Table of Contents
Title Page
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Epilogue
Coming Soon: Badlands Witch
Other Books by Carrie Vaughn
About the Author
Copyright
Cormac didn’t really know cats. He didn’t get cats. The cats he’d known as a kid had been barn cats. They lived outside, took care of themselves, earned their keep killing mice and baby rabbits. Aloof creatures, they stayed out of Cormac’s way, he stayed out of theirs.
Standing in the middle of this close and cluttered apartment, looking up at the giant, tangled furball crouched on the top of a bookshelf, he was at a loss. That thing was twenty-five pounds of pure hate, teeth bared, hissing and spitting. Pale fur shook from it every time it moved. Whenever anyone approached, it swiped with long, sharp claws. Nothing like daggers—more like hypodermic needles, and they’d draw just as much blood.
The animal tipped back its head and yowled to the ceiling, an otherworldly noise that made Cormac’s spine clench. Hell, maybe the thing really was possessed by a demon.
There is nothing supernaturally wrong with this cat, Amelia declared. He’s simply a cat. Amplified, rather, but still. . . . The cat hissed again, shuddering, letting loose another rain of fur.
Apparently, Amelia knew cats. Cormac caught the edges of her memories involving a whole series of kittens and cats she’d grown up with in her family’s lush Victorian manor house. Beautiful, soft animals born to sit demurely on laps, to be petted, to have satin ribbons tied around their necks, to ride in a little girl’s doll carriage. Those cats had followed her around the house, batting tiny paws at the edges of her petticoats while she giggled.
This was a side of herself Amelia rarely revealed. She didn’t like to think of her past—she’d left her home and family as soon as she could, to travel the world and study magic. Anymore, she didn’t like to think of her old life. Before she’d died.
Those cats from her childhood had looked much like this one: a luxurious Persian with brushable fur and an aristocratic face. But this one was, the owner confidently reported, possessed by a terrible demon.
“Schubert didn’t used to be like this,” the old man said. He was a widower, the cat his only companion in his assisted-living apartment. “He was always a little stubborn, but can you blame him? A fine old gentleman like that?” Mr. Wegman chuckled then, nervously. “But then he started hissing at everything, yowling in the middle of the night, clawing me.” The fine skin of his liver-spotted hands was covered with slash marks and thin scars.
Cormac—and by extension, Amelia, though their clients mostly didn’t know about her—had been referred to Wegman by friends of his daughter’s, a family who really did have a haunted house. They lived off of Cheesman Park in the center of Denver, the site of dozens of hauntings over the last century because that was what happened when developers plowed over a cemetery and built residential neighborhoods on top of it without moving the bodies. Cormac and Amelia had successfully exorcised the place and set the restless spirits at peace.
Surely they could do the same with a possessed cat?
He isn’t possessed, Amelia insisted. He’s ill.
Cormac and Amelia both had met demons. They’d fought demons, alone and together. In a way, that was how they’d met: fighting the demon that had invaded the Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility. She’d been a disembodied spirit trapped in its walls, after being wrongfully hanged for murder a hundred years ago. He did time there on a manslaughter conviction—a bit more recently.
He’d deserved his sentence. Probably worse, too. He’d been lucky. When the demon started killing prisoners, he’d been lucky she was there and knew how to destroy it. Lucky she’d been able to contact him. Lucky he’d been patient enough—eventually—to listen to her. To let her in.
Yeah, standing here looking at that cat, he had to remind himself how lucky he really was.
“So what are we going to do?” Cormac murmured. Mr. Wegman waited in the kitchen for the verdict. If Cormac could suddenly make the cat well, maybe he could get paid anyway. He had a feeling this wasn’t going to be that simple.
Well, Amelia said, matter-of-factly. A veterinarian should see him, I suppose.
Cormac returned to the kitchen and asked Mr. Wegman if he had a carrier for Schubert. He did, and Cormac and Amelia spent the next hour in the back room where the cat had been lurking and terrorizing everyone. Cormac let Amelia take over then. In the years since they’d begun their partnership, he had never entirely gotten used to the sensation. It was like stepping aside, closing his eyes and moving to the back of his own mind, and Amelia—her soul, her essence, whatever that part of her was that had survived—came forward and took charge of his body. She was the magician, really—she needed to use his body to work her spells, to scry her magic. He was merely the muscle. The front man. The bounty hunter turned. . .whatever it was that he’d turned into.
We are partners, she said firmly, as she often did. She never took control of his body without warning him, without them both agreeing to it. It was part of their understanding.
With a can of tuna and more patience than Cormac could have managed by himself, Amelia lured the demon cat into the carrier. The animal set to howling again as soon as the door closed—and he had finished eating the tuna. Hunkered down in the carrier, he was at least safe, and Mr. Wegman was safe from him.
The cat whisperer. Amelia always seemed to be revealing new and amazing talents.
Cormac was back in charge when he brought the carrier to Mr. Wegman and told him that the cat really needed to see a veterinarian, that these changes in behavior were likely medical rather than supernatural.
“Oh,” Mr. Wegman said, sounding a little disappointed as he regarded the carrier on the kitchen table. Because wouldn’t it have been simpler—and far more interesting—for the problem to be solved by someone waving a magic wand and chanting a few words? Wouldn’t that always be simpler? As it was, he now had lots of expensive tests and an uncertain diagnosis ahead of him.
“How much do I owe you?” Mr. Wegman said, reaching for a wallet sitting on the kitchen counter.
“Nothing,” Cormac said. “No charge, since it wasn’t anything I could fix. Just get that cat to a vet and get him healthy.”
“Well, thank you, son. Thank you very much.” He shook Cormac’s hand as he showed him to the door.
It was an afternoon of work with nothing to show for it. Cormac didn’t remember exactly when he’d turned into a nice guy. He didn’t used to be a nice guy. Prison had changed him.
Or I have, Amelia said.
Same thing, really.
When he—when they—had gotten out of prison, the studio apartment in a middling part of Denver had seemed perfect. It had four walls and a door that Cormac held the key to, and could lock and unlock whenever he wanted. What more did they need?
The place was a box, with an efficiency kitchen in one corner and a bathroom tucked into another. The kitchen table was usually covered with books, papers, bags of herbs, maps, arcane alphabets, and whatever else Amelia was working on at the moment. He usually ate standing over the sink. Shelves held more of her tools: boxes, crystals, a staff, more books, carved pieces of wood, and little planter boxes with things growing in them. Cormac slept on a futon with a makeshift bedside table made from a crate. More books were piled on it, as well as his laptop.
Not a lot of Cormac himself was visible in the room. Since prison, he’d put his guns and weapons into sto
rage and hadn’t gotten them back out. He’d promised his cousin Ben he’d keep out of trouble. That meant his bounty hunting days were over. Mostly. The duffel bag full of sharpened stakes, silver spikes, and jars of holy water couldn’t technically be perceived as weapons to most anyone looking at it. Those belonged to him, at least.
The place—maybe a little small, a little rundown—was his, while most everything inside belonged to Amelia. That cut somewhat close to the truth of the situation for his taste. Maybe this was right where they belonged.
Memories intruded. Amelia had grown up in a mansion, with acres of land, gardens, lawns, and forests. Carpeted halls, rooms crammed with furniture, windows framed by luxurious drapes, and not just a feeling of safety, but of an abiding comfort supplied by wealth. She never criticized the little apartment Cormac had chosen. She never complained. But she wanted things.
Just a little yard, she’d begun to hint. I could grow my own herbs. Work spells outdoors in privacy.
With a little planning, they could have a place that didn’t share walls with anyone. No midnight shouting, no smell of pot outside their door. They could aspire to anything they wanted. But Cormac had grown suspicious of hope. Wasn’t what they had enough? Or was he afraid to aspire?
And if I could catch a bit of rainwater now and then. . . .
They could move out of the city, up north maybe, to a little peace and quiet. Getting expensive around here anyway, wasn’t it? If he was working for himself he didn’t need to live any place in particular.
Well. If he kept catching cats for old men for free, he wasn’t going to be upgrading anything.
Much of his work came through the internet, which had taken some adjustment. This wasn’t how he’d worked in the old days. Back then, there’d been a lot of footwork and networking, talking to people, getting the word out that he was a man who could solve a certain kind of problem. He rode a little bit on his father’s reputation; Cormac had learned the trade of hunting supernatural creatures from him. After his death, Cormac continued, and enough people knew that to keep him in business.
Then he’d spent a few years in prison and most of his old networks assumed he’d died.
Starting from scratch had been just as well. This was a new kind of business he was running these days: supernatural problem solver. Paranormal detective. Now, word of mouth happened via email and forums. He hadn’t gotten as far as putting up a Facebook page for himself; that seemed a step or two too far. He didn’t want to be too easy to find.
His email inbox seemed to get a little more activity every week.
“Picked up a Ouija board at a garage sale. Needs cleaning. Can u help?”
“I need to curse my boss right now.”
“Haunted restaurant, need help please!”
“How do I keep vampires out of the laundromat?”
They didn’t do curses. Amelia could, but as she pointed out to Cormac, they were trying to get out of the assassination business and the one seemed awfully close to the other. The Ouija board issue seemed straightforward—whether or not the thing was actually haunted, Amelia could work a purifying spell or two, the owner would be happy, and they could charge fifty bucks for half an hour of work.
The haunted restaurant might or might not be, and Cormac wasn’t sure what was going on with vampires and laundromats. He could respond, ask for a basic consulting fee and not feel too bad about taking money from people who didn’t know what they were talking about.
The next email read: “I’ve been told you’re someone who’s good with mysteries. Weird mysteries. I might have one for you. Really, I’m absolutely certain something terrible is going on here, but I can’t get anyone to listen to me. Here’s what happened: one of my colleagues starved himself to death. He was in a fully stocked cabin, his car was full of gas, he didn’t need to starve. But he did. The medical examiner says it’s a fluke—some weird undetected medical condition. If it had taken place anywhere else in the world, I might say yes, it’s a fluke, he got sick and it’s just one of those things. But Mr. Bennett—we work at Donner Pass. This man starved to death in a cabin at Donner Pass.”
That caught Cormac’s attention. The presence that was Amelia also seemed to lean forward with interest. “You know about Donner Pass?” he asked.
Of course I do, it was one of the most lurid tales ever to come out of the American West. A group of pioneers was caught in the Sierra Nevada mountains over the winter and resorted to cannibalism—or so it’s said. Even in my time, fifty years later, survivors were publishing memoirs, and dime novels covered the event incessantly.
The message continued. “We’re a tourist area, a lot of people come through here. If this is some kind of curse, if something’s really wrong here, it could get bad. I can’t let that happen. Can you help?”
The message was signed by Annie Domingo, U.S. Forest Service Ranger, Tahoe National Forest. Her tone throughout was even, straightforward. Not someone prone to panic, but she was definitely disturbed. And desperate, to be reaching out on the basis of a scrap of reputation.
“Do you think there’s something to this?”
Amelia considered. I’m not sure. I knew of magicians who were interested in the location. Some feared that such a terrible event would turn the spot into some kind of psychic sink—a pit of despair if you will. Many were sure the place must be haunted.
“Still are, I’d guess. But is it possible something’s there?”
Oh my goodness, do you even need to ask such a question?
An internet search brought up a local news story about the man, a Forest Service ranger who’d been working a month-long shift at a research station near Donner Memorial State Park when he stopped checking in. State troopers found his body lying on his cot, apparently peaceful. The coroner determined that he’d died of malnutrition—he had starved. That had been just a week ago. Tests were still being done to determine if he’d had some disease or condition that would cause such a death. The coroner and other authorities interviewed for the short article all agreed that while the incident was strange, and the death tragic, it didn’t require any more attention.
Cormac called the number in Annie Domingo’s message.
“Hello?”
“Annie Domingo? My name’s Cormac Bennett, I got your email and wanted to follow up.”
The woman had a young-sounding voice, full of energy. “Oh, wow. Thank you so much for calling. Did all that sound crazy? It must have sounded crazy.”
“I don’t follow up on the crazy ones,” Cormac said.
“So you think there may really be something weird going on?”
“Well, that’s why I wanted to talk. Why do you think something weird’s going on?” He also wanted to get a better idea of her definition of weird. Did she think this was a cult, a serial killer, that kind of weird? Or weird weird. His kind of weird.
“I think there’s some kind of magic working up here.”
Yeah, that kind of weird. “Yeah?”
“Just a feeling. It’s hard to explain. It’s sort of like. . . .”
She was hesitating. Self-editing, trying to figure out what to say. What wouldn’t make her sound crazy. “Just say it,” Cormac said firmly.
Her next deep breath sounded over the phone line. “It’s a sense. Almost a boundary. I was with them when the cops found Arty’s body, and walking into the place almost made me sick. Not physically, not nausea or anything, even though it was a pretty ugly scene. But heartsick. Soulsick. Something.” The feelings she described were vague, as if she couldn’t put the sensation into words. But she’d certainly experienced something. Not only that, she recognized the wrongness of the experience.
She’s magical herself, Amelia observed. She must have some kind of connection to the supernatural, to be able to sense that. She might not know it.
“Whatever happened—you think it’s connected to Donner Pass? To the Donner Party?”
“It almost has to be, doesn’t it?”
It mig
ht have been the power of suggestion. Or it might have been some kind of dark magic evoking the power of suggestion. Fine lines, here. “Not sure, without knowing more,” Cormac said.
“Can you come look at the place? Would that tell you more?”
“I need to do some research. I can let you know tomorrow. You should probably hear my rates, see if you really want me there.” He told her a modest daily rate that was a fraction of what he charged in his hunting days, but still decent money. Plus the mileage to get himself out there, plus expenses.
“That’s fine,” she said, without hesitation. “Just please tell me you can come help.”
He thought she would have balked at the money. That she didn’t showed how serious she was. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Early.”
She thanked him and hung up.
Well, this sounded like a job. A strange, fascinating job, and maybe nothing would come of it—the death was natural, and Domingo was prone to paranoia. But Cormac felt like he used to feel before a hunt, when he had to size up his prey and consider his strategy, arrange his weapons and choose his ground. When he had a mission and purpose, a job no one else could do, that he was uniquely suited for by upbringing and disposition. He felt, in a word, happy.
Kind of weird.
So we’re taking the job? Amelia displayed an eagerness to match his own. They were both desperate to get back to work.
Cormac slept, and dreamed.
He was in a valley very much like one high in the Colorado Rockies where his father had taken him hunting when he was a teenager. A stone-laden creek ran through the middle, and grassy meadow climbed up the sides of the bowl, giving way to thick pine forests. A hazy summer heat lay over it all, and the sky above was searing blue. Cormac sat, or imagined himself sitting, on an outcrop of gray boulders near the trees, partway up the slope, looking down on the water as it frothed and foamed on its way.
A woman in a high-necked gray dress, the skirt of which brushed the grass at her feet, stood looking at the same view. She clasped her hands in front of her and seemed serene.
Dark Divide: A Cormac and Amelia Story Page 1
