“Apparently so.”
“Remind me not to pop any unexpected balloons around you.”
“Don’t pop any unexpected balloons around me,” I said, because it was the right line to follow with. Something to let the tension slip. I couldn’t let it stand there. “It wasn’t like that, though. I wasn’t startled. I was afraid.”
“I have something,” Chogyi Jake called. My feet were getting numb fast. The Black Sun had retreated back into my body and the adrenaline was seeping away, but my curiosity had cooked down to a solid need to know. I stepped into the scrub at the side of the road. There in the shadows lay a little knot of pale and black, like a crumpled sheet of ink-stained paper, only larger. I squatted down next to it, reaching out with my fingers. Something about it seemed strange and ominous and familiar all at the same time. I plucked at it, pulling it into the light.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said.
“You know what this is?”
“I do,” I said.
My mother had always been the one to buy things for the house. Curtains, place mats, napkins. All of that had been hers. The dish towel lying on the soiled ground was the same blue-and-yellow kind that I’d used for years to wipe up spills and wash down counters. There were surely others like it all through the city, all through the world, but at that moment I’d have bet everything I owned that this one had come from my family’s kitchen.
And half of it was stiff and dark with old blood.
chapter nine
“Are you sure it’s your blood?” Kim asked from my laptop. Compressed into the Skype window, she and Aubrey seemed like news announcers, each ready for their turn at the camera. The morning sun was bright and low, and I’d pulled the curtains in the guys’ room half closed, covering us all in an artificial twilight.
“Certain,” Chogyi Jake said. “We’ve tried Bonewitz’s consonance rites and the Dismas Ceremony. It’s mine. I split my lip when they attacked, and that was the cloth I used to clean myself up.”
“We figure they went back later and dug through the trash,” Ex said.
Aubrey grunted his dissatisfaction. “I wish we could run the DNA all the same.”
“You’re just saying that because you have the equipment,” Ex said.
“Well, we do,” Aubrey replied.
Kim shook her head, but there was a smile with it. On camera, she looked fuller in the cheeks, not so pinched at the mouth. Aubrey was sporting the beginnings of a mustache that absolutely didn’t suit him. Seeing them again—seeing them together—was more like coming home than coming home had been. I wished they were really there. But I understood why it was a bad idea. It hadn’t been a full six months since Aubrey had been my lover and Kim had been his ex-wife. It only felt like years ago because so much had happened in between.
“If I had to guess,” Ex said, “I’d say they were using the blood as a tracking focus. Jayné’s damn hard to find using magic, but Chogyi Jake and I are just what we are.”
“You have wards on your room?” Kim asked.
“Just the usual. Salt and ash. The Mark of Cyprian.”
“That’s it?” she asked.
“We’re at a Best Western,” Ex said.
“They allow dogs,” I added. It seemed weak.
“Okay,” Kim said. “So you’re warded enough to keep a human being from finding you. So the hypothesis is that a rider was using the blood, yes?”
“It felt like one to me,” I said. “It felt . . . not big, exactly. It felt crazy.”
“Crazy how?” Aubrey asked.
“Like, it-made-the-whole-world-mentally-ill-just-by-being-in-it crazy,” I said.
“Let’s take it as our hypothesis, then,” Kim said. “We’ll assume that a rider was using Chogyi Jake as a handle to find Jayné. To what end?”
I shook my head. The thing had come, seen me, and then vanished. It hadn’t been an attack. It hadn’t been a message. The only thing that seemed to make sense at all was that it was doing reconnaissance for something else. Something that hadn’t happened yet.
“So let’s table that,” Kim said. “Was it the Invisible College?”
“I hate to invoke Occam’s razor,” Ex said, “but that seems like the safest bet. It was a rider. They’re all riders. We know they’re nearby. They made a weirdly half-assed attack on Jayné’s family. Now we’ve got a weirdly half-assed approach on the hotel. I don’t see what we get by assuming there’s some mysterious third party involved.”
“Could it be involved with whatever Eric was doing with me and the Black Sun?” I asked. “Whatever this all is, the Invisible College was after him from the start. I mean, they got him, right? They killed him. And they were hiding the haugsvarmr that he was trying to find. So whatever he was doing here, they were probably trying to throw a wrench in the works. If we understood what Eric was doing—”
Kim shook her head. “No.”
“No?” Ex asked.
“No. We’ve got too many variables and not enough data. We can speculate all day. Make up as many stories as we want to. The fact of the matter is, we don’t know enough yet to draw any conclusions.”
“I don’t know about that,” Aubrey said.
“I do,” I said. “She’s right. Maybe if we nail down something, the rest of it will fall in line, but right now it’s all just one damn thing after another. And the closer we look at it, the weirder it gets. There’s two ends we can reach for. Either we go after the Invisible College and try to wring some answers out of them, or we go to Denver and hit the books about Eric’s predecessors. I don’t see anything else that makes sense.”
The other four stayed quiet. I felt the weight of their reluctance, and I understood it. This was my call, and there were good reasons for it. We were in an untenable position, unwarded in a public building that even invitation-excluded riders like nosferatu and cadaver sanguins could waltz right into. The Invisible College had gotten the drop on us already, at least once and probably twice. We had no natural allies in the city. We had no clear way to find the enemy, and no good guess as to what was on their agenda.
In Denver we could sit in the middle of a bank vault if we wanted to, pile on wards so thick it would take weeks to find us and weeks more to force us out; and instead of looking for a bunch of gun-toting demon-possessed wizards, we’d have to read through historical documents. The only downside was that it left my family exposed to the Invisible College and the thing from the parking lot.
But it had been years since I’d been here, and the Invisible College hadn’t bothered them in all that time. I had to think that if I went, they’d chase me.
“Okay,” I said. “Pack it up, and let’s get the hell out of Dodge.” The chorus of agreement sounded like relief. “Kim. Aubrey. Thank you, guys, so much for putting your heads together with us. Is it cool if I call you when we get to Denver?”
“I think you should,” Kim said. “I’d like to know what this whole damn thing was about.”
“You and me both,” I said. Despite everything, I really did like her.
We dropped the connection, and I sat back. Ex and Chogyi Jake looked tired. After our unwelcome visitor, we’d spent the night sleeping in shifts in their room, one person always awake with a gun in one hand and salt in the other. The only one who’d seemed happy about the whole thing was Ozzie. She preferred having the whole pack together, if only because she got more ear scratches.
“So. Occam’s razor?” I asked. “Do I know that one?”
“It’s not a spell,” Ex said. “It’s a philosophical law. Basic idea is that simpler solutions are more likely to be true. If the canary’s gone and the cat’s looking happy, there’s not much reason to postulate a dog.”
“You can explain it to me on the road,” I said.
“I’d love to,” he said with a smile. There was something about him that got more handsome after I’d seen or thought too much about Aubrey. So that was a great, huge, blinking warning sign.
“I’ll go
pack my stuff and settle the bill. If we get in the car now, we can eat dinner in Denver. Barring potty breaks.”
“Don’t look at me,” Ex said. “Dog’s the one with the weak bladder.”
I laughed on my way out the door. Truth was, I wanted to leave. I was relieved to be going away again and putting my past in the past. Nothing about the return to Kansas was what I’d hoped, and a lot was worse than I’d feared. When I’d been off roaming the world, sneaking a call home to visit with Curt had been one of the ways I’d comforted myself. When things were bad, I’d been able to touch base with someplace simpler and safer. I’d told myself that in the whirl and madness of riders and magic, supernatural beasts and tangled love, there was another world. Home had been a place of ignorance and bliss. No one there knew how dangerous and wild the world could be, and the idea that a place like that existed had been enough to get me through.
Only, it wasn’t true. Maybe it never was. All parents were kids once. All of them had their hearts broken and betrayed. All of them carried secrets. Probably I wasn’t the only one who wanted to think that her parents had been born before the invention of sex. But when I got to Denver, I’d probably find how deeply that wasn’t true. Name after name, generation after generation, going back as far as the records went, it could be stories of families like mine. Seductions and rapes and madness and lies going back through generations. Going back until the papers ran out and the past streamed behind us, unrecorded.
Because that was really what I’d taken comfort in. Not my family but my past. The past seemed safe because I’d survived its dangers. The truth was it had never been safe.
And it still wasn’t.
“Jayné!”
I turned, ready to fight. Jay was stumbling down the corridor from the lobby. His eyes were red from crying. He had on slacks and a white shirt that looked like they’d been slept in. His face was the waxy gray of exhaustion.
“Oh, thank God. Jayné, you have to help me. They took her. She’s gone.”
A sick chill ran down my spine.
“Who’s gone?”
“Carla,” Jay said, his voice breaking on the name. “Those people. The ones who broke into the house. They took her. And she . . . she went with them.”
Jay put his arms around me, collapsing into me. Sobs wracked him. I had the visceral memory of being eight years old, when our first dog had gotten out of the yard and been killed by a truck. It was the last time I’d seen Jay cry like this.
“It’s okay,” I said. “My room’s right here. Come on. Just tell me what happened.”
I opened the door. Jay sat in the desk chair, running his hands through his hair and shaking his head.
“We were supposed to go to the bridesmaids’ party. Her cousin was . . . her cousin was arranging it. I went first. With Dad. We waited, and she didn’t come. She didn’t get there. I tried calling her phone. Texting her. She didn’t answer. When I went back to the house . . . Jesus help me. Lord Jesus, please help me.”
His eyes screwed shut and new tears poured down his cheeks. He breathed hard through gritted teeth, his cheeks and forehead flushed red. I was half certain he was going to hyperventilate.
“Okay, talk to me now,” I said. “You can talk to God anytime. I need you to be here with me now.”
Jay swallowed his tears and nodded.
“When I got home, she was gone.”
“Were there signs of a struggle?” I asked. “Did you call the police?”
“It won’t help,” Jay said. He paused, grabbed at his pants pocket, and took out a folded gray envelope. He held it toward me like a kid handing his mother a broken toy. I don’t want to take that, I thought. I don’t want this. I took it, opened the flap, and pulled out a single sheet of white printer paper. The handwriting was simple and clear, and the paper felt soft against my fingertips. I wanted it to smell of perfume, but it didn’t.
Jay-bird:
I love you. I love you so so much. You know I would do anything for you, but I have to go now. If it was only me, I wouldn’t leave, I would stay with you even if you were going to face the devil. But I have the baby, and I have to take care of him. I’m his mommy, and I have to.
There’s a curse on your family. You saw what your sister did. The people who broke in were there to show me that she’s a witch. Oh, Jay-bird, she eats babies. And you saw what she did. They’re angels. They’re guardian angels and they came to protect me and the baby and if I could take you too I would but I can’t. They said I have to go where no one can find me. I have to go away from you, and if it was only me I wouldn’t. But it’s the baby, so I have to.
I am so sorry. I am so so sorry and I love you so so much.
Don’t look for me.
It wasn’t signed. It didn’t need to be. I said something obscene.
“I saw what you did,” Jay said. “The way you fought. It wasn’t normal. Dad shot one, didn’t he? She said Dad shot him, and he caught the bullet.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That happened.”
“And you fought them off.”
“I did.”
“A normal person couldn’t have done that.”
I sat on the bed, the letter soft in my fingers. Jay’s eyes were an accusation and a plea.
“No,” I said. “A normal person couldn’t have. But . . . I’m not exactly a normal person.”
“Are you a witch?” he breathed.
“No. I’m not a witch and I’m not a demon and I don’t eat babies. But she’s right that there’s something wrong with this family. I mean seriously messed up. And I think maybe there always has been.”
We were silent for a moment. A few doors down, Chogyi Jake and Ex were packing. Or maybe Ex was taking Ozzie for one last walk before the road trip. Out beyond that, Mom and Dad and Curt were probably at the house, turning the place into chaos over this new problem. Probably blaming me for it. I handed him back the letter.
“Swear to me,” he said. “Swear to me that it isn’t true.”
“What isn’t true? That I really don’t eat babies?”
He grabbed my hand, squeezing it so tightly in his own that it almost ached.
“Swear to me that you don’t mean me or my baby any harm. Swear to God, Jayné.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe in God anymore, Jay.”
“He believes in you. Swear it.”
“Okay,” I said. “If you need me to. I swear to God, Jay, I never meant anything bad to happen to you or to Carla or your baby. Or anyone. I never meant to hurt anybody.”
His eyes looked deeply into mine, like he was searching for something. It was the same look I’d seen on Dad when I went into the garage. That sense of trying to read something deep inside of me. I wondered if he could see the Black Sun in there. If he could tell that she was looking out through my eyes. He let my hand drop.
“Who are they?” he said. “You know, don’t you? Who took my wife and baby?”
“They are . . . they call themselves the Invisible College. They’re somewhere right in between a society of warlocks and a hive of . . . I don’t know. Demons. Or spirits. We call them riders.”
“Riders?”
“Things from outside the world that come in and take over people’s bodies. Like spiritual parasites. Vampires, werewolves, filth-lickers. They’re all different kinds of riders.”
His face went still. I couldn’t tell if it was anger or courage or something related to both of them.
“Demons,” he said.
“Sure,” I said. “It’s more complicated than that, but the term’s as good as any.”
“How do I find them?”
Outside, a semi pulled into the parking lot, its engine screaming like something clawing its way out of hell. The noise set my teeth on edge, and I was grateful when it stopped. I looked out the window at the place where the evil little thing had been. It wasn’t there now, but it was somewhere. And it had my brother’s unborn child.
“Jayné,” he said, “tell me
how to find them.”
“You can’t,” I said. “And even if you could, there’s nothing you can do to them. You saw what they could do. What I can do. I love you, Jay, but you’re outclassed here. You’re in the shit so far over your head, it looks like sky. That’s just truth.”
“I don’t care.”
And of course he didn’t. I thought of Dad keeping me and Mom even after he knew I wasn’t his. Jay was cut from the same cloth. Dad had spent his life ignoring the humiliation of being a cuckold and treating me as his own. That he treated his own like they were subject-serfs who should obey him just because he was the patriarch of the house didn’t seem to matter as much as it had once upon a time. He was a broken, weird, screwed-up man, and that demand for obedience and controlling anger had been a kind of love. Jay wouldn’t do less for his own actual flesh and blood. For the woman he was going to marry.
This is my house, and my family. Any business you have, you can take up with me. And you haven’t got any business with me.
If only it were true.
I’d told myself that they would chase me. That the danger that came to them sprang from me and that it would leave when I left. And even if I could convince myself that Carla was lost—and I really didn’t want to think she was—Jay would get himself killed trying to either get her back or avenge her. And Curt, or if Curt ever got a girlfriend. A wife. If anything happened to Mom or Dad. Anything from this moment on that happened to my family because I’d stepped away was going to be my fault.
If Jay had just come an hour later . . .
“Okay, fine,” I said, and pulled my telephone out of my pocket. Ex answered on the second ring.
“What’s up?” he said.
“New plan,” I said.
“Something happened?”
“Something happened.”
“So we’re staying and hunting down the Invisible College?”
I looked at Jay sitting at the edge of the bed. He looked old and desperate and tired. I wasn’t feeling much better.
“We are.”
chapter ten
Jay was a constant in my life. Like Mom, like Dad, he’d always been there. I went into kindergarten when he was a big, sophisticated third grader. I was a freshman in high school when he was in his senior year. We loved each other, and we took care of each other. We were never friends, and that was okay. We didn’t need to be.
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