She looked tired. And all business. In fact, she looked a little pissed.
Her shoulders were straight, her voluptuous bewbage up and elevated, and her lips were drawn into that thin line that parents do—where they don't have lips at all.
I didn't try to hug her as we approached each other. I was afraid I'd get smacked.
So I was a little surprised when she moved past me and went straight to Nick, who was still by the car. She reached up, grabbed his ear, and pulled him down to her level. I had no idea what it was she said to him—I was trying not to crack up at the sight of Nick at my mom's mercy.
Jason stood nearby, watching. He was smiling, but it wasn't part of his face. I figured if Mom did anything to harm Nick, Jason'd be on her like cute on a puppy.
"What gives?"
He leaned over to me. "Nick took something he wasn't supposed to. Apparently Joe's a little irritated."
Mom released Nick, who rubbed his ear, then bent inside the car and handed Nona the folder he'd shown me in the limo in Montreal. Mom took it, glared at him, and then marched back toward us.
"Zoë, Jason, come with me. Nick will be along in a minute." She flicked her wrist at us as she passed by and marched right back into the door she'd exited.
I looked at Jason. He looked at me. He winked.
I filed in behind Jason and stepped through the door and into the mudroom, the small anteroom just before walking into the ultimate chef's kitchen. Everything was silver and sparkly. I noticed several cakes under glass on a far butcher block as we walked through and made a mental note to come back for cake and milk later. Past the kitchen was a hallway that ended at the lower-level service elevator.
Mom, Jason, and I waited on the doors to open just as Nick joined us. He and Jason nodded to one another. I heard an echo, like someone was playing a radio in the distance, and figured Mephistopheles was speaking to the two of them.
Once in the elevator, we all turned and faced the doors as Mom stuck her key in a slot.
Two floors down and then off the elevator into a brightly lit hallway to a set of wooden double doors.
What was this? I hadn't been down in this part of the House before. And since it required a key and nobody had given me one…
The moment we stepped through those doors, two things happened. First, my ears popped and a low, dull buzz set up shop in the lower part of my skull. It didn't hurt, but too much of that and I was going to get one hell of a headache. Second, we were in the infirmary.
How…did that happen?
Nick touched my arm. "This is the back door to the infirmary. Actually, it's the level just under it."
Oh.
Sure.
A bubbly looking lady in faded teddy-bear scrubs rushed to us and held her hand out to Mom's. "Nona, I'm so glad you're here." Then her gaze slid over Mom, past Jason and Nick, and landed on me. "Zoë! You're just the person we need!" She moved past everyone else, grabbed my wrist, and yanked me with her.
"Hey—" was about all I was able to get out as we hurried down that hall, turned a corner, and came out into what I could only describe as Nurse Central.
The room was built like a wagon wheel. In the center was the control hub—a round desk with women and men seated inside looking at monitors and talking into headsets. There were five people in all, none of whom I recognized. What branched off from the wheel's center were six pie-shaped rooms. The whole thing looked like an ICU setup. Three of the rooms were lit up, the others dark.
"Lucy." Mom caught up with us and put a hand on the woman's shoulder. "Is he awake?"
"Yes." Lucy made sure I was looking at her. "My name's Lucy Mullhaly. I'm more of an expert on Revenant physiology. I understand the physics involved in what you—and he—" She nodded to the farthest lit room on my right "—are. Did someone brief you on what's been happening with—"
"Nona!"
That was Joe.
I frowned at Mom, and she sighed. "I'll take her in. These two can stay out here."
Confused, and a little worried, I followed Mom into one of the rooms branching off the Nurse Central. The door wasn't locked so Mom pushed it open—
Something smashed into the wall to my left. I yelled out as a paper airplane flew at my head and then ducked as another zeroed in between my eyes. "What the—"
"Close the door!"
I thought we were going to step back out, but Mom pushed me on in. When I heard the door close, I looked at the room.
Joe Halloran stood in the middle of a whirlwind of stuff. Books, papers, pencils—
He was dressed in faded jeans, a T-shirt and nothing else. Barefoot, and with wild hair, he turned and faced Nona with a grin. "I think I'm getting closer."
My jaw ached from dropping so much today. I'd seen Joe work magic here and there—but never a lot of it. Not like Mom and Rhonda. So this was…this was…. "What the hell is he doing?"
"Hey, Zoë!" He waved at me. "Isn't this cool?"
Yeah…I was looking at the scene out of Poltergeist in the kid's room. Whirling maelstrom of…stuff.
WTF?
Chapter Seven
I waved back. Sort of. Then I gave Mom my best confused-as-hell look.
Mom sighed. "He's learning the Veil spell."
He's—eh?
I'm not dumb. Really. I mean, I'm not stupid, but I don't have a genius IQ So me not quite understanding what Mom was talking about shouldn't surprise me.
But it did.
I watched Joe for a minute as he held out his hands and the maelstrom of flying things increased their speed. I took a step back through the door and into the main hall.
"Don't worry," Mom said as she followed me out. "He actually has more control over it than it looks."
I pointed at the room. "You say he's learning the Veil spell—but when you put your stuff in your Veil, I don't see it. Why can I see all that stuff flying about?"
Mom smirked. "The Veil spell isn't the easiest to master. I know Rhonda said all she did was read it and poof—magic. That's just not true. I woke up several times to her crashing stuff in the basement while she practiced it."
Now that I could believe. I glanced back into the room. There weren't as many things flying in the air now. "Ah…some of them are gone."
"Means he's just about got the Veil launched."
"Sorry…still don't get that."
She pursed her lips for a second—and of course I cringed inside. When I was smaller, that action meant she was thinking about how to reprimand me. And that particular face usually meant a very embarrassing punishment was on the way.
Abruptly, she reached out with her right hand, and poof. She had a book in her hand. She held it in front of me. I recognized it as one of the record books from the Botanica. "When you see me do that, what do you imagine?"
"It makes me think that's where you hid all my comics growing up."
"Focus. What I mean is, even though you can't see it, what do you think the Veil looks like?"
I sighed. I had something I really needed to talk to Mom about and I wasn't sure where this was going. I glanced over at the nurse's station, where Nick and Jason stood talking in low whispers. I figured Nick was filling Jason in on what he'd learned in Canada. Where was Manuel? He hadn't joined us in the limo at the airport—in fact, I hadn't seen him leave the plane. "I think you have a layer of shelves around you—sort of like standing in the center of a very small Roman coliseum. You know how the seats are all tiered from small ring to larger rings?"
"And the seats are the shelves."
"Yep."
She made a rude buzzer noise. "Wrong. It looks like that." She pointed at Joe through the door.
I didn't get it at first, so I looked back through. There were even fewer objects now, and as I watched, I saw two of them disappear. A small box and a rock.
That wasn't Tim's rock, was it?
Then it hit me, and my jaw went slack. "You mean what I'm seeing is what it really looks like in the Veil?"
"E
xactly what it looks like."
I involuntarily stepped away from Mom. "You have things whirling around you at Mach 5 like he does?"
"They don't spin that fast once everything's in place." She motioned me back beside her so I could look in the room just in time to see a plastic bag vanish. That looked like the last thing. "And I think he's got it."
Joe slowly lowered his arms, and his eyes opened. He wobbled a few steps. "Whoa…"
"You'll get used to it." Mom walked back into the room.
I joined her and looked around for any possible stray object, memories of an angry poltergeist in a house off of Web Ginn House Road re-running in my head. "So…those things are still spinning around Joe?"
"The spell gives the knowledge on how to start the centrifugal force needed on the Astral Plane in order to create the Veil," Mom said as she demonstrated by gesturing around Joe in the direction I'd seen all that stuff move. "Most Veils run deosil in creation. If you run it widdershins, it'll slow down and all the objects will become visible."
"And hit people."
Joe answered. "That's the theory. We're not sure that's what'll happen. And that's my next experiment. I've been trying for a few days to get this working." He leaned his head to his left shoulder, then his right, as if stretching his neck. "Wow. This is very…weird."
I tried to process this. So much had happened just since Daniel and I had gone to Montreal, and I was going to need one of those handy-dandy flip notebooks I see cops use just to keep up with it. Yet, I wasn't being as honest with my reactions as they thought I was. Yeah, I was surprised to see Joe doing this—somehow I'd been thinking this was just a girl thing.
What I hadn't shared with anyone was I had my own version of this. But instead of some whirling dervish thing, I'd learned to create a Box within the Astral Plane. It wasn't so hard to do, having seen what Mom had done with the key to that jewelry box in her bedroom. TC had shown me how after I'd nearly killed Rhonda a few weeks ago. I had something I wanted to use against her.
Well, that's not true. I'd dreamed of destroying her with it. TC stopped me and decided it was better if I didn't have it quite so close to me. The night I moved out of the Society House and into the apartment above Joe's, TC guided me through creating my own personal Box. He had one, and kept things he readily needed in the Physical Plane.
His Box moved with him. But TC wanted my Box to be stationery, so we'd built it in a place no one would ever think of looking. I'd never told a soul about it, or confided to anyone other than TC that I could do this.
"So…can you grab something out and put something in, like Mom and Rhonda can?" I asked.
Joe winced. "I'm not sure I want to that try just yet. I got this far before, and when I tried to pull something out…"
"Boom!" Mom said, and I jumped as she laughed. "The whole thing came apart—shot stuff from here into the nurse's station."
"So, how do you do it?" I looked at mom.
"Time. Practice. Right now his Veil is spinning fast, like you saw before. But after a few days, his astral self will adjust and they'll sync. Right now he really has no idea of what-all he's got in there. So I'd say…" She looked at him. "In a few days, try and grab something. But before you do it, try and see it."
"See it?" Joe looked bewildered.
"They'll be shadows at first. But give it time and you'll be able to know every item you have in there."
I leaned back against the doorframe. "Is there a limit to how much he can stuff inside?"
"Depends on how big he made the space—and the density of the Astral Plane is a lot different than the Physical."
Joe rubbed his head. "Sort of like the Tardis on Doctor Who?"
Mom blinked. "The what?"
I held up a hand. "I got the reference. And I think that's what she meant, Joe. What happens when you take everything out?"
"It collapses." Mom held up her own hand, and looked at me and then Joe. "It also collapses if you lose consciousness. And that can be very dangerous. Also, if someone else removes everything from that Veil, the jolt will knock you on your ass for a while, Joe. And the longer you keep the Veil, the harder its abrupt disablement will be."
"I got it, I got it." He put his hands on his hips and focused on me. "The theory is Zacharel somehow took everything out of Rhonda's Veil and then jumped in. Maybe he took advantage of her weakness when he did that."
"That's my theory." Mom nodded.
"So, you think a disembodied spirit is flying in orbit around her?" I chuckled. The image was kinda funny.
Joe must've picked up on the mental image, too, because he laughed. "Yes and no. Like Nona said, the Veils will slow down to a slow orbit and I'll instinctually know where items are. Though, I think I'm going to be a bit…off balance for a while."
"Correction," Jason said as he and Nick entered the room. Jason's voice was deeper, and his eyes were black. Mephistopheles was large and in charge. "A lot off balance. I've seen many magicians over the centuries who've attempted this spell. It was used during the Inquisition to hide their books of power. Grimoires and such."
"Would have been nice to know about it that day in Rodriguez's little lab of torture." Joe rubbed at his chin. "Rhonda'd been hiding it in her Veil, but I'm sure Dags would have appreciated not having that book shoved inside of him if she'd just have kept it in."
"Dags would not have survived if Rhonda had not used the book, and the spell she wove, to save his life," Mephistopheles/Jason said.
Joe frowned and looked over at Jason. "How do you know that? You weren't there."
"The tale has passed from First Born to First Born since the experience was shared, Joe." He winked.
I loved it when Mephistopheles was out. Don't get me wrong—I adore Jason. But his First Born was fun.
"Exactly how do you expect to expose Zacharel if he is indeed hiding within Rhonda's Veil?" Mephistopheles/Jason directed his question to Nona.
I looked from Joe to Mom, and asked a question of my own. "I got one better. How did you figure out that's where the Dominion is hiding out?"
Mom looked at Joe. "I think Joe can answer both of those questions better than I can."
Joe ambled over to a hospital bed I hadn't noticed before and sat down on it. A screen to his right came to life and started feeding out readings, presumably of Joe.
Impressive.
And a bit spooky.
He looked at me. "Zoë, did Nick fill you in on what happened here? With Rhonda and Dags?"
I nodded.
"Then you know I spoke to Maureen?"
Somehow, hearing that out of Joe gave me hope. "Yes. And she told you to get me and work with Nona and the Revenants."
He nodded. "When I took over the spell—which, incidentally, I didn't know I could do—I could see the Veils, Nona's and Rhonda's. Only I didn't know that's what I was looking at."
"He told me about it after he recovered. We were talking and he started describing these…" Mom glanced at him. "What did you call them?"
"Oversized donuts." He held out his arms and sort of tried to demonstrate. "I could see motion and shadows in Nona's. But Rhonda's was…" He shrugged and lowered his arms. "Smoggy."
"Smoggy?" Jason said.
"It's the only way I know how to explain it. Hers was different. And then when Dags—I mean Maureen—ran into that whole spell-freeze zone—the smog actually moved on its own and formed a face."
"That would freak me the hell out." I shivered at the thought, and I'd seen some freaky stuff.
"It did. Which is why I told Nona about it, and she told me I'd seen their Veils."
"When he said he'd seen whatever it was in her Veil moving, I conferred with Umayma and Tel. We're pretty sure that's where Zacharel is. So he's not really possessing her."
"But…" Joe held up a finger. "It explains why she's been walking around talking to herself these past few days."
Which also confirmed to me that her taking Dags from me, rewriting his memories, and becoming th
e ultimate in a frenemy was Rhonda's own doing. No outside influence there.
She was a bitch all on her own.
"So this freezing spell," Jason said, his voice no longer echoing with Mephistopheles' deep tones, "made the Veils visible."
"Yep." Joe said.
"And you can recreate that spell."
"Yep."
"And you know how to remove the Dominion from the Veil."
"Nope."
I snorted. "So we have a way to see it—we just can't get it out."
"As it all stands now." Mom nodded. "That's it. Joe figured if he knew more of the mechanics of the spell—and could perfect his own Veil—then he might be able to reverse engineer how that bastard got in there, and get him out."
There was a strange silence for a few seconds before Joe stood and put his hands on his hips. "Zoë, how about a proper hello?"
I didn't hesitate when it came to Joe Halloran. I'll admit, when we first met, I thought he was pretty much a cocky bastard. No double entendre intended.
I always thought of him as the big brother I never had—and always wanted. I never brought up the kiss. I kept that experience safely tucked away in the deepest parts of me. It was a feeling I'd never repeated.
And didn't want to.
Unless it was with Dags.
It felt good to be in Joe's arms. He was few inches taller than Daniel, and though there wasn't a real difference in body temperature, I think knowing the fact he was human made it all the more enjoyable. And when I hugged him, I knew I was hugging just Joe, and only Joe.
When I touched Dags, there was always Alice and Maureen.
And with Daniel, there was always Inanna.
He sighed as he released me. Then he looked me over. "You okay? That asshole didn't hurt you, did he?" He eyed the bandage on my neck.
"Joe, don't start. I told you Daniel can't help himself—"
"I don't care. You're not a snack cake."
I couldn't help but smile at him for a second, before thoughts of Daniel turned my smile upside down. "Anyone looking for him? Is that where Manuel got off to?"
Dominion: Zoë Martinique Investigation, Book 6 Page 4
