Malina chuckled throatily, then clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, I shouldn’t laugh. It’s just that I empathize with you. She is not well behaved.”
“So what’s she doing hanging out with you?”
Malina sighed. “That is a very long story.”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m a Druid. I like long stories.”
The witch looked around. There were still quite a few customers in the store, and someone scruffy had walked up to my apothecary counter and was squinting at the labels on my jars. “While you have a lovely place here,” Malina said, “I do not think it is the right time for such a story.”
“What? You mean the customers? Perry will take care of them.” I walked to the counter and put a CLOSED tent sign significantly in front of the scruffy man.
“Whoa, man. You’re closed?” He frowned at me but was not to be deterred. He had something on his mind. “Hey, dude, you got any medical marijuana back there?”
“No, sorry.” These guys just wouldn’t leave me alone.
“It’s not for me, I swear. It’s for my grandma.”
“Sorry. Try back next week.”
“Hey, really?”
“No.”
I turned my back on him, pulled up a chair next to Malina, and plastered an attentive look on my face. “You were telling me why you tolerate Emily in your coven.”
Scruffy Weed Man interrupted before she could answer. “You have really beautiful hair,” he said to Malina. She looked annoyed and told him curtly to go away, and he promptly turned and exited the store. Pretending to be self-conscious, she pulled at a lock of her hair near her shoulder and muttered something under her breath, no doubt dispelling the charm. She’d forgotten she had it on. I pretended not to notice.
She arched an eyebrow at me. “So. I was telling you all that? What if one of your customers hears us talking about covens and such things?”
“We’re in the perfect place to talk of them. They’ll assume you’re Wiccan. And if you’re going to go way back in history and anyone is rude enough to interrupt and ask you about it, like that guy who just left, we’ll say we’re part of the SCA.”
Her brow crinkled in confusion. “The Society for Cruelty to Animals?”
“No, I think you mean the SPCA, where the P stands for Prevention.”
“Ah. Of course.”
I shot a quick thought to Oberon. See? Witches.
‹I see what you mean now. She’d probably give me a sausage and it would have broccoli in it.›
Trying not to laugh at Oberon’s one-track mind, I said, “Yes, well, the SCA is the Society for Creative Anachronism. People get together and dress in medieval garb and actually have battles in armor and everything. Lots of these modern folk romanticize the old days and enjoy role-playing. It’s the perfect cover for talking about magic in front of average people.”
She scrutinized me closely for a moment, trying to decide whether I was lying or not. Apparently satisfied, she took a breath and said, “Very well. The short version of the long story is that she came with me to America. We were living in the city of Krzepice in Poland when the Blitzkrieg arrived in September 1939. I saved her from being raped, and she sort of became my responsibility after that. I couldn’t just leave her. Her parents were dead.”
“Ah. Your parents as well?”
“Yes, but the Nazis had nothing to do with that.” She smiled grimly. “I was already seventy-two in 1939.”
You hear that? The nice blonde in her thirties is actually more than 140 years old.
‹She must use that Oil of Olay stuff. I wonder if it would get rid of the wrinkles on a shar-pei?›
“Impressive. And Emily was how old?”
“She was only sixteen.”
“She still acts like she’s sixteen. Is everyone in your coven from Krzepice?”
“No, only Emily and me. We all came to America together, however, once we found one another in Poland.”
“And you came straight to Tempe?”
“No, we have lived in several cities. But we have stayed here the longest.”
“Why, may I ask?”
“No doubt for the same reason you have stayed here. Few old gods, few old ghosts, and, until recently, no Fae at all. Now, I have answered five questions truthfully. Will you answer five of mine in the same fashion?”
“Truthfully, yes. Not necessarily completely.”
She accepted my qualification without comment. “How old are you?” she asked.
That’s one of the most probing questions you can ask someone who isn’t a standard human anymore. It was one way to gauge power and intelligence, and if she didn’t already know my age, then I would rather keep it that way. I prefer to be underestimated; fights go better for me when my enemies do not know what they’re truly dealing with. There is an opposing school of thought that says if you display your power, you avoid getting into fights in the first place-but that is true only in the short term. Enemies may not confront you openly or as often if they know you’re powerful, but they will still plot against you and be more likely to try something sneaky. Now, Malina had been very forthcoming with me about her age, but I didn’t feel comfortable responding with the same level of candor, because telling her would be telling the whole coven. So I settled for a dodge.
“At least as old as Radomila.”
That set her back a bit. She was wondering if she should ask how I knew Radomila’s age or let it slide. I didn’t know Radomila’s age, but I knew damn well I was older than she was. Malina was smart, though, and decided to ask other things instead of following up on a line of query that wouldn’t get her anything more specific.
“Aenghus Og told Emily you have a sword that belongs to him. Is this true?”
I chose to answer only part of the question. Sloppy of her. “No. It does not belong to him.”
She hissed in frustration, seeing her mistake. “Do you still have this sword he believes is his?”
“Yes, I do.” It occurred to me that it was odd of her to be asking me about it, because Radomila had been the one to slap a magical cloak on it. Did Malina not talk to her coven leader?
“Is it here on the premises?” Oh, now that was a good one. Much better than asking where it was, which would allow me to be vague. This was a yes or no, and unfortunately, since the answer was yes and I had promised to answer truthfully… Well, I could lie. Except that I thought she would know it, and it would be the same as saying yes while giving her just cause to swerve off the high road.
“Yes,” I admitted. She beamed at me.
“Thank you for not lying. Last question: Which member of the Tuatha De Danann have you most recently seen in corporeal form?”
Whoa. Why did she want to know that? “The Morrigan,” I replied.
Her eyes widened. “The Morrigan?” she squeaked. Oh, now I got it. She had expected me to say Bres, and then she could surmise that I had killed him with the sword that I still had on the premises. But now she couldn’t surmise that at all. She could surmise, instead, that since I’d seen the Morrigan and lived, I had a death goddess in my Five or My Circle or whatever. And maybe the reason Bres didn’t “come home” last night was because of the Morrigan, and not because of me. But this line of reasoning implied that she knew about Bres coming to see me yesterday.
“How many people in your coven are helping Aenghus Og to take the sword from me?”
A veil fell across her features. “I am sorry, but I cannot answer that.”
Bingo, as they say in church halls on Wednesday nights. “That’s a shame. And we were being so candid with each other.”
“We can still be candid about other subjects.”
“I doubt that. It sounds to me like you are allied with Aenghus Og.”
“Please.” The witch rolled her eyes. “As I said on the phone yesterday, if that were true, then why would we want to humiliate him?”
“You tell me, Malina Sokolowski.”
