Karen Chance: Death's Mistress

“But why do you need it?” Claire asked. “There’s plenty of cabinet space.”

I glanced at her over my shoulder. “Have you ever seen trolls drink?”

She laughed, and suddenly she looked like Claire—the real one, not this pursed- lipped stranger. “They don’t show up too often at court!”

“Well, if they ever do, hide the liquor.” I bumped the back door open with a hip and stepped out into the sound of crickets and the smell of impending rain.

I paused to scan the yard, because I am not prone to hallucinations. But the only thing out of the ordinary was the weather. In the square of sky visible above the trees that bordered the right side and back of the yard, clouds hung low and ominous, seeming to glow from the inside. And above the neighbor’s privacy fence on the left, near the horizon, a sheet of gray rain wavered in the wind like a billowing curtain.

“What is it?” Claire was peering into the darkness with me. Red curls whipped around her face, blowing across the lenses of the pair of glasses she’d dug up somewhere.

“You still need those things even though…” I made a gesture that encompassed the whole thing in the hall.

She shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Yes. In this form, anyway. My other… Well, it actually sees better at night.”

I usually did, too, but it wasn’t helping right now. I leaned through the porch railing to look up into the branches of the massive cottonwood. Some of them overhung the porch, but all I saw were rustling leaves. I concentrated on the more sensitive peripheral vision, paying attention to any change in the light, any shifting forms. But the result was the same: nothing.

“What are you looking for?” Claire asked again, a little more forcefully.

“I’m not sure yet.”

“We can go back inside if you think there’s a problem.”

“The wards protect the porch as well as the house. It’s no safer inside.”

“It’s no safer anywhere,” she said bitterly.

“Careful. You’re starting to sound like me.” I paused, listening, but my ears failed me, too. I could hear the wind snapping the tarp we’d put over a hole in the roof, the squeak of the weather vane and the creak of the porch swing’s chains. But nothing else.

Claire hugged her arms around herself. “You scare me sometimes.”

“This from the woman who just handed me my ass in there.”

“I didn’t mean I’m afraid of you,” she said impatiently. “I’m afraid for you. You look like you’re planning to take on an army all by yourself.”

“Are you expecting one?”

“Not yet,” she muttered.

“Well, that’s something.” I decided to let the wards do their job and concentrated on setting up the porch for civilized living.

It had been furnished more with comfort in mind than style. An old porch swing, with flaking white paint and rusty chains, sat on the left. A sagging love seat that Claire had brought with her from her old apartment, and which the house wouldn’t permit past the front door, sat on the right. And a potting bench nestled up against the back of the house, next to the door.

I put the bottles and glasses on the bench and went back for the takeout. I returned to find Claire frowning at a small blue bottle and the boys hunched over a chess set my roommates had left out. They were sprawled on their stomachs near the stairs, happily watching the tiny pieces beat the crap out of one another.

The board was Olga’s. The pieces were trolls on one side and ogres on the other, all equipped with miniature weapons—swords, axes and what appeared to be a small catapult half hidden behind some trees. The game was played on an elaborate board complete with forests, caves and waterfalls, and it bore, as far as I’d been able to tell, no relationship to human chess whatsoever. Olga maintained that I only said that because I always lost.

“I could make us some tea,” Claire offered, as I put the bags on the makeshift bar. “I saw some in the cupboard.”

“I don’t like tea.”

“But you do like this stuff?” She held up the rotund bottle containing her uncle’s bootleg brew.

“I like some of the things it does for me,” I told her, plucking it out of her fingers and pouring a generous measure into my glass.

“I thought you were supposed to be on some task force to keep that kind of thing off the streets,” she said accusingly.

I smiled. “I assure you, I’ve been keeping off all I can.”

“I don’t think the idea was to stockpile it for your own use. It’s illegal because it drives people crazy, Dory!”

“And it makes those of us who already are a little more sane.”

She blinked. “What?”

I held up the glass. The crystal clear contents reflected the lights from the hall, shooting rays around the porch and making Stinky cover his eyes. “Here’s to the best antidote for my fits I’ve ever found.”

One of the fun facts of my life is frequent rage-induced blackouts. They can last from a few minutes to a few days, but the results are always the same: blood, destruction and, usually, a high body count. They are what passes for normal with my kind—the result of a human metabolism crossed with a vampire’s killing instinct—and they are one of the main reasons why there are so few of us. And, because the problem is genetic, there is no cure.

Not that anyone has looked very hard. Like most human drug companies, the magical families who specialized in healing liked to make a profit. And there was little money to be made in devising something to help a scant handful of people.

Claire’s eyes widened as she stared at my glass. “That really helps your attacks?”

“Stops them cold. And unlike human drugs, it works every time.”

She picked up the bottle and took a cautious sniff. She made a face. “It’s worse than I remembered.”

“It’s pretty strong,” I said as her eyes started watering. In fact, it could double as paint thinner, which was probably why it was usually used as a mixer. But I wasn’t drinking it for the taste.

“It isn’t really wine,” she told me, setting it down. “It’s a distillation of dozens of herbs, berries and flowers, most of which have never been tested in any scientific way. And I don’t like the idea of you as the guinea pig.”

“I thought I volunteered.” Claire was a scion of one of the oldest magical houses on Earth, one that specialized in the healing arts. She’d been working at the auction house only because of a dispute over her inheritance, which had left her on the run from a greedy cousin. Before then, research had been her specialty, and lately, she’d been experimenting on fey plants, hoping to find something that would help my condition.

“That’s different! I know what went into everything I sent you. It was safe—”

“And ineffective.”

She frowned. “Anything could be in there. I have no idea what ingredients Pip used. The recipes differ widely from family to family, which is why you get so many varieties of this stuff. And Pip never left any notes lying around.”

“More’s the pity.”

“You don’t get it, Dory. Drugs—and this can definitely be classified that way—often have a cumulative effect. Even the fey experience some mild side effects over time—”

I laughed. “Mild for them, maybe. I’m not a fey.”

“That’s my point! This is a controlled substance on Earth because it brings out latent magical abilities in humans. Before it addicts them and drives them insane!”

“I’m not human, either.”

“You’re half.”

“Which is why I’m careful.”

Claire’s eyes narrowed; something must have come through in my tone. “What have you been experiencing?”

“As you said, some mild side effects.”