Authors: A.J. Aalto
He ground out something wet that sounded like a polar bear knocking back a salmon whole. Once again, the Blue Sense awoke and his rage flared hot against the side of my face right through the phone.
He damn near shouted, “
J'aimerais sucrer ton cornichon
,” through a chesty, phlegmy cough and the translator's emoticon went angry-red.
I'd love to sugar your gherkin
.
Despite my confusion, I couldn't help but flash back on a memory of Danika Sherlock tied to a chair —
a dark cellar, a foul pentagram, sour purple light
— rejecting the invasion of a demon (“
Speak without guile, demon, in my mother tongue, of things infernal
”) that gurgling choke of her trying to shove the foreign spirit out, of trying to reclaim her own voice, her own body. My nerve returned, and I lost my temper.
I slipped one glove off and crammed it in my pocket, then gripped the phone hard, letting the psi that pressed into my ear float through my head until it dizzied me. I waited for him to talk again, to make another sound, but there was nothing. He was gone.
I jotted my psychic impressions of the caller, plus “mother tongue” and “things infernal” and a note to show Harry my transcriptions so he could explain the mistaken translations; it had to be this cheap app malfunctioning. Sugar my gherkin? What does that even mean?
Jingling my keys in my pocket, I found the boathouse door unlocked; when I turned the handle, I did so cautiously. I let the door swing open on its own as I stood in the dim threshold, waiting for my eyes to adjust, but the morning sun slanted in such a way that its light did not penetrate inside. It merely illuminated the dust motes stirred by the warm breeze.
Silly
, I chided.
There's nothing in there
. Then that feeling of being watched tickled the Nervous Nelly in me. Within the shadows, nothing moved. For a good two minutes, I waited for something to leap out of the dusty pitch and chomp my face off. When nothing did, I stepped forward.
And walked face-first into a spider web.
I squawked, letting out a hoot while nearly breaking my back flailing the Heebie-Jeebie Hustle. I don't hate spiders, but skittering
legs of any sort make me jumpy, whether they belong to brain-eating zombie beetles or beautiful Brimstone butterflies; the irony that I am a scientist, and a preternatural one at that, does not escape me. After flapping my face clean, slapping around to make sure nothing alive or undead was crawling in my hair, I drew myself to stiff attention and summoned back whatever pride I still had. It fit nicely in a teacup. Irritated, I turned in a slow clockwise circle — deosil — observing every inch of the boathouse, every nook, cranny, shade and shadow, and intoned, “
By the thread of your crimes/by your own designs/I see your workings/seven times
.” I clenched my fist and focused on my Keds. “
As I will it, shall it be/Bright your clever traps I see.”
When I glanced up, something clear and vivid pink-red brushed the air like silt through water; lazy without wind to push it, the remains of the spider web were trapped in the corner of the rough door jam. It was as retina-searing pink as a flamingo bathed in pomegranate juice.
Point: Marnie.
Satisfied with my success, I grabbed the bolline off the potting shelf, where I saw another thin web, this one strung across the dusty, greyed-out window. I arched a brow, musing about how many spider webs must go unseen as people went about their daily lives. I got my answer; my Keds came to a gravel-shuffling halt at the door.
My yard was littered with fluorescent pink webs, like the scene of a bad, booze-fueled Halloween staff party in a discount novelty shop. My jaw dropped and the blade tipped from my hand. Blinking rapidly did not, as I sincerely hoped, clear what I was seeing.
“Holy Hestia's hemorrhoids,” I breathed. Picking the knife out of the grass, I slunk back into the mudroom, cursing spiders, lemon-mint tea, and my distressing lack of cookies.
What I really needed was a strong espresso, a pencil, and my lime green Moleskine notebook. Never knock caffeine and a good To Do list for clearing the mind. Ignoring the pink cobwebs in the corner of the office, I jotted
fix webs
,
fix Chapel, get rid of OSRA clown
,
find guardian for dead guys, research Waterloo tooth, look up Benjamin R. Sahelian
and
find missing Furries
, under the date.
“I need a bodyguard,” I mused aloud, tapping my pencil on my lips. “Someone who's good with a weapon. James Bond. Or Jack the Ripper.”
I wonder if Combat Butler is a real job? It should be.
It hadn't been as dangerous to leave Harry when we lived in Portland. Our condo had been on the fifteenth floor, making life difficult for the things that might like a nibble while he was dead during the day. Harry had quite an ensemble of things that wanted to nibble on him, and none of them were nearly as cute as I was. There was the
debitum naturae
, the debt vulture we named Ajax, which followed him endlessly waiting for a chance to devour him; the necrophile beetles that followed the debt vulture's path; and the dreaded spitting carrion spiders that fed mostly on the beetle larvae, but would nosh on the resting revenant, too.
When I'd gone to Buffalo on my first case with Batten and Chapel's PCU, Harry had chosen to stay behind, and I'd dosed myself with oxy-lipotropin to combat my “Harry withdrawal.” That wouldn't work as well here; we needed more and better protection. I'd started battle-hardening the cabin in small ways; the cupboards along the south wall had a new lock. I don't always learn my lessons after the first mistake, but once upon a horrible night, black witches Ruby Valli and Danika Sherlock had poisoned my lavender, and it had made an impression.
I unlocked and opened the largest cabinet door, and my eyes fell on two grimoires sitting on the shelf, a good bit of distance between them: mine, a hand-tooled leather book of shadows in black with a generous green tree on the front, and a wan yellow “leather”-bound book I'd stolen from Ruby, its cover suspiciously similar to stretched human flesh. I half-imagined that I could see little hairs coming out of its tiny pores. I didn't dare Grope the thing with my bare hands to find out for sure. I'd tried to blow the dust off it once; instead, it clung as though the leather was sticky, damp with sweat, and I swear I saw the cover ripple with goose bumps. From that moment on, I left it alone.
I was tempted to slide it off the shelf and finger through more than a hundred years of her experimentation, her lethal mistakes and even more terrifying successes, plunging ever deeper, layer by shadowy layer, into the murky, forbidden, world of necromancy, demonology, flesh magic, and death magic that would present a whole different level of power to me. The cure for the
dhaugir
bond
had to be in there; I knew she had enslaved her own daughter with the spell, so surely Ruby knew how to conjure and, presumably, dismiss it.
The book, which should be mere inanimate paper bound in a cover, now emitted a low vibration as though it sensed me nearby, and if I put my hand on it, I'm sure it would have felt like brushing against an amplifier at a Metallica concert. There was a lure there, a low, pumping tempo barely felt under the warm spell of early afternoon that even a mundane human would have felt, though they wouldn't understand the terrible danger of its source.
Bring down our sad-sack defenses
,
MJ
, the dark corner of my brain suggested, a papery whisper.
Go ahead
,
toss our innocence in the trash, there. Slip that book onto our lap. Pick a spell, any spell, and we'll have some fun.
Like it had a mind of its own, the Blue Sense awoke, stirring in my belly with anxious fluttering. I snapped the cabinet shut a little harder than was necessary. So far I'd resisted the grimoire's lure. This was a continuing source of astonishment, since I tend to have all the moral competence of a tarantula.
The candle holder on my desk was shaped like a squat frog in a bowler hat, straddling a log and holding a trumpet. The artist had pulled off a hungry glaze in the frog's eyes, forever frozen in paint, and his belt struggled against debilitating obesity. It wasn't the weirdest frog collectible in my house, but the belt baffled me even more than the trumpet; the frog wore no pants, and had no holster for a gun, so why the belt? When I lit the cheap white candle in it, wax dribbled on the frog's snout. This frog was new enough that Batten hadn't had a chance to scribble fangs on it in black permanent marker.
“
Blessed be this tiny light,”
I said softly.
“Guide my hand to do what's right.”
For a moment, there was palpable resistance by the black energy in the cabinet, and again that papery whisper, defiant. I let my hand sail along the stirring air currents, feeling the warm snap-spark of psi tickling along my arm and slipping through my veins. When my hand arched to the right, and pulled toward the bookcase, I let my feet follow to where dust motes played in the fragrant fog left by Harry's wood cleaner. My palm landed on the phone book. I finger-
tipped it onto the floor and waited for the pages to flutter open. The ad that caught my eye wasn't a big surprise.
the organization
Simple ad, simple lettering, no capitals, no explanation. It needed none. If you didn't know what it was, you wouldn't need it. And if you did know, you might still find yourself reluctant to avail yourself of their services.
Before I could touch the phone, it rang. That's almost never a good sign, especially after the calls I'd been getting. I relaxed a bit when the decidedly phlegm- and French-free operator put me on hold; the recorded message was smooth and sultry, and yet, somehow, still boring.
“Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line while our operator finds the perfect temporary guardian for your home, pet, revenant, DaySitter, clutch, bleeder, or gimp. Thank you.” I kicked my feet up on the desk and twirled my pencil in what I hoped was a sufficiently devil-may-care manner.
“Miss Baranuik? I've spoken to Prince Dreppenstedt—”
Yikes.
If I wasn't alarmed before, I was now. I choked on my espresso, sputtering. My heels dropped off the desk. “Woman, who told you to do that?”
“I took the liberty,” she said pleasantly.
“Don't take the liberty! Leave the liberty where it is,” I urged.
“Prince Dreppenstedt would like to know if there is a reason you cannot perform your appointed duties where Lord Guy Harrick is concerned?”
I attempted to swallow, hearing a dry click in the back of my throat. “Let's pretend I didn't call. Really, everything's fine. I can do it.
Nooooo
problems here.” I pressed the heel of my palm into my forehead hard, as though I could condense the brain cells into a functional lump that thought things through.
There was a brief disconnect, and the last strains of “Muskrat Love” bled into the opening piano accompaniment to Dean Martin singing “Blue Moon.” In my panic, I considered hanging up. The operator clicked back on.
“Miss Baranuik, Prince Dreppenstedt assures me that he's well aware of the issues with Lord Guy Harrick's recently broken Bond,”
Oh, fuck.
“as well as the intrusion of another fledgling Bond, and the insufficient attempts you've both made at re-Bonding.”
Fuckanut!
“Despite his busy schedule, his highness would take great pleasure in assisting in Lord Guy Harrick's advanced Bonding needs, if it is required of him.”
Little black stars whirled in my field of vision. “I really, really don't think that's necessary.”
“His highness has sent Viktor to assess the damage and act as temporary daytime guardian. You should expect Viktor within the hour.”
“Well, that's fine but—” The dial tone in my ear meant big trouble. “Wait! Is the Prince …oh, holy rolling shitballs,” I whispered into the phone uselessly.
I hung up, quilling with dread. What was I going to tell Harry if his maker, whom he just finished visiting, came all the way from who-knows-where, popping into our home for “advanced Bonding needs,” whatever the hell those were? And when Harry found out it was all because I was trying to keep a job I hadn't originally wanted and was only now determined to keep because someone else could be doing it? What then?
I didn't have too long to dwell on it; before I could sink my forehead to the desk blotter, someone tried to blow my front door down with what sounded like a pile-driver.
The front hallway shook with repeated knocking as I scooted down it in sock feet. “Satan's sack, would you hold on a second?”
The knock came again, turning my little cabin into a Hollywood set for a sci-fi bombing raid or a dinosaur stampede. Looking through the peep hole, I could see nothing, literally. No front porch, no yard, no covered motorcycle, no trees. I searched downward as well as the peephole allowed and finally spotted a pair of boots encrusted with numerous decorative chains, straps, and buckles, in size holy crap and a half. Slowly, I looked up and was met with black leather as far as the eye could see. Even rolling my eyes as far up as they'd go, I didn't find shoulders. I cautiously cracked the door.
He could have made a fortune as a professional wrestler. Or maybe an armored car. Each of his arms was easily my height, roped with muscle that strained under preternaturally pale skin and ending in hands that could have palmed my torso. Gargantuan legs built for rampaging through downtown Tokyo were clad in restrictive leather. His jaw was long and sturdy but slightly unnatural in its shape, the lower mandible jutting out from his face as if he had too many sets of teeth in there.
He didn't bother with the façade of breathing for me; the leather shirt didn't move except when he rotated a shoulder, rolling his head to one side to stretch his neck, looking stiff and uncomfortable, as if he'd just climbed out of a clown car. In his case, even my old Buick would have been a tight fit. If he tore out one of the seats (maybe by looking under it for a pack of beef jerky a tad too enthusiastically), he
might
have room to get comfortable in my new Humvee once it was delivered.
“I am Viktor.” His accent was pure Ukraine, and his voice was cavernous, subterranean, and came out thickly, as if his tongue was too big (
or trying to fit around extra teeth
, my brain added unhelpfully). “Viktor Moldovan Domitrovich. I am expected. You invite me in.”