I hated the bucolic little town around me when he said things like that. I’m not always the world’s best judge of character, but James was enough like my cousin Artie—enough like me—that I could see the cracks where he’d been struck. The world has a way of grinding down the people it deems different, or less worthy of being loved.
“No,” I said, for the second time. The word fell between us like a stone. “That isn’t what this is. Please. I’ll explain when we get to the house, all right? I’ll explain everything.”
“You sure do come with a lot of explaining,” he said, then turned to walk away.
At least his visit had broken the strange paralysis that had followed Leo’s departure. I stood, leaving my refilled coffee mug, surface slick with melted marshmallow, behind. James had disappeared into the back, leaving me once again surrounded by strangers. That was fine. It’s easier to be unwell in the company of strangers, because they don’t have any idea what “ordinary” looks like.
The air had warmed while I was inside; it felt like a crisp fall day, the kind that should be spent picking apples and making chicken stock, not sitting in a coffee shop and waiting for the Covenant of St. George to descend. Cylia’s car was still snuggled comfortably up to the curb, as visible among the sensible, sturdy cars of the locals as a parrot among a flock of magpies. She was leaning against the hood, munching on something from a white paper bag.
She beamed when she saw me approaching, tilting the bag down to offer me my choice of its contents. “There’s a candy shop that still does penny candy,” she said gleefully. “I mean, it’s a nickel apiece, but the principle is there, and she has maple sugar candy in the display. Who the hell sells maple sugar candy for a nickel? Someone who either has no business sense or way too many trees, that’s who. Want some?”
“We need to go home.”
Cylia lowered the bag, seeming to see the distress in my face for the first time. “Honey? What’s wrong?”
“I’ll tell you when we get home. Please, can we go?”
Cylia nodded, once, and started for the door.
I watched the rearview mirror all the way back to the house. No one followed us. Not that it made any difference. The Covenant—Leo—wasn’t following me through anything as simple as visual surveillance.
Blood. Sympathy. There were any number of spells that would let them hone in on me and track me down, following me from one end of the continent to the other. Lowryland had allowed me a brief period of peace by surrounding me with so many people that the spells couldn’t latch on, but even without the evil magicians running the place behind the scenes, that could never have been forever. A girl can’t spend her life at a theme park, no matter how much she wants to.
James’ bike was propped against the porch when Cylia pulled into our driveway, and he was standing in front of the door, arms folded, glowering. He turned at the sound of tires on gravel, and didn’t unfold his arms. Great. Now I got to deal with an angry sorcerer as well as everything else. This day kept on getting better.
“If it gets much better, maybe Godzilla will show up,” I muttered.
“What?” asked Cylia.
“Nothing.” I slid out of the car, leaning my elbows against the roof as I called, “Problems?”
“No one’s answering the door,” said James.
Fear slithered along my spine. What if Leo wasn’t alone? What if—God forbid—he’d been sent to make sure I stayed in the coffee shop, kept on talking? Sam was incredible in a fight, but his formal training had been for the trapeze, not for staying alive in a pitched battle against seasoned monster hunters. Fern …
Sylphs aren’t natural fighters. She could put power behind her punches by increasing her density beyond reasonable limits, but she didn’t know how to fire a gun and she didn’t habitually carry any sort of weapons. Her usual response to fear was to get lighter, and hence faster, and try to outrun it. That wouldn’t work with the Covenant.
Being anywhere near me was a death sentence. Had been since I’d allowed myself to be sent to England. How had I been foolish enough to forget that?
“Don’t you have a key?” asked Cylia, digging hers out of her pocket.
James shook his head. “I wouldn’t have broken in last night if I did. Dad convinced Norbert I didn’t need one. Said it would only encourage me to blow off work and spend all my time reading. I usually sneak in through the back door, but it’s locked.”
“Huh,” said Cylia, shooting a quick look in my direction. “Annie?”
“Open the door and wait out here,” I said. A quick gesture and my hands were full of knives. James’ eyes widened. That trick can take some time to get used to, even though there’s nothing magical about it: it’s all practice and knowing exactly where the edges are. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes or you hear screaming, both of you get in the car and drive as fast as you possibly can. We’re in Maine. The closest sanctuary I know of is in Gentling. If you go there, they’ll hide you. You may need to remind them daily of who you are, but they’ll hide you.”
The people in Gentling are the result of a meeting of the land and sea, literally. They are, almost all of them, crossbreeds between humans and finfolk, one of the safer, more complicated forms of merfolk. They tend to have issues with short-term memory, but they’re allies, and have been since my family quit the Covenant. If Cylia and James wound up there, the citizens of Gentling would make sure they were all right.
“Got it,” said Cylia. Her key slid into the lock with a faint click, and then the door was open, revealing the front room. I stepped through, moving lightly, my steps designed to smother noise before it could begin. The sunlight streaming through the door behind me made it harder to see, rather than easier, but I didn’t wave for Cylia to close it. I might need the escape route.
There was something cold and assessing in the pit of my stomach, measuring up the house as the site of a siege, trying to decide where the first blows would have been struck, to guess where the blood would have been spilled. Every time I turned a corner without finding the signs of a struggle, another inch of my skin relaxed, until I was walking quiet as a cat, slithering as much as striding from shadow to shadow.
When I was a kid, I used to imagine going to one of my teachers and telling them how I’d really spent my weekend. Telling them about learning to field strip and rebuild weapons, how to sharpen knives, how to navigate a field full of traps that had been designed to be nonlethal but could still do a lot of damage if I misjudged, if I stepped wrong, if I was ever careless for so much as a moment. I used to think about the looks on their faces, to wonder how many of them would be proud of me before the urge to call Child Protective Services kicked in.
Walking through the silent house that had gone so quickly from refuge to burial ground, I was grateful that I never had, and even more grateful to my parents for putting me through those casual tests of my ability to stay alive. Some lessons, if taught early enough, work their way all the way down to the bone.
The door of the room I was sharing with Sam stood ever so slightly ajar. I paused outside, taking a deep breath, and kicked it open as hard as I could, twisting so that I was framed perfectly in the opening, a knife in either hand.
Sam, wearing a pair of shorts and nothing else, looked up from the book he was reading and blinked at me.
“Okay,” he said. “That’s seriously hot, but Annie, what the fuck?”
I dropped my knives, clapped my hands over my eyes, and started crying.
Ten
“I hope you never have to learn what you’re not willing to give up. Knowledge like that always costs so much more than you were hoping to pay.”
–Alice Healy
In a house, in a bedroom, in tears
“ANNIE? JESUS!” SAM THREW his book aside and was next to me in an instant, moving with the inhuman speed that was his birthright. He folded his arms around me and held me at a slightly awkward angle, hugging and checking for injuries at the same
time. It was efficient. I had to give him that much.
The thought struck me as somehow funny. I started laughing through my tears, hiccupping helplessly as the adrenaline racing through my body scrambled my feelings and made them virtually impossible to understand. He wasn’t letting go. I slumped, trusting him to hold me upright. I couldn’t stay here long, not with Cylia and James waiting outside for me to come back and tell them whether or not everyone was dead, but I could have a few seconds. I’d done enough to earn that much.
“Annie, come on, I need you to talk to me. You’re scaring me.”
“Sorry.” I took a deep breath, in through my nose and out through my mouth, and uncovered my eyes as I turned my face toward Sam’s. The panic in his eyes mirrored what I knew he must have seen in mine. That helped me center myself, a little. I wasn’t glad to have scared him—far from it—but I was grateful for the fact that I could take that fear away.
Love is complicated and messy, and it sort of sucks because I never used to have to worry about this kind of shit.
“Leo’s here,” I said.
Sam stiffened, his arms loosening as he prepared to start swinging, his tail, which had wrapped itself around my ankle, tightening like he was afraid I was about to be ripped away.
“Where?” he asked. His voice was low, filled with a quiet and implacable rage. If fūri were like waheela, possessed of both fully human and fully animal forms, I would have found out in that moment, because if he’d been capable of transforming into something more dangerous, he would absolutely have done so.
“In the town, I mean, not here at the house.” I took a step back. Sam let me go, his tail holding on for a beat longer than his hands. “I was afraid … when we got here and the door was locked and no one was answering, I thought …”
“Fuck, honey, if he’d sent a team here to kill us, I won’t pretend they couldn’t succeed, because the Covenant scares the pants off me, but I can promise you there’d be at least a broken window.” Sam raised one hand, fingers folded in a Boy Scout salute. “I solemnly swear that if I’m about to be murdered by bigoted zealots, I’ll stop worrying about property damage and make as much of a mess as possible, so you’ll know what you’re walking into. Okay?”
I giggled, the sound rendered thick by snot and tears. Then I sniffled, wiping my nose with the back of my hand, and nodded. “Okay. I’m going to go check on Fern. Can you get dressed and go let Cylia and James know that the Covenant hasn’t murdered everyone while we were off having coffee?”
“Sure—wait.” Sam frowned. “You were having coffee with James?”
“Only technically. He works at the town coffee shop.”
“Oh. I guess that makes sense. I’ll see you downstairs.” He gave me one last quick hug before starting to pick his clothes up off the floor.
I was actually smiling as I walked back into the hall. It was hard not to read the scene I’d busted into as a charmingly awkward attempt at seduction. I mean, half-naked, in bed with a book, in the middle of the day? Come on.
At least he knew how to get my attention.
The stairs to the attic were narrow and just rickety enough to shake as I climbed them, sending vibrations through the floor above me. Fern’s fondness for her chosen room made more and more sense. Out of everyone in the house, she was the only one whose entire defensive strategy was “run.” Cylia could bend an attacker’s luck against them, making it more likely that guns would misfire or rocks would somehow turn underfoot. Sam could punch them until they stopped coming. Fern …
Fern could run. And by putting herself at the top of the house, she had both created an exit that no one else was likely to be able to use, and established a way of hearing if anyone was coming.
The stairs ended at a narrow door. I rapped the knuckles of my hand against the wood, and called, “Fern? It’s Annie. Can I come in?”
“Sure.” Her voice was faint but audible.
Cautiously, I opened the door to reveal a small, neatly appointed room. The walls were white; the curtains were trimmed in lace. The overall effect was one of sweetness and innocence, like this room had originally belonged to a young girl who couldn’t be trusted with unfettered access to the ground.
Fern was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring fixedly out the single barred window. She looked over her shoulder as I crossed the threshold, offering me a wan smile.
“You’re scared someone’s found us, aren’t you?” she asked.
I blinked. “Yes,” I said. “How did you know?”
“A car came a little while after you and Cylia left. A man got out and walked around the house. He tried the doors, and when he found that they were locked, he left them.”
My chest tightened. “What did he look like?”
“Tall. Really dark hair, like James. Broad shoulders. He was wearing a uniform. I couldn’t see exactly what kind, he was too far away for that. I’m sorry.” Fern glanced down. “I should have tried harder.”
“Did he have glasses on?”
“No.”
Not Leo, then. He’d told me a lot of lies, which should have felt like a fair trade for the number of lies I had told him. That was how it had worked with Sam, anyway. Only Sam and I had both been trying to protect ourselves, while Leo had been trying to subvert me to a cause I had no interest in. There was at least one thing he hadn’t lied about, though: his eyesight was worse than my brother’s, and Alex can’t hit the broad side of a barn when he doesn’t have his glasses on. There was no way Leo would have removed his glasses before coming to case the joint.
The rest of the description, though … “That sounds like it may have been James’ father. The chief of police.”
That didn’t seem to help. Fern looked, if anything, more alarmed as she asked, “Why would he be here? We haven’t done anything wrong.”
That was questionable, although we hadn’t done anything wrong inside city limits apart from punching James’ nose, and he’d deserved it. “Maybe he wanted to get a look at the people renting from his nephew, or maybe he was trying to be neighborly. Have you been locked up here since he left?”
Fern bit her lip and nodded. “He scared me. I figured if I waited for you to come back, it would be okay. You’d make sure it was okay.”
Her faith in me was as touching as it was misplaced. “I’ll always try,” I said. “Come on downstairs.”
It was easier to descend than it had been to climb. The shaking of the steps was familiar now. If I went to visit Fern more than a few times, it would become ordinary, unremarkable, and even something I could overlook. The intelligent mind doesn’t hold on to novelty very well. That’s intentional. If we were constantly being surprised by our surroundings, we would never be able to get anything done. We have to become jaded if we’re going to be functional.
It was hard to feel jaded as I stepped into the dining room with Fern at my heels and beheld my motley, self-assembled group of allies. It was strange to realize that, thanks to my exile, I was the first person in generations to go entirely outside the family for help. No cousins, no honorary aunts or uncles—not even Mary, not unless I could get her back from the crossroads. The possibility of that unconfirmed loss was a rock in the pit of my stomach, possible and implacable and painful.
Cylia was leaning against the wall, while James and Sam sat on opposite sides of the table like they were getting ready to start arm wrestling each other. All three of them looked over as we arrived in the room.
“False alarm?” asked Cylia.
“Sort of,” I replied. “James, is there any chance your father would have decided to come do a walk-around of the property while you were at work?”
His scowl was immediate and intense. “Absolutely. He doesn’t think anyone deserves privacy. If you don’t have anything to hide, you shouldn’t mind the police sticking their nose anywhere they feel it belongs.”
“I have plenty to hide, but aside from that, I still wouldn’t want strangers pawing through my underwear drawer,�
�� I said. “A reasonable expectation of privacy is not an admission of guilt. Would it put you in a bad position if I asked you to tell him he’s welcome to drop by whenever, but we’d really prefer it if he didn’t skulk around in the bushes while we’re doing the shopping? Because he freaked Fern out pretty badly.”
James grimaced. “If I ask him that, I’m as good as admitting that I’m spending time here.”
“Who was it that didn’t like the idea of secret friends?” I asked, trying to keep my tone light. “That runs both ways.”
“Fair.” He sighed. “I’ll tell him I dropped by to get a replacement chain for my bike and wound up showing you how to reset the fuses or something. Anything to make me sound useful.”
“Your dad’s sort of a dick, isn’t he?” asked Sam.
“Yeah, he is,” said James. “I should probably defend him, but why bother? It won’t make him any less of an asshole.”
“Fun times.” I walked over to lean against Sam’s chair. I was too filled with nervous energy to sit; I’d wind up carving notes in the table without realizing I was doing it, and I didn’t feel like paying for a new one. “To answer the question of what’s wrong: Leonard Cunningham, presumptive heir to the Covenant of St. George—as in, he’s going to be the man in charge as soon as his grandfather dies, whether of natural or Leonard-induced causes—has tracked me down.”
Cylia paled. Fern made a small, unhappy sound. Sam said nothing, but his tail snaked out to wrap around my ankle once again, keeping me anchored where I was. It felt like a tether, like a lifeline. As long as he was holding on to me, I couldn’t drift away. “If any of you want to leave, this is the time to do it.”
“I’ve heard of the Covenant,” said James thoughtfully. “They’re a holy order, right? They hunt monsters.”
“Everyone in this room who’s classified as a monster by the Covenant, raise your hand,” said Cylia.
Four hands went up. James paled. I looked at him steadily.
That Ain't Witchcraft (InCryptid #8) Page 14
