Blood Ties

by Skyla Dawn Cameron

  Still, there wasn’t much anyone could tell us. He’d been in town for two or three days—depending on who we spoke to—before he’d disappeared a week ago. There was a particular diner—one of only two places in St. Philip Point in which one could get a meal—where he ate a couple of times a day. He didn’t ask questions, didn’t stop to speak to locals, didn’t shop. He’d walked to the diner from the motel, and then usually wasn’t seen again.

  If he hadn’t left the duffel behind at the motel, I would’ve said he’d simply moved on. Or if he’d only stayed one night, I could’ve seen this as a waylay station between home and wherever he was really going.

  But this? I couldn’t wrap my head around what had happened. Something must’ve caused him to take off—maybe the swarm?—but damned if I could figure out what in a quaint dull town full of humans. There were no indications of demons or dimensional tears or anything. It was normal and benign enough to be foreign to me.

  We’d finished both sides of the street by midafternoon and paused across the road from my vehicle. I supposed the next step might be to start hitting homes and asking, but not a single person had indicated he’d been seen with anyone we should ask further questions of.

  “Were there any indications of Aanzhenii here?” I asked as I dropped to sit on a bench, covering some real estate dude’s fake smile on the ad. My stomach rumbled but I didn’t want to commit to eating while I wasn’t sure if we were staying in Podunkville.

  Melinoë leaned against a weathered lamppost by the bench, her arms crossed and leather coat creaking. She angled her face away from the bright afternoon sun, silky black hair falling over her eyes. “Not the usual channels. I know that’s what he was working on, I just can’t figure out what brought him here. Unless there was some kind of lead he didn’t mention...?”

  I thought on that. He and Melinoë were working on tracking the Aanzhenii but hadn’t perfected it. Maybe there was something here he could use. Some...rare spell ingredient? Or some kind of star alignment that was viewable from this location?

  My first instinct was to head to the local occult shop but of course St. Philip Point didn’t have one of those.

  “We should maybe do a circle of the town’s outskirts,” I said. “Maybe we’ll see or...I don’t know, sense something.”

  “Lunch?”

  “Maybe on the loop back,” I said as I rose and she pushed off the lamppost. “To go, though. I want to get back and text photos of Dev’s supplies to Dad and see what he thinks.”

  *

  We found nothing on our brief circuit of the town. Back at the room, a call to Dad was no help. The supplies were generic enough that they could be used in a variety of spellcraft, nothing specifically offensive or defensive. It wasn’t even what Dad would’ve considered a standard travel spell kit, and he proposed that, wherever Dev was, he might have more items on him—the duffel was hardly stuffed full.

  Melinoë and I ate lunch while poking around online on her laptop after I ended the call with Dad. There was no WiFi signal and just two bars when using my cell as a hotspot, so searching was painfully slow. St. Philip Point didn’t appear on any reports of weird activity, not even with the conspiracy theorists—in fact, it was virtually nonexistent online, other than archives from a dozen years ago. It was so far from even larger towns that a lot of modern technological services didn’t come out this far anymore, so the remaining people were pretty cut off other than electricity, water, and landlines. Even cable was spotty. It must’ve been why we didn’t run into any kids—no one would raise any here. Anyone who stayed was probably either stubborn or too poor to move.

  Dev didn’t use social media of any kind, but I cycled back through my memory of anyone I could recall him hanging out with in school and started looking them up. It was going more than ten years back for him, but I had no idea who he’d connected with in the many years since he moved out of our family home. I had a few messages out, and a couple responded late afternoon to indicate they either hadn’t talked to him in years or didn’t want to know what he was doing and kindly suggested I fuck off.

  My brother and I had that in common: we did not make, or keep, a lot of friends.

  With no idea of where else to go, it looked like we’d be staying in St. Philip for a few days until either something brilliant occurred to me or Dev magically appeared. While Melinoë stepped out to make some calls, I headed back to town on foot to revisit the single women’s wear shop before it closed. A three-pack of panties and a three-pack of crew socks were easy enough, but the clothing had to have been in fashion a decade or more earlier. Not that I was particularly trendy myself, but I generally opted for plain and casual, and even that was tricky. I grabbed a couple of dark camis and a plain button-down so I had at least a couple of other options, paid in cash, then grabbed some toiletries from the pharmacy on the corner just before it closed.

  All the businesses, other than the diner and bar, shut down at four in the afternoon. They were also the only establishments open on weekends. Maybe without a lot of modern infrastructure the cost of living was low enough to support fewer work hours. If that was the case, more power to them. Fuck capitalism.

  I strolled down the road and watched as St. Philip Point shuttered: signs flipping to CLOSED, lights shutting off, doors locking right at the strike of four, figures heading in small groups to their homes. No one glanced at me—I might as well have been invisible. We’d made our presences known fairly well earlier, so I supposed I shouldn’t be too disconcerted that I was entirely ignored...but I’d expected more gawking at the out-of-towner, definitely.

  Melinoë was no longer outside when I returned; I found her napping, but her eyes shot open the moment I entered the motel room. She slept on her side facing the door like I usually did.

  “You don’t sleep much, do you?” I set my bagged purchases on the floor next to the chair where she’d hung her jacket and kicked off her boots.

  She shook her head and swiped her fingers through her hair, briefly yawning. “I don’t relax well enough to sleep. I manage with a lot of catnaps.”

  “There’s a spell for that,” I offered. “I can brew it up with Dev’s supplies, say a few words, and you’ll be out.”

  She rolled on her back and peered up at the ceiling for a moment, considering. Then she shuddered, like an involuntary twitch of her shoulders, and rubbed her bare arms. “No, I don’t want to be compromised in case something happens.”

  Fair enough—if she wasn’t worried about being compromised, she wouldn’t need help to sleep in the first place. I took a seat on my own bed and pulled out my charging phone to see if anyone else had messaged me back about Dev yet.

  When Melinoë started to sit up, I waved her back. “Take a nap. I’m not going anywhere—I promise I’ll wake you if the swarm or something shows up.”

  “No, I’ve slept enough that I’ll be—”

  “Is that the most sleep you’ve gotten in, what, two or three days?”

  She frowned and nodded. “I’m fine. If something happens—”

  I rose and flexed my fingers as I padded toward the door and front window. “I should’ve done this when we got in but I wasn’t sure if we’d be here another night.”

  Warding can be done invisibly, and while I was pretty sure Melinoë could—if pressed—sense the energy used for it, she’d probably find it more reassuring if it was something she could see. So I wove strands up from the ground, pale white shimmering with flecks of gold. The scent of ozone filled the air as my own crackling blue energy joined those threads and I braided them all together to line the doorway, the windowframes, each strand weaving into a protective sigil and flaring once before melting into the wood.

  A pretty little lightshow, if I did say so myself. It wasn’t as complicated or strong as anything I used at home or my office, or what was at Dev’s place, but the warding would offer some warning if the room was breached, and I’d be able to access impressions of anyone who entered our room when we were
n’t present. It had a forty-eight-hour half life and would fade if not renewed with fresh energy.

  “There.” I returned to the spot on my bed. “If something magic or demonic enters the room—other than us—there’ll be warning.”

  “What kind?”

  I raised my hands and wiggled my fingers. “Pretty lights. A bit of shrieking. Plus there’s a resistance to a range of spelled attacks.”

  “Just like that?”

  “I am a witch. It’s kind of my thing.”

  She glanced a little warily at the door and then eased back down to lie flat. “If I sleep through dinner, get me up before everything closes?”

  The odds of her sleeping that long seemed slim—the diner was open until eight, the bar later than that—plus she barely ate as it was, but I nodded.

  She shifted a little restlessly, then turned to face the door again—her back to me, which I supposed showed a lot of trust.

  Twelve

  Locals

  Melinoë slept soundly as the evening rolled on. Dry leaves crackled in the wind outside the motel room, rattling against the thin walls when a particularly strong breeze kicked up.

  I had nothing from any of Dev’s friends—no suggestions, no sightings, and in some cases, no replies. I tried to track down an old girlfriend I remembered but she’d dropped off the virtual planet, which wasn’t entirely uncommon; I’d heard stories about how once upon a time everyone could be found online, but that made people easier to track. Particularly if you were into things you shouldn’t be—which, let’s face it, both Dev and I, along with anyone we associated with, tended to veer towards—it made sense to stay off as many radars as possible. The first decade of my life, governments and authorities were still trying to figure out how to police people who had magic and those not entirely of this world. I was too young to fully understand, but I grew up hearing discussions particularly between Dad and Aunt Roo but with Mom’s commentary thrown in—and the dominant conversation in our circles encouraged staying off the radar as much as possible.

  Humans had too many of their own problems to really go after us, though—too busy starting their own bullshit wars to come after demons and the like that otherwise kept in line. But that didn’t stop occult and supernatural divisions of both local and federal police forces from forming, hence Tanvi’s job. When she transferred to that department six months ago, that was officially the end of our brief—though intense—romance.

  All the precautions that made Dev hard to find by police methods also gave me some challenges. And why take that pendant unless he was in terrible trouble?

  In looking for news about Dev, I did a social media search for my city and any mention of the swarm—or anything about me.

  Magic Alley came up immediately; the swarm had been a big fucking deal, even for people used to that kind of thing. Three in the apartment building were dead and someone got a video of the creatures on the street. My heart hammered at the thought that Melinoë and I had been caught on camera fleeing—last fucking thing I needed—but it must’ve been after we left as there was no sign of the car, just thousands of the demon swarm running down the road.

  At the end of the forty seconds of video, though, they seemed to bubble and melt into the pavement and disappear.

  Was it some kind of dimension hopping they did? What the hell were these things?

  I scanned through more posts and checked news coverage but enough supernatural things went on in the city during a normal night that it wasn’t much of a blip. National news outlets were still owned and operated by humans, and three people dead in Magic Alley wasn’t a big deal to them.

  With trepidation swirling in my gut, I searched my name and for any new arrest warrants.

  Nothing came up—not under the name I was commonly known by nor my legal name.

  Had the police just been at my place for routine questioning? Would Tanvi have really told me to leave for something as simple as that? She might, as she didn’t know what kind of precautions I took and alibis I typically laid out ahead of time—hadn’t ever wanted to know either.

  I might’ve felt better if there had been a warrant, though—at least then I would’ve known why they were at my place, and what to expect when I eventually made it back to the city. It couldn’t be too bad if they hadn’t checked in with Dad yet, I thought. Dad would’ve given me a heads-up no matter how busy he thought I was looking for Dev, and there wasn’t even a text about it.

  In the hours I’d spent searching online, I had nothing. No witch declaring that they knew what the swarm was, no further understanding of why the police were at my apartment, and no one who’d had contact with my brother.

  I still wanted to check Dev’s former room but Melinoë had trusted me enough to fall asleep—if she woke to find me gone, even for a few minutes, she might not sleep again. Having a sleep-deprived ally for this would undoubtedly put me in danger, so I remained where I was as the evening outside darkened.

  Since I’d run out of other leads to check, I started searching for her.

  Melinoë Takata. Peri Takata. Neither drew any hits, no matter the spellings and variations I tried. I didn’t even know what Peri was short for, and I wasn’t about to ask Dad for more details. So Melinoë didn’t exist online any more than I did—that wasn’t in itself a red flag, obviously, but it raised a few more question marks over her that there was nothing I could verify.

  I glanced over at her, watching for a few minutes as she slept. A fine line formed between her brows, as if she was frowning even in her dreams. She had a wariness about her I recognized, and it bothered me that I didn’t yet know where it came from—it seemed to go beyond the immediate threat. What happened to Dev, the swarm—all of that was enough to throw off the average person, but Melinoë, like my brother himself, was not average. I knew little about her, but that much was apparent.

  Untapped witch power, part demon from what amounted to royal lineage, but she relied on a gun. Who was this woman, really? And for all her pointing out that Dev didn’t have a lot of friends, didn’t she have anyone of her own to rely on for something like this? Where was the rest of her family, her friends? I hadn’t a chance yet to check her wallet for ID to see where she was even from—it was either in the pocket of her jeans, or on the leather jacket she almost always wore.

  Just as I glanced across the room to where her coat rested on the back of the chair, Melinoë rolled over with a yawn, blinking up at the ceiling as she woke. “How long...?”

  “Four hours.” I set down my phone. I’d turned on the bedside lamp near me but that was it; with the sun down, the room was comfortably dim and a baseboard heater kicked on to take some of the rising coolness from the room. “The bar’s open for a few more hours—we can get food there. What, well, I’m not sure. Might just be pretzels and beer.”

  She yawned and rose, padding for the bathroom. “I’m in for pretzels. Always.”

  The bar was under ten minutes on foot—probably less if we cut through some of the wooded area and fields that made up the motel property, but I didn’t think stumbling around in the dark would be the best idea—so we walked rather than take my car. The road beyond the motel was poorly lit but a crisp moon hung overhead, lighting the way. Not a single car passed us and other than a few streetlamps on, the town itself was entirely dark and silent as well.

  The orange glow of an OPEN sign blinked ahead. The bar—which didn’t have a name that I could see—sat a little separate from the rest of St. Philip Point, sort of like the motel did. Not in the little town core, a ways from the residential area. Possibly the location was from when it was connected to the main highway and offered some entertainment for those stopped at the motel overnight, but nothing new had been built to expand the town and connect it to the bar. Or maybe there was a little council of busybodies who didn’t like the bar corrupting locals so there was no attempt to integrate it more.

  Regardless, it was open and promised food, which was enough for me.

 
It was the first time in town I’d smelled cigarette smoke; a cloud of it drifted from around the side of the bar, the smokers out of sight of the entrance. I opened the creaky wood-and-screen door first, warm air smelling of beer and humans folding over me immediately. Melinoë crowded behind me as we paused in the entrance and took the space in.

  Though technically larger than our motel room, it was just barely. Four tables were jam-packed against the walls, and old country thrummed from a jukebox outside the door to the bathrooms. Two of those tables were occupied by folks who didn’t look up, and probably only because all three bar stools had been claimed. Muted light shone from a domed cracked lamp in the center of the room as well as sconces around the bar, and the wood-paneled walls were covered with ancient vanity licence plates, framed photos barely visible with dust, horseshoes and other bits of farm memorabilia.

  Essentially, it was exactly what I’d expected.

  Melinoë and I walked to a small round table at the far side of the room, the top of it at least clean of smudges though with old deep grooves in the wood, and sat at mismatched chairs. There was no table menu, but a chalkboard by the bar listed the three items. No pretzels, but they had soup, sandwiches, and fries.

  The fries were an actual main course; the only option for sides was veggie sticks.

  The bar seemed run by just the one guy—late fifties, clean-shaven though he looked like he should have a scraggly beard or something to match his silver hair, wearing plaid and jeans—and I didn’t think he came over to take orders, so Melinoë headed over to tell him what we wanted. She returned with two pint glasses and a pitcher of deep reddish amber.

  “He said the red ale is good.” She set the items down and sat across from me. “From a microbrewery two towns over.”