research on things Mira wanted for the shop. Bundles of dried herbs dangled from hooks in the ceiling (an entire weekend’s work for me, to get those just how she wanted them), giving the room a pungent, earthy smell. Only Mira knew what they all were, and their purposes. To me, they just looked like dead weeds. A wreath of grapevines, woven into a pentacle, hung on the wall, and beneath it rested a small altar, all the implements of Mira’s faith set in their precise places.
Frowning, I poked my head in.
The candles were lit, one for each cardinal direction, lending a cheerful glow to the hardwood floor. The air in the room felt heavy, like the thickness before a lightning storm. A large metal basin sat in the center of the floor, filled with some kind of milky liquid. And on the far side, Mira sat huddled, arms wrapped around her knees and her face buried as she sobbed quietly.
“Mira?” Alarm sent my heart thudding into my throat again, and I stepped into the room, only to stop short when she flung her hand out toward me.
“Don’t! Don’t break the circle!” Hurriedly, she wiped tears from her face, crawling back to the basin. “You have to see this.”
I moved as close as I dared. Somewhere between us was a thin film of Mira’s own will, holding in her magic or keeping foreign magic out (I was never quite sure about the mechanics of it). I craned my head to see what she was working with.
“I was setting protective spells for Miguel and Rosaline, and it occurred to me that I could try a scrying, see if I could locate him.” Mira’s voice held steady as if she hadn’t just been crying her heart out, her hands making quick and efficient movements over the bowl of milky liquid. Ever practical, that’s my girl. “Here, watch.”
The flickering candlelight made vision difficult, and I strained my eyes to see what Mira saw. The liquid in the bowl-heavily salted water, if I had to guess-swirled in response to my wife’s graceful gestures, clouds of white following her hands like a magnet. Once she had them swirling in a very nice whirlpool, she withdrew her hands, and the water took on a life of its own.
At first, it was no more than streams of white through the water, caught up in the vortex momentum. But gradually, the lines began to diverge and congregate, solidifying into something like the reverse of a black-and-white movie. The first thing I recognized was the shape of a man, and as it grew clearer, sharper, I was able to recognize Miguel in negative, his black hair stark white in the reversed image.
But what was he doing? It looked at first as if he were going through katas, the same exercises I did every morning to practice my fighting skills. But Miguel wasn’t a martial artist, and as far as I knew, he didn’t work through forms like I did.
He lunged with the weapon in his hand and chopped hard to the right. That’s not his machete, I thought, and I leaned as close as I could to look. In fact, it looked suspiciously like a baseball bat. What the hell? No one in his right mind used a nonbladed weapon unless he had no choice.
Next, he spun to the left, aiming a low block at some invisible enemy. Then his left shoulder jerked back in response to a blow I could not see. Before he could bring the weapon around again, something hit him hard enough to spin him in a circle. The bat went flying out of his hand and out of view. The grimace of pain was visible on the tiny dark face, even in the dim light. This was no kata, and I was only getting half the scene.
“Why can’t I see what’s there with him?”
“I only have something of his. The salt in the bowl is bound to the salt in his body.” Glancing away from the disturbing images playing out in the water, I saw her fidget with something tiny in one hand.
Miguel’s negative image doubled in half, taking some kind of blow to the stomach, and then dropped to his knees. The next strike came to the back of his neck. I knew it even before his body sprawled on the ground, simply because that is what I would do to a kneeling opponent. For long moments, he lay there; the salt-image wasn’t precise enough to be able to see if he was breathing. Finally, one arm jerked upward at an awkward angle.
“Is this happening right now?”
Mira shook her head, eyes fixed on the basin. “No, it hasn’t changed in the last two hours. This is just the last thing I can see before he was taken beyond my sight.” Being dragged, I realized. Whatever had taken him down was slowly dragging the body off… somewhere. “Beyond your sight. Dead?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see any more. Something just… ends it.” The salt abruptly dissipated, the basin clouding over into murky water. The item in her hand dropped free, clattering across the floor. It crossed the barrier of her magic circle and came to rest against my foot. A wooden bead; I recognized it from a choker Miguel always wore.
Mira curled up again, hiding her face against her knees, and I immediately crossed the broken circle to gather her into my arms. She wrapped her arms around me and held me as tightly as she could, shaking. “Shh… You did good, baby. You did real good.”
Her skin was ice-cold. I could feel it through the thin fabric of my shirt. God, how many hours had she been sitting here, just watching that horrible image replay into infinity and holding that thread of magic as it drained her strength? And I, like a jerk, stopped to eat dinner in the kitchen first. “You shouldn’t have done this… It wasn’t worth this, baby.”
“We had t- t-to know.” One small sob shook her; then she took a deep breath to gather herself, just as I knew she would. “Are you going to tell Rosaline?”
I looked at the bowl of salted water and shook my head. “No. We don’t know that he’s dead, and… there’s no need for her to know this.” Hell, I wished Mira didn’t know it. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”
I got her to her feet with some urging, then scooped her up into my arms. She didn’t even protest, providing evidence of the incredible exhaustion caused by her efforts. I got her tucked into the bed with some extra blankets, but she still shivered visibly. “Check on Anna p-p-please?”
In her room, Annabelle was sprawled in her big-girl bed in one of those positions only kids and cats can sleep in. I tucked her in and kissed her forehead before returning to Mira in our bedroom.
She barely stirred as I undressed and crawled into bed beside her, but the moment I was under the covers she turned to snuggle tightly against me. Her entire body was almost frozen, and I pressed her close to take advantage of my body heat. Big magic takes a lot out of you, or so I’m told. She’d be freezing and exhausted for hours.
I kissed her forehead. “Go to sleep, baby.”
She was probably asleep before the words left my mouth. I lay awake a little longer, just listening to her breathing in the dark. After a while, I could swear our hearts beat in unison. The house did its nightly creaking and groaning around us. Down the hall, I could hear Annabelle mumbling in her sleep. She gets that from me.
My big secret-probably not that well kept-was that I hated Mira’s magic. The passive spells were one thing. The protective stuff on the house, some hocuspocus on my armor, was simple stuff. It lay in wait to be triggered. But the active spells, such as the scrying she’d done tonight, drained so much out of her.
If I hadn’t come home, how long would she have held that circle closed? There were horror stories, things I’d gleaned from Ivan and others, of magical addicts, casting and casting until their life was literally drained away into their craft. I didn’t think Mira would go that far, but I worried. I never wanted her to sacrifice so much for me. I wasn’t worth it.
Regardless of what I’d seen in Mira’s salt scrying, there was nothing I could do for Miguel at this exact moment. And with a job on the horizon, I would need all the rest I could get. But oh how I dreaded sleep.
The dream came like it always does. Well, not always, but a good seventy-five percent of my nights are spent fighting old battles.
I’m not sure where I was. It was dark. It’s always dark in my dreams. Snow crunched under my boots, and I could smell pine needles. Maybe I was back with the president again, my blood draining into the soil of Camp David.
I didn’t feel injured, though, just cold. And everything was so quiet-quiet enough that I could hear the breathing to my right. The breaths were large, pumped through massive lungs. I knew those breaths. I’d felt them on my face, over my chest. And if they got that close again, the pain would follow soon after. I reached for my katana to find my hip bare. I was unarmed.
“I know you’re there.” My voice echoed as if I were inside a jar-or a cave maybe. I’d never fought underground, but who said dreams had to make sense?
I was answered by a low rumbling growl, distinctive in pitch and tone. It’s the one sound in the world that makes my guts turn to water and my legs go all quivery. I turned to keep it in front of me-or where I thought was in
