Muddy Waters (Otherwhere Book 1)

by Sara O. Thompson

  The crazy thing was, she was just regurgitating what her church had taught her. Greg was right. There’s really no zealot like a convert.

  Heather sipped her drink and ran a hand over the stumps of her horns―a sad, self-conscious gesture. “Look, I really don’t know much more. Do you have to take me in for a statement or something?”

  “Nope. Just one more thing. You’ve mentioned an army. Who were they going to go after? I mean, was this a car bomb situation or an organized attack?”

  Heather pursed her lips. “They wanted to go after that… Demon or whatever she is who runs that club by the river.”

  “The Red Queen?”

  She nodded. I took a sip of my coffee and thought for a moment.

  “There’s something else. They were practicing something.”

  “Practicing what?” I pushed.

  Her voice barely a whisper, she said, “They were trying to summon Angels to fight for them.” My mouth dropped open. I’d had to have heard her wrong.

  “Dana Sykes, one of the ones who was killed, she kept inviting me to come back, saying something big was coming and I would want to be part of it. But I didn’t want to. Like I said, I’m trying to stay true to Gardener West and his guidance. There’s no place for me among the tortured now. Look, I know you’re an unbeliever. But the end times are coming. Haven’t you read about this? A Seal has been broken. The Church was brought to its knees.”

  I stared, soon making Heather uncomfortable with my sharpened interest. “I really need to go, okay? My class starts in a few minutes.”

  “Wait, what do you mean, a Seal has been broken?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry. Just, please. Go.”

  “Okay, but I’m going to give you my phone number. You can call me if you want to share anything else. Can you give me a list of any other people who might have been in the Bible study or connected in some way?”

  Heather nodded. “Yes, all right. I’ll call you later.”

  “Hey, Heather?” A man walked over to us, a cup in hand. “You ready?”

  She looked up at him, her eyes wide in alarm. “Yes. Hi, Curt. I’m coming.”

  The man glanced at me with that insipid treevangelist smile. “Who’s this?” Without my answer, he stuck out a hand. “Curt Gordon. Nice to meet you. You coming to the group session with us?”

  Heather rose quickly and motioned for me to follow. “Nope. She’s not really cut out for us, it seems. Let me walk you out. Be right back, Curt!” She dragged me away toward the security office.

  “You have got to stop grabbing my arm like that,” I hissed, yanking out of her grip.

  “Just go. I’m busy. And I don’t need anyone asking too many questions.” And Heather was gone.

  After a tense visit with Poufy to retrieve my stuff, she proceeded to practically shove me out. She escorted me to the door and waited until I was well out of the building before she turned away.

  Ann Bartley was still MIA. A bible study had gone rogue. A Witch running about in an Earther church. What was the world coming to?

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  CHAPTER EIGHT

  anting to accomplish at least one thing this afternoon, I headed out to check about that sample of clay I’d gotten at the conservatory. Luckily, Spot’s Art Shop is close to the Broom Closet. It would have been the nearest supply store for someone in the east end, if you didn’t count ordering online.

  Inside, the Saturday crowds were out in force, and there seemed to be only one person working. The customers were all children and their harried mothers. Art instruction over the summer vacation was all the rage among the helicopter parent set.

  I browsed for a while among cluttered shelves and stacks. It smelled like my elementary school art room―chalk and tempera paint. I liked art, but my grade school art teacher, Mrs. Pollan, always said, “Halloween is over, Tessa. You need to stop drawing witches and black cats.”

  Tiring of waiting, I conjured up a little nudge to get the kids and their parents out of the store.

  “Moooom, I’m huuuuungry.”

  “When’s lunch?”

  “I WANT A COOKIE!”

  Funny how a spell that changes the scent to something less art room and more bakery can do that.

  Mothers hustled their suddenly-starving offspring into minivans and SUVs bound for Panera or Nancy’s Bagels. Finally, it was just me and the clerk, a gangly young fellow with an unfortunate presentation of acne, a concert t-shirt obviously older than he was, and a tag that had JARED on it.

  I whipped out my FBI creds, even though this wasn’t official FBI business. But sue me, I was in a hurry. “I need to ask you some questions.”

  Jared ran a hand through lank, greasy hair and bobbed his head, a petrified look on his face.

  I placed my little in-case container on the counter. “Someone bought a large amount of this clay from this store recently. Think hard.”

  “Sorry. I don’t know, okay? I just work here to pay for school.”

  I nodded patiently. “I don’t care what they were going to use it for.” Jared backed up against the shelves behind him, knocking off little wooden poseable figures.

  We stared at each other. He cracked first.

  “She maybe had weird hair? It was blue, like a wig. She came in to place an order, but we couldn’t fill it. I told her to order online because we don’t place orders for anything over five thousand pounds.”

  “This woman ordered five thousand pounds of clay?”

  Jared nodded. He kept glancing around as if someone was watching us. “Six, actually. She said she was making a really big, um, sculpture? And she wanted a whole bunch of clay all at once?” His voice cracked. Goddess bless him, he was terrified.

  My mind reeled. “And she wouldn’t order online?”

  He shook his head. “She said she would only pay cash.” Ah. Paying cash to a local place meant no credit card trail.

  “How old was she?”

  He shook his head. “Older than you, I think.”

  I almost laughed. I had forgotten how, when you’re young, it’s so hard to tell how old people are when they’re older than you. Everybody is either a baby or ancient.

  I pondered all this. “Why are you so skittish? You’re not in trouble.”

  A fast breath escaped his thin lips. “Because she came in after that and told me she’d… she said something bad would happen to me if I told anyone she had been here?” He kept making everything a question.

  I snorted. “Don’t worry, kid. Nothing bad’s going to happen to you.” He looked slightly less petrified. I took a green permanent marker from the jar on the counter and uncapped it. “Gimme your hand.” I held my own out. “Come on, I haven’t got all day.” He put his shaking palm in mine. I drew a neat green pentacle and charmed it with a little protective spell. Now, if anybody come after poor Jared, or his household, he would be fine. “When you get home tonight, you put a line of salt across all your doors and windows. That will keep you safe. No worries.”

  His relief was visible. “You’re a Witch.”

  I shrugged modestly. “At your service. Did she say anything about what she was going to do with the clay?” He shook his head. “Okay, well, how did she pick it up?”

  Jared’s face screwed up in thought. “Um, she had it delivered? But I don’t know where to.”

  I was losing patience. “Can you look it up, please?”

  He went to the computer on the counter and started clacking on the keyboard, his eyebrows drawing closer and closer. Finally, he said, “It’s a Louisville address.” He wrote it down on a piece of receipt paper and handed it to me. “We had to get a special large truck from Home Depot.”

  “Thank you, Jared. Y
ou’ve been very helpful.”

  In the car, I looked down at the address. “I’ll be damned,” I breathed. It was the conservatory site.

  On my way home, I found myself turning left and following a familiar winding road to a bungalow nestled at the back of a neighborhood. An unassuming little house painted tan, with black shutters. I parked across the street and a few houses down and sat.

  The house hadn’t changed one bit. I wondered if the occupants had.

  Only one way to find out.

  The door opened before my knuckles even touched the wood.

  “Tessa Reddick.” Same smirk. Same smoldering eyes. Same velvet caftan that was simultaneously too revealing and too covered up.

  “Bathsheba.”

  She stood with a hand on her hip. “They’ve released you into the wild, I see. I’d heard a rumor, but you can’t believe everything you hear.”

  I nodded. Bathsheba Paquane. My ex-boyfriend’s mother harbored no tender feelings for me. Not then, not now. It was all very romantic, see. Very Romeo and Juliet.

  “Look, I’m not staying long. I just need some information.”

  Her thin eyebrows arched. “From me? I can’t imagine what you think I would tell you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Your family motto is practically, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’ You can tell me a lot.”

  Bathsheba drew a deep breath in her nose then gave a curt nod. “Touché, dear.” She swept aside and wordlessly bid me to enter. “Have a seat, if you like.” She picked one of the ultra-modern leather couches in the front room. The house looked small from the outside, but like a famous police callbox from British TV, it’s bigger on the inside thanks to Bathsheba and Balthazar, her esteemed husband. I sat across from her, noting she did not offer me any of the customary hospitality our kind is known for.

  “I was framed.”

  She said nothing. The look on her face was inscrutable.

  “I was framed, and I think you know that, and I think you know who did the honors.”

  Being there, in that house, was an assault of memories. So many years ago, her beautiful son Vail and I had been… young. Young and in love. Well, I had been in love. He had been under direct orders to destroy me. “You tried to kill us once. You must have tried to help finish us off.”

  She tilted her head back, blue-black hair shimmering on her shoulders, and let out a hearty laugh. “You went to ground, and now, the enemy has left you no ground to go to. I can’t tell you how delightful this is. I really can’t. I wish Balthazar was here to see this.”

  “Look, whatever happened between you and your husband and my mother is ancient history. I never did anything to you.”

  Her face hardened in the space of half a second, and the sound she made was uncomfortably close to a hiss. “Watch where you tread, Tessa. If you can say you or your family haven’t harmed a twig in my family tree, then you may speak as you wish, but you can no more say that than I can. I still revile you with the fire of a thousand burning suns.”

  “Bathsheba, can you sit here and tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing? You wouldn’t have defended your son?”

  She paled. I kept talking.

  “Can you honestly tell me you wouldn’t have taken bullets for Vail? Or swords? Or ten thousand burnings at the stake? Well? He was going to kill me.”

  “He wasn’t―” she started then snapped her mouth shut and simply glared at me.

  “He wasn’t what?”

  I didn’t think it was possible for her face to harbor more full-on hate.

  I was wrong.

  Maybe, I’d made a mistake coming here. Not the smartest thing I’ve done all day.

  “Listen, I’m calling on whatever shred of honor you have left and whatever loyalty our families ever had to each other over the last, what, five thousand years? Tell me what you know, and I’ll go. It will be the last time I come to you. I swear on my mother.”

  She pursed her lips. On her lovely face played out her warring desires: kill me. Not kill me. Was there a point in either, now that her son was dead? Was I worth the wrath of Arcana? Finally, she said, “Very well. None of my House went after your family that night. I swear on my son.” Her eyes glittered.

  Thus, our bindings were made.

  “But something is after you, yes. It’s not a Witch. Not a Human. What it is, I cannot say for certain, but I will tell you this. It walks toward you always. It will walk until it finds you. It might send scouts to prepare the way. But wherever you go, on this side or that, it will come for you. You are like a beacon to it in the dark universe. And however much I hate you? It hates you more.”

  “How do you know that?”

  She leaned in, her purple eyes hard. “Everybody knows it. But everybody thinks you killed your family, too.”

  I sat on that for a second, looking around the living room for want of something better to do. Antiques from the last five hundred years nestled against newer pieces, the same as it had always been. The Paquanes had clung to their French heritage with tenacity. They had been in the States for dozens of generations, but they all still spoke French like a bunch of ex-pats.

  Bathsheba purred, “I would think you would be on your way. I choose for the moment not to harm you, but I can’t say the rest of my family will hold off. In fact, I might change my mind yet.”

  I cursed myself all the way home. How dumb could I get? Waltzing into the home of the high priestess and her consort from an old and revered coven of Gallic Witches was about as savvy as wearing a meat dress to a shark’s pool party. Yet, it did land me a clue. A clue, whose source I couldn’t trust as far as I could throw it. I snorted. Details.

  When I got home, I immediately locked all the doors, the windows, and battened down the place tighter than Fort Knox on high alert. Though (probably) ultimately useless, it made me feel better.

  My home clothes felt especially luxurious despite being a pair of musty yoga pants and a t-shirt that fit in a way that suggested I get back into my running routine sooner rather than later. Water was boiling and marinara sauce was simmering when I heard Dorcha on the back porch. I went to open the door for her, and she backed away from me, baring her impressive teeth. Her tail switched madly, and her hackles were up.

  She went to the top of the steps and gave me a look, the one that meant I had to follow. Barefoot, I padded out into the dim evening. “What is it, girl?”

  Dorcha let out a low growl.

  In the shadow next to my Camry’s driver side door stood a figure. I couldn’t make out who it was. “Nice night to be out, isn’t it?”

  No answer.

  On instinct, I fired off a mild stunning spell that hit it square in the chest. Nothing happened.

  Dorcha circled the car and the figure.

  I edged closer. Dorcha growled and moved into a defensive crouch.

  “You’re trespassing, friend.”

  In the little bit of streetlight we had, the figure―it looked female, about my height with similar long hair―didn’t move.

  “Hey. Get out of here, or I’ll let loose with something stronger.” Which, after you’ve already been hit dead-on in the chest, is pretty heavy.

  No cigar.

  I got a stick and crept up to the car. Stretching my arm out, I poked the thing. Where my spell had hit, the stick sank in like a knife in butter.

  It was a mud figure. One bearing an eerie similarity to yours truly. The mud-me had a (now) semi-melted mud-knife sticking out of her chest, just beside the scorch mark where my spell hit. Not only that, the car was smeared with mud, from fender to fender.

  “Oh. Hell. No.” My fear quickly curdled into fury. I slammed the stick down. Snarling and shaking with adrenaline, I aimed both hands and forced a ball of white-hot anger at the mud. It burst into a pile of ash.

  I whirled around. “You nasty coward! You think you can scare me with your little mud pies?” I screamed. I stalked down the driveway past the shop toward the street, shooting
little blasting spells at the crooked asphalt. With each mini explosion, a rain of driveway bits clattered back down. I probably wasn’t the neighborhood favorite at that point, but what else was new?

  “You’re messing with the wrong Witch, buster. I will find you, and I will make you pay, dammit! You dirt-slinging, mud-whapping asshat! I am going to come down on your muddy ass like a rain of fire! So help me, I will invent very painful ways to punish you. VERY. PAINFUL!”

  Dorcha skulked off into the darkness, searching around the house, checking to see if anyone was still there. I kept up my hollering for several minutes, until I went a little bit hoarse.

  She returned pacified, if not relaxed, and sat beside the apartment door, waiting for me to finish my rant.

  Tirade complete, I stomped back up the steps to my home.

  “I cannot believe that! My car! Did you see my car?” We were inside again. Dorcha groomed herself on the floor, and I paced the living room. “Mother of fuck. Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit.” I randomly smacked my palm into a wall or doorframe, which only served to hurt my hand.

  At last, I sank into the couch, shaking. Since I’d been out of the joint, I hadn’t felt the warm fuzzies from any of my old friends. Fine. But no one had ever come right up on my turf and done something like this. Something as overtly threatening as the mud sculpture. It made me mad and scared then even madder because I was scared and knew it was stupid to be scared. This was a cowardly act of aggression. A taunt. Whoever did it was telling me, ‘Hey, we can get this close to you! Ha!’

  The pots simmered over on the stove, steam and sauce hissing into the burners. I leapt up, snatching some paper towels, trying to corral the mess, cursing and swearing. In the end, I called Papa John’s for a large pepperoni and olive and double-checked all my protection wards.

  Later, as I sat digesting my dinner and nursing a bit of bourbon, something caught my eye. The paper I’d snagged from the conservatory peeked from a pocket of my cloak, flung over the back of a chair. I pulled it out. It was still a photocopy of a page with ragged edges, ink pen marking it all over―scrawled translations and diagrams over the diagrams.