The Circle Girls

Chapter Forty Four

Estella Smith clutched the knife. Head bowed, cheeks wet with tears, she smeared her bleeding fingertips across her dirty bedroom wall. She stumbled a bit with the jeth rune, and with shaking hands she tried to repair the damage. Spit, wet, scrub.

Just a little more...

A boom came from somewhere downstairs. The whole house shook. Estelle flinched, breathing out a half-shriek.

He's coming. He's coming.

Estelle should have known better than to accept a contract against another sorcerer's house, but she had her niece to care for. Fat lot of good it did. The Montgomerys had gone after LaTonya at the first opportunity, then had carved their bloody way through Estelle's sister, then her brother. Even her ex hadn't been spared. Estelle had watched in horror as the infamous Montgomery scion Orion Montgomery—red-eyed with the loss of his lover Theodore—had stormed onto Estelle's porch and delivered Dwayne's head on a spike.

"Get out now," he'd said in a voice thick with rage. Madness had burned feverish in his gaze. "Just as you took everything from me, I will do the same in return."

Orion was a powerful sorceress. Much more powerful than Estelle. It went without saying how a duel would turn out.

"Smith!" Orion screamed from below. "Time's up! Fight me, you bitch!"

Come on, come on, yes!

The final ukuri rune. From that point was only the flourishes, which had always been Estelle's forte. She went with triangles, making her magic circle resemble a mouth ringed with teeth.

Luck seemed to be on Estelle's side. Or bad luck, depending on how one viewed it. Probably bad, given that her entire family line had been slaughtered.

Orion's voice drifted up the stairs, arcane whispers as he summoned his familiar. The whole house started to feel damp, as if rain gathered beneath the ceiling. Estelle shivered, fear clamping her by the neck. The Montgomery family famously called upon the city of Atlantis, and the denizens were nasty creatures of waterlogged nightmares.

Water started to drip from somewhere. Right outside the door. There was a wet slap, then a slide of something slimy and scaled.

Estelle smacked the magic circle. Behind her, the bedroom doorknob turned. Eased open, with a creak. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a filmy eye peer at her through the crack.

A hand punched out from the center of the magic circle. Clawed fingers seized Estelle by the throat, gripping tight enough that she started to choke. Then came another hand, then the shoulders, then the top of a purple-haired head. The hair twisted like octopus limbs, curling around Estelle like an embrace. From beneath a spiky fringe, a pair of pure black eyes stared deep into Estelle's.

Within that gaze, there was the torrid sky of the Empire. A valley. A tower. A throne. And seated there, regal beneath a crown of teeth, was the Empress.

"Contract."

"Yes!" Estelle gasped, as the door behind her slowly creaked. As the Atlantian familiar tumbled over the threshold like blue-tinted jelly. "Yes! I want to kill Orion!"

The Empress sneered, and the Emissary imitated her expression, showing a mouth of startlingly human teeth. There was something doubly disturbing about that, but Estelle was desperate. Panicked.

Belatedly, she realized she should have asked for all the Montgomerys, not just one.

"Deal."

The Emissary's hands released Estelle, reaching past her. To the Atlantian. Buried in purple hair and the scent of smoke, Estelle was unable to see how the Emissary killed Orion's familiar. But she heard it. The teeth, the tearing of flesh, the sloppy sounds of blood—or the Atlantian equivalent—being spilled.

Blind, afraid, she trembled. No longer fearful of the Montgomerys and their murderous, mad scion. But of the Emissary and the Empire, to whom Estelle had foolishly paid her soul.

An hour later, Camillia the Caravossa stood naked before a mirror, scrutinizing Estelle's body. She tested the flex of Estelle's biceps, as well as the limberness of her legs.

"You're in too much a hurry," chastised the Empress, her voice echoing triple through the magic circle. Caravossa could almost see her liege, smirking at her Emissary's eagerness. Not in a kind way, of course, but the Empire had it own interpretation of motherly concern. "The body won't last long if you rush the illumination period."

"Sorry, My Lady, I'm excited." Caravossa went through a few squats, then imitated some punches and kicks. Estelle's body was not as sprightly as she'd have liked, but she could make do. It was nice, at least, not to be confined to a child's figure anymore. An adult's body could accomplish so much more. Granted, there were advantages, too, with looking young and fragile, but the need for subtlety had passed. Now, she required a fresher and stronger vessel, one capable of withstanding excessive and continuous corruption from interdimensional magic.

"You're not planning to fight hand to hand, are you?"

The Emissary stilled, leg outstretched for a reverse roundhouse hook. Slowly, she lowered her foot. Stared at the torn remains of Orion Montgomery, reduced to three, gruesome parts. If she was embarrassed at being caught, she didn't let it show on Estelle's—now, Caravossa's—face. "Of course not, My Lady." The Emissary inclined her head. A half foot of intestine slid off one shoulder, splattering loudly against the floor.

The Empress didn't deign to comment, but Caravossa easily imagined her liege's nose turning up, both amused and disgusted.

"And Caravossa?"

"Yes, My Lady?"

A touch of steel entered the Empress' voice, seeming to make the room darker with its weight. "We aren't in the business of charity."

Ah. Caravossa had hoped the Empress might not notice that slip. She dipped her head again. "Of course."

"There's an order to things. I don't mind what you do for fun, but please have a care to remember why you're in the lower world to start with."

An image flashed through the Emissary's mind. Of teeth planted in rows, open mouths into which the unfortunate were planted like seedlings, their blood used to water the Empress' collection of plants. Debts, all of them. The Empire was a generous bank, offering loans of power to any and all who asked. They were also diligent collectors of interest. Caravossa wouldn't let that reputation wither under her helm.

She bowed, then straightened, "I won't disappoint you, My Lady."

❁

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