When we reconvened in the living room, everyone else was similarly empty handed.
“I feel something out of place, but my senses can’t really pin it down. No echoes of strong emotion here, which raises a few more questions,” Tamara said, giving me an apologetic smile.
Charles turned his gaze to Corey, who looked surprised and reluctant to be suddenly thrust into the spotlight. “Um, nothing?” The boy glanced around, avoiding everyone’s eyes before lowering his own. “Just those lingering cold spots that don’t make sense, and…” Charles gave him an encouraging nod. “I went back to that spot on the floor. It felt warm—No. More like the memory of being hot.”
I could only shrug uselessly when Charles looked toward me in turn. “Nothing that I haven’t already shown you.”
“Well,” Charles grunted after a moment of thoughtful silence, “this place is a dead end, then.”
“What? No way!” I wheeled on him, grabbing the couch for balance as my clumsy footing caught the carpet and forced a stumble. “We need to find something we can use.”
“And we will. In due time.” He met my eyes solidly, not backing down in the face of my flaring temper. “Look, we can’t save anyone if we rush blindly into trouble and get ourselves killed.” He looked around at our motley little group. “The fact is, there are clues here, we’re staring them in the face, but we don’t know what we have. Not yet. Like that scene in the kitchen. I just need more to go on.” He cut his eyes toward Tamara. “We need access to some of the other abduction sites.”
I reined myself in. “Oh. To see if anything matches up.”
The flawless vampire pulled out her smartphone with a casual shrug. “Shouldn’t be a problem. Give me a minute.”
Charles nodded. “Excellent. Hopefully things we see elsewhere will give the clues here more meaning. Or maybe whatever did this will simply be sloppier at another site. Besides, we can always come back.” He turned back toward the kitchen, cinnamon eyes half lidded. “In there… it’s something, that’s for sure. A disruption from Next Door. A cold spot in a warm world. Or vice versa. Something that’s not supposed to be but undeniably is. A lingering presence that seems confined to that room, something the reality we know rebelled against.” He frowned heavily, seeming almost anxious, and started for the door. “I’ve got a few ideas, but none of them are pretty.”
I missed a step as my brain tried to sort through what the wizard was saying and had to hurry to catch up. “Wait, what do you mean by next door? I don’t even know my neighbors’ names.”
“Not like that.” Charles illustrated his lack of patience with a sigh and a flat expression. “It’s the common term for the...I guess you’d call it the spirit world, though that term is near-meaningless these days. But it’s more than that. It’s the source of all magic, just out of sight of normal people, existing right beside our material world, all the time.”
I blinked. That made sense more easily than I’d expected. “Oh. Next Door. Gotcha.”
The wizard huffed his approval, seeming surprised. “Good.” He gave a last look around before pushing the front door open. I followed him reluctantly, hesitant to leave without answers. Or Lori. “Every magical effect or creature ultimately draws its power from sympathetic places Next Door. I do it consciously to cast spells; many creatures do it unconsciously, like breathing, simply to exist.” He paused with his hand on the door handle, giving me a look I could almost have construed as sympathetic.
“I, um…” I hesitated again, turned to see Tamara staring at me with a sad frown. “Give me a minute. I should get a... change of clothes.”
Charles grunted and nodded. “Definitely. Meet you at the Jennifer girl’s place, then.” He and his tagalong left quickly. Tamara hesitated and stayed.
“I’ll leave you alone for a minute,” she said finally. “You know, to change.” She slipped out behind them.
There was nothing wrong with the clothes Tamara had lent me, but I wanted something more comfortable, more me. Right now, I felt I needed a bit of familiar comfort. So I found some fresh clothes—clothes no one had died in yet—and got changed into yet another black tank top and a black hoodie with a skull on the front. I left the loose-fitting hip-huggers she’d given me where they were, though; I actually kind of liked them, and I seriously doubted that she’d want them back now that I’d wound-leaked into them.
A glance in the mirror showed me looking like some punk-goth vampire imitator, which I felt was only too appropriate. At least now I could be wearing something both thematically appropriate and wound-concealing. Then I sprayed on an assload of body spray for good measure.
And at some point in all of that, I paused long enough to discover that vampires can’t cry. At least, not Strigoi.
12
Mister wizard
The next place we looked into wasn’t so different that my own home, despite being in an apartment complex on the other side of town that I’d never known existed. Whoever had designed it had an unwholesome love for the color mauve. Some of the furniture was nicer and different art hung on the walls. If there were other major differences, I couldn't put my finger on them.
In a way, I was glad to leave my home behind, for now putting my back to the emotions sparked by simply being there. I was determined that when I went back, it would be with my Lori.
Tamara had charmed the people in charge of the office complex out of a proper key, along with permission to enter and look around—the latter, apparently, was the only way she and I were getting in at all. But by the time we got to the door, Charles and Corey had already broken in.
“Magic, remember?” The older man wiggled his fingers at my confused expression. “No point in wasting time.”
Far be it for me to argue with that. “So what do we look for here?”
Tamara cleared her throat and flipped through some notes on her phone; Charles had repossessed his little notebook on the way out of my apartment. “Really the same scenario as Lori’s abduction.” She glanced at me. “Missing a couple of days like several of the other girls. Her disappearance was noticed by friends, family, and work, and was subsequently reported to the police, at which point the magical community caught wind of it.”
She frowned through the rest of the notes. “I think we got lucky on how similar this is. She also seems to have gone missing from her home, as her car is outside, she’s not with friends or family, and police reports say no one’s confirmed to have seen her in at least twenty-four hours.”
We split up again and went through our search routine. This time, I was determined to find something that would link the pair of “crime scenes” together.
And after about ten minutes of searching, I found it.
“Got something,” I called, my voice a hoarse echo that struggled to penetrate the house’s empty air. Almost immediately, Charles darkened the bedroom doorway, and two heads peeked in past him. “What do you make of this?” Cast in clear-cut shades of gray, the trailing end of another burn mark peeked out from under a delightfully fluffy canopy bed. Underneath, I could see the full length of the heat-warped scar marring the floor, the pattern and color of the two-toned wood flooring running together like melted crayons. My sense of smell wasn’t what it used to be, but I was pretty certain I caught a vague whiff of something burnt lingering on the air. “Odd place to be cooking noodles, don’t you think?”
“Not sure I see what you mean.” Charles flicked on the overhead lights and leaned this way and that, eyes narrowed, peering at the dark under the bed.
“Here.” I leaned over and braced myself, but needn’t have bothered. The bottom end of the spacious king bed came off the floor without me even exerting myself, and I held it there effortlessly, one-armed. I kicked some half-melted candles, leather straps, and a pair of fur-lined handcuffs out of the way, providing an unobscured view of the warped floor.
After pausing to eye me warily, Charles sunk down onto his haunches and crept his way beneath the bed. “This isn’t…�
�� Charles trailed off, touching his fingers to the ashen smear, then holding them close to his nose and mouth, then leaning even lower and inhaling deeply. His nose spasmed, and he cursed. “I didn’t even check the last one. Damn, I’m stupid. ”
I exchanged a glance with Tamara as she stepped into the room. “What did you find?”
“I’d just show you, but you wouldn’t understand the significance.” He shrugged.
“Do you smell sulfur or something?” I probably watched too much television.
“No.” He shook his head. “More like ozone.” Crouch-walking his way out from under the bed, he took his staff back from Corey and levered himself to his feet with a groan. “You see, when something comes from Next Door, there’s typically a discharge of energy, similar to electricity.” He frowned, his face darkening. “But it would take a truly powerful working to leave traces that linger this long after the fact.”
“There’s also this,” I commented, holding the bed above my head as I bent down and pointed. “Looks like fingernails.” A shallow set of scratches were etched into the wood, like someone’s final protest. Or a warning. “They lead right up to the center of the melted part and disappear.” My spine popped loudly as I rose. I eyed Charles. “But what does all of this mean?”
“Something reached across from Next Door here. And it took someone back with it.” He abruptly strode away, heading for the living room. Behind him, I shared a shrug with my Moroi friend as we followed. Corey was already tossing the bulky rectangular duffle bag he’d been carrying onto Jennifer’s ugly mauve couch by the time we got into the room, unzipping it with a breath of effort.
I cleared my throat. “Okay…” I followed him, and Tamara followed me. “Wait. I thought you said shit like this couldn’t just cross thresholds.”
“No,” he corrected me absently as he rummaged through the bag, stuffed to the brim with objects I couldn’t easily identify. “I said you can’t, as in Strigoi, Moroi, Fae, and, I think, Jiangshi. Some other things, too. But not everything.”
I blinked. “So some things can just reach into your house and, well, jank you?”
“Yes. If they have a link. Very powerful ones don’t even need that. Now hush and let me concentrate.”
I looked at Tamara. “Is it just me, or did the world just get a lot smaller and creepier?” I rasped quietly.
She just shrugged helplessly back at me. “Hun, this is the only world I’ve ever lived in.”
Now there’s a dose of perspective, I thought. With Corey’s help, Charles pulled out a series of strange objects, the tools of his trade, considering each one before either gathering them up or having his apprentice stuff them back into the bag. I saw two more short rods, one of blackened iron, one of silver, both ornamented. A crystal pyramid followed, then an ornate dreamcatcher, a big sturdy hourglass, and several other intriguing objects that I couldn’t study as long as I would have liked before they went back into the bag. The wizard kept out an old pair of pillar candles as long as my forearm and thicker around, one black, one red, and both carved totem-style with animals, along with a big black velvet bag. Out of a concealed corner of his heavy coat came a tiny gray bag.
Then he brushed past the lot of us without a word, taking his armload of fancy magician accoutrements with him to the bedroom.
“Does he need wizard alone time or something?” I looked over at Corey in hope of answers, but the boy just shrugged and avoided my gaze, pulling out his phone and popping an earbud into one ear. Maybe he was too young to get the joke. Determined to be involved, I strode into the bedroom as well, Tamara on my heels.
“Move the bed so I can get closer to that burn mark,” the wizard commanded quietly the moment I stepped inside. I twitched and narrowed my eyes but stepped around him and did as he asked, scooping the bed out of the way. “Now get out,” he continued, scooting closer to the heat-twisted wooden flooring.
I planted my feet firmly. “No way,” I replied. Unless my presence was somehow going to mess this up, he’d have to make me leave.
The wizard grumbled under his breath but didn’t force the issue, instead pulling a metal flask from a pocket of his coat and taking a draft. “Fine. You stay. This won’t affect you. But she has to go.” He pointed at Tamara.
She sighed. “I have a name, you know.”
“Yep.” He rolled his dark, intelligent eyes at us. “You can stay if you want, but don’t blame me if you get a face full of something that dead people can handle better than the living.” He glanced between us.
“Fine, fine. I’m going.” Tamara turned and stepped out, covertly making a face I couldn’t help grinning at. Just before the door clicked shut, I barely caught her quiet, “He’s all yours.”
“Alone at last,” I rasped sweetly as Charles stared up at me. He made a pained face that I realized he probably thought I couldn’t see in the dark while he went about some sort of ritualistic preparations, lighting candles and opening the big and small bags. The big one looked to be full of some kind of sand, while the other had what I supposed was incense. Then he adjusted his position, sitting lotus-style in the center of the scarred floor with dimly lit candles to either side.
Interesting. “So, uh…” Could I ask questions? He hadn’t said anything about not disturbing him. “Exactly what am I going to be getting a face full of, and why won’t I care?”
Charles grumbled quietly to himself for a moment, before upping the volume of said grumbling. “I suppose I might as well explain it to you. To shut up the inevitable questions, if nothing else.”
“That’s the spirit.”
He ignored me. “Magic, real magic, is different than probably anything you’ve heard about in this modern age. People in media like to make it both more and less than it really is, even those that know it exists.” He glanced at me in the dim, presumably trying to see if I was still paying attention. “Two types of magic exist, very broadly speaking. One is done in the Now. Those spells affect things only in the moment and do not persist past it, though the change they cause might.”
“Okay, sure.”
“That kind of magic only takes a moment of splitting your focus, just one instant where the magician sees Next Door, reaches across to borrow a handful of energy and shapes it as he is able,” he continued. “On the other hand, what I’m about to do involves shifting my senses to that Neighboring realm for a more extended period.” He held up the little gray bag that I’d taken to be incense and wiggled it. “At base, humans are unable to do this.”
“So what does—” I stopped. “Ohhhhh, I get it. Drugs.” Uh-oh.
The seated wizard frowned, furrowed his brow, and rolled his eyes, all at once. When he spoke again, his voice was heavy with years of accumulated scorn. “Achieving alternate states of consciousness has been a staple of magic for as long as man has practiced it, most particularly noted in practically every native culture on the planet. Only the most powerful and experienced of wizards can shift their mind and senses Next Door without aid. They’re also often insane. Thus, the aids that help one achieve such states.” He frowned heavier, if that was possible. “Do not confuse such ways with simple dependence or the seeking of ‘highs’ and escapism.”
“Whoa, whoa.” I held my hands up defensively. “Back the disdain train up a bit. I’m new to this, remember?”
He huffed out a breath. “Either way, the end result is the same. You either trust that I know what I’m doing or you don’t, and we make no progress here.”
That wasn’t a choice at all. “I’m on board if you are, chief.” Only an instant after I said it did I wonder if I’d just accidentally insulted him. The Native blood in Charles’ features, while not as prominent as in some individuals I’d seen, was still very noticeable.
“Since you aren’t leaving, you might as well make yourself useful. Especially since you are no longer affected by such mundane things as smoke or drugs.” He didn’t seem to be any more offended than normal; my mouth and foot remained separated, for n
ow. “Don’t allow anyone—or anything, for that matter—to disturb me, especially physically; it will make this much quicker and easier if I can remain fully focused.” He eyed me sharply. “Which also means silence during my working. Assuming that’s not too much to ask.”
“I’ll manage.” I nodded. “So, does this mean you trust me now—”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Charles patted his staff where it lay, merely a few inches from one leg. “I will be under the affects of my herbs and tincture during the ritual trance and for a short while after, but I will still be far from defenseless. A fact you would be unwise to test.”
I gave a long, hoarse sigh. “Damn, is the honeymoon over already?”
If I hadn’t known better, I’d have said he chuckled quietly. But surely not.
13
Surprise party
I firmly shut my mouth and waited, watching as Charles portioned out a hefty handful of sand from his pouch, sweeping it into a quick circle in the center of the scorched scar, right in front of his feet. Into that he rationed a smaller handful, the grayscale of the sand giving way to a reddish tint in the candlelight.
Out came a little vial, and I watched the wizard tilt his head back, dripping a few glistening drops under his tongue. He opened the small medicine pouch next, tossing pinches of the contents into the dancing candle flames with the speed and ease of long practice. Both bits went up in equally swift puffs of smoke, to which he waved his hands in a beckoning, circular gesture—and the tiny smoke clouds flowed like little spirits right to his face, allowing him to inhale them directly.
Dead Girl's Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 1) Page 10
