Memory of Fire Read online

  "Northwest would correspond with Rockingham," Eric interrupted.

  "More or less," June Bug agreed, "but we're going to have a hell of a time tracking down the source. Whoever cast these spells knows exactly what he's doing, and exactly how to bypass my tracking."

  "Which would mean a turned Sentinel," Willie Locklear said.

  "That's one possibility," Eric agreed, and now he understood the anger in June Bug's voice. It was the most likely possibility. One of their own was working against them. One of their own had forsworn himself and cast a spell that would wipe out much of the world, and he knew it, and had hidden his tracks because he didn't care whether the world died or not.

  "One of us?" Nancine asked. Eric could hear the anguish in her voice. "One of us in this room?"

  Eric was trying to stay calm. "Not necessarily one of ours. Maybe someone gone rogue from another nexus and moved into our territory to keep out of sight a bit longer. Maybe a civilian who found a gate and went through it and somehow figured out the finer points of spellcasting." Though that sounded thin even to him. "Maybe one of the Old Gods set up shop in the area."

  There were groans around the room at the thought of having to deal with the Old Gods—the Sentinels' only-half-joking term for Earth's upworlders, who on Earth wielded the same powers that humans wielded in Oria. Dealing with the Old Gods could be an ordeal under the best of circumstances.

  "And maybe," June Bug said softly, "it's one of us in this room. Let's not pretend."

  "Let's not," Eric agreed. "Let's simply eliminate ourselves as a possible source of the problem. Then we'll all be able to work together without thinking one of us is a genocidal monster. We'll go back into Oria, do a reveal spell, and see if any of us have been doing magic on the side."

  "Guilty until proven innocent," Terry Mayhew muttered.

  Everyone looked at him with narrowed eyes, and Eric said, "Mayhem, this isn't the time to ask for your Miranda rights. Our responsibility is to protect the civilians and our world, and our rights are secondary when either civilians or Earth is threatened. You know that. You knew it when you took your oath."

  "I was just joking," Terry said.

  "No one was laughing," Willie said.

  Terry's cheeks went red.

  "We all go through, then," Eric said.

  "What about the ones who aren't back yet? Bethellen and Louisa and Jimmy and Tom?"

  "They go through as soon as they show up," Eric said. "We do reveals on them, too. I'd rather have everyone here at the same time, but this won't wait. We have work to do, and we have to know we can trust each other."

  "And who casts the reveal spell?" June Bug wanted to know.

  Eric frowned and considered. "Willie Locklear does first cast. Granger does second. I do third. That suit everyone?"

  "Three reveals?"

  "To prevent a traitor from failing to reveal his own complicity."

  "And if all three of you are in on it together?" June Bug asked, and that rage was still in her voice.

  "You want to do a reveal, too?"

  "Yes."

  "Fine. In fact, since you're the one who uncovered the rebound breakthrough, you do first cast. Rest of the cast order remains the same. Ernest, you're in charge of keeping the spells locked down—I don't want us adding to the rebound problem. And Nancine, I want you to keep the clock running. We need to make our impact as small and fast as possible. Those who are casting reveals, make sure you have the whole of the spell in your head before we go through, and don't add any flourishes. Keep it small and tight and precise. Make allowances for the magic Ernest is using to cast his pipeline, and the magic that Nancine is casting to maintain our clock, and that's it—no allowances for anything else. You have five minutes for prep, and a minute apiece to cast when we go through. We're going to run without shields or perimeter guards this time—we'll let the standing protections around the circle suffice. I don't want any extra spells contaminating the read. And I want us back out of there in five minutes." He glanced from June Bug to Willie to Granger. "Got it?"

  They nodded. Everyone in the room sat quietly, waiting. Eric, who kept a reveal spell prepared in the back of his mind at all times, just in case, used the prep time to watch his colleagues. He didn't see any clear signs of guilt. They all looked scared, they all looked nervous, they all looked like they wanted to run away, but since he was scared and nervous and wishing he was in another universe, too, he couldn't take any of those things as indications of guilt.

  Willie spoke first. "My reveal will show surreptitious trace magic as a red glow."

  June Bug was ready next. "My spell will circle traitors with a ring of fire."

  "Nonlethal," Eric said.

  "If you insist."

  "I insist."

  June Bug shrugged.

  Granger laughed a nervous laugh. "My approach will be self-explanatory if we have a guilty party."

  Eric said, "Nothing lethal."

  "No."

  "That's fine, then." He nodded. "Mine will be self-explanatory, as well. Let's go."

  For the second time that day, they moved through the gate into the clearing in Oria. Without shields, the wind cut into them, and the cold shot straight to their bones. This time they stood facing inward, a tight cluster of men and women who shared a single unhappy expression. Willie let the gate shut. Nancine cast the clock, and Ernest created the pipeline through which each reveal spell would be channeled and controlled.

  June Bug cast the first reveal. "Seek trace, seek hiding, seek revision. Reveal."

  Eric watched for jumpiness, for people staring at their own feet—and everyone checked their own feet first, then looked at everyone else's, and he only barely managed to keep himself from swearing. He knew they weren't all traitors—but human nature being what it was, the guilty would check to see if they'd been found out, and the innocent would check to be sure they had not been wrongly accused.

  But no fires sprang up around anyone.

  He watched the clock—the spell ran its course, and he said, "Satisfied, June Bug?"

  She only said, "One down, three to go."

  "My turn," Willie said. He closed his eyes, and Eric could feel the first movements of his spell before he spoke a word. And the only word Willie spoke was, "Reveal."

  Eric had no idea what Willie's spell was doing. He had never been able to catch the shape of the gateweaver's magic—and had he been able to, he supposed he would have been able to see the subtle lines of force that ran through the universes, connecting them, and then he would have been a gateweaver too.

  Willie's spell took the form of a ghostly man who walked from Sentinel to Sentinel. He stopped in front of each, rested his hand on the forehead, and stared into his subject's eyes. When he reached Eric and that clammy, weightless hand settled on his forehead and those nightmarish dead eyes stared into his, the hair on Eric's arms and the back of his neck stood up, and his mouth went dry. The phantasm looked right into his brain—and then it moved on, taking the terror it had instilled with it.

  Good Lord, Eric thought. Willie had a dark side, didn't he? That had been terrifying. But, looking around the ring, no one was glowing red.

  Granger was next. "Follow threads northwest, high-speed run, bring back fingerprints. Reveal."

  Eric was just able to catch the shape of the spell Granger had cast. It was elegant—a lean and clever greyhound to the lumbering bloodhound he held in reserve. It raced off, raced back, and zipped around the ring of Sentinels with astonishing speed and economy. Eric had been responsible for bringing Granger and Debora in from the main Canadian nexus in Ontario; he'd taken a lot of heat at the time for opening up the ranks of the tightly knit and mostly hereditary Cat Creek Sentinels to strangers and foreigners. But he was learning a hell of a lot about other approaches to magic from the two of them, and the other Sentinels had finally accepted them. He just hoped he hadn't brought traitors into the nexus.

  He felt three rushes of warmth from Granger's spell, b
ut he could see no visible change in himself, or in anyone else. When Granger's minute was up, he gave Eric a relieved smile. "All clear."

  Three down. Only his reveal remained—but he wasn't going to try to track the magic to its maker. He was looking for something else entirely. He was looking for guilt.

  The parameters were clearly defined in his mind—he wanted the spell to check each Sentinel in turn, force from his thoughts any connection with the disaster that was being born in Rockingham, and make the guilty party confess guilt in front of the rest of the Sentinels.

  With his star pressed tight against his palm, he focused his intent, cleared his thoughts of everything but the single purpose of his spell, and said, "Guilt, confess, reveal."

  A tiny star of the pale green fire that was the magic of Oria flickered to life. It moved to the Sentinel on Eric's immediate right, Nancine Tubbs, and settled above her head. Her eyes went wide, and she looked terrified, and the next instant her mouth opened, and she said, "I'm guilty," and Eric felt his heart lurch.

  But her next words had nothing to do with spellcasting, illicit magic, or betraying the Sentinels. Instead, she said, "I slept with Deever Duncan seven years after Ernest and I got married—we had an affair for almost a year. We'd get together when I'd run down to the hardware store to pick up parts for Ernest when he was on a job, or when Deever would come by the shop to pick up flowers for his wife. There's been more than flowers in that cooler."

  Deever's face went a dull, beefy red that didn't bode well for his blood pressure, and he was dragging his fingers through the combed-over hair on the top of his head, making it look more than ever like an oily spider perched on his bare scalp. Ernest, on the other hand, clenched his big hands into white-knuckled fists and lowered his head, like a bull ready to charge. His eyes threatened Deever with slow and painful death.

  Eric thought, This isn't right. The spell can't possibly be doing this. I focused on the rebound breakthrough, on Rockingham, on deaths that would wipe out half of humanity. The focus was as narrow as I could make it. Nancine's affair has nothing to do with any of that—not even remotely. He forced his mind to calm, and sent the spell a tight, clear redirection.

  It lifted from Nancine's head, and she shuddered. "I fixed it," Eric said, and the spell-light moved right again, to Granger. But when it settled over Granger's head, and Granger said, "I'm guilty," Eric's stomach lurched. And Granger's next words confirmed his fears. "Back in college," Granger said, "I had a one-night stand with a girl who later told me that she was pregnant, and that the baby was mine. She wanted me to marry her, but rather than marry her, I gave her money for an abortion. I heard later that she really was pregnant, and that she'd kept the baby, but I've never looked her up to see if it was true, or if the baby really was mine." His face was gray when the light moved away from him.

  Eric said, "Something is wrong with the spell. Something about it has gone haywire. It's only supposed to be looking for guilt related to the rebound breakthrough."

  The rest of the Sentinels were glaring at him.

  The spell came to rest over Ernest Tubbs's head, and in Ernest's eyes, Eric saw pure panic. What dirty little secret had he been hiding from Nancine that was now going to be dumped in front of all of them? Sweaty sex with someone they all knew?

  Eric didn't want to know. He didn't need to know.

  "Stop," he said, and the spell froze in midair, then rebounded to him. He took the hit alone, buffering the whole thing himself. It slammed into him, and he found himself blurting out, "I'm guilty. When I was in high school, I used marijuana and I inhaled. And I was the one who took Willie Locklear's car for a joyride when I was fourteen and wrecked it in the ditch on Railroad Street. And Janie Thompson and I broke into the high school with a bottle of Jack Daniel's and a blanket when we were both seniors and we had sex on the auditorium stage, and then on top of Mrs. McCormick's desk. And I didn't report all of my cash income on my income taxes two years ago—I got a gift of two thousand dollars from my aunt up in High Point and I didn't say a thing. And I lusted after Mrs. Brandt in the ninth grade, and I put my hand up Shannon Breeley's blouse in seventh grade and…"

  At that point, the spell finally ran out of energy, and Eric collapsed to the hard ground, with sweat pouring down his face in spite of the freezing temperatures and icy wind in the clearing, and he vomited.

  The horrified silence following Eric's outburst was thick enough to cut with a chain saw. Then George Mercer, ever the accountant, cleared his throat and said, "You don't need to feel guilty about not reporting that gift from your aunt. It was within the allowable limits for gifts, so it didn't count as income that year."

  "And I knew about you and my car," Willie said, and Eric could hear the faintest hint of humor in his voice. "I've known about that for years."

  The rest of the Sentinels, however, were still stunned to silence. Terry managed to croak, "Thank God it didn't reach me." At that, Eric heard a few nervous chuckles.

  "If we'd had to listen to your confession of tawdry sex with married women, we would have been here all day, hey, Mayhem?" June Bug said, but even she, who Eric would have sworn had never thought a corrupt thought in her life, looked desperately relieved that the spell hadn't reached her.

  "The spell wasn't supposed to do that," Eric said again. "Something went wrong with it."

  June Bug was looking at him with suddenly wary eyes. She dropped her mirror, bent down with old-woman creakiness, and splayed the fingers of one hand on the frozen ground while she picked it up with the other. Eric caught the faintest flicker of light from the mirror; then June Bug was shoving herself to her feet again, grunting softly. "You just screwed up, Eric. Can happen to anyone, even you." She looked straight into his eyes when she said it, though, and suddenly he was sure that she had found something, but that it wasn't something she was willing to admit to finding with the rest of the Sentinels present.

  He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, got weakly to his feet, and nodded. "I'm sorry. All of you—I'm truly sorry."

  He glanced at Nancine, who was crying, and at Ernest, who had an arm around her round shoulders and was telling her it was okay, these things sometimes happened, but he forgave her if she just promised that she'd never stray again, and he thought, Who would have come crawling out of your closet, Ernest?

  "None of us, then," Debora said with a shaky smile.

  "None of us," Eric agreed. "So let's go home."

  They started back through the gate, and somehow Terry managed to wait so that he and Eric and Willie were the last three in Oria. Terry turned to Eric and said, "On Mrs. McCormick's desk. She would have had a heart attack if she knew. She used to wipe off the classroom doorknob with alcohol before she'd even open the door."

  "I know," Eric said. "That's why we used her desk. I had her for algebra and geometry, and I couldn't stand her."

  Terry said, "That was genuinely funny."

  Eric looked at him sidelong, and said, "You think so? And what funny stories would you have told?"

  Terry's smile looked a little strained. "They don't call me Mayhem for nothing."

  * * *

  June Bug had her mirror out when Eric went through the gate, and was studying something she saw within it. When he stepped through, she waved him over.

  "What do you have?"

  Her shoulders lifted and dropped. "Just little tracks and traces around Rockingham. Here—look." She held the mirror up for him to see, and at the same time kicked him sharply in the shin.

  "Ow," he muttered, and looked into the mirror. The image glowing in the reflection was nowhere near Rockingham. It was, in fact, the circle he and the rest of the Sentinels had just left. He said nothing, simply waiting.

  "Note the black areas here…and here…and here?" she asked him. She set the mirror's image racing along the perimeter of the circle, and he saw precise, geometric, diamond-shaped dead areas in what should have been a smooth, even green glow.

  Places where magic had been…blanke
d. Negated. Where the ambient current had been channeled to swallow magic, or subvert it, or…

  "That's not good," Eric whispered.

  June Bug eyed him steadily. "No."

  Those diamonds marked the spots—exactly the spots—where each of the Sentinels had stood during the reveals. He'd been standing on a diamond, June Bug had, Debora had, Willie had…They all had.

  Not good at all.

  The utter awfulness of that started sinking in on him. Those black, dead spots couldn't have been placed there prior to the Sentinels' arrival in the clearing—their placement was far too exact, and there was only one for each of the Sentinels who had been there, with none extra for those who were still absent.