“Don’t,” she said. “He’s—you know what he’s like. He can’t show up after no calls for years and expect us to welcome him back with open arms. Mum would tell you to throw him out.”
“Didn’t you think she was kinda harsh on him sometimes?”
“Sometimes, I guess, but are you forgetting when he melted my Barbie’s face? Or when he stole her family heirlooms?”
“I know, I know, but it’s been eight years. He also claims he’s being haunted.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m gonna check if it’s true, but something tells me he’s in trouble. Can’t say whether it’s supernatural or not, but he is related to us.”
“Isn’t that a good enough reason to toss him out?”
“Probably,” I said. “If he’s not gone by tomorrow, I will. I just need to check. Wait, I can do it now.”
“Go ahead.”
I pulled the phone back from my ear and tapped into my spirit sight. Greyness fogged my sight, creeping through the house, and I sensed the blazing brightness of the others’ spirits. I extended my awareness upstairs to my room, where my brother’s spirit glowed equally bright. I’d started being able to distinguish humans from necromancers or faeries, but other supernaturals looked the same as ordinary humans through this view, even Lynns. But there was an odd flicker upstairs, which disappeared almost instantly.
“Ilsa? You still there?”
“There’s something off about him,” I said to Hazel. “Maybe not a ghost, but it’s in the spirit world, whatever it is. I’m signed up as a necromancer anyway—might as well put it to good use.”
“It’s up to you,” she said dubiously. “Personally I’d kick him out.”
“He gets one chance. Besides, if he is being haunted… you know our family’s track record with that, since we all have necromancer ancestry. He might even know something I don’t.”
“About the book, or Great-Aunt Enid? I suppose he’s old enough to remember more about her than we are. If you want to tell him—”
“I can’t tell him, that’s the problem. The book… oh hell, maybe he can know about it, since he’s a relation.” But I didn’t want my deadbeat brother getting an inkling of its rarity. Knowing him, he’d try to sell it. “I will ask him. And I’ll tell the necromancers if it turns out he really was followed here by a ghost.”
“You know best, Ilsa. Just check in with me, okay? I didn’t know those wraiths were around where you are.”
“They were low level,” I said. “Like the ones in the cemetery the first time around. But I’m not sure what they’re doing here. The necromancers are so much more organised here than in Foxwood, if it’s any consolation.”
“I guess it is, but be careful.”
“Will do.”
I hung up, then tried my spirit sight again. A slight flicker where Morgan’s spirit was… that was my only clue. I’d never personally experienced a ghost haunting a non-necromancer, but it was the sort of thing they dealt with on a weekly basis. If he was wrong, it was better to be certain. After all, he carried the Gatekeeper’s bloodline, too.
I went back upstairs to find Morgan sitting on the bed with one of my sci-fi paperbacks in hand… upside-down. He’d also stolen what was left of my food, but considering the takeout container was soaked in rainwater and he looked half-starved, I let it slide. What the hell had he been doing, sleeping in ditches and living on scraps for the last eight years?
Morgan lowered the book. “Did you tell her?” he asked.
“I had to. She’d have tossed you outside, so be glad you came here.”
He put the book down. “No more than I deserve, I ‘spose.”
“See? A little self-awareness never hurt anyone,” I said. “Come and meet the housemates. If you’re crashing on the sofa, you’ll have to wait until they finish watching the football match.”
Since the faeries had destroyed my last house, I’d found new accommodation and now lived with nice, normal people who couldn’t hear the dead wailing and beating at the windows. This time I’d specifically asked for supernatural housemates in the ad, figuring they had a higher tolerance for weird crap. In the living room, Al the half-troll had commandeered the sofa, while Corwin the witch stood in the corner surrounded by broken chalk and herbs, signs of a failed witch spell. Torrance, the shifter, sat in a chair, beer bottle in hand.
“Hey, Ilsa.” Corwin waved. “Who’s that?”
“My brother, Morgan,” I said. “Don’t offer him a beer—he’s had quite enough already. Is it okay if he crashes here tonight?”
“Sure.” Affirmative grunts followed from the others, all eyes on the football sailing across the screen.
“What’s that?” said Morgan, making right for the witch circle in the corner.
“It was a tracking spell,” said Torrance from the armchair. “See, there’s this girl I have a crush on, and Corwin volunteered—”
“He decided that using a stalking spell was more effective than actually talking to her,” put in Al from the sofa.
“Shut up,” muttered Torrance.
“You like it?” Corwin asked Morgan. “You a witch?”
“Yes, I am,” he said.
This was going to end well. “No, he isn’t,” I said. “He’s non-magical. Morgan, behave yourself.” He’d picked up the nearest witch spell, because of course he had.
“Just looking,” he said. “So you put this on, and—”
A snapping noise came from the spell, and smoke momentarily filled the room, earning a disgruntled shout from the people in front of the TV.
When the smoke cleared, Morgan had turned green. You had to love witch spells for their sheer versatility. There were two types of witches—those who’d worked to keep magic hidden in the old world, who wanted to make use of their skills to help people… and people like Corwin, who specialised in flashy explosions and charms that turned people green.
“Oops,” said Corwin. “I don’t have a reversal charm. The good news is that no witch spells are permanent.”
I pressed my hand to my forehead. “You know what, I think I’m going to hang out upstairs tonight.”
“You should know, I’m being haunted,” Morgan announced.
Oh boy.
5
The sound of my phone buzzing woke me from sleep. I fumbled around and knocked it off the table. “Shit.” I dived and grabbed it, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand. Seven a.m.? What in the world had I agreed to do at this hour in the morning?
“Hey, Ilsa.”
“River.” I rubbed sleep from my eyes. I’d stayed up until midnight to make sure Morgan didn’t do anything too outrageous, with the result that I’d forgotten to set an alarm.
“I wondered if you wanted to meet me, before going to the guild,” River said. “There’s a cafe down the road from headquarters.”
“Er, sure. Give me twenty minutes.”
“No problem.”
I clicked off the phone then swore under my breath. Morgan had said he’d leave today, but given the state he’d been in last night, I had my doubts.
Frankly, I had no idea at all what the necromancers expected me to wear, but they hadn’t complained about my fashion sense yesterday. I put on jeans and a plain T-shirt with my grey hoody on top, and put the necromancy guidebook River had given me into my shoulder bag. Checking the talisman was thoroughly hidden deep in my inside pocket, I left the room. Downstairs, I found Morgan sprawled on the sofa in a nest of empty beer bottles and the remnants of destroyed spells. And he was still green.
He looked blearily at me as I passed. “Where’re you going?”
“I’ll be out until this afternoon,” I told him. “If you’re not in a decent state when I come back, you’re sleeping out on the streets tonight.”
I left before he could respond, wishing I’d never agreed to let him stay. Knowing him, he’d sleep the day away, then he’d be too drunk by the time I came back for me to kick him out. Repeat for a w
eek until someone snapped and tossed him into the garden.
At least no ghosts trailed me to the necromancers’ place—or Arden, for that matter—but my thoughts were too scattered even to dwell on the fact that River had asked me to meet him alone. The coffee shop he’d chosen was a place run by witches, where the pancakes were good enough that I’d occasionally broken my rule not to go near supernaturally inclined places when I’d been at the university. I’d been on several unsuccessful dates there, too. I wished I’d paid attention to River’s tone when he’d asked me. If it actually was a date, I wasn’t exactly dressed for the occasion, and my head was several miles away.
River waited for me inside the coffee shop. He’d already got us a table and ordered me hot chocolate.
I sat down opposite him. “How did you know this is what I like?”
“I’ve been at your house,” he reminded me. “I can’t promise it’s up to the same standards as your house’s magic, but this place is run by witches.”
“Thank you,” I said, scanning the menu. “I’ve actually been here before.” Some conversationalist I was. I’d finally got River alone in a date-style environment, and what was on my mind? My idiot of an older brother.
“So… I have to go to the necromancers again later?” I asked, jabbing a fork into the witch-made blueberry pancake and taking a bite.
“Yes, but it’s not a formal assessment this time,” he said, turning over his own plastic fork in his elegant faerie hands. Like few supernatural-catering places, this café provided alternatives to metal cutlery for the sake of its faerie clientele. “I’m training you. That means I can set the schedule and also assign you to missions if you’re at the right level. Which I think you are. It’s probably best to downplay things at first if you don’t want to give away how much you know, but we’ll start off at the lowest level and go from there.”
“Seems pretty informal.”
“Most necromancers have to fit in training around study or other jobs until they’re qualified, so there aren’t set hours. But if you’re on the clock for missions, they can call you out at any time.”
“And are you?”
He nodded. “Since I got back. There’s always a shortage of highly qualified necromancers for serious missions, and considering you saw those wraiths yesterday…”
“They weren’t hunting me,” I said. “Hell if I know what they were doing, but is there a way to find out who summoned them?”
“Two other necromancers took on that case. The ones who brought you in, actually. They’ll be patrolling later, and I asked if you’d like to join them. I figured you’d prefer to start off by working with people you know.”
“Thanks. If you forget the part where they arrested me, they were pretty nice.” I took another bite. What with the stress of last night, I’d forgotten that the person who’d summoned the possessed undead was still out there, probably plotting revenge on me. As I’d spent half my life trying to avoid the Gatekeeper’s enemies, I’d certainly done a spectacular job of acquiring my own collection of adversaries lately.
“Something’s bothering you,” River commented. His sharp faerie’s eyes didn’t miss much, and whenever he looked at me, he gave me his full attention, in a way few other people did. It made me feel pretty crappy about having my head in the clouds, enough not to blame it all on the wraiths.
“My estranged brother showed up out of nowhere yesterday,” I admitted.
He raised an eyebrow. “I thought what you said about twelve siblings hidden in the attic was a joke…”
“Very funny. No, he ran away eight years ago—well, technically, Mum threw him out. Long story short, he makes me look like I have my shit entirely together. And he doesn’t know about any of this. It’s kind of throwing a wrench in my plans to keep all this quiet, let’s put it that way.”
River took a sip of coffee. “I wouldn’t say the guild would mind, but part of your agreement with the necromancers is that you aren’t to speak a word of our secrets to humans, and that includes him. Unless he has magic…”
“Nope, but I haven’t told him about the book, either. Also, he claims he’s being haunted, but I think he’s having me on. I didn’t sense anything when I checked, anyway.”
He put down the coffee cup. “I’ll come and talk to him, if you like.”
I shook my head quickly. “You don’t want to meet him, trust me. He didn’t even ask about Mum until I prompted him. He’s… just not a particularly likable person.”
“You forget I’ve been dealing with the Sidhe for the last week,” he said.
“A week? Is that how long it was? It’s been three months here.”
“They tend to take a while to get round to the point.”
“No kidding. So what did they want to talk about? Or can’t you tell me?” The Sidhe’s version of a confidentiality agreement generally came in the form of a vow, which prevented the person from speaking a word on literal pain of death. If you made a promise to a faerie, you were bound to keep it by any means necessary. River’s task to guard me from harm had almost cost him his life, and now he was sticking his neck out for me again. Sure, he might not have mentioned our kiss, but there was little doubt he had my back. I was grateful for that, if nothing else.
River paused before saying, “They wanted to discuss the assignment. I did tell them about the wraiths, but they’re a rare sight outside the Vale, and the Court doesn’t believe they’re a direct threat.”
The reason he’d ended up on the mission to protect our family was because he’d stumbled across what he believed was evidence of a conspiracy against the Courts, involving the wraiths. It clearly bothered him that the Sidhe weren’t taking the threat seriously.
“And now they’re coming here,” I said. “How many people actually know how to banish them? I can’t be the only one. It’s not possible.”
“Smaller wraiths like the ones you dealt with earlier can be banished by anyone with necromantic abilities,” River said. “What concerns me is who’s summoning them.”
“Holly,” I said. “Maybe she’s in the Vale herself.”
“Only Sidhe can cross realms as they please,” he said. “Those with the magic of a Sidhe can travel with an invitation or if a Sidhe takes them along for the ride. I’ve long suspected there’s a full-blooded outcast Sidhe behind this, but the Vale is hard to traverse and easy to hide in. In any case, it’s highly unlikely your cousin is there. She wouldn’t survive it.”
“Guess not. I’m supposed to find her by the solstice, but… it’s that missing heir crap all over again. Did you get to speak to the Seelie King? Is he still alive?”
“Last I heard, yes,” River said. “As for heirs, I’ve heard nothing, so I assume it was a false trail sent to lead you astray. The Court didn’t give me a specific mission, so I was able to return here as soon as I reported in.”
He wasn’t telling me everything. Questions brewed, but if River was tied into a vow, he wouldn’t be able to spill his master’s secrets. Like it or not, that’s how Faerie operated.
“And—my mother?” I asked.
His gaze dropped. “Not a word from her, unfortunately.”
“Like the messenger Sidhe said.” I hardly believed that I’d come face to face with both Summer and Winter Sidhe and walked away unscathed and without anyone declaring war on one another. And they’d listened to my account of the events. Whenever they’d come to speak to Mum or Hazel, the Sidhe had treated me like less than dirt. And Morgan too, come to that. We had common ground in our experiences, but the gaping rift of the last eight years made it difficult to figure out if it was possible to bridge the gap. Some wounds didn’t heal. Hazel probably wouldn’t forgive him, and as for Mum…
River picked up his phone. “It’s time we went to the guild. You’re listed as patrolling with Jas and Lloyd today, and then I can help you with training. Lady Montgomery won’t be around, but she’ll be asking me for periodic updates on your progress.”
He stood, and
I did the same. So it was all business, then.
As we left the coffee shop, a group of teenagers wearing necromancer cloaks walked past.
“New trainees,” he explained. “We usually get permission to take them out of school. The talent tends to manifest around the age of twelve, same as mages and witches.”
“So I have the skill level of a twelve-year-old. Awesome.”
He shot me a smile, the first he had since he’d got back, which pretty much short-circuited my brain cells. Faeries were disturbingly attractive, and if anything, his rougher human edges only made him more handsome. “Your skill level is beyond most of the fully qualified necromancers,” he said in a low voice. “It’s up to you when you want to let them know that.”
Hmm. I’d never particularly liked drawing attention, but personal hang-ups aside, if the wraiths got wind of my presence here, they might target the necromancers on purpose. Look what’d happened in Foxwood. On the other hand, it wouldn’t hurt to have other people on my team.
River opened the doors to the lobby and approached a group in the corner. I recognised the two necromancers who’d hauled me in for questioning yesterday, wearing their usual black cloaks.
“Hey,” said Lloyd. “Er, sorry about yesterday.”
“Likewise,” added Jas. “Sorry we got suspicious.”
“No worries,” I said, as though being arrested was an everyday occurrence for me. “Worth it to see your interrogation room.”
“We don’t have an interrogation room,” said River.
“Am I ever going to be allowed to forget that?” said Lloyd.
“Nope,” said Jas, nudging him in the arm. “C’mon. We’re patrolling the High Street again. You’re coming with us, right… Ilsa? Lady Montgomery said.”
“I’ll see you later,” River said.
“Sure,” I said. “What exactly is this patrol about? Looking for rogue undead, or ghosts?”
“Either,” said Lloyd. “More likely to be ghosts. This place attracts them like the plague. You’ll need a uniform first.”
The Gatekeeper's Curse- The Complete Trilogy Page 26
