Chapter 18 #2
There had been no photos of her father that survived into Pippa’s young adulthood.
It had taken a few years for Mary Beverly to find them all, and when she did, she left behind voids in picture frames and collections of printed-out memories.
An entire person had been physically ripped out of the past. Pippa would find an elbow occasionally, or a few fingers lingering outside the jagged border.
He’d died when she had been young enough to have forgotten how he looked. And yet, as he stood in front of her, she still recognized him. She caught some of her features in his face and it turned her stomach to know she shared that much more with him.
Her father smiled. He was smudged around the edges, as if someone had gone over him with a few short scrubs of an eraser.
Pippa swallowed the dryness in her mouth.
His smile split his face. It was a little too wide, a little too white. “I’d hoped you would be like me, of course, but I’d never—” He took another step toward her, then frowned when Pippa retreated, keeping the same distance between them.
“Philippa,” he said in a chastising tone. He’d said that before: she’d been five and was standing above a broken window, shattered glass surrounding her bare feet.
He didn’t approach her further, yet as he looked at her, something shifted in his expression. The sharpness faded and transformed into a familiar warmth.
There was the man who tucked her in at night. The man who hugged her when she fell, who laughed at the uncoordinated wave of her chubby toddler’s arms.
“I missed you, sweetheart,” he said. “I know it’s been hard without me. But we’re tough. We’re so alike, honey. More than I ever knew.”
“Bullshit.”
He frowned at that, and Pippa wasn’t sure if it was because of her foul language or the venom with which she’d spat it out.
“If it’s been hard, it’s because of you,” she said. “You left a stain on my life. The only reason it was hard was because you’d been there in the first place.”
He jerked as if he’d been slapped, though it seemed to Pippa that he wasn’t hurt by what she said, but startled she’d had the gall to say it in the first place. Any veneer of the doting father dropped in an instant. His narrow jaw clenched, and his upper lip twitched.
“Do you know what they did to me when they found out about this magic?” he said through a snarl. “The Ash Coven tore my soul from my body and scattered what remained into the wind. They made an example out of my corpse. What do you think will happen to you?”
Pippa wanted to laugh. “The Ash Coven didn’t do that because they found out about your magic.” It was all so silly that she laughed anyway. It came out hard and sharp. “They killed you because you used your magic to entertain yourself.”
Her father’s look hardened. The sense of his aura tilted into something more charred, an acrid smoke that burned the roof of her mouth. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You have my magic. You’re using it. You’ve accepted it.”
She shook her head. “No, we’re—” She huffed a laugh. “Sorry Dad, I already had this conversation with someone who matters.”
“You’d ignore your blood? I made you, Philippa.”
Pippa frowned at that. No, actually, he hadn’t.
Far more than his presence during her early years, her life was a product of everything else she had welcomed into it.
She thought of having tea with her mother, laughing at bad TV, succubus-spiced drinks, meeting Jules in the apartment courtyard with Bilbo waddling behind them on a leash and every day-brightening comment from someone who smiled at the sight of a basketball-sized black cat taking a stroll.
She thought of Maxim’s determination and his crooked nose and how he could give his whole self to wanting to make something better.
She opened her mouth to correct the egregious misconception her father had just made, but realized that it didn’t matter. Why should she defend herself to someone who saw her as nothing more than the magic he’d given?
Pippa turned to Maxim. “Let’s go,” she said again.
Movement caught her eye. Her father had tensed his fists, and black smoke trickled out from between his knuckles.
“No,” he said simply. “You won’t be leaving. Not like that.”
There was a clench at her back as if someone was squeezing her spine.
She wanted to move, she needed to move, but she couldn't. Panic lanced through her guts. Was this how Maxim had felt when she’d used it on him?
An awful immobilization that came from another’s will taking over and settling in?
Pippa wanted to vomit. That awful aura flooded her sinuses and stung the back of her throat.
“You’re not being thoughtful at all, Philippa.” Her father twisted his hand, and Maxim cried out. The clench along Pippa’s spine tightened until it sent pain radiating down through her legs. “I’d hoped Mary would have raised you better.”
How dare he speak her mother’s name and try to use their relationship as manipulation.
Fury bubbled up through Pippa, and the Reaper magic’s hold on her limbs twitched uncertainly.
It was easier to control here. Maybe it was more at home in a world only occupied by souls. When she wrapped her thoughts around it and forced the tendrils of magic away from herself and Maxim, the magic bent more easily to her intentions.
Her father’s eyes were wide as he lunged at them.
Pippa pushed with the Reaper magic. There was no heartbeat to feel, no muscle to guide, but his soul was solid enough.
He froze, his limbs straining against the magic holding him in place. He would break free. That was obvious. Pippa could feel the Reaper magic already buckling against her father’s willpower. Was this to be her future? Spending eternity trading magical violence in the afterlife?
Fuck, they had been so close. If only they left earlier. If only she’d found Maxim sooner. If only—
A wisp of energy brushed her fingertips.
Not the Reaper magic; this was lighter. It was faded, just like Maxim and her father.
She pushed hard on the Reaper magic holding him in place and let her awareness drift just enough to feel this new power in the cracks between the old stones and the wisping exhales of long-dead plants.
Natural magic.
She hadn’t bothered looking for it because of the poison, yet it seemed that had no bearing here. There was no body to poison, after all.
Pippa pulled on that magic. It began as a trickle, but the more she called, the more came until it was rushing through her hands, pouring out of the stars and cobblestones and air and wrapping itself around her father to contain the black smoke now billowing out of him.
He tried to lash out with the Reaper magic through Pippa’s barrier and only managed to send a pitiful swat her way. She batted it aside easily.
Her father’s yells took on a new desperation. “You’re here because of me! You need me!”
Pippa leaned forward into Maxim’s aura. It was chicken soup with a dash of chili powder. It was coming home after a cold day to comfort, love, laughter, and perfection.
“No,” she said to her father. “I really don’t.”
Her father screamed, his jaw too loose and his eyes too big, right before the magic and the smoke closed around his face.
“Goodbye, Dad.” Pippa wrapped her arms around Maxim and that spicy, happy warmth, then threw herself backward through the mist and empty space and crumbling monuments to where her body knelt on cold concrete.
The air slammed into Pippa. It smelled far too beautiful for an unused sewer. The damp concrete and rusting iron might as well have been perfume and roses. She was back. Fully back.
Every part of her felt the swift, breathtaking swoop of relief, although her knees ached from the hard press of stone. She was still holding Maxim’s hand. His skin was growing warmer and she saw the slow rise and fall of his chest.
Pippa barely breathed. She only attempted this once before, and even then it had been a fraction of what she’d just done. She tasted blood and realized she’d bitten her lower lip too hard.
Maxim’s eyes snapped open as he gave a choking, dry gasp. His brow was furrowed and he seemed confused. He looked around wildly.
“I’m here. Please, it’s—” She didn’t know what else to say. Her throat was too tight to speak, anyway.
Maxim’s gaze landed on her and as he focused on her, he stilled. He appeared the same: the bump on the bridge of his nose, the stubble at the edge of his jawline, those beautiful green-gold eyes. He blinked, and his hand tightened on hers.
“Pippa?”
She threw herself onto him with a sob, and his arms came up around her, pressing her close.
“Oh thank fuck.” It came out very damp and muffled by his neck, and she wasn’t completely sure he could even hear her.
Maxim gave a weak chuckle, made weaker by Pippa’s full weight pressed onto his chest.
“That was . . .” he said when she finally straightened. His breathing was ragged and uneven. He blinked rapidly, as if to clear images from his vision. “I think we just beat death.”
Wet laughter burbled out of her and she squeezed his hands.
Stars, she loved him. This wonderful, ridiculous human who, despite having gone through the ordeal of being brought back from the dead, was still coming up with possible quotes for throw cushions.
Untethered, the Reaper magic let her feel him completely—the warmth of his soul up through his hammering heart to the steady rush of air in his lungs.
He leaned close and pressed his forehead to hers, and she held him tight, reveling in the sensation of the wild pulse racing through his body.
And it was because of her magic. Not bad, not evil, not her father’s. This was hers, through to its core. As much as it was her anger, it was also a product of her love. Her joy.
Slowly, her other magic returned. It skittered along her forearms, almost bashful, before trickling into her. She closed her eyes and basked in the tingling at her fingertips, the fullness of the world, and the warmth of the man beside her.
For the first time in a long while, Pippa felt whole.
All she’d needed was the right sort of magic.