A Little Bit Vampy

by A. A. Albright

  ‘Good man, Edward,’ I said. ‘He knows his priorities. So what was Darina doing when he saw her?’

  Dylan shrugged. ‘She had a long, two-pronged stick in her hands. She waved it around for a few seconds and then she disappeared.’

  ‘Like a dowsing rod? Do those work for magic as well as water and metal and things? If they even work for those things, I mean. Do they?’

  He scratched his head. ‘You do know you’re asking an unempowered witch some pretty complicated questions about magic, right? But yes, I think dowsing rods can find whatever’s being looked for, as long as the right person is controlling them. I doubt Darina was looking for some nice, natural spring water, though. And Darina isn’t the only one who’s been up to strangeness today. Just as I arrived here I got a call from Gretel.’

  Gretel was my favourite of all the Wayfarers, and not just because she was the first I’d met. She was always happy, obliging and absolutely lovely. ‘Gretel was strange? That’s odd.’

  ‘No.’ He chuckled. ‘Not Gretel. Well, she wasn’t acting any stranger than usual, anyway. It did sound like she spilled some hot tea on herself while we were talking, but that’s hardly out of the ordinary for her. She called me because there was a sighting of Bella Foyle. She’s still possessing Catriona Eager’s body, but she’s definitely not dressing like a schoolteacher these days.’

  ‘I thought as much when she gate-crashed Nollaig’s wedding. What was she up to?’

  He frowned. ‘She was with a man who matches Ron Montague’s description, so I guess we can all stop wondering whether he’s only with them through force. She was holding the same kind of stick as Darina had been. It was in another soft place – another old entrance to your grandmother’s realm, over at the Hill of Tara in County Meath.’

  I felt a chill, and it wasn’t only because the house had no intact windows. ‘Well then,’ I said. ‘It’s pretty clear what they’re doing. They’re looking for a way into the faery enclaves. They’re going after the fae.’

  He pulled me into a hug. ‘Unfortunately, I think you might be right.’

  4. His Varibad Crystal

  When I finished work that evening, I stood in the doorway, staring across the road. The broom hovered beside me, probably in the hope that we’d go for another fly.

  ‘I can’t,’ I told it. ‘I’m still shaking from last time. If you want me to fly you more often, you’ll have to obey my spells and slow down.’

  It made no movement. I got the feeling it was giving me the silent treatment. But I’d have to live with it, because my mind was on much more interesting matters.

  Claire’s Café was still open, but I could only see one person sitting at the counter. Claire herself was nowhere to be seen, but she must still be around if a customer was on the premises. Maybe I could pop in for a little chat before she shut down for the evening.

  Chantelle joined me by the door. ‘You’re staring at that new café,’ she said.

  ‘Mm hm.’

  ‘It just opened this morning.’

  ‘I know,’ I told her.

  ‘Huh. You waiting for Dylan?’

  ‘Nope. He’s working on a case.’

  She made a slightly strange sound – a little gasping, gushing breath that made me worry for the health of her lungs. ‘He really is dreamy. You’re so lucky.’

  I resisted the urge to check her temperature. Sure, my boyfriend was handsome, but she looked like just thinking about him was giving her a fit of the vapours. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I guess. I’ll em … I’ll see you tomorrow, Chantelle.’

  ‘Tell Dylan I said hi!’ she called after me.

  I turned back and gave her a small smile and wave. These were the kinds of things that happened when you had an extremely attractive boyfriend, I supposed. I couldn’t blame her for having a crush – but I might need to pick up some smelling salts, just in case she fainted the next time the subject of Dylan arose.

  My broom, however, was not quite as charitable as me. As we journeyed across the road, it paused, swivelled itself back in her direction, and gave her what I can only describe as a bit of a glower. As it continued to glower, it began to add some rather vehement movements to the mix. I had the feeling that the broom might be working itself up to a small spot of violence.

  ‘I’m glad you’re being so … so …’ The word was evading me. ‘So protective?’ I ventured. ‘But she’s not the first girl to develop a crush on Dylan, and she won’t be the last. So please, don’t whack her on the behind.’

  It wriggled with dissatisfaction, and flew towards the Vander Inn. I guess it couldn’t trust itself to stay calm where Chantelle was concerned.

  Hoping that the broom wouldn’t do anything too crazy, I pushed open the door of the café and strolled inside.

  The lone customer turned out to be Mark Moon. When I entered, he spun on his seat to face me.

  ‘Claire’s just out the back bringing out some rubbish,’ he said. ‘I offered to do it for her, but she said it was okay.’ He grinned at me. ‘We’re off out on a date in a few minutes. I’m going to show her my tractor. She loves tractors. Would you believe it?’

  ‘I’m happy you’ve found someone to share your interest with,’ I said, taking a seat next to him. Seeing as his last crush, local schoolteacher Catriona Eager, had recently been possessed by an evil witch, it was just as well he was setting his sights on someone new. ‘I haven’t met Claire yet, actually. It was too busy here this morning to get a chance to chat with her. You don’t happen to know where she’s from, by any chance?’

  Mark nodded eagerly. ‘Of course I do. We’ve been chatting all day long. She comes from Mullingar, she’s thirty-one, her favourite colour is Massey Ferguson Super Red, and she loves any music by the Saw Doctors. She was actually at agricultural college at the same time as me, but we never met. Isn’t that weird?’

  ‘Very,’ I agreed, struggling to mask my frown. If there was someone like that studying alongside Mark, then why were they only meeting now? ‘Were there a lot of students in your year?’

  ‘No, and that’s what makes it even weirder. How we never met is beyond me. She was even here last year and the year before for the Tractors and Turnips festival, and we never ran into one another. She came out to the Turnip Maze last Halloween too, but it was a day when Granddad was giving the tour, so yet again we didn’t meet. It’s like we’re star-crossed lovers or something.’ He let out a wistful sigh. ‘Isn’t it romantic?’

  ‘It’s something,’ I said, shifting uncomfortably in my stool. If this were anywhere but Riddler’s Edge, I might be able to chalk all of this up to one of life’s little oddities. But this was Riddler’s Edge, where anything strange was usually supernatural. I was just about to ask some more about Claire, when I heard a loud and terrified scream from the back of the building.

  I rushed through the kitchen, and out through the back door into the alley beyond, with Mark on my heels. Claire was on the ground, a bag filled with rubbish spilling out over the concrete by her side. All around her I could see magic, and too many kinds. There was gold, like the magic that came from wizards or witches, but there was also that strange haze of red and green that tended to hang around when telekinetic energy had been used. My eyes weren’t used to seeing telekinetic energy though – usually I just saw it via Greg’s aura filters. So maybe I was wrong.

  But I knew someone who would not be wrong when it came to identifying the sort of magic in the air. ‘I’ll call my dad,’ I muttered, grabbing my phone.

  I thought I might have to explain to Mark why calling my dad was the safest possible route to take (instead of, for example, an ambulance). But when I looked at him, he wasn’t remotely interested in my excuses. He was crouched down by Claire, smelling her deeply and letting out a long and mournful howl.

  A moment later, he stopped howling, sniffing the air madly, with a growling noise at the back of his throat.

  His body unfolded from its crouch, and he took off at a run, getting bigger an
d hairier with each stride, his elongating nose sniffing the ground and the air.

  For a moment I just stared. After all, in all the time I’d been in Riddler’s Edge, I’d never seen Mark turn into a wolf. And seeing as it wasn’t even full moon for a couple of days, it was clear that his grandfather’s suppression spell wasn’t as strong as Mark’s feelings for Claire.

  As soon as my dad answered, I filled him in.

  ‘I’ll be over in a flash,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, call Felim. If what you say about Mark’s suppression is true, then his granddad might be the only one who can get him back under control.’

  ≈

  A few minutes later, my father had finished healing Claire.

  ‘She’s still unconscious,’ he said. ‘It was a death spell, but luckily she didn’t get the full force. I see a lot of magic in this alley. I’m seeing telekinetic energy too, just like you thought.’ He gave me a small smile and squeezed my hand. ‘It’s only a slightly different shade of green to dark magic, so it’s amazing that you picked it out. You’re coming along so quickly. Have I ever told you how proud I am of you?’

  ‘Frequently,’ I said, my cheeks flushing. Who knew that fatherly praise would have such an embarrassing effect? I’d need to give myself a stern talking-to about that. ‘So what do you think about the gold magic I’m seeing? How can I tell the difference between a witch and a wizard?’

  ‘You can’t.’ He shrugged. ‘Wizards might channel their power through objects, but it looks the same to the naked fae eye. Although …’ He pointed to a haze of gold in the air. ‘You see how thick this is? How slow it is to dissipate? That suggests it’s quite concentrated, maybe drawing on an object of unusual or awesome power. So a wizard is the best bet in this scenario. We’ll have to take Claire to Night and Gale – she could be unconscious for a couple of days. They’ll be best placed to deal with any complications. When we’ve done that, we should get Greg over to the scene. We might be able to see the magic, but only he can record it and match it against criminal auras.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said with a sigh. ‘Greg would be great to have around now, if he weren’t too busy acting like Dracula.’

  I quickly explained the situation. As I spoke, my father’s expression wasn’t nearly as shocked as I would have expected. If anything, he looked almost as resigned as Pru had that morning.

  ‘You know something,’ I accused him. ‘You and Pru both know something about why Greg’s gone a little too vampy. You do, don’t you?’

  He looked away from me. ‘I want to tell you, my little cutie pie. You know I do. But this is Pru’s story to tell.’

  I narrowed my eyes. ‘Did you just call me cutie pie, Dad?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Well … you are cute as a button, you know. Especially when you’re angry.’

  I’d seen my angry face, and it was far from cute. But there was no time to argue about that – not when Felim was appearing in the alley, a whirl of golden magic surrounding him.

  This evening, the old wizard was wearing tight jeans, high-tops, and a T-shirt that said Totally Turnips. He had a robe on over the ensemble. The robe was purple, glittery, and decorated with pictures of his favourite vegetable (turnips, of course).

  He took one look at Claire and said, ‘Oh my stars! I knew it’d be her. I knew it’d be his wife.’

  I stared in confusion at the wizard. ‘Whose wife?’

  Felim wrung his wrists, staring down at Claire and ignoring me. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she? This’ll do it for him. We won’t see him till he’s killed whoever hurt her, just like last time.’

  ‘Claire is fine,’ my dad assured him, patting the wizard’s back. ‘She’ll be unconscious for a while, but the death spell didn’t hit her full force, and the magic behind it wasn’t very powerful.’

  Felim gritted his teeth. ‘That’s a relief, at least. But it won’t help me find Mark. He’s going to go wild again.’

  ‘Wait …’ I felt my nose wrinkle up. ‘When you said this was “his wife” you meant Mark? But Mark doesn’t have a wife. He …’ I let my voice trail off, as a long-forgotten memory surged into my mind. ‘Wait a minute. Margaret Burke once told me Mark had a wife, but she never mentioned it again. It was back when the witch hunter had her in his thrall, so I just figured she was talking nonsense to shift the blame Mark’s way, but …’ I scratched my head. ‘Then I just plain forgot about it, right up until this very moment. And I would never forget a conversation like that. So why did I forget about that particular conversation, Felim?’

  He shot me a guilty look. ‘Well … it looks like your sióga powers are getting stronger, seeing as you’ve remembered that conversation despite my memory spell so … that’s something to be happy about.’ He clapped his hands and, in a hollow voice he said, ‘Yay for Aisling.’

  ‘You put me under a memory spell!’ I stared, appalled, at the wizard.

  He cleared his throat and sat down on top of a crate. ‘I put the whole town under a memory spell,’ he said. ‘Not you specifically. And I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t have to.’ He ran a hand through his grey hair. ‘I had to make the town forget about her so Mark would forget her. I couldn’t risk them mentioning her to him. Mark … he gets a little wild where Claire is concerned. She’s his Varibad Crystal.’

  My dad looked none the wiser.

  ‘It’s from Witch Wars,’ I explained. ‘The Varibad Crystal makes this character called Arturo go a little bit nuts.’

  ‘Ah.’ My dad nodded. ‘Your mother and I are watching it, but we’re only up as far as when Arturo and Belinda share their first kiss. Although I have to say, he seems a little bit obsessive.’

  ‘He is,’ Felim agreed. ‘And believe me, Mark is far more obsessive about Claire than Arturo is about anything.’ He glanced at me. ‘I know it seems like he gets a lot of crushes, but you’re the only real crush he’s had since Claire, and even that wasn’t real. It was because he was drawn to your fae blood. When Mark developed feelings for any other women in the town, I might have had a little bit to do with it. I had to make him obsess about other women, you see, so I could divert his attention from the woman who was his real-life Varibad Crystal.’

  He pulled out a flask and took a quick swig. ‘Turnip brandy,’ he told us. ‘Nothing like it.’ He held it out. ‘Would you like some?’

  My dad and I politely declined.

  ‘Suit yourselves,’ said Felim. ‘Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes. Mark and Claire. They first met in agricultural college, and fell wildly in love over a discussion about tractors. Then another young farmer got a bit handsy with Claire and … well, it happened at the full moon. Even with my suppression spells, Mark was uncontrollable. He almost killed the fella. I managed to heal him, and make him forget the whole thing. But after that, I had to use stronger and stronger spells on my grandson.’

  He took another swig from his flask. ‘For our family, becoming a werewolf is a curse. It’s uncontrollable for the Moons. And Claire awakened something in Mark. Around her, his dark side was even darker. I drew on as much power as I could, and I managed to make Mark forget he was a werewolf yet again, and I made him forget Claire, too. Their whole relationship had been making him wolf out. It was only going to get worse.’

  The old wizard put his flask back into the pocket of his cloak, and wiped his forehead. ‘But then a couple of summers ago, she turned up here for the Tractors and Turnips festival. They fell head over heels all over again, rushed off to Gretna Green and got married. That time, he moved in with her, in a little flat near the tractor showroom. I couldn’t stop him. But he needs to be close to the soil on Moonstone Farm, especially when his Varibad Crystal is around. And seeing as he wasn’t on the farm, things got even worse. He em … he killed someone who hurt Claire.’

  I gasped.

  ‘It was another werewolf,’ said Felim. ‘Someone who the Wayfarers were after for murdering another woman. He would have killed Claire next, by all accounts, so they considered Mark’s actions as f
orgivable. It had come down to a fight to the death between him and the other wolf. It was Mark or him, and the other wolf was a murderer so … As long as I kept Mark under control, they agreed to overlook it.’

  I hadn’t finished with my first gasp, but I was about to start a new one. The thought of Mark getting violent enough to kill someone went so against the grain of the Mark I knew.

  ‘Is Claire a supernatural?’ I asked. ‘It’s just … Mark called them star-crossed lovers when I spoke with him this evening, and I can kind of see what he means. So either the universe keeps bringing them back together, or Claire isn’t as affected by your memory spells as you think she is.’

  ‘Well then they must be star-crossed lovers. Because Claire is most definitely a human. She’s a human who remains madly in love with my werewolf grandson, and he with her, no matter how many times I try to break them apart.’ His head went to his hands. ‘We have to find him,’ Felim said worriedly. ‘Full moon soon, Aisling. Who knows what he’ll do?’

  I looked down at Claire’s recovering body. Whoever did this to her had intended to kill her. A part of me hoped Mark would track them down. But if he did … well then he might go too far again. The Wayfarers had already given him a second chance. I doubted they’d be inclined to give him a third.

  ‘We’ll find him,’ said my dad. ‘Don’t you worry. In the meantime, Ash and I will be taking Claire to Night and Gale.’

  Felim nodded. ‘I’ll get started on tracking him, so.’ He whispered an incantation, waved his wand (it seemed to have a turnip carved at the tip) and disappeared.

  My dad and I each touched a hand to Claire, preparing to transport her to the hospital, when I broke away with a lurching stomach, and pointed across the alley.

  We had been there for ten minutes, and in all that time we’d been so focused on Claire, and on Felim and Mark, that we’d failed to notice something rather important.

  On the other side of the skip in which Claire had been about to chuck her rubbish, a shoe was on the ground. A high, red heel covered in glitter. As I cautiously approached, I baulked. A few feet away from the shoe, hidden on the other side of a skip, there was a body – and unlike Claire, this one was definitely dead.