Veda waits on the porch, growing anxious. Birds stop chirping. The breeze holds its breath. Time stills. It’s so quiet, she can hear her wristwatch ticking ...
And footsteps on the floorboards inside.
The door creaks open a fraction more. Then more.
Shattered glass and fractured wood float in suspended animation. Black scorch marks streak the walls. Gray ash coats the furniture. Blood soaks the carpet. Music plays from a destroyed record player, its needle still spinning on the vinyl.
“Come in, Veda.”
Dread coils around her throat. Eyes darting, searching for the source, she sees no one ... until she does.
The figure lives in her nightmares: a grotesque blur of shifting features, surrounded by red spider lilies that have sprouted from the carpet and lead to the open doorway.It’s them.Veda steps back, ready to run, but a black flash strikes Lucinda’s talisman. The door explodes, windows shattering with it. Blinding magic engulfs her, burning hot. The blast throws the impostor and Veda in opposite directions. Veda lands on her side in the grass, eyes burning, head pounding from bouncing off the ground. Glass and wood rain down.
Pain blurs her vision. Blood fills her mouth.
Another wave slams into her, tossing her through magic’s torrential current. Her scream is a silent shout in the chaotic haze of power, noise, and light. She shields her aching head until someone grabs her arms anddrags her away. Her ears still ring, but Veda makes out the vague figure standing over her, their muffled voice asking if she’s okay.
She coughs violently.
Clearer now, they say, “You’re safe, you’re safe.” Then they swear and run away.
She’s unsure how much time passes, but eventually Gabriel’s voice cuts through the smoke, frantically shouting her name. “Shit, are you okay?”
“I—I think,” she stammers, though her body protests when he helps her sit. Francisco is with him, on the phone with dispatch, requesting medics and backup. The house—walls, roof, even the grass—has been scorched black by magic.
Gabriel and Francisco stay until investigators swarm the yard and the paramedics arrive to usher Veda to an ambulance. She’s forced to swallow vile-tasting tonics, injected with potions that dull pain and emotion. The burns on her hands throb while they wrap them in healing gauze.
“They won’t heal instantly,” the paramedic says. “Magical injuries can’t be healed with magic, but it can speed it up.”
“How long?”
“Re-bandage daily, or at least every other day.”
“Okay.”
A grim-faced Gabriel joins Veda in the ambulance while the medic pulls glass from her arm using a minor spell, her standard-issue medic amulet glowing green. Suddenly, she gasps. The blood hovers on the edge of Veda’s cut but doesn’t spill. “What the—”
“Sanguis Curse,” Veda says casually, earning a wide-eyed look. “Antiseptic salve and a bandage will do to keep it out of sight. My blood is here to stay, and it’s not all mine ... it’s alongstory.”
“You—you shouldn’t be able to walk around—”
“It’s dormant.”For now.
The medic’s eyes somehow bulge further.
Gabriel pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’ll take over. Go report.”
The medic looks ready to argue but nods and leaves. Gabriel finishes the bandaging, his thoughts elsewhere.
“Was Lucinda home?” Veda asks.
“Yes,” he reluctantly replies. “We found her in bed. Marlene is doing a scene analysis, but preliminary findings suggest she had been dead for hours when you arrived. The explosion was her talisman self-destructing to expel intruders. Do you remember what happened?”
She recounts everything, from the talisman’s state to the door opening and the distorted figure whispering her name. “It was the Botanist. Same scrambled facial features, the music, everything floating, the spider lilies. Someone else was there, too. After the talisman woke, they pulled me from the magical tidal wave, asked if I was okay, then ran. I didn’t see their face.”
Before Gabriel can respond, Marlene lumbers toward them, wearing a baggy white bodysuit that resembles a marshmallow. She’s subdued and wincing, gait uneven.
“Are you okay?” Gabriel asks.
