by Nova Nelson
There was no answer, however, to my call, and my curiosity drew me in further. I wanted to explore this house. Despite it appearing to be unoccupied, it felt like someone was present, and I didn’t understand how that worked or what exactly I sensed until I called out again and heard a dull pounding coming from the staircase.
I froze in my tracks, and the deputy stepped in front of me. To my surprise, he held something out wooden in front of him that looked remarkably like a wand.
I recognized Ezra Ares’s craftsmanship easily enough, though it wasn’t like any wand I’d seen. The thing Stu held looked like a wooden sword with the blade sanded down to half a foot. “What is that?” I whispered, but Stu immediately held a finger to his lips as he looked around.
“Malavic? That you? It’s Deputy Manchester.”
More thumping from the direction of the stairs. I let Stu take the lead, but I wasn’t more than a step behind him as we climbed the stairs.
“I’ll wait by the door and stand watch,” Grim said.
“Suit yourself.”
Once we were halfway to where the stairs split, I heard the thumping again, except this time I also felt it. “It’s coming from below us,” I whispered.
Stu nodded and we hurried down and around until we found a small wooden door cut into the side of the staircase. He pressed it and it popped open an inch. Behind it was complete darkness leading into a space underneath. Stu smacked the wandlike tool with his free hand and it started to glow, filling the compartment with a soft red light.
In my old world, a space like this would be used for storage. It might have half-finished projects or sports equipment, or hold the broom and vacuum. But that wasn’t the purpose of this one. This was built more like the inside of a mausoleum, with elaborate iron grates along the edges and inlets cut into the walls that held totems of humanlike creatures, the significance of which was lost on me.
Something in the center of the crawlspace, which couldn’t have been more than seven feet wide in any direction, caught my attention and held it. The smell of fresh dirt was unmistakable.
“What’s buried under there, you think?” I asked, gesturing at the mound of dirt.
No sooner had the question been released into the wild than another loud banging echoed.
“It’s coming from the dirt,” Stu said. “Velvety antlers! There’s someone under there!”
Stu set his glowing stick by the pile as we both began pulling handfuls of the dirt away. But this would take us an hour at this rate, with the dirt mound easily three feet high.
“Grim!” I called. “We need your help!”
My familiar peeked his head into the doorway a moment later, and I said, “Someone’s buried under here. We got to dig them out.”
“I was born for this. Move aside.”
His massive paws were more efficient than shovels as he dove right in, tearing at the mound, sending piles of dirt flying against the outer walls where it began to collect in drifts. I only just managed to move out of the way to avoid getting a mouthful of moist earth.
Then, without a tingle of warning, and despite the staurolite hanging around my neck, another vision hit me like a mudslide.
Chapter Nine
Everything was dark around me, and the only of my five senses that I could access was touch. Except I couldn’t move. My nerves were on fire, the pain all-consuming. And then suddenly I was out of the dark, but the pain remained as I stared down at the hole in the ground while two men rhythmically shoveled dirt from beside it, tossing it onto the small pile. I was free from the hole, no longer buried and watching helplessly while the men continued their nefarious project. Yet it also felt like I, whoever I was, was still trapped beneath the ground.
The pile shifted slightly and fingertips poked through the top, grasping for help that I already knew wouldn’t be coming.
“How much longer do you think she’ll hold on?” asked one of the men.
“Not sure. If she was smart, she’d just let go. I don’t rightly know how she wasn’t dead before we threw her in,” replied the other.
I reached forward toward the dirty fingertips, hoping I could pull the woman free, but of course I couldn’t. Whoever that was—me or, more likely, someone else I was channeling—was past the point of being saved. I could feel it in every nerve that screamed against pain from injuries untold.
So I did the only other thing I could do. I looked around to gather context. I was here, being channeled, for a reason. There was something important I needed to see. Perhaps it was just this horrific act, but I suspected it might be more.
As I looked, the world came into focus, shimmering into reality around me. I was in a thick, nearly impenetrable jungle. The unmarked grave was in a small clearing between the trees, and nearby ferns were heavy with flung soil. Why was I here? Who was this woman?
I reached out, even though I knew I couldn’t help, and grabbed her hand. To my surprise, I could feel it as if I was actually there, and her fingers bent to clutch me. She needed me to see, and so I watched.
The surroundings changed. We were in a tiny village at the base of a massive mountain range that stretched toward the sky, disappearing into low clouds. It took a moment for my ears to adjust to the near deafening song of a thousand birds, tunes that felt familiar to my heart but foreign to my mind. Children were playing nearby, and I knew instantly that one boy and one girl were the woman’s children. Their skin was a beautiful ruddy tan, and dark hair hung messily around their faces as they chased each other around, the little girl holding a stick out in front of her and laughing so hard I was surprised she managed to stay on her feet.
Then, shouting in the distance, and the playing ceased, and the woman, along with a few other adults in the common area of the circle of small houses straightened like a herd of deer sensing a jaguar on the prowl.
The doomed woman started shouting, waving her arms, motioning for the children to run inside, and once she’d shut the door behind them, she closed her eyes, praying to whatever god she trusted, and then approached in the direction of the shouts. Smoke began to rise, and I could feel her fear, her sadness as she headed toward the inevitable. But inevitable what exactly?
From the edge of the thick forest, the men appeared. Two dozen of them, rounding a leaf-thatched building with long, crude blades in hand. They could have cut the woman down in a heartbeat, but something about her stopped the leader in his tracks. She stared across the clearing at him with more hate in her eyes than I knew could exist. The birds fell silent.
The language that came flowing from her lips wasn’t one I recognized, at first, hardly more than a whisper. But then her voice rose, louder, louder until she hollered the words, the same few, over and over again. A gust of cold air plunged down the mountain behind her, blowing the men back a step and causing the loose strands of her dark hair that had pulled free from the long braid down her back to whip around her face. Even they motioned at the men like an accusation.
It wasn’t hard to figure out. She was a witch. But not quite the same kind I’d encountered. Was she a North Wind? She seemed to harness the air like one. But that didn’t seem right. There was something more raw about her power, like she drew it from a more ancient spring.
In the end, it didn’t matter where she drew her power; it wasn’t enough. For a moment, it looked like her efforts might deter the small brigade from coming any closer, but I knew that in the end, her fate was sealed. I’d watched her final moments underneath that dirt, held her hand …
“Ms. Ashcroft!”
Where did that voice come from? Was it on the wind?
“Ms. Ashcroft! Are you alright? Say something.”
The pain in my body faded, replaced by a much lesser one as Deputy Manchester slapped my cheek gently and shook me. I opened my eyes to find myself lying in Stu’s arms. I was back in the tiny, dark closet of a room. “What happened?”
Another voice with a flourish of an Eastern European accent spoke up from the ground
next to me. “I believe the mere sight of me made you swoon.”
I blinked, and turned toward the voice to find Count Sebastian Malavic sitting up in an open coffin surrounded by a ring of fresh earth.
He cleared his throat and tousled his hair to get the dirt out. “Sweet damnation! I thought I was going to be stuck in there with my own thoughts forever. I worried the boredom might actually kill me, which would have been quite unexpected, even for this town.”
“How long were you under there?” I asked, still trying to wrap my head around what I’d just seen and felt and rectify it with where I now was.
“Since sunrise. I only need a couple hours of rest each day, but I’d had a long evening out with a possible progeny, and, well, she seems very promising. Long story short, I needed a few extra hours to recover. But I didn’t expect that when I finally did try to rise, I would be met with such an obstacle. I was weak from lack of nourishment and therefore stuck. That is, until your canine companion lent a helping paw or two.”
Grim laid in the doorway, licking the dirt from his paws and looking especially satisfied with himself.
“Who could have done it?” Stu asked.
Malavic swiped a small pile of dirt from the shoulder of his white, cotton tee. “Isn’t that your job to figure out, Deputy?” He stood up, and only then did I see the full attire he slept in: a white V-neck shirt and gray sweatpants.
I couldn’t suppress the giggle.
The count stared down his nose at me where I was still huddled in Manchester’s arms. “And I suppose you wear your finest clothes to bed each night?” His nostrils flared almost imperceptibly. “Or do you sleep naked?” A smile spread across his lips. “Ah yes, you do, don’t you?”
“What? No, I—” This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have while in the lap of Stu Manchester, so I hurried to my feet, bracing myself against the wall to keep from falling over when the blood rushed from my head. I glared through the glow of Manchester’s wand at the vampire. “You’re just dressed like a Calvin Klein model, and I wasn’t expecting it.”
“I’m way better looking than Calvin Klein models, not to mention significantly older.”
I conceded his last point with a nod. “But hold up. How do you even know what a Calvin Klein model is?”
He shrugged a single shoulder and a furtive smirk turned the corner of his lips, but he didn’t respond.
“Ms. Ashcroft,” Stu said getting to his feet. “You took quite a spill there. I think we’d better get you somewhere where we can check you out, make sure nothing’s wrong.”
“Yes,” Sebastian said, turning me toward the door of his hidey-hole and gently moving me forward with a hand on the small of my back. “I’m in desperate need of a wash, and as treasurer of the High Council, I have some important business to attend to now that we have the gold reserves back, thanks to the tireless work of you both.”
Manchester, Grim, and I had hardly crossed the threshold of the count’s front door when the door slammed shut behind us. And this time it was firmly shut.
“You’d think he’d want to figure out who did it,” I said, staring ahead at the land bridge, and beyond that, the skyline of Eastwind.
Manchester nodded. “Yes, unless he’s up to no good and involved in something he doesn’t want us questioning him about.”
“You think that’s likely?”
Stu chuckled. “I think it’s more likely than not. Now let’s get you in to see the Lytefoots before the Pixie Mixie closes for dinner.”
Chapter Ten
“If I had to guess,” said Stella Lytefoot, fluttering in front of me and checking my pupils once again, “I would have to say acute psychopompia.”
She moved away a foot, and nodded at Stu Manchester, who sat next to me at the large wooden table in the back of the Pixie Mixie apothecary. The walls around us were lined with bookshelves, packed with all sorts of old volumes, but Stella, the brains behind the Pixie Mixie, didn’t need to consult any of those for her diagnosis.
“Acute psychopompia?” Stu echoed. “What’s that?”
“Yeah,” I added, “what’s that?”
She waved her hand vaguely. “It’s sort of a catch-all for when a necromancer does something strange. Not very helpful, I know. But there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with your vitals, and if your aura changed during the episode, it’s returned to a healthy baseline. It’s actually a bit clearer than usual.”
“You don’t think the vision could have been caused by Count Malavic then?”
Stella shook her head quickly. “No, no. Vampires and necromancers have very little influence on one another outside of sexual persuasion.”
I gagged a little. “Sexual persuasion?”
“Oh yes. You have to watch out for it. But so does he.”
“Wait,” I said, “back up. I have sexual persuasion powers?”
She nodded lightly. “Of course. Although I’m of the mind that it’s not so much a power you can employ at will as it is a side effect of the natural air of mystery that surrounds Fifth Winds. Men find the mystery enticing, right Stu?”
Stu jerked in his chair. “I have no feelings of that nature for Ms. Ashcroft. Ours is a purely professional relationship.”
“I dunno,” I said, “I consider you a friend, Stu.”
His eyes shot open. “You do?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh.” He nodded slowly, absorbing the information. “I never expect to make new friends, but okay. Yes. You’re my friend, too, Ms. Ashcroft.”
Still with the “Ms. Ashcroft” thing. Whatever. Baby steps.
Stella watched the conversation objectively, like she was trying to extract unbiased data from it for a larger study. Then she added, “What I meant was that you, as a male, understand that an air of mystery in a woman, or whatever gender you prefer, is erotically appealing.”
Stu’s mustache bristled. “Oh. Yes. I agree with that assessment, Mrs. Lytefoot.”
She cringed. “Please. Stella. First of all, calling me missus makes me sound old—which I am, but no need to bring that up since I look and feel so young—and secondly, it always causes confusion when my partner is around.”
Stu nodded. “Right. Stella. As you wish.”
“I believe I have something that could calm your nerves, Nora, if you’d like to try it. Very gentle potion. Should I grab you some?”
“That would be fantastic. Thanks.”
Once Stella fluttered into the sales floor of the Pixie Mixie, I jumped right into it with Stu. “You think it was Oliver?”
“He’s certainly a suspect.”
“But why would he bury Malavic? That can’t kill a vampire, can it?”
Stu rubbed the stubble on his chin. “No. It can just take the vampire out of play for a while, or maybe send a message.”
“Could it have been a warning?” Something about that made sense, given the information I had about his relationship with Zoe that Stu did not.
“Would sure seem like it coming from anyone but Bridgewater. That boy’s never had a feud in his life. Keeps his nose out of trouble, does what the Coven asks of him, always plays by the rules.”
“You think the Coven might have asked him to do some of their dirty work?”
“It’s certainly possible that they asked. They don’t exactly love Count Malavic. However, Bridgewater isn’t the blindly loyal type. He wouldn’t follow an order that wasn’t lawful.”
“What if it wasn’t Oliver?” I said. “What if he was being honest and he’d knocked on the door and no one answered, so he’d turned around and left? Who else might have wanted to send a message to Sebastian?”
When Stella entered the room again, I expected Stu to press pause on the conversation until she we could have privacy again, but he didn’t bother. “I know this might sound strange, but the first person who jumps to mind is Liberty Freeman. Those two don’t see eye-to-eye on anything in the High Council. The genie sees Malavic’s penchant for over-the-top philanthr
opy as a cleverly disguised form of slavery. Get the poor dependent on the kindness of a single benefactor, then suddenly those same folks will do whatever they need to keep the benefactor happy and not lose what they’ve been given. Gotta say, the man has a point, but it’s a hard one to sell to those who could desperately use a helping hand.”
Stella interrupted. “Here, take this.” She handed me a small ceramic sipping bowl with a dark liquid in it, and I tried not to breathe through my nose as I brought it close and downed it. It started off tart and ended bitter and earthy.
“Thanks,” I managed, smacking my lips. I returned to the conversation. “You think Liberty would bury the count while he slept to prove a point about that?”
“No more than I think Oliver Bridgewater would sneak into the count’s home and do it. But the genie is certainly capable of making it happen. Folks around Eastwind see Liberty’s charisma and pearly smile and assume he’s just a big teddy bear. They forget that bears can be deadly when provoked. It’s a lucky thing Liberty has such a nice side to him, because if he wanted, he could snap his fingers and rain chaos and death down upon us all.”
“It’s true,” Stella added. “Genies are terribly powerful beings. It caused a huge stir when he decided to move here from Zatrian a few hundred years ago. This was back before it was even called Eastwind. If there had been a proper government rather than a simple werewolf aristocracy, he would have been kindly asked to make his home somewhere else. Don’t think that would have gone down well, so it’s probably for the best that it didn’t play out that way.”
“And if I’m remembering correctly,” Stu added, “when Mayor Esperia informed Sheriff Bloom that we had been approved to hire a new officer next month, she said it would require raising taxes. Liberty is opposed to raising taxes for anything. Say, Stella, what’s the moon looking like tonight?”