Isa Lumitus: Stephen not being mentioned until Jen started talking to him was an intentional choice on my part so as to press home some of the sheer coldness and callousness of her mindset. She was already viewing him as an 'ingredient' and a corpse when she first laid eyes on him (it wasn't the first time she's seen a black mage keep someone around for a short time before using them, after all). Her 'comforting'… wasn't exactly as nice as it looks to be, and honestly, it goes along with her thanking him while he's dying rather than healing him or even just knocking him out.
More artwork from Anna-chan17 on my profile. For anyone who cares, Abyranss's "reading Princess of the Blacks" fic is officially abandoned. If anyone else wants to try their hand at it, send me a PM.
Also, the poll is now closed. It looks like I'll be working on Deal with a Devil and putting off Team Hellhound for a while longer.
Disclaimer: For a family that was always portrayed as being poor, did they immediately blow the 700 galleon windfall they received in book 3 on an expensive vacation rather than being smart with their money? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.
Yes, I'm aware that people do stuff like this when they win the lottery in real life. I still think it's idiotically short-sighted.
Chapter 13
Predator and Prey
A faint chime echoed in the small apothecary, and Tracey looked over to find Jen flipping open her pocket watch and staring at it distastefully. "Sorry, but I forgot that I have some House business to deal with."
Most of the heiress's friends merely nodded in understanding, but Luna did not. "What kind of House business?" the blonde asked suspiciously.
"Nothing much. I just need to have lunch with someone, and then I have a few errands I need to take care of. I should be back before we need to return to Hogwarts. If you'll excuse me." The dark-haired witch walked out the door onto Horne street without a backwards glance, which, Tracey decided, was probably a good thing going by the stormy expression on Luna's face.
Making her decision quickly, the Slytherin grabbed the blonde's elbow and gave the other members of Jen's court a wave as she pulled Luna towards the door and out into the main street of Edinburgh's magical market. "We're meeting up at the Paisley Tavern for lunch, right? See you in an hour or so."
"Are you kidnapping me?" Luna asked in a voice that was clearly forcibly bright: it was only as happy as a normal person who had found a surprise Christmas present in July. Thinking on it, Tracey was actually somewhat surprised that she could even hear that difference. "Because Daddy always told me that if I was, I needed to make sure the people who took me knew that the Viatiffers would come after them and take me back, and I really don't want them to hurt you." A brief frown flickered across her face. "They aren't very nice."
"While I'm sure that would be a truly horrible fate," she replied sarcastically, "no, I'm not kidnapping you. You were about to make a scene, and real Slytherins don't make scenes, especially not in public."
"But I'm not a Slytherin."
Tracey raised her chin and gave her a dismissive sniff. "No, but I am, and to my great misfortune, after the last two years, people think we're friends. You causing trouble reflects badly on me."
Finally, a smile started peeking out. "We aren't friends? That's why you spent almost the entire summer with me, even after Morag's grandmother got better and you could stay with her again?"
"Lies and slander." Admittedly, after spending six weeks with Luna, the constant weirdness was no longer so off-putting; she would even go so far as to say she could sort of see what Jen had first found so interesting about the blonde. She was not attracted to Luna, of course, but in terms of friendship…
"You pulled me out of the store so we could talk about all this without risking me embarrassing myself?" Luna guessed.
"No, no, no. Not doing that," she answered with a shudder. "I'm staying as far away from you and Jen's relationship squabbles as I possibly can. I want another pair of eyes, and with Jen gone, you don't have anything else to do." And if helping her out meant Luna would be too busy to dwell on the fact that Jen had almost certainly left to go on a date with yet another prospective suitor? Well, that was obviously just a happy coincidence.
The vague statement obviously piqued the blonde's interest, because she asked immediately, "Another pair of eyes for what?"
"Malfoy. He was entirely too happy to get out this weekend." Silver eyes rolled at that, and she grumpily added, "You don't understand. He wasn't this eager before the first trip to Hogsmeade in third year, but now…" She trailed off for a moment. "There was something off about his excitement, too. It was kind of creepy."
"What are you going to do, then? Follow him until you figure out what he's up to?"
"Why not? Simple plans are sometimes the best." Drawing her wand, she grinned in satisfaction when her locator charm immediately shot a slender red ribbon from the wand's tip, white numbers and letters written on it. This spell was a little more advanced than the Four-Point Spell, which could be used to point at a specific person or thing rather than just due north, and while she had yet to figure out how to interpret the distances the ribbon gave her, she could still figure out that the fewer characters there were, the closer her destination was. Not to mention, it was less obvious than walking around with her hand flat and her wand spinning in a circle on top of it. "He's this way. Come on."
Luna rolled her eyes but followed nonetheless, and they slowly made their way through the crowd of adults, little kids, and fellow Hogwarts students. How the Head Boy and Girl had convinced Marchbanks to let them leave the castle on their scheduled Hogsmeade weekend, she had no idea, but somehow they had, and everyone was happier for it. The upper years got out of the drafty old castle and could see somewhere new and exciting and in far better financial straits than Hogsmeade, the teachers – other than those who had volunteered or, more likely, been volunteered to accompany them – had a chance to be free from most of said students, and the shopkeepers were overjoyed to have what was looking to be a monthly visitation by teens with time and money to burn. Even with only five streets to its name, magical Edinburgh still had many more shops than the village outside of Hogwarts, and after coming here, Tracey doubted anyone would be willing to settle for Hogsmeade again.
She certainly wouldn't. She already had an afternoon reservation at the spa Jen had suggested for both November's and January's outings.
Soon enough, they turned the corner onto Gowdie Street and found their quarry. Why Malfoy would be sitting in Corsette's High Fashions and bouncing his foot impatiently, she had no idea, but the strangeness only made it that much more suspicious. "Now we just need to find a place to wait," she muttered to herself. Of course, with everyone else walking around, where was she going to find somewhere that had a good view but would not make them stand out?
A pair of hands grabbed one of her own. "This way," Luna said excitedly, eyes sparkling with mischief. She followed the odd blonde around a corner and into an alley between two stores, but before she could voice any of the many questions whirling around in her head, Luna waved her wand at herself and—
Okay. She did not know Luna could jump quite that high.
"Hurry up," the Ravenclaw chided from where she stood on the building's roof. "We don't have all day."
Thinking for a moment, Tracey finally figured out what her best friend's girlfriend had done, and a Featherlight Charm later, she joined the younger girl on top of the store. "I'll admit it: this is actually a good plan. What made you think of it?"
"When Daddy and I go out on expeditions, we've always found that being higher up gives us a better vantage point to look for new and interesting creatures. Malfoy is anything but new and interesting," she added with a shrug, "but I thought the same principles might apply."
"Yes, they do." Tracey pulled out the field glasses she had asked her mother to send her – not as good as her cousin's Omnioculars, but they also did not require her to risk her life in going back to the Davis family home – and aimed them at her housemate. She did not need them to see him, but since she could not hear him, this might let her read his lips at least a little bit. Now if only he would start talking.
Unfortunately, Malfoy did not, so a few minutes later, Luna did instead. "I just don't understand," the blonde muttered unhappily. "Why would Jen do this? It isn't like she's interested in any of those men, so why is she looking to marry one of them? And why is she doing it when we're still dating?! And, and, why isn't anyone else pointing out how wrong that is?! Last year, when Jen cheated on me, all of you got onto her, but for some reason now—"
"To be fair, I didn't side with you or Jen," Tracey pointed out. "I wanted and still want nothing to do with your spats, and I really don't care what you or her or anybody but me gets up to when they're in bed."
"That doesn't explain why it was terrible then, but now, when it's even worse, everyone's suddenly okay with it!"
With a long-suffering sigh, she turned to look at Luna. "Because that's how things work among the noble Houses. The only reason Susan and I aren't also looking for appropriate suitors at the moment is because we're the acting Heads of our Houses. Lord Black's currently running the show for that family, and since he's still around, Jen is doing what she has to do. Padma isn't making a fuss because she told me one day after Care last year that her father was already planning a marriage between her sister and the son of an old business friend of his because it didn't look like she was going to bring anything to their family any other way; I got the impression that's normal in India even for the Common Houses. The MacDougals aren't noble, but they are rich for commoners, and they have married into a Noble House or two in the hopes of eventually elevating themselves to Noble status, so they know how the game is played. Justin's a Muggleborn, but he's close to Susan, so I'm sure she's told him the basics of this by now." Luna stared at her in shock, and with a shrug, she concluded, "Honestly, I was surprised this summer when you said you didn't know any of this, especially since you spent the last year sharing a dorm with Jen. She's as politically minded as I am."
"It never came up," Luna eventually whispered, but then her voice regained its strength. "But Jen wasn't raised by the Blacks; she grew up with that old witch she's mentioned a few times. Lisa? Lizzy? Elsie? Anyway, that means it still doesn't make sense why she would be willing – no, eager – to go through with it. Her uncle seems like a nice guy. He wouldn't make her get married if she didn't want to."
Tracey looked away and watched Malfoy for another minute, her lips pursed as she thought about what she should say in response. In all honesty, to her it made perfect sense, so the hardest part about all this was forcing herself to try to think from Luna's point of view. A world where people didn't grow up knowing they could be used in their families' political games at any time, where marriages based on love rather than profit were not just the norm but were all there was? How strange that in the same country, there could be two wildly different cultures living side by side, three if she included the Muggles.
Jen was going to owe her big for these mental gymnastics and smoothing the lovebirds' relationship over, she decided. Big enough even to bring her into whatever it was that was driving the heiress to sneak around and excuse herself at odd times. "Off the top of my head, I can think of three reasons why she doesn't have a problem with it."
"Oh? Do tell."
"First, she's thinking about her future kids. Bastard children taking charge of one of the three remaining Ancient and Most Noble Houses? You don't realize just how much that would damage the Blacks' alliances. She needs to be married if she wants a legitimate heir whom she can hand the reins to when she steps down from Ladyship. Besides, don't you remember what she said this summer? That she might not be able to have kids, or at most only one? If she'll only have a single heir, that's a lot of incentive to do this right."
"Jen's illegitimate, and she doesn't seem to have it bad," groused Luna.
Well, she really wasn't, but Jen would rather be considered a bastard than have people know she had once been the legitimate heir to House Potter. A status for which, by law and blood, she no longer qualified, anyway. "Several Houses, the Neutrals especially, are undecided about what to do with her for that very reason," Tracey admitted. "Of course, it helps that the ones who would give her the most grief are scared of her, which is a big reason why she's escaped the worst of the drawbacks."
"Scared of her? Why?"
"Because no matter how well we know her, she's still terrifying." Luna looked at her dubiously, so she started counting off on her fingers. "Her first time in the public eye, she killed a dragon with another dragon. Then she dueled people three years older than her and won. When it came out that she is a bastard, it also came out that her mother is none other than Bellatrix Lestrange, who people still say was as powerful and skilled in a fight as she is crazy. And then she went through Hogsmeade hunting down werewolves and fighting You-Know-Who to a standstill singlehandedly." A grim smile appeared on her face. "It might not have been in the Prophet, but the Slytherin second-years she saved who were hiding in the Shrieking Shack? They're all children of Noble or Most Noble Houses, and I can only guess they sang Jen's praises all summer long, because it definitely made the rounds of the Wizengamot. Put all that together, and anyone who would blatantly look down on her is scared she'd come after them if they tried it.
"Anyway, giving her kid the protection from their peers that she's literally had to fight for is one reason Jen might be okay with an arranged marriage. The second is to prove her place in her family. How much do we know about Jen's life before Lord Black found her?"
A furrow grew between Luna's eyebrows as her face scrunched up in thought. "Not a lot."
"Not a lot at all. Isn't it strange that we know basically nothing about the nine years between her foster family abandoning her and her rejoining the Black family?" She shook her head. "I don't know about you, but I don't like the kind of things that implies. Sure, I might be overthinking it, but if her life before truly becoming Jen Black was that bad, she might be willing to go through with an arranged marriage because it proves beyond all doubt that she's grateful to them for finding her and that they made the right decision when they did so. Maybe she's scared it could be taken away again, too. I don't know for sure, but there's no way I'm going to ask her if that's the case."
Her words hung in the air for a few moments, and she looked back at Malfoy before Luna spoke once again. "What's the third?"
"What?"
"You said there were three reasons Jen might be okay with an arranged marriage, but that was the second one. What's the third?"
"Oh." The first and second were obvious, but the third one was a little more tenuous, at least with the information she knew Luna had and without the information only she knew, like the truth behind her grandfather's death. It was also the most damaging toward Jen. She took a second to decide whether or not she wanted to explain it. "The third, well… Jen just doesn't think like normal people do. I don't know whether it's the result of where she lived before or her encounter with the 'trolls' or what, but her mind works differently than ours. That's the whole reason you and Jen had your fight in the first place, right? You were looking at your relationship and sex in different ways. Combine that with her bent for politics…" Tracey trailed off and shrugged. There did seem to be at least one suitor Jen was sweet on if her reaction to the overdone letter was any indication, but perhaps it would be better for both of them if Luna believed for the moment that Jen was ignoring the marriage half of the process in favor of the political aspects.
Her good deed done for the day, she turned her attention back to the store just in time to see a head of bright red hair vanish inside. Nearly giving herself a pair of black eyes when she jerked the field glasses back to her face, she let out a short laugh. "Malfoy's more bored than I thought if he's taunting the little Weasley."
"That was Ginny?" The brunette handed over her glasses, and Luna peered into the store intently. "What are they saying?"
"I might know if I could see better," she shot back, "but knowing Malfoy, it's nothing good. He's always hated the Weasleys, and the one in our year especially. I'm wondering what she's doing there at all, though. Just looking at the clothes on display, I doubt her family could afford her shopping there. Unless she wanted to be sure of what they cost?"
"Huh." Luna returned the lenses, and she peered through them just in time to see Malfoy settle back in his chair while the attendant led Weasley away. Not to the door like she would have expected, though, but instead to the racks. Even though Weasley eventually talked the older witch into focusing their attention on a second group of clothes that were not quite that extravagant, she still slipped into the changing rooms with several selections that together were more than even Tracey would have been comfortable purchasing on a whim.
A couple of minutes later, Weasley came out— And yes, the world had definitely stopped making sense, because now Weasley was modeling the dress for Malfoy, who actually seemed to be paying attention and enjoying the show.
"Do you think this was the reason behind all his strange behavior?" Luna asked slowly. "That it was just because Ginny and Malfoy secretly fancy each other?"
"It… might be?" was her weak reply. "It would explain why he's been skulking about so much. His family and the Weasleys have hated each other for the last few generations. If he wanted to get together with the daughter of his father's mortal enemy, it would be something he couldn't afford anyone else finding out about and relaying to Daddy Dearest. Same with Weasley and the Gryffindors. Both of them would have to make sure no one got a whiff of this."
The blonde gave her a tentative smile. "True love conquers all?"
"I guess so." She looked at the apparent couple again. "I really can't think of anything else it could be." The answer to that mystery revealed, and one that was far less interesting than she thought it would be, she gave Luna a shrug. "So… What do you want to do now?"
Music pounded below her, and Jen narrowed her eyes at the throngs of people dancing to the beat. The more she thought about this plan, the worse it sounded, but what could she do about it now? The stage was set, the cast in position. All waited for the rising of the curtain, and then, at long last, the show could start. Only once it was begun could it end.
Lifting her right hand to her head, she spoke to the small wooden disc tied to her wrist. "Are you in position?"
"We are ready to begin whenever you are, Queen," Priest's calm voice replied, and she glanced over to a low balcony where several businessmen loitered. It was the one location where the wizard's garb would not be considered out of place.
Her eyes moved across the square to the opposite side and landed on a figure outfitted with a long red robe and a mask of the same color. If anyone was going to dress herself as the Red Death, it really should be Jen, but unfortunately she needed to be distinctive while the more experienced black mages blended into the crowd. That meant it was Menagerie who instead got to dress up as Jen's own patron. "Just get on with it already," the prickly life alchemist demanded.
Jen rolled her eyes and turned away from the party spilling out over what looked to be the entirety of the South Bank, her black trousers and hooded jacket blending in with the darkened sky and the Unspeakables' disguising charm hiding her face. Tonight was Halloween: a day of darkness, a night of power. She should be working some grand magic the way she had the previous year, or even just enjoying the celebrations of the Muggles below, but instead she had to look at a couple of rotting bodies.
This was the bait she had planted almost two weeks ago. Immediately following her date during the Edinburgh weekend, she had gone back to Priest and Menagerie's hideout to check on the more experienced hunters' progress, and to her disappointment but not surprise, they had been unsuccessful. Without some way to narrow down the search area, they were looking for one person in a city of nearly seven million, and that just was not feasible.
It was actually Menagerie who had come up with this alternative. Instead of looking for the white wizard, they would make him come to them. Several of the more experienced avatars of the Light had means by which to detect black magic being performed in their vicinity, the Greek witch had said, and so all they needed to do was use some to lure him in. Since she was the one he was looking for, it needed to be her who used the magic.
The bodies lay together inside a circle, one's head facing the other's feet, and though two weeks were enough for their bodies to start bloating and their skin to slough off, she could still identify them as the couple she had kidnapped from the nearby King's College campus and murdered here on this otherwise unremarkable roof. Other than the Baron's cross and a trio of fehu runes, the circle was empty; she had not wanted to use the power their deaths would provide, just capture it for a later time.
That time had now arrived. Dragging her foot through the circle, she scuffed the line and broke the circle's magic. The space within snapped back into her senses, no longer being held between the mortal plane and Death's realm, and when it returned, it brought the power of the Labyrinth with it. Ice sprayed out along the roof from the center of the circle, and the accompanying pulse of magic was so strong it almost physically pushed her away.
If the white wizard was anywhere nearby, there was no way he could have not felt that.
A minute passed, then two. Was he coming or not? She glanced again at her allies, wondering if they had noticed something she missed or, frightening as it was to consider, if they had been taken out to leave her alone, but they looked to be just as tense as she was. Or perhaps was the white wizard simply out of range of that pulse—
A crack sounded behind her, and she threw herself forwards, her feet skidding on the ice her bait had created. Spinning around, she at long last saw her foe. A white robe hid most of his small frame, though the open hood revealed his skin to be the golden-brown of the Middle East. Middle-aged, too, a little older than Priest, and if she had to guess, she would place him in his seventies, maybe early eighties. That was a dangerous age for a wizard; he would still have the majority of his physical abilities, his body only just now starting to lose its strength, but that loss would be tempered by all the experience he had accumulated over the years.
Thank the Baron she had Priest and Menagerie backing her up. She did not think she could fight this guy by herself and have any hopes of winning.
"You are the black witch my Lord commanded me to kill," he pronounced ominously.
"I'd say I'm not, but I don't think you'd believe me."
"No, I wouldn't." He sighed, and inexplicably his expression softened. "But just because He demands your death does not mean it needs to be terrible. Please, just surrender. I give you my word, your passing will be swift and completely painless, and I will return you to your family so you may be properly buried."
That was a strange offer – plea? – and she needed a moment to put her train of thought back on its rails. To make matters even stranger, the white wizard had not moved to attack while she was distracted. "I… appreciate the offer," she finally replied, "but I would much prefer to live. I'd give you the same chance, but I don't think you'd take it, either."
"So in the end, we still must fight and bleed for no purpose," he sighed. When he raised his head to look at her again, his eyes were hard and all mercy had left his stance. "So be it."
A flick of his hand showed him to be devoid of wand, but the lack of focus did not prevent a bolt of lightning from flashing across the space between them to smash into an earthen wall she had conjured at the last second. A frisson of fear swept down her spine. Wandless magic and unlimited spellcasting were advantages she had always enjoyed over her opponents; her entire fighting style was based on them. This was without a doubt the worst possible enemy for her. No wonder Marduk had been the Power to send his soldier after her.
She thrust both her palms at the wall. With her left, she slammed an overpowered banishing charm to shatter it into tiny fragments and send them at him, and with her right, she laid a spell on the cloud of shards. The swarm reached the wizard only to be swept away by a sudden gust of wind. The rubble collided with the building next to them, and the wizard swung his head involuntarily when the blasting curses she had charmed each piece with made the entire wall explode; below them, the celebration screeched to a halt and the partygoers started screaming in fright. That diversion was enough for her to throw her own thunderbolt at him.
Then she cursed when it immediately reversed directions to hurtle back at her.
Stupid!, she shouted at herself while conjuring a chunk of metal to take the hit for her. She had looked up Marduk's magics shortly after finding out that the other black mages could not find the wizard, but lightning was one of her favorite attacks. She had cast before considering that giving an elementalist yet more magic to work with was a terrible idea.
A crescent of wind, scorching hot with white magic, sliced through the lump of titanium and just barely missed her left arm. Throwing the two halves at him and following them up with a rain of needles, she frowned thoughtfully when she saw that he had not created a wall to protect him as she expected. A sphere of water, wide as he was tall, collapsed to the rooftop along with the titanium so he could blow away her needles with yet more wind. Taking a chance, she hurled an utterly unremarkable fireball at the wizard, and rather than reflect it as he had the lightning, he pulled up some of the water he had previously conjured to douse the flames.
A brace of pale green curses flew at the wizard and to his right, forcing him to dodge to the left and then throw another glob of water at the spear of molten copper coming his way. So it was not true elementalism, which made sense now that she thought about it. Marduk was worshipped in Babylon as a god, specifically the god of magic and storms. His avatars could attack with all the powers of a thunderstorm, but more importantly only a thunderstorm.
Magic washed over her, and a smile broke free. Took them long enough. The wizard seemed to realize something was amiss, as well, and she flung herself off the building just ahead of the blast of wind that swept over the entirety of the roof. A twist of her wrist to cast her flight spell, and she soared above their battlefield in time to see the rooftop explode underneath his feet and a wickedly curved sword try to separate his head from his shoulders.
Priest leapt out of the hole he had made, scimitar in his left hand and wand in his right, and for the first time his coat was open and flapping behind him. Jen was no swordswoman to judge Priest's skills, but the black wizard was good enough that he could deflect the arcs of electricity and slip his blade between the bubbles of water the Stormrider summoned to protect himself. The wand in his off-hand stayed mostly silent, only a few curses lashing out at the building beneath the white wizard's feet to keep the interloper on the move. A swift movement to one side caught her attention, and with a nasty grin, she sliced her hand through the air. That corner of the building crumbled, dropping the white wizard down into a pit that was at the same level as its neighbor and therefore the perfect height for an antlered wolf and a winged viper to pounce upon him.
With Menagerie's creatures now joining the fray, she did not have a clear shot at the wizard, so she took a moment just to watch the fight play out. Unfortunately, what she saw was not comforting. A handful of lightning caught the wolf full in the face, and then a sharp wind whirled around and around, slicing the occamy into five or six sections. A third monstrosity, this one the size and general shape of a bull but with six legs and chitinous plating like a pillbug, stomped across the roof and ignored the lightning and wind when it slammed headfirst into their enemy. It was then summarily blasted back and into the opposite wall, and now a dome of swirling air surrounded the wizard.
Magic spun and wove together around Jen, her net growing larger and larger as she gathered her power and the spell in mind already transforming the energy. It was not much, but by the time the white wizard regained his feet and looked up at her, a speckling of embers orbited her. Priest dropped on top of him, but a gust of wind threw the African wizard away. The white wizard spun on his heel in a clear attempt to teleport away and stiffened in shock when he did not immediately vanish, and then, in a move born of obvious desperation, he leapt to the ground.
Too bad; he should have tried that sooner. Slamming the web together in a knot in front of her, Jen released the spell she had built up in the lull. A torrent of flame, infused with dark magic by the rage she had threaded through the spell, sprayed out at the wizard, and from the other side not one but six occamies dived down and moved to flank him. He would not be able to protect himself on both fronts, and once Priest was back in the fight, he surely would make a fatal mistake.
It was over, even if the white wizard was still technically alive. When the black mages had decided on this plan, they knew the white wizard would try to escape once he knew he was outnumbered. Since they needed him to get close so they could ambush him, they could not go through the long and tedious process of carving and powering runes for a true ward around the entire South Bank, but neither could they guarantee that the battle would stay in one place, so casting a paling – the shorter-lived cousin of a ward, but a spell that was far faster to set in place – that would prevent Apparation only over the building on top of which Jen had made her sacrifices was a waste of magic, as would be trying to cover just the surrounding buildings. The core of even an incredibly powerful witch could only sustain a few such spells at a time, and while Jen did not have to worry about overtaxing a core as she no longer had one, her body could still only channel so much magic before spontaneously combusting.
Thankfully, there was a trick to get around such size limitations. All they needed was a few days for Priest and Menagerie to walk around the area and create a scale model of the South Bank, and once she had launched her attacks to signal the pair that the white wizard had arrived, Menagerie had cast the paling over the model. Since it was an exact duplicate, updated just that afternoon with the decorations strewn about for the party, the laws of sympathetic magic meant a similar defense had come into existence over the actual South Bank. They had, in essence, tricked the world's magic into thinking that there was supposed to be a ward over the area, and the planet had made sure to correct that discrepancy.
Priest had actually recognized what she intended about halfway through her explanation, and he had complimented her on her knowledge of the kind of magic that was generally looked down upon as the recourse of the weak and untrained. She could not take sole credit for it, however; Elsie had taught it to her as an emergency measure, a tool to keep up her sleeve even if she never had need for it with her effectively infinite reserves. The old Haitian had been right yet again, and Jen knew that if Elsie were alive to hear it, she would be insufferable.
A cloud of steam exploded into existence from beneath her flames, but rather than rise as it normally would, it was funneled down the alley in both directions. Jen released the spell and instead fired a barrage of Killing Curses at the mouth of the alleyway and worked her way backwards. There was no way the white wizard had moved through that fire, and even with water at his beck and call, the spot where she had unleashed her fury was still far too hot for a normal human to cross and too tainted by dark magic for a white wizard to approach. Despite her surety, the steam – no, the fog; yet another weather effect – billowed out into the square and kept spreading, the intent behind the spell clear. There would be no way to find him in all this, and by the time they did figure out where he was, he would have removed his robe and blended back in with the fleeing Muggles.
Moving over to the previous building, she landed gently on the rooftop and walked over to the crater she had created. "Need some help getting up?" she called down.
"That would be appreciated."
She grinned a little and summoned Priest to where she stood, but her smile slipped away when she saw him. "By the Baron. Your arm."
"Hm? Oh." Priest bent his elbow to examine the stump that was all that remained of his right forearm. A few centimeters from the elbow, the skin and muscle were torn into ragged strips, and in the very center protruded a little bit of bone. Shockingly, blood was not spurting from the mangled end; it looked completely dry, in fact, almost plastic. "Yes, that last attack was a little more destructive than I thought it would be. To be expected of the Turk, I suppose, and I would much rather lose an arm than a chunk of my chest, but irritating nonetheless."
"And it was white magic," she whispered. Wounds inflicted by dark magic could only be repaired by dark magic, or else it would have to heal naturally and be replaced by ugly scar tissue and lose much of its function in the process. This was fairly common knowledge, but what most witches did not know was that if they were injured by light magic, admittedly a far rarer occurrence, the same rules applied. Being black mages, none of them could cast light magic spells, and that meant there was nothing that could be done for Priest's arm. This was only the first engagement, and already one of them had been crippled.
"Like I said, irritating." Using the point of his scimitar, he moved the right side of his coat away to reveal a shoulder harness hidden underneath and slid the sword into the demonstrably space-extended holster. He then pulled out a second wand sitting inside that same holster and waved it over his right arm.
The stump of his arm, severed above the elbow, landed on the rooftop with a soft thud.
Glancing at her wide eyes, Priest chuckled. "Your concern is appreciated, but it truly is not necessary. With the right potion, spells, and a fresh body, I can replace my arm without difficulty. I am actually more displeased with the loss of the wand I was using. I have very few hazel wands in my collection, and of them all, that was the one best-matched to me."
A heavy impact sounded from the rear of the building, and Jen looked over to find a bone-plated gorilla climbing up onto the roof. Menagerie swung off his back and walked over, shaking her head when she saw Priest's arm. "Again? If you can't keep your body intact on your own, why should I keep helping you put yourself back together again?"
"Perhaps if you had gotten here a little sooner, that wouldn't have been an issue," Jen shot back as she raked her eyes over the other witch's idea of combat garb. A sports bra, tiny shorts, high-top trainers, and a dozen necklaces and talismans? Really? "You do know the whole 'chainmail bikini' thing doesn't actually protect you, right?"
"Do you have a problem with what I'm wearing?"
"I literally worked on my back in a whorehouse, and even I think you need to put more clothes on."
Menagerie crossed her arms and glared back at Jen. "I don't wear this because I like it. I wear it because it's practical."
"You seriously think that's practical?" Jen mocked.
A snicker came from Priest, and as if that were the signal they were waiting for, the antlered wolf and the flock of occamies made their way over. The winged snakes tangled themselves together and merged back into one creature, and then both monsters became distorted and monochromatic. Once the serpent wrapped itself around Menagerie's left upper arm and the wolf pressed its face onto the right side of her belly, they were sucked up and into the witch's skin, the only sign of their existence the tattoos that appeared where they touched her. "Yes," replied Menagerie in the most condescending voice possible, her tattoos – her chimeric minions – shifting around on her flesh, "I think it's extremely practical. I got tired of replacing my clothes every time I let my babies loose to play."
"Suddenly your name makes a lot more sense," she muttered. Menagerie's body was completely covered in drawings. Just how many creatures did she have at hand? "Explains your hair, too. Make people think you're just another punk, and no one pays much attention to your ink."
"Do not let Menagerie's appearances or attitude deceive you," Priest rumbled in amusement. "I would not work alongside her if she were weak or foolish. Of all possible weapons, the greatest is a harmless appearance."
She nodded in understanding. "All right. Now that that's sorted out, would someone like to explain just how this Turk could use white magic now, during the Dark Power's time of the year?"
"You are referring to rebound, I take it?" the wizard asked. "That phenomenon does not affect all higher magics, just those bound in ritual. The gifts of the Gatekeeper and the Grand Wyrm," he explained, nodding at Jen and Menagerie in turn, "as well as those of the Wild Huntress, the Earth-Mother, and the Beautiful One. For the rest of us, rebound is only a danger if we truly push the boundaries of what we can do. Our magics might not be as broad in scope as yours, but they are more reliable in the heat of the moment."
Jen snarled and turned away. Elsie had always, always pounded into her skull the dangers of working black magic at the wrong time, and now to hear that only five of the fourteen Powers gave magics that held the risks of rebound? It rankled, and maybe also explained why Elsie was willing to take the chance of angering the Baron and try switching her allegiance to Nyarlathotep. She sighed, banking her emotions for a later, more useful time. If nothing else, she now knew she needed not to be overconfident if she ever encountered another white mage in what was supposed to be the Dark's half of the year, and also to be sure to kill off any avatars of Holda or Tiferet she ran across the first time. The last thing she needed was to let one of them escape and subsequently suffer because they whipped up something she was unprepared for.
She knew firsthand the power and usefulness of rituals, and she knew that a little imagination and sufficient resources were all that were needed to give someone a very bad day.
"We may not have won this confrontation, but neither did we lose," continued Priest, pulling her from her ruminations. "More importantly, we have stripped away the Turk's anonymity. We have fought him many times, Menagerie and I, and while I do not claim to know all his tricks, we are familiar with many and know how to survive them. Truly, we are his worst opponents. Unfortunately, he knows us in return, and it is that familiarity that has allowed him to escape us for so long. This simplistic a trap will not work on him a second time.
"No, now we will have to get creative."
In case you were wondering, Tracey's locator charm measures distances in 7½-inch increments and displays the result in hexadecimal format. Why would I do that? Because I was bored.
Some of Luna's complaints were fleshed out by a short discussion I had on the subject with Selacha. The idea for Tracey and Luna to misinterpret Malfoy and Ginny's outing as a secret date, on the other hand, is a twisted reflection of a thought fireball900 had when reviewing chapter 10.
The more I write Priest and Menagerie, the more they terrify me. How fucked up does my brain have to be to come up with these characters?!
Silently Watches out.
