The chicken let out a screech and fluttered up into the air and over one of the fallen shelves, careening drunkenly over the other side and out of sight.
I kept the staff gripped like a spear and pointed at them, and I couldn’t tell if I was angry or disgusted or just tired.
Greasy, stinking smoke hung over the room, the ugly sensation of black magic coursing about the place, making the air feel as if it had been filled with tiny, sticky particles. I heard the gunman make a soft sound of pain from where he was sprawled senseless on the fallen couch. Several people were panting. One woman was weeping.
“Stars and stones,” I said wearily. “Guys? About the time you’re taking countermeasures for the number of animal sacrifices you’re pulling in your rituals, shouldn’t someone be asking if maybe things are going a little too far?”
“This is a private g-gathering,” Bock began. His mouth worked for a second; he took a breath, seemed to find his footing, and said, “Get out of my store. Before I call the police.”
I fixed Bock with a quiet stare.
He flinched.
“You’re lucky,” I said quietly. I lowered my staff until one end rested on the floor. “You’re all extremely lucky that I’m not the Wardens. If they showed up here, they’d have beheaded half of you already. Theothers would be being bound up for a fair trial that would find you guilty of the practice of black magic, after which you would be deemed warlocks and also beheaded.”
One of the women from the Ordo, I think her name was April, pushed herself slowly to her feet. She had roan-colored hair and long-fingered hands. “What…what are you going to do to us?”
“Warn you,” I said. “What you’re doing isn’t acceptable. Quit it.”
“Or what?” Bock asked.
“See above, regarding Wardens and decapitation,” I said.
“You don’t understand,” April said. “Some of those men, what they’re doing to us—”
“April,” I replied in a voice I had to work to make calm. “There are only two paths here. Stop it. Or die. You’re already stinking up the whole neighborhood with black magic. It’s only a matter of time until it gets the attention of the Wardens and they send a team here to deal with it.”
“But they have—”
I slammed the end of my staff on the floor, triggering the release of more force. It let out a rumbling crackling and snapping like thunder and sent splits out through the floorboards of the old building.
Everyone but Bock flinched.
He drew in a breath. He closed the book. Then he straightened his vest and his glasses and walked over to stand in front of me.
“We have a right to defend ourselves,” he said quietly.
“By throwing torture spells on people?” I replied. “By practicing outright black magic? There’s a difference between taking action to change a situation and indiscriminate violence.”
“We have limited options,” he snapped. “We don’t live in a castle with armed guards. We aren’t among the high and mighty. We have to make do with what is at hand.” He took a step forward, his expression both pleading and furious. “We came to you. Weaskedfor yourhelp. You didnothing.”
I clenched my jaw and fought down a surge of anger.
Because, well. That was partly true.
I’d been flailing a lot. Barely functioning a lot. Wasn’t focused. I’dsent over a few of the Knights of the Bean, part-time. Clearly, they could only deter things when they were there. Otherwise, for me, it had slipped through the cracks.
I rippled my fingers on the quarterstaff, settling my grip.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “I’m on it. But this”—I gestured at the room with my staff—“doesn’t happen again.”
“You don’t get to tell us what to do,” Bock snapped.
I eyed him.
He was seething. More than he should have been. Working with black magic does that to you. Enhances insecurities. Deepens anxieties. More fear means more anger—fear and anger do bad, bad things to people, even without the magical effects that make you need to exercise power over and over, desperately trying to assuage the ever-growing fear with (admittedly ill-advised) action.
I wasn’t going to be able to reason him down.
