by Izzy Shows
He snorted derisively. “Yes, of course, because I would have let you get away with that.”
“It wasn’t going to be up to you!” I protested.
“Everything’s up to me.” He smirked and winked at me, rolling his eyes and chuckling afterwards.
I rolled my eyes in response. Sometimes his alpha male norm could be annoying.
“We could work together, you know. I was serious, at the bar, about you becoming a consultant. This just makes it even more necessary.” His tone shifted from humourous to dead serious, and I fidgeted under his intense gaze again.
“I don’t exactly have any relevant information, though. Hell, you probably know more about this shit than I do. I can throw a lightning bolt, but I can’t really tell you who knows who or if something smells fishy.” I threw up my hands in a gesture of exasperation. He seemed stuck on this stubborn idea that I was more proficient than I really was.
“Maybe not, but you’re a part of the community now. I’ve been studying the reports every night this week, and if I’ve picked out one theme, it’s that whenever something or someone new comes around, they don’t extract themselves easily. I don’t know if there’s an actual element to it, but once you start, shit just gets attracted to you. You are going to learn more about this, you are going to grow more comfortable with it. And bloody hell, Blair, I need help. I hate the idea of drowning under all of this on my own.” If it hadn’t been for the pleading note in his voice at the end there, maybe I would have been able to brush it all aside. Tell him he was wrong and that I was getting out of this business at the first available opportunity.
I sighed. “I can try. I can’t make any promises that I’ll actually be helpful, but I can try.” It seemed like the harder I tried to get away, the more I was pulled in.
He nodded. “That’s all I can ask for.” He seemed placated by that, and I was relieved he wasn’t going to push me for anything more just yet. My flight instincts were clamouring at me to make a run for it. I didn’t have any real ties here, I was on the verge of eviction, I could run and no one would be the wiser. Go hide in Scotland or something. Except that Finn needed me, and Aidan needed me…I couldn’t let them down.
We sat in silence for a moment or two, soaking up the information that we had exchanged. Or at least, I assumed that was what he was doing.
“Wait a minute.” He jerked his head up abruptly. “You met the Wizard while you were investigating your case. What happened there?”
I felt uneasy immediately, only now realising that I had been avoiding telling him too much about Aidan or The Order or the details of the case. With the new information about Finn’s job, I didn’t want him to get involved. I didn’t want him in danger, and I just knew that he was going to go sticking his nose in it.
“So, remember how I thought that ghosts were stupid and this lady’s husband was probably cheating on her with a normal woman and it would all be super simple?” I said, attempting to inflect humour into my tone.
He nodded.
“Well…obviously, that’s not how it turned out. I’m still not sure about the husband; honestly, I’ve lost sight of the actual case. It seems he’s somehow involved in something bigger. There are…there are necromancers in town.” I pressed my lips firmly together after I spoke.
“Fucking…what?! Necromancers? Why didn’t you say something sooner? We’ve got to get to the bottom of this. I should tell the boss. I should assemble a squad. Fuck, I thought I’d have more time before I had to figure this shit out. What am I going to tell them?” He had jumped out of his chair and was pacing wildly.
“Calm down, Finn. You aren’t going to do any of that.” My voice was stern, commanding. I didn’t know how it happened, but I somehow sounded authoritative in this instance. “I’m working this case, and at this point, a crime has not been committed. Not that I know of. You can’t involve the police yet, you know that.”
He knew that I was right, I could see it on his face, however much he didn’t like it. “How the hell am I supposed to get anything done and operate under all of this red tape? I hate these restrictions. If I know someone’s going to do something wrong, I should be able to do something to stop it.”
“I couldn’t agree more. But that’s not how the police work, you’ve told me that a thousand times. You are a reactionary force. You can’t do anything until a crime has been committed, you can’t even appear to be involved in the investigation.” My tone was soothing, trying to get Finn to calm down again and return to reason. “I’m not alone on this. I’m working with…the Wizard, and this isn’t his first battle. He knows what he’s doing.”
“Yeah, well, I’d like to have a few words with him when I can.” He snapped, and I winced. “Winston may have handled this shit on his own, but I sure as hell can’t, and if there’s someone with information who can help me, I’m not going to ignore it.”
“He may not be willing to speak with the police, Finn…” I pleaded. “He’s part of a…a group of Wizards. They have their own rules and customs, things he can’t even talk to me about because I’m not a part of it.”
“That’s fucking bullshit.” He snapped at me again.
I stood up abruptly. “I am not your enemy, Finn!” My hands had balled into fists, my words coming out more of a growl than anything else. “I want to get this taken care of as cleanly as possible, just like you. I’m in over my head here and I am trying to do everything I can to work it all out. You have your red tape and, apparently, I have mine. Respect it.” I don’t know when I had decided that The Order’s red tape was my own, or that it was something that I needed to defend, but apparently, I had.
He turned, eyes wide and eyebrows raised. “Holy shit, Blair. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so worked up.”
He hadn’t. I stopped fighting with people a long time ago. I make snarky comments when I’m annoyed, I roll my eyes a lot. I stopped thinking that anyone cared what I had to say, so I stopped talking for the most part. You could say that reality had sapped the fire out of me.
I hadn’t had anything to care about in a while.
“Then maybe you can recognise the severity of the situation accordingly,” I growled, my words dark and low.
He nodded, slowly, as if observing the situation. “OK. You say you’ve got it handled, I believe you. I’ll back off. The minute it becomes necessary, you let me know though. I don’t want you to wait until I can get the all clear from the top brass. I don’t want to scrape you off the pavement.”
I flinched. “Hope it won’t come to that.” I tried to make my words sound light, but they came off a little bitter.
I didn’t appreciate the position I had been forced into.
“I should probably head out for the night. Busy day tomorrow and I’m bloody exhausted.” I sounded it too. I dragged a hand over my messy hair, closing my eyes for a second.
When I did, it was like the fatigue hit me all at once. I felt as if I had been slammed into by an eighteen-wheeler, every muscle in my body felt drained and ached with the reminder of combat practice earlier. I was supposed to be in bed four hours ago, and somehow had allowed all that time to slip away from me.
I was going to be miserable tomorrow.
“Yeah. Yeah, look, I’m sorry I kept you up. We do need to talk more, but I get it. You’re working a case and there isn’t a lot of time to spare. Give me a call as soon as you can talk, if you don’t need help sooner, OK?” He sounded tired too, and I realised that this wasn’t hard on just me.
“Of course.” I offered him a tired smile, and then walked over and hugged him. I wanted him to know that even if we shouted at each other, even if we were butting heads over this, that he was still…important to me. He was still my brother.
I felt the answering warmth in his hug and breathed a sigh of relief. I needed the stability, I needed the reassurance.
“Night, Finn.” It wasn’t quite a whisper, but it wasn’t at a regular volume. I was just so tired, I didn’t have the
energy to raise my voice any higher.
He nodded in response, and I walked out of the living room, through the hall, and exited the house.
21
I DIDN’T HAVE MUCH OF A choice other than to walk home, and it was a long hike from Finn’s flat. That was probably for the best though—worn as my body was, my brain was too active to be able to settle down just then. I pulled the information up in my mind again, going over it once more just to make sure I understood fully.
Finn knew about the magical world, possibly more so than I did then.
It was such a simple concept but it was hard to get it to fully sink in. How was it that I had gone from my regular old loner life to having two people around who knew such important things about me? Even if it was something that I had only just learned about myself, that didn’t make it any less important.
I couldn’t imagine sharing this secret with a random person on the street, though the crazy part of me wanted to just scream it at everyone that walked past me. Couldn’t they tell? Wasn’t it obvious? I felt like I had been marked, but no one could see how irrevocably I had changed in the past few days.
That was hard. Not unexpected—people don’t look too closely at strangers, they don’t want to pick up on someone else’s sadness—but it was still hard.
It felt like it should be such an obvious thing, that someone should point at me and scream ‘witch’ or something, like in one of the history textbooks. Then again, I guess I don’t look like the people who had those things screamed at them. I didn’t have a sixth finger or a surplus of warts, I wasn’t wearing a pointy black hat.
I just looked like a run of the mill down-on-their-luck person.
I passed by the bar, my eyes drawn involuntarily. Just a few hours ago, things had been mostly normal. I’d been alone, in the sense that no one had known about this side of me, but that had been normal. The feeling of being isolated in a crowd was one that I was intimately familiar with. If I hadn’t pushed Finn, this wouldn’t have come out…we would be just like we were before.
Did I want that, though? Did I really want to go back to the surface friendship we’d had, with the knowledge that I was likely to force a ‘break up’ in a month or two? I couldn’t say for certain. There was comfort in my familiar habits, but that didn’t mean that they were for the best.
Now I had someone I could talk to, about important things, and I wasn’t sure if that was something to trade away just because the idea of it made me uncomfortable.
It took another twenty or so minutes of walking to make it back to my flat building—nowhere near as fancy as Finn’s. I didn’t quite live in the slums, but I did live in an area that people wrinkled their nose at when passing by.
Mostly populated by college kids, with the occasional fully fledged adult who just couldn’t catch a break and had to settle for one of the flats. I walked inside, stepping carefully around various items of trash in the hallway. It wasn’t well kept, there was a faint odour of piss somewhere nearby.
I sighed. This was my life. This was normal.
I tried to remind myself that nothing had changed to cause me to feel any differently about my flat, but it felt like a lie. I didn’t want to live here, but it was the only real option at this point. I didn’t know where I’d go if I couldn’t come up with the rent by Monday, I really didn’t.
I had bounced through several different flats over the past year or so, ending every single stay with an eviction because I just couldn’t regularly pay my rent. I was running out of sympathetic landlords to give a sob story to. I needed to make it work.
Even if I hated the place.
I unlocked the door to my flat and stepped inside, shutting the door and locking the dead bolt behind me.
I stared at the mostly empty living room for a minute, as if for the first time. I had a sofa and a coffee table, and that was about it. And well, the coffee table might be more of a crate supported by bricks, but it did the job admirably. I didn’t have a lot in the way of furniture, not just in the living room but in the entire flat. The only item I’d added to the kitchen, besides utensils, plates, and cups, had been a microwave.
Gotta have that instant food. My bedroom had a dresser—which barely saw any use, as I mostly washed clothes and threw them back on the ground—and a bed.
I had always prided myself on being a minimalist, the kind of person who could pick up and go at a moment’s notice. Right now, though, it just made me feel extraordinarily lonely.
I walked into the kitchen and fixed myself a cup of tea, hoping the hot beverage would soothe me into a state where I could get some sleep. The British answer to all problems. I carried it back into the living room and flopped onto the sofa, scowling when I spilled some of it on my leg. I took a sip, then stared down at the cup. I was suddenly aware of how alone I was in the flat. There was no one here with me, not even the sound of breathing as someone slept in the other room. That was how it had always been and it had never bothered me before.
I wasn’t sure it even bothered me now, I was just so…aware of it for the first time.
“Maybe I should get a pet…” I mused aloud to myself. “Don’t all the witches have cats? I could get a cat. Cat wouldn’t be bothered if I buggered off for a few days, and it’d be a body to come home too…” I started to feel a little wistful for the idea, before I abruptly shook my head. “No, that’s stupid. I can’t take care of myself, I certainly can’t be responsible for something else’s life.” I scowled down at the mug, as if it was the one who told me I couldn’t have a pet.
I didn’t even know the first thing about caring for one, or how expensive one would be. I had never had a pet before. One of the foster families had a dog, but it had been made very clear that it was not my dog, and that I wasn’t even supposed to interact with it. They were worried I’d get the dog dirty. I’m sure animals and kids work the other way around as to who will get the other dirty, but whatever.
I drained the rest of the tea with one long gulp, and set the mug down on the makeshift coffee table. I thought about carrying it into the kitchen and washing it, but couldn’t really muster up the motivation to do so.
It wasn’t like I was going to have guests over at any point to keep the place clean for.
I left it on the table and walked into my bedroom, the exhaustion hitting me anew. I guess it shouldn’t be such a surprise, I had been running around all day and there had been so much going on the entire time. It was a miracle I had made it home in one piece, once you thought about it.
Without making even an attempt at unlacing my shoes, I threw myself onto the bed.
Just for a minute. I’ll change in just a sec…
The thought died before it could be completed, as I promptly fell asleep.
22
WHERE AM I?
The thought is the first thing I’m aware of—that I don’t know where I am.
All around me is white light, there is no floor and no ceiling, no walls to put my back against.
There is nothing, except for me, and am I even real?
I realised I was crouching, walking around with a furtive glance here or there. Trying to figure out where I am.
How am I walking if there is no floor?
I don’t speak. Can’t speak, it’ll draw their attention.
Whose attention?
I wasn’t sure, but I knew for certain that there was someone whose attention I did not want to attract.
The ground—but there was no ground?—rolled under me, and I was suddenly lying on my back.
Beneath me was a soft but thin rug, and a glance around told me it was atop what looked like very old, well taken care of, hardwood floors. In front of me was a lightly crackling fireplace, and there was a soft tune playing in the background. A woman vocalising, hard to make out what words were being sung—if there even were words mixed in there.
“How nice of you to join me, Miss Sheach.” Coldness dripped down my spine at that smooth voice.
I
’d only heard it once but I recognised it, it had only been a few hours ago that I’d heard it, after all.
Aidan had said he could call on me, but I hadn’t thought it would happen.
I sat up and turned to face him, one leg bent so that my knee was by my face and the other stayed on the ground. He sat on a red chaise, and on the wall behind him hung old portraits. I didn’t recognise the subjects.
I did everything I could to look like I didn’t give a single shit about him. “What am I doing here?” I asked, willing my voice to sound bored but I heard it tremble and knew I failed.
“I thought it would be nice if we had the opportunity to chat…in private.” Were those actual flames dancing in his eyes?
No, don’t gulp, don’t swallow. He’ll notice. I cautioned myself and managed to stay steady.
“Where I’m from, it’s bad manners to expect someone to have a conversation with you when you know their name, but they don’t know yours.” I managed an air of vague disinterest, as if I were remarking on the weather.
Names were important? Well then, I was going to try and even the playing ground.
The demon’s eyes narrowed at me and he studied me for what felt like eternity. I wasn’t sure that it wasn’t an eternity, who knew how time worked in this dreamscape?
Finally, though, he nodded his head and…well, I wasn’t sure if he was trying to smile, but it came off as a grimace. He looked disappointed somehow, but I didn’t…couldn’t for the life of me grasp why.
“I am known by many names, but the people here call me Malphas. You may as well.” He inclined his head towards me. If I didn’t know he was a demon, I would have thought the gesture gentlemanly.
“Okie dokie, Mal.” I immediately shortened the name, hoping it would aggravate him. My way of dealing with the discomfort inherent in this situation.
A flicker of sorrow brushed past his face, but was immediately replaced with a smirk. “If this is how you feel you must express your…childishness, feel free. It is not my True Name, and therefore I care very little what you do with it.”
