Chapter 20 You Are Not My Keeper

20

You Are Not My Keeper

"The Bitters, the Avramov demesne," Maya announced like a court herald, as soon as we walked through the wrought iron gates for the Saturday spectacle. A bright thread of awe glinted in her voice, her avid gaze skimming over the crackling multicolored bonfires, the swirling crowd, the masqueraded Avramov fortune tellers snaking through it.

"Wait, you remember The Bitters?" I asked her, exchanging looks with Ivy. "Have you been here before?"

"I don't know, maybe?" She gave a helpless shrug, screwing up her nose. "I just… know it. I'm aware that isn't very helpful."

"It's still progress," Ivy said, giving her upper arm a reassuring pat. "And that's why we had you come tonight, right?"

Ivy and I had debated the wisdom of bringing Maya, given the potential dangers. Once I'd gotten in touch with Elena to share what we'd learned on the other side of the veil, the matriarch had been, to put it mildly, displeased with my proactivity. But after she'd dressed me down to her satisfaction—though she couldn't have been that surprised, seeing as Avramovs weren't exactly known for falling in line like good peons—she'd come around to the undeniable usefulness of the intel. I'd even sensed some relief there; the Cavalcade hadn't run on magicless spectacles in the entire history of the town, and the elders were clearly growing uneasy with keeping this one mundane. Knowing that it was Chernobog we were dealing with allowed them to plan a strategic defense for the supernatural portion of the spectacle, should he come knocking at our door-veil once again.

"But he's a deity," I'd said, the memory of touching his stronghold still icy fresh, a chill breath of the void drifting over my nape. "Are we even equipped to handle something like that?"

"Together, we most certainly are," Elena had assured me, a silky anticipation to her voice, as if some part of her even relished rising to this unique challenge. "This is what Avramovs were made for, after all. Dallying with darkness when others can't, or dare not try. We'll also have the power of the other three families to support us, should we need it. And we've done it once before, haven't we? Without even knowing what he was."

Even with all the preparation in the world, this could still wind up being as dangerous as the last time he'd manifested. But Ivy and I had felt we owed it to Maya to bring her, especially now that she knew about magic anyway. The odds were excellent that she had been at the spectacle the first time around, given the mask I'd found around her wrist. And if Chernobog made another appearance, that in itself might shake something loose for her.

Not to mention, she'd been adamant in wanting to come.

"No fucking way am I sitting this out." Her eyes had flashed mutinously between the two of us like a rebellious teen, as if daring either to contradict her. "It's just like you said. Maybe I was there, and maybe something about what happened did this to me in the first place. Seeing it again might be exactly what I need."

Neither of us had been inclined to talk her out of it, though bringing her was a risk on multiple levels—especially since I still hadn't told Elena about her. The elder would have insisted on examining Maya herself, and I continued to balk at the idea of exposing her to someone who might have very different opinions on what was best for her. And I'd wanted Elena focused on the god rather than the possibility of some Blackmoore mischief, since we'd be working in concert with the Blackmoores tonight.

How did pathological liars even live their lives, I wondered guiltily, glancing down at Maya now. I'd bought her some hard cider and a huge slice of Cryptid pizza, and she was happily enjoying both, those honey-hazel eyes wide, taking everything in. I should have told Elena about her by now, no matter what justifications I kept dredging up for myself. That insistent sense of protectiveness aside, keeping her a secret was becoming godsdamned exhausting.

"It's about to start," Ivy said, nudging me in the side as a haunting trill of violin music drifted through the evening air. In response, I looped an arm around her waist; she let me pull her close, shooting me a small, private smile. Even here and now, with all the uncertainty hovering over us, I felt an unspeakable wealth of joy that we were together again. That Ivy Thorn, miracle of miracles, loved me enough to tell me so. "Should we get closer to the front?"

I shook my head. "We have a clear enough view from here. And if some shit does go down, I don't want Maya directly in the crosshairs."

Maya shot me an irritable look, tossing her coppery ringlets. "I'm not a child," she mumbled around a mouthful of pizza. "I don't need to be coddled like a baby. We can get closer, if you all want to."

"I think we're good right where we are," Ivy soothed, backing me up. "No need for us to be too close to the Avramov circle anyway, if they do light some necromantic shit up. I promise, you wouldn't want to be near all that."

I glanced over to the left side of the stage, where a sizeable cluster of my family had already gathered, ready to fall into a circle formation at any moment. Issa and Talia stood near the center, as two of the most powerful witches of our generation. My sister, whose affinity with glamours extended to whatever spellwork one wielded against invading gods, hovered close by.

Elena stood among her flock, her foxy hair whipping in the wind. As if she could feel me looking, she turned just enough for our gazes to lock. Then she inclined her head in an unmistakable gesture of respect, mouthed, "We are ready for whatever comes," and turned back to her circle, her profile die-cut and adamant against the dusk.

The (very Avramov) moral of this story was, sometimes it really did pay to go rogue.

Slowly, enthrallingly, the spectacle unfolded before us just as it had that first time. Morty's aerialist crew tumbling and twining through the silks, Adriana summoning an army of mock ectoplasmic shades against the Blackmoore-conjured curtain of milky fog, the audience shrieking and giggling, beset by a delicious thrill. I could sense Ivy all but holding her breath beside me as we waited to see if he'd descend upon us again, like a moth drawn to the black flame of necromantic magic.

And then the soaring, eerie music came to a close, the shades dissipating into sooty scraps of ectoplasm against that roiling white fog.

"I can't believe that's it," a familiar voice whined behind me, and I half twisted to find Wynter a few rows back, looking crestfallen as she played with the tangle of necklaces tucked into her deep purple bodice.

"Except, that was awesome," the person beside her countered. "What exactly did you want, beyond a fucking fabulous aerial show and the most elite shadow play I've ever seen? I don't even understand how they pulled that off."

"I don't know," Wynter mumbled, dipping her head. "I guess I just…hoped there might be more."

Her friend was still shaking their head in exasperation as I turned back to Ivy. "Maybe we finally caught a break," I murmured to her, tucking her close against my side. She leaned over to brush a grazing kiss over my cheek, and light as it was, I could feel it rush all the way down my side and coil right between my legs, a promise of more to come later. "And he's just lost interest in—"

Then a behemoth roar shook the grounds, so loud it rattled the wrought iron fence that encircled The Bitters.

And there he was—a dark, flickering shape appearing behind the clouded white of the fog, slowly gaining mass and density as he spun himself a body. Again in that doomsday titan form, leathery wings unfurling wide around him, their curved claws framing his head like a dread halo. Only now, I could feel him in a way I hadn't before, the emanating sweep of icy death that rippled out from him. Copper filled my mouth as if I'd bitten my tongue, the scent of wormwood stinging sharp in my nose. And this time, his horns were more elaborate, branching outward like antlers.

"What about that?" Wynter's friend hissed from behind us. "Does that do it for you? Because if you ask me, it should have come with a fucking content warning. This, I was in no way prepared for."

It was only then that I noticed Maya standing frozen beside me, her eyes locked on Chernobog. What was left of her cider and pizza tumbled to the ground, her small hands clenching into fists so tight her arms trembled.

" You ," she spat, in a low, belling voice. Soft as it was, it somehow knelled effortlessly above the hubbub of the crowd. "You dare come here , to the sacred ground I claim as mine. Again."

Chernobog's gaze snared hers, as if he'd heard her, too. And then, to my utter shock, an expression of sheer, transcendent joy suffused the bold angles of his face.

"Of course I came to you!" he roared, through a brilliant grin that revealed sharp white teeth. He was even more fully manifested than last time, more divine flesh than ectoplasm. "My light, my sister, my eternal beloved. Did you truly think you could conceal yourself from me forever, when you are mine and I am yours? There is no sacred ground you claim in this realm in which I do not belong as well."

Maya bared her own teeth and snarled at him.

"Dash, look!" Ivy breathed next to me, clutching my hand. "Maya's glowing. She's…fuck, she's blue ."

She was, in that dazzling shade of sapphire that I knew well, because I'd seen it many times before—anytime Emmy Harlow communed with the town as the Voice of Thistle Grove, summoning up the latent power that coursed like otherworldly electricity through the land beneath us, fed by the reservoir of Lady's Lake.

But Emmy had never been so blinding. So entirely subsumed with light that she looked nearly made of it.

People began backing away from Maya, shielding their eyes, leaving an open circle around her that contained only trampled grass, discarded masks, and me and Ivy, still clinging to her side. Not that it looked like she needed us. She stood her ground as if she owned it, as if it were somehow a throne to straddle. Her feet planted wide, little chin lifted in a regal mien. And there was still that sense of grace that rolled off her, now so overwhelming it felt like a palm pressed insistently to the back of my neck. A nearly irresistible compulsion to drop to my knees.

"Oh, dearest," Chernobog crooned at her, his brow wrinkling at the sight of all that building blue, clucking his tongue in sardonic disappointment. " Must you always be so contrary? I know I wronged you last time. So here I am to prostrate myself before you, beg your sweet forgiveness. And it has been so long since we have—"

" YOU. ARE. NOT. MY. KEEPER! " Maya shrieked, and this time we all did stumble to our knees, clapping our hands over our ears, bowled over by the shattering force of that inhuman voice. I managed a glance over at the defensive circle of Avramovs, and found them on the ground just like the rest of us. Powerless in this face-off, whatever it was. " AND IF IT IS WHAT I WISH, YOU WILL LEAVE ME BE! "

That last "BE" elongated into a wordless, crashing roar like massive breakers folding over each other, a summer squall on the high seas, a lashing monsoon.

As it trailed off, she lifted both clenched fists and aimed them at him, a laser-bright sheet of that radiant blue light surging from them, striking him directly in the solar plexus. He buckled with the force of it, even as the blue enveloped him like licking tongues, the brilliant color at the heart of a gas-fueled flame. And yet the way the flames moved was like water, too, fluid and rippling, surging over his torso and eating through his wings like acid. I could see from the strain in his jaw, the way his head fell back to reveal a neck corded with bulging veins, that it invoked in him both agony and a shade of ecstasy. As if this blue light were something at once dangerous and tantalizing, something he craved as much as it was lethal to him.

"Dearest," he managed, though his voice was weakening. "Dearest, do not do this, please…What if I cannot find you again…"

" THEN YOU WILL NOT HAVE ME! " Maya shrieked back, in that enchanting banshee voice, sweet and decimating all at once. " NOW GO BACK TO WHENCE YOU CAME, YOU ETERNAL PESTILENCE, YOU EATER OF ALL THINGS! "

As the light intensified, engulfing him completely, his manifested form began to break down, shredding into wreaths of wisping smoke—like it had when we'd cast our banishing spell. Only faster, much more furiously, burning him away until all that remained was his face. Still ablaze with that odd, desperate longing, and the weight of such a crushing grief that for a single moment, I found it in me to pity him from the bottom of my heart.

And then he vanished with a sound like the suck of a massive vacuum seal being broken, making my ears pop painfully.

Beside me, Maya collapsed to her knees on the grass, all the blue abruptly bled from her. She buried her face in her hands, sobbing into them.

"I'm sorry," she keened, rocking back and forth. "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. But she had to, didn't she? She couldn't let him have his way again ."

I sank down beside her, Ivy on her other side, both of us wrapping our arms around her slight form. That tremendous, commanding force had clearly left her body, and now she felt only small and warm and slack, her soft hair brushing my cheeks. She smelled like apple cider and my own bergamot shower gel, painfully familiar and vulnerable.

"Who are you?" I whispered to Maya, stroking a palm over her curls, trying my best to soothe her even as my heart still clamored against my ribs. "How did you do that? Burn him away?"

"I don't know who I am," she said wretchedly, lifting her head to give me a tearstained look so woebegone my stomach caved in. She sounded like herself again…yet there was still the faintest echo of that crystalline power to her, that prismatic radiance. As if something inside her had been unlocked, a door cracked open, even if not all the way. "But I know who she is, now. And I know why he's here, too."