by Robyn Bachar
Lex grinned and melted my pout, and he kissed me. “You’ll survive. Come on. You’ll like this place.”
Though I remained suspicious of Naperville and its inhabitants, I followed him inside the store. It reminded me of Mac’s office at the Three Willows—books crammed onto every available surface until they threatened a literary avalanche if you added one more. They were used books too, so they all had that well-worn, aged feel that shiny, new paperbacks lack, and the air was heavy with dust. An elderly gentleman in a faded tweed jacket sat behind the front counter, peering through thick tortoiseshell glasses at a copy of the Chicago Tribune.
“Hello, Arthur. How’s business?” Lex asked.
“Good lately. We’re always popular around Halloween. This must be your blushing bride.”
He set his paper down, rose and extended his hand to me. Arthur might be a senior citizen, but he was also easily the burliest librarian I’d ever seen, built like a linebacker. Though he was descended from Michael and Emily Black, he didn’t look like them, but then they were ageless and would be forever in their thirties. Or maybe the family resemblance fades after a few generations. I wouldn’t know, because I didn’t have any old family photos to compare myself to.
“Hi, I’m Catherine,” I said as I shook his hand.
“A pleasure. I understand you’re here to speak with Anne.”
“Yes, we are,” Lex confirmed.
“She’s in the office. I’ll take you back.”
Arthur led us past aisles of books, and my brow rose at the signs denoting the subjects—astrology, witchcraft, numerology, and so on. The Dusty Tomes was an occult bookstore, aimed at straights, run by real magicians. It was kind of funny. I wondered if there were actual books on magic in a special section somewhere, maybe tucked away in the basement. Probably, considering that it was a librarian establishment. Hmm, I did need new tarot cards…
We entered the back room and found Miss Anne Williams seated at a large round table covered with receipts and printouts of spreadsheets, munching on a garden salad as she glared at the screen of her laptop. Like Arthur, she didn’t look a thing like Michael and Emily. She had big green eyes and honey blonde hair hacked short in a pixie cut, and she was drowning in a gray, wool sweater that was easily three sizes too large for her. I’m not sure what I expected a seer to look like, but she wasn’t it. I understood why most people took her for a librarian, because she had a bookish, mousy aura about her.
“Nice to see you again, Anne,” Lex greeted. “Though I am a little hurt you never told me you’re a seer.”
She blushed. “Sorry. I don’t tell anyone. It’s safer for me. People can be pushy with their energy without even meaning to, and the visions can be overwhelming. Which is why I don’t shake hands. I don’t mean to be impolite,” she apologized. “But please, have a seat. Grandpa, you can go back up front. We’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?” Arthur eyed her skeptically, and she gave him a reassuring smile.
“Yes. Don’t worry.” She shooed him from the room, and Lex and I took a seat at the rickety wooden table. Anne turned her attention to me. “You must be Catherine. Aunt Emily’s very fond of you.”
“I’m very fond of her.” I resisted the urge to ask if she’d heard the story about the brick in her Aunt Emily’s purse. “So she gave you a heads-up about why we’re here?”
“Uncle Michael did, yes. I want to help, but I’m not sure if I can. In this sort of situation I need something to trigger a vision. Or someone. I can’t just pull answers out of thin air.”
Aunt Emily and Uncle Michael. What would life be like with vampire relatives? I might’ve found out if Lovely Laura had delivered on her promise to gift my father with immortality, instead of keeping him around as a minion.
“We have the hunters who attacked us on ice. Would it help if you examined the bodies?” I asked.
Anne winced, looking a little green around the gills at the thought. “I’m not sure. I’ve never tried to read a dead body before. I can’t speak with spirits of the dead, because that’s necromancer territory, but I might be able to get an impression from something on the person. Like jewelry, or equipment.”
“One of them was questioned by a master necromancer. Will that interfere with your magic?” Lex asked.
“It might. Then I would get an impression of the necromancer, not the individual.”
“How about a crime scene?” I suggested. “Our home was attacked.”
“No. The house would have Portia’s energy, because she cleared it out and cleaned up the mess,” Lex said.
“Right. We need to catch one of the hunters alive.” I sighed, shaking my head. No one had nabbed one so far. It wasn’t likely that we’d manage to do it before Samhain.
“I’m sorry,” Anne said.
“No apology necessary,” Lex replied. “The hunters are at fault here.”
Boy, were they ever. I wasn’t willing to give them a free pass for being controlled by demons, either. I’d had a vampire tapped directly into my brain, and I still managed to tell him to fuck off on a regular basis.
“Okay, you call Marie and find out if there were any attacks last night. I’ll call Harrison and see how many of the hunters were zombified. Maybe he stopped with the first one.”
Anne returned her attention to her lunch and her computer while Lex and I played phone tag in search of evidence that our newfound seer could use. We were asking a lot of her—I know I’d love not to have this hunter mess burned into my brain. I didn’t want to remember the sight of Lex dying as I hovered over him, my hands stained with his blood. It was something that would live in my nightmares for the rest of my life. But if I wanted that life to last more than a few months, we had to solve the hunter problem now.
Harrison confirmed that he had not interrogated all the hunters—politely, too, and I wondered if he was up to something. He assured me that he’d stopped after the first one, because he doubted he would get much more from the other hunters, and he wanted to wait until Lex and I returned from our faerie adventure in case we wanted to continue. That left several bodies Anne might be able to find something on, though it would mean bringing her to Harrison’s makeshift morgue. I wasn’t thrilled about that, but desperate times called for desperate measures. I ended the call and waited for Lex to finish speaking with Marie, and my chest tightened at his deep frown. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what it was because he was arguing in French.
Anne’s eyes were wide, and I bet she understood what Lex was saying. She’d been raised among librarians, and most of them spoke more than one language. Mac knew several, which he’d showed off on occasion at the café with some of our customers. When Lex hung up the phone with a snarl, both Anne and I flinched.
“Problem?” I asked.
“There hasn’t been another attack that we know of. It’s possible they’re gearing up for the big assault,” he replied.
“Okay…why all the drama?”
His jaw clenched, and Anne cleared her throat.
“If I may, Dr. Dannaher is a good man. I’m sure his intentions are honorable,” she said.
Oh no. I cursed under my breath, and Lex peered at me.
“You knew about this?” he asked.
“Umm, well…” I began. Shit. It was a trap—anything I said would get me in trouble. Thankfully I was saved from further stammering by Faust popping into the room. “That was fast. I haven’t even asked her yet. Were you eavesdropping on Zach?”
“My lady, I do not eavesdrop. This must be our mysterious seer. I am Faust.” He bowed, easily more regal than I could manage on my best day.
“Anne Williams, pleased to meet you.”
“Faust is on our side, despite his dubious choice in names,” I explained. “He’s here to take us to where the hunters’ bodies are, if you’re willing. He’ll take you there and back, no funny stuff.”
“Of course, Titania,” he said, still sounding wounded.
“Are you fa
erie-blooded?” I asked her.
Anne nodded. “Yes, on my mother’s side. Clan Lochlan.”
Lake faeries—calm, dependable. A nice change. I gave Faust a meaningful glare, and he nodded in reply. Anne fell under my responsibility, and if Faust or Zach tried any shenanigans I’d call down the thunder on them.
“I am willing to help. Just let me warn my grandfather before we leave,” Anne said.
“Can you go with her and give him our cell phone numbers, please?” I asked Lex, and he nodded. They headed up front, and Faust raised his hands in surrender before I even fired off an accusation.
“Zachary desires having his own pet seer, but he doesn’t understand how much damage a seer can cause. Thankfully he isn’t willing to risk your wrath, or the fragile peace of our new magician unity. I will keep him in check.”
“Do I have your word on that?” I asked.
“Yes, you have my word.”
I nodded and rose from my chair. “Good. It’s not hard to guess that power-hungry bastards like Zach are the reason this woman’s hidden her magic from the world. She’s offering to help us, and I don’t want her to have to go through the same kind of bullshit I went through with him.”
“Of course…you accept the word of a shadowspawn so easily?” Faust seemed to regard me thoughtfully, but his expression was always hard to judge, thanks to those damn sunglasses.
“No. I’ll take your word, though. You haven’t done anything to make me doubt you. Aside from being Dorian’s sponsor in the battle to become Titania, but you don’t sound like you were thrilled about that.”
“Thank you. I wasn’t thrilled about Dorian as a candidate, because I knew he was a poor choice. But I was eager to return to faerie politics, however short-lived the experience was.”
Understandable. If I hadn’t had Mac to keep me sane, I would’ve been starved for magician contact after I was cast out by the witches. I didn’t miss them, but I missed being part of a community. Life as an outcast changed me, and not in a nice way. Councilwoman Lynne Trent was probably peeing her pants after my display of bitchery at the magician meeting. Hell, the old me would be scared of the new me.
“Why the sunglasses? Are your eyes weird?” I asked.
“Weird?”
“You know. Glow in the dark. Or an unnatural color. Or maybe you have nictitating membranes like a shark.”
Faust laughed. “No. The glasses are my signature accessory. Rather like your top hat.”
“It was my signature accessory. Then someone started using it to send cryptic messages, and now it’s got a big hole through it. It’s time for a change. I think I want a dramatic black coat like Lex’s. We could match, it’ll be cute.” I smirked, and Faust snickered at the idea.
Lex and Anne returned, and I got a closer look at her, now that she wasn’t hidden behind a laptop screen and a pile of paperwork. She was wearing a long black broomstick skirt and black boots, and her hands were hidden by her overlong sleeves. Anne was taller than me, but she still managed to look dwarfed by Lex, as though her energy shrank in on itself in an attempt to make her less noticeable. Geez, I thought I had it bad with the witches turned against me, but Anne didn’t have anyone to begin with. There were only a handful of seers in the entire world—I think they only have one council for the whole lot of them.
“All set?” I asked.
“We’re ready,” Lex replied.
I turned to Faust. “Can you port us without the handholding?”
“I could, but one of you might get lost along the way. It’s safer if everyone holds hands,” he replied. I shuddered at the possibility of losing one of our group somewhere in the shadow realm. I doubted Kristoff Valkyrie would be happy to see me again.
“It shouldn’t be a problem, if it’s quick,” Anne said.
“Quick and painless,” Faust assured her. I hoped he was right. Emily might never forgive me if the shadow realm sent her great-granddaughter into seizures.
We stood in a circle and held hands—Anne was between Lex and Faust, though it was a toss-up who had the most traumatic energy among the evil faerie, the ex-guardian or the bad witch. We popped into Harrison’s enormous fridge and found the “huntersicles” where we’d left them. Sadly, Zach was there too, and he was eyeing Anne like she was the most intriguing present under the Christmas tree.
“No.” I pointed at him in warning, using my sternest “get down off the counter” tone that I use on my cats. Much like Merri and Pippin, Zach ignored me.
“So this is the seer.” Zach stepped forward as though he intended to shake her hand, and I put myself between them.
“No. Don’t touch. She’s here to read the hunters. She doesn’t need you to give her nightmares.”
He paused and skewered me with a pointed glare, and I winced as I realized dreams were still a touchy subject at the moment. Oops.
“Miss Williams, this is Zachary Harrison, a member of the local necromancer council,” Faust introduced.
“Aren’t you…?” she trailed off, her eyes wide.
“Rich and famous, and keeping his distance. Aren’t you?” I prompted, and he nodded.
“Yes, of course. This is the hunter I interrogated. The rest only had minimal contact with the cleanup team.” Zach nudged a body with his very expensive shoe. I jumped as Lex touched my shoulder, and I took his hand. He was nice and warm—the man was a walking space heater.
Anne nodded. She fiddled with the frayed cuffs of her sleeves as she walked a slow circle around the room, eyeing the bodies with quiet concentration. Faust stood at Harrison’s side, and I hoped the faerie would keep his promise to rein Zach in. She stopped and blushed as she looked up at us.
“You’re all staring at me,” she said.
“I can go back to yelling at Harrison if it’ll help,” I replied.
“You’ve done quite enough of that,” Zach said.
“And you deserve it,” Lex pointed out.
Harrison scowled. “I did save your life. Don’t make me regret it.”
“We appreciate that,” I said, “but one good deed doesn’t get you off the naughty list. You’re still the King of all Bad Karma.”
“Says the woman who nearly had a council member killed for being impolite.”
I shrugged. “I warned him.”
“Catherine, this is serious,” Zach said.
“He got better.”
Zach sighed as though the weight of the world were on his undead shoulders, but Faust touched his arm before he could reply. The faerie pointed to my right, and I turned to see Anne kneeling next to a body. A rabbit’s foot keychain was cupped in her hands, the magenta fur shockingly bright against her skin. Considering what had happened to the hunter, the talisman couldn’t be very lucky.
Anne’s eyes were unfocused, the misty cloud of her breath drifting in the chill air. Should we ask questions? Emily usually narrated on her own, but considering how everyone insisted that Emily wasn’t a seer anymore, it stood to reason that there’d be a difference in their methods.
Faust glided across the room, graceful and soundless, and knelt on the other side of the body. He spoke to Anne, something low and lilting—not English and not squeaky enough to be faerie, but she seemed to understand it.
“No. They’re all faceless. Like toy soldiers,” she said. Anne’s voice was almost a whisper, and we all strained to hear her.
“Can you see where they live?” Faust asked.
Anne frowned and shook her head. “It isn’t clear. There’s no sense of place. No landmarks, not even the skyline. They’re sent in groups from site to site in vehicles without windows. Big ones. Vans or maybe trucks? They live in barracks. Very plain. No TV, no internet. They’re afraid of…contamination?”
Her frown deepened, and I echoed the expression. What kind of contamination? An angry, resentful part of me wondered if they were afraid of being contaminated by guilt or remorse, but it was more likely they were being sequestered like a jury that was trying not to be swayed
by the media. Not that the disappearances were making it into the news…
I turned my attention back to Harrison. Rich, famous, media darling Zachary Harrison. He’d wanted to out magiciankind in the past as part of his evil plan to take over the world, but we didn’t need to out the victims as magicians. We just needed to out the fact that there were victims. Scaring the straights might help us. It’d be a lot harder for mysterious vans to cruise the suburbs if the populace was on the lookout for a serial killer who slaughtered innocent families. Zach had lots of media contacts—he could nudge some investigative reporters in the right direction… I’d pitch the idea to him after Anne was finished.
“Can you see their next objective?” Faust asked.
“Big game hunting.”
“Shapeshifters?” Lex guessed. It seemed the safest bet. The hunters had gone after the shifters first, and shifters were among the best fighters magiciankind could offer.
She licked her lips and drew a deep breath. Anne managed a strained yes, and then she dropped the rabbit’s foot as a spasm racked her body. She shrieked as she crumpled to the floor and shook as though she was having a seizure. My witch instincts kicked in, and I hurried forward to help her, but Faust waved me off.
“No, don’t touch her. You’ll make it worse,” he warned. He moved to Anne’s side and stroked her hair, murmuring soothingly until she began to quiet.
“How are you not making it worse?” I asked. Sure, he was growing on me, but he wasn’t exactly the healing type. Rather like Harrison, Faust seemed the type to break things instead of fix them.
“I’ve known a few seers over the years. The advantage of an exceptionally long life is that one encounters all manner of rare things. There we are. Are you feeling better now, Miss Williams?”
“No. I saw terrible things.”
“Demon apocalypse?” I guessed.
Anne flinched and looked at me in surprise. “How did you know?”
“We’ve seen it too. Thanks to the faerie council,” Lex explained.
“So now we know the hunters are going after the shapeshifters. Thank you for helping,” I said to Anne. Faust helped her to her feet, and she wobbled unsteadily as though she’d had too much to drink. Her expression was pained, and I winced, feeling guilty.