by Lee Isserow
Ana watched as Rafe ran his hand over every flat surface he could find, kicking his feet against every square inch of floor. If the box was shrouded, he would find it. But a pit in his gut was telling him that there was no shroud.
“You look like a maniac who's angry at the air! Would you please explain what the hell is going on?”
“The box,” he said, continuing to throw his hands and feet around wildly. “Could be hiding in plain sight, not invisible, but like invisible.”
“Or it could have just been taken out the back door,” she said, indicating to the back door, which was wide open.
He looked over to it, then through it, across the twenty five square feet of garden that lay beyond the threshold, where the back gate was swinging in a breeze.
The pit that had been slowly digging itself in his gut suddenly caved in. He lost all wit, all bravado. A sense of shame and ignominy came over him. They had been there, whoever―or whatever―was behind this whole fiasco. They had been right damn there.
Even though nobody had died this go around, once again Rafe had failed to catch them in the act. And worse than that, the damn box had been right there, and he had failed to stop it from falling back into their hands.
Ana might be safe―her mother might be safe―but they were no closer to finding out who the hell was responsible for trying to kill her and her bloodline.
Chapter 34
Cross contamination
“What now?” Ana asked gruffly.
Rafe could only think of one thing they could do to work out where the box had been taken to―but feared that he wasn't strong enough to do it, not that it would stop him trying.
He refused to meet her eye, and sucked in a long, deep breath, trying not to doubt that he had recharged enough to create another re-enactment, and he forced the air out until his lungs were achingly empty.
“This isn't the time for yoga. . .”
“Just give me a second.” Another long, slow inhalation.
“And let them get further away? We've got to find whoever this is―you know they're going to come back, if not for me then my mother, or whatever stray relatives we have left!”
The breath left his lips, Rafe pictured his intent in mind's eye, giving it heft and substance. “We will,” he muttered, feeling the intent failing to manifest. His eyes opened, and caught hers. He stared, lips parted, wondering if he should try something that was probably going to fail miserably.
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
“Breathe with me.”
“What?”
“You heard me.” He motioned for her to inhale in time with him, their chests raising, lungs inflating to full capacity―then emptying completely. “Picture the air, it comes in to your body as bright white light, gleaming as it fills you up from the inside, bursting out of every pore. . . and as you exhale, the light fades, it emerges from you dark, as if its taking all the negativity from your subconscious, the shadows that live under your skin―”
“What is the point in this hippy B.S.?”
“Do it,” he insisted, motioning again for her to breathe with him, in and out.
Reluctantly, Ana did as she was told, continuing to inhale and exhale in time with him. Rafe gestured for her to lift her right index finger. “Magick isn't what you think it is,” he said as they began tracing out a sigil in the air between them. “As much as it can be taught, it's not really a learned thing. It's a birthright, a lineage, a legacy of reality manipulation passed down through generations” The right hand joined the left.
“What do you mean, reality manipulation?”
“Don't talk, just do as I do.” He was careful to demonstrate the way in which the fingers intertwined slowly, to insure she could keep up―he didn't want to have to start all over again. “That's all magick is, manipulating the reality we live in and the unseen realms that surround us. . . The symbols we use, sigils, are combined with intent to shape the world to our requirements, and there are of course words that make it even easier―cheat codes if you will. But the most important thing is intent. Intent to warp reality to your bidding.”
Much to Rafe's surprise, Ana had no problem copying the exact gestures he showed her. One final breath in as the sigil was sealed, and on her final long breath out. The air that left her lips was hotter than any she had ever felt before.
It had heft, substance, his intent passed through to her as they made the gestures in unison. As it the breath wound its way out into the night, it hung in front of her wide eyes. A thick, warm, grey smoke. “What the hell?!”
“I knew it. . . ” He let a smile come to his lips.
“Knew what?”
“You've got magick in you.”
“Because of that. . . thing? The DaffyDuck, being inside me?”
“Because of your bloodline. I've been trying to work out why the hell people would be trying to kill a family of mundanes with something magickal. . . it just didn't make any sense.”
“This makes sense?” she asked with an irate sigh, indicating to the warm grey smoke that was still hanging in the air in front of her.
“It gives us a starting point for why someone's trying to kill you. . . something or someone in your bloodline must have pissed this person off.
“What the hell could I―or we―have done?”
“No idea. But I need your help if we're going to find out.”
“My help? Why? You're the damn magickian!”
“No. . .” His eyes fell from meeting hers to skirting the lawn. “I'm not.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I've literally seen you do magick. You just threw fireworks at a monster and healed my damn mother.”
Rafe huffed, rolling his eyes and settling them back down on the ground. He couldn't bare to look at her, hadn't been forced to tell anyone about his condition for so damn long, he thought he'd never have to say it out loud ever again. Absent-mindedly, he kicked at the flowerbeds.
“Don't screw with my mum's begonias.”
He scoffed, taking a breath before forcing himself to meet her emerald gaze. “I used to be a magickian. Used to work with others at the damn CIA of magick. . . until I made the mistake of trusting the wrong person, got. . . caught in the crossfire, for lack of a better term. Got myself sucked dry.”
“Excuse me?”
“Like I said, magick's in the blood. But wrong time and wrong place, you can poison the blood, or suck the magick right out of a guy. . . These days I've barely got a few drops more than a mundane.”
“But you can still. . . do spells, or whatever.”
He scoffed at the use of the word spells. “Castings, yeah, kinda. But if I use too much, end up having to take a day off with a damn hangover. If I push myself, I come down with a fever and chills that knock me out for close to a week. . .”
“When you healed my mum. . .”
“Your sister, yeah. . . That's on top of days straight with barely any sleep, using magicks over and over. Hit the wall while I was glyphing. . . think I might have actually run myself dry.”
“But, you did it. . . You healed her.”
“No,” Rafe said, making sure she was looking straight at him, that she saw he was telling her the unadulterated truth. ”You did it. . .”
“That's not possible.”
“And you gave me. . . some kind of boost in the process, a cross contamination of our fingers tracing the same glyph, thinking the same thing―”
“Contamination. . . like. . . a disease?”
“No. Like I said, a booster shot. You kick-started the magick in my blood. . . but it's not enough to do what I want to do to track these bastards down.”
“And what's that?”
“I need you to trust me.”
“I do, I guess?”
“Completely.”
“I bloody do. Would I be here if I didn't? What the hell do we do next?”
Rafe swallowed over a lump in his throat. He knew exactly what she would need to do n
ext, but they were going to need a hell of a lot more smoke to make it happen.
Chapter 35
Instant replay
Rafe tried to run Ana through the breathing exercises and sigil again, but she didn't need any help. He had never met a woman with quite so remarkable a visual memory. It wasn't long before there was a mass of smoke floating in front of her, the size of a full grown man.
“This enough?” she asked, catching her breath.
“Yeah.” He had been so impressed watching her, that she had created more than enough smoke. Now it was a question of putting it to work.
With another set of hand movements, the smoke dispersed across the garden, filling the twenty five square feet with a thin grey mist. At his indication, she rotated her index finger counterclockwise. The mist wafted around them as it played back the memories of the air it was floating amidst. A dark shadow was cast from the sky above, withdrawing across the lawn into the house, to the back door.
Rafe gestured for her to stop winding back. The thick, black shadow stood at the door, its hands clutching a thick, dark box tightly.
“That's our guy. Bring the smoke in, let's get a good look at him.“ He showed her the gesture to pull the thin mist across the garden to the point of interest, making the man with the box thicker and darker.
“This is amazing,” Ana said. “I'm never going to lose my house keys again!”
The shadow man became inky black, but his features were obscured, as if the air the smoke was integrating with couldn't remember what he looked like. “Shrouded. . .”
“Stop using jargon!” Ana grumbled.
“Basic disguise magick, makes your face impossible to remember.”
“Well that's bloody useless.”
“Not if he's taking the box home. . .” Rafe said, gesturing for her to spin events forward.
The smokey shadow man took the box from the house, taking steps across the garden, heading for the back door, at which point his body exploded into an amorphous cloud and took to the skies.
“Is that. . . normal?” Ana asked.
“As normal as any of this.”
She spun the memory forwards, and the shadowy cloud disappeared over the top of the houses. “We're gonna need a car,” she said. “Unless you can teach me to fly―can you teach me to fly?”
“I don't know how to make you fly. . . Can get you to turn to mist like him, if that's any consolation. But you'll have to put yourself back together on the other side, and that isn't exactly fun.”
“Car it is then,” she said, leading the way out through the back garden to a side road.
Rafe ran his fingers against the door of the first car along. The central locking clicked open at his command and he brought the engine to life with an enchantment.
“You're going to bring this car back, right?” Ana asked.
“Yeah,” Rafe lied. “Probably.”
“How often do you steal cars?”
“I don't need cars all that often. . .”
“That's not really an answer.”
“Shut up, and spin our guy forward,” he instructed, pulling the car out of the alley, and following the smokey manifestation's path through the sky.
The smoky instant replay made his way through the air as the crow flies, Ana pausing its journey as they twisted and turned through roads and side streets to catch up with it.
It was becoming apparent that this person had no notion that they were going to be followed, and as they drove through an all too affluent area, Rafe became increasingly aware that he knew exactly where the re-enactment of its journey was going to take them.
He pulled up the car outside the gates of a large mansion, the only building at the very peak of a hill. Ana wound the memories forward and the smoke cloud went straight to the front door, turning back into a man before walking through the entrance.
“We've got him!” she said, wide smile on her face with the exuberance of success.
“Not so much. . .”
“Why'd you say that?”
“We haven't followed some idiot back to his house. . . this is the Raven's Lodge.”
“You're going to explain what that is any second now, right?”
“Gentleman's club, for the wealthiest and most powerful magickians in all the lands.”
“Gentleman's club as in cigars, or gentleman's club as in strippers?”
“Cigars.”
“So? Let's go find this bastard. They're not going to just let a murderer hang out there. . .”
Rafe sighed as he killed the engine and looked out on the Raven's Lodge. “You've never met the wealthy and powerful, huh? They really don't give too much of a damn about who's killed what, as long as you got the right watch, car and zip code. . .”
Chapter 36
The methodology of glamours
“Stay here,' Rafe said as he got out of the car, and ran his fingers down the buttons of his shirt, pirouetting them around as he cast a quick glamour. The wine red shirt became a bright white, and sprouted a single breasted jacket that clambered around his upper body. He ran his hands down his legs and his grubby dark blue jeans lost their saturation, became darker, the weave and texture contorted to be tighter and thinner, denim turning to wool. With a quick tap to each of his boots, the scuffed tan leather became black and shiny. He ran his fingers through his hair, the out-of-bed look neatened itself into a slick quiff, and with a click of his fingers at the neck, a black tie knotted itself at his collar, rolling down his chest and tucking itself in behind the buttons of the jacket.
“I will not bloody stay here!” Ana said, getting out of the car. She copied the fingerwork of the glamour exactly as he performed it, turning her nightclothes into an elegant black evening dress, throwing her hair above her head, where it tied itself up and took on a intricate and ornate set of curls. Seemingly comfortable with the methodology of glamours, she ran her fingers across her face, causing the bags under her eyes to shed and lips to take on a vivid red that seemed to bring out the green in her eyes all the more.
“This isn't a sexist thing, it's a newbie thing, you don't know how stuff work in this world―”
“Well I'll learn, won't I?”
Rafe could tell that she wasn't going to take no for an answer. “Fine,” he sighed. “But, remember how I said it was a gentleman's club?”
Ana looked down at the evening dress. It had been a long time since she had had an excuse to wear something quite so beautiful. “Fine,” she grunted, running her hands over her body, causing her breasts to recede into her chest and a bulge to grow between her legs. The dress split at the middle, turning into a suit, shirt and tie. “Happy now?” she asked, her voice still her own.
“I guess. . . Just don't. . . say anything, 'kay?”
“I could be a feminine or gay man. . . “
“Yeah, they'd take to that about as kindly as they'd take to you being a girl. . . “
Man-Ana stared at Rafe incredulously. She did not take kindly to being called “a girl” at the best of times, and wearing a male skin suit was certainly not the best of times. But she decided to save that talk for another time. The man, or men, who murdered her grandmother―who tried to kill her and her mother too―was somewhere inside that damn building. And she would stop at nothing to make him pay.
Chapter 37
Soulless giant bastards
Rafe and Mana walked up the path to the large, overbearing house. Three floors of gothic styled architecture with a large turret at the front corner, each floor segmented and slightly smaller than the one above, separated by a row of turrets, as if whoever designed the mansion wished to ward potential invaders away.
The way the house had been built on the hill, with the turret facing the street, and windows facing away at diagonal angles, made it look as though the building was glaring angrily at all who walked towards its grand archway entrance. Mana tried to hide how uncomfortable the thing was making her feel as they walked up to the wide open doorway at the bas
e of the tower.
Two large men stood under the archway, with identical short black hair, dull black eyes and pale grey skin.
“Greetings,” said the one to the left, in a deep monotone.
“Do you have the word of passage?” asked the one to the right, in an identical voice.
Rafe's eyes scanned back and forth between the two of them. He had been granted entry to the Raven's Lodge on a case a while back. He just had to hope that they didn't care enough to update their words of passage since his last visit.
“Khare'shak.”
The two near-identical behemoths glanced at one another, then back to Rafe and Mana, stepped aside to let them through. “Enjoy your evening, sirs,” they said in unison.
“I'm sure we will,” he said, gesturing for Mana to walk ahead.
The entranceway was bigger than Ana's entire house and garden. Her place could have fit in the antechamber three, maybe even four times over with room to spare. Their footsteps echoed back around at them with every step they took on the marble floor, great squares of it, each as wide as Ana was tall. The brickwork of this grand entrance looked as though it were built from the same size and colour rocks as Stonehenge. Ana wasn't sure that she could see any cement between the massive bricks, and wondered if the whole place was held together by hope and spit, rather than traditional building materials. Then she remembered where she was―this place was built for magickians, and that likely meant it was built by magickians. . . That didn't make her feel particularly comfortable about the structural integrity of the mansion, given how easy it had been for her to pick up on the whole magick lark.
There were three doorways off from the entrance, and a grand staircase that seemed to spiral up infinitely―much higher than the three floors visible from the outside of the building.