The Returned

by Bishop O'Connell

  Wraith felt Edward and Caitlin staring at her, and even she knew she was starting to sound a little scary.

  “But that can wait,” Wraith said. “We need to solve the problem at hand first. I might be egotistical, but I’m not going to put my own desires for revenge above people dying here and now.”

  “So what do we do?” Caitlin asked.

  “We end this,” Edward said.

  Wraith nodded. “If you’re right and the person is being controlled by dark magic, we help them get free if we can.” She shuddered a little and looked up. “Stop them if we can’t.”

  Caitlin opened her mouth, obviously torn.

  “Trust me,” Wraith said. “It’s better than letting the Legion or their sicko support people turn whoever this is into a guinea pig.” She sighed. “It’s what I’d want.”

  “And then?” Edward asked.

  “Then you two are out of this,” Wraith said.

  “What?” Caitlin asked.

  “Don’t argue,” Wraith said. “It’s not your fight. The rest is between me and Four, which means me and the Legion.”

  “I’m not going to argue,” Caitlin said.

  Wraith nodded.

  Edward looked shocked.

  “Not right now,” she added. “But this conversation isn’t over. Like you said, we have other things to take care of first.”

  Wraith sighed. “I appreciate—”

  “I said later,” Caitlin said.

  Something in Caitlin’s tone made Wraith sit up straight and shut up instantly. It took her off guard, and she needed more than a moment to recover. “Freaking mom magic.”

  Caitlin gave a soft smile, then she turned to Edward. “You want to tell her or should I?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “We think we know who’s behind all this,” Edward said, then nodded at Caitlin. “She figured it out.”

  “Who?”

  “I think it’s someone related to one of the innocent victims,” Caitlin said. “From the original shoot-out six months ago.”

  “Why do you think that?” Wraith asked.

  “It’s what I’d do,” Caitlin said. “If someone I loved was killed, I’d go to a dark place I’m not sure I’d come back from. I’d want to kill those responsible, all of them.”

  Wraith felt a little chill, not least of which because she knew her own feelings were in that same vein. It gave her pause about her thoughts of revenge.

  “There were three people killed,” Caitlin said. “We need to find out who they were and if they left any family behind.”

  “Or close friends,” Wraith said.

  Caitlin nodded.

  “We could call Henry,” Edward said. “He’d probably have a list, be able to find next of kin.”

  “No way,” Wraith and Caitlin said at the same time.

  “Or, we could do something else,” Edward said, leaning back and looking from one of them to the other. “We could just ask him for the flash drive.”

  Wraith nodded. “Call him and tell him I’m coming over to pick it up.”

  “Um, okay,” Edward said and picked up his phone. “When should I tell him you’ll be there?”

  “What’s his address?” Wraith asked.

  Edward gave it to her.

  She looked around and remembered the restroom door. “About two minutes.”

  Edward dialed as Wraith headed to the bathroom.

  She stepped through the restroom door at the hotel and out of the closet door at Henry’s house. It was actually kind of tricky making the connection, but she’d figured out a way to make it work.

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Henry said into his phone. “She’s going—”

  Wraith tapped his shoulder. “What’s up, Doc?”

  He jumped, nearly dropping the phone. “Well, thanks for the warning,” he said and ended his call.

  Wraith smiled.

  “Be sure to talk to Edward sometime soon about boundaries,” he said and headed down the hall.

  “Sorry, but this was the easiest way to do it,” Wraith said, following him. That’s when a thought occurred to her. “Is your wife home?”

  “No,” Henry said as he stepped into a home office. “She went to the store.” He went to a safe and opened it. “I’d appreciate if you weren’t here when she got back. Nothing personal, just—”

  “Might be an awkward conversation to explain the teenage girl in your house?”

  “A bit,” Henry said, then retrieved the flash drive and closed the safe. “You’re sure you don’t need any help with this?”

  “No, but it’s really better for you to be out of this. Trust me.” Wraith took the drive from him.

  “Let me give you the encryption key.”

  “Won’t need it,” Wraith said. “Thanks anyway though.”

  Henry opened his mouth, but he froze when a door opened then closed.

  “You wouldn’t believe how busy it was,” a woman said from another room in the house.

  Henry went pale and looked at Wraith with panicked eyes.

  Wraith smiled, gave Henry a wink, and then wrapped herself in the cloaking equation, vanishing from sight. She took a brief moment to appreciate Henry’s look, then she crept back to the closet door and returned to the hotel.

  “Are we sure this is a good idea?” Edward asked.

  He glanced back to the door of the hotel’s business center as Wraith, goggles down, plugged in the flash drive and moved her hands over the keyboard but didn’t touch it. Caitlin had the odd sense she was in a science-fiction movie.

  “Relax,” Wraith said and turned off the monitor. “Is that better? If anyone comes in they won’t know what I’m doing.”

  “Yes, because someone sitting at a black monitor, not typing on the keyboard, and wearing strange goggles doesn’t raise any questions,” Caitlin said.

  Wraith nodded. “Good point.” She turned the monitor back on.

  Caitlin watched in stunned amazement as Wraith operated the computer without touching the mouse or the keyboard. A window with several PDF files opened, then it vanished and was replaced with a tourist website listing sights to see in New Orleans.

  “How’s that?” Wraith asked.

  “How are you doing that?” Edward asked.

  “Doing what?” Wraith asked as she obviously read something neither Caitlin nor Edward could see.

  “Operating the computer without, well, operating the computer,” Caitlin said.

  “You want the long answer or the short one?”

  “Short one,” Edward said.

  “Long one,” Caitlin said.

  The two looked at each other as Wraith snickered.

  “I can see the flow of data,” Wraith said. “I can see it at a level both more complex and simpler than I could if it was compiled and displayed on the monitor.” She moved her fingers like she was flipping through screens on a smartphone. “Rather than using the keyboard and mouse, which send commands to the computer that must be translated into code, and then translated again to interact with the program in question, I just go directly to the program.” She bounced her head side to side. “Or rather the data that makes up the program.” She shrugged. “Pretend we’re in the Matrix and I’m just jacking in via magic instead of a plugin the back of my head.”

  “I’m not sure that helps,” Edward said. “Seeing as we’re dealing with real agents.”

  “Whoa,” Wraith said in a poor Keanu Reeves impersonation. “I am The One.”

  Caitlin shook her head and tried not to laugh.

  Edward gave her a look that only made it harder not to laugh.

  “Like this is any stranger than some of the other aspects of our lives,” Caitlin said.

  Edward opened his mouth, obviously to protest, but nothing came out. After a minute, he closed his mouth and turned to Wraith. “Any chance someone could track what you’re doing here?”

  “You think it’s likely they’re monitoring the computers in the business center of yo
ur hotel?” Wraith asked. “What kind of idiot would use a public computer in a hotel to view sensitive information?”

  “Brilliantly stupid?” Caitlin asked.

  “That’s me!” Wraith said and smiled. “But don’t worry, the website is legit. Everything I’m doing is in a quarantined section of the drive, and I’ll wipe any evidence when I’m done. Even if someone was watching it intently, they wouldn’t be able to see what I’m doing.”

  “And if there are any keystroke or click tracker programs, they won’t have any record either,” Caitlin said.

  “Hey, I hadn’t thought of that,” Wraith said.

  “So you’re accidently brilliantly stupid?” Edward asked.

  “Okay, I’ve found a list of the victims,” Wraith said and mimed pulling things apart and scrolling in the air. “And I really am being careful. I was just messing with you, Eddy.”

  “Edward, please,” he said.

  “Jot down these addresses, E Man,” Wraith said.

  “I don’t need to write them down. I’ll remember them.”

  Wraith rattled off the addresses.

  He repeated them back to make sure he had them, which he did.

  “What do you want me to do with the drive?” Wraith asked. “Should I wipe it?”

  “No,” Edward said. “We might need the data later, though we should probably keep it hidden for now.”

  Wraith did some more techno-magicy finger waving, then she pulled the drive out, pushed up her goggles, and turned the chair to face Edward and Caitlin. “I can handle that,” she said and opened her messenger bag. She stuck the drive inside and closed the bag.

  “That’s not quite what I had in mind,” Edward said. “I meant someplace safe.”

  Wraith handed him the bag. “Find it.”

  Edward gave Caitlin a questioning look.

  She just shrugged.

  He opened it, and they both started looking through the bag. It held some earbuds—three pairs, actually. There were also several empty bags of candy, a couple of paperback books, and the sort of miscellany you’d expect to find in a teenager’s bag.

  “Is there some kind of secret pocket?” Caitlin asked.

  “If there is,” Edward said, “it’s a good one.”

  Wraith smiled. “Close it.”

  They did.

  She made some subtle gestures over the flap. “Okay, open it.”

  Caitlin and Edward exchanged another look and opened the bag again.

  “What the hell?” Caitlin asked. It was like they’d opened an entirely different bag. There were two hardbound books (some kind of journal from the looks of them), a few battered and worn composition books, some crumpled bills, pens, markers, a multitool, and, at the bottom of the bag, the flash drive.

  “How did you do that?” Edward asked.

  Wraith shrugged. “I call it hammerspace.”

  “You mean that place where Bugs Bunny pulls his mallet out of?” Caitlin asked.

  “Same idea,” Wraith said. “It’s just an extradimensional link. I can choose which bag you’re opening—there are three by the way, and each is about six times the size of the bag itself.”

  “Sounds like the magic your grandfather used to build the house,” Caitlin said to Edward.

  “You really need to teach me how you do that,” Edward said.

  “Sure,” Wraith said and nodded. “Now or after we stop the zombie apocalypse?”

  “You’re not as witty as you think you are,” Edward said.

  Wraith stuck her tongue out at him.

  Caitlin rolled her eyes and let out a sigh. “When this is over, you’re grounded,” she said to Wraith. “Let’s go.” She turned and walked out of the business center.

  “He started it,” Wraith said as they left.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Wraith followed Caitlin and Edward through the lobby.

  “So try the fecking number again,” a woman said loudly, her voice heavy with an Irish brogue.

  Something about the voice was familiar, but Wraith’s brain was having trouble remembering it through the haze of sugar, caffeine, and sleep deprivation.

  “I’ve already tried three times, ma’am,” the desk clerk said. “If you’d like to leave a message, I’d be happy to take one.”

  “Siobhan?” Wraith asked.

  A tall woman with long black hair pulled into a ponytail stood in front of the reception desk. There were Celtic-knot tattoos on her neck that twisted and vanished under the collar of her black shirt, only to reappear on her bare arms. She shifted from one heavy-booted foot to the other and sighed in exasperation as some hotel guests behind her kept their distance.

  Siobhan had been one of the people who’d helped Wraith find Geek, and the man whom she’d thought was Ovation back in Seattle. She was a member of a group of legendary Irish warriors who served as a sort of policing group, enforcing the ancient laws between the fae and mortals.

  “What’d you say?” Caitlin asked as she and Edward stopped and looked over.

  “What’s she doing here?” Edward asked.

  Siobhan turned and looked at Wraith with blue eyes so bright they might’ve been battery-powered and smiled, though it was weary. “Aye, there you are,” she said and turned back to the desk clerk. “Thanks anyway, love, but it seems they found me.” She grabbed a black tote bag at her feet and walked over.

  “Have you got great timing,” Caitlin said, giving Siobhan a hug when she got close enough.

  “Not like I just stumbled upon ya now, is it?” Siobhan said. “Brigid asked me to get here as soon as I could. Fecking woke me up and sent me running, she did.”

  “Brigid?” Wraith said. “Wait, you’re the backup?”

  “Aye,” Siobhan said, then yawned. “Who’d have thought you could get bleeding jet lag stepping through trees?”

  A couple of guests gave the group an odd look as they walked by.

  “Help you with something?” Siobhan asked.

  The guests turned and quickly walked away.

  “You took the trails?” Edward asked.

  “No other way to get here quick enough,” Siobhan said, then nodded to Wraith. “Unless she set me up with one of her special doors.” She chuckled and patted the bag. “And not like I could fly with this carry-on.”

  Wraith saw Edward give the bag a nervous look.

  “Don’t worry none,” Siobhan said to him. “Had to travel light, so it’s just the bare necessities. You know, a few pistols, shotgun, smoke grenades, ammo—”

  “Maybe the middle of the lobby isn’t the best place for an inventory,” Caitlin said.

  Siobhan nodded. “Aye, fair play, that. So, what’s the deal? Brigid was light on details.”

  “Let’s talk somewhere more private,” Edward said.

  They all walked out of the hotel and waited for the valet to bring the rental car around. As they waited, Wraith looked over Siobhan and felt a surge of envy. She was so beautiful, so strong; a real warrior woman. There was no sign of the fear, depression, or self-doubt Wraith so often felt. Wraith’s eyes went to the gleaming silver belt buckle Siobhan wore, and she stared. It was a triskelion—three interlocking spirals—beneath a circular Celtic knot. Wraith’s hand went into a coat pocket, and she fingered the silver pin she’d found not long after she started visiting Brendan. Her fingers traced over its lines and curves as her eyes did the same to Siobhan’s belt buckle. They were the same, though the pin was more battered.

  “What is that?” Wraith asked.

  Siobhan looked over then down. “That’s the clan mark of the Fianna,” she said. “You’re given one when you pass the trials and become a true Fian.”

  Wraith thought back to her last visit with Brendan and the stories he told her about the Fianna and all they did. She wanted to kick herself for not putting it together sooner.

  “Are they always belt buckles?” Wraith asked, though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.

  Siobhan laughed. “Hardly,” she said
. “I had this made. Tradition says it’s a pin. The lads wear theirs on their kilts, them that still wear kilts anyway.”

  Wraith thought of Brendan’s tattoos, not unlike Siobhan’s, and his dirty, worn kilt, once probably a mustardy yellow color, now stained with dirt, sweat, and blood. She’d thought about getting it cleaned for him, but seeing how it was probably the only thing he had to wear, she’d decided it wasn’t a good idea.

  “Them that don’t,” Siobhan continued, “and the few of us lasses in the ranks usually just wear them over our hearts. Mine’s on me jacket, but it’s too bleeding hot here to wear it.”

  Wraith opened her mouth to ask if Siobhan knew Brendan, but before the words could get out, Caitlin was taking the keys from the valet and getting into the driver’s seat of the car.

  “You want to ride up front?” Edward asked Wraith and Siobhan.

  “One’s as good as the other,” Siobhan said.

  Wraith shook her head and went to get in behind Caitlin. Was it right for her to ask about Brendan? What if Siobhan did know him? He’d never really talked about his personal history, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out he was hiding. Did she have a right to let others know? She didn’t think so, but she could ask him about Siobhan, and she reminded herself to do just that next time she went to see him.

  “You want to fill her in?” Edward asked Wraith as they pulled away from the hotel.

  “What?” Wraith asked, snapping out of her reverie.

  “Are you okay?” Edward asked.

  “Fine,” Wraith said and shook her head. “Just tired and buzzed.”

  “Where to?” Caitlin asked.

  “It’s still early,” Edward said. “And we really need a plan.”

  “You don’t think people would respond well to complete strangers knocking on their door and asking about anyone in the household raising people from the dead?” Wraith asked.

  “Not so much,” Edward said.