Vulture Moon

by Alexes Razevich

  Maybe I picked something up from Jack’s subconscious. Maybe the idea came to me on its own, but I knew I was right before I said the words.

  “The stuck ghosts have something to do with this too. The same person or people are involved. The murders and The Gate’s and Gil’s disappearances are tied together. The same mind is behind it all.”

  The two men turned their heads to look at me. I reached gently into the MP’s mind. Jack immediately shot me a look that said he’d felt me there and he didn’t like it. The magical were extra sensitive to my probing. It was nearly impossible to get in and out of their minds without them knowing, but I’d caught something in his subconscious—a fear that I was right, and the rumor and the deaths were intertwined.

  Something else burst into my mind.

  “What does Hugo Bernard have to do with it?”

  “What?” Dee said.

  I focused on Jack. “Hugo Bernard. How is the council member tied in with the disappearances?”

  “I don’t know that he is,” Jack said, sounding truly perplexed at the suggestion. “If he is, you tell me how.”

  “He hates The Gate,” I said, trying to sort through my feelings. “He doesn’t like Diego, though he doesn’t have much of a reason for that.” I rubbed my eyes and then turned my attention back to Jack. “Diego’s told me why he thinks Hugo doesn’t like him. You tell me why you think it is.”

  Jack blinked. He was used to Dee doing most of the talking, and here I was practically interrogating him. I didn’t care. I had to know the answers to try to make any kind of sense of what was going on.

  “Well,” he said, “the councilman is resentful that Diego is a full wizard at his age. He’d deny it, but it’s true. Hugo doesn’t like that Diego has taken on an apprentice—you—his girlfriend. It’s mixing things that should stay separate as far as Councilman Bernard is concerned. Don’t be surprised if you find him looking over your shoulders. Any little thing you do outside of the rules—either of you—he’s going to have your asses and enjoy it.”

  I let the words percolate through me, feeling for the truth in them. And considering the word apprentice. I hadn’t thought of myself that way. I saw it more as Dee had some skills I didn’t, and he taught them to me when he thought something would be useful or I asked to learn to do a particular thing. I’d taught him to follow a signature, the unique frequency every person had unto themselves. That didn’t make him my apprentice, and I didn’t want to be his. It was much too unequal a relationship for my liking. But I didn’t want to get Dee in trouble either. We’d need to discuss this at some point, I supposed.

  “No,” I said, coming back to Hugo’s dislike for Dee. “That’s not it. First off, it’s The Gate that Hugo Bernard is angry with. His wife ran to The Gate because he was the stronger wizard. That has nothing to do with Diego.”

  Jack tilted his head. “Doesn’t it? Think about it. Hugo lost more than his wife.”

  “His children,” I said as it became blazingly clear. “Diego and Gil are like The Gate’s sons. Sons he got to keep while Hugo lost his children. And somehow that’s Diego’s fault. For what? For the respect and love he has for Gate? That’s pretty twisted resentment.”

  Jack was only a decade or so older than me, but his face suddenly looked ancient and world-weary.

  “Magic doesn’t make us less human,” he said. “It might make us more so.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Night had fully fallen by the time we left Jack nursing his coffee and probably contemplating the new puzzles we’d given him: were the mysterious deaths and the disappearances connected? If so, how and why? Was someone truly planning a human sacrifice beneath the Vulture Moon?

  “Your place or mine?” Dee said as we got into his car.

  “Mine—to drop me off. I need to call and see how Chas is doing, and I’m pretty sure my mother will want me to come over, even though it’s getting late.” I touched his arm. “I’d much rather spend the night with you.”

  “There are things we should talk about,” he said.

  God knew that was right. Things we’d learned—things we’d said or had been said to us. Yeah, we needed to talk. “Okay. Let’s go to my house. I’ll call my mom. If I don’t need to go over, we’ll have time to ourselves.”

  I live a fair distance down from the Pier Avenue promenade, hub of most of Hermosa’s nightlife with its many bars and restaurants. Things must have been hopping in downtown tonight because we had to drive almost to the next city before we found a place to park.

  We were almost to my house when the veil dropped over us. I felt it like a sudden wet shimmer in the air. Dee cursed under his breath, pushed lightly at my back and said, “Run.”

  I leaned forward and crouched slightly, ready for us to try to dash free of the veil that hid us from anyone walking or driving by.

  But Dee stood his ground.

  I wasn’t going without him. I straightened up and stood beside him.

  A tall man, six and a half feet at least, with dark hair and eyes, wearing a long, black robe materialized before us. I heard the word sorcerer in Dee’s mind and felt the twinge of fear and worry that shot through him.

  “Wizard,” the sorcerer said. “The men you seek are dead. Pursue this quest no more.”

  Dee seemed to ignore what the sorcerer said. “We saw your handiwork at Alpine Village, Halvorsen. You do like to play with fire, don’t you? What had that ordin ever done to you that he deserved that?”

  Halvorsen glowered at Dee. “Don’t fuck with me, Wizard, unless you’re anxious to feel my fire on your flesh. The men you’re seeking are dead. Give up the hunt.”

  Dee cocked his head slightly. “Did you conjure up the car as well? Not much of a spell. Oona here broke it and, frankly, she’s not all that good at the craft.”

  My heart pounded. I couldn’t fathom why Dee would antagonize this sorcerer, especially if Halvorsen had indeed killed that poor man.

  The sorcerer turned to me. Anger burned in his eyes, but his voice was almost conversational. “Psychic, reach out and test if my words be true.”

  Dee tsked. “Test if my words be true? What century do you think this is, anyway?”

  “Give me The Gate’s charm,” I whispered to him.

  He stared at me for the briefest moment, then reached into his pocket and handed me the silver star on its silver chain. I closed my hand around it and felt for the man it belonged to.

  When I’d held it before, I’d heard The Gate calling Diego’s name and seen disconnected images. Now I heard, saw, and felt—

  Absolutely nothing.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The air shimmered. A cold wind chilled my skin. Halvorsen was gone, taking the veil with him.

  A pasty-skinned couple in their forties, I guessed, riding by on rented bicycles did double takes when Dee and I suddenly became visible. They swerved slightly to avoid us but kept peddling. I didn’t know where the obvious tourists were from, but maybe nothing that happened in California could surprise them.

  My nerves were still jangling from the nothing I’d felt from The Gate’s power object. When we got to my house, I fumbled with the key to my front door.

  “I told you, you should bespell that door,” Dee said.

  He knew I hadn’t felt anything from the necklace, knew it could mean The Gate was dead, and still he made light of things. I wasn’t sure what that said about him. Most likely that he didn’t want to think too much about the possibility of his mentor’s death, even though he’d already considered it himself.

  I fitted the key in the lock and opened the front door. Dee followed me into the parlor and took his usual spot on the sofa. I sat down next to him.

  “What was all that antagonism with Halvorsen about?”

  If he wasn’t ready to talk about The Gate, that was okay with me.

  Dee pushed his fingers through his hair. “Thomas Halvorsen is almost as stupid as he is cruel. I was hoping to rile him enough for us to learn something
useful. It didn’t work out that way.” He got up and headed down the hall toward the kitchen.

  I started to say something about how maybe pissing off someone who liked to play with fire wasn’t the best idea, but bit back the words. I had to trust that Dee knew what he was doing, even when it seemed what he was doing was completely crazy.

  The sound of the fridge door opening and closing probably meant Dee was getting something to drink and would take a chair at the kitchen table. I stayed in the parlor and dialed my mom.

  “How’s Chas doing?” I said once we’d finished greetings.

  “He’s feeling better,” she said. “No infections have set in. He wants to go home.”

  “Is that a good idea?”

  “No,” my mother said firmly. “It’s a very bad idea. There’s nothing to say that the men who beat him won’t return. He needs rest and someone to make sure he gets it. I’d keep him here, but I’m on rotation at the hospital for the next twenty-four hours, and your father’s still in Louisiana on a build.”

  I grimaced into the silence. I knew what my mother hoped to hear me say.

  “He could stay here, I guess.”

  Chas staying at my house might not be the very last thing in the world that I wanted, but it was definitely on the short list. Unfortunately, my mother was right—Chas could be in physical danger if he went home, and I knew for certain he wouldn’t be smart and take it easy. It wasn’t in his nature.

  It wasn’t like my mother to impose, but I think she felt protective of my ne’er-do-well cousin. The healer in her couldn’t help but want to keep everyone in her sphere safe and well. It was no wonder she didn’t like the idea of my being with Dee—both her mother and healer sides screaming that doing so might put me in danger. If she knew about things we’d already survived together she’d go crazy.

  “Staying with you would be a good solution for him,” my mother said. “Thank you.”

  It struck me that in asking me to take Chas in, she was saying in a roundabout way that she trusted my judgment. That made me smile.

  I lost my smile thinking that having Chas here meant Dee and I wouldn’t get any time alone together, something it felt like we both needed now.

  “Pack him up and call Lyft or Uber to bring him here.”

  I looked over and saw Dee standing in the doorway, listening. I shrugged and turned my palms up in a gesture of ‘What else can I do?’ He nodded and turned, heading back to the kitchen.

  I rung off with my mother and joined Dee in the kitchen. He’d put two glasses of water out; one for him and one for me

  “I’m sorry,” I said, taking a chair. “But he’s family.”

  Dee nodded. “It’s the right thing to do.” His eyes clouded. “You didn’t feel The Gate when you held the charm. I saw it in your face.”

  I drew in a breath before answering. “No, I didn’t feel him. But I’ve been thinking, and it could have been a trick. We were inside the sorcerer’s veil. What’s to say he didn’t somehow block anything coming through to me? It was his suggestion that I look for Gate and Gil. Would he do that without making sure I wouldn’t feel them as alive? Maybe get a feel for the place they were being held?”

  “If Halvorsen pulled that off,” Dee said. “He’s grown a lot more powerful since the last time I saw him. I’ve tried blocking your psychic reach. It’s hard to do.”

  “Really?” I said, surprised.

  He nodded. “When we first knew each other, and I didn’t want you prowling around in my mind, I was never completely successful.” He huffed out a breath. “If Halvorsen could block you when he wasn’t really there—”

  I blinked at his words. “What do you mean, wasn’t really there?”

  “What we saw,” he said, “was a fetch, an illusion. I wouldn’t have been so cavalier with my words if Thomas Halvorsen were really standing in front of us. Did you notice how the fetch didn’t answer the direct questions about why he’d killed the man at Alpine Village, or if he’d been the one to conjure the car illusion? I don’t think Halvorsen made the fetch. If he had, the fetch would have had all of Halverson’s memories and answered one way or the other. I think someone else made it and wants us to think Halverson did.”

  “Someone you know?” I said.

  “Maybe. Or maybe it took more than one person to set the illusion and block you for a length of time.” He nodded to himself. “That makes sense. I don’t think even The Gate could block you by himself for more than a few seconds at a time

  . Your abilities are titanic.”

  He said it so casually that I was taken aback. I didn’t have anything to compare my psychic abilities against, but Dee seemed to have some idea and he’d rated me high on the scale. Another time I might have taken a moment to be proud and pleased. Now all I could think about was figuring out how to find The Gate and Gil.

  “When I saw The Gate and Gil be abducted from the shop, there were half a dozen people there.”

  He frowned. “We’re back to what Brittany Keller’s mother said—that Brittany was involved with a coven and dark magic.” He looked at me. “You were right when you asked what a group of wizards was called. It’s a group we’re looking for. A group that’s combined their magic together for massive power.”

  “You told me a group of wizards was called an argument, because no two could ever agree on anything. It seems unlikely they’d come together with a common purpose.”

  “It would take a strong leader,” Dee said, “and a prize worth winning. I can’t think of anyone other than The Gate with the power and personality to pull it off.”

  My eyes widened. “You think The Gate engineered his own kidnapping? And Gil’s? Why?”

  Dee tapped his fingers against the water glass on the table in front of him. “I don’t know, but if he did he’d have a good, well-thought-out reason.”

  I swallowed hard, not wanting to verbalize what I was thinking. It had to be said though. “That would mean The Gate is behind the murders. I’m sure it’s all tied up together.”

  He closed his eyes a moment and sighed. “I hope not. I can’t imagine The Gate willfully causing anyone’s death, but it is starting to seem that way.”

  I thought about what Maurice had said about the sacrifice rumors, and Jack’s comment about The Gate’s vanity and what he might be willing to do to hold onto his power. A shiver trembled across my shoulders.

  I decided to change the subject. “You were The Gate’s apprentice.”

  “Yeah?” he said, clearly wondering why I’d bring this up now.

  “Do you think of me as your apprentice?”

  He looked startled by the question. “No. We’re partners. We learn from each other.” His brow furrowed. “Do you want to be my formal apprentice? Because I’d have to get certified and—”

  I cut him off. “No. I’m happy the way things are. But I worry—”

  A knock at the front door interrupted my words. I went to the door and opened it for Chas.

  His eyes were puffy and the bruising on his face had deepened to a dark purple. He stood awkwardly on the porch and moved gingerly when I stepped aside to let him in. Behind him, I saw the waxing moon. It would be full soon. The Vulture Moon.

  I led Chas into the parlor and sat beside him on the sofa.

  “How are you feeling? I said.

  “About how I look. Thanks for taking me in. I couldn’t bear to be at Aunt Trina’s a moment longer. I mean, she’s great and she fixed me up, but, you know, she’s kind of judgmental.”

  I smiled. “Mom doesn’t hide her thoughts. She says exactly what she thinks.”

  I heard Dee’s footsteps in the hall. He reached the door to the parlor and looked in.

  “Hey, Chas,” he said, and then to me, “It’s late. I’m going home.”

  I felt Chas’ disappointment that my wizard boyfriend was leaving. That’s how Chas thought of Dee—my wizard boyfriend, an object of curiosity. I closed my eyes a moment, stuffing down the annoyance I felt toward my co
usin.

  I got up and walked Dee to the door. I kissed his cheek and whispered, “The Gate and Gil are alive. I feel it.” I didn’t tell him I felt that they would stay alive until the full moon, but only one would survive after that. I couldn’t feel which of them it would be. Instead I said, “I’ll call you later.”

  Dee kissed my forehead, and then he was gone.

  Chas was standing, again idly looking at the original blueprints for my house, which were framed and hung on the wall. He turned when I walked back into the parlor.

  “I’m sorry Diego left,” he said. “I’ve never known a wizard before. Do you think he could teach me a few tricks?”

  “That’s not a good idea,” I said, settling back on the sofa. “Wizards are supposed to keep their abilities confined to the magical world. Diego got in a bit of trouble for the illusions he conjured up to scare off your ex. All it accomplished was to get you beat up.”

  Chas arched an eyebrow. “I saw you doing a few things, too.”

  Except that I hadn’t. All the magic had been Dee’s. Chas was either talking through his hat or he’d imagined things.

  “I’m a psychic. The last spell-caster in the family was Cassie.”

  Chas’s face clouded. I’d noticed this before. He always seemed to darken at the mention of his great-grandfather’s sister. I’d never asked him why. The resentment rolling off him now was enough to make a small ache begin behind my eyes.

  “What is it about Cassie that pisses you off so much?” I said, deciding to dive right at the heart of things.

  He paced toward me. “The glorious Cassie Goodlight? Savior of my great-grandfather, Jimmy Goodlight? Oh, nothing.”

  He really was annoying.

  “What’s with the attitude?”

  “Sorry,” Chas said, and sounded like he meant it. “It’s sort of been handed down to me from my dad, I guess. How Cassie’s side of the family is special, and our side isn’t.”

  “Oh,” I said, surprised. I didn’t know my cousin Stephen, Chas’ father, very well. He never seemed interested in knowing my parents or me. We were Christmas-card relatives and that was about it, though his wife was close with my mom. Families. Who could explain them?