They drove on in silence for a few minutes at a very reasonable nineteen miles an hour.
“So?” Ivy kept her voice low, hands in her lap. “What do we do now?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
No, it absolutely wasn’t.
“You help me find Rufus’s murderer, and I keep you and your brother’s secret.”
Ivy’s eyes widened. “You still think he didn’t just have a heart attack?”
Safiya’s grip tightened on the wheel. “The orb—ugh, it makes so much more sense now—it was missing. The president of Avalon Estates is responsible for it. They keep the netherlight fragment safe.” She glanced over at Ivy and must have seen the confused look on her face. “It’s this ancient source of concentrated power. Hexed stuff. To be honest, I’m not even sure what it’s capable of, all I know is that it’s used to keep us protected from the outside world and from each other. It’s technically on loan from the Sylvan Society.” Ivy opened her mouth, but Safiya went on. “For sure, though, the orb is tenfold more powerful than even the most powerful creature living in Avalon Estates. It’s supposed to be spiritually connected to the president, so if someone wanted to take it, I can’t think of a better way than to kill him. Besides becoming the president themselves, I guess.”
Ivy hesitated. “Aren’t you the president now?”
“Interim,” she was quick to correct her. “It lasts for twenty eight days, at the end of which a new president will be elected.” Ivy was eyeing her, perhaps a bit harshly, and Safiya went on with a groan, “Anyone can run for the presidency, except for the interim president.”
“Oh.” Ivy touched her lips in thought.
“I didn’t kill him.” She slowed for a stop sign and turned onto Banyan Way. “He ran me ragged, and he annoyed the hell out of me, but I never wanted Rufus dead. Plus, I was with you when it happened, remember?” Ivy did remember the call she’d gotten from Rufus that morning outside 210 Ironwood Place. “I took the assistant position knowing I would never be president of Avalon Estates, and I don’t regret it, but I wish…I wish I could have done something better. Then maybe…”
“So have you contacted the police?”
Safiya snorted. “Everyone here has spent their whole lives protecting themselves from humans. Whoever murdered Rufus was smart enough to make it look like an accident, and really, the last thing we need are Ogden Bluffs’ officers knocking on doors and asking questions around here.”
Ivy felt a twinge in her chest. “And you don’t have your own…wizard cops?”
“We do not mess with the magistratus,” she stressed. “Not if we don’t have to. There!” She came to a stop again and hopped out.
Running across the road was something like a chicken. It certainly was shaped like a chicken, and it ran with its wings out as if it might take off, head tilted forward, little talons stomping along, but its skin—and it was skin, not feathers—was bumpy and green, its wings thin and leathery.
Safiya ran after it. “Get back here!”
Ivy glanced at the chickens, apparently content in the back, and got out of the car. The chicken-like thing, or rather rooster by the looks of the red comb on the top of its head, hopped the curb and sped off for the trees. Safiya followed, but it was freakishly fast, and she pounced, falling just short of its pointed tail as it scurried off between the trees.
Ivy ran up beside her, but Safiya’s hand flung out from her place on her stomach, waving at her to stop. “Forget it. It’s getting too dark. We’ll get him tomorrow.” She rolled over onto her back, her lanky arms splayed out on either side, her eyes searching the cloudless sky, a deep frown across a long face.
Ivy carefully sat beside her in the grass, pulling her knees up to her chest. Safiya sniffled, but she managed to hold back any tears. “Stupid chicken,” she mumbled under her breath.
“I know you’re having a really bad day, but that was not a chicken.”
Safiya looked up at her, and then a smile cracked on her lips. “Well, you’re half right.”
“So your magic ball is missing, you’ve got some human people in your super-secret country club, that lizard bird is on the loose, and your…Rufus is dead.”
“Murdered.”
“Murdered,” she agreed with a lilt.
Safiya nodded, eyes trained back on the darkening sky. “Yes. And we’re going to find whoever did it.”
“We?”
She pushed herself up onto her elbows. “I need an interim assistant to the interim president. Someone I can trust.”
“Excuse me?” Ivy looked up and down the empty road. “Didn’t we just meet?”
“It’s an appointed position, and no one else wants it since it disqualifies them from being president anyway.” Safiya reached out and grabbed Ivy’s ankle before she knew what was happening. “Plus, you have to help me: you’re the only person who I know didn’t kill Rufus.”
A warmth crawled up Ivy’s leg, flooding her stomach and running into her chest. Her eyes grew wide, and she gasped. “What was that?”
“You just became the first human assistant to a president of Avalon Estates. Congratulations.”
Chapter 7
Ivy owned exactly one black dress though she didn’t expect to be wearing it within a day of moving into Avalon Estates. Of course, she didn’t expect any of this: a dead man, a new job, a missing “orb,” not to mention all the supernatural shit. But then, she didn’t expect to get fired from the bar for a fight that her boyfriend caused, then broken up with and kicked out because she suddenly didn’t have a job anymore, and then to meet Kacey—whoever the hell Kacey was—ready to move in with Travis right on her heels. What a scummy, rotten piece of—Ivy took a deep breath. Not at Rufus Vlcek’s memorial, she told herself, They’ll all think you’re crying for a dead man you didn’t even know. Hold back the crazy as long as possible.
Helping to set up the remembrance gathering for the community had been a good distraction at least. She was in charge of making sure everything on Safiya’s list went smoothly. Where the woman had found the time to compile such a list and get everything together, she wasn’t sure, but she suspected that it had a little to do with her great organizational skills and probably a lot to do with her ability to convince inanimate objects to move on their own.
Oakley was in charge of flowers, and he brought a number of blossoming plants to the clubhouse. Ivy helped arrange them on the main table early that morning. “You know, I think normally they use cut flowers for this sort of thing,” she said, hefting a large pot of hydrangeas a little more to the left.
“Oh, yeah, well, they wouldn’t like that very much.” He put down two little terracotta pots of something pungent and sweet right next to Rufus’s portrait then tipped his head while he stared at it.
Ivy went to stand next to him. “Well, he looks a lot better there, huh?” Rufus smiled out from the over-sized photo, bright white teeth, sun-kissed skin, a chiseled, clean jaw, and those starry blue eyes, all much improved from the strangled-stiff form on the toilet. Oakley’s shoulders lifted in silent agreement. “I am sorry about your friend,” she said a little quieter, patting his shoulder.
“Oh, well, you know,”—Oakley scratched his head—“We all go sometime, I guess.”
She pursed her lips, admiring the portrait. “He seemed really…healthy.”
“Right? Said he was fifty seven, and I was expecting this chubby, older guy when we met, but dude’s like a health nut. Always running and talking about how many grams of protein he’s getting. He said he was going to live to one hundred and fifty at least.”
Ivy squinted over at him as he stared at the photo. “You notice anything else weird about him?”
Oakley cocked his head like he was actually thinking about the question, then shrugged. “Not really.”
Safiya and Ivy had agreed to not let Oakley in on the truth about Avalon Estates or the possibility that Rufus had been murdered. The boy had clumsily come into living there, and he’
d be less likely to out them all if he just didn’t know what he wasn’t supposed to know. He already seemed to understand that everyone living there was strange, but he’d always associated with weirdos anyway, so little fazed him. Plus it helped that he didn’t think twice about seeing odd things because “the good stuff does that to you.”
Safiya slipped out of an office when Oakley left the clubhouse to tend to some work—actual work—before the service they had planned for the early afternoon. He walked right past a banner that was levitating off the ground to hang itself without even a double take. “Wow.” Safiya watched him walk out the door, hands in his pockets. “That’s impressive.”
“Obliviousness is his greatest skill.”
Ivy found it particularly amusing he had said there was nothing odd about Rufus after learning the night before about the man. She had asked Safiya if Rufus was a witch too, and the woman chuckled and told her no, that he was a lycan.
“A what?”
“It’s like a werewolf,” she had said, shrugging.
“Of course it is.”
Ivy glanced back at the portrait now, trying to imagine fangs and a long, hairy snout, and she thought she could almost see it.
They had to move in more chairs and set up the food, and after a few hours, Safiya warned Ivy, “People will start arriving soon, so keep an eye out for anyone acting strange.”
At that moment, a tall gentleman strode through the door, taller than any person Ivy had ever seen, an iguana riding on his shoulder. “How the hell am I supposed to know?”
Safiya snorted and went to greet the man.
Ivy stepped back and held herself against the far wall. These were, after all, strangers mourning their friend, for the most part, and she was just an observer.
While Safiya chatted with the tall man at the back of the room, another figure entered the clubhouse. Her familiar curves gave her away even with her face veiled by black lace draped over a wide-brimmed hat. Calla Bicchieri walked up to the photograph at the head of the room and there she stood for a long, silent moment, her hands clasped before her. Then, just as quickly as she entered, Calla turned on her heel and strode out of the room with an even quicker pace. She was gone, no one had seen her, she’d said nothing, and though Ivy had only briefly met the woman the day before, all of that seemed particularly out of character.
More neighbors came in an hour or so later, chatting quietly, and a large group began to form around an older woman with snowy white hair receiving condolences. There was actual noise in the room now, a low murmur of voices and soft music being played from some unseen speaker. As more guests flooded in, there was occasional quiet laughter, and drinks were poured at a makeshift bar. When Ivy saw the tray of pastries she put out had already been emptied, she grabbed the additional platter that had been stashed in the kitchenette of the clubhouse to trade it out.
Safiya hadn’t seen who brought them early that morning—she’d been hiding in the office while Oakley was there—so when Ivy placed down a new tray she wandered over to ask. “A lady, maybe in her thirties? She had dark skin with braids all the way to her waist.”
“Pauline?”
“That sounds right. Look at how much stuff she brought.” The tray was extra wide across and covered in croissants, breads, and cookies.
Safiya eyed the food. “Pauline hated Rufus. In fact,”—her voice dropped into a whisper and her eyes grew wide under her glasses—“I wouldn’t put it past her to kill him.”
Ivy hadn’t picked up on that at all. “Maybe we’re not talking about the same person?”
“Pauline owns a bakery, these are her brand all right.” She took a big bite out of a scone, her eyes rolling back in her head. “Gods, they are good though.”
“Why’d she hate Rufus?”
Safiya chewed, covering her mouth with a hand. “Oh, it’s sad and complicated. I’ll tell you about it later.” Then she was coaxed back to the other side of the room by a small group of guests, and Ivy was left staring down at the pastries. With a shrug, she picked up a cookie, biting into and nearly crying. It was easily the most delicious thing she’d ever put in her mouth. Suddenly, she believed in magic even more than when Safiya had conjured up fire right in front of her face.
“So, he finally kicked the bucket.” Tharman Beryleaxe’s drawl startled her, and she looked about for the source. The short man was standing behind her, his eyes only just peering over the table. “Didn’t think his own heart would take the beast down, but just goes to show you never know when it’s your time.”
Ivy swallowed, and feigned ignorance. “Oh, was it a heart attack?”
He ran a stubby-fingered hand down the long braid of his fiery beard. “Wasn’t it?” He grabbed a croissant from the table and pointed it at her. “You got any other theories?”
Ivy shook her head and shoved the rest of the cookie in her mouth.
Tharman began to laugh then, a deep and meaty sound as he took a bite himself. “The Vlceks are cursed, after all!” he told her with a mouth full of croissant. “Maybe it just caught up with him. Or one of his deeds finally did.”
“Wh—” She cleared her throat, nearly choking. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, well.” Tharman raised bushy, red brows and glanced out at the people past the table. “The old dog made a lot of decisions that made a lot of people unhappy is all I’m saying.” He grabbed another croissant. “But I suppose that’s the cost of being president, and it would take a loony to run which reminds me, vote Beryleaxe!” The little man winked at her and waddled away toward a group of similarly-statured people.
Ivy watched him go, perplexed. Who campaigned at their opponent’s funeral? A murderer perhaps? A particularly brazen one, if so. And cursed? If these people—the hexed, Safiya had said—were indeed magical, she’d need to take that quite literally.
She slipped back against the wall again and watched as others came up to the table, nodding at them when they caught her eye. Most gave her slightly suspicious looks back, though when she smiled they typically returned it.
As she gazed out at the crowd, she found one guest she actually recognized who wasn’t on the board. He wasn’t sweaty or splayed out on the ground this time, and in fact he looked so well put together she found herself staring. He was handsome and tall, with untamed dark hair. When he looked over at her, he actually engaged her in a smile first from across the room, and her cheeks went all warm yet again.
Their fixed gaze was broken when an older, blonde woman came up to him, significantly shorter. She straightened his collar, but he was quick to bat her hands away with a little laugh. Ivy watched as she said something to him, a frown creasing her face. He leaned down a bit to hear then nodded and pat her shoulder. She put a hand on his face and stared at him a long minute, then offered him a little smile and pinched his cheek. He pulled back, and she looped her arm in his, leading him away with a content look.
His eyes found Ivy’s again, his smile a bit flustered this time, and he made a face at her as if to say Mothers, right? Ivy bit her lip and looked away, more heat rising in her face than she would have liked.
Feeling awkward standing so long in one place, Ivy made her way around the outer edge of the room at a saunter when she heard the word orb pop out of the crowd. It had been that voice again, the one belonging to the older woman on the board, and Ivy found Victoria Jiang and Alastair Proctor chatting near the drink table. Ivy perused the station, very carefully selecting a cup as she listened.
“Well, the fragment is safest in Ms. Hakim’s hands for now anyway,” Alastair was saying. The impression, generally, was that Safiya had collected the orb of netherlight from Rufus’s house, and that was the story she was sticking to for now.
“Hmm.” Even Mrs. Jiang’s annoyed noises sounded like a song. “Yes, I quite agree, it’s just that his nephew will certainly argue it’s part of his affects. Rufus has had it for, what, twenty years now?” Ivy picked up and put down a bottle without really looking at it and s
ide stepped closer to them.
“Has it been that long?” Alastair cleared his throat and took a sip. “Do you think we should consider instituting term limits?”
Mrs. Jiang scoffed. “They seem to institute themselves.”
The two chuckled lowly, and a third voice came over to them, a red-faced, younger woman who Victoria immediately began consoling, breaking them apart and changing the subject.
“Trying to drink away the memory?” Oakley was suddenly standing across the table from Ivy. She hadn’t seen him show up and regretted not watching the door for him.
She realized then she was holding a bottle of vodka. “No way.” She poured herself some water instead and stepped behind the table to stand next to him. “A lot of people showed up.”
“Well, he was the president.” Her brother fiddled with his cup. “Nice guy too. I thought so anyway.”
There was a tapping of silverware on a glass then, and the murmur in the room quieted down. Standing beside the portrait of Rufus holding his glass aloft was a young man. He was dressed in a sharp suit with a dark blue shirt beneath, mourning-chic she supposed, and when he smiled, it was clear he was another Vlcek with dimples identical to Rufus’s.
Ivy leaned closer to her brother and whispered, “Who’s that?”
“Rufus’s nephew, uh?” He scrunched up his nose. “Evan, I think? Lives over in the condos by Saf.”
Evan Vlcek’s teeth gleamed pearly white under the bright light that had been set on his uncle’s portrait. He was tall, like Rufus had been, athletic, dark-haired, tan-skinned, and his smile somehow was both genuine and forced. He wasn’t necessarily happy to be there, one would assume, but he seemed to be making the best of it. Ivy thought she would have found herself attracted to him if only he hadn’t opened his mouth.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all so much for coming. My uncle would have been absolutely delighted to see your faces. Not at his memorial, of course. Maybe at someone else’s.”
There was a slight murmur of laughter from the crowd and Evan grinned, glancing down at his feet a moment longer than necessary while it died off. Then he snapped his head back up, his face changed, somber and present.
The Association Page 5