by L. EE
Nia heard two car doors slamming behind her, but didn’t slow down. She wouldn’t engage with the magic until she fully understood the situation, but she couldn’t let it get away from her again. She had to see what –
She stopped short with a startled gasp when she rounded a corner and saw a wild-haired naked man attempting to beat Xavier Rivers over the head with a broken milk bottle.
53
Gail Lin
Thanks to the tangle of baggage by her feet, it took Gail a few moments longer than Arthur to throw her door open and shove herself outside. By then, the Graveses had vanished into a nearby alley. Gail pounded after them, hoping to god they didn’t get swallowed up by an evil trashcan or whatever Connery might have waiting for them.
As it turned out, she needn’t have worried. The twins seemed to have the situation more or less under control, but boy, what a situation it was. Arthur was kneeling beside Xavier, who looked like he’d come off the worse in a fight with a lactating cow and a vegetable cart, while Nia was drawing a spell around another guy, dressed only in a tattered shirt and plastered to the wall of the alley like he’d been glued there.
“If I may ask –” she began.
“What the hell is going on?” Nia offered, looking up from her work with a small smile.
“That was about the whole of it, yeah.”
Her question was answered by Xavier, who was using Arthur’s handkerchief to wipe milk from his face. “I’m pretty sure your associates just saved my life.” When he pulled the handkerchief away, Gail saw he had a nasty cut above one eye, a bruise on his jaw, and what looked like fingermarks on his neck. Despite all that he managed a shaky grin. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon, Gail.”
“Well, I noticed we were getting near your place, but we were – shit, Xavier,” Gail said. “What the hell happened to you?”
Xavier looked at the half-naked man pressed against the alley wall. Whatever magic Nia had done didn’t allow him to move much, but his fingers were clawing at the brick, as though he couldn’t wait to get his hands around Xavier’s throat again.
“He attacked you?”
“Yeah,” Xavier answered a little hoarsely. “I was walking home with some groceries and he came out of nowhere.” He looked sadly at the spilled food littering the street. “I wonder if I can save any of this. I like to have extra food on hand this time of year. You know, just in case any of the kids come by.”
Right, the school. The place had just been getting off the ground back when Gail had first met Xavier. She’d even helped build the extension Xavier had put on his house for a proper classroom. “How many regulars you got now?”
“About thirty.”
“Damn.” Back when the schoolroom had first gone up, there’d been maybe ten.
“I try to give them one meal a day during the school year, but some of them come by during the holidays too. Sometimes supplies run short at home, you know.”
“Yeah,” Gail said quietly. “I know.” All right, Gail, back to work. “When we’re done taking care of this, we’ll drive you home. Doc should probably take a look at you anyway. You got the shit kicked out of you.”
“I think I’m okay –” Xavier’s voice caught on a cough. He winced and rubbed his bruised throat. “Actually, maybe you have a point. Thanks.”
Arthur took Xavier by the arm. “I’ll take a quick look now. Then we can clean up the groceries.”
Xavier’s injuries must have been paining him because he didn’t object, allowing Arthur to lead him to the mouth of the alley where the light was better.
Gail joined Nia by the wall, watching as Nia drew a complicated circle around the trapped man’s feet.
“So,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “We didn’t find Connery, but you caught yourself a naked man. That’s something at least.”
“Oh, hush.” Nia finished the circle and triggered a spell that made the wall-hugging man slump to the ground, apparently sound asleep. Tucking her chalk back into her handbag, Nia said, “Help me turn him over.”
“I’d rather not, honestly.” But Gail put her hands on the man’s bony shoulders and rolled him on to his back. Then she drew back with a hiss of disgust. Whoever this guy was, he hadn’t been taking very good care of himself. His skin was a canvass of water burns and he smelled like he’d been bathing in sewage for a week. Even asleep, his hands kept jittering at his sides and his mouth moved constantly like he was choking on silent words. “What the hell is wrong with him?”
“He’s completely magic-addled,” Nia said with something approaching glee. “If I had to guess, he was ensorcelled until very recently.”
“En-what?”
“It’s what happens when someone agrees to be hypnotized by a magician. It can only be done with the subject’s consent and it doesn’t work on everyone, even with consent. If it does succeed, however, it puts the subject into a trance of sorts. They can be given instructions and made to carry them out.”
“And people agree to this?”
“Certainly! Though for obvious reasons it’s only magicians who are supposed to undergo the process. And only after knowing all the risks.”
“And what kind of instructions are we talking about?”
Nia’s eyes were shining more brightly than seemed appropriate for the subject matter. “They can be given the strength and skill to do things they couldn’t normally do, find things in secret places without knowing. And they can hide things in secret places too.” She turned her gleaming eyes up to Gail as if waiting for her to join in the excitement.
“I don’t –” A thought brought Gail up short. “Let me guess, you can tell what magician hypnotized this guy.”
Nia nodded enthusiastically.
Gail pretended to think for a minute the snapped her fingers. “I get it. It was that friend you bought the ugly hat for. She sent this man to attack Xavier as a kind of very subtle revenge.”
Making a small irritated noise – that was a lot closer to a laugh than she probably intended – Nia lightly slapped Gail’s arm with the back of her hand. “You’re not funny. Connery did this!”
“Oh right, him.” Gail looked down at the sleeping man again and, seeing how tightly the man’s skin clung to his skull and ribs, didn’t feel much like joking anymore. “So he was using this guy to do his dirty work after he died. He must have put him in a trance, so he couldn’t screw it up. You think he was the one putting all the bits where they belonged?”
Perhaps taking a cue from Gail’s expression, Nia sobered herself. “It looks that way. It makes sense. If Connery set the majority of the traps up beforehand, all this man would have to do is place the pieces and then trigger the dormant spells using predrawn circles provided by Connery. Of course seeing as he’s a layman, both the ensorcelling and the spell casting would have had a deleterious effect on his physical and mental health.”
“Looks that way,” Gail said.
“If it helps at all, this man was likely one of Connery’s right-hand men. The ensorcelling could not have been done without his consent.”
“Yeah, Connery probably offered him a hell of a reward, though I doubt the poor bastard thought he’d end up like this.” As Gail watched the man mumbling and twitching on the filthy ground, she realized how close she’d come to ending up just this way. She couldn’t stop herself from rubbing her temples at the memory. She was glad Nia wasn’t watching. She didn’t need her feeling guilty over that again.
“No, he probably didn’t,” Nia admitted as she looked down at the man. “Maybe there’s something I can do for him.” The excitement on Nia’s face had settled down to energetic determination.
Gail studied the man doubtfully. “You think?”
“His mind is beyond saving, but I might be able to make him more comfortable.” She glanced uncertainly toward the mouth of the alley. “I suppose we should take him back to the hotel. The Academy would be better, but I doubt they would welcome me bringing magic-addled laymen to t
heir doorstep before I’ve even completed my assignment. Maybe we could…”
“Excuse me, Illuminator Graves?”
Gail turned her head to find Xavier and Arthur standing nearby, arms overflowing with the salvageable groceries. Gail made a mental note to sneak a bit of money into Xavier’s wallet before they split up again.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Xavier said. “But this man here… He’s not well, is he?”
Nia shook her head. “No, I’m afraid he isn’t.”
“But you think you can help him?”
“I – perhaps. I simply need a space to work.”
Xavier rubbed his bruised jaw as he gazed down at his emaciated attacker. Then he nodded, as if he’d made a decision. “All right. We’ll bring him back to my place.”
“Are you sure?” said Gail. “I mean, not for nothing, Xavier, but he just tried to kill you.”
“Yeah, but if he’s not in his right mind, I can’t really blame him, can I? Anyway,” he went on with a smile for each of the Graveses, “I don’t think I’ll need to worry about it happening again with you all around.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Rivers,” Nia said before Gail could say anything else. She got to her feet, brushing dirt and chalk from her skirt. “I promise we won’t impose for long.”
Xavier smiled again. “It’s no imposition.”
Gail still wasn’t sure about this. She didn’t like involving civilians in her cases if she could help it, especially not friends. That was only asking for trouble. But it was plain Nia didn’t follow a similar philosophy and without her support, Gail had no way of arguing with Xavier’s hospitality. Getting down on one knee, she put her hands under the sleeping man’s arms, lifting him with little difficulty. By drawing one of his arms around her shoulder, she could drag him along easily enough. He didn’t weigh any more than a bag of sticks, but his skin burned with nauseating heat. I really hope he doesn’t have anything catching.
“Lead on, men.”
Arthur and Xavier headed out of the alley with the groceries, while Gail and Nia followed more slowly, Gail doing her best to stop the naked man from dragging across the ground too much.
“Arthur was very brave, you know,” Nia murmured to her as they walked. “If he hadn’t knocked the man aside long enough for me to prepare the restraining spell, I fear Mister Rivers might have been injured far worse.”
At the moment, Arthur, with a little help from Xavier’s elbow, was trying to stop a bushel of carrots from falling to the ground. “Good for doc.” I’m sure Xavier was impressed too, which might only make this visit more awkward considering the whole ‘no dating laymen’ thing. But there was nothing to be done about it now.
Nia’s eyes settled thoughtfully on the unconscious man in Gail’s arms. “If I can clear his mind enough, perhaps he could tell us about the instructions Connery gave him. It could simplify things considerably.”
“It sure would, but I’m not going to get my hopes up.” Gail wasn’t sure this poor bastard had any clarity left in him.
It wasn’t the most uncomfortable car ride of Gail’s life – that honor belonged to a cab ride during which she had discovered that her current ladyfriend was also seeing the cab driver who had picked them up – but it sure as hell was near the top of the list. With Xavier riding in the passenger seat beside Arthur, Nia and Gail had to crowd into the backseat. That wouldn’t necessarily have been a bad thing except they also had a magic-addled mostly-naked man napping across their laps.
As Gail tried to shift into a position that didn’t involve touching any of the man’s more private anatomy, she noticed they were passing through a familiar part of town. “Hey, this is where I used to come for school when Blessing flooded too badly.”
“I forgot you lived in Wet Blessing,” Xavier said.
“Your mom was born down there, right?”
“Yeah, but thankfully she got a better job and we were able to get out.” He glanced over his shoulder at Gail with an apologetic grimace. “No offense.”
“None taken.” If she had managed to get out of Blessing earlier, things might have gone a lot different. For her and for Dad.
“What is Wet Blessing?” Nia asked after pushing the sleeping man’s knee away from her face. “Is it a place? It has an odd-sounding name.”
Gail laughed. “I’m sure that’s not what it’d be called on a map if anyone ever got around to putting it on one, but that’s what I’ve always heard it called. Anyway, it’s down by the riverbed, under the old bridge on the south end of Gracetown.”
“It’s half under water most of year,” Xavier added.
“Not half,” Gail said quickly, feeling Nia’s eyes on her. “Maybe a quarter.”
The farther they drove, the more rundown the buildings became until they seemed to be leaning against each other for support. Returning home wasn’t anything new for Gail. Hell, the first couple of times she had run away from the children’s home, she’d headed straight back to Wet Blessing and before the Connery case had eaten her career, she’d often handled Gracetown cases, Xavier’s included. She had a firsthand knowledge of the place most cops and PIs lacked and, more importantly, she wanted to help out. It was a small way to give back to the people she’d grown up with, the people who spent their entire lives clinging to New Crossbridge with all they had while the city tried to wash them away.
Even so, it was hard not to see the place through Nia and Arthur’s eyes. She didn’t miss the way Arthur cursed under his breath when they passed a group of women hauling water in bowls and buckets and jars and whatever else they had at hand, or how Nia stared at a house with a patchwork roof of wooden planks and rotting shingles.
Our roof was made of scrap metal, she almost said, but held her tongue. All that comment would get her was wide-eyed pity, which was the last thing she wanted from Nia.
Finally, Xavier directed Arthur down the street that led up to his place. It was a damn nice place too, by Gracetown standards. It was surrounded on three sides by a wooden fence. The boards were as crooked as overcrowded teeth, but Xavier invested in magically resistant paint to keep them a shining bright white. Inside the fence were three buildings: a slouching old toolshed, a cement garage, and Xavier’s house, which was admittedly an odd sight for those not used to it.
“Did you – did you build that yourself?” Nia asked as she stared at the house through the window.
“Yep!” Xavier replied proudly. “Gail helped with some of it too.”
“So you can blame me for anything funny looking.”
In truth, the whole place was a little funny looking. It was two stories tall at the center, but spreading out from the east side like a lazy limb was the extra one-story wing that held the schoolroom and the extra kitchen space. The house only had windows on the north and south walls because the broader western and eastern sides were almost entirely hidden by the steep roofs that ran from sharp peaks nearly to the ground. Atop the shingles were narrowly spaced metal gutters that funneled the worst of the rainwater down to the ground around the house, which was in turn lined with metal troughs on wheels. The troughs could be wheeled down to the river and dumped when they got too full. Sure, there was no stopping the rain entirely, but the troughs could make the difference between ground that was soggy but solid and ground that tried to eat a house’s foundation during the rainy season.
None of that was as good as proper magic waterproofing, but it helped. It wasn’t cheap to keep up with either, but it kept Xavier’s house about as secure as any house in Gracetown could be.
“You need any help with the troughs today?” she asked as the car came to a stop between the house and the garage.
“Nah, I took care of it this morning. Thanks, though.” Xavier opened his door and got out. He tested the air with a hand before calling back, “It’s dry, by the way.”
“Thanks,” Gail replied. “Looks like today is our lucky day, huh, princess?”
Nia opened her mouth, but didn’t seem to know ho
w to reply. Instead she just awkwardly pushed her hair back over her shoulder and said, “We had better get him inside. The spell won’t keep him asleep forever.”
“Sure thing.” With a great deal of twisting and wriggling, Nia and Gail managed to pass the sleeping man out to Arthur, who caught him under the arms with a grimace.
“Ugh, it’s like licking a battery.” When he noticed Xavier giving him a questioning look, he shrugged as best he could while holding half of a mostly naked unconscious man. “It’s – uh – a magic thing.”
Xavier’s brow furrowed. “How does –”
“I’ll explain what I understand of it to you later, Xavier, layman to layman,” said Gail, “but now we better get him and your groceries inside before it rains again.”
“All right,” said Xavier, still studying the Graveses curiously. Gail knew from experience that it was one thing to know that a person was a magician and another to actually observe them doing magician things right in front of you, but Xavier’s questions would have to wait. “Why don’t you give him to me? I should be able to carry him.”
Though Xavier’s shoulders were easily twice the width of Arthur’s, the doc still hesitated. “I’d be careful. You were hurt and it’s possible there may be other injuries that haven’t made themselves known yet.”
Xavier shook his head with a light laugh. “Don’t worry, I feel absolutely –” But as he reached his arms toward the unconscious man, his eyes widened and he stepped back, one hand moving to his chest.
“Are you okay?” Gail set her half of the man down on the ground, but Xavier waved her away.
“I’m fine, I’m fine, it’s just –” He laughed again, a little unsteadily this time. “Maybe you’re right. I should take it easy. It has been a hell of a day.”
Arthur took a hesitant step toward him. “Maybe I should –”
Xavier cut Arthur off with another smile. “Sure. I’d be grateful if you took another look, but let’s get him inside first. Follow me, I’ll show you where you can put him.”
Xavier led them into the house, through the warm kitchen, and up the stairs to a small guest bedroom. “It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. Sometimes people stay here when they’re in between residencies,” he said as he opened the door.