Stiff Competition: A Marnie Baranuik Between The Files Story

by A. J. Aalto

  A familiar papery whisper fluttered at the edge of my senses; in the cabinet in my office, the grimoire’s fleshy cover prickled with goosebumps and the book crawled half an inch to the left. My shoulders crept up in disgust. I felt the need to put my gloves back on and did so; the grimoire was listening, and because of our recent dalliance together, it wanted me. I caught Harry’s eye and his thrice-pierced eyebrow twitched up in question; he pushed a gentle probe through our Bond to suss me out while soothing any ruffles in my feathers he may have caused by throwing his weight into the discussion. I could tell he wanted me to be rid of the grimoire; I did, too. I let him feel my approval and his relief washed through my veins, rewarding me with a nice jolt of connectedness that made me share his smile.

  “Dawn, then,” I told the other witches. “Bring on the petitioners.”

  Lavinia cautioned, “You must make a choice before we leave. You have two days. There will, of course, be an exchange. Your sacrifice of the grimoire will be met with an appropriate and commensurate offering from the witch you choose to receive it.”

  “Offering?” I perked up. “Like… cookies?”

  “The petitioners will each give up their old book of shadows for their opportunity to be considered to receive Ruby’s. You will be gifted their life’s work, every insight, every spell, every experiment.” Lavinia smiled tightly. “I trust this seems fair to you?”

  Harry’s displeasure about that little tidbit was clear through our Bond, but I settled him by asking, “Would their grimoires bind to me like Ruby’s supposedly will?”

  “No, none of us have cast a witherward spell upon our work,” she promised, looking around the room for confirmation from her coven. There were five nods, of varying levels of enthusiasm.

  “So I get five books in exchange for one?” I narrowed my eyes at her. “You guys must want this thing pretty bad. Or maybe your books suck and you want to give them to some other sucker.”

  “As you might imagine, they are quite motivated,” Lavinia answered.

  “And what about yours?” I asked. “You’re their leader, yes? What do you sacrifice for the group?”

  “My grimoire would not serve you,” she demurred. The Blue Sense reported, lie, and I found that intriguing. Lavinia was not prepared to give anything up for the benefit of her coven-mates.

  She stood stiffly from Harry’s wingback chair, her back like an iron rod, and the others took their cue from her. The witches collected in the hallway to take their leave, and then filed out the front door ahead of Lavinia, who paused to face Harry, lifting her chin bravely to meet his eyes. I rolled mine, knowing what would come next. She wanted to see the monster, and, ever the showman and gracious host, my Cold Company was more than happy to oblige.

  Harry’s gaze flashed unnatural chrome and he snagged her easily-captured human mind ever so gently, just a tug as he smiled with full fang for her, letting her feel the soft pull of UnDeath. Thanks to the Blue Sense, I knew it was the first time she’d experienced such a thing, and her fascination trumped her fear for the entire twenty seconds that Harry indulged her. I was almost envious of that first hit; like a drug, her first experience would leave a lasting impression that she might just chase the rest of her life, if she was so unwise.

  I flashed back on the first time I’d called Harry on his “I could swamp your mind if I chose to do so, DaySitter” bravado, not believing it for a second. I was seventeen, turning eighteen in a few days, and I was a smart girl with what I considered excellent control over my own faculties; surely, no one could slip into my brain in any way. We’d been Bonded for six months, and Harry had been playing coy with the full extent of his immortal influence. When he decided it was prudent that his DaySitter realize just who he was and of what he was capable, he rolled into my mind like an avalanche through a town made of straw and playing cards and the occasional Lego for color, and I had no hope of standing against it. Pressing his mind down upon mine heavily, drawing me under so completely that I’d melted bonelessly on my parent’s rec room couch, it had only lasted a few seconds, but more than long enough to make his position clear, at which point he gathered me into his arms and murmured reassurances to calm my shaking, apologizing in his prim, courtly manner for doing exactly what I’d asked of him. He’d then set about learning to make cookies, his first batch, to comfort his pet, while I watched him cross the room with eyes newly opened to the alarming but exciting power of this immortal creature who was to be my partner for life.

  Not that I'd had any at the time, but I was pretty sure it had been better than sex. Plus, there were cookies.

  Lavinia gasped when he released her, and a full-body shudder rocked her so hard that I reached for her arm so she wouldn’t teeter off her pointy-shoed feet. I patted her forearm comfortingly with one gloved hand, feeling a stab of pity when she jumped and seemed to rediscover me in the hall. Gathering the front of her shirt in a trembling hand, she recoiled from both of us, but her stiff upper lip came back, reminding me so much of Harry that I glanced at him just in time to catch a glimmer of approval flash across his face; Harry liked this one. Whether that was because of her towering dignity, or her rigid sense of etiquette, or the how-dare-you on her face, or the simple challenge of hunter vs. hunted, I couldn’t quite tell. Harry did dare. And he did like a challenge. But he also respected a fierce woman who knew her own mind. He gave her a gentlemanly, apologetic kiss on the back of her hand, and he and I knew that despite her tight expression, he’d effortlessly slipped back into Lavinia’s good graces.

  “Until the morning, my dear lady,” Harry practically purred. His voice was silk and seduction, which ratcheted Lavinia’s alarm up once more. How she managed to stride so quickly out the front door with that stick up her ass, I’ll never know.

  I gave Harry the requisite side-eye, and he fluttered his lashes in a poor attempt at innocence.

  “Incorrigible,” was my verdict, and it made Harry laugh with delight around fangs still extended. I grinned at him as I shut the door on the night. “I’m going to finish packing and then get some sleep.”

  He inclined his head. “I will change our flight plans. But perhaps you should check on our young Wesley. I sense his packing has not even begun.”

  I felt my shoulders fall. It had been Wesley’s grand plan to be more useful, pressing to join us on our trip home, even if that meant coming out of the casket by confronting our mother with the fact that he was undead and happy with it. Why he was dragging his feet now was clear; most of his bluster evaporated under his reluctance to actually face that conversation, and returning to Niagara was likely to be harder than he wanted to think about. He’d poured himself into helping out at the office, though a hearty chunk of that pie was cut with the idea of spending time near Umayma, whose own exploration of being a free adult was echoed in my baby brother; Wes had given up on being alive at barely twenty years old, and though he would remain physically this age forever, he was regretting the things he thought were part of growing older, things Umayma was wading through with courage and enthusiasm. I suspected that Wes, who had always been a moocher and a drifter, might just get inspired by her, maybe pursue some further education, or find a profession of sorts. He was still trying to sort out who he wanted to be, as Umayma was. Perhaps they could help each other if they could stop making bashful, sappy googly-eyes at each other for a minute or two.

  At that, I heard Wesley shout from downstairs, “I don’t do that!”

  Harry lifted his thrice-pierced brow but said nothing; if my telepathic brother read his mind, he had no vigorous objection to whatever Harry’s train of thought was, as he had mine.

  “I shall leave you to it, my love,” Harry said, padding back into the sitting room to build a fire and make his phone calls from the comfort of his favorite chair.

  I hooked into the pantry, jogged down the stairs, and took a sharp left into the revenants’ shared bedroom, which Harry had decorated in ostentatious gothic parody, draped with gauzy curtains in b
urgundy and black, the caskets shoved up against the far wall. Wes had commandeered the coffee table in front of Harry’s wide screen gaming TV for a work space, covered with welding equipment and various tools, scrap metal and stripped circuits. Snipped wire coiled off the table onto the floor next to his kicked-off, beat-up Converse Hi-Tops. A plaid shirt was thrown over the back of the leather chair, and Wes bent over the table in a white t-shirt stained with pizza grease.

  “Evening, Adonis,” I deadpanned. “Gee, the smell down here is interesting.” I wrinkled my nose. “Burnt hair and roasted dust and WD-40? Penetrating oil? And Dark Lady above, Wes, when is the last time you did laundry?”

  “Revenants don’t sweat,” he pointed out.

  “Yeah, but revenants who are still stealth-eating pizza when they sneak into town after dark sometimes drop pepperoni on the front of their shirt,” I said, “or wipe their nasty, greasy hands on their midriff.”

  He looked up, his fair bangs hanging across the scarred side of his face, a scar that was definitely healing, slowly but surely. He plucked that out of my mind and smiled, also pleased with the effects of his transforming from bat to revenant. The smile tilted guiltily, accepting the proof of his pizza gobbling habits. “Yeah, well, I’m only human.”

  I left that one alone. “Harry tells me you haven’t packed yet.”

  “Dead guys are such blabbermouths,” he groused, missing the irony. “I’ve got time, especially if we're not leaving tomorrow anymore.”

  “You don’t have to come with us, Wes.” I came around to the front of the chair to face him more directly. “Harry and I can manage on our quest to find Dicky McDickhead on our own.”

  “Such a rad code name,” he said, “though it’d be obvious who you meant to anyone who knew him.”

  “Point taken.”

  He smirked lewdly. “Yeah, I know his point was taken.”

  “Ugh,” I replied, and refused to consider how many times I’d done just that. And probably still would, undead Jerkface or not. Wes made a gagging noise, but if he didn't want me to think about boffing Batten, he shouldn't have brought it up. “Listen, all I’m saying is if going home for Thanksgiving isn’t cool with you, stay here.”

  “Thanks,” he said, “and I do want to. We’re not going yet.” He aimed a knowing look at the ceiling to indicate where the witches had been. “Besides, I really need to finish my invention.”

  I cocked my head and examined the thing Wes was mucking with on the coffee table; it used to be a small convection oven and also my spare vacuum cleaner, with a bunch of flex tubes, a bucket, and an extra long cord. “Nice thingamahecky.”

  “Yeah,” he said proudly. “It’s fuckin’ nifty.”

  “What, exactly,” I asked slowly, “is it?”

  He huffed with frustration that I couldn’t immediately recognize his brilliance. “It’s an automatic muffin eliminator.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s low carb.” He grinned at it. “No matter how much sugar you use.”

  “So the muffins cook here and come out here,” I said, following the flow of the contraption, “and go directly in here.”

  “And then you throw them out.”

  “You’re right, Wes,” I said, “That is low carb.” As revenants, he and Harry didn't need to eat; as a human who did, I wasn't sure I was in a position to appreciate making muffins for the express purpose of throwing them away. My brother was, scientifically speaking, a complete fucking dumbass sometimes. Homo sapiens pointlessia, perhaps.

  “Just trying to make myself useful around here!” he said cheerfully. “Like when I made you those electric aqua socks to keep your feet warm in the lake.”

  “Uh huh. Maybe you could throw a toaster in my bath, too. Bet that’d be warm.” He was far too focused to hear me, so he didn’t appreciate my snark and only replied with a vague mmhmm noise. “Wes, I feel like you might need a non-slipper-or-idiocy-related hobby.”

  He sat back on his haunches. “Are you saying you’re gonna let me help with the black witches and the grimoire petition by doin’ the Dude Witch thing?”

  Oh fuck, no.

  “I heard that,” he said immediately.

  “I’m not sure I need Dude Witch’s help as much as I need you to finish one of these.” I waved my gloved hand at the invention on the table. “This looks handy for, um....”

  “Home security,” he supplied. “It’s a spork cannon.”

  I steadied myself with a slow, quiet inhale, and I smiled during my long exhale. “And a great one, honey. The best I’ve ever seen.” I wondered if this was how Harry felt when he talked to me, sometimes. “And why did you choose sporks?”

  “They were really inexpensive,” he said, impressed with his own thriftiness. “Found a whole whack of them at the Goodwill for three bucks!”

  “These are plastic,” I noted. “This thing fires plastic sporks through the air at home invaders?”

  Wes poked a button and there was a whoot and a fffft and then a flimsy plastic spork flicked two feet out of the firing tube, skittering across the cement floor and spinning into a corner.

  “Should have bought the metal ones,” he said.

  “Needs work,” I agreed.

  “Well, it worked better than my wireless freezer hat,” he said with a defensive sniff.

  “That thing that froze to your head?” I asked, attempting to squelch a smile. Harry had had to dump a pot of hot water over his scalp to get it off. Fortunately, the wicked case of waffle head it had done to his hair had been the only casualty, other than his ego.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Wes said, narrowing his eyes at me. “You think I’m not a good inventor.”

  “I think you are the best inventor that I’ve ever met,” I said honestly, taking his head in my gloved hands and planting a noisy, sisterly smooch on his forehead.

  “Because I’m the only one?”

  “Doesn’t mean your efforts aren’t appreciated,” I said, patting his shoulder. “But maybe you should look at some college courses? Maim has a book at the office you could look through, maybe find something you like. Harry takes night classes from time to time.” Harry had confided that he was thinking about learning to speak Mandarin in the spring, when riding his motorcycle to class wouldn’t be so cold and dangerous. “Think about it. Just maybe eat before you go, eh?”

  I turned to leave, but Wes’s voice brought me up short on the bottom step. “One of the men isn’t what he seems. I couldn’t tell which one. He doesn’t like the grimoire, he doesn’t like the bossy lady, he doesn’t like the plan to petition, and he doesn’t want to be here.”

  I considered this, drumming my gloved fingers on the hand rail. “So why is he here?”

  “He seems to think,” Wes said carefully, weighing his words, “that he has no choice.”

  One of the twins, perhaps? Going along with the other twin’s needs? Or in competition with the other? On the other hand, Wymon didn’t seem too thrilled to be here, either. “Are any of these witches outright hostile or dangerous?”

  He seesawed one hand. “They only consider you a minor hurdle, from what I can tell so far. Their focus is entirely on each other and that damned spell book.”

  I thought about Lavinia’s protest. (“I cannot accept it, even if you chose to give it to me. I’m not one of the nominated. You must consider one of these other five here for its new owner.”)

  “All of them are fixated on what it would take to acquire Ruby’s grimoire?” I asked.

  “Yep.” He smiled over at me. “Even her.”

  “Thank you, Wesley,” I said, considering him for a long moment. My brother went back to his mucking about, and my empathy reported that he was still very much warring with his feelings about going home, but he didn’t want to talk about it. He was trying to be an adult, and he thought that meant dealing with every hurdle on his own. I felt a rush of fierce, protective love for him, the kind you can only have for siblings and children, savage and maternal; I’d do anything fo
r my brother, even if that meant backing off and watching him struggle on his own against my natural urge to stride into his battles in front of him, holding both sword and shield, slaying all his dragons.

  “Love you, too,” he said, not looking back at me. “Now bugger off.”

  “I’m not doin’ your laundry anymore,” I warned him. “Do I look like your mother?”

  “More than a little, now that you mention it.”

  “Bite your damn tongue, batface.” I shook my head fondly, leaving him to his fiddling.

  ******

  Dawn seemed to come earlier than I would have liked, after a too-brief period of broken sleep during which I dreamed of Danika Sherlock rushing me in Room Four of the Ten Springs Motor Inn and an invisible demon in a basement dancing a waltz with my shadow-half inside a warped sigil that made me sick to look upon. I sweat through my nightshirt though the night was cool and the bedroom window was open a crack. Several times, I got up and shuffled in the dark to the kitchen for a glass of water; the second time I’d done it, I met a concerned Harry already holding one for me. He helped me pull my nightgown off and proceeded to follow me back to my room to sit on the edge of my bed. His sheltering closeness helped drop me back into a troubled sleep, but didn’t entirely chase away the discomfort. When I stirred to the summons of my alarm at five-thirty, I found that my long black and turquoise ghost hair had wrapped around my head like a nest built by nervous crows; I must have been tossing and turning in complete circles to wind it so tightly.

  I pulled my hair out of my eyes and slouched to the bathroom in my underwear to give my hair a stern trimming above my shoulders. It ended up making me look like a cranky punk version of Susie Derkins from Calvin and Hobbes. It didn’t much matter; thanks to the lingering spirit of Britney Wyatt, I was destined to look like a Colorized Morticia Addams again by dinner.

  I quickly showered and shoved my legs into my softest pair of jeans, thinking I’d need both comfort and pockets. I had just pulled on a Muppets t-shirt when the first petitioner knocked on the front door. Harry was miles ahead of me in answering. I didn’t rush to join him, knowing that my companion would prefer a minute alone with the whoever it was to size them up, test boundaries, answer expectations.