Eileen Wilks - Ritual Magic

Drummond popped into sight in front of her, more see-through than usual. And frantic. He was waving his arms, shaking his head, saying with every motion Stop! Danger! Don’t move! His mouth moved, too, but Lily couldn’t hear a thing.

Why? she wanted to scream. Every muscle was tight with the need to move, to act—but Drummond knew things she didn’t. He’d helped more than once, and he kept being right. She panted with conflicting needs and made herself stand there, just stand there, even as her mind screamed that this was nuts. She was losing her best chance.

Drummond faded out with his arms still waving .

Lily tried to look behind her, but Cory was in the way. He shifted and she could see the steps up to the path. She heard Pete’s voice faintly, and someone responding to him, and the singers continued to come closer. She waited, her body taut, wanting to act, to do—and then it was too late. Pete leaped down the four steps to the deck and ran up to Miriam to report.

“It’s Cynna, Toby, Lily’s mother, Li Qin, and that homeless guy who was staying with Isen,” he said. “They approached the house. When Dave and Mitchell stopped them, they said they wanted to see you. Orders are to bring anyone suspicious to me, and they thought it was suspicious for them to ask to see you. How did they even know you were here? They’ve been searched. No weapons.”

“What homeless man? Who’s Li Qin?” Miriam was baffled, tense, distressed. “No, never mind. Why are they singing?”

“I don’t know.”

“They need to stop. I can’t hear him. I can’t hear my lord. They’re singing too loudly.”

They weren’t that loud. Not loud enough to drown out a voice you heard with your ears, but maybe . . . maybe the singing was happening someplace else, too. A place that Drummond was aware of and Lily wasn’t. A place that a saint might know about.

Without thinking, she started humming along. A moment later Cory started humming, too. And others. All around them, lupi joined in, humming the old civil rights anthem: We shall overcome . . . we shall overcome someday . . .

And Miriam did nothing. Her face was as pale as the white powder she’d used to lay her circle and she swayed as if tranced or about to faint. But her lips were moving. She made no sound, but her lips moved: Deep in my heart, I do believe . . .

The singers came down the steps to the deck as calmly as if they’d been in a processional at church. Hardy held Toby’s hand; behind them Cynna and Julia walked hand in hand, too. Li Qin brought up the rear—and behind her were two guards, their guns trained on their odd assortment of prisoners . . .

. . . who didn’t seem to notice the guards, the guns, or the peculiar tableau they approached. Toby looked like he was concentrating the way he did when he played soccer or computer games. Cynna wore a small smile, grim and defiant. Julia seemed caught up in the song, and Li Qin might have been pouring tea, she was so matter-of-fact. And Hardy . . . Hardy looked utterly at peace.

“Stop,” Miriam told them. Her voice shook. “Stop now, all of you.”

The guards stopped. The singers didn’t.

“I forgot,” Miriam whispered. “Of course, I forgot to . . .” She fumbled at the scabbard and pulled out one wicked big knife—bigger than Benedict’s hunting knife, smaller than his machete. Maybe eighteen inches. And black. Whatever it was made of, it was all one piece from hilt to tip, and a dull, solid black. “Stop!”

They didn’t. And Lily knew why. As the singers had drawn closer she’d seen the silver charms they wore—charms the previous Rhej had created based on ancient spellwork from the Great War, workings no one alive today knew except those able to reach into clan memories. Charms that Nokolai clansmen had worn the previous year when they went to war against the Chimea.

Charms against the most potent of mind magic.

Her heart leaped in her chest. Of course! Why had none of them thought of that? Lily herself, Rule, Cullen—they all knew about the charms. It was blindingly obvious now, but she hadn’t once thought about them . . . Persuasion? Could that be used not just to plant ideas, but to keep you from thinking clearly, seeing the obvious? If so, nothing she’d done tonight was likely to work.

But it didn’t have to. The saint was winning this battle.

Lily and Cory stood near the house. There was plenty of room for the singers to pass them, and at first it seemed they would. But as Hardy and Toby drew even with her, Hardy stopped and made a patting gesture with one hand. Without a break in their song, the others moved to form a semicircle slightly behind Lily and Cory, facing Miriam. They kept singing . . . and Hardy kept walking.

Alone, he walked up to Miriam, who turned so she could keep her eyes fixed on him—eyes wide and wild, but now their brightness looked like tears, not mania. She shook as if she might fall over.

Hardy stopped in front of her. “What have I done?” she whispered. “What have I done?”

He held out his hand. He’d stopped singing. Lily wasn’t sure when, but it didn’t matter. His face was so full of compassion and love—it radiated from him like heat from a fire. He held out his hand and Miriam looked at the knife she held in hers. And shuddered.

A shredded and sorrowful calm descended on Miriam. Her face relaxed into it. She stopped shaking and stretched out the hand holding the knife, hilt first—then cried out in an anguished voice, “No!” Fast—too fast for Lily to react—she gripped that wicked big knife with both hands. And plunged it into her own chest.

Hardy cried out wordlessly. Miriam collapsed.

Lily gave the nonverbal signal. She stomped on Cory’s foot.

He let her go and she dashed forward, but Hardy—who’d fallen to his knees beside Miriam—held up a hand urgently, saying without words to stay back. Lily stopped. “I’m not going to touch it. The knife. I want to help her.”

Hardy shook his head sadly. He stroked Miriam’s face, crooning softly. Her eyes were open and staring. The knife must have gone straight to her heart. Lily wouldn’t have thought Miriam knew how to deliver such a tidy death stroke. But it hadn’t been her who did it, had it? That triple-damned god had directed her hands. She’d been about to get free of him, and it had pissed him off.

Hardy brushed her eyelids with his palm, closing her eyes, singing to her softly.

“Stop!” someone behind her called. One of the guards. “Cynna, don’t move, for God’s sake. I don’t want to shoot you. Pete, what do I do? She said to obey you, and you said—”

“Put your weapons up.” Pete’s voice was low and hoarse. “Lily, I can’t move. I still have to . . . she’s dead, but the last order she gave was for all of us to stop. Her other orders, too—they didn’t go away when she died.”

Shit. Miriam was dead, but the knife wasn’t. “Can you tell them to take the sleep charms off?”

“No.” He sounded agonized. “The others . . . she didn’t give them specific orders, except to obey me. She made her orders to me more explicit. I can’t give orders that counter hers.”

The knife was still enforcing Miriam’s orders, but was that all it would do? It was alive, in a sense. Able to act on its own. Any second now it might tell one of them to slit Rule’s throat.

Hardy had turned to listen to them. Now he cocked his head, then nodded. He turned back to the body that had been a woman moments before and gripped that black hilt. He grimaced as if in pain.

“Oh, shit. Are you sure you should . . .” But he was the saint. Lily had to hope he was getting instructions from someone who knew a lot more than she did. Maybe taking the knife out would cancel Miriam’s orders. Maybe if a holy person held it, it wouldn’t be able to compel people.