Paint it Black, page 20
It wasn’t enough. The earth cracked again, and the creature grew, its wounds closing up as it expanded. It rolled onto its front, shaking them off, and flapped its enlarged wings with great, sweeping beats that swirled the air around them and lifted it off the ground. Gosha pushed herself up to her feet, raising her sword to hack at it before it could hover out of her reach, but Nimuë placed a hand on her arm.
“Look.” She pointed up at the sky.
The raging storm on the other side of the hill had grown. The clouds snaked out toward the patch of sky directly above them.
“It’s drawn their attention.”
The earth rumbled and cracked again and the creature dipped toward the earth as its grew, but it quickly recovered and caught itself before falling within the reach of Gosha and Nimuë’s swords. The storm front above them crackled, flashes of lighting illuminating the hideous figures of the Lords and Ladies within.
“Run!” cried Nimuë, grabbing Gosha’s hand and pulling her with her as they fled for the hill.
As they reached the bottom of the slope, the earth cracked and shook again. They turned back to see the creature’s wings expand further as it rose into the sky.
“Don’t stop,” huffed Nimuë as they clambered up the grassy hill. Only when they reached the top did she let them catch their breath and turn to watch.
Distance was hard to judge in the Between, made only harder here by the moth creature’s growth and the formless expanse of the clouds above it. Electricity crackled in continuous waves around the surface of the clouds, building in frenetic intensity until all that energy released in a torrent of fury, a great and ragged column of power that struck the creature and knocked it out of the sky. It tumbled to the earth in a ball of flames.
“Looks like we’re not t’only ones teh take a dislike teh t’monster,” said Nimuë as the creature struck the ground next to its former prison. She turned and beamed at Gosha. “Looks like they did yer dirty work for ye.”
The formless mound that remained of the creature burned like a bonfire, but as Gosha watched, she saw movement beneath the flames. She wished herself and Nimuë closer and the Between responded, propelling their bodies through space, down the hill to land by the side of the bonfire.
“Weh-heey!” cried Nimuë. “Great fun!”
Gosha paced around the fire, craning to see better. The creature’s body burned, but wasn’t consumed. Though the mass was no longer recognizable as a creature with arms, legs, and wings, the fragments all shifted with more movement than created by the force of the burn.
“It’s still alive!” she shouted to Nimuë across the fire.
Above them, the clouds receded, returning to their place on the other side of the hill.
“Don’t seem teh be botherin’ them up there.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not still dangerous.”
The mound liquefied and spread across the ground, consuming the grass and topsoil in its flames.
“Watch out,” cried Gosha as the seeping fire reached threatened to ignite Nimuë’s robes.
She wished again and flew through the air to wrap her arms around the Lady of the Lake and carry her back to the safety of the hill.
“Chuffin ‘eck!” The flames singed the edges of Nimuë’s gown as Gosha and she stamped them out.
Down below, the remains of the creature spread out into a lake of fire that seeped into the earth until all trace was gone, leaving only scorched turf.
“Soooo,” said Gosha. “Do we think the Lords and Ladies destroyed it and the earth consumed its remains?”
Nimuë snorted.
“Aye, lass. Ye tell yeself that if it makes ye feel better.”
26
Gosha stooped to dig up a handfull of dirt and grass.
“Who, exactly, is tellin’ ye teh do all this stuff?” said Nimuë as Gosha did her best to gulp it down.
Gosha ran her fingers across the chain wrapped around the stone that represented the making that gave Eleanor her longevity.
“The witch who created this. She said the lake and the earth would help me master its power.”
“Gobnait?” Nimuë, eyebrows high with surprise. “Gobnait’s makin’ ye do it?”
“I don’t know her as Gobnait. I know her as Eleanor.”
“Yea high, dark hair, gets a little batty if she ain’t had her tea?”
“That’s her.”
Nimuë snorted.
“She’s havin’ a laff wi’ye. Ye’re as bound to t’twilight as any witch I’ve met. Its power is yes teh command. Unless ye don’t believe in yer own power.”
Gosha thought about how lost she’d felt with the vast and formless threat of Dropnick looming over her, with her Craft failing and no Eleanor to guide her. She’d felt as powerless as she had when first her life had crumbled in the face of the supernatural.
“Yes,” said Gosha. “I didn’t. But I see now it wasn’t that I didn’t have power, it was that someone was trying to make me believe I didn’t have it. The man who created that thing.”
Nimuë clasped Gosha’s shoulders.
“I remember how hard it can be to be mortal, but don’t let anyone make ye lose faith in yesen, y’hear? Don’t let anyone make you believe ye don’t have power, lass. Ye allus have power.”
Gosha nodded, her throat tightening into a knot, her eyes misting over to hear such kindness.
Nimuë looked across the plain toward the golden city that represented the real world.
“There were a time when t’Loe existed in both places, there and here.” She smiled. “A good time. I had bushels o’friends then. Come and visit me again, will ye?”
She threw her arms around Gosha and hugged her tight. Her hair smelled of moss and rosemary.
“And the blessings of t’Loe be upon ye in yer quest to rid the land o’ that monstrosity.”
Gosha awoke to find herself alone on the bed, Rosamund whispering and gesturing emphatically to Eleanor at its foot.
“Did you eat a mouthful of earth like I told you?” she said to Rosamund as she sat up.
“She’s awake!” Rosamund threw her hands up in the air and pushed Eleanor to one side with her hip so she could come around and plonk herself down next to Gosha and wrap her arms around her.
“You made it! I can’t believe you made it! I was sure you’d both be chopped up and made into a curry by that thing. Did you kill it? Is it dead?”
“Hello, Gobnait,” said Gosha to Eleanor with a twinkle in her eye.
A smile crept across Eleanor’s aged face.
“You met Nimuë.”
“Yes, she was very helpful. She doused me in the lake and everything.”
“Ah, the Loe. How I’ve missed it. My making would never let me travel that far into the past. Rosamund ate the earth, did you?”
Gosha pried herself from Rosamund’s grip so she could stand and hug Eleanor.
“I did, but Nimuë told me the truth. I didn’t need it. Thank you for trying to help me.”
“Did I, though?” Eleanor pulled away to look Gosha in the eye. “Did I help you?”
“Oh, yes. I saw how powerful I can be.”
“But did you kill the beast?” Rosamund looked up at them from where she sat.
“No. Nimuë said we couldn’t kill it, but the Lords and Ladies nearly did.”
“Nearly?” Eleanor raised an eyebrow.
“It escaped.”
“Cazzo!” Eleanor clenched her fists in frustration. “Rosamund, tell her what you told me.”
Rosamund went to the window, pulled the curtain and pointed down at the street.
“There’s one of the evil doctor’s devices down there. They’re all over the neighborhood.”
Gosha joined her at the window and drew in a sharp breath. Thrusting up from the lamppost outside burned a flickering column of inky, black fire that stretched into the morning sky.
“What?” said Eleanor, rushing to her side.
“Widow’s weeds.”
The omen of doom that had visited her since she was a child was once a simple black smudge that wrapped around the periphery of her vision as the victim’s death drew closer. Aloysius and Murgatroyd, the double-headed dragon that protected Pauline Sutton’s tower at the heart of the Shadowlands had helped her change it so it marked sources of danger.
Gosha looked up above the houses of Canterbury Gardens. Nine more columns soared above the skyline to the south. She craned her neck to see further to the east and west and saw the flicker of three or four more.
“I need to see properly.”
She ran downstairs, Eleanor and Rosamund at her heels, and threw open the front door. She descended two steps, careful not to cross the perimeter of effect of Dropnick’s device that would make her pass out, and looked to the heavens. The house faced south, but a large swath of Cheyne Heath lay between her and the river. She counted fifteen towers of inky black flickering.
“They’re everywhere,” she said as the others came down to join her, pointing out all the towers she could see. “All over the neighborhood. Maybe further.”
“How could he have achieved all that under our noses without anyone noticing?” said Eleanor.
“He had help from Bishop Worsley before,” said Gosha. “Maybe he was able to con someone else into helping him.”
“Those bloody saints!” said Eleanor.
“Let’s get the device in the house,” said Rosamund. “If I can examine the two boxes, I might be able to get you some of the answers you need.”
“No!” Gosha and Eleanor shouted in unison, reaching out to stop her, but she darted off down the steps before they could.
Three steps down, she crumpled, unconscious, thankfully lying where she fell and not tumbling down the steps to crack her head.
“She can’t have realized she’s no longer immune to its effects,” said Eleanor, hovering on the top step. “When the Loe healed her, it made her vulnerable again. What do we do?”
One of the cowboys in Timothy’s comics might have been able to lasso her and drag her up, but that was a talent Gosha lacked.
“Can we cast a spell to get her up here?”
Eleanor shook her head. “Not enough of us, dear. Making that knife of yours fly through the air is one thing. Lifting a whole person would require six or seven of us.”
A car turned the corner onto Canterbury Gardens, Gosha’s Mini Cooper.
“Thank the Lady,” she said. “It’s Alfie with the boys.”
“Is that Elsie next to him in the passenger seat?” said Eleanor. “If he pulls into the drive, won’t that put them in range of the lamppost?”
“Alfie!” Gosha jumped up and down, waving frantically. “Stop! Stop!”
He saw her, but didn’t understand, and rolled past the lamppost. The interior of the car became a jumble of commotion as the boys, crammed into the back seat with an unconscious Margie, began to pull on the front seat trying to get out as Alfie suddenly realized what happened to Elsie and her niece.
“They’re passed out!” Alfie called up to Gosha and Eleanor as he got out and helped the boys clamber across to the driver’s side door.
“It’s the lamppost,” said Gosha.
“What?”
“You’ll have to lift them out. If you get them to the side gate, they’ll wake up. They can come in through the back. And we’ve got another one here. I’ll explain when you get in.”
The boys ran around the car and up the stairs, stepping carefully around the unconscious Rosamund.
“What’s wrong with them?” said Edmund as Gosha wrapped them both in a hug.
“It’s just a little problem with the lamppost,” she said.
So much for keeping the supernatural away from them.
It was time to sit them down and have an open talk. She sighed. Talking to them about sex would be a doddle after that.
“Is it safe to go in the house again?” asked Timothy, his little face creased with worry.
“It’s perfectly safe,” said Gosha, hoping she was telling the truth. “Look, Auntie Eleanor is here, and so is Babsha, and Auntie Elsie and Margie will be right as rain in no time. There’s nowhere safer you could be.”
That, at least, is true, she thought grimly.
She walked them in, holding their hands.
“Babsha!” she called upstairs. “The boys are here. Can you make them breakfast?”
Her mother came down changed out of her disturbing pink pajamas into one of her usual outfits of off-the-rack middle class conservative drag and gathered them into the kitchen, twittering affectionately at them as if she were Elsie.
“Hopefully that won’t unsettle them as much as it does me,” she said to Eleanor as she returned to the top step and watched Alfie deadlift Elsie out of the passenger seat, his face turning red with the effort.
He dragged her around the car to the side gate and laid her carefully down on the ground. She awoke almost immediately, got to her feet, dusted herself off as if nothing had happened, and tweaked Alfie affectionately by the cheek as he led her through the gate.
“Look at that,” said Gosha. “They don’t remember anything about being witches. She doesn’t even remember passing out. Could a spell do that?”
Eleanor shook her head. “You can massage the way a person thinks and feels with a spell and make it last longer with a well-Crafted charm, like in a love spell, but even that spell you forged to make people trust you so you can question them fades, eventually. Whatever Dropnick’s done is a profound violation of reality.”
“Just like all his tricks.”
Behind them, Alfie and Elsie came up the back stairs from the basement, Elsie heading into the kitchen to twitter with Agnieszka and the boys.
“What’s going on?” he asked after Gosha broke from the deepest kiss she dared give him in front of company.
She did her best to fill him in as quickly and succinctly as she could, his expression of disbelief growing with each new twist and turn.
“How are the boys doing?” she asked when finally she was done.
“They’re putting up a brave front, but I can tell they’re spooked.”
Damn, she thought. He couldn’t be more part of this family than if he were their actual father. How do I make him see that?
It took Alfie only a few minutes to get Margie and Rosamund into the house. Margie was easy. All he had to do was drive the car out of range of the lamppost and then walk her around the edge of the property through the garden. Rosamund took a healthy fireman’s lift to get her up the steps and out of range. She regained consciousness fully knowing herself and what she was, her connection to the Between making her immune to Dropnick’s amnesia.
Now I have an actual Lady to give thanks to, she thought as she offered gratitude to Nimuë and the Loe.
“What’s this?” said Rosamund as she sat on one of the straight-backed chairs by the wall in the foyer next to the Art Deco statue.
“It’s a seal,” said Gosha. “Agnieszka Crafted it to protect the house.”
Rosamund turned the statue to face the door. The seal closed and the reassuring lightness as the world was shut out raised Gosha’s spirits. Gosha’s lipstick cracked violently in her bra and her second sight came back to life. Peals of loud, filthy Polish swear words cascaded out of the kitchen. The boys giggled loudly, knowing full well what they were if not what they meant.
Agnieszka stormed into the foyer and bore down on Gosha with her usual piss and vinegar, which Gosha found strangely comforting.
“Who did this! Was it you, Eleanor? Did you do this with your—”
Rosamund turned the statue away from the door and the weight of the world sunk into the pit of Gosha’s stomach as the seal was broken and her talisman cracked again. Her second sight faded.
“Dear, sweet Alfie,” said the re-transformed Agnieszka. She kissed him affectionately on each cheek and patted him on the arm. “We’re so lucky to have him,” she said, turning to hug Gosha.
What. The. Fuck, mouthed Alfie behind her back.
Rosamund turned the statute into place, activating the seal. Agnieszka howled with outrage.
“It’s like having my insides ripped out of me through my toes!”
Rosamund broke the seal again.
“Breakfast is ready,” said Agnieszka, suddenly meek and mild once more. “I made crepes!”
Rosamund turned the statue into position one more time, sealing the house.
“Stop it!” shouted Agnieszka, turning pink with outrage. “Stop that this instant, or I will curse you down to the seventh generation!”
Elsie and Margie rushed out of the kitchen to join them.
“Lawks,” exclaimed Elsie. “That’s deuced unpleasant!”
27
“No!” said Agnieszka, blocking the French doors to the foyer with her body.
The rest sat huddled around the kitchen table like King Arthur’s nights after a thorough trouncing. Edmund and Timothy sat between Gosha and Elsie. No amount of coaxing could convince them they were safe in the house and could go upstairs to their rooms.
“Mamusha, we can’t stay in here forever.”
“Who says we can’t! We have enough food in the house to keep us all going until next Tuesday when it’ll all be over!”
“Mamusha, I know it doesn’t feel good—”
“No! You don’t know! Your sparkly fairyland protects you. Doesn’t feel good? It feels like a violation, like I’ve had my very being ripped out from me by teeth and claws.”
“You don’t mean that.” Gosha looked nervously at the boys, who watched their grandmother with pale fascination.
She raised her eyebrows and nodded her head toward them, signaling to Agnieszka to cool it.
Agnieszka did not.
“And what will you do when you get outside? We can’t even walk down our front steps. That evil little man has been upon us for weeks without us knowing. What other traps has he laid in store for us?”
