By Sun Page 13

  Alejandro stood, neat as a pin as usual, dark eyes serious behind his glasses. “I’ll walk you to the kitchen,” he said. “Anyone need anything while I’m up?”

  “We’re good,” the white coder dude said.

  “I figured you knew,” Alejandro said as they walked through the dining area.

  Jack entered the bright white and wood kitchen, powered down his phone, and slid it underneath a large metal bowl. Alejandro refilled his water tumbler at the sink, then turned again. “I thought that’s why you asked to meet with me. Because you knew I was part of all of this.”

  Jack reached into a cupboard and got out his own green glass tumbler. Alejandro made way at the sink.

  “No. I just knew I needed help and you… Seemed like, with all your witchy stuff, you would know something.” Jack watched the glass fill, shut off the faucet. He wasn’t sure how much of a conversation they were going to have, so he didn’t move to leave. Alejandro didn’t, either.

  “Well, my witchy stuff is part of how I code,” Alejandro replied. “And after all of this is done? You need some more psychic training, my man.”

  Jack shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I’m definitely in over my head with all this stuff, but I’m not sure how much deeper I want to go.”

  “Well, I’m always happy to consult with you, witchy stuff or otherwise. The coven has plenty of experience in helping civilians who’ve been thrown in the deep end. But the thing I wanted to say? About the hacking? I wasn’t about to out myself, not without Olivia’s permission. I hope you understand why. I just figured, if you knew, you knew, and I would try to help you either way. Not sure that it did much good.”

  Olivia came into the kitchen and opened the double door stainless steel refrigerator, pulling out a cola. She cracked the tab open with a satisfying hiss.

  “You two talked enough for now?” she asked. “Because the crew wants to consult with you on something before we get started, Alejandro. There was a question about one of the pieces of code.”

  Alejandro looked at Jack, who shrugged. “I guess we’re good.”

  She jerked her chin at Alejandro. “Give me a minute with Jack, then? We’ll be right in.”

  Alejandro nodded, squeezed Jack’s shoulder, and headed back to the living room.

  Olivia leaned against one side of the refrigerator and took a long swig of her cola. Her shoulders were almost broad enough to span the fridge.

  She looked at him and frowned. “Are you sure about this? About wanting to be out in the streets? I mean, I’ve got some good people in the house tonight, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still use you. And frankly…” She huffed out a sigh and looked away for a moment before turning her head back. “Frankly, Jack, you’re a great coder. And with a little more practice, you could become a class-A hacker, too. But what you’ve never been, in all the years I’ve known you, is a freaking warrior. Our run the other day practically killed you.”

  Jack started to speak, but she held up a hand to stop him. He was feeling a little pissed off. To buy time, he took a drink of water, a little too fast, and coughed.

  “Say what you’re going to say,” he finally got out after he recovered.

  “I’m worried about you. You never even exercised until this week. All I’ve ever seen you do is code and game, eat a bunch of crap, and occasionally go out for a movie or a beer. But now you’re going to be some kind of avenger? What are you, Superman?”

  “Wrong franchise,” Jack replied.

  Olivia smiled at that, but barely.

  “Just tell me that you’re certain and I’ll leave you alone.”

  Jack tried to feel his feet on the floor, like Moss had told him to. He flexed his toes and curled them up again. Flexed. And curled. He inhaled, as deeply as he could. He didn’t feel any strange presence in his head. Maybe the God was gone. Maybe Lugh had just showed up long enough to turn Jack’s life on its head and leave.

  What did Jack know about that shit?

  He looked at Olivia, who just stood there, calmly drinking soda.

  “I am sure,” he said. “I can’t quite explain it now, but maybe I’ll be able to someday. All I know is…remember that pattern I was telling you about?”

  Olivia nodded.

  “I had a breakthrough. Not only with the code I gave you, and with the audio links, but with everything.” He took another drink of water, set the glass down on the countertop, and ran his fingers through his hair.

  “I know this will sound crazy, like I’m going off the deep end.” He looked into Olivia’s eyes and she held his gaze. “But I see that pattern everywhere now. I feel it”—he patted his chest—“in my body. In my bones. The connection I was trying to get at?”

  He threw his hands out to the sides and then dropped them. “It’s everywhere. And it’s going to include a hell of a lot of people, and I need to be there, in the middle of it. Not in some goddamned chair in a dark room. No offense.”

  He felt his heart beating faster, and his mouth was dry. The knowledge of the pattern vibrated on his skin.

  Olivia was quiet for a moment, then took another drink of cola. Finally, she looked at him again.

  “Okay,” she said. “Come into the living room when you’re ready. And no offense taken, geek.”

  Then she smacked him on the shoulder, gave him a squeeze like Alejandro had, and walked toward the group who sat talking in the living room.

  Jack sagged against the counter and closed his eyes. He brought both hands to his face, and just breathed.

  “Lugh, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  The God didn’t reply. Jack felt a little foolish, talking to the air like that, hoping something, or somebody, was going to answer. But despite the absence of any solid presence, the pressure inside of him hadn’t gone away.

  The rational part of him that would have scoffed at all of this just a few months ago knew that just because it felt like Jack needed to do something, didn’t make it right. Or true.

  But he didn’t care anymore. For the first time in his life, Jack was following his gut. He was going to go smack into the middle of whatever was going down the next day. And once that was over? If they made it through okay? He was gonna talk to Lucy again, and see if she would give a relationship another go. He realized he wanted that more than he’d wanted anything in years.

  Jack picked up his water and drank the rest of it down before refilling the glass at the sink. And then he walked into the living room, found a chair, and sat down.

  “What did you think of the audio loops?” he asked. “Think they’ll be a good distraction for the Trojan horse?”

  The government kept thinking they were going to build more walls? Well, one way or another, some walls were coming down.

  29

  Lucy

  Bourbon.

  Too. Much. Bourbon.

  Lucy was reeling. Staggering from spot to spot around her tiny living room, she picked up her sacred objects, one by one. The bell her abuela used to summon help during her final illness. The cups of water set out for Lucy’s ancestors. A piece of onyx Raquel’s son, Zion, had gifted to her last Yule.

  She bumped into the couch and half fell, half sat on the worn brown leather. The one object she kept avoiding was her statue of Guadalupe, Tonantzin. She couldn’t bear the Goddess’s gaze, not right now. Not after Lucy had so effectively shut La Madre down with the power of booze.

  At least the burning in her head was gone. Brenda’s magic words had taken care of that. But the weird, dual-consciousness thing? And the heightened senses? That was still too much. It was almost better when she and Tonantzin had battled for supremacy. At least then, they were fully conscious only one being at a time.

  As soon as Brenda had finished, touching Lucy’s feet in the customary blessing, the full power of double consciousness had roared to the forefront, and Lucy had blacked out. According to Tobias, she had babbled some message from the Goddess and then fainted.

  After she came to on
the floor of the Inner Eye, the double consciousness, in all of its sensory-overload glory, was still there.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Brenda said. Yeah. Well. Brenda was the one with all the training in deity aspecting and possession, wasn’t she? Lucy had never even so much as drawn down the moon and now there was a Goddess living inside her. Tobias and Brenda had gotten her to Brenda’s car. Luckily, Brenda had been silent during the drive home, and helped Lucy into her house, gotten her slippers, and put the kettle on for tea. Then Lucy shooed her out the door, turned off the stove beneath the kettle, and started drinking.

  She took another swig, straight from the bottle this time. Thunking the bottle onto the coffee table, she lay down on the couch, scooting herself all the way down until her slippered feet rested on one wooden arm. She squirmed around, extricated a bright red throw pillow from beneath her back, and tucked it beneath her head.

  “Why now?” she mumbled to the empty room. Well, not quite so empty. Her black cat, Amadeo, careened into the room, meowing wildly, looking for her, whiskers quivering from his white moustache. Shit, Lucy had even failed her cat. Their contract stated that every time Lucy came home, she must give Amadeo a treat and spend at least fifteen minutes of lap time scratching his head. Instead, Lucy had gone straight for the bourbon. Which was the dumbest thing she could have done. She knew it, but right now? Her muddled brain barely cared. The last thing a magic worker was supposed to do was get wasted before a big working.

  “But here I am,” she said to Amadeo, who leapt up on her stomach and got busy kneading Lucy’s stomach muscles, purring loudly. Getting drunk was rare, but at least it was normal. Sharing her mind and body with some Aztec Goddess was not normal. Amadeo butted at her hand. Lucy tugged his ears and scratched under his chin.

  “But seriously, gato, why now? Why did La Madre decide that full possession was the only way to get this magic done?” And then another thought penetrated her bourbon-soaked mind. “And why, when the whole world is going to hell, does Jack decide to get his shit together and make a move on me?”

  Amadeo circled twice, then lay down on her chest, head beneath her chin, purring loudly.

  The main thing, though? Lucy didn’t trust they’d be able to pull this off. It was too big, and too scary. It was going to demand more of her witchcraft than she’d ever asked before.

  Lucy looked at her hands, the main tools in her arsenal. Her weapons. Turning them over, she stared at her palms, tracing the vestiges of the scrapes still visible on her right hand, looking at the lines that some said showed your life events, and even destiny. Lucy didn’t know if she believed any of that specifically, but her hands were her life. Both as a painter and as a bruja.

  But could her hands do what was required of them? Could they channel the sort of magic Lucy had barely even traced the edges of? Could she help Tonantzin orchestrate a group of witches who weren’t even within shouting distance?

  And could she do it all without her mind cracking?

  Lucy felt her eyes grow heavy; she couldn’t keep them open anymore. Lying on her couch, lights still on, she curled onto her side, tipping the cat off her chest. Amadeo meowed in complaint, then curved himself into the space between her chest and knees.

  Lucy fell asleep. And then the Goddess came again, gifting her with visions of lightning striking buildings, people screaming, and snakes being crushed beneath bare brown feet.

  In her sleep, she moaned.

  30

  Jack

  Jack flipped the black and red comforter over his massive wood bed. Any order he could bring to his world right now felt necessary. It calmed down the animal part of himself that wanted to freak out.

  On one hand, Jack felt completely unprepared for the day ahead, but he had also never felt more ready in his life. Lugh was working through him, he could feel it now. He could accept it now. Almost overnight, Jack’s analytical coder brain had realized that yes, he felt something new, something unexplainable.

  Something other people might name God.

  “Okay, Lugh,” he said, opening his dresser drawers and taking out clothing for the day, “I want to thank you. I want to thank you for coming into my life…” Jack chuckled, “For barging into my life, and taking ahold of me.”

  He drew out heavy socks to go beneath his boots. Jeans, despite the heat. One white T-shirt to soak up sweat. Moss had tried to get him to commit to a jacket with some padding, and maybe even head protection, but Jack just wasn’t willing to go there. Maybe part of him wasn’t willing to believe cops would actually attack, plus, he also wondered if they wouldn’t see anything that looked like armor as being an invitation. He and Moss argued about that for about twenty minutes the day before.

  “You can’t think that way,” Moss said. “You can’t blame the victims of police brutality for being prepared for police brutality.”

  Intellectually, Jack supposed he was right. But he also couldn’t shake the feeling that…this was him. He had never lived his life that way.

  “What are you talking about?” Jack asked himself. “You’ve been afraid your whole damn life, but now you’ve decided a little padding means you’re not what? Innocent? Strong? Idiot.”

  As a concession to Moss’s argument, he busted out a second T-shirt to put over the first. A faded Superman tee, it made him smile. Too bad Olivia wasn’t around to appreciate it. The shirt wouldn’t mean much extra padding, but it would at least suck up more sweat.

  Okay Lugh, he thought, what now?

  Jack did his best to listen, the way Moss and Alejandro had been teaching him, as he slid into his jeans and socks, and pulled the T-shirts over his head. He sat in the comfy arm chair next to his dresser to pull on socks and boots.

  Finally, he stood he stood, stretched his arms over his head, then swung them back and forth around his body, trying to loosen up. His muscles were still slightly sore from the workouts and the training, but he realized that felt good. By all rights, he should be contorted with pain right now, but whatever Lugh had done had actually taken the pain away.

  “Note to self: working with Pagan Gods ameliorates the effects of muscle damage in couch potatoes.”

  He wanted breakfast, some coffee, and a gallon of water. But most of all, Jack felt calm inside.

  His phone buzzed from his dresser top. He looked down. Olivia.

  The party is a go, the text read. Good. That meant the hackers had everything in place.

  Jack opened his bedroom door, then thumped his way downstairs to the kitchen and began to start breakfast for himself plus Moss, Terra, and Marta, who were stopping by to go over last-minute plans.

  Still no message from Lugh, but maybe he didn’t need one. Maybe the blond warrior dude had only come around to wake Jack up to what was needed.

  At any rate, there was no turning back now.

  31

  Lucy

  Lucy walked next to the Willamette River, breathing in the scent of water, and watched two long boats sculling by. She supposed they were the dragon boat teams. Practicing in August for a race in June took dedication. Two sailboats further out on the water tacked into the wind. Lucy hadn’t tied her hair back yet and the breeze picked it up, feathering it around her head and face. The breeze felt good, and cleansing. Just what she needed for the day ahead.

  Amazingly, Lucy wasn’t hung over. Maybe the possession with Tonantzin had burned the alcohol away?

  Also, she felt larger today, and not not quite as much as if she was being charred alive from the inside out. Tonantzin was still there, for sure, with all that entailed, but the whole thing felt more…normal wasn’t exactly the right word. Manageable. As if, with enough time, a person could get used to perceiving the world in this way.

  Raquel was always going on about how they had to learn to expand their capacity to run energy, and maybe increased sensory perception was part of that. Lucy would have to ask her later.

  And another thing? Though both her palms pulsed with energy, they didn’t itch, a
nd the scratches on her right hand had completely healed.

  “Be thankful for small blessings,” she said.

  She had woken up, still on the couch, drool on the throw pillow, her cat long gone. All it took was a shower, food, coffee, plus one hour’s worth of prayer, energy work, and meditation, and Lucy had felt like a new person. A person with a Goddess in full residence, and a person who wasn’t sure what was going on with the guy she was attracted to, but a person nonetheless.

  Yeah. Jack. Lucy shook her head. She had no bandwidth to deal with that situation right now.

  But it was clear that whatever had happened the night before, coupled with Lucy’s tussle with the bourbon bottle and her subsequent troubled sleep, had changed something inside of Lucy’s energy fields. She wasn’t sure yet if it would be permanent, and if it was, there would need to be more negotiation with Tonantzin, but for now? It was all okay. It would have to be. Lucy couldn’t see how they would get through the coming magical operation without this weird symbiosis.

  Lucy felt the Goddess taste the wind and the river and watch the sun spots playing on the rippling water. She had thoroughly enjoyed Lucy’s morning cup of coffee and had even asked for more. Before running out the door, Lucy had filled another cup, and placed it on the altar near Guadalupe’s feet.

  So here they were, the woman and the Goddess, the Goddess and the woman, walking along the Willamette, getting body and soul together in preparation for the big day.

  Lucy could already sense people beginning to gather in various parts of the city. It was as if, because of Tonantzin, Lucy had an awareness that mapped the whole city, and beyond.

  She paused and walked toward the little courtyard in front of the fire boat station, where there was a dock. She leaned over the rail, sun and wind on her face. No smoke in the air at all today. Lucy was grateful for that, and hoped that all the displaced humans and creatures were safe.