A Family Oath

by Auburn Tempest

  Myra’s home tree grows in the center of the floor back there, beneath a vast, ornate glass dome that arches over the entire space.

  My nerves push at the base of my throat, and I try to swallow past the blockage. Nope. Doesn’t help. I reach the antique display cabinet Myra uses as a customer counter and am both happy and sad not to find Myra here.

  During the last attack, Sloan and I found her here unconscious. I’m not sure if it’s better that she’s not here or not.

  Bruin roars in the back, and I launch forward.

  I bolt through the entranceway to the back in time to see Myra crumple to the floor as her assailant shoots a bolt of black energy. Bruin goes into spirit mode, evades the attack and reforms behind the guy, and swipes across his head.

  The dark magic hits the home tree, and Myra screams and twists in agony on the floor. As that guy goes down in a bloody explosion of claws to flesh, I harpoon-throw Birga at a second man who’s bending down to grab Myra.

  “True Trajectory.”

  Birga is as swift and true as always. She cuts through the air and only misses piercing the man center mass because he vanishes into thin air.

  “Is he gone?” I twist around, searching around me, waiting for another attack. “Can you check?”

  I’ll check that we’re clear. Bruin bursts into a swirling gust of wind as I race to kneel by Myra. She’s unconscious, but her pulse is strong.

  Bruin returns and brings my hair up to tickle my face.

  “Anything?”

  Whoever they were, they’re gone now. The store is clear.

  “Awesome. Thanks, buddy.”

  I pull a pillow off one of the couches below the home tree and slide it under Myra’s head. Then I gather my spear, thank Birga for coming to my call, and send her back into the tattoo on my forearm.

  “Okay, who’s that?” There’s another man dead at the base of the home tree. “Did you get to him before I got in here?”

  I didn’t end him. Red, I’m offended ye can’t recognize my work.

  The mysterious dead guy’s skull is cracked wide, and his head has basically exploded like a ripe melon. Very messy. He’s not wearing the same black assault clothing the other two had on. He’s in a brown uniform I recognize.

  “Oh crap, Bruin, check the delivery door. If I’m right, I bet this is Murphy. Myra said she had deliveries coming this morning. Is there a brown box truck out back?”

  There is indeed. So, do ye think yer Murphy fellow is in on the attack or in the wrong place at the wrong time?

  “Option two. Except, if he’s the reason Myra is here and alive, I’d say he was in the right place at the right time—sadly not for him, though.”

  A loud crack above me has me jumping out of the way as a thick branch falls and nearly takes me out. I step back to get a better view of Myra’s ancient ash, and my mind splinters. “Oh, no. Nonononono, Mr. Tree, what’s wrong?”

  Myra’s home tree looks terrible.

  I saw him two days ago, and he was healthy and strong, thriving after an infusion of Gran’s fall nutrients. Now he looks weak, his bark is chunking off, and his leaves are all withered and droopy.

  Do ye think it’s because of the dark magic blast that hit him? It seemed to hurt Myra.

  I see it then, the huge burn mark left in the trunk of the tree. And below the damage, crumpled at the base of the giant ash, is the dead guy Bruin ripped to shreds.

  Ash tree nymphs are connected to their home tree much like we’re bound. If the tree’s ailing, there’s a chance it’s not about the tree at all—it’s about her. Or vice versa. Maybe she’s ailing because of whatever was done to the tree.

  I rush past the leather couches beneath the broad canopy and try to avoid disturbing the body. “How do we figure out which way the sickness is flowing so we can fix it?”

  No idea.

  I’m overwhelmed by the scene and don’t know where to begin. I point at the faceless delivery man. “What kind of spell do you think did that? Maybe if we can trace the magic back to a specific sect, we can narrow down who attacked her. What kind of spell do you think it is?”

  I’m guessing a head explosion spell.

  “Big help. Thanks. Okay, I’m in over my depth here. We’ve got two dead bodies, an attacker at large, Myra’s unconscious, and Mr. Tree isn’t doing well. I vote we call in the cavalry.”

  Agreed.

  I call up Garnet Grant’s number on my phone and hit send. The connection goes through and it rings three, four, five times.

  “Lady Druid,” he answers, sounding breathless. There’s grunting in the background and the unmistakable sound of fist to flesh. “Miss me already, do you?”

  Someone groans while someone else laughs in the background.

  “Garnet, I hate to break up your beat-down, but we have a serious problem.”

  “So, this is an official call then. My ego takes a blow. All right, tell me. What have you stepped in this time?”

  “It’s not me. When I arrived at the bookshop… Garnet, it’s Myra. She’s been attacked. When I got to the—”

  The connection crackles, and I pull the phone away from my ear.

  “Myra?” Garnet’s voice booms in the storefront, then he jogs into the back. His hair is windblown, his fists gloved and bloody, his eyes gold. “Where is she? What happened?”

  I point at where she’s lies on the floor and make my next call. “Hey, Da. Don’t panic ’cause I’m fine, but…”

  * * *

  I meet my father at the door and hug him. “Thanks for coming. I hated calling you here straight after your shift, but you know…dead bodies in a bookshop human cops will never find. It makes it difficult to call it in. I could’ve called one of the boys but figured you’d only rush over here when you heard anyway.”

  “New rule. When yer dealin’ with dead bodies, I’m always yer first call, mo chroi.” Da casts me a tight frown. “I never thought I’d have to say that, but there ye have it. I’m never too tired to stand at yer side and wouldn’t be anywhere else when danger’s afoot. Run it down for me, and we’ll go from there. From the beginning.”

  I rub my hands up and down my arms and notice the tea and treats I brought in. After cracking the tab of my tea, I take a few sips and feel a little more settled.

  Growing up with my father and five brothers on the job, I know procedures almost as well as they do. I run the scene down for him from the time I arrived. “The door was unlocked when I got here. I took a couple of steps inside and my shield lit up, and stopped me in my tracks.”

  “Did ye hear anythin’? See anythin’?”

  “The brass bell rang, and then boom, my shield went wacko. I did smell the rotten stink of dark magic though, and heard a slightly muffled rustle in the distance.”

  He nods. “What next?”

  I recap the event in a detailed play-by-play and take him back to the scene. His pained expression when he sees the beautiful old ash tells me it’s as bad as I feared.

  “So, Bruin’s defending Myra there by the couches. Shredded dead guy throws a dark magic fireball at him and hits the tree. Myra screams and collapses. Bruin deals with him, and I go for the last man standing when he tries to grab Myra.”

  I point at Myra lying on one of the couches. She’s being tended to by two healers Garnet called but hasn’t woken up.

  “And that man is?”

  “Gone. He poofed out.”

  Da sees Garnet and scowls. “What in blue blazes is he doin’ here?”

  “I called and asked him to come.” Technically, I didn’t get that far, but I would’ve asked him to come.

  Da’s scowl is instant. “I want ye to spend less time around the man, not more.”

  “I get that, but he’s the head of the magical policing agency of Toronto, and he and Myra have a past. He’ll know about things we don’t. Also, he knows how to get in touch with her brother Zxata. I met him yesterday. He’s one of the Guild Governors.”

  Da yawns and shakes his
head as if trying to wake himself up. “All right, fine. He’s here now. Carry on.”

  I hate to see Da looking so wiped. Another long night in a surveillance van, and the time spent here with me is catching up. “I’ll call Aiden or Dillan to finish up. You go home and get some rest.”

  He shoots that down with a look. “Who’s the officer in charge of this scene? That would be me. I’ll not leave ye alone when there’s a murderer close at hand.”

  I’m not sure if he means Myra’s attacker or Garnet, and I know better than to ask him to clarify. Never ask a question if you don’t want to hear the answer.

  Getting back to the crisis at hand, I point at the damage on the home tree’s trunk. “The burn of the spell has seeped deep enough to penetrate the meat of his trunk. We’re not sure if what they did to the tree is affecting Myra or what they did to Myra is affecting the tree. I’m not sure how their bond works, but Bruin thought it’s possible the suffering is shared.”

  Da frowns at the scorched gash, then straightens to get a closer look at the current state of Mr. Tree. “Och, it’s more than possible, Fi. I’d say it’s probable.”

  He looks from the tree to where Garnet hovers over his two healers tending to Myra and back again. “Text Emmet and tell him to come over when he finishes his shift. Have him see if he can put his nature healing to work. See what he can do to ease the ash while they work on helping Myra.”

  While Da pulls on his gloves, opens a field kit, and starts his cop thing, I text my brother as told.

  The responding text comes almost immediately. Are you okay? Do you need me now?

  No. I’m fine. When you’re off-shift.

  K. Love you, be safe.

  LYT

  I slip my phone back into the pocket of my khakis and join my father next to the dead guy in the uniform. “I’m pretty sure this is Murphy, our delivery guy. It’s hard to know for sure without him having a face, but the uniform fits, and the build is right. There’s also a delivery truck outside.”

  “Does he usually drop off on the stoop or come in?”

  “He comes in. He’s had this route for years. Myra pulled strings to have him assigned to her because normal humans can’t find the shop with the wards up.”

  “Okay, so we can assume he came to make his delivery. Maybe he walked in on somethin’ he didn’t like. Is he the type of man who’d get involved?”

  “Yeah, I think so. He was a good guy and a friend.” I take another drink of my tea. “If him getting involved saved Myra, I’m thankful, but I’ll be sorry if it is Murphy. He was a good guy.”

  “Is Murphy his first name or last?”

  “No idea.”

  “Well, he doesn’t have a wallet on him so maybe it’s in the truck. If he drives all day, it’s hard on the back to have a wallet in his back pocket.”

  “What kind of other was he?”

  “No idea.” Da scans the scene again and frowns. “Where did the dark magic come from? Does Myra sell to dark practitioners?”

  I shrug. “As long as they don’t bring their practices in here to taint the store’s juju, she’ll sell to anyone without judgment.”

  Da examines the weeping gash in Myra’s tree and frowns. “She might want to rethink her policy and avoid mixin’ it up with empowered people who do things like this.”

  * * *

  Da works the scene. Garnet’s healers work on Myra. Several shifters take away the bodies. I sit, worried and with nothing to do that will help.

  “Hey there, Lady Druid.” Garnet squeezes my shoulder and sits on the arm of the couch I flopped in. “Are you okay?”

  I look at Myra lying there so still and shrug. “Not really, but comparatively, yeah, I guess I’ve got nothing to complain about. Did you get in touch with Zxata?”

  “I did. He was out of town but should be here soon.”

  “What do your healers think?”

  His expression tightens, and he pulls a small vial out of his pocket. “It’s a catatonia potion or poison of some sort. They’re trying to break it down to figure out an antidote.”

  “They poisoned her? Why?”

  “To subdue her maybe? To make her easier to transport?”

  I try to wrap my head around that, but I spin out. “Well, if they drugged her and put her into a catatonic state, they must have an antidote, right? The fact that they didn’t kill her suggests they need her alive for something. They’d have to be able to bring her out of it to get what they want.”

  “That’s sound logic, but without knowing who or why we can’t narrow down what’s been done to her easily.”

  “It’s simple then. We need to figure out who and why.”

  He shakes his head and rakes his fingers through his hair. “Nothing about this feels simple.”

  After a long silence, Garnet gets up and paces for a little before ending up at the trunk of Myra’s home tree. He places a gentle hand on the wounded tree and looks up into the withering leaves. “What happened to your mistress, old friend? Who did this to the both of you?”

  “Can you talk to Myra’s home tree?”

  “Not anymore. It’s been decades since our connection was strong enough to communicate. Zxata should be able to though.”

  Rockin’ Robin starts playing in the front, and I jump to my feet. “That’s Myra’s phone. I’ll get it. It’ll give me something to do.”

  I miss the call. By the time I dig Myra’s purse out of the drawer in the cupboard, it’s gone to message. Still, now that I have it in my hand, I wonder about what we might learn from it. Maybe she got a call or an email that would start to answer some of our questions.

  I swipe the screen to check and hit a roadblock.

  Stupid password protection.

  Da comes in from the delivery door with a wallet in his hand and sympathy in his eyes. “I’m sorry, mo chroi. It looks like you’re right and the man in uniform is yer delivery man. Lukas Murphy, the license says.

  He flips the wallet open, and I nod. “Yep, that’s him. That’s too bad. He was a nice guy.”

  Da sighs. “All too often, it’s the nice guys who step in and wind up dead.”

  The bitterness in his tone is more about my brother Brendan than anything else. Brenny was an amazing guy. He stepped in front of a gunman as a shield for a woman and her daughter. The pain of that still burns hot in all of us.

  Garnet joins us in the store and frowns. Then, he drops his mouth open and breathes in a couple of long, slow breaths. A lion’s growl rumbles through the vast space, and he turns back toward the store proper. “I smell blood.”

  “Yeah, there’s a giant pool of it in there.”

  “No. Another source.”

  Da and I watch as he rounds the counter and moves in measured steps toward the book display shelves. He isn’t so much sniffing the air but breathing it into his mouth. It’s weird—cool, but weird.

  With slow, deliberate movements, he stalks through the bookshelves until he stops about ten feet from the customer counter. He bends at the waist and closes his eyes next to a small stain on the counter’s edge. “This is Myra’s.”

  Across from where Myra usually stands behind the display case, he leans close, breathes in again, and raises his finger. “This isn’t hers.”

  “Don’t touch it.” Da holds up his hand. “Let me get a swab first so your DNA doesn’t contaminate it. Then you can taste it and see what you learn.”

  Taste it? Gross.

  Garnet frowns but doesn’t argue. Da jogs to the back to grab his field kit, and I’m at a loss for what to say. It’s obvious I was right about Garnet and Myra, and by his reaction, I don’t think the end of their life together was due to a lack of affection on either side.

  “You still love her.”

  He blinks at me and arches a brow. For a minute, I think he’ll front, but then the corner of his mouth lifts in a smirk. “How long did it take before you adored her?”

  “It was pretty much instant.”

  He nods. “I
t doesn’t fade over time. I wish it did.”

  Da rushes back with his kit and takes his swab. When he’s done, he seals the evidence in its plastic zip bag. “I’ll hand the dead guy’s blood and fingerprints off to one of the boys before I go home. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and our answers will be in the system. I’m not sure what your system is like, but I made duplicates for you as well.”

  Grant takes the offered samples, and his look of befuddlement makes me love my father even more. Da lives by a code and is a big enough man to see past personal grievances to ensure criminals are found, and victims receive the justice they deserve.

  “Thanks, Da. Then go home and get some sleep. You look knackered.”

  His smile is solemn. “I’m sorry, Grant, that we’re here for the reason we are. I’m fond of Myra. I’ll do everythin’ I can to help unravel whatever happened here today.”

  Garnet nods. “I appreciate that. Thank you.”

  I walk Da out and meet one of the regular customers as he comes in. “Oh, Fiona. Back from Ireland, are you?”

  I nod and force a smile. “A couple of weeks now. How have you been, Mr. Simchas?”

  Mr. Simchas is a tightly-wound little man who is always well dressed and never has a hair out of place. “I am well, thank you. Excited to see what Myra has in store for me this morning. She said she had a shipment coming in and thought one of them would be of particular interest.”

  “You’ll have to come back, old man,” Garnet snaps. “This isn’t a good time.”

  I throw Garnet a glare and step between the feral lion and our customer. “Mr. Grant, perhaps you’d like to step into the back and take a breath. Mr. Simchas, do you know which book she intended for you?”

  The man gives Garnet a harsh look, then offers me a smile. “I’m afraid I don’t. She tends to surprise me, but I’m never disappointed. I’m sure she’s got it ready.”

  I follow him to the back counter. I wish I were as sure as he is. Switching gears, I put on my business face and try to figure out what Myra intended. With her disappearance and possible kidnapping smacking me in the face the moment I arrived, I haven’t even looked around to get started for the day.