by Rob Cornell
What the fuck was wrong with her?
Odi may have been a baby vamp, but he had strength and vampire tricks he knew how to use. And a few sorcerer tricks, too. I couldn’t see how Fiona could have—
Wait a second.
What had the note said?
I will contact you soon with their whereabouts and what we hope to accomplish.
Who the fuck was we?
A sick twist in my gut staggered me. I leaned against the counter and took deep breaths, trying not to puke.
The remaining Ministry conspirators. The only thing that made sense. And Fiona was still working with them.
How many times would I let these bastards play me?
I slid along the counter, rounded it, and stumbled into the hall. I leaned against the wall while I walked to the front room. Something smelled funny. I realized the smell came from me. Sweat and bad breath. My mouth tasted like spoiled milk.
I reached the couch without throwing up. I plopped down and focused on my breathing until I felt confident I wouldn’t toss my cookies. Then I dug out my phone.
Who did I have to call?
The usual suspects were either dead or missing. No Toft Kitchens. No Sly. No Mom or Odi. What a pathetically small pool of reliable friends. (Well, calling Toft a friend stretched the word’s definition a little too thin.)
I supposed I could go to Gladys or Elaine. Maybe Gladys could cook up a tracking spell.
Do you really want to bring someone else into your Circle of Doom?
I did not. Those close to me either betrayed me, died, or disappeared. I couldn’t do that to poor Gladys.
So what, then?
Wait?
I tossed my phone onto the couch cushion next to me and pressed my face into my hands. With my eyes covered, the room seemed to tilt. For a moment I thought I’d get dumped right off the couch. I stayed put, though. I could do that much. What an amazing feat, right? I could sit without falling over. Mom would have been so proud.
My ping-pong thoughts hit on another idea.
I could go to the Ministry. Rachel Strand specifically. She had offered help without asking too many questions. She had seemed sincere, maybe even honest. I wouldn’t take that for granted, but it helped. It also helped that she was GMF and not local. It put her out of the ring of conspirators. And her offer to contact her directly instead of through regular channels suggested she understood my difficult position.
It meant bringing another person into my Circle of Doom. But you didn’t get into the GMF without serious juice. I had little doubt she could take care of herself just fine.
As far as trusting her?
At this point, I didn’t have a lot of options.
I headed up to my room where I had placed her card on my dresser along with some loose change. I was glad I hadn’t thrown it away out of hand. I guess part of me knew better than to cut off that avenue. See? I wasn’t always an idiot.
I examined the card. It only had her name and a phone number printed in plain black with a Times New Roman font, as if she’d printed these herself from her home computer.
I took a deep breath, told myself this was the right (the only) thing to do.
Then I dialed her number.
Chapter Forty-Three
I had Rachel Strand—Prefect Strand for the time being—meet me at a Starbucks downtown. It was the most innocuous place I could think of off the top of my head. I took a seat at a tiny two-top in back, unfortunately close to the bathroom where I could smell bleach and industrial strength soap with only a smidge of urine under it all.
With only an hour before closing time, the café didn’t have many patrons. The soft lighting soothed me, but not a whole lot. The baristas had a lot to say to each other. Mostly celebrity gossip or bad jokes.
For the sake of appearances, I had ordered a small house blend, then let it cool, untouched, in front of me.
While I waited, I kept thinking about the glass bottle holding the last bit of Sly’s soul. I had pried loose a floorboard in my bedroom and nestled the bottle underneath it. No one besides the Maidens knew I had it, but I still couldn’t drop the worry that someone might steal it and leave me truly fucked. But I couldn’t carry it around with me, either.
Not just worry about losing it weighed on me, though. I itched to try bringing Sly back with it. The Maidens had suggested sources to check to research possible rituals that could put the soul back into his body. They assured me their own method would not appeal to my “sensibilities.”
Doing that research should have been my primary focus. But, no. Fiona had to once again step into my life and give it a good spin. Not for the first time, I imagined killing her—only this time it felt real, not like some hollow fantasy.
Rachel arrived a little more than ten minutes after I sat down, but it had felt like an hour. I had started tapping out the rhythm to a Red Hot Chili Peppers song on the table—and earned an annoyed glare from a guy behind a laptop the next table over.
I slapped my hand flat when I saw Rachel enter the cafe.
Her gaze went directly to me, as if she had known exactly where I sat. She wore a light blue blouse with a darker blue skirt. Instead of heels, she wore a pair of hiking boots with a trace of crusted mud around the soles. An odd fashion statement if ever I’d seen one. Several necklaces hung around her neck made of a variety of beads and stones. She had her rings, too. A silver bracelet on one wrist, another bracelet adorned with charms. I wondered what other goodies she carried in the handbag tucked under her arm.
To the average onlooker, she looked like a woman obsessed with accessories. To me, she looked like a heavily armed mage. Guess who was right?
She also wasn’t wearing a coat, which, during a Michigan winter, made her look flat insane.
Her beads and charms rattled as she took the chair opposite mine. Her expression revealed nothing about what was going through her head. Before I could get a word in, she leaned forward and said, “I know why you called me.”
I hadn’t given her so much as a hint when I’d called. Simply insisted on a meeting, which she had easily agreed to.
“And how would you know that?”
“Because I am somewhat responsible for your trouble.”
I noticed the guy with the laptop glancing our way, no longer annoyed, but intrigued. He saw I’d caught him and jerked his gaze back to his computer.
I returned my own attention to Rachel. “I think you’re mistaken.”
Expression still flat, as if nothing meant anything to her, she fiddled with her charm bracelet. For a panicked second, I thought she was going to cast something. When I didn’t sense any gathering magic, I realized her fiddling was probably a nervous habit. She may have looked outwardly unconcerned, but this little tell of hers said otherwise.
“I assume,” she said, “you are worried for the safety of your mother and your vampire companion.”
I about dropped through the floor. A hot prickle streaked up my back. I thought about Fiona’s note. I thought about the we she’d mentioned.
Dear gods, did the conspiracy reach all the way up to the Global Ministry Faction? That didn’t make any sense. Markus and his cadre of sociopaths had plans for Detroit. Why would the GMF care about the Motor City? It’s not like we were New York, or Los Angeles, or even Chicago.
“I’m not a mind reader,” Rachel said, “but I can read the obvious questions in your eyes.” She noticed herself playing with her charms and pressed her hand flat against the table to stop it. “First of all, no, I have no connection to those who have abused their Ministry status for ill gains. Secondly, your mother and vampire are safe, unharmed, and willing guests.”
I narrowed my eyes. I could not make any sense of this. “Why not say that in the note?” I asked. “And what the hell does Fiona Templeman have to do with any of this?”
That dude was peeking over the top of his computer again.
I stood, went over to him, slapped his laptop closed, then picked it up and s
hoved it against his chest.
He instinctively wrapped his arms around the computer as if it was a precious child.
“Time to find a new place to sit,” I said.
He opened his mouth as if to object. Before he could, though, I conjured up a breeze more chilly than the winter night and ruffled his hair with it.
He shivered and twisted in his seat to check the front door, even though the breeze had clearly come from the opposite direction. He swung his gaze back to me, pressed his lips together, and nodded. I had freaked him out just enough to motivate him. He would probably wonder where that icy breeze had come from for a long time to come.
He tucked his laptop into a leather shoulder bag, stood, grabbed his coat off the back of his chair, then left the café altogether before he had his coat half on.
I sat back down across from Rachel. “I hate eavesdroppers.”
I wasn’t sure, but I thought she almost smiled. “To answer your questions, we wanted the note to remain as general as possible. The reason for collecting Judith and Odi needed to stay in house.”
“In whose house?”
“That’s a question I cannot answer here, even after your chasing away that nosy young man.”
“What can you answer?”
“That Ms. Templeman is not your enemy, for one.”
I shook my head and crossed my arms. “That’s a tough sell.”
“I understand that. And there’s no reason for you to take my word for it.”
The sound of a barista grinding out an espresso jangled my nerves. I had wandered into some parallel world where nothing made sense. I expected all the clocks of the world to start melting and dangling from trees. A whisper could have startled me.
“You’ll have to forgive my vagueness. I can’t say much more. But if you come with me, everything will be explained.”
“Why should I trust you?”
She raised her eyebrows. “You called me, remember?”
I grinned. “Oh, you’re good. You knew I would call you. Or counted on it, at least.”
“Listen, Mr. Light. Your suspicions of a grand conspiracy are warranted. But you are not a target. Not by my people.”
That last bit amused and worried me at the same time. “If not by you, then who?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
I took a deep breath. I smelled mostly coffee with only a bit of bathroom. “The conspirators.”
She inclined her head.
“So I haven’t been paranoid?”
She leaned forward. Her beaded necklaces clattered against the table. “Come with me.”
My gut told me to go for it. What did I have to lose? Well, except for my life. Even if it were some kind of elaborate trap, it could bring me to wherever they were holding Mom and Odi. I didn’t have any chance of saving them if I couldn’t find them.
“Okay,” I said. “Take me to your leader.”
She laughed, her face suddenly full of expression, as if she had removed a mask. “I am the leader, Mr. Light.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Unlike Annabelle, Rachel didn’t throw me into the back of a limo and pull a hood over my head. She told me to follow her car in my own. As I pulled in behind her nondescript black sedan, my curiosity itched like a mother. I couldn’t fathom what would come next. This whole deal still felt like I’d stepped into Salvador Dali-land.
We took the Chrysler Freeway clear up into Auburn Hills. At nearly ten o’ clock at night, traffic was light and we made it in under forty minutes. The wind had picked up and buffeted against my car as I followed her through one turn and another, making our way through the suburbs. I didn’t know the area well. If they really ended up letting me leave with Mom and Odi, I would need to GPS my way back home.
Eventually we pulled into a lumber yard, of all places. A single story main office building with an orange shingled roof sat out front, but we pulled around back on a narrow drive that threaded its way between stacks of lumber of various measures. As we approached a large shed at the back of the yard, the shed’s air hanger-sized door slid open. In the cast of Rachel’s headlights I spotted someone in a hooded parka standing by the entrance. The hood obscured their face, so I couldn’t tell anything about them except that their stance had a protective sense to it, as if the person were a guard at the door.
We passed the sentry into almost perfect darkness. If not for our headlights, we might have driven right into the bright yellow Hummer parked a handful of car lengths in.
Rachel came to a stop right at the Hummer’s back bumper. Her brake lights flared, then she cut her engine and shut off her headlights.
I braked, but didn’t put my car in park. The squeal of the door as it rolled shut behind me reverberated in the darkness. My headlights, so close behind Rachel’s sedan, didn’t illuminate much more than her license plate. A New York plate, I noticed for the first time. I’d been too wrapped up in anticipation to notice before.
I jumped as something rapped against my passenger side window. In the backsplash from my headlights, I could see the parka guard standing there with one glove pulled off, presumably for the purpose of knocking. The guard drew back her hood and peered in at me. The woman looked a little older than my mom, but I had no way of knowing if she actually was older than my mom, since Mom was one-hundred and forty-two, not really in her sixties. The perks of being a sorceress.
“Cut the engine,” the woman said, voice muffled by the window.
I put the car in park, cut the engine.
“And the lights.”
I turned off the headlights. Now I couldn’t see a thing. Not the woman. Not the interior of my car. Not even my hand as I waved it in front of my face. For a few seconds, sound seemed as absent as the light. I could hear my own breathing, but nothing else. Then I felt magical energy slough over me like a tidal wave. It stole my breath. The power seemed to stop every organ, cause every cell in my body to freeze for an instant.
A bass note hummed in my ears, increased in volume as each dark moment that passed.
Then the world dropped out from under me. I couldn’t feel my seat, couldn’t grasp the steering wheel. Couldn’t even feel myself. Everything was gone. I was suspended in nothingness.
Sudden light seared my vision and forced me to clench my eyes closed. A few moments passed before I felt my body again. I found myself standing. A warm breeze brushed my cheeks and ruffled my hair. I heard chirping birds. Smelled mossy earth. More warmth came down at me from above. I recognized its feel. Sunlight.
Eventually, my eyes adjusted to the brightness. I blinked a few times and looked around me.
I stood in a forest clearing. Sure enough, the heat from above came from the sun. Knee high grass stretched in an uneven circle to the surrounding trees—tall redwoods that could have been hundreds of years old. I’d never actually seen redwoods in life, just in pictures and films. All of it smelled wonderful and natural.
Rachel stood about the same distance from me as she’d been while we sat in our cars. She had her head tilted back, bathing her face in the sunlight with a wide smile. The ground was spongy from a recent rain, and suddenly Rachel’s hiking boots made perfect sense. She took a long, deep breath, then exhaled with a satisfied haaaa. “Isn’t this so much nicer than January in Michigan?”
No doubt, it was. I had already started sweating under my heavy coat. “It helps if you actually dress for the weather,” I said.
“I work from here most of the time, so I don’t like to drag a coat around.”
“Makes sense, I guess.” I pulled off my coat and draped it over one arm. “Speaking of which. Where is here?”
She turned her face away from the sun and, still smiling, squinted at me. “I could tell you that. But then I’d have to disintegrate you.”
I humphed. “One of those baubles of yours can disintegrate someone?”
She rolled some beads on one of the necklaces between her fingers. “I’ve got all sorts of skills, Mr. Light.�
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“It’s Sebastian. If you’re luring me into a trap, I’d prefer we were on a first name basis.”
Her smile positively beamed. I couldn’t figure out how such an expressive woman could put on such a bland face when it came down to serious business.
“Of course, Sebastian.”
I took another moment to survey the beautiful surroundings. I assumed the shed at the lumber yard was a much, much larger version of the door to the Switch, which provided a portal between planes, like crawling through the holes in a block of Swiss cheese. I’d never seen one of such massive scale. It was like the freight elevator of interdimensional travel.
“So where are Odi and my mother? Hiking in the woods?”
She pointed toward a narrow break in the trees. “We need to follow that path. I hope those boots of yours are comfy, because we have about a thirty minute walk.”
“Why would you have this elaborate travel system and have it plop you down so far away from your actual destination?”
“The GMF travel in style, but we aren’t stupid. Precautions. We have many.”
I gestured ahead. “Lead the way.”
The heat had a nasty humid streak. Even in the shade of the trees, I felt wet and sticky. I was half-tempted to leave my coat hanging from a tree and pick it up on the way back out—assuming I would make it back out. I was tired of lugging the thing, but I wasn’t going to put it on, no matter how much easier it would have been to carry. I muscled through. It was the only winter coat I owned.
According to my watch, the thirty-minute hike took forty minutes. I didn’t complain. I was too busy looking in awe at the structure before us.
The collection of buildings looked like a natural extension of the surrounding forest. The architecture wrapped around the trees while some branches speared through the structures as if part of the construction. The octagonal buildings sat on various levels, and most of them looked to be connected by wide pillars or tube-shaped walkways. A lot of glass walls further allowed the tiered structures to blend with their surroundings instead of obscuring the beauty.
