The frost slowed, but kept creeping toward us. Juliana gritted her teeth and growled a guttural string of words. She could have been ordering a metaphysical pizza for all I knew. I had just enough Latin to get through my own invocation. Catechism class was finally paying off.
“Veni, Creator Spiritus!”
I said it more strongly now, since the first tentative whisper hadn’t called down a bolt of lightning at my audacity.
The infringing ice covered the floor, a sea of frosty white. We stood on a shrinking peninsula, and my bare feet cringed from the burning chill.
Come Creator Spirit. In our souls take Thy rest.
The incense in my bowl glowed, as if fanned by intangible breath.
“Imple superna gratia.”
Come with Thy grace and heavenly aid …
The frost stopped, inches from my toes.
“Quae tucreasti pectora.”
And fill the hearts which Thou hast made.
Holly crumpled, like a puppet whose strings had been snipped. Just as abruptly, the ice retreated, a fast-motion thaw melting the ground for the coming spring.
It converged on Juliana, ran up her robe and over her chest to her bare arms and neck. For a moment she was encrusted, like spun-sugar candy. Then the frost sank into her skin, and what looked out of her eyes was no longer human.
“Uh, Lisa?” I held the bowl in two shaking hands. “Did she just absorb that … whatever … into herself?”
“Yeah.” She sounded as poleaxed as I felt. “That’s unexpected.”
“Why isn’t it cancelled out?”
Justin answered. “The blood. You’ve got to—”
“You bitch.” Victoria had gained her feet, lurching on her wretched knee, eyes fixed on Juliana’s face. “You’re still hogging all the power for yourself. You were never satisfied with an equal share.”
Juliana—or what was left of her in there—stared at the other woman with disdain. “Like you would know what to do with it, Vicky. You never did want to go all the way with anyone really powerful.”
Jenna tried to pull her back, recognizing the danger—maybe even Seeing it for what it was. “Victoria, please. She’s not …”
Victoria shook the girl off, limping forward. “We were partners when we started this. And while I’ve nurtured this sisterhood, built it into something lasting and strong, you do nothing but take take take …”
Juliana’s hand came up in a dismissive gesture. “Whatever. Most people like instant gratification. Peter, for example.”
“What?”
Now her expression was just catty. “You don’t really think you inspired his meteoric political success, do you? With your prissy little pantsuits and your camera-friendly hair?”
Victoria slapped Juliana across the face. The Julianathing reciprocated by flinging her across the room with one hand. The congressman’s wife hit the wall with a plaster-cracking thud and fell to the floor.
The thing turned her—its—gaze, blazing with cold, on us. Distantly, I heard fire trucks approaching. Had they taken that long, or had that little actual time passed? It seemed as if we’d been waging battle for days.
“Still have those scissors, Lisa?” I held my thumb over the bowl.
Justin pushed my hand away, put his in its place. “She didn’t use her own. You shouldn’t, either.”
“I’m not sure I can hurt you,” I said honestly.
Lisa opened the scissors and put the silver point to Justin’s thumb. “Get on with it.”
“What are you doing?” The transformed Sigma Prime demanded an answer, but I heard alarm thrumming through the voice.
Her agitation renewed my confidence. “Basic math, Juliana. An equal positive and an equal negative equals zero. A gift for a theft.”
Lisa cut the pad of Justin’s thumb and I caught three drops of blood in the bowl. They flashed as they hit the incense, and the resin heated up, red-hot, then glowing white. The bowl itself caught fire, and I dropped it.
Flame sped across the floor, encircling the witch in a fiery prison. Her clothes began to steam, then her hair, then her breath, fogging like a winter day. Juliana seemed to deflate, then collapsed to the parquet. The steam around her rose into the air and the flame followed it, entwining the trails of vapor and banishing them with angry, defeated hisses.
Hammering at the door. The firemen were trying to get in. Justin crossed the circle to Holly, lifting her limp body into his arms. “Can everyone else get out okay?”
“What about Victoria?” Jenna asked.
“Let the firemen move her,” I said. “Juliana, too.” Her body now a heap on the floor, she looked smaller.
They ran for the door. I ran for the grimoire, not trusting luck to destroy it. My hands closed on it, then I snatched them back with a yelp of pain. The thing was burning cold. Grabbing the tablecloth, I scattered the altar paraphernalia and wrapped the book enough to grasp it. Then I turned and saw Juliana—not lying where she ought to be, but standing between me and the door.
“You little bitch.” She had the bronze knife in her hand. Her eyes were feverish with madness. She hadn’t just looked into the abyss; she’d invited it in to set up house. And now she was hollowed out, nothing left but instinct and old patterns.
“Give me the book.” She raised the knife, which suddenly seemed huge.
I lifted the heavy tome as a shield, not interested in heroics or victory, only in survival. “Let’s get out of here, Juliana. The firemen are coming.”
She slashed and I jumped back, staying out of reach of the blade. The fire was spreading, purifying and consuming. I tried again to reason with an unreasoning shell of a woman. “There’s a gas leak, Juliana—” She hacked at me, and I skittered back to where the fallen oil lamp had spilled, and I held the book over the flames. “Put down the knife, or I’ll drop—”
The blade sliced across my arm and the book tumbled from my fingers.
It didn’t even hurt at first. I watched, shocked, as bright red blood welled, dripped down my skin, fell to the floor. A lot of blood. Enough to make a little pool.
I sensed more than saw her come at me again. Dodging, I slipped on the blood and crashed to the ground, hitting my head hard enough to make my vision blur. Crawling across the floor, leaving great smears of blood, I searched for something to defend myself.
My hand closed on cold iron. The crowbar. As Juliana bent and grabbed my injured arm and dug in her nails, I swung.
I swung with all my strength. I swung like a major leaguer.
I swung like someone who wanted desperately to live through the next five minutes.
The impact knocked the metal bar from my weakening fingers. It didn’t matter. Juliana collapsed on top of me, pinning my legs. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not.
Neither did I want to know. The woman—witch, demon, whatever—had tried to kill me. And as I lay in a growing puddle of my own blood, it occurred to me that maybe she had succeeded.