That Ain't Witchcraft Read online

He took a careful sip of his coffee, savoring it, before he said, “You are always welcome in the arms of the Covenant. You know that. I’m even willing to spare—”

  “Okay, I’m going to stop you right there, because you can’t help us if I’m busy stabbing you,” I said. “I’m not coming back. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. I am not your good little Covenant girl, and I’m never going to be. I hate you. I hate everything you stand for. All your ideals, all your ideas about what this world is supposed to be, everything. It’s vile. It’s disgusting. It’s archaic, and not in the fun Renaissance Faire kind of way.”

  Leonard narrowed his eyes. “I see. Well, then. If I’m so revolting to you, why are you here?”

  “I could say it was because I wanted a cup of coffee, but we both know I’d be lying.” As if the desire for caffeine could have lured me out into the open with Bethany still lurking around, ready to deliver another “reminder” of my duty to the crossroads. “Do you know what the crossroads are?”

  His lip curled in clear disgust. “Witchcraft.”

  “Not quite, and since you’re using a tracking charm to follow me, I’m not sure you get to complain about honest witchcraft right now.” I picked up my own coffee, turning the mug between my hands. The heat seeping through the ceramic was soothing, like it was slipping the fire back into my fingers a little bit at a time. “I’m guessing you know what they are, though.”

  “Foul places, used for the making of the devil’s bargains.”

  I didn’t bother to swallow my sigh. “If you’re going to be like this, we may as well call this finished right now. I need to talk to you, not feed you quarters so you can spit out excerpts from the Covenant training manual like some sort of fucked-up vending machine. Will you listen?”

  There was a long, dangerous pause as Leonard considered his options. I stiffened, waiting to see which way he was going to go.

  There was no way he’d managed to conceal a crossbow on himself. That was good. But there are a lot of weapons smaller than a crossbow, and he could be carrying any number of them. I, on the other hand, was not, for James’ safety: I’d have to improvise, which meant smashing a lot of innocent furniture. If he decided we were done talking and it was time for him to attack me, we could destroy this place. That would attract attention. Win, lose, or draw, I’d have a lot of problems if he turned this physical, and that would complicate getting James down to the crossroads to sort things out.

  “All right,” he said finally. “I’m listening.”

  “You have access to the Covenant library. Have you ever really looked at the history surrounding the crossroads?”

  “I did a research project when I was in primary school.” He said it so calmly, so reasonably, that it made me want to laugh until I cried.

  What would the world have been like if my ancestors had been able to make the Covenant see sense about changing their tactics, about learning to live with the cryptids and yōkai and ghosts instead of working to destroy them at every turn? I could have grown up doing school reports about things I actually cared about, rather than pretending I thought Christopher Columbus was a good man and not a colonialist bastard. I could have been so much more prepared.

  We build our presents on the ruins of our pasts, and we hope the foundations we construct from the dust of bad ideas and painful choices will be strong enough to hold up our futures. They have to be.

  “So you know the crossroads changed in the 1400s,” I said, like there was no question of his knowledge. It was out there to know: he’d done his research: of course he knew it. I wasn’t challenging his authority, not at all, only reminding him of something that anyone who’d bothered to open a book would have seen.

  Leonard blinked. “Er,” he said. “Yes.”

  Of course he hadn’t known. The Covenant wrote things down, but they didn’t care about the reasons those things happened, or what they’d been before they turned hostile. That was why the Covenant had been able to become such a force for destruction, and why they’d always been doomed to stagnate and fail. If you don’t understand what you’re trying to fight against, you’re inevitably going to be defeated.

  “James—the local man you’ve seen me talking to—found a way to undo that change. The crossroads used to be a natural thing.”

  “Nothing that encourages good men to make deals with devils can be natural.”

  I rolled my eyes. “There we go again. Okay, look, no. Whatever the crossroads were when they started, they were created in this world, by this world, to be a part of this world. They’re supposed to be here. Maybe they’re the noosphere’s nervous system, or maybe they’re a pressure valve for all the little, unavoidable magic that builds up around living creatures, or maybe they’re a big cosmic zit. Whatever. They’re natural. The world would suffer if we destroyed them.” I wasn’t entirely confident about that last part—most people get by just fine without ever going down to the crossroads—but I didn’t want to give Leonard the idea that we could, or would, destroy the crossroads completely. Mary wouldn’t survive losing the source of her tether to this world.

  Was I willing to risk actual, living people for the sake of saving my phantom babysitter?

  Hell, yes, I was, and anyone with a heart would have done the same thing.

  Leonard frowned. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying the malicious ‘I want to kill your cattle and eat your firstborn because I’m an evil entity from beyond time and space’ crossroads we all know and hate aren’t natural. They’re some kind of parasite that’s managed to take over the space the real crossroads are supposed to occupy. If we can get to them without being stopped, we can hurt them. Maybe even kill them. The real crossroads, the one that doesn’t eat people, comes back. You look like a hero for being there when it went down. Hell, you go back to England and take all the credit. Now you’ve proven yourself. You went to America to recover an agent, and you fixed a problem that’s been plaguing people for centuries. Gold star you, pat yourself on the back, and never darken my door again.”

  “It’s not possible.” Leonard put his coffee cup down, the better to gesture vaguely with both hands. “If the crossroads could be destroyed—or even rendered less dangerous—we would have done it centuries ago.”

  “Except no, because you’d have to be willing to work with people, not against them,” I said. “We have a plan. It requires a sorcerer, a crossroads ghost, and someone the crossroads believe they have a hold over. Can you honestly say the Covenant would be able to put together the same kind of group?”

  Silence.

  “I didn’t think so. We have a plan and we have a team, and now we need you.”

  “Me?” Leonard sat up a little straighter. “What do you want from me?”

  “First, we want your word that you won’t try to attack us again while we’re dealing with this shit. The crossroads are bigger and nastier than you are, but that doesn’t mean we’re magically immune to crossbows while we’re dealing with them.” I allowed myself the luxury of a scowl. “What the hell is it with your family and crossbows, anyway? First Chloe, now you. I’m getting real tired of Cunninghams trying to shish kebab me.”

  “They’re convenient and easier to dispose of than firearms.”

  “Maybe in England. Over here, we’re all about the unregistered handgun. Anyway, the point stands: I want your word that you won’t try to attack me again, or any of us. We need to be able to work without fear of some kind of messed-up sneak attack.”

  Leonard gave me an assessing look, clearly searching for the catch. “For how long?”

  “See, where I come from, ‘please don’t attack me anymore’ isn’t the kind of request that comes with a time limit. I’d really prefer it if you never attacked any of us again. If you can’t bring yourself to promise that, how about we do this: you give me the tracking charm and you promise me a year.”

 
“A year.”

  “A year,” I repeated. “One year, during which you won’t follow me, you won’t look for me, you won’t do anything to disturb me. You said you were preparing for war back in Europe? Well, you stop it. For a year, you stop it. When the clock runs out, either we’ll have found a way to make peace, or we’ll pull the whole world down with us.”

  Leonard hesitated. “What you’re asking . . .”

  “You already have a narrative that fits. I’m your sweet little recruit, stolen by beasts during a mission I should never have been sent on, a mission that claimed the life of a senior agent.” An agent whose face I still saw when I slept—and probably would for the rest of my life.

  My parents raised me to defend myself and protect the world around me, a world of magic and monsters and people who deserved the chance to live. That doesn’t mean I’d been prepared for the impact of killing a human being. I wasn’t sure anything, ever, could have prepared me for that.

  “Yes,” said Leonard slowly.

  “You were looking for me, and you stumbled across, fuck, I don’t care. A coven of like-minded wizards who were planning to set magic aside as soon as they’d managed to use it for one great good. A big red button labeled ‘erase crossroads forever.’ Whatever. It doesn’t matter, and you know what your grandfather is going to believe. You stopped to take care of the greater evil, and my captors whisked me away while you were distracted. You couldn’t find me. You needed to make your report. I’m sure once you’re back at Penton Hall, you’ll be able to come up with plenty of paperwork and administrative bullshit to keep you busy until the year runs out and it’s fair game again.”

  “You’d have me look like a fool for losing track of you.”

  I scoffed. “A fool who just got full credit for destroying the crossroads, much? Maybe you’ll look a little heartless for letting poor me get eaten by ghouls or whatever while you were distracted by cleaning up an actual threat to mankind, but I’m pretty sure your superiors will forgive you. The Covenant has always been willing to make sacrifices for the greater good, right? Gryffindor bullshit.”

  “Are you making Harry Potter references because I’m British and you assume that’s the way to reach me?”

  “No, I’m making Harry Potter references because I’m an enormous nerd and it amuses me to remind you of that,” I said. “One year, Leonard. Your word that you don’t attack me or any of my friends for that time, and that you don’t try to track us, either.”

  “Why should you believe me?”

  “Oh, that’s easy.” I smiled sweetly. “We learned about this concept in school, called mutually assured destruction. So here is what I am assuring you. If you come near me before that year is out, if you send one of your strike teams after me, if you inconvenience me in any way or with any intent to do me harm, I will come back to England, knowing everything I know about your resources and your security, and I will kill you. The question thus becomes: do you think you can completely redo your security, without blowing your own ‘I was trying to get her back, I absolutely didn’t encourage a spy to nestle in our midst’ cover story, before I can come there and start making you understand why it was a bad idea to cross me? Because I don’t think you can. I think I’d do a lot of damage, and yeah, you’d probably put me down, but I’m okay with that if it means you find out that choices have consequences.”

  Leonard paled. “You’re bluffing.”

  “I’m a Price, Leo. Do Prices bluff?”

  He didn’t answer me.

  “Your word, and you get to be a hero. Or tell me no, keep fighting us, and you get to be a corpse. One way or another. If I were you, I’d take door number one. It’s a pretty sweet deal, and it means you still have the chance to bring me back to the fold, as you so charmingly put it, assuming you still want me. I don’t want you, but hey, that’s always been beside the point as far as you’re concerned, right?” I picked up my mug. Took a sip. Set it down. “One year, your word, and you make the world a better, safer place for humanity. I thought that was your mission statement.”

  “I’m beginning to question the wisdom of recruiting you,” he said sourly. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

  “I’ve been telling you that for a while,” I said brightly. “You in?”

  Leonard hesitated.

  “I asked you a question.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  My smile became genuine. “Great. Let me get a to-go cup and we’re out of here.”

  * * *

  Cylia watched in the rearview mirror as Leonard and I climbed into the back seat. The front passenger seat was open, but I wasn’t leaving Leo alone, and I wasn’t seating him next to Cylia. That left treating her like a taxi, at least in the short term. I would have felt bad about that, if I hadn’t been transporting a potentially armed Covenant operative. Patting him down in the coffee shop would have been suspicious.

  “Hello,” she said, voice cool. “If you even reach for your wallet, I’m running us off the road.”

  “Charming,” said Leonard. He turned his attention to me. “Are all your friends this hospitable?”

  “You’ve made a lot of endangered species over the years,” I said. “Maybe you should expect a little justified hostility.”

  “Hmm.” He gave Cylia a more thoughtful look. “Dragon princess?”

  “Go with that,” said Cylia, slamming her foot down on the gas.

  Dragon princesses are nothing more nor less than female dragons, evolutionarily adapted to pass themselves off as attractive human women for the sake of staying safe from men like the one next to me. That isn’t common knowledge, and there was no reason for me to whisper a word of it to Leonard. Let him be the ignorant one for a change.

  Cylia kept her eyes on the road as she drove, her hands white-knuckled on the wheel. “I assume Annie already gave you the speech about shallow graves and no witnesses if you hurt a single one of us.”

  “It was largely implied,” said Leonard coolly. “I’m not a monster, Miss . . . ?”

  “You could have fooled me,” said Cylia. “I know a lot of broken families because of men like you. I know a lot of unfinished stories. You don’t get my name. You don’t get to offer me the hand of friendship just so you can pull it away when you decide I’d be better off dead. You get a ride in my car, and you get me not killing you yet. That’s all I’m willing to give.”

  Leonard gave me a look, smirking faintly. “You have charming friends,” he said.

  “I have friends who have very, very good reasons to hate you, and since you’re pretty proud of those reasons, I don’t think you have the moral authority to get angry at them,” I said. “You have a lot of blood on your hands.”

  “Hundreds of years of it,” Leonard agreed. “Only a century’s-worth has been washed from yours. What does that make you, do you think?”

  “Deep in debt, but at least aware that I’m there,” I said. “Now give me the charm.”

  Leonard blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “Part of our deal was that you give up the tracking charm you’ve been using to follow me. I want it.”

  “The crossroads—”

  “Successfully destroying them wasn’t a condition of getting my life back.” I held my hand out. “The charm, Leonard. Now. Or I tell my friend here that you clearly have no interest in keeping your word, and we do that ‘shallow grave’ thing she’s so into. I haven’t gotten her a birthday present yet.”

  “A little murder would improve my day immensely,” said Cylia.

  Leonard scowled as he reached inside his jacket—a gesture that caused Cylia to tense even more behind the wheel—and produced a small, flat glass disk that gleamed red as rubies in the light. The blood contained inside had somehow remained bright and fresh, captive of the magic that kept it from clotting. I snatched it out of his hand and made it vanish into my pocket.
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  “Will you give it to your new keepers, so they can keep tabs on you?” he asked, a sneer in his voice.

  “I’ll destroy it,” I said. “And then, assuming you’re smart enough to keep your word, I’ll be able to go home. Don’t you want to go home, Leo? Because if you try to double-cross us, you won’t. Ever. You’ll die here, in a foreign country, and leave your parents and sister to mourn you.”

  “Remember that mutually assured destruction?” he asked. “If I disappear, my family will not rest until they know what happened to me.”

  “See, in England, you think a hundred miles is a long way,” I said. “In America, we think a hundred years is a long time. It’s funny, when you stop to think about it. We have a lot of empty places where your body could disappear. Sure, your family might figure it out eventually, but I promise you, you’d be missing a lot longer than you think, and we’d have plenty of time to get a head start. Play nice. We can all get out of this alive.”

  Cylia snorted but didn’t say anything. Under the circumstances, that was probably the best I was going to get.

  “I’m not sure why you think I’ll want to work with you when you insist on threatening me at every turn,” said Leonard.

  “Our sparkling personalities,” I said. “Also the part where you’re getting the credit for this, at least as far as the Covenant is concerned. You’re going home a hero. A big, successful, awesome hero. No one’s going to care that you lost me because you’ll be the man who killed the crossroads.”

  Leonard didn’t have to look tempted for me to know that I had him. He wouldn’t have been in the car otherwise. Hopefully, he hadn’t thought through the rest of what this meant.

  He was going to be working with us. Even if he tried to double-cross us—which let’s face it, he was almost certainly going to do—he would still have worked with us, and we would still know the truth. We’d know the hero of the Covenant of St. George had teamed up with his ancestral enemies to help us finish a job that was already almost done, and would have been finished with him or without him. Knowing meant we could document every damning step of the process.