“You called Qyll?”
“That’s probably why they were so late getting here. And now, if you’ll, excuse me, I’ve got some things to do.”
Qyll appeared as Gideon sauntered off. “So glad you could make it. It’s a good thing nobody was dying. OH WAIT. WE WERE.” I planted my fists on my hips.
“Tessa, I apologize. In my defense, someone put an abscondia hex on the whole area. I walked to the road to call the SMART team and by the time I got back, it was like nothing was here.”
I frowned. “What’s an abscondia hex?”
“Like a giant cloaking device. You can’t find the place you want to find.”
My irritation faded a little. “Who did that?”
He sighed. “Probably Ann. Possibly her summoned entity.” I remembered Ann smoothing over her magic circle after I broke in. “So, what happened?”
“Charlie was mostly dead. The golem possessed him. Ann got her conscience back right after she turned into what I’ve just learned is called a ‘Mormo,’ then she kicked the golem Demon’s ass back to hell. Then she died. You know. The usual.”
We watched the SMARTies load Ann’s body in a huge black van. Just before she disappeared into its shadowy recesses, I pulled out the amethyst. There was no blue swirl over her head. Gideon returned from his walkabout, and I shoved the stone at him.
“Huh.” He squinted through it.
“What? What do you see?”
He handed the gem back. “She kept most of it. The soul. That’s going to make for one interesting afterlife.”
Gideon looked around as though just noticing the flames and smoldering trees. “Good heavens,” he muttered, waving a hand. The fire went out, but acrid smoke still rose all around. “Excuse me, sir? We need a fire hose here, pronto.” And he was off again to bug someone else.
“Are you all right?” Qyll asked softly, stepping closer.
I nodded slowly, then he reached up to my face, brushing my cheek. It hurt. His fingertips came away bloodied. “You’ll need to have that seen to. I expect it will scar.”
I felt the place where my skin parted, blood seeping out.
“Agents?” Pryam appeared from the trees, wearing an impossibly crisp navy suit and cream top. Heels, per usual.
“Nasty cut there, Reddick.” She pointed at my face. “Other than that, you’ll both live.”
“Next time, can I have the easy job? Where I get to sit on the bench, then swoop in and save everybody?”
“I’ll make a note of that,” Pryam deadpanned.
Things happened in a blur. The fire trucks came and dealt with the lingering flames. SMARTies milled around. The remaining Humans were taken to the hospital to be checked out and questioned. Charlie was, of course, the first to be whisked to an ER.
Dorcha put her paw on my foot and when I looked down, she mewed, butting me with her head. “You okay?” I knelt and hugged her. She purred. “Go on.” I scratched her ears. “I’m fine.” She made her way into the trees where she faded into the coming dawn.
The clearing was roped off, and media representatives were shooed away.
I answered questions and nodded. Someone handed me a cup of terrible coffee, which I downed quickly. Another someone gave me water. Yet another, in an ambulance, cleaned and bandaged the cut on my face, which ran from my right temple along my cheekbone to my hairline. “You’re lucky you didn’t lose an eye,” the EMT murmured.
“Yeah? You should have seen the other guy,” I countered weakly.
Two days later, I was in Pryam’s office, finishing up paperwork. After signing what felt like two hundred forms, I put everything in a big manila envelope, sealed it, and dropped it on her desk with a satisfying thump.
She regarded me with golden-brown eyes that were not unfriendly. On her desk lay a copy of my preliminary statement.
“Glad to see you are all right.” She leaned back in her desk chair.
“Gonna have a neat story to tell about this scar.”
“I’ve never had the chance to observe a,” she glanced down, “Mormo. That must have been something.”
I gave a noncommittal shrug. “Gonna have a neat story about that too.”
She sifted through the pages. “Ann will be considered a half-blooded Other and Human from now on. Ann’s remains. Rather odd, that. At least, Charlie is now back to fully Human. Still, even if he lives, this is going to be a long and messy clusterfuck to put to rights.”
Pryam, using unprintable language? If the world hadn’t been rushing to Hell in a hand basket before, it was certainly well on the way to doing it now.
I chose to ignore all that in favor of the more pressing matter.
“Is he? Going to live, I mean? Do we know?” I admit, I was almost afraid of the answer.
“He’s in critical but stable condition.”
“Oh. Good.”
“Moving on. You might be pleased to know our budget has been approved for the coming year.”
My eyebrows sprung up.
Pryam nodded. “I can’t tell if they’re trying to give us enough rope to hang ourselves, or someone had some kind of coming-to-Jesus moment. Either way, we are all still here. At least, for the time being. With that, I am suggesting you take a leave.”
“But―” She silenced me with a finger.
“In case you didn’t catch that, Reddick, it’s not really a suggestion. It’s an order.” Before I could make another squawk of protest, she kept going. “Paid leave. For two months. I knew it wasn’t such a good idea to put you in the field so quickly, but I didn’t think I had another choice. Stay home. Run your shop. Catch up on old episodes of Charmed. Whatever. But you’re on leave. You may turn in your credentials.”
It didn’t sound so bad, a little vacation. A paid one. But I didn’t want her to know that so I made a big show of looking pissed as I went to pull out my badge. While I don’t think you’d call what I did “slamming” it down, I definitely placed it purposely and with meaning on her desk.
“Before I go, I’m curious about a couple of things.” I sat in the chair in front of the desk. “Do you mind?”
“You had ten minutes. Now you have five. I have a meeting.”
“Why did the FBI get me out of Lakeland?”
Her face was inscrutable. “To help us with our work.”
“Yeah, but why me? I was kind of a security risk, don’t you think? I mean, you didn’t know who you were dealing with.” I kept trying to read something in her eyes or catch a glimpse of what she was thinking, but Constance Pryam is like Fort Knox for emotions.
“I’ll be frank with you. You were a security risk. And the protective charms we put on your apartment included a warning system. Something to alert us should you go off the rails.”
Before I got a breath in she went on. “You can’t possibly think we wouldn’t have done that, Reddick.”
I settled down. Score one for Pryam.
“And the truth is, I wasn’t a fan of this plan. But the directive came from higher up. I’m not at liberty to discuss from whom, and even if I did know why, I couldn’t tell you that, either.”
“Are you going to keep the magical wiretap on me?”
Her face broke into a smile. “Yes. We are. See you in two months, Agent Reddick. And one more thing.”
I put a hand on my hip.
“Nice work.”
I rolled my eyes and snorted, pivoting on my heels before she could see the flames of embarrassed pride crawl up my face.
Qyll sat at his desk as I passed. “Hey,” I said.
We hadn’t talked or seen each other since the whole golem debacle.
“Agent Reddick,” he said, as though nothing unusual had ever happened in his life. “What brings you out this fine day?”
“Paperwork.”
“Ah. And how is your wound? Not terribly painful, I hope.”
As he spoke, I found myself wondering what it would be like to kiss him. Are Dark Elves’ lips warm? Cool?
It too
k me a minute to reply. “What? Oh. Yeah. Whatever. Listen, I’m furloughed for a while. Boss’s orders.”
“She mentioned as much. Things are rather quiet here, I’m sure you won’t miss anything.”
I hesitated, then sat in the chair by his desk. “I’ve been thinking about Ann Bartley. I feel bad for her.”
Qyll looked up. “Why would you feel bad for her?”
I sighed. “She wanted so badly to be a mother. I mean, that’s what started this whole thing. That’s the root of her pain. She’s fucked up because she’s grieving. I lost my mother. That could happen to me, that anger. It could change me, you know, like it changed her. Warped her.” The words came before I had a chance to think about what they meant. Every syllable leapt from my heart straight past my lips.
His eyes softened. “No.” He shook his head gently and put his hand on my arm. “You are very different from Ann Bartley, Tessa. You do not nourish anger in a manner allowing something that grotesque to bloom.”
He seemed to notice me noticing his hand on my arm and removed it. “Besides, I think your Malakim friend is right. What happened with Ann shouldn’t have gotten that far. It’s troubling, to say the least. But,” he said lightly, “it’s none of your concern for a while, is it?”
I blinked. Then nodded.
After a minute, and unsure what to say next, I stood up. “Walk me to the car?”
Once we were safely outside―no protesters were allowed within 1,000 feet of the building anymore―I said, “I have to get back to Antaura. Remember? If I tell her Ann’s name, she’ll tell me about my family.”
He sighed. “You left yourself no choice, did you?”
I gaped. “Are you kidding? She left me no choice. It was kind of between death… or death! If I don’t ‘fess up, I’m a goner.”
“Right. When are you planning this little outing?”
I grinned. “How about now?”
“If he for certain met with the Devil and cheated him of his Book, wherein were written all the Witches names in England, he can look on any Witch, and tell by her countenance what she is. His help then, is from the Devil.”
―Matthew Hopkins, The Discovery of Witches
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
nn Renee Smith Bartley.” Antaura’s weird accent took a pretty normal set of sounds and made it into something out of a scary movie. Her green eyes fixed on me.
We were in what I think was the Queen of Hearts’ version of a Champagne Room, though the stage (thank all the tiny gods) was empty. Qyll and I sat a small table across from the Red Queen, who wore her Human look―the sheet of white-blond hair, white-less emerald eyes, gauzy dress.
After what felt like an eternity, she spoke again. “You have done well, Tessa. It’s good to reward honor. And I am a fair businesswoman.” She spread her hands magnanimously.
“Your family is descended from the goddess herself,” she began.
“Wait, which one? There are thousands of goddesses.”
Irritation flickered over the Demon’s features. “The First Goddess. The one from whom all life sprang in all ages and all places. Entrusted with the secrets of life, all of you.”
I frowned. “I don’t know any secrets of life. Trust me. I wouldn’t have spent five years in a psych ward and my family wouldn’t be dead if I knew the secrets of life.”
Qyll touched my arm. “Perhaps you could let her finish,” he said quietly. I crossed my arms.
“Go on.”
“The night your kinswomen perished, there was a ritual completed with magic on a scale that has been rarely seen.”
“You mean in Earth?”
She shook her head. “Ever. In the history of this world, of Otherwhere, Heaven, Hell, all of them. There are perhaps a scant half dozen times this sort of thing has occurred and never by the hand of a Witch.”
I glanced at Qyll. “So someone let off a magical nuclear bomb?”
“More like three or four nuclear bombs.” Her eyes glittered.
“Why would anyone do that?”
She shrugged. “To cover something up. To reveal something hidden. Sometimes it’s just to say, ‘Look what I have done.’ But if you want to know why something happened, you’d best learn what it was, yes?”
I had no clue what she meant. There was a fire. End of story. Right? Or…?
“One more thing, dear. Call it a bonus. Look in your books for the one who calls himself the Witchfinder General.” I drew in a breath to fire back an obvious question, but Antaura forestalled it with a languidly raised hand and a canny smirk. “And on that note, I consider my obligation discharged. Anything else, and I will have to start a counter against you for the information. Do let me know your currency of choice?”
Clearly, I wasn’t about to enter into any more bargains with the demons, so after I had that clue, and Antaura dismissed me, I couldn’t get home to my library fast enough. Qyll asked if I wanted help, and I shook my head. “Nope, I’ll call if I need anything.”
He let me go with a fleeting smile and a fairly obvious (in retrospect), “I can dig around the FBI files, if you’d like. We did run a rather thorough background check on the Reddicks prior to springing you from Lakeland. I will warn you, SI is still quite new, and there are not a lot of files digitized. Archives keeps a pretty tight lock on the old hard copies.”
“Oh, yeah.” I smiled. “That’s actually a good idea. Thanks!”
None of the family grimoires I usually consulted had any clue about this Witchfinder General person. Neither did the ones I didn’t usually consult. I started going through the books of shadow. None of my favorites were any help. Pages upon pages of handwriting and illustrations, notes and sketches. Papers folded up and shoved in randomly. Languages and dialects and idioms. Nothing mentioning a Witchfinder General. Or anything similar. I wished I had a librarian who knew all the books. Of course, if wishes were horses.
At some point, I nodded off on a pile of dusty tomes.
When I woke, it was dusk. I stumbled around the apartment, showered, dressed in a tank and jeans, and sat on the couch, not sure what I had gotten dressed for. Dorcha sat on the floor staring at me.
“What?” I asked. “Spit it out.” She sort of growl-purred and ducked her head. I leaned my head on the cushion behind me. “I don’t know what to do either.”
I took stock of what I had. Qyll was searching the FBI files. Pryam didn’t know I was on the hunt for anything, and thought I was on vacation, so I couldn’t ask her. The Demon Queen had fulfilled her promise and not only not killed me, but given me a clue, and I so didn’t want to rack up any more debt. Papa Myrtle wasn’t an option. Bathsheba would likely stew me for dinner. I was rich in questions and poor in helpful resources.
Wait.
I sat up.
“The Three Libras.” Dorcha flicked her tail. “Oh, you thought of it first? Well, fine. I’ll buy you some salmon. Come on. After what happened last time, I think I need a bodyguard.”
I hoped that my previous kerfuffle wasn’t going to be a problem. Nobody told me to never come back…
There was a totally new set of staff at the bar. New bouncer. New bartenders. Didn’t see Nona. I didn’t wear my cloak on account of the warm night, plus it was a little worse for the wear after its brush with death by dirt. But I made sure I had a few spells handy on the tip of my tongue and my witchy bag of tricks. Just in case.
The door guy looked a little confused when he saw Dorcha.
“She’s with me,” I said casually. He finally shrugged and waved us in.
As luck would have it, Victor Funar was sitting by the jukebox, a glass of his vile, beloved palinka in front of him. I slid over with my back to the room.
He looked mildly surprised to see me and more surprised to see Dorcha.
“Witchfinder General. Talk.”
Victor choked on the drink. “What?”
“You heard me. Tell me what you know?”
His corpse-purple skin went even paler. “I haven’t hear
d anyone mention the Witchfinder in a hundred years,” he whispered. “Why the question so suddenly?”
“Let’s just say I have a vested interest.”
He stared at my face. Not taking his eyes off me, Victor drained his glass and signaled for the waitress. When she came, he ordered a whole bottle of the stuff. I put in my usual and a salmon dinner for the cat―“raw and wriggling.”
In a low voice, he started. “They show up for periods of time, killed the coven, and retreat. Saint Augustine. King James. Gaius Paulinus. Cotton Mather. Matthew Hopkins. All of them, they have this title. But, Tessa, there have been no sightings since Jack the Ripper.”
I’d never heard of a couple of those guys, but Jack? I’d heard of him. Who hadn’t? “I thought Jack the Ripper killed prostitutes.”
Victor drank his palinka. “True. But they were prostitutes who were part of a coven. They were called the Tribe of Diana. Sex witches.” He grinned briefly, showing his wretched teeth. “Jack was brought in by the Crown of England, they say. Why do you think Victorians were so uptight? Sex coven didn’t have a chance to get going.”
“You are blowing my mind. Are you lying? No, wait. Are you drunk?” I demanded.
Victor let out a chuckle. “No, not drunk. You come in here with a serious question, I am giving the answer. The Witchfinder General comes to this realm when there are powerful Witches. He kills them, he goes back.”
“Goes back to where?”
“Nobody knows. I heard once, maybe the Edge.”
“What’s that?”
“Tessa, please. It’s just old stories.”
“What’s the Edge?” I persisted.
“The end of Otherwhere.” He shrugged again. “Not Earth. It’s certainly not Human. Definitely Other. You know, I met a Witchfinder in Briton. Oliver Cromwell.”
It was my turn to laugh. And laugh and laugh and laugh. After a minute, Victor started to look downright hurt. “What is funny? I met him. He was a Witchfinder General. Killed thousands of Catholics in Ireland. Catholicism was witchcraft with nicer clothes. Do you know how this world would have been different if those witches had been allowed to live?”
Muddy Waters (Otherwhere Book 1) Page 25