by Clare Kauter
Ed frowned. “What do you mean?”
“They think your death is connected to a bank robbery a couple of weeks ago. I overheard them talking about it this morning when they thought I was asleep.”
“What? Why?”
“They used the clouding spells that were stolen from the station.”
“Oh,” he said. He thought for a moment before asking, “Why wouldn’t they just tell us that? What’s the point in keeping information from either of us? Don’t they want you to solve it?”
I shrugged. Who knew why everyone was lying and keeping things from me these days? Ed was the only one I slightly trusted, and that was purely because someone had murdered him. This shit was messed up. “Maybe they think you did it,” I said, straight-faced.
He paled, which is a pretty neat trick for a ghost.
“Wh – really? But I – I can’t even go outside in the dark alone,” he said. “As if I’d have the balls to rob a bank!”
I laughed. Just a single bark. It was true; he was far too much of a coward.
“It was a joke,” I said. “Don’t have a heart attack. Help me look through these books.” I gestured to the ones I’d thrown on the bed.
“What for? Do you think my murderer is going to be in one of these?”
I rolled my eyes. I knew he’d been murdered, and this quest was technically all about him, but why was he always so self-centred?
“We’re looking for any reference to a Doomstone. It was taken in the bank robbery and I’ve got a feeling it’s significant.” I didn’t tell him that Death had specifically told me to look into it. Just because I trusted Ed more than the others, it didn’t mean I actually trusted him.
In case it ever comes up, giving someone the advice “trust no one; I can’t explain why” really messes with them. If you’re reading this, Reaper, take note.
“Oh, you’ve got a feeling? Great. I’m glad your intuition is kicking in again, because it’s not like it’s ever gotten us in trouble before.”
“What are you talking about?” I snapped.
“Zombies, vampires, green tendrils of death, witches, creepy magical triangle, vampires again, then dinner with Satan and Death?”
“OK, mate, firstly, not one of those was my fault. We weren’t following my gut, we were following the trail of death and destruction you’d left behind you. Secondly, Satan saved us, and Death is a good friend of mine” – I think – “so you watch your mouth!”
Ed took a deep breath (pointless, but a lot of ghosts forgot they didn’t need to respire) and then sat on my bed, sighing.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “You’re right. What are we looking for again? A Deathstone?”
“Doomstone,” I corrected, deciding to behave like an adult rather than gloat and bask in that apology. That delicious, delicious apology. “I don’t have any idea what it is, though. We’re just going to have to look in all my books until we figure it out.”
He started sorting through the books, putting all my crystal, talisman and amulet references in one pile and the other books in another. He pushed the first pile towards me. “You try these ones. I’m no detective, but I think if it’s actually a stone, it will probably be in there. I’ll look through the others.”
OK, sure, if he wanted to give me the easy pile then who was I to refuse?
Three hours later, I decided that the Doomstone didn’t actually exist.
“This is ridiculous. I’ve checked every page of these stupid books. I’ve looked under every weird name that could potentially be another name for ‘Doomstone’ and there’s nothing. Nothing at all. It’s non-existent.”
Ed had been just as successful with his pile.
“I’m inclined to agree,” he said. “I couldn’t find anything. I’ll keep looking tonight while you sleep, but I doubt I’m going to have any luck. What’s the plan for tomorrow?”
“Get the autopsy report.”
“My autopsy report?”
“Yeah.” Duh.
“Do I, uh, have to look at it?”
He looked a bit nervous. I guess it would be kind of stressful to see pictures of your mangled, murdered body lying out on a slab after being hacked up by forensic scientists. Not as stressful as when we tried to exhume him, but still. “No, you don’t have to look at it.”
“Right. Uh, and how exactly are we going to get our hands on this report? Do you still want me to break in?”
“It should be OK. I’m hoping Hecate can get it for us. She is a cop, and it’s kind of her case since it’s related to the bank robbery that she and Daisy are looking into. If they can’t get it, though, then it’ll be down to you.”
He nodded, still looking slightly concerned at the possibility that he might actually have to do something. There was a pretty good chance Hecate would be able to get it legally, but even if she couldn’t I didn’t know why Ed was so worried. He was dead. Almost no one could see him – firstly, he was a ghost, and secondly, he was invisible to half the people who could normally see ghosts. And even if he did get seen, what were they going to do? It wasn’t like they could lock him up. He had a 100% effective Get Out Of Jail Free Card.
I didn’t bother saying any of this, though, because by this stage I was aware that Ed’s logical thinking capabilities were far outweighed by his cowardice.
Ed began gathering up the books. “It’s late,” he said. “You should sleep. I’ll head down and let the others know what the plan is for tomorrow, then I’ll keep looking through these. See you in the morning.”
He left.
I sighed. Since when was Ed the only helpful, trustworthy person in my life? This was not a pleasant turn of events.
Chapter 11
“Beds are nice,” I mumbled sleepily, eyes still shut. It was the next morning, and I was euphoric about not waking up on a police station floor. There was a mattress! And pillows! And a doona! Plus, I was wearing my pyjamas instead of jeans this time, and they were gloriously comfy. I could imagine cartoon birds tweeting around me, doing my hair like we were in a Disney movie. Even with my eyes closed I knew that there was sunlight streaming in through the window, because I could feel it warming my legs through the bedcovers. Life was good.
And then…
“Yeah,” said a voice from beside me.
Well, there went my good mood.
I screamed, opening my eyes and scrambling backwards, right over the edge of the bed and onto the floor. I popped my head up and saw Ed across the room, sitting in the armchair by my bed, flicking through a new pile of books that he’d apparently taken from my shelf.
“What are you doing in here? Were you watching me sleep?” I demanded, my voice hitting a higher register than it had, in my memory, ever hit before.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said.
“You can’t just hang out in someone’s bedroom when they’re asleep, Ed! That’s so creepy!”
He rolled his eyes. “I was trying to find out more about this stupid stone, but it doesn’t seem to be anywhere in any of your books.” He walked around the bed and returned the tomes to the bookcase. “I’ve told the others what we’re doing today, so we should all be ready to go after we have breakfast. Well, after the rest of you have breakfast.”
He stood and walked out.
Not wanting to get caught somewhere in jeans and have to sleep in them again, I opted for comfort today in the form of light-weight track pants in an orange and grey check, which I know sounds disgusting (and, frankly, is), and an oversized grey T-shirt. No one was going to be looking my way when I had faery-queen Daisy, a 6-foot elderly witch with bright scarlet hair, and a talking animal beside me. In this outfit, I was going to be as invisible as Ed.
When I reached the kitchen and everyone turned to look at me in horror, it occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t going to be as invisible as I’d hoped. OK, the outfit was pretty bad.
“Let’s go,” I said. Coffee, I thought. It was morning. I wasn’t capable of more complex thoughts than that.<
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“How are we getting there?” asked Hecate.
“Your carpet?” I suggested.
Hecate shook her head. “We left it behind last night when Satan teleported us away from the triangle. I don’t know where it is now. Poor little thing.”
Hunh. I didn’t want to tell her that I was pretty sure I knew exactly where it was, because ‘in the hands of two homicidal vampire magicians’ was probably not what she wanted to hear right now.
“I guess we walk, then.” The entire room groaned. “Come on, it’ll be fun! Just like a real quest! Instead of this ridiculous farce it’s been so far.” Oops. Some of my anger had bubbled to the surface.
“I know this quest hasn’t been quite what you imagined,” said Henry. “But –”
“Shut up, Henry. Let’s get to the morgue and get this over with. Everyone got their walking shoes on? Come on, let’s go! Let’s head off so I can catch the killer instead of the police doing their job. Then I can fix your station’s security mess-up before you have to report it to The Department and let them know that there are police-created zombies popping up all around the countryside, plus roughly a billion clouding cones on the street.”
And, in the meantime, I’d be solving the bank robbery.
I considered asking them about the Doomstone, but decided against it. I’d bring that up some other time when I figured out why they’d kept it from me (or when I needed to guilt trip them some more).
Everyone stood and wordlessly moved out the front door, except Ed, who followed the group beside me.
“That was great,” he said, grinning. “I can’t wait to see you guilt them into something by using the robbery thing.”
It was like he’d read my mind.
I looked down at my jogger-clad feet trying to hide my smile, but I’m sure he saw it.
The road was still a little muddy from the rain two nights ago, so it was fairly slow going. For such a sunny day, the woods seemed quite quiet. There were no animal tracks in the moist earth of the road and I couldn’t hear any birds in the trees. I frowned, but said nothing.
Silently, I felt around for any nearby magical energy, but there was nothing. This was beyond weird. As it drew ever closer to the full moon, the Black Forest generally filled with all manner of magicals and strange creatures. Even during the other parts of the lunar cycle, this place tended to be abuzz with energy. If I remembered correctly, the full moon fell tonight. There should have been magic everywhere. We should have run into at least the odd witch, maybe a couple of pink-aura ghosts ready to bore us to tears with tales of their mundane lives-after-death, and about ten fake mediums, palm-readers or tarot card interpreters.
Instead, there was nothing. Not even a flicker of energy.
It was eerily silent.
Usually walking along the forest trail was like walking through a fair at this time of month. People and beasts alike flocked to the forest on the day of the full moon. They would be here to set up circles for ceremonies, forage for herbs and barks, brew potions somewhere it wouldn’t stink up their kitchens, claim spots to hang out tonight and charge their crystals, and to generally be with nature. (A lot of light magic was drawn from nature. I didn’t know the specifics – physics wasn’t really my area – but it had something to do with energy transfer. Nature helped recharge magicals, so a forest like this was the perfect place for midnight moonlight rituals.)
We’d made it deep into the forest before I detected a hint of energy coming from outside of my own entourage. I stopped. Ed had continued walking for a few steps before realising I was no longer beside him. He turned to look at me, opening his mouth to ask me what was up. I put a finger to my lips in a “shh” motion and then traced my finger across my neck. We were in danger. A lot of danger.
I saw Henry, in wolf form, stop up ahead and sniff the air, and knew that I was correct – he’d detected it too. My breathing quickened.
Ed nodded once at me and flew silently to Daisy and Hecate, grabbing their arms to stop them and turning them to face me. They both spun quietly to look at me, frozen on the spot.
What is it? Daisy mouthed.
I quietly crept towards them, as did Henry, until the five of us were in a tight group.
“Grabbers,” I whispered. Daisy’s eyes widened.
I could feel the grabbers’ energy moving through the forest, diffusing like a drop of blood in a bathtub. It was a rusty orange magic, dull and pervasive – not a sharp red like Satan’s, or the slimy green tendrils of the person who’d killed Ed. This was a different beast. They were sending out their energy like mist through the forest, searching for any magical beings. Like, you know, a shifter, faery, witch, ghost or… well, whatever I was. An ‘other’. We needed to run, but if the grabbers heard us move then they’d give chase, and that was not what we wanted.
If Satan knew what was going on, we’d have been teleported out already, so I was guessing she only kept tabs on me at night. There was far less danger for the magicals during the day, generally.
Except for the grabbers.
Ed was shrugging, trying to ask silently what a ‘grabber’ was. He wouldn’t know, of course. He hadn’t grown up magical. Hecate didn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation either. She’d probably been raised human. (Witches were often born into non-magical families – unlike shifters or fae, ‘witch’ was something you became, rather than the way you were born. That was why Daisy could be a witch and a faery, and Hecate could be a human witch.)
The two that were raised as humans didn’t know what was coming. Henry, Daisy and I, though?
We were all visibly shaking.
“We need to go,” whispered Henry.
The grabbers’ energy paused. Like a hunting dog sniffing out its quarry, the magic whipped in our direction at the sound of Henry’s whisper.
It started shooting directly towards us.
Fast.
“Run!” I said, and we did.
As we were moving, I saw Daisy casting spells around us, trying to throw some sort of ward up as protection.
I would have helped, but I was not good at multitasking. Plus the running was draining all my energy. I wasn’t going to be able to get away if I tried casting as well. I probably wasn’t going to be able to get away anyway, but I didn’t want to lower my chances even more.
I left the path and ran into the woods, heading in the exact opposite direction of the source of the grabber magic. I could hear that the others had decided to follow me. Out of all of us, I seemed to have the most attuned ability to sense energy. I assumed that was why everyone was sticking with me and not splitting up. They couldn’t run away if they didn’t know where ‘away’ was.
Henry, though, was in his wolf-form, and could smell the grabbers with his doggy nose. He should have been getting out of here, and yet he was keeping pace with us, which I felt was both kind-hearted and incredibly stupid of him. He was a shifter – they went for thousands on the black market.
I glanced back, making sure we hadn’t lost anyone. I saw that Ed had lifted Hecate by the waist and was carrying her over the uneven terrain. Even in my blind panic I was impressed by his uncharacteristically charitable behaviour. Helping an old lady run for her life. What a charmer. He was clearly ignorant to the danger headed our way. He probably thought they couldn’t hurt him.
Daisy was throwing beams of white light out left, right and centre. She had a kind of manic determination in her eyes as she cast spell after spell trying to keep the grabbers’ cloud at bay. I knew why. Faeries were sold for more than shifters – the exotic pet trade wasn’t worth as much as the faery slave trade. There were a lot of horror stories about what had happened to nymphs taken by the grabbers – stories too gruesome to repeat.
The grabbers were gaining on us. Soon we would be ensnared by their energy and there would be no hope of escape. We broke into a clearing. I stopped and turned.
“What are you doing?” barked Henry.
“Run!” yelled Daisy.<
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“They’re too close,” I said. “Stand and fight.”
The voice that erupted from my mouth at that moment sounded much more authoritative than it ought, given that I was yelling at a government official and two police officers. It was like someone else’s voice had come out of my mouth.
Apparently the rest of the group thought I had sufficient authority to order them around as well, because they quickly formed a circle around me, all crouching slightly, ready to cast. Even Ed joined in.
I moved to become part of the circle too, assuming we were about to do some kick-ass coven-style magic, but Hecate ordered me back to my place.
“You fight from there,” she said, sending me back into the middle. I wondered briefly if this had something to do with the fact that I wasn’t licenced, then I realised that Ed was forming part of the circle. Surely he wasn’t licenced either. Why had I been singled out?
They joined hands and I saw a flash as the sides of Daisy’s ward finally connected, covering us all in a protective dome. Just in time, as it turned out. The grabber energy connected with the dome seconds after it was completed, erupting in flames as it hit the right side, then the left, then suddenly it was attacking us from all sides. The others were clutching each other’s hands, concentrating on keeping that ward up. Why would they not let me help? This was ridiculous! I could see the ward weakening, burning away…
And falling.
They released hands, gasping, and out of the smoky fog surrounding us, roughly twenty metres away, emerged three grabbers. They were dressed in leather and furs, teeth rotting, bloodstains down their fronts. Walking stereotypes. As far away as I was, I could still smell the stench of their sweat in the air.
One had a knife drawn, still dripping crimson liquid from his last victim.
“Come on, little ones,” said the front grabber, who I took to be the ringleader due to his abundance of teeth. I could see three teeth from here – a veritable movie-star smile for these guys. “That’s enough fighting, now. We don’t wanna hurt ya.”