by Louisa Lo
Talk about a public relations nightmare.
Not to mention, an act of vengeance was performed, but it wasn’t performed by a vengeance demon. What was even more insulting, the person responsible didn’t even bother to lay claim to it. Vengeance demons were all about doing the right thing and having the credit to show for it. Having an act of vengeance completed but unclaimed, like an open lottery prize no one would speak for, was a mockery of everything that vengeance demons stood for.
“Things don’t look good for them.” Esme admitted.
“No kidding.” I snorted.
“Regardless.” Esme looked at me, then my half-brothers. “We need to find the person who did this. Interfering in the mortal world has unintended consequences.”
The boys looked unconvinced, so Esme tried another route. “Don’t you want to find out who did it?”
“Maybe,” Fir grunted. It didn’t take growing up with him to know that his non-committal tone was totally forged. It was all over his body language—the hardly suppressed grin, the fidgety hands, the spring in his heel as he shifted from left to right, as if he was dying to run to the nearest laptop. “I could ask around, I guess. If I happen to find time this weekend.”
Yeah, right. There was nothing like living vicariously through someone else’s naughty behavior, and asking around about our mystery maybe-trickster would give Fir an excuse to talk shop with his friends.
“Thank you,” Esme said.
“Say,” Fir said casually, making a show of examining his fingernails, “would the trickster in question be rewarded for the vengeance performed?”
For vengeance demons, each vengeance performed earned them magical credits from the Council. I had never heard of a precedent of someone not from the vengeance race collecting such a reward, but I suppose he or she would deserve that.
“Of course,” Esme replied.
“Good to know.” Fir grinned triumphantly.
Alright, I was confused. One moment Fir looked like he couldn’t wait to find out who the video prankster was, the next it sounded as if he had all but admitted that he was involved. I needed to speak to Mom in private, and find out if and how deep my half-brothers were in this mess.
I needed to get Esme out of here. I loved her, but she was here in an official Council capacity, and I wanted to give her deniability in the event that I had to cover things up later.
“How about this?” I volunteered. “I’ll help Fir and the gang look into this, then we’ll tell you what we’ve found?”
Esme looked relieved. “I’ll tell Grandmother that. Meanwhile, I’ll go back to my research, if you don’t mind. I’m testing a theory that involves the Day of Contemplation, and the timing is sensitive.”
“You go do that. Good luck.” I was glad she took the bait. Esme might be a fearsome vengeance demon, but cunning wasn’t in her nature. I felt bad about holding back from her, even if it was for her own good.
As soon as Esme teleported out of there, I turned to Mom. “We should talk.”
She nodded, and ignoring the questioning looks from everyone else in the family, we went to my room.
Once the door was closed, I got straight to the point. “Is Fir or one of the others responsible for that video? Is that why you made us all skip town?”
“Yes,” Mom said, then, “No.”
I gave an exasperated sigh. “Mom, is that a yes or no?”
“No.” Mom’s voice was firmer now. “We tricksters have a seer of our own. I went to see her. It was a lot of mumbo jumbo, but the stuff she told me made me believe my kids might be in over their heads with what she called the Prank of the Century. So I sent your father to stop them and bring them here. Whoever did this video—it’s not them. I know my own kids’ power signatures, and this is not them. Deep down you know it, too.”
She was right. Everyone had their personal “brand” of magic that was distinctive to them, like a body scent. Esme’s magic-powered projection didn’t just convey visual images, but also the power signature that went into making them. As much as the video matched my half-brothers’ fun-loving personalities to a tee, it wasn’t their signature.
It might not be them, but by initially suspecting it to be so, I ended up promising Esme to help with the investigation.
Might as well. I was getting tired of sun tanning anyway.
***
With laptop in hand, Fir gestured for me and the rest of the boys to gather around him at the kitchen’s breakfast bar. As it turned out, the resort’s “strong advice” that its patrons stay unplugged was more like a command. Luckily, Fir was quite the hacker and we had access to Wi-Fi in no time.
To start, we scouted Twitter. Tricksters liked to keep the community updated with their various adventures. Bragging rights, really. Fir kept a comprehensive watch list of who’s who—people he was in competition with, people he would like to collaborate with, or both.
Seemed like a good place to start.
We quickly discovered the flaw of that plan—being this close to the Day of Shenanigans, everyone had upped their game. From having the vice president of France calling his wife by his mistress’ name on live television, to lip syncing gone wrong for a pop star who made a name in the music industry for not doing that—the usual suspects blended right in with the weekend warriors.
A quick search of hashtags with terror-related keywords yielded way too many results, with the repost of the teddy bear video dominating the virtual landscape. But nobody sounded like they knew something they shouldn’t have known. No behind-the-scene tidbits. No bragging admissions—something tricksters were never shy to do, even when the stakes were high and they knew the Council was on their asses.
“I don’t get it. Wouldn’t whoever it is want to get the reward?” I asked Fir. “The way you got Esme to admit there would be a reward sounded to me like you were building a case for the community to come forward.”
Or he’d been trying to gauge how much he would get if he was the one who did it, which I wasn’t one hundred percent ruling out. I couldn’t afford to at this point, however unlikely it was.
“You got that wrong, Meg. I was trying to establish why they wouldn’t come forward.” Fir huffed. “The reward is for a vengeance performed, not a trickery. Do you know how bad it’d look if one of us tricksters takes payment for pranks? Whoever it is will be labeled a sell-out. Nobody would ever want to trick with them ever again.”
Great. That made my job so much harder.
“What I don’t get is”—Fir looked genuinely frustrated, his fingers flying over the keyboard—“if a trickster really did it, why hasn’t he or she come forward to our own community? The need to show off should be irresistible. I know it would be for me if I’d done something this sickeningly cool.”
Clef, Boone, and Ty said simultaneously, pumping their fists, “Hell, yeah.”
The search continued.
Yet by the time Saturday came to an end, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something right in front of me. And weirdly enough, my thoughts kept straying to a freshman course I took at the University of Demonic Studies.
I woke up Sunday morning from a dream that I was back in History of Vengeance 101. The professor had us open the textbook to a chapter about the different developmental path that human society had taken since the Denial of Magic, when humans disassociated from the magical planes. There had been long-lasting impacts of that estrangement, far beyond the obvious, such as the different geographical names humans and supernaturals had for cities and such.
I opened my eyes and shot up from my bed.
Where did Mom say my half-brothers were before Dad picked them up? The city of Laodicea ad Mare.
On the human side.
Except the humans called that city by a different name. Latakia.
As in Latakia, Syria. The birthplace of the teddy-bear video.
Damn.
Fir, Clef, Boone, and Ty yelped when I poked them awake. It was fashionable for tricksters to sleep in until noo
n. I admit, I felt a sense of grim satisfaction as I dragged them into the living area two at a time and deposited them on the sofa in the middle. Luckily Mom and Dad were off for an early morning swim, so I didn’t have to worry about waking them up.
“What the hell, Meg,” Fir barked. Clef, Boone, and Ty made similar sounds of complaint.
“You jerks!” I pointed at the lot of them. “You are behind the video.”
“What are you talking about?” Fir asked. Four pairs of guileless eyes looked back at me. But that didn’t mean much coming from my trickster siblings.
“You guys were doing trickery in Syria, in the exact same area where the unclaimed vengeance happened. Why didn’t you mention it?” I demanded.
They looked at each other and said nothing.
“Did you guys make the video, then alter your power signatures somehow?” I continued. “Heck, we spent almost a full day looking at tweets for clues. What kind of dumbass did you take me for?”
The lot of them leaned back on the sofa. Way back. That was when I realized that in my agitated state, my demon wings had burst out and were now taking up half the living area. Embarrassed by my loss of control, as the concealment of one’s wings was considered a point of etiquette in the vengeance world, I retracted them and took a calming breath.
“I’m sorry.” I swallowed. “I don’t mean to yell like that. But you know how this looks, right?”
“We know,” Fir said in a subdued voice. “We didn’t say anything about being in Syria earlier because we knew exactly how it would look. But it’s not us, I swear. We’ll let you read us, okay?”
The guys all nodded in agreement.
I paused. That was a genuine gesture of goodwill. With mutual consent, supernaturals could “read” each other’s memories to prove that they were telling the truth, much like a voluntarily given DNA sample a human might provide to eliminate him or herself from a suspect pool. The very fact that my half-brothers offered up their memories made the likelihood of them being the Teddy Bear Prankster—yes, that was how the culprit was being referred to in the supernatural media now—slim.
I had to be sure, though, in case they were bluffing, which wasn’t impossible.
***
Viewing another person’s specific memory used to be all about placing the memory in a cauldron for extraction and purification, but even that ancient practice had gone high tech. In the modern world, a supernatural provided a copy of their memory on a flash drive, then it got uploaded into a computer. An online verification software determined whether it was real or if it’d been tampered with, then reformatted it for easy viewing by a third party.
Since the guys went pranking in pairs, I got two sets of memories to review—one from Fir and Clef, another from Boone and Ty. The verification software quickly confirmed that they were all authentic and untampered with. That being said, I decided that I would still experience the memories first hand myself. My trickster siblings, hackers and inventors, had already made quite a name for themselves with their impressive array of products ranging from pill-size stink bombs to room-specific mini tornados. I would not put it past them to somehow game the software.
Reliving the memories directly, however, I would be able to gauge their authenticity for myself. Every person’s memories were filtered by their personality and past experiences, and they had a distinct flavor that was tied to the very essence of their creators. That could not be faked, even less so than power signatures.
I sat cross-legged on my bed with Mom next to me, a flash drive in my hand. She was to be my anchor as I sank myself into the memories. I think Mom was wondering if I was still mad at her for not letting me in on the truth behind the trip, so I squeezed her hand and smiled at her before I began. What was done was done. The only path was to move forward.
First up, Fir and Clef. The memory was of them at a small village in the countryside of the Latakia Governorate.
I closed my eyes and concentrated, teasing the memory out of the flash drive, then dove into it.
I saw Fir and Clef hiding behind one of the village houses. Looked like all the villagers had left, and a group of rebels were looting whatever they could out of their homes. Valuables, livestock, food, and anything else that wasn’t nailed down.
“Dude,” Clef whispered to Fir. “We should be at Latakia, the capital. They have gorgeous beaches there. Why all this dust and stuff?”
“Hey, if we just want white sand and sunshine, we could’ve gone somewhere a lot closer to home,” Fir whispered back. “I’ve done my homework. The opportunity for trickery in this region triples in non-touristy areas. Besides, we already spent hours scouting this place. It’s perfect here. No villagers. No collateral damage. Just bad guys.”
“Since when do we tricksters care about collateral damage? Or tricking just the bad guys?” Clef shook his head.
“Since we have Megan as our little sister,” Fir bit back. “She can be downright mean, and I don’t ever, ever want her to hear about me tripping little old ladies or anything like that.”
Fir thought of me as a meanie, huh? Good to know. If that kept him out of trouble, all the better.
The sun was setting, its rays bathing everything in a golden glow as the rebels packed their vehicle full of loot. Fir gave Clef a curt nod.
“Here’s to the first prank of the Shenanigans,” Clef said. “And our baby sister making pussies out of us all.”
Together, they waved a trickster spell called Easy Come, Easy Go. Under its influence, the seven rebels started unloading and returning the stuff they had just taken. When that was done, they emptied their own supplies in the vehicle and placed them onto the small village square. Then they took off with big loopy grins on their faces, with no memory of this village or how they’d come to lose all of their possessions.
Fir and Clef high-fived each other.
“This wasn’t bad at all for our first trick,” Fir said.
“I bet Boone and Ty couldn’t top that, and we landed at the same time.” Clef laughed.
Their self-congratulations were cut short when Dad teleported next to them.
“Alright, enough trickery.” Dad clapped his hands together. “Your mother sent me to get you boys.”
“For what?” Fir questioned.
“We’re going on a family trip together,” Dad said, deadpan.
“Oh, come on. This is a way to get us out of the Challenge, isn’t it?” Clef kicked the dirt in front of him.
“No, this is a way for us to spend time together as a family,” Dad said.
“You can’t deny us the Challenge.” Fir crossed his arms. “You have to respect our trickster culture.”
“May I remind you that most tricksters abandon their kids at birth?” Dad’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “Should I respect that and kick you out? My roof. My rules. Now let’s go.”
“Oh man, do you even know the kind of crazy stuff Mom did for her own Challenge? This is nothing compared to that,” Clef moaned.
Dad paled. “I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to hear it.”
Amidst Fir and Clef’s bitching and complaining about not playing nearly enough, I pulled out of the memory. It was a good time to leave, as the show was pretty much over upon Dad’s arrival. I already knew what happened after that. The boys arrived at the Hawaii beach still going through the motion of protesting, half-hearted that it was. Dad had a point about the my house, my rules, and they knew it.
Mom clasped my hand. “Find what you’re looking for, sweetie?”
“No. And that’s a good thing.” I was tempted to ask Mom about her Challenge, but like Dad, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. From what I did know, she was quite the daredevil in her youth. I took out the other flash drive. “Let’s see about Boone and Ty.”
The other set of memory was more of the same. As Clef said, all four of my half-brothers had arrived in Latakia around the same time, and Boone and Ty were in the middle of their first trick in the region when they were interrupt
ed by Dad, just like Fir and Clef were. I was treated to another glorious sunset, then the sight of rebels being chased around by animated jeeps that acted like angry elephants. Don’t ask.
When Dad arrived to stop Boone and Ty, he had the very unhappy Fir and Clef in tow, which made sense because the setting sun was closer to the horizon than the first memory.
After the two reviews, I was no closer to finding answers than when I started.
Or was I?
There was something about that sunset that bothered me.
***
The Teddy Bear video became an instant classic. But who knew about its true long-term effect? It could fade, like how right after 9/11 people saw planes in the sky and imagined them crashing into buildings, but eventually got used to the sight again. Or it could, as the Council had feared, alter the course of human history before it ran out of steam. Only time could tell.
Telling Esme that I had nothing for her wasn’t easy, but her response was rather surprising.
“The Council told you to drop the investigation?” I frowned at Esme. While a part of me was glad that my family wouldn’t be under such close scrutiny anymore, the other part of me was a little suspicious of this sudden turn of fortune.
We were in my room at the resort hut on Monday afternoon, barely forty-eight hours since Esme first appeared and asked for help in the matter.
“Technically…” Esme coughed. “There was never an official investigation.”
“Tomayto. Tomahto. I don’t get it. I thought the whole thing was supposed to alter human history. It sounded like a big deal. Why are they dropping it so quickly?”
“Precisely because it is a big deal.” Esme lowered her voice, though with the multiple muting spells surrounding the hut, she really didn’t have to. “In politics you only engage in battles that you can win. An issue is only worth pursuing if the chance of success is high. In this case there’s no suspect, no proof. Nothing but a lot of embarrassment and questions, which the Council won’t be able to handle unless they’re willing to reverse their entire stance on the human Middle East. It’s far easier to draw the attention away from this incident and sweep it under the rug altogether.”