Page 5 of Blackwicket
“Do you?” I asked quietly in return.
“I hear them. My babies. They’re calling to me, and they sound so afraid. They need me.”
If voices were tormenting her, they weren’t those of her children.
“They’re in Dark Hall,” she whispered, raising her eyes to meet mine, determined, afraid. “It’s all my fault, so I’m going to get them back. They promised I could.”
Time slowed, the white noise of blood and horror pumping in my ears.
“Who did?”
Ms. Rosley released me, returning to business as usual. I reeled, trying to keep pace with her rapidly fluctuating moods.
“You’ve kept me long enough,” she said, opening her handbag and rifling inside. “I only came for this perfume, not to chat all day.”
She retrieved her pocketbook and set the purse on the counter, open, and there it was, wrapped around the barrel of a revolver. A Drudge. It was small and newly formed, gawping up at me, distressingly infant-like. Its chosen physical state was still unstable, shifting in and out of view like a shadow caught in firelight.
“Where are you off to next, Ms. Rosley?” I inquired carefully.
“Aren’t you full of questions?” she snorted, handing me enough bills to pay for five bottles. “I’m going to the cemetery. Don’t bother with my change. I don’t need it.”
She was going to walk away with the end of her life tucked neatly in her purse. She’d take her gifts, spray her youngest child’s favorite scent, then leave this plane of misery in hopes of being reunited with all she’d lost.
The infant Drudge would feed on her dying magic. Then perhaps it would fold itself back into the bracelet and be sold at auction, passed to a relative, making its way from one person to the next, filling each of them with its pain, forcing its suffering onto others until it was strong enough to fully walk on its own. I could let it be and continue my borrowed life without worrying about the curse or the people it would ruin. I could let her go and say a silent prayer that she found peace.
I could.
“I don’t have all the time in the world,” Ms. Rosley snapped.
I seized her wrist and flipped open the clasp with my free hand, a trick I’d learned my first year away from home. It fellinto my palm with the hiss of a hot brand in water. Immediately, the claws of the diseased magic unhooked from the poor woman, more interested in the unexpected salvation it sensed in the cradle of my magic.
Ms. Rosley loosed a piercing howl, as though her soul were being forcibly removed. Depending on how long she’d been wearing the bracelet, part of it had been. Now that I had the vessel, the Drudge would have no choice but to follow, but for good measure, I snatched the purse, handgun inside, and I ran.
Chapter Two
“Lizzie!” Magdaline gasped as I shoved past her, clutching the items to my chest. I hoped Ms. Rosley’s shrieks would cause enough pandemonium in the crowd that I could escape undetected through the staff corridors, but I’d been stupid to wish for chaos. It was the one thing that always came when called.
The Drudge thrashed inside the clutch, yanking its tether with such force that the bracelet slipped from my hand, and in my haste to catch it, I lost grip on the purse. It fell to the ground, discharging the revolver. The blast shattered the perfume counter, and Magdaline cried out, crumpling into a heap.
“Madge!”
The crash of noise drove the already alarmed masses into hysterics as people attempted to flee, purchases abandoned, children wailing as they were snatched off their feet and from their prams into the arms of terrified parents. Ms. Rosley had fallen, her prone form convulsing. I couldn’t know if I’d done right. She’d been so far gone.
Ejected from the bag, the Drudge squelched through the debris and began clambering toward the cosmetics display. Its ferocity was aided by the instinct to cleanse itself in pure magic, even though the promise of liberation was a lie. Human terror had already tainted the exhibit, turning the sparkling edges of the enchantment dim and gray. Such paltry offerings wouldnever be enough, and the curse would only pollute what it absorbed, growing in power and misery until strong enough to break from its vessel and walk the world.
What I needed to do now would cost a pound of flesh and more, but from the moment I’d touched the curse, I’d condemned myself to it.
Grateful the panicking hordes were giving us a wide berth, I took a stabilizing breath, withdrawing my senses from the mayhem and reaching for the heart of the creature buried deep in the bracelet. The tendrils of magic I’d employed with Ms. Rosley began their hunt through the tightly wound darkness until they grazed upon an electric thread. I seized it and pulled.
The Drudge flipped onto its back, the size of a rabbit now, with a grotesque flailing of stunted limbs, features clay-soft and malformed. I drew it closer through the wreckage of the shattered counter, the rivulets of perfume thickening the air with cloying scents. On the third drag, it accepted its odds. Choosing me was its best option.
It fumbled onto its stomach, skittering closer blink by blink, and I lowered the barrier I’d grown so accustomed to holding in place, ready to let it in. A hand on my arm startled me. Magdaline.
“We have to go,” she said, shaky, clutching the top of her right shoulder, the blue of her jacket stained a vivid, angry red. The bullet had grazed her. Despite her injury and having witnessed what I’d done, she’d stayed to ensure my safety.
The Drudge leapt, clawing its way up my chest and throat, small hands hot as dying embers. Reaching my face, it burrowed into my mouth and stretched the delicate corner of my lips, which tore from the force. But as my jawbone gave a warning groan, the Drudge collapsed into a murky cloud of rust-hued ashes. The inhalation that followed was involuntary, a reflex bred into me by generations, practiced since childhood, andsuppressed for years. The curse wasted no time tangling itself in the branches of my ribs, burning like fire smoke and leaving the taste of smog and expensive perfume on my tongue.
It was an eternity lasting no more than a second, and my next breath came ragged.
