Muddy Waters (Otherwhere Book 1)

by Sara O. Thompson

  He hadn’t mentioned kids. Did they have kids? I scrolled through my memories of our conversation. I would guess if they had, they’d be grown and have kids of their own.

  “After three years, nothing was happening, so we tried IVF.” He shook his head. “Back then, it was a lot less sophisticated than it is now. She went through so much. The shots, the miscarriages, the doctors’ appointments, the waiting. We were hopeful. I even built a playset in the backyard. Then, the Rift happened. As Christians, our world just… well, it was hard. And things were different with her.”

  “Different how?” I asked.

  He pushed a hand through his hair. “She started blaming the Rift for her infertility. Saying God was punishing Humans for turning away from Him by sending Hell on Earth and that no God would want a child raised after the Rift. But finally, at long last, she got pregnant. We had two eggs left, and she was going to have twins.” His face hardened.

  “Okay, that’s good. Twins is good.”

  He gave me a sharp look. “She lost them though. Late. Five months. It was still so early after the Rift, nobody thought about the dangers of an open physician’s office. They were all still in hiding.”

  Oh shit. I started to see where this was going.

  Before the Rift, there were no disclosure regulations, no background checks. Nowadays, you have to prove you are what you say you are―Other or Human. There are ‘Humans only’ doctors’ and ‘Other-friendly schools.’ NO SMOKING signs have been replaced with NO MAGIC ALLOWED plaques. Laws were enacted about discrimination and segregation and exsanguination and all kinds of things.

  “What happened?” I almost didn’t want to know the answer.

  “A nurse. At the doctor’s office. She was a… a lamia.”

  Well, that made sense now. Lamias are nasty work, Human women who lost their children (usually in some horrible or gruesome way) and in their overwhelming grief, twisted themselves, their essences, into something evil. They kill other women’s children in various and sundry ways. Before the Disclosure Laws and the Acts of Living Being Protection were created, such creatures could get jobs in hospital nurseries and obstetricians’ offices and voila, a veritable buffet of babies to feed their hate.

  “So a lamia killed your unborn children, and Ann went crazy?”

  Charlie nodded. “She was just broken. I don’t know how else to explain it. We joined Gardener West’s church when we got married but after that, her faith and her outright hatred for Supernormals took on this incredible importance. She was always talking about the evil that are the Rift-walkers and how Humans had to rise up and fight.”

  I’ve heard of lots of women who’ve done worse after being unable to have children by any means. The church can’t help you, the doctors can’t help you, so you turn to something else.

  “We thought about adoption, but Ann really wanted a child of our own. She had this bizarre fear that if we adopted or weren’t careful, she’d have a mixed baby. Half-Human, half-Other, and she didn’t want that.”

  I huffed out a disgusted breath. “I’m not saying it’s never happened―never say never, right? But that’s almost impossible.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t pretend that her fears were rational.”

  “Okay. Go on.”

  “She started this Bible study after the fifth miscarriage. I thought it was good for her. Got her out of the house, talking with other people. Like therapy. But Gardener West, he’s very intense. Charismatic, as we used to say. I just wanted Ann happy.

  “The last few months, I just haven’t known what to do. I went to one of her meetings a while back, to see what it was like, and they were all like her. Just as vehement, just as vitriolic. I thought, ‘This isn’t what we should be like. This isn’t right.’ But any time I questioned her, she would fly off the handle, then give me the silent treatment for days.”

  He looked at me like he was just now seeing me there in his living room. “You’ve got to understand, Miss Reddick. I love my wife.”

  “You love her so much, you went against your beliefs and hired me,” I said.

  “She’s so angry. And bitter. She’s not the woman I married. But I still love her.” I shifted in my seat and waited. “They had this plan to convert people. They started at that club, the Red Heart place. She got more and more secretive. When we do speak, she… she talks differently.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “She uses words I’ve never heard her use. And… she even sounds different. Just the tone of her voice isn’t the same. It’s like when you call someone on the phone and her sister or mother answers. They sound like her, but they aren’t.”

  Well, that’s weird.

  “I don’t know what’s been going on. I keep going to work most days just to focus on something else, to forget we’re ships passing in the night. These days.”

  “Yeah well, her ship’s about to run aground.” I looked around the home Ann and Charlie had built. A surge of compassion bumped up against my fury. Clearly, old Charlie here loved her with every fiber of his being. I wasn’t sure, however, that she still loved him. Or recognized anything except her own desire for revenge.

  “She wants to get back at Otherwhere somehow. And in her mind, that means starting by bringing the Red Queen to her knees. And Cara Courtland, she was just as bad. For a long time, I thought it was Cara who called the shots.” He shook his head. “They were thick as thieves.”

  “Let me ask a question, just for my own edification. How do you arrange to kill someone, then get around the whole ‘thou shall not kill’ line? Because to me, that just seems like a no-brainer.”

  Charlie grimaced. “Her attitude has been that she is vanquishing Demons, which are not people in the eyes of the Lord. The Bible is quite clear that it’s okay to kill in the Lord’s name. ‘You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword of your hand.’”

  “What about Heather Mumford? Dana Sykes? They didn’t do anything wrong. And what about the bakemono family? They weren’t Human, but they were innocents, including children? Even the horses! She practiced on defenseless animals that had nothing to do with any of this.” Fire rose in my chest again. “What about them?”

  He stared at me in horror. “Oh God. I didn’t know about them. I didn’t know about the children.” He swallowed hard, growing paler. “She says her army is the hand of the Lord.”

  Any compassion I felt solidified into anger. “That’s just the kind of religious bullshit that starts wars, Charlie. Remember the Crusades? Just for starters. Seriously, I don’t know how you assholes live with yourselves.”

  “I know,” he whispered. “Oh God, I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Charlie, she’s calling Demons to animate her golems, then she sics them on people. Humans. And Others who didn’t do anything to deserve it.”

  “I’m weak,” he blurted. “I know that. It’s why I asked you to help me. It’s why I can’t go to anybody else.”

  “You have to tell me where she is. I need to find her.”

  Charlie nodded and got up. “Come with me. Her cell phone has one of those tracking devices. I can look her up.”

  Turns out, he’d been keeping a list of her habitual destinations since he’d come to talk to me. The list was short. I recognized Heather Mumford’s address among them.

  “Here. This is out on River Road. Near the conservatory site.” He pointed. “This is the church, and that one I don’t know. My money is on this one near the site.”

  “If you see her or you talk to her, you must call me,” I said. “Must. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Call me.”

  “I will. And thank you.”

  I could only muster a glare before I stormed out.

  I called Qyll from the road and filled him in on my conversation with Charlie.

  “It’s not Cara Courtland who was running the show. It was Ann Bartley.”

  “Right. Ann’s looking to take down Antaura, and she fou
nd a chink in the armor,” I said.

  “Mohini was going to take the Queen’s place when Ann conveniently killed her,” Qyll mused. “But Ann couldn’t have known that was the plan.”

  “Yeah. My theory is, Mohini and Ann struck a deal, but they were both double-crossing each other.”

  There was a pause as Qyll considered this. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Research. Lots and lots of research.”

  By far the most intriguing group I’ve met so far is the Dark Elves. Perhaps the most like Humans I’ve encountered, yet they are vastly different. Their preference for ritual and understated pageantry is peculiar and entertaining, to say the least. I do hope to make my hosts’ hospitality a regular item on my calendar.

  ―From Cornelia Dellhart’s Walking in the Night Forest

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  t home, I kicked off my boots and got some bourbon. Then it was back to hitting the books. Dorcha padded in behind me and lay stretched across the library doorway.

  I started out sitting down. Then I got up. Sat in the armchair. Then the floor.

  “What do I know?” I asked aloud. “Not enough,” was the reply. My own. Which, yes, kind of indicated I was going batty.

  I spread out what I had on the table: my laptop, the bedraggled page from the conservatory site, a pile of notes. I was missing something.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, staring at the table, taking sips of Woodford, mind wandering all over. So lost was I that I almost blasted a hole through the table with a spell when my phone went off.

  “Tessa,” was all I got, then sobbing.

  “Who is this?” I looked at the number. Seemed vaguely familiar.

  More garbled crying and then, “It’s Professor March. Help me.”

  Handily, the line disconnected after that, and my subsequent calls went unanswered.

  I prowled the library, then threw open a trunk, desperately hoping to see something I could take as a weapon. I had no idea what we would find and I wanted something besides salt and water. Nana Fairfax always said, “A Witch should always have her spells. And a gun.” I thought of her when I dug out the little black wooden box. “Thanks, Nana,” I muttered, tossing the contents into my bag. Boots back on, and several odds and ends shoved in my bag and cloak, Dorcha and I raced to the fancy condo in record time.

  I couldn’t imagine what the professor had gotten himself into, and even more mysterious was why he’d called me. The building was quiet, at least the lobby and halls were. At March’s door, I stopped and listened. I could hear crying, and someone repeating, “Please, just go.”

  “You ready?” Dorcha ducked her head, her furry face steely. “Good, because I have no idea what is going on. Or why the hell he didn’t just call the police.”

  The door was unlocked and swung open easily. I had a small bag of Elisha salt at the ready, and more in my cloak. Early evening sunlight streamed in on the bizarre scene. It looked like the same place I’d been to before, except rearranged. And a disaster. All the furniture in the living room area had been pushed back. A layer of topsoil spread between the couch and credenza featured a lesser Seal of Solomon done in white spray paint. The empty soil bags and paint cans lay in a heap. A package of clay sat nearly empty. An assortment of magical and religious artifacts clustered on the coffee table nearby―a crucifix, black candles, a little stone statue of something.

  “Professor March?”

  A choked sob, then he was crawling out from under the dining room table.

  “Oh, Christ on a cracker, March, put on some damn clothes!” I slapped a hand over my eyes. “Why are you naked? Holy shit.”

  “I’m sorry,” he whined. “Some rituals call for purity in the practitioner, sometimes assumed to mean… I thought the ritual would go better if I… never mind. Here, I’ve got my robe on. It’s okay now.”

  I peeled one finger at a time away to behold him in a long chestnut bathrobe. He was a mess. Crazy eyes. Matted hair. Glasses askew.

  I closed the door gently. “You want to tell me just what in the name of all the tiny gods is going on here?”

  “I tried it. I had to try it.” He wiped his face with a brown sleeve.

  “Try what? Swinging? Nudism? What?”

  “The golem ritual.”

  “You what?” I couldn’t keep from shrieking. “How did you even…? Where is the…? Holy shit.” All words failed me. Dorcha growled very softly in reproach. “But you told me…”

  “You don’t understand.” He sat on the edge of a dining chair. His dandelion hair was caked with sweat and muck. “I couldn’t pass this up. Once I thought it could be done, I had to try it. I had to. Don’t you see? I’ve only read about this stuff. My entire career. And the chance to be part of the magic of ritual? I had to. You have to see that.”

  I crossed my arms. “No, I don’t see. But let me take a guess―something went sideways and you need me to clean up the mess. Why didn’t you just call the police? They would have called in the SMARTies. The magic police.”

  He began to protest but sunk back into the chair, defeated. “I didn’t know that. I also don’t know where my phone is.” He looked around, the picture of an absent-minded professor.

  “I’ll call someone. How did you even get the ritual in the first place? I specifically took back the paper.”

  March looked sheepish. “I have an eidetic memory. Between seeing the copy you had, and what I’ve learned over the past forty years, I thought I could work it out. Reverse engineer things, right? I just wanted to do a little one. But something went wrong.”

  There was a crash from down the hall. He cowered. “It’s loose in here,” he whispered, eyes huge. “I can’t get rid of it. I can’t control it either.”

  “Hang on.” I sent a text to Qyll. “Urgent: meet me at Professor Johan March’s condo, 1704 Witherspoon Street. Should probably bring the SMARTies.”

  “Well, let’s go see what we’re dealing with. Lead the way.” I longed for my slouchy yoga pants and the rest of my bourbon, but it would have to wait. “Why are all the lights off?”

  March looked over his shoulder. Somehow even his profile managed more sheepishness. “I thought I could hide better in the dark. I didn’t realize it was still, you know, daytime again.”

  I sighed. Amateur.

  “How long have you been at this?”

  “What’s today?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “Three days? I started Saturday night.”

  He was probably going to need a night in the hospital for dehydration at the very least. Before he got arrested for reckless use of ritual magic, unlicensed spirit summoning, and exposing himself to a lady.

  Like a dead man walking, he led me down a corridor, past his office where we’d talked before. Dorcha’s nose worked overtime. A loud whump on the door at the end of the hall gave a hint as to our destination. March went flat against the wall, pointing, “There. In the guest room.” He turned and squeezed his eyes closed.

  “You big baby,” I muttered as I stomped past him.

  The lights were off, but there was enough sunshine left so the room wasn’t very dark. As soon as the door opened, heavy footsteps schlepped toward me and something leapt at my face.

  Dorcha intercepted it about four inches from my nose.

  “Let’s see what we have here.” I expected something quite a bit more formidable-looking, given the Professor’s state. But when I bent down to shine the light between Dorcha’s paws, I laughed. Honest to goodness laughed, as much from surprise as anything else. It was Barbie-doll sized, with a fairly well-rendered and androgynous face―nostrils, eyebrows, a smile; even the suggestion of clothing.

  “This is what’s gotten your panties in the twist?” I asked over my shoulder. “Did you even try to get the shem out?”

  Dorcha gave a startled growl.

  The cat struggled to keep her paws planted on the thing’s shoulders. Rightly so, because the was… inflating, swelling like a parade ba
lloon. It made this strange gurgling rumble, like a pipe about to burst.

  The golem swiveled its happy little face toward me. It wasn’t so happy anymore. Snakelets slithered out of its head like Medusa’s hair. The eyes narrowed and many sets of teeth grew in the once-smiling mouth. Hands distended to multi-fingered claws. By this time Dorcha and I had backed into the hall, the damn golem grew so tall, its snakes nearly brushed the 15-foot ceiling. Like a terrifying version of Alice in the White Rabbit’s home. It bent down to peer at us.

  There was a yelp behind me. Professor March peeked around the wall from the living room. “You try getting the shem out of that thing. Every time I get close, it freaks out. What do we do?”

  The golem chuckled. I don’t mean like your uncle snickers when someone tells a lame joke. I mean, deeply disturbing, I’m-going-to-skin-you-alive-maybe chuckle.

  I swallowed hard.

  “Who are you?” My voice came out as a strained squeak. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Hey. Buster. Little introductions here?”

  The thing folded itself nearly in half, stepped into the hall, and unfolded again. Impossibly tall and slender, with that leering visage. Dorcha pushed against me, ready to pounce.

  And then it spoke.

  It spoke with a voice made of nightmares and dark corners and places you should never be. “We are called Paraplexius.”

  We?

  It swayed above me like a garish tree. The hall stank of rot and foul earth.

  That was easy. Maybe too easy. “Nice to meet you, sir. Uh, sirs. Ma’ams. May I ask what it is you are doing here?” Get it talking while I figure this out.

  Paraplexius squatted (so help me tiny gods, squatted down). “We come to be free.” He (it? she?) watched us with hollow eye sockets, his breath laced with the smell of rotten eggs.