by Sara Hanover
“Get locked in? Why didn’t you go to the door and bark to get out?” And, why hadn’t Steptoe noticed?
He flicked a look at me and went right back to staring at the boxes.
“I get it. Someone got in and moved them around. Your nose tell you who?”
He tilted his head slightly, sneezed, and rubbed his muzzle with a forepaw.
“No dice, huh. Odd.” I went to his flank and rubbed one of his soft ears. For the intruder to have left no scent trail seemed ominous, but other than the shuffling, I couldn’t see that anything had actually been taken. Not a whole box at least. I’d have to ask Steptoe what, if anything, he might know. I think he’d tell me straight out. If not, I was fairly certain I could tell if he lied. That tail of his, now reattached, had a life of its own and was a definite tell. I pulled on Scout’s collar. “Let’s go. It’s late, and whatever happened, the deed is done.”
He resisted my tug at first, then gave in and bounded ahead of me to the stairs, leading the way. I gained the top step myself and looked back with a wave of my hand, wondering if the Eyes would open and give me an insightful look. My father wavered in a corner, bowed over and sitting on the floor. He looked as if he might be asleep, if ghosts could do such a thing.
Nimora’s lids opened, but I saw nothing new about the boxes and their various auras, only that they’d been shuffled a bit and their presence seemed strong.
Great. Another one of life’s mysteries to ponder while trying to fall asleep.
As I gave Scout a bit of kibble for a midnight snack, I told him about the Societas Obscura meeting and my reaction to it: that we definitely would have an uneasy marriage. He had little opinion about it, one way or the other, and I allowed as how the professor hadn’t really expressed an opinion to Scout the way he had to me, and that might sway the pup’s ideas about the evening.
When I told Scout about the happenings around the Butchery, however, he skinned his lips back, showing his teeth. I agreed with him as I closed and locked the cellar door before leaving the kitchen entirely. I also said, “No chasing down anything like that without me. That thing has bad juju, no doubt about it. In fact, we should have a whole hunting party with us if we ever run into it again.”
Scout bumped my knee with his big Lab head, and I took it for agreement. I felt a little relieved as the more I thought about it, the more I equated it with whatever had been watching the house underneath the lamppost. I didn’t want to be facing it down whatsoever in the future but knew I probably would. It stalked us for a purpose, and I would stop it however I could . . . but it would be nice to find out the purpose first, in case, you know, this sort of thing became a habit.
* * *
• • •
Morning came eventually. We all slept in while my mother left early on business. At the breakfast table, I brought up the worries at hand.
“I resent the inference in that, ducks.” Simon gave me a sad look, and his tail drooped to emphasize it, down the back of the kitchen chair to the floor.
“I didn’t say you did it. I asked if you knew anything about it.” I leaned over to refresh his cup of tea.
“Means the same, doesn’t it?”
“Only to the extremely suspicious. It doesn’t to me. I thought since you were taking up nights in the mudroom, you might have heard something before I called you. That door latch didn’t break on its own.” I paused. “I thought you might have had a unique vantage point. If you say you didn’t see or hear anything, I quite believe you.”
His dark eyes blinked. “You do?”
“Of course, I do.”
His eyes brimmed. “Benefit of the doubt?”
“No doubt involved. I consider you trustworthy.”
His tail twitched. “I wish I could say I had knowledge or evidence, but I don’t.”
“Since I have no idea when the incursion occurred, I am pretty much in the dark, too.” I sat down and added a bit of lemon to my sugary tea. “Wait. I’ll be right back.”
I jumped up and thundered upstairs to the tell-tales in their vase. They all swiveled about in sudden alarm at my abrupt and noisy appearance, and almost as quickly settled back into their preferred appearance of a lovely bouquet of roses. “Hi, guys. I’m not upset with any of you, but we might have had a stranger break into the house in the last day. Notice anything?”
They all wheeled about and looked downstairs and gave the equivalent of a blossom shrug. All except one. It waggled its leaves in a frenzy of excitement that I couldn’t interpret.
I heard Steptoe on the stairs, entering the hall behind me.
“Understand what it’s saying?”
“Not alarm but excited, I do believe. Not much help there. And,” he leaned over, nose to vase. “You’re supposed to report to me immediately.”
The flowers sagged.
He jabbed a finger at them. “You’ve got an important job here, right important, and I expect you to do it to high standards. Buck up, my beauties.”
The tell-tales straightened on their stems, except for the exuberant one who kept bouncing and finally came to a tired and wilted halt.
“I think she had something to say.”
Steptoe nodded at me. “I think so, too, but she isn’t communicating well. Maybe if she mulls it over a bit, I can understand her later.” He said to the flowers, “Too right, loveys. You stay on duty like I know you can.”
I wouldn’t have been surprised to see them twist their leaves about and salute though none of them did. We made our way back downstairs and microwaved our tea back into steaming hotness. The two of us sat there, silent, faces down as if inhaling the vapors for our health and concentration.
One thing and one thing only came to mind, along with the fact that I had probably put too much lemon in my tea (a little goes a long way for me). The tell-tales and likely Scout, too, had been spelled by the infiltrator and thus weren’t too alarmed.
Hell, that one tell-tale was absolutely ecstatic over who it was. I attributed its attitude toward the charm put on it. The intrusion felt harmless, almost benevolent. Which brought me back to the impossible: the professor. But Steptoe hadn’t sensed him. It became worrisome that someone or something might have mimicked his identity.
That did not leave me with any conclusions except that we were probably not at risk since nothing had been taken and no one menaced. We would, however, have to take precautions that it didn’t happen again. I couldn’t afford to be complacent. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last year, it’s that the magic side of the world can be tricky.
I cleaned house. Mom came in late and somewhat defeated, so I left her alone. When late evening came, the three of us—Simon, my pup, and I—went around the house testing and reinforcing wards. The maelstrom stone showed me a new facet of its defensive capabilities, and I managed to weave a few extra layers of protection. Steptoe’s eyebrow arched in surprise until I tapped my palm in explanation.
“Ah. Too right—that bit of marble ought to be useful.”
I didn’t tell him that Sophie had gifted me with a bit of spellcasting that helped. “All done?”
“And a right good job, if I say so myself.” Steptoe nodded at me. “Any cookies about?”
“No, but I could make some biscuits.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Delightful!”
We settled down to relax a bit downstairs. Steptoe and I played some cribbage. It was about the only game where I could keep pace with him because he . . . well, he cheated at other games. I guess he wasn’t as reformed as he liked to think.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DUE AND OVERDUE
THE ANCIENT PENDULUM clock in the living room chimed out midnight, something it rarely did although it did keep time, and I realized how dead late it was. We bid each other good night, Steptoe retiring to his cot and me upstairs to my room, Scout on my
heels. He preferred sleeping with me, although there were still nights when he sought out the back of the house with its big window overlooking the backyard shadows and the movement of the moon. When he did that, I wondered if memories of another life prodded at him, but then—what did dogs know about other lives?
In his case, probably more than I did.
I propped myself up on my bed and opened Morty’s journal. I’d thumbed through several decades to get anywhere near our own time period, although it would have been fascinating to just sift through page by page and learn about a world that I had no idea had ever existed.
But a name popped out every now and then, one denoted as the Master. Carter had mentioned it once and once only, and he wouldn’t discuss it except to say that if I heard a title like that or anyone referring to it, to walk away and stay away. I hadn’t, not until I opened the journal and now what I read did not elaborate except that the Master had to be treated carefully and with the utmost respect and caution. Who in the hell was this? A dark elf like Devian? Worse? It settled at the back of my mind and itched, something I knew I shouldn’t scratch. I decided I’d ask Evelyn if her father knew anyone by that nickname, since he was now a player in local politics, having been elected mayor and all. He hadn’t settled into the office yet, but he had to know some of the behind-the-scenes personalities.
That satisfied the annoying itch a bit and I kept reading through. It was interesting—Morty had kept a kind of eye—what we all call the side-eye—on local magic pushers. Most of course, were con artists or ordinary magicians who got by with sleight of hand and tricks, but he’d made mention of a few who weren’t. I’d already gone through a few of the notes on Potion Polly, but she seemed to have garnered his respect as well as attention.
And, accordingly, he’d taken note of the family’s history, including some of the heartbreaking deaths in the various branches. I couldn’t decipher the symbols he used in his margins to draw attention or delineate a discovery, but even I could tell that death by accident or illness seemed to happen frequently, even with the mortality being what it was a hundred years ago. His writings confirmed what I’d already known. Two of the young ones had died of polio and one of tetanus. I lingered over that page a moment, appreciating the change in medicine. Another one of Morty’s cramped symbols decorated the margin. I screwed my eyes up and peered at it as closely as I could. It looked like . . . but it couldn’t be . . . a monetary symbol. Another cramped few words stated that a debt had been paid. To him? Or if not him, who? Or . . . I let the journal settle to the bed comforter. Magic’s price? A shiver ran down the back of my neck. Morty had been a debt collector once. Had he been privy to the harsh dues magic users paid? Had he been a collector?
Scout stirred and came to the side of my bed, tail slowly wagging. He put his head on my knee.
“You get the floor tonight.”
He pleaded with soft brown eyes, but I shook my head. “No. You’re a cover hog, and you’ve got the old comforter right there, all lumped up the way you like it, just for you.” His muzzle followed my point. The tail thumped, once.
But he’d made his point. We both needed sleep.
We yawned at each other and crept into bed. He took up the diagonal lower half while I curled into the upper half despite our earlier discussion. Sleep came quickly, and only once did I wake up, having dreamed that I’d thinned myself out so much that no one could hear me when I tried to call for help.
But the dreams returned. A quicksilver elf entered my arena, and I knew those silvery eyes and that figure of grace and steel. Devian, the local elf lord who’d pitted himself against us and lost.
He smiled in my thinned direction.
“Caught yourself, have you, and made it all that much easier for me. I may be gone, but you are not beyond my reach. Not yet.” And, as he spoke, he did stretch out a hand toward me, icy and deliberate. It started to break the fragile threads that kept me tied to this world; I could feel myself begin to drift away. Helpless. Hopeless.
That brought me awake, with the blankets tangled about my arms and hands, and sweat dappling my forehead. When my pulse quieted, I sagged back into bed and fell back to sleep again, with dreams I thankfully didn’t remember.
Scout’s low growls woke me again. I unwound the covers from my legs and one arm, and sat up very carefully, uncertain as to what alarmed him.
He stared, not at my bedroom window which faced the backyard but into the hallway.
Even for winter, the house seemed terribly chilled. Had Mom not set the thermostat before going to bed? We weren’t flush with money, but we did have enough to carry us through for six months while she finished her dissertation and picked up a new load of teaching assignments. We could even think about moving if she got some full-time job offers along with that doctorate, the only good thing about losing our mortgage and now living rent to rent.
I looked past Scout to the bedroom window and saw the crystal patterns of frost on the outside. No, it was definitely cold, inside and out. I swept my bracers off the sill where they were stored, to absorb the sunlight in the morning, and put them on.
Not again. I got up. Scout stayed fixed on the hallway. Had our intruder come back? Or was it our watcher?
I hadn’t heard a thing, but I’d been wrapped up in ugly dreams. I listened intently and heard only the occasional breathing that a wooden house does now and then. Even the furnace stayed silent. No wonder it felt chilled.
Fear sent bumps coursing over my arms, even under my bracers which gave off a soft, golden glow. Nothing like advertising my presence. I hesitated, then slipped them off and stowed them at the edge of my dresser. If I needed defense, running would be my better option over standing my ground. Slipping my tennis shoes on, I stopped long enough to throw on a flannel shirt and grab my second favorite hockey stick. I may be foolish, but I am not stupid. Really.
I went in search of whatever was spooking Scout and haunting our house. Not including my father, of course.
Nothing met my cautious glance out between the curtains at our front window. Same at the side kitchen door which looked out on our driveway to the garage in the back. I decided not to check the mudroom because of waking Steptoe. I’d never awakened him rashly and had no idea how he’d react, and even though the professor had blunted his powers long ago, he still crafted flash-bangs with a fair amount of punch. I didn’t want any lobbed at me because he had no idea who’d come at him in the middle of the night.
In spite of my original intentions, I stood at the front door, unable to open it or cross the threshold. My inner voice rattled away that it was astoundingly stupid to go out and investigate—well, I have two inner voices, and one was for it and the other vehemently against it. I’d done it before without harm, so why poke the bear again?
They made such a racket in my head that I opened and skittered through the door just to turn it off.
The cold outside stabbed all the way to the bone and even made my teeth ache. But the sky stood crystal clear, brilliant and free of smoke trailing from nearby chimneys. It wasn’t snowing yet, but it might have been too cold for it to snow. That is a thing that can happen, although usually not in this part of Virginia. The shadows that fell across the road, sidewalk, and lawns looked sharp enough to cut.
And yet I did not see what I feared and hoped to see. Whatever had lurked out front appeared to have moved on. I walked to the lamppost and found a patch that seemed even icier than the rest of the street. I knelt down on one knee and put my palm to it, checking my impression. So cold it burned. I snatched my hand away. Had something crouched there, watching? That thing with red eyes? If I’d even seen such a thing . . . but I thought I had, and Scout had backed that up.
Which reminded me. Where was my dog now? Certainly not at my side, ready to leap into action if warranted. I turned on my heel. Scout sat on the front step, flank plastered to the now closed door as if he could wi
ll himself to the other side. I put my tongue to the roof of my mouth and let out a high chirping whistle to gather him. I know he heard me. His ears perked forward and then back again. He lifted one paw tentatively before setting it back down. Now, if he were still an eight-week–old pup, I could see the hesitation and fear, but Scout had a good six months under his growth belt before being gifted to me. He’d never shown an ounce of cowardice before these visitations. That he did now brought my inner voices back online, telling me how reckless it was to stand out here relatively unprotected.
I heard a whisper of sound behind me, catching the barest hint of movement as I turned. And there he stood, Malender, just as I had dreamed him. He held that whip handle and the leather thong draped down to his ankles where shadows hugged him.
Words escaped me without much thought. “It wasn’t you.”
He arched an eyebrow, a feat accomplished without a single wrinkle on his ageless, surely immortal face. A tiny lock of hair had escaped to trail down to the other brow, and his jade eyes stayed fixed on me. “It wasn’t?” His hand twitched, and movement undulated the length of that astonishing whip.
“Out here. Before. I mean,” and I paused a moment, searching for the proper words. “The threat I felt couldn’t have come from you.”
Not to mention the prevailing cold. The flames licking the length of the whip smoked against the pavement, sizzling little puddles of what had once been ice. He tilted his head slightly. More perfectly handsome than any man I’d ever met, he smiled slowly, the corner of his mouth quirking slightly. I loved Carter, but he couldn’t hold a match to Malender in looks.
“Not that you aren’t awe-inspiring,” I added hastily.
“Tessa of the Salt, you freed me. If for no other reason, I am indebted to you. You should fear me but only as it would be natural to—and not be afraid of me otherwise.”
Confused, I merely said, “Right.” He had, for months, worn a black cloudlike, shroud so menacing that every one of the supernatural beings I’d met had held him in fear. His very presence brought up vague memories of ruin and disaster and corrupted power so that not one of my new friends trusted him. We’d crossed purposes more than once before. I’d fought him off several times and defeated him more with the simple compound of ordinary table salt. Then I’d noticed that not only had it stopped him in his tracks, the shroud that imprisoned Malender shrank visibly upon each contact. I couldn’t prove him evil one way or the other, but I could definitely tell he’d been imprisoned. Following a gut instinct, I dumped a thirty-pound bag of salt on him one night and nearly killed him. But the shroud had dissolved away and, along with it, his menacing persona. He’d been something else, and began recovering it, whatever it was. I hadn’t thrown salt on him for weeks, and wished I had a pocketful now, just . . . just in case. I still couldn’t be certain on which side of the line he stood.
