Worlds Without End by Caroline Spector Read Free Book Online

reality, being sound asleep one moment and wide-awake the next. A tingling started at the nape of my neck and worked its way up my skull.
    Pushing the plastic shade up, I peered out the window. There was nothing but thick gray and white clouds like the smoke of burning leaves. I struggled against the effects of the Veil. The clouds tried to form themselves into shapes. What part of my subconscious was being dredged up? I didn’t want to know and pulled the shade down with a snap. We’d be on the ground in half an hour. I could hold out against the effects until then.
    “Pretty potent stuff.” said Caimbeul. “The Veil. It makes me wish they would use some other sort of protection.”
    I shoved a hand through my hair. It was virtually gone now. After centuries of having it long, I’d finally cut it all off. All that was left were spiky white sprouts about an inch and a half long. My head felt smooth and cool under my fingers.
    “Too potent.” I said. “They’re only aggravating things.”
    “You’ve said that every time anyone’s used magic on any scale.”
    I didn’t answer him, knowing that we’d just run over the same ground again. The engines whined and I felt the thump as the landing gear lowered. Then I shoved the shade up again. We broke through the clouds and I could see buildings below us. From here everything looked small and not at all real. Up here we were still safe.
    I closed my eyes then, breathing slowly and deeply to relax myself. I had my usual landing death-grip on the chair arms. Blowing up in a ball of fire was not the way I wanted to end my unnatural life. My ears popped several times and I opened and closed my mouth to help. Then I felt it.
    The smooth calluses and the suede glide of Caimbeul’s hand closing over mine. I didn’t pull away. It was too comforting and familiar. I kept my eyes closed, not wanting to see when we burst into a huge ball of fire.
    There was a sudden bounce and we were on the ground. Caimbeul’s hand disappeared and I was left with only the memory of his warm touch.
    * * *
    Once, years ago, I lived in the United States.
    I’d come to America during the eighteen-hundreds when news that the Sioux were using ritual magic drifted across the Atlantic to the fashionable parlors I frequented then. It was a topic of much conversation for a few months, until other, more interesting scandals pushed their way into idle gossip.
    But I knew the Sioux were playing with dangerous mojo.
    The reports told of self-mutilation to help the magic. Blood magic. It was too early for that sort of thing—unless they’d found a place of power. They were playing with forces they couldn’t understand and wouldn’t be able to control, even if by some freak chance they did work.
    I booked passage on the next available steamer and was making my way west in a matter of weeks. There was no time for me to admire the rawness of the country. Everything was new here. Fresh starts for anyone willing to take it. The weight of history had barely settled onto the land.
    But that is another part of the story. The time I am thinking of came later, in the late nineteen-thirties and early forties. I was living in Texas then. The war known as the War to End All Wars was barely cold. The embers of it still smoldered in the battlefields of Europe. But apparently they weren’t ready for them to be out yet. That little Austrian man stirred it all up again and the depths of his hateful vision wouldn’t be known for another six years. But by then, it would be too late for us all.
    But in Austin we didn’t know about any of that. The world came to us through newspapers, magazines, radio—and through the movies.
    It was a blistering hot summer. But that was nothing unusual. Most people left the city for cooler parts of the Hill Country. The ones who remained made do with fans, ice blocks, and shade. In the evening the temperature would drop into the high seventies. It was almost bearable.
    Once the initial