“This isn’t right,” I murmured, flipping through a fifth journal.
I was the last one in the hall, except the nighttime clerk, of course, who was huddled at her small desk all the way on the other side. I had enough privacy to talk to Oberon without anyone thinking I’d lost my mind.
Somebody didn’t want you to dig up information on these people, obviously, Oberon said, his voice echoing in my head.
“That would mean we’ve got Katherine’s people inside the coven,” I replied, frowning. “Or maybe Finch cleaned these pages out during his two-year tenure here.”
By that logic, Finch knows the Ryder twins. Oberon sighed.
“He’s untouchable while he’s in Purgatory. They won’t let anyone near him.”
What are you looking for in particular?
I exhaled, pulled my hair into a loose bun, using one of the bands I always carried around my wrist, and proceeded to check online maps, using the few snippets of information I’d gathered so far.
“Possible hideouts, for the most part,” I murmured. “They’ve got to have some kind of base of operations in town. Without a Portal Opener, they’re dependent on the usual modes of transportation, and, based on how quickly they get from one part of the city to another, they must be somewhere in San Diego.”
Ah… Finally! Oberon exclaimed. Close your eyes, darling. There is someone here to see you!
I looked around, checking to see if anyone else had come into the hall. Fortunately, it was still just me—well, us—and the clerk, who was gradually dozing off in her seat. I closed my eyes, welcoming the darkness of the veil as it unraveled around me.
“Did you find who you were looking for?” I asked Oberon.
“And then some!” he replied, his voice becoming clearer and sharper as I descended into the spirit plane.
I looked down and noticed Oberon’s spiritual form visible over mine, like an iridescent glaze of sorts. I hadn’t paid attention to myself back at the Devereaux mansion, but I could definitely see how those spirits had been able to spot him.
“This is still weird,” I said.
“Well, I don’t want you to feel suffocated, darling,” Oberon replied, and I could feel him smiling. Needless to say, this partial separation between us, even though we were still occupying the same space, made me feel less anxious about his presence in me.
Above us, dozens of wisps hovered around the room—spirits of magicals that had died in this interdimensional pocket, warlocks and witches whose lives had either come to a natural end or had been cut short. No matter how many times I saw them, it always felt eerie to watch.
One of them approached us. The closer it got, the better I could see it.
It was a girl. Medium height, slender, with long brown hair and hazy blue eyes… semi-transparent, like the others, but somewhat more colorful, as if her spirit was stronger. She wore a pair of jeans and a white flannel shirt. There was a large bloodstain on her chest. I figured it was her cause of death.
“What are you doing here?” the girl asked, scowling at me.
“Do I know you?” I asked her, confused.
“I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to the arrogant dweeb you’ve got inside you!” she retorted. I’d already forgotten that spirits could see Oberon riding along in my meatsuit. “What are you doing here, Oberon? I thought I told you years ago that this hall was off limits!”
“Helen, please don’t be such a grouch!” Oberon replied, chuckling. “You can’t let a bad date define the rest of our relationship, darling. We could be looking at an eternity together.”
Oh, these two clearly had history, and it made me blush. This was getting awkward, fast.
“I’d rather burn in hell forever,” Helen snapped.
“Then move on, sweet cheeks,” Oberon retorted.
“Hey, guys… still here,” I said, raising a hand. I smiled at Helen. “I’m Tatyana. And sorry you have to deal with Oberon. Though I’m not sure what happened between the two of you—”
“I’ll tell you what happened!” Helen hissed. “Oberon thinks that no means yes. I had to kick him in the nuts, twice, to make him understand that, in fact, no means no.”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Ironically, Oberon’s embarrassment was burning through me, pumping more heat into my face.
“Okay, I’m sorry,” I replied. “But Oberon is helping me. It’s important. Lives are at stake, Helen.”
She raised an eyebrow. “So, that’s how you called out to me, Oberon? By hitching a ride inside a Ghost-Whisperer?”
“A Kolduny,” I muttered.
“Same thing. Different name,” Helen said, crossing her arms.
“Helen, please. You know I’ve kept my distance like you asked. It took me forever to find you again, and trust me, it doesn’t give me any pleasure to have to reach out to you. But we do need your help,” Oberon said.
Helen stared at me for a long moment, then let out a sigh of defeat. “Fine. What do you want?”
“You knew the Ryder twins, didn’t you?” Oberon asked. “I know you mentioned them a couple of times, since… you know, since you’ve been around.”
I found myself intrigued by how even dead people tiptoed around their condition. Death was never an easy word to work with, it seemed.
“Yeah, I knew them back in the Houston Coven, before I moved here,” Helen replied. Only then did I finally identify her accent—that Texan drawl that spoke of hot summers and spicy barbecues.
“You were in the same coven,” I said. “What can you tell me about them?”
Helen put on a sad smile. “They were decent kids, you know? Thoroughly misunderstood, from the beginning. They wanted to be good, but the other magicals didn’t like them much,” she explained. “Some looked down on foster kids in general. They were picked on a lot. I was one of the few who knew about their Shapeshifting abilities. I caught them changing into two of our preceptors at the time. They begged me not to tell anyone. I’m not the kind of girl to gossip, so I kept my mouth shut.”
“What happened in Houston then? What got them kicked out?” I asked.
“They crossed a line,” she said. “To be honest, those bullies had it coming. They’d been tormenting Emily and beating the daylights out of Emmett on a weekly basis. The twins just had enough one day. They snapped. They shifted and infiltrated the bullies’ group and set them up with a very dangerous curse. They nearly killed three magicals.”
“Whoa,” I breathed.
“Like I said, those guys did deserve some punishment, but what the twins delivered was far too extreme. Besides, the curse they used was forbidden,” Helen replied. “There was an investigation, and a couple of weeks later the Ryders left town. I never saw them again.”
What Helen had just told me wasn’t crucial information, but it did shed some light on what might’ve triggered the Ryders to descend into such brutal darkness. I was well aware that some people were just born with a predilection for violence and evil, but there had to be turning points—switches one could flip at various points in their lives. The Ryder twins were victims of their circumstances, all right, but the choices that followed were theirs and theirs alone.
“Did you ever see them in San Diego?” I asked.
Helen shook her head. “If I did, I wouldn’t have recognized them. By the time I moved here, they’d already gone AWOL after their third strike in Albuquerque. They would’ve shifted to stay under the radar. It’s one of the reasons why magicals are wary of Shapeshifters. Most of them don’t mean any harm, but not knowing who they really are or who they can turn into… that doesn’t sit well with anyone. And the Ryders did plenty of damage before falling off the edge of the Earth, if you know what I mean. They certainly didn’t help diminish the stigma.”
A second spirit came closer, a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair and brown eyes, stocky and still wearing his bathrobe. He’d died in it. Poor thing. He stopped by my side, staring at a fixed point in the darkness, specifically
where my laptop was in the living plane.
“What’s up, Martin?” Helen asked the spirit.
“I overheard you and couldn’t help but step in…” Martin replied. He bent down to get a better look at my laptop’s screen, then remarked, “If that’s where you’re looking for the Ryders, you’re wasting your time.”
“Huh? You know Emily and Emmett?” I asked.
“I sure do,” Martin grumbled. “I gave them shelter before I moved to the coven. I’d only been in San Diego for a month at the time.”
“Oh, wow,” I gasped, exhilarated by the prospect of a new lead. “What happened?”
“Nothing much,” he replied. “They were quiet and mostly out of the house. Didn’t give me much trouble. They begged me not to tell anyone that they were in town. They creeped me out, though. Honestly, they could be really scary sometimes. Given that I’d opened my door to them, I didn’t want to risk it, so I kept my mouth shut. After I got registered with the coven, I snuck back into my own house while they were out, packed a bag, and skedaddled out of there. I was safer here!”
“When was that?” I asked.
“About three years ago, give or take. I don’t keep track of time in death. It’s useless.”
“And what happened to your house?” I replied.
“Oh, I sold it,” he said. “I called the cops first and told them I had squatters in there. It was enough to send the Ryders away. Afterward, I got in touch with a realtor and got rid of the place. It wasn’t safe anymore.”
This sounded more like the Ryders I knew. I took a deep breath, trying to imagine them as they shared a house with Martin. I got goosebumps.
“You were saying something about locations, I think?” I asked, drawing his focus back to my laptop and the notes I had up on the screen.
He nodded, chuckling. “They won’t be using an interdimensional pocket, sweetheart. That takes Bestiary energy. The managing coven would be immediately notified if they did. They’d need approval from the California Mage Council for that.”
“So what should I be looking for?”
“Warehouses. Abandoned properties. That kind of stuff,” Martin replied. “Judging by the location of all your new magicals and crime scenes, I’m thinking they’d be holed up somewhere in Chula Vista, close to the water and the freeway. Easy access into the city and close enough to the ocean for an escape route. Based on the rumors that have been circulating through the spirit world, those kids have built quite the criminal operation. I should know, I was a prosecutor for the San Diego Coven for twenty years,” he added.
I gave Martin a grateful smile, my pulse quickening as new opportunities emerged in my mind regarding the Ryders’ potential location. “You’re a genius, Martin. Thank you.”
He laughed. “Yes. Gone too soon, I’m afraid!”
“How did you both die, if you don’t mind me asking?” I looked at him, then at Helen.
Martin sighed. “Heart attack. I was just getting ready for a bath.”
“As evidenced by my shirt, I got stabbed,” Helen said.
“I’m sorry, for the both of you,” I replied. “Do you know who did it, Helen?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, scowling at me. “Absolutely. It was—”
Everything vanished, all of a sudden. I was back in the living plane. The darkness and the spirits were gone. My laptop was right in front of me, and Oberon’s spiritual weight was crushing me again. I panted from the effort as I pushed back and took a deep breath, but I managed to overpower him.
“What the hell, Oberon?!” I croaked. Beads of sweat trickled down my face.
We got everything we needed from those two, don’t worry, Oberon said, once again echoing in the back of my head. Now I think you need to tell your computer whiz kid about Chula Vista.
My chest tightened as I worried that he’d cut me out of the spirit plane on purpose.
“What didn’t you want me to find out?” I asked, gritting my teeth. Anger bubbled up in my throat. “I’m not stupid, Oberon!”
A few seconds ticked by in heavy silence. I thoroughly disliked it.
“I can always go back and look for Helen,” I said.
I’m to blame for what happened to her, Oberon said quietly. The bitterness in his distant voice was obvious. He felt guilty. Helen and I got off on the wrong foot. Bad date, like I said. But after that, we patched things up. I introduced her to some of my friends. You know, she was new in the coven, needed to form some social bonds and stuff. One of them… Well, one of them killed her in a fit of rage. I didn’t know he had all that darkness inside him. I actively encouraged her to go out with him, to stay with him, even when she told me that she felt there was something off about him. We found her in her room a few days later with a knife in her chest. I never forgave myself for that. And neither did Helen.
The candor was refreshing. Though, truth be told, I wasn’t sure if that was completely my own reaction, or if he was messing with my emotions. Either way, there wasn’t much I could do for the time being. I figured I’d have him around to help me deal with the Ryder twins, then eject his lying ass with a little help from my favorite Santeria witch. I slowly relaxed, allowing him to settle in my head again. His voice became a little clearer.
I just didn’t want you to know what a failure I was, as a man and as a friend, he added. I’m sorry.
“It’s fine, Oberon. Just stop hijacking my body. It’s not just uncomfortable, it’s scary. Stop doing that, okay? You pulled my hand away from Dylan the other day, too. You have to hold back. This isn’t what we agreed on.”
You’re right. Forgive me, Tatyana.
For a dead guy, he sure had his charm. It didn’t work on me, but I could see others falling for it. There was no point in a conflict with the ghost that had hijacked my body, just yet. “If you keep taking over like that, you’ll give us away to Santana or Raffe. Those two won’t hesitate to tell Wade and Alton about our agreement, and that will buy you a one-way exorcism back to the spirit world. I’m trying to watch out for the both of us here.”
I appreciate that, Oberon said.
I could feel him watching as I wrote an email to Astrid, asking her to look into the Chula Vista area for any warehouses or abandoned properties, based on Martin’s assessments. My gut told me that we were one step closer to finding and bagging the Ryders before they could do any more damage. Too many people had suffered already.
The more time passed, despite Oberon’s outbursts, the more I knew I needed his strength. After Harley’s account of her encounter with the Ryders, it became clear that I required a spirit’s power to face off with those two. Luckily, I already had a Herculean nesting within.
My heart felt heavy, though. The same intuition that pointed me toward the Ryders was also warning me about Oberon. Something was off about the way he’d tried to take over. I didn’t like that.
I reacted foolishly with Dylan, Oberon said, reading my mind. It’s been so long since I’ve felt anyone’s touch, Tatyana. And, right now, I’m feeling every fiber of your body. I can’t begin to describe what that’s like. I got jealous. Forgive me.
He was tugging at my heartstrings with that statement, making my cheeks flush.
“It’s okay,” I muttered, clicking the send button.
Let’s get you some fresh air, Oberon whispered. It’s gorgeous out there by the dragon fountain, at this hour.
I couldn’t shake the uneasiness of his presence, but the end, to me, justified the means. I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. A walk sounded nice.
Twenty-Nine
Harley
While Astrid was busy digging up that Icelandic spell and looking for any sign of the missing magical kids or the Ryders, I had a small task to cross off my list. There wasn’t much else I could do, since Jacob refused to put me in touch with Isadora, and I couldn’t find any other useful information on Katherine Shipton in the archives. Nothing I’d come across would help me smoke the witch out.
Dinner with the bro
oding studs was as awkward as I’d expected it to be.
Wade, Garrett, and I sat in silence at one of the tables at Carluccio’s. I’d ordered the ricotta cannelloni, Garrett had opted for pizza and fries, and Wade had gone the extra mile of pretentiousness and went for the arugula salad with parmesan shavings. Most of the food was just getting poked and pushed around our plates as we all tried to restart the conversation.
Our previous attempt had died off when the plates were first brought to the table. Though, the eerie silence had more to do with Wade’s rebuttal of Garrett’s contributions to our current investigation than the food’s arrival. In his opinion, Garrett was “a whole lot of talk and little to no action.”
“The pasta’s good,” I mumbled.
They both looked at me as if I’d just farted.
Maybe this was a bad idea, after all.
“Salad’s not half bad, either,” Wade conceded. His angst made my stomach clench, my appetite dwindling with each minute that went by.
Garrett chuckled. “Didn’t peg you for a salad type of guy.”
“We’re both different people now,” Wade retorted. “Well, I am, anyway. You’re always different people.”
I got confused, fast, as I realized that I was sitting on a gunpowder keg with these two, and that Wade had just lit the fuse. The boom was coming.
“What… Um, what are you talking about?” I asked, my voice barely audible.
“You’re still hung up on that, huh?” Garrett said to Wade, virtually ignoring me. “Here I am, trying to reestablish a communication channel, and you’re stuck in the past. Really, Crowley? After all these years?”
Oh, I was definitely missing some crucial pieces of information here.
“It’s not something you easily forget,” Wade replied, glowering at Garrett.
“Well, you haven’t made it easy,” Garrett answered.
I had a front seat view of their dashing profiles—each of them handsome and gorgeous in his own way. Wade’s features were dark and sharp, highlighted by his sea-green eyes, the black curls on top of his head, and the smooth blade of his nose. In contrast, Garrett’s short dark hair, azure eyes, and devastatingly cute dimples offered me another type of beautiful, the kind that was accustomed to breaking hearts.
Harley Merlin 2: Harley Merlin and the Mystery Twins Page 26
