Magic Burns(23)

“That’s Cú Chulainn. He was the greatest hero of ancient Ireland. When he got really mad during battle, he went into frenzy and turned into that thing. It’s called warp spasm.”

“Why is his head shining?”

“Apparently he got very hot during the spasm and after the battle people had to dump water on him to cool him down. In one story he jumped into the cauldron filled with water and the cauldron broke…”

I stared at the cauldron in the middle of the room.

Julie tugged on my sleeve. “What?”

“Hold on a minute.” I approached the cauldron and took the iron handles.

“Too heavy,” Julie said.

I grunted, picked it up, and moved it aside. The lid shifted a little, spilling the rancid broth, thankfully not on me.

Under the cauldron lay a small pit. Narrow, barely large enough to permit passage to a small animal, maybe a dog the size of a beagle. The edges were smooth, the circumference perfectly round, as if sculpted with a knife. I looked into it and saw darkness. The odor of earth and the cloying stench of decay rose from the gloom.

Déjà vu.

Julie pried a clod of dirt from the ground and headed for the pit. I caught her.

“But I want to know how deep it is.”

“No, you don’t.”

She dropped the clod with a sneer. I obviously plummeted a few notches on her cool people meter.

Three small impressions marked the sides of the pit forming an equilateral triangle—the tracks from the cauldron’s three legs. Just like the tracks at the coven’s meeting place. The big pit in the Gap was missing a cauldron. And a huge one at that.





Chapter 8




Bryce and Co. Had decided against the rematch, and we left the Honeycomb unmolested, carrying Esmeralda’s books. Custer had wisely chosen to make himself scarce. From Trailer twenty-three to the chain link gates, we didn’t see another living thing.

It took a good hour to cut around the Honeycomb through the Warren to where Ninny still patiently waited for me by a pile of mule poop. I loaded Julie onto the molly. White Street was only fifteen minutes away, but she looked tuckered out.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Home. What’s your address?”

Julie clamped her lips shut and stared at the front of Ninny’s saddle.

“Julie?”

“There is nobody there,” she said. “Mom’s gone. She’s all I have.”

Oh boy. Could I turn a momless, hungry, tired, filthy kid loose on a street with night approaching? Let me think…“We’ll swing by your house and see if your mom made it home. If not, you can bed with me tonight.”

Mom wasn’t there. They had a tiny house, tucked in a corner of a shallow subdivision branching from White Street. The home was old, but very clean, all except the kitchen sink full of dirty plates. Originally it must’ve been a two bedroom, but somebody, probably Julie’s mom, had built a wooden partition, sectioning off a part of the living room to make a tiny third room. In that room sat an old sewing machine, a couple of filing cabinets, and a small table. On the table rested a half-finished dress, light blue, in Julie’s size. I touched the dress gently. Whatever faults Julie’s mother may have had, she loved her daughter very much.

Julie brought her picture from their bedroom: a tired woman with loose blond hair looked back at me from the photo with brown eyes, just like her daughter’s. Her face was pale. She looked sickly, exhausted, and a decade older than thirty-five.

I made Julie help me with the dishes. Under the plates I found a bottle of Wild Irish Rose. White label. It stank like rubbing alcohol. It was also famous for sending the drinker into wild rages.

“Does your mom ever scream at you or hit you when she drinks?”

Julie stared at me in outrage. “My mom is nice!”

I threw the bottle away.

Two hours later we dropped Ninny off at the Order’s stable. The magic, after holding off for a good few hours, resumed hammering Atlanta in short bursts. The afternoon bled into the evening. I was tired and hungry. We headed north through the tangle of streets, to the small apartment that used to belong to Greg and was now my home when I stayed in the city.





* * * *


I climbed the narrow stairwell to the third floor, Julie in tow. The magic happened to be up, and the ward clutched my hand as I touched the door and opened it in a flash of blue. I let Julie into the apartment, bolted the door shut behind us, and pulled off my shoes.

Julie wandered past me. “This is nice. And there are bars on the windows.”

“Keeps the bad guys out.” The lack of sleep finally caught up to me. I was so freaking tired. Worn out. “Take your shoes off.”