Moon In The Mirror: A Tess Noncoire Adventure

by P. R. Frost

  “I can’t leave. The family is tearing itself apart over D’s will.” He sounded frustrated, and a little scared. No matter how much he, or I, disdained our families, they were . . . family. Important to our emotional well-being, an anchor to who we were and where we came from.

  “What is in the will?”

  “You sure you want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “The police didn’t tell you?”

  “They’ve told me squat. But I’m about to reveal to them the real murderer. It would look better if you were here, since you are currently their prime suspect.”

  “Shit!”

  “What’s in the will?”

  “He and your mom signed mutual wills at the time of their marriage. You do know that in Maine, any officer of the court, including lawyer, can perform a marriage?”

  “Yeah. A couple in my senior high school class eloped. Their folks tried to have it annulled using that as their argument. The marriage wasn’t legal because it hadn’t been performed by a judge. What’s in the will?”

  “The lawyer who performed the marriage drew up a simple but ironclad will for each of them. They left all of their worldly goods to each other. Your mom is now a very wealthy woman. But D’s kids and extended family are all set to contest it.”

  A long whistling breath escaped me. “I’m surprised Halohan didn’t zero in on Mom as suspect number one.”

  “You say I’m their prime suspect now?”

  “As of this morning. Your leaving town didn’t help.”

  “Who did it?”

  “I don’t want to say on an open line.” I might be on my cell phone—free long distance, minutes didn’t even count when I called Donovan or Gollum since we all had the same carrier—but I suspected eavesdroppers within the house.

  “If I leave now, all hell will break loose.”

  “You can go back tomorrow. But I need you back here by nine tonight. Ten at the latest.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he grumbled and muttered something more. A loud crash and shouting in the background, and he disconnected without further explanation.

  “Wow!” Gollum said when I related the conversation. “Does she know?”

  “I don’t think so. She hasn’t said anything to me. Or asked any questions about handling the money.” I settled back onto his sofa. It felt like an old familiar friend after sleeping on it so many nights running. A big yawn threatened to take me to la la land once more.

  “That family of half-blood Damiri could be your next battle.” He settled in the armchair across from me and planted his feet on the coffee table. We’d done this before, here and in a couple of hotel rooms as we plotted the next move.

  “I’ll let the lawyers handle it. Right now, I need your help.” I got up and grabbed a couple of beers from his fridge. We each took a long gulp before he spoke again.

  “Help with what?”

  “Making some new question cards for family game night. Then you can teach me how to stack the deck. You do know how, don’t you?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Because you know or can find out anything.”

  Chapter 45

  Moon symbolism has been present in religion since the beginning of recorded history. The crescent moon and star closely identified with Islam probably came originally from Byzantium, and may have been borrowed from ancient Persia before that.

  I SERVED COFFEE AND tea and some bakery cookies. Gollum and I had eaten all the homemade ones. Grandma Maria, my mother’s mother, complained a bit about the disruption of her “schedule, ” meaning a series of sitcom repeats on TV on Tuesday nights. Uncle George, my father’s brother, demanded a drink before he’d cleared the doorway. Dad and Bill sort of slid in unnoticed by anyone but me. I was the one counting bodies.

  Cecilia blew in wearing her red PTA power suit. She glowed with triumph and eagerness. Then she blew out again, in her yellow power pickup, more interested in pushing her agenda on some new playground equipment at the school than her agenda in controlling the family. “By the way, James Frazier is outside with his camera and a man in a black suit and sunglasses,” she said offhandedly at the doorway, and was gone before I could question her further.

  Allie and Joe Halohan came last, uniforms made casual looking by removal of ties and tool belts. I didn’t doubt that they each had guns hidden on their persons somewhere.

  Mike Gionelli followed in their wake. I hadn’t invited him, but Allie insisted.

  “You okay with him, Scrap?” I whispered while alone in the kitchen.

  For now. He’s got a lot more human in his bloodstream than demon. I can’t smell any evil in him. Scrap perched on the mantel blowing smoke rings at all who passed by him.

  “FBI and a reporter outside,” Mike whispered as he passed me, confirming Cecilia’s observation.

  “We’ll have something for them later,” I returned, equally quietly.

  Donovan would come when he could get here. A message on my cell phone had informed me he was hoping to get on a flight that would land in Providence at seven. An hour’s drive from here. At eight, I hadn’t heard from him.

  His presence wasn’t essential to the proceedings, but I hoped he’d arrive in time to be fully exonerated. Why, I don’t know. Donovan in prison as an accessory to murder would make my life a whole lot simpler.

  Gollum escorted WindScribe over from the bottom of the new stairs.

  Twelve people gathered around the massive table, filling all of the high-backed chairs. Any more and I’d have to drag in extras from the kitchen. I bumped Uncle George from the armchair at the head of the table nearest the fireplace. This was my house, after all. He mumbled and grumbled about preferring his poker night with his drinking buddies at McTs. But he settled his ample butt next to Grandma Maria. Gollum took the place to my right, Allie to my left. Mom sat next to Allie, looking small and frail. This couldn’t be easy for her. But she needed to confront the murderer of her husband.

  I needed to do the same.

  Somehow we all maneuvered things so that WindScribe sat opposite me at the other end of the table. Bill and Dad flanked her. She couldn’t avoid my direct gaze.

  We began in the normal fashion working our way through the normal deck of question cards. MoonFeather and Dad took on the job of moving game pieces around the board for those of us who couldn’t reach.

  With this many people, it took a while to work around the table. Gollum made sure that WindScribe’s first four questions came from her own time period, Vietnam era politics, Nixon, the Bicentennial celebration, even sports. Her confidence and relief at answering each one correctly showed clearly in her expression and posture.

  The rest of us got normal questions about more current events and scientific breakthroughs.

  I watched a puzzled frown deepen on WindScribe’s face between her turns as each round progressed. She seemed to shrink in her chair, trying to hide from the probability of getting a question she couldn’t answer because she’d been stuck in Faery for twenty-eight years. With each move on the board, she became more and more aware of just how much she had missed and how hard she’d find it to fit in to modern life.

  The theme from Star Wars on my cell phone stopped the action just before WindScribe’s fifth question. Donovan’s number flashed on the screen.

  “I’m turning into your driveway now,” he barked. He sounded tired.

  “Just in time,” I answered smoothly and hung up. “Go ahead with the game.”

  Gollum drew a card from the top of the pile. I watched him palm it and produce a forgery. No one commented on his sleight of hand. Either they didn’t see it, or my family accepted cheating as normal. I was betting on the latter. We get cutthroat sometimes on game night.

  “Name the scientist responsible for mapping the human genome,” Gollum read in his professorial voice. He speared WindScribe with a look that would have set students quaking in their leather sandals.

  I heard the crunch of gravel
and the banging of a car door.

  “Oh, who could that be?” WindScribe sprang to her feet and made a mad dash for the kitchen. “Donovan, you’re back!” she squealed.

  We all waited in silence. Answering a question or admitting you didn’t know the answer was a nearly sacred ritual among us.

  WindScribe appeared a moment later with Donovan’s arm wrapped around her waist. She clung to him like a lifeline.

  Scrap popped out of the room. Not far, I sensed.

  “I guess we have to end the game now,” she said brightly.

  “Answer the question,” Uncle George growled.

  “We don’t end the game until someone wins,” Grandma Maria added.

  “I . . . um . . . we can’t continue and leave Donovan out. It wouldn’t be polite.” Near panic crossed WindScribe’s features. Then her eyes narrowed, and she settled into a fiercely defiant posture.

  I could well imagine an automatic weapon in her hand. Or an eighteenth-century German short sword.

  “Answer the question,” Halohan added. He’d become as deeply involved as the rest of us.

  “Or take the penalty,” Allie said.

  “You’re all being mean to me,” WindScribe pouted prettily.

  “Not at all, my dear,” MoonFeather admonished. “We are simply playing a game. “Now abide by the rules.” Her face took on a look of sternness that had sent me running for a place to hide in the woods when I was a child. “Rules are important.”

  “Donovan, make them stop,” she pleaded.

  “Far be it from me to break the rules.” He shrugged and disengaged himself from her embrace. He moved to my end of the table and placed his hand on my shoulder as he dropped a kiss on top of my hair.

  I almost leaned into his warmth and strength. His hand felt quite natural in the place where Scrap usually sat, as if we belonged together.

  Gollum’s look of sad resignation kept me upright and determined to proceed. Donovan and I didn’t belong together. At least not in this lifetime.

  “Glad to see you came back voluntarily,” Joe Halohan said.

  “I need to go back to Florida tomorrow, Chief, but I wanted you to know that I’m available should you need me in the investigation. I’m not guilty. I just have a volatile family that needs attending to.”

  Halohan grunted his acceptance of the explanation.

  “Still not an excuse to skip town without notice,” Mike said. He kept his eyes on his hands rather than meet Donovan’s gaze.

  Tension there. Something to deal with later. WindScribe was looking anxious and ready to flee.

  “Perhaps you’d accept a different question, WindScribe? ” Gollum said. He pretended to draw another card. “Who is the King of the Orculli trolls?” He read it as if it were just another normal question from the pile.

  “That’s not a real question!” WindScribe nearly screamed.

  “Oh, but it is,” Gollum said. He held up the forged card for inspection. Amazing what you can accomplish with a scanner and a good graphics program.

  “Answer the question, girl,” Grandma Maria demanded. “I know the answer. Surely you should.”

  My mouth fell open at that.

  “Well, anyone who’s read one of the field guides to wild folk knows that,” my grandmother retorted. I had to get my omnivorous reading habits from somewhere. Why not from her?

  “You’re ganging up on me. I won’t stand for it.” WindScribe stamped her foot. She tried for that innocent little girl look and failed miserably.

  “We’re trying to get you to take responsibility for your commitment to the game,” I said sternly. “But you aren’t good at taking responsibility. Your mother was right. You aren’t good at anything. You’ll never be pretty enough or smart enough to do anything but fail.” I echoed some of the things MoonFeather had told me about Mrs. Milner’s abuse of her daughter.

  “Do you suppose we should just throw her out?” MoonFeather asked. “She doesn’t seem interested in following the rules.”

  “And the next question is where were you going to get the weapons to lead an armed rebellion?” I added.

  My family looked more than a little bewildered, but good sports, one and all, they played along with our charade.

  “She couldn’t follow through with that either,” Donovan said on a yawn.

  “I will!” WindScribe said. “I will lead the demon tribes to victory. I’ll be queen of the otherworlds. And this one, too!”

  “The wild imaginings of a drug addict,” I said.

  “Stop it! It’s real. And I am not an addict.” WindScribe shouted. She looked ready to tear her hair.

  “If she’s not an addict, why did she try to steal my migraine medication?” Mom asked. No coaching there. Mom had really caught the girl up to no good.

  “Shut up. You’re nothing but a demented, shriveled-up old woman. I don’t know what D saw in you. You couldn’t help him. But I could. I’m the one who killed the king of Faery and got access to the demons. I’m the one who planned everything.”

  “Is that why the ATF sent me down here, to stop your little war before it got started?” Mike asked.

  That surprised everyone, including WindScribe.

  She pulled an automatic weapon from the back of her waistband, beneath her sloppy blouse. My blouse that fit her sloppily, that is. She aimed it between my eyes. At this distance she could hardly miss.

  Chapter 46

  My skin turns bright vermilion. I stretch and twist as far as I can. But no command comes from Tess to transform. I can’t get any closer to her than the doorway to the butler’s pantry, right behind WindScribe.

  She is the source of evil that compels me to become a weapon of good. Her lack of demon blood keeps me from overcoming the force field that surrounds Donovan. Even Mike’s traces of demonhood is not enough to overcome Donovan.

  His mojo is so powerful I don’t want to ever get in a fight against him.

  If I can’t get closer to Tess, then Tess must come to me. Without Donovan.

  I need a distraction.

  Hmmm.

  "Boo!” I shout in WindScribe’s ear.

  She remains impassive, as if I’m not truly here.

  Damn. Why is it she can see me sometimes but not now when I need her to?

  “I think you want to put that away,” Halohan said sternly. His hand shifted to his hip. He hadn’t worn a holster when he came in.

  Allie’s hand went to her boot top. She must have a gun hidden there.

  I couldn’t relax. The gaping maw of the gun muzzle stared right at me, followed me when I shoved my chair back and to the left, closer to Donovan.

  Was she desperate enough to risk shooting her lover?

  Gollum slouched in his chair, almost disappearing beneath the table. Great. Now he turns coward.

  “Really, now, it’s only a game!” Grandma Maria snorted.

  “No, it’s not. It’s a bunch of silly rules that no one can understand,” WindScribe insisted. Her eyes looked wild and unfocused, bright hair tangled as she combed it with the fingers of her left hand.