by Ivy Asher
If those bitches think I won’t curse them to the ends of this earth just because they’re family, then they’re dumber than I thought. Looks like it’s finally time to play a much anticipated game of whack-a-snob.
6
The tires of my ancient Nissan Pathfinder squeal in objection as I take a turn just a little too fast. I probably just scraped the last of the remaining tread off of them, but it’s for a worthy cause. Rogan reaches up for the oh shit handle to steady himself, and the hand he has wrapped around Hoot in his lap tightens. Wisely, he keeps his mouth shut as I rage-drive us over to my aunt’s house.
I turn my attention back to the road, but I don’t miss the tic of irritation in his jaw. He’s not a fan of this detour. If it were my brother missing, I wouldn’t be either, but without the grimoire, I’m not going to be much help, and Rogan made it clear that I’m his last hope. Or Grammy Ruby was. I’d feel bad, but I just can’t find it in me right now, I’m too pissed.
I’m pissed at the bones and at my entitled family for stealing something that they have no business touching. I’m pissed at Rogan, and most irritating of all...I’m pissed at myself. I never took any of this seriously, and now here I am, chillin’ in a pot of water like a frog that doesn’t know it’s about to be boiled to death. I don’t like feeling stupid, and what’s worse is I’m the one making myself look stupid.
I pick up my phone and open my contacts, I hit the speaker button as I take another sharp turn, and a shrill ringing fills the car.
“Hey, Lennard, you at the shop? Ma and I were thinking of bringing some lunch over,” Tad tells me distractedly, the sounds of him starting his dryer in the background.
“Osseous family beatdown commencing in T minus ten minutes,” I inform him on a growl, slamming my brakes as the light in front of me blinks from green to yellow to red much too quickly for me to safely shoot through it.
“Oooh, what did they do now?” he asks, eagerly.
“They stole the grimoire.”
“Those rat-faced... Maaaaa! Get in the car, we gotta go!”
I hang up before Tad can say anything else.
“You,” I snap, turning to eye Rogan in the passenger seat. “Tell me what I need to know about your brother and whatever you think happened.”
He holds Hoot a little tighter. “I’ll tell you everything, just watch the road while I do!” he orders, panic ringing in his voice.
I change lanes to pass a slow-moving car and wait for Rogan to get to it.
“It started when Elon didn’t show up for a standing monthly appointment we have with a client. He doesn’t do that...ever, so I knew something was wrong. We talk every day. I had spoken to him the night before to have him bring me some things from his garden, and I knew if something had come up that morning, he would have called me.
“I finished up with the appointment as best I could without him and then drove straight to his house. I called, but his phone went right to voicemail every time. When I got there, I punched in his code to the garage, and his car was still there, cold. Clearly, it had been parked there for a while. But when I went inside, things were...wrong.”
“How so?” I ask, flicking my turn signal on and waiting for the green arrow to light up and grant me passage.
“It was subtle at first, a soda can on the counter next to a crumb speckled plate. The TV on and playing some twenty-four-hour football highlight channel. And then I noticed the bones he always warded his windows and doorways with were missing from where they’d always been. I wasn’t sure what to think at first. Elon doesn’t drink soda, he always says it’s bad for your bones. He’s a health nut and cringes at the mere mention of white bread, but that was the loaf that was open on the counter. The only sport Elon thinks is worth watching is hockey or soccer. He couldn’t care less about football.”
I slow as we get closer to a gated community entrance. This one isn’t manned. It only requires a keycard to be swiped in order to have the gate swinging wide open to grant entry. Little does my aunt know that I have a client who lives in the same community. She used to come into my work twice a month, but when her MS started acting up, she asked if I could do house calls, and I’ve been scanning that keycard to get in twice a month ever since.
“When I went to walk past Elon’s living room to check upstairs, that’s when I saw the circle of crushed rowanberries and the pile of ash. It was still smoking. I called for him and checked everywhere, but he was just...gone.”
“Did you call the Order?”
A disdainful scoff bursts out of Rogan. “They wouldn’t help my family. The Order only cares about things that serve them. They’re all about politics and power plays, not truth and justice.”
I keep my thoughts to myself. I was under the impression that they were tasked with keeping the magical community in line, but what do I really know. Grammy Ruby never seemed too keen on interacting with them. She never said why, and I always figured it was a typical cops make people nervous kind of thing. A person could be the epitome of innocent and law abiding, but if a cop pulls up behind them, the anxiety and panic hits. I thought the Order were the witch police, but from what Rogan is saying, I might not have a full grasp on how they work—or don’t, according to him.
“So what makes you think this is some big conspiracy instead of some messed up prank? Maybe your brother is shacked up with a girl he met, and the ashes are from the cleaner’s vacuum exploding?”
An uneasy feeling churns in my stomach, and it’s as though my instincts are setting off a you’re wrong buzzer like I’m a game show contestant who just guessed an incorrect answer. Rogan shoots me an unimpressed look that has me questioning my own intelligence for a second.
“Elon wouldn’t leave without telling me, and the entire situation was off. When I started looking into things, reaching out and speaking with trusted friends, that’s when I discovered that there were others. Three Osteomancers and a Soul Witch.”
“What could the kidnappers want with fertility magic?” I ask, the Soul Witch part throwing me for a loop.
“What do they want with any of them?” Rogan counters. “They’re all alive, I know that much at least, but depending on why they’ve been taken, that could be a good or a bad thing.”
The agony in Rogan’s statement makes my chest hurt. I focus on the asshole side of the family that I’m headed to deal with so that my mind doesn’t wander to dark places that play out scenarios of all the bad things that happen to people who are taken against their will.
“And how can you be sure that they’re all alive?”
Rogan looks at me again like I’m an idiot, and I’m starting to get really tired of seeing that particular look on his face.
“If they were dead, their magic would choose the next in line, just like Ruby’s did with you,” he points out evenly.
“Oh, right.”
Okay, maybe I earned that last scathing look fair and square.
“Magic hasn’t transferred to anyone else in any of the missing witch cases, so whatever it is that someone wants them for, they have to be alive. I’m terrified that could change at any moment though.”
I tear my attention away from the tic in his jaw and the sheen of pain that wells up in his clover-hued eyes. We both fall silent for a moment as the weight of his words settles all around us. “How much longer until we get to wherever it is that we’re going?” he asks impatiently, and I suddenly feel like there’s some hourglass of doom looming over us, each grain of sand counting down the milliseconds until everything shatters. I have no idea how I’m going to help him, but I know I have to, and I sure as hell know I need the grimoire if I hope to have any chance of doing it.
My SUV threatens to tip as I take a sharp left and force it to charge over a steep hill. “We’re almost there.”
I turn down a ridiculously long driveway that’s lined with tall majestic trees that are just on the cusp of shedding all their green for a myriad of oranges, plums, and yellows. I hate my aunt, but the be
auty of her property can’t be denied. What can be denied, however, is her claim to own all of it. These eighteen acres originally belonged to the family in its entirety, but somehow through sketchy wheeling and dealing, they ended up in just one sister’s name several generations ago, the Harridans. The property was then passed down to only her line instead of belonging to all the Osseous clan like it was originally intended to be.
The whole situation is fuel for feuds. Some of the family has given up on trying to change things, but it doesn’t keep the rest of us from giving them the stink eye and cursing their every move. While I was growing up, Grammy Ruby tried to pull the tattered branches of the family tree back together, but now that she’s gone—and with the stunt Magda and Gwen Harridan just pulled—there will no longer be any hope of that happening.
The dense line of trees thins as I speed down the lane. Up ahead, the driveway loops around a gaudy and ostentatious fountain spewing water from various statues’ orifices. There’s a mansion that was built on top of the skeletons of old colonial style homes that our ancestors built, and the monstrosity that now sits before me can’t make up its mind between being some kind of English-inspired castle or a Craftsman on steroids.
We screech to a halt in front of the large entrance, and I turn in my seat. “Hoot, I want you to go in there and pee on anything and everything you can find, do you hear me, buddy? Now’s your chance to say fuck the patriarchy, I’ll go where I want to go!”
With that, I shove my door open, the hinges squealing in outrage, and jump out of the car. Rogan meets me as I come around the side and speed walk to the front doors. I’m not sure if they know that I’m here. I didn’t go through the front gate where a guard would have called them to ask if I was authorized, but they probably have cameras somewhere that alert them to what’s happening on the property.
I reach for the brass knob, and the door opens without the slightest hint of objection. “Of course the stupid elitist pricks didn’t lock the door,” I grumble as I let myself in.
Surprisingly, no one comes running to intercept me. I call out hello a couple of times and give it a minute, but nothing happens. Well, that’s anticlimactic. Even if Magda and Gwen are somehow not here, they usually have a whole staff of maids and cooks running about. I look around, not sure what to do. As much as I’d love to tear through this entire house to find the grimoire, Rogan’s made it clear that we don’t have a ton of time. If only I were a Sanderson sister and could call the book with an enticing sing-song voice. Shit would be a hell of a lot easier if it would come floating out to me from wherever they’ve decided to hide it.
A round mahogany and glass table sits in the center of the foyer. I stroll over to it and grab the large vase of flowers from its middle. I double-check that Rogan still has Hoot in his arms, and then I chuck what is probably a Ming vase—that costs more than everything I own combined—at a gargantuan brocade mirror that’s hung on the wall of the entryway.
The sound of shattering glass slices through the quiet house like a knife. Shards of the vase and mirror crash to the marble tile below. Chunks of flowers and filler plop to the ground in a staccato of splats. And hurried footsteps pound in our direction.
“Well, that’s one way to get their attention,” Rogan observes behind me. He’s looking around at the house, but he doesn’t seem impressed or intimidated by the opulence; he just looks, surprise surprise, impatient.
“Theresa, what in the name of the equinox is going on in here?” my aunt demands as she rounds the corner, her lips pursed and her brows dipped with irritation. Her angry gaze lands on me, and she freezes mid-step. “How did you get in here?” she demands, her voice pinched and a little higher pitched. Her dreary gray-blue eyes widen with shock and a tinge of fear, and satisfaction warms me.
“You should really start locking your front door. Wealth doesn’t make you impervious to crime,” I tell her, just as a slight woman in a crisp blue dress and apron comes rushing into the foyer. She takes one look at the mess, then at me, crosses herself and then promptly leaves. I’m not sure if she’s making a break for it or just going to fetch a broom and a mop.
“You are not welcome here, leave,” my aunt growls, steeling her spine, but the panic in her gaze gives her away.
“Oh come on, Aunt Magda, aren’t you going to congratulate me?” I taunt, stepping closer to her. Glass crunches under my sneakers as I close the distance between us, and her whole body tenses.
“Mother, what is going on? I told you I need to study, but how am I supposed to do that if the maids can’t keep from destroying the house while they’re cleaning it?” a whiny shrill voice demands, and right on cue, my cousin Gwen rounds the corner.
Unlike her mother, she doesn’t seem to notice that she has an audience. Her petulant stare is fixed only on Magda, as though she’s solely responsible and needs to be taken to task. It isn’t until my aunt trains her anxious gaze on her daughter, that Gwen takes a moment to assess the scene. Bright blue eyes turn and take me in, but instead of fear, rage flashes in Gwen’s doe eyes.
“How dare you show your face here,” she seethes, stepping in my direction, her hands balling into fists at her sides. I’m uncertain if she’s about to throw a temper tantrum or a fist.
Rogan moves protectively closer to me, and both Magda and Gwen seem to notice him for the first time. Gwen stops, as though his presence has glamoured her and she’s forgotten what she was just about to do. Her mouth drops a little with surprise, but she recovers quickly and delicately presses her lips together in an annoyingly enticing way.
I want to look over at Rogan to see if he’s captivated and trapped by her obvious attraction, but I internally slap myself for caring. Gwen is beautiful. She’s all long red hair, legs for days, and the D cups that her mom bought her for graduation. But she’s a vapid, selfish, little twit, and if that gets Rogan the Ridiculous all hot and bothered, then more power to him, why should I care?
“Who are you?” Gwen asks, her voice breathy and missing all the acerbic bite that was just there for me.
I roll my eyes.
“Rogan Kendrick, and you are?” he asks, his tone dripping with manners he’s never bothered to use on me.
Outrage hammers through me, and I turn an offended look on him. “Are you serious?” I demand. “I get magic whammied, and she gets Southern charm?”
Gwen and Magda both refocus on me, and it’s like that mirror wipe challenge I’ve seen on some clock app: wipe, moony eyes and flirty smiles; wipe, vicious bitches with dagger-filled stares.
“Excuse the trailer trash, she’s practically feral,” Gwen tells Rogan with a sneer that morphs into an inviting smile when her eyes move from me to him.
“All these years, and trailer trash is still the best that you can come up with?” I taunt, unaffected.
“Listen here, you little mongrel,” my Aunt Magda snaps, stepping even with her daughter. “Either you leave now or I’ll call the authorities.”
I gasp, forcing my eyes wide with fear, and throw a hand over my mouth. Rogan stiffens with concern just behind me. “Oh no, not the authorities,” I plead overdramatically, bringing the back of my hand to my forehead and wobbling like I’m about to swoon. Nailed that Scarlett O’Hara impression. “And which authorities would that be, Magda, the Lessers or the Order? Pretty sure when either finds out that you’ve burgled a dead woman’s house before her bones even had enough time to grow cold, and then stole things that don’t belong to you, they won’t be too fussed with me,” I point out as I straighten up.
“Things that don’t belong to us? They only belong to us. Gwen is the rightful heir, and every scrap of our magical lineage belongs to her,” she snarls at me, outrage flaring in her nostrils and her dim blue eyes.
Gwen adds a haughty nod and crosses her arms over her chest. “Rogan Kendrick, now why does that name sound familiar?” she queries flirtatiously, snapping seamlessly out of her irritation with me and right into her interest for him. If I weren’t so pisse
d off, I’d be impressed with her ability to multitask.
“Oh shit, my bad,” I announce, popping myself in the forehead in a universal duh gesture. “Gwen is the rightful heir? I had no idea. Guess you won’t mind showing me the bones then,” I deadpan, dropping all the theatrics and leveling my aunt with a baleful stare.
She stammers, her gaze bouncing around the room as her brain struggles to form another delusional argument that we both know has no merit.
“We don’t have the bones yet, but it won’t be long,” Gwen sneers, and with that obvious threat, I’m done fucking around.
I step closer to her, my patience for this situation tapped. Options pop up in my mind, as though I’ve just opened a closet full of magic and now I need to decide what to wear. I’m reminded of how I felt when I sealed the bones to me and more abilities than I could comprehend wove themselves into my very essence. It’s as though, in response to my anger, some of those abilities are asking to be called on now.
Let’s see what we’re working with then.
The ground below my feet begins to quake. It’s slight at first, but with each steady step I take, the movement grows. The glass on the floor plinks and scrapes as it’s jostled, and both Magda and Gwen shriek and reach out for each other as they try to steady themselves, their terrified gazes landing on me as I close the distance between us.
It may look like I’m controlling the elements, a power that an Osteomancer shouldn’t have, but what Gwen and Magda don’t know is that this house has been built on top of the graves of some of our ancestors who used to live here ages ago. Their bones have long since disintegrated, but their essence and power still remain in the very soil. That is what I have domain over, but these assholes don’t need to know that. Let them think that I’m some meta witch, maybe then they’ll think twice about fucking with things they shouldn’t in the future.