by A. J. Aalto
I glanced at my phone and saw it was slightly before nine. Only a tad early to wake an old friend who was known to be a Seattle early-bird. I was surprised I still had my old boss’s home phone number in my list, but there it was: Hal Donaldson, Director of Retrocognition at Gold-Drake & Cross. I had retired from GD & C after Batten and I failed to catch Jeremiah Prost, and I wondered if the news that I’d staked Prost in Egypt had reached my ex-coworkers. I certainly hadn’t volunteered the information, but perhaps Chapel had closed the file to strike down the active warrant and save some other hunter from chasing ash.
Hal and I always had a good working relationship, despite the fact that I’m prickly and I’d quit rather suddenly — I’d left a dual-Talented void on the third floor, but had opened up two offices, and there were always fresh DaySitters with stars in their eyes and dreams of solving crimes with law enforcement. The disillusionment usually hit the first or second week. It certainly had for me. GD & C was a pit of despair and paperwork, carefully bottled terror, backstabbing, and constantly shifting political sands. I didn’t miss it, but I missed some of the people. Hal was one of them.
I poked his name and he picked up on the second ring with a cautious, “Donaldson?”
“Is that a question, Hal?” I asked. “Forgetting your name? Working in that place has really fucked you up. You gotta get out.”
“Yeah?” He chuckled. “How is life on the outside, Baranuik?”
“I'm not questioning my identity, just some of my life choices,” I said, echoing his laugh.
“I’ve missed this,” Hal said, and the Blue Sense reported he meant it. “But you didn’t call to trade barbs. What’s up?”
“I need the listings for DaySitters local to the Niagara region. Canadian side.”
“No can do. You didn't hear about the company splitting?”
“News to me.” I pushed away from the Oh Yeah!’s warm wall and started to pace instead. “What happened?”
“Canadians broke away after the last election, worried about changing policies south of the border. Cross walked.”
I let out the requisite heh heh and repeated, “Cross walked. But seriously, any idea which Canuck I might get this from?”
I heard him clicking on a keyboard and he said under his breath, “Let’s plaaaaaay, Which Canuck Is That? Okay, here we go. Huh.” The Blue Sense offered an uneasy jitter. “Well, then.”
Uh oh. “You sound and Feel like I’m not going to like the answer.”
“Don’t pitch yer knickers, Baranuik,” Hal said, and I couldn’t help but wonder how many times I’d heard him say that when I worked for him. Probably fewer than a million, but only by a hair. I didn’t know if that was because I had a tendency to pitch my proverbial knickers or he just loved saying it. “Got some updates from abroad, actually, might pick your brain about a few things.”
“There’s only so much I can say,” I warned, “but if this is quid pro quo for Which Canuck Is That, I suppose we can deal.”
“Heard there was a dust-up between an FBI vampire hunter and House Sarokhanian.” His throat dry-clicked. “Beyond the Pass.”
A dust-up? I pictured Batten’s boot heels kicking in mortal panic against the marble floor as Harry’s fangs drove deep into his throat, and had to squeeze my eyelids shut hard to shake the memory. I started to repeat the official press release statement from the FBI’s Preternatural Crimes Unit, which I had helped draft but which was mostly crafted by Chapel himself, when Hal cut me off.
“Not the official word, we all got the memo. What happened, Baranuik?”
I went for the safe bet: mostly-honest. I was talking to a psychic, after all. “Mark Batten had been seducing me with his sexy ass for years so he could con me into taking him to a place he should never have been. He made a fool of me and tried to avenge the loss of his grandfather. It did not end well for him.”
“Were you responsible for his death?”
I had not anticipated that question and jerked with guilt. Was I? I thought about it, trying to see past my knee-jerk defensive anger. “Not… I mean, I don’t know,” I answered lamely. “I didn’t shoot him, if that’s what you’re asking. I mean, it’s not like I’ve never shot him, but I didn’t shoot him to death.”
Hal’s silent pause was heavy for a moment. “So you only shot him a little. In the past. For different reasons.”
“Let’s go with that.” I nodded, satisfied with my position. To my right, the canal control booth started wailing again to indicate the bridge was coming down, and every driver that had shut off their car to wait started their engines.
“I’m surprised at you,” Hal said. “In more than one way.”
“Haven’t you been reading the rag mags, Hal? I’m maximum-level terrible, and everybody knows it except for you. Now,” I said, “Which Canuck Is That?”
“House Sarokhanian and House Dreppenstedt also had a bit of a showdown?”
Nosy bugger. “Don’t spread it around, but I got the feeling they do that daily. It seemed comfortably, enduringly frosty. No more digging, Hal. Cough up the name.”
I heard a familiar slurp. Hal always had coffee. Hazelnut. Fancy shit. It had been the second-best part of being called into his office. “I need to ask one more question,” he said, “and it’s more of a warning than anything else. Trust me?”
I did and I told him so. “Off the record.”
“Yep. When Sarokhanian and Dreppenstedt do battle, which side does House Nazaire come down on?”
This time, I was not surprised. Every time political nonsense cropped up, there seemed to be a Nazaire in the background, stirring the pot. In the course of doing my job, Malas Nazaire and I flip-flopped between ally and adversary. When I’d been beyond the Bitter Pass to Svikheimslending, he had shown unwavering support for the master of Harry’s bloodline, Crowned Prince of the Blood Wilhelm Dreppenstedt. Malas and Wilhelm had a history of coordinated hunting dating back long before mortals knew the truth about revenants. Together, they had sired Declan Edgar and turned Remy Dreppenstedt, and while Declan himself had chosen to follow Malas as his father figure, it seemed more likely that Remy and Declan were Wilhelm’s creations. Together, they had a relationship that might be difficult for mortals to comprehend. They fed together, they fed off of one another, shared prey and lovers. Their powers complimented each other's, and they enjoyed a healthy rivalry. Throw House Sarokhanian into the mix, and you had a mess of passionate egos and treachery with a whole lot of weight and time behind it.
I said tentatively, “I believe that House Nazaire is friendly with House Dreppenstedt for the most part. I’m going to slap the eighty-twenty rule on that, so your mileage may vary. I mean, I probably wouldn't call them bros.”
“Fair enough,” Hal said. “Then I suppose you know what I’m going to report as the winning answer for Which Canuck Is That?”
I didn’t, not exactly. “Don’t keep me in suspense, Hal.”
“The new Cross branch of Gold-Drake & Cross is homed in Montreal, run by Ewan Sarabia, a Nazaire DaySitter. His revenant is listed as Gautier Dubuisson Nazaire. Sarabia may or may not be open to giving you information, even if his revenant’s house is friendly with your own. You no longer work for the company or for the FBI, correct?”
“Can confirm. I’m working freelance with local cops here,” I said. “Think that’ll gain me any sway?”
“If your cops request that Sarabia send a DaySitter to assist them, the Cross branch will. As to how they’ll deal with an ex-employee? No clue.”
My cops would absolutely not request another DaySitter. They might regret asking the psychic they already had. “Gotcha.”
“Boy,” he said. “After all this, you’re still working cases? You don’t give up, huh?”
“I do it for the applause and public adulation.”
His response was a commiserating snort-laugh. Then he gave me the number for the office in Montreal.
“Thanks for your help.”
“Hey, you scr
atch my back, Baranuik,” he started. “Keep me updated, huh?”
If only I could. “Talk soon.”
I spent a frustrating ten minutes playing voicemail loop-de-loop on Cross Montreal’s poorly managed answering system. I could have switched it over to the French instructions and understood it nearly as well despite it being twenty years since I'd sat through any French lessons in school, but I was feeling stubborn.
I finally got a human being, and was assured that Ewan Sarabia would get back to me at his earliest convenience. The Blue Sense told me she wasn't entirely confident that was the truth.
I hung up and stared across the road at a patch of forest. An unsettled feeling crept into my bones, memories of Father Scarrow, of an angry poltergeist leaving bodies wrapped in icy ectoplasm, of hundreds of lost and lingering ghosts hovering above a frozen pond, drawn back to the land of the living, confused and staring at me with their lost, dead eyes. A shudder wracked me from the core outward. Surely just the weather. Too cold for early October. Just the cold.
(Father Scarrow’s body sprawled in the mud in that dim, stinking tunnel.)
“Nope,” I whispered stubbornly. “Go away.”
(“Don’t put the dolly in the mud…”)
No wonder poor Schenk couldn’t sleep. This entire area was a goddamn trigger. Yet he stubbornly chose to have meetings here. I could be stubborn, too.
“I don’t choose to think about this.” I shifted my thoughts to my friend Elian de Cabrera at the PCU, who had been working hard to teach me positive thinking tricks. Elian’s bright smile, genuine and welcoming. Elian riding his bike to work, even in the dead of winter. Elian’s new helmet, emblazoned with Mickey Mouse ears. “I’m choosing to think about nice things, good things, warm, living things.”
(Soooooo, not Mark Batten. Cuz, you know, he’s cold and undead. Right, Marnie? You watched Harry drain him. You watched it. You watched his hand reach for you across the frigid marble, fingers curling, and that one final, terrified twitch.)
I clenched my back teeth, called my brain an asshole, and texted de Cabrera: Hey. You rock. Just a reminder.
He texted back immediately. Ditto. Doing okay?
Everybody loves me and totally wants to work with me. Both of us knew that was a fib, but neither of us called me on it.
You’re always soooooo popular. Totes jealous! Elian’s text read.
I chuckled and shook my head, and went back inside to order coffee to go while I waited for my ride.
Mr. Merritt had taken some great pictures of the sinkhole outside the cheeky mouse cheese shop, and a blurry picture of the owner, and some pictures of the repair work that had begun. His pictures weren’t satisfactory, Mr. Merritt said, though the Blue Sense pegged that as a little fib; my Combat Butler wanted to spend time with me today, and I wondered if that was because I’d rushed to his defense and insisted he was under my protection. In any case, we drove back, parked on a side-street canopied by centuries-old oak and ginkgo trees, and strolled under the turning leaves, zig-zagging between the streams of tourists. We swung by the cordoned-off cheese shop, gaped alongside the other goggling looky-loos, and then went about browsing elsewhere.
Mr. Merritt proved a delightful shopping companion, as he gently encouraged me to buy everything I looked at for more than half a second. At a hat shop, we modeled for one another, and both bought light summer ones marked down for the turning season. His had a jaunty grey feather, and suited him perfectly. Mine was a black felt bowler. Mr. Merritt’s pale blue eyes twinkled as several shopkeepers greeted him with familiarity, and it was nice to be with someone who felt like low-maintenance family. No drama. No conflict. Just shopping and the occasional snack.
We strolled up one side of the main strip and back down the other, taking our time. Niagara-On-The-Lake was far more crowded than Shaw’s Fist, even in the final throes of tourist season. Lunch was ice cream, even though the temperature outside had dipped below fifty-five and both of us wore gloves. Whereas Grandma Vi and he had been of similar ages and spent time as peers, the Blue Sense reported that Mr. Merritt enjoyed my company as though I was his granddaughter. We circled back to the fudge shop and talked ourselves into two pounds of maple walnut fudge, putting our heads together and chuckling at our own snack-food mischief. By four-thirty, I figured we should head back to North House, and almost didn’t want to.
I could tell through the Bond that Harry was already awake, more than an hour before dusk, and as Mr. Merritt and I drove past my parents' house in Virgil on our way back to North House, I felt Harry’s concern that Wesley was also awake early. I had been hoping to slip into North House, scarf down a cup of espresso, and start rehearsing what I wanted to say when I met Ghazaros Merzyan again without Harry’s input. I knew my Cold Company would already have his back up by the time I got home, and knowing I had a cranky, fretful revenant waiting for me wasn’t the happy ending my previously-spiffy afternoon deserved.
Less than a minute after Harry texted Mr. Merritt, my phone pinged. Against my better judgment, I read it. If I might be permitted to suggest a course of action, darling?
I rolled my eyes and thumbed: on my way.
It was then that my phone lit up with a Montreal area code, and I put on my all-business smile, hoping it would translate to my attitude, or at least my to voice. When Ewan Sarabia introduced himself, I got a good impression of him instantly — his voice was earnest and straightforward, and his responses prompt and open.
“Hey, thanks for getting back to me so quickly,” I said. “I’m in need of a list of local DaySitters here, and I was hoping you could shoot me that info.” I dropped Hal Donaldson’s name, and gave a vague description of Malashock’s phantasm case and my concerns.
Sarabia hemmed and hawed, and then partially demurred. “I understand you feel there is a risk to the public, which is the only reason I’m considering this breach of privacy. Perhaps if this Officer Malashock contacted me personally, I could bend that rule. As an ex-employee, you understand why we can’t just pass out our confidential roster of DaySitters.”
“Yup.” On the one hand, he had a point. On the other, GD & C had left me swinging in the media-fueled breeze of the whole “Great White Shark of Paranormal Investigations” incident, so I wasn't exactly buying his line about confidentiality, either. Like the bigger douche in a zombie apocalypse, the company had gleefully tripped me to save itself and hadn’t spared a backward glance at the frenzied feeding.
He continued, “I will, however, point you to someone who can offer an insider’s view to the revenant power structure in the region. He won’t give you addresses and phone numbers, mind you, but if there’s an individual revenant capable of making people ill by his presence, this informant will know.”
What’s the catch? “He’ll tell me?”
“This particular source is… chatty.” Sarabia hesitated. “It may help, if you can understand what he’s saying.”
“Gee. Is his name Guy Harrick Dreppenstedt?” I asked sourly. “Cuz I overdosed on his unfathomable old-timey chatter about a decade ago.”
“Then you may want to brace yourself,” Sarabia replied without a trace of humor.
“Who is it?”
“His name is Ludovic Baudouin Favre Nazaire, A.N.E.”
Balllllls. My sigh ended in a guttural groan, and I threw my head back against the seatback. “A.N.E.” was industry code for Age Not Estimated, which always meant “so old that we can’t guess accurately” mixed with “so powerful nobody is foolish enough to ask.” Which meant he was likely one of the first revenants Malas turned, perhaps around the time of his Younger, Gregori, who’d been not hundreds but thousands of years old when I’d staked him. That made me indescribably sad, a feeling I was getting too accustomed to lately. It also meant that Ludovic Nazaire was of an age that this territory and its control was an issue for him, and he would likely feel towards Ghazaros the way Harry did — having to be politely submissive to a younger revenant for political reasons might irr
itate the undead bejeezus out of him.
“I don’t know where Mr. Nazaire is living,” he continued, “just that he’s in Southern Ontario. He likes the casino nightlife in Niagara Falls, and it’s said that he gambles compulsively.”
I thought of the words carved on Harry’s headboard – “What is there left to do but play?” – and thought that maybe I might understand Ludovic Nazaire a little. Old money, bored, powerful, bombarded with warm temptation, now living only for the hedonistic thrills at his fingertips.
“If you ask around about Mr. Nazaire at his favorite haunts, he’ll hear, and if he’s interested, he’ll find you.” Sarabia paused. “He’ll be interested. He’ll want to talk. Getting him to stop talking is the issue.”
“Great. One last thing, if it’s not too much trouble,” I said, thinking of Constable Schenk. “Therapists with an eye for sleep issues and PTSD in paranormal investigations working in the region?”
“A few. I’ll text you the contact information. Give this Malashock person my information, if you need to.”
“I owe you. Give me a shout if you ever need anything, Ewan.” He promised he would, and we ended on that. I asked Mr. Merritt, “Do you like casinos, Combat Butler?”
“Not especially,” he said, turning onto the Parkway. “Do you, Madam?”
“I’ve been known to gamble,” I admitted.
He shot me a look full of grandfatherly worry. “I trust that Madam knows when to risk it all and when to play things cautiously.”
“Wanna bet?” I asked, throwing his double-take a broad wink.
When we pulled into the driveway, a curtain in the Winter Room twitched. Harry’s displeasure sluiced through the Bond in a bitter trickle; he did not want to go play nicey-nice with Sarokhanian’s second in command, and he was going to whine at me about it.
I wrestled with the bag of fudge desultorily. “Why do I have to be the responsible adult to a bunch of pouty, centuries-dead, foot-stomping diaper-babies?”