Chapter 4 #3
I wasn’t quite ready to deal with whatever else awaited me—more questions from Hart, maybe, or maybe just Ward’s too-sharp, worried expression—so I stayed where I was, turning to lean back against the kitchen counter while I slowly sipped my hot chocolate.
I wasn’t actually sure what I was accomplishing by not going back to the main room.
I was avoiding my boss and both Hart and Raj, although I didn’t particularly want to avoid Raj.
I was avoiding having to answer more questions about either this new hit-and-run killer or about the dead man, although I wasn’t sure whether or not they even had any.
What are we doing, sunshine?
Hello Sylvia, I greeted her. I’m avoiding people.
May I ask why? The dead Victorian Lady Sylvia Randolph floated in the center of the room, her hands clasped in front of her, the long lines of her gown brushing the floor.
I idly wondered if she had feet under there, since I couldn’t remember ever actually seeing them.
Her lips quirked, and she lifted the hem, showing me a pair of elegant boots buttoned up the sides.
Yes, sunshine, I have feet. Now stop avoiding the question.
She was right, of course. I sighed, then stalled a little longer by sipping my hot chocolate. I just… I suppose I’m sick of people asking me if I’m alright or acting as though I’m a child who still needs to be coddled and protected from things, I admitted.
She nodded. Try being a woman in the early twentieth century, she suggested.
I felt my lips twitch. No, thank you, I replied. It’s bad enough now, from what Beck says.
Smart man, she replied. You can’t control what other people think, she continued, although I knew that very well. But you can do something that might make them think differently.
I frowned at her, then took another sip. What do you mean?
Well, for one thing, if you were to… take up fisticuffs, they might not look at you like someone who needs protecting.
Fisticuffs? I couldn’t help snorting. Boxing, you mean?
She shrugged. It’s a very manly, mature pursuit.
I felt absolutely no particular impulse to choose my hobbies based on their relative manliness. I don’t really care whether or not people think about me as particularly manly—I just want people not to think of me as a child. I’m not taking up boxing, I told her.
There’s always necromancy, peewee! came the voice of Archie Lagarde, Beyond the Veil’s other resident ghost. If Sylvia was the epitome of elegance, Archie was the epitome of late-twentieth-century unkempt long-time bachelorhood.
Archie had repeatedly offered to teach me necromancy, to the point where I think both of us expected me to roll my eyes and refuse, the same way I had every other time.
Maybe it was because I was thinking about the dead man whose thoughts still echoed around in my head.
Or maybe I was thinking about the fact that I’d become more of a part of Beyond the Veil when I’d started to actually master my psychic abilities—started being the operative word.
I knew I hadn’t yet learned everything there was to know about them, not even close.
But I was also much better at controlling my abilities and keeping them from disrupting my life, but also making use of them to help the police and the FBI, in addition to Beyond the Veil.
But I couldn’t help wondering if I’d feel safer if I had more of an ability to defend myself—yes, I’m a death witch. I could kill with my magic, but, as I’d learned only a few months ago, I didn’t have the strength or skill to kill more than one person within a short frame of time.
This had never seemed to me to be a problem—I’d spent most of the last four years trying to learn how to not kill or hurt people with my magic—but that had been before I’d been abducted, drained, and thrown in a well.
And I’d only been able to kill one of my assailants. And it hadn’t even been the man I’d wanted to kill.
I didn’t much like thinking about the fact that I wanted to be able to kill more than one person at once.
Because I didn’t really want to ever have to use that ability—I hadn’t particularly wanted to use it as a child when I’d killed my uncle, and while I’d wanted to protect myself, if I’d had an option that hadn’t involved killing someone…
Well, I might still have chosen to try to kill Martin Garraway.
I’d failed, as he’d deflected the magic, which had taken the life of Mulrooney, one of his followers, instead of his own.
I was angry about that. Mulrooney was dead, and while he’d been a fairly horrible person, I hadn’t intended for him to die.
I still wished, sometimes, that Garraway had died.
I don’t know that it would have actually helped me. Garraway had wanted to keep me alive, and if I’d killed him, Mulrooney and his cohorts might have killed me out of panic. Or maybe they would have ran off and left me.
But if I’d been able to use magic for something else—something I could have used to defend myself…
Okay, Archie, I agreed. I’ll give it a try.
Both ghosts stared at me.
You’re serious? Archie asked, his empty eyes as close to gleaming as they possibly could be. A glance over at Sylvia revealed a thoughtful expression on her translucent face.
I nodded. Yes.
I knew Ward didn’t like the idea of necromancy, and I also knew that his magic and mine worked differently—but there were overlaps I shared with Archie that I didn’t share with Mason, whose healing magic was more positive and additive.
Mason knew about death magic, since he was working with both me and his nephew, Jackson, who was also a death witch.
But he wasn’t a death witch, and there were limits to what he could teach us.
A lot of them.
Mason was a master of control—of himself, of his magic, and of all the complexities and specifics that went along with being a witch, an orc, a business owner, and a father-uncle to two barely-toddlers and one almost-teenage boy.
To say nothing of being Ward’s husband, which I could only imagine required some amount of self-control and careful management.
I like Ward a lot. But I can’t imagine what it must be like to be married to him.
To be fair, I can’t imagine what it would be like to be married to someone like me, either. Not that I expected anyone would ever want to marry me. I certainly wouldn’t.
Archie was rubbing his insubstantial hands together when I returned my attention to him. Well, now, peewee, he said. I really hated being called peewee.
Can you please choose some other epithet?
I asked him. I knew it was rude, but I was tired and rapidly becoming fed up with the hundreds of ways people infantilized me.
I knew nothing was meant by most of them—they were meant affectionately, like peewee or kid—but all of it together still bothered me.
At least Sylvia’s nickname for me—and now Raj’s—played off my name, not my age or incompetence.
Archie pouted. Nobody likes my nicknames, he complained. I had no idea who else had complained about their nickname, since Ward didn’t seem to mind being called sonny.
That’s because they’re rude, Sylvia informed him primly.
Archie let out a guffaw. You’re one to talk, missy, he informed her.
She sniffed, as though above trading insults with the other ghost, although I saw Archie’s point. Her nickname for Ward was Nancy, and I had no idea how that wasn’t horrifically offensive, but Ward didn’t seem to mind it at all. Some of us have quicker wits, she replied.