by D. R. Perry
"Do you even know what happens to vampires if they can’t keep their word?" Frankie asks with a wince.
"No, I don't, but it’s got to be the opposite of fun." I sigh. "Especially if I end up failing a witch whose primary magic is fire."
"You sure do have a talent for understatement, Tino."
"Yup." I shrug. "Well, this sucks."
"I got an idea, but you might not like it." Frankie isn't looking me in the eye, but I can't figure out why. So far all our interaction has been more straightforward than anything else since I've been turned. I decide not to overthink it or pry.
"Lay it on me."
"I don't think either of us really stands a chance on our applications." Frankie fidgets with the papers in his hand. "I mean, I don't have a job, even though I've got this great big house. Mother and Father had me listed on the deed, but there’s no fund in my name like there is for Levi and Sarah.”
He doesn’t mention the fact that his parents planned on his death at the hands of the Deep Ones they promised him to. Neither do I. Frankie's the only one with the right to broach that topic. He clears his throat. “And you have no house, but you've got an income, and a sterling reputation."
"Yeah, hence the whole idea that making this foster application sucks."
"Well, together, we look a lot better, as far as these things go." He reaches up to tug on the collar of his T-shirt. "So maybe, instead of just you or just me filling these out, we should both apply."
"It makes a lot of sense, Frankie. But how do we do that?"
“Easy-peasy.” Frankie’s laugh is high-pitched, nervous. His finger trembles as he places it next to a line labeled spouse or domestic partner. "This right here."
The poor guy’s heartbeat has got to be at least one hundred beats per minute at this point, and now I understand. I'd have a hard time looking my relatively new friend in the eye if I were about to suggest we pretend to be a couple in order to fill out legally binding paperwork. It's like the plot of Will and Grace, only completely different. You know, because there are kids involved. And I’m a freaking vampire. But he’s right.
"Do you really think they'll buy it?"
"We won't know unless we try."
"Good point."
Frankie stands there, almost as unmoving as a vampire even though he's definitely not one. He's got some stake in this, one I don't understand. Is there something I’ve forgotten about him? I am, and I know it. Some crucial and personal piece of information I should remember. I can’t check through my notebook either, not while he’s right in front of me, trembling like a leaf. But it seems like he's hanging on my response for whatever reason. I need to do something.
And that's why I lean over my giant stack of paperwork, pick up a pen, and write the name Francis Pickering in black ink in the blank beside spouse or domestic partner. I mean, what the Hell, right? My mother already thinks I’m gay because of all the vamp stuff I’ve got to hide from her. Why not let Gina Paolucci think the same thing?
The change in Frankie is immediate. His heart rate declines to a more normal seventy beats per minute, and he lets go of a breath he may not have been conscious of holding in. His grip on the papers in his hand eases. And instead of a military worthy posture, he falls back into the broken-hip stance I usually see him assume.
"So, we will finish all of this together." I flashed him a smile, and even though there was more than a little bit of fang in it, Frankie smiles back. Well, that’s what I get for running out the door without drinking my breakfast. I head to the mini-fridge behind the shoji screen I bought off a surly alchemist and grab a bag of blood.
"I'd better tell Raven." Frankie shakes his head. "They've got their hands full with DeCampo and Maya staying in the basement."
"Oh, boy." I roll my eyes and tug the tubing on the blood bag. "Because I'm, like, Raven's favorite person, of course."
"Cool it with the sarcasm." Frankie chuckles. "They may not make it obvious to you, but I can tell Raven regards you pretty highly."
"Wow." I blink. "Okay. That's the last thing I expected to hear, but I guess I should be flattered." I wrinkle my nose and bite down on the tubing, opening its sealed end to use as a straw. Plastic pretty much tastes like dirt to vampires, which makes sense. It’s made from dead dinosaurs, after all. Eew.
"I'm not sure why you're surprised.” He shrugs. “I mean, you only gave them their family back and let them right centuries-old wrongs against same."
"You've got such a point, it could cut through metal." I smirk.
We laugh again, this time with less falling paper. The energy between us has changed to something less ominous but still somehow electric. I think maybe there was a point this evening where I could have become an enemy of the entire Pickering family. I can't pinpoint when it was or how it would have gone down, but it doesn't matter. It's been avoided, right? I can breathe easy. Figuratively, of course.
There's nothing so satisfying as solving a problem you didn't realize you had. We still have to fill out mountains of forms, which might take us most of the night. But that's only one hurdle jumped over with ease in my quest to obtain guardianship of Leora Kupala.
The cagey Caprice family is a whole different story.
Chapter Four
We’re just about done with the paperwork, and it's almost two in the morning. A key rattles in the lock and the door opens, revealing Esther Solomon. She's my other partner in this PI business, but definitely not teenage and most certainly not a werewolf. Esther's an alchemist. And besides the fact that she’s an adult, I've got no idea how old she is. But Frankie does. She's his niece.
Magician families are weird. By some strange accident of birth, Esther’s uncle is younger than her. Apparently, this sort of thing happens all the time. Magical families are said to be less like family trees and more like family wreaths. At least I’ve never heard of one being his own grandpa. Yet.
"I thought I'd find a couple of assholes fucking around up here." Esther leaves a glittering green residue of some magical substance on the doorknob. It’s sort of like the color of her casting energy only more translucent. Most people can’t see it, and I've only caught fleeting hints of it before. I’m not sure whether seeing magic energy is something any vampire can just do or just my own special ability. Our powers vary so maybe this is the start of another rare talent for yours truly. Joy.
"Wipe that off geez." I shake my head and point at the doorknob. "The last thing we want is some client sneezing for five hours, or feeling like they need to go off on a wild goose chase because your last concoction gets all over their hands." Which happened before when Maury accidentally on purpose drank one of Esther's concoctions. But that's another story.
"For fuck’s sake. You think some desperate asshole is going to walk in here looking for help right now?" Esther ignores my request and closes the door behind her without locking it. "Nobody's up or out in the middle of the week at this fucking hour except for you two sons of bitches."
"Don't be so sure." I shrug. "I mean, you’re around. And vampires like me, and who knows what else."
"You're full of shit, Tino." Esther laughs. Well, she lets out what passes for a laugh in her book, anyway. The alchemist is like two parts whiskey and one part irony, shaken not stirred. “Like a fucking waste treatment plant.”
"Yeah, but I'm so much fun." I roll my eyes.
"He's got a point, you know." Frankie’s smile is almost manic, but not quite. He still feels a little awkward around his niece, which makes sense since she broke serious rules to show him how alchemical gadgets work. Pretty much anyone who does can use a finished potion or device. But that all turned out okay in the end, so it shouldn’t be a big deal anymore.
"Fucking point or not, this is a goddamn fucking place of business." Esther saunters toward her desk and pulls open the bottom drawer. The item she grabs clanks and sloshes. "We make money working here and shit."
"Been one of those nights, huh?" I jerk my chin at the bottle of amber li
quid she's produced.
"You could say that." Esther pats the satchel hanging at her hip. "Should finish the damn cure for Killarney’s man this weekend. Still got my ongoing research, which drives me batshit-crazy."
"Oh." Frankie looks down at his hands, studying his bitten fingernails. "That."
"What research?" I know nearly nothing about the part of Esther's past that doesn't involve Frankie. Eventually, I'd like to find out, but she never talks about it and clams up when I ask. I cross my fingers under my desk, hoping for a change in the trend.
"Nothing that's any of your motherfucking business, fangface." Esther sits in the shabby chair at her desk. She leans back, placing her combat booted heels on its surface. The tilt of her head and the soft gaze she gives me before glaring at the bottle cancels out the harshness of her vocabulary.
“Open says me.” She snaps her fingers.
Exactly like magic because that’s what she’s using, the screw on the bottle of liquor comes off. More mundanely, the neck of the bottle meets her lips, and Esther Solomon guzzles at least five gulps of pure whiskey without even taking a breath. I wonder where the signs and sigils that power her alchemy are on that fifth of Maker’s Mark. All the magic alchemists can do are prepared in advance, but I don’t see any inscribed spellwork, powder, or potion that might be levitating that bottle. Maybe it’s under the label, but how she got it on there, I’ll never know.
“Um.” I try to relax my facial muscles, which threaten to pull my mug into a mask of extreme worry. Magician or not, Esther’s still pretty much human, and alcohol poisoning is no joke. I'm the blood-drinking creature of the night, but she's the one scaring me right now.
“Go um yourself, dickhead.” Esther narrows her eyes at me and then levels the same gaze at Frankie. “If this fucking night had an asshole, I’d rip its head off and stuff it up there. I need a pause that fucking refreshes, okay?”
"Okay." I don't ask why she's up here instead of drinking in her lab, which is on the second floor directly below this office. Probably, she ran out of whatever stash she's got down there. Or maybe she just wants to be around people right now for whatever reason. There can't be anything behind my gut suspicion that she's not alone down there, right?
I try not to flare my nostrils as I breathe through my nose. Esther likes her privacy, and she knows enough about vampires to recognize when we’re using our extra senses to get information. But whatever demented angst bug has bitten the alchemist, it's enough to keep her from paying much more attention to me.
I'm relieved that my nose finds no sign of illness in her scent, though I expected some sort of liver toxicity. Bad attitude and drinking habits aside, Esther's health is practically perfect. Maybe she brews and uses some kind of detox potion. If she sold something like that on the internet, she’d make a mint. For all I know, she does. Esther complains about lots of things, but money isn’t one of them.
"What are you two assholes up to anyway?" Esther jiggles the bottle in Frankie's general direction. "Anything you need to share a beverage over, Uncle Frank?"
"Just going over this insane application." Frankie points at the stack of finished paperwork, which is hefty. He smiles.
"Why do I only see one of those?" Esther fixes me with a gaze that could pin a bug to a card in an entomology lab. I haven’t been undead long enough to escape the reflex to swallow the lump currently forming in my throat.
"Well, we're sort of applying together, kind of.” Frankie’s not looking at Esther or me. His hand comes out of his pocket, bringing a chrome-plated object with it. It’s etched with alchemy sigils, all right. He flips it open and closed, and I realize it’s a Zippo.
Frankie’s eyes dart around even more than all the filler words in his speech. “You know because, well, I'm kind of a deadbeat with a big old house and an in at a nice private school. And Tino has a job but, uh, itty bitty living space." Frankie puts an awful lot of hem in his haw when he’s nervous. This is a guy who should never play poker with real money.
"The only fucking way to apply for that kind of shit together is if people are fucking. Or fucking married. Or married and fucking. So what the hell, dude?" The bottom of the whiskey bottle hits the top of the desk so hard I'm afraid it will shatter. It doesn’t. "You can't fucking marry a vampire, Frankie. They can't even walk into a goddamn house of worship."
"Um, we're not getting married." I give Esther the sidiest side-eye that ever sided. "Look, it's just so we can take care of three kids easier. I mean, do you want a bunch of red tape to get in the way of magical kids growing up in a magical house? Because otherwise, they could end up placed in a group home with mundanes, getting in trouble all the time. I mean, Leora and Levi might blend in, but Sarah? Can you picture her as a ward of the state? The last thing we want is the Pickering family to unmask supernatural everything because Frankie doesn’t look good on paper as a legal guardian." And neither do I, but that goes without saying. Probably.
"You're fucking right, Tino. You asshole." Esther does not look happy about this little development. She probably downright hates the whole tangle of trouble we're in. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Alchemists have to play by rules and follow directions. She’s told me before that if she screws up, people blow up. It makes her something like a helicopter parent when it comes to anything supernatural, except she’s not a mom. As far as I know.
"The whole thing was my idea, anyway." Frankie leans his chin on one hand and glares at his niece. "So stop busting on Tino, okay?"
I guess the whole overprotective thing runs in their family. Which of course, I should've already known. Part of the reason I met Frankie in the first place had to do with him trying to keep his little brother Levi out of harm’s way.
"As awkward as all of this is right now, I think in the long run, it's for the best." I blink at my own words because I sound just like Stephanie. Blood, even the vampire kind, is thicker than water apparently. And I guess the Solomons and Pickerings aren't the only families traits like this run in.
"So if you're gonna fucking do this anyway, tell me how the hell I can make sure it doesn’t go tits up."
"Thanks, Esther." That's really a phrase I should say way more often than I do. It's hard to deal with the alchemist's mannerisms, but her talents have gotten us out of some seriously terrible predicaments. And I have a feeling she's going to be even more important to our success in the future. She might look and sound abrasive, but she's proven several times over that she cares.
"You're God damned fucking welcome, asshole." Esther picks her whiskey up with her hands this time and proceeds to make her way through another quarter of the bottle. Her lips glow green with a magical shimmer as she wipes them with the back of one hand.
Yup. Her command of magic is absolutely the reason she doesn't smell sick or even terribly drunk. For the first time, I wish I'd been an alchemist instead of a vampire. Well, maybe not. I might not have the discipline for it, and I definitely don’t have the memory. I might have burned down my whole neighborhood.
“I’m not sure what you can do to help right now. Unless you know of anyone at Child and Family Services who’s in the loop about supernatural stuff.”
“Nah, no one there. Just someone down at Cranston PD.”
“Really?” I blink. But honestly, I shouldn't be surprised. Rhode Island's a small world. “Who?”
“Can’t say.”
“Oh.” My brain’s running a mile a minute, sorting through everyone I can think of who’s still on the force.
“I might be able to tell you if Frankie hands over Father’s lighter.” Esther stares at the shiny object and smirks. “Powerful stuff for a Lamb to carry around.” The nonmagical kids in Theophile families are called Lambs because they're often tithed to supernatural creatures. Theophiles make pacts in order to keep magical power in their families. Like I said, in the supernatural world, word is bond.
“The will says it’s Sarah’s when she turns eighteen.” Frankie levels a gaze at his ni
ece, unflinching. “I’m holding it for her until then.”
“Fine. But fucking be careful what kind of shit you do with it. I'd say you owe me, but since you’re in a fucking partnership now, Tino can run the errands to get me some of the shit I need for this motherfucking potion.” Esther pulls a piece of paper from her desk, folds it into a paper airplane, and throws it at my head.
The paper projectile sails on a current of glittering green wind beneath its wings. Yeah, Esther magicked her alchemical ingredient list. Even though I duck, it hits me square between the eyes. It might be annoying, but magic is still novel enough to me that I’m more fascinated than ticked off. Once its flight ends, the paper airplane drops into my waiting hand. I unfold it and read.
“Shitballs.” I shake my head. “I used to have some of this stuff, but it’s gone now.”
“Ugh!” After reading over my shoulder, Frankie recoils, stepping halfway across the room with his arms wrapped around himself. “No way. Why would you want something that horrible?”
“My research.” Esther sighs. “It’s important, Uncle Frank. You know why.”
I’m blinking like there’s a bucket of sand in my eyes and not just from surprise. The air between us all stings as though we’re standing in a sandstorm instead of a studio. Because Esther’s speech without all the cuss words peppering it has honest-to-God power. It’s tangible, like a strong wind ahead of an explosion or the leading edge of a Nor’easter. And it’s nothing that fits with an alchemist’s skillset.
“Yeah, Esther. I know.” Frankie shudders, one hand over his mouth. “But keep me out of gathering that—” He's shaking so hard he can’t finish the sentence. And I don’t blame him one bit.
One of the things Esther wants is a handful of scales from Deep Ones. They’re inhuman body-snatching monsters that live under most of Providence and the coastal parts of Cranston and Warwick. You know how Leora’s family made a deal where she’s serving Baba Yaga as part-avatar and part-assistant? Well, Frankie’s family made a deal similar to that with the Deep Ones, except Deep Ones don’t want liaisons in the mortal world.
