by Lish McBride
He stepped into the circle and began the rite.
*
Douglas came to with a start in a chair pulled close to the fireplace. The fire itself was long out, the hearth cold. Minion slept on the rug at his feet, the half-chewed remnants of several pieces of wax fruit spread around him. Douglas sighed. At some point, his life had gone off track. He wasn’t sure how, but he was pretty sure the when had been when Sam had entered into the equation. But that would be fixed soon, the number refigured to change the outcome.
He just needed a little more time.
19
OUR HOUSE IS A VERY, VERY, VERY FINE HOUSE
My mom called on my way home. She used to call about once a week to check up on me, but since Douglas kidnapped me in the spring, the calls had become more frequent. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have said she was worried about me. I sleepily caught her up on what we’d found out. Then I told her James would be stopping by to check her security. I didn’t lecture her or get mad that she’d tried to hide it from me. She was well aware of how I felt about keeping things from each other, even if the intentions were good. We’d had enough of that, I’m sure. But I wasn’t going to shrug off a threat to my family like it was nothing, either. Not after everything that had happened.
I must have fallen asleep in the car shortly after the phone call, because James had to wake me up when we got to the house. Everyone was outside in a ring, shouting. Night had fallen, and despite the tiki torches and the bonfires they’d lit, I couldn’t quite see what was going on, as some of the bigger creatures were on the outside and they had gnomes and gladiators on their shoulders, all of them covered in war paint and chanting, “Two men enter, one man leaves!”
Every bone in my body ached with fatigue, but you can’t just walk past something like that. I walked up to one of the gladiators who had climbed up onto the shoulders of the Minotaur. They’d altered one of those beer hats with the tubes to fit onto his giant bull head. One tube, I assume, went to the Minotaur, and a gladiator was holding the other tightly in his little fist. Since the gladiators only came up to my waist, the Minotaur could easily hold one on its shoulders, even though it was made of marble.
I tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, uh—”
“Dave!” he shouted.
“Dave, right. What’s going on?”
“Welcome to the Thundergnome!” he crowed, never taking his eyes off the action.
“Thundergnome?”
He nodded, taking a sip off his beer tube. “Sometimes they don’t like to wait for battle situations to bring in a new gnome, so they do something like this.” He shouted something about the combatants and their parentage. “As a gladiator, I have to say I approve, eh. Maybe after this they’ll give us a go, you think?”
“One can dream,” I said. I thanked him, waving off his offer of the beer tube before moving to the other side of the action to see what was going on.
Once I was able to see, I noticed Frank—at least the shoes looked like his—covered in gnomes, wrestling on the dirt. He appeared to be holding his own. Some things are just so surreal that they don’t even register in your brain as weird. I shrugged and left Frank to his gnome wrestling and went to find my bed.
I’m not quite sure when I passed out, but it was full dark when I got home. My sleep was pretty deep, though. I kept having weird dreams about searching all over the house for glowing chocolate eggs like some sort of demented Easter bunny. Then I had to go to the zoo and put Ling Tsu the panda back to rest, only someone kept moving the zoo. I finally woke up in a sweat sometime midmorning. For a few minutes, I just sat on the edge of my bed, scratching the sleeping head of Taco, who’d curled up in a ball by my feet in the night, and tried to wake up. It didn’t work. I knew it had been a dream—I’d put Ling Tsu the panda back after I’d killed Douglas—but I was having a hard time shaking it. Finally, I pulled on a T-shirt, getting tangled up in a rather embarrassing fashion with my pouch necklace somehow, before yanking on some shorts and stumbling downstairs, Taco padding after me. Though I felt better after my long sleep, I was groggy as all get-out.
I grabbed a soda and a seat at the kitchen table before collapsing facedown. Frank, I noticed after a moment, was doing the exact same thing. James was bustling around the kitchen, chipper and neat as a pin. It was rather obnoxious, really.
“Bad night?” I mumbled at Frank.
He groaned. “Never, ever accept anything out of a gnome’s flask.”
James sniggered.
“Quiet, you.” I poked Frank. “Just ignore smarty-pants over there.”
“No,” Frank said with a sigh. “I should have known better. But I was trying to bond with the guys, you know?”
I did know. When I used to work with Frank at Plumpy’s, he’d done his best to get to know the rest of the crew and fit in. It was kind of adorable in its awkwardness.
“Plus, I lost, like, fifty bucks betting on the gladiator fight after mine, and I can’t get all my face paint off, and Dunaway is coming over after his shift so he can go through our library, and I look like I made out with Rambo.” He twisted his face so I could see the dark smudges of paint under his eyes.
“I hear cold cream does wonders,” James said. “And you should never bet against Dave. He currently holds the title amongst the other gladiators, if I remember correctly.” He sipped his tea. “Maybe you shouldn’t bet. You appear to be a poor judge of character.” Even James’s voice was perky. Morning people are annoying. If he kept smiling and sipping his tea in that jaunty manner, I was going to grab an orange out of the fruit bowl and chuck it at his head.
Frank squeezed his eyes shut against the light streaming into the kitchen. “James, I generally consider that I’m poor at everything. It saves time.”
James frowned over his tea. “That’s no way to look at things.”
I smiled into the crook of my arm. It’s hard to pick on someone when he rolls over like Frank tends to do.
“As long as none of them peed on my sheets again,” I said with a laugh.
“I don’t think they will. I’m pretty sure everything is smoothed over now, so there’s really no reason to add to the long list of awful stuff they’ve been doing. At least I found out how Taco got here. The gladiators ordered him out of a catalog. I think they saw the regime change as a chance to get a long-desired pet.”
James stirred his tea. “Ah yes, that rings a bell. That’s how it came up originally. The gladiators wanted one—something about playing fetch with their stone shields. Wouldn’t work with a dog, but chupacabras have strong jaws.”
“Is that why Douglas didn’t want one?” asked Frank. “He hates fetch?”
James shot him a withering look. “No, he didn’t want one because they disrupt magic. If you let Taco loose on the grounds and aren’t careful, he could bust all the protective wards and who knows what else. They are the rodents of the magical world.”
I took a sip of my soda, thinking. “Wait, Frank, go back a minute, what long list of awful stuff?”
He grimaced. “It’s best if you don’t know.”
“You’re probably right.” I looked around the cheerful kitchen with its perky yellow walls and white curtains, and it really wasn’t helping things. “Ugh, I can’t handle this kitchen anymore. James, I’m beginning to think you painted it this way so none of us would linger, except you did it before we lived here. If anyone needs me, I’ll be on the front porch.”
*
When Ashley materialized, I was seated at the table on the porch, enjoying the weather and examining the jade egg I’d stashed in my pouch. Even in the summer sun, it was chill to the touch. Ashley wasn’t wearing her standard Catholic schoolgirl chic. Her hair was pulled back into ponytails as usual, but that was the only thing that was the same. Flip-flops, short shorts, and a tank top with what appeared to be a glittery purple unicorn on it took the place of her usual outfit. And she had on purple, heart-shaped sunglasses. It was all very un–Ashley-like.
&
nbsp; “What’s with the gear?”
She hopped into a chair, crossing her legs and propping them on another chair. “Kinda stands out, don’t you think? School uniform in the summer months?” She yanked a sucker out of her mouth to talk to me.
“That’s never really stopped you before. And that doesn’t mean you have to wear purple sparkly unicorn shirts.”
“There is nothing more universal, Sam, than a girl in a unicorn top. Besides—” she held the tank out to show me the rest of the shirt. There was some glittery script under the rainbow the unicorn was galloping on. It said BITE ME.
“Ah,” I said. “That makes more sense.”
She popped the sucker back into her mouth, shoving it into her cheek. “Whatcha got there?”
I rolled it over to her. “I’m not sure. I think there’s something going on with it. I mean, I found it in a weird place in Douglas’s house, like he was hiding it, and it’s cold all the time, so I figure it’s got some sort of Creepy Douglas Death Magic on it, but I’m afraid to monkey with it, since I don’t know anything about it.”
“This whole house is weird, so how can you say it has a specific weird place?” Ashley snatched the egg off the table. “Let me see that.” She peered at it, a grimace slowly forming on her face. “You’re right. It’s almost like…” She shook her head. “Never mind. You said you found this here?”
I nodded.
“That would explain the oddness of it, then. I’m suspicious of anything that comes from this house. We’ve got enough to deal with for now, though, so I say stash it in your pouch. That should neutralize or hide whatever it is. We can come back to it in the short window of time after this crisis blows over and before the next one begins.”
I tucked it away as she bid. Ashley can get kind of bossy when you argue with her, and since I didn’t know what else to do with the thing, I’d do what she said for now. With Ash, you pick your battles carefully.
Ashley threw her sucker stick onto the table. “Okay, now that we got all that out of the way, we can get to the important stuff—namely, we can try to figure out what happened the night of the bonfire.”
Frank and James came out to join us, the former flopping down in a seat next to me while the latter swirled into cat form before leaping up and settling himself regally on one of the chair cushions.
“This view used to be so lovely before that wooden abomination was constructed.” His eyes flicked back and forth as he said this, following Ramon on the ramp. Ramon was human again and putting his skateboard to good use. I was glad someone had energy this morning.
I started to reply, but was interrupted by Taco crawling up my leg and settling in my lap. He eyed the feline with interest before James hissed at him. I smiled and scratched Taco’s head, causing him to close his eyes and purr in his odd little way.
With a wary look at the content chupacabra, James began explaining my state when he took me to my mom’s house the other night, mostly for Frank’s benefit, though Ashley had missed the last part, since she’d had to take off. Taco rolled onto his back and offered up his belly for some scratching. I complied while James finished with his recitation.
“James, would you mind repeating all that to somebody?” Ashley asked.
“And what do I get out of that?” he asked, his lids drooping lazily as he looked at her.
“How about I keep petting Taco so he doesn’t start looking for a kitty snack and you don’t have the embarrassing recurrence of me vomiting all over your shoes? How’s that for compensation?” I asked.
“No need to get nasty,” he said, not looking at me. “I was kidding. Sort of.” He added the last bit when I stopped petting Taco and glared at him.
Ashley pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head. “Sam, this should be somewhat official, so would you mind opening a portal for me? I’d like to discuss this with Ed.”
I hesitated. “Ash, last time I did that, it took a lot of blood.” I shuddered inwardly. The last time I’d seen Ed, I’d been in Douglas’s basement, exhausted, battered, and confused. The summoning had been an accident, and it almost got me killed.
Ashley patted my shoulder. “You were untrained and scared. Plus, you have access to more power now. I don’t think you’ll have a problem at all. Just try it like you’re calling me, and we’ll go from there.”
Even though she’d been fairly helpful this week, it was weird to have Ash be nice to me. Not that she wasn’t a sweet person or anything; it’s just that her sweetness was usually covered in wasps, like a soda left out on a particularly hot summer day. You know the kind that bite and sting you? And maybe you don’t notice them in your soda and you take a drink because it’s hot and you accidentally swallow one and it stings your esophagus and you have to be taken to the hospital because you find out that you’re allergic to wasps? But no matter how much pain you’re in, the soda was still pretty sweet and refreshing because it was so hot, and you don’t regret drinking it, even if it did have a freakishly high cost.
It was like that.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “I’ll give it a shot.” I closed my eyes. My breathing slowed. Deep breath in through the nose. Hold it. Out the mouth. I continued this pattern until everything inside me felt still and calm. Then I pictured Ed. I’d only seen him once, but you don’t forget Ed. He was around seven feet tall, golden-skinned, with the silvery-black head of a jackal. Yeah, he was pretty easy to pick out of a lineup. Once I had his image firmly in place, I pushed my power at it. I knew it had worked before I even opened my eyes. I think it was the sound of Frank choking on his drink that gave me the first clue.
When I looked, Ed was standing next to Ashley, who was smacking Frank on the back trying to get him to stop choking. Ed had his arms crossed and was looking rather amused by the whole thing. At least, I think he was amused. Kind of hard to tell, actually.
After all the commotion had passed, Ashley brought Ed up to speed. He leaned against the railing and settled in, nodding at James to retell his story. He asked a few questions, which caused another choking fit with Frank, since no one had warned him that Ed spoke telepathically. Once Frank had stopped sputtering, Ed made Ashley tell him about last night. When the story was finished, he turned to me.
And you remember nothing?
I went to speak, then frowned when nothing came out. It wasn’t like I didn’t remember anything, but it was disjointed, like trying to remember what happened after an evening of hard drinking. Things flashed and surfaced, but then quickly sank down again. I told them what I did remember—a lady by a fire, flowers, laughter.
Ed tapped his fingers on one of the copper cuffs that adorned his biceps. It would take a lot of power to disrupt what you were trying to do, and an intimate connection to the deceased.
“So what can do something like that?” I asked. Taco continued to purr, his eyes closed. He didn’t care what we were talking about as long as I kept scratching him. He didn’t seem much like the rodent of the magical world to me.
Ashley socked me in the arm, then she thought about it and punched me again, just for good measure. “Why can’t you stop having weird things happen to you? Seriously, it’s like you’re a strange-magnet. Cut it out!”
Ah, there was the Ashley I’ve come to know and love. Ed was apparently used to these kinds of outbursts from her and ignored it.
We are talking about something above my pay grade. Perhaps an elemental spirit or a creature of that nature. Ed’s ears twitched. I’m pretty sure if I hung around Ed long enough, I’d be able to tell what he was feeling all the time just by watching his ears. It would have to be something powerful, he said, scratching his chin. You would think his thoughtful expression would sit oddly on such a canine face, but it didn’t. He looked wise, and I could see why the Egyptians had carved the images of his race onto pyramids. Ed was that badass.
“Could anyone at the Den have done it?” Frank asked. He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. One of the gnomes was crawling around his shoulders a
nd muttering.
No, not anyone that you have mentioned. These were heavy workings. What is that creature doing?
“I think he’s measuring me for a proper gnome hat.”
Ed’s nose wrinkled. But you are not a gnome.
Frank blushed. “I know, but they’ve sort of made me an honorary general or something.”
I almost laughed, but then the gnome—I think it was Twinkle, it was kind of hard to tell them apart sometimes—stood up, put his hands on his hips, and beamed fiercely at us. Since it appeared to be a serious source of pride for the gnome, and since I didn’t particularly want my room trashed again, I quelled my amusement.
“Excellent, Frank,” I said. “Good job. You’re finally moving up in the world.” I eyed Twinkle gravely. “Is this the kind of event that warrants a celebration?”
The tiny gnome nodded solemnly, but proudly too. “’Tis. A promotion of rank is always marked by much revelry. But his should be doubly so. It’s not every day we let a non-gnome wear the hat.” He patted Frank’s ear affectionately.
I smiled. “Then it will be doubly done. Can you let me know what you’ll need? It would be bad form to have Frank set up his own party.”
Frank blushed even more, but Twinkle seemed happy that I was taking the whole business seriously. “Aye. We can do that.” He tipped his hat at me and disappeared into the bushes.
Your house is very entertaining.
“Thanks, Ed.”
Frank raised his hand.
I rolled my eyes. “We’re not in class. You can just talk,” I told him.
He lowered his hand slowly. “Could something like Ed do it? I mean, you said whatever killed Brannoc came out of nothing. Maybe that same force is keeping you away?”
Ed’s ear twitched, and he looked thoughtful. The power is there, but like Ashley, I would have to answer to our overseer, and he would not be amused with such interference.
Frank processed this. “Well, that tells us something, right? Ed is considered a heavy hitter, isn’t he?” He peered up at Ed. “What did Ashley call you? An upper-level entity?”