Ask and Answer

by Clara Coulson

  As Kat set the box on the checkout counter, she idly wondered what had happened to the man. Had some sort of accident befallen him, or was the scar the result of an intentional blow?

  Just as the man went to fold up the newspaper, Kat got an inkling of the answer to that question. A set of subtle wards written on the side of the cash register rippled slightly when the corner of the newspaper brushed the metal.

  The man noticed her noticing the wards and raised an eyebrow, but he said nothing.

  Hm, she thought. I wonder if he’s a trained magician, or someone like Liam.

  Whatever he was, he was involved with the supernatural in some capacity, which might explain the scar. There were a lot of supernatural creatures with sharp claws and pointy teeth, and if you poked them just a little too hard, they would cut you to ribbons.

  Like that man from West Virginia who’d made the national news last month. He’d shot a wolf shifter by accident while hunting, and two days later, his partially eaten corpse had been found in the woods behind his house.

  Maybe this guy made a similar misstep and got off lucky. Or maybe Kat was just pointlessly speculating again.

  She had a bad habit of pondering people’s backstories.

  Adjusting the charmed glasses that dimmed the nonhuman vibrancy of her green eyes, she pointed at the box. “That’s all for me.”

  The man dropped his eyebrow and used the handheld scanner to read the barcode on the box. The price popped up on the screen, and he said, “You need help with the installation? I offer that service in the mornings.”

  “No thanks. I’ve installed tons of these.”

  If the man’s curiosity was piqued by that statement, he didn’t let it show. He slid the box into a plastic bag as Kat rustled up a few bills from the wad in her wallet.

  As the man was collecting her change, he asked, “Was that you I saw ride by on the moped?”

  “Uh, yeah?”

  “Don’t you get cold, riding that thing this time of year?”

  Kat pressed her lips together. He was probing for information. She’d figured out something about him, and now he was looking to reciprocate.

  “No,” she eventually answered, throwing him a bone. “I don’t get cold.”

  The corners of his lips quirked up, almost imperceptibly. “I see.” He handed her the change. “Have a nice day, ma’am.”

  “You too,” Kat said and hurried to the door to preempt the man from making any further observations about her.

  It was fine for people to know she was a supernatural. But what kind was a subject she couldn’t let anyone pursue too far.

  Back at the moped, Kat slid the light fixture into the storage compartment, then hopped on and set off for home.

  The trip back to the bookstore was totally uneventful. Right up until the point where Kat found herself sitting two cars behind Liam’s SUV at a red light.

  Swearing inwardly—she really didn’t want Liam to know she’d blown up another fixture—she used the cover of a work van to sneak into the right turning lane, earning herself a handful of stern looks and more than one middle finger.

  When the light changed, Kat took the right while Liam continued straight toward the intersection for the street on which he lived. Praying that the dense traffic didn’t let up, Kat sped along an alternate route as fast as she could go without attracting the attention of the cops who went sniffing for people to ticket this time of day.

  Amazingly, she reached the bookstore first.

  Narrowly avoiding a painful accident with a pickup truck running fifteen over the speed limit, she darted into her usual parking spot, the moped’s wheels skidding as she hit the brakes too hard.

  Kat slid off the seat, shed her helmet, grabbed the light fixture, and made a mad dash for the front door of the bookstore. The door shut behind her just as Liam’s SUV turned the corner at the intersection.

  Ripping the cardboard box open, Kat tugged out the replacement fixture. She then jumped onto the checkout counter and yanked the broken fixture out of its slot, undoing its live wires with a practiced hand and dropping it onto the floor behind the counter.

  Generally, you turned off the applicable breaker before you installed new electrical equipment, but Kat didn’t have time for that right now. Thankfully, she had the luxury of a rapid healing factor, so even if she electrocuted herself, all Liam would notice was some abnormally frizzy hair.

  Thus, with the same deftness she’d used to remove the old fixture, she wired in the new fixture in a matter of seconds and shoved it into the space in the ceiling.

  One or two hot sparks did singe her fingers and zing up her arm, and she spit out a “fuck,” but she still finished her work in record time. And with very little time to spare.

  Kat dropped behind the counter and kicked the old fixture underneath it, along with the box for the new one, less than two seconds before Liam strode through the door with his hands full of KFC bags.

  “Hey, you brought dinner,” she said, hoping she wasn’t breathing too hard. “Isn’t it a little early to eat though?”

  “Ah, but I have work to do.” He slipped his shoulder off the door, letting it jingle shut behind him. “And if you want to tag along, then you do too.”

  “Oh, did that case pan out?”

  “Sure did.” He rustled the plastic bags. “We can talk about it while we eat. I’m supposed to start work tonight—it’s a missing persons case, a bit on the urgent side—so we need to fuel up and get going.”

  “Of course.” Kat rounded the counter and headed for the door. “Just let me lock up and empty the register.”

  “Wow, you actually made money today?” he teased as he plodded over to the stairs.

  “I make money every day,” she responded, “unlike someone I know.”

  He pouted. “Ouch. Low blow.”

  “Just telling it like I see it.”

  “Can you try seeing things through more rose-tinted glasses…?” He paused, head tilted up at the ceiling. “Say, is that one light brighter than the rest, or are my eyes playing tricks on me?”

  Oh crap, Kat thought, I forgot to check the wattage on the bulb that came with it.

  Suppressing a grimace, she said, “One of the bulbs blew out today, and the only spare we had in the supply closet was that one. I’ll swap it out for a matching one when I have a chance to run to the store.”

  Liam stared at the light for a moment longer, then he shrugged and said, “You should’ve called. I could’ve picked up a box of bulbs on my way home.”

  Kat waved her hand dismissively. “Nah, it wasn’t a big deal, and I didn’t want to bother you while you were trying to get a new case.”

  Liam smiled. “You’re never a bother, Kat. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  “You can say it as many times as you want,” she replied, “but I will never completely believe it.”

  2

  Liam

  Liam had been so enthused by the prospect of this new case that Kat had almost gotten away with breaking the light fixture above the store counter again. Unfortunately, in what was apparently a huge rush to fix it, she’d left the box for the new fixture sticking out slightly from underneath the counter. He’d spotted it when he was standing at the bottom of the stairs, and he’d looked up to find that yes, indeed, there was a new light fixture in the ceiling.

  Not wanting to upset Kat, as she was sensitive about her issues with controlling her magic, he had humored her and let her think he didn’t notice. One day in the future, he was sure, they’d have a good laugh about all the times she’d blown up that light. But she still had a lot of healing to do before she’d feel comfortable joking about her shortcomings.

  Which was understandable. Liam was the same way.

  He still craved a beer every time he stepped into his kitchen, a kitchen that no longer contained any alcohol. And it was only because
of Kat’s bright-green eyes prodding the space between his shoulder blades that he didn’t race downstairs and run to the corner store to pick up a six-pack. That and the extreme shame that had draped over him like a heavy blanket after he realized, a week into the throes of alcohol withdrawal, just how dependent he’d become on drinking his sorrows away.

  Kat and Liam were both flawed people, and as such, they had their hang-ups. The important thing was that they strived to become better people, and they were helping each other do that, one day at a time.

  Today, as Liam doled out chicken and mashed potatoes, he described his latest attempt to break free of the endless cycle of cheating spouse cases that had thus far defined his career as a private investigator. “Guy’s name is Luther Cunningham. Age forty-three. Owns a small advertising firm. Has a wife and two grown kids. Described as an all-around family man by everybody who knows him.”

  Kat nodded along, already chowing down on her second chicken breast. “And he’s gone missing?”

  “Yeah, he just up and vanished on Tuesday,” Liam said, biting into his own piece of chicken. “His wife reported him missing when he failed to come home from work, but the cops didn’t find any clues to his whereabouts. His car was left in the parking lot of his office building. His keys and his wallet were on his desk. And that was where the trail ended. The cops have exhausted all their usual tactics, and the wife is getting frantic, so she decided to bring in a PI.”

  “Why’d she choose you?” Kat asked, then amended, “Not because you’re a bad PI, but because, well, you’re not the most popular PI in town. Or so I assume.”

  “You assume correctly.” Liam took a sip of his water. “And I don’t know for sure why she contacted me, but I have a feeling Franc may have had something to do with it.”

  “Oh, that cop friend of yours?”

  Liam tried not to wince. Franc had been his friend once upon a time, but their awkward conversation at the station a few weeks back hadn’t exactly reforged that friendship. Though it seemed to him that Franc was making an effort to rebuild the bridge that Liam had burned down three years ago.

  He’d “coincidentally” run into her seven times over the past month. She was obviously seeking him out, trying to coax him into talking to her, trying to wear down his practical ban on interacting with the police. A ban he’d put into place because they reminded him far too much of what he’d lost.

  Julia and Hayden. The crash. All those flashing lights. All those awful sounds. And Franc, kneeling beside him, tears running down her face, asking if he could hear her.

  He could. He could hear just fine. He could see too. See everything. All the blood. All the death. All the things he cherished in life slipping through his mangled fingers.

  “Liam?”

  He snapped back to the present to find Kat giving him a concerned look.

  “You okay?” she asked. “You suddenly got real quiet.”

  Liam shook his head. “Sorry. Got lost in my thoughts.”

  “You were saying, about the case?” she said, obviously steering him away from pondering the past. She was right to. He had more prescient things to consider.

  “Right. So, the wife called me today and asked to meet to discuss Cunningham’s disappearance.” He resumed taking bites of chicken between his sentences. His appetite had been poor during his withdrawal, and he’d shed a few more pounds than he’d had to spare, especially with the new intensive exercise regimen. Intensive because it involved sparring with Kat, who could directly augment her strength when she switched on her magic.

  During one session, she’d lifted him over her head and hurled him the full length of the basement. He’d bounced off the padding he’d blessedly added to the wall, and he hadn’t quite been able to walk straight for some time afterward.

  “The wife offered me full use of any of his personal effects,” Liam continued after he swallowed a mouthful of greasy chicken goodness, “which should be helpful.”

  “Because we might be able to…track him down with magic?” Kat said.

  “Exactly. There are a number of different scrying spells we can use to try and hash out his current location. The best ones I know work by using an object that the target alone touched on a frequent basis.

  “See, when you keep an object on you long enough, you leave a spiritual imprint on it. And that imprint is linked to your soul. An imprint left on something you carry with you daily, like a wallet or a phone, can last up to two weeks. So all of Cunningham’s applicable objects should still carry a strong imprint.”

  “That sounds interesting,” Kat said between huge spoonfuls of mashed potatoes. “I definitely want to tag along on this one, if for nothing else than to see how scrying magic really works in the field. I know how to prevent myself from being scried, but I still don’t know much about tracking down other people.

  “I feel like that skill might come in handy at some point. For example, if the evil faerie lady you owe a favor whisks you off to the faerie hill in the next dimension, the…What’s it called, the Penumbra?”

  “Yep, that’s it,” Liam replied flatly. He did not want to be reminded that he owed Caoimhe O’Connor a carte blanche favor as a result of a revolting setup that he fell for hook, line, and sinker. “I wouldn’t count on being able to scry me if I do end up there though. Most faerie hills are protected by very strong wards. Faeries do not like people spying on them.”

  Kat snorted. “Hypocritical, considering they spy on everyone else.”

  “Faeries are huge fans of projection. If they accuse you of doing something wrong, they’ve definitely done it themselves.”

  “Well, if I can’t find you with a scrying spell,” Kat said, “then maybe I can use it to find Yun instead, and we knights in shining armor can storm the faerie castle to save the damsel in distress.”

  “Funny.” Liam shoved his hand into his back pocket and slipped out two blister packs of aspirin. He was still getting headaches from his waning withdrawal, and a new one was now building behind his eyes. “If you’re just going to burn me all night, then I’m going to leave you behind. I prefer eager beavers for students, not snarky supernaturals.”

  “You picked the wrong roommate then.”

  They stared each other down for a moment, and laughed.

  After they wrapped up their decadent chicken dinner, they hopped into the Wrangler and headed toward downtown Salem’s Gate. The office for the Cunningham Media Group was a squat three-story building wedged between a high-rise office complex and a construction site that would likely result in another high-rise office complex a year or two down the road.

  The cramped parking lot out front was empty save for three cars, two of which were high-end models offered by luxury brands, while the odd man out was an aging Ford pickup. Liam parked the Wrangler between the pickup and a light pole that had just flickered on for the night.

  Exiting the SUV, they crossed the lot at a brisk walk, as a cold gale was cutting through the street and rustling the limbs of the thin, naked trees that dotted the sidewalk. Neither of them needed to be cold, of course—they could use magic to get warm—but their battles with the agents of A9 had taught them to be conservative when it came to magic energy consumption.

  For Liam, it was because his energy store had withered during the three years he let his magic gather cobwebs in the corner of his soul. For Kat, it was the opposite problem. She had so much raw power that it shone like a beacon if she didn’t put a lid on it, and supernatural beacons attracted the wrong kind of attention.

  Liam didn’t think A9 was still sniffing around Salem’s Gate, but it couldn’t hurt to be cautious all the same.

  As they approached the main entrance of the building, Liam asked, “Hey, did you use that warming spell when you rode out to get the replacement bulb?”

  “Yeah, I did.” She tugged her scarf up, as if the question somehow made her feel colder. “It tripped my bangle ag
ain too. Do you think there’s a way to make that spell more efficient, so that it uses less power but achieves the same effect?”

  “I’m sure there is. Most spells have a bit of ‘fat’ you can cut out, but it usually takes some experimenting to trim it off correctly. Because when you change the underlying structure of a spell, you risk destabilizing it.” He stopped in front of the door and gave it an experimental tug. It swung open, so he held it for Kat to pass. “We can work on it during some of our regular practices, if you want. It’s been a while since I’ve spent time designing spells in earnest.”

  She flashed him a smile that was mostly hidden by her scarf. “You should get back into the habit. You’ve got some cool tricks up your sleeve, so you’re clearly not bad at spell design.”

  He harrumphed. “I’d be a whole lot better if I’d been allowed to train with the Circle.”

  She stepped across the threshold, practically melting at the touch of warm air. “The Circle of Magic can’t possibly be all that if they allow their members to bar people from entry for petty reasons. That kind of behavior is bound to result in a lot of talented people, like you, getting left in the dust, while a bunch of undeserving hacks get to wear the hat and robe, or whatever they wear.”

  Liam tailed her inside, shivering as the last curl of cold air gave way to the building’s industrial heater. “Well, I can’t speak to the ratio of skilled magicians to talentless hacks since I never got to peer past the curtain, but your logic is sound, so maybe you’re right.”

  Kat stuck out her tongue in jest. “Of course I am.”

  The door opened into a long and skinny reception room decorated with metal chairs and small wooden tables piled high with wrinkled magazines. A security guard was leaning against the reception desk, texting on his phone. He looked up as the door swung shut with a faint hiss behind Kat and Liam.