Page 71 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

He took a careful sip of his coffee, savoring it, before he said, “You are always welcome in the arms of the Covenant. You know that. I’m even willing to spare—”

“Okay, I’m going to stop you right there, because you can’t help us if I’m busy stabbing you,” I said. “I’m not coming back. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. I am not your good little Covenant girl, and I’m never going to be. I hate you. I hate everything you stand for. All your ideals, all your ideas about what this world is supposed to be, everything. It’s vile. It’s disgusting. It’s archaic, and not in the fun Renaissance Faire kind of way.”

Leonard narrowed his eyes. “I see. Well, then. If I’m so revolting to you, why are you here?”

“I could say it was because I wanted a cup of coffee, but we both know I’d be lying.” As if the desire for caffeine could have lured me out into the open with Bethany still lurking around, ready to deliver another “reminder” of my duty to the crossroads. “Do you know what the crossroads are?”

His lip curled in clear disgust. “Witchcraft.”

“Not quite, and since you’re using a tracking charm to follow me, I’m not sure you get to complain about honest witchcraft right now.” I picked up my own coffee, turning the mug between my hands. The heat seeping through the ceramic was soothing, like it was slipping the fire back into my fingers a little bit at a time. “I’m guessing you know what they are, though.”

“Foul places, used for the making of the devil’s bargains.”

I didn’t bother to swallow my sigh. “If you’re going to be like this, we may as well call this finished right now. I need to talk to you, not feed you quarters so you can spit out excerpts from the Covenant training manual like some sort of fucked-up vending machine. Will you listen?”

There was a long, dangerous pause as Leonard considered his options. I stiffened, waiting to see which way he was going to go.

There was no way he’d managed to conceal a crossbow on himself. That was good. But there are a lot of weapons smaller than a crossbow, and he could be carrying any number of them. I, on the other hand, was not, for James’ safety: I’d have to improvise, which meant smashing a lot of innocent furniture. If he decided we were done talking and it was time for him to attack me, we could destroy this place. That would attract attention. Win, lose, or draw, I’d have a lot of problems if he turned this physical, and that would complicate getting James down to the crossroads to sort things out.

“All right,” he said finally. “I’m listening.”

“You have access to the Covenant library. Have you ever really looked at the history surrounding the crossroads?”

“I did a research project when I was in primary school.” He said it so calmly, so reasonably, that it made me want to laugh until I cried.

What would the world have been like if my ancestors had been able to make the Covenant see sense about changing their tactics, about learning to live with the cryptids and yōkai and ghosts instead of working to destroy them at every turn? I could have grown up doing school reports about things I actually cared about, rather than pretending I thought Christopher Columbus was a good man and not a colonialist bastard. I could have been so much more prepared.

We build our presents on the ruins of our pasts, and we hope the foundations we construct from the dust of bad ideas and painful choices will be strong enough to hold up our futures. They have to be.

“So you know the crossroads changed in the 1400s,” I said, like there was no question of his knowledge. It was out there to know: he’d done his research: of course he knew it. I wasn’t challenging his authority, not at all, only reminding him of something that anyone who’d bothered to open a book would have seen.

Leonard blinked. “Er,” he said. “Yes.”

Of course he hadn’t known. The Covenant wrote things down, but they didn’t care about the reasons those things happened, or what they’d been before they turned hostile. That was why the Covenant had been able to become such a force for destruction, and why they’d always been doomed to stagnate and fail. If you don’t understand what you’re trying to fight against, you’re inevitably going to be defeated.

“James—the local man you’ve seen me talking to—found a way to undo that change. The crossroads used to be a natural thing.”

“Nothing that encourages good men to make deals with devils can be natural.”

I rolled my eyes. “There we go again. Okay, look, no. Whatever the crossroads were when they started, they were created in this world, by this world, to be a part of this world. They’re supposed to be here. Maybe they’re the noosphere’s nervous system, or maybe they’re a pressure valve for all the little, unavoidable magic that builds up around living creatures, or maybe they’re a big cosmic zit. Whatever. They’re natural. The world would suffer if we destroyed them.” I wasn’t entirely confident about that last part—most people get by just fine without ever going down to the crossroads—but I didn’t want to give Leonard the idea that we could, or would, destroy the crossroads completely. Mary wouldn’t survive losing the source of her tether to this world.

Was I willing to risk actual, living people for the sake of saving my phantom babysitter?

Hell, yes, I was, and anyone with a heart would have done the same thing.

Leonard frowned. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying the malicious ‘I want to kill your cattle and eat your firstborn because I’m an evil entity from beyond time and space’ crossroads we all know and hate aren’t natural. They’re some kind of parasite that’s managed to take over the space the real crossroads are supposed to occupy. If we can get to them without being stopped, we can hurt them. Maybe even kill them. The real crossroads, the one that doesn’t eat people, comes back. You look like a hero for being there when it went down. Hell, you go back to England and take all the credit. Now you’ve proven yourself. You went to America to recover an agent, and you fixed a problem that’s been plaguing people for centuries. Gold star you, pat yourself on the back, and never darken my door again.”

“It’s not possible.” Leonard put his coffee cup down, the better to gesture vaguely with both hands. “If the crossroads could be destroyed—or even rendered less dangerous—we would have done it centuries ago.”

“Except no, because you’d have to be willing to work with people, not against them,” I said. “We have a plan. It requires a sorcerer, a crossroads ghost, and someone the crossroads believe they have a hold over. Can you honestly say the Covenant would be able to put together the same kind of group?”

Silence.

“I didn’t think so. We have a plan and we have a team, and now we need you.”

“Me?” Leonard sat up a little straighter. “What do you want from me?”