“Now, Maeve, don’t go blowing these things out of proportion.” The woman bustled forward, her hands clasped near her throat. “Bob gets a little exuberant sometimes, but he would never?—”
“You,” Maeve spat at her. “You’re just as guilty as he is. I know he’s an ugly brute and you’re scared of him, butyou, Aunt Florence, offered to take Kelly in, knowing what this man would do to her. I will never,everforgive you for that.”
Florence’s face paled. But my attention was drawn back to the uncle, who moved around the desk, approaching Maeve and towering over her with a stance I knew from my martial arts training was designed to intimidate.
I dragged my arm back into a fist and hit him square in the middle of his barrel chest, stopping him mid-stride. “You’re not getting any closer,” I said.
“I can handle this,” Maeve hissed.
“I know. That one was for me.”
“Who the hell are you?” The man swivelled his attention to me, the burly male who he thought was his biggest threat. His first mistake.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Maeve raise her hand above her head, her palm pointing toward her uncle. The air in the room shifted, rising in temperature and sizzling against my skin. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
“I’m a friend of Maeve’s,” I said, putting on my most menacing voice. “I’m here in case you decide not to listen to her very sensible requests.”
“So you’re hanging out with delinquents now?” The uncle sneered at Maeve. “Bringing a white trash criminal here to my house in an attempt to scare me? My, but you have fallen from your lofty goals of going to space. Has the wrath of the Lord finally fallen upon your head, girl? Do you finally see that all you are is a worthless little Jezebel with?—”
“You’re the one who’s worthless,” Maeve hissed. Something crackled across her palm. Her uncle raised a hand to his temple.
“What is this—” He screwed up his eyes.
“Call me worthless one more time,” Maeve yelled. “Go on, Uncle Bob. Belittle, intimidate, degrade, and terrify another woman because you are a rotten, evil coward.I dare you.”
Bob shoved the Bible in her face. “Begone from my sight, you vile creature, you evil witch?—”
I couldn’t help it.
I set the Bible on fire.
Bob yelled and dropped the burning book on the desk. The flames darted across his papers, and soon the whole top of the desk was an inferno. His computer popped and fizzed. A smoke alarm beeped loudly from the hallway. Florence screeched and ran off, presumably to call the fire department.
Now Bob looked genuinely scared. I was perfectly happy for him to believe Maeve made the fire if it meant her punishment was doled out.
But Maeve wasn’t done. She advanced on him, her hand raised, palm pointed toward him. He grabbed her wrist and tried to force her arm back, but she used the technique I taught her to break his grasp, wrench her arm free, and press it to his face.
His skin popped and crackled as she fed her magic directly into his temple. He screamed – a high-pitched, wailing cry that was so beyond pain it was barely conceivable.
I had no idea what Maeve was doing to him but it looked like the worst imaginable thing.
“This is who you are,” she whispered, splaying her fingers across his face.
The fire engulfed the whole desk now, the dancing flames illuminating her terrible beauty.
Bob screamed and screamed and screamed.
I coughed. My eyes stung. The smoke was filling the room, obscuring our exit. The fire leapt to the bookshelves behind the desk.
We have to get out of here.
“Maeve, we have to go.” I grabbed her arm. My fingers burned like they’d been dipped in acid. Something flashed in front of my eyes – memories or visions that didn’t belong to me. Black people in the government, gay people kissing on the steps of a church, a female President speaking on TV, crosses being torn down and trampled underfoot by angry mobs demanding change. Being made to clean and cook and forced into silence and submission.
She’s feeding him his nightmares,I realized.Dredging up his darkest fears and giving them to him in technicolour and 5.1 surround sound.
“You’re a pig,” Maeve whispered, her voice rasping as her mouth filled with smoke. “A pig and a coward and an abuser. The only reason I’m not hauling you down to the police station right now is because Kelly’s dealt with enough this year and she doesn’t need the horror of trying to get your ass convicted. Instead, I’ve come to give you a little taste of what you did to her.”
“I’ll get you!” he gasped, his hands grasping at midair. “I’ll have you burned for this, you witch…”
