Chapter Eight

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“I am sincerely regretting telling you that she is a witch.” I wasn’t technically trapped in the car; I was almost confident that I would survive a leap out of the passenger side window. Seventy miles per hour, give or take. I could sit on top of that big rig and just see where it took me.

“Okay, yeah, but I know that you can’t lie, and you said she was a witch and that means she’s a witch!” Ann was unusually enthusiastic about the possibility of meeting a witch, something I was at least a little surprised by. She’d bartered with a sorcerer, one of her oldest friends was an adept traveler who had made a deal with Freyja herself, and not that it’s on par with those examples, but I was the first elf she’d ever met, and I’d been training her for several weeks. And the mere mention of a witch was what excited her. I wondered if it would always be this way; if Ann would be excited every time something new entered into our lives. It wasn’t a bad thing, not exactly. I envied that sort of lust for life. But at that hour and with everything else happening, at the moment it bordered on annoying. And now Ann was on the other side of the border and residing as a naturalized citizen.

Whatever frustration I’d been feeling was lost to Ann, whose continued smile threatened to produce legitimate sunshine if left unchecked. “How many different ways do I have to tell you? She’s not an actual witch, that’s just what she calls herself.”

“Are you buying magical items from her or not?”

“Yes, potentially.”

“And she made these magic things all on her own with magic or whatever?”

“More magic than whatever, yes, but Ann, she is not a witch!”

Ann slapped the steering wheel hard with the palm of her hand, her face registering something like a eureka moment. “Oh my god! Can she make potions?”

“Yes, and of remarkable quality, in fact, but you could make potions as well if you’d set your mind to it. That doesn’t make her a witch.”

“I don’t know dude, she does magic, makes potions, and you called her a witch,” Ann replied, unconvinced, as she shook her head. “Sounds like a witch to me. And I mean, if she’s not, why did you say she was?”

“Dramatic effect!” I exclaimed. “I thought you’d be excited!”

“I am!” Ann shouted in turn, still smiling. “We’re going to see a witch and peruse magical wares. My life is incredible!”

“The whole reason we are out here in the first place is that you’re dying and I’m being coerced by an asshole wizard!” I exclaimed, beginning to lose my temper. “How is that in any way incredible?”

Ann’s face returned to something of a more neutral expression, and the car rolled along quietly for a moment. “I’m sorry,” I said after a moment.

“It’s fine,” Ann replied but said nothing more. My guilt was getting in my way of reading her expression. A couple of minutes passed, and she spoke up. “No, actually, it’s not fine.”

“I deserve that, I was out of line,” I agreed.

“No, not that,” Ann said as we made the switch from the 405 to the 10 freeway. “You’ve been extra grumpy lately. You doing okay?”

I slumped into my seat. “You spend the majority of your life forced to observe ancient and arcane rules of etiquette whenever you’re not fighting for your life and let’s see how short your temper is when you’re off the clock,” I deadpanned.

“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say asshole,” Ann observed, drawing a chuckle from me. “And look, it’s cool, I promise. We’re both dealing with things; I haven’t forgotten. The psycho ex who’s stalking you is the same one who poisoned me, so trust me, I get it. But you know, just trying to keep a positive attitude. See the silver lining in every cloud or whatever.”

“Those are probably just the nephelai.”

“What?”

“You know, cloud nymphs.”

“What?” This time it came from Ann as disbelief rather than an actual question.

“No wait, those are just clouds.” I smiled at her as I said it, and for a moment, the tension seemed to subside.

Venice was a place I might have liked if I wasn’t so intimately familiar with its dark history, both secret and public. The entire city has been an amusement park, an oil field, and in one unfortunate year in the seventies, a battleground. These days it’s home to the wealthy and the unfortunate in equal measure. It also happens to be a hotspot for grifters, pickpockets, and imps. Well, not just imps, there have been other problematic beings here, but if I had to choose the most significant issue to deal with around here, it would be the imps. The phrase tourist trap might apply to the city more on the nose than the mortals might like.

These days, Venice was home to the headquarters of a couple of billion-dollar companies, and just like that, the city was changing once again. Thrift stores now charged upwards of seventy dollars for thirty-year-old t-shirts. The Bank of Venice is a bar and grill. At least the canals still have sharks in them. Leopard sharks to be exact, and they’re about as harmless to people as slightly overfed goldfish, but it’s just fun to imagine the locals aghast over the word shark while remaining utterly ignorant of the real danger around them on a daily basis.

Even at the early hour, Ann was lucky to find a parking space a mere four blocks from our initial destination. If this had been the summer or even just an unusually sunny weekend, we’d have been better off walking here. I retrieved my bow and a quiver of arrows from the backseat as I felt my brow furrow and my lips tighten. I didn’t know that I’d be needing these just yet, but I didn’t like the idea of having to run back here if I did. And this was still a densely populated city. I’d need to keep them covered to avoid being stopped by any local police, and coated or no, walking around with a bow was just as good as spinning a sign on the corner that read ‘I’m armed and dangerous and not from around here!’

“Think you’ll need to shoot anyone?” Ann asked with a hint of accusation in her voice. She shrugged a backpack up onto her shoulders as she looked at my weapon.

“No,” I replied, dodging the question. “It’s probably best that I left it here. For now, at least. Just until we’re certain of our situation. And you? Do you have everything you need?”

Ann nodded confidently in response. “Absolutely. Pepper spray and a spell book. Let’s find a thing.”

I must have misheard her. “You don’t say? And when did you get a spell book?”

“Right after New Year’s, I guess? But I’ve been working on it ever since.”

“I remain unconvinced. Show me.” For a moment I wondered if I was just imagining this conversation and I was suffering from an undiagnosed concussion.

Ann looked at me with an expression of disbelief, and it didn’t take a telepath to see why. She was treating me as someone who just refused to believe that she owned a drawer full of spoons and forks. Her backpack slung back down from her shoulders, and she turned it around to her front, unzipping it and producing a college ruled composition notebook, marked with doodles and perhaps scorch marks, and it had the handwritten title on it, Book of Ann-Chantments. I didn’t think Ann actually knew any enchantments, but I’ve yet to meet anything that has been capable of stopping her from forcing a pun if she thought she could get away with it. “That’s adorable, but it’s not a spell book.” I realized how I sounded as soon as I said it, but my patience was still running at all-time thin levels, even for the people I liked.

Ann’s face flushed slightly at that. “I mean, it’s not some dusty old leather-bound tome or whatever, but I have my spells in here.”

“You have your spells in there?”

“Okay, not all of my spells, but a couple of them! Besides, you know how many spells I can cast without writing them down? Not many. I can’t do what Olivia and Elana do, okay? I need help.”

That got my attention. “Okay, that’s more than fair, I’m just understandably surprised is all. Maybe walk me through it. How did you create this spellbook of yours?”

If that was meant to calm her down, it had perhaps the opposite effect. “Dude, I don’t know! I just figured this stuff out! I take a spell, and I look at the different parts of it that make it do whatever it is that is does. Kind of like computer code in a way, or how different notes added together at a certain speed make up a melody. But not either of those on their own, I think it’s somewhere in the middle of those two. The exact why doesn’t matter, just knowing what the pieces mean seems to be half the work. And if I can vocalize the sounds as I write them down, it doesn’t use up all the, I guess, magic inside of me to do something. So okay, you want an example?”

This was all fascinating and felt like something I should have heard before, but I urged Ann to continue all the same. I must have been wearing my serious and interested face because Ann was starting to calm down by a matter of degrees.

“So you know how Elana and Olivia can just cast a wind spell with their minds or their hands and like, it ain’t no thing?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t say it’s nothing to them, but yes, go on.”

“Yeah, so if I try that I’d be lucky to mess up someone’s hair. And then I’d need a nap. But if I try it from the book...”

Ann turned away from me and flipped through a couple of pages before she made a sound like air escaping from a tire while at the same time making an impression of an agitated duck. A modest gust of wind seemed to emanate from her, rustling some tree branches and causing a parked motorcycle about fifty feet away from us to topple over with a crash of metal and fiberglass against the asphalt.

“Oh shit!” Ann cursed louder than I would have expected. “I did not mean to do that! Just, all right, come on. We have to go.”

I was practically pulled down the street and around the corner laughing loud enough to alert all of Pacific Avenue, laughter that only seemed to frustrate Ann to an unfathomable degree as she rushed us away from the crime scene. The shrill chirping of her car alarm acted as a vocal witness to our escape.

“Will you stop laughing?” Ann hissed at me once we were out of sight.

“Oh, that was incredible! I needed that!” I exhaled, allowing the laughter to subside into giggles. “But you should know, sincerely, your spellbook? You should not be able to do that.”

“Yeah, well, no one told me,” Ann deadpanned.

“This is good! You should feel very proud of yourself,” I reassured her. “From what I’ve seen, spellbooks are created only after someone has mastered a range of languages and practiced those spells for countless hours until they have been burned into their minds. And reading from one is even more impressive, understanding the meaning behind the magic burned into the pages is a skill all to itself. And you’ve just reverse engineered the whole process to allow the magic around you to flow through you, rather than out of you. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of this happening before!”

“Dude, I just wrote dumb noises down in a composition book. It’s cool, but I’m positive someone’s done it before. Chill.”

Impressive or no, Ann wasn’t going to be able to hear it just this moment, and we still had plenty to accomplish. Now might not be the best time to get her head inflated besides, and so I began our walk down Pacific Avenue before making a turn for the boardwalk. It was the morning, and in broad daylight, I didn’t think we’d have much to worry about in our immediate future, but I was keeping an eye open all the same. Again, I knew what lived, and I’d have liked to avoid coming there if at all possible. The city was packed with about ten times the people it ought to have had in the first place and was home to the weird, both intentional and otherwise, which made the job all the more difficult.

“You doing okay? Relax, we’re at the beach. No boss battles just yet. The blood on the map hasn’t moved, so unless I screwed the scry, we should be safe.” Whatever concern I had was clear enough on my face that Ann could pick up on it. I was less concerned for my own safety as I was for hers, however. Still, I muttered an apology which Ann waved away. “Don’t apologize, just maybe try to enjoy the calm before the storm? Bold move on the ears, by the way.”

My ears! With all the stress and confusion, I’d managed to prepare for just about everything except attempting to disguise myself. “Never mind that,” I said dismissively. “We’re in Venice, anyone who sees me will mistake me for a... What’s that thing you do where you pretend to be other people, and you hit each other with foam swords and throw paper towels at each other?”

“Huh?”

“The thing where you all go camping, and one of you pretended to be a cat, and you ended up getting drunk?”

Ann flashed me an unreadable look. “You mean LARP? You think someone is going to think you’re in a costume?”

“Yes, precisely.”

“That’s not really my thing, that was something Jason and Logan used to...” Ann trailed off at the mention of Logan. Damn it; I hadn’t meant to bring him up in all of this.

“Well, when Logan returns, I’m sure he will be an even better LARP.” I had hoped that the words were a comfort. From what I understood, Logan was in Alfheim. I did not envy him, but his sacrifice was noble, and though I’d never been clear on the details, it sounded like Freyja had assured Olivia of his return. I had no way of knowing for sure, but that’s not what Ann needed to hear.

For her part, Ann seemed quick to move past the topic. “I just meant that if someone is looking for an elf, maybe the most defining aspects of an elf would have been better off covered up. Headphones, a hat, maybe something with your hair?”

She was right of course, but I wasn’t willing to concede the point. “I doubt anyone is looking for me specifically, just yet. Anyone looking for the Battle Born will be—”

“I’ll show you what’s in my birdcage for a dollar.” It was a woman’s voice, discordant and strained, but the fact that there was a woman there at all took me by surprise. We had taken a turn to make our way out onto the boardwalk, and slumped up against the side of one of the shops was a homeless person covered in an odd looking coat that could have been made exclusively from old feathers and dryer lint. I’d like to think it was because I’d been distracted, but I hadn’t registered this person as even a person, and I felt a twinge of guilt at that.

Next to the woman was a birdcage, covered by a stained piece of blue velvet that was likely torn away from a more significant portion of the material. It was frayed along the edges and whatever sheen it once held was long faded by sun bleaching. For her part, my olfactory senses were assaulted by her scent. Something like rotten fish and stagnant water clung to her. Ann didn’t seem affected in the slightest.

“Oh! Uhh, let me see what I have!” she said, immediately digging into her pockets, producing a ten-dollar bill. “Sorry, that’s all I have, I hope it helps.”

The woman raised her head now to look at Ann, excited but jaundiced eyes looked at her hand, and she eagerly outstretched one of her own. It had a layer of grime, and her fingernails were reminiscent of talons, and there was the unmistakable matte black of dried blood on them. With that coat she had likely become a breeding ground for mites and fleas, and her exposure to the elements, my guess was scratching at psoriasis scabs constantly.

“Oh, my! This is so much more than I asked for!” she said as she took the folded bill. “For this generous sum, I need to show you something very special! Yes, you deserve a show! But not now, no. No no no no! No, we must be patient!”

“Don’t worry about it, I promise,” Ann said gently. “Just get something to eat and have a good day, okay?”

“Today looks to be a very good day indeed!” the woman rasped, making a sound that sat somewhere between a cough and a laugh. “What may I call you?”

“My name is Ann; it’s a pleasure to meet you.” At the edges of her eyes, it looked as though Ann was rapidly becoming uncomfortable with the length of this conversation, but was letting it play out for kindness sake.

“I will find you, Ann, and I promise to give you a show.” The woman smiled, and her dry lips threatened to crack she did. “You have my word. Your pretty friend, too, even if she doesn’t say much.”

Ann took that brief opening to thank her and keep moving, and there was the fleeting sense of stepping into another world as we rounded onto the boardwalk. “There,” I said, pointing a just a couple of shops away to a sign that read:

The Gem and The Moon

Books, Holistic Remedies, Metaphysical Supplies

“Cool, let’s do it.”

“Actually, I’d like you to go in first, give you a chance to meet the witch for yourself.”

Ann eyed me with suspicion briefly but shrugged as she walked inside through the already open door, pushing aside the wall of beads that acted as the only barrier to the outside world. I stayed back at the edge of the doorway and listened.

“Bright blessings!” a cheerful voiced called out. “How may I guide your journey this day?”

“Sup?” Ann replied. “Hey, super quick. Are you a witch or nah?”

“That is correct. You may call me Ariadne. I am a Hedge witch and a devout worshipper of the fair one, the luminous goddess Freyja.”

“For real? Rad! That actually makes this a lot easier. One of my best friends works for Freyja, y’all might know each other.”

There was a sound like someone trying and failing to prevent an object leaving their grasp, the very brief noise of small objects scattering. “What did you just say?”

I took this as my moment to enter the store, drawing the attention of the woman the instant I did. “She’s telling the truth,” I said with a grin. “But of course, you already knew that, didn’t you?”

***