The Water Witch

by Juliet Dark

  “I was not aware that we were being investigated,” Liz trilled in full Jean Brodie mode.

  Adelaide lowered her glasses and gave Liz a withering look. I would not have imagined that anyone could intimidate Elizabeth Book, but I saw her stiffen under my grandmother’s scrutiny.

  “Your awareness of the investigation would have invalidated it. Dr. Greeley can attest that the investigation was conducted under proper IMP guidelines.”

  Talbot Greeley adjusted the knot of his bow tie and re-crossed his legs without looking at Liz. “We’d had complaints, Liz. My hands were tied.”

  Liz’s face had gone very pale and she was clenching her hands so tightly under the table that I saw her knuckles bulging. “I see. May I know what this agent discovered?”

  “If you have no objection, you can hear it from the agent himself.”

  “I have no objection,” Liz replied, squaring her shoulders and leaning forward in her seat. “I would very much like to see who has been the spy in our midst.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Without looking to his left or right, Frank Delmarco entered the room. He walked to the chair set at the end of the table, slouched in his seat and glared at the Grove members. When his eyes met mine, he started to smile, then scowled, straightened his suit jacket, and pulled at the cuffs of his shirt. I’d never seen Frank in a suit jacket before. He looked like he was wearing a medieval torture device.

  “Please state your full name,” Adelaide said.

  “Frances Dante Delmarco,” Frank said with a look that dared anyone in the room to crack a smile at his middle name. Which wasn’t likely. I could feel Liz’s shock as she struggled to absorb the fact that brusque, gruff, but kind and decent Frank Delmarco had been a spy. At least Soheila would be spared seeing the man she secretly loved betray Fairwick—but then I recalled the video monitors. Damn.

  “And please state your affiliations.”

  “I’m a full professor of American studies at Fairwick College,” Frank said, looking straight at Liz. “I received tenure five years ago.”

  “I’ll be damned if that’ll keep me from firing you,” Liz muttered under her breath.

  “And …?” Adelaide prompted.

  “I also work for the Internal Affairs Division of the Institute of Magical Professionals. They—specifically, Dr. Greeley here—asked me to report on any suspicious or unusual supernatural occurrences at the college.”

  “And have you found any suspicious or unusual supernatural occurrences here at Fairwick?”

  I held my breath. Last winter when I’d found out that he was an operative for IMPIA he’d gone on a rant about the unorthodox and dangerous activities on campus—ranging from unauthorized tampering with the weather to harassment of civilians by supernatural creatures. And that had been before he’d had to save me from a winged, life-sucking liderc.

  Frank sighed. “I compiled my report for IMPIA, not the Grove. I was never told that the information I was gathering would be used in a witch hunt.”

  Loomis Pagan and Eleanor Belknap gasped.

  “We are hardly likely to instigate a witch hunt,” Adelaide said, enunciating each word, “since we ourselves are witches, Dr. Delmarco.”

  “I was using the term figuratively. I’m a witch myself, although I prefer the term wizard. Hunting down creatures because of their supernatural identities is just as intolerant as persecuting witches for their practices.”

  “So you think it’s acceptable for supernatural creatures to prey on human beings?”

  “Of course not,” Frank snapped.

  “But you did document a case in which …” Adelaide turned to a bookmarked page of the report. “… in which an incubus invaded the home of a Fairwick professor and sexually molested her, did you not?”

  Frank’s eyes flicked to mine for a brief instant, but long enough, I was sure, for him to have seen the pain in my eyes. I shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d reported on my relationship with Liam, but it hurt that he’d expressed it in those terms.

  “Yes, but I also reported that the professor in question was able to banish the incubus with help from her colleagues, including some otherworldly colleagues. They got the job done. And I’d say the same about Fairwick College: the people here may not always play by the book, but they get the job done. They’re good people, by and large, whether human or otherwise.”

  Eleanor Belknap grunted assent and Loomis Pagan nodded her head in agreement. A little bit of my anger against Frank was dispelled.

  “But then you don’t always know which you’re dealing with, do you, Dr. Delmarco? Are you acquainted with one Soheila Lilly?”

  “Yes, I know Dr. Lilly. She teaches Middle Eastern studies here.”

  “And what is your relationship with Dr. Lilly?”

  “We’re colleagues—and friends,” Frank answered warily, looking questioningly at me. Frank had told me once that he didn’t exactly know what Soheila was. I hadn’t volunteered the information that she was a succubus.

  “So you’ve had ample opportunity to observe her. Do you know if she’s human?”

  “I know that she’s a kind, intelligent, generous woman, an excellent teacher, and an outstanding scholar. She’s never hurt a soul. That’s good enough for me.”

  “Hm, but if you don’t know what she is, how do you know that your judgment of her hasn’t been compromised?”

  Before Frank could answer—an answer I believe would have included a rich array of expletives—Adelaide raised her voice. “The Grove calls Soheila Lilly.”

  The door opened and Soheila appeared, escorted by Jen Davies. She and Soheila, arms linked, looked as if they might have been girlfriends out shopping together. She escorted Soheila to the end of the table opposite where Frank sat and, giving Soheila a small apologetic smile, left her. Soheila glanced first at Liz, then at the Grove members—then she saw Frank. A spontaneous smile of surprise and pleasure spread across her face and I realized she must have been sequestered somewhere and couldn’t watch the proceedings. She didn’t know yet that Frank was an Internal Affairs agent—or that he’d just been asked if he knew what sort of creature she was.

  “Please state your full name,” Adelaide ordered.

  “Soheila Lilly,” she replied.

  “Is that your full name?”

  Soheila sighed. The sigh turned into a musical trill of wind that passed through the room, carrying with it the scent of cardamom and cloves and the warmth of a desert night. I saw Frank smile when the breeze reached him—we all smiled, I think, warmed by its touch in this cold, hostile room, even Loomis Pagan, who looked like she hadn’t smiled in decades. But then Adelaide lifted a hand and the warm gust turned icy cold.

  “You are not allowed to perform magic at this meeting,” she roared.

  Soheila’s eyes widened but she spoke with controlled grace. “I was not performing magic. You asked me my full name and I gave it to you. My name belongs to the wind. I cannot help what effect it has on you.”

  “It had no effect on me,” Adelaide snapped, a smug look on her face, “because I am warded against such tricks, but I imagine the effect is most seductive to unwarded humans … or to a witch unaware of your nature.” Adelaide turned to Frank. “Were you aware, Dr. Delmarco, that your colleague Soheila Lilly is a succubus?”

  Frank shook his head, his eyes on Soheila. Her eyes were wide and glassy with pain.

  Liz made a strangled noise. I glanced at her and saw that there were tears in her eyes. I looked at the other members of the board and saw that they were looking at Soheila intently.

  “We are waiting for your answer, Dr. Delmarco.”

  “No,” Frank said, “I wasn’t. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change who she is.”

  “But it does.” Adelaide’s voice was almost soft now. “She merely had to say her true name to make you swoon. Who knows what effect her power has had on you, or how it has compromised your judgment?”

  “I have never wielded my power over
Frank,” Soheila cried. “Nor over any other man—not for decades. I have abstained from that sort of contact for more than sixty years.” Soheila lifted her chin.

  “Ah,” Adelaide purred, “but you just said you don’t have control over your power. Merely saying your name is a prelude to seduction. It is what you are. The Grove cannot blame you for that, Dr. Lilly, but it can take steps to protect humanity from you.”

  Beside me Liz made a noise that started as a sob but then turned into a snort of laughter. “Humanity!” she cried, rising to her feet. “This proceeding is a mockery of humanity. I call for a recess …”

  “We all have to agree to call a recess,” Delbert Winters said. “And I, for one, would like to hear what Dr. Lilly has to say.”

  Liz glared at Winters. “This is my college. I won’t stand by and let my teachers be interrogated.”

  “And yet you stood by and let an incubus prey on one of your teachers. Your judgment has been rendered invalid, Dean Book. As has Dr. Delmarco’s. You have both been seduced by those creatures from whom you are pledged to protect humanity. Why, less than one week ago you, Dean Book, let into this world an undine who has been rampaging through the woods, preying on young men.”

  “That wasn’t Dean Book’s fault,” I said, rising to my feet. “I let in the undine—inadvertently—and Dean Book has done everything in her power to apprehend her. In fact, this rogue undine was apprehended last night. She’s being held under guard until tomorrow when she will be escorted to the door and brought back to Faerie. It’s that kind of cooperation between witches and fey that makes Fairwick work. If we close the door and force part of our population to leave, the town and college will lose its heart. We’ll be diminished.”

  “A very heartening sentiment, Dr. McFay,” Delbert Winters said, his voice thick with disdain, “but since you are not a member of the governing board of IMP, you have no standing in these proceedings.”

  “She’s been called in as an expert witness—” Liz began.

  “I hardly think that writing a book about the sex lives of vampires makes her an expert in anything but …” Delbert Winters sneered. “… sex. If anything, her proclivities make her a suspect witness. Didn’t she have a relationship with an incubus last year?”

  “That was months ago. I banished him—”

  “And yet you still wear the marks of your dalliance with him!” Adelaide waved her hand and I felt something rough brush against my cheek. I was reminded of an incident when I was fourteen and Adelaide caught me wearing makeup to school. She’d scrubbed my face with a washcloth. I felt the same shame now, coupled with a tightening of my wards as I realized that Soheila’s protective makeup had been wiped from my face, but I held my head up.

  “This was no dalliance,” I said. “It was an attack from a creature I was attempting to unmask.”

  “However you acquired the marks, dear, it’s clear you are unable to protect yourself, let alone your friends and neighbors.” She looked down at the report in front of her. “Since coming to Fairwick, you’ve let in a liderc who fed on students and faculty. You let in an incubus who fed on you. And now you’ve let in an undine that has been attacking fishermen.”

  Adelaide snapped her fingers and the slide projection of a bucolic wood changed to a graphic depiction of a body of a young man, his legs twisted at an unnatural angle, his arms splayed out to either side, lying beside a forest stream. His face and chest were covered with blood and gore. Lydia Markham and Talbot Greeley gasped.

  “This body was found in the woods near the source of the Undine,” Adelaide said into the stunned silence of the room. “As was this one.” She snapped her fingers again and another corpse appeared on the screen, this one without a face.

  Frank stood up and moved closer to the screen, the red gore spreading over his own face as he scrutinized the picture.

  “Do we know for certain that this was done by an undine?” Liz asked.

  Adelaide shot her a cool stare. “They were found near where Lorelei was last spotted.”

  “Still, that doesn’t mean she did this to those men,” I said.

  “This isn’t how undines usually behave,” Soheila added, staring at the gruesome image. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Yes,” Adelaide agreed. “Something is very wrong. Those woods have become a breeding ground for creatures from the other world. These aren’t cute fairies and brownies—these are monsters. Not only has Fairwick failed to control the traffic of immigration from Faerie, it has created an atmosphere in which such creatures thrive. It has been suggested by some members of this council that the only solution is to shut down the entire town.”

  “You mean,” Liz said, blanching, “like Fluges?”

  “It’s your own fault for hiring so many otherworlders,” Delbert Winters hissed at Liz, his face dyed red from the slide projection. “I’ve warned you about that before.”

  “Clearly there should have been stricter monitoring structures in place,” Lydia Markham remarked, her face also a mask of blood.

  “This is what happens when the avenues of discourse are severed due to self-fulfilling paradigm shifts,” Loomis Pagan remarked enigmatically.

  “ ‘Violence is the last resort of the helpless,’ ” Eleanor Belknap quoted somebody. “These creatures need help.”

  “Otherworlders who cannot control their urges—as the rest of us have—need to be escorted from this world and never let back in again,” Talbot Greeley said, adjusting his now crimson bow tie. “Lest they ruin it for the rest of us.”

  I turned toward each board member but saw only bloody, scared faces, their voices mingled with the restless rustling sound that seemed to be growing and coming from everywhere. It sounded like a stampede—or a flock of angry birds. Frank was standing with his back to the table, still staring up at the slide. The Grove members were talking among themselves, Garnette Davis leaning toward Adelaide, whispering in her ear. Adelaide shook her head several times, then nodded once and held up her hand. Instantly the room went quiet.

  “My esteemed colleague, Garnette Davis, has another suggestion. If we announce that the door is to be closed and the captured undine is escorted under the armed guard of the Stewarts to the door, the majority of otherworldly creatures in the forest will also leave this world. It may take some time to clean up the woods entirely, but we may be able to save the town and the college.”

  The IMP board members murmured their approval.

  “That is, if Dr. McFay is willing to close the door for us,” Adelaide added.

  “And if I don’t?” I asked.

  “That would be regrettable,” Adelaide said severely, “but I assure you we have our ways of doing it ourselves. You won’t be able to stop us.”

  “What about the otherworlders living in Fairwick?” I asked. “What will happen to them?”

  “The creatures who have made their homes here are free to choose which world they will live in,” Adelaide replied.

  “That seems eminently fair,” Talbot Greeley said with a relieved sigh. “Don’t you think so, Delbert?”

  Delbert Winters snorted. “Too fair by half, but I suppose it will do.”

  “But if the door is closed forever, many will be forced to choose Faerie,” Liz said.

  “So they’ll have to choose,” Lydia Markham said brusquely. “We’ve all had to make hard choices. Why should fairies be any different?”

  “And what of those who have used Aelvesgold to lengthen their life spans?” Liz asked. “Or to control illnesses? Lydia, didn’t your mother receive treatment when she was sick last year? And you, Talbot, I know you don’t maintain your physique through going to the gym.” Neither professor met Liz’s gaze.

  “Vanities,” Eleanor Belknap remarked. “We’ll learn to do without them. Are we ready to take a vote? All those in favor of closing the door forever, raise their hands.”

  Five of the six board members raised their hands. Liz kept her hands clasped in front of her, fingers knotted together
.

  “Very well, then,” Adelaide said, smiling. “We’re agreed. The door will be closed forever.”

  “When?” Soheila asked, the single word gusting from her mouth with a force that snapped the window blinds and chilled the room.

  Adelaide smiled. “Since tomorrow is the solstice, it seems a fitting time. The door will be closed tomorrow morning at dawn.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Rising as one, the Grove members began to file out. The IMP board members got up more slowly, but they too left the room, avoiding looking at Liz, who remained in her seat. Soheila got up and started walking toward Liz and me. At the same time, Frank turned around from the slide screen and started toward her, his arms out as though to grab hold of her.

  “Soheila, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know …”

  She held up her hands. I think she only meant to ward off Frank’s apologies and to keep him from touching her—maybe she was afraid of what effect her touch might have on him in her highly emotional state—but the motion caused a gust of wind that blew him backward. He hit the wall, his arms splayed out to steady himself, in a pose eerily like the twisted limbs of the murdered fisherman. Soheila made a sound like a wounded bird and fled the room. With a pained look on his face, Frank watched her go and then addressed himself to Liz. “I had no idea that the information I was collecting would be used by the Grove. It looks to me like IMP has been compromised by the Grove.”

  Liz nodded. “We’re in agreement there,” she said. “I don’t understand how they can turn their backs on the fey. Even Loomis Pagan and Talbot Greeley have turned on their own kind.”

  I filled Frank in on what I’d learned from Jen Davies about the club in London that the Grove had joined forces with.

  “The Seraphim Club?” he repeated. “I’ve heard something about them …” His voice drifted off. He was staring at me, his eyes narrowed. “What did happen to your face, McFay?”