He nodded. "Good point. I'm not sure that means it's really safe, though."
I made a face. "What is someone going to do with that particular Eidolon? I mean, the others were, what…?" And here I had to struggle a little to remember them.
"There were five in all." Joe moved his hands to my shoulders. "The red one is Destruction."
"Right. You had that one for a while."
"Mmhm. Then there were the other two that Bertram and Charolette used."
"Command and Possession."
"That's them." I paused. "I can sort of understand why the Seraphim would go after the Possession, Command, and Destruction. Those are like three of the four Horsemen. But why take Mom's Eidolon? That stone's more like a Mother Earth type of power, not something it could use against Maureen."
Joe shrugged as he finally let go. I shivered a little. I liked it when Joe was affectionate like that. He wasn't that way often. He moved into the bathroom and flipped on the light. "Geez, they even trashed that huge mirror in here. And your bedroom." I continued standing in the middle of the hall. I thought about heading down to the basement where Mom kept her hoodoo, but I didn't want to go alone.
I was kinda spooked.
Me. The Wraith. And I was afraid.
Joe came back out of the bathroom with a funny look on his face. "What's wrong?"
"Well, you know that other room? The one I sleep in sometimes?" He wrenched his thumb back at the bathroom. "It wasn't touched."
"Maybe they didn't know it was there?"
"Maybe…" Me licked his lips. "Let's head down to the basement. I'm not really seeing anything missing," he said as he preceded me down.
"No, it's all smashed. Maybe that's what they wanted to do? Make it all confusing-looking so no one knows if something was stolen or not?"
Joe didn't answer as he moved through the kitchen to the door leading to the basement in the kitchen. I filed in behind him and grabbed one of his back belt loops as we descended. He yanked on the string overhead as we went down, and the light came on.
The mess was even more severe down there. Every box and tub she'd had on the shelves were on the floor, turned over, and its contents spilled out and stomped on. Statues, books, trinkets I remembered from our different houses across the states growing up. It'd all been down here, and the asshole had destroyed all of it.
Then I saw the blood in the far corner behind the stairs, and realized this was where Jemmy had found Mom. I stood next to it and stared. Whatever it was had surprised her. Otherwise, there was no other way for anything to get the jump on Nona Martinique. The woman had eyes in the back of her head.
I sure got caught enough growing up to know they were real.
"There's a lot of salt scattered about. I wonder if she'd been down here making a circle?" Joe moved some boxes with his boot to get a better look at the floor.
What caught my eye was the weird semicircle of things on the floor around the bloody area. Unlike everything else, they weren't touched, but what made them really different than everything was the fact I'd never seen them before. Most of the trashed stuff I recognized—pieces of my life all junked together.
But these?
There was a small silver box, a leather-bound diary, feathers, a small bottle of what might be salt, a black-handled knife and—
"Holy shit."
I jumped at Joe's voice. He'd come to stand beside me and now was looking down at the stuff. "You know what this is?" I asked. A clinking noise made both of us sort of go all fighter stance. Joe had his gun out and I shifted to Wraith in an instant. Wings out, gun up as we stared at the pile of stuff. Maybe something in all the piles of trash dislodged because we stepped on something. After a few minutes of staring I looked back at the semi-circle.
"Those are all Nona's ceremonial things. Things she keeps in her Veil. I know this because I saw them when she demonstrated the spell to me." Joe knelt down beside them and held his hands over them, but didn't touch. To my surprise, his fingers glowed with a soft light blue. "Yeah, it's them. Looking at the circle…I'm thinking when she lost consciousness, the Veil collapsed."
I knelt down beside him.
Something else made a noise behind us, so I turned from the waist up and looked around again. God, I hoped there weren't mice or rats down here. I might be a big, scary oogie, but show me a rodent and I turn into girly-bitch-diva–from-hell. "So…" I turned back around. "So does that happen when you're asleep to? Does the Veil collapse?"
"Sleep and unconsciousness aren't the same thing. A sleeping person can still respond to loud noises—like outside stimulus. An unconscious person can't—which is why a lot of times people in comas or long term unconsciousness are intubated to aid in breathing, because an unconscious person can't clear their throat or cough. Nona's personal opinion was the unconscious brain can't hold magic like a Veil while unconscious since it's too busy making sure everything else is working…" He pointed at the floor. "So it just shuts off all nonessentials and magic is one of them."
"You think the thing that attacked her knew that?"
"No. Otherwise this stuff would have been picked through and smashed like the rest of it. I'm banking Jemmy surprised it after it attacked Nona. Whatever or whoever it is might not have seen the Veil collapse."
"Oh, wow…this is personal," Joe said.
I looked at the box in his hand. Inside, on a bed of silver satin, lay two gold rings. I picked the larger of the two up and looked at it. On the inside was engraved To My Forever Love, Adiran.
It was a wedding band.
Joe picked up the smaller one and tilted it. "To my forever love, Nona."
I put the ring back and wiped my hands on my jeans. "She should have thrown those out."
Joe put the smaller one back in the box, closed it, and slipped it into his jacket pocket. "Sorry, but I'm putting these away. And her athame." He reached for the knife.
Another noise behind me made me turn—
And I froze.
The noise behind us was a little louder this time. Joe leaned forward and picked up the silver box as I pivoted on the balls of my feet, still down in a crouch. I narrowed my eyes as I scanned the piles of stuff and the tipped-over tubs. Some of the stuff was holiday decorations. Christmas ornaments, parts of the fake tree, a few Halloween plastic pumpkins, etc. Silver garland moved on one of the small piles where it lay draped over my old plastic trick-or-treat pumpkin. I had fond memories of that bucket, filled with candy and massive trips to the dentist office. But fond memories or not—garland wasn't supposed to be moving on it's own!
"Can't leave this out anywhere. I'd hate to have it used for the wrong reason. You know these are magical instruments. These knives are used to focus a witch's power, not draw blood. And if it ever draws blood—"
"Joe—"
"—what?"
"—what did you say someone could use mom's Eidolon for?"
"Well…" He shifted and slipped the knife into his pocket as well. "Anything to do with creation."
I put my hand on his arm because I was seriously creeped out and about a hairsbreadth away from shifting. "You mean, creating something like that?"
Joe turned. "Shit—"
Standing on the farthest pile was my pumpkin bucket, only it looked like a possessed pumpkin bucket. The silver garland had formed itself into arms out at its side, flexing garland-made hands. The damn thing stood on a pair of red Christmas candles, and riding inside of the thing, with its head poking out of the top, sat one those battery-operated singing Santa decorations. Only…Santa had a totally maniacal look in his eye and the happy smiling jack-o'-lantern of my youth became Jack Skellington.
It made an all-too-familiar growling sound. One I'd heard several times while out training with TC.
"Fuck…there's another one." Joe hissed.
I shifted my gaze to the right as several red-and-blue satin Christmas balls bunched together to form a sort of peanut shape. Ribbon rolled off of several ribbon wheels and wove its
elf into arms and legs. It picked up a pair of silver scissors in one woven hand as a face formed from the torn-up pieces of wrapping paper.
"I think I know what it's using the Eidolon for," I said, and swallowed as Joe reached slowly for his gun.
"Fetches," we said together.
Chapter Nineteen
No time for an attack plan. The second I shifted to Wraith, these two nasties launched at us like two Tim Burton nightmares.
Of course, the one made out of my childhood candy bucket came after me. The mouth of the thing moved within the plastic of the container and grew…well, long plastic teeth.
I carried memories of cutting myself on those kinds of containers growing up, especially on those weird little seam glitches. You know the ones that looked like human skin tags? So if those cut pretty good, I could only image what teeth-shaped plastic would feel like.
Ouch!
"Joe!" I yelled as I launched into the air, although not far 'cause basements have low-hanging ceilings. "What the hell? Is this what it's doing with the Eidolon?"
"I….doubt it," He ducked as the Christmas-ball-and-garland Fetch threw a garland lasso at his head. Joe grabbed a mop and used the handle as both a shield and a sword. One block, and then two, but as he blocked the second attempt, he wrapped the garland around the mop handle and yanked. The Fetch came off its creepy little legs and flew at Joe.
I grinned as my magic cop fired a blast of blue-white light at the thing and it exploded in a shower of Styrofoam balls and shredded green and red silk.
Cheering was what I wanted to do, but I had an emergency of my own, since spooky–creepy-pumpkin-bucket Fetch was trying to gnaw on my slippers. Although I was impressed that the little dude was having a hard time, since my bunnies were not amused by its antics. The right slipper grew seriously long teeth, grabbed Pumpkin Bucket's hand, and flung him across the room.
Yay!
Although…it was a little creepy to have these things on my feet…. o.O
Joe and I exchanged a grin until a noise behind me sent a slight chill down my spine. I turned in time to see the Fetch Joe had been fighting re-form itself. I'd seen Fetches create themselves from the materials around them—that's what they did. But I'd never seen one re-form after being busted apart. Even creepier, it replenished itself with the bits that were broken when Joe struck it.
Once it finished, it looked like a some weird, fucked-up, bashed-in Christmas-ball Picasso.
"Now that's probably what it's using the Eidolon for—they're regenerating."
"Zoë! Behind you!"
The basement has shelves along the back wall. And although all the boxes and tubs had been pulled off and dumped, the shelves were bolted into the cinder block behind them, thus still intact. Pumpkin Bucket recovered and climbed up on top of the top shelf, and was about to jump down on my head—until a blast of blue-white light came from the right side and nailed it dead center.
I ducked as millions of shards of plastic sailed through the air. Whoohoo! I turned to give Joe a high five. He stumbled back—not tripping over anything—but like he was off balance. I assumed it was that damned Veil making him dizzy again. And he'd already cracked off a bunch of witchy power (don't assume I understand it, 'cause I don't…but it's cool).
He really didn't look good. I realized in that instant Joe hadn't slept in forty-eight hours. And he'd already admitted to Mastiff he'd been having trouble sleeping to begin with.
Christmas Picasso took advantage of the stumble and threw another lasso of tinfoil at him. This time it encircled his left wrist. He'd been holding it out, trying to steady himself. The thing yanked and Joe abruptly flipped on the ground.
When the little monster cackled, my wings unfurled. This was now beyond creepy. And whoever was doing this was gonna get a bitch-slap from me.
Going corporeal, I launched myself up with the determination to land on top of this little fucker just as a lancing pain dropped me back onto my bunny slippers and into a crouch. Jesus, that hurt! I turned to see—
OMFG!
Pumpkin Bucket's face had put itself back together—just the face—and its teeth looked like someone had taken a box cutter and carved them out of the plastic—and it'd sunk those fuckers into my arm!
Normally I can take physical damage and then rejuice from the Abysmal Plane. Or that's the way it'd been working since my recovery from being in the Abysmal Throne. But this time it hurt—I mean it really hurt. I felt my wings curl up and vanish as I sat down hard on my ass. I started shaking, and thought I heard the echo of TC….
That's when I realized the fucker had bitten into the mark TC had left on me during our very first encounter. I'd always assumed it was a physical manifestation of our connection, and now I was more than sure. And I was confident TC was feeling the same pain I did.
More noise to my right, and I glanced over to see another Fetch forming out of a group of Halloween decorations. Oh crap…this new one had donned the witch-smashing-into-a-tree decoration and combined it with a huge plastic skull I used to hang out on the porch. The skull fit perfectly under the hat and green hair. It formed the rest of the body by using paper and—to my horror—a pair of scissors.
Another noise behind me, and I saw Christmas Picasso had its garland wrapped around Joe's legs, pinned one arm behind him, and was wrapping it around and around the man's neck!
Now I'm pissed.
I looked directly at the little ass-hat nomming on my arm, took in a large breath, and Screamed at it.
Every bit of the plastic disintegrated into little more than orange plastic dust, although it did leave some seriously ugly teeth marks in my ashen skin. Then I looked at the skull-and-witch Fetch. The thing's dark, empty eye sockets actually widened and the mouth opened in mock-horror. It turned and ran up the steps.
Christ, I am never watching another Halloween Special.
Feeling a little dizzy myself, I scrambled over to Christmas Picasso and tried to pull the garland out of its hands. It hissed and made noises at me with its funky, sideways, busted-up Styrofoam mouth. And I hissed back at it. But it wasn't budging, and it had a seriously tight hold on Joe's neck.
"…ath….may…." Joe managed to say in a hoarse whisper.
"What? May what?" I opened my mouth and took a deep breath. I was gonna Scream this bitch into next month.
But it apparently knew what I was doing, and hopped over onto Joe's back. That forced Joe on his front, his left arm pulled tight behind him and bound up in silver garland. Shit. I couldn't Scream at it like that—I'd hit Joe. And I didn't want to hurt him. My Scream could seriously shove his soul out of his body!
Zoë! Get the athame out of my pocket!
Oh, right! He'd put Mom's athame in his pocket! I grabbed at his jacket and searched the closest pocket. Nothing. I had to straddle him to get to the other pocket and the little monster tried to wrap one of its garlands around me. I found the knife and pulled it out.
The second it hit the garland, the silver tinsel and string disintegrated into floating, sparkling glitter. Christmas Picasso tumbled back and off Joe, since it'd been using its own weight to cut off Joe's air supply.
I pushed Joe aside, took a deep breath, and gave that fucker the Scream of its life time.
Poof. It disintegrated again.
Joe coughed, and I grabbed at him with my Wraithy strength to get him up on his feet. "Dude…don't scare me like that…. Why didn't you use more of that witch power on it?"
"I couldn't," he said in a hoarse voice. Once up, he reached out and rested against the stairs. "I…that damn Veil is draining all my strength. I'm just too tired."
"Joe! Are you in there? Unlock the door!" That was Mastiff's voice.
We heard him and someone else beating on the doors and a window.
I looked at my cop. "You think whatever's controlling the Fetches locked us in here?"
"I do. And I think we need to get the hell out of here. Now." He grabbed my hand and pulled me along as we tiptoed over the
debris and went for the stairs.
Christmas Picasso started reforming again near the foot of the stairs so I used my slippers and kicked the shit out of it. The pieces scattered and fell to the concrete.
We made it up, and stopped in the doorway.
"Oh…phock…" There were maybe six of them? Two on the kitchen counter, one holding the kitchen door closed, another hanging from the light fixture, and two more blocking our way into the Tea Shop. And these were some seriously frightening little mothers, 'cause they were all constructed out of broken pieces of ceramic, glass, and kitchen utensils.
"Zoë…" Joe began.
I put a hand on his shoulder. "Not now, Joe, okay? This isn't the end and I'm just not in the mood." Yeah…I figured he was going to confess his love for me before it looked like we were going to die by kitchen dishes. I mean, I'd been told enough times how much Joe liked me, and I'd never forgotten his kiss.
I wasn't expecting the rather confused look he turned and gave me. "What are you talking about? I was going to mention, what I said about the wards before?"
Oh. Oops. My bad. "Y-yeah? You said they were broken?"
"I was wrong. They're not broken, Zoë. They're gone. Completely gone."
"Yeah, so?" I was eying the clear-looking muther made up of drinking glass pieces in the sink. It'd adopted two coffee mug handles as eyes. Looked effed up. "Whatever attacked Mom and is doing this destroyed the wards."
"No, it didn't."
I am not a magic person. I am a Wraith-type person. So this was annoying. "Joe, spit it out."
"I've been trying to suss out how something could have gotten to Nona here. This was the most well-warded place in all of Atlanta, besides the work I've done on Jason's homes."
I was still behind him, using him as a shield and standing on the first step into the basement, so when I peeked around him at the monsters, they peeked back. Mastiff and the officers he'd left here were still banging on the door and windows. Luckily the windows were covered, 'cause I wasn't sure how Mastiff was going to react to seeing three-foot-high moving dish monsters. "Point, Joe. We don't have time for a dissertation."
Dominion: Zoë Martinique Investigation, Book 6 Page 13
