by Sara Hanover
“I don’t know. If you hear anything, you’ll tell me?”
Evelyn took a breath. “Of course! Now I’d better go to sleep before Mother comes in and tries to take my phone away.”
“Good luck with that!”
And then she was gone, and the silence seemed immense.
I slouched back down into bed. Scout gave a little whine at being disturbed and rolled over on his back. We slept until the sound of Mom doing early morning laundry woke us.
She was all dressed and ready to leave, one hip up against the dryer and her phone in her hands when I leaned around the corner.
“It’s Sunday,” I informed her.
“It is. And I have a date for brunch.”
That thought lurched around in my skull a bit. “Really? Seriously? Who with?”
“You wouldn’t know her. She’s also on the department secretarial staff—Becky Sawsmith.”
I wondered if she was lying to me because I really hadn’t ever heard the name before. “Ummm. Okay.”
“It doesn’t hurt to be nice to all the secretaries once in a while. They do a lot of the work behind the scenes. It’s the secretaries that have always pitched me as a professor. I need her balance against Faith Hawkins if I intend to put my paper into publication. I’ve got recommends from most of the committee. One way or another, I intend to end this.”
“Ah. So you fill up your schedule as you fill up their stomachs?”
“Believe it or not, yes, if it’s the only way to get classes assigned and get the presses rolling.” She slipped her phone into the outside pocket of her purse. “What’s your day going to be like?”
I looked at the baskets on the floor. “Finishing the laundry, for one. And then I have to go online and do some work on my spring semester. They’re nagging me for a major. I have my schedule, but they’re not happy.”
“Still?”
I shrugged. “Haven’t told them.”
“You don’t look like you’ve any idea, either.”
I sat down on a rickety old three-legged stool that we’d inherited with the house. It was at least as old, if not older than Aunt April, and we had put it in the laundry room to keep it clear of Iron Dwarves who could reduce it to kindling and splinters. “Once upon a time, I wanted to be an architect. Gave up that idea. Too expensive and a wee bit too much math for me.”
“I had no idea. Architecture?”
“Buildings fascinated me. It’s different now. Maybe I’ve grown or changed, but it’s not the buildings anymore, even though they’re magnificent. It’s the people who need them, want them, live in them.”
“But you want to do something . . . ?”
“I still want to build bridges, but maybe . . .” I paused, suddenly unable to say what I wanted.
She waited, a slight smile on her lips, for me to find the words.
I managed. “Between people.”
“Like a psychologist?”
“Not really. Maybe a mediator.” One of her eyebrows arched up. I waved a hand. “I know, I know, I’ve a temper, and it sounds stupid. I know. But if there were a way to get people to sit down and listen to one another, it might help, right? Everyone deserves a voice. I read today that people listen so that they can respond, but they should listen so they can understand.”
“I think this is personal for you.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess it is. Losing Hiram and all . . . he should have come to us and talked it over, first.”
“I agree. Now all you have to do is find a job that fits that description.”
“I’m not sure there is one.”
“Diplomat, although you’re talking about a smaller scale.”
“Maybe.”
“I don’t see you in poli sci. I think you should look into culture and ethnic studies.”
I didn’t have any of those classes in my background. “Why?”
“You need to know and understand the peoples of the world, first, before you get into the peoples of the unknown world. Their likes and dislikes. Their ways. Their taboos. The commonalities as well as the differences. You need to have a very thorough knowledge of what you’ll face when you sit down to work with them, don’t you think? Anthropology and cultural studies will give that to you. Some of it is guesswork, admittedly, but many cultures have survived to modern times. I think you’d be good at it.”
She made sense. I put a finger up. “But I have no background in it yet. I would have to add a year, maybe even two in order to graduate Skyhawk and more years at university beyond that.”
“If you do, you do. Anything worth having is worth working for, right? Whether you study here, or if we have to move, you’ll be able to find the classes you need. We’ll get through it. And just think, with your background—and mine—you will be an expert in fields that haven’t even been invented yet.” She straightened. “I hate to leave now, but I have to. Talk more when we get home?”
“All right, but I still have that paperwork to get in.”
She smoothed my cheek as she passed by. “Don’t fret over it. They’ll change it for you if they have to. College counselors have learned to be flexible, if nothing else.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
SWEARING IN AND JUST PLAIN CUSSING
THE CROWD CAME winter-prepared, with stylish puffy coats, faux fur, and even a few well-lined leather dusters as they pressed close to the platform to see and hear their mayor’s swearing-in. A few carried protest signs because that’s what we do if we don’t like the results. The outgoing mayor, a popular African-American, smiled as the Statlers assembled on the platform. The former mayor, far from being old in years, was headed to a higher elected office, so good humor reigned all around. Three years’ term length made it difficult to be unhappy with the office for too long, so there was that. I followed at Evelyn’s heels, having been designated her moral support, and I had no idea what had happened to Hiram. She hadn’t sobbed on my shoulder, so I figured nothing dramatic. Perhaps he’d had to work, or maybe the Statlers hadn’t wanted to unveil him as her companion just yet. I spotted Carter, working the crowd as security, but he looked up at me only once, his attention intent on his job. He and his workmates stood out, not in heavy, heavy coats but scaled down for easy access to weapons and movement. They wore vests and such under their shirts, I could tell. I would worry about him in the biting cold, but he carried a fire within him that would keep him warm. The other security wouldn’t be so lucky.
Mom and the professor had paper cups of steaming hot cider in their hands, near the front row, and saluted me as I sat down next to Evelyn. Evie stared at them a moment.
“He looks familiar,” she whispered to me. She’d left Hiram’s party before the big reveal. I hadn’t told her and debated a moment or two whether I should. I realized that her high-pitched squeal of amazement might jar the proceedings and decided later would be better.
Gregory gave both of us a look as if he could read minds before ducking his chin down a bit to listen to something my mother had evidently been saying. They shared a soft laugh. My stomach did a little flip. Was he courting her? How could he? And how could she dare allow it? My father was still around, if imprisoned, and I was this close to getting him sprung. I could feel it. Why could she not wait a few more weeks and then make up her mind?
Although, from the way we had talked, she’d already waited years. I hadn’t seen it, hadn’t noticed, couldn’t know what they’d been going through before. I only knew the tragic end result. It made my insides want to curl up and ache. I could feel the tension all the way up my throat and into my jaws. I stared out across the gathering celebrants until Evie nudged my knee with hers.
“You look angry.”
“I’m not.” I was, but she was right. This was her father’s ceremony, and the people in front of me were looking forward to the swearing-in and then the l
awn supper promised. Behind us, I could hear the caterers working efficiently. There wouldn’t be any chairs, but the tall tables waited to hold plates and platters of great food. Overhead, the sky stayed a brazen blue, with fingerlings of clouds that skirted through quickly and without threat. Perfect weather for a winter’s day.
I could see the security moving about, nothing too drastic, just staying with the ebb and flow of the attendees. But one woman drew my interest. Not terribly tall, but with incredibly good posture and high-heeled boots to die for—and a long, black coat that must have been mink or sable, a bold statement. Real fur had almost dropped out of garments entirely, but this . . . well, I don’t know fur, but looking at it, all I could think of was a panther. Sleek. Primal. Lethal.
That last surprised me as I thought it. What if Morty had been wrong and Nicolo was not male but female? What if? And yet I couldn’t convince myself that a Master Vampire would be working the spectators out in the open and as effectively as she was. But as I lost her and found her again, I thought my assessment correct. She looked positively predatory. I shrugged that off to a bit of paranoia, but she definitely worked the crowd, going from a set of attendees here to another set there. She generally got welcomed, but there were a few who turned their backs on her. As I watched, I couldn’t help the feeling that I knew her, that I’d seen her before, but I couldn’t place her, and—of course—she didn’t get near to the platform for me to see her face.
Evelyn must have caught me staring, for she leaned over a bit. She murmured, “Nice coat, but I’m glad PETA isn’t here.”
“Real fur, you think.”
“I do. I don’t approve of it, but it’s well tailored.”
“Who is she?”
I felt Evie shrug slightly. “Don’t know her. She came to my dad’s transition office a couple of times—the place has been full of dealmakers since the election—and I know he doesn’t particularly like her.”
“But you didn’t catch a name?”
“No. She has this slight accent, though. I want to say it’s French, and she looks like a European with money.”
An ice-cold feeling lanced through me. “French?” It couldn’t be . . . she had died . . . an enigmatic sorceress who, once upon a time, had been a love of the old professor, and who played fast and loose with the sides of light and dark. But Remy was gone, wasn’t she? She wasn’t a phoenix wizard like the professor. She couldn’t just reappear out of the flames, reborn. No. It couldn’t be. I had both liked and hated her. She’d helped me once or twice, then turned about and nearly killed me herself. I couldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her.
But she had been undeniably sleek and fashionable, beautiful and definitely French.
Remy? Alive? Or Undead?
I put a hand to my throat to call up that warmth of Carter’s love, that spark that lay buried within to kindle the reassurance I needed. I leaned so far forward out of my chair, I almost slid off the edge of it, straining to see the woman’s face. Would I recognize it if it was her? I told myself it would not matter. I had the Sight now, without depending on the tiny Eyes in the stone very often. If she turned and faced me, from anywhere in the first eight or nine rows of viewers, I would see her face well enough to recognize her. Or would I just deceive myself into believing I saw someone I could not possibly see?
My mother frowned slightly and pulled on Gregory’s arm. The two pushed as close to the platform as they dared. Carter had to stop them, but we all knew he wasn’t going to throw them on the ground and cuff them.
The newly reconstituted professor peered up at me. “What is it?”
“I saw somebody.”
“There are literally hundreds of somebodies standing out here. Anything more specific?”
“It can’t be, and I can’t verify it, but . . . there’s a woman working the crowd. Hand shaking and so forth. Making contacts. Offers. I’m not sure what she’s doing, but I’d say she was working, somehow. It could be Remy.”
“Re—” he blinked. “Can’t be.”
“Tell me that! But she’s rumored to be European, most likely French, and she has the style.”
Evelyn pulled me back on my chair and shushed me. I could see the officials on the platform getting into their positions and the affair getting ready to start.
The professor put an arm about my mother’s waist, and the two of them carefully melted back and disappeared among the viewers. Unseen, I rolled my glove off my hand, and rubbed the stone, willing it to awaken. It did. I wanted clarity.
I raised my hand to fix a bit of hair back into place, giving the Eyes a chance to swing over the area as I turned my palm outward. What did they see? What did I See?
Whether Remy or not, she sensed the interest and left, for the only thing I could spot definitely was the woman striding to the back of the crowd, across the field to the parking lot, and away. A lost opportunity, of sorts.
But I’d been right about one thing. The person held power. My stone and its eyes recognized that much and telegraphed it to me. So much power that I felt grateful it hadn’t been unleashed on the unwary and innocent. I could see the aura rippling, not only about her as she strode away, but in her wake. Those touched seemed to know it in some small way, a shiver and a fidget, a fuss with their coat or sleeve or, like myself, with a strand of hair that wouldn’t lay quite flat. They couldn’t have told me what they felt, but I could see their reaction and I knew. A ribbon of oily smut marked her path. Some of those she’d approached shrugged it off; others seem to be tangled hopelessly in it, faint as it was.
I didn’t like what I saw at all.
What had she intended to do if she had not been noticed and her own senses made her wary? An assassination? Or just bribery and politics? Or was she tagging souls that were vulnerable to being ensnared and taken?
I shrugged my hand back into my glove and tried to look alert as the ceremony began.
Since I was only an observer and not a participant, other than in the prayer and a few other rituals, I pondered over the sights that worried me. Thoughts blew through my mind like storm clouds on a wild and blustery day, seething and then thinning to nothing, boiling and churning, only to disappear. I had no proof of my suspicions other than that a personage with a lot of sorcery had walked through, working their will here and there, and left.
What did we intend to do about it?
Hiram joined us after the ceremony, among the cheering. He wore a classic Armani suit and looked quite at ease in it, leaving me a bit surprised at his style. Perhaps Evelyn had coaxed him into it. He ducked his chin at me.
“Tessa.”
I tried to smile back, but his frown discouraged that. He stood back a little, unwilling to even get within a certain distance of me, as though I could contaminate him. Then I saw the handprint on his right shoulder, sooty looking with a faint sour smell to it. He’d been marked.
Something had to be done. I couldn’t leave Hiram under any influence that woman, whoever she was, might have left on him. I put a hand behind my back, centered myself, and brought up a pinch of my salt incantation. Weight filled my palm. With a slight smile, I murmured that I needed to find my mother, stepping past them and into Hiram’s personal space, patting him on the shoulder as I passed. The handmark hissed as it faded away under the crystal assault.
Salt went every which way, but he didn’t seem to notice. Evie said, “Oh, my goodness,” and reached out to brush the shoulder of his suit off. She raised an eyebrow at me, but I just shook my head and kept walking. No explanations, not today. Hiram, still unaware, took up her hand and spirited Evelyn away to enjoy the catered lunch.
My plans to find my mother and Gregory went awry. I couldn’t spot them at the buffet tables or eating areas. Left without a partner as Carter continued to work security, I stood at a table with a small plate of goodies and picked at them. I wouldn’t have eaten at all if I thou
ght the other sorcerer had gotten near the caterers, but I hadn’t detected any interference. The stone’s power leeched off mine, so food seemed to be in order. Evelyn swung by my table long enough to leave another pink box of éclairs with me, laughing at my surprise as Hiram then steered her away again.
At this rate, I might even get tired of having them for dessert. When I got in the car, I kicked my heels off and wiggled my toes. Turned the heat up to full blast and the radio followed after.
* * *
• • •
I drove up to hear Scout barking hysterically and wildly in alarm. I could clearly hear the dog’s distress and threw myself out of the car. The entire house lay in late afternoon dimness, not quite nighttime yet but definitely gloom-ridden. Shadows arched everything. The fact that Scout barked loudly and vehemently somewhere near the side door sent me scurrying, wondering what could be happening. I yelled at myself for not coming home sooner.
The porch light, on a motion activated switch, blazed golden into the dusk. I couldn’t see much except that I was too late.
Simon lay sprawled on the drive, limp and unresponsive, blood pooling underneath him with his suit coat torn to shreds as was his bowler hat. My heart froze.
CHAPTER THIRTY
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN AND INTO THE FIRE
I RAN TO him and fell on one knee, not even feeling the pain or the numbness of my bare feet in the coming evening freeze. All I could think of was that I had to stop the bleeding, but there was so much and from everywhere, I had no idea where to start. And his jacket, his magnificent jacket that carried invisibility within it, flapped in shreds amid a rising breeze that carried a spiteful chill on it. The coat was and wasn’t an intimate part of him. It might even have been a second skin, even though he’d lent it to me once. I didn’t know. I’d never asked . . . and he’d never told me. Scout hunkered down a few feet away from us, whining. He wouldn’t come closer. I didn’t yell at him for his cowardice. He was still just a pup, if a nearly grown one, and I knew he was sensitive to the magic side of things, both light and dark.
