Disorder.
Emmett’s office is messier than usual. With crates overturned and papers cluttering the floor, it’s difficult maintaining my balance. The trash can is on its side, the contents overflowing onto the floor. Things have never been orderly in here, but this is a maelstrom of madness. Just what the hell happened in here?
I hear a string of curses coming from Gwen in the next room, and my guess is that the break room is just as messy, if not more so, knowing that poser Caspian. I walk over to the large mahogany desk and do my best to comb through the documents without disturbing them too much, because there’s no telling if Emmett is one of those freaks who has a photographic memory.
Receipts, bank statements, nothing of any real use. I leave the desk and turn around, ready to exit the dingy room, when something catches my eye—a piece of glinting metal. The light in the room is so scant that I have to kick a massive pile of wadded-up newspaper ads out of my way and bend down to get a better look at whatever is seeking my attention.
A piece of purple plastic attached to a metal wire. A removable retainer. Why would Emmett have a retainer in his office? Maybe it belongs in the lost and found, but I don’t think so. I place it in my pocket and leave the office.
Arthur is standing in the hallway, his neck craned in my direction. When we make eye contact, he rushes to my side, unable to conceal his feelings.
“Jesus,” he says. “Did you find anything?”
I chew on the inside of my cheek. “I may have, but I’m not sure. What about Gwen? Where is she?”
At that, Gwen emerges from the break room, carrying something in her arms. When she comes closer I see that she’s stumbling. I bolt to her side, afraid that she might have hurt herself, or that something might have hurt her. Her face is covered in a mixture of snot and tears, and her body is shaking.
“Holy shit, Gwen!” Arthur exclaims. “Are you all right?”
She presents us with a pair of black and white polka-dot flip-flops. Arthur takes one in his hand and inspects it. I have no idea what’s going on. Am I missing something?
“So…you found a pair of sandals?” I ask, toying with the retainer in my pocket. “Do you know whose they are?”
Gwen sniffles. “These…shoes…belong…to…Tammy.”
I’m not sure what I’d expected to find in here, or what we would do if we did find something of hers. But now that I’m confronted with the real possibility that Emmett killed my sister’s friend, I have no other choice but to follow the path Mictēcacihuātl suggested.
Emrys Caerwyn must be stopped, and only I can do it.
“I found something else,” I say. Arthur’s eyes widen as the orb hovers above my hand. “Is this Tammy’s?” It’s a long shot, but they might know, so I ask anyway.
A brief moment passes, and Arthur replies, gravely, “Yes, that’s hers. Or at least, I know she wears a retainer. But I thought it was black.”
“Black? How would you know that?” I ask, shoving the bumpy piece of plastic into my pocket. “Just how old is she?”
Arthur looks to Gwen, whose arms are folded. “Don’t look at me,” she says. “Answer his question.”
“I know,” he replies finally, “because we used to fool around.” His explanation comes out in a mumble, and if I weren’t standing close to him, I wouldn’t have understood a word of it. Now’s not the time to get caught up in my feelings, not when Tammy’s life is at stake, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t bother me. If I asked Arthur for a list of everyone he’s messed around with, I’d have to order a forest’s worth of paper. How I’m supposed to trust someone like that with my heart, I have no fucking idea.
“All right.” I grab the shoes from Gwen’s hands. “I think we’ve got enough evidence.”
“Are we going to the police?” Arthur asks, trying to keep up with my stride. Gwen is moving at a much slower pace, her tread hindered by sadness. I’m annoyed with Arthur at the moment, and I just want to get out of the building before anything else can upset me, before I say something dumb. Trying to deconstruct my stupid jealousy has been difficult enough, and now I have to deal with this shit. Things are never going to be easy for us.
Arthur reaches for my wrist. “Tammy is a good friend of mine.” I sigh because I don’t want to have this conversation, not now. “And we were together briefly for one summer before I moved here. Lance, I was thirteen. We reconnected last year. I’m sorry, I should have told you.”
“We can talk about it later when we have the time,” I reply. “I just want to get out of here. Let’s not lose focus of our goal right now.”
“Right now all I see is you. I hope you know this.”
Arthur is an earth sign, patient and humble, always willing to assess a situation before it gets out of hand. I don’t turn around, but I know he’s standing right next to me because I feel his energy radiating from his chest, his center.
“I know,” I say. I don’t actually want to discuss this with him—things are too heavy at the moment—but I appreciate his willingness and readiness to communicate. “But let’s not do this right now.”
Gwen finally joins us, and chooses to remain silent, which is probably for the best because I know she’s processing some things. Arthur lights a path through the maze of boxes, and lets Gwen and me go in front of him.
Halfway through the storage room, we hear the sound of a door slamming and voices shouting. Gwen’s hot pink talons dig into my forearm and she nearly lands on top of me, sending both of us crashing onto the floor. Gwen is three inches shy of being as tall as Arthur, and I’m not a big man, so it doesn’t take much force to upset my gait, to send me flying through the air like a Chinese lantern.
“Hey,” Arthur whispers. “Where are you guys?”
I’m not sure when or why it happened, but the orb vanished at some point, leaving us stranded in the darkness.
“Over here,” I reply. “Will you get up? You’re literally crushing my foot.”
Another high-pitched shriek cuts through our hushed murmurs. It sounds like it’s coming from next door, from Baubles & Books.
Gwen’s grip tightens. “That’s Olivia. Lance, we have to do something!”
“Calm down,” I reply. “What can we do right now? We don’t have the swords, the dagger, nothin’. And our phones are fucked. Just be quiet so that we can hear what’s going on.”
We stand as still as ice, huddled together and barely breathing.
There are two overlapping voices now. A man’s voice and a woman’s voice. Gwen thinks Olivia is in imminent danger, and if the man shouting at her is Emrys Caerwyn, that might be true.
“I won’t do it!” Olivia shouts. “Not again, damn you. Our union was broken by the law. I have allowed you in my store as a service, a gesture of goodwill, but now I would like for you to leave.”
“Oh no,” Gwen whimpers. “He’s not going to like that.”
Heavy objects plummet to the floor and jostle the wall like we’re under siege. Half of Baubles & Books is covered in bookshelves and small dining tables. There’s no telling what’s being torn asunder over there.
The man begins shouting at Olivia in a language that none of us understand. Gwen casually mentions that Olivia is fluent in both Welsh and Gaelic. I stare at her in disbelief even though she can’t see me.
“Olivia speaks Welsh and Gaelic? Don’t you think that in Bumfuck, Kentucky, it’s a little weird to speak Welsh? Most folks can’t speak English.”
Gwen replies, “What? I thought it was because she’s Wiccan. I just thought she was super into her heritage or whatever.”
If the Lady of the Lake is indeed Olivia, it would make sense that she has some arcane understanding of these languages…but that’s not tea I’m willing to spill during our current circumstance. Morgan is the only one who knows the full extent of things, simply because I don’t know how the rest of the group is going to take any of this shit. Actually, I do know, and I’m just afraid how they’ll react.
&nb
sp; “You think a divorce absolves you from everything you’ve done in the past? That’s not how the universe works, my dear. You of all people know this.”
“Leave now,” she insists. “I do not fear you or your maledictions. If you try anything, I will destroy the Grail.”
For the next few minutes we sit in silence, horrified by the events unfolding next door. Gwen is hanging on to my arm and hyperventilating now, which means we need to get the hell out of here immediately, because we can’t stick around and wait for her to pass out from a panic attack. So I tap on her shoulder and place a finger on my lips, then motion upward using my hand, hoping that Gwen’s eyes have adjusted to the darkness like mine have. Soon after, the three of us slowly maneuver ourselves around the cardboard chaos and somehow find the back door hiding in the murk.
As soon as my hand leaves the door handle, a loud wailing from within Baubles sends all three of us to our knees. Arthur jumps to his feet and I desperately reach for his shirt in hopes of stopping him.
“No,” I say, firmly. “Don’t, Arthur.”
Something inside of me lurches at the keening. I don’t know how, but I’ve heard that scream before. Known by many names—Bean-nighe, La Llorana, the Caillech, the White Lady, Doña Marina, the Banshee—the songs she often sings are different, but her message is always the same…impending death.
Chapter Fifteen
The Round Table
Emmett and Caspian arrive at the shop within minutes of each other. I got here an hour and forty-five minutes ago because I couldn’t sleep last night—not after hearing Olivia’s screams—and had gotten a ride from Arthur on his way to work this morning.
Gwen and I had hung out before the doors opened at Baubles, splitting an overly ripe banana and sharing a bag of granola. Even though it feels like the pits of hell out there, we’d sat outside in the heat because we had both been too scared to enter Camelot’s. Luckily for Gwen, she doesn’t work here, but then again, I’m not entirely sure how she’s going to swing her shift either, seeing as how she’s been a total mess since everything happened.
After we’d gotten home from the store, we hadn’t talked, even choosing to sit in silence during the car ride home, then going straight to bed afterward. Not a peep. Gwen and I had slept on the futon in the living room, while Arthur had slept in his bed. We hadn’t talked about it this morning, either.
Tammy isn’t a friend of mine, and our relationship has been contentious due to my immaturity and tendency to get defensive over things, so I couldn’t possibly understand what either of them are going through. There’s so much that our group needs to talk about. It’s just that finding the right moment to discuss this shit has been so damn hard. If I’m not falling victim to glamouring and turning into a human garbage truck, then I’m fucking with cadavers and finding magickal weapons in graveyards.
I’m not sure what I’d expected when I got on that Greyhound bus, but it sure as hell hadn’t been this.
When Caspian enters the break room, he’s wearing a smile and a new band T-shirt. Must have been a sale at the douchebag factory. He doesn’t acknowledge me, instead skating past like he’s on some kind of mission. The more I look at him, the more I dislike him. He isn’t physically ugly, quite the opposite actually—stocky and broad-shouldered, with faded blue hair and a flawless complexion—but he has the social skills of a raccoon. I won’t miss him when I go back to Lexington, that’s for sure.
“Emmett needs to talk to you.” The statement startles me, and even though it’s just the two of us, I look around to make sure he’s talking to me.
“Oh. Okay. Thanks for telling me,” I reply. “By the way, you have ketchup on your face.” I hear him scoff as I exit the room.
Emmett is standing by the window when I enter the front of the store.
“Mornin’, Emmett. Caspian said you wanted to see me?”
“Lance,” he says. “Were you here last night?”
My heart seizes inside my chest. “Uh, yes. I forgot my charger,” I lie. “And I stopped by to see if it was here.”
“And?” He doesn’t turn around to face me. “Was it?” I can tell by the way he’s holding his hands behind his back that Emmett did not come into work to play.
“No, sir,” I say. “It wasn’t. I don’t know where I put it.”
“I see,” he replies. “Are you aware that you left the back door unlocked last night?”
Shit. “Oh my God, I had no idea.” Emmett must have returned to the store after his falling out with Olivia. “Was anything missing this morning?”
A long, airless pause. “Yes. A couple of things,” he replies coolly. “But it doesn’t matter. I have what I need.” I’m not sure what he’s alluding to, but I’m fairly certain it involves my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend. I ball my hands into fists and shove them into my pockets—a blow-up at Emmett would not do, not now, when it’s just him, his henchman in the back, and me. “I’m going away for a while,” he says. “Caspian will be left in charge, but I guess that doesn’t really concern you, now does it? Because I believe you’re going back to school very soon, yes?”
“I am,” I say, unsure as to where the conversation is headed. We haven’t had time to discuss any of this because he usually sends me home before I have the chance to bring it up. “I go back in two weeks, actually. Where are you goin’?”
“Wales. Carmarthen, Wales. It’s where I grew up.”
According to every legend I’ve ever heard or read, he’s right—Carmarthen is where the Merlin was born. A product of sexual depravity and devilry, Emrys Caerwyn was brought into this world with the cards stacked against him. His father had been a sea demon, known to the world at that time as Afanc, and his mother, Adhan, had been an unsuspecting nun. Why he’s telling me this, I don’t know. Maybe it’s to scare me, or maybe it’s to warn me. I doubt it, though. For the past few weeks I’ve been walking on eggshells when I’m around him, trying to roll with the punches, always accepting reduced hours and being sent home early. But what I don’t understand is that if he knows I’m a reincarnation of King Arthur’s right-hand man, Sir Lancelot, Knight of the Round Table, why hasn’t he turned me into sausage, or made me disappear like Tammy?
“My suggestion to you…” Emmett finally turns around, with a sort of fire in his eyes, and he smiles at me, a dreadful smile. A smile that feels like someone’s just stomped on both of my feet. “Lance A. Lotte, is to take the rest of the day off, spend it with your family and cherish the next two weeks in peace.” He pauses and scratches the gray stubble on his chin. “Oh, one more thing I’ve been meaning to ask… Is the boy who drives you here called Arthur?”
I gulp. “Yes, his name is Arthur.” I don’t dare tell him what Arthur’s last name is, even though he probably already knows. He probably already knows everything. All of our plans, all of our secrets, all of our faults.
“Hmm,” he murmurs, in a way that makes my joints ache. “And he lives out by that used tire place, right?” He taps his cheek twice with an index finger. “You know, those houses are in poor shape. Why, a flood, or a simple fire, could wipe out that whole trailer park. He’d better be careful out there. There’s no telling what the end of summer might bring.” The last ten words of his warning twist inside me like the blades of a lawnmower, relentless and sharp, meant to shave and destroy. If he intended to cut me down to size, he’s succeeded.
I don’t respond to his threat, and instead offer my resignation on the spot, ultimately agreeing with him that I should spend the rest of my vacation relaxing and resting. And for a brief moment, Emmett Crabtree returns, a bushy, gray-eyebrowed elderly man who walks with a cane and has a terrible time using any technology built after 1995.
It’s difficult to believe that this scraggy old man has abducted children and women.
“Give your mother a kiss on the cheek for me. I always did enjoy the sangria she brought to the Fourth of July block party.”
And now he’s bringing my mom into this mess? Oh hell no.
* * * *
Gwen and I meet up after her shift. Mordy and Morgan have called a meeting, and would like to assemble at their uncle’s house tonight. Arthur agrees to this without complaint and offers to drive us over there after he gets off work. My body is sore all over, and all I want to do is sleep, maybe take a bath, drink an ice-cold beer, but I don’t think that’s in tonight’s reading.
Tío Myrddin walks out to greet us. His long white robe is the first thing I observe, followed by a small white cap on his head and several necklaces made of seashells and pocket-size bones around his thick neck—probably more chicken bones. He hugs me immediately, and places his arm around my neck, escorting me up the porch steps.
Gwen and Arthur trail after us, speaking softly to each other out of earshot, carefully carrying Excalibur and Galantine, because Morgan had asked us to bring the weapons. The two of them had spoken briefly about Tammy during the ride up here, consoling each other, and I’d almost felt like a third wheel, intruding on their conversation in the truck. I may not know her, but I want to save her and do everything I can to protect her.
The first room Myrddin leads us through—the living room—is covered in what looks like hundreds of black and white candles, all ferociously burning, every flame pointing south.
In the center of the room, painted on the creaky wooden floor, is a symbol drawn in white chalk. I’m not a scholar or a priest, so I don’t know exactly what it means, but from the way Morgan’s uncle is dressed, I assume it has to do with protection and the Orichás.
Every room we walk through is decorated similarly, with black and white candles, the only difference being the symbols in the middle of the floors. A different symbol for each room.
“Where are Mordy and Morgan?” I ask as we pass through the kitchen, the only room seemingly not covered in melted wax and chalk. A combination of smells from fried corn tortillas, garlic and freshly baked bread invades my nostrils, and when I scan the room I spot a gigantic steel pot cooking on the gas stove, steam rising from the metal. The sight of brown, knotted bread on the kitchen table makes my mouth water.
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