Chapter Twelve: Hand-Me-Downs

Two-Bit swallowed and noticed Carmen gaping at him, her mouth hanging slightly open. "What?" he said.

"How can you eat like that?" Carmen exploded. "You practically inhaled that whole stack of pancakes!"

"I'm hungry," Two-Bit said defensively. He noticed Carmen's untouched plate. "You going to eat that or let it sit there and look pretty?"

Carmen pushed the plate across the table at him. Two-Bit raised an eyebrow. "You didn't eat anything. Come on," he said enticingly, spearing a waffle and waving it under her nose. "You know you want it…"

Carmen shook her head. "I'm not hungry," she said to the table in a low voice.

Two-Bit remembered how Ponyboy had barely been able to eat for the first few weeks after Johnny and Dally had died. Heck, even he hadn't been himself.

"You have to eat something," he insisted. "You have to keep your strength up."

She shook her head, not looking up. "Come on," Two-Bit coaxed. "For me?"

Carmen looked up at him fiercely but softened at his almost pleading grin. "All right," she surrendered. She took her plate back and struggled through one waffle before refusing to eat more.

Oh well, Two-Bit thought. She'll get over it in time. Anyway, I'm not complaining. More for me.

000000000

Carmen felt like gagging. That evil syrup-dripping mess was a lump in her throat. She wouldn't have eaten anything at all, but Two-Bit had insisted.

While Two-Bit ate, she planned. How was she supposed to defeat Mordred? Her sorcery needed a lot of work, as did Two-Bit's wizardry.

At least this time the sorcery would be easier. Her mother's power had merged with her own. When Carmen had buried her mother, the sorceress's magic that had been Azure's came to Carmen.

It had come of its own free will, which told Carmen that her mother had always meant for it to be hers when she died. It was like a hand-me-down. Other daughters vied for jewelry and money. Daughters in Lilanazar dreamed of the day they would inherit their mother's magic, and a son his father's.

Carmen's thoughts turned to the time she had spent burying her mother. A sorceress's burial was one completely different from that of a mortal's. The magic folk didn't smother the undead with six feet of dirt.

They set them free. The body was the home to the soul, and once a body was dead the soul was trapped. Through an incantation created by ancient Egyptian wizards, the soul was set free to go on to the afterlife and the body disintegrated into ash, no longer having a purpose. She wondered what the afterlife was like. No living creature, magical or mortal, knew.

Carmen couldn't help feeling miserable. Who could blame her? But, she wasn't as downcast as she would have been if she didn't know that her mother's spirit was free at last.

And it didn't hurt that she was freed of her curse and sorcery was pumping through her veins like adrenaline, energizing her.

Two-Bit's voice cut into her thoughts like a knife through butter. "…Carmen?"

"What?" Carmen said. "Sorry, I was spacing."

Two-Bit looked irked. "I said, do you want to leave?"

"Oh. Yeah," Carmen said vaguely. Her mind was a thousand miles from Tulsa. Feeling a bit dazed, she followed Two-Bit out.

Miserable isn't the right word for how I feel, Carmen thought. She didn't feel enraged, or depressed, or much of anything. She felt…detached. Almost as though she didn't know how she should feel anymore.

She considered chiding Two-Bit for purchasing a pack of cigarettes via five-finger discount, but decided against it. He wasn't going to put it back anyway, so why waste her breath?

"So," Two-Bit said, draping an arm casually around Carmen's shoulders. "Where to now?"

Carmen shrugged. They could've gone to the moon and she couldn't have cared less.

000000000

Two-Bit took notice of Carmen's depression, but he wasn't worried. How could anyone blame her for being miserable? She had just lost her mother. Truthfully, she was amazed at how tough she was. If he lost his mother, he didn't know what he'd do.

Holy crap, he realized with a start. I'd have to get a job!

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Carmen smother a laugh. He was torn between relief, because she was smiling and that was a sure sign that she was recovering, and annoyance because she was listening to his thoughts again.

"You shouldn't do that," he scolded. "It's very rude."

Carmen merely shrugged innocently and pushed his arm off her shoulders. "Maybe you shouldn't think so loud," she said cheekily.

Two-Bit rolled his eyes and said nothing for once. Up ahead, he spotted a familiar someone leaving the movie house. "Hey, Ponyboy!"

Ponyboy turned, bemused, and smiled at the sight of Two-Bit. He waited until Two-Bit had ambled up and then fell into step with him.

"So, how ya been, buddy? Haven't seen you for a while," Two-Bit said.

Ponyboy stared at him. "Two-Bit, I just saw you yesterday."

"So?"

The two of them chatted amicably, walking along the streets of Tulsa. "Hey, Two-Bit," Ponyboy said, turning to Carmen. "You gonna introduce me or not?"

"I'm Carmen," she said before Two-Bit could open his mouth. "Hi. I guess you're Ponyboy, right?"

"Yeah," Ponyboy said awkwardly. Two-Bit had never quite understood Ponyboy's shyness. What was there to be shy about?

Carmen and Ponyboy then got started talking about some book, and Two-Bit tuned out. That was another thing he had never understood. Reading. What was so special about it anyway?

Then again, there were a lot of things he didn't understand.

000000000

"Russell!" Mordred bellowed.

Russell groaned and stirred. It was three o'clock in the morning. Mordred had kept him up till one-thirty a.m. So now what was he doing waking Russell up again only an hour-and-a-half later?

"Yes, master?" Russell said sleepily, opening the trapdoor and looking down at Mordred from the freezing attic where he slept.

"Get down here this instant," Mordred snapped. Russell did as he was told, hastily. Mordred had been in a permanent bad mood ever since the last encounter with Carmen.

"Look at this," Mordred ordered. Russell bent to look in the cauldron his master was pointing at. It was full of cold water.

"I see that, master. But wha—?" Russell's question turned into a garbled yelp of protest as Mordred grabbed the back of Russell's neck and dunked his face into the cauldron.

He let go a moment later. Russell came up sputtering, swearing and dripping wet with cold water. "What," he demanded when he managed to be coherent, "was that?"

"Well, you're awake now, aren't you?" Mordred said briskly. "Now. Pay attention. This has to be very precise or it will never work."

"What won't? Master?" Russell added with forced politeness, managing somehow to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. He shook his head, spraying water droplets everywhere.

"Carmen is coming. But she now has her mother's power. Her having that power is now just as bad as having Azure around," he said, looking livid. "I don't want her to have that power. So, when she comes, we will take it from her."

Russell wasn't surprised. He had been expecting something of the sort. His master was probably the most predictable and least imaginative wizard this side of the Milky Way.

Mordred went on. "We are going to take all her power. All of it. Including the power she gave to that mortal," he said with contempt. "And we shall leave her with nothing. She will be reduced to a mortal herself, or at most a magician's assistant in Last Vedas…"

"You mean Las Vegas," Russell corrected before he could stop himself.

"Whatever," snapped Mordred. "We will let her live. To live like that would be more punishment than dying."

Russell felt inclined to point out that she could just commit suicide and no one would be suspicious because more than a thousand teenage deaths a year resulted from suicide.

"Whatever," Mordred repeated. "In any case, she's not a problem anymore." He said it as though Carmen was a tiresome errand on a to-do list.

"So, boy," Mordred said. "I apologize. You can go back to sleep now. This just couldn't wait till morning."

"Why not?" Russell asked, then smacked himself mentally. His mouth seemed to know exactly what to say that could let him see Mordred's worst rage unleashed on him.

Mordred didn't answer him, but instead turned his back on him and disappeared into one of the many dungeons. The conversation was over.

Does the guy ever sleep? Russell wondered before turning and traipsing back to his own tiny space at the top of the castle. It was a good thing he wasn't claustrophobic.

000000000

Ending it here because...because. Because, because, because, because, because! Because of the wonderful things he does! Oh, we're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz!

Ahem. Sorry, the movie's on TV in FIVE MINUTES. I love that movie! And that's also my pathetic reason for not writing more.