Magic by Any Other Name, page 26
Mei-Xing helped Georgette to her feet. Her legs wobbled like overcooked noodles and the Nymph had to hold her up, but she didn’t loosen her grip on the baby Bultungin box for a second.
“Can you use your magic?” Mei-Xing asked.
“Do I have to?” Georgette sighed.
“Everyone here”—Delia gestured to the lively crowd—“came for the children, to take them home. But no one can get the boxes open. Can you do it?”
Georgette’s muscles screamed at her to refuse. The bruises and fresh scabs on her arms throbbed, reminding her of how much she had already done that night. Do I even have the strength to do this?
Then she looked through the front door and saw, to her amazement, that the street in front of the shop was mobbed with Fae. Many were just milling around, their arms full of their imprisoned children. They can’t go home yet, she realized. Having the children means nothing if they aren’t free.
“I’ll do it,” she said.
“Are you sure?” Mei-Xing’s iridescent eyes shimmering with concern.
“It’s okay,” Georgette said. “The spell on brokerage containers is pretty simple. I can break it easily.” At first, anyway, she thought. But after I do it a thousand times, I’m gonna be a mess. She held up the box in her hands. “She’s Ishak and Kalilah’s?”
Mei-Xing nodded.
Georgette smiled. “Where is he now?”
“He took the two comatose guards to Club Nocturne,” Delia said. “He said he had a debt to pay.”
“He left his daughter with you,” Mei-Xing added, “for when you woke up.”
“Sure,” Georgette said. “That’s fine.” She took a deep breath, exhaled it slowly. Then she nodded at the crowd. “Let’s get started.”
54
Nicolás
WHEN GEORGETTE HAD CALLED NICO EARLIER IN THE evening, she’d been vague about why she needed to use the shop. Though he’d eventually agreed, hours later, their interaction wasn’t sitting well with him—especially now that she wasn’t responding to his texts.
So he went to the shop.
She had promised that the Botanica wouldn’t be damaged. After walking in from the back entrance and looking around at the state of the shop, it was clear to Nico that she hadn’t kept that promise.
Boxes. Brown shoeboxes with handwritten labels piled all over the floor and countertops. Boxes blocking the herbs, boxes where the candles should be, boxes on top of the saint figurines, and, presumably via magic, boxes floating through the air. Hundreds of boxes.
Through the front windows, he saw Georgette seated on the curb outside, a heap of open boxes surrounding her. A steady stream of closed boxes kept floating through the air and landing in her lap. Nico couldn’t see what she was doing—her back was to him—but within seconds of getting a box, she tossed it aside, empty.
Nico stepped into the center of the Botanica and scanned the shop. The air was laden with magic—it was as thick and gummy as pudding. Faint undulations in the air glided around the store and the sidewalk out front like concentrated mirages. He squinted at them and tilted his head back and forth, trying to pull a solid image from the distorted air. Unable to do so, he grunted in frustration and headed toward the front entrance, carefully avoiding the moving boxes, intent on confronting Georgette.
Before he got to the threshold, something came in through the door from outside. At first glance, he saw an upright, walking log covered in patches of moss and long grass. Blinking rapidly, he forced his eyes to focus closer on the log so his brain could assemble the details. It was a person … sort of. A better description was that it was a human-shaped being with two mossy arms, two bark-covered legs, and a head covered in grass and sprouts. Within the brown and green face, he saw two eyes shimmering like rainbows on an oil slick.
“Nico García,” the being said in an accented voice. “Hello again.”
The soft, choppy voice was familiar, but he couldn’t immediately place it while looking into the alien face. A moment later, it clicked. “Mei-Xing?”
She nodded, sending the long grasses on her scalp waving and rustling. “Why you here?”
“I work here!” he exclaimed, agitated by her nonchalance. “What the hell is going on?”
The bark on her face constricted, making her face thinner. “What you mean?”
“The boxes? The … air things … I don’t know what they are!” Seeing a Nymph unglamoured for the first time ever only added to his confusion and alarm. “I need to talk to Georgette.”
Mei-Xing glanced in her friend’s direction and then looked back at Nico. “She busy,” she said. “She open boxes.”
“What the hell’s in these?” he shouted.
He snatched up a box from the floor and grabbed at the lid. He was stunned to find that it wouldn’t budge. It looked ordinary enough but, try as he might, he couldn’t make a dent in it. He shoved it toward Mei-Xing.
“What’s in these?” he demanded.
“Fae children,” she told him.
Startled, he looked at the box again. Now cooler-headed, he felt the magic vibrating through it. He read the label aloud: “Centaur, male, age eight.” Staring at the description, he was caught off guard by the sudden touch of his spirit allies. In their wordless voices, Nico heard them urging him to let it be, to let the bruja work.
He drew a deep breath but couldn’t settle his nerves. It was the first time the spirits had ever spoken to him without being summoned.
“Children,” he said. “Why?”
“For sale at broker house,” Mei-Xing explained, taking the Centaur box from him. “We steal, give back to Fae.”
At her words, Nico’s senses twitched, forcibly expanding in a manner he had only experienced before under the influence of a deliriant. Bizarre colors and shapes popped into his vision, quickly taking form.
From one of those weird air ripples, a tall woman emerged. Surprised as he was to see her and her naked breasts appear out of nowhere, Nico was more surprised to see that her human torso was connected to a pair of hairy goat legs. On her head, half-hidden by her wild brown hair, he also saw two curved horns, each one a foot long. She approached the door with several boxes in her arms, her goatish eyes—blue with horizontal, rectangular pupils—sweeping over Nico. From her human lips came a sharp bleat that made him jump.
A moment passed in silence, then she snorted and repeated the sound.
Mei-Xing took Nico’s arm and gently pulled him aside. Stunned, he didn’t resist. Once he was out of her path, the Faun woman stepped through the door, her cloven hooves clicking on the floor.
Dazed and awestruck, Nico followed her.
During his curandero training, Nico had experienced many things. He’d learned how to recognize when a person had been bewitched and how best to help. He had projected his astral-self through unseen realms, he had conversed with spirits, and he had formed bonds with otherworldly creatures. So much of his life was outside of the ordinary that he had become comfortable with the bizarre. But nothing in his life had prepared him for what he saw outside the Botanica’s front door.
In the street, stretching for an entire city block, was a crowd that would rival any masquerade carnival on earth.
The first thing he saw was a beastly looking man-creature with enormous teeth protruding from its mouth and many horns on its head. There was also a large eagle, its gray and blue wings crackling with sparks, perched on the streetlamp across from the shop, a box held in its beak. An ugly old woman with pendulous breasts stood near Georgette, her sagging arms covered in a fog of gray hair. A dog-like thing with ape hands stood behind the crone, swishing tiny glowing Fairies away from its rump with the hand growing out of its tail. A huge, bulbous shadow loomed over everything, its glowing satellite-dish eyes looking down on the crowd.
“Holy hell,” Nico whispered. His last lingering concern about the Botanica vanished. Far from worrying about what his aunt would say when she saw the mess, he wished she was here to guide him. She was the only one he knew who might help him process this experience.
Mei-Xing called out a string of foreign words and held a box up in the air. Nico caught his breath at the sight of a bare-chested man approaching the Nymph, his waist disappearing into the body of a dappled gray horse. Mei-Xing handed the Centaur the box and exchanged a few words with him, after which the Centaur bowed his head. Then he trotted up to Georgette, pushed aside a tortoiseshell creature with a large dent in its skull, and plopped the box onto the witch’s lap. Georgette, without a glance at the Centaur, mechanically raised two fingers to her lips, blew a pale green light onto the tips, and then tapped the box. The green glow flashed bright and the lid popped open like a jack-in-the-box.
Nico heard a soft whoosh and saw a flurry of color fly out of the open box. He blinked, and just like that, there was a young Centaur standing by the adult, the boy’s head barely reaching the other’s elbow. Crying, the child held his arms up to cover his face and rocked his human half back and forth until the grown Centaur put a hand on his shoulder. The boy flinched but then looked up and gasped with relief. With a kindly smile, the Centaur leaned down and spoke to the child.
“What’s he saying?” Nico asked Mei-Xing.
“He ask what herd boy from,” she said. She turned and headed back into the Botanica. “He say he take boy home.”
Nico looked out over the crowd, at all the creatures and all the boxes they held. He looked back through the shop window at all the boxes still inside. Each one is a child, he thought. My God, there are so many.
His eyes drifted back to Georgette, who was working with the steady rhythm of a factory machine. For the first time, he noticed how sickly she appeared. Like a candle left sitting in the sun, she seemed melted, droopy, and spent. Behind her glasses, her eyes were glazed. Swimming in a sea of psychedelic weirdness, he zeroed in on her as the one familiar aspect of the night he could latch on to. He took a seat beside her on the curb.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Busy,” she mumbled.
He put a hand on her shoulder. Very little body heat came from her skin. She tossed the two halves of her most recently opened box aside as another creature dropped a closed one in her lap.
“You should rest,” he told her.
“Busy,” she repeated, her tone weary and mechanical.
“You don’t look great.”
“Hafta finish,” she said. “Important.”
Nico sighed. Yes, it clearly was important. If she wanted to work herself sick, there wasn’t much he could do to stop her. He certainly wasn’t going to physically remove her from the spot—not when all these beings, many of them terrifying to look at, were waiting for her help. He squeezed her shoulder again. “Okay.”
“What the hell, man?”
Jolted, Nico leaped to his feet and whirled around. Through a mingling group of Fae, Nico saw someone—someone human—standing in front of the store. He couldn’t see the guy’s face through the crowd, but he knew the voice.
“Neil?”
The group of Fae walked ahead until Nico clearly saw Neil’s face—which was twisted up with an unmistakable mixture of hurt and fury. He glanced down at Georgette; stock still, she was looking at Neil through wide, horrified eyes.
“What the hell?” Neil asked again. He pointed at Georgette and then at Nico as he stepped forward. “You gonna try to tell me this is a therapy session?”
“Neil, come on, man,” Nico sputtered. He waved his hands around, gesturing at the Fae. “You can see—”
No, he can’t see, he realized, his stomach sinking low. He can’t see any of it. All he sees is me sitting on the curb with his girlfriend.
Tears leaked from Georgette’s eyes as she tried to rise, a still-closed box sliding from her lap. “Neil!” she cried. “I didn’t … I wouldn’t …”
“I knew something was wrong,” Neil said to her. Shaking his head, he put a hand over his face. Behind the hand, Nico saw his jaw tighten and tremble. “Why did you do this?”
“It’s not like that,” Nico said calmly. “I came to check on the store. She’s here to help … her community.”
“My ass.” Neil glared at him with such vitriol that it made Nico physically uncomfortable. “Dammit, you’re the last person—how could you do this?”
Georgette’s sob cut him off. Tearing up, Neil turned away. Nico looked down at the witch. She was curled up in a ball, her face in her knees, sobbing.
Ignoring her distress, a male Fae, ape-like and naked but for his dirty fur, kept grunting and trying to push a box at her.
“You’ve got it wrong, Neil,” Nico insisted, though he felt his argument losing steam. Neil couldn’t see what they saw, and there was no way to describe it without sounding insane. “You’re projecting your anger at Lyndsey onto Georgette.”
Neil snapped his head around, his expression pure rage, and rushed at Nico. Bracing for a punch, Nico held up his hands to protect himself, eyes squeezed shut. But the punch never came.
Nico eased his eyes back open. Neil had stopped short and was staring at something over Nico’s shoulder, mesmerized.
Mei-Xing—the only Fae on the street visible to the average eye—was walking toward them, one hand out, a trumpet-shaped white flower growing from her palm. Though her inhuman features made her expression a mystery, Nico sensed anger.
“Make her cry,” she hissed. “Bad man.”
Though he doubted Neil had even noticed the plant sprouting from the Nymph’s hand, Nico recognized it at once. It was on the tip of his tongue to stop her—but without knowing exactly why, he clamped his mouth shut.
Mei-Xing ground the plant between her wooden palms. “You hurt her,” she spat at a flabbergasted Neil. “I show you.”
She opened her hand and blew the datura powder into Neil’s face.
The dust flew into his wide eyes and gaping mouth. Caught by surprise, Neil did exactly what Nico expected: he drew in a sharp breath, pulling the loose powder into his lungs. Nico scampered out of the way of the dispersing cloud and caught only a tiny whiff of its sickly-sweet odor as he escaped.
Coughing, Neil stumbled back and bumped into the Botanica’s front window. Nico jumped forward and caught him before he fell.
“The hell?” he sputtered. “What was …”
Neil’s voice drifted away as his pupils dilated. His arms flopped to his sides and his legs went out from under him, leaving him limp in Nico’s arms.
“You might feel your heart racing,” Nico said, lowering Neil to the sidewalk, “or your muscles spasming. You also might feel like time is moving in weird ways. More importantly”—he held Neil’s head up, directing his face to the Fae crowd—“you’re going to see things you couldn’t see before.” He leaned in and spoke directly into Neil’s ear. “You’re not hallucinating. What you’re seeing right here is real.”
Still holding Neil’s head, Nico felt electricity from the spreading datura flow through Neil’s sweaty skin. Though he couldn’t see through Neil’s eyes, he sensed his friend’s perspective shifting.
A trio of squat, green-skinned Goblins in baggy black robes stepped over Neil’s twitching legs. Neil yanked his feet out of their way and slurred, “ Ssshhhiiittt. Who’re … I … are they people ?”
Nico glanced at Georgette, who was now sobbing into Mei-Xing’s shoulder. The Nymph, meanwhile, was clutching her protectively and glaring at Neil.
“They’re Fae,” Nico told him. “They’re here for Georgette’s help. See those boxes?” he asked, directing Neil’s face to the pile of empties. “They need her to break the magic seal on those to free the Fae children inside. She’s a witch, Neil—born with powers it’ll take me my whole life to acquire. That’s what she was keeping from you.” He gave Neil a quick shake. “She’s not cheating on you; she’s draining herself dry to help others. And you know I wouldn’t do that to you, MacCana.” He smacked the back of Neil’s head. “You idiot.”
With that, Nico let go of him. Neil fell back against the Botanica’s wall—eyes wide, mouth slack, body shivering like he was waist-deep in snow.
Nico looked back over at Georgette and saw the ape-man still shaking his box at her, irritably mumbling and gesturing. Several others in the crowd, waiting just behind him, started to do the same.
The witch, oblivious, continued to press her face into Mei-Xing’s mossy shoulder.
A flash of silver burst into the street, and a tall woman in shining, ethereal armor appeared at Georgette’s side. The witch didn’t react, but Mei-Xing nodded to the warrior woman as Nico looked on in astonishment.
“I already told you,” the woman boomed, a bit of a southern accent emerging from her voice, “form a line and wait your damn turn!”
All eyes on her, the crowd grumbled, some of them gesturing, others pushing forward. The silver woman pulled a sword and swung it in a wide arc. The glimmering metal sang like a delicate but powerful chime, the vibrations hammering Nico’s eardrums.
The crowd fell silent. Slowly, the Fae shuffled back into line.
“She upset, Delia,” Mei-Xing said, stroking Georgette’s hair.
“Bad man hurt her.”
The warrior looked down at the pair. “If she needs a break, let her say so,” she said. “Otherwise, there are dozens more boxes.”
“She’s had a nasty shock,” Nico jumped in. “She should rest awhile.”
Delia looked at him, her eyebrows arched. Nico thought she either hadn’t noticed him or was surprised that he would speak to her. “You are?”
“Nico García. My aunt owns this store.”
Above Nico’s head, a sharp caw broke the air. Startled, he looked up at the awning. A raven peered down at him, the nearby streetlight illuminating its inky feathers and reflecting from its beady eyes. It cocked its head as if examining him, then turned its attention to the silver woman.
“Yes,” she said to the bird, “I agree.” She leaned down toward Georgette and Mei-Xing. “Siphon off some of my power, mine and Senji’s,” she said to the witch. “You’ve done so much tonight, and you never asked to borrow any energy from us. We are strong. Use us.”
