Then there was a smell like freshly mowed grass, and a tall stone tower, surrounded by great trees with deep purple leaves, and I got one big gulp of blessed, cool air, before it started all over again.
I passed out somewhere between the confusion part and the suffocation part.
I woke up on a soft leather couch in an unfamiliar room. The first thing I noticed was the pain in my head, but there was plenty of other pain to compete. My arms felt like they’d been flayed. My chest was tight, and it hurt to breathe, the way it does when you go running on a really cold day.
Wulf was sleeping on the floor. I reached down to pet him, and he jumped up and started licking frantically at my face.
“Welcome back.” The voice was hoarse and tired. I looked up to see Wendy, looking a lot worse for the wear, sitting in a chocolate-brown, overstuffed chair that probably would have fit three of her. I vaguely wondered whether it was a leftover from the coffee shop.
“Where am I?” I asked. “What happened?”
“You’re in my house. As for the second question, you’ll have to ask your otherwordly friend.”
There were voices somewhere, in another room. Caleb and Phineas. Arguing? I thought Caleb, at least, sounded angry. Phineas came into the living room a minute or two later, carrying two steaming mugs. He handed one to Wendy and the other to me, while Caleb put a plate of something on the coffee table.
I’d learned enough about Phineas’s cures to expect the tea to be gross, and it was. Wendy made a face and reached for the plate, which turned out to have cheese and crackers on it.
I’ll say this for the tea, though, it worked fast. My headache was getting better by the time I was halfway done. But I still felt disconnected and confused. I tried to blink away some of the haze, and looked at Phineas.
“What happened?”
Caleb crossed his arms and snorted.
“I brought you both with me,” Phineas said. “Traveling.”
I remembered the tower and the grass smell. “Your world?”
“Yes.” He glanced at Caleb. “I’m afraid an hour or two of your time went by, before I got you back here. Caleb was worried.”
“Caleb was not worried about the time so much as his wife’s limp body,” Caleb snapped.
I looked at Wendy, who had a small smile on her face as she watched Caleb. “It was fine, Caleb. I’m fine.”
“You didn’t look fine.” Caleb swallowed hard. He was almost as pale as his wife. “You looked like a wax figure. You looked like a corpse.”
I frowned at all three of them, trying to put together what had happened. “So the birds attacked us. You did your travely-teleporty thing to get us away, I assume? Wulf would have come along on his own, of course. Then you what, traveled back here to their house?”
“Out in back of the coffee shop, actually,” Phineas said. “I left you both passed out by the delivery entrance and went to get Caleb.”
I nodded. I could see how this would have been a shock to poor Caleb. “I didn’t know you could teleport me like that. Why haven’t you done it before?” Lord knows that wasn’t the first deadly situation we’d been in, where a getaway like that would have come in handy.
“Because it could have killed you.” The shaky hand Phineas ran through his curls belied his calm tone. “I wasn’t entirely sure it wouldn’t kill you, until you woke up just now.”
Wendy held a hand up to Caleb before he could say whatever he’d opened his mouth to say. “But it didn’t kill us,” she said. “We’re fine.”
Caleb sat on the arm of her chair and rubbed her back. He still looked mad, but he didn’t say anything.
“You’re not built to travel like that,” said Phineas. “You can only do it safely on certain days of your year, when the veils between worlds get naturally thin and easier to cross. Otherwise the chances of death or permanent damage…” He looked at Caleb, then back at me, his face almost pleading. “I wouldn’t have done it if there was any other way. But there wasn’t. We could not possibly have survived that attack.”
“Thank you,” I said, and did my best to smile, even though I felt like I was going to throw up.
Phineas gave me a relieved smile in response. “Drink your tea,” he said, looking from me to Wendy. “All of it. And then you need to rest more.”
“You and Phineas can stay here tonight,” Caleb said to me. “We have four bedrooms and no kids, so. Plenty of room.”
I looked out the window and realized it was full dark. Apparently we’d been out for hours, or at least I had. I looked back at Wendy, who was leaning against Caleb, holding his hand.
“When did you come around?” I asked her.
“About an hour ago.” She held up her mug. “This is my second cup. It helps a lot. You’ll feel better pretty soon.”
I didn’t, not until morning. I woke up in a single bed in a sparse guest room, wearing Wendy’s borrowed pajamas, barely remembering going to sleep the night before. I lay there for quite some time, staring at the ceiling fan, before I found the energy to get up. But when I finally did, I found that I wasn’t weak or unsteady on my feet. My head didn’t hurt anymore, either. The only lasting damage seemed to be to both my arms and one of my ears, all of which were covered in bandages.
And all of which hurt like hell. I started to pull the gauze away from my ear, then thought better of it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what those wounds looked like. At least not before breakfast.
Caleb and Phineas made pancakes and sausages and a pile of fluffy scrambled eggs that would have fed a gathering four times our size. They seemed to be getting along fine. I wondered how many hours after Wendy and I had gone to bed—and how many drinks—that had taken.
Wendy came into the kitchen a few minutes after I did. While we ate—she and I washing our food down with more of Phineas’s tea—I mentally reviewed the attack. It had been made fuzzy and jumbled by the traveling that came after, but I knew there was something else, something besides the birds, that was gnawing at me.
And then I remembered. “There was something else there,” I said, looking from Phineas to Wendy. “Something threw me.”
“That would be Silas,” said Phineas. “You talked about the birds not just flying free, right? Well, I think Silas is part of whatever they’re doing to contain them. He gave them some kind of command.”
“He summoned a voice?”
Phineas shook his head.
“It was more of a gesture, I guess,” said Wendy. “But I felt it as much as I saw it. There was magic in it.”
“So the birds are trained, then,” I said.
“They’re definitely trained,” Phineas agreed. Then he shook his head. “I don’t get it. They acted like shadow eaters. They had the prey drive, that’s for sure. And they looked like shadow eaters, from what I saw.”
I caught Caleb’s confused look and clarified, “But animals from his world can’t be trained.”
“They weren’t just from his world,” Wendy said. “Did you get a good look at them?”
I shook my head.
“They had those crowns or whatever you call them.” Wendy flapped her hand over her hair. “The feathers on their heads. Like cockatiels.”
“So he crossbred them with some species of pet bird here, something easier to control,” I said. “Presumably to produce an army of killer birds to do his bidding.”
“An army is right,” Phineas said. “I thought it was possible you were right, and they were keeping a few captive birds to try to train, or just to use them on this plane. But I never would have believed a whole flock that size.”
“Well, that certainly sounds like a problem,” said Caleb. “Considering what armies are typically used for.”
We all looked blankly at one another.
Finally Phineas said, “I guess he got tired of sacrificing souls one at a time.”
Crikey.
We knew from Madeline’s emails that Amias was planning something big, and this new evidence pointed
at a mass murder. What we didn’t know was who, or where. Bristol was an obvious answer, but it didn’t seem to make a lot of sense. Even if Amias couldn’t use the town as his sanctuary anymore, it was still full of his friends.
I excused myself and went to call Norbert.
“Have they mentioned anyplace specific, besides Bristol?” I asked him. “Any sort of travel?”
“No. Nothing like that. Just the training thing. Needing it done by the end of the month. But Madeline’s been off her network, maybe her computer is off. When I can connect to it again I’ll check for anything new.”
When I got off the phone I went back to the kitchen, where the others were still lingering over their coffee and talking about the birds.
I started clearing the table. “The big question is, how do we kill them?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Caleb said. “You can’t kill those things.”
Wendy frowned at her husband. “How would you know? You weren’t there. You didn’t see them.” She looked up at me. “But seriously. You can’t kill those things.”
“They’re a living weapon of mass destruction!” I said. “We can’t just leave them sitting around until he uses them to kill a bunch of people. Maybe even right here in Bristol.”
Phineas stood. “Lydia, can you find a hotel and stay in the area?”
“Of course she won’t find a hotel,” said Wendy.
“She can stay here,” Caleb said at the same time.
I gave them both a grateful smile. There’s nothing more uncomfortable than to have one half of a couple offer a thing like that, and then the other one stays silent on the matter. Usually glowering.
They’re an awfully good team.
The thought came with a fair amount of wistfulness. Kevin and I hadn’t really had that, even before things started going wrong. Charlie and I had been a better team than me and my husband. Hell, Phineas and I probably were.
“Why?” I asked Phineas. “Where are you going?”
“Home. I’ll bring some people back, I hope. We can’t handle this alone, and it’s not like your police will be much help. But I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, and when I get back I might need you on short notice. So it would be best if you stayed close.”
I knew an unmentioned attraction of this plan was that it meant I wouldn’t be alone in my apartment while he was gone, but I didn’t argue that point. “Okay.”
He was already moving toward the back door. “It’d be nice if I could only be a day, your time, but you know how that is. Could be as many as three or so.”
I shrugged. “I’ll drive home and get some clothes and my laptop, then come right back. If it goes on too long, I really will get a hotel.”
“If it goes on too long, you can earn your keep washing dishes in the shop,” Wendy said.
But I didn’t go to the shop at all, or anywhere else for that matter, apart from quick walks so Wulf could do his business. Wendy and Caleb’s townhouse was only a few blocks away from the Witch’s Brew, which was in the middle of Main Street. I didn’t want to run into the Goodes, or anyone who might tell them I was hanging around town.
On my second day there, I was sitting at the kitchen table trying (without much success) to focus on my paying job when the doorbell rang. I stilled, listening for the sound of a delivery truck. There was none, but the bell didn’t ring again, either.
Just when I thought whoever it was must have gone, there was a knock, this time on the back door. A round, wrinkled face pressed against the window. Then there was a jangle of keys, and the door opened.
It was an old woman with short gray hair and Wendy’s wide smile. “So you’re the ghost hunter!” She reached out and, I shit you not, squeezed my (unflexed) bicep. “You should work out more. Can’t wrestle demons with those arms.”
“I don’t… You must be Granny.”
“Must I?”
That was a very odd way to answer, but then I hadn’t phrased it as a question. I thought about demanding to see ID, or something. But she had keys. And anyway it was clear from her face that she was related to Wendy.
“I’ll be joining you for dinner,” Granny said.
“Oh! I’m sorry, Wendy didn’t tell me.”
“Wendy doesn’t know.” She was opening and closing cupboards. “Damn girl’s not out of sage, is she? I need to make a charm for you. You and that man, what’s his name? Finnegan?”
“Phineas.”
“Right. Phineas. I hear he’s from the same world as our devil. I hope he doesn’t kill dogs.” By then Wulf had woken up from his nap and come to see what the chatter was about. Granny chuckled and scratched his ear. “But then I suppose you could handle him, couldn’t you, boy? You’re a strong one, aren’t you?”
“Wulf loves Phineas,” I said. “They’re not all like Amias.”
“Excellent, excellent. Now, would you mind putting on some hot water for me?”
For the rest of the afternoon, Granny kept up a steady stream of chatter that defied even my talent for frequent and random changes of subject. All the while she was working on some sort of potion or paste. When she finally finished mixing it, she pulled a tiny doll out of her pocket, like one of Wendy’s poppets. She pushed open a slit in the back of its shirt and took out a vial, which she filled with her green-gray concoction.
“There, that should do it,” she said as she put it back together.
“Will that protect me?” I asked. It seemed impolite to mention that the last time Wendy made me a poppet, it had done precisely diddly squat to keep Amias from injuring me and burning down my house.
But Granny laughed. “Protect you? Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you? I’m not quite motivated to protect you, yet.”
“But… you said you were a making a charm for me.”
“Yes, but not to give you. To tell about you.”
“Tell what?”
“Whether you’re really trustworthy. Not that I have any reason to doubt Wendy’s assessment, of course, but this sounds like some dangerous stuff you’ve got going on. Never hurts to have a second opinion.” While she was talking, Granny took my elbow in one hand and pulled out a chair with the other, then pushed me to sit.
She took the chair across from me and sat there, looking at me skeptically, for at least a minute. I kept quiet and stayed still, although I couldn’t have said why I was indulging her. I should have been offended. But even though she was kind of obnoxious, she was also oddly likable. Plus I’d always been curious about magic. I wanted to see how this so-called assessment worked.
Finally she said, “Right. You’re a friend.”
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“Oh.” Granny looked pleased by my interest. She pulled the vial back out of the poppet and handed it to me for my inspection. “If you use that instead of stuffing the poppet with herbs, you can change what’s inside it. Saves you from having to make new dolls all the time, see.”
I opened the vial and sniffed it. It smelled mostly like sage and ginger, but there was something else I couldn’t identify.
“Skullcap,” Granny said. She waved away my startled look. “No, I wasn’t reading your mind. That’s the smell that people always ask about.”
“And then, what? The poppet tells you whether I can be trusted or not?”
“Well, the poppet doesn’t talk, obviously.” Granny stood. “We should have tea.”
I filled the kettle and set it to boil while Granny put tea leaves into mugs. I wondered if she was going to read them after.
“The poppet represents the person holding it, usually,” she said as she worked. “It can be defensive, so that if a harmful spell is cast at you, it will absorb it. Or it can be intuitive. Help focus your sight, or your third eye, if you like. That particular potion is for reading people. I use it to tell who my enemies are.”
“Is that something you have a lot of call for?” I asked, amused. “It’s a pretty small town. Don’t you know everyone already?�
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Granny handed me a mug and sat down with her own. “Your enemies change all the time. And friends and enemies change places.”
I sipped my tea, considering her answer as well as my current situation. Our complete cluelessness about what Amias was up to. Our attempts to fit the Traven sisters into the puzzle. “Could you teach me?” I asked. “I feel a little… adrift, I guess. Like I have no idea what’s going on. I could use a little extra intuition.”
“That’s right, Wendy said you have some experience with magic.”
“I’ve done my share of rituals.”
Granny scoffed into her tea. “Rituals. Magic words. Anybody can do that, if they have the right incantation.”
I tried not to look hurt. “Well, that’s all I was ever taught.” And grudgingly, at that. Cyrus had only wanted to teach Nat at first. Now I had Martha and her library, but Granny seemed to operate on a whole different level. “I’d really like to learn more,” I said.
“Would you, now?” Granny glanced at her watch. “They don’t have that kid coming in until seven. Although I suppose I should be grateful they have anyone coming in at all. Always working, those two, it’s too much.” She gave me a sharp look. “Don’t you think they work too much?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” I was glad I could say it honestly. There was something birdlike in her stare, and I wasn’t overly fond of birds anymore. “I always thought it was weird, when I first started coming to Bristol, that I always saw one or the other of them in the shop, no matter what time it was. Or what day of the week.”
Granny nodded and smiled. I felt like I’d passed some test.
“Still,” she said, “even two hours isn’t enough time to make a poppet, fill it, and then teach someone completely new how to perceive. But we can do it tomorrow. I can come back in the morning, will you be here?”
“I honestly don’t know. Phineas could come back any time now, and we might have to do… something… fast when he does.” I had no idea how he planned to kill the birds. I wasn’t sure he’d really had any ideas either, when he left.
Crook of the Dead (The Adventures of Lydia Trinket Book 3) Page 6