The Forgotten

by Bishop O'Connell

  Dante answered his phone. “Please tell me you have something new.”

  “I’m fine, thanks. How are you?” Faolan asked.

  Dante rubbed his temples and muttered something impolite.

  “Want to visit Kansas?”

  He straightened. “What do you have?”

  “Well, it turns out the information you’ve gathered was enough to extrapolate a rough timeline.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Someday you’ll stop being surprised by my magnificence.”

  “Not in this lifetime,” Dante said, his first genuine smile in weeks on his lips. “Tell me.”

  “It looks like things started small,” Faolan said. “Then about nine months ago, disappearances skyrocketed. Coincidently, that’s also when we have our first report of homeless kids wielding magic.”

  “And you wouldn’t be talking about visiting the Sunflower State if you hadn’t found something more.”

  “There were two major events within a week of the first noticeable increase in disappearances. The first was the oíche’s attempted insurrection . . .”

  “I think it’s safe to say that was unrelated,” Dante said. “What’s the other?”

  “A car accident in Topeka, Kansas,” Faolan said. “A fifteen-­year-­old girl and her parents were T-­boned by a drunk driver early on a Sunday afternoon. Their car caught fire. Rescue units couldn’t get there in time to save the parents.”

  Dante leaned forward. “And the daughter?”

  “Was found in the backseat, after the fire was out,” Faolan said. “Something like ten minutes later.”

  “And?”

  “Not even a singed hair.”

  Dante let out a low whistle.

  “Yeah, and it gets better—­well, worse,” Faolan said.

  “Tell me.”

  “The fire department didn’t put the fire out,” Faolan said. “The car was too far gone when they arrived. Per procedure, the risk of explosion kept them back. Then reports say they heard a girl scream. A powerful wind came out of nowhere, strong enough to roll the car from its roof back onto its wheels. When it was righted, the fires just went out. First responders found the girl in a ball in the backseat, muttering to herself. The police described her as mentally unstable.”

  “Can’t imagine why,” Dante said. “Where is she now?”

  “Well, she didn’t have any other family, so she went into the system.”

  Dante winced and muttered an oath. “I can guess what happened next.”

  “Yep, bounced from home to home,” Faolan said. “She ran away a few times, but kept getting picked up by the local police. The last report of her running was three weeks after being assigned to a new foster home. She vanished, along with three other kids.” Faolan paused. “This particular foster home has had twenty-­seven foster kids reported as runaways.”

  “So is it just a bad place?” Dante asked. “Or is something else going on?”

  “I hear Kansas is lovely in the summer,” Faolan said.

  “Do I have a flight?”

  “Sorry, cutbacks. You’re walking,” Faolan said.

  Dante chuckled as he saw Padraig enter the shop, dressed in fashionable jeans and a fitted white button-­down shirt. When he smoothed his dark red hair and scanned the room, every woman turned and stared.

  “I think my guide is here. I’ll call you when I land.”

  “I’ll be here,” Faolan said.

  Dante hung up as Padraig made his way to the booth.

  “Magis—­” He winced. “Sorry—­”

  Dante waved it off. “Lots of that going around. Forget it.” He shut down his laptop and tucked it away in his briefcase.

  Then he caught a glimpse of Sarah looking at him and trying to pretend she wasn’t. Dante put a twenty on the table to cover the tea and salad, then pulled out a hundred-­dollar bill. With a few twists, he folded it into a rose. He set the rose on the twenty, grabbed his briefcase, and stood up.

  “You’re the guide,” he said to Padraig. “Lead the way.”

  Even after all the times Dante had walked the Far Trails, their incongruent geography never ceased to amaze him. They’d stepped onto the trails through a large but parched-­looking pecan tree in Zilker Park. Then Dante stood in a surreal forest of impossibly tall trees. The ground had no scrub growth, which gave it the appearance of a manicured orchard. Everywhere he looked, there was a clear path.

  Padraig led him a dozen paces down a trail and opened the way back. They stepped out less than half a mile from the Country Club Plaza in the heart of Kansas City, Missouri.

  “There’s a car over there,” Padraig said, handing Dante a set of keys. “I’ll go back and take care of the one in Austin.”

  “This is why I never cease to be amazed by Faolan’s magnificence,” Dante said, accepting the keys.

  Padraig grinned, then turned and stepped back into the trails.

  Dante had just lifted the keys to find the car when a tall and slender woman walked toward him. Her dark green pencil skirt was slit high up one side, flashing the pale skin of her thigh as she walked. Her dark auburn hair was like living fire, and the perfection of her porcelain skin was only interrupted by a few freckles on the apples of her cheeks.

  A nostalgic smile found its way across Dante’s face.

  The woman returned the grin. She arched an eyebrow and tucked her hair behind her pointed ear.

  “It’s been a long time, Brigid,” Dante said. When she offered her hand, he kissed it. “Or do you prefer, Magister?”

  “There’s a mortal saying,” Brigid said, her words silken and husky. “Call me anything you like, just be sure to call me.”

  Dante laughed. “How did you ever play the mortal nun?”

  “You know full well I was canonized,” Brigid said, a teasing note in her voice.

  “You’re not exactly what most would imagine when they hear the word saint.”

  “And at the time, my piety was sincere.” Her green eyes sparkled. “But I’ve become worldlier since then.”

  “Haven’t we all,” Dante said. “Now, tell me what you’re doing here. Not just happening by, I assume.”

  “Mavourneen,” she said. “You don’t think I’d let you investigate in my region without offering to help, do you?”

  “So you’re joining me, then,” Dante said.

  “Just like old times.”

  Dante used the key fob to find the car. His good mood vanished when he saw a black Suburban flash its lights. He stared at the black monstrosity for a long moment before letting out a long sigh and resigning himself to his fate. Brigid shrugged, barely hiding a chuckle. He set his briefcase behind the driver’s seat and they both climbed in. When the engine turned over, the touchscreen GPS was already preprogrammed with the home address of the girl’s last foster parents. He had barely pulled out of the parking spot when his phone rang and Faolan’s face appeared on the screen.

  Dante pressed the send button. “Are you kidding me?” he asked.

  “What?” Faolan’s gleeful voice came through the Bluetooth system. “If you want to play like you’re a federal agent bigwig, you have to drive a big black SUV.”

  Dante shot a glance at Brigid. “This was your idea, wasn’t it?”

  She gave him an innocent look, then drew from the glove box a set of authentic-­looking FBI credentials.

  “I miss my Mustang,” Dante muttered as he merged into traffic.

  “I’ll get it detailed for you,” Faolan said through a laugh.

  “Wax, not polish,” Dante said.

  “But of course, sahib,” Faolan said, the words dripping with sarcasm.

  “In the meantime,” Dante said. “We need some details on the girl.”

  “I see what you did there, very witty,” Faolan said. There
was the sound of computer keys clicking. “Unfortunately, there’s not much else to say. The social ser­vices files say the girl’s name is Jane Essex. Her parents were George and Katherine. After the accident, Jane was put under observation and was diagnosed with post-­traumatic stress disorder.”

  “Must’ve been a genius doctor to figure that one out,” Brigid said.

  “They tried sending Jane back to school with her first foster family.” There was a pause. “It, um, didn’t go well.”

  Dante and Brigid exchanged a glance. “That’s rather vague,” Dante said.

  “The file has some witness reports, but it also dismisses them as nonsense. They say Jane was being bullied. Some girls pushed her against the wall and she freaked out—­the report’s words, not mine. She went into a ball and screamed something.”

  “What’s nonsense about that?” Brigid asked.

  “The part where every window within a hundred-­foot radius blew out,” Faolan said.

  “Okay, that sounds bad,” Dante said.

  “What do you know about the most recent foster family?” Brigid asked. “The one with all the runaways.”

  Dante gave her a questioning look.

  “He filled me in while you were on your way here,” she said.

  “That would be Richard and Mary Fredricks,” Faolan said. “They’ve been investigated repeatedly, but nothing was ever found to pull their foster status.”

  “Nothing?” Dante asked. “Really?”

  “Gee, that doesn’t sound suspicious at all,” Brigid said.

  “According to the reports, everything was done aboveboard,” Faolan said. “Surprise visits, inspections, interviews with the kids still there. Nothing.”

  “Well, I’m sure there was nothing to find then,” Brigid said, words dripping sarcasm.

  “Yeah, but we’ll pay them a visit anyway.” Dante pressed down on the gas.

  Chapter Four

  Wraith had no memory of waking up one day and being confused. She was fairly sure the fateful exorcism that had started all this had been about ten months ago, give or take. Beyond that, it got murkier. The loss of her sense of time made it all the more difficult. As best she could tell, at least four months were completely blank before she had ended up in Seattle. The tattoos on her palms, the backs of her hands, and scattered over her body had never been a shock, but she couldn’t remember getting them. While it was true that a sixteen-­year-­old—­or was she fifteen?—­couldn’t walk into just any tattoo shop, tats weren’t hard to come by.

  The tattoo designs were another mystery. She couldn’t recall devising the complex formulae represented in the whirling lines and shapes, the effects they were tied to, or even if she had been the one to come up with them at all. There were other details she knew but didn’t remember learning. The existence of faeries, changelings (called “fifties” on the streets), shapeshifters, and the supernatural world in general, for example. Surely at some point she’d at least been a little freaked out to learn her friends were half human, half fae—­or fifty-­fifty—­but she didn’t remember it. Hell and a ham sandwich, she wasn’t even sure at which point she’d stopped being Jane Essex, a relatively normal girl, and had become Wraith, a street urchin spell-­slinger.

  Her life had become a recurring series of the same events: avoid the police, pimps, and gangsters, then find food and a safe place to sleep. If she was lucky, she wouldn’t come across any snatchers. Though the few times she had so far, she’d been able to make a clean getaway.

  Any downtime was spent trying to fit together the scattered pieces of her life. She hadn’t made much progress. Truth to tell, it felt as if she were actually losing ground. Nothing seemed real anymore, and she wondered more and more often if she was going insane. Nightstick told her that questioning her sanity was a sign she was still sane. It sounded like bullshit to her.

  She opened her eyes, leaned her head back against the brick wall of the alley, and drew in a breath. The familiar calculations of reality drifted around her, but she hardly noticed them any longer. Well, until she needed them anyway.

  Somehow, she had to figure this out on her own. No one was going to help her. She didn’t have many friends, and they were all too busy just trying to survive another day. The police couldn’t be bothered with her, or those like her, unless it was to hassle them for loitering. The mundane street kids avoided her like a leper. For that matter, ­people in general rarely even acknowledged her existence. She couldn’t blame them really. To most of them, she was an unhappy reminder of what was just a pink slip or missed mortgage payment away.

  Something clicked and a tattered memory started to form in her mind.

  Her parents, it had to do with her parents. She could almost smell something, a light fragrance on the air. It was perfume, flowery and familiar. It made her feel safe. Her heart pounded as pieces started to fill in. There were voices, and they were talking about—­

  “You hungry, Stretch?” the voice was feminine and carried a faint southwestern accent.

  The image crumbled and slipped through her fingers into nothingness.

  “Damn it!” Wraith glared at Shadow. The girl was only a bit older than Wraith and almost a foot shorter. Her reddish brown skin, dark hair, and chiseled features left no doubt as to her Native American heritage. The swirling darkness in her eyes left no doubt that she wasn’t all mortal.

  “Yikes,” Shadow said and took a step back. “Sorry, grump much?”

  Wraith put her face in her hands. “I almost had something. I could feel it. It was right there!”

  Shadow’s face fell. “Oh, damn. Sorry.”

  Wraith got to her feet and forced a smile. “It wasn’t your fault. Honestly, I don’t know why I bother anymore. I think I might actually be remembering less, or remembering it wrong, or both.”

  Shadow furrowed her brow and opened her mouth.

  Wraith lifted a hand. “Because it’s like a scab or a loose tooth. You can’t leave it be; you have to poke at it.”

  Shadow nodded. “So, you hungry?”

  “One-­track mind,” Wraith muttered and started walking.

  With effort, Shadow kept pace. “Yeah, when I’m hungry. That’s what ­people do when they’re hungry. They think about food and eating.”

  Wraith arched an eyebrow.

  “Okay, so maybe bean poles like you don’t, but the rest—­”

  “Not the best way to ask me to go shopping,” Wraith said lightly.

  “Oh? Well, what would you prefer, Your Royal Highness?”

  Wraith stopped and considered for a moment and said, “Something like: Wraith, my dearest and truest friend, would you please, pretty please, with sugar and a cherry on top, get me something tasty to eat so I’ll stop my whining?”

  “I don’t whine!” Shadow whined.

  Wraith chuckled and the pair continued walking.

  “Besides,” Shadow said. “Who found that choice squat we’re in?”

  “Yes,” Wraith droned. “You’re amazing.”

  “That’s right, and I don’t see you—­”

  Wraith put her face in her hands. “Fine! Just stop talking. I need some smokes anyway.”

  Shadow smiled. “I win, as usual.”

  Making her way between the clueless shoppers, Wraith was careful that neither she, nor the messenger bag hanging at her back, bumped anyone. The hood of her jacket was up and only a few stray strands of dirty pixie-­cut hair peaked out. In her left hand, she gripped a metal bottle cap, the logo of which had been painstakingly rubbed away. On the inside was a symbol made of intersecting lines, at the center of which was a small hole with a length of string looped through.

  She paused and stared at the register, where a large woman in a blue apron scanned items in the usual daze of a mega-­mart clerk. To her left, Shadow was trying to look casual as she flipped through a tablo
id. Next to her, SK, a freckled boy with a long face, was sharing a joke with Fritz, a girl with a German accent who made Shadow look like a basketball player. Both Fritz and Shadow had faintly luminescent eyes, revealing the fae half of their heritage to anyone who could see beneath the glamour. Nightstick stood to her right, silently smoking a cigarette that never burned away.

  “I can tell you’re still here,” Shadow whispered without looking up.

  “What are you waiting for?” SK sighed. “Either go get them or let’s just get out of here, I don’t care which. It’s you two with the damn addiction.”

  Shadow shot him a murderous glare and muttered something unladylike.

  Wraith let out a quiet breath, shook her head, and looked back to the only checkout lane that sold tobacco products. Of course, it just had to be the busiest one in the place. Resigning herself to inevitability, she made her way through the throng of customers, careful that her rain-­soaked sneakers didn’t squeak on the tile floor.

  When she reached her destination, Wraith crouched and moved around the rotund clerk. A headache had started behind her eyes, but she pushed it aside and carefully grabbed several packs of cigarettes from the rack. As her long fingers touched the little boxes, she squeezed the bottle cap tighter and the sharp edges bit into her palm. The zero-­sum formula, and the accompanying soft pressure that she felt over her whole body, extended past her fingers and surrounded the pilfered smokes. Like her, they were now invisible to the herd of mundane sheeple.

  “Did you find everything okay?” the clerk said with a monotone voice to a guy in line, not even pretending to be interested.

  Wraith smiled, tucked her prize into an inside jack pocket, and scanned the area. Why, yes, I did, she thought. Thank you very—­

  “Do you see this month’s Tiger Beat?” Shadow asked SK in a nervous tone.

  Wraith froze.

  “Um, no,” SK said. His voice was also a little shaky. “I think I see three copies of Teen Cosmo though.”

  Wraith turned her head very slowly. Two men in hooded trench coats were staring at her. Their hoods were up, but Wraith could see the glint of mirrored sunglasses.