One More Bite

by Jennifer Rardin

  Vayl’s voice filled my left ear. “Did the clerk threaten Floraidh?”

  I didn’t want to tell him the truth. But what kind of lie would make me sound less crazed? I said, “Her face morphed into somebody else’s while I was looking at her, talked to me in his voice, and then changed back.”

  “Who?”

  “Samos.”

  He didn’t laugh. Not even that choking gasp that passed for his chuckle. “Has this happened before?”

  “Yeah, once on the plane. And once at Gatwick, when I was standing at the counter, waiting to buy a muffin.”

  “We need to discuss this. But now Floraidh and Dormal are moving toward the great room. I overheard them discussing their table setup. Perhaps you two should take your places.”

  Cole and I allowed the Scidairans to pass and then moved into the crowd after them. As we ambled toward the arched openings leading to a vast, open-span room, Rhona came up from behind me and grasped my forearm, her grip bruising. “Come on, now, let me give you the grand tour,” she said as she dragged me forward. “On the way we can talk about parliamentary reform. Did you know my MP has a degree in Occult Studies?”

  Just as I was narrowing my choices of pressure points and taking advance pleasure in the look on Rhona’s face when I knocked her out, Vayl reached my side. Rolling our plan into motion he said, “Rhona, I believe Iona is looking for you. They cannot seem to find Viv’s identification tag or her name on the list. The woman is getting rude, which is upsetting her. She says she wants to go back to the B and B.”

  Rhona dropped her hand and swung around like she was about to pound through the doors of the nearest saloon and gun down the first hombre who crossed her. “These people are complete nitwits! Now do you see why I prefer dealing with the dead?” As she stalked off, Vayl slipped Cole the missing papers.

  Palming them so neatly I wondered if he’d worked his way through college as a card shark, Cole said, “Hang on, Rhona. Maybe I can help. I once organized my Scout troop’s father-son wiener roast.” Flashing us a grin, he strode after her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  With the Jepson group about to fall into Cole’s debt and his charm dialed to life-of-the-party, Vayl and I felt comfortable turning our backs on them for the time it took to lock on to the rest of Tearlach’s boarders and assess the most likely means of Bea’s attack, should it come during the opening ceremonies.

  Lesley and Humphrey had hustled to the front row, where they’d scooped up the seats to the right of the aisle and, from the look of their campsite, didn’t intend to release them for the duration of the Con. Floraidh and Dormal, weighed down with supplies for their booth, were working their way through a swelling crowd of avid ghost fans who’d only now begun to seat themselves. Most still stood in groups of anywhere from two to fifteen among the double rows of chairs set up in the east half of the red-carpeted room. They kept looking eagerly toward a temporary platform, on which the organizers had placed a podium with a microphone wired to two large black speakers that sat at the front corners of the stage. A pair of long, narrow tables set with pitchers of water and glasses, and slightly nicer chairs than the ones reserved for the audience, flanked the podium.

  You reached the entire setup via a set of rickety stairs that made me hope all the speakers had sworn off donuts the month before. If they made it safely to their seats, they might be impressed by the roughly plastered wall, which soared to a peak behind them. It had been painted with a massive representation of the Hoppringhill’s coat of arms, five scallops on a crossed scarlet ribbon.

  A minute later Floraidh and Dormal popped out of the crowd onto the west side of the great room. This held a variety of booths, some built to resemble lemonade stands, some looking like mazes with their multiple lattice walls folding in odd directions. This portion of the room could be shut off by an electronically controlled curtain that moved up and down like a shade. At the moment only a couple of feet of it peeked out of its tubular metal ceiling-mounted casing.

  The Scidairans found their booth right away. The haunted-house facade, complete with a ghostly figure staring out the tower window, was kinda hard to miss. A young woman dressed in white sat on the “front porch” behind a long wooden table. Dormal started unpacking while Floraidh chatted with the woman, who had to be a coven member. Even from across the room she scented other to me. But without my Sensitivity I think I’d still have guessed bad guy the second I laid eyes on her. She had Floraidh’s steam-cleaned demeanor, her bouncy blond hair and rosy cheeks making her seem like the kind of girl who’d organize a food drive for the homeless. Until you spent some time on those snapping brown eyes that left her lips and teeth to smile without them. Plus, she let them linger on people a beat too long. Like a python who’s sizing up her next meal. Floraidh said something to her and she bared those teeth again. Was it me, or did they seem a little sharper than your normal burger grinders?

  “I wonder what they are talking about,” said Vayl.

  “Too bad we couldn’t put a bug on them. I wonder if they really would’ve found it.”

  Vayl’s shrug was less, I don’t know, than, Hey, you’re the one who consulted the Wiccan.

  I opened the program as Floraidh and Dormal turned back toward us. While Vayl kept an eye on them I began to read. A couple of paragraphs later I said, “These Connies function like vampires.”

  “Excuse me—Connies?”

  “Yeah, you know, people who spaz out over theme conventions? Like that dude over there who’s dressed as Hamlet’s father?”

  “Ah, I see. Go on.”

  “They’ve got a whole night full of goodies planned. Panel discussions here in the great room. Smaller talks by different experts in the kitchen, dining room, library, and billiard room, not to mention several of the bigger bedrooms. GhostWalks every fifteen minutes starting right outside the front door. Those you have to pay extra for.”

  “How long do the opening ceremonies take?” Vayl asked.

  “Half an hour. It looks like the lights are going out at the end, so be ready for that,” I said. “They’ve hired a couple of the best Raisers in the biz, according to the program. Gerard Plontan and Francine Werry. Have you heard of them?”

  Vayl shook his head. “Should we assume they know what they are doing?”

  “Well, they’re here. That’s probably significant. This says they’re going to try to summon the castle ghosts for the crowd.” I held the booklet up for him to see. “They actually have a warning in here for people to keep their hands off the phantoms.”

  We looked at each other and together chimed, “Liability.”

  Vayl added, “Surely everyone here understands how angry a shade would become if he were to be touched by the warmth of humanity. The reminder would throw him right back into the Thin.”

  “It seems weird to me that a place like that should exist,” I said.

  “Why?”

  I shrugged. “I just wouldn’t think either side would tolerate such chaos.”

  Vayl shook his head. “You must always factor in freedom of choice, my pretera.”

  I thought of the deaths I’d witnessed since my Sensitivity kicked in. The multifaceted souls that had split apart like shards from a perfect stone, each of them taking off in a new direction.

  “I’m trying to imagine why any bit of a soul would want to linger in a place as brutal as the Thin,” I said.

  “Come now,” Vayl scoffed.

  “No, really, I don’t get it.”

  He leaned in, took a deep breath with his eyes closed, as if the smell of my shampoo made his digits tingle. “Life is sweet. Even when all you can hope for is to catch the scent of a human heart filling its body with vigor.”

  “Is that—”

  “No. You know you mean infinitely more to me than that. Now, what else is in the program?”

  I flipped through the pages. “Well, according to the program, the castle has at least seven ghosts ranging from a warrior who died at Culloden, to a y
oung groom who was kicked in the head by a horse, to a nineteenth-century owner who either fell, jumped, or was pushed from an upper-story window, leaving his wife free to marry the guy she’d been boffing on the side. But in case you start feeling too bad for him, she died six months later and is rumored to haunt the bedroom where the cheating took place.” I looked up at Vayl. “She did it right under his nose?”

  “He must have been stupid and blind.”

  The lights dimmed, like in a theater setting, to let the crowd know the show was about to begin. People took their seats, led by the convention’s star speakers. They crested the scary steps without incident (though the middle one creaked alarmingly beneath one guy who probably hadn’t seen his toes since 1975).

  Floraidh and Dormal found a spot left of the aisle, about halfway back. We worked our way toward them as Cole’s voice rang on the party line. “No, really, it was nothing. I’m just good at finding things, that’s all. When my mom misplaces her purse she still calls me.”

  Trickle of appreciative feminine laughter as he went on. “Hey, I see Lucille and Jeremy. Should we sit with them?”

  At this point Rhona might’ve demanded that they all charge the stage, requesting group photos and autographs, but Viv and Iona would’ve clung to Cole like barnacles on a barge. He’d worked his magic again.

  Vayl and I stopped, looking over the field of chairs as if to discuss where to sit to get the best view, but really to give the rest of the Tearlachers a chance to close in. Cole put his arms around both our shoulders as he and his groupies caught up to us. “Good news!” he said, grinning. “Viv is back in business!”

  He stepped aside so we could see her, showing off her name badge as Rhona and Iona beamed beside her. What a happy little group we make. And out of the six of us, at least three are assassins. No wonder people never truly get to know each other. So much happens under the surface that we never reveal. Even to ourselves.

  Which was when it struck me. I think I know why none of the other guests have tweaked my Spirit Eye, despite the fact that Bea must wield some major powers if she can subvert a Seer and control the most venomous land snake in the world. She doesn’t know about her violent side.

  My brother had also functioned for some time completely unaware of his actions. Only two months ago he’d been the puppet of a necromancer. Yeah, it takes badass power to kill a man, trap his soul, and enslave his body, but the Wizard had accomplished just that, using Dave as a mole within his own unit until we’d finally rescued him.

  Another reason you should keep talking to Raoul, Granny May reminded me. Dave would’ve died for good without his intervention. Uh-oh. She was setting up the bridge table. That meant she was in it for the long haul.

  Could we talk later? I asked. I’m trying to figure out why Bea is out of touch with herself. So much so that I can’t pick up even a pinch of her power.

  Do you think someone else is pulling her strings?

  I considered the possibility. Nope. Our contact had specified that the Weres had hired Bea personally. Which meant she was in charge. Some of the time. But if she was a dual personality, shouldn’t I still be able to read other, even when Bea was latent?

  Talk to Raoul, Granny May urged.

  All right, I will, I snapped. But I won’t be happy about it.

  Which was why I toted my alter ego around on every assignment. I might throw off disgruntled vibes so thick you wanted to bathe in peaches and cream after standing beside me for five minutes. But Lucille beamed at her new friends as we all found seats a couple of rows behind Floraidh and Dormal, and waved happily at Lesley Haigh when she made eye contact. She wiggled her fingers at me, made an aren’t-these-great-seats? gesture, and then leaned over to whisper in Humphrey’s ear. He shushed her as the first speaker walked up to the microphone.

  The ceremonies began with the typical introductions and profuse thanks of organizers nobody knew or cared about. But we smiled and clapped. Anything to stroke the egos while we pined for the real fun to begin. I sat midrow, with Vayl to my left and Viv to my right. Cole and Iona filled the seats next to her, while Rhona took the chair to Iona’s right. Despite the number of laps between us, Rhona didn’t hesitate to lean over our companions to tell me, “It should be very exciting this year. The keynote speaker is an author friend of mine who lives in a haunted house in Wales. Some of the most well-respected researchers on the planet have come to lecture, and the Raisers they’ve brought in are top-notch! Watch, just watch!” she demanded, jamming her finger toward the stage, as if to depress an imaginary button that was wired to the Instant Obedience section of my brain.

  I nodded politely, gave her a thumbs-up, which I just barely kept from turning sideways and jamming into her eye sockets. Not killing the annoying ones. Some days that’s the hardest part of this gig. From the look on her face, Viv might’ve felt close to the same. Only mothers can make us so crazy.

  As I sat through the introductions of the most well-known guests and the keynote speech, I could hardly keep myself from heckling. Like most people who want something so badly they can taste it, this group had chosen to ignore some of the basic truths involving those who couldn’t quite manage to depart this life. Among those, the fact that, despite resembling their human selves (when they managed to form at all), they’d become something else entirely. Balls of confused, obsessed, spirit-potential. Highly unpredictable. Prone to outbursts of rage that could cause small splits in the wall between worlds. And if you were standing too close to that wall, the impact hit you like a red-hot knife blade piercing your flesh. Which was why Raisers carried so many scars.

  Despite the fact that a really irritated ghost could cut deep enough to sever an artery, these “experts” and their loyal fans saw them as victims. Poor, trapped souls who needed to be released, educated, or, in Rhona’s case, protected by law so their rights would no longer be trampled by the living. At least Rhona wanted the most vicious among them punished.

  She cheered the loudest when her hero, Dr. Oliver Bendelfield, stood up to give a brief overview of his upcoming lecture, which would detail how the living continued to exorcise ghosts, effectively destroying them, when what they needed was the attention of companies like his. (Profitable) enterprises that worked to either free them or direct them to hell, depending on the color value of their ectoplasm.

  “That’s why we have to organize!” said Rhona, tears in her eyes as she pounded her hands together after Dr. Bendelfield had gone back to his chair. “So ghost rights will be recognized and they won’t be exterminated before groups like his, and yours, can be found that will give them the afterlife they deserve!”

  As Viv dropped her head into her hands, clearly wishing she lived on another planet, the woman in front of Rhona nodded enthusiastically. But I noticed her twisting her wedding ring around and around her finger. Smiling down at it regretfully. To me she represented the other school of reality deniers. The grieving bereft who’d heard the house creak after midnight, seen a long-lost face in the mirror mist after a shower, and decided their loved one hadn’t completely moved on after all.

  Her view was the one I understood. Hell, right before I’d come on this assignment the phone had rung, and for a split second I’d thought, Maybe it’s Matt! The yearning to turn around and see him, even as an indistinct figure lost in an ethereal haze, had overwhelmed me at the beginning. What pissed me off now was the number of amoral assholes who’d set up stations around the perimeter of the great hall solely designed to take advantage of that kind of longing.

  Viv’s feelings had intensified to such a degree that my Spirit Eye had begun to click like a Geiger counter. Though she worked to keep her face blank, I knew that Rhona’s behavior humiliated and worried her at the same time. She kept an eye on Cole’s hands, since he’d taken over the translating for now. She clapped at the appropriate moments. Laughed in the right places. Followed her program by keeping her finger on the spot and moving it down a tick every time a new speaker came up to the stand
. But her mom wasn’t making it any easier for her to survive tragedy. It was starting to tear her up all over again.

  As Gerard Plontan and Francine Werry came to the front of the platform to do their ghost-raising routine, Vayl, Cole, and I shared a nod. My eyes went to Iona. One last glance before the lights dimmed. She looked, not at the stage, but around the room. Her eyes rested on an exit near the front, to the right of the stage. Bounced to two or three different people I’d have picked out as troublemakers. Twisted around to double-check the back exits: the main one we’d come through, its doors now closed, and a single door on the west side of the room. Then, stroking her belt buckle, she turned back toward the stage, ignoring Floraidh and Dormal completely.

  Hmm, interesting moves there, Iona. Almost along the lines of what I’d choose. If I was some sort of cop. Or bodyguard? It made sense. Viv probably needed a little extra protection to make her feel safe nowadays. So you hire Iona to do translating you don’t necessarily need to mask the fact that you’re paying her to give Viv some peace of mind. But her skill set would be a rare combination in anybody. One I’d almost expect her to use a little voodoo to put together. Which I didn’t sense in the least.

  While my suspicions of Iona inched upward, I couldn’t find one extra reason to wonder at any of the other women. Neither Rhona, Viv, nor Lesley Haigh had even glanced at Floraidh since they’d entered the great room. But should that surprise me? If my theory held true, whoever Bea was must have no idea she was half of a personality pair.

  But just in case Bea decided tonight might be a fine night to introduce herself, I considered the weapons I’d brought in with me. I carried the Mongoose on my left wrist. I’d kept the holy water strapped to my right. For backup my bolo still rode in my hip pocket. Grief hid under my jacket, more a comfort than a go-to gun in this situation. Not that I expected anything now, surrounded by witnesses as we were. Then Viv excused herself.