by WB McKay
Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it—I had no shortage of things to look into.
I loaded FaerieRing, the premiere fae social network, and rested my fingers on the keyboard, waiting for an idea to strike. If I wanted to search out trolls, it would be easy enough. But reapers? I didn't think I knew enough about them to spot one by their profile alone, that is, if they even had profiles. The fae were divided when it came to the internet. Some loved it, and spent a great deal of time exploring the online world and expanding the fae side of things. The ones who hated it loathed it with the fire of a thousand dragons. They hated the way the world was changing, becoming smaller. Personally, I suspected they hated that they didn't understand it. If you had ruled the world for centuries, or a millennium even, all the while believing yourself to be all-powerful and to understand every facet of life on Earth, Faerie, and elsewhere—and then suddenly this whole new world crept up and everyone loved it? And you didn't understand it? There would be a lot of emotions there. Helplessness. Confusion. Anger. A questioning of one's own identity. Even if the big, bad fae thought themselves beyond that kind of thing.
While I was searching for reapers, an email notification popped up. I was so excited and expecting the approval notice, I didn't even look at who it was from when I clicked it open. I restarted the first sentence a few times, none of it making sense until I double checked who the message was from.
Dear Sophie,
You were right. There's more to the internet than naked people. Wow! I set up an email. I hope I'm doing this right. Your friend Ava was here. Sorry about your sister. If you want me to come, too, let me know.
Bye.
Phoebe
High Priestess of the Tangled Vine
Phoebe didn't have a cell phone. There was never a reason for us to communicate. We lived together, we saw each other often enough as it was. But there she was, emailing me.
I read the message through a second time.
Phoebe was a high priestess of the tangled vine? What was that? Code for a freeloading dryad that enjoys ruining my home in the name of pranks?
How did Phoebe know Ava? Ava was at my house? "Come, too"? What?
Whatever.
Another email came in, this time the one I was expecting. Approved. Excellent!
Now that I was an official member, the theme of the forum changed. The background was a deep purple, the font a crisp white, and little black feathers rained down over the screen.
I was lost for a moment as I watched the animation. Black feathers. Black crow mask at the scene. Dead banshee. Her username was DeathMaiden. I wasn't comfortable with where these clues pointed, but there were too many to ignore. What interest did Clarissa have in The Morrigan? I'd have to ask when I saw her.
Like I didn't already have enough mommy issues to deal with. Honestly, couldn't seeing her swallow people whole be enough mother-daughter interaction for one year? Or one lifetime?
Apparently not.
"Not the time for a pity party," I said to myself. I narrowed my search to posts that had been made, or replied to, by DeathMaiden.
"Oh, shit."
And people thought I was an odd bird.
I screen capped the page because no one was ever going to believe this if they didn't see it.
If you can become fae through a major life altering event, i.e., werewolf transformation, why can't you become fae intentionally? I assert that humans can become fae, of any category, by absorbing enough fae magic in the correct manner. There is a key to unlocking the transformation process for any fae magic, the trick is finding it.
I do not propose this would be an easy feat. Like any powerful magic work, there are many components to consider: sourcing the magic, conduits, absorption rate. This is all the work itself. Learning to use said magic once the transformation transpires has always been a source of struggle for werewolves, but in the right hands…
Wow. Damn. Damn. Wow.
Clarissa thought she could become fae. Humans couldn't become fae. Yes, there were exceptions, but that was it. She couldn't just wave her hands around and become fae. The idea was just so… so… unnatural. Witches. "This is why everybody hates you, you know."
Truly, I would have felt bad for her and all the mocking comments she received as the other board members weighed in on her thread, but what kind of response had she expected from something like that? Apparently something else, from the rude replies she left.
I shook my finger at the post in front of me, not sure what else to make of it. My brain was too overwhelmed to decide what to do with this information. I was going to need to make a list to get it all laid out and then piece it together like a puzzle. Right, a puzzle, like what a normal, relaxed person did on a lazy afternoon. Except my puzzle pieces were facts about sacrificial magic and reaper and banshee murder and scythe stealing. And the picture at the end was one of evil deeds and sad victims.
This was why I liked working in the Magical Object Division. As long as I got my job done in time, I could usually avoid the sad victim picture.
I pulled a pad out of Belinda's desk and dug a pencil out of her drawer.
There was a knock at the office door. "Yeah?" I asked, staring at the blank page. What kind of heading did I put on a page like this? I scribbled down, Missing Scythe / Clarissa is Evil / The Morrigan??
The words bled into the next line, but they all felt essential for clarifying the point.
"The Morrigan?" Art asked over my shoulder. I jumped. I hadn't even heard the door open, I was too lost in my thoughts.
I spun around on the swivel chair so I could face him. "It's just a guess right now, and I don't know what it means, but all signs point toward something going on there. Let's go out in the living room and we'll talk it over."
"This sounds like fun. And by 'fun' I mean 'a hot mess'." He turned and led the way into the living room. "Sorry I'm late."
I stood and stretched, my joints and neck popping. It was closer to two hours than the one he had promised. I hadn't even noticed. I never moved around enough when I was in sleuth mode, and time ceased to exist. "Were you flirting with anyone special, or just the usuals?"
Art shook his head, his smile there and gone. "No flirting, just coordinating the efforts to find out as much about Clarissa Stark as possible."
In the living room I was faced with a grumpy Owen sitting stiffly on an ottoman and Belinda curled up in her favorite chair, her face unreadable. I took a seat at one end of the couch and Art took the other end.
"So, what have you got for us?" I asked, pointedly ignoring Owen.
"Not much." Art's usual good cheer was replaced with a crease between his brows I didn't recall ever seeing before. "I had a team search her apartment in San Francisco. They turned up a few level one illegal charms, but nothing that would even raise an eyebrow at MOD. It looked like a lot was missing."
"She cleaned the place out," said Owen, surprising me with how calm he sounded.
"Yeah," agreed Art. "It looks that way. Hey, sorry. I'm Art. I work with Sophie." Art rose up off the sofa and the boys shook hands.
"Owen." He looked friendly, but he didn't explain how he knew me like Art had.
I was probably supposed to have introduced them. That's why I hated manners—all the arbitrary rules that just served to make you feel bad about yourself when you forgot them. Well, screw that. I wasn't going to feel bad for one second. "And that's my sister Belinda." I pointed her out in the chair, like that wasn't obvious.
Art nodded at Belinda. "We met at the door. Anyhow, Agent Clarissa Stark—"
"Shouldn't we say Former Agent?" I asked.
"I don't know the officials on that yet," Art said. I rolled my eyes. It's not like they weren't going to fire her. She tried to kill me. She blew up the market. Hammond sounded like he wanted to fire me for it, and Clarissa was the one who'd started it. She was the prime suspect for murder and scythe stealing, even if we hadn't proven it yet. She was so fired. I looked u
p at Art to see that he was waiting for me to focus on what he was saying. I stared at him until he continued. "So, Clarissa Stark. She cleared out her apartment. She didn't have any friends at work, and none of her neighbors knew her beyond seeing her come and go. She was a quiet girl who didn't talk to anyone. No one described her as friendly, but no one said she was outright mean, either. She was just… there."
My stomach sunk a little, imagining how I'd be described if FAB ever did interviews like that on me. "That's pretty much what I found on the internet as well. She's slowly isolated herself in her pursuit of power. I don't know if she has any friends or where she would go." I glanced at Belinda before I continued. "She appears to have something of an interest in The Morrigan as well."
There was only the slightest intake of breath to indicate Belinda heard what I said, otherwise, her face was a stony mask. She had no love for our mother. She hadn't seen her since she'd dropped me off when I was an infant. None of our sisters had. If the whole abandonment thing wasn't enough, Belinda had given up her own visions for her life to raise me, because The Morrigan hadn't given her another choice. All of my sisters had their own feelings about The Morrigan, but Belinda had more reason to begrudge her than most of us.
"What makes you think that?" asked Art.
"The forum she frequented was covered in black feathers. She killed a banshee. She wore a crow mask in my sisters' visions." I tapped my chin, feeling like I'd forgotten something. "Oh, and her name on the forum was DeathMaiden."
"Great, more fun with The Morrigan," said Owen. Apparently, our last encounter with her and her followers had soured Owen's enthusiasm for the battle goddess. When I'd met him, he'd been academically enthusiastic about the idea of her. He still hadn't even asked for his book about her that I'd "borrowed". Stolen was a more accurate representation of what I'd done, but since he'd allowed me to hang on to it, we said borrowed now.
Art nodded at me appreciatively. "I'm always amazed what you find online, Sophie. Good work. Anything else?"
"She's creepy," I said.
Owen narrowed his eyes at me and then asked, "You found all that online?"
Art answered for me: "She finds things no one else would find! Sophie's great at the internet." Art exaggerated, but that's because he was so bad at anything with technology, as evidenced by the way he said "great at the internet". It wasn't like he was going to scroll through FaerieRing as a sea lion swimming out in the ocean. Come to think of it, I didn't really know what Art did with his time out there in the sea. Art leaned over and patted me on the knee before continuing, "Once, all on her own and with just a laptop, Sophie tracked down a Triton's Teacup!" It was a rare enough object if you didn't work for MOD, but Owen nodded like he knew what it was. A Triton's Teacup could pour out thousands of gallons of saltwater in seconds. He'd been using it to flood his neighbor's yard. I felt for him. It wasn't like I couldn't understand wanting some vengeance on annoying neighbors. It hadn't taken much to get it away from him, either. "She found photos of a woman's flooded yard, gathered information on the scene through comments, and then narrowed down her suspect list from the woman's friend list. She then convinced some friends of the faun in possession of the cup to snatch it out of his house and hand it to her out the window."
I shrugged. "It was fun." I liked recovering an item without anyone knowing. "That faun must have been pissed when he found the notice I taped to his front door." It let him know that MOD was confiscating the object and where he could file a complaint if he felt it was unfair. The case had been open and shut in a single day, which rarely happened, and I didn't have to deal with an angry miscreant in person so that was all great. I always felt awkward when Art bragged about it to people though, because while I loved how clever I'd been, it wasn't hard. A case that went to shit, but where I really struggled through it all and won in the end, was always really the best.
Owen was looking at me funny, so I finally asked, "What's with the look?"
"Nothing," Owen said.
Belinda snickered. "He's scared what you'll find out about him online."
"Oh." I was taken aback for a second, and then immediately curious.
Owen must have seen that. He looked worried.
"So about the case," Art redirected. "Clarissa is creepy. Is a loner. Stole a scythe. What else do we know?"
Owen was purposely not looking at me. He told Art, "We should probably add her targeting of Sophie to the list of ties to The Morrigan. She didn't target the homicide agents. It's probably not a coincidence that she came here and tried to kill another of The Morrigan's daughters."
Well, crap, I hadn't even thought of that.
"Isn't that just peachy," I said. "I guess I should also mention that she's completely batshit. She thinks that if she can absorb enough of the right type of magic, she can become fae."
Everyone's jaws dropped open. "That's ridiculous," said Belinda and Art in unison.
Owen's lips pursed and then turned down into a frown. "I think that might be what she's trying to do with the scythe."
"Huh?" I'm so well-spoken, it astounds even me.
Owen's eyes were cloudy in thought, but when he looked over at me he cleared his throat and prepared, like a professor, to educate me. "A reaper's scythe is used for many things. The blade is a beautiful representation of the magic a scythe performs. A scythe cuts things. It cuts the soul from the body, primarily, but there are rumors it can also cut a hole into wherever that soul is supposed to go."
"It makes portals?" I asked.
"That's one way to think of it, although I haven't read that it can cut a portal to anywhere. My reading indicates that reapers travel by other means, possibly an innate ability."
"Interesting. I bet if they didn't belong to reapers, I'd have to track down a lot more stolen scythes."
"Yes," Owen agreed. "I'd want one. But that's the thing, reaper's don't simply hold them in their hands as anyone might; reapers are connected to their scythes. A reaper should always be able to call or find their scythe. Of course, the reaper being dead negates that."
"How do you know all this?" asked Art.
"Oh," I said. "I asked Owen to research scythes while I was… busy." I didn't even want to reference the market.
Art looked way too amused.
"What?" I asked.
"Now look who has someone doing research for them." He winked. "Good for you."
I didn't miss the insinuation, and it made me squirm. I teased him about flirting with the girls who did research for him. He thought he was flipping it around on me. It was a great time to ask, "So what does the scythe have to do with Clarissa thinking she can become fae?"
"I don't know exactly. It may not be connected at all," warned Owen. "I do have an idea, though it is a horrible one. You understand that souls keep their magic when you cut them free of the body, even if in their new forms they are not able to channel that magic. What if a soul, disconnected from the body, makes an easier target for acquiring magic? When a fae is alive, you'd have to find a way to siphon off their magic, but with a soul, well, what if she thinks she can… well, what if she thinks she can absorb their magic by absorbing their souls?"
Oh, how I wished he hadn't said that in front of Belinda. I couldn't even look at her. "Is that possible?"
"I'm not saying it would work, I'm saying I wonder if that's what Clarissa thought. You said she was batshit."
I didn't know much about the practicalities of what he was saying, but the horrible feeling in my gut made me question how impossible I thought it all was. Could Clarissa suck up fae magic? Could she become fae?
"I'm not sure what else in my research is particularly helpful," said Owen. "There is no history with witches and scythes. As far as I can tell, Clarissa is the first witch in the first of the world to have touched a scythe."
"How did I even get this case?" I hadn't meant to ask that out loud, but luckily no one tried to answer. I knew how I'd gotten it. Banshees and death magic. A stolen reaper's scyth
e should have been dropped on some agent trying to prove themselves to their buddies at work, not that weirdo crow shifter with a bad attitude. Eventually, I'd annoy my coworkers enough that they'd go back to thinking of me that way, and let whispers of "The Morrigan's daughter" fall into the background noise of office chatter.
All the same, even if this was technically Art's case now, I was still on it. "What did you find out about ways to kill a reaper?" I asked Owen. "Or what might be special about Clarissa's sword?"
"Reapers don't age, but any mortal trauma can kill them," said Owen.
I met Art's gaze and was relieved to see I wasn't the only one to look confused.
"Are you sure about that?" asked Art.
"Absolutely," said Owen. "It's interesting, really. We speak of reapers as though they are impervious, but that reputation is solely due to the strength of their glamour. No one can break through a reaper's glamour—not with sight, sound, smell, or touch—making them nearly impossible to kill."
"And so then how did she see through the glamour?" I was a hundred percent sure that the murderer had looked right at the reaper before killing her. The banshees' vision was clear. The reaper had been so shocked.
"I have no idea," said Owen.
Art was eyeing Owen with a strange expression. "You're very good with research," he told him.
"I'm better with books," said Owen. "I've been working with scanned copies from the main historical fae library, which is limited, and just not the same."
"How so?" asked Art.
I tapped the knee of my jeans, trying not to snap at them both for this idle chatter in the middle of our case talk. Patience. It's a virtue, which is apparently a thing to strive for or something. Owen took the time to consider his answer, and my fingers tapped a faster beat.
"Well, it's not as thrilling, odd as that sounds. I know most don't consider research thrilling."
"Definitely not what I'd imagine a dragon to consider thrilling," joked Art.
Owen gave the strained smile of someone who'd heard a joke a few too many times. "I have a certain affinity with old texts."
