“It’s my friend Andy, Mother Renard. An agent in my building. He’s working a case, and I think… I think it’s Other.”
“Other” and “Otherworld” was how most humans referred to the non-mundane world. “Other” was an adjective, and Otherworld was an umbrella term that encompassed all the magical people and creatures that lived both here in the “real world” and in places like the astral plane or the underground realms of the high-court fey. I nodded and gestured to the couch for him to sit. “You don’t have to call me Mother Renard. Shade is just fine.”
He slid his hands over his legs as he sat, clasping his knees as if to ground himself. “But I thought… I wouldn’t want to be disrespectful.”
“It is not disrespectful for you to call me Shade,” I promised. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I paused. My mentor wasn’t the only witch who insisted on the title of “Mother” as a necessary sign of respect. Bryan wasn’t likely to encounter many witches, let alone those who would stand on such old-world ceremony, but still… “Since I asked you to,” I added. “It’s always safest to address a witch with their title unless you’re invited to do otherwise.”
“All right…Shade.” He waited as if expecting a sudden strike of lightning from the clear morning sky.
I cleared my throat. “You were saying about your friend Andy?”
“Andy, yeah. Well, a few weeks ago, he was assigned a missing person case. An architect’s husband reported her missing. The FBI doesn’t usually handle missing person cases without some evidence that the person’s been transported over state lines, but this lady, Helen Miller, might have connections to organized crime.”
“She worked for the mob?” I asked.
“Not exactly. There were two drug raids, one in 2011 and one in 2015. In both cases, the drugs were hidden in a secret room on the property. Secret rooms aren’t unusual, but these two had traps set up to burn the evidence if someone tried to get into the room without disabling the device first. Weird traps like something you’d see in a Dungeons & Dragons game. The agents on the case were able to trace the work back to Helen Miller.” He shrugged. “They watched her for a while, but they could never prove she had connections to the drugs beyond building the rooms.”
“And building the rooms isn’t illegal.”
“Right. And it doesn’t look like any of those people had a reason to want her dead, either. So far, she has no enemies, no criminal record.” Bryan leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “It’s been three weeks, and no one’s heard from her, no one’s seen her. Not a single clue.”
“But there’s no body.” I raised my hand to take a sip of my Coke, only to realize I’d left it on the desk. “You said you thought it was Other,” I continued, resting my hands in my lap. “What makes you say that?”
“It’s Andy. He’s not a superstitious person, and he doesn’t believe—” He stopped and swallowed hard.
I waved a hand. “You won’t offend me, Bryan. I know most people don’t believe.” I grinned and glanced at his arm where I knew a scar lay under the shirt sleeve. “Not everyone is bitten by a kobold as a child.”
Bryan put a hand over the scar, rubbing it through the the cotton. “Yeah, I guess.” He shook his head. “You told me once that nonbelievers can’t even see the Otherworld when it stares them in the face, even though they’ve always been around, always existed right alongside us.”
I thought of Amy’s boyfriend Jeff. “That’s right. The brain is a powerful organ, and it’s nothing for someone to reimagine something Other as mundane. It’s how a lot of people keep their sanity.”
“But it’s possible for them to change, right?”
I shrugged, trying to keep my mind on the subject at hand instead of the myriad of questions swarming my thoughts. I wanted to ask Bryan what he knew about the case. What mob had they thought the victim was involved with? What did he know about her relationship with her husband? Was foul play ruled out?
I reminded myself that this was not Bryan’s case. And it wasn’t mine. He was here because he was worried about his friend, and he wanted me to determine if something Other could be involved. End of story.
For now.
“Anything is possible,” I said. “Do you think Andy is on the brink of believing?”
Bryan sighed and leaned back. “Andy is the most analytical person I’ve ever met. Have you ever seen an old western? Cheyenne or anything like that?”
An image of James Garner in Support Your Local Sheriff popped into my head, and I nodded. “Yes.”
“That’s Andy. Always calm, always taking things in, processing. He’s your archetypal lawman. But this case… Every time he visits the missing woman's husband, he gets back to the office and he’s…different.”
“Different how?”
This time Bryan’s eyes met mine and held them. “He looks shaken. Mother Renard—Shade. Andy doesn’t get shaken. And last time he came back, he shook my hand and his skin was ice cold. I can’t help but think of a story my mom told me about my aunt right after my uncle died, and…” He shook his head. “I think Andy’s seen a ghost.”
A ghost. My brain came alive with everything I knew about the undeparted dead. Not every person who died became a ghost. Usually, a ghost came from an individual who’d suffered an injustice in life, something disturbing enough to keep them from resting in peace. The injustice could be real, or imagined, but either way, the spirit remained trapped on the physical plane, unable to put things right. I’d only dealt with ghosts a few times, and never without—
An older, feminine voice came from the doorway behind me. “A ghost, you say?”
Bryan shot to his feet like a child caught playing with his father’s power tools. “Mother Hazel.”
I swallowed a groan as I rose to face my mentor. Mother Hazel stood by the door leading into my kitchen from the garage, her spine ramrod straight so her brown robes fell in long, sloping lines from her five-foot-seven frame. Her hair hung down her back in a wind-tossed waterfall of gray, with a long lock on either side of her face brushing the edge of her skirt when she moved. She carried the scent of herbs and fresh earth, but if you stood closer to her, you’d pick up traces of other scents. Chicken feathers and iron shavings. There’d been a time she’d intimidated me, but living together, for however long it had been, had changed our relationship.
Now her interference was just annoying.
“Mother Renard.” She held my gaze, making it clear she knew what I was up to and what her thoughts on it were.
“Mother Hazel.” I picked an invisible piece of lint from my eye-melting leggings.
Her eye twitched, and she took her attention off me to focus on Bryan. Her mouth lifted into a bright smile, her blue eyes no longer piercing, but full of welcoming light.
“A pleasure to see you again, child. I’ve just come from a lovely visit with your mother. She tells me you’re doing well, very successful at the FBI.” She said the last line the way a grandmother might tell her grandson how proud she was that he’d learned all his colors.
Bryan bowed his head at the compliment. “I try.”
“But you need help now, it seems. Help from our young Mother Renard?”
I gritted my teeth and walked around the couch to put myself between my mentor and Bryan. “He’s here to talk about some difficulties his friend is having. A good idea for him to consult a witch, don’t you think?”
Mother Hazel nodded, as I’d known she would. My mentor was of the opinion that a witch should be consulted about everything, from childbirth to what occupation best suited a person. Witches are experts in everything, that was her motto.
“Yes, always best to consult a witch,” she agreed. “But have you considered a private investigator?”
Bryan went still. “I… I didn’t realize…” He looked at me like a man who’d eaten the last cookie, only to find it belonged to someone else. “I thought you were a private investigator?”
“I am.” I spo
ke with all the authority I could manage with Mother Hazel’s stare boring into the back of my skull. “You know what, Bryan, why don’t you write down the address of the missing woman’s house? I’ll pay Mr. Miller a visit now and see if I can’t get a feel for what’s rubbing Andy the wrong way, and I’ll call you and let you know what I find out. Sound good?”
Even with the old witch hovering like a specter of death behind us, Bryan’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank you, Moth— Shade. I would appreciate that.”
I beamed at him in reward for using my name, my pulse quickening when he pulled a small notebook and pen from his breast pocket. I could feel Mother Hazel seething behind me, stewing over hearing someone use my first name. As soon as he finished writing the address down, I stepped forward and plucked it out of his extended hand.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you.” He inclined his head toward Mother Hazel. “And thank you. Have a wonderful evening.”
After the door closed behind him, I locked my gaze on the soda still sitting on my desk and marched toward it.
The old crone’s voice followed me. “I overheard Mrs. Harvesty talking about her cat. She says she called you and you refused to come.”
My sip of Coke deepened to a gulp. The slip of paper crunched as I made a fist, pressing my knuckles to the desk.
“Will you be shirking all your duties to pursue this…detective dream of yours?”
Carbonation burned my throat, convincing me to abandon my wild soda consummation. The half-full aluminum can made a less-than-satisfactory thunk as I thumped it down and faced my fate.
“I told Mrs. Harvesty that I would see to her cat first thing in the morning. I couldn’t leave immediately because I was waiting for Bryan.” I stuck my chin out. “And I haven’t shirked any of my responsibilities.”
“The new mothers meeting?”
“Mrs. Smith has decided to let Thea eat oatmeal whenever she wants. I told her if Mrs. Roker tries to lecture her again about forcing a child to eat what they don’t want, she should call me and I’ll have a word with Mrs. Roker.”
“And when you said ‘have a word?’”
“I lowered my voice and give her a witchy look.”
Mother Hazel cackled. “Good, good.” She paused. “Let me see your witchy look.”
I sighed, but did as she’d asked. The expression, in my mentor’s opinion, was the number one weapon in a witch’s arsenal. It ranged from mild disapproval to a full-on evil eye, and was best used to remind people that witches were not to be trifled with. Ever.
“Good. Your eyebrows are getting the hang of it. I don’t think you’re ready for a haunting.”
The compliment-slash-insult was one of her favorite tactics, and I knew her well enough that it didn’t faze me. “I am ready, and I am going.”
I blinked and the old witch was standing at the desk, staring down at the ink-spattered paper and the runes I’d been attempting yesterday. My hands tingled with the urge to cover it, but there was no point. Runes were the magical equivalent of today’s QR code. Only instead of a barcode pattern being read and translated by a camera or computer, the runes were careful inscriptions written by magic users that could be consciously or subconsciously read by the intended audience. Some runes were obvious, intended to be read by whomever saw them and could translate them. Mine were subtler, worked into what the untrained eye would see as a decorative design. Only the person’s subconscious would get the message.
“You’re using runes to advertise on The Web again.”
As always, she made the words sound capitalized.
“I am.”
She looked down her nose at me. “You sound like a wizard. Witches do not advertise for their services. We are sought when we are needed.”
“I’m not putting out an ad for a witch’s services. The ad is for private investigating—period. I put the runes in the logo.”
“These runes are designed to speak to people without them realizing it.” She squinted at the wriggly lines again. “People who’ve seen or sensed something Other will feel you’re someone who will believe them, help them.” She straightened. “I assume that’s what coaxed our young Bryan to come to you with this missing person-ghost business?”
I only hesitated for a second. If she wanted to know, she’d find out anyway. “I put the same runes in the card I sent him for winter solstice last year.”
Something passed through the old witch’s eyes, emotion I almost would have called pride. “Clever.”
Tension seeped out of my shoulders. I didn’t need my mentor’s support, but having it would make things easier. “Thank you.”
“It was my idea.” Peasblossom leaned around my neck, emboldened by Mother Hazel’s sudden approval.
“The runes or turning my apprentice into a wizard-ish crime fighter who will like as not get herself killed and leave her community witch-less?”
“Just the runes,” Peasblossom squeaked.
So much for approval.
Mother Hazel stared at me, a penetrating but not unsympathetic gaze. “You still feel guilt for your past. You’ve chosen a very specific means of redeeming yourself, this private investigating business. Why?”
I’d asked myself the same question. More than once. “Do you remember Mary Jane? The dancer who lost all her money and committed suicide?”
“New York, 1943.” Mother Hazel tilted her head. “What about her?”
“I met her mother a few years after that. The poor woman was still as devastated as if it had just happened. Couldn’t believe her daughter had killed herself.”
“The loss of a child is always sad,” Mother Hazel said gently. “And no mother wants to believe her child would take her own life.”
“I know. But something she said bothered me. She went on and on about how Mary had been so responsible with her money. Always saved, always sent money home. She’d taken care of seven brothers and sisters, sent them all to school.”
Mother Hazel considered that. “You think someone stole her money.”
“I know they did. I looked into it.” I went to the computer and grabbed the mouse, quickly accessing the folder where I kept old cases. “Mary’s neighbor, a man unfailingly described as mean and lazy, experienced a mysterious gain in wealth at the same time Mary lost all her money. I saw a picture of him in the local paper and he was holding a toyol statue.” I found the picture I was looking for and clicked on it, making it as big as I could and zooming in on the statue held in the man’s tight-fisted grip.
Mother Hazel frowned at the screen. The toyol had a childlike stature and the bald head of a newborn, though its head appeared too large for its body. The statue was a pale grayish-green, with red eyes, and small streaks over its surface gave the impression of fur not unlike a monkey’s. “He summoned a toyol to steal her money?”
“Yes.” I rubbed my arms to get rid of the sudden chill. Toyol were disturbing spirits, created by using a special embalming process on an aborted fetus. Their nature hovered somewhere between a child and an animal, and when one was summoned to be used as an Otherworldly thief, it had…needs. One such need was sucking blood from its master’s breast or toe, and being provided a child’s toys to amuse itself between thefts. Disturbing on so many levels.
“You never told me you discovered this crime.”
I didn’t bother pointing out that such an action would invariably have led to a lecture on abandoning my studies for frivolous sleuthing. “I reported it to the Vanguard. That’s what they’re there for, right? To keep the Otherworld from preying on humans?”
Mother Hazel crossed her arms, probably in response to the derision in my voice when I spoke of the Vanguard. She knew my thoughts on the Otherworld’s version of INTERPOL. I wasn’t a fan.
“What does this have to do with your need to redeem yourself this way?”
“Members of the Otherworld shouldn’t be able to get away with murder just because humans don’t believe in them enough to protect themse
lves.” I lifted my chin. “I won’t let them get away with it.”
“As you said, that is what the Vanguard is for. It is left to them to deal with those who take advantage of humans, to mediate disputes between species.”
“But most humans stopped believing in the Otherworld a long time ago,” I argued, rubbing my chest to ease a sudden tightness around my heart. “They think people who call themselves witches are just people who practice a New Age religion. The vampires and werewolves pass as human, and if a monster does manage to kill someone, the death is attributed to a natural predator, a shark or a tiger. Humans are easy prey to any Otherworlder who cares enough to be subtle. And they get away with it.”
“Like you did,” Mother Hazel said softly.
I blinked, surprised to find tears in my eyes. I wiped them away. “Yes.”
The harsh lines of the crone’s face softened, making her look like a kindly grandmother instead of a stern witch. When she spoke, her voice was softer too, a gentle admonition. “There are other ways for you to find forgiveness. Have you given any more thought to calling your sister?”
“No.” I took another sip of my soda, ignoring my shaking hand. Memories battered against the psychic wall I’d erected to protect myself, memories I’d promised myself I’d examine later, after I’d become the sort of person who could face them.
“All right.” Mother Hazel nodded. “All right.”
Somehow her kindness was harder to bear than her disapproval. I took another sip of soda, trying to drown the sob attempting to crawl out of my throat. When I thought I could speak without my voice breaking, I put the can on the desk. “I can do this.”
Mother Hazel sighed. “I trust you remember how to prepare for encountering a ghost?”
I took a step toward my back room and all my supplies. “Yes.”
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