Playing with Fire

Magoth didn’t mind his servants going to the trouble to summon me via a portal or rip in the fabric of being, but he frowned on them expending any such energy when I wanted to leave. It was up to me to make my own way out of Paris, and although there was a sticky moment when the passport official balked at my lack of proper entrance documentation, eventually I was on a plane headed back to Greece.

‘‘… so I’m back, still alive, and haven’t had anything stripped from me, like my soul or brain or any of the other things Magoth will remove if I cross him,’’ I told Cyrene a couple of hours later.

She turned from where she had been looking out the window of my hotel room while I told her of my trip, her face twisted with anguish. ‘‘Oh, May, I’m so sorry you had to go through that! I’m just sick to death that I ever agreed to bind you to him! It’s just that he was so incredibly handsome, so overwhelmingly sexy, and I had no idea-’’

I pulled myself up from where I had collapsed exhaustedly on the bed and held up a hand to interrupt the apology. ‘‘I didn’t tell you that to make you feel bad. Your sexual thrills aside, I know full well you had no real grasp of what you were agreeing to when Magoth seduced you into creating me, so stop beating yourself up for it. I’m coping well enough, and managing to stay a step ahead of him, so there’s no need for you to continue on this martyr kick.’’

That was true so far, but as my near seduction earlier had proven, the future didn’t hold much hope for me. That thought nibbled away at me as Cyrene paced past.

‘‘I will never forget the look on your face when you were created, and Magoth told you that I’d given you to him. I thought my heart would break.’’

Her distress was very real, as real as the tears rolling down her face.

‘‘Oh, Cy,’’ I said, stopping her to give her the hug she so obviously needed. ‘‘I know you weren’t to blame for what happened with Magoth. I have never thought you would willingly bind me to him, so you can let go of that guilt.’’

‘‘But he makes you do things you hate! You have to steal for him, and I know how much that distresses you!’’

It took another ten minutes of Cyrene alternately begging my forgiveness (which had been granted many decades ago) and sobbing over what had been done before she managed to dry her eyes and pull herself together enough to hold a conversation.

‘‘May…’’ She fussed with the telephone cord, twirling it around and around as I unpacked my bag.

‘‘Hmm?’’

‘‘You remember when I called you last week?’’

‘‘Yes. You got terribly excited when I said I was going to Greece. Hold this, would you? I can’t find my hand lotion, and the air here is so dry I feel like my skin is going to flake away.’’

She took the cosmetic bag I held out, biting her lip as I sorted through the mishmash of belongings I’d tossed into my duffel bag. ‘‘Do you remember me saying there was something I needed a little help with?’’

‘‘Yes,’’ I said again, this time much more cautiously. I plucked a tube of ginger-and-orange hand lotion from the bottom of the bag, applying it while I watched her closely. Her eyes, which offered the only means to tell us apart (hers being a clear blue while mine were blue with a black ring around the edge of the iris), were clearly unhappy… and quite obviously avoiding meeting mine. ‘‘Oh, Cy,’’ I sighed, sitting down on the edge of the bed. ‘‘What sort of trouble are you in now?’’

‘‘It’s not my fault this time!’’ she exclaimed, tossing the cosmetic bag down to sit next to me. ‘‘I swear to you it isn’t! And… and I tried, I really tried to take care of it myself, because I know how much you dislike having to fix things for me.’’

I patted the hand that was clutching at mine, a small pit of worry forming in my gut. Cyrene seemed to attract trouble the way dung attracted flies. ‘‘I don’t mind helping you out when you need it, you know that.’’

‘‘I know, and I’m so grateful for that. It’s why I was excited when you said you were going to Greece on a job-I thought that, at last, here was a chance for me to help you.’’

‘‘That’s very generous of you,’’ I said, giving her another pat before picking up all the clothing I’d tossed out in the hunt for the hand cream. ‘‘What exactly is troubling you now?’’

She was silent. I glanced over my shoulder to see her face set in stony unhappiness. ‘‘I… I… I need to take a bath!’’

I grabbed her arm as she dashed past me toward the bathroom. ‘‘Oh, no, you don’t. I know all about you and your three-hour-long baths. You’re not going to escape something unpleasant by hiding in the tub again.’’

‘‘I’m a naiad! I can’t help it if water makes me feel better.’’

‘‘You’re only going to make things worse if you don’t tell me everything,’’ I pointed out, releasing her arm to lean one hip against the low chest of drawers. ‘‘Go on, get it over with.’’

She sighed, her head lowered as she peeked up at me. ‘‘I’m… I’m being blackmailed.’’

‘‘Oh, Cy, not again!’’ I said. ‘‘I thought that after the last time-’’

‘‘This has nothing to do with that!’’ she said quickly. ‘‘Well… not so much. Really, it’s barely connected with the unfortunate incident.’’

‘‘You’re the only woman I know who could refer to the act of taking an aquarium hostage as an ‘unfortunate incident.’ How many fish did you kidnap this time?’’

‘‘I didn’t!’’ she protested, a righteous look on her face. ‘‘I promised you faithfully after that incident I wouldn’t try to free any more ocean mammals, and I haven’t, I swear I haven’t. It’s just that… I… we might have blown up a couple of helicopters and maybe two or three ships.’’

My jaw dropped a few inches as I stared at her. ‘‘You what?’’

‘‘They were baby-seal hunters!’’ she said, crossing her arms over her chest. ‘‘Horrible, evil, cruel people who wanted to go out and kill innocent, sweet, furry little baby seals.’’

‘‘Oh, my god,’’ I said, sliding down the chest of drawers to the floor. ‘‘How many people did you kill?’’

‘‘May!’’ she gasped, her face horrified. ‘‘No one! What sort of a person do you take me for? We bombed the helicopters and ships when they were empty.’’

‘‘Well, thank the twelve gods and all their little minions for small miracles,’’ I said, relaxing slightly. ‘‘I take it the ‘we’ you mentioned were your usual cohorts in crime?’’

She lifted her chin. ‘‘My fellow naiads and I only have the best interests of the planet at our hearts.’’

‘‘Uh-huh. So who’s blackmailing you?’’ I asked, willing to forgo a lecture on the impropriety of bombing things in order to get to the bottom of the situation.

‘‘I think it was one of the people at the fur processor. Last weekend when I was in London, I received a note saying that there was a film of myself and the other naiads at the airport in Nova Scotia, bombing the helicopters.’’

I groaned and rubbed my forehead.

‘‘The blackmailer said that unless I give him something, he’ll turn the tape and other evidence over to the mundane police.’’

‘‘Oh, gods.’’ I closed my eyes, imagining the horrible hue and cry that would follow if Cyrene and her fellow naiads were brought to trial in a mortal police court. ‘‘What is it exactly the blackmailer wants you to give him?’’

She was silent for so long, I opened my eyes again to see what she was doing.

‘‘He wants you,’’ she said, watching me closely.

‘‘Me?’’ I asked, confused.

‘‘Yes, you. He said he knew you were my doppelganger, and-’’

‘‘What?’’ I interrupted, my mind reeling with shock. ‘‘No one knows I’m your doppelganger. No one but Magoth and a few of his demons. How could he have found out?’’

‘‘Oh, May…’’ Her lower lip quivered as her eyes filled with tears again.

I sighed and put my arm around her, sitting her down on the bed. ‘‘Let’s have it from the beginning. What exactly did this blackmailer say?’’

‘‘He said he’d been doing a job in Chicago, and he saw you.’’

‘‘ Chicago?’’ I thought furiously. Four weeks ago Magoth had sent me to Chicago to steal an arcanum- an ancient book detailing some ritual or other used by mages centuries ago. ‘‘Magoth sent me there to get an arcanum. I didn’t get it, though-it was gone when I got to the oracle’s library where it was housed. Did he say who he was working for?’’