course if you drop a Kansas farmhouse on me, I’ll be dead instantly, wicked or not.

“If I’d come to you about taking the position, would you have said no?” Mac asked.

I gave him a sour expression. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t want it.”

“A fact which makes you a good candidate for it. You wouldn’t be in it for the power or political gain. You’d do it because it’s the right thing to do.” Though I didn’t agree with him, I had to give Mac credit for the thought. “Why do you think someone wanted Maureen out of the way?”