by Allie Therin
You just took on my dad for me. And if Paris could be for you, if it makes you happy—
Arthur sighed again. “All right, let me get through our Boston trip,” he said. “And then we can talk about it.”
Jade and Zhang exchanged a knowing look. “Well, one other thing,” she said, leaning forward. “We finally have a name for the warehouse buyer.” She bit her lip. “A Mr. Mercier.”
Arthur stilled. “That was Philippe’s last name.”
“Jade said that.” Zhang glanced between them. “Your paranormal friend, the firestarter, the one Ellis killed when Baron Zeppler made them unlock the Venom Dagger relic?”
Arthur nodded once. It stirred old emotions to hear Philippe’s name, loss and sadness and guilt. “But I suppose, to be fair, it’s hardly an uncommon surname.”
Jade looked a touch shaken as well. “The buyer used an American broker but has an address outside of Paris.”
Arthur pursed his lips. “Paris again.”
Jade spread her hands. “This could all be a coincidence.”
“Sure it could,” Arthur muttered.
* * *
Rory had been expecting to take the train, but Arthur had wanted to drive to Boston. “Being able to drive anywhere I want is something I love about America,” he said sheepishly. “I’ve never bought a car overseas. It just never feels like I’ll be in one place long enough to make it worth owning one.”
Rory had side-eyed him. “I thought you weren’t expecting to be overseas again yet.”
Arthur had gotten cagey and just muttered, “Well, you know.”
Which no, Rory didn’t know, and he’d very much like to know, thanks. But sitting in the comfy Cadillac, with Arthur in his tweed jacket and flat cap being excited about driving his car, just the two of them for three hours—Rory was a sucker for it, so he wasn’t gonna argue.
They got a room with two beds in a hotel near the old stone church where Mrs. Brodigan would get married in the morning. It was a big enough hotel, and cheap enough, that no one paid them any attention, even if that also meant the beds were really too tiny for two men to share.
In the morning, with Arthur down in the lobby, making some calls, Rory did his best to clean up in the men’s bathroom, trimming his hair just enough to make the curls even. He didn’t have a fancy hat, but he was gonna be in a church anyway, so he’d just deal. He showered, shaved, and put on the secondhand gray suit he’d found for six dollars at a store by the Dragon House. It was more than he’d ever spent on clothes in his life, but it fit decent, and most of all, it was for Mrs. B.
He got back to their room to find Arthur leaning over the bed and securing the clasps on the suitcase. “Since there’s no reception, I’ll pick you up at the church after the ceremony,” he said, looking up. “And remember, you promised to take the ring—oh.” He blinked several times. “Hi. Hello.”
Rory rolled his eyes. “Just ’cause I don’t usually wear suits doesn’t mean I can’t.” He leaned on the door to close it behind him. “I used to dress for church all the time.”
“Did you.” The corner of Arthur’s mouth turned up in his sly smile, and a moment later he was across their small room, hands on the door above Rory’s head to box him in. “I’m afraid I’m not thinking about church right now.”
Rory couldn’t help smiling back. “Save it,” he warned, tilting his chin up to meet Arthur’s eyes. “I gotta get going.”
“Where’s your ring?”
“Pocket.”
“And...?”
Rory huffed. “I’m so bad at it still,” he said. “I’m not gonna start a tempest at Mrs. B’s wedding.”
“If you’re in danger, you most certainly are,” said Arthur. “Teddy, you promised.”
The ring was safe in its heavy lead box. It wasn’t like Rory was actually gonna need to use it. “All right already,” he grouched. “I promise.”
“Good.” Arthur’s gaze traveled over Rory’s suit again, then his tongue darted out and wetted his lips. “How much time do we have?”
“Not enough,” Rory said, with real regret.
Arthur sighed but moved back. He grabbed the suitcase off the bed and they made their way down to his car, parked on the street in front of the hotel.
The church was at the end of a street of row houses, built of ivy-covered gray stone with arches over the doors and a huge stained glass window. Arthur brought the car to the curb in front of the church and then reached into the back seat. “Would you like to borrow this?”
He held out a gray fedora that went so perfectly with Rory’s suit that Arthur had to have brought it on purpose. Rory raised an eyebrow. “That yours?”
“It is,” said Arthur, “but it should fit you. Well. More or less.”
Rory hesitated. Maybe it was a strange thing to make his heart beat faster, but there was something about sitting in Arthur’s car, borrowing his hat for the morning like it was no big deal—it was a simple thing, but somehow having even the casual parts of their lives entwined like a real couple felt like a fairy tale.
“Thanks,” he said quietly, taking the hat.
Arthur brushed the thanks away. “I love that you think I did this out of the goodness of my heart and not out of a selfish desire to treat my eyes.”
Rory put the fedora on. It was a little big, but not ridiculously so, and that would keep it from messing up his curls too much. “How’s it look?”
Arthur’s gaze was locked on him. “Perfect,” he said simply.
Rory’s lips curved up. “See you in two hours?”
“I’ll be here,” Arthur promised. “And I mean every word when I say I can’t wait to see you again.”
The Cadillac puttered away as Rory crossed the sidewalk to the stone arch, passing an open iron gate to the church’s heavy wooden door. He grudgingly took the hat back off, clutching it to his chest as he stepped inside. As his eyes adjusted to the darker church, he caught sight of the altar.
He hesitated, just inside the door, his fingers tightening on the brim of the hat.
A gray-haired woman noticed him. “Can I help you, lad?”
“Um.” Just talk like a normal person, who goes into churches all the time, who definitely never had magic kick on ’cause they picked something up off an altar.
Rory swallowed. “I’m here for the wedding?”
The woman gave him a puzzled look. “I don’t think we’re having any weddings today.”
“It just got rescheduled here a couple days ago,” said Rory.
“Did it?” The woman still looked confused. After a moment, though, she offered him a kind smile. “I don’t recall seeing any notes about that, but why don’t I go and have a look?”
Rory folded his arms and watched her leave. He stood for several long moments, standing by the stone wall in the cool air. Finally, he reluctantly walked forward enough to take the seat in the back pew, crossing himself out of habit.
He rested his hat in his lap and looked across the rows in front of him. At least half the pews had someone in them, their heads bent in prayer. The ceiling stretched above him, light filtering in from high windows. To the side of the altar, there was a stand of lit votive candles flickering.
He’d been sitting for only minutes when the hairs on the back of his neck rose.
“Theodore Giovacchini,” a man’s voice whispered. “Nice to meet you.”
* * *
Arthur drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he sat, unmoving, in traffic that was every bit as congested as in Manhattan. He’d mostly only ever been in Cambridge, and only by duress, when Yale played Harvard. He hadn’t really thought through what his New York self should do with two hours in Back Bay. Just be grateful it wasn’t snowing, probably.
A few minutes later and he’d only gone half a block. “Christ, this city should keep the horse and
buggy.”
He leaned out the window, trying to see the road up ahead, when a sharp pain cut across his heart, an echo of the burn from Niagara Falls. He sucked in a breath, but the next instant, Rory’s magic flared up, like sizzling miniature lightning bolts against his skin.
The pain vanished.
Arthur frowned.
Odd.
He sat back against the driver’s seat, rubbing his chest over his heart as a group of casually dressed pedestrians with Red Sox pennants threaded their way across the street through the unmoving cars. One of them banged on the hood of the Cadillac with a whoop and then continued on his way.
“Hooray,” Arthur said dryly. “Boston.”
He inched the car forward, toward the end of the block—
The pain sliced through him again, sharper, strong enough to make him gasp. He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white as Rory’s magic flared again, more insistently.
This time, it didn’t fade right away. Arthur gritted his teeth as pain and magic fought in his chest. As Rory’s magic grew stronger, Arthur’s skin broke out in goose bumps, and a moment later the magic had driven out the pain like a rainstorm quenching a fire’s embers.
Arthur shook himself, still feeling the echoes against his skin. For all Jade’s teasing about his tendency to forget what a powerful paranormal Rory actually was, every now and then, he had absolutely no trouble remembering.
“We good?” he muttered out loud, like Rory could hear him.
Arthur rubbed at his chest again. Rory’s magic hadn’t caused that pain, he’d swear to that. It had felt like Rory’s magic had come barreling as a response.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just magic being unpredictable and inscrutable.
But what if Rory...wasn’t good?
Arthur promptly took the first right, onto a residential street that was blessedly far emptier, and began to head back toward the church.
* * *
Rory stared at the man behind his pew—dark brown hair, pale skin, not much taller than Rory himself. “How do you know that name?” Rory said hoarsely.
“I know all of your friends as well.” The man had an English accent just like Arthur’s ex, Lord Fine. “The others, I read in letters years ago. As for you.” The man’s lip curled in a dark smile. “The baron told me, of course.”
Rory’s heart leapt to his throat. The man in front of him knew Baron Zeppler. “How did you find me?” he said, his brain managing to put one of his questions into words.
The man rolled his eyes. “You found me. You came to the wedding I arranged for you.”
Rory had barely a moment to curse his own gullibility when the man darted forward, to the back of the pew.
Rory scrambled to his feet. All the previously praying heads were raised, and Rory and the man were getting side-eyes and dirty looks. “This is a church,” he hissed, backing up down the length of the pew.
“The church is your issue?” The man held out one hand. In the center of his palm, a flame burst into life like the votive candles, then radiated out until his entire hand was engulfed in an aura of fire. “You need to sort out your priorities.”
Rory lunged away, to the side, scrambling out from the pew and for the door, thinking of nothing but getting the man out of the church full of innocents.
He burst outside into the cool April morning, scrambling down across the sidewalk—just as a car pulled up in the middle of the street.
Rory stumbled in shock and fell, crashing to the curb.
“I called the police, just in case,” the man’s voice said, from behind him. “After all, you’re supposed to be dead. Or maybe you’ll just come with me before anyone gets hurt? It’s the kind of thing Philippe and his friends would have done.”
Rory stayed, frozen on the curb, Arthur’s hat clutched tightly in his right hand, the ring heavy in its lead box in his left pocket.
And as he watched the first cops start pouring out of the car, his left hand went into his pocket.
* * *
Arthur had just turned onto the church’s street when he heard a high-pitched whistle behind him. “Oh no.”
He slammed on the brakes just as the wind barreled into his car from behind. His car was blown forward as if he’d been rear-ended, catching him at enough of an angle that he spun like he’d hit ice.
Arthur gripped the steering wheel as tight as he could and tried to ride out the spin as the wind blew past at gale strength—and then abruptly ended, a breeze far too sudden and powerful to be natural.
A shout and then a crash shuddered down the street, metal against metal.
Arthur leaned out of the car just in time to take in the scene in front of the church up ahead: a three-car pileup at the curb, a black police Model T smashed into an Essex and a Gray tourer, and four officers knocked to the street with a man in a suit sprawled with them.
And Rory, left hand extended, shoulders heaving.
“Teddy!”
Rory looked down the block, and even from a distance, Arthur could see the fear on his face.
He turned the wheel and screeched up in front of the church as Rory sprinted toward him. Arthur leaned over and opened the passenger door just as Rory leapt in.
“Drive!”
Arthur didn’t need to be told. He spun the car back in the direction he’d come and hit the gas.
Chapter Ten
Arthur’s heart was still pounding as he sped through streets with no mind for where he was going except south, toward New York, away from the river, to lose any tail. “I wasn’t actually expecting you to need the wind at Mrs. Brodigan’s wedding.”
“There was no wedding.” Rory was facing backward, eyes glued to the road. The fedora was on the seat on top of his newsboy cap, and the ring still glinted on his finger. “It was a trap.”
Arthur’s stomach plummeted.
“Did you see the fella in the suit?” When Arthur nodded, Rory added, grimly, “He’s the one that set me up. Zeppler tipped him off.”
Arthur’s mouth thinned. “He can’t get past the Zhangs’ defenses in New York, so he sent someone after you in Boston.” He glanced at Rory, whose eyes were still fixed on the road. “Are we being followed? They can’t catch up on foot or horseback and the police aren’t going to be driving that Model T again any time soon. I doubt anyone will find us in a cab.”
“The suit is a paranormal.”
Arthur groaned. “Of course he is.” He took another sharp turn past a row of multistory redbrick homes with big bay windows, and then three more quick turns after that, weaving through streets as fast as he dared. “How did he set a trap? The telegram was fake?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rory make a quick nod. “Mrs. B’s original wedding was announced in the paper. If someone knew about the shop, they coulda figured I would come if they sent a fake telegram. Which means I missed Mrs. B’s real wedding.” He sounded angrier about that than he did about nearly being kidnapped by one of Zeppler’s henchmen, and Rory, angry in a suit, was more attractive than Arthur probably should find him.
“How do you know he’s a paranormal?”
“It was pretty obvious when he lit himself on fire.”
Arthur’s fingers went painfully tight on the steering wheel. “Fire? Did he have a French accent?” It couldn’t possibly be—
“No, English. But he mentioned your French friend, the one Zeppler made Ellis kill. Philippe.”
Arthur took a breath. “The buyer of the Philadelphia warehouse had Philippe’s last name.”
Rory’s head snapped toward him. “You didn’t tell me that.”
Oops. Arthur stumbled to explain. “I—well—it’s a common enough name—and you were getting ready for Mrs. Brodigan’s wedding—”
Rory groaned, deep and loud and so frustrated it made Arthur wince
. “Jesus Christ, Ace.”
Oh boy. The Lord’s name in English, that couldn’t be good. “I was going to tell you. I just didn’t want to worry you too soon?” he said weakly.
“I was pretty damn worried when a man on fire showed up to haul me off to Zeppler!”
Arthur winced again. “That’s fair, yes.”
“You gotta tell me stuff!” Rory snapped. “Because when you don’t, we get things like—this,” he said, gesturing wildly, presumably at everything, so that the ring on his finger caught the light.
“You’re, um...” Oh, Arthur should probably keep his mouth shut, but here he went. “...you’ve got the wind fully under control, yes?”
It didn’t matter that Arthur’s eyes were on the road—he could feel the filthy look Rory had just directed his way.
“I’m sorry,” said Arthur, “it’s just that we’re still in the middle of Boston—”
“I’m not gonna flatten the city!”
“I’m just saying that if you are going to use the ring, perhaps you could aim the wind toward, say, Fenway Park—”
Rory opened his mouth—and then paused, pursing his lips.
“Just a thought,” Arthur added helpfully.
Rory sighed loudly. “What else haven’t you told me? And don’t try me,” he warned, when Arthur opened his mouth. “Spill it all, and I mean all of it, Ace, because I’m not some delicate porcelain figurine you keep on a shelf somewhere safe, I’m supposed to be your partner. Start talking and don’t stop. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” Arthur muttered, but he could admit he deserved that. He took a breath. “Jade thinks we should go to London.”
“London? As in, the London where your ex, Lord Asshole, lives?”
“No,” said Arthur, drawing it out. “The London where Gwen, Ellis, and the tattooed man who knows about relics went.”
