by Sara Hanover
“Yes.” His brilliantly green eyes rested on my face with their stern gaze, but I could see a little gleam in them as well. I amused him, for reasons I had never understood. He tolerated me as I gathered he tolerated few people. He seemed to be waiting for something.
Carter put his hand on my wrist. Warm, comforting, and his touch requested my attention. “Do not,” he said, “ask for her life in exchange for your life-debt. It is worth more than you know. We will find a way to save her.”
Advice on making deals with deities, huh. I should respect his words; he knew what he was talking about. If I had any doubt, the professor said on my other side, “Listen to Carter. It could be vital.”
I could only think of one battle where it might mean everything to have Malender on our side, and that thought gave me pause. I spread my hands. “I didn’t ask for it to be canceled by saving Jocosta, only that you find within yourself some small pity and understanding. I’m not giving her mercy, you would be.”
“Yet knowing what I am, and what I must do having been restored to myself, you should realize the difficulty of what you propose.”
I exhaled forcefully, a little afraid of the word games he seemed to want to play. I decided to call Malender’s bluff. “All right, then. Do what you have to,” and began pivoting on my heel. I caught sight of Carter’s amazed expression, and hidden humor on the professor’s face, shadowed by that fedora. “I’ll be greatly disappointed in you if you can’t find that in yourself, but it’s your choice, so I guess I’ll have to accept it.”
My words hung palpably in the air between us. Malender stood as a powerful, charismatic being. I’d always been in awe of him and that would never stop, but, yes, I’d be really disappointed if he couldn’t look at Jocosta and see that Nicolo had enslaved her will and controlled her. Who could have stood up to that? He hadn’t, once upon a time. I don’t know how long Nicolo’s vampiric shroud had surrounded and cut off Malender, but it might even have stretched into centuries. Could he not look at a Fire Dwarf now and understand the surrender?
“You did not dare to remind me of myself.” He echoed my thoughts as if having read the last of them.
“I didn’t think I had to.”
Malender tilted his head ever so slightly. “No. No, you do not.” He chopped his hand in the air and rain began to fall, heavily, from skies that had been cold weather clear a second ago. The drops drenched Jocosta who eventually stood, freed, in an ankle-deep puddle while the professor had opened an umbrella ridiculously big enough to cover all three of us. Not a drop of rain, naturally, touched Malender. His whip stayed, lethally sharp and flamboyantly aflame, pooled in loops about his booted feet.
“Your people,” he said to her, “will undoubtedly have other punishments. You can treat them as an interruption of your life or an enrichment of the purpose of it.” He gave a slight bow in my direction. “Tessa of the Salt.” Malender snapped the whip up, so that it revolved about his torso, and disappeared in a haze of smoke that smelled of cedar and a touch of sulfur.
Jocosta collapsed to her knees, put her hands to her face, and began to cry again, a quiet, heart-wrenching act of sorrow.
The professor had evidently been holding his breath, for he gave a low growl and muttered, “That was close.”
Carter caught me by the chin and turned my face toward his. “You take the oddest chances with magic.”
“Do you think he heard?”
He didn’t ask who. He knew. Carter shrugged slightly. “Likely. If we’re lucky, it will have been just enough to pique his interest, not enough to come investigate. He knows where we are, currently, and Hiram’s clans generally have good defenses against him.”
“Jocosta didn’t.”
“No, but I imagine the clan elders will be discussing that deep into the next few nights. How did you know?”
I shook my head slightly. “I saw it. I couldn’t understand how none of you seemed to see it, too. I knew, after what Malender had been through, how it must have been agony. Carter, I’ve seen those souls on their hooks at the Butchery.”
“You seem certain.”
“I couldn’t mistake it.”
The professor had unwound himself and began walking back to the main house. We trailed after, Scout trotting quietly by my side.
“I’ve been working on the task force trying to pin down his bases of operation.”
“That’s what you’ve been doing.”
“It is. He’s mostly underground, with tentacles everywhere, and his forces are as deeply interwoven into his doings as they can be. We can’t really shake anyone loose to give evidence against him, and we’ve never been able to get anyone undercover with him. His control is legendary. That’s when I realized what he was, and why we couldn’t get to his operations. But imagine my telling the DEA or FBI that we’re hunting a vampire.”
“No one would believe you.”
“Exactly.”
Hiram and others buffeted past us, going to Jocosta and raising her to her feet, some gentle and some shouting at her. I looked back over my shoulder. “I feel sorry for her.”
“That says more about you than her.” Carter put his arm about my waist, drawing me close, so that we walked in tandem, keeping each other warm, Scout trailing.
“What do you think is going to happen to her?”
“No idea. However,” and he looked at the bank of windows by the door in use, “I’d say everything we did was closely observed.”
“But my mother . . .”
“You have to be on guard.”
“I’ll turn them in if I have to. Anyone who threatens us.” I put my head on his shoulder. “It would be nice to have it in writing, though.”
“Oh, they won’t do that,” said Gregory. “That would put them in a very precarious position having asked for the death penalty in the first place. No, it’s likely that they’ll bluster a bit, step back, and put it on hold. It is, also, still possible for Mary to put in a rewrite of sorts that might soften her view.”
The Mary in question joined us on the steps and heard the last few remarks. “No,” my mom said. “I don’t think I’ll be doing any rewriting. The kernel of my paper is, after all, the veil that hides magic.”
“Please understand, Mary, that there is an enemy which will use that paper as justification for its actions. The matter won’t stop here.”
She and Gregory traded a long look. “Are you certain?”
“Nothing is certain about that enemy except that he has many strategies. His roots go back centuries. I am shocked that he found a way into the clans, a near impossible group to infiltrate. But Tessa has something he covets, and he’ll do what he must to attain it, in addition to his many other misdeeds.”
“Is there a way to stop him? What if she gives him the stone?”
“And add to his powers? No way, Mom. I’d have to be crazy to do something like that.” Or desperate. I might become desperate at some point, but I wasn’t yet.
“In the meantime,” Carter added, “We have already stopped several attempts, so we’re ahead of the game. He knows he has an opponent with allies and powers. He’ll be cautious.”
“How about we convince him to quit?”
Carter shook me lightly. “Don’t even think it.”
“We have to do something.”
“We,” he said firmly, “will think of something.”
Hiram joined us as we walked into his house, the warm air inviting and still smelling of the afternoon feast. He cleared his throat. “I owe you an apology.”
“Maybe.”
He twitched a bit at my answer. “You have to understand my concerns.”
“You might have discussed them with us first, you know.”
He gave a little salute to me. “Well I know it. Circumstances, however, seemed far different at the time. The dissertation shocked
me. I’ll admit I feared to read it completely.”
“At least you found your traitor.”
“That we know of. It is like that old saying, one bad apple spoils the barrel. Have we more? I’ll be busy determining that. I’d like to know how you saw it in her.”
I could see the weariness and worry in his eyes. “It was the Sight. You have it, don’t you?”
“We do, and yet we didn’t see her in a true light. How did she appear to you?”
“A vampiric shroud wrapped about her. It might have been difficult to see apart from her normal shadow, but I could tell.”
Hiram muttered a curse to himself before noting, “We shall have to sharpen our skills. As much as we avoid the modern world, we seem to have lost our ability to cope with it. The traps are many.”
“I’ll help when I can, if you need it. What are friends for, anyway?”
A troubled look ran across his face so quickly I wasn’t quite sure I’d seen what I’d seen. He put a thumb into a suspender strap, looking away from us, and mumbled, “Our friendship is, at best, strained and must stay that way for the moment. The clans are not as forgiving, and it will take months, perhaps even years, to clear their minds on this. Tessa, I need the journal back as soon as possible. It wasn’t mine alone to surrender, and it belongs with the clans. I’m sorry to have to tell you this and I hope you understand.”
My mom stepped forward and gave him a slight hug. “We do. Now you have to understand that a dissertation isn’t a best-selling novel and not likely to have many readers. It’ll stay mired in academia.”
“You need to give yourself more credit. What I read was quite enjoyable and gave credence to my fears.”
“Well, thank you, Hiram. We look forward to the day when you step into our house again.”
He did not respond to that, but lines etched a sad look into his face.
I thought a minute. “I’ll forgive you for a box of chocolate éclairs, if you have any left over.”
His eyes narrowed a bit as he thought and nodded. “We very well might. I know I ordered extra.”
Sure enough, the catering company coughed up a pink doughnut box filled with éclairs and a waxed paper bag full of bones and scraps for Scout. I accepted them with open arms as the pup danced about my feet, and we took our leave. It wasn’t the apology I needed, but for the moment, I’d take what we could: our lives and éclairs.
The weather held as we drove home, Mom’s car following ours, and Scout making impatient noises in the backseat, eager to get at his doggie bag, but I could see clouds boiling on the horizon. Winter seemed far from being at bay, and if not tonight, then tomorrow would be bitter and slushy. Carter and I didn’t say much, both of us somber because of losing Hiram. It might be temporary, it might not.
Entering our neighborhood, a dog’s body lay splayed across the road. Bloodied and limp, obviously dead, but not obvious if it had been hit by a car or what. Carter came to a stop.
“Stay here.”
I had no intention of arguing with him. He got out and bent down just long enough to get a close look before straightening and returning.
As he put the car back into gear, he said, “Nasty bit of work. Has this been happening around here?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Do you still do your training in the area? I know you run. Don’t. Something is at work here, something vicious.”
“Got it. Not even with Scout?”
“He’d give his life for you, but if you don’t get in that situation, it would be even better.”
“Okay.” Scout’s head hung over the console between us, his eyes wary as he looked from one to another. I pushed on his muzzle, forcing him back. “Not now,” I told him and after another worried eye roll, he retreated.
“What do you think it is?”
“Other than something that enjoys killing? No idea. I’m worried about Steptoe, though.”
“Simon? Why?”
Carter wouldn’t take his eyes off the road to look at me.
“Not Simon!”
“He is a demon, even if a lesser one.”
“He’s come over to the light side!”
“He’s trying, but he has basic impulses he might not be able to deny. I don’t know enough about them to tell you how his metabolism even functions.”
“On hot tea and cookies, if I had to make a guess.” I stared out the side window. An intense sadness settled about me. I hadn’t freed my father, I’d lost Hiram, my mother’s career could be in jeopardy, the professor was back but wasn’t, and the rest of my world seemed to be in upheaval as well. Our death sentences hung suffocatingly close. There were times when I couldn’t see the victories for the losses.
We both lapsed into silence until Carter pulled in the driveway. He turned about. “Don’t do anything foolish.”
“What, me? Foolish?”
“And stubborn.” He leaned forward to kiss the tip of my nose. “I’ll call in a bit.”
“My cell phone is portable. I could be answering it from anywhere.”
“I expect you to be at home.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I swung my legs out and instantly felt a cold that wanted to settle into my bones, brittle and deep. My nose went icy, along with my ears. I balanced the box and bag while I stood. “Coming in?”
“No, work to do. I took the afternoon off to be with you.”
“Awww. That’s so sweet.”
“Isn’t it? Save me an éclair.”
I looked at the box. Hefted it to make sure it weighed sufficiently enough that there would be leftovers. “You’ve got a chance. No guarantee, though.”
“Don’t make me put a spell on you.”
“You can do that?”
“Well,” Carter answered. “It depends on how I rank with you compared to how chocolate éclairs rank with you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “It’s going to be very, very close.”
Laughing, he reached over to pull the door closed after me, and as the car pulled away, I could still hear his cheer. It sounded nice.
Scout danced around my feet as we went inside. I’d left the furnace on at a reasonable level, so it wasn’t cozy warm but neither did the house hold a chill. I dropped the box and bag on the kitchen counter, calling for Steptoe as I went to the thermostat and boosted the heat setting.
“Simon! I’ve got pastries from the luncheon!”
My voice echoed through the empty house. Mom hadn’t come home yet with the professor, and who knows what they were up to. I didn’t want to think about it. I peeked in the mudroom to see if I’d caught him napping on his cot there, but it stood empty, with a few rumpled blankets to show he’d been there once upon a time, just not now. I had no idea where he could have gone or what he might be attempting to do, only that it was unlike him not to be about. Was he still out chasing the elusive professor’s trail? I’d missed him before. Now I was just plain worried about him.
In the kitchen, I had to give Scout some of the scraps promised to him before he had a conniption fit and to reward him for his good behavior under stressful circumstances. I decided to reward myself, too. I snagged an éclair and went upstairs for a nap. Being unconscious for a while appealed as a really sound solution to the day. I put my pods in, tuned in the music, and closed my eyes.
Evelyn’s call woke me, but only because the phone vibrated somewhere under my chin and shoulder. I answered with a yawn.
“It went great, didn’t it? Don’t you think?”
“It seemed to.” I tried to stifle another yawn. “Did you get any feedback from your parents?”
“Dad liked him. Mom seemed cautious.”
“You didn’t hit them with anything like ‘this is the guy I want to spend the rest of my life with,’ did you?”
“Not exactly.”
I rubbed
a bit of sleep from my right eye. “What do you mean by that?” Silence from her end. “Evie.”
“I told them that I hoped they liked him because I could see myself in a relationship with him. My father said ‘Fine, I don’t like you flitting about,’ and my mom said, ‘It’s a little early, but he seems nice.’ Honestly, do they even see me as an adult?”
“They do, and that’s okay, then. Would you rather they’d gone all Romeo and Juliet on you and forbidden you to see him?”
“I guess.”
I sat up and stretched before putting the phone to my ear again. “What did you expect?” She was twenty-one, I was twenty, I doubted if any of our parents looked to marry us off yet.
“More enthusiasm?”
“Maybe,” I suggested, “if you waited until after the inauguration and your dad settled into office, they might not have their minds full of other business. They’re busy right now.”
“True! I need to remember that. The caterers were great, weren’t they? I think our reception will go well. I’ll have to remind Dad to switch the menu up a bit.”
“But keep the desserts!”
“Definitely. It should go fine.”
“If we’re not in a snowstorm, agreed.”
“I looked the weather up,” Evelyn said seriously. “Cold with overnight freezes, but no rain or snow. Tuesday night should be fine.”
“I don’t know who decided to invent swearing-in ceremonies in the middle of January, anyway.”
“I think it’s supposed to be a comment on the survival of the fittest.”
I laughed at Evelyn. “You could be right.”
Now it was her turn to yawn. Before she could sign off, I stopped her. “Wait. You haven’t had anything strange happening around your neighborhood, have you?”
“It’s gated. Not much of anything happens here. Why?”
“Oh, pets missing, that kind of thing.”
“How awful! It’s not . . . not supernatural, is it?”
