The Good, The Bad and The Undead. Ким Харрисон
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from me once.
I was measuring the springwater with my graduated cylinder when there was a scuffing on the back steps. “Hello? Ms. Morgan?” Glenn called as he knocked and opened the door. “Jenks said I could come right in.”
I didn’t look up from my careful measuring. “In the kitchen,” I said loudly.
Glenn edged into the room. He took in my new clothes, running his eyes from my fuzzy pink slippers, up my black nylons to my matching short skirt, past my red blouse, to the black bow holding my damp hair back. If I was going to see Sara Jane again, I wanted to look nice.
In Glenn’s hands was a wad of mullein leaves, dandelion blossoms, and jewelweed flowers. He looked stiffly embarrassed. “Jenks—the pixy—said you wanted these, ma’am.”
I nodded to the island counter. “You can put them over there. Thanks. Have a seat.”
With a stilted haste, he crossed the room and set the cuttings down. Hesitating briefly, he pulled out what was traditionally Ivy’s chair and eased into it. His jacket was gone, and his shoulder holster with his weapon looked obvious and aggressive. In contrast, his tie was loose and the top button of his starched shirt was unfastened to show a wisp of dark chest hair.
“Where’s your jacket?” I asked lightly, trying to figure out his mood.
“The kids…” He hesitated. “The pixy children are using it as a fort.”
“Oh.” Hiding my smile, I rummaged in my spice rack to find my vial of celandine syrup. Jenks’s capacity to be a pain in the butt was inversely proportional to his size. His ability to be a stanch friend was the same. Apparently Glenn had won Jenks’s confidence. How about that?
Satisfied the show of his gun wasn’t intended to cow me, I added a dollop of celandine, swishing the ceramic measuring spoon to get the last of the sticky stuff off. An uncomfortable silence grew, accented by the whoosh of igniting gas. I could feel his gaze heavy upon my charm bracelet as the tiny wooden amulets gently clattered. The crucifix was self-explanatory, but he’d have to ask if he wanted to know what the rest were for. I had only a paltry three—my old ones were burnt to uselessness when Trent killed the witness wearing them in a car explosion.
The mix on the stove started to steam, and Glenn still hadn’t said a word. “So-o-o-o,” I drawled. “Have you been in the FIB long?”
“Yes ma’am.” It was short, both aloof and patronizing.
“Can you stop with the ma’am? Just call me Rachel.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Ooooh, I thought, it was going to be a fun evening. Peeved, I snatched up the mullein leaves. Tossing them into my green-stained mortar, I ground them using more force then necessary. I set the mush to soak in the cream for a moment. Why was I bothering to make him an amulet? He wasn ’t going to use it.
The brew was at a full boil, and I turned the flame down, setting the timer for three minutes. It was in the shape of a cow, and I loved it. Glenn was silent, watching me with a wary distrust as I leaned my back against the edge of the counter. “I’m making you something to stop the itching,” I said. “God help me, but I feel sorry for you.”
His face hardened. “Captain Edden is making me take you. I don’t need your help.”
Angry, I took a breath to tell him he could take a flying leap off a broomstick, but then shut my mouth. “I don’t need your help” had once been my mantra. But friends made things a lot easier. My brow furrowed in thought. What was it that Jenks did to persuade me? Oh, yeah. Swear and tell me I was being stupid.
“You can go Turn yourself for all I care,” I said pleasantly. “But Jenks pixed you, and he says you’re sensitive to pixy dust. It’s spreading through your lymph system. You want to itch for a week just because you’re too stiff-necked to use a paltry itch spell? This is kindergarten stuff.” I flicked the copper vat with a fingernail and it rang. “An aspirin. A dime a dozen.” It wasn’t, but Glenn probably wouldn’t accept it if he knew how much one of these cost at a charm shop. It was a class-two medicinal spell. I probably should have put myself inside a circle to make it, but I’d have to tap into the ever-after to close one. And seeing me under the influence of a ley line would probably freak Glenn out.
The detective wouldn’t meet my eyes. His foot twitched as if he was struggling to not scratch his leg through his pants. The timer dinged—or mooed, rather—and leaving him to make up his mind, I added the blossoms of jewelweed and dandelion, crushing them against the side of the pot with a clockwise—never withershins—motion. I was a white witch, after all.
Glenn gave up all pretense at trying not to scratch and slowly rubbed his arm through his shirtsleeve. “No one will know I’ve been spelled?”
“Not unless they did a spell check on you.” I was mildly disappointed. He was afraid to openly show he was using magic. The prejudice wasn’t unusual. But then, after having taken an aspirin once, I’d rather be in pain than swallow another. I guess I wasn’t one to talk.
“All right.” It was a very reluctant admission.
“Okey-dokey.” I added the grated goldenseal root and turned it to a high boil. When the froth took on a yellow tint that smelled like camphor, I turned off the heat. Nearly done.
This spell made the usual seven portions, and I wondered if he’d demand I waste one on myself before trusting I wasn’t going to turn him into a toad. That was an idea. I could put him in the garden to police the slugs from the hostas. Edden wouldn’t miss him for at least a week.
Glenn’s eyes were on me as I pulled out seven clean redwood disks about the size of a wooden nickle and arranged them on the counter where he could see. “Just about done,” I said with a forced cheerfulness.
“That’s it?” he questioned, his brown eyes wide.
“That’s it.”
“No lighting candles, or making circles, or saying magic words?”
I shook my head. “You’re thinking of ley line magic. And it’s Latin, not magic words. Ley line witches draw their power right from the line and need the trappings of ceremony to control it. I’m an earth witch.” Thank God. “My magic is from ley lines, too, but it’s naturally filtered through plants. If I was a black witch, much of it would come through animals.”
Feeling as if I was back doing my graduate lab-work exam, I dug in the silverware drawer for a finger stick. The sharp prick of the blade on my fingertip was hardly noticeable, and I massaged the required three drops into the potion. The scent of redwood rose thick and musty, overpowering the camphor smell. I had done it right. I had known I had.
“You put blood in it!” he said, and my head came up at his disgusted tone.
“Well, duh. How else was I supposed to quicken it? Put it in the oven and bake it?” My brow furrowed, and I tucked a strand of my hair that had escaped my bow back behind my ear. “All magic requires a price paid by death, Detective. White earth magic pays for it by my blood and killing plants. If I wanted to make a black charm to knock you out, or turn your blood to tar, or even give you the hiccups, I’d have to use some nasty ingredients involving animal parts. The really black magic requires not just my blood but animal sacrifice.” Or human or Inderlander.
My voice was harsher than I had intended, and I kept my eyes down as I measured out the doses and let them soak into the redwood disks. Much of my stunted career at the I.S. involved bringing in gray spell crafters—witches that took a white charm such as a sleep spell and turned it to a bad use—but I’d brought in black charm makers as well. Most had been ley line witches, since just the ingredients needed to stir a black charm were enough to keep most earth witches white. Eye of newt and toe of frog? Hardly. Try blood drawn from the spleen of a still-living animal and its tongue removed as it screamed its last breath into the ether. Nasty.
“I won’t make a black charm,” I said when