A Family Oath

by Auburn Tempest

  There’s a shipping order on a box by the counter. I grab the unpacking knife and unbox them for pricing. Thankfully, Myra set out the book order list and has made some notes. “If you’ll give me five minutes, Mr. Simchas, I’ll see if I can’t figure out what she had in mind for you.”

  The man’s excitement dims. “She’s not here?”

  “Not at the moment, no.”

  “Has she stepped out for a moment? I’ll wait.”

  The feral growl from the back room has us both casting a wary glance toward the doorway to the other section of the store. “Three minutes,” I offer, trying to appease them both. “Please, have a wander while I look through these and I’ll be right with you.”

  Thankfully, Mr. Simchas is an accommodating man. Unlike the grumbly lion working himself up to a frenzy in the back. I focus on my task. Okay, the book request list has eleven titles on it. I’ll start there.

  After taking a stack of Myra’s custom bookmarks, I check the first title on the list, find the corresponding book, write the customer’s name on the bookmark, and set it aside. After drawing a pencil line through the first name, I move onto the second. I continue like that, doing a rinse and repeat until there are six books left.

  Okay, one of the books not listed is Ancient Aztec Healing Rituals. This one is for Wallace Mackenzie. I know that for sure because I was here when Sloan ordered it.

  That leaves five books.

  “All right, Mr. Simchas, I’ve narrowed it down to five. We’ve got Recovering from Demonic Possession, Rare Herbology, Dragons Myth and Modern Misunderstandings, The Unknown Truths of the Illuminati, Ancient Weapons, and Murderabilia.”

  He looks over all the books and frowns at the pile. “Are you certain that’s all there is?”

  I show him the empty box. “That’s what we received in today’s delivery, yes. Was there something specific you were looking for?”

  “No, no.” His expression turns pinched. “What is murderabilia?”

  I read the inside jacket and paraphrase it. “It refers to collectibles related to murders, homicides, and the perpetrators of other violent crimes.”

  His eyes widen. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “It says here that buyers typically seek collectibles that are artifacts either used or owned by murderers or serial killers and believe such artifacts offer power and control.”

  “That is disturbing.”

  “It sure is.” I discard that as the selection. Mr. Simchas is the sweetest old man—

  “I’ll take that one. It sounds so macabre I can’t resist.”

  I blink but try not to let my shock show. “Perfect. Let me price it for you, and I’ll cash you out.”

  Chapter Six

  The rest of my Saturday is taken up with trying to heal Mr. Tree, cleansing the reading area of negative energy from the dark magic, and fine-tooth combing the entire store. When Zxata arrives, he and Garnet speak privately for a long while before he sits with his sister.

  Seeing the three of them together, I’m surer than ever that they were once close, and something tore them apart. Maybe my discipline of empathy is growing because I feel the love between them.

  There is pain too, but the love is stronger.

  Sitting in the leather club chair under Myra’s home tree, I drop my head back and close my eyes. Today has been a day already, and the empowered world has once again succeeded at knocking me off my axis.

  “Hey, Lady Druid.” Garnet crouches next to my chair to see me. “I’m heading out in a few minutes and wanted to say thank you and check on you. How are you holding up? Do you want me to flash you home?”

  I shake my head. “No. I’ll stay. My brother is coming, and we’re going to try to heal Mr. Tree some more.”

  “You look tired, Fi.”

  I shrug, my name sounding strange coming from him. “I’ve had better days, but I’ve had worse too.”

  He nods as if he shares the sentiment. “Zxata and I have discussed it. I’m taking Myra home to my compound. I have tight security and staff who can watch over her, and if I know where she is, it will ease my animal side so I don’t go on a rampage and slaughter half of the city.”

  I chuckle. “Avoiding mass slaughter is probably a good idea.”

  “I thought so, too. I’ll let you and Zxata know when I have to go out if you want to sit with her. I think it’s important she’s not alone.”

  “Let me know where and when. I’ll be there.”

  His smile is tired, but the hostile edge in his amethyst gaze promises violence and pain. I don’t doubt that once we figure out who is behind this, Garnet’s justice will involve bloodshed and loss of life.

  I don’t blame him.

  “Hey, before you go.” I pick up Myra’s phone and tap her screen to bring it to life. “Her phone is password protected. I thought I might find something on her email or phone log that could give us a starting point. Would either of you know what she uses as her password?”

  Zxata looks at Garnet and offers him the same sad smile he gave him on the Jubilee Queen yesterday. “It’ll be Grant7.”

  My heart melts a little more, but I decide now’s not the time. Garnet said it had been decades since he’d been able to connect with Myra’s home tree, and yet, her password is still his last name. So sweet.

  I enter the code, and it lets me in.

  Garnet stands and looks over my shoulder. “What are you thinking?”

  I shrug. “I live with cops. All the usual questions are swirling around like a dervish in my mind. Was she having trouble with anyone? Has anyone threatened her? Has anything stuck out in the past weeks or months that might indicate someone has a beef with her or is following her or interested in her for some reason?”

  I tap on her call log and take a screenshot with my phone, then I page down and continue. “I’ll check all the numbers without contact names and see what I can find.”

  Next, I tap her Gmail account and scroll through the list of her emails.

  Zxata straightens from where he sits on the edge of one of the sofas. The resemblance between him and his sister even more striking with them side-by-side. “Do you see anything?”

  I slide my finger over the screen, swiping and tapping while I check things out. “Just order confirmations, delivery tracking for today’s delivery, and a couple of back and forth convos with a girl named Dayna.”

  “That’s our niece who lives in the UK. The two of them stay in touch to keep us in the loop about what’s going on back home.”

  I tap on sent emails and the subject line of the most recent one catches my attention. “Eochair Prana.” I tap on an email Myra sent this morning. “All it says in the body is, ‘No.’ That sounds ominous.”

  Grant frowns and leans in to read it.

  Needless to say, it doesn’t take long to read one word.

  “Who or what is Eochair Prana?” I ask.

  “It’s a what.” Grant frowns. “The Eochair Prana is a book. An exceedingly rare, priceless book.”

  “Okay, so that explains how Myra got sucked into this, but what does she mean, ‘No,’ and who is”—I check the sender’s email address—“ArcaneInc?”

  Grant frowns. “Probably a rich man hiding behind a shell corporation. I’ll find out. May I take the phone?”

  I turn it off to save the battery and hand it over. “You’re going to track that email to an IP address, yeah?”

  “That’s the plan. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a location. In my experience, people like this have their email sent from a burner email address that leads nowhere. Tracking them to the server will likely be fruitless.” Garnet takes the phone, and there’s no missing the worry clouding his gaze. Something more than Myra’s current state bothers him now.

  “Why did learning about a rare book put that look on your face? What aren’t you saying?”

  He scowls at me and sighs. “The Eochair Prana has been sought after for centuries by individuals, factions, and private collecto
rs.”

  “It must be a good book.”

  “The lore suggests that it is the ensorcelled tome written by Morgan le Fey in a period when her duality of nature had taken a sharp turn toward being morally nefarious.”

  My mind stalls out on that one. “King Arthur’s evil sister wrote an enchanted book and Myra gets kidnapped? I don’t see the connection.”

  “Arthur’s evil half-sister is only one iteration of who the Morrigan might have been. Some believe she was a sea queen, or the goddess mother, a rare and powerful fae, a witch, or the faery queen herself. No matter what historical description you follow, her evolutionary transformation to an antagonist of heroes and kings is undeniable.”

  “Yeah, she’s a bad nut. What’s her book about?”

  “Eochair Prana translates to English as Prana’s Key. The book is said to be an enormous info dump of all the Morrigan’s arcane knowledge, light and dark magic, powerful spells, and incantations that could make and destroy worlds.”

  “Thus—Prana’s Key.” I let that sink in. “It’s the key to fae power.”

  “Right, no one disputes that part, but there is a small group of zealots who believe the book also holds the means to resurrect high-level powers. They believe they can summon the Morrigan to them. It is said that whoever frees her from whatever existence she now inhabits will be rewarded with invincibility and immortality.”

  “So, not only does the Morrigan’s spellbook unlock the secret of all fae power, but it also gives them endless time with no mortal consequence to play with it?”

  He nods. “If the lore holds.”

  “That sounds like a fairy tale if I ever heard one. You don’t think it does, do you?”

  Garnet sits on the arm of the sofa next to me. “Honestly, I have no idea. I knew a fire mage, Ember Dant, who professed to own it in the seventies. He died of cancer, so either he lied or the book he thought was the Eochair Prana was a knock-off.”

  “Awesome. How many copies are supposedly floating around?”

  “Ember believed there was one true tome and two copies made. He thought his copy wasn’t original. Otherwise, why couldn’t he summon the Morrigan and cure himself?”

  “How could a buyer tell if their copy was authentic?”

  Zxata groans and looks at his sister. “They’d seek an appraisal by an empowered member of the fae who deals in rare, magical books.”

  I look at where Myra lies so eerily still on the other sofa. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she is Sleeping Beauty, and her eyes are moments from blinking open.”

  Garnet frowns. “It makes sense. Someone wants her to either authenticate their copy or figure out how to call the Morrigan. They approach her, and she refuses. They won’t take no for an answer, so they come for her. She resists…and they drug her to take with them.”

  I frown at the blast mark on the tree. “Okay, now that I’m thinking about it, Mr. Tree expressed his concern for Myra a few weeks ago. I can’t communicate with him like you, but he gave me the impression that he was worried about her.”

  Zxata presses his hand on the rough bark of the home tree and nods. “He says something was bothering her about one of her customers and she seemed concerned.”

  “Okay, well, maybe that’s when the book buyer first contacted her. If she didn’t want to get involved, I doubt he got the book through her, which means he may or may not be one of her customers. Still, I’ll go through the ledger and see what I can find.”

  Garnet stands. “It’s a start. Well done, Lady Druid. Keep me posted on anything you find, and I’ll do the same.”

  I stand up and stretch, then walk with him back to the sofa where Myra lies deathly still. “Hang in there, girlfriend. We’ll find the antidote and bring you back to life. I promise.”

  * * *

  When Garnet takes Myra and flashes out, I’m left with a despondent Zxata staring at an ailing home tree. We reexamine the dark magic blast mark on the trunk, and Zxata rubs his chest while wincing. I’m not sure if he feels the trauma physically, but as an ash nymph, I know he hurts emotionally.

  As Myra’s brother, his connection to her allows him to connect with her home tree. Leniya, as I learned is his name, suffers from both the dark magic blast and Myra’s physical state of catatonia.

  The nymph bond is less independent than my bond with Bruin. When my bear and I are apart, I miss him and feel hollow and a little achy, but it doesn’t harm me. If I’m injured or he is, we’re emotionally affected because we care about one another, but the injury doesn’t transfer to the other.

  “I’m so sorry this is happening.” I bring Zxata a cup of the special tea Myra keeps in the back of the cupboard. She explained to me once that not offering it to me wasn’t personal, it was simply a blend intended for ash nymphs, and I wouldn’t like it anyway. “What more can I do for you?”

  Zxata offers me a sad smile. “You wouldn’t happen to have an herbology degree, would you? I’ve never seen anything like what’s happening to Leniya before. It’s tragic.”

  “No, sorry, but I’ll look through the inventory. Oh, and I’ll ask my gran. She’s the most gifted druid in nature magic around. Let’s call her now.”

  I pull my cell out of my pocket and send a video chat request. Gran answers right away, but it takes a few “Hold on now... Wait... Almost there...” comments before the video screen opens and I can see her pretty face. “Fiona, to what do I owe the pleasure, luv?”

  I tell Gran an abbreviated version of what’s going on, skipping the part about the dead bodies and focusing on Myra’s ill health and the dark magic blast affecting the ancient ash. I step back far enough to take a wide shot of the tree, then focus in. ”He was healthy and vibrant two days ago, and now he’s so sick.”

  “Och, mo chroi. That gash is weeping. Ye need to poultice that straight away.”

  “What more do you think it is, Gran?”

  “By the curl of his leaves, I’d say the dark magic poisoned him somehow. What does the wound smell like?”

  Zxata places his hands on the trunk of the tree and leans close. “Like foul bitters with a reek of baby powder.”

  “Och, the poor dear. He must be suffering so.”

  “What kind of poison do you think it is, Gran?”

  “Well, it’s near impossible to guess without knowing the sect of magic the caster gets his power from. Until ye do, ye’ll not be able to reverse the effects completely. I’m sorry, duck. I wish I were closer to help.”

  I sigh. “Me, too. Okay, maybe I can find an herbology expert or someone around here that knows about dark magic poison. Thanks anyway, Gran.”

  “Don’t give up on me yet. I’ll do some research and pull something together to ease him for the time being. I won’t let the poor thing suffer as long as there’s something to be done. Let me know if ye figure out who the caster is. I’ll work on things from my end and get back to you as soon as I can.”

  “You rock my socks, Gran.”

  “All right then, luv. If you say so. Hugs to all.”

  “I’ll tell them.” I end the call and plunk down onto one of the couches. “Sorry. I wish that were better news.”

  “It is what it is,” Zxata says. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to spend some time meditating with Leniya.”

  “I don’t mind a bit. Take whatever time you need.”

  I leave the two of them to meditate, and at the front of the store, I map out my next steps. Busy work is my best distraction. I finish pricing the new books, call the customers who were waiting for custom orders, and check Myra’s ledger to update her regular customers’ purchases.

  The big, brown leather book takes up most of the drawer beneath the counter. I enter the date and book titles of those who paid upfront and leave the others for after they settle up. Mr. Simchas is my last entry.

  When I finish penning in his title, I scan some of the other books he bought from us.

  Crazy. He’s a sweet, nerdy little old man with kind eyes and a wa
rm smile but his reading tastes are hardcore dark. You truly can’t judge a book by its cover.

  To eliminate it as a missed lead, I scan the entire ledger looking for any mention of the Eochair Prana or Prana’s Key. There’s nothing.

  When done, I check my watch and wonder what I should do next. The shop feels weird without Myra. She has an energy about her that brings everything to a heightened state of liveliness.

  I close my eyes and send her positive vibes.

  I think about the Tarot reading I got last week from Pan Dora, my ink spell artist, a.k.a. one of the most famous druids of all time. Super-secret, hush-hush.

  The three biggest takeaway points from that session were, one, our quest with water isn’t complete. Two, beware the stranger with ill intent. And three, there are trials on the horizon.

  I think we got a handle on the water quest. Well, at least the part about freeing magic into the water and converting it to ambient power. I learned yesterday there may still be issues around that with the empowered community.

  I think about the second point—beware the stranger with ill intent. Ominous, but I’m so new in this world of empowered ones that almost everyone is a stranger, and most of the people I meet have at least some level of ill intent toward me.

  And the third point—there are trials on the horizon.

  No shit.

  I sigh, but that does give me an idea. I call up Pan Dora’s contact number and press send.

  It goes to voicemail.

  “Hey, Dora, it’s Fiona. Listen, I hate to tell you this over the phone, but there’s been an incident at the Emporium. Two dead guys. One very poisoned home tree. And one beloved blue-haired friend spelled into catatonia. I thought maybe we could do a reading if you have time. Call me. Thanks.”

  Should I have mentioned Prana’s Key?

  Pan Dora lived through the days of Arthur and the Morrigan. Maybe she knows something about the ensorcelled book. It didn’t seem like something I should mention in a message on her phone, so I’ll apologize for springing it on her if we meet up later.