OvidLemma

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One of us kept the witch's cardinal on us at all times for the next few days, using the quartopus symbol every few hours to keep the device active - it could hold a charge for about five hours but would start to loose some of its pull a bit into hour four. Maybe it was an exercise in futility and all we were doing was getting really good at the quartopus. But I didn't have any other way to get the ring back, so that was our tactic.

Through Lily's connections, I also arranged to get some old computers and electronics to start a school electronics club - she had to get a new computer for herself, so she just ordered more stuff through 'Technomancy!', a catalog of magic-resistant technology that magically updated itself as stock cycled in and out. A handful of witches specialized in magic-resistant devices, posting them to the catalog as things passed the tried-and-true ten-year mark or trieder-and-truer twelve-year mark. Basically, they bought consumer electronics in bulk kept the things powered off in ward-laden warehouses, and then sold them at eight or ten times the original sticker price ten to twelve years later. Lily was willing to shell out the money, some of it from her own (fairly deep) pockets, because she knew what we were actually requisitioning the electronics for: discovering more witching symbols. Fortunately, computers circa 2009 were pretty decent, and 90% of what we had could be shut down or disabled prior to rendering symbols, so only the computer and monitor displaying the rendered symbol were at real risk to magic-induced blowout, and even then we could repurpose 75% of the parts from the broken units, salvaging them for the real electronics club. We discovered five additional symbols using the following process (*nerdy part below):

1. We'd render the flat 2d image of a generated symbol. Usually, if it was a symbol we were familiar with, we could identify it (though sometimes we wouldn't recognize common symbols if they were at very idiosyncratic rotations, since the computer didn't know any better. If we recognized the symbol, we'd abort before rendering.
2. For symbols we couldn't identify, we'd proceed with the rendering, having the computer play the rotation in simulated 6-7d (3 dimensions, plus rotation, color, aperture, and sometimes density… any dimensions beyond that were too obscure to be useful). If the symbol was useful to magic, it would break the computer within 3-10 seconds, whereas anything else would render indefinitely.
3. We'd try to remember whatever we'd seen, but some of the new symbols were fiendishly complex. We recorded everything on the screen on an old closed circuit camera recording to Betamax… it was so old it could take any magical symbol like a champ and keep on recording.
4. Every new symbol got recorded into a secret book, where we'd note the time, date, and other circumstances of the discovery (e.g. how long it took for the computer to break, which it always would, and whether the monitor also broke, which sometimes didn't happen). We'd also practice the symbol and note what we thought it did, naming it afterward.
5. Finally, the new symbol got transcribed into patterned pulses, saved as a surface, and then uploaded to the master file and randomly distributed to half of the monte carlo sets feeding into the algorithms.

Thus did Bryce, Clayton, and Petersen become the most prolific team of magical symbol-discoverers in centuries… probably of all time. A very junior teacher and two high school seniors. And we couldn't tell a soul about it.

I was learning as much as I'd ever learned in my time as a student, including about electronics. As the faculty sponsor of the electronics club, I was constantly learning new things. Cassie, who served as club captain, knew loads more than I did, and some of the students weren't too far behind her. For instance, Cassie and Cassandra McManus (who went by Sandra, thank the stars) devised a 'dead man's switch' program that would shut off all of a computer's non-essential parts as soon as the computer started to magically brick itself, sparing most of the electronics.

And, all the while, we watched the witch's cardinal, waiting for the needle to pull. It was perhaps three in the afternoon when it finally happened. It was my turn to look after the thing and I had it sitting atop my little filing cabinet while I worked on next week's lesson plans at my desk. I'd just finished Thursday's plan when I heard a little hiss to my left. I froze, taking a moment to process what I'd just heard, before almost falling out of my chair as I scrambled for the cardinal. And there it was, the small gray disk with its etched brass plate and its little gold-foiled needle pointing ramrod straight one or two ticks east of due south.

I threw it in my bag, dashed to my bike (I'd procured one for getting across campus - as busy as I was and as short as my legs were, it was a must), and pedaled down to the gorge, where Cassie was at rock climbing practice. And thank god it was a rock climbing day and not a crew day, because Dr. Clay wouldn't let Cassie miss practice for any reason short of the apocalypse, and even that was iffy.

"Cassie! Cardinal! Cardinal!" I shouted from the top of the gorge.

"Really?" With a delighted smile and fierce eyes, she scrambled up the cliffside faster than I'd thought possible, sending pebbles skittering downward.

"Cassie! For fuck's sake!" Cecilia shouted after her, brushing sand and little rocks out of her hair.

Cassie hauled herself to the top of the gorge and nearly tackled me, grabbing my bag and pulling the cardinal out. "Finally!" she whooped. Then she called down to Mrs. Quince, the faculty sponsor for the club, who was attempting her own ascent along part of the gorge: "Mrs. Quince, it's a school emergency! Can I call it a day?"

"See you on Tuesday, dear!" Mrs. Quince called after her.

Then I biked off to get Simone at the library. That was our deal - we'd all made a pact (a verbal pact, so it was pretty weak, but word is bond) to tell one another and then go together after the ring. It was too risky to go alone. Hell, it turned out to be risky enough with all three of us.

We pulled Simone out of the library, where she was busy drilling Michelle in some intermediate-level symbols, probably for the fifth or sixth time. I loved Michelle like a sister and respected the hell out of her as a gymnast, but she'd be lucky to become an average-caliber witch. Still - not bad for a former little who still looked all of twelve years old! Simone dragged after us, pulling at her school cardigan.

"Guys, this sounds really dangerous… maybe we should get Lily?"

I shook my head. "She's in her weekly administration meeting for another half-hour. We don't have time…"

"But she could help…"

"But she's with Sauvage - no, we're not alerting that witch. We waited a week and a half for this, Simone," Cassie said. "Are you backing out of our pact?"

"Hell no, I'm not backing out of our pact," Simone huffed. "Okay, fine. If you both think this is the right thing to do, let's go get that damn ring."

I nodded. "Off we go." And, as we jogged toward the nearest ley… "Um… but off toward where?"

+++++

The obvious place to go was Lily's sanctuary some two hundred miles to the east… but, depending on how far away the ring was, that might not have given us much to triangulate with. Instead, we elected to travel to Atlanta, where Simone had grown up. Using my two-circle ritual, learned courtesy of Ambrose Nicht, we were able to walk through the ley and onto a street by a fenced-in park just outside of Sandy Springs. We crouched by the roadside, taking measurements and unfolding our big map.

"Hey, you girls need a ride?" a guy in a suburban sporting a big Confederate flag in the back window called out.

"Fuck off," Cassie responded, giving the guy the finger.

"Fuck you, too, you stuck-up cunt!"

Atlanta: not earning favorite city points. But now we were three hundred miles, almost due south. And now our compass needle was pointing south-southeast. With a third point, we could triangulate on the location and, technically, should have: with precise our careful measurements at St. Circe's and Atlanta, there were two possible locations on a globe as to where the ring could be. But I didn't think it was likely to be in the middle of the Indian Ocean… not when the other solution was West Palm Beach… the ring had gone from a sanctuary of the Gangling Men (Or perhaps a gangling man? Did they even have individual stuff?) to my old stomping grounds. And, as we all know, there are no coincidences in magic.

It was no problem to get from Atlanta to West Palm Beach… we just had to walk two blocks to the nearest supermarket and sweet-talk the grocery clerk into letting us have a charcoal briquet. We batted eyelashes at him, promised it was for a school project, and put a little sway in our hips as we left. I'm not proud of it, but it worked. We broke the charcoal up into little bits, walked back to the ley, and repeated the ritual. We came out along Palmetto Street about a kilometer from my old condo… technically, I suppose, still my condo. I'd had enough in savings that I still probably had a positive balance after months of rent and phone bills.

"Oh, wow," Cassie said. "Good call - the cardinal's pointing due East now. We must be close."

Indeed, we had to be close - we'd come out near Lake Mangonia, and it was less than a mile due East before you hit the ocean. Unless they had Lily's ring on a boat (possible, I suppose), we were within walking distance of the place. And we would have to walk, as none of us had phones. Being a witch is great, but boy do I miss Uber. Yup, we'd have to hoof it… or maybe…

"Hey, you girls waitin' for a ride to somewhere?" a lady in a pickup truck called out.

"Hey!" I waved. "Do you know about geocaching?"

"You mean like that Pokémon game?"

"Close! Can you take us toward the beach?"

"If you don't mind sittin' in the back with six bags of sod, I don't!"

We didn't. So we rode in the back of Shelly Smiley's Ford F150 for eight minutes, up until the needle on the witch's cardinal started quickly swinging southward, which meant we were very close to the right spot. I tapped on the roof and Shelly slowed down.

"Looks like our stop!" I said. "Thanks for the ride, Shelly!"

"Y'all girls be safe… Palm Beach is pretty safe and all, but it's not that safe if you get my meaning. Do your parents know you're out?"

"I'm a teacher, actually," I said. "We're on a field trip."

Simone nodded. Cassie giggled.  We hopped out of Shelly's pickup, dusted the sod off our bums, and headed south. Right toward the offices of Kovacs, Garcia & Warner. As in the law firm Cousin Vince was a managing partner in.

"Welp. This just got a lot more interesting."

"You think it's in that building?" Simone asked.

"I know it's in that building. The '& Warner' on the side there is Vincent Warner, my cousin. So… let's see what in the everliving fuck my dear cousin is up to, shall we?"

+++++

I tapped my foot in the elevator, tapping faster and faster. I could have tapped out lumieh - I was tapping just like that, actually. The lights flickered. I probably looked mad as hell - I was mad as hell - but, more than that, I was confused. Was Vince secretly a warlock and somehow I'd never noticed it? How did he even have a sanctuary to hide it in? I'm sure that should have come up in conversation. I glared at the witch's cardinal, watching its needle waver back and forth slightly - the ring moving with the pacing footsteps of a person. I tried to ignore the mellow sounds of Ventura Highway playing over the elevator speakers. The lights flickered again.

"Take calm breaths, Nat." Cassie rubbed my shoulders - which felt good, which made me angrier. "You're going to break the elevator. Deep breaths… in and out."

"I know how to fucking breathe," I said.

"Jesus, girl, you're about to have an aneurysm," Simone said. "Are you going to be able to focus like that?"

"No. No," I said. I took a deep breath. They were right. "We just need to get the ring. It doesn't even matter why it's here. We just need to get it, and then I'll turn Vince into a frog, and then we'll go home."

Cassie rubbed a little lower on my back, strong hands working through the lavender cotton of my blouse. "We'll go home, we'll get diner, we'll find an aquarium for Vince, and the two of us will have a steamy shower. But first we'll get the ring."

The elevator chimed open and I started to storm out. Cassie held me back, whispering in my ear. "Ring now, shower later?"

"Try and stop me."

Vince had a nice new office. I hadn't seen him at work since the end of the trial, but it wasn't hard to find the third-nicest office on the thirteenth floor of the Kovacs, Garcia & Warner law offices. There was a big brassy plaque with an arrow on it pointing to the V. Warner Offices, and our cardinal was pointing in the same direction. Quelle surprise!

"Do you girls have an appointment? Can I get you a cucumber water?" Vince's assistant asked.

"I'm Vince's cousin, and I need to speak with him on family business."

"I'll have a cucumber water," Simone piped in.

She smiled noncommittally, her brow knitting in concern. "If you'll give me a moment, I'll message him and, as soon as he's done with his very important clients, he… miss… miss, you can't go in there."

I stomped toward Vince's office, tiny fists clenched and midi-skirt swishing. Cassie was behind me, still in her gym outfit, boobs barely constrained by her fitness tank, athletic shorts unable to hide the glory of her taut thighs, and Simone brought up the rear in her school cardigan and tartan skirt, lithe mocha legs swishing with purpose. Oh yeah, we looked intimidating, all right. An outright menace. I pounded on the door.

"Vince! What the fuck is going on!" I shouted. Heads popped out of nearby offices - associates and assistants curious as to the disruption. "Vince! I know…" I glanced to the cardinal - it was pointing right inside. "I know about the ring!"

The door swung open. I stormed inside. I gasped. Cousin Vince was seated in his leather chair, his expression somewhere between concern an vexation. And the man who'd just opened the door? He was tall, pale, and dark-clad with a broad-brimmed hat. He smiled a smile with a few too many ivory-yellow teeth.

"What's this about a ring?" he hissed. "Mister Warner… do you know these girls."

"I've never seen them before, Dr. Heirophant," Vince said. He looked toward Cassie, squinting - perhaps hoping to find some remnant of the former Martin Warner in there. Good luck! "Are you… are you girls skipping school?"

"I… um… maybe?" I said, giving Dr. Heirophant a good look. He was the Gangling Man who'd unmanned me at Dr. Sauvage's instruction, plucking the old bait and tackle right out of my otherwise-feminine abdomen and somehow, thankfully, swapping it out for the womanly equipment I've greatly enjoyed ever since. "I… uh…" I didn't want to fight a Gangling Man… didn't even know if we could fight them.

Simone pushed the door shut with her foot. Nobody said anything for about two interminable seconds. And then Cassie grabbed a law book and slammed it into Heirophant's face - an unorthodox opening move, but it certainly captured the element of surprise. Unfortunately, it didn't do much aside from making Cousin Vince duck behind his desk and Simone scream… when Heirophant turned back toward us, his face was strange and misshapen, but no trickle of blood oozed from it. He reached up to his nose and straightened it with a little click.

His unnerving, yellowed grin returned. "Three little witches," he said, his focus drawn to the cardinal. "And what an interesting device. I wonder what it does?"

And, at that moment, I knew that we couldn't let him leave Vince's office - even if we somehow got him to relinquish the ring, it wouldn't matter. He'd know we'd engaged in forbidden learning, and then the coven would be forced to turn us over or else reveal that the contract obligating them to do so had been a sham for decades. It didn't take the baddest little witch at St. Circe's to guess which they'd do, but I'll give you a hint: when the whole coven was at stake, we three weren't worth it, prophecy or not. Cassie went to clobber him again, and Heirophant thumped her against the bookshelf with a magical pulse, books tumbling down in an avalanche of legalese.

Heirophant reached his finger out, and it elongated, sharp and thin and about a foot long, very close to a foot long and growing. Slowly, he stretched it out toward Cassie, extending toward her chest, and then extending into her chest with a razor-sharp nail… but he only got a centimeter or so in, because Simone used a symbol pair - one of our forbidden symbols in conjunction with halepha - to reverse the spell pinioning Cassie to the bookshelf. The reversed force shot Heirophant back into Vince's teak desk with a crack, his head swinging way back and cracking against Vince's computer monitor, his broad-brimmed hat toppling right off. But he bounced back quickly, seemingly unaffected by the impact, his eyes dark and beady and staring gleeful death at Simone.

"The naughty witches must learn their place!" He pushed out again, each hand flickering out symbols and pressing both Cassie and Simone against the wall… but he was ignoring me for the moment…

As I prepared my own magical salvo - one that Heirophant would, no doubt, quickly recover from, I noticed the symbol atop his head. With his broad-brimmed had knocked off, it had revealed a completely bald head deeply-inscribed (probably right down to the skull) with a glowing blue symbol… one of the forbidden symbols. I knew what I had to do, and I had to act fast - Heirophant's razor-sharp fingers reached toward my friends, pricking through Simone's cardigan and about to make a second go at the oozing wound on Cassie's sternum. Simone cried out. Cassie winced, tears dribbling down her cheeks.

My palm slapped against Heirophant's bald head and my finger traced out the anti-symbol - as anybody who's studied defensive magic knows, every magical symbol contains within it the seeds of its own negation, provided you understand that shape in fullness. And, since we'd all been practicing the new symbols for the past week - this one was a strange and looping thing that took a very practiced touch - I understood it pretty well. It was a new symbol, but I'd practiced an awful lot. And with a flash of magic and a mini-thunderclap that sent yet more books tumbling from the shelves, Heirophant collapsed into a pile of pale rags… hundreds of bone-white, washcloth-sized rags and a black, broad-brimmed hat. Nothing else.

Cassie fell to her feet, clutching at the twin wounds on her chest. Simone sprawled to the floor, weeping atop a pile of disturbed law books, and Vince popped up from behind his desk, taking in the scene. He looked to me, squinting.

"M… Martin?"

"I go by Natalie now," I said. "Now… cuz… where the fuck is my goddamn ring?"

With a shaking hand, Vince pointed at the pile of rags. Sure enough, a quick rifle through the pile revealed Lily's ring, pinkish gold with a dark crystal at the center and a tiny clear crystal ensconced within that. I slipped it onto my finger, and something that I hadn't even known had felt off rectified itself, slotting into place. I sighed in relief - I'd been in violation of some sort of contract (with Lily?) ever since I'd lost the ring, and recovering it released the onus of control owed to her - kudos to Lily for never calling to collect on it. Then building security busted into Vince's office.

+++++

Fortunately, Vince had a silver tongue. So do I for that matter - a fact that I often forget, but which explains how I usually get my way when I probably shouldn't. While a silver tongue won't do the impossible - it's not mind control - if a person has even the slightest inkling to find themselves agreeing with you, your honeyed words will nudge them in the right direction until they find themselves acquiescing to a request they might otherwise find outlandish. This gift had cost me before, earning me an eternal claim to vendetta by the Bryce men, but it came in handy more often than not. So, too with Vince's gift.

When the security guys came in, we witches were crammed in Vince's small (but fancy!) in-office bathroom, hiding in the recessed shower stall. Simone's dense corona of hair pressed right into my face, just floofy enough to scratch and tickle without muffling me, and I was smooshed against Cassie, too, her sweat-smelling, blood-streaked boobs pressed into the side of my head in a manner far more uncomfortable and less erotic than I thought pert H-cup wonders were capable of being. Through the ear that wasn't being smooshed with sweaty boob, I could hear Vince placating the security guys:

"I have no idea," he said. "Protesters of some sort, I gather… very unhappy about some sort of verdict, I guess? They threw these rags all over my floor, threw a bunch of books off the shelf, and climbed out the window. No actual damage, thank god."

"They climbed out the thirteenth-floor window, sir?" the head security guy asked.

"It sure looks that way. They didn't fucking disappear, did they?"

"What about the damage to your monitor?"

"Oh… this?" Vince said. "It was already like this. Nothing to do with the commotion, I'm afraid."

"Do you mind if we look around, Mister Warner?"

"Yes I fucking mind. I've got trials to prepare for. Go fetch somebody to tidy the books up, will you?"

"Sure thing, Mister Warner. Let us know if you have any other security problems."

"I'll be sure to," Vince said.

As soon as the security guys were gone, I extricated myself from our shower stall jumble and stormed back out, first glaring at Vince and then searching through the rag pile for anything else of interest in there. As I did, I looked up to him, none too happy to find that his gaze had been glued onto my backside as I searched - I was his cousin, damnit! As soon as I looked up, he looked away, blushing slightly. Nothing else but rags in the pile.

"So, cuz," I said, smiling sweetly. "Would you mind telling me what the fuck you were doing with the people who turned me into a girl and back again… the guys who I'm pretty sure are going to want to kill me if they haven't decided to do so already? Now… you're three down, bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, Vince. You really don't want to strike out here… what were you doing with Dr. Heirophant?"

"You're really Martin? Jesus…" Vince shook his head. "Fine. Fuck it, I'll tell you, but you're probably not going to believe me…"

I crossed my arms and looked him in the eye. "You're a convincing guy. Try us."

OvidLemma

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