He held his coffee cup up in a toast.
“You’re definitely smarter than you look.”
She looked sideways at him with just the slightest hint of a smile on her face.
“Is that your way of saying you’re sorry?” she asked.
“Yeah, I guess that was just the slivovitz talking,” Marc said. “You forgive me?”
“A good-looking guy like you?” Bambi warmed back up to him instantly. “I could do that.”
Marc noticed Bambi’s gold chain on her neck, specifically that the clasp showing on the front. He leaned in closer and laid a hand on her neck.
“As lovely as you are—and as blonde as you are—” he whispered.
Marc gently stroked her neck. Bambi smiled invitingly.
“The average guy would think that you could put on your jewelry backwards by accident.”
Marc deftly dipped down the back of Bambi’s blouse and snagged the pendant on the chain: an inverted pentacle with a goatish devil face inside. He held it up for Bambi to see.
“And what is this?” he asked. “A St. Christopher medal?”
Bambi stared at him coldly, but said nothing incriminating.
“So, now we know who’s holding the two-by-four.” He glanced over to the man in the shadows. “And I can guess where he’s hiding. Come on.”
“What?” Bambi was sullen and perhaps purposely dense.
“It’s a surprise,” Marc said cheerfully. “You’ll like it. Come on.”
Marc ambled over to the back table, dragging Bambi along by one elbow and her chain. Marc stepped up right behind one of the group and stood smiling down on them.
This close, Marc saw that Jeremiah Stone was the man in the shadows. The bandaged man sitting beside him proved to be Lance, Michael’s boyfriend. Marc recognized many of the others at the table as the black-robed men he had fought at the bonfire. All conversation ceased when Marc arrived.
“Jeremiah! What a surprise to see you here. And Lance!” Lance was trying to pull his head into his shirt collar like a turtle. “It looks like someone hit you in the face with a shovel.”
“Marc, darling,” Jeremiah simpered. “Drinking away your problems again? Alcohol is a solvent, not a solution.”
“Clever.” Marc wasn’t in the mood for anything besides straight talk or evisceration. “What was the point of siccing her on me?”
Jeremiah looked her over as if he’d never seen her before in his life.
“Her? A lovely girl,” Jeremiah said. “Have we met? Oh well, probably just one of a thousand practitioners who lust after your noumena.”
Bambi looked very guilty and avoided Marc’s eye.
“That bruise on your forehead . . .” Marc pointed out the spot where he’d beaned Jeremiah with a rock. “A good thing you weren’t killed in that little household accident in the bathtub. I’d hate for that to happen again.”
“Is that a veiled threat?” Jeremiah smiled as he said this, no doubt pleased at the response he’d goaded from Marc.
“I’m putting you on warning: you keep screwing with my head and I’ll screw back,” Marc said. “Save us a lot of pain and anguish and just put it to bed.”
“Was that a proposition? I’m a little disappointed to be your second choice after Brenwyn.” Jeremiah pursed his lips and pouted at the slight.
Marc reached the end of his patience. Further conversation would only be minutes of his life he would never get back. The time could be more productively spent screaming Brenwyn’s name in the rain or slamming his fingers in a car door.
“Don’t screw with me—” Marc snapped, “in any way that you can imagine. And Lance? I see you around Camp Arcanum again and you’ll see a whole barn full of tools. Accidents happen when you’re not careful around tools.”
Lance turned practically paper-white.
Marc surveyed the others sitting at the table. They were probably all Jeremiah’s students: young, rich, and easily intimidated by physical violence.
“You all seem like nice people,” Marc said with a friendly smile. “I know what you look like. I’d better never see any of you again.”
Marc turned, retrieved his damp leather jacket and went back out into the rain to once again feel wet, stupid, and angry.
Chapter 19
A Manly Noumena
THAT EVENING, AFTER HE DRIED OFF and brushed the taste of slivovitz out of his mouth, Marc invited Michael and Eleazar to his trailer for an informal council of war. The artist and the jongleur settled themselves on the couch as Marc rummaged through the fridge. Eleazar already had a twelve-year-old scotch on the rocks, which he’d brought from his own trailer. Michael had a nervous twitch. They both looked like they’d been “rode hard and put away wet,”and Marc was sure he didn’t look much better
“I don’t see how you can drink that crap,” Marc said as he handed Michael a wine cooler. “It tastes like spiked Kool-Aid.”
“Diverse tastes,” Michael replied. “Aren’t we a corporation that values diversity?”
Marc shrugged and bobbled his head, nodding both “no” and “yes” at the same time.
He leaned against the kitchenette table and popped open his bottle of Rolling Rock against its edge. Eleazar leaned back and stared contemplatively at the play of light and color through of ice cubes in amber liquid.
“This is the time when you should say: ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve called you here tonight,’” Eleazar told Marc.
“Okay, pretend I just did,” Marc sighed. “I’ve got some bad news and even worse news.”
“Like that’s something new.” Eleazar took a sip of his Glenlivet.
“Yeah, things keep going like this,” Michael added, “we’ll be known as the Ren Faire of the Damned.”
“Well, this is something along those lines,” Marc said. “Remember those punks that tried to kill me Halloween?”
”You know how incredibly stupid that question sounds?” Michael said.
“Okay, but it’s hard to lead into this.” Marc was worried how Michael would take his news. “I saw some of them in town today.”
“And you without your magic shovel,” Eleazar chuckled.
“Too many witnesses,” Marc replied. “They were in a bar hanging out with Jeremiah Stone.”
Michael choked at the mention of Stone.
“The scary guy from the university?” His voice cracked with the question.
“Yeah. He’s up to something and he’s trying to get close to us.” Marc hated to make the next revelation, but he owed it to his friends. “He’s the one that goaded me into that big fight with Brenwyn.”
Eleazar slammed his glass on the windowsill behind him.
“For that alone, the cur must die!”
“Do you know what kind of Hell he put us through?” Michael was equally upset.
“Put you through?” Marc asked.
“You just had to deal with your traumas and your stifled emotions,” Michael explained. “We had to deal with you.”
Marc supposed the past few days had been no fun for anyone in Camp Arcanum.
“Well, there’s one more reason to hate him.” Marc took a deep breath to prepare himself. “One of the kids who tried to kill me, the one with Stone—it was Lance.”
“Lance? My Lance?” Michael looked like he had been the one hit in the face with a shovel. “The boy with the tattoos?”
“Yeah, him,” Marc said. “I’m sorry, Michael.”
“How can you be sure it was him?” Michael asked. “You said before they were all wearing hoods.”
“Have you seen him since then?” Marc asked quietly.
“Yes.” Michael squirmed a little as he answered. “He went down to Athens for the big Halloween Bash. A bunch of drunks decided to celebrate diversity on his face. They broke his nose.”
“And he has this funny cut across his forehead?” Marc rubbed his fingertip across his forehead to illustrate. “Matches the curve on the edge of a shovel?”
&nb
sp; Marc could see the pieces of the whole puzzle come together behind Michael’s eyes. The full weight settled on him in a few moments.
“Damn.”
Michael drained his wine cooler in one long gulp. Marc stood and headed for the fridge.
“Do you need another one?” he asked.
“No,” said Michael. “I do better with chocolate and Vivaldi at times like this.”
Marc rooted out a bag of dark chocolate kisses he kept for emergencies and pitched it underhand to Michael.
“Pharmaceutical grade,” he quipped.
Michael tore open the bag and began unwrapping and wolfing down the chocolates one after another.
“So, what you’re telling us,” Eleazar said with a casual lilt to his voice, “is that our security was breached through the back door?”
Michael bounced an unwrapped chocolate off of Eleazar’s forehead.
Eleazar smiled back at him, glassily blinking his eyes. Michael groaned and stuffed two more unwrapped chocolates in his mouth.
“Let’s call a truce, children,” Marc said. “We have a common enemy now.”
That caught Michael’s and Eleazar’s attention; both of their heads wheeled around in unison.
“Jeremiah Stone is after all of us now?” Eleazar asked.
“There were three or four women tagging along with that group. I’d say the chances are one in ten that you slept with at least one,” Marc told Eleazar. “God knows what they did once you passed out.”
“Methinks thy stress has scrambled thy wits, milord.” Eleazar seemed his normal smug self, but his hand shook just a bit as he took his next drink.
“Have you two been having nightmares lately?” Marc asked.
Eleazar took another quick swig of Scotch before he answered.
“Why do you ask?”
A chocolate stopped halfway to Michael’s mouth. He looked to Eleazar as Eleazar looked to him. They both seemed mildly terrified.
“You too?” Michael said.
Eleazar shrugged.
“I thought it was a bad batch of mead I’d been given.”
“You’ll want to check your trailers for anything that doesn’t belong there,” Marc said.
“Like what?” Michael sounded even more nervous. Lance must have left a lot of stuff in his trailer
A pewter skull ring had pretty thoroughly kicked his own ass, in a metaphysical sense. Marc figured that anything of most any size could do just as well.
“Jewelry, stones . . . jujubes.” He said.
Eleazar shivered in disgust.
“Oh, that churl Jeremiah has to pay. For the last three nights, I dreamed of my wife.”
“Don’t worry; I have a way to get a little of our own back,” Marc grumbled.
For the last three months, the witches, wizards, and little monsters had been winning all the battles. It was time for the men of Camp Arcanum to strike back.
“We’re going to unleash the elves,” Marc said with a smile.
* * * * *
Before he initiated Operation Elfin Magic, Marc wanted information. There was one woman in Arcanum who knew everything about him, and he hoped Musetta would be willing to share what she knew about Jeremiah, too.
A handful of women loitered in the shop when Marc made his soggy entrance: three or four of them old enough to qualify as crones and two much younger than Brenwyn. He had hoped against hope that Brenwyn might be there. She wasn’t, but the women there were all obviously on her side.
The eyes of the older women narrowed slightly as they looked at him. The younger women smiled and whispered between themselves and then moved out of his sight. Marc patiently dripped just inside the door.
Evidently, the older women no longer felt chatty with him in the room. Musetta rang up their purchase and they bustled to the door. Marc held the door for them, but they refused to acknowledge his presence. Once the door closed, Musetta looked up with a neutral expression.
“Can I help you, sir?” she said brightly.
Marc took a deep breath.
“I need some advice,” he said as he squished towards the counter.
“Are you planning to buy something?” she inquired.
“The last time,” Marc complained, “you said advice was free.”
Musetta responded without the slightest change of her expression:
“That was for a young man who looked just like you, but wasn’t a total cretin.”
He had expected some hostility. He underestimated how protective of their High Priestess the local witches were.
“I know I hurt Brenwyn,” Marc confessed, “but I need to know what’s going on.”
Musetta looked back at him with the insincere smile practiced retailers used on difficult customers. She smiled without blinking for what felt like several minutes.
“All right, already!” Marc finally surrendered. “I’ll buy something.”
Marc picked up a random item from a bin on the counter, something looking like a petrified chicken foot. The price tag on the clear plastic bin read “$10.”
“Will this do it?” Marc asked.
“No. Not at all.”
Musetta walked over to a bookcase behind Marc and pulled down a large purple book with pictures of plants on its glossy cover. She handed it to Marc.
“This is just in,” she said. “Llewellyn’s Encyclopedia of Magickal and Medicinal Herbs. Sixty-nine ninety-five, plus tax.”
“Jeez! That’s a bit—”
Musetta still had the “difficult customer” smile on her face. Marc decided to give up while he was behind.
“Fine,” he snapped. “That’s just fine.”
Musetta padded her way back behind the counter and the register.
“Will that be cash, debit, or credit?” she asked cheerfully.
Marc pulled a credit card from his wallet and slapped it down on the counter. This was extortion, but he was planning worse for Jeremiah.
Musetta seemed to be just fine with any number of crimes and misdemeanors. She swiped his card and returned it to him with a smile.
“Now?” Marc said impatiently.
Musetta smiled benevolently upon him
“What is it you need to know?”
“Two things,” Marc said. “First off, I need some intelligence.”
“Anyone in Arcanum could have told you that.”
Marc scowled.
“I need some intelligence on Jeremiah Stone.”
Musetta nodded sagely and pulled something from under the counter, a thin paperback book stapled along its spine. The orange letters on the black cover spelled out “Arcanum University Faculty Directory 2007—2008.”
“I’ve known Jeremiah since he was an infant,” Musetta said. “His mother and I were very close. But I suppose you don’t want baby pictures.”
Marc flipped the booklet open where it was bookmarked with a yellow Post-It note. Jeremiah Stone’s name and office number were highlighted and a folded piece of yellow paper rested just below it. Marc unfolded it to find a handwritten list of Jeremiah’s particulars and daily schedule.
“I suppose,” Marc said, “it would be really stupid to ask how you knew I needed this ahead of time?”
Musetta’s expression told him exactly how stupid she thought that was.
“Okay,” Marc sighed. “The other thing I needed to know about was . . . a spell.” He felt like an idiot as soon as he said it.
“You’re thinking about taking up the practice of magick?” Musetta headed for another bookshelf. ”I have some helpful references for beginners.”
Marc stopped her with one hand on her shoulder and turned her back to face him.
“I need to know about a spell Brenwyn cast on me.”
“On you?” Musetta’s expression was amused and incredulous. “She doesn’t waste magick on trivial matters. Though, this last week, I wouldn’t give any guarantees.”
“She did something,” Marc said. “I passed out and afterwards . . .”
&nbs
p; “You were madly in love with her?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t like her at all before that?”
Looking back on the last few months honestly, Marc had been drawn to Brenwyn from the moment they met. He had just done his best to squelch his feelings—with a two-by-four.
“No,” he admitted. “But, I mean, we just had our first date.”
Musetta grimaced, perhaps as embarrassed as he was.
“Why on Earth do you think this was a spell?”
“Someone else—told me about it.” Marc swallowed hard. “Herbal oils and a certain tune.”
Musetta eyes flickered as if she were searching her memory.
“And that tune,” she asked. “Did it go like this?”
Musetta hummed the same tune he’d heard from Brenwyn and Jeremiah before
“My God, that’s the song,” he gasped. “What is it?”
“‘Farewell to Tarawathie.’ It was always one of Brenwyn’s favorites.” She smiled nostalgically. “She uses it as a lullaby.”
“What?”
“You don’t listen to much Judy Collins, do you? The Corsairs, perhaps?” She searched Marc’s eyes for a spark of recognition. He certainly didn’t feel any on his side of his eyes. “It’s an old Irish folksong. Who gave you the crazy idea that was a spell?”
His answer came out as an apologetic whisper.
“Jeremiah.”
One corner of her mouth twisted up in a disappointed expression.
“Would you care to say it,” she asked, “or should we say it together?”
“All right,” Marc confessed. “I’m a gullible, insensitive prick. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Musetta patted Marc’s arm gently.
“The most important step in treating a problem is to admit you have one.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. This conversation wasn’t going the way he hoped it would.
“It seems I’ve had a lot of problems,” Marc said. “What do I have to buy to get some straight talk, the Encyclopedia Britannica?”
Musetta smiled and, for a moment, she reminded him of his grandmother. That is, if his grandmother were a cross between a Chicago mobster and an Illuminati.
“We’re having a two-for-one special this evening,” she said. “Which of your many maladjustments do you wish to discuss?”
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