Ethereal Entanglements

by Lee French

  “Why is it blue?” Justin whispered. He shifted his flashlight, expecting to find more.

  “Magic.” Avery drew his sword and advanced on the oversized ant with small, deliberate steps.

  Justin also drew his sword and followed the wall with his beam of light, turning in a slow circle. Behind him, he heard the ant make a putting noise that reminded him of Missy spitting out water in the bathtub. The stench of sulfur filled the air and something sizzled.

  His light hit misty silver only a foot away from his face. He let out a startled squawk and hopped away from it. A ghostly woman in a fringed flapper dress reached for him with a delicate hand. He twisted aside and slashed his sword up through her body, slicing from hip to shoulder.

  The ghost’s two halves slid apart, spewing sickly green vapor instead of blood. Usually when he stabbed a ghost, it dissipated. Justin watched in horror as the vapor’s color drained and formed a bridge between the two halves, pulling them together. He backed away until he ran into Avery.

  “We…might have a problem.” Terror tickled the back of Justin’s mind. He clamped it down.

  “I’m getting that feeling.”

  Justin glanced toward the ant. An oblong patch of ground in front of it rippled like a liquid but still appeared to be dirt. He saw it spit on the ground, creating more ripples and expanding the odd patch toward Avery.

  “I can’t kill this ghost.” Justin hacked the misty woman in half again, as it had to stop and reconstitute before continuing to approach him.

  “It’s not a ghost. Switch your sight. There should be a tether to the ley line. Cut that.” Avery stepped to the side, backing away from both the woman and the ant.

  Justin moved with him. He noticed a frayed, blackened patch on the lower hem of Avery’s trenchcoat that he didn’t recall being there before. The ant apparently spat something caustic enough to eat through enchanted fabric. “Tariel’s not here. I can’t switch my sight.”

  “Fine. You handle the ant. Watch out, it’s spitting acid.” Avery stood for half a second, then he traded places with Justin. “Ah. There it is.”

  While Avery closed in with the woman, Justin ran at the ant. He held his sword out to skewer it. Blue liquid streamed out of the ant’s mouth and splashed on Justin’s enchanted jeans. His sword skittered off the ant’s exoskeleton and he yelped as the acidic spit ate through to his shin. He yelped in surprise and pain.

  “How many memory echoes are down here?” Avery growled.

  Justin had no time or attention to give Avery. He resisted the urge to dance away from the ant. The injury he suffered for his approach shouldn’t be wasted. Standing over it, he thrust his sword down. Again, the blade slid off its outer shell, but this time he twisted and sliced through the narrow joint between the second and third section. In the back of his mind, he remembered the names for those two parts from science class many years ago—thorax and abdomen.

  The abdomen fell and sprayed thick, blue ichor. All six legs remained functional and the ant lunged at Justin. He cried out as its pincers stabbed through the hole it had made in his jeans and into his leg.

  Avery swore heatedly. His voice faded as he moved down the tunnel. “Are you okay?”

  “More or less,” Justin ground out between clenched jaws. He stomped on the ant, ripping its jagged pincers out and pinning it to the ground.

  “This whole place is covered in magic! Like the ley line erupted.”

  Dropping down, Justin chopped at the ant’s head until the blade hacked it in half. Ichor splashed him, burning his skin. “Great,” he muttered. “Our own little magic Mount St. Helens.” He wiped his face with his arm and used his flashlight to check his leg. The ant had ripped out a quarter-sized chunk of flesh and he bled freely. A reddened patch of skin beside it bubbled painfully from the acid. This much distance from Tariel meant he healed slowly unless he focused on his bond with her.

  Chittering echoed in the tunnel. Justin fumbled with his flashlight until it pointed that way. Another metallic blue ant walked toward him, clicking its pincers. He didn’t have time to heal. Lurching to his feet, he hissed in pain and staggered back. His boot hit unstable ground and he sank into the ant’s weird puddle up to his knee. The liquid dirt bubbled and sizzled around his leg.

  He threw himself to the side and saw the remains of his work boot drip off his foot. His sock disintegrated while he watched and melting denim plopped to the ground. Two metallic blue ants approached the ant corpse and wiggled their antennae over it.

  Ants came in swarms. Justin gulped and shoved himself farther away. One had been bad enough. “Avery? I might need some help. There’s more than one!”

  Avery didn’t answer. Either he’d gone too far to hear, or the memory echoes took care of him. The two ants clicked at each other. They looked at Justin. He pointed his sword at them, ready to take acid in the face if he had to.

  Thumping on the ground announced Avery’s return at a run. The two ants flinched and darted away. Avery leaped over the puddle and grabbed Justin’s arm.

  “We need to go.” Avery hauled Justin to his feet and pushed him up the ladder.

  Justin shoved the trapdoor open and tossed both sword and flashlight aside before heaving himself out. Avery climbed out and kicked the trapdoor shut. Justin groaned and lay on his back, wanting never to go down there again. With his eyes open so he could pay attention for the next minute, he reached for his bond with Tariel to heal himself.

  “Ki!” Avery stood on the trapdoor.

  Ki stepped into the back room and his smile fell into a frown as he looked them over. “This looks serious.”

  “Nobody goes down there until I say so. We’ve got to gather some supplies and come back. I recommend putting something heavy over this trap door so nothing can get out this way.”

  “You think the memory echoes will try to escape?”

  “No.” Avery sheathed his sword and clicked off his flashlight. “They’re tethered to the ley line. It’s the other things I’m worried about.”

  Ki gave him a long, slow blink. Then he gulped. “Oh. Oh dear. I’ll block it up until you come back. Later today, I hope?”

  “It depends on how long it takes us to get what we need. Could be a few days.”

  Justin sighed as Tariel’s presence washed over him, chasing away his pain. He sat up and examined his sword, pleased to see it hadn’t been damaged by the ant’s blood or spit. “Those things are going to get loose and kill people.”

  Avery gripped his forearm and helped him stand. “Probably. You only saw the ants, though. There are also cockroaches. By the time we come back, there might be other things. I’ll explain in the car.”

  Ki tossed him a dishrag. When Justin wiped his blade with it, the cloth sizzled and smoked. He dropped it before it could eat away his hand. “Goodness gracious,” Ki breathed. “Maybe I should…take a vacation while they’re fixing the door.”

  “Sounds like a good idea.” Avery opened the back door and held it for Justin. “May I have a key to the back door, then? We’ll need to get back in.”

  Justin winced as he stepped on gravel. Heading back to the car, he tried to figure how he’d fit a new pair of boots into the family budget. The enchantment he’d bargained for years ago was supposed to keep them from being damaged. He’d done the same thing with his jeans. Both had proven less than helpful in protecting him from anything besides possessed animals and Phasms.

  When he reached Avery’s car, it opened its door for him. He shrugged out of his armor and tossed both it and his sheathed sword in the back seat. Avery hurried to the car a minute later. “Stirin, take us to the station.”

  Justin stared for a beat while the car pulled into traffic, thinking he’d heard wrong. Then he glared at Avery. “Really? Now? After that? We should be going for answers and supplies. I want to know what the hell Claire did down there and how we can fix it. We need a witch for that, not cops.”

  Avery rolled his eyes. “You can’t put this off forever. The
sooner it’s handled, the sooner you can stop worrying about it.”

  “I’m not worried about it! You’re the one who cares. I’m fine to just ignore it.” Noticing he’d yelled at Avery, Justin took a few moments to breathe. He’d find the money to get boots and jeans. They’d deal with whatever Claire did and stop the mutant insect apocalypse. He’d somehow convince Marie not to be angry anymore. Yelling, though, especially at Avery, would not accomplish any of these things.

  “We should go see Anne. Because someone told me the Palace is supposed to prevent ants from becoming blue, acid-spitting, armored monsters of doom. The only reasonable possibility is Claire mucking with things she shouldn’t, and the sooner we figure out how to deal with that, the sooner we can stop people from getting hurt by it. The last time I checked, that’s what being a Knight is about. Protecting people from magic crap they aren’t equipped to deal with.”

  Tapping his thumb on the steering wheel, Avery watched the red light they’d stopped at. When it turned green, he nodded. “You’re right. This is more important. Stirin, he’s going to give you directions.”

  Justin gave the car Anne’s address in Southeast Portland and leaned back to watch the scenery go by. “No matter what Anne says, I think I need to sit down and talk to Claire about actions and consequences.”

  “She’s young. Hopefully, her inexperience doesn’t turn out to have caused a horrific disaster.”

  “Too late.” Justin sighed and rubbed his face. “This has been the worst Thanksgiving weekend.”

  “Luckily, it’s not over yet.”

  Justin groaned.

  Chapter 26

  Claire

  Standing outside her bedroom window, Claire couldn’t decide if she should wriggle back in or come clean and go through the front door. Somehow, sneaking in felt more devious and dirty than sneaking out. To pull this off, she had to stay quiet, wipe up any mud she tracked in, scrub her socks and skirt, drink the rest of the water, and pretend she’d been napping all this time.

  The possibility existed that Marie had checked on her, in which case this particular effort to lie would make everything worse. Officer Sato was probably right about sucking it up and getting it over with. Resigned to being grounded forever, Claire plodded to the front door and walked in with her head down. She stripped down to her armor in the mud room and stepped inside to find Marie reading a book on the couch, her back to the door.

  “I wondered how long it would take you to decide to come back,” Marie said without looking up.

  “Sorry. I just…” Unable to come up with anything coherent to say, Claire sighed and plodded to the couch. She sat next to Marie and waited for the tongue lashing. When a minute passed without one, Claire braced her elbows on her knees and covered her face. This cool, silent indifference felt worse than being shouted at.

  Marie turned another page and kept reading. Another minute later, she picked up a thin metal bookmark with a silver unicorn dangling from the end of a delicate chain and tucked it into the pages. The protective sleeve from the library crinkled as she closed it and set it on her lap. “I know I’m not your mother. I also know you have to do Knight things. But you live in our house and you’re part of our family. I didn’t realize I needed to explain the rules about alcohol because you’re sixteen and when I was your age, I never considered drinking. It’s easy to accidentally break rules you don’t know exist. Even so, you’re underage.”

  She paused and brushed a hand across the book, a collection of Edgar Allen Poe’s works. This didn’t sound as bad as Claire had imagined. Marie almost seemed to battle against smiling at her. Then her mouth turned down.

  “For most kids, experimenting at home isn’t a big deal in itself. If you’re going to do it, for whatever reason, that’s the best place. For you, though, a social worker can stop by on a whim. If one had come by when I got home, they would have taken you away, placed you in protective custody, arrested me, and possibly opened a case file to have Missy and Lisa taken away from us too. I know that because I heard a social worker explain it to my parents when Justin moved in. Considering his father, it was a valid concern.”

  Any thoughts Claire had of brushing this all aside fled. Justin and Marie trusted her, and she’d ripped that up and spat on it. No words would take that away or fix it. She sniffled and felt her eyes burning yet again today.

  “Fortunately, none of that happened. What did happen isn’t the end of the world. It’s serious, because I know you wouldn’t have been doing that without a reason, but it’s not a disaster. Justin has no idea, and if I don’t need to tell him, I won’t. This one particular thing would upset him a lot, and I don’t think we need that on top of everything else that’s happened over the past few days.”

  Marie draped an arm over Claire’s shoulders and pulled her close. Claire leaned against her shoulder and wished she could remember doing the same with her mom. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

  “I already knew that, but thank you for saying it. Now tell me what I don’t know.”

  Explaining everything again felt daunting, like trying to scoop water out of a sinking boat. “A whole bunch of stuff happened. Some of it was really bad.”

  “I gather this is mostly Knight stuff you’re sure I won’t understand.” Marie picked up Claire’s hand and rubbed her thumb over the back. “You’re right, I probably won’t understand a lot, so I hope you’ll talk to Justin about it. In the meantime, I expect you’ve seen adults drinking to relax, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Marie squeezed her. “The next time you feel like that, try chocolate or ice cream. It tastes better, is completely legal, and won’t make you drunk. I keep an emergency chocolate bar in my underwear drawer.” She handed Claire a tissue.

  “Okay.” Claire wiped her face. “Am I grounded?”

  “No. But I would like you to do the dishes and babysit whenever you’re here for the next few weeks.”

  The sentence seemed more than fair. Claire nodded and straightened. “What about Drew?”

  “I’ll tie him to a post and whip him. That’s the only way boys learn.” Marie held a straight face for a second, then she grinned, making Claire giggle. “I need someone to mop in the mud room. He can handle that.”

  They both turned when the front door opened to see Justin walking in. He stopped in the doorway, carrying his armor and sword. Claire noticed he wore only one sock and the right leg of his jeans ended in a ragged line at his knee. Mud covered his right foot. Two people stopped behind him but Claire couldn’t tell who.

  “Ah. Marie. Hm. I thought you had another hour at work?”

  Marie rolled her eyes and turned away from him. She picked up her book. “I’ve been home for two.”

  “I must have just missed you on my way out.”

  “Seems so.”

  “It was important.”

  “No doubt.”

  Justin sighed and scratched his head. “Claire, I need to talk to you, and it can’t wait long.”

  “Okay, but I need new socks.” Sensing Justin and Marie would need five or ten minutes to sort their own things, Claire slipped away to her bedroom. She snagged the first two socks she could find and jammed her feet into them, then hurried out again. Justin leaned on a chair at the kitchen table, head down like he expected to sleep on the couch tonight. Marie still read her book. She saw no sign of the other two people.

  Claire hurried past them and outside. Detective Avery stood by the old tree stump, looking out at the trees. Anne squatted nearby with Mutt, rubbing his head. Drew, sitting on the stump, brightened when he saw Claire. Tension in her shoulders eased at the sight of him.

  Now wearing a gray hoodie instead of his coat, Drew nodded toward the house. “How mad is she?”

  “She said she’s going to tie you to a post and whip you.”

  “Great.” Drew sighed and Claire couldn’t tell if he realized it was a joke or not. “That’s a perfect cap for this day.”

  Claire grinned and sat bes
ide him. “I think she’s really just going to put you to work.”

  Drew nudged her with his shoulder. “I’m sorry about the—” He glanced at Avery and Anne and lowered his voice. “—thing. It was stupid. I think the thrill of swiping it motivated me a little bit. Grandpa Jack almost caught me putting it back and I think he knew what I was doing, but he didn’t say anything.”

  “It’s okay.” Claire shrugged. “It was my idea. Besides, we’re not really in a huge pile of trouble. Marie said she wouldn’t tell Justin.”

  “Oh, good.”

  Leaning her head on Drew’s shoulder, Claire resigned herself to waiting for whatever Justin needed to say. She had a sinking feeling she knew why he’d brought Avery and Anne. Only one thing could involve both of them.

  The cottage door opened several minutes later and Justin stepped out. He’d changed his jeans and seemed resigned. Claire had a feeling his conversation with Marie would continue later. When he reached the stump, he crossed his arms. Avery and Anne both looked to him.

  “So. You two have been busy.”

  Having neatly set everything aside for a whole fifteen minutes, Claire slumped at the reminder. “I can explain.”

  “You don’t need to.” Justin flicked his stern gaze from Drew to Claire and back. “I know you’ve been running around to secure your locket so the destruction of the Palace doesn’t kill you. And I know you got two people hurt at Nine Cans because the memory echoes in the basement forced terror on you.”

  Claire sucked in a breath, not sure she heard him correctly. “Hurt? They weren’t killed?”

  Justin’s brow raised.

  “No,” Avery said. “Despite a remarkably impressive dent in the front end of the car, the woman only sustained minor injuries and she’s already been released from the hospital. The man is being kept overnight for observation because of a concussion and blood loss, but he’s expected to be fine.”