by Molly White
Outside the van windows, the buildings became fewer and farther between. The marshy landscape gave way to the wildness that had only been hinted at in the city. This should have made her uncomfortable. For all her travels, she’d never been this deep into the Louisiana swamp before, and with her talent, the unknown could be very uncomfortable. So instead, she focused on the stranger at her side, who seemed to make the unknown a more appealing puzzle.
Curious, she watched his sharp profile as she slowly reached behind their seats. It wouldn’t do for him to see her do what most people would consider a singular act of weirdness and intrusion. But one never really forgot sleight of hand, particularly when it was taught by Melvin the Magnificent himself.
Without him realizing she’d even shifted in her seat, she tapped her hand against his bag. Just two quick taps, just enough to form a fleeting connection and check it for “attachments.” But besides the agony of a baggage handler at Dublin Airport with a herniated disc, she felt nothing. She dropped her shield a bit more, opening herself up to the gut-deep despair a TSA agent felt while rifling through Brendan’s socks at Newark, wondering if this was what he was going to be doing for the rest of his life, if this was why he’d spent years acquiring a doctorate in philosophy. She could taste that poor TSA agent’s desolation like she could taste the stale vending machine burrito he’d had for lunch that afternoon. But still, nothing from the Irish driver himself.
She stared at him as they sped down the highway, her arm drifting across the center console. Even as her hand moved, she knew she was breaking one of her own cardinal rules, rules she’d established as a pre-teen to protect her tender mind from all manner of nastiness she wasn’t ready to process. She did not touch people without her gloves, particularly people she didn’t know well. The potential for seeing something that could never be unseen was just too much. And yet, here she was, her bare fingers millimeters away from the forearm bared when he’d rolled up his sleeve. For the first time in years, she wanted a connection, more than she’d ever wanted chocolate or maybe even oxygen.
He glanced at her, dark brows winging up, as her fingers closed around his arm. “What are you doing?”
She closed her eyes, expecting to be overwhelmed with psychic debris—feelings and memories like song lyrics she’d likely never get out of her head. But all she felt was cool, smooth flesh under her warm fingertips. She wasn’t even sure she felt a pulse. His eyes went wide, a combination of surprise and dread crashing through the blue irises.
For the first time in as long as she could remember, she was touching someone and sensing absolutely nothing from them. Her mouth dropped open as he pulled his arm away.
“What are you?” Cordelia asked.
“You don’t think that’s a bit rude?” he exclaimed, gesturing toward the steering wheel. “I’m driving here! On unfamiliar roads! You don’t just grab on to someone when they’re driving, especially not when they’re driving in a foreign bloody country! Did ya think I needed the extra challenge?”
“I’m so sorry,” she gasped, laughing in shock. “But I don’t feel anything from you.”
“You barely bloody know me. You didn’t even introduce yourself, how are you supposed to feel anything for me?” Brendan demanded.
She laughed again and then, coughed over it to cover it. “No, I mean I don’t—I can touch you.”
“Well, it’s not that I find you repulsive, mind, but I think I get a say in that,” Brendan said.
She shook her head. “Yes, I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m being so rude. It’s just, I haven’t—It’s been a very long time since…”
“You don’t get out much, do you?” Brendan asked.
“No, I don’t.” She sank back into her seat, her face flushing red. “And you didn’t introduce yourself, either, by the way.”
He frowned. “I didn’t. You’re right. I’m being rude. Jetlag’s gotten to me, I think. Brendan O’Connor.”
“Cordelia Canton,” Cordelia said.
“That’s charmingly alliterative,” he murmured, returning his attention to the road. Again, he failed to offer her his hand, which was fine with her.
She stared out the window, wishing she was outside, drowning under the rippling bayou waters. Maybe inside an alligator’s belly. She used to know how to…people. She’d been considered charismatic, charming, even. But now, she was going to have to concentrate on not being a maladjusted weirdo 24/7 just to function in what promised to be a very small town.
What was it that Bernadette used to say about small towns, she mused. Small towns, smaller minds.
Sure, Mystic Bayou was supposed to be chock-full of shifters and fairies and all manner of magique, as the supernatural creatures called themselves, but psychics were a different thing altogether. Being able to see what other people couldn’t made those people uncomfortable, even if they were accustomed to the strange and unusual. Everybody assumed Cordelia was intentionally looking for images of them naked or their banking information—just another reason she spent so much time alone.
No, she’d spent too much time trying to forget Bernadette’s teachings. She wouldn’t try to be Miss Congeniality of Mystic Bayou, but she would be fine. This episode of grabbing Brendan’s arm was just a stumbling first step in a successful journey ending in professional success and painless social interactions.
“What in the world?” She glanced up as Brendan slowed the van to a crawl. Children were frolicking down the sidewalk in cheerful homemade Halloween costumes—ghosts and witches and fairies. Each carried a bag heavy with treats towards the town square, followed by indulgent, smiling parents.
They passed a number of cement block businesses, most of which seemed to be owned and operated by a family named Boone—the local bank, a boat dealership, the grocery store, the beauty salon, the hardware store, and a cafe marked “Bathtilda’s Pie Shop, Home of the World’s Best Chocolate Rhubarb Pie.” Those buildings, and the rare businesses that didn’t seem to be owned by Boones, were freshly painted, sparkling clean, and decorated with carved pumpkins and all manner of autumn-themed decorations. Mystic Bayou appeared to be a town on the rise.
“I forgot today was Halloween,” she murmured.
The corner of his thin lips lifted. “You didn’t notice all the people in the airport in costumes?”
She shrugged. “New Orleans.”
“Fair enough,” Brendan said.
In the distance, she could see Edison lights strung up between streetlamps. The entire fleet of League vans was parked around the town square in front of a large whitewashed parish hall, their back doors open and decorated with various spooky-but-bloodless family-friendly themes. People were stationed at each van, handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters.
“Well, that explains where the vans were,” Brendan muttered.
The closer they got to the town square, the more realistic the costumes became. Two people in over-sized porcupine costumes were handing out candied apples. A woman with extremely detailed fairy wings danced beside a pile of bread near the base of a fountain. A curvy brunette wearing a Wonder Woman costume appeared to be riding on the back of a full-size adult brown bear. And curled around a gazebo, blowing smoke rings into the air over a giant arrangement of pumpkins in all shapes and shades of orange…
“That’s a dragon,” Cordelia said.
“Aye.” Brendan stopped the van and marveled at the massive green and gold creature receiving ear-scratches from a blonde, pregnant woman in a medieval princess costume.
“A real-life dragon. Like Game of Thrones without the shockingly disappointing ending,” Cordelia said.
Brendan nodded. “Aye.”
She’d known that Mystic Bayou was occupied by shifters, but seeing this…all those people in costumes; they weren’t in costumes. These were people in their shifter forms, out in the open, handing out treats to children. It was different than the League office, where “alternate natures” were acknowledged, but no one just walked around the hall
ways in their other skin. What was it going to be like living here?
“This place is really fecking weird. And I say that as someone well-acquainted with the really fecking weird,” Brendan said.
She nodded. “On this, we agree.”
2
Brendan
All Brendan O’Connor wanted was a beer and some peace and quiet after a grueling day of travel. Instead, he got screaming children and worse—an Americanized Samhain.
He supposed it could have been worse. At least it wasn’t St. Patrick’s Day.
Brendan parked the van near the parish hall and climbed out. The air was marginally cooler here, but it was still bizarre to see an autumnal celebration while it was so damnably hot outside. The only thing between him and the crowd was the large, pumpkin-ringed fountain, its stones carved into bears, porcupines, and unicorns huddled with fairies and humans under the shelter of a dragon’s proud wings. Brendan’s sense of tradition was somewhat mollified by the appearance of carved turnips tucked in with the other jack-o’-lanterns. At least someone around here seemed to respect the roots of the holiday.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw his companion staring at the door handle like it was some insurmountable hurdle. The lady was a puzzle, that was for sure. She’d looked like she was ready to fall over when he found her waiting on the sidewalk. Not that she was any less gorgeous for it—dark hair that framed a fine-boned face and eyes big and blue enough to drown in, and those lips. He’d never understood what people were on about when they talked about a Cupid’s bow of a mouth, but he saw it now. And some perverse part of his brain kept wondering what it would feel like to lick that tiny divot on top of her lips…which would probably result in her smacking him—rightly so.
Inappropriate licking fantasies aside, there was a sort of delicacy about her that made him want to tuck her into his pocket and keep her safe from the world, a destructive impulse that had him forgetting all his proper manners and clamming up so tight he couldn’t even bother to tell her his name. But then she was all at once standoffish and distant, and he thought perhaps it was for the best. It didn’t do for a bansidhe to go around adopting stray damsels, no matter how fine. It only led to misery and marriages like his Auntie Bridget’s.
But then she’d grabbed him, and he’d been so afraid of what he might see that he’d damn near run off the road. He’d honed his “gift” over the years so that he only sensed immediately dire situations, but still, he rarely took the chance of casual contact. And the way she’d clung to him, the expression of wonder on her face when she told him she felt nothing from him—ouch—it was enough to make him want to pull the van over and kiss her senseless. And as she seemed like a generally sensible lady—the reserved manner, the travel clothes that wouldn’t show the wrinkles, the roomy shoulder bag with one of those slash-proof straps—that would likely take a very long time. But he was willing to devote himself to the task.
He watched Cordelia take a deep breath and open the door. She looked over the crowded square as if it was occupied by the spawn of hell. He circled the van and stood next to her, united in dread. What in the hell had he gotten himself into?
He’d been perfectly fine running the League’s underground artifacts warehouse in County Clare, thank you very much. The remote Burren area had interconnected caves and caverns aplenty to use as safe underground storage for western Europe’s more dangerous magical articles. He had his little cottage and his large flat-screen telly and he thought that’s all he’d need in life. But then his boss had come to him with this “opportunity” and like an eejit, he’d jumped at the obscene amount of money he was being offered for a few months’ work. Being a banshee wasn’t exactly rife with financial security.
“Fieldwork, they said,” Brendan muttered. “See more of the world, they said. Get the fresh air into your lungs, they said.”
Cordelia snickered and the relaxed, amused expression on her face tugged him out of his foul mood. His brow wrinkled, because normally his moods were a bit less tuggable. He’d been known to brood…extensively. It was the nature of the beast, so to speak.
“Is that really what got you out here? A rousing speech full of cheerful lifestyle suggestions?” Cordelia asked.
Something about the way she said ‘a rousing’ did terrible and wonderful things to the direction of his blood flow. He was blaming jet lag. It was the only possible explanation for this loss of control over his person.
“Well, that and the money,” said Brendan.
“Oh, good, I was worried about your gullibility for a moment there.”
Across the square, Wonder Woman slid off the bear’s back and he nuzzled at her leg as she passed. The bear ambled around the corner of the parish hall. The medieval lady gave the dragon one last pat and trotted across the square, one hand supporting the slight bump of her belly. She waved to two men dressed like Disney princes, who stopped handing out candy, bowed gallantly to several enraptured little girls, and began unloading the supplies from the van.
“Hi!” the medieval princess called, grinning widely. “You must be Brendan and Cordelia. I’m so sorry you had to drive yourselves out and serve as delivery drivers, but as you can see, it’s just been so crazy here lately. We need all hands pitching in. I’m Jillian Ramsay, acting executive director of the Mystic Bayou project.”
Jillian kept her hands behind her back, as if she had to remind herself not to reach out in greeting. Brendan felt himself warming to the princess, but given the way the dragon was eyeing him from across the square, he had no intention of trying to rescue her. Cordelia, for her part, was edging behind Brendan, like he would somehow shield her from social interaction.
“You’ve arrived in the middle of the town’s trick-or-treating, I’m afraid,” said Jillian. “People live so far apart around here, it’s safer for the kids to put all the treats in one place. Clarissa Berend is kind enough to make freezer meals for all the ‘newcomers’ as they arrive in town, so you don’t have to rely on kettle corn and candied apples for dinner. Unless you like that sort of thing. No judgments.”
Brendan glanced at Cordelia and realized she wouldn’t be speaking any time soon, as she seemed to have mentally curled into the fetal position. “Um, that’s much appreciated, thank you.”
“So, did you two have a chance to talk much on the drive?” Jillian asked. “I know the vague job descriptions can be maddening, but I hope they gave you enough detail that you were able to figure out you’d be working as a team.”
Brendan cleared his throat. “I wasn’t much company, I’m afraid. Jet lag’s a terrible thing and I could barely stay awake, much less make conversation.”
“Well, if you two don’t mind stopping by my office tomorrow morning when you’ve rested up,” Jillian said. “Normally, I’d let you settle in for a few days, but honestly, the situation needs to be addressed as—"
Suddenly, an enormous bearded man came back around the corner, yanking a pair of sweatpants into place. Brendan considered himself to be secure in his masculinity. He definitely wasn’t standing a little taller at the sight of the other man’s broad shoulders and blacksmith’s muscles.
But honestly, what sort of supernatural steroids did they put in the water around here?
The man’s thick black beard parted over a genial smile. “Sorry, didn’t want to shift in front of the kids. Dani says public nudity isn’t very statesman-like,” he said, jogging forward, his hand already outstretched toward Cordelia. For her part, Cordelia seemed transfixed, unable to move from the path of the friendly human freight train headed directly for her.
Jillian had only managed to gasp, “Zed, no!” when the mountain of a man took Cordelia’s hand and pumped it up and down with so much vigor, Brendan feared for her arm. Cordelia’s eyes went wide and she braced herself as if she was preparing to be punched, not at all the same expression she’d had when she’d touched Brendan.
Suddenly, Cordelia’s shoulders sagged and she burst out laughing. “Herr Scalesnst
uff?”
Zed’s smoke-gray eyes went the size of saucers as he whispered, “How do you know about Herr Scalesnstuff?”
“And Dr. Squeakenstein!” she giggled, bending at the waist now. Brendan began to wonder if the travel fatigue had claimed Cordelia’s sanity. “I can see you, up to your chin in bubbles this morning, playing with rubber duckies. And the bubbles—”
“Le diable!” Zed whispered, jerking his hand away. “Jillian, is this the psychic lady you hired? I told you it’s not fair when you don’t warn us about another magique’s powers before introductions.”
Brendan struggled to follow what exactly was happening. Maybe the jet lag hit him harder than he thought?
“Well, you didn’t give me time, Zed, you just ran her over with the welcome wagon!” Jillian exclaimed.
And Cordelia was still laughing. Wonder Woman ran forward, her green eyes wide with alarm. She took Zed’s wrist, as if she was checking him over for wounds. “Is everything OK?”
“I’m so sorry,” Cordelia wheezed, wiping at the tears in her eyes. “It’s just, your mind. I’ve never seen anything so…”
“I am very worried about the words about to come out of her mouth,” Jillian murmured, shaking her head.
“Cute!” Cordelia exclaimed, making Jillian clap her hand over her mouth, smothering a cackle. “The bubbles smelled like strawberries!”
“Hey, now!” Zed grumbled, now visibly pouting. “I am very manly and terrifying. I just happen to enjoy a nice bubble bath.”
Wonder Woman tried to cover up the fact that she was laughing, but was shaking so hard that her dark curls positively bounced around her crown.
“What is happening?” Brendan huffed.
