She Walks in Shadows(69)
And then he’d brought her here, to America, where his logic had grown stronger and her own magic had dwindled. Even after he died, she hadn’t found freedom, but had instead been drawn into the mind of the sleeping man in the hospital room next door. An engineer, as it would turn out. She poked at the beetle with a small finger, enjoying its nervous scrabble away. Here in America, everyone was so rational and scientific, their spirits pathetically small. She hadn’t gotten a whiff of magic until this child’s birth.
It had been a stroke of luck, being in the same place as the girl, the first good fortune she had found in centuries. Ever since, she had been soaking up the child’s magic like a tender plant growing in the benevolent warmth of a hothouse. She had found just enough strength to escape the previous mind she’d been trapped in and make her way to the infant, allowing herself to be swallowed up by the tiny, developing brain. Slowly, so slowly, her mind and will unfurled from the years of psychic imprisonment. She could almost taste her freedom — and then she would have this lovely body to enjoy once she crushed the mind inside. If she could only find a bit more magic to draw to herself, the process would go faster.
The tinny thumping of drum and bass distracted her from her pleasant ruminations, and a car pulled to a stop in front of her. She eyed it warily. Green and yellow pennants waved on the dented front bumper and the young men inside nearly overflowed the shabby thing. This was a quiet street, but close enough to three fraternity houses to make the mother of the host child forbid the child from playing here in the front yard. One of the boys leaned out the back window, a brown glass bottle clenched in his hand.
“Hey, nigger!” He tipped back the last of the beer and then lobbed the bottle her way.
She threw up her arm, but the bottle struck her on the forehead hard enough to rock her backward. The bottle bounced off, clinking on the sidewalk. The car revved its engine and then screeched away. Someone inside whooped with delight and the sound sent her arm hairs up in prickles.
Nitocris stared after the car, taking in the red-white-and-blue bumper stickers and the back window full of unintelligible Greek letters. If her husband hadn’t turned to dust five centuries before, she would have begged him to wrap those boys in linen and rub them down in natron. Such hatred! Such feeling! It was nearly as powerful as the fear and hatred her people had once given their gods. These boys were the kind of Americans she’d missed while she was trapped in the skulls of magicians, writers, engineers. Now that she’d tasted it, she realized it surrounded her, energy-rich and delicious as blood. What she’d sucked at beneath the sands of Egypt was nothing compared to this fresh power source.
The screen door banged open. “Baby girl, what are you doing out here? You get away from that street.”
The host child’s mother. The tedious old bag would drag her back into the realm of the swing set and the toy ponies, and Nitocris would be pressed back into the unthinking part of the child’s mind. It was like being bludgeoned to sleep by stupidity. But today, she thought perhaps she wasn’t as bothered by the thought. Today, perhaps sleep would bring rest, recovery, strength. She stretched her awareness after the boys and felt the pulsing throb of distant energy.
“I’m coming, Mom,” she forced herself to answer. She eased the beetle back onto the ground.
The child’s mind fluttered at the edges of consciousness, called by the presence of the mother. The little girl had registered a little of the pain of the bottle striking her head and fear made her fight Nitocris’s control harder than usual. Nitocris had to whip a mental hand across the girl’s awareness. She staggered a little and a hot explosion of pain made Nitocris squeeze shut her eye.
“You’ll pay for that,” she whispered. She grabbed a tiny tendril of her newfound energy and gripped the girl’s will cruelly. An idea struck her. Nitocris forced the girl’s hand back out to the beetle and scooped it from the sidewalk. The girl’s wrist trembled as Nitocris wrestled the creature closer and closer to her face. Nitocris could not restrain a tiny giggle.
The beetle’s legs tickled her lips for a second and then she brought her teeth together in a warm burst of bitter goo. The girl choked and gagged. Panic let her burst out of Nitocris’s control.
“Mommy!” she screamed.
Nitocris slipped into the darkest corner of the girl’s mind. Let the girl rail and cry. Let her know fear. Nitocris was coming for her.
The Queen closed the eyes of her spirit and basked in the knowledge of a new America, ready for her to tap.
THE OPERA SINGER
Priya Sridhar
THE COLD HAD blown in early on Sunday morning, too early for the fall. People shivered in their purple-and-black sweatshirts; so did Circe. She had taken to pushing her wheelchair, as a form of unofficial rehabilitation. She had managed to get it to the music school’s practice buildings this time.
“You can’t practice here,” the security guard said, after Circe’s wheelchair had gotten stuck in the door. “You’re not a student.”
Circe first stood up and got the chair out of the door jam. She then placed her fists on her hips and faced the woman in a pressed khaki uniform. Time had weathered Circe’s dark skin, so that she had permanent circles under her eyes and creased wrinkles streaking her face.
“I’m an employee here,” she said, indicating the ID around her neck. “I was a professor. In vocal training.”