Secondhand Sorcery

The Metics had been getting ready for bed—even if they were dragging their feet about it—at the time the missiles hit. Many of them were in pajamas or nightgowns, a few even barefoot, with or without jackets thrown on top. All had gone abruptly from celebrating at a party, to hearing gunshots and being packed off to bed, to feeling the castle shake and discovering that their home had come under attack, then having one of their substitute mothers come out and tell them the man who passed for their father was dead. Along the way they had been submerged in the halos of three different familiars with no explanation. It was late, they were all tired and overstimulated, and not one of them was older than ten.

Some were crying or screaming, others were running away, a couple had already started physical fights. Several of the children stared in random directions, saying and doing nothing at all. They scattered across the parking lot and down the dirt paths running along the castle walls, gawking at the burning houses, broken walls, and dead bodies. Gulya had gathered a small group of fifteen or so mostly younger children together, but looked close to tears herself. Ruslan shouted repeatedly and ineffectually for everyone to calm down, and tried to pry two brawling boys apart. Zeinab was nowhere in sight and Nadia assumed she was gone.

Ugly memories of Guryev floated to the top of her mind as she stepped out of the front gate; she angrily shoved them back down, but did not forget the hard lessons those memories had taught her. This place could be attacked again at any moment. The first thing to do was to get away to safety. But where was safety? And how could she get all the Metics together to move them in their current state?

Anything was better than just standing there. Ruslan had already shown that barked orders would not focus them, so Nadia called Ézarine. The children did not react very well to suddenly being doused in the distilled essence of impotent anger—a couple of the boys started fighting harder—but that was almost beside the point. None of them failed to notice; they were paying attention. It was something.

“We are leaving now!” she shouted, as Ézarine forcibly separated a pair of scuffling boys. “That way, everyone!” she pointed down a street more or less at random. The one that would require them to walk past the fewest dead Lictors.

“Where are we going?” a boy of eight challenged her, his fist balled at his sides. Viron, that was his name. A new recruit from the local streets. Got in fights a lot. She was amazed he wasn’t brawling now.

“Away from here,” she said, and sent Ézarine to yank back several strays. She could do it very quickly, dropping one off and flickering away to grab the next in less than a second. The children who got moved didn’t appreciate that very much either, but Nadia hardly cared.

“I think we are short a few,” Gulya cut in. “I don’t see Eleni or Ayaz. Or—”

“Go find them, then!” Nadia said in desperation. She was pretty sure she knew Eleni, but not Ayaz; she had not been encouraged to befriend the Metics. “The rest of you, with me. Down that street, a nice quick walk. Ruslan, you take the lead. I’m taking the rear to make sure nobody else gets lost.”

Gulya pursed her lips, which was about as peevish as she generally got, but said, “I’ll catch up with you at the gym. It’s not far.”

Nadia thanked her and motioned for Ruslan to lead the way. He was aghast—he had never joined any trips to the gym and could as easily have led them to Botswana—but one of the older boys impatiently usurped the lead from him, and everybody else followed in line. Several whined about having to walk, but having Ézarine pop up next to them shut them up in a hurry.

They were soon headed down a quiet street through a residential neighborhood, with no doors kicked in or windows smashed. Either no Lictors lived this way or Hamza hadn’t gotten to them yet. They were above Thessaloniki proper here, in the hills, headed away from populated areas. Which was fine by her, but she didn’t know where she was going or what she meant to do when she got there.

The more poorly-dressed Metics huddled together for warmth as they walked down the sidewalk, occasionally spilling over into the asphalt. Nadia wasn’t all that well-dressed herself. At least there wasn’t much traffic, and Ézarine’s glowing form encouraged drivers to turn away into side streets rather than pass them. But they couldn’t walk all night, or shelter in the gym about a kilometer away, when the family was under attack. Could she commandeer a bus?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a police car pulling into the intersection behind them, its lights flashing. The officer got out in a hurry, but Ézarine got to him before he could draw his gun. At the last second, Nadia elected to have her familiar break his arm instead of dropping him from fifty feet. He was only doing his job.

“Don’t stop, keep walking,” she called to the children over his shouting, and they didn’t, and the cop didn’t get up from his knees or object when Ézarine took his gun and gave it to Nadia. She checked to see that it was fully loaded and ready to fire, then walked on.

But before they got to the next street they heard sirens, drawing closer, and she knew they would not get even as far as the gym without a fight. The children broke into a jog on their own, just before Ruslan did, and Nadia followed them with the police-issue weapon ready. When they got to a spot where trees grew beside the road, Ézarine popped up to direct them into it, and soon they were all sheltered, thirty or so children bunched together in the greenery.

Nadia watched and waited as two more police cars drew up beside the first in a blaze of blue lights. She waited until three men had got out, then set Ézarine loose among them, kicking, punching, and slamming heads into cars. Not for mercy this time; she didn’t want to draw any more attention to the area by having her scream, though it was probably too late to matter. And irrelevant, as it turned out. Before the third cop was down, one of the cars backed away with a screech and went flying off, sirens wailing again.

“Somebody must have ratted on us,” Ruslan said at her ear. “Somebody saw us leave the castle, and called as soon as your halo cleared. It’s the only way.”

Or the cops were already coming because of Hamza’s insane rampage, she didn’t trouble to say. “All right, let’s move!” she said, stepping out into the streets again. Nobody followed, and she turned to give them a hard stare. “I said move! Come on, it’s not safe out here!”

Little Viron stepped forward, his fists balled again. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell us what’s going on,” he said, his Greek accent still thick after months of learning English. He was a decent size for eight. Ézarine popped in and gave him a backhand, but held back enough that he didn’t actually fall down.

“That’s what’s going on,” Nadia told him. “I can tell you again, or you can move.” But none of them did. Not in the way she wanted, anyway. A couple of them stepped toward her, but stiff-shouldered and wary, like they were thinking about backing up Viron. Several others huddled further into the shadow under the trees, or started tiptoeing away, taking the first steps before they broke into a dead sprint. Ézarine appeared behind the runaways and gave them a little shove back towards the group. “Not that way.”

They still stayed in place, muttering and complaining. The halo was giving Nadia the courage to move, but only by making her cranky and hateful, and it was doing the same to the Metics. She couldn’t get rid of Ézarine without leaving them defenseless, but if she did, they would probably go crazy with panic. If the familiar stayed, they might well get mad enough to mob Nadia—and Ézarine wasn’t great at stopping people without causing permanent damage.

The impasse was broken by the sound of automatic gunfire, loud and frighteningly close. Half the Metics turned and ran, scattering in different directions; Nadia shouted at them to stop, managed to yank a couple back with Ézarine, but was too distracted by looking for the source of the noise herself to do more. Whoever-it-was was still firing like mad. It sounded like multiple weapons but she couldn’t be sure.

“They’re not shooting at us,” Ruslan said, looking up and down the street. “But that’s not far away. A few blocks, maybe.”

At Hamza, most likely, if Fatima hadn’t turned around and come back when the missiles hit. The direction was about right. Whoever they were shooting at, they were way too close. “Come with us to the gym, or stay and get shot,” she announced, and set off down the road again without a backwards glance. As soon as she heard footsteps behind her, she broke into a jog, and before long there was a stampede going behind her.

She should have had them running from the beginning, she thought. It wasn’t just faster, it kept them warm and felt more purposeful. One of the oldest Metics outstripped her, pointing the way at the next cross-street. She stopped him for only a moment, to look back and confirm that she had the Metics behind her—and no military vehicles. She had a good crowd still, but not all of them. It couldn’t be helped. The guns were firing more sporadically now, but they hadn’t stopped.

Fifteen minutes later they were at The Gym, which turned out to be grimy-looking facility covered with graffiti. Gulya wasn’t there yet, so she shot the lock off with the policeman’s pistol and waved them all in. For once, Ruslan made himself useful, organizing the Metics to find the controls for the heat, to look for food and clothing, and to keep watch outside in turns for anyone approaching, friendly or not.

Nadia was free to sit on the bleachers and stare at her lap. After another minute, she let Ézarine go. A trio of the oldest boys started a game of basketball; others fell asleep on gym mats or found dark corners to go cry in. She should probably be off finding and comforting them, she thought—but stayed on the bleachers.

Ruslan came and sat down next to her, and told her the head count was twenty-three present, thirteen missing. She nodded, and for a time neither of them said anything. She looked at her watch, and saw that it was almost 2200. Ruslan was nodding off beside her, and it was tempting to do the same, but she made herself get up and go outside, where she found one of the deputized children keeping watch as ordered and the other two MIA.

Before she could muster the energy to look, she saw two sets of headlights barreling down the road towards them, one after the other. When the lead vehicle drove up onto the grass, Nadia ordered the dutiful girl back inside to alert Ruslan, and called Ézarine while she hid in the shadows. But the vehicle stopped, the door opened, and a woman came running up.

“Send her away, Nadia!” she shouted. “For the love of God, no more familiars! It’s just us!”

“Gulya?” Nadia ran out to meet her as the second vehicle pulled up. Both, she saw, were military, some kind of big armored truck with a gun poking out the top. Hamza came out of the second, cussing up a storm. “Where is Fatima?”

“I told her to get your shithead brother,” Hamza yelled. “As soon as they get here, we’re leaving. What jackass turned the fucking lights on in there? You can see it from down the road.”

Nadia let Ézarine go in a hurry, then ran in, feeling immensely relieved to not be in charge of this disaster any longer. The last five hours had taken a year. As darkness fell inside the gym, she threw herself down on a mat. She slept, but not well, waking up over and over at small disturbances.

Fatima and Yuri appeared after midnight. Yuri had been seriously injured, but that didn’t stop Hamza from hitting him a few times. He hollered at the blows, called Hamza vile names, and asked how else he was expected to shut down an airport by himself. Nadia tuned out the whole business as best she could until he started ranting about the insane black woman who had shot him.

“She knew all our names!” he screamed. “She ambushed me out of nowhere with this crazy-ass magic flute bullshit! What the hell is going on here?”

“Magic flute?” Nadia said.

“VRIL,” Fatima answered for him. She was already smoking her second cigarette, a sure sign of stress with her. Normally she tried to limit her habit. “At least, that’s what it sounds like. Junky old technology, outclassed by us, but it’s still nasty. We’re lucky the Russians stopped using it years ago.”

Nadia did not like the way Fatima looked at her as she said it, but she had other worries. Beelzebub? One of his friends, at least. So it wasn’t just the Greek authorities who were against them now, but America too. Assuming Beelzebub was American, which was far from guaranteed, but whatever. The Coalition, at least, or NATO. Hamza was right. They couldn’t stay in the city.

Sleeping Metics were roused and manhandled into the backs of the trucks. There wasn’t nearly enough space even for their reduced numbers, but Hamza’s orders were to make room as best they could. Final head count was twenty-five of the thirty-six children, and there was no time to search for the rest. Fatima’s car was abandoned, to minimize the number of vehicles.

At 0117 they left the gym and the city for good, Hamza’s truck in the lead. Gulya was the second driver, and the four remaining Marshalls took it in turns to either doze in the passenger seat or keep watch with their heads poked out of the gunner’s station. Yuri went first as further punishment. Ruslan was forbidden to heal him until they had found safety, and kept in the other truck for good measure.

Nobody asked where they were going. The road turned east, out of Thessaloniki, and they had it mostly to themselves. They would drive through the night, and escape Greece within twenty-four hours, leaving these trucks and everything they had known for the past half-year behind them. Nothing else was certain.