by Devon Monk
“Serious?”
“Authentic. Works too.”
I walked across thick carpet to the phone table next to a very comfortable-looking easy chair.
“Take your time. I’ll be right back.” He headed up the stairs, leaving me to make my call.
I dug in my coat pocket and pulled out my blank book and thumbed through it until I found Violet’s number. I dialed the number and got her on the second ring.
“Beckstrom speaking,” she said.
Strange to hear my father’s name, my name, from her lips. I wondered if I’d ever gotten used to that before, when I had known her, before I had forgotten her.
“Hi, Violet, this is Allie.”
“Allie. Is everything okay?”
Note to self: start living the kind of life that would make that question no longer the first thing everyone thought to ask me.
“Fine. Except I need to cancel our dinner appointment.”
“That’s too bad. I was looking forward to it.”
“Yes, well, I got a Hounding job that needs to be done tonight before the spell fades. Maybe breakfast?” I offered.
Violet hesitated. “I think I could do breakfast. What time?”
“Eight?”
“Eight should work,” she said. “How about Kickin’ Cakes?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Perfect,” she said. “And, Allie?”
“Yes?”
“Be careful.”
Note to self number two: start living the kind of life where people weren’t always ending their conversations with me like that.
“Sure thing,” I said.
I hung up the phone and dug in my pocket for the card Pike had given me.
I dialed the number. I was about to hang up on the fifth ring when a man’s sleepy voice answered. “ ’Lo?”
“I’m looking for the Pack?”
“Found it.” He yawned loudly and I heard rustling, like blankets being swept aside, and the wind-chime clink of a couple of beer bottles thunking onto carpet.
“Pike told me to call for the next meeting time.”
“Yeah?” he said.
“Yes.”
There was a long pause.
“Listen, if there’s a secret password or something, he didn’t tell me what it was,” I said.
“Wait,” he said. “Who is this again?”
And I thought Pike said not all the Hounds were as dumb as Anthony.
“Forget it.”
“It’s cool, it’s cool,” he said. “It’s just early, right?” More sounds of him grunting as though he’d stood up, and then the plastic-on-tracks rattle of window blinds being pulled aside. “Damn,” he said. “Not early. So what was your name?”
“Allie Beckstrom.”
“No kidding.” He suddenly sounded much more awake. And happy. That made me suspicious. “Nice to finally hear from you, Allie Beckstrom. Meeting’s at noon at Ankeny and Second. You know where that is, right?”
“I’ll manage,” I drawled.
He laughed, and it sounded like a dog’s bark. “Right. You got this town down, dontcha? Okay. Lower level. Today. Noon.”
“Is there a room number?”
“You’ll find us.”
And then he hung up on me. Hung up. Fab.
I hooked the ear piece on the receiver and stood there in Grant’s apartment, feeling a little less lost. At least I had a plan for finding out more about ghosts from Pike, and once I talked Pike into going to the police with me, we could take care of Trager too. The muffled thump of footsteps on the floorboards above my head was a comforting sound. Down here, in this place, I was alone, removed from the world. Hidden. Safe.
Safer than I felt in my own apartment. Which was all sorts of wrong that I didn’t even know how to begin fixing.
No, that wasn’t completely true. I knew why I didn’t feel safe at home. My dad. Or rather, my dad’s ghost. I rubbed my hands up and down my arms as the memory of being naked and vulnerable while my dad’s ghost touched me sent chills down to sour in the pit of my stomach.
I thought about what Grant had said-ghost hunters believed spirits of people who had died traumatic deaths lingered here and that people who used magic were sensitive to them. Maybe I didn’t believe in all that stuff, but I could not ignore what I had seen today. My dad’s ghost. Glyphs that bore my dad’s signature. The empty-eyed watercolor people.
Maybe I was seeing things because I carried magic inside me. Or maybe all the ghost stuff was my subconscious telling me I needed to face my father’s death-something I had not done in any physical manner since I’d come back to town. I should just do the one thing I was avoiding and go to my dad’s grave, and get it through my head that he was dead and gone.
And not hanging out in my bathroom waiting to ambush me.
I dialed the phone again and called a cab. They said they’d be by in about three minutes.
Just as I hung up, Grant came back down the stairs. “Everything okay?” he asked.
Sweet hells, there was that question again.
“Yes. Thanks. For everything.”
“You leaving now?”
“Have an appointment at noon and some other things to do before then.” I fished my wet gloves out of my wet pockets and thought briefly about going home first to change into something dry. Since I would be out in the rain anyway, it seemed like a waste of laundry. Hopefully I’d have time to go home and change before the Hound meeting.
“Need a cab?” Grant asked.
“Just called one.” I started walking toward the stair.
Grant hitched his thumb in the opposite direction.
“How about I take you out the back way? Quicker than going through the whole shop again.” He crossed the living room area, and I got a quick peek at a very nice modern kitchen before he opened a door revealing a freight elevator that had been redone in gaudy Gothic cage work. Not at all what I expected out of mister-casual-cowboy Grant. A set of brick stairs lit from above by the morning light stacked up to the left, wall-hugging sconces of sword ferns placed against both stairwell walls. A nice touch of green so far belowground.
Grant started up the stairs. “You sure you’re going to be okay?”
“I am.”
We reached street level. No great surprise-it was raining. I pulled my hat out of my pocket and put it on. I zipped my coat to keep the chill wind at bay. I wondered if we’d have worse winds by tonight, wondered when the storm would blow through.
A black-and-white Radio Cab drove up. I didn’t think it was the one I had called, but I waved it to the curb anyway.
“Thanks, Grant. Really.”
“Any time.” Grant crossed his arms over his chest, hunched against the gusty wind.
I opened the passenger door.
“And, Allie?”
Don’t say it. Don’t say it.
“Be careful.”
Great.
I gave him the best smile I could manage and got in the cab.
“Where to, lady?” the cab driver asked in overpracticed English.
“The Riverloft Cemetery,” I said.
It was time to face the one person I’d been avoiding since I got back to town. My father.
Chapter Seven
It was strange, but sitting in the backseat of a taxi that stank of spoiled milk and staring out the rainsplotched window at the wet graves made me more relaxed than I had been in days. Something about the rain softly falling made me think maybe it wasn’t going to be so hard to face my dad’s death.
“This is it,” the cabdriver said.
I glanced up at him, caught his gaze in the rearview mirror.
He quickly looked away.
I didn’t know him, or at least I didn’t think I did. Losing my memories had really made for some awkward social situations.
But even though I didn’t recognize him, he probably knew who I was. Maybe he didn’t like the daughter of the recently deceased Daniel Beckstrom in the backseat of hi
s cab. Or maybe he didn’t like the marks magic had burned down the side of my face. I didn’t think the marks were ugly. But scars, all scars-internal and external-drew attention. And I was trying my best to keep a low profile right now.
I self-consciously pulled my hat down a little tighter on my head, hoping the wool would hide the marks on my temple. Then I dug in my coat pocket for cash. I found a twenty.
“Thanks,” I said.
The cabbie glanced in the mirror again and tipped his hand palm up over his shoulder. I pressed the bill into his hand, holding eye contact until he looked away.
Yes, I was petty like that.
I opened the door and stepped out into a world of gray. Icy wind speared down my nose and throat, and I fumbled with my scarf to get it up over the bridge of my nose.
Hells, it was cold out. The temperature had dropped several degrees on the cab ride over here. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rain turned into snow. I stuffed my hands in my pockets, hunched my shoulders, and headed toward the open iron gates of the cemetery, the wind pushing and tugging at me.
The graveyard was set on the east side of the Willamette River, on a hill with a good view of the mountain on fair weather days, not that the buried probably cared about what sort of view was available. It was obvious the graveyard was not off-grid since patented iron and glass glyph-worked conduits caged the mausoleum at the top of the hill and allowed access into the magic that pooled so deeply beneath the city. Still, as most graveyards did, it had the feeling of quiet distance from the rush of real life.
Violet had sent me the invitation to my dad’s funeral, even though I’d been in a coma at the time. On the back of the invitation was a map to his grave. I’d stared at that for days, and had the image of it burned in my brain. His grave was set to the far right of the cemetery, halfway up the hill and out of the way of foot traffic.
It was so unlike him to want to be tucked away out of sight, out of the attention of the masses. It made me wonder if there were things about my father that I would never really understand. Maybe his brutal business persona was not all the man he was. I hadn’t attended his funeral or burial. I hadn’t seen his ex-wives do the “grieving widow” show for the press. I hadn’t seen Violet, who might be the only woman at his grave who actually cared for him, cry. I hadn’t even had a chance to wonder why my own mother, overseas, had refused to attend the service.
I might not have loved my father, but for a long time, I wanted to.
My chest hurt. I swallowed against the tight feeling of tears and sniffed. I was not going to cry over this. Not out here in the cold and wet. There was no way I could change any of my father’s choices, and no reason to change mine now. We had lived our lives as well as we could in regard to each other, arguments, hatred, and all. I had to accept that. Dead is dead. And my dad was definitely dead.
The modern flat-faced gravestones punched rectangular indents into the ground in long, orderly rows to both sides of me. The sound of traffic was muted by distance. I trudged along between graves, toward the older part of the cemetery where headstones carved of marble, granite, and metal stood like bittersweet poems against the cold sky.
Somewhere in this world of carved sorrow was my father’s grave. I squinted against the horizon. The graves seemed to reach out for miles, though I knew that wasn’t true. Up a little farther rose a thin forest of trees beneath which headstones were planted like stone flowers, melancholy angels resting among them like earthbound birds.
Magic stirred in me, this time gently, stroking beneath my skin with soft, sensual pressure. It offered release, respite, anything I wanted. With little more than a strong thought, the right words, and a gesture or two, I could make magic do anything I desired.
My right arm itched, and I scratched at it-rubbed it really-with my stiff left hand. Magic here pooled deep beneath the ground, much deeper than the graves. Ever since I’d changed, ever since magic had decided to use me as a vessel, an open channel, I felt like the tables had turned.
I didn’t struggle to use magic. I struggled not to use it.
And it was possible it was affecting my mind too. Like seeing the watercolor people, the magic on the wall. And my dad’s ghost.
I tipped my face to the sky and took several calming, deep breaths as rain flicked wet against my exposed skin.
Magic was not as strong here, despite, or perhaps because of, the graves. But it felt slightly different, old with the scent of heavy minerals, like rich soil. Grave rich. I wondered if using magic left a residual in the flesh. If perhaps, even after we died, the scent of magic lingered within our bones or leaked out of spent flesh to flow back to the natural reservoirs deep in the earth.
I wiped rain off my cheeks and headed toward the trees.
I knew my father’s grave before I was near enough to read the headstone. For one thing, the headstone was the tallest and most elaborate thing on this side of the cemetery. But mostly I knew it was his because it resembled a spindly, rune-carved Beckstrom Storm Rod more than a proper monolith. In a way I was relieved. Even in death he had to show the world that he alone had mastered the way to pull magic from the earth and sky. Total ego case, my father. He would be appalled at a humble marker above his head.
However, he might also be disappointed that the Storm Rod headstone was positioned so it was hidden from the majority of the graveyard. Blocking it from the rest of the graveyard was an old bare-leafed oak, trunk black as an artery, roots sunk into the soil, venous limbs spread against the gray flesh of the winter sky.
I tromped around the tree and stood at the foot of my father’s grave.
I tried to get it into my head that my dad was dead. Gone. Buried. Murdered. And if it had been his ghost I had seen, his ghost should be here, graveside.
The sound of traffic bled away, the startled call of a crow smothered out beneath the rush of blood in my ears. My breath, my heartbeat were suddenly too loud.
My father was gone.
Really gone.
We hadn’t been close-he too distant in his pursuit of wealth and power, me too young and grieving the loss of my mother and absence of him. And with age, I traded grief for anger. Now that could never be different, could never change between us.
And I didn’t even know if I’d lost the small bits of him most people got to keep-memories, maybe memories of us together, maybe memories of the good moments. I searched my thoughts, tried to dredge up images of him smiling, of times we’d spent not angry at each other. But all that came to me was his stern disapproval. If we’d ever been happy or gentle with each other, it was lost to me. And now that he was gone, I’d never have a chance to get those times back or to make new ones.
How could I say good-bye when he never gave me the chance to say hello?
I sniffed even though I couldn’t feel my nose, and blinked hard until I could see the grave clearly again. Finally I stepped up next to his grave and knelt.
“Good-bye, Dad.” I pressed my palms against his grave, pushing through the scrubby grass to the wet soil.
Magic shifted in me, maybe responding to the connection between my hands and the ground, and I realized I could use it, use a small bit of magic to reach out to my dad one last time and feel the physical presence of his life in this world. I could connect with him before finally and totally letting go of him.
I whispered a mantra and spoke the words of a Disbursement. I’d have a bigger headache later today or tomorrow, but that was okay with me. I traced a glyph for Sight and for Touch. I put only the smallest hint of need behind my action. I still didn’t have the best control over all this magic, and I did not want to suddenly find myself feeling as though I were actually in the coffin with him.
A light touch was all I was looking for.
Magic responded with an almost sexual tingle, lifting into my senses, heightening my sight and sense of touch. Faded colors, like Christmas lights through fog, moved at the corners of my vision. I looked around me, looked at the graves. A watercolor ha
ze lay over them like an aura. I expected watercolor people to pop up out of that haze, out of the graves, but nothing. And more important, no one moved.
Weird. I mean, if there was ever a place I expected to find a ghost, it would be here, in a cemetery. The hazy, faded colors shifted a little, as if an unseen wind stirred them. But that was all.
Good.
I directed the magic into my hands, into my tactile sense. I felt rather than saw magic wrap around my hands like liquid ribbons of warmth. I sent those ribbons down into the earth where my father’s body lay at rest.
Maybe it was a creepy idea. Death makes people do creepy things. But I needed to acknowledge his life one last time. Maybe more than that, I needed to acknowledge the cold, hard reality of his death.
Then hopefully there would be no more of this ghost stuff for me.
I braced for the awareness of his flesh and bone, well on their way to decay and collapse. I braced for the sensation of a once-living man now reduced to an inert lump of tissue. I braced for the feeling of a body completely absent of life, of soul.
What I did not brace for was to feel nothing.
Nothing.
I frowned. I could sense the weight of dirt and stone around the casket. I could sense the casket, made of wood, still strong and whole.
And I could sense the emptiness within it.
There was no body in that casket. No decay. Not even a single bug. Nothing but stale air.
Was this the wrong grave? I glanced at the headstone, read my father’s name, his date of birth, date of death. This was the right grave. His grave.
It couldn’t be empty.
Wishful thinking? Delusional thinking? I closed my eyes, tipped my head down, and whispered a Seeking spell. My headache would last twice as long now, but I didn’t care.
Magic jumped in intensity, spooled out of me, plunging deep into the frozen earth, brushing like hands around the casket. Wood and metal, smooth, whole. I sent it deeper. Soft, cushioned lining, silk casket dressing. I sent it deeper. Stagnant, stale air.
And nothing more. Nothing.
They told me he had not been cremated. They told me it had been an open-casket viewing. People-a lot of people-had seen him dead and had seen him lowered into the grave. This grave.