Ravenous

Chapter 8

How could anyone compare my home with the Flanders place? Holly stood at the front gate, trying to see her house with unbiased eyes. That was hard. She loved it with all her heart.

It was what architecture buffs called a "painted lady." Three stories of gingerbread carving gestured skyward, resplendent in lemon yellow and aubergine. Built in the 1880s, it stood at the crest of a steep rise, looking over a sweep of ocean to the south. Seven generations of Carvers had lived there.

So what if Ben wasn't a Gothic mansion kinda guy? He'd come around. He had to. Their relationship had grown slowly, but their bond was solid. In the last few months things had begun to grow serious. They'd begun leaving spare clothes and other odds and ends at each other's homes. Swapped keys. They'd even begun talking about moving in together.

They really had to have that talk about witchcraft very soon.

And I have to forget that I ever kissed Alessandro. It had been a moment of crisis, but that kiss had still been a mere whisker away from cheating. She couldn't bring herself to regret the moment, but it would never happen again.

Holly pushed open the wrought-iron gate and started up the walk, groping for her keys in her pocket. She wasn't moving too quickly after her adventures the night before. She'd slept until eleven and rose bruised and headachy. Brunch had been soda crackers and tap water. Now it was nearly dinner time and she was just starting to feel like herself.

Holly's cat, the Kibble-ator, sat on the porch like a fuzzy, twenty-pound doorstop. She'd never intentionally acquired Kibs, but he lived in her home and ate her food anyway. He sniffed at her sneakers, finding all the interesting scents collected during her round of afternoon errands.

"Hey, there," she said, bending down to pet him. He yawned, demonstrating the power of intense fish breath. He pushed his head into her hand and then did a rolling flop, presenting his belly for a scratch. Holly obeyed. With that much cat on her foot, it wasn't easy to move.

Eventually Holly straightened and checked the mailbox. Nothing. Then, turning her key in the heavy brass lock, she caught her breath as the door swung ajar. Someone had left it unlocked. Unperturbed, the cat thumped past on heavy paws, heading straight for his food bowl.

"Hello?" she called out, envisioning burglars loose in her private spaces, rooting through her underwear drawer. There was no response. "Hello?" she called again, gripping her keys like a weapon. She walked through the front parlor, her whole being straining to catch the slightest sound.

There was a noise in the kitchen, a loud, scrabbling rustle like a giant mouse. Creeping up to the doorway, she stopped and stood with her back to the wall. The rustling stopped. She tried to be silent, undetectable, but the rush of her panting breath roared in her ears. Swallowing nervously, she took one step into the kitchen, her footfall loud on the old gray linoleum. The air was damp, smelling of onions and dish soap. The electric clock that hung over the sink hummed softly. She heard another noise, the metallic clunk of shifting pots and pans. She crept forward, ready to pounce.

A nicely sculpted masculine rump projected from the cupboard beneath the sink. She sighed with relief and exasperation. After last night's experience, he was the last person she expected to find alone in her house.

"Ben," she said, loud enough that he could hear.

Predictably he jerked up, whacking his head on the pipes. Swearing, he scrambled backward and turned, his glasses slightly askew.

"Oh, hi," he replied. "I was looking for drain cleaner."

"I don't have any." The release of tension made her grin wide. Ben was over his fright. Everything was all right. He was not only in her house, but interacting with it as well. A very good sign. It would be so nice if he would just move in.

"The house fixes its own plumbing problems," she added.

"I know." He got to his feet, smoothing back his short, thick hair with one hand. "Maybe its self-maintenance schedule fell behind. The sink is plugged. I was going to try a little plain old handyman know-how."

"Good idea."

"I got your message about today being the registration deadline," he said. "I wanted to come over and say congratulations in person. So, congrats for taking the plunge. Happy studenthood. Everything go okay?"

"Yeah." Today was the deadline to pay up and make her registration official. Raglan's job had come in the nick of time. "I skipped the bookstore. It was a mob scene."

"You should wait until I can go with you. I get a discount."

"Thanks." With a contented smile, Holly pulled off her jacket, hanging it on a hook by the back door. Somewhere behind her, Kibs crunched the cat chow in his bowl. The kitchen seemed peaceful, a refuge, the light falling on the old counters exactly as it had when she was too small to reach the cookie jar.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" she asked.

He shrugged. "A bit. I'm really restless. I can't seem to stay still for two minutes. May as well take advantage of all this unfocused energy, so I washed the dishes while I waited for you."

"Thanks for that," she said. He was a much better housekeeper than she was. "I know it wasn't easy to come here."

Moving close to Ben, she kissed him. His lips were soft, his shirt damp with dishwater. Giving a little grunt of surprise, he returned the kiss with one of his own. His warm tongue touched hers swiftly, the merest teasing brush. He had been eating chocolate.

"What's all this?" he asked, his tone far from complaining.

Holly didn't respond. She was concentrating on the chocolate. There were so many things she deeply appreciated about Ben. He did not brood and did not wear black. He liked golf and key lime pie. He was inventive in bed and happy about it afterward. He liked to think he was complex, but he really wasn't. Ben was cheerfully normal.

"I should attend to your plumbing more often," he said, pushing his hands into her back pockets and snugging her hips up against his.

"Uh-huh." she wriggled a little, wanting his hands back in motion.

"Just think if I'd actually found some drain crystals." He grinned. "Then you'd have to reward me for getting the job done."

Holly liked the mental picture of manly wrench action more than chemical warfare, but whatever. "Most people would want a self-fixing house," she teased. "More time to play."

Ben smiled, sort of. It was a rueful expression. "That would be a hotel. I like to handle problems myself. It's a guy thing."

There was nothing to say to that. Guy things were arguments she would lose, because she never quite got the rules. Instead she slipped her hands around his waist and under his sweater, warming them against the heat of his lean back. If he chose guy tactics, she could opt for feminine wiles.

He sucked a quick breath in through his teeth as her fingers skated up his spine. "Ow, you're cold." He broke the embrace.

"Sorry." She crossed her arms, feeling a little lost without his warm body to hold.

"I think you might have to call a real plumber. I'm out of time." He reached for his tweed jacket where it hung over the back of a chair. "I'm tutoring tonight."

The sink suddenly blurped and the water gurgled out. Ben turned and stared, his expression cross. With an abrupt gesture he ran water into the sink, rinsing out the leftover suds and then peering into the cupboard below to frown at the pipes. "Huh," he grunted. "I hate that. That's so creepy. It was completely stuck before."

She shrugged. "The house is like that. Never cleaned the gutters. Never had to unplug the perimeter drains. Never owned a caulking gun. You see, not all these houses are psycho killers."

Ben's face grew serious as he shrugged on his jacket. "I'll see you tomorrow. There're some condos going up by the waterfront we should look at."

Holly frowned in confusion. "What do you mean?"

His expression went tight. "I… um. I actually came here to show a Realtor around the place this afternoon."

Holly groped for the back of the chair behind her. "You what? Here?"

He looked at the floor. "Just to get an idea what this place might sell for. The location is great. It's got a good view. You could do really well."

"Ben, I'm not interested in selling. I want us to live here."

"She's going to crunch the numbers and fax me a suggested listing price tonight."

"Ben! "

"Holly, I can't be here. I hate sleeping over. It's too effing freaky."

"No, it's not!"

"I can't survive in your world."

"Oh, no," Holly breathed. "Don't do this."

He extended his hands in a placating gesture. "I've already put everything that was mine in the truck. That way it's all clean and simple if you don't want to hear this."

Holly's heart squeezed as if it were stopping. Every detail suddenly seemed too sharp. The soap bubbles in the drain. The folds of a dish towel. The scraped skin on Ben's knuckles. The clear, green hazel of his eyes. It was like sliding off a cliff in slow motion.

"I'm not giving up," he said. "But things have to change. I saw what happened last night. I saw the kind of pain you were in. How can I let you do that? You're dear to me. How can I not try to shelter you?"

"From what? My job?"

"Holly, you were screaming. I nearly died. What kind of a job is that?"

This was it. The difficult stuff the two of them never talked about. They had reached a crisis point if this was coming out of the box. Holly felt her mouth go dry as ash.

"Ben, I understand your concern, but it's no worse than what a fireman does. Policeman. Soldier. There're risky jobs out there. I just happen to have one of them."

"But why you?"

"Because I can."

"But do you need to do it?"

"There aren't too many people with my talents. I like to think I have something to offer."

"Is it so important that you risk everything for it?"

Holly felt her good judgment waver, like a glass wobbling on the edge of a table. "I saved your life last night, remember? Was that important?"

Ben looked away. He was biting back some barrage of words he knew she wouldn't like.

She felt a lance of anger so sharp it was almost beyond pain. "I respect what I do. It's who I am. It's important to me."

"I get that."

"Then maybe you should support me. Learn some simple spells. There're a few things humans can learn for basic self-protection. Then you might feel better about my world."

"No way. It frightens me," he said quietly. "I didn't think it would, but it does. You can do all this stuff I can't even comprehend."

"Get over it. You're an economist. Nobody understands you guys."

"Don't joke. Not now." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "You grew up around power. You have so much power. I had no idea you people existed until a few years ago."

You people. How many groups through history had heard that phrase turned against them?

One shoulder hitched up, nearly touching his ear. The gesture was oddly boyish. "This new world is hard to get used to. I'm not comfortable being that close to so much magic."

Sleeping with it.

"I just can't compete. It's like suddenly being demoted down the food chain. I don't even understand why you want to be with someone like me, a plain, ordinary guy with no superpowers. It doesn't make sense." He shuffled his feet. "But if I don't see what you can do, I can forget about it. I can relax. That was working for me, but last night changed everything."

Holly hiccupped, a strangled sob dying in her throat. "Then you just noticed that I'm a witch? If that's the case, it can't be so very shocking."

Ben rallied. "That's just what I mean. We can sort this out with a little effort. I'll give notice at my place. You sell yours."

"Oh, no." Holly dropped her hands so they dangled uselessly at her sides. He wasn't hearing anything she said.

"Listen: We can start over together, be normal people someplace new. Someplace equal and fair. You can go to school. I can teach."

"Equal and fair?" Holly shot back. You mean humans-only.

He had the education, the money, and the rich relatives. They were nice, good, generous people, but they had so much. All she had was herself and her magic. They were one and the same. If she gave that up, small-M, big-M, or economy sized, nothing would be hers. Even the pain was precious, because it was her own.

Ben raised a hand, palm out. "No. Don't say anything. Just think about it. I'll call you tomorrow. Maybe we can have breakfast and talk it over."

"Sure," Holly replied, forcing her eyes open wide so she could hide the first threat of tears. "Breakfast would be great."

"Good." Ben kissed her one last time, a peck on the part of her hair. "Your hands are shaking."

Holly opened her mouth, closed it, pressed her fingers together. They were cold, but her cheeks burned red-hot. "Last night was hard on me, too."

"Of course it was." He gave her hand a quick squeeze. He smelled like soap and old wool, scents that reminded her of all the afternoons they had spent lying on the lawns of the campus. I'd bring him lunch. We couldn't wait till the end of the day to see each other.

He left, the back door clicking shut behind him.

Fear changed people.

Holly was panting, short, ineffective breaths. The house felt empty, all the lazy, lawn-sprawling afternoons, past and future, suddenly gone. I saved his life. He saw what I could do. He freaked.

Breakfast would never happen. Breakfast was a metaphor for avoidance. He'd forget to call. Something would come up. Not his fault. Didn't mean to. This was his way of making a graceful retreat.

It wasn't fair.

There was something dead in her chest where her emotions usually lived. In a while the pain would catch up with her.

Then it would hurt like hell.

Holly went upstairs, peeled off her clothes, and ran a hot bath. Her entire future had just been derailed. She deserved some comfort before figuring out her next steps.

Unobtrusive, Kibs followed her upstairs and curled up on the chair by the old claw-foot bathtub, there if she needed company. She added bubble bath to the running water until the foam reached the lip of the tub. Watching the steam condense and trickle down the high, narrow windows beneath the canted ceiling, she soaked.

It would have been pure and absolute bliss if her mind slowed down, but it didn't. One bad thought led to another.

First came the business. What had been a thriving family enterprise had dwindled to just Holly, the last Carver in the biz. Difficult jobs like necromancy made more money, but she was hobbled by pain. As a result, she had to work twice as hard at small, bread-and-butter contracts to make the agency pay. Insurance investigations. Lost pets. Imp exterminations. Over time it was exhausting.

It would have been different if she weren't alone, but her family was scattered. After Holly's parents died in a car accident, Grandma had raised her. Holly's sister had moved away when Holly was a child. Holly's half brother, born from her father's first marriage, had never been part of her life. That left her to carry on the family legacy by herself.

And now Ben had bailed, condemning the very heritage that defined her. Ben was wrong. Damaged or not, her power had come through and beaten the Flanders monstrosity. She had saved lives. Go, me.

She wished she felt as brave as that sounded.

The cat sat up, stretching, ears alert. He looked up at the ceiling, his great yellow eyes echoing the fading light. "Mrow," he commented in anxious tones.

She sat up with a slosh, probing the quiet house with her mind. What had alerted Kibs? She couldn't sense anything, but sitting in water mucked up her reception. Feeling paranoid, Holly got out of the tub and dried off. A flannel nightgown hung on the back of the door, left over from her last chick-flick mood. She pulled it over her head.

With her hair wrapped in a towel, they tiptoed down the hall, Kibs for once moving with the silence of a cat. Holly's damp feet left footprints on the hardwood. At the bottom of the stairs to the third floor, Holly hesitated, one hand on the newel post. What's up there?

She shouldn't have felt so worried. This was her self-cleaning house, a magical abode, the impervious Carver homestead. Yet her instincts had gone into the red zone.

Why? This is foolish. Nothing should be wrong. Calming herself, she began to ascend. Kibs stayed close to her heels, his tail a bottle brush of angst.

Holly reached the upstairs landing before she felt it. Something barely tangible—the quality of the dusk, the air pressure—changed as if a door in the ether had opened. Her nerves tingled, the sensation of a zillion ants crawling over her skin and into her nose and mouth. Then the feeling stopped as the door shut again. A breathless moment passed. Kibs inflated to twice his size and hissed like a cappuccino machine.

The third-floor hall ran the length of the house. Mostly empty, the old bedchambers had just a few pieces of antique furniture gestating dust bunnies. The middle room on the left side of the hall was the nursery, and from that doorway spilled a pool of pale light.

There were no lamps in that room.

Crap. Holly took a step forward, Kibs tracking her movement like a furry ankle bracelet. The sodden towel in her hair, warm and wet, listed with the motion until she pulled it off, releasing a mass of long, dark, dripping tendrils down her back. With the towel clutched to her chest like a security blanket, Holly scuttled forward until she could see into the room.

Kibs was down the stairs with a wild scrabbling of claws, his scampering backside flashing white in the dusk. Holly's breath catching in her throat, she turned her head to the nursery door. Her jaw fell open. What she saw was Kibs's worst nightmare.

Mice were cute when they were little. When they were six feet long, hostile, and glowing, they lost their appeal. But, hey, it wasn't slime.

The dirty white creature spotted her and snarled. Its whiskers, thick and sharp like coat hanger wire, quivered and fanned out as it bared fangs as long as her shin. Its rump went up in the air like Kibs's before he pounced. This was going to be short and painful. She took two gulps of air and tried to stop the short, sharp gasps of her breath. Think!

After the fight with the hell house, her magic was all but fried. What she could summon would have to be conserved, used for a single killing blow. She'd try something else first.

Holly beamed happy thoughts with every psychic muscle. "Hi, sweetie," she cooed.

Sweetie hissed, scummy yellow teeth thrust out, mouse spit spewing across the hallway carpet. Something in the slow, snakelike motion of its tail was lascivious, wrong. It snarled again, a ghastly, openmouthed rattle. She was so screwed. In some bizarre homage to Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker's Guide, all she had to work with was a towel.

Holly flung it. "Terry eleison!" she cried, making the spell up on the spot.

The towel left her hand, spreading as it flew. Heavy with water from her hair, it landed flat across the mouse's snout with a smack. Holly tried to run. She tripped and fell on the hem of her gown, but hauled herself up, ripping the cotton as she scrambled to her feet. No wonder superheroes wore unitards.

Sweetie was up on its hind legs again, clawing at the magically adhering towel with swipes of its forepaws. Holly backed up and into the hallway. Frustrated and blind, the mouse fell forward, cracking its head loudly on the old oak door frame. It shrieked with rage, a sound like torquing metal.

The tail lashed forward, bullwhip-fast, and caught Holly's ankle. She barely felt its touch until it snapped tight, searing her bare skin in its coils. It burned like acid.

Screaming at the pain, Holly shot whatever energy she could muster. It was enough to smack Sweetie on the nose. The tail released with a slithering noise and Holly scrambled away, smelling her own burned flesh.

The tail came at her again, but she was watching for it. Holly was running out of the hallway. Still blinded, the mouse lunged forward one more time. Holly ran, skidded, and stumbled down the stairs, clinging to the heavy banister.

Sweetie scrambled after.

Halfway down, Holly grabbed the rail and swung her legs over, the same way she had as a kid. A cracking sound snapped the air as her feet left the stair treads, but the old wood held. With a whoop of terror, Holly dropped to the floor on the other side and landed with a gasp, sprawling on her hands and knees.

"Terry eleison!" she spat, her voice barely above a whisper in her fright. With the last of her power she delivered another shock to the towel.

Sweetie, startled, blind, finding no purchase with its claws, tumbled down the stairs and landed in a limp heap. Somewhere on the way down, it broke its neck. The mouse thing lay silent for a moment before shivering and dissolving into nothing, small particles powdering away to thin air.

What the hell?

Jumping to her feet, Holly gaped at the empty space a few seconds, sweat beading over her cold, trembling skin. Her ankle burned, but the heat was fading now. The other pain, the aftershock of magic, throbbed like a full-body bruise.

With glacial slowness, she approached the spot where the mouse had fallen, her bare toes shrinking away from where it had touched the floor. No hint of its presence. No trace. No shred.

A door slammed upstairs. Holly started, but felt a new surge of angry bravado. Racing up the stairs, she froze on the top step. The nursery door had shut. There was a whispering sound—not voices, but something feathery. It was a sound she knew of old, one of the house's familiar noises. The place was healing itself.

The thought that there had been something to heal burned in her brain. What was going on? What had just happened? Hiccuping in fright, Holly ran down the stairs and into the bathroom. She tore through the pile of clothes on the floor, scrabbling for her phone.

The first speed dial on the phone was Ben's. She rejected his number with barely a thought, and not just because he was magi-phobic these days. This wasn't the sort of emergency that could be solved with a pie chart and a tax lawyer. With shaking fingers, she punched a button.

"Caravelli," came the familiar voice at the other end of the line.

"It's Holly."

There was a micropause. "What's wrong?"

His voice held an edge of intent, as if she had his complete attention. She blessed him for it. He was there when it counted.

"Pardon me for asking this," he went on, "but do you have the hiccups?"

Her thoughts suddenly went sideways, like a stack of books tumbling into disarray. "You have to come help me," she said. "I killed a mouse, and it was awful!"