by D. R. Perry
“Magic’s probably mine, from when I worked on it in lab. Wait, did you say necklaces? Plural?” Maddie looked at the medallion halves. “What kind of magic is that? It’s definitely not Umbral.”
“It’s an alliance medallion. I used it for its intended purpose.” Josh put his hands on his hips. “Things will get crazier around here the more we find out, so I formalized things.”
“I ain’t a pack animal.” Tony practically bristled.
“You don’t have to be.” Josh’s tone was full of bravado. He knew as well as I did that we’d need Tony’s help.
“So, you want to know what I saw at the bank, Blaine?” I had to change the subject before we ended up with a cat and dog fight on our hands.
“Yeah. But first, look here.” He flipped open an old magazine. Old as in published when I was still in diapers. “Check this guy out. He might be our mysterious magus.”
The article was from a 1972 Magiczine, a publication that looked like gibberish to anyone but Extrahumans. The man in the picture was blond, tall, and haughtily imposing in a way that put both Josh and Blaine to shame. He looked familiar. If I’d seen the article the night before, I’d have thought him some random Alphahole.
“Richard Stanhope, Extramagus.” I read the caption aloud. “He looks a lot like someone I saw in a stored memory I found this morning.” I described what I’d seen to the group. Olivia watched without blinking the entire time, the pen in her hand moving back and forth across a moleskin journal. She held it up for everyone to see the drawing she'd made.
“Wow. This could be that kid’s grandpa.”
“Yeah. Too bad I have no idea who that kid is.” I sighed. “I bet he’s the Extramagus causing all this trouble.”
“Well, why not this Stanhope guy? It says here that he doesn’t like Magi and Psychics mingling with us rabble.” Tony pointed at one of the article’s quotes.
“Because he died right at the start of the Big Reveal.” I stepped over to the bookshelf behind Maddie. “It’s in here. He died hiding magic artifacts when it looked like Extrahumans would be outed. Says House Harcourt had something to do with it, too, Blaine.”
“What?” Smoke came out of Blaine’s mouth with the word. He took a few deep breaths before speaking again. “Mom and I are having a talk later.” He looked back down at the table. “Um, whenever she feels like it.”
“Anyway, at least we can try to look up all his relatives.” Maddie tapped her phone, entering the name in her Evernote app. “I have a subscription to Ancestry dot com. I’ll check it once I’m at an actual computer. In the meantime, do we have any idea what Brodsky’s telling the police?”
“He can’t remember anything.” Josh rolled his eyes.
“Makes sense if our Extramagus was controlling him.” Blaine tapped his pencil against the magazine. “Any idea how?”
“We saw a bunch of sleep-aids in his apartment.” Josh ran his hand over his head, spiking up his hair. “Maybe that’s got something to do with it.”
“But sleep help is a Psychic thing, not magic.” Olivia peered out from behind the bookcase again.
“Amulets can be Psychic and Magic at the same time.” Maddie glanced up. “Mine sure is.”
“So you’re saying you think the Extramagus took a sleep amulet and put Mind magic in it?” Blaine blinked.
“Why not?” Josh shrugged.
“Hmm, I don’t know. More mysteries.” Blaine stroked his chin. “You think I could get a look at it sometime?”
“That’s the problem. There wasn’t anything like a psychic sleep aid at Brodsky’s apartment.” Josh shook his head. “Not even in the secret compartment the Sprite told us about. They found the second fang in there, though.”
“Maybe you didn’t look hard enough.” Fred’s voice came out muffled around the last of his sandwich. “He was a Summoner with Faerie minions. A Brownie, a Spite, and a Pixie, right? So the amulet might be under a Glamour or in a Faerie Circle or a Gnome’s junk pile.”
“Could you check that?” Josh scratched his chin.
“I could, but it’d be stupid to bother.” Fred swallowed. “If your Extramagus was careful enough to work through that poor Brodsky guy, he would have gotten that amulet back by now.”
“Good point. Mind magic’s super regulated.” I sighed, glad I knew all the illegal things for once. “The police would trace that fast.”
“Leaves us at a temporarily dead end.” Blaine flipped the magazine closed.
“So, what now?” Maddie shook her head. “We’ve still got a problem. He’ll come after Henry and me again, right?”
“Um, no. Because both of you were direct targets of the Extramagus, just like Lynn and Bobby were last semester.” Blaine sighed. “It’s someone else’s problem now.”
“So one of us is next?” Olivia glanced up from stowing the journal and pen in her bag.
“Awesome.” Josh cracked his knuckles. “Let him bring it. He’ll have to go through me first.”
“Not you. Nox.” Maddie tucked her phone away. “She’s the one who neutralized the Spite. It would have gotten Henry if it hadn’t been for her.”
Josh looked like a sail on a day with no wind. I punched his shoulder. His jaw tightened.
“Hey, you have help. Isn’t that what a pack’s for?”
“Exactly.” Blaine smiled, then chuckled over Tony’s second attempt to insist he wasn’t no pack animal for nobody nohow.
Chapter Twenty
Maddie
The sky looked like lapis lazuli to the east and boulder opal to the west when I met Henry at the tunnel next to Water Place Park. I took his hand, and we walked along the mosaic wall toward the park proper. I ran my hand along one and found a paw-print made by a shifter artist when this wall went up.
Even though Providence is on the coast, I smelled no salt in the air. Henry probably did, though. The park’s eponymous water came from the Woonasquatucket River. Our footsteps mingled, echoing across the round man-made pond on the cobblestones along the RiverWalk. The braziers were empty, unlit at this time of year. WaterFire didn’t start until mid-March. I looked forward to seeing it with someone who’d remember me this year.
I stopped walking when we got to a bench. Henry sat down, pulling me close to him and looking into my eyes. I smiled. I’d left the bronze amulet at home, saving the rest of its power for the remainder of my class. Everyone we were meeting would remember me.
“I’m not ready to go over there just yet.”
“Agreed.” He pulled me closer, sweeping a stray curl off my left cheek. His kiss took my breath away. It was a few moments before I found my voice again.
“Why me?” I stroked the back of his neck.
“I’d forgotten how to feel until you came along.” He smiled. “My life was like Kansas at the beginning of The Wizard of Oz. That happens to vampires sometimes, but you already knew that.”
“Yeah, I do. If Mom and Dad hadn’t been destined before he got turned…” I couldn’t finish that thought. I couldn’t even imagine how to.
“You said something about a contingency the other night. Something about your mom mentioning it.” Henry was a Psychic. He knew what that meant to a Precog.
“Yeah, well, she says that’s why they’re visiting.” I leaned my head on his shoulder and sighed, looking out at the untroubled water.
“They really didn’t tell you they were in town until after they got here?” Henry put his arm around me.
“That’s life with a Precognitive mother. I’m used to her knowing where I’ll be before I do.” I looked up at him.
“Harsh during the teenage years, huh?” He rubbed my arm.
“Yeah, no actual sneaking out of the house or anything since she was immune to my Umbral Affinity.” I ran my hand through the short hair at the back of his neck. “Anyway, are you nervous?”
“You’d better believe it. At least I don’t have to worry that they hate vampires or Psychics. But it’s unsettling how they have something they
need to tell me. Should I be worried?”
“I’d say no, but…” I shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Then let’s find out already.” Henry stood up and took my hand. He led me around the rest of the RiverWalk, back toward Luxe Burger. He waited until we could see the door. “You ready?”
“Okay.” I took the lead. We headed into the restaurant together like we had just four nights before. At least, this time, Henry wasn’t starving.
I saw Mom and Dad seated, and they waved us over. Just a handful of years ago, I might have been embarrassed, but now I understood. They seemed corny in their enthusiasm because they’d been through some strange times together. They appreciated what they had so much, they didn’t care what people thought when they acted happy about it. Folks like them made people like the Extramagus even more mysterious. Why reduce happiness when it was so hard to come by in the first place? Why not foster it, let it grow and spread instead?
Dad kept his mouth in a straight horizontal line but winked at Henry, anyway. Mom pulled me close, whispering about how cute a couple we made. She asked too loudly whether I’d been eating enough. He laughed and said he could tell it must be the perfect amount. Mom didn’t order anything. Dad sipped a Bloody Mary.
“You’re wondering what we had to tell you that was so important we couldn’t do it over the phone.” Dad stirred his drink with the stick of celery that even living people never ate.
“It was the contingency, of course.” Mom leaned her cheek on her hand. “I saw that you’d find someone and he’d do something momentous. And it happened, so we’re here to tell you that it’s time for us to use that license.”
“Wait, what?” Henry’s brow crinkled in confusion. “I don’t understand. I didn’t do anything. It was our friend Nox, the Kelpie. She freed a Spite.”
“Oh, Maddie told me about that already. You did something more important than just win a battle.” Mom fluttered her hand. “You took a step toward stopping a war.”
“It’s that.” Dad nodded at the middle of Henry’s chest. “Your alliance with the wolf shifter.”
“But I didn’t tell you about that.” It was my turn to make my face do a confusion gymnastics routine.
“You didn’t have to.” Mom tapped her temple. “I saw the whole thing before it happened, of course.”
“And I saw it once it did.” Dad smiled. “It’s been decades. Well, you know exactly how long ago the last vampire-wolf pack alliance dissolved. You’ve got a bit of a reputation, Henry Baxter. Everything I’ve heard is good.”
“That’s a huge compliment coming from Shi May. Thank you.” Henry blinked, smiling back. I squeezed his hand under the table.
“All the same, I’m still Maddie’s father. I’m also a vampire, like you. I know what it’s like to love a mortal woman and have to wait. You’ll take your time with her. Let her have her education uninterrupted. Make sure everything is done within the law.”
“I will, sir. I know how the laws for turning work, and still remember what it was like to be a fledgling.”
“Good, then we won’t have a problem.” Dad took the celery out of his drink and laid it on a napkin.
“Dad, seriously?” I rolled my eyes. Henry froze, looking more than a little frightened. “Okay, obligatory embarrassed-daughter act all done. For now.”
“She gets that from me, you know.” Mom’s conspiratorial wink started everyone at the table laughing.
I spent way more of my time laughing after that. Knowing for sure that I had people in my life who remembered me made all the difference. When the rest of my friends came through the door in a raucous group, it only took a few moments for them to notice I was there. Lynn and Bobby blinked and scratched their heads, taking the longest to remember me. Olivia glanced at a journal and smiled, then took the first chair she got to at the table across from ours. Nox sat next to her, leaning back in her seat and making herself at home.
Tony shrugged out of his trench coat, draping it over his chair before sitting down. He made a snide remark to Bobby about cheeseburgers and Internet memes, then dropped me a wink. One corner of Josh’s mouth tilted up as he mock-saluted Henry. He turned his chair around and sat backward on it across from Nox.
“So, what do you call this ersatz pack of ours anyway?” Blaine took his seat almost primly by comparison as though trying to prove that some shifters had decent table manners.
“You’re going to love it.” Josh lowered his voice when he spoke, so I didn’t hear what he said, even though I knew the answer already. His reply had Lynn giggling and Bobby slapping his knee. Olivia cocked her head to one side and blinked, and Tony smirked. Nox whickered a laugh.
“Really? Tinfoil Hat?” Blaine blew a tiny wisp of smoke out his nose. “Can’t you take anything seriously?”
“No reason to. Everything else is serious enough. Gotta grab a little light while we can.” The waitress interrupted him, coming over to take their orders.
He was right. A little light made a big difference. Without it, what was darkness anyway? I leaned against Henry and looked at my parents again, certain I had all I’d need, even if we lived for centuries.
Say Watkins?
A Providence Paranormal College
Short Story
Say Watkins?
“Now get out of my lecture hall and hit some books before your grades hit Ground Zero.”
I watched the second-semester sophomores shamble out like a zombie horde. Spring semester always began with a sort of mass somnolence. I yawned.
“It better not be contagious.”
“It’s not.”
“Who said that?”
“Ahem.”
I peered up into the nosebleed seats, but no students lurked. After turning to check behind the whiteboard, I almost tripped right over something. Leaning over for another look, I saw that the impossible had happened. I was wrong.
“Gnomes. Just what I need.” I rolled my eyes and lifted my foot to step over the little Faerie.
“That’s absolutely right. Well, almost.” The Gnome winked.
“I’m not asking you what you mean by that.” I kept my foot in the air, looking around on the ground for more Gnomes.
“Really?” The Gnome chuckled. “Then get off my lawn, whippersnapper!”
“That’s usually my line.” I put my foot down safely on the other side of my annoying little visitor.
“I know. I’m a fan.”
“No, you’re a Gnome.” I rolled my eyes.
“You’re not funny, you know.”
“I don’t care. I’m not here to be funny. I’m here to teach too much material to too many students. Usually, they’re the ones who can’t get things under control.” My shoulders sagged. “But now I’m in their shoes, thanks to old Brodsky being sloppy and getting himself arrested.”
“Right. It’s why I’m here.” The Gnome gave a snappy little salute. “To help.”
“Gnomes don’t help projection Psychics for no reason.” I tucked my folder of lecture notes into my satchel.
“I have a reason.” The Gnome’s eyes cut away to the right.
“Lay it on me, then.” I jiggled the giant steel-coated Bubba travel mug that I kept my high-octane coffee in, found it still half-full , and took a sip.
“No.”
“Huh.” I scratched my head. No self-respecting pure Faerie did mortals favors unless it was payback. And I didn’t have any IOUs from Gnomes. But someone I knew did, once upon a time. And hadn’t a Gnome been involved in the debacle over inter-session with said person’s old apprentice? “Edgar, that memory-bending bastard.”
“Not a nice thing to call your brother.” The Gnome grinned, showing a mouth full of steel bits and bobs.
Gnomes had no natural teeth. Instead, they made them from items related to whoever’s debt they’d dealt with recently. My missing brother had used metal for most of his memory trinkets in his practicing Psychic days. This little Unseelie Faerie must owe Edgar something. I wondered whet
her it was from way back or more recently. Could the Gnome have information I wanted? The simplest explanation always makes the most sense, even in Extrahuman affairs.
“In any case, there’s no point in using me to satisfy your debt. I haven’t seen Edgar for decades. He never calls, he never writes, he’s not been seen since floral prints and flannels were all the rage.” I glanced at my watch, in a near-panic because I was exactly one minute late to Brodsky’s next Extrahuman History section. “Good day.”
“But you need help.”
“I said, good day!” I stamped with one foot perilously close to the Gnome. Not a flinch from the Faerie’s direction.
“Gnomes are Unseelie, so there’s nothing good about a day for my kind.” Tiny fists socked themselves against mini hips. “And I’m helping you whether you like it or not.”
I opened my mouth to say something else, I don’t even know what. Everything around me streaked and flashed, like when The Enterprise goes Warp except in reverse. I blinked and held my hands out in case I was falling. But no such thing had happened. Everything went back to normal seconds later. Almost.
Light from the ceiling flashed back from the face on my watch and into my left eye. But my right eye saw and my brain comprehended immediately.
“You moved us five minutes backward.”
“Ayup.” The Gnome winked, then clapped their tiny hands together. “Now get it under control and move your backside, so you’re not late.”
“That’s my line!” I pulled my fingers apart to keep from making fists. After that, I filled them with the satchel and bucket of coffee. Slinging the satchel over one shoulder freed up one of my hands, essential if I expected to open the door once I’d scaled Mount Classroom.
Marching up the aisle of the lecture hall, I passed row after row of empty seats. The sophomores might have been figuratively zombified, but at least they picked up after themselves. Then, way up in the back, I found something.
