Secondhand Sorcery

Keisha had never succeeded in making herself totally comfortable with the idea of a halo. She knew there was nothing strange about this; to be comfortable with a space where she (technically, temporarily) ceased to exist as a physical object, a human being would have to be either ignorant or stupid. To say nothing of the psychological turmoil, and the growing body of evidence that repeated or prolonged exposure had subtle long-term effects. A Tetzloff Field was one hell of a drug.

But more than that, it was the admittedly irrational terror that when the halo ended, or when she stepped outside its boundaries, the world of make-believe would fail to collapse neatly into conventional reality, and Keisha-as-concept would not become Keisha-as-object, but simply vanish from existence forever. So what if it had never happened before? To be in a halo was to depend on another person so absolutely that it scared the hell out of every PPO who’d taken the time to properly understand the theory of it. Even the ones who could make halos of their own didn’t like being in another’s. Hampton didn’t know enough to be as spooked as he should be.

She’d submitted to Ethan’s halo for the same reason twenty-year-old kids had waded up Omaha Beach into machine-gun fire: it had to be done. The whole business was only bearable because every doubting or fearful thought she had about it was swept clean out of her head by the experience itself.

Tantrum Song did not have any firm idea where he was going, but he was making such great time that it hardly mattered. Their little car orbited around him like a planet as his whirlwind rushed along over the streets, always facing the same way, almost but never quite bashing the vehicle into the buildings on either side. Dust and street litter swirled around them in a dirty cloud, but Song saw through it all.

For Keisha, the ride was smooth, even pleasant; as the-idea-of-Keisha, just one more aspect of a mass hallucination they were all dreaming up together, she could be molded into the general absurdity of their situation, and small details like the actual experience of being in a car carried fifty feet above the ground by impossibly strong winds could be more or less ignored, in the same way that civilians underfoot only got their hair ruffled by those same winds passing feet away. She steadied herself with a single hand on the dashboard, and thought unexpectedly deep thoughts about Bunker Hill.

Ethan, as the architect, conductor, and “ground” of the whole experience, was not so lucky, and braced himself with all four limbs to keep from smacking his head with every swerve. Being Ethan, he still doggedly enjoyed it, forcing out a strangled rebel yell through gritted teeth the whole way. It had been his decision to travel this way, after all.

Office and apartment windows went by in a blur; the cross-streets were gone almost before she could see them coming. Song dog-legged them down one street and up another, hunting down something only he could sense, and she barely noticed. They had been in the air for less than a minute when the winds abruptly slowed, and their little car began a lazy, swooping descent to the ground, winding down its spin like a hula hoop. They still landed with a horrendous jolt, nearly rolling the car as they skidded across the street and crumpled its back end against a streetlight.

She had to squeeze out through the window; Ethan stumbled out of his door to vomit in the street, then straightened up wiping his mouth, ready for action again. They were on a four-lane road at the edge of the city, where skyscrapers gave way to five- or six-story apartment blocks and office buildings, with little shops on the ground floor. A few cars blocked the road here and there, immobile; most military vehicles were manual-transmission so they could keep driving through a halo, but civilians wouldn’t bother. The sky ahead shone with a sinister light, and a merry tune like a carnival ride’s echoed through the streets.

Ethan was off and running already, dodging around and vaulting over the cars, doing the best he could to follow his familiar to the fight. Keisha let them go, looking around to size up the situation until the halo cleared. There were no people out on the street; the drivers of the stuck cars, and whatever pedestrians had been on the sidewalks when the halos came out, apparently made the sensible decision to take shelter. Which meant there was very little for her to do with her VRIL here. When the halo was gone, she got out her magnolia and her pistol and followed, keeping low and covering behind cars when she could. If only she knew what she was hiding from, in what direction …

Ethan still had a couple of blocks’ lead, and Song was rising up into the air, banking hard right when he cleared the rooftops. Below, his emissor ducked into an alley to follow him. The carnival song was getting fainter, receding; it was some comfort to think that Shum-Shum wasn’t moving her direction, but there was no way in hell she was going to catch up with him through whatever fiery mess he was making. Even Ethan might have a rough time of that, with Song to blow out fires along the way.

She was weighing her options when she heard the chatter of full-auto gunfire to the northwest, ahead and to her left. Question answered. A minute of very cautious jogging later—her magnolia still firmly placed inside her head, guns rattling on and off the whole time—she was able to peek around a corner and spot a cluster of military vehicles jamming the road a quarter-mile away. Even as she looked, the turret gun on one of them lit up, pumping rounds into the closest building.

Something large and white came crashing out in response, landing on top of the offending truck and cutting the rock-and-roll abruptly short. A few individual shots sounded instead, briefly, fading out as a giant, skeletal figure darted back and forth. Then all was silent, and it was gone.

Keisha turned her head in the other direction, and saw enormous, clouds of black smoke swirling above the roofline. Tantrum Song danced between them, directing his winds this way and that to extinguish the fires. Well, one of them was some use here, that was something—

There was a series of very loud, very low noises, and the ground shook under her feet. The telltales of heavy ordnance—but not very close. What the hell were the Turks shooting at? Did they have Snowdrop pinned down somewhere too?

Once more she looked around, shook her head, and ran back the way she came as fast as she could, checking her phone as she went. When it started working again she called up Hamp. Busy. Without much hope, she tried Dr. Gus’s number.

Miraculously, he answered. “What is your situation?”

He’d actually remembered to keep his phone charged and on. Praise the Lord. “Rhadamanthus and Shum-Shum are out and running hot. Two separate points of origin, maybe a half-mile apart, is how I read it. God knows why they were split up like that, but Ethan’s after Shum-Shum. Rhad wasted whatever the Turks sent after him, so he’s free to raise hell. What just got blown up?”

“We are attempting to determine that at present.” The line crackled. “It was some distance away from your location or ours, at the southwest end of the city. I can see the dust cloud from here. But there seem to be disturbances elsewhere as well.”

“Disturbances,” she repeated.

“Judging by the sound of gunfire, yes. I do not know the precise military terms for such things. Colonel Hampton is having difficulty getting through to anyone who will talk with him. It would appear everyone is calling everyone else at once, trying to understand the situation.”

Keisha put a hand to her forehead, trying to think. “Are there any other familiars in play on our side? Or theirs?”

“Not as of thirty seconds before your call. I will check again. One moment.” She waited patiently until he spoke again: “I count three to the north of this hospital—presumably Ethan and your two. A fourth to the far south, mobile. That one is new. Naturally I cannot tell you whose it is, or what they are doing.”

“Then you’d better call—“

Dr. Gus cut her off. “Who would we contact? At any rate, the Turks have clairvoyants of their own. They will know soon enough if they do not already. Whether they can engage each of these threats effectively is another matter.”

“Yeah, I know.” She’d started pacing in an alley, without even realizing it, and her magnolia was fading. She took a couple of breaths to perk it back up. “I know roughly where Rhadamanthus is. I’m going to engage.”

“Sovereign protocol alone will not significantly increase your odds against him.”

“No, it won’t. Which is why I intend to go all the way. It’s time for Grandmama to get involved in person. Past time, actually.”

“You will do no such thing,” he said at once.

“I don’t recall asking for authorization.”

“It is nonetheless denied. Belvedere must not be compromised.”

“Is that your personal judgment, or are you just following orders? Is there anybody you can ask for permission?”

“Under the present circumstances, I doubt I could get through to anyone above lieutenant colonel.”

“Fine. But Rhadamanthus is loose. He just killed three trucks worth of soldiers—or maybe the local SWAT, I don’t know—and now he’s free. Ethan’s got all he can handle chasing Shum-Shum, trying to put out the fires. If I stay put like a good girl, what’s to stop Rhad from coming up from behind, hacking Ethan in half? Then Yuri could burn out half the city, unchallenged. Don’t tell me he wouldn’t do it.”

The other end of the line was silent.

“We’re talking thousands dead, Doctor. Thousands more, after Saturday. What exactly are we waiting for here? What’s the use of a secret weapon that always stays secret? How bad does it have to get before we can pull out our gun?”

Another long silence. Then a sigh.

“I am near enough to full retirement,” Dr. Gus said at last. “I might as well take the blame. Do what you think best. But the consequences will be dire.”

“Thank you, sir” she said. “Give my apologies to the Colonel, for not telling him sooner.” The beeping of the line was all the reply she got.

There were three halos in the area already. All the people hunkered down nearby would be in severe distress even before you factored ambivalence. She hated to add to their burden. Still, distressed, even half-crazy, was better than dead. So Keisha closed her eyes tight, and focused hard on the magnolia, Grandmama’s magnolia, the one growing in the yard right outside her house. Not just a blossom but the whole tree, then the house, and then she was back.

November 22, 1995. Too late in the year for the tree to be blooming. The day a man in USMC dress uniform—a major—knocked on their front door, with their pastor beside him. Mama answered. The major got out three or four words before she started screaming, ran down the hall to her bedroom, and locked herself in. Keisha, making an after-school snack in the kitchen, froze, staring at the somber-faced officer. Then her little sister started crying too, and it was left to Grandmama to limp over on her cane and learn the details: Busan, Korea, yesterday, ambush, rocket-propelled grenade. Grandmama shook, but kept standing, and thanked the man for telling her that her son was dead. They talked, while two other generations of Graham women wept, and eventually the major went away. The pastor stayed a little longer. Mama didn’t come out of her room.

Night fell, and found them crying in two separate rooms. Several times Grandmama knocked on Mama’s door, telling her as quiet as she could, while still being audible through the door, that she was being a damned fool, and that her place was with her children. Keisha heard every word. But Mama didn’t come out of her room.

Grandmama knocked on their door instead. They didn’t answer, but the door was unlocked. She came in, turned on Keisha’s bedside lamp, and sat beside them unasked, on the chair Keisha sat in to do her homework. Tiana came and sat on her lap, even though she was too big to be doing that anymore, and Grandmama tried to hold her as best she could while the chair creaked under them. Keisha stayed in bed, rubbing at her eyes.

“My child is dead,” Grandmama told them, her voice only shaking a little. “My only boy is gone, and he has torn my heart out with him, and the wound he gave me in going will bleed from now until the day I die. I will not deny that, children. But that day, the day I die, is not today. The world has not ended. God is with you, and so am I, and we are going to continue. Is that clear?”

Her glasses glinted in the lamplight. Keisha nodded weakly, looking away. Tiana buried her face in Grandmama’s shoulder. “Good,” was all she said back. Then she opened her Bible, and read the entire Book of Ruth to them, very loud so her voice would carry back to Mama, who still didn’t come out of her room. The tears ran down her cheeks, under her glasses, as she read, but her voice stayed steady.

Grandmama left, but only to get a better chair, huffing and puffing as she pushed it in from the living room. Then she sat down, doing her crosswords by the lamplight, and said nothing else until Tiana was asleep in her bed, and Keisha nearly so. Then Grandmama bent over to kiss her on the forehead, saying, “All is well child, and all will be well, now and forever, till the end of the world.” She was still there, slumped over in the chair, when Keisha woke up in the morning.

She was sitting in a wheelchair, and looking much worse, on the day Keisha graduated from Basic, five years later. Mama had refused to come; she said she was not going to feed her own flesh and blood to the monster that had eaten her husband. Grandmama said nothing back. She was tired. She got dialysis three times a week, and she could still hardly move anymore, she was so fat and distended. She watched Keisha stand to attention in her new blue uniform, and nodded solemnly. She died before November could come around again.

Time passed, and Tiana went through school as well, and then she went her own way. They didn’t talk much anymore, but she was doing alright. They didn’t talk to Mama at all. But time kept passing, and she kept living, moving up the ranks with a magnolia tree blooming in the back of her mind, until at last Keisha Graham was standing in a street in Ankara. And she was not alone anymore.

The other woman—if you could call her a woman—didn’t look much like Lucinda Jane Graham. Grandmama had been stout for as long as Keisha knew her, even before the last days when congestive heart failure turned her into a bloated wreck. This old lady was thin, stick-thin, her arms like twigs, the flesh around them shriveled and dry as a mummy’s, and every bit as dark. Her cheeks were sunken, her lips thin, her fingers a set of claws clutching at the white cloth she wore wrapped around her, the white cloth that was her only garment, a pure shining white like a funeral shroud. It covered one arm and trailed down to her bare feet and came up in a cowl over her head, concealing her few grey hairs from view.

Keisha stepped back to let her out of the alley. Adesina walked past, nodding a silent greeting with her eyes still closed. Her gait was stiff, a kind of hobble. When she was out into the main street she lifted her head, and the hood fell back a little to let the sunlight touch her face. Not much sunlight left in this day, only a little, and the black smoke was rising in the sky, darker than ever. But it was enough. Adesina hummed a little, a tuneless, absentminded drone, then opened her eyes. They were shining white, and they lit the world in glory.