Nightraven

by Skye Knizley

  Raven was almost to the end of the hall when she saw someone standing behind Levac in the mirror. She spun and fired two shots, making Levac jump aside in shock.

  “What the hell, Ray?”

  Raven straightened. There was no one there.

  “I saw someone, standing behind you.”

  Levac looked at the holes in the wall behind him. “Are you sure?”

  Raven looked back at the mirror. “Positive.”

  She stepped into the room at the end of the corridor, which was Antonio Riscassi’s home library and office. Though Raven didn’t believe Antonio was much of a reader, the room was crowded with bookshelves heavy with first editions, encyclopedias and reference books.

  A pair of chairs were set in the middle on either side of a round table that held a cigar box and ashtray while a desk was set against the back wall in front of a high-backed leather desk chair and there was a wide antique mirror set to the side with an assortment of neckties hanging on the frame. There was no sign of the man she’d seen in the mirror.

  “Maybe you saw my shadow,” Levac said.

  Raven shook her head. “No way, it wasn’t a shadow. I saw the guy’s face, shadows don’t have faces.”

  A shadow flickered across the mirror in the corner and a figure stepped out of the glass. He was a man, perhaps a shade over six feet tall, wearing a tattered leather coat, pants held up by suspenders and a checkered shirt. He looked old, impossibly old, with a wrinkled face, hooked nose and fringe of grey hair that left the top of his head bald. He was also wearing clown makeup that looked dated and worn.

  Raven raised her weapon. “Who are you?”

  The man raised a hand so bent by arthritis it looked like a claw and pointed it at Raven. “Go. This is your only warning.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, we aren’t going anywhere. Who are you and what are you doing here?” Levac asked.

  The man turned his gaze on Levac. “God’s work is not finished! Go, be on your way, this concerns you not!”

  Raven held up a placating hand. “Settle down, mister, we’re FBI. Tell us what you’re doing here and what you want!”

  The old man waved a hand at Levac and he flew off his feet and into the hallway where he tumbled over the railing. He caught the rail with one hand and hung on, dialing above the distant floor.

  “Ray! A little help!”

  Raven squeezed off two shots that went through the man like he was made of smoke and he turned to the mirror. “Go! Save your friend, this concerns you not!”

  He vanished into the mirror, leaving Raven alone.

  “Ray! My fingers are slipping!”

  Raven holstered her weapon and ran into the hallway. She caught Levac by the wrist and pulled him back over the railing. He had a burn mark on his shirt and his left arm hung loose, like it wasn’t quite attached.

  “Are you alright? Is anything broken?” Raven asked.

  Levac shook his head. “Not alright, nothing is broken, I think my shoulder is dislocated.”

  Raven sat him on the floor and helped him out of his coat. She wasn’t an expert, but his arm did, indeed, look dislocated.

  “Want me to put it back?” she asked.

  Levac gasped in pain and leaned back against the railing. “You can do that?”

  Raven smiled. “It’s been done to me, it can’t be that hard.”

  Raven took his wrist in both hands. “Ready?”

  “Are you sure about this?”

  Raven yanked his arm until she felt it move then let go. Levac howled in pain then whimpered as his shoulder seated itself.

  “You could have at least counted to three,” he moaned.

  “It hurts less if you don’t know it’s coming, like pulling off a Band-Aid.”

  Levac raised his eyes. “Bullshit. What the hell was that thing?”

  Raven shook her head. “I don’t know. You stay here, I want to check the mirror it came out of, it looks familiar.”

  “Do what you have to, I’m going to stay here and sweat away the pain.”

  “Eat some chocolate, the calories will help you heal,” Raven said.

  She returned to the office and tossed all of Riscassi’s neckties aside so she could see the mirror better. It was old, with an ornate gilded frame and real silver back. At the top the frame formed a sort of stylized skull and skeletal hands carved to look like they were holding the mirror in place.

  She pulled out her phone and pressed a button. Aspen answered on the second ring. “What’s up, Ray?”

  “Hey, can you check the Bloodstone case? One of the things stolen at some point was a mirror, right?”

  Raven could hear Aspen typing. “One sec, babes… Mm, yes Bloodstone made off with an antique mirror in 2012 and it has yet to be recovered.”

  “We might have found it, can you send over a pic?” Raven asked.

  “Sure can. Where are you?”

  “Antonio Riscassi’s place, Rupe just got his ass kicked by a guy who stepped out of a mirror,” Raven said.

  “I did not get my ass kicked!” Levac yelled from the hallway.

  “Sending the pic, is he okay?” Aspen asked.

  Raven glanced at him. “He’s fine, he fell over a railing and dislocated his shoulder, but I put it back and he’s got chocolate. Let me look at the pic.”

  She took the phone away from her ear and opened the image. The mirror stolen by Trent Bloodstone was an exact match for the one she was looking at.

  She pressed the phone back to her ear. “That’s the one. Do we have a history on this thing?”

  There was more typing, then, “We have the bare facts. It’s nineteenth century, made around 1850, but the date is uncertain as is the craftsman. According to the provenance it belonged to a doctor and was held by someone named Christian Price in the 1880s. It vanished after that and didn’t reappear until the 1930s, where it was owned by a dentist in Chicago. That is where the provenance ends until it mysteriously appeared in a collection in Germany, where Bloodstone stole it.”

  Raven chewed her lip and stared at the mirror. It gave her the strange sensation it was looking back. “Can you call the holding facility and arrange a video conference with Bloodstone? I want to know more about this thing.”

  “I can. Watch your back, lover. Dimensional magik is bad news,” Aspen said.

  “I will. See you tonight.”

  Raven ended the call and went back to Levac. He was on his second chocolate bar and looking almost normal. Raven could feel him pulling on their connection and, oddly, it felt good.

  “How’s the shoulder?”

  “Better,” Levac said around a mouthful of chocolate. “What’s the deal with the mirror?”

  “It’s magik of some kind. I want to talk to Bloodstone and see what he knows. There are too many blanks in the provenance,” Raven said.

  Levac finished his chocolate and pulled himself up. “What kind of monster looks human and walks out of a mirror?”

  Raven looked back at the mirror. “I don’t think he was a monster at all. I think he was human.”

  “I don’t know, Ray. Sometimes, those are the worst kind.”

  ***

  It took two hours to finish searching the library, mainly because Raven wasn’t sure what she was trying to find. In the end, it was a leather bound journal wedged between books Raven never thought she would find in a crime lord’s home. At the top of the shelf nearest Riscassi’s desk were such texts as The Discoverie of Witchcraft, Liber Investigationis and the Physiologu, a sort of preternatural creature reference guide. In between them she’d found the journal started by Salvatore “Big Sal” Riscassi in 1928. It was written in code, with the last entry dated two weeks before Antonio Riscassi was put away. Though the text was unreadable without a cipher, the accompanying drawings told a story all by themselves. Raven would ne
ver forget the face peering at her from numerous pages. It belonged to the person, the creature, she most hated. Strohm, sire of the Tempeste line. Whatever had happened, Salvatore had known and even had dealings with Strohm on more than one occasion. It looked as if their dealings were amicable, but it was difficult to tell without deciphering the script.

  Raven added the journal to the other items she and Levac had collected and looked back at the mirror. It still gave her the impression she was being watched.

  “You’re going to stare a hole through it, Ray. I don’t think he’s coming back. At least, not right now,” Levac said.

  Raven stopped staring and turned to Levac. “Where did he go, though?”

  Levac shrugged. “My mother always said that mirrors were the space between spaces. But then she was also known to talk to cats, so she probably wasn’t an expert.”

  Raven looked back at the mirror. “There was a broken mirror at the first scene, with Carmichael. What about the second?”

  Levac consulted his notes. “Not a broken one, but there was an antique man’s mirror in the room inventory.”

  Raven spun. “What if he’s not in the mirror? Not exactly, anyway. What if he’s in the space between?”

  Levac looked skeptical. “Ray, that’s weird, even for us. I’m sure Mom was being metaphorical.”

  Raven shook her head and started putting everything in an evidence box. “Your mom isn’t the only one, the idea has shown up all over the world in all sorts of ways. Girls playing Bloody Mary, poems by Poe and Lovecraft, ancient fables. What if it isn’t just stories?”

  “Okay, so what does that mean? The ‘space between spaces’?”

  Raven hurried out the door. “I have no idea, but I bet I know someone who does. Come on, let’s roll!”

  “Where are we going?” Levac asked.

  *

  Old Town, Chicago, IL

  Noon at the heart of Old Town was a lot like standing in Main Street in a ghost town. The sun was high and there was a creepy feeling to the air, but everything was still and quiet. A handful of people were enjoying lunch outside Ilse of Night or the Olde Sandwich Shoppe, otherwise it was as dead as a mummy’s heart.

  Isle of Night, Chicago’s most authentic Scottish pub, was one of the few businesses in Old Town where Raven felt at home. It wasn’t the most attractive building in the world, it was a pub, with wood-over-brick construction and wide windows overlooking the street. Gold lettering on the glass proclaimed ‘All You Can Eat Haggis,’ which Raven knew wasn’t a big seller, along with a list of bar food that any ‘crawler would crave. Raven was partial to the Tatties, which MacLeod still seemed to think was a fruit, and the meat pies had gotten her through some long stakeouts.

  Inside, it was warm and dark, a welcome change from the glare of the noonday sun that was giving her a migraine. Handmade wooden tables and chairs were placed around the room next to wooden walls that MacLeod had brought from his native Scotland. The bar, which took up the entire west wall, was the same and covered with a variety of single malt Scotch from all over the world. MacLeod even made his own in the basement. As a joke he called it “The Only One.”

  “Good mornin’ lass, you and the faramo are up early,” MacLeod said.

  Angus MacLeod was a man of indeterminate age, with grey hair held in plaits and a beard any fantasy dwarf would love. He wore a plaid shirt and grey work pants beneath a leather apron and looked out at the world from behind spectacles that looked like they belonged in the 1800s.

  “It’s afternoon, Angus,” Raven said.

  MacLeod glowered. “Not to you, lassy, not to you. What can I get ye, I’ve a rabbit stew on and your favorite steak pies just came out of the oil, or so says Mary.”

  Raven felt her stomach growl. “I’ll take a pie with a side of tatties.”

  MacLeod scribbled on the slate he kept on the bar. “And you, Faramo?”

  “Angus, please don’t call me that. I’ll take a beef sandwich and some of the potatoes, too.”

  Angus scribbled more and turned away. “Ye know where the tap is, help yerselves.”

  Raven reached behind the bar for two beer glasses that she filled from the water tap at the end of the bar. Angus couldn’t bear the idea of serving water in a bar so made everyone get it themselves. He wasn’t stingy, either. It was there, free for the taking even in the hottest summer months.

  She took a seat at a table with a view of the street and sipped from her glass, trying not to think about food. Levac sat opposite, his phone in his hand. Raven could tell from his expression that he was chatting with his fiancé Sloan.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  Levac didn’t look up. “Huh? Yeah, Sloan’s good. She’s shopping with her sister before going to work. She still hasn’t found a dress she liked.”

  Raven cocked her head. “I thought she wanted to get married in the nude?”

  Levac blushed. “Yeah…my family nixed that idea and I was happy to go along with them. Nobody wants to see me naked.”

  Raven couldn’t help it. “I dunno, I thought about it a time or two.”

  Levac almost dropped his phone in the water and spent a crowded few seconds juggling until the phone fell to the floor by his foot.

  “Ye break, ye buy it,” MacLeod said.

  He set their plates on the table along with a tub of mustard.

  Levac retrieved his phone. “But it’s mine.”

  MacLeod’s look was priceless. “Exactly my point, lad.”

  He made to return to the kitchen, but Raven stopped him. “Is Akira around?”

  MacLeod paused. “Aye, she’s in the kitchen. What d’ya need?”

  Raven took a bite of potato. “I have a question she might be able to answer. About mirrors and spirits.”

  Angus nodded and walked off.

  “Akira?” Levac asked when he was gone.

  Raven took a bite of her pie. It looked a lot like the fruit pies served at fast food restaurants, but there all resemblance ended. Where those were filled with contents that were barely food, MacLeod’s pies were filled with meat, potatoes and a rich gravy made from whisky. They were always good, but today they were particularly tasty.

  “Akira is his daughter, the reason he brought his family here. She’s a sort of medium and can talk to spirits, but she was attracting too much attention,” she said between bites.

  Levac bit into his sandwich and chewed with obvious relish. “Attention is bad?”

  “It is when you talk to spirits,” Akira said. She was a slender girl with dark, wavy hair that fell to her waist. Her skin was pale and smooth, as if she never went out of doors, and she was dressed in simple leggings and a sweatshirt that read “Nightshade School for the Gifted.” She held a hand-carved cane in one hand.

  “Hi, Akira, you’re looking better. How is school?” Raven asked.

  Akira smiled. “I like it. Thank you and your mother again for helping me get in, Da was having a hard time.”

  Raven smiled back. “You’re welcome, we were happy to help. I was wondering, can I ask you a question about spirits?”

  Akira tapped the chair beside Levac then pulled it out and sat. “Yes, but first, I don’t believe we’ve met. Rupert Levac, I believe? My father and Raven speak highly of you.”

  Levac swallowed the mouthful he’d been chewing. “Hi, sorry my mouth was full. Pleased to meet you. Your dad has said nice things about me?”

  “More like he hasn’t said anything bad, with Da, that’s important. Miss Raven, what did you wish to ask?”

  “What can you tell me about spirits coming out of mirrors?” Raven asked.

  Akira cocked her head, as if listening to something. “It has been known to happen. Genuine mirrors, meaning those made from silver and wood instead of plastic, are capable of trapping souls if the caster knows how.”

 
Raven nibbled another potato. “Once trapped, do they ever come back out?”

  Akira took one of Levac’s chips and nibbled the edge. “Thank you, Mr. Levac. Yes, it is possible, but only at the request of the caster. Once a soul is trapped, it is trapped until the mirror is broken or until released.”

  She leaned forward. “Is this about a case?”

  “It is,” Levac said. “We saw a man come out of a mirror today. He blasted me with some kind of energy and threatened Raven.”

  Akira’s eyes widened. “Are you alright, Mr. Levac?”

  “I’m fine, just a little bruised. When spirits are trapped, they don’t come and go?”

  Akira shook her head. “Not that I or Bridget have ever heard of. I don’t think it would be possible, it’s called a trap for a reason.”

  Levac looked at Raven. “Bridget?”

  “Her spirit guide,” Raven said.

  “Yes, my spirit guide, Bridget Bishop. She was hanged in 1692 and came to me when I was six,” Akira said.

  Levac swallowed. “That must have been…er…interesting?”

  Akira’s smile was warm and genuine. “She is a good person, she’s helped me understand my abilities.”

  “Thank you, Akira.”

  Akira took another chip and pushed back from the table. “You’re welcome. Father needs me in the kitchen, excuse me.”

  Raven watched her go, a sense of pride in her heart. When she’d first met Akira, she was withdrawn and exhausted. Raven had put her in contact with Lady Nightshade and Valentina was paying tuition. Not many knew that MacLeod was related to the Tempeste family.

  “Do you think we’re dealing with a spirit?” Levac asked between chips dipped in mustard.

  Raven shrugged. “I don’t know. He stepped out of the mirror, plain as day, and bullets passed through him like he wasn’t there. What else could he be?”

  Levac pushed his plate away. “Weird shit is your department. He didn’t look like a ghost, at least not the ones on television.”

  Raven left enough money to cover their meal on the table and stood. “This is beyond even my weird shit meter. He reminds me of the witch I just dealt with, but she was a special case.”

  Levac cringed. “I read the report. No, thanks.”