Page 31 of Elixir of Strife
“Hey,” I barked, swatting her hand away. “Doesn’t matter how much you poke my skull. It’s not like you’re going to get him to come out that way.” I blinked, suddenly doubtful. “At least I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“But there were two of them,” Johnny said, scratching at his scruff, all but stroking his chin. “You say you can only hear one of them now?”
I shrugged. “It’s as if I only have enough room to hold one of them at a time. Which is just as well. I don’t like the idea of even more voices in my head. What if they start arguing with each other?”
“Very rude,” said Bakunawa.
“I’m sorry,” I said out loud. “Oh, sorry, guys. That was for Bakunawa.”
“This is all super interesting, but also very confusing,” Roscoe said.
“I know, right?” Max swirled the slowly melting ball of ice in his glass. “Isn’t it so hot?”
Tina winced. “That’s not what Ross said at all, but okay. Gross.”
Warmth spread across my cheeks. I shifted in my chair, staring pointedly into my coffee, avoiding Max’s sticky-sweet and presumably adoring gaze. “Okay, so let’s get started already.”
An empty glass, Bakunawa said, and a handful of ice. Apparently that was all we needed for this little spell. Johnny very kindly fetched the reagents from the bar. This all seemed very familiar, actually, using common objects and household implements to make magic. It reminded me of my mom, of my many mothers, the old Alcantara witchcraft.
“Very good for finding bodies of water, big or small,” the dragon’s voice thundered inside my head. “If this thing you’re looking for is indeed a great concentration of elemental water, then it should work the same. Now,bruho. Raise your hand above the glass, and call on my power.”
“Okay,” I said, doing as he instructed. “But not too hard, now. Emanate.”
A slow trickle of water drizzled from my palm, covering the four or five ice cubes Johnny had placed there. The others looked on in what I hoped was amazement.
Johnny cleared his throat. “I could totally install you at the bar. Free water on tap. Might save me a bunch, too.”
“Well, only if you think your customers would enjoy seawater.” I stirred the ice with my finger, waiting on Bakunawa’s word.
“Now,bruho. Take a knife and cut the tip of your finger. Any finger. A single drop of blood in the water will do.”
“Uh. I’m not so sure about that, B.”
Roscoe’s forehead furrowed. “What’s the matter?”
“He says we need a drop of blood.”
“Oh, is that all?” Ross shrugged. “Pretty standard for rituals. You’re lucky it’s only a drop.”
To be fair, I’d done it once or twice, back with my many mothers. Roscoe was right. He was being kind, in fact. A witch, of all people, shouldn’t be afraid of a little bloodshed in matters of ceremonial magic. Maybe some part of me still distrusted the dragons in general.
But Bakunawa was my people, wasn’t he? And he never steered me wrong before. I accepted the knife Tina offered me, produced seemingly from out of nowhere, but I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that she kept one in her boot. And another in her bra, and a third in her hair.
I pricked my finger, hissing at the momentary pain as blood welled in a single, perfect bead. I squeezed the blood into the glass, expecting it to color the water. Instead it hissed as it struck the ice, as if I’d added basically nothing to this curious dragon cocktail.
The ice melted, then immediately reformed again into the shape of a dagger, or a needle. It spun in a frenetic circle, round and round again, until it stopped. We closed in on the glass, staring in wonder as the slenderest tip of the ice fragment pointed in a single direction. I moved the glass a few inches to the left, then to the right, watching as the ice swiveled, keeping its tip pointed at that same destination.
“It’s a compass,” Roscoe muttered.
“Hot,” Max breathed.
I frowned. “But it looks like we’ll have to carry this glass to actually get there, see where it takes us.”
From inside my skull, or possibly my soul, Bakunawa scoffed. “Nobody said it was going to be easy, now did they, littlebruho?”
A man with a short-shorn haircut and a thick black beard sidled up to us, beer in hand. A regular, Johnny had once told me, a nice werewolf who liked to keep to himself and come in for a beer after his day job.
“Uh, ’scuse me. You gents look busy, but thought I should let you know, there’s a man with a brick outside.”
