by L. EE
“Yes. But as I said, this time, we won’t be taking any unnecessary risks.” She waved the chalk, directing both of them to take a seat on the bed. “Now, let’s hurry. We want to be finished before morning.
Despite the need for haste, Nia took her time with the protection spells, drawing each line and curve with absolute precision. By the time she was finished, all three of them had complex circles drawn on their hands and foreheads.
“Do I look as ridiculous as I feel?” Arthur asked, trying to scratch his nose with his shoulder to avoid smudging the spells on his hands.
“Don’t worry, the drawings will fade once the spells are triggered. They will – are you all right, detective?”
Gail was looking closely at the circles on her hands. “This won’t, you know, cause any problems for me? Seeing that guy who attacked Xavier – well, that kind of brought back how unpleasant that was.”
“No!” Nia couldn’t believe Gail thought she would be so careless. “These are simply protective spells, they do not touch your physical body. It’s like – like – like putting on a helmet or a poncho. They protect you, but they don’t become part of you.”
Gail raised her chalk-stained hands in surrender. “I was just asking, princess. I trust you, okay?”
“Okay.” Nia met Gail’s eyes, wanting to make it absolutely clear that she would take no more chances with her safety.
Gail must have understood, because she dropped her hands and said briskly, “All right, how do we put on these magical ponchos?”
Arthur rolled his eyes, but Nia couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “It’s quite simple. On the count of three, clasp your hands together, like this.” She illustrated by cupping one of her hands over the other, careful not to smudge the chalk early. “On the count of three then. One, two, three…”
They all brought their hands together – Gail with a little more energy than was strictly necessary – and Nia felt the protection spells take shape around them like a drape of silver mist. A relieved breath escaped her lips. She had been more nervous than she had let on about this plan of hers, but with the protective webs of magic gathered around her, she felt a rush of confidence.
Still, as she finished the circle on the floor, she was careful to remind the others to remain alert and cautious. If they became separated after Connery’s traps were triggered, they should stay exactly where they were and wait for Nia to find them.
“Unless something really dangerous is happening,” she amended after a moment. “Then you should probably try to run away.”
“You know, Ni,” said Arthur, “sometimes I think you should be the doctor. You’re just so comforting.”
“Oh, hush, Arthur.” Taking a deep breath, Nia triggered the spell, bracing herself for anything: another awful illusion, all of the furniture in the room flying at their heads, the canal down the road catching fire.
But none of that happened.
Nothing happened.
58
Gail Lin
That night, the storms returned with a vengeance. The old house quivered with every crash of thunder, as if it was moments away from breaking into splinters. One of the generators came off the worse in a confrontation with a bolt of lightning, and they were forced to replace the downed electric lights in the house with candles. Nia supplemented the candlelight with glowing magic spheres, but the house was still dark and chilly.
Xavier called around nine and asked if he could come home, fearing the rains might leave the roads impassable the next day. Nia wrung her hands a little, but was forced to admit that since nothing had happened for several hours, Xavier might as well return home.
“What does it mean?” Gail asked from the bed where she was sprawled out, trying to read by magic light. “That nothing happened, I mean.”
“I don’t know.” Nia paced to one end of the small room then immediately crossed back to the window.
“Maybe something happened that we didn’t notice. Is that possible?”
“I don’t know!”
Nia had been pacing the floor for close to an hour. Xavier had come home about fifteen minutes earlier and he and Arthur were making dinner with clever use of the kitchen fireplace. Except for the knocked out lights, everything was pretty comfortable, which was clearly driving Nia absolutely bananas.
“Something should have happened,” she said, sitting down hard on the edge of the bed. “I did everything right. If there was any of Connery’s magic around, any at all, it should have revealed itself.”
Gail shrugged. “Maybe it’s not here.”
“But it is. I can’t locate it precisely, but I can feel it’s here.” She looked sharply over her shoulder. “And, no, before you ask, I am not imagining it and even if I were, that wouldn’t explain Connery’s magic-addled underling being here. The enchantment keeping him functional would have broken once his job was done.” Her bright accusing eyes focused on Gail. “So after the spell broke, leaving him in the final stages of magical degeneration, how on earth would he have travelled any great distance from the final hiding place?”
“You caught me,” said Gail, turning a page of her book. “I found him across town and brought him over here when you weren’t paying attention. I actually had him in my pocket that first day we came to Gracetown and let him out when we stopped for lunch.”
Nia aimed a half-hearted swat at her elbow, hitting the book instead. Then she sighed and dropped her chin on to her fists. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”
No, Gail had to admit it didn’t. In the moments before Nia triggered her spell, Gail had been bracing herself for the world to turn upside down. And then – nothing. No screaming phones, no impossible labyrinths, no floods wearing fathers’ faces. At first, she thought maybe there was something sinister going on below the surface of her layman perception, but Nia and Arthur had seemed equally perplexed, which spoiled that theory.
“Maybe the protection spells are just really good?” she’d offered, but when Nia had begun tearing through her books and notes, she figured that wasn’t it either.
Tomorrow, she would probably be a bit annoyed that she was still working this damn case, but for now, she couldn’t bring herself to feel anything but relieved that they hadn’t been pitched headlong into another of Connery’s fucked-up funhouses.
The storm was bad enough.
Another blast of wind sent the windows rattling. The rain beat like a thousand tiny hammers on the slanted roof. To distract herself, Gail leaned closer to the glowing sphere on the bedside table. Sure, almost everywhere had magic lights these days, but seeing a carefully covered lamp was different than this seemingly wild glow of magical energy.
“Are they dangerous when they’re like this?” she asked Nia, cautiously poking the light with her book to see if it would burst into flame.
“What? Oh. No, of course not.” Nia picked up the magic light and tossed it between her hands, leaving a trail of rainbow light in the air behind it. “They’re just a more primitive form of the lights you find all over.” She glanced up at the dark electric lamp hanging from the ceiling. “Well, almost all over. Here.” She held the shining ball out to Gail.
When Gail hesitated, Nia added, “It won’t hurt you, I promise. It’s like the protection spell, entirely external.”
Gail carefully plucked the sphere from Nia’s palm. It was surprisingly cool against her skin and had a texture somewhere between glass and water right before a hand breaks its surface. She rolled it around her cupped palms while Nia watched her with an indulgent smile. Gail didn’t mind. It was actually nice to see some magic that wasn’t ugly or tedious. “Can you break it?”
Nia’s brow furrowed. “No, you can only dispel it, but why do you ask?”
“Because,” Gail said with a grin, “catch.”
The sound Nia made as Gail tossed the ball – underhand and gently enough that a toddler could have caught it no problem – probably would’ve shattered the sphere if it were really made of glass. She did manage to catch it
though, only fumbling it a little before clutching it to her chest. “Detective,” she said with a reproachful glare.
“What?” Gail laughed, opening her book again. “Aren’t you supposed to be prepared for anything?”
Nia sputtered delightfully for a moment before she got out, “Not for having things thrown at me, thank you very much.”
Gail shrugged. “It’s a rough world out there, princess. You’d best get used to it. It only gets harder from here on –” Her offering of wisdom was interrupted by Nia pouncing on her and sitting on her stomach. “You know, you’re heavier than you look.”
“You – are – terrible,” Nia said in a serious voice that was often interrupted by very unthreatening giggles. “And extremely unprofessional.”
“Yeah, well, the fact that I’m letting you sit on me during a job should’ve probably clued you in to that one.”
That sent Nia into such a fit of giggles that she had to hide her face in Gail’s chest until she could recover herself. Then she lifted her head and smiled. “Thank you.”
“What for?”
“For distracting me.” She sighed, pushing hair out of her face with one hand. “This is just – frustrating. I know Connery is right here, but I can’t get to him and I don’t even know how I’m going wrong.”
Gail knew that feeling well from her own work. “You’ll figure it out. Give it time and then you’ll hit on the right answer all of a sudden, just like you always do.”
Nia sat back a little, settling on Gail’s hips rather than her stomach. “Like I always do? It sounds like you have a rather high opinion of me, detective.”
“Hm.” Gail reached up to twine her fingers in Nia’s soft hair. “I guess you could say that. You know, when it comes to magic. In everything else, you’re pretty hopeless.”
“Hopeless?”
“Did I say ‘pretty hopeless?’ I meant ‘hopelessly pretty.’”
Nia snickered. “Very smooth, detective.”
“What can I say?” Gail murmured as she drew Nia down for a kiss. “I’ve always had a way with the ladies.”
59
Nia Graves
The magic light lay forgotten on the floor, dutifully illuminating a dust bunny. The storm raged on outside. Sometimes, when the thunder boomed, the whole house seemed to tremble in its foundations. Rationally, Nia knew the house was steady as a rock, but even she had to admit that she sometimes thought it might just blow away in the wind like scattered garbage.
Nia lay propped up on the pillows, Gail’s head on her chest. The other woman’s eyes were closed and she was breathing deep and slow as if she were asleep, but Nia could feel the tension in her muscles every time the thunder crashed outside.
“Are you all right?” she asked softly, running her hand over Gail’s hair.
“Yep.”
“Are you sure? I thought –” Why am I pushing? Do I want to upset her? “I just thought maybe you would like to put the radio on or – something.”
Gail tilted her head up, so she could smile crookedly at Nia. “Can’t listen to the radio without electricity.”
“Oh. Yes, right.”
Gail stretched up to kiss Nia’s jaw. “I’m fine, princess. I’m better than fine. I’m downright content.” She settled her head back on Nia’s chest and closed her eyes again.
“But are you certain?” Nia couldn’t help asking.
“Never been more certain. Now, go to sleep.” A few minutes later, perhaps only to prove a point, Gail seemed to slip into true sleep, her body relaxing against Nia’s.
Nia lay awake a little longer, wondering if Gail’s dreams were pleasant ones and if she figured into them at all. Eventually, she sank into a doze, waking sometime later to Gail grumbling about it being “cold as iced tits in here” as she pulled Nia more securely into her arms. In that brief moment of consciousness, Nia wondered if Arthur and Mr. Rivers were passing the chilly night in the same way and for once, the thought carried no anxiety.
60
Gail Lin
A soft tapping roused Gail from a deep and dreamless sleep. The eye of the storm had apparently passed over them and outside everything was quiet and still. She lay still a moment longer, wondering if she had only imagined the knocking, but then it came again, the tiniest rasp of knuckles on wood. Rolling over, she grabbed her watch off of the nightstand, squinting at it in the dim magic light. It was well past midnight.
“Who is it?” she called softly, not wanting to wake Nia who slept peacefully beside her.
“I need to talk to Nia,” Arthur said through the door. A pause. “To you both.”
Gail didn’t like the sound of those words, especially not when combined with Arthur’s low, almost frightened voice. He might as well have sounded a siren and told them to hit the deck. “All right, doc, just give us a minute.” She reached over and gently shook Nia’s shoulder. “Hey, princess,” she said when Nia’s eyelids fluttered. “Your brother needs to talk to you.”
“Arthur?” Nia murmured sleepily.
“Yeah, he sounds upset about something.”
Instantly, Nia was wide-awake. She slid out of bed and into her discarded dress before Gail could even get out from beneath the blankets. “Just a moment, Arthur!”
When they were both fully clothed, Nia opened the door for Arthur. As soon as he got into the room, he closed the door tightly behind him. Only then did he turn to face them – well, face was probably the wrong word. He couldn’t seem to pull his eyes off of the floor and his hands were driven so deep into his pockets that it looked like he wanted to crawl inside them entirely.
“What is it, Arthur?” Nia asked with a touch of fear in her voice. “Is it – oh!” She hurried over to him and pressed a hand to his chest, but he pushed it aside.
“No, that’s not it. It’s – Do you know where Connery is yet?”
Nia sighed heavily. “No, against all rules of logic and decency, I don’t.” She tugged fretfully on her skirt. “I suppose I should write to the Academy again before –”
“Because I think I do.”
“ – they decide to remove me from – what did you say?”
“I think I know where he is.”
Gail could only stare as Nia burst into an explosion of, “What? How? Where? When?”
Arthur swallowed hard. Then he looked at Gail. “Remember when I asked you about Xavier’s scars?”
What the hell does that have to do with anything, “Yeah, but –”
“I think we weren’t talking about the same thing. I meant the scars he has here.” He lifted a hand to his right shoulder, then his left. “And here.” Then he touched his collarbone before settling his hands on his midsection. “Here. They were so faint before that I barely noticed them, but now – now they look – Nia, they look fresh. I asked him what happened, but he said he couldn’t remember.” His throat jerked as he swallowed. “He hardly seemed to recognize them. It’s like he’s – he’s…”
It was like someone had dropped a cold stone into Gail’s stomach. “Shit, Arthur, you can’t – you don’t think…” But it was clear by Arthur’s face that he could and he did. Nia’s almost inaudible whispers of, “Oh no, oh no, no, no…” made it clear that she was coming around to the same idea.
“Is it possible?” Arthur demanded. “Could someone do that?”
I hope to god the answer is no, but I don’t think I’ll be that lucky.
“I – ” Nia seemed to shrink away from Arthur’s desperate gaze, drawing her arms up around herself. “I – yes, Arthur, yes. It would take a long time to prepare the spells for a layman’s use, but once they were enscorcelled and given their instructions… Yes, for a magician of Connery’s skill, it would be entirely possible, especially if other spells were used to keep Xavier alive when –” She pressed a hand to her forehead. “Oh, I’m such an idiot. The spells were right all along. I just didn’t understand what they were trying to tell me.”
Arthur leaned back hard against the closed do
or. “But I – but I don’t understand – is – Xavier isn’t Connery. He just isn’t.”
“Of course he’s fucking not,” Gail snapped. “He’s a school teacher for fuck’s sake. He plays in a band. He’s – he’s – he’s fucking Xavier. How are we even having this discussion?” She knew her voice was too loud, but wet fucking hell, this was impossible.
“No. No,” said Nia. “Not yet, but oh, he’s Plan B, or maybe Plan C, or Plan – I don’t know, but a fall back, a contingency plan.”
“A contingency plan?” Arthur said quietly.
“A fall back for what?” Gail added less quietly.
Nia’s fingers twisted in the pleats on her skirt. “A fall back in case no one came looking. If Arthur’s right then Connery is – he’s incubating in Mr. Rivers. There will be spells, spells designed to trigger after a certain amount of time.” She pressed her hands over her face. “How did I not think of this earlier?”
“Why would anyone think of this?” said Gail. “This is – it’s –” She looked to Arthur for help, but all of his attention was focused on Nia.
“What will the spells do to him?”
“If I had to hazard a guess…” Nia paused for a second as if she was hoping one of them would tell them she didn’t, but when the room remained silent, she continued. “If our assumptions are correct, Mr. Rivers’ must have been attacked at least a month ago. His brain would have been kept alive by magic while his body was reconstructed using an… unnatural addition. This piece of Connery was likely imbued with magic containing a record of Connery’s memories, not all of them, of course, and not perfectly preserved, but preserved well enough to reconstruct a man at least similar to who he was. He must have thought partial resurrection was better than being gone forever.”
Gail could not – would not – believe this. “And Xavier just forgot this happened to him?”
Nia answered with a helpless shrug. “The mind often represses traumatic memories, though magic was likely involved as well.”