The rain falls hot on my skin, landing with a sizzling hiss whenever it manages to dodge the brim of my hat and find a patch left exposed by my dress. The burns heal immediately, the spell an automatic reflex I donāt consciously register anymore.
I donāt sneer at the people hurrying through the rain, shielding themselves from the downpour with umbrellas and coats. I donāt show my contempt for what I can only conceptualize as a form of cowardice, knowing the rain would happily embrace them if they let down their guard. The water would glide smoothly over their skin with a gentle caress, a āyou belong here and I love youā that stands in stark contrast to the downpourās efforts to scour me away.
I donāt sneer. I keep myself composed. My mask of indifference remains flawless. The world may reject me, but I rejected it first, didnāt I? Being born here came with certain terms and conditions I found disagreeable, and so I made myself its enemy.
Itās in the spirit of this mutual animosity that I stand here right now, in front of an unmarked office building in a city that sleepwalks a cancerous expansion of itself. My hand drifts of its own accord into my bag seeking the reassuring touch of the seed I carry. Itās still thereāsmooth, warm, pulsing gentlyāthe beating heart of something altogether foreign, yet not a heart at all, and maybe not quite a seed either, but rather a key, and if thereās anything in this world or any other that a witch understands, itās keys.
Timeās wheel turns, as do the wheels within and without. I turn the mindās eye inward to watch. I raise my eyes skyward to see. At last the inner aligns with the outer. Above and below, a moment clicks into place. I press my hand to a locked door and push it gently open.
The security guards inside are unprepared for me. āThe Anomalyā is their name for me, and they shout the epithet while drawing guns. Their bullets splatter across my clothes, leaving even less of an impression than the raindrops, and it has been a very long time indeed since mere weather could divert my path. I pluck their threads and discard the restāwithout much gentleness, I must confessāas I proceed to the elevators.
Their computer networks would deny me access to the lower floors if I asked permission, so I do not. āDownā is the most natural direction for a thing to move anyway, and it takes little persuasion to coax this little box where it wants to be. Down, down, down below the surface of this world, I pass alongside the cityās veins of sewage and lightning, poisoned air and poison dreams.
Real resistance makes itself known down below. This buildingās ideas have strong roots down here, where people in stark suits spin a web of ontology to catch and contain, sneering their contempt of me. I let the mask fall. I am no moth, mercurial and unaware, easily misdirected to get ensnared by their traps. I dance electric across the apocalypse theyād weave for me, high voltage burning my entrance and exit through their collective consciousness.
I have even less gentleness to spare for these agents than I did the guards above. They collapse, mindsblood painting the walls in crackling infrablack.
A stairwellāless accessible than most, requiring the right eyes to even see itātakes me down to the bottom floor. There, the root office. In the office, a table. On the table, a briefcase. Above it all, a fluorescent light flickers.
I shove the table aside and get to digging. When a thing is meant never to be unlocked, one may need to carve a keyhole. Sometimes this means using oneās bare hands to claw through carpet and concrete. I do as I must, working quickly and ignoring the arrival of my executioner.
The bullet she puts in my head is made of realer stuff than mere lead, and I die almost immediately. Not much time left, then, but enough to reach into my bag, extract the key, and offer it a single kiss. I plant it and suture the buildingās wound with the guardsā threads.
āItās over,ā my executioner informs me as if she believes me unaware that Iāve already died. I offer my most withering smile, one Iām quite sure will eventually kill her, before laying myself down to rest. My curse rattles her enough to command that concrete be poured here, filling the root office and sealing me in, as though I were radioactive waste, safe as long as I can be sequestered away indefinitely.
She will survive my smile for a decade or so. Long enough, I think, to see the strange new roots growing upward through the building, throbbing with the lifeblood of something truly alien to her reality. A fine curse, I think, to be the only one aware of corruption gripping the nexus of her lifeās work.
My bones will rest easy, nourishing the world that is to come.