“I highly doubt that,” I mutter.
He shrugs. “You have three days from midnight. Oh, and watch out for the twins,” he says. “They have an unhealthy obsession with pain.”
For a moment, I think he’s kidding, but his mouth flatlines and I realize he’s serious. “The twins?”
He grins. “You’ll know them when you see them.Ifyou see them.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask him. “Why are you helping me?”
“I like you,” he confides with a shrug. “And I am an excellent judge of character. Besides, our little family of five is growing a bit stale if you ask me. We need some new blood. But I don’t make the rules, I simply follow them.”
I manage a small smile despite the earlier Anne Rice reference, disarmed by the compliment. “Who makes the rules? Arla?”
He grins coyly. “Oh, honey, we’re all just slaves to the beast.”
I feel my brow wrinkle with worry, the flash of his dragon ring catching my eye. Whatbeast? Swallowing, I ask, “What happens if…”
He cocks an eyebrow.
“If I fail?”
All the youthful charm of a moment ago dwindles as Brennan’s round face seems to lengthen in the dark, his large, light eyes creasing at the corners. “I don’t recommend that.”
I swallow my dread down like cold spit.
“Until we meet again, Judeth.” He waggles his fingers at me as he backs away and points at the Space Needle. “Maybe turn it back on. You know, for the normies.”
I glance behind me. “How?”
Brennan smiles. “The same way you put it out, I presume.Magic. But don’t ask me, you’re the fire rover.” He turns to leave, fading into the night.
I stare at the Space Needle, bewildered, a bemused smile snaking over my face. Closing my eyes, I see it as it was a moment before, feel the way the force ripped through me, and try to counter the effect. But the lights remain stubbornly out. Unlike with the parking lot, I can’t seem to work the power in reverse. Maybe because it’s been so long, or because the object is so massive. Maybe I’m too exhausted or never had that much control over it in the first place. But I’m too elated over the first success to let this setback get to me. Either way, it’s probably best if I leave.
I look down at the envelope still clutched in my shaking hands. Carefully, I flip open the flap and slide the card out, expecting another verse, a riddle for me to solve, but the text is impossibly, maddeningly simple. In the middle of the card, in the same golden ink, is printed only this:
666
AV
WORK IS COLDthis morning. Not exactly hostile, but tense. Everyone is keeping their head down, pretending the drama of a few days before didn’t happen. I’m used to being ignored, it’s the life I’ve courted. It’s why I went from dreaming of being an author like Woolf and Plath to settling for being a copywriter. After what happened, I couldn’t afford a career in the public eye. But today the withdrawal of my coworkers feels intentional. Even Aaron sticksto his desk as I come in, winking across the space when our eyes meet. I notice Sue is out, but don’t ask about it. I hope she’s with her son, getting him the treatment he needs.
I suppose I should be grateful for the quiet, even if it vibrates with barely concealed stress. At least they haven’t fired me.Yet.Not that they have any proof. But they wouldn’t need it, not really, not if they wanted to get rid of me bad enough. They could just let me go. I’m hardly indispensable around here.
I try to act busy, to not draw any more unwanted attention, but my throat burns like I swallowed fire and the night before races through my mind on repeat. Driving in this morning, I heard them discussing it on the radio: “A complete power outage at the Space Needle last night has left electricians scratching their heads and Seattleites wondering if their beloved icon is failing them.” My mind replays the events over and over like a fresh wave of PTSD. The voice. The scream. Feeling my power course through me. The man in the darkness. The new note card.
666 AV.
What can it possibly mean? I only have three days—a bit less than that now—to find out.
I’m no Bible scholar, but the number seems obvious. Six, six, six, the number of the beast. Is it the same one Brennan mentioned? Is the Fathom some kind of satanic cult? Am I about to be their next sacrifice? My mind hobbles over countless Hollywood movie scenes fromRosemary’s BabytoThe ExorcisttoThe Omen, imagining cups full of blood and talking goats and children with hellfire in their eyes.
That last one hits a little too close to home. I spend twenty minutes in a bathroom stall trying to breathe my way back from the knife-edge of a panic attack during lunch.
I consider stopping. I could burn the note cards. Refuse to show up to the next deadline. I could justnot play their game. But Arla’s voice is like a purr in my ear, menacingly close. She knows where I work, where to find me. She knew what bookstore I shop at, for Christ’s sake. Down to what book I’d pick.If she gives Calvin whatever footage she has, it won’t just be a matter of finding another job. There’ll be acriminalinvestigation. Into security tampering at the very least, my own embezzlement at most. And that will dredge up a whole boatload of history and horror. Because I’m like an aquatic plant—I’m not just what you see on the surface. Underneath is a mess of tangled roots.
I can’t escape Arla, and I’m not sure I want to. The memory of my power rushing to the surface haunts my veins in the light of a new day. What I feel is mostly akin to an aftershock, the subtle traces of its presence gone. Has it fallen dormant again? I want to test it out, stretch it like a muscle. But I don’t dare while I’m at work. The memory of what happened the last time I truly trusted myself with it is still too strong.
Instead, I try to focus on my job, the banal intricacies of my mundane life. This life I’ve built for myself far away from Solidago, away from the bluffs and the waves and the goldenrod, away from the magic and the memory and the curse of being a Cole woman. Acleanlife. A quiet life. A boring life. But in my chest beats my mother’s heart and my grandmother’s—the heart of a witch, a fire rover. And it is shaking off the drowsy vestiges of its slumber, waking to new possibility.
