The Devil's Standoff

by V. S. McGrath

  She wasn’t so sure of that anymore. If the chupacabra had managed to find a way in, who else could? She left the stables as Marco called the hands in to clean up.

  “Are you all right?” Walker’s deep voice startled her. His gaze flickered over her as if he couldn’t look at her full-on, and he stayed a generous arm’s length away.

  “I’m fine.” She turned and winced at the stab of pain in her side.

  “You’re a piece of work, all right. Let’s have a look.”

  She drew back and wrapped her arms around her waist. The high-necked nightgown and the boots she’d shoved on her feet when she’d gone to speak with Javier hid far more than the blouses Julia and other village girls wore daily. Covered as she was, though, she felt especially naked in Walker’s presence. “It ain’t appropriate.”

  “We’re past inappropriate.” He reached out to guide her away, but the barest touch shot heat straight to her cheeks. She recoiled sharply, sending another stabbing pain through her side.

  “Call my mother,” he shouted to a young boy, who took off running. To Hettie, he said, “You need to sit.”

  “I’m—” Before she could say “fine” again, Walker scooped her up and carried her toward the central fountain with long, quick strides.

  “Put me down!” Anger and helplessness braided around the thrill chasing through her. “I can walk on my own.”

  “Sure you can.”

  Blood pumped hard into her head. Hettie drew her fist back and slugged Walker in the jaw. He dropped her, and she landed on her rump at his feet. Pain stabbed through her ribs, and she clenched her teeth to keep from crying out.

  “Damnation, woman, I was trying to be helpful!” he shouted, holding his face.

  “I don’t need that kind of help!” She staggered to her feet, shaking out her knuckles discreetly. Egads, the man had a hard head. “Next time I say ‘I’m fine,’ mind my words.” She sat on a cold stone bench by the fountain and shivered. Walker huffed and planted his fists on his hips.

  “Rushing in there was mighty stupid,” he grumbled. “Marco said you ran headlong into the stable when Raúl said not to.”

  She scowled. “If I didn’t go in, your brother would be dead right now.”

  He glowered right back. “Is there something you wanna tell me about you and my brother?”

  She didn’t reply. The air between them crackled.

  Beatrice arrived, along with Julia. Walker’s mother had hastily thrown on a dress and apron, and carried a physician’s bag, but Julia looked … perfect. Did she sleep that way? The two women studied Walker warily.

  “Stop acting as if I’m going to eat her. I’m fine.”

  “So you say.” Beatrice probed Hettie’s ribs. “Just bruises. We can wrap them, and I can give you something for the pain, if you like.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll sleep it off.” She wasn’t keen on bandages or medicine. She’d survived being shot in the head—she’d live with a little bruising.

  Beatrice didn’t question her decision and cast her son a warning look before heading off. Julia lingered. “Here.” She removed her shawl and draped it over Hettie’s shoulders. “I do not know how you do it. You saved my cousin … again.”

  “He does get into a lot of trouble, doesn’t he?” she snickered.

  Julia’s gaze flicked up to Walker. “She is as brave as you said.” She left then, trailing after Beatrice to tend to the others’ wounds.

  Walker nodded stiffly to Hettie. “The men will take care of things here. Go back to bed.”

  Not even a thank-you for saving his brother. She got to her feet and stiffly made her way back to the great house alone.

  She paused at her bedroom. The door was ajar. Had she forgotten to close it? Chest tight, she pushed it open.

  The moonlight slipped in between the cracks around the shutters, barely limning Abby’s slumbering form beneath the blankets tucked under her chin. She stirred and croaked out, “Hettie?”

  Hettie released a breath. She’d only imagined her sister had been in the stables. “Nothing to worry about, Abby. Go back to sleep.”

  Before she went to bed herself, she reported the chupacabra attack to Javier. He listened intently as she related the night’s events. “How do you think the chupacabra got in?” she asked.

  He closed his eyes, frowning deeply. “I don’t know. The barrier is intact as far as I can tell…”

  Hettie realized Javier was holding something back. “But?”

  He waved her off. “It is nothing. I am simply tired.”

  And now Javier was lying to her. But why? What did he have to hide?

  Wasn’t sure I’d ever see your withered old face again.” Marcus Wellington’s neatly trimmed red beard twitched as Jeremiah shouldered past him into the house.

  “Hurry up and shut the door. I don’t think I was followed, but you can never be too careful.” Jeremiah glanced back once, just in case, though the numerous protection spells on the Favreau house in Yuma would’ve deterred even the most dogged stalker. That Sophie’s head of security, Marcus, answered the door himself, his brace of mage guns at his hips, spoke to the extensive measures taken to ensure the lady’s safety.

  “Be grateful you’re welcomed here at all. First time we met, you had my charge at knifepoint.”

  “It wasn’t my bright idea to hold Sophie hostage, and you know it.” He dropped his hat and heavy duster onto the foyer floor, and Marcus grimaced. The talisman-laden coat had protected him on the journey back across the border, but it was weighty, both physically and magically. He rolled his shoulders back with an audible crack while a nervous-looking maid scooped the clothing up and scuttled away like a cockroach in the daylight. “You got whiskey?” He’d settle for a shot of rotgut to quiet the clenching inside him.

  “You’re going to need more than that if you plan on seeing Miss Favreau.” He wrinkled his nose as Jeremiah dropped onto a damask-covered footstool and pulled off his boots.

  “Sorry, but my Sunday suit is at the cleaners.”

  Marcus grumbled something as an ungodly smell wafted from Jeremiah’s feet. He shouted for the servants to provide food and a bath for their hungry, dirty, stinking guest.

  When Jeremiah’s belly was full, his skin scrubbed, and his hair and beard put to rights, he put on the clean clothes thoughtfully provided by his hosts, then was conducted to see Miss Sophie Favreau.

  The parlor he was led into was, like the rest of the house, opulently appointed, with rose-patterned damask upholstering every plush surface and bowls and vases overflowing with blooms from the lush garden. The New Orleans mansion owned by the elder Mrs. Patrice Favreau, the Soothsayer of the South, had been decorated in a similar fashion. Jeremiah didn’t much care for the flowers: it was a terrible waste of water and magic to be growing roses in the middle of the Arizona desert, and besides, they lent a sweet but slightly rotten smell to the grand old house.

  Patrice’s granddaughter, Sophie, stood as he entered, eagerness lighting her changeable green eyes. Marcus posted himself by the door. Sophie was a beauty of nineteen or so, with golden hair and flawless skin. Some of it was glamor magic, but even he, a master sorcerer, could hardly detect her finely tuned abilities. “Mr. Bassett. How do you do?”

  “Miss Favreau.” Jeremiah gave a short bow and acknowledged Jemma, her ever-present maid and bodyguard, who sat quietly in the corner, watching him. “I’m much obliged by your hospitality.”

  Sophie sat and poured him a cup of coffee. “Forgive me, I have to dispense with formalities, and I don’t mean to be rude or bitter, but your appearance here tells me Hettie hasn’t discovered the cause of the soothsayers’ blackout yet. Grandmère has not awakened, and her absence has been keenly noted among our social set. Rumors of other soothsayers dropping out of society are making people uneasy.”

  Because wealthy speculators r
elied heavily on what the gifted could scry about their investments. Of course the richest would be most concerned. “We’ve been a little too busy to look into the matter.”

  “So I’ve gathered. We had a visit from a Captain Bradley, who told us some interesting stories about what happened in Sonora after you, Mr. Tsang, and Mr. Woodroffe parted ways with us.”

  Jeremiah told them about rescuing Abby and Hettie from the Crowe gang at the old Sonora Zoom tunnel station, and how Ling was actually an agent of the Division of Sorcery with his own agenda. He was vaguer about their journey to Mexico, and didn’t tell them where the sisters were hiding now. The less the Favreaus knew, the better.

  “So you left the girls on their own in some godforsaken town?” Marcus asked incredulously.

  He waved him off. “I came here to track down a lead. Miss Favreau, your grandmother is a patron to the asylum here in Yuma, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, indeed. She’s always had a soft spot for the … incapacitated.”

  “I need access to the patients there.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “I need to consult with the doctors there, check on some patients.” He didn’t mention that it was in regard to Abby’s indigo powers. If they chose to believe it was about the blackout, that was on them.

  “You mean others who might have been affected by the soothsayer blackout?”

  “Sure.” He didn’t like lying, but if it sped up this interview, so be it. It wasn’t that he didn’t have sympathy for Sophie Favreau and her grandmother, but he’d been away from the Alabama girls too long. There was no telling what kind of trouble Hettie was getting herself into.

  The debutante sat up straighter. “I’ll accompany you to the asylum. The director of the facility would not turn me away. Grandmère is a generous donor.”

  Sophie wrote a letter and sent it to the director ahead of their visit the next day. Dressed in a sober gray dress, the heir to the Favreau dynasty, along with Jeremiah, Marcus, and Jemma, passed through the gates to the Yuma asylum.

  “It would be best for you to remain silent throughout our discourse,” Sophie told Jeremiah gently. “My glamor will keep people from noticing you as long as you don’t draw attention to yourself.”

  “I know how glamor works,” he said. “You just do what you need to do, and I’ll do what I need to do, and we’ll meet back at the house.”

  “Miss Sophie’s doing you a favor, Mr. Bassett,” Jemma snapped. “You show her some respect.”

  Jeremiah pursed his lips and apologized demurely, keeping one eye on the negro woman. He hadn’t quite figured her out yet. She was more than a servant, considering how close she stayed to Sophie and the liberties she took with her opinions. Any time he tried to probe her, though, she’d turn her unflinching gaze upon him as if she meant to set him ablaze with that look. Maybe she could—he’d encountered all kinds of magical gifts in his time, many of them hidden to even the most well-trained sorcerers. He didn’t know half of what was out there, and did not discount the idea Jemma might have a secret, minor gift on top of her skill with knives and hand-to-hand combat.

  The asylum director, Dr. Frederick Dunkirk, met them at the door and led them into the somber edifice. Dunkirk was a stout, balding man with pince-nez glasses and deep furrows on his brow. He reminded Jeremiah of an undercooked soft-boiled egg with its shell peeled off halfway, the whites sagging and threatening to spill the yolk within.

  Over a cup of tea in the director’s study, Sophie explained her grandmother’s comatose condition and the little progress she’d made in discovering its cause. She asked whether any of his comatose or catatonic patients might have shown recent signs of change or improvement, though she made no mention of the way soothsayers everywhere had been blocked from scrying the future.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you asked.” Dunkirk put his teacup down. “A few patients have made miraculous progress in the past year. Their recovery has been quite marvelous. I’m writing a paper about it right now—I believe it is thanks to this new electroconvulsive therapy. It’s all the rage among medical professionals, you know.” He grinned. “The apparatus for the treatment was generously donated by a benevolent organization in Arkansas, would you believe…”

  He went on at some length about the marvelous device, but Jeremiah had no interest in a machine that sounded like an instrument of torture. Though Sophie believed they were there for her grandmother’s sake, Jeremiah was only in this damnable place because Ling had said the answers to his questions about indigo powers resided within the asylum.

  “Perhaps Miss Favreau would like to see the device in question?” Marcus said, clearing his throat. “If there’s any chance that such an invention could help her grandmother…”

  “Oh, indeed!” Dr. Dunkirk exclaimed, and stood. “A demonstration is in order.”

  Sophie smiled tightly, flicking Marcus a sour look, and rose. “Thank you, Dr. Dunkirk, but we’ll have to save that for some other visit. I’d like to start with a tour, if you please. I have other engagements today.”

  The asylum director led them down the corridor, with Jeremiah lingering behind. Marcus sent him a meaningful look over his shoulder before following the group around a corner.

  Jeremiah circled back to the director’s office. If he found something to help Patrice Favreau, he’d share it with the others, but in the meantime he needed to find whatever he could on indigo children. Ling had said he’d find the Division’s worst nightmare within these walls: Jeremiah had worked with them long enough to know they considered just about everything under the sun a threat, so he couldn’t be sure this wasn’t a waste of time.

  He magically sealed the director’s office door behind him. The whole asylum had a faint suppression spell suffused within the stone and mortar to keep anyone with the gift from breaking out, but the office was spell-free. Likely it was because whoever had held the directorship when the asylum was built had been a sorcerer himself. Dunkirk, however, was a mundane.

  The wood filing cabinets lining the wall behind the director’s desk were all unlocked. Each dossier contained a description of the patient, their perceived problems, notes on the treatments they received, and their progress. It was too much information for one man to go through.

  There was a way to get what he needed, of course. He didn’t like doing it, but he didn’t have time to waste.

  Quickly he laid down a confinement spell around the perimeter of the office. He pulled a small bag of raven bones from one pocket, laid out a mostly clean square of linen on the ground, then cut his left palm with his hunting knife. He took the frail raven bones in his bloodied palm, murmuring the infernal incantation, then scattered them across the piece of cloth.

  They rolled and jumped, standing end on end and piling together as Jeremiah squeezed more blood over the form. In short order the raven skeleton had fully formed. It stretched its featherless wings and shook its head, the neck bones rattling.

  And so we meet again, Jeremiah Bassett. The raven’s beak snapped like little scissors clipping at the air. Jeremiah could hear the words in his mind, but only because he knew what to listen for.

  “I need your help,” he said flatly.

  Has Diablo been too much trouble? the raven asked mildly. Because there are many who would gladly take if off your hands …

  “Don’t be coy, demon. You know what I need.”

  You wish to know more about the girl. The raven gave a desiccated caw, like a laugh that hadn’t quite escaped his throat. You should have let her die. She is the undoer, the one who will end what is—

  “Quit yer jabbering and do what I need you to.” Demons would talk your ear off given the chance. They were all silver tongues and idle hands.

  The skeletal bird shrugged its bony shoulders and hopped onto the desk. Several drawers slid open, and the raven methodically pulled the folder tabs so they stuck up like little cr
ooked tombstones. When it was done plucking its pick, it hopped back down onto the desk with a skittering sound. The price for this is—

  “Add it to my tab.” Jeremiah grabbed the linen square and draped it over the raven skeleton. It gave an indignant squawk as he closed both hands over it and collapsed the whole form into an inert pile of bones once more. He wiped the blood from his hands, then pocketed the bundle as he gathered the files the familiar had selected.

  There were five of them in all. At first he didn’t understand—these were not children’s files, but adults. All men, four soldiers and one lawman. Three of the soldiers had died more than fifteen years ago. The fourth had escaped from the asylum. And the lawman … was still a resident.

  Jeremiah’s heart beat faster. He stuffed the files under his shirt, shut the drawers, and hurried out of the office.

  The lawman’s cell was in the lowest level of the asylum. Jeremiah padded down the stone staircases, pausing when he heard voices, skirting through the shadows. Sophie’s glamor had kept him hidden in her presence so that no one would notice when he slipped away, but it could do nothing for him if he were discovered where he shouldn’t be. He had to be swift and quiet. He could walk down there with spells blazing, but this wasn’t a jailbreak—he was only here to find out if Ling had been telling the truth.

  He wouldn’t be here if he’d doubted anything the Celestial had told him. Ling had no reason to lie, except maybe to save his own hide. But as the dark closed in and the smell of decay filled his nostrils, he began to hope Ling had at the very least been exaggerating.

  What he heard next sent a deep, foreboding chill through his bones. It was singing—high and sweet, like an off-key music box, the notes whingeing rather than tinkling. Jeremiah recognized the tune at last—“Amazing Grace.”

  He followed the song to the end of the corridor. No sound emerged from the other rooms. As far as he could tell, whoever lay beyond that door was the only resident on this level.