by Clare Kauter
“Yeah, exactly,” he said. “Besides, I’d be more concerned about whatever your blood gave to her. She was not looking well when we left.”
Ah.
“Right, yeah,” I answered. Add ‘weird purple foaming poison blood’ to the list of things to ask Death about. “I’m still going to read up on it.”
What? I didn’t want to catch something.
I headed for my room and went straight for my bookshelf. I didn’t bother googling it first. Vampires were far too extensively written about in online fiction to find any sort of useful or accurate information. Also I didn’t want to have ‘are vampires carriers of malaria and/or AIDS’ in my search history. Part of it was because that looked like a really paranoid thing to be looking up. The other part was in case Henry decided to look on my computer – he was suspicious enough of me without finding that. If he noticed the bite on my neck then he’d know something was up.
I traced my fingertips over the double puncture wound on my neck. It throbbed dully at my touch. The bite had scabbed over, but I could feel trails of dried blood where it had dribbled down my neck. Forgetting the books for a moment, I walked over to the mirror and pulled my hair aside. Streaks of red ran the length of my neck, staining my shirt’s collar the colour of rust. Yep, OK. Good. Still bleeding the right colour.
So what was that episode in the cave about?
I decided to distract myself from thinking about what I’d done to the vampire lady by looking up what she’d done to me. Specifically what diseases I could have caught. Ew, what if I got herpes? I needed to sort this out ASAP. Returning to my bookshelf, I reached for my Encyclopaedia Occulta and found –
Nothing.
It was gone.
I searched around my room for anywhere I might have accidentally left it. I looked through the pile of books Ed had left on the chair next to my bed. Nothing.
I wandered back downstairs. Well, I say ‘wandered’ – I really strode purposefully, in a kind of panicked way.
“Ed, where is my encyclopaedia?”
“What?”
He turned to face me, apparently having been deep in conversation with Henry. Henry was also looking at me, open-mouthed. Even Daisy and Hecate had stopped what they were doing and turned to me. I guess I must have asked a bit louder than I’d intended. And in kind of a high-pitched voice.
“My Encyclopaedia Occulta! What did you do with it?”
“Why do you need it?” asked Henry, frowning. “And why would he have it?”
“Because we were looking up the–” I stopped, but it was too late. I’d have to tell them now. “Doomstone.”
This was not good. Better they knew about that than my vampire bite, though, right? In case it brought back memories… Like the three to four people I’d killed today.
“How do you know about the –” Hecate began.
“You overheard us discussing the robbery, didn’t you?” said Henry.
“Yes,” I said.
“And you told Ed?”
“Yeah,” I answered. Henry rolled his eyes at me. “What? It’s his murder – don’t you think he deserves to know?”
“Since when have you two become such great buddies?”
“Since the rest of you decided to keep one of the key pieces of evidence from us! It’s my quest. It’s Ed’s murder. We had to form some sort of alliance since the rest of you had banded together to stop us from solving the case.”
“We weren’t sure that it was relevant,” said Hecate, lamely.
“She’s lying,” said Ed.
“Thanks, Ed. I kind of picked up on that for myself.”
“On what?” said Hecate.
“The fact that you’re lying,” said Henry. Hecate huffed.
“The reason we didn’t tell you is because we were trying to get everything cleaned up quietly before The Department got involved,” Daisy explained. “This situation’s a nightmare.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have lost all the contraband in your evidence safe then.”
“Nessa, you don’t understand. If they find out, we’re not just going to lose our jobs. We might be arrested.”
“For which part? The necromancy? Fancy that being illegal. No more re-animating corpses? Man, they’ll be banning heroin next.”
“I’m afraid there’s more than just that,” said Henry. Hecate dropped her head into her hands and Daisy put an arm around her. “They didn’t report the Doomstone stolen in the official report.”
“Why?”
“Um, mass panic for a start.”
Really? Mass panic over a rock?
“The Department doesn’t know about the stolen contraband either.”
“Are you serious? You haven’t told them anything?”
“No,” said Henry.
“What the hell are you thinking?”
“I trust the Dawn Witch’s judgement.”
“As do I,” Daisy added. “We just need to get this all sorted out before it gets out of hand.”
“Before? I think you missed that train!”
“So The Department doesn’t know anything that’s happened over the past few weeks?” Ed asked.
“No,” Henry answered.
“Well then, I guess you’d better tell me more about this Doomstone, seeing as Ed’s lost my Encyclopaedia.”
“I put it back on your shelf before we left,” he said.
“Whatever. Henry, inform me.”
“Well, the thing is…” he trailed off.
“Tell me or I’ll get you all fired.”
“How?” he scoffed. “You didn’t even know that The Department existed until a few days ago.”
“I have friends in high places. You’ll all recall dining with Satan and Death.”
“Fine. The thing about the Doomstone is that explaining what it does is kind of hard.”
“We don’t really know for sure what it can do,” added Daisy helpfully.
“Oh, great. So someone stole a generic talisman and you’ve all decided to go John le Carre on me?”
(He wrote spy novels, right? Deception, etc? Oh well – if he didn’t, no one called me out on it.)
“It’s not a talisman,” Hecate explained. “It’s a crystal. Sort of. But it’s strong – it doesn’t need to be charged before use. It contains a lot of power.”
“The reason it was put in a bank out here was so that it would be away from prying eyes. Out in the middle of nowhere. That’s why we were appointed here – to keep an eye on it. They specifically wanted the Dawn Witch guarding it, and I was hired because of my fae lineage.”
“That’s all well and good, but now you’ve lost it and since it’s apparently quite an integral part of my quest, I would like to know what it does.”
“We don’t know,” Henry insisted.
“Oh, great,” I said.
“There are theories,” said Daisy. “Lots of theories. It’s been kept out of the hands of the public precisely because we don’t know much about it.”
“Have the past couple of days been a preview? Because if so, I kind of understand what the fuss is about.”
“That’s the worrying thing,” said Henry. “All the things that have happened over the past couple of days seem to have happened with the contraband stuff from the police station. We don’t think the thief has unlocked the power of the Doomstone yet.”
“So they can’t unlock it? Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Not really. I’m sure they’ll unlock it eventually. Now we’ve had an insight into what sort of person they are.”
“And that insight is not comforting,” I finished. “Right, OK. You still could have explained this earlier.”
Henry shrugged. “We wanted you to have deniability if it all went pear-shaped.”
“I can take care of myself,” I said. “But I appreciate the thought. Now, to more pressing issues: where is my book?”
“I don’t know,” said Ed.
“Satan gave that to me. If you’ve lost it–”
“I put it back on your shelf!”
“What are you saying? Someone broke in and stole it?”
I hadn’t meant it as a genuine question, but the way everyone looked at me when I said it made me worried.
“It didn’t contain any information on the Doomstone, did it?” asked Henry.
“No. Ed read it last night.”
“Ed?”
“No, I checked it cover-to-cover.”
“It didn’t mention the Night Crystal, did it? Black Ruby? Calina Obsidian?”
“Um, I don’t know. It might have…”
“Fuck,” said Hecate.
“Fuck,” Henry agreed, surprising everyone. First he was lying to The Department and now he was swearing. I didn’t even know him anymore.
“You think someone broke in and stole my Encyclopaedia while we were out so they could find out how to work the Doomstone?” They all just looked back at me wordlessly. “You don’t think they might have done their research before they stole it?”
“Maybe they thought it would be easier to work than it is.”
“Why come here, then? How would they even know I have the book? Why not break into your shop?”
“Maybe they did,” said Hecate. “I don’t think I’d notice a few books going missing. There are kind of a lot of them.”
I wasn’t buying that theory, and was about to say as much, when a phone began to ring. Not just any phone. My phone.
Oh my goodness – was it happening? Was I finally getting another client? I was running a little low on my illicit earnings, and I could certainly do with some more, even if I wasn’t technically fully qualified yet. Whatever. What were they going to do – arrest me? I doubted it. I certainly wasn’t above blackmail if it meant I could continue practising magic.
I fished my phone out of my pocket and answered.
“Hello?”
“Hi Detective. It’s Patty.”
“Wha…” Oh, great. Daisy had given Patty my number. Well ha ha. “Uh, yes. What can I do for you, Patty? Since I’m a police officer.” I shot Daisy a pointed glare. She shrugged back, unconcerned. If anything she looked a little amused. What a time for her to develop a sense of humour.
“I need to talk to you. Can you come over?”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Is this a ploy to get into my pants?”
“I wish.”
“What, then?”
“I… I know something about that bank robbery.”
Chapter 17
I straightened. “You what?”
“And I think – I think I know about the other stuff as well,” he whispered. “But I’m not safe. You have to come and get me before they do. Please.”
“We’re on our way,” I said, hanging up.
“What’s up?” Ed asked.
“That was Patty. He said he knew something about the robbery and the ‘other stuff’ – I guess the murders? – but he needs us to go and get him right now. Apparently he’s in danger.”
“Let’s go,” said Ed, and flew faster than I’d ever seen him fly before, right through the kitchen door. We followed quickly on the carpet, but Ed had a good head start and left us far behind. We on the carpet kept a decent distance off the ground (enough to travel over the forest rather than through it) to minimise the chances of being waylaid by angry vamps or grabbers or zombies or whoever else I’d pissed off in the past couple of days.
We made good time, but even so I was in a hurry to get inside. There had been something in Patty’s voice that had me panicked. I jumped off the carpet before it had come to a complete stop and ran to the front door. My stomach dropped when I saw it. It was ajar, with splintered wood around the lock.
Someone had kicked it in.
I pushed the door further open and ran inside, calling out Patty’s name. Sure, I probably could have exercised a little more caution, but after the number of people I’d killed just on that day I was not so concerned about my personal safety. If someone wanted to hurt me, they could try at their own risk.
There was no sign of any intruder. There was, however, a huge pool of blood with Patty’s body lying in the middle of it in the hallway. I ran to him and knelt down, getting covered in the thick, metallic-smelling substance. He was lying face down. I tried to roll him over and noticed some organs sliding out of the gash in his stomach. Was that an intestine? Oh god.
I let go of the body in shock and his head hit the floorboards with an unceremonious thud. Breathing deeply, trying to keep the nausea at bay, I felt around on his neck for a pulse. I didn’t find one. I’d known it was a long shot.
A crash and a whooshing noise from upstairs startled me and I let Patty go, thunking him on the floor a second time.
“Sorry,” I whispered, then turned my attention back to the roaring sound filtering down the stairs, growing louder by the second. I was suddenly aware that the room was looking a little hazy, and everything was feeling kind of warm.
Then a ball of fire barrelled down the staircase towards me.
Great. Where was the purple magic now?
Suddenly I was flying through the air backwards, out through the front door and onto the grass in the empty lot adjacent to the building, which was now ablaze. It was not the purple magic that had saved me, however.
It was Ed.
“You need to stop displaying this uncharacteristic bravery.”
“I know. I’ll ruin my cowardly reputation.”
“The sorting hat might get confused and put you in Gryffindor by mistake.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said. “I’m a Slytherin through and through.”
“Nessa!” Daisy ran over to me and hugged me. “I tried to follow you in but Ed stopped me because he’d noticed the fire upstairs when he’d been looking for intruders and –”
“Daisy, it’s OK. I’m fine,” I said. “Oh, you probably shouldn’t have hugged me just then. Now you’re covered in blood too.”
“We thought you were dead for sure,” said Hecate. “I didn’t try to follow you in, because I’m old and you were running too fast for me.”
Fair enough.
“What were you thinking?” Henry demanded, pulling me into a quick, awkward hug. “If Ed hadn’t been here –”
“But he was, and I’m fine. Anyway, we need to talk about what’s happened here. Someone stabbed Pat to death before setting the place on fire. They must have known that he was going to tell us something.”
“That doesn’t really help us, Nessa. It could still be anyone,” said Daisy.
“I’m going to contact him,” I said.
“You’ve got to stop trying this shit,” said Ed. “The first time you tried to contact someone, you sat in a live triangle and we nearly got eaten by vampires, then you nearly died looking for a blanket. Even when you contacted Patty by phone he ended up dead.”
“Oh, OK, that was a bit harsh,” said Henry.
But I was already sitting on the ground, getting into my zone. I closed my eyes and cast out my mind-net, searching for any disembodied spirits floating in the area. I snaked through the still-burning house, sending feelers out in every direction, trying to find the spirit. It had left the body, but it couldn’t have gone far. Death wasn’t here yet. It was still bound to its corporeal form by a rope of energy, kind of like an umbilical cord.
I felt a twitch in my mind, a tingle. He was here. I moved closer with my mind.
“Patty?”
“What?”
“Who did this to you?”
“Oh, uh-uh, no. You were meant to save me. Now that you’ve gone and got me murdered, I’m not saying anything.”
“What? That’s ridiculous.”
“Not getting involved. If you knew what I do, you’d understand. A little bit of advice from me, too: you know what’s good for you, you stay away from this. Alright?”
“No, that’s not alright! I don’t have a choice! This guy’s a murderer! Don�
�t you care?”
“I don’t care to get involved, I can tell you that much. Trust me, with the shit this fucker has in his arsenal, you don’t want to be getting involved either. Tell Officer Hottie to get out of there too.”
“She’s 400 years old.”
“Oooh, she’s a cougar? Hot.”
“She could kill you with a glance.”
“Already dead.”
“She hates you.”
“Harsh.”
“Tell me who killed you! Tell me about the robbery! Tell me something!”
“Don’t think I will.”
“Why not? You’re dead now! No one could possibly get to you! What do you care?”
“Oh, precious. This guy wants to get to me, a little thing like being dead isn’t going to stop him.”
“Tell me something! Just a hint!”
“Laters.”
“What? No! Come back here!”
I could feel him floating away. Our connection was getting weaker. I tried chasing him, but to no avail. He was gone. I opened my eyes.
He’d been reaped away from me. Death had collected him. While I was interviewing him. As if Death didn’t have anything better to do with his time! Usually he was not so prompt at dealing with souls – sometimes it took him a week. Did that mean that even Death wasn’t on my side? What the hell? He didn’t even stop to say hi!
I stood. Ed was the only one still with me. I looked around at the fire trucks and police cars. Henry was now a dog, sitting dutifully by Hecate and Daisy as they spoke to the uniformed officers, presumably explaining what had happened.
“What did he say?” Ed asked.
“Nothing,” I mumbled. Ed reached out and patted my shoulder. I turned towards him and fell into a hug. He was good about it considering I was covered in his friend’s blood and intestine. Could ghosts’ clothes even get stained?
The fire was louder than I would have expected – roaring and crackling and crashing all over the house, not to mention the shouts from all the firemen and chatter from people congregating on the footpath. Then there was a clap of thunder and it began raining. Not just sprinkling, either. This was borderline torrential.
A raindrop hit me in the eye and the stress of the day kind of hit me at the same time and, well, I started to cry. Not pretty movie-star tears, either. Like, properly sobbing. Open-mouth, loud, shoulder-shaking breaths, mucus and all. Ed took it all in his stride and managed to somehow not be incredibly awkward as I embraced him, snot dribbling down my face, wailing about how unfair my life was.