Jay turned right, down a narrow, gray road, and pulled up at the curb of a small masonry-block house. I drew the SUV up behind him and killed the engine. Ex and Chogyi Jake slid down to the street before I did. My huge sunglasses weren’t really hiding my black eyes. For a moment I wondered what I was going to do if I did find the Invisible College. After all, they’d bunged me up pretty good last time. That was a problem for later.
Jay fumbled with the side-door lock while Chogyi Jake and Ex walked a circuit around the outside of the house, heading in opposite directions.
“What are they looking for?”
“Whatever there is to be found,” I said.
“Demon signs?”
I shrugged. “Sure. Or if someone dropped their wallet. We’ll take what we can get.”
The lock finally complied, the thin wooden door opening into a sparse kitchen. The round table in the center of the room looked lonely. I stepped in after Jay. Inside, the house was worn and scraped at the corners, but clean. The living room floor had pale carpet that remembered where the last owner had put their couch. The refrigerator was white, with an inexplicable drip of pale pink paint along the side. I pushed my hands deeper into the pockets of my overcoat and walked through the little rooms. This was my brother’s house. And his life. These dim blinds, that secondhand television. I looked in at a nursery that was smaller than some closets I had. The mobile over the crib hung limply over the bare mattress. A sense of dread and depression seemed to outgas from the walls.
When I’d inherited Eric’s fortune, it had come with a list of properties as long as my arm, and almost all of them were nicer than this. And even the ones that weren’t could be forgiven as crash pads and hidey-holes to retreat to. I imagined the years stretching out before Carla and Jay. The late nights with the crying baby and nowhere to get away from the noise. The winters with the cold pressing in through the masonry walls. Everything about the place felt sad and oppressive. I opened the closet in the master bedroom and noticed almost automatically that it could be locked from the outside. I tried to imagine myself as Carla—newly pregnant, still unmarried, and transplanted from the people and places I’d always known.
It might not have taken strange magic to convince me to run away.
Ex came in the side door, and a few seconds later Chogyi Jake.
“What have we got?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Ex said. “No wards. No sigils. No trace that I can see of any major pulls. If someone came in with a glamour on, I wouldn’t have a clue, but I’d expect to see some sign if there’d been anything violent and recent done. And no one seems to be watching the place either.”
“There is something, though,” Chogyi Jake said. “Not specific, but . . .”
“Yeah, I feel it too,” I said.
“Something like our unwelcome visitor?” Ex asked.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been here. Has the same ick factor.”
Jay looked from one to the other of us, his brows crinkled into a mask of concern and confusion.
“Something came by the hotel last night,” I said. “Something nasty. It feels like it’s been around here too.”
“ ‘Feels like’?” Jay said. “What does that even mean?”
“Feels like means feels like,” I said. “It’s not one particular thing I can point to. It just . . . smells right.”
“Did she take everything with her?” Ex asked. “Clothes? Things that had some sort of emotional importance?”
“It’s all gone,” Jay said, slumping down to the couch. “Everything’s gone.”
“If there was something with her blood,” Ex said, “that would be best.”
“You’re thinking of tracking her down the same way they tracked Chogyi Jake?”
“What’s good for the goose,” Ex said. “They’re warded by nature and practice. Whatever kinds of covers they put on her . . . well, just the three of us probably couldn’t break them, but if you’re other half will chip in . . .”
He said it casually, but I knew how much it was costing him. For Ex, the Black Sun was a demon, untrustworthy to the core, and a constant threat to my soul. To even bring up the possibility of asking her help was a betrayal of his principles. I met his eyes for a moment, and he was the first to look away.
“Did she leave a hairbrush?” Chogyi Jake asked.
“Did . . . No, I don’t think so. There’s a comb in the bathroom,” Jay said. “What are you going to do?”
“Find her. That’s what you wanted, right?” I could hear the defensiveness in my own voice. I knew what this looked like from his point of view. Magic, spirits, spiritual presences that weren’t anything like what you’d expect in church. There was a revulsion in his eyes. And with it, fear of me and of what I’d become.
Chogyi Jake turned back toward the bathroom. Outside, someone honked twice. A door slammed open and closed. Ex stepped to the window to see what it was and then stepped back without raising the alarm. Just neighbors. Just people living normal lives while we did our work unremarked beside them. Chogyi Jake turned on the faucet in the bathroom, and the pipes in the kitchen sang.
“I . . .” Jay said.
“We’re not going to hurt her,” I said. “We don’t eat babies, and we don’t want souls.”
“So you’re working with angels?” Jay asked. He sounded confused and more than half disbelieving.
“We’re working with whatever comes to hand,” I said, and as if on cue Chogyi Jake came back in, his hand lifted high in triumph. A clump of something wet, dark, and slimy hung between his fingers.
“Shower hair?” I asked.
“They cleaned the top of the drain, but they didn’t get everything from within the drain itself,” Chogyi Jake said. “I unscrewed the cover and fished out a few hairs. These are the length I’d expect.”
“No point in tracking Jay here,” I agreed. “So you know how to do this?”
“I do,” Ex said, pulling a folded map out of his pocket. He spread the paper on the little kitchen table, then drew a clear plastic box from his back pocket. A bit of red chalk rattled in it.
“What are you doing?” Jay asked.
Chogyi Jake put a hand on Jay’s shoulder. “We’re using the affinity of Carla’s hair for the whole person it came from as a focus by which we can find her location. There’s technically a second affinity between the map and the world that the map represents, but that rarely requires a great deal of concern.”
“No,” he said. “You can’t do magic in my house. Magic is of the devil.”
“Think of it as a really specific kind of praying,” Ex said, drawing a circle around the table wide enough for the three of us to stand in. Chalk scraped tile.
“You don’t have to be here for this,” I said. “You can wait in the car.”
Jay looked from the map to me and then back again. His face was pale, but there was a firmness to his jaw that gave me some hope that he wasn’t about to call the cops on us. Or worse, Dad. “If this will help Carla, I’ll do it.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” I said. “Just don’t stop me.”
“Okay,” Ex said. “We’re ready.”
Chogyi Jake had a length of braided twine with a silver plumb bob at the end. Carla’s hair was tied in a loose knot just above the silver, wrapping around the string. Chogyi Jake stepped into the circle, stood across the table from Ex, and reached out his hand, letting the string hang above the map. The streets and rivers of Wichita stirred uneasily, the paper catching some invisible draft.
When I crossed the chalk circle, it was like stepping into a vault. At first I thought sound had been dampened, that I couldn’t hear, but that wasn’t true. The traffic on the street, the whir and hum of the furnace desperately trying to warm the air—even Jay’s ragged breathing—were all just as clear as they had been before. Maybe more so. It was only the weird oppression of the house that hadn’t crossed into the circle with me, and I was quietly grateful for that.
I put my hand out to touch theirs and closed my eyes.
“I represent the west,” Ex said, and I felt a surge come from his hand. Not heat, but something like it. His living force was as familiar to me now as a favorite book, and I welcomed the sensation.
“I represent the east,” Chogyi Jake said, and an answering surge came from him, cooler and gentler, but strong and undeniable.
I gathered my own qi, drawing it up from the base of my spine, through my heart and lungs and throat, and out along my own arm as I spoke. “I represent the south,” I said. My will mingled with theirs, the three different forces joining to become something larger. Stronger. I felt the twine begin to tug against us like a puppy ready to go for a walk, then lose its focus. One way and then another.
“I represent the north,” the Black Sun said with my voice, “and I will not be denied.”
If the surges of will before had been like the pressure of water coming out from a faucet, she was the fire hose. I gasped as the force of her broke against us. I felt Ex pulling back for a moment, stunned by the onslaught, but he rallied, steadied himself. I glanced at him, and his upper lip was beaded with sweat. He began to chant softly in Latin. Chogyi Jake picked up the rhythm after a couple rounds, and then the Black Sun and I, collaborating on the syllables, chanted with them. I could feel the twine even though it was between Chogyi Jake’s fingers. I closed my eyes and it began to shift, tugging and spinning. Carla’s face came to me like I was dreaming. I saw the distress in the corners of her eyes and the lines of her mouth. She’d been crying, but I didn’t know why.
Yes, I thought. Her.
The pressure of our combined will pushed down, and something pushed back. We slid across it, string and hair and silver becoming only themselves again for a moment. Ex’s voice, rough with effort, slipped into my ears, and I realized I hadn’t been hearing him. Or anything. I bore down again, riding my rider as we brought the spell back into focus. Carla came to me again. A house. Green tile in the kitchen. A little porch out the front window with a swing on it. The smell of maple syrup and bacon. Breakfast for lunch. The string twitched, the wards pushing us away again.
No, I thought. Hold on.
The wards slid against us, drawing the silver away, and then, between one heartbeat and the next, they were gone. Carla was before me as clearly as if we were both in the same room. She had a scrape on her right hand, just below the knuckles. There were three pancakes on the plate in front of her. Someone was in the seat beside her, but I couldn’t see who. They were nothing more firm than a presence, a ghost. I felt the weight of the river nearby, the moving water like a dead zone in my sight.
“Water,” I said.
“Water Street,” Chogyi Jake murmured from a long, long way away.
“South,” Ex growled. “She’s on South Water Street.”
I was in the room with her, and I was also outside, looking in. There two more people there I couldn’t see. Walking blind spots. The house was white with blue-painted houses to either side. A tree grew, not in the yard, but in the median between yard and street. There was a garage in back. I could find it.
“Carla,” I said. She looked up, confused, and I was back in Jay’s kitchen. The twine was whirring in a circle so fast it looked like a disk. Tiny drops of Chogyi Jake’s blood spattered the map, and I saw that the largest of them had pooled on Water Street.
Chogyi Jake stopped the spinning weight. He looked pleased, I thought, but a little tired. I felt like I’d run a half marathon in a snowsuit.
“Are you all right?” Jay asked. His voice sounded small. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and grinned.
“Perfect,” I said. “Never better.”
“We found her,” Ex said.
Jay looked from one to the other of us, torn between distrust and hope. Chogyi Jake stepped to the sink and ran water over his injured hand. I felt like the whole world was vibrating. I sat on one of the chairs and rested my head in my hands. Jay took a step toward me, hesitated, and then squatted down at my side. His hand on my shoulder felt almost cold. I expected him to say something, but he didn’t. Maybe he didn’t need to.
“It’s the right place,” Ex said. “You felt the holes where they were?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Is that what I’m like too?”
“Similar,” Ex said. “I didn’t catch wind of their bloodhound, whatever it is.”
“I didn’t either,” Chogyi Jake said, patting the raw spot on his finger with a paper towel. When he was done, he put the used towel in his pocket. “But I believe Carla sensed us at the end. They may move her if they know we’ve found them.”
“Or they may be using her as bait,” I said.
“Bait for what?” Jay asked, his voice gray and empty with dread.
“Me. Her. Us. Whatever,” I said. “We’re not going over there. Not yet.”
Ex lifted his eyebrows.
“You sure about that?” he asked.
“Yeah. It’s what everyone expects us to do, and you don’t have to be Admiral Akbar to see it’s a trap. Whatever they’re up to, it’s got to do with Eric and Mom and me. I’m betting Dad has a different perspective.”
“Which he won’t share with you,” Ex pointed out, his arms crossed.
“I’m not the one asking,” I said. “Jay is.”
“I am?”
“If you want Carla back safe,” I said.
My brother coughed and sat back.
“We have to go get her,” he said.
“We have to find out what we’re walking into,” I said. “Running off half-cocked has been pretty much my basic mode, and it doesn’t work as well as you might think. We’ll go talk to Dad.”
“You would really . . .” Jay shook his head, started over. “You’d use this to hold Dad’s feet to the fire. You’d exploit Carla to make him talk about whatever it is he doesn’t want to tell you.”
It wasn’t how I’d thought of it. It wasn’t how I’d framed it. I had a dozen arguments at my fingertips about why it wasn’t like that, and none of them changed what we needed to do. I wondered whether Eric would have done the same: used the missing Carla as leverage, gotten what he wanted, and to hell with everybody else.
Silly question. Of course he would have.
And apparently so would I.
chapter eleven
We got back to the house a little after three in the afternoon, and the sun was already sinking down toward the horizon, pulling out the shadows of bare branches and promising that things would be darker and colder before dinner got served. A school bus trundled down the street, empty of everyone but an ancient-looking driver. I pulled my qi up to my eyes, and the old woman didn’t change. She was just what she appeared to be, and I was a little paranoid. The air had been chilly before, but it was reaching toward cold now. I knew that, with the solstice behind us, the light was supposed to be coming back. It just didn’t seem that way.
The damage to the house was almost invisible if you didn’t know to look. The paint at the side of the front door was a good match to the original shade, but not perfect. Mom was never one to let the house look run-down, but the windows that had survived the assault were just a little bit dimmer than the flashy new glass. Darkened Christmas lights clung to the eaves, and a little patch of snow at the edge of the wall had been churned into mud and ice by the repairmen. I wondered how many favors Dad had pulled in to get it all done so quickly. Maybe there’d been people from church he’d appealed to. Maybe he’d just paid more for rush service. One way or the other, he’d made sure Mom and Curt didn’t go into the new year with cardboard over the windows, and I had to respect him for that. I wished that there had been some way to convince Dad to let me pay for it.
Like extortion, maybe.
I pushed my hands deeper into my pockets, scowling all the way up the walk. Jay strutted beside me. I couldn’t tell if we were a united front against Dad or if he felt like he was being marched to the gallows. Guilt and resentment at being made t
o feel guilty wrestled at the back of my head. Ex and Chogyi Jake came up behind us.
Jay rang the doorbell. For a long moment I thought no one would come. Maybe they weren’t home. Maybe they just didn’t open the door to me and mine. Then the porch light came on, a pale echo of the falling sun, and the door opened.
“Hey,” Curtis said. “Jayné. Jay. What’s . . . ah . . . what’s up?”
The forced casual tone, the way he didn’t step aside to let us in. He was under orders. I understood that, and a flare of anger came up in me. It wasn’t a position Mom and Dad should have put him in.
“Came to see Dad,” Jay said. “Can you get him?”
“Sure,” Curt said with obvious relief. “Hang on a sec.”
He closed the door and his muffled voice came through it, calling for my father.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?” Jay asked.
“For getting Curt off the hook. Not making him feel weirder about being the family bouncer.”
Jay looked at me.
“What?” I asked.
“That’s what you worry about? Whether Curt feels awkward?”
“It’s one thing,” I said. “Global warming kind of freaks me out too.”
Jay shook his head. It was the same tight motion Dad used when he was angry and not safely at home where he could blow up. I shifted from one foot to the other, trying to decide what I’d do if they left us standing out in the cold. Go around to the back door, maybe. Or kick in the front and see if Dad shot at me. Not like I’d be the first. I felt like I was back at grade school, waiting to see the principal.
The door opened again and Dad was there. He crossed his arms and looked down at us.
“I thought I told you not to speak with her,” Dad said.
“I need her help.”
“You don’t need anything she’s got on offer,” Dad said.
“Good to see you too,” I said, and Chogyi Jake touched my shoulder. He was right. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t escalate things. I bit my lip and looked down. Dad was wearing cheap suede slippers with fake lamb’s wool. Grampa shoes. I couldn’t think why that should make me sad.
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