CHAPTER 180

"Fuck you, too!" She flipped off the centaurs, then grabbed back on to the mace as it climbed back into the mountains and toward the tower. Sofia stood on the outer walls, waving frantically at Eulalie.

"I need you to drop me off," she told the mace. "Nicely."

The mace slowed and then stopped above the garden. It moved down at elevator speed until her legs were back on the ground, then fell to the ground with a clunk. Sofia came running up, followed by a bunch of very upset rats.

"Are you okay?" the cyclops asked.

"Just went for a joyride is all." Eulalie picked up the mace and held it out. "I asked it to return me, and it did."

"Maybe we should lock it back up," Sofia suggested.

The mace tried to fly away, but Eulalie gripped the cobblestones beneath her with all eight of her legs.

"Nobody is locking it away," she hollered, then tugged the mace down to eye level. "Nobody is locking you away," she repeated, then patted the head of the mace as if it were a cat. "As long as you behave, that is."

The restless weapon went still in her hands, and gratitude filled her mind.

Sofia looked at the weapon with distrust, then back at Eulalie. "You had better know what you're doing."

The Arachne chuckled. She had no idea what she was doing, but had just taken a magic weapon for a joyride across the surrounding countryside.

It was officially the best day ever. The only thing that would have made it better was if her sister could have been there.

The evening hours had crawled, every minute stretching itself impossibly thin in an attempt to smother the room. Mike had chewed his fingernails down to the quick as he paced in the front room of the cabin. At the kitchen table, Dana sat perfectly still with her collapsed sword right in front of her. It was unlike the zombie to be so unproductive, and if not for the occasional twitching of her eyelids, she may have been a statue.

The others had gone to bed long ago, but Mike doubted they were asleep. Any moment now, Abella would return with Velvet and all of them would discuss the next step. He stuck his hand in his pocket and closed his fingers around the crystalline orb that the owl had given them.

Yuki had assured them that the spell to trap Leeds could be cast by the artifact in his hands, but he wasn't so sure. Was the owl's spirit still inside such a thing? For perhaps the hundredth time, he pulled it from his pocket and contemplated the thing. It was a yellow sphere with a dilated pupil in the middle. No matter how he twisted it in his hand, the eye was always looking right at him.

"That thing stinks," Dana told him.

He held it to his nose and sniffed it. "What does it smell like to you?" he asked. It didn't have an odor he could detect.

"I don't think I'm smelling the eye itself," she replied. "It must be the magic. Have you ever smelled rotting meat? It's like that."

Mike had a sudden urge to put the eye down, but settled on sticking it back in his pocket. "So you can smell magic?"

"A bit," she explained. "On people, mostly. You. Naia. Sometimes Quetzalli Definitely that thing. You all have a very distinct odor."

"Why does it smell so bad to you?" he asked. "My magic doesn't stink, right?"

She shook her head. "Yours doesn't. I think maybe it's where the magic came from. Bigfoot mentioned that the owl used to eat people, so maybe that's the reason. I get the feeling that she was trying to turn over a new leaf, but even a few decades of good behavior versus centuries of bad stuff doesn't make you smell like roses."

"Guess that makes sense." Mike sat across from her.

"Your magic smells different now," Dana added. "Though I suspect you're already aware. It's changed."

He nodded. "I haven't had a chance to talk about it with anyone. Maybe Yuki can help me, or Naia when I get back. It's..." Words failed him. How could he even begin to describe something he never fully understood to begin with. He examined his hand, thinking about the magic just beneath the surface. With just a little concentration, he found that he could summon a handful of sparks that danced back and forth between his fingers. He wiggled his fingers as if playing an imaginary piano. It could have been his imagination, but it sounded like the pitch of the buzzing streamers shifted.

"Neat trick," Dana told him, curiosity in her eyes.

"Thanks. I do birthday parties." He put his hands on the table and watched the sparks crawl across the wood toward Dana. She shifted away from him and held up her hands.

"No offense," she told him. "I'm trying to cut back is all."

He laughed, then watched as the sparks poofed out of existence. Was magic like energy? Had it been conserved? Would it sink down through the table and travel through the Earth until it found someone to affect? Would someone in Australia have a random orgasm because of it?

"What on Earth are you thinking about?" Dana frowned at him. "You look like you're trying to solve a math problem, but then you get this goofy grin."

In a way, maybe he was.

"I was just wondering about magic in general," he explained. "Sometimes I think there are rules, but I can't for the life of me figure out what they are."

"'All magic has a price' tends to be the first rule," Dana replied. "Maybe even the only one. Don't think I've gotten any other pearls of wisdom since I died."

"Nah, the second one is intent. There's a price to pay, and magic is all about intent." He nodded to himself. That was one he had proven time and again. Intent often fueled what happened next. That made two rules. He would bet good money that there was a third, because it seemed to be a good number for pretty much everything else.