by Amir Lane
Dick leaned over her shoulder to see what she’d uncovered. She pushed him back. There was no telling what kind of spells had been put in place. At least, she couldn’t tell. She wasn’t that kind of a witch. When she forced herself to look forward, she couldn’t see herself receiving any injuries. But that could have just been optimism.
Still, it was clear that Analise, or whoever had hidden the notebook, hadn’t wanted it found.
“I’d stand back if I were you,” she advised, “just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“In case of magic.”
“You’re kidding,” he said with a disbelieving snort.
She gave him the sternest look she could manage, the one usually reserved for getting won’t-take-no-for-an-answer guys to leave her alone on the rare occasions she went clubbing. Dick held his hands up in surrender and took a step back. When her glare didn’t relent, he moved back further. When Lindy was satisfied that he was far enough to avoid at least any major damage, she turned back to the newly-uncovered hole. She angled herself away from it and reached in as slowly as she possibly could. Her breathing all but stopped as her fingers reached the wide spine of the book. The material was soft, even softer than her most worn leather jacket.
Lindy’s exhale was slow and even with the pace of her hand pulling back. So far, nothing happened. There was a light static beneath her fingers, but that could have just as easily been from the fabric as it could have been from magic. Either way, this was definitely the source of that magic she’d been feeling.
“What is that?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
Dick moved in closer to get a look at it, but Lindy noticed that he still kept his distance.
“Looks like a notebook,” he said.
“And that’s why you’re the detective.”
He shot her a scowl, but there was no real animosity behind it. She suspected that it was a joke he heard often. He reached for the notebook, but she pulled it back away from him.
“Look, this thing might be protected.”
“Protected how? You know what, don’t tell me. Magic?” he said dryly, rolling his eyes.
“Man, you are good at this detective thing.”
“Shut up, would you? I’ll let the scene guys know we got something. And I’ll make sure that only you can handle it.”
“I’d appreciate that,” she said, ignoring his sarcasm.
She set the notebook down on the bed and turned her attention back to the hole. There was nothing unusual about it, nothing to suggest that it had been installed after the house was built. But what the hell did Lindy know about home improvements? It could have been done a week ago for all she knew. It was meant to be secure, that much she did know. There was nothing else inside, though, just the notebook.
There was a window a few feet away from her. She pushed back the curtains and peeked through it. There wasn’t really much to see. The lawn was becoming unkempt, especially compared to the others. It was too obvious at this end of the suburbs. Dick’s car, dark blue and inconspicuous, was parked on the street. Another car sat running behind it, a light grey thing that might have been white at some point.
She squinted, trying to get a better look at the driver. Whoever it was ducked their head down and took off without any hesitation. She could only make out the first half of the license plate: BBAY.
“Hey. Hey, I think that was our guy!”
She leaned into the window, trying to get any last glimpse of the car but it was already gone. Her stomach twisted violently. She heard the scream a few seconds before it actually rang through the air, but she was still too late to stop Dick from grabbing the book.
Dick’s scream brought the crime guys running into the room. He was holding the notebook in his hand. The leather straps were wrapped tightly around his arm, refusing to let go no matter how hard he pulled. The smell of burning flesh stopped Lindy from moving towards him. It took everything she had not to gag. One of the men grabbed the book and eased the leather off Dick’s arm. His eyes locked with Lindy’s and there was an unmistakable understanding between them. While the second man led Dick out of the room, taking the smell and screams with them, the first slipped the notebook into an evidence bag.
“Maybe this is something for Mohr’s Circle,” he said quietly, as if not wanting to be overheard.
“Yeah,” she agreed despite the tightness in her gut. “Maybe.”
11
Dick was lucky to only have mild second-degree burns. Some parts were worse than others, but the pain was apparently the worst of it. It was nothing that would need surgery. He wasn’t happy about having to take time off to recover. Lindy didn’t blame him, not when A could strike again at any moment, but it was probably for the best.
He would probably have an aneurysm if he had to sit through a meeting with three witches and the book that had given him those burns.
Staff Sergeant Siobhan ‘Ice Breaker’ Cockburn flipped through the yellowed pages without any indication that she was worried about receiving similar burns. Apparently, the book wasn’t worried about witches handling it, only Normals. The concerned look on her temporary boss’s face was almost enough to distract her from her father sitting in the chair beside her, his legs crossed and his hands folded in his lap as if this was a regular occurrence.
“So this is the book,” Ice Breaker said.
It was impossible to think of her as anything else.
“This is the book,” Lindy said in confirmation.
“Analise Duplantier was The Bookkeeper. Ekkehardt, did you know this?”
“I was aware of her name, yes. And I was aware that she was… deceased. But I did not know she was murdered.”
Lindy had to keep herself from grinding her teeth at the sound of his voice. She hated having to angle herself to see him. The precognizant blind spot that followed Necromancers was bad enough, and it was only made worse by the fact that the peripheral vision in her right eye was all but gone. Not only could she not see him, she couldn’t even see him.
“I was the operator that responded to her 9-1-1 call. Her killer — a guy calling himself A — was looking for something before he shot her. I think it might have been this book.”
Ekkehardt’s lips pressed into a tight line.
“You are certain all of this man, A’s… victims are Hexen?” he asked.
Lindy nodded.
“Another detective checked out the rest of the scenes. Magic everywhere. I checked the book, and the victim’s names are in there too, so I’m pretty sure they’re witches.”
“Who were they?” Ekkehardt asked.
His voice was softer than Lindy had heard it in a long time, since they were kids.
“The Bookkeeper, King of Spades, and Green Thumb,” she listed, counting the names on her fingers.
She always felt more than a little bit ridiculous calling people by their handles, but it was how witches knew each other. If anyone else — if a Normal — had been in the room with them, she probably would have used their birth certificate names. It wasn’t like Dick could write King of Spades in his report.
Ekkehardt repeated the names to himself in that same soft voice, his brows pulled together in a concerned scowl.
“You’re sure about those names,” Ice Breaker said.
It sounded like more of a statement than a question, but it could have been either.
“I checked them twice.”
Ice Breaker and Ekkehardt exchanged worried looks.
“Those names are all members of Mohr’s Circle,” Ekkehardt said.
“Wait, seriously? Are you sure?” Lindy asked.
“I know my council.”
She wasn’t sure if he intended for it to come out so harshly. She could never tell with him.
“If this is the case,” Ice Breaker said slowly, “then we have a serious problem on our hands.”
“Because it totally wasn’t serious before.”
The sarcasm sli
pped out before she could stop herself. Neither of them seemed to notice. If they did — and how could they not? — they didn’t let it show.
“Lindy, do you know if this guy — A, was it? — is a witch?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. He’s using magic, I can tell you that much. But we all know there’s a chance he’s not a witch. It doesn’t feel natural. I’ve asked every Seer I know. No-one can get anything on him besides a vague, nondescript silhouette.”
“Are you sure you’ve asked everyone?” Ekkehardt pressed.
“The Tasseomancer, Spirit Seer, both Blind Justices. I even checked with the Oracle at High Street. So far, nothing helpful.”
Ice Breaker laced her fingers together and rested her chin on them. The silence that followed lasted long enough that the ticking of her clock above her on the wall started to get on Lindy’s nerves. Something passed just past her periphery, making her jump. There was nothing there besides maybe one of Ekkehardt’s three spirits, but she couldn’t see it. It was like the vision-loss equivalent of phantom limb.
“What do you suggest we do now, Ekkehardt?” Ice Breaker asked.
Ekkehardt let out a long, slow sigh. It occurred to Lindy that she didn’t know her dad’s witch name. Either he didn’t have one — not everybody did, but she figured everyone on Mohr’s Circle would — or it was some impossible to pronounce German word that meant something weirdly specific. Was there a word for ‘jackass who pretends not to be a Necromancer and lets his kids think they’re nuts until they figure it out on their fucking own’?
“We will have to discuss this with the rest of Mohr’s Circle. We cannot make this decision without them. It is why we have a council. But there may not be much, if anything, for us to do until we know who it is. We are here to regulate, not to police.”
Lindy didn’t see the distinction.
“Do you think it’s possible that this could be an inside job?” Ice Breaker asked.
“No.” There was no hesitation in his response. “We would know if it was. But it could still be another witch. What about you, Dietelinde? What are you going to do?”
She felt the urge to claw at the back of her neck to relieve some of the tension in her muscles.
“I don’t know yet. With Detective Hobard out on sick leave, there’s only so much I’m allowed to do. I guess I’ll probably spend some time with this book, see if I can get anything out of it.”
Ice Breaker and Ekkehardt gave small nods.
“Good. Whatever you need, ask for it. Someone should be able to help you out. This is a top priority,” Ice Breaker said.
Lindy returned the nod. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do.
Mohr’s Circle wasn’t going to do anything about this, and neither was the police department. They were too interested in protocol and procedure and bullshit.
She was going to have to pull out the big guns.
12
One of the best things about the Morrighan House was that there was almost always something alcoholic in the fridge. Lindy grabbed a bottle of beer from the very back, the coldest one her fingers touched. She didn’t often drink, only when calls really got to her. None of them had for so long. It was so much easier when she could draw the line between what was and what wasn’t her responsibility. Here, it was virtually impossible. Here, it felt like it was all her responsibility. It wasn’t and logically, she knew that. But no matter how much she told herself that, no matter how much anyone else told her that, she couldn’t quite convince herself of it.
She sat down at the kitchen table with her beer and rearranged her supplies. She’d taken the smallest room in the house when she and Dieter had moved in, and there wasn’t enough space in it for a desk. Which was fine by her, she didn’t use one most of the time. He was the student, he needed the desk space way more than she did. She could usually manage with the bedside table and overflowing bookshelf.
Spread out in front of her were two different decks of Tarot cards, an old bag of runes handed down from the friend that had taught her to read them, a sketchbook and array of pencils, and a glass of water. The water was mostly there to stave off a hangover, but it was also nice to have on hand in case she decided to try scrying. Not that she actually wanted to, it was hands down her least favourite form of divination. She rarely ever remembered what she saw anyway, and it was almost impossible to pull herself out of. More than once when she’d been learning how to do it, she’d found herself losing hours at a time. As a general rule, Lindy stayed as far away from it as physically possible, but she was getting desperate enough to try it, raging headache and lost time be damned.
Still, it was never going to be her first option, not if she could get the information another, easier way. She had a half a dozen Tarot decks tucked into her bookshelf, but the two she’d picked were the ones she was feeling the most right now. Except she was sick as fuck of tarot. If she had to see the Knight of Swords staring up at her one more goddamn time, she was going to burn the decks — all six of them — and she would never pick up another one for as long as she lived. End of story.
With tarot out of the question and scrying a last resort, that left the runes. Which she was, admittedly, not particularly good at reading, but she could manage fairly decently. She cracked the bottle open and took a few sips before setting it back down on the table with a soft sigh. She shook the small, black silk bag, listening to the plastic pieces clattering together inside the dark fabric. When she felt they were ready, she emptied the pieces onto the table and stared. And stared and stared and stared. She narrowed her eyes at the pieces. Something wasn’t right. Nothing was coming to her. Maybe it was because she couldn’t make out the actual runes carved into the tiles. She fumbled around for the shiny new magnifying glass that she’d bought well over two years ago but only started using a few months back. She held it over the tiles and squinted down at them.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
These were Scrabble tiles.
At this rate, Lindy was going to have a fucking aneurysm. Did the Universe just not want her to figure out who this A moron was? Did the Universe want A to keep taking out Mohr’s Circle? To take out her dad?
She didn’t particularly like Ekkehardt Schneider, and every day that went by where she didn’t have to see or talk to him was a gift, but that didn’t mean she wanted him to be shot in the face.
Okay, fuck, she needed to get her shit together. She needed to find out who the hell A was, or at least who his next target would be so she could give them a head’s up. Whether the target did anything with that information or not was on them, not on her, but at least it was something.
She gathered up the tiles, shoving them back into the small bag and tossing it at the wall. It didn’t give her any information, but it did help with some of her frustration. She took a long drink of her beer, downing a significant portion of what was left in the bottle. When she pulled back, she was panting to regain what oxygen she’d deprived her body of. Totally worth it. It wasn’t enough for her to really feel the alcohol flowing through her veins, but it was enough for her to start to feel good. Or maybe that was the oxygen deprivation. There was still enough in the bottle that she wasn’t worried about scrying sober. She was a little worried about drinking alone in the kitchen at 4 in the afternoon, but her internal clock was still a little off. Besides, scrying was always so much easier while intoxicated in one form or another. The traditional route was smoking pot, but this would do. The principle was pretty much the same.
By the time she reached the end of the bottle, she was definitely starting to feel it. She wished her tolerance wasn’t so good, but it had to do. It was enough to give her the strength and the courage to pull the glass of water closer to her. It was virtually untouched, the top of the water coming just shy of an inch and a half below the rim of the transparent cup. She could have easily drunk more than half of what was left and still had plenty to see into. She might have if beer didn’t hold much more appeal to her. And t
here was no way she could see through the dark brown glass enough to scry. Not that she didn’t think she could scry into beer, it just seemed like an odd thing to try. But hey, if water didn’t work there was still the rest of the case sitting in the back of the fridge.
Scrying was always… an experience, and usually not a good one. It took forever to get into, way longer than tarot or runes, but only on the rare occasions where she actually wanted to scry. When she didn’t want to, it happened like nothing. Like something older and more powerful grabbed her and pulled her into something she couldn’t see on her own. She couldn’t even watch fires without falling into it — metaphorically speaking, of course. It had turned that one summer that Ekkehardt had forced her to go to some stupid summer camp she’d hated into a goddamn nightmare. On the plus side, after getting call after call about his daughter randomly screaming and causing all the other kids to start randomly screaming every night they had a fire, he’d never made her go to a summer camp again.
If she had to describe it, she would have described it as a bad acid trip without the acid. There was no other way of putting it. She couldn’t speak to anyone else’s experiences with it, but that was the way it had always been for her.
And yet, here she was, planning on doing it again like a fucking idiot. But what else was she supposed to do?
She flipped the sketchbook open to a clean page and grabbed a sharpened pencil before giving the glass a slight nudge to get some ripples going. Her instinct was to look away, to make sure she didn’t fall into a trance, but she forced herself to keep watching. She played music in the back of her mind to pace her breathing to. In and out, in and out. It was sort of like falling asleep, without getting to the actual sleep part. Honestly, it was surreal as hell.
Eventually, her mind got to a place where it left her body, going to a place where the rest of her couldn’t follow, with something else taking its place. She was vaguely aware of her arm moving of its own volition, sharp jerks against the paper. Something — someone — was guiding her hand. Shapes, figures that were vaguely human raced through her mind. There was screaming, but she couldn’t say whether it was coming from her or not. She tried to pull herself out of it, which was always easier when she was scrying on purpose, but she found herself stuck.