The Darkest Midnight. R. A. Finley

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СКАЧАТЬ metal. Thia’s eyes flew open as, behind her, the garage door crashed down.

      Terrified, she watched more and more things topple from shelves that continued to tremble. Glass jars of nails and screws fell to shatter on the cement floor while a tool chest rattled toward the brink.

      She hadn’t called back the power.

      She’d lost her focus, but was still sending. Oh, God. Forcing her eyes closed again, she struggled for calm as—by the great crashing sound of it—the chest dropped. Her hands made another gesture, this time an inward sweep with thumbs and third fingers touching, before she settled them in her lap in a meditative pose.

      “To me,” she said, fear and frustration turning what should have been an order into a soft-voiced plea. “In me.”

      Gradually she felt the power reverse course, no longer flowing to her hands but from them, back into her bones—where it could remain, as far as she was concerned, for the rest of her days, never to be called upon again.

      As the undirected power dissipated, the shelving settled and she let out a relieved breath.

      She couldn’t ignore the power, she knew, much as she wanted to. Couldn’t hope to let it lie dormant forever. There were people, Otherworldly and otherwise, who would go to great lengths to take it or try to use it through her.

      In the last couple of weeks she had become better at controlling it, so it no longer shot out at unexpected (and invariably destructive) times. But that wasn’t enough. She needed to be able to wield it or she’d remain a danger to everyone.

      She pressed the button on the remote, stepped out of the car as the garage door rattled upward along the tracks. That was something, anyway. Yesterday she’d warped it so badly it had stuck halfway. Still, it was hard to take comfort.

      With cold air rushing in, she crunched over nails and glass shards to where she kept the broom. The last thing the morning needed was a punctured tire. Or four.

      

      Blooms Alley, Granite Springs

      He had come early, cloaked in the mist of wintry dawn, as he had every morning since the prod of magic’s insistent fingers beneath the blanket of his solitude.

      At the time, he had been gathering supplies, stocking up for the cold months ahead. The idea (what he could recall of it) had been based upon the now-failed hope of staying on the mountain until Gwanwyn. Spring. He did not like town.

      But come into it he had, every day since that unexpected prod of the Cailleach’s power.

      Fear had caused him to investigate. Self-preservation, too. Never again would he allow himself to be taken unawares.

      Never again to be taken.

      He shuddered, drew his scarf higher about his face and then quickly returned his hands to his pockets. Several fingers of his gloves lacked tips. Sunlight’s faint warmth did not penetrate the shadows between brick and metal where he had created a rough shelter of cardboard pulled from the same rubbish bin he sat behind. It and the low-level warming charm he had spell-crafted kept away the worst of the cold but not all. Comfort lulled.

      He tensed at the sound of a car.

      Unmistakably hers, with its 1972 motor in need of a tune-up. It parked in its designated spot. Six meters from the back entrance to the store; three from his cobbled together blind. With the opening of its door came the awareness at the base of his skull, much like the sensation of hairs standing on end—although, with his hat pulled low and his scarf wrapped high and tight, that was hardly possible.

      The sensation was false, but the warning was not.

      Power. In great concentration and carrying the all-too-familiar resonance of the Cailleach.

      He listened to the thump of the door’s closing, the light tread of her steps on the asphalt as she approached the store. The sounds of opportunity. In the distance from her car to the store, she was vulnerable.

      The store’s back door opened with the click of a latch and a cheery squeak of hinges. But the woman had not yet crossed the halfway point.

      His senses, already straining against the leash, surged. His hold began to slip.

      “Good morning.” Her voice.

      And then the one with the power. “Zoe, here, let me get that for you.”

      Both neared.

      He held himself rigid, hardly dared to breathe while the bin’s lid lifted. Something landed inside. Cardboard, added to the collection.

      “Thanks, Thia.”

      After the lid was lowered and the sound of their conversation assured him they were headed into the store, he risked a look. He had the merest glimpse before they stepped inside—the woman with the power and her—but it was enough to stagger. It was as if she were lit from within. If he had but one of her smiles, the ones he’d seen her give so freely to others, he would not need a spell-crafted charm to keep warm.

      Less than a minute after the door had closed, it opened again. He knew what was coming. Braced for it. Her steps were quiet. Tentative, despite this not being the first time nor even the fourth. She had been doing this for the past week.

      Paper rustled and she set something down at the bin’s front bottom corner. He would not risk breaking cover to look. Not at it, not at her. Bad enough that he continued to come here day after day.

      Somehow he had decided that her knowing that he spent time in this place was not the same as knowing why. Besides, she didn’t know who—what—he was. She thought he was a transient, someone in need.

      Because she kept leaving him food.

      The door closed. She had gone back inside, and if her routine held, would not come out again until late afternoon. There would be more recycling to drop off. More food. A sandwich and piece of fruit, typically, although yesterday there had been a takeaway container of soup.

      After ten minutes, when he was sure no one watched, he pulled in the paper sack she had left.

      An onion bagel, lightly toasted. The tinfoil covering had failed to keep it hot, but he could fix that. Two packets, a butter and a cream cheese, along with a plastic knife. Two lidded paper cups.

      One held the usual coffee. Its aroma cut through even the thickest of the area’s smells. The other cup was heavier, warmer. He sniffed at the lid’s opening, although he figured if she intended to do him harm, she would have done it before this.

      Probably.

      No. She didn’t have it in her. She was good. Innocent.

      Oatmeal. Surprised, he pried off the lid, tugged down his scarf. He had not had oatmeal in…He could not remember how long. And he would not try. That would mean thinking though the lost time.

      There was a plastic spoon at СКАЧАТЬ