Kicking It(10)

When I was certain that everything was cleaned, and every window and door warded for protection, I started the resurrection potion. While that brewed, I made burritos. Hours had passed by the time I unwrapped a burrito and sat down in front of the TV to eat it.

I clicked on the local news—and was sorry I had.

“The controversy over the presence of practicing, for-profit witches in the Austin community continues to grow, with protests erupting at places of business all over the area. In Clarksville, a large crowd gathered this afternoon in front of this store, Magick Incorporated, known to supply local witches with materials used in their spells and rituals. As you can see, Jim, the police failed to contain the protest, which turned violent . . .” I watched, sickened, as the footage played of sign-wielding, screaming people throwing bricks at the windows of my favorite store, shattering the plate glass. They stormed in, pushing and stomping one another in their eagerness to destroy, and I caught a glimpse of Lois Herndon and her two employees being dragged into the street. “Two employees of the store were admitted to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. However, proprietor Lois Herndon suffered a massive head trauma and was pronounced dead at the scene.”

The news anchors didn’t even pause to shake their heads in mock sympathy. They just went on to the next story, which featured one of the protesters earnestly explaining why what they were doing was right and good, and of course they didn’t approve of the violence, but didn’t the Bible say . . . ?

The reporter seemed sympathetic.

I shut it off. I’d lost my appetite, too, though the burrito was delicious; I wrapped up the rest and put it in the fridge, along with the others. I couldn’t take anything to Andy, since he would be locked in the ritual for hours to come; any interruption, however well meant, would ruin the spell.

I went to bed cold and alone, and I dreamed of snakes slithering through the house, up onto my bed, and twining around my neck to choke me.

I woke to find Andy sitting next to me on the bed, his hand gentle on my forehead. Beyond him, the windows were still dark. The clock said it was four in the morning.

“She’s ready.”

—

I have to admit, this one was hard. Harder than most, because I knew Portia, at least slightly. She was an overweight, kindly lady who’d been vain about her dyed hair and her skin; she’d been obsessive about skin creams and wrinkle prevention, and given that she was lying naked, pale and still on the table, all her faults and flaws laid bare, it seemed a very sad memory to be holding. I tried to think about other things, like the way she laughed, shy and quick, as if afraid she might be caught at it.

This body didn’t hold the wounds of her death; it was her in the moments before the damage was done, as close as could be achieved.

Now for the hardest part.

Andy let me take the lead, because he’d done the tough work of making the shell, but he stayed close, in case of trouble. I opened Portia’s mouth, poured in the potion, whispered the words, and then sealed it with the kiss of life—infusing the potion with my own breath, my own will, my own energy. And through it, reaching through the other side to Portia.

I felt it when we connected; it was a physical shock, like grabbing hold of a hot wire. I felt myself spasm all over from it, and only long experience kept me there, my lips touching hers, as I felt her spirit traveling through the dark, writhing and clawing and fighting and screaming and then present, sinking into that silent form.

Her lips warmed beneath mine, and she took a breath like a sob, and I tasted death flooding out of her and into me, a taste like rancid meat and grave dirt. It was a natural part of the spell. That didn’t make it any better, and I swallowed convulsively, my eyes pressed shut, to make it pass faster.

By the time I’d managed to control myself, she was breathing normally, and her own eyes were fluttering open.

I helped her sit up. She was as clumsy as a newborn, and just as confused; the colors and sharp edges of the world sat hard on those resurrected.

I glanced at Andy, and he moved forward with a warm, soft blanket that he wrapped around her. She tried to help him, but her hands were still too weak to grip things firmly, so I took charge and held it for her, tucking it into a tasteful approximation of a toga.

“Portia,” I said then, as I took both of her cold hands in mine. I could feel her pulse. It was racing fast, very fast. I could also feel the magnetic pull of the dark inside both of us—a pull that would draw her inexorably back to it. There was no such thing as cheating death, in the end; there was only a way to fool it for a while. As a witch, she knew that as well as I did. “Portia, honey, do you know who I am?” Often they didn’t, even if I’d known them before. They had to be reminded, over and over. “It’s Holly Anne Caldwell.”