Page 23 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

“But it didn’t,” I guessed flatly.

“Never could have. Tommy, he was …” Mary stopped, and smiled a small, sad smile. It was impossible to look at her and not be reminded that she’d known him when he was young, with his entire future ahead of him. When he’d been Thomas Price, Covenant man, and not my grandfather. Finally, she said, “He was stubborn. They laid a labyrinth at his feet, and he fought every step to keep from going around the next corner. When he finally ran out of room to run, when he finally paid what they’d been asking all along, well. The crossroads had never meant to sink that much power into him. They’d been expecting an easy kill. They hated him for what he did, and they’ve hated the rest of your family ever since.”

“Which, I suppose, is all by way of saying I’d better watch my ass,” I said.

“No.” Her tone was fierce enough to make me stop and straighten. She glared at me. “You’ve already failed to watch your ass. You didn’t watch it, and you didn’t let me watch it, and now you’re in up to your neck. Screw watching your ass. Now is when you start listening. Now is when you do as you’re told. Even if you don’t want to, now is when you listen, because otherwise—”

Mary stopped mid-sentence, mouth opening and closing soundlessly. No: not quite soundlessly. She raised a hand to her throat, clutching at it and making a faint choking noise. Then she burst like a smoke-filled balloon, leaving a thick mist hanging in the air for a single terrible moment before the wind carried it away.

“She really needs to learn when to stop talking,” said an unfamiliar voice.

I turned. A teenage girl was leaning against the porch rail, brown hair pulled high into a ponytail, eyes as cold and mercurial as midnight in the desert, as the road that runs past a deserted graveyard. She was wearing a red-and-gold letter jacket over a pleated red skirt and a gold sweater; matching ribbons were tied in her hair. Something about them looked wet and bloody in the porchlight.

I know a cheerleader when I see one; we recognize our own kind. And I know when we’re not cheering for the same team. I balled my hands into fists against my knees, swallowing the urge to jump to my feet and demand answers. That would be a bad idea just now. I could already tell.

“Where’s Mary?” I asked.

“Our mutual employers called her back to remind her who she works for, and who she works against,” said the girl. She pushed away from the railing, walking languidly toward me. “My name’s Bethany. I’m your new caseworker, for lack of a better term.”

There was something old-fashioned in the way Mary shaped her vowels, easily dismissed as a regional accent if you hadn’t spent time around people from her generation, all of whom seemed to have the same softness in their “a”s, the same roundness in their “o”s. Bethany didn’t have that accent. Bethany sounded like she was my age, or close enough to it as to make no real difference.

Bethany was also very, very dead. Her eyes alone were enough to tell me that.

“Give her back.” Now I did stand, and was gratified to find that I had a few inches on the dead girl. If all else failed, I could punch the ghost a few times to make myself feel better.

“Oh, she’ll be fine, once she remembers her place,” said Bethany. “Mary-Mary, quite contrary, has a longer leash than most of us are allowed. Loopholes. It’s always loopholes with you people. I say ‘you people,’ but I don’t mean you in specific, Antimony Timpani Price, sorcerer, debtor. The crossroads gave you everything you asked for, and all they asked in return was a favor to be performed later, when the time was right. I assume you remember?”

“I don’t think I could forget if I wanted to.”

“Good,” said Bethany, and she smiled—the sweet, serene smile of someone who actually enjoyed her job. “The crossroads are ready to call in your debt. Once your task has been performed, they’ll return the fire they borrowed from your fingers, and you’ll owe them nothing more. You’ll be free. You can make another bargain or never speak to them again, whatever you prefer. Won’t that be nice?”

“That’ll be swell, which means there’s a catch for sure,” I said warily. “What do the crossroads want me to do?”

“Nothing major. Just find out what the sorcerer James Smith knows—how much he’s been able to learn, and from what sources, and how—and then kill him.”

“What? I’m not going to kill someone! That wasn’t the deal.”

“That was precisely the deal. One favor. Whatever the crossroads need. And they need the boy dead. I don’t understand why this is a problem. You’re a Price. I know about you. Killing is basically why you exist.” Bethany smiled, cold but not cruel, like a single human life held literally no value to her.

And maybe it didn’t. Mary had always cautioned us against talking to other crossroads ghosts, although she’d never been willing to tell us exactly why it was a bad idea. I’d always sort of assumed she didn’t want to risk someone else figuring out the right combination of terrible suggestions that would convince us to make a crossroads bargain. But what if it was simpler than that? What if the fact that she had a living family to care for and look after had been enough to keep her from losing track of her own humanity? She’d been dead for a long time. She still loved the living. That was more than could be said for a lot of ghosts.

“Well?” said Bethany. “Time’s wasting. Make your choice.”

If the crossroads wanted James Smith dead, that meant he was onto something. That meant he was probably at least a little bit right. And if he was at least a little bit right …

“I know what I have to do,” I said.

“Good girl.” Bethany smiled. “Remember, we need to know how he’s learned these things. Be his friend. Make him trust you. we’ll be watching.”

Then she was gone. I waited, counting slowly to one hundred. Mary didn’t come back. Dully, I realized she might not be coming back. Maybe that weird, rambling story about my grandfather had been the last warning I was ever going to get from her.

Until that moment, standing alone in the dark, I hadn’t really felt like I was doing this without my family. They were distant, yes. I couldn’t call them or ask them to support me. But if I’d died in Lowryland, or somewhere out there on the road, Mary would have made sure that they knew.

I could call for Rose. She’d come, if she could. It wouldn’t be the same. I was suddenly aware of the tears rolling down my cheeks. I swiped them fiercely away. No. I was a Price. I was a derby girl. I wasn’t going to cry over this.

I was going to kick its ass.

I turned and stalked back into the house, letting the door slam behind me. The others were still in the dining room. All of them turned at my arrival, James and Fern looking relieved, Sam and Cylia looking neutral. Well, that told me who the good cop-bad cop pairing had been.