Believer

by Ravin Tija Maurice

  “So what am I walking into with this Fitzpatrick thing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s cold in the forest this time of year.”

  He laughed. “Where exactly is this forest you speak of? You remember we live in Toronto, right? Like there would be werewolves running loose in High Park?”

  “Don’t laugh at me. I’m serious. I don’t want to look like an idiot. I’m a PI. Not knowing what I am getting into could make me break out in hives.”

  “We can talk about it over dinner. But no, we will not be out in a forest. It won’t be much different than the poker games. Only in my experience, with werewolves, they’re very…friendly.”

  “What do you mean ‘friendly’?”

  “They like to touch hands, hug. That sort of thing. They are very physical and affectionate, which can be off putting for people who don’t like to be touched. I had heard stories that they sleep in piles like puppies, but I don’t know for sure.”

  “Ask Millie. I think she was boning Liam Fitzpatrick. She may still be, I’m not sure. She gets all giggly and red faced when you mention his name.”

  He laughed. I wanted to tell him I wasn’t kidding, but he parked in front of a house and turned off the car. I had lost track of how long we were driving.

  When I looked out the window, we were on a quiet street in front of a row of townhouses. The lawns had a light dusting of snow, but the neighbourhood looked quaint and well kept.

  “This is your place?” I asked, pointing up at the townhouse. It had a cute cobblestone walkway leading up to a small patio with two chairs out front of a big window. I couldn’t see anything inside because the lights were off. It was far quainter than I expected.

  “Yep. It’s all mine. Just me here.” He got out of the car, ran around, and opened my door for me. When I stepped outside, he took me into his arms and kissed me.

  He smiled at me when we separated. “Hi.”

  I couldn’t help but smile back. “Hi.”

  I hugged him tightly, maybe a little longer than I should have.

  “I’m sorry I’m such a shmuck,” I said, my face nuzzling his neck.

  “Don’t be.” He took my hand and led me towards the front door.

  The townhouse was bigger than I expected. An open entryway branched off to a small black and white kitchen to the left, the stairs to the upper level to the right, and it ended at an open living room. Another flight of stairs under the first one led to a basement.

  The living room was decorated in taupe and light brown, with a bleached white wood floor. One wall was lined with bookshelves, another had a large tv. An overstuffed couch and love seat were very inviting.

  He motioned for me to sit down after he took my coat. “Would you like anything to drink?”

  “You got any hard liquor?” I asked.

  “No. Do you think it’s a good idea to go to the Fitzpatrick’s drunk?”

  “I wasn’t going to get drunk. I just need something to take the edge off. I am terrified.”

  “They are probably more scared of you than you are of them.”

  I laughed a little too loud. “Right. Because I’m so scary.”

  “Says the girl with the white hands.” He gestured towards me.

  Because we were in his place I figured I didn’t need the gloves, but when I looked at my hands they were bright white. The glow they radiated when they were full blown Blanchmains was unsettling to me, I can’t imagine how they looked to other people.

  “Yeah, I don’t get it. I think they have, like, magic radar. Or they really like you. Because they get super white when you are around.”

  He smiled. “They like me?”

  “Well, yes. What else would you call it?” I stared down at my hands as he came over to me and sat down on the couch, pulling me into his arms. I kept my hands bundled in my lap as we kissed.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I’m scared. I don’t know what will happen if my bare hand touches your cheek when they look like this.” I smiled awkwardly at him. “Now I know what Rogue feels like.”

  “Who?”

  “From the X-Men. She touches people, and they wither and die.”

  “The one with the white streak in her hair?”

  “I’m impressed you got that,” I began, but I stopped mid sentence as he took my hand in his. Our skin touched, and his hands were warm and felt strong.

  “We have touched hands many times, Camille,” he said. “Rogue couldn’t even do that.”

  “Yes, except I don’t think I have touched your face or close to your heart. That may be different. I don’t get how all this works.”

  He took my hand and placed it over his heart. I tried to pull back before my hand made contact, but he held on. When my palm finally touched his chest, nothing happened.

  “I wonder if the X-Men creator based Rogue’s powers on Blanchmains,” I said breathlessly.

  “See? Nothing. It doesn’t work with touch unless you make it. Our sorts of powers don’t work unless you’re actually trying,” he replied.

  I focused my thoughts and began to lift his coffee table a foot off the ground and put it down, smiling proudly.

  He laughed. “Yes, I mean like that. I didn’t know Blanchmains had telekinesis.”

  “It’s not super useful yet. It’s going to be hysterical to fuck with my family at parties and Christmas.”

  He pulled me to him and kissed me again. This time, I gently touched his face with both my hands. His skin was warm, and his stubble made the tips of my fingers tingle.

  “We should eat,” he said with a smile.

  “We should?”

  “Is that a question?”

  “I can think of a few other things we could do that are far more fun than eating.”

  He laughed. “Why, Miss Bishop. If I didn’t know better, I would think you were trying to seduce me.”

  “Is it working?”

  He laughed again. “In time, sweetheart. We will get to all that in time. When we have no obligations, and there are no interruptions. Now, let me fix us some dinner.”

  “There will always be something. It seems like lately there is always something. As soon as I reconnected with Bliss again, it’s like a fucking shit cloud. I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. How could I not know she was lying to me?”

  “That reminds me.” He got up and walked over to his bookshelf. He pulled out a few books so thick they looked like cement blocks. The way he flipped through the pages, I assumed they were some type of encyclopaedia, casually skipping large sections like one would skip unnecessary letter sections. Two books did not have what he was looking for, but halfway through the third, he stopped and laid the book out flat.

  “Bring me the photo of Bliss and her ‘classmates’,” he said without looking up. I grabbed my phone and brought it to him. He zoomed in on the glyph in the photo and laid it beside the book.

  Sure enough, the same glyph was on the page.

  “That’s what I thought. She’s a bruja. And not just an ordinary bruja.” He pushed the book in my direction.

  I groaned loudly and threw my hands in the air. “Great! Fan-fucking-tastic. Another magical thingy I don’t know how to deal with. This is fantastic!”

  “Do you want to read the page?”

  “Just give me the Coles notes version. My crap-dealing level has about reached its limit.”

  “They do everything in the name of a ‘reina’, a queen. They call themselves ‘oscuro’, which basically means dark. They are handmaidens to this queen.”

  “Bruja handmaidens. Witch handmaidens. Are you serious?”

  “Does she know what you are?”

  “Yes. I figured she didn’t get it, so I paraphrased. She was there when I killed some le Fay relatives. Long story. She saw me use my powers.”

  “And she did not try to kill you? Hmm.”

  “Not yet. Is that all you got? Hmm?”

  He pulled me to him and hugge
d me. “They don’t see you as a threat. That’s good. I assume you were a gateway.”

  “Gateway to what?”

  “The bigger prize. The only reason an Oscuro bruja would be that close to a Kinkaid is if their Queen wants blood. Which you want to be as far away from as possible. So while you may be upset about what happened, in the long run karma is going to come back and bite her in the ass. Bliss is on a mission that will either end in her destruction or a full blown war, and we need to stay out of it.”

  I wasn’t sure if he thought that would make me feel better, knowing that if Bliss had played me—because in a way she had no choice—it would somehow make it hurt less. Knowing that her lies will eventually come back to haunt her helped a little.

  “This is all too fucky for my brain to take. Fray helped create the damn virus, Bliss is a witch henchwoman, and Jesse’s phone was found in a garbage can outside Burnt Offerings—wait. How are siblings affected by the bruja thing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Bliss had a brother named Bucky. Lucia Kinkaid had him beaten to death. He was friends with Jesse and went missing right around when Jesse died. And Jesse’s phone was at Burnt Offerings.”

  “Why would Lucia have Bliss’s brother beaten to death?”

  “Bliss claimed that Lucia was trying to make a point. That Bliss belonged to her and her brothers. But Bliss shot her in the head and disposed of her body. That’s why I thought she had been kidnapped, and why I was so frantic to find her. I thought they were going to kill her for what she did to Lucia, and then come for me.” The realization of what I had just confessed hit me hard. It felt good to admit the truth to someone.“Oops. Yeah, I was there when Bliss killed Lucia. But you can’t tell anyone. About me or Lucia being dead. Millie knows, but that’s it.”

  He hugged me tighter. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. I will protect you when or if the time comes.”

  We stood there for a few minutes,and he just held me in his arms. I took a deep breath and focused on the moment.

  “I have to let go before I don’t want to anymore. We need to eat before we go.” He kissed my head and released me. I plopped down on his couch as he disappeared into his kitchen.

  Eric made this incredible pasta dish with shrimp that looked like a picture from a cookbook. He smiled shyly at my compliments, his eyes sparkling with pride. I insisted he let me clean up, so I washed dishes as he dried and put them away.

  “So do you want to fool around before we go?” I asked, poking him in the side and wiggling my eyebrows at him.

  He kissed me on the cheek. “We don’t have enough time.”

  “Oh? But we don’t have to be there for a couple of hours.”

  “Remember what I told you before about dealing with men and not boys?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well,” he brushed my hair behind my ear and kissed my neck. “Men don’t work well with time constraints. When it’s finally time for us to be together, I want to take my time.”

  He ran his finger down my neck and along my throat. “I want to memorize every inch of you. And I want you to remember me.”

  My face flushed, and I giggled like a toddler. His smile made it hard to keep my hands off of him. I could have sworn my body turned into melted butter.

  “We gotta go. We don’t want to be late,” he said.

  Neither of us moved though, and we stared into each other’s eyes. I debated blowing off the whole thing and locking us in his bedroom. If I didn’t need to find Bliss, why the fuck were we even going?

  “Nikki,” he told me.

  “Huh?” I asked.

  “We’re going because of Nikki Frank,” he continued.

  “Did you just read my mind?”

  He laughed. “No. But I was reminding myself, so I figured you needed the reminder too.”

  “Right. Before we go, we should take a quick photo of that page you showed me in the book. That way we can show it to Millie and Nya.”

  He kissed me on the cheek. “Absolutely. Now, let’s go before I change my mind.”

  We drove for longer than I expected, to the north part of the city close to the Credit Valley River. On both sides of the road there were lots of big healthy trees, immaculate lawns, and well-groomed houses that should be in magazines. In a small parking lot just outside a wooded park area was Millie’s SUV. Eric parked beside her. When we got out of the car, the hairs on my arms immediately stood up. Energy vibrated off me like static electricity. I could smell the water and the trees, and something else that I didn’t understand.

  Millie was waiting outside her vehicle bundled up in her winter coat. Nya wasn’t with her. I zipped my coat up and put on my gloves. Eric had on a hoodie and a leather jacket. I was colder just looking at him.

  “Why are we out here?” I asked her.

  She pointed into the wooded area, where the glow of a fire could be seen off in the distance.

  “This is how they do things. If we want to talk to the whole pack at once, this is the easiest way to do it,” she replied.

  My nerves went into hyper drive. “The whole pack? You didn’t tell me the whole pack would be here. And we’re welcome?”

  “Yes, and you have nothing to worry about. You don’t need to hide here either. You can take your gloves off if you want.”

  I shrugged. “It’s cold. I’m good with my gloves on. And, of course, I am going to be worried. That’s kind of my thing.”

  Millie and I linked arms, then the three of us headed off into the woods side by side. My emotions were so mixed, ranging from scared shitless to amused that we were walking into Narnia to see some wolves.

  “Have you been here before?” I asked Eric.

  “Yes, but not for a while. Liam and I are friendly though,” he replied.

  “Hopefully not friendly like he and Millie are friendly,” I joked, poking Millie’s arm. She blushed so hard I could see how red her face was even in the darkness.

  “I’m kidding!” I exclaimed. Thankfully, Millie laughed. I felt Eric’s body tense beside me.

  “Sorry. I don’t think we’ve met. I’m socially awkward Camille who makes bad jokes that make people uncomfortable,” I said to him with a grin. “I may do that again tonight, so please feel free to magic it out of me, if you can.”

  He chuckled. “I wish it worked that way. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

  We stepped out into an opening. It was a nice family barbeque with a roaring fire and heat lamps surrounding the clearing. Picnic tables were spaced out so there was an empty space in the middle, where someone could stand and talk to the whole group if necessary. All eyes turned to us, and the noise went down. I felt like a deer caught in headlights.

  Appropriate, considering the circumstances.

  Liam appeared from in the crowd, and Millie smiled. He looked happy to see us. Power radiated off of him like steam does from hot food. His body seemed fluid when he moved, like he wasn’t built to stand still.

  “Welcome! It’s nice to see you all again,” Liam said. He had on a pair of dark jeans, a black hoodie and leather jacket overtop, and the type of boots that men usually wear when they work in construction. He seemed so calm and at ease, but had a presence that commanded attention.

  I giggled awkwardly and tried to smile, even though I wanted to run. Why was I so scared? This was the place I should be the least afraid. Liam had been nothing but nice to me. The others smiled at us, floating around like extras in a movie. I made an effort to look and smile at every one of them. There were only five others that I could see, maybe they all didn’t come out. Or they were staying back in the shadows until they decided if we were okay, which was understandable. Part of me wanted to do the same thing. We were the invaders in their space. They could handle the situation however they wanted as long as we didn’t get hurt.

  “Thanks for inviting us,” Millie replied, and lead us to a nearby bench. “Seems like we have a lot to talk about.”

  “Yes, we do,” Liam beg
an, turning to me. “I think to fully get an idea of what is happening, we need everyone to be here.”

  I stared blankly at him. “Nya needs to be here?”

  “No, Camille. He means Lilly,” Millie told me. I stared at her, completely dumbfounded. Was this why they had made the circle in the middle of the picnic tables? They didn’t need room for someone to speak, they wanted to parade around the freak like I was in a side show.

  I turned to Eric. “Did you know about this?”

  “She knows more about Nikki than anyone. It makes sense.” He didn’t look me in the eye when he replied.

  “Were you trying to butter me up so I would do this? I told you both now—”

  “No. You know as well as I do that we are flying blind. We need to know what we are dealing with, and Lilly knows things we don’t.” Eric grabbed my hand, now making sure he made eye contact.

  I sighed. “I have never summoned someone on purpose before. I don’t even know if I can.”

  Liam eyed me carefully. He seemed confused, but his expression remained blank. It was easy to assume that he didn’t know as much about me as I had thought.

  “Just try to do what you did before,” Eric said quietly. “Don’t overthink it. Maybe it will just happen.”

  “Okay.” I took a deep breath and tried to push back my nervousness. I thought about Lilly, about her pretty long hair. I wondered if her name was actually Tiger Lilly. My power swirled around inside me, pushing itself out to my edges.

  My vision went milky, and my eyes shook. The feeling was so nauseating that I wanted to vomit. I tried to breathe through it, pushing back that beautiful dinner that Eric made before it made a second appearance. I squeezed Eric’s hand as my stomach flip flopped, and I blinked a few times. The power pushed, and I felt like I was going to come apart at the seams.

  “What. The. Fuck!” Lilly snapped. I looked up and saw her standing by one of the heat lamps. All pain and feelings of upchucking went away when I saw her.

  “I’m sorry. I had to. They want to talk about Nikki,” I said to her. No one asked who I was talking to, or said anything for that matter.