Chapter 13: Chapter Ten : One Step Ahead

“By the Father, no wonder you needed to attend college. Your spellwork is atrocious. Even a Weaver cannot get by without learning the patterns. Here. You can practice with my wand. You know how to use a medium right?

“No?

“Sigh….

~~~

The five of them were slumped in the eclectic furniture of the basement. Hazel and Zinnia quietly ate their rice and drank hot chocolate. Edelweiss sat in Hazel’s lap and picked at his black scales in annoyance, trying to peel them off. Hazel didn’t need to ask if they were affecting him – she knew that him eating the threads meant he could now cast Asphodel’s Grip himself… whatever that entailed. Taé was huddled under a blanket, snuggling with a white and black speckled rat, feeding it peas and corn and stroking its little head.

Hazel had healed away her bumps and bruises, needing to divert only a tiny bit of her Fabric to stop bleeding and prevent the worst of the bruising. But the bite mark stayed. When she rubbed her fingers against it, she found herself reluctant to heal it. They hadn’t offered at the temple – it was a waste of Life, after all, to heal injuries that no longer threatened to kill.

‘Zinnia might be right,’ Hazel thought with resignation. ‘Maybe I did enjoy being bit….’

Hazel looked over to Aurelius. He was slumped in the coziest armchair, practically falling out of it. He stared at the ceiling, dull exhaustion on his face.

About one hour ago, when Hazel had tried to get him to move out of the broken glass. He had stood, patted her hand with his fully healed fingers. Then he went back to the secret door and stumbled through, slamming it behind him.

Hazel wanted to go after him, but as she hovered before the wall, she heard the squealing of rats, and a wet ripping sound. She shivered, raw fear filling her, and stepped away. He came out half an hour later, not a speck of blood on him, makeup all wiped from his face, that look of pure exhaustion making his whole body sag.

“So let me get this straight,” Zinnia said. “You two,” she wagged a spoon at Aurelius and Taé. “Are vampires.”

Aurelius nodded mutely.

“Uh-huh,” Taé said.

“And you used to work for Sombre Asphodel,” Zinnia continued. “Who is also a vampire?”

Taé snorted. “His slaves, more like.”

“Thralls,” Aurelius said, voice deep in his throat. “And he, our Vampire Lord.”

“And Hazel,” Zinnia said, motioning her spoon friendward. “Freed your minds from his Grip?”

“I just decided to call it Asphodel’s Grip,” Hazel said. “I don’t know if that spellweave has an actual name.”

“It’s good enough,” Aurelius said, shrugging tiredly.

“And now you plan on killing him?” Zinnia asked.

“Dismantling his power structure and then killing him,” Aurelius said, gaze held on the ceiling. “I thought I’d just—“ He clenched and unclenched his fists. “—thought I’d have more time to plan.”

Zinnia pointed a spoon to Taé. “And who are you?”

“Me? So… uh.” Taé started. “I’m Taétta You can call me Taé… I’m uh, well, you’d call me Azmexian?”

“Native,” Aurelius sounded thickly.

Taé clicked her tongue in annoyance. “Yeah, I don’t got time to go into it. Because actually, I’m this, this—“ foreign words tumbled out of her mouth, “—vampire?! Uhg! Seeing those memories again makes me sick! Sloth told me he had some way to help me control my transformation! And yeah, turning into this… thing has sure done that! At the cost of the entire rest of my life! Two years I’ve had to sacrifice criminals to that ungrateful fucker. And yet I’m still…!”

Taé huffed, and looked down at the rat in her hands, letting it run and crawl up her arm, and burrow itself in her hair.

“Sorry, you don’t need the sob story. But… is there a cure for this?” She looked between Hazel and Zinnia, face crinkling. “I’m sick of living this… this… non-life.”

Hazel winced. “Not as of yet, no.”

Taé spat another word. Then she frowned over at Aurelius, and loudly demanded, “Then can I kill Sloth?”

Aurelius gave a low laugh. “I don’t care. Probably.”

Taé nodded savagely. “Good.”

“Don't we uh… need him?” Hazel asked.

Aurelius just rubbed his temples in silence.

“And you, Taé, are not fucking Aurelius too, right?” Zinnia asked.

Taé’s face crumpled up in confusion and disgust. “Ew. No. With Relly? No.”

Zinnia snorted a laugh. “Relly…?”

“He’s like an older brother to me!” Taé insisted. “I want no part in uh…. Whatever romantic tanglings you have.”

Zinnia whistled and slammed her empty bowl down on the low coffee table.

“Damn!” Zinnia cried. “What lurid penny novel did I land in today?”

“Zinnia!” Hazel cried.

“What?” Zinnia shot back. “I’m no stranger to drama. But this is something else. Come to think, I should write a play about it…”

Aurelius chuckled softly. “Perhaps after all this is over you could make several plays from our torrid tales.”

He heaved himself up to his feet, stretching.

“But this place isn’t safe,” he said, voice low. “Not anymore. We need to leave.”

“What? Why?” Zinnia asked.

“Because any bloody vampire in the city can just waltz in here,” Aurelius shot, waving towards the secret door. “They can walk right into any of the dozen properties Asphodel owns.”

“Oh, so the thing about vampires not being able to enter a home uninvited is true?” Hazel asked. She wondered how that worked. Was it a property of the house, or the Vampire’s fabric? Both?

“Unfortunately true,” Aurelius said. “I thought I would have enough time to take a bit of a breather, but obviously Asphodel rang the fucking dinner bell.”

He shot a glare at Taé. Taé balked.

“What?” she shot. “You know I can’t say no to the old man!”

Aurelius continued, “So with Taé not bringing back his precious little snacks, he’s going to swarm this place…”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Zinnia said. “You weren’t going to drink my blood, Relly?”

Aurelius rolled his head on his neck, making an exasperated sound at the ceiling. “As lovely as that would be, until recently I was not allowed to feed on the flock.”

“What? But.“ Zinnia pointed at Hazel. “That’s what that bruise is, isn't it? You fed on her!”

Hazel slapped a hand over the bruise, and Zinnia quirked a small smile.

Then Zinnia said, “I’ll be your precious little snack, Relly…”

Auriulus gritted his teeth, glared at the ceiling, and took a big, hissing breath.

“Not the time!” he eventually declared. “We have much to discuss, feeding included. But until then, we need to clear out.”

“For how long?” Zinnia asked.

“Until Asphodel is dead,” Aurelius replied.

Zinnia rolled her eyes. “Okay, so days? Weeks?”

“Unfortunately,” Aurelius retorted wickedly. “I don’t have a timetable for my glorious revenge yet.”

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“Okay, so where are we going?” Zinnia insisted.

“An apartment in… wait… that wouldn’t…” For once, Aurelius was a loss for words. His eyes darted around and he began muttering to himself. “And that ones occupied… No he owns that one too… the Wreckwash? No, he could just destroy the supports….”

“So you don’t know?” Zinnia said.

“He owns half the bloody city, and my finances are all solidly tied to his own!” Aurelius shot back indignantly. “I’m strapped for cash and safehouses both until I can seize them for myself.”

Hazel didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know the city, nor was ‘home defense’ a specialty of hers. She felt out of her depth.

But then suddenly, Zinnia cracked a wide grin.

“If we could make this house safe, then we won’t have to move, right?” Zinnia asked.

“I could hand you the deed myself, and that would prevent entry,” Aurelius said. “But it wouldn't prevent spying, blockading, The Watch, a goddamn firebombing…”

Zinnia held out her hand and made a gimmie motion, grin wide and mischievous.

“Make me a homeowner, Relly,” she said. “And I’ll make sure you’re all protected.”

Aurelius sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I told you that wouldn’t…”

“C’mooonnnn,” Zinnia interrupted. “Don’t you trust your girlfriends?”

Taé snorted a laugh, and Hazel’s heart quaked. She looked at Aurelius, but he had closed his eyes, face unreadable.

“I, um, girlfriends??” Hazel asked.

“You certainly smell mated,” Edelweiss said languidly, having given up picking off the black scale.

Hazel made an indignant squeak. Zinnia laughed and folded her legs, still holding out her hand.

“Hazel’s a super Weaver Witch. And I got one hell of a spell for her to cook up,” Zinnia said. “How's this for a line for the play? ‘I’ll play your game, just let me set up the board.’”

~~~~

The next hour was a frantic one. Aurelius didn’t know how or when they’d be attacked, but was convinced one would be coming.

He pulled aside some bottles from a rack and pulled open a secret compartment built into the boards. To confirm it would keep vampires out, he made sure everyone piled into the secret passageway (Zinnia exclaimed “THERE’S A SECRET PASSAGEWAY??”) before he handed over the deed.

Zinnia jokingly shouted, “Woo hoo! I’ve officially got it made! See ya suckers!” and pretended to close the door.

Aurelius shouted back angrily, “Would it kill you to take this seriously?!”

Hazel chuckled as Zinnia swung the wall back open. Hazel could see Aurelius had cracked a small grin as well, but it slipped off his face as soon as he noticed Hazel’s gaze.

Hazel watched curiously in her second vision as Aurelius and Taé approached the open passageway wall. But it was like their fabric was being pulled flat, splaying outwards on the otherwise empty space. When Zinnia graciously invited them in, the strange warping ceased, and they could enter no problem. The researcher in her brain begged for a quiet moment to figure out all the intricacies of the Vampire’s Fabric.

But of course, there was no time for that. Zinnia grabbed her hand and pulled her up to her workshop, Edelweiss galumphing behind.

One of the bedrooms had been converted to a small laboratory. Edelweiss shot between Hazel’s legs and sniffed the air, excitedly sticking his nose in every nook and pot. Jars upon jars lined the mismatched shelves, stuffed with raw materials – powdered stone, multicolored beast blood kept in a special fluid to stop it congealing. Pots of magical plants hung from the ceiling and were stuffed in every corner, a bright manalight overhead exuding a powerful sunny glow. Dragoncry whistled in alarm as they entered, snapping its colorful flowers shut. Bits of stray floatwood bark bounced off the overhead light like moths. And Zinnia had to shove aside an outgrowth of vines to expose her desk, tying them in a knot before chopping them roughly off with a stained knife. Hazel vaguely remembered they were a type of firevines as the trimmed tendrils curled up rapidly back into pots, hissing and smoking slightly as they shrunk and turned black. The room that once smelled wet with life instead began smelling like burning magnesium.

“Smells delicious!” Edelweiss declared, galumphing over to Zinnia and circling her multiple times. “Lady Webb has yet to repay me for my efforts. It is not like I am disappointed at the lack of fish eggs.”

Hazel sighed. “We’ve been a bit busy Edelweiss…”

“That’s why I have not brought it up until now,” Edelweiss said calmly. “Can I have the firevine instead, Lady Scarlet?”

Zinnia laughed. “Go right ahead, Sir Edelweiss!”

Zinnia heaved the rapidly shrinking and smoking vines into a barrel, which Edelweiss dove into with a soft crunch, sending up a gout of smoke.

Hazel chuckled, and suddenly realized she hadn't seen many magical plants since coming to White Cliffs. Not even the Great Antonian gardens seemed to have many, though she had… a lot of other things on her mind at the time. She knew most Fabric-rich beings were seen as more raw material, too rare and too useful to even be used as ornamentation by all but the most ostentatiously wealthy. It was almost relaxing to enter a real lab again, see the tools and materials most Witches and Wizards had to work with.

Zinnia waved proudly at her desk. It was surrounded by stacks of parchment, half being cheap linen, but several sheafs were of fine monster vellum, the hair of magical beasts clinging to the back side. Zinnia grinned wildly as Hazel looked over a massive spellweaving Zinnia had sketched on a piece of linen an arm’s length in width.

“Spell check it for me,” Zinnia said. “But I’ve done small tests and it should work.”

Hazel gawked at the spell. She traced a finger around the paper, eyes roving over the careful drawing done in ordinary black paint.

“We would need a permit to cast this…” Hazel looked up at Zinnia. “And where would it go?”

Zinnia grinned, stuck her tongue out, looked at the ceiling, and shrugged with her palms flat. A fool’s pose.

Hazel rolled her eyes, and instead asked, “How long have you been planning to do this?”

“Months, Hayzee,” Zinnia said. “I found a spot I liked, but this house is just so darling… I needed a way to have both.”

“Zinniiiaaaaa…”

Normally Hazel would be exasperated. But instead she reached out and hugged Zinnia.

Zinnia laughed and hugged her back. “What? What brings this on?”

“I’m sorry,” Hazel said into her friend’s bosom. “When I saw your bag of spellweaves… I thought you were wasting your degree. But you are a proper witch, aren’t you?”

Zinnia laughed, and patted her friend on the back. “Ouch, Hazel! Of course I’m a proper witch! I just normally use witching to do what I always want to do : delight and entertain!” She jangled the bells on her oversized hat. “Now does this spell meet thine high standards, my Lady Webb?”

Hazel snorted a laugh and nodded. She looked back at the spell and said, “I think you’ve done really well. But if we’re including the basement then we need to add depth to the design…”

“Oh yeah! That would fit here, right?” Zinnia said, tapping the paper and drawing an invisible line in an empty space.

“And are we including the garden?” Hazel asked.

“Ooh…!” Zinnia cried, clapping. “The flowers might die, but if we’re taking the soil, I think it’s worth trying! I know how to make a sunlamp…” She waved up at the ceiling, and the bright manalamp overhead.

After briefly going over the spell and making minor adjustments, Zinnia collected up the paper and prepared her tools. When they tromped back down the stairs, Edelweiss at their heels, it was already dusk. Hazel held Zinnia’s spare staff, which was little more than a thickly carved crook. Zinnia had a large broom thrown over her shoulder, the brush densely packed with brown hair from the eagle bat. Two cans full of yellow paint clanked from the footholds at the base of the broom.

Aurelius paced at the bottom of the stairs, and barked, “Well?” up at the descending witches.

“Get everything you want to keep inside the house,” Hazel ordered Aurelius. “You’ve got an hour until we’re heading out of the city.”

“Wait, you’re leaving?” Aurelius asked as the girls headed out the door. “What about protecting the house?”

Zinnia grinned at Aurelius. With a click of her fingers, the yellow paint on her fingertips flashed. She walked towards the door just as it opened, walking into a cool night full of crickets and cooing birds, the sky already threatening rain as the sun fell out of sight. She walked out onto the garden path, lavender rustling as she passed, and flipped her broom around her shoulders, paint cans clanking. She stomped on a foothold, and with a soft click, the broom zipped upright, hovering in place. Zinnia climbed aboard, standing vertically as she held the broom handle in one hand, and her oversized hat in the other.

“You know me, Relly,” Zinnia said with a cheshire grin. “I got a flair for the dramatic.”

And with a twist of her wrist and a burst of burning paint, Zinnia shot up into the air and vanished into the night, leaving only a trail of golden sparkles in her wake.

Hazel was much less dramatic. She eyed the stone path as she walked, mouthing as she carefully stepped foot over foot. Just as she reached the gate, she paused, and drove the staff into the wet and sandy soil.

“If we don’t include the gate, then…” she mumbled as she began circling the garden, dragging the staff after her. She didn’t peer into the Fabric nor pull at Threads. She needed to measure first.

“What do you need me to do, Lady Webb?” Edelweiss asked, poking his head out from the lavender.

“Might need help clearing a path,” she said between the numbers of her count. “Stand by.”

Edelweiss nodded and followed by her side, disturbing the flowers, kicking up bees and pollen wherever he went. It took a moment for Hazel to realize that Aurelius trailed after them both, gently brushing aside the lavender and watching her quietly as she worked.

“Now you,” he said. “Likely don’t have flair… no offense.”

Hazel smirked and continued counting, dragging the staff through the sand behind her.

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” Aurelius asked. “Please?”

“We’re moving the house,” Hazel said simply.

Aurelius was left behind as he paused, flabbergasted. He kicked up his fair share of bugs as he ran to catch up, crying, “Where? Exactly?”

Hazel shrugged. “No idea. Zinnia said she had a spot. Do you know?”

Aurelius gave a high pitched laugh, but when he trailed off without an answer, Hazel smiled sadly.

“You don’t know Zinnia well, do you?” Hazel asked.

Aurelius huffed and scoffed, but eventually said, “Well, until yesterday she was just one of a very, very, very long line of meals I carted back to Asphodel.”

Hazel paused. She had walked one quarter of the way around the house. She repeated what step she was on a few times, then turned to Aurelius.

“Well,” she said. “Before… everything that happened. Zinnia wanted to talk about all of us going forward. Our relationship.” Hazel felt her face blush red and turned back down to her work. “I guess you can… think about what you want. Before then.”

“What I want?” he replied.

“Well… do you like Zinnia?” Hazel asked. That empty blankness she witnessed might be forgivable if that was the case. If he loved Zinnia instead of her….

She peeked up from under the brim of her hat. The look on Aurelius’ face was vacant and distant. If not mildly shocked.

Hazel took a deep breath and returned to her counting, dragging the staff behind her, Edelweiss bounding by her heels.

She thought Aurelius had walked off. But then she felt a soft kiss on the nape of her neck. His hands brushed over her shoulders….

And she yelped as one of his hands settled on her bruise.

“I’ve got to focus on this!” Hazel squeaked, bapping at his fingers with the crook.

Her heart was hammering in her chest. Aurlius smiled coyly and backed away, feet placed delicately, as if dancing, his hands raised defensively with a twirl to his wrists. It was like the panicing, exhausted Aurelius was suddenly gone, and incongruously, the fisherman inhabited his body once more.

Hazel couldn't help it. She blinked, and searched for any remnants of Asphodel’s Grip in his Fabric.

She didn’t see anything like that. Instead she saw the wounds in his head oozing black fluid, each drop twitching with anxiety as they rolled down his face and vanished beneath his chin.

“Ever my guardian angel,” his green mouth crooned. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

He did his twirling bow, and then more or less fled through the lavender, ducking back into the house and leaving Hazel even more confused.

“Just focus on moving,” she mumbled to herself. “Once everyone is safe, we can talk about this.”