35. Shadestepping

thirty-five

“You did what?” Constance raised her bejeweled glasses, perching them on her forehead. Even behind her massive desk, the witch was a force to be reckoned with, and that was before she accounted for the dual digital presences of Natje and Dina, the Third Head of the Tribunal, glaring at her from separate monitors.

“I lost control of my Way as a non-sanctioned ritual reached its liminal edge,” Milla recited the practiced line, beat into her skull during the two-hour drive from Tallahassee. She kept her eyes pinned to a spot over Constance’s head, silently praying to the Triple Goddess, Horned God, and whoever would listen that they took her words at point-blank value.

“We believe the ritual cost the former Witch of the Demesne his life,” Natje said from her computer screen. It had to be close to six in the morning in Germany, and the witch was as cooly put together as always. Her gunmetal gray silk robe offset the sharp blue of her eyes, making her dark hair and blunt bangs all the more striking. She had taken Milla’s call immediately and arranged for this web conference while demanding Milla appear in person before Constance. “A Terence Tonaby.”

“Hippocromantic,” Constance said with a nod. The skin between her brows bunched. “A good witch, old family in the local covens.” She eyed Milla, full mouth pinched, and tapped the desk. “And in the instance of his death, you lost control, feeding Tonaby’s Demesne with your Way—”

“And my brother’s,” said Lou. Constance glanced at her and on her screen, Dina laughed.

“I was under the impression Agent Simmons was acting steward of the St. Augustine demesne,” Dina said with a smile. “Am I now to believe that a Dark Witch is not only sharing the duties with Ludmilla but that he also holds a claim to Tallahassee?”

“I’m pretty sure he’d rather not,” Milla grumbled. Natje scowled at her through her screen, and Milla stared at her hands gripping her knees.

This would be easier if Darkly were here. He knew how to talk to these witches. Knew better how to play their games, but Darkly was … not Gone. He couldn’t be Gone, but Milla had no idea where he’d gone. He had simply stepped into the Neitherworld—which, WHAT?— leaving Milla to manage this by herself. And then she’d been on the phone with Natje, lectured by Lou, and, finally, sat back in this leather seat to be interrogated by Constance and Dina.

She really needed to learn how to break free from negative cycles because this shit was exhausting.

“Section F, sub-section 14-c states that a witch cannot be held liable for theft, possession, or unlawful retention of a demesne whether accidental, intentional, or circumstantial in instances where a disruptive vacuum can or has been avoided,” Natje stated. “If my reading of C.R.O.W. legislation is correct, and I assure you it is, Milla is within her rights as a Witch of the Demesne to manage Tallahassee as well as St. Augustine.”

Dina snorted, covering her mouth with a hand. She waved at the webcam and adjusted her fluffy pink robe. “Don’t mind me.”

“Well.” The wicker-backed chair creaked as Constance rocked side-to-side, lacing fingers over her front. Though it was close to midnight, she was still somewhat dressed in a loose tunic top and capris. No rings or baubles adorned her person, and she must have been in the process of removing her makeup as she had walked into her office with a jar of cold cream in hand and a bonnet on her head. “All well and good then, so long as our Death Witch doesn’t come for my demesne.” She chuckled, and the laughter failed to move beyond her mouth. “There is the matter of Beltane, however.”

Milla straightened, forcing herself not to look at Lou in the chair beside her. The witch had not settled. She was all hard lines and stress, her normally bright blue-green eyes dimmed by the burnout.

“What of it?”

“Ludmilla owes a tithe to the ritual as it is,” Constance said. “We would have been happy with a small demonstration to reflect St. Augustine, but as we have no witch in the wings prepared to take on Tallahassee, and she has wrangled joint control of the demesne with a Dark Witch…”

She let the implication hang in the air, and Milla’s stomach sank.

She owed more.

“Can’t I just pay it? Like with cash?”

Constance pinched her lips in a smile, and Dina outright cackled. “I’ll be booking my tickets tonight then,” she said. “Wouldn’t want to miss this.”

“What does she mean?’ Milla finally looked to Lou, whose face was grim. A bad sign, considering Natje looked just as somber.

“She means that you and my brother will need to put on one hell of a show.”

Despite the late hour, lights blazed on both sides of the duplex. Lou burst into Darkly’s half, storming down the hall without a word to Milla, and she stepped into her home. To her surprise, Tobias sat in her armchair, reading one of the fantasy romance novels from her bookshelf, and across from him, Darkly’s long body lay stretched out on the couch.

“He came straight here,” Tobias said in lieu of greeting. “I thought Trav would scheisse himself.”

Milla lingered at the entryway, her heart doing odd flips in her chest as she took in Darkly’s greying skin and sunken cheeks. Still in his running clothes, shoes and all, he looked diminished, almost frail. “What is he doing?”

“Shadestepping.”

“The thing where his Shade leaves?” It was hard to explain, considering she’d only seen him do it a few times—in a voodoo graveyard, Dies-well’s van, and again in the Fountain of Youth. She could still hear the sound of his six feet and change hitting the floor like a lifeless sack of meat and greatly wished she could not. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Somewhat.” Tobias closed the book and set it on the arm of the chair. “He can either sever his Shade and send it to do his bidding on this plane of existence or enter their realm to discuss matters directly with the Shades.”

“It makes less sense the more you explain it,” she said.

“Sí. Exactamente,” Diego added from the kitchen. He appeared a moment later with a tray laden with tea, cheese, meats, and crackers, setting it on the coffee table. “Lavender,” he told Milla. “Not that mierda Lou has you drinking.”

“Thank you.” She took the offered teacup, frowning at the tremble in her fingers. “How is Trav?”

“Upstairs,” Diego answered, not looking at her as he handed a cup to Tobias. “Sleeping, I hope.”

“Is he alright?”

Diego sent her a bleak look. “No sé.”

“He slept most of the drive,” Tobias added. “Lou?”

“Next door.” Milla tipped her head at the wall and settled cross-legged beside the coffee table, right in reach of the snacks.

Tobias nodded, easing back in the chair. “Donmar knows everything we do, and Rai is there. With any luck, we will have a reprieve for the night.”

Milla gripped her teacup in both hands, sighing as the warmth bled into her palms. “What have we learned?”

“Nothing regarding Cyrus’s whereabouts.” Diego sat opposite Milla, his back against the bookshelf. “Darkly could not find him in … there.” He fluttered fingers at Darkly, gesturing to the Neitherworld, or so Milla supposed. “He unleashed a cloud of smoke in the living room about an hour ago, said he could not find him, and then he—”

“Keeled over,” Milla cut him off, gathering what had happened, “and sent his Shade off?”

Tobias nodded. “He is attempting to gather the Shades of the missing witches.”

“The dead witches,” she said. But what else was she supposed to believe? With any luck, their Shades would still be lingering, and Darkly could gather information from them.

“Hippocromantics.” Diego sent her a look she had no hope of translating. “At least, three of them were, from Cyrus’s reports.” He dropped his head back, staring at the ceiling. “How did it go in Jacksonville?”

“Well, I’m not going to be cleaved,” Milla said. “Again.”

“And?” Diego eyed her down the line of his nose.

“And, according to Natje, Darkly and I can legally run two demesnes, though I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that from here.”

“If you tend this demesne with Keir, he should be able to step to Tallahassee and tend that demesne as well,” Tobias said as if it were obvious.

“Wait.” Milla pressed a hand in the air as her weary mind put together what Tobias and Diego had just said. “Wait, wait, wait. He came straight here … are you saying you didn’t drive him here?”

“Ja.”

“Did you not hear me?” Diego pointed at Darkly. “He unleashed a cloud of smoke in the living room.”

“I thought—I thought you waited for him. Not that he—” She fluttered an exasperated hand at the empty air over Darkly’s body. “You know.”

“Traveled through the Neitherworld?” Tobias raised his brows, sending Milla a fond little smile that was somehow more disturbing than the not-corpse on her couch. “I am more surprised he established your living room as an anchor.” He swept his gaze over her travel posters and the potted ficus in the corner. “Or maybe it is the demesne?”

“I literally can’t with this,” she muttered into her teacup.

“How do you think he brought the motorcycle from Scotland?” Diego added with a tiny laugh.

“Shut up.” The back door creaked, and the floorboards groaned, but Milla was too far gone to care about who might be sneaking into her house. “He took a motorcycle through the Neitherworld?”

“Goddess, I wish he would leave it there,” Lou said, entering the living room with Donmar following close behind. She frowned at her brother’s corpse-like figure on the couch, then looked to Tobias. “What do we have.”

“Hippocromantics,” he replied. “In Savannah, Valdosta, and the ritual outside of Houston.”

“And the rest?”

“Josh and Tammy thought they were a vinefica and a chronomantic,” Diego answered. “The third one they were not sure, and when I filtered the E.R.I.E. to account for social distortion, I identified a summoning.”

“A summoning?” Milla clutched her tea. Every hair on the back of her neck rose. “How did you learn that?”

“Cyrus taught me,” Diego said breezily. “Technomancy is similar to my Way.” He waggled his fingers with a sly little smirk. “Different strands, lines of code, es lo mismo.”

“Did he—” Milla glanced around the room and swallowed, struck by the absence of Cyrus. For a witch so easily overlooked, he left a large void. “Did anyone layer the E.R.I.E. from these rituals against the signature captured at Lake Pontchartrain?”

“I do not know …” Diego tipped his head in thought. With a twist of his wrist, one of the tablets Cyrus often worked on appeared in his hand. “But if that ritual was recorded in the database, I could pull it up and compare.”

“What are you thinking?” Lou asked.

“What do you know?” Milla asked. Her situation was sticky enough without admitting to a room of Enforcer’s anything C.R.O.W. might not already know.

In reply, Lou arched an eyebrow and glanced at her brother.

Donmar made a sound deep in his throat and shook his head with a wry look at his wife, then Milla. “There is not much Keir keeps from his sister, little witch.”

“Alright, hate that.” Milla chewed her lip, thinking through her next words. “I’m just wondering. We don’t know what these witches are doing, but their intent mimics my Way—wait.” She splayed her fingers in Diego’s direction. “He was recording the other day when I summoned Darkly’s Shades, right?” Diego tapped the screen, scrolled, and nodded. “Look for anything resembling that. It’s what I did at the start of the Lake Pontchartrain ritual.”

The number of witches Marie had gathered for that ritual, the power they had needed to amass for Milla to stand a chance of tearing a seam between worlds and successfully opening the Gates—that was one thing. But it was the first part of the ritual when she did the one thing a Death Witch could do that would require a full constellation of witches to achieve. If she was right, and these ritualists were attempting anything remotely similar, then that was where they needed to start.

Why else would you need to mimic a Death Witch for a summons if not to summon Shades?

Donmar cleared his throat, and Lou glanced again at her brother, likely remembering why Milla had been able to summon those Shades in the first place: he had been in a coma, and there was no one to stop her.

“You think they’re mimicking New Orleans?” Tobias leaned forward, fingers laced between his knees.

“I think …” Milla paused, running through the words before she said them. It was a weak link, a thought she could barely grasp, but it was more than anyone else had, and she was a vestic. Even being half as strong as her mother, she could split the potentials and See. It would give them something, a heading, but in place of that, she had her instincts, and they had never led her wrong.

Okay, they had mostly never led her wrong, Ezra aside. And Darkly. And Anaisa.

Holy Horned God, we’re fucked.

“I think,” she repeated, “these witches need a Death Witch for their ritual.”

“Death Witchual,” Donmar muttered, mostly to himself.

“And Cyrus got some good readings on my Way at the casting range and probably tonight. While the earlier rituals in Texas were around sabbats, leeching off the power of Mabon and Samhain, the recent rituals broke the pattern. But what if they didn’t?”

Lou narrowed her eyes at Milla. “Go on.”

“What if it’s a new pattern?” she asked. “Darkly and I were in Tallahassee earlier this year. Our escort out of New Orleans couldn’t drive into the dawn, so we stopped at this roadside motel. The Flamingo something.”

“There was a cache of magick tonight at the Flamingo Roadside.” Tobias sat up straight. “Neon and pink?”

“That’s the one.” Goosebumps erupted down her arms as another piece clicked into place, one that did not have her coming out of this looking good. “What if the recent rituals are following me, and they’re using the cultists to agitate the echoes of my Way into something they can use?”

A thick, wet blanket of silence fell over the room. Lou and Donmar shared a long look, and enough time passed that Milla began to doubt herself, but the inkling was there. A thin thread dangling from the mass she could almost reach.

“We were in Tallahassee, and both used our Ways. My old tea came from Savannah. I send charged talismans a couple of times a year. I think I saw an email asking for a new one from when I was gone. What if my signature was strong enough to attract this coven? Like how you read it off of Darkly.”

Lou again frowned at her brother’s body, lips pursed as she thought. “And Valdosta?” she asked. Milla exhaled, relief rushing over her. Lou believed her and, if not endorsing her reasoning, saw enough in what she suggested to entertain her logic.

“I’m not sure; I need to make a call.” And hope the person on the other end was willing to talk to her, which was a problem for future Milla. “This is hella specious, but if I’m right, it would explain why they ran the ritual there.”

“Make your call.” Lou nodded and sat on the armrest by her brother’s feet. It took Milla a moment to realize she meant now.

“It’s midnight.”

“And one of our witches is missing; make the call.”

“Hah, no.” Milla set her tea down with a loud tink. “Waking someone up in the dead of night is a terrible way to get information.”

Lou opened her mouth to argue, and Donmar stopped her by dropping a large hand on her shoulder. “They are exhausted, Lou,” he said. “You are exhausted. Let Keir work, and let the rest of us sleep. We cannot think straight when we are running on gas.”

“Fumes,” Diego corrected without looking up from the tablet. “Running on fumes.”

The large Kazakh nodded his thanks and tugged Lou to her feet. “We can meet in the morning, but the team needs to sleep.”

“We don’t have time,” she argued, following Donmar into the hallway.

“We need rest to recover from burnout.” To elaborate, Tobias pinched his fingers together and splayed them quickly. A blue flame sputtered and vanished. “The ritualists will be in a similar state. It will take them days to recover enough magick to try again.”

And another piece snapped into place.

“Oh, shit.”

Every witch looked at Milla, and she really, really hoped she was wrong. But white spots danced at the corners of her eyes, and the room blurred suddenly as a potential unveiled itself—so obvious, so plain and under their noses that she should have seen it earlier.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and said, “Beltane.”

“What?”

“Beltane. Next weekend.” Milla glanced from witch to witch, each looking as sick as she felt, except for Darkly, who looked like death. “It’s the largest gathering of witches in the southeast, and guess who just got signed up to display her Way in front of all of them?”

“They would not.” Tobias’s jaw went hard, and the stern expression she was so used to darkened his features. “To disrupt a ritual of that size is anathema.”

“They’ve been dropping witches left and right.” Lou pulled out her phone, typing a message as she issued orders. “They absolutely would. Ludmilla, keep talking.”

“They’ve been mimicking my Way, but if they try at Beltane after I’ve paid my ritual dues, they won’t have to mimic anything; they’ll just have it.”

“That is assuming they know you will be there.”

“They will if they check their email,” Diego said, holding up his tablet and showing the room a list of names. “Constance announced the attending witches yesterday.”

Lou sat with that for a beat, blinked three times in quick succession, and groaned as she ran a hand down her face. “So we assume our ritualists know Ludmilla is paying into the ritual dues. That still is not enough to connect her with being a Death Witch.” She paused and angled her face at Diego. “Is it?”

“Sí.”

“Yes, it is enough, or yes, it is not?”

“Sí, it is not. No Ways are mentioned in the newsletter, only their demesnes, and Milla is still recorded as ‘Vestic, unregistered’ in the directory.”

“There’s a Witch of the Demesne directory?” she asked. Will wonders never cease.

“Of course there is.” Diego flicked hair off his shoulder and tapped on his tablet, showing Milla an alphabetized directory of Gulf demesnes. “This is the twenty-first century.”

“So.” Tobias slapped his knees. “Assuming they know Milla is feeding into the ritual and will attend to take advantage of her Way, we have still not resolved the chicken-egg question.”

“I understand that now.” Donmar clapped his hands, grinning broadly. Milla could not help but smile back. For such a large, imposing witch, he certainly found it easy to laugh when the mood was dark. Must be how he survived being married to Lou. “Do they know Milla’s Way will be at Beltane, or do they know that Beltane will create enough power for them to mimic Milla’s Way?”

“Thank you, Donny,” Lou sighed.

“Think about it.” Milla sat up on her knees. “They’ve been popping up in places that tie back to me. It’s too many coincidences, even if you aren’t a witch. And like Cyrus said, there weren’t any records of my Way in the E.R.I.E., so how would they know how to find the echoes unless they were already familiar with my magick?” She took a deep breath, or rather, tried to, but her heart was beating so quickly it felt like her lungs were atrophying. “Unless they were there that night.”

“On the lake?” Diego asked. “How many witches were there?”

Milla pulled her lips between her teeth and shook her head. “Dozens, at Marie’s. More on the water.”

“Would you recognize any of them?” Lou gestured for Diego to, she assumed, pull up a directory with photos; damn C.R.O.W. and its desire to catalog the world.

“I—no.” Milla leaned back on her heels, frowning. “Everyone wore masks.”

“Any identifying features?” Donmar suggested.

“Tall? Dressed as the sun and moon? I remember a man in a red domino and a woman dressed like the dawn.” Milla shivered, recalling her companion, his face a blur with the barest suggestion of eyes and a nose. Darker smudges on the fuzzy whole. An uneasy feeling stirred in her gut, the prickling suspicion she had seen him recently.

“You were there, Lou.” Tobias sat back in the armchair, speaking low and slow as he assessed the Light Witch.

“On the lakefront,” she said. “C.R.O.W. had Donmar, Cyrus, and I hunting hedge witches.”

“Do you think this could be Marie?” Diego asked.

“I … no, I don’t think so.” Milla shook her head. “She’s still a nightmare, but she seemed different when Darkly and I saw her. I think C.R.O.W. came down on her pretty hard, but she’s too powerful a witch to take away from the demesne.”

“New Orleans has been quiet since your ritual,” Lou said. “And she tied my brother to a chair with willow. She has the connections, knowledge, and power to try again.”

“Yeah, but she wouldn’t.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because the ritual wasn’t for her .” Milla dug her nails into the rug to keep from tearing out her hair.

Goddess, she was going to have to explain, out loud and to a room of Enforcers, what they had been doing on that lake. It was different when it was just Darkly. He had listened, and he had been furious, and he had nearly fucked her in the backseat of a minivan. But this was his sister. One, no thanks, and two, she held the reigns to Milla’s Way. What if, after she heard the truth, she decided to keep her cut off from magick altogether?

She glanced at Darkly, lifeless and cadaver pale on the couch. At Diego hunched over a tablet, chewing on the ends of his hair as he fiddled with settings, and decided if they were willing to give so much of themselves to this, so could she.

“It was for Ezra.” Puffing bangs out of her face to have an unobstructed view of Lou. “We wanted the Baron and the Maman, but they’re locked behind the Gates with the rest of the old and wild magick C.R.O.W. shoved there. So Ezra put together a series of rituals to allow us access to the Neitherworld, where I summoned the Shades and cleared a path for him to get out there and open the Gates.” She flicked her gaze to Darkly, again wondering about his absence and the circumstances around the coma. How coincidental it all was. “And to do all of that , we needed unobstructed access to the Neitherworld. As far as I know, or Ezra was able to find, no one had ever succeeded in doing that outside of a Dark Witch.”

“One might argue they still have not.” Lou arched her neck, extending the long, graceful line to look down at Milla … who was sitting on the floor, so the posturing was hardly necessary.

“I didn’t fail,” she snapped out. “Let me be abundantly clear about that. I left Ezra out there because what lurks on the other side is chaos, and I may be a witch, but I’m not an asshole.”

When none of the witches argued, thankfully, or agreed, which was somehow worse, Milla continued. “I think the witches we’re chasing were there that night. And now that all of C.R.O.W. knows I’ll be at Beltane, I think they will try again. Only this time—”

“This time, they might succeed.” Lou gripped the armrest and dropped her head back to groan at the ceiling. “Goddess, this is a PR nightmare.”