Several people were vomiting, and even though that foul mess was on the ground and people were nearby, no one left. No one retreated or even seemed to notice. People were still twirling as if they couldn’t control themselves, bodies flailing and crashing.
Across the crowd, Ellie saw Prospero moving closer and closer to their target, and for a moment, she thought things would be resolved quickly. Then, just as Prospero was at his side, Allan turned his gaze on Prospero.
“Do you know what Dionysus had, my dear? Maenads.” He smiled a vicious smile. “Would you like to meet my madwomen? If not, you need to stop this.”
33Prospero
“Can’t fight your own battles?” Prospero called out, scanning the room for exits that didn’t include going through a glass wall. This could get uglier very quickly if the crowd rushed the glass. Allan clearly didn’t care about the lives he was endangering, though.
Prospero taunted, “Hiding behind women? Why am I not surprised?”
“I am a god. That’s what you stole from all of us, you and the rest of those sanctimonious fools.” Allan straightened on his grotesque throne and glared at her. “Do you think you stand a chance against our faithful?”
With his sunglasses in place, Prospero was unable to catch his eye. The danger of witches knowing her power was that they’d apparently planned to be better able to resist her. That didn’t mean she was defenseless, and Ellie’s gift was impossible to defend against. Prospero simply hated asking her wife to stop someone’s heart or freeze their lungs.
Not the best first tactic.
“Look at them,” Ellie yelled, drawing his gaze. “They’re zombies.Drunk, drugged, poisoned. Is that what you want? Come on. I barely know you, but I have to think you know you’re better than this.”
“Better than them,” he slurred. “I am agod.”
“You are different from them, but that doesn’t justify this madness. This is beneath you, god or witch or man.” Ellie gestured as she spoke, forcing him to notice her, making herself a target.
Prospero knew Ellie’s actions weren’t accidental, so she took the chance and tossed several stones at Allan in rapid succession. The pebbles reflected off a barrier, as if he’d found a way to create a shield they couldn’t see.
Her mind magic and her spell stones were not working.Is the barrier physical, too?Prospero watched to see the magic-drunk students and faculty ease close to him, but not touch him.Maybe it is physical, too.
He’d noticed Prospero’s failed attempts to strike him.
“You dismissed me,LadyProspero. Drunk Allan. Farmer Allan.” He was back to staring at Prospero now, shaking his finger at her like a parent to a child. “You think you’re so superior with your house of one. All the power. All the control. No sharing your division of the money with the rest of your house.”
“That’s what this is about?Money?” Prospero scoffed, despite trying to tell herself not to aggravate the drunk asshole. She was sick of it, sick of him, sick of all the New Economists’ arrogance. “You had hurt feelings because I have more money?”
“Do you have any idea how many people are in my house?” Allan seethed.
“You had two shares, Allan, and a cohead to manage—”
“I didn’t need a woman pretending to be my equal,” he spat. “She hates me, you know. She might not say it, but I see her. I see her dismissive looks. She refuses my attention. What’s the use of a cohead if I can’t fuck her?”
Ellie tossed a stone at him, and like Prospero’s, it bounced off the barrier. The stone and the spell in it hit a woman, who was instantlycaptured in a massive spiderweb. She dangled in the air and strands of magical web as thick as rope wrapped around her.
“Bitch.” Another woman reached for Ellie, and Prospero reacted without thinking. She tossed another stone, which created some sort of oil slick all around her. The woman and four or five others started sliding across the floor.
“Since you like women so much,” Allan said. “I’ll introduce you to my maenads.Theyact like women should.”
At some command of his, the men in the room started flowing out, so it was soon just Ellie, Prospero, Allan, and a group of increasingly angry, drunken women.
Allan smirked as the women started to resemble nothing more than a hive mind. When one turned to look, they all did. When one reached, they all did. They moved together almost as if they were one being with many bodies. So as the first hand extended toward Allan, a ripple carried over them all and soon it was as if waves of hands were reaching for Allan.
“I am here.” He pulled off his shirt and stepped into the sea of women. Their eyes were glazed, and they watched him like he was actually a god, instead of an average pasty-skinned man. Like all witches, he was attractive in a way that magic allowed, but even magic couldn’t counter daily drunken excess. Not that any of that mattered here. The afflicted women were drunk on the overflow of his uncontained magic. It had spilled across the campus, but here it was worse. He was the source of the drunken state their bodies were experiencing, and they were in his thrall.
Without magic—or in a world of magic like Crenshaw—he certainly wasn’t going to get this sort of mindless worship. And the New Economists had long argued that they ought to be treated like kings or gods. Magic, however, was just a fluke of heritage. It was no different from eye color or height. Over here, though, where witches weren’t to be, Allan had the rapt attention of a score or more of glassy-eyed women.
When one of the women started pawing at his trousers, Prospero had decided that this was more than enough. Naked man bits were not onthe list of things she liked seeing, and even if they had been, she’d already seen enough ofthatwalking across campus. It was bad enough that none of those people—men or women—had the presence of mind to consent to sexual congress. Both parties were addled, but that was little comfort. It simply meant everyone’s rights were violated.
Sexual acts without consent were simply wrong.That was why I refused Ellie. She couldn’t truly consent until she attained awareness she’d initially lacked. Information I had.
Here? Allan was clear-minded. In this moment,heknew what was happening, even though the women didn’t, but he didn’t stop it. He encouraged it. With the other situations across campus, people under magic’s influence, there was no guilty party—other than him.
