Enchanted No More

She let the heat of her fury burn her clothes away, flash her being into fire, then smoke. She shot through the air vent, melting the grate, hurtled out of the building. There was a snow-fat dark cloud in the sky and she grabbed energy from it, drew electricity around her and became a lightning bolt. She concentrated and snapped onto the ground—

—into an icy stairwell. A rectangular concrete hole in the alley six blocks from her home, a basement access to a business.

She collapsed into a heap, so completely drained she wouldn’t be able to move for hours.

She hadn’t been smart.

And she was naked.

And a shadleech separated itself from a brick building and fluttered close.

The gray magical being-scrap bent itself. Jenni’s human sight saw a large crow tilting its head and hopping toward her. Its claws scritched on the stairwell’s concrete. The thing came close enough that she smelled old bubblegum. She shuddered. It would take only a wisp of thought for that dark thing to call others…and the great Dark one, who would feast on her.

If she got a second chance, she would work on anger management. Work on growing beyond grief and guilt.

Another hop and the shadleech’s sharp beak pierced her wrist. Hurt! Like a nail had been driven into her, pinning her. Then she felt an awful tug, as if it drew magic from the very threads of her muscles, the marrow of her bones. She thrashed in pain, but still heard the thing’s clicking noise as if disappointed in the thin trickle of her magic.

She was cold, colder than she’d been in Cloudsylph’s office. Snow and ice coated her back and butt and legs…. Focus! Use the fear, the short adrenaline rush. She reached to the earth below the concrete, to the air, for any magic. Earth energy, air, water from the ice. It began to snow.

Slowly magic coalesced inside her. The shadleech gurgled in pleasure. A race now. Could she use the magic before the shadleech drained it? She sent heat sizzling down her nerves, zapping the thing off, flung herself up to sit, stand, zombie-lurch to the stairs.

There was a door close, but no one in the basement. Another back business door was at the top of the stairs. People behind it.

“You filthy thing!” Hartha’s voice, thick with fury and loathing.

Jenni pitched forward, noodlelike arms barely breaking her fall. She cranked her head sideways, saw the brownie whipping the shadleech with her apron. It cringed, wisped to nothingness under the onslaught of earth magic, died.

“Humph.” Hartha dropped the apron, stamped on the very end of the string and the shadleech disintegrated. Snow fell faster. The browniefem flicked her fingers and glitter imbued the flakes falling on the apron with cleansing magic. Nothing would take harm from the once-cloth or the vanished shadleech.

Hartha turned and Jenni saw the survey of herself—her state of nakedness, skinned hands and knees, more-than-pale magically drained skin.

The brownie tsked, shook her head. “Translocated, did you? Those royal Lightfolk can rile a body fast.” The small woman hopped forward and grabbed Jenni’s thumbs. Then her head tilted back and her nostrils flared as she sniffed the air. Her eyes widened to huge orbs and her ears rolled against her head. “Must go. Something big and bad and Dark coming. We be safe in Mystic Circle.”

The great Dark one. Jenni hunched.

There was a brief moment of gritty blackness, then Jenni was falling down onto her very own bed in her pretty and warm coral-colored room. She flailed and flopped over onto her back. An instant later Hartha had pulled a gold silk comforter over her…covering even her head. Chinook hopped on the bed, found Jenni’s stomach and curled her substantial self on her. The blessing of the cat’s heat and energy made Jenni moan.

She’d nearly died—mostly due to her own temper, but a Dark one was on her already and the mission hadn’t even begun.

“I will bring a strengthening tonic,” Hartha said in a no-nonsense tone.

Jenni huddled, fatalistically knowing that in this moment the power in the household had shifted to Hartha. Jenni was now a person on a deadly quest and Hartha was the stable person.

A busy-mind thought to keep Jenni from actually thinking hard about what she’d done—her out-of-control temper—and the consequences of her actions, both to herself and to Rothly. No one could save him from the interdimension but her. There could even be consequences to Aric.

No, Cloudsylph wouldn’t blame Aric for Jenni’s reaction. But that elven lord would know he’d won the skirmish with Jenni. He’d kept his control and she’d lost hers. He knew her weakness. Her guilt was one hell of a hot button.

Guilt was just one of her weaknesses. Right now she felt like she was a messy heap of nothing but weaknesses. Far too emotional. She grieved for her family and was eaten by guilt. She was angry at the Lightfolk for not protecting her family and for manipulating them in the first place. She was angry at Aric for choosing to save the Eight instead of rushing to her family and saving her brothers…his friends.

Then there was the Dark one. He—it—had killed her family. It had posted a shadleech in her neighborhood to watch for her. Another reason she would need the Lightfolk, and that was as bitter as the rest.

She’d suppressed so much anger and grief and guilt. Now the emotions burst through her as if her skin crackled then iced and split and all she was left with was emotion. Thought fled.

Jenni wept, then she slept.

She awoke in dim light, with the scent of a potion that still steamed, though Hartha must have left it hours ago. A sensing of the neighborhood atmosphere told her the sun had set and it was past rush hour. People were home from their jobs.

Testing her power and energy, she knew even with Hartha’s tea she didn’t have the strength to do anything more than small magics. Not tonight, not until tomorrow. And she’d need to be more skillful—go into the mist several more times—before she could save Rothly. Her stupidity had cost her time.

Curling into a ball, she thought of the shadleech attacks and whispered a prayer that Rothly stayed unconscious until she retrieved him.

She had the night to rest, to prepare for the missions, and couldn’t afford to lie about doing nothing. Struggling to an elbow, she realized Chinook snored gently beside her. Her old cat, a cat she’d gotten as a kitten a year after she’d moved into the house, was now her only family. A cat who was in indifferent health that Jenni would be leaving to brownies who didn’t particularly like cats.

All the gloppy sentimentality in her nature swamped her as she cuddled Chinook. “I love you. I’ll miss you.”

The cat spared a lick on Jenni’s hand then grunted and slipped from Jenni’s loose grasp to walk over to the table and investigate the drink. She made a disgusted noise then thunked to the floor and waddled from the room.

Chinook would be fine when Jenni left. The brownies would take care of her.

Jenni rubbed her face. She needed another shower, this time to rehydrate herself.

Stretching aching kinks from her body, she found a tiny amount of elemental energies had dribbled into her while she had slept. Too many earth particles—the brownies must have been concerned. After she drank Hartha’s potion, she was able to equalize her own small store of energy and discovered she was ravenous. Too much magic spent wastefully.

With a deep breath, she set down the mug, shifted her shoulders. Her house felt odd, the balance off—more air and tree…Aric was here.

She’d have to tell Aric about the Dark one.

As she stood under the shower, she let the atmosphere of her home envelop her. It was odd to feel Aric in this place that she’d made her own. Obviously the brownies had let him in, and since he was her contact with the Eight—and between the choice of the Eight and Aric, she’d choose her ex-lover—it was efficient that he was there.

She dressed. Much as she’d like to avoid the home she’d grown up in, she would have to go to Northumberland to get more tea. She was hoping that Rothly had left notes about the mission. She cringed to think of him trying to practice his craft as a cripple.

Her childhood home would haunt her, she knew that. It would hurt.

Being with Aric there would hurt her more. They’d become lovers there. Every second would remind her of her guilt.

She took a big breath, and checked the tapestry bag with wooden handles. It was full of clothing from natural fibers—hemp, wool, cotton, even silk shirts and her two cashmere sweaters. For an instant she mourned her long red trench. Her own damn fault it was gone.

From her closet shelf, she pulled down a padded cloth backpack.

Nothing that was synthetic could pass through the trees on her journey with Aric. Odd and strange and sad all the little habits that came back from when they were a couple. It would only get worse.

So she just walked down the stairs and didn’t look back.

Aric was seated on the couch in the living room. Chinook was on his lap, purring. “Beautiful cat,” he said, stroking her.

“Yes, she is,” Jenni said. “And very loving.” Her mouth pruned. “Not very discriminating, though.”

Aric’s jaw flexed. He inhaled deeply, blinked. “This place is wonderful, Jenni, very powerful.”