Death Masks

We wound up on the tiny patch of grass two doors down from my boardinghouse, in front of some cheap converted apartments. Several seconds later, the two pursuing cars went roaring by after Martin and his rented sedan. I kept my head down until they had passed, and then looked at Susan.

I was on top. Susan panted quietly beneath me. One of her legs was bent at the knee, half holding my thigh between hers. Her dark eyes glittered, and I felt her hips twitch in the kind of motion that brought a number of evenings (and mornings, and afternoons, and late nights) to mind.

I wanted to kiss her. A lot. I held off. "You all right?" I asked.

"You never complained," she answered. Her voice was a little breathless. "Nothing too bad. You? Anything hurt?"

"My ego," I said. "You’re embarrassing me with the superstrength and whatnot." I rose, took her hand, and drew her to her feet. "How’s a guy supposed to assert his masculinity?"

"You’re a big boy. You’ll think of something."

I looked around and nodded. "I think we’d better get off the street, pronto."

"Is running and hiding assertively masculine?" We started for my apartment.

"The part where we don’t die is."

She nodded. "That’s practical, but I’m not sure it’s masculine."

"Shut up."

"There you go," Susan said.

We went only a couple of steps before I felt the spell coming. It started as a low shiver on the back of my neck, and my eyes twitched almost of their own accord up to the roof of the apartment house we were walking by. I saw a couple of bricks from one of the chimneys fall free of their mortar. I grabbed Susan’s collar and sidestepped, pulling her with me. The bricks shattered into shards and red powder on the sidewalk a step from Susan’s feet.

Susan tensed and looked up. "What was that?"

"An entropy curse," I muttered.

"A what?"

I looked around, struggling to sense where the next surge of magic might come from. "Sort of a bad-luck spell. A really, really bad-luck spell. Preferred magic for getting rid of someone who annoys you."

"Who is doing it?"

"My guess? Snakeboy. He seems to have some talent, and he could have gotten some of my blood to target me with." I felt another gathering surge of energy to my right, and my eyes went to the power lines running overhead. "Oh, hell. Run."

Susan and I broke into a sprint. As we did, I heard one of the power lines snap, cables squealing. The longer end of loose cable flew toward us, trailing a cloud of blue and white sparks. It hit the ground somewhere behind us.

My clothes hadn’t yet dried out from Nicodemus’s guest accommodations. If it had been raining, the downed power line might have killed me. As it was, I felt a vibrating, clenching tingle wash over my legs. I almost fell, but managed to get a few more paces away from the sputtering line and regained control of my legs.

I felt another magical strike building, bringing a gust of wind with it, but before I could zero in on it Susan shouldered me to one side. I fell to the ground just as I heard a loud cracking sound. A branch as thick as my thigh slammed to the ground. I looked up to see a strip of bare white bark showing along the trunk of the old tree behind my boardinghouse.

Susan helped drag me to my feet and we ran the rest of the way to my apartment door. Even as we did, I felt another strike building, stronger than the last. I fumbled open the lock while thunder rumbled through the predawn grey, and we got inside.

I could still feel the curse growing and reaching for me. It was a strong one, and I wasn’t sure that either my apartment’s threshold or my standard wards would be able to keep it out. I slammed the door closed behind me, locked it. The room fell into darkness as I reached for the basket beside the door. There was a waxy lump the size of my fist in it, and I lifted it and slammed it hard against the door, across the crack between the door and the jamb. I found the wick standing out from the wax, focused on it, and drew in my will. I murmured, "Flickum bicus," and released the magic, and the wick suddenly glowed with a pure white flame.

Around the room at precisely the same moment, two dozen other candles of white and butter-colored wax also lit with a gentle flicker of white fire. As they did, I felt a sudden thrum of my own magic, prepared months before, raise into a rampart around my home. The curse pulsed again, somewhere outside, and hammered against the barrier, but my protection held. The malevolent energy shattered against it.

"Boo- ya, snakeboy," I muttered, letting out a tense breath. "Stick that in your scaly ass and smoke it."

"The action-hero one-liner doesn’t count if you mix metaphors," Susan said, panting.

"Looks like no Harry Dresden action figures for me," I answered.

"Did you get him?"

"Slammed the door on his curse," I answered. "We should be safe for a while."

Susan looked around her at all the lit candles, getting her breath back. I saw her expression soften, and turn a little sad. We’d eaten a lot of dinners here, by candlelight. We’d done a lot of things that way. I studied her features while she stood lost in thought. The tattoos changed her, I decided. They changed the proportions and lines of her face. They lent her features a sort of exotic remoteness, an alien beauty.

"Thirsty?" I asked. She shot me a look with a hint of frustration in it. I lifted my hands. "Sorry. I didn’t think."

She nodded, turning a little away from me. "I know. Sorry."

"Coke?"

"Yeah."

I limped to the icebox, which was going to need more ice before long. I didn’t have the leftover energy to freeze the water again by magic. I grabbed two cans of Coca-Cola, opened them both, and took one to Susan. She took a long guzzle and I joined her.

"You’re limping," she said when she was done.

I looked down at my feet. "Only one shoe. It makes me lopsided."

"You’re hurt," she said. Her eyes were fastened on my leg. "Bleeding."

"It isn’t too bad. I’ll clean it up in a minute."

Susan’s eyes never wavered, but they got darker. Her voice grew quieter. "Do you need help?"

I turned a bit warily so that she couldn’t see the injured leg. She shivered and made an evident effort to look away. The tattoos on her face were lighter now-not fainter, but changing in colors. "I’m sorry. Harry, I’m sorry, but I’d better go."

"You can’t," I said.

Her voice remained very quiet, very toneless. "You don’t get it. I’ll explain everything to you in a little while. I promise. But I have to leave."