I ran my hand over his chest. I trembled at his touch, thirsting for him. It was as though Kipa fed every hunger I had. Pressing close, I rested my head on his shoulder.
“I don’t know what this is,” I whispered. “I don’t know what we have, but whatever it is I can’t resist it. I can’t resist you.” I looked up into his eyes, feeling more vulnerable than I had felt in years. I didn’t like admitting my vulnerability, but I felt safe with Kipa, and each time we came together, it felt more natural to be with him.
“I believe we were destined to meet. You’re beautiful, and terrifying, and you intoxicate me. I find myself thinking of you through the day, thinking about how you feel in my arms, thinking about your perfume as you press against me. About your lips against mine.” He caught me up in his arms then, and pressed his lips to mine with a kiss that said, You’re mine and only mine. A moment later, he broke away and gave me a rueful smile. “I’d better get moving before Gunnar wonders what’s keeping me. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Before I could say a word, he was out the door, shutting it behind him. I rested my hand against the door, reeling from the passion that been left unquenched. I thought about spending some alone time in my bedroom, but then decided that I needed to clear my head.
“Hey, Raj, want to go for a ride?” I glanced out the window. The snow seemed to have stopped, though it was below freezing.
Raj came racing in from the living room, skidding to one side as he put on the brakes, his weight sending him wide like a semi making a turn on a narrow road. He wriggled, then sat back on his haunches, looking for all the world as though he were imitating a statue of Bast.
“Raj likes rides.” His eyes glowed.
“I’m sorry we haven’t taken many lately. This will be a short one, but I want to get out of the house for a few minutes and I thought you might like to go with me.”
“Raj go with Raven!”
I pulled on my jacket and slid on my boots, zipping them up. Then, grabbing my keys and purse, I made sure the range was off, fastened a leash to Raj’s collar, and we headed out into the night.
My breath immediately formed clouds in front of my face as I glanced up into the clear sky. The storm had backed away, and the stars glittered down, reflecting the sparkle of the snow. The temperature was dropping—it was already below freezing, but I had snow tires and as long as I stuck to the main roads, we should be safe.
I opened the back door of the car and Raj hopped in. As I fastened my seat belt and eased out of the driveway, I glanced over at the for-sale sign on Buck’s property and did a double-take. There was already a “sold” sticker plastered across it. Great. I had hoped to have time to cast a spell to attract the right neighbors for our neighborhood, but it was too late.
Heading down the street, I decided we’d go to the Plum Creek Shopping Center. The mini-mall was on the border between Redmond and Kirkland and I could get there via the main roads, which had been plowed. Even though it was already icing over, the route should be clear enough. I didn’t really need to do any shopping, but it was a place to go, and it also had the Downside Drive-In, one of the best dive diners in town. Raj and I could get dinner.
As I sped silently through the night, watching the lights of the houses pass by, I was lost in my thoughts. The land wight hung heavy on my mind, as did Gunnar’s situation. And then there were the ferrets. I felt like everywhere I turned, somebody needed my help, and I wasn’t sure how well I could help anybody right now.
I glanced in the rearview mirror at Raj, who was staring out the window, his nose pressed against the glass.
“Raj want dinner from the Downside Diner?”
He turned his gaze to the back of my head. “Raj want a Dippy Burger and a Barrel O’ Fries.” His eyes were bright and judging by the tone of his voice, I had just made his evening.
“You got it.” I was just pulling into the shopping center when my phone jangled out the opening notes for “Journeyman” by Jethro Tull. That was the ring tone for my father. I parked in the nearest parking spot, grabbing my phone out of the dashboard holder I kept it in.
“Dad?” I hadn’t heard from my father in months.
“Raven, how are you? Am I calling at a bad time?” His voice was the same as I remembered—low and gravelly.
“Never. No, you aren’t. I miss you,” I said. I hadn’t seen him in over a year. Ulstair and I had been planning to visit for the holidays, but then he’d been killed and I’d begged off, with all that was happening.
“I miss you too, my little flame. I thought that I might come out during the spring or summer. I can drive across country then, and won’t have to worry about bad weather.”
My father never used public transportation, whether it was trains or planes or buses. He was too aware of the fates of those he would come into contact with, and what might happen to them through meeting him. He was terribly conscientious, more than most of the Ante-Fae would ever be.
My father was Curikan, the Black Dog of Hanging Hills, in Connecticut. The first time mortals met him in his natural form—as one of the infamous black dogs—they experienced great fortune. But if they met him again, in either his human or dog form, they would undergo a tragedy of equal proportions. My father liked people too much to put them in danger, so for the most part, he lived as a recluse, seldom having anything to do with outsiders who weren’t Ante-Fae. I had gotten my love for living around mortals from him.
“Really? You’d do that? Just to see me?” My mood lifted like somebody had flipped on the light switch. “I’d love it. You could see my house, and meet Raj, and…” I was about to say “Meet my friends,” but that might be pushing it. Except, of course, for the Ante-Fae I hung out with. “I’d love it, Dad.”
“Then it’s settled. I’ll come out when the weather gets better. By the way, there’s something you should know, since your mother never gives you advance notice. Phasmoria told me that she’s planning on visiting you soon. As in, within the week. So be prepared.”
I stared at the dashboard. I loved my mother, but we weren’t nearly as close as my father and I were. Phasmoria and I had a tenuous relationship, given she had left my father and me when I was twelve, returning to the Morrígan, who had demanded she take up her duties as one of the Bean Sidhe again. Phasmoria had left me with Curikan, claiming it was best for me, though I had the feeling it was more that she had never expected to get pregnant, and when the excuse had presented itself for her to ditch being a mother, she had jumped on it.
Oh, she visited me more often than my father managed, but the meetings were always tense, and even though I looked forward to seeing her, I never felt like I measured up to her standards.
“Do you know why she’s coming?” I asked after a moment.
“She says she has to talk to you about something. I’m not sure what it is.” He paused. “Are you all right? Do you need money? How’s Raj?”
“Raj is just fine, and no, I don’t need money, but thank you.” I grinned. My father was still under the assumption that I was too young to make my way in the world. Among the Ante-Fae, it was common for children to stay with their parents for several hundred years. I had branched out on my own early. But every time he asked, it made me feel that much more secure. I liked knowing he had my back.
“I’m fine. Oh, while I have you on the phone, I want to ask you something.” I texted the picture of the sigil on Gunnar’s neck to my father. “Have you ever seen this mark before?” I explained what was going on.
There was a pause, then my father said, “No, but you be careful. There are a lot of nasty creatures out on the Aether and the astral. Don’t put yourself in danger. Now tell me, how are you doing since Ulstair died?”
I sighed. I hadn’t told my father about Kipa yet. Hell, I’d barely told any of my friends about him. “All right. Better than I expected to be, to be honest. I did a Cord Cutting ceremony to let him go. I miss him, but I need to move on.”
“Does that mean you’re s
eeing someone new?”
“It might. Well, kind of.”
“Tell me all about him—or her.” My father laughed. “Or don’t, if you don’t want to. I just feel like we’ve been out of touch for a while, and I’d really like to reconnect.”
That sobered me up. If my father was feeling pushed out of my life, then I needed to connect with him more. “I guess I’ve just been busy. I’ve had a lot going on. Of course I’ll tell you about him. And yes, this time it’s a him. His name is Kipa—Kuippana. He’s from—”
“Finland. I’ve heard of Kuippana. You’ve really moved up in the world, haven’t you? Isn’t he the Lord of the Wolves?” My father sounded both impressed and a little afraid.
“Yes. I actually met him through Herne.”
“Herne as in, Herne the Hunter? Oh, this is getting better and better. What have you been doing with yourself?”
It really had been a long time since we’d talked.
“Hey, listen. I’m going to hang up for the moment. I’m sitting in a freezing parking lot with Raj. We went out for a drive. I’ll grab some takeout and go home and I’ll call you then. We can have a long chat. So I’ll talk to you in about half an hour. How does that sound?”
“That sounds delightful.” Before I could say another word he had signed off.
I stuck my phone back in the holder and glanced into the backseat at Raj. “Well, let’s buy dinner and go home. I’m starting to freeze my ass off.”
Raj laughed. I drove through the drive-thru, placing an order for four Dippy burgers, two Barrel O’ Fries, a strawberry milkshake, and dozen Downside doughnuts. I paid the cashier. When she handed me the sacks of food, I placed them on the floor in the passenger seat. I didn’t dare hand them back to Raj or we wouldn’t have anything left to eat by the time we got home.
Heading out again into the icy street, I drove home, feeling infinitely better than when I had started out. Talking to my father always lifted my spirits, and the thought of a cozy long chat with him in front of the fire made everything seem all right.
The next morning, I woke up feeling refreshed. The talk with my father had done me a world of good, and spending the evening in, with Raj and the TV, had calmed me down. I had managed to sleep through the night without nightmares or any unwelcome interruptions.
After feeding the ferrets, changing their litter, and playing with them for a while, I wandered into the kitchen. Outside, the sky was overcast, and the temp was hovering barely at the freezing mark. The snow was still iced over from the low temperatures during the night, and it was the sort of day that made me not want to go anywhere. I fixed myself a cup of hot cocoa and, carrying that and the leftover doughnuts from the night before, headed into my office.
No time like the present to get a leg up on Gunnar’s situation. I found a book on runes and sigils—Drake’s Compendium of Symbols—and snuggled in the overstuffed chair in the corner, placing my cocoa and doughnuts on the side table. I tucked a lightweight throw over me and settled down to thumb through the pages.
I was looking for the symbol that had been burned onto Gunnar’s neck. I wasn’t sure where to start, so I flipped to the chapter on curses and began to turn the pages one by one. The book itself was a good thousand pages long, and the chapter on curses took up about one-third of the book. I had finished my cocoa and two of the doughnuts by the time I came to the symbol.
Straightening my shoulders, I pulled out my phone to compare the picture to the drawing to make certain it was the same. It was.
The fylgismadi is a specific type of curse known mostly in Northern European circles. Used by only powerful shamans and magic-born, the mark binds one of the Wandering Ghosts to the bearer of the mark, usually without their knowledge. [See Wandering Ghosts in Drake’s Compendium of Spirits]
I was about to go get the companion volume when my phone rang. The ring tone was the one I had set for the Witching Hour, so it had to be a client.
“You’ve reached the Witching Hour. Raven speaking. How may I help you?” I had developed just the right amount of eagerness mixed in with professionalism over the years, and was told I had a lovely phone voice.
“Hi. It’s Moira Ness. You read for me at the Sun & Moon Apothecary. I don’t mean to bother you at home, but I have a problem with a spirit.”
Moira. My lonely old lady. “Hey, Moira. What’s going on?”
She sounded almost embarrassed. “I tried something and it didn’t work. I was wondering if you could help me set it to rights?”
I suppressed a sigh. That could mean anything. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
“Well, I saw that my neighbor had a speaking board and—”
I groaned. “Don’t tell me that you used it. Trying to talk to your sister?”
She whispered out a deflated “Yes” and then fell silent.
“So what’s going on now? Did you talk to her?” I knew she hadn’t because her sister had moved on, but there were plenty of spirits out there, ready and willing to take advantage of gullible mortals. And Moira, as sweet as she was, would be a prime target for them.
“No, I didn’t. But something came through and it’s tearing up my house.” She sounded frantic. “I don’t know if it’s a ghost or what, but it’s throwing things around and tipping over pots and laughing at me.”
Crap. This was serious. It could be a poltergeist or even one of the sub-Fae. They could enter this realm through the portals caused by talking boards. And Moira definitely couldn’t take this on by herself.
“All right. Here, give me your address.” I jotted it down as she recited it. It was in the Worchester district of Seattle—one of the most haunted, rundown places in the city. The entire district had been the scene of too many murders, attacks, and other atrocities that had settled deep within the very land that made up the ruralesque urban neighborhood. The rent was cheap, the houses were weathered, and the lots were overgrown into tangled jungles.
“Okay, Moira, I want you to listen to me.” I was about to tell her to wait outside for me but then stopped. It was cold as hell out there, and little old ladies did not belong standing out on the street in subfreezing temperatures. “Try to keep out of its way. I’ll be there as soon as I can, traffic allowing. Call me if anything worse happens.”
I grabbed my travel bag of magical tools and headed for the door, pocketing my keys on the way. Stopping at the door to put on my boots, I called for Raj. He meandered in from the living room, a glazed look on his face. I heard the Bounce-A-Boy song in the background. He’d been watching The Terrible Twins, a kids’ program that fascinated him because of the music, the vivid colors, and the continual action that left most adults dizzy.
“Raj, I have to run out for a while. Will you be okay here by yourself? You’ve had breakfast, and there’s fruit on the table in case you want a snack.” I had shut my office door behind me. I kept him out of there, to keep him out of trouble.
“Raj be fine. Raj watch twins.”
“Yeah, Raj watch twins… Okay, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” I blew him a kiss and slipped out the door, locking it behind me. As I cautiously picked my way over the ice that covered the sidewalk, I hoped to hell that whatever Moira had conjured up, I’d be able to take care of.
Chapter Twelve
The drive over to Seattle was harrowing. The temperatures over the past couple days had risen just above freezing several times before plunging into the icy range again, so that a thin layer of snow had melted, then refrozen, compacting everything into one giant ice slick. Any snow that fell over that created a sliding hazard.
Even where the plows had gone through, the danger of black ice loomed large, and the ruts and furrows through the compacted snow and ice were taking their toll on the cars. With some streets so steep they were a difficult hike at best, Seattle during a snowstorm was one big accident waiting to happen.
The Worchester district was tucked in between Lake Forest Park and a district that had once been known as Mountla
ke Terrace. And it was creepy as shit. Just like Beacon Hill had become a haven for streeps—the street people—with old houses turned into flops that housed twenty to thirty people in shifts around the clock, the district was the city’s failed attempt at gentrification.
The city council had swept through, removing some of the worst houses, but the planners were footloose and fancy-free about how they spent the money, and when the funds ran out, only a few streets here and there had been upgraded, in a piecemeal fashion. Nobody ever figured out where the money had gone, though the word embezzlement hung heavy on the taxpayers’ minds, and so the Worchester district was left to decay even further.
The populace of the area was mostly human, though a number of shifters had moved in during the past few years. The houses were cheap compared to most of Seattle, and the families who moved into the district barely had enough for a down payment, so even though some of the lawns were kept up, the houses themselves were still as dismal as they had been before the city’s ill-planned intervention.
As I drove along 40th Place Northeast, I came to Five Acre Woods Park. Moira’s house was just beyond the park, on Elspeth Way, a side street off of 40th. As I crept along the road, the houses became increasingly decrepit, their paint weathered to the point where it was almost nonexistent. The lawns, from what I could see of them, were tangled and snarled, partially hidden beneath the snow.
The entire area was one big haunted mess. I could feel it the moment I entered the district. The spirit population was high, especially the number of ghosts caught in the Aether. A high proportion of junkies died in the Worcester district, overdosing on whatever their drug of choice was. There had also been a number of suicides over the years, contributing even further to the high rate of ghostly encounters.
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