Aspen (12 page)

A short maze of concrete-sided pathways led them far to the side of the church and into a parking lot. The street lights glowed and reflected off of three old, rusted hulks that had once been a trio of vehicles parked in the lot. A loud crash made them look back, but all they could see was the bulk of the church. Aspen could only assume that the door had finally given way and the creature was now running amok within.

“Hanging around with you is no picnic. Is life with you and your Mistress always like this?” Jynx asked.

Aspen grinned lopsidedly. “It’s certainly never dull.”

Jynx stepped onto the sidewalk and slowed. “So why did you leave?”

It was a question Aspen didn’t want to answer. But talking seemed to help keep the fear at bay.

“I love her. And I think she loves me, but she also loves her partner, Rupert. I thought some time away might, I don’t know, make her heart grow fonder or something,” she said.

“Partner? Like, she’s married?”

Aspen shook her head. “No, Raven is a cop. Lead detective for Chicago Homicide.”

Jynx stopped. “Your Mistress, who is a Fürstin, is also a police detective? I have to meet this chick.”

Aspen smiled proudly. “Yes. And her partner is Rupert Levac. They have feelings for each other, but agreed not to pursue them. They are better as partners.”

“Makes sense. Sex can get in the way of doing the job.” Jynx stopped. “So, you came down here from Chicago hoping she would come after you?”

Aspen felt the blush in her cheeks. “Something like that, yes. But it hasn’t gone exactly the way I planned.”

Jynx started walking again. “That’s just about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, Asp. When we get out of this, you call her and tell her how you feel. Be honest. If she loves you back, you’ll find a way to make it work.”

Aspen’s blush turned to anger. “Why should I take the advice of a kid who hunts monsters for a living? What makes you the relationship guru?”

Jynx turned and there was fire in her eyes. “I’m not. But just a year ago I lost my dad, I lost my brother and I lost the man I loved, all in one night. The thing I regret, the thing that keeps me up at night, is I didn’t tell them. The last words I said to my boyfriend were in anger. Life is too damn short not to tell the people you love how you fucking feel.”

Aspen’s face softened and she stepped closer. “Jynx, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“You couldn’t have. Come on, let’s get to the hotel before anything else decides we look like dinner.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Old Town, Chicago, IL: 9:00 p.m.

Marie’s Curiosities had been a part of Old Town for as long as Raven could remember. It sat in the middle of the block, a Victorian storefront with wide glass windows covered in curtains and a single door with a frosted glass front. The bell over the door rang when Raven entered, setting Marie’s pet magpie, Quoth, into a fit of squawking and name-calling that Raven ignored. He’d been calling her a ‘shoplifting brat’ since she was ten.

She moved through the shelves laden with homeopathic remedies, pots of dried herbs and flowers, and the odd bubbling things in jars that she had never been able to identify to the counter at the back of the store. As if on cue, Marie stepped through the beaded curtain and smiled.

“Raven, my child, so good to see you!”

Marie’s voice was rich, deep and melodious, a happy thing that matched her bright yellow dress and headwrap.

“Hi Marie, how are things?”

Marie plucked two hand-painted cups from the tray behind her and filled them with tea from a steaming pot. “Things are things. Business is reasonable, life is good. I have heard you have a new familiar. When do I get to meet him?”

Raven shrugged. “You already know Rupert and things are a little weird with the familiar thing right now, its best if we don’t make a big thing of it.”

Marie offered a cup to Raven and sipped from the other. “Not him. The other one, your mother let slip there was a full ceremony for your newest familiar.”

Raven toyed with her cup, but didn’t drink. “He’s a she. Her name is Aspen and she’s out of town right now. I’ll introduce you when she gets back.”

Marie leaned forward and looked into Raven’s eyes. “Is something wrong? I sense a hint of sorrow in you.”

Raven raised her tea to her lips and drank. The brew was fragrant and strong, a mix of cinnamon and black tea that was considered to provide healing and energy. She savored the sweet drink then set it aside. “I didn’t think she would be gone so long, that’s all. I miss her.”

Marie continued to stare a moment longer, then her wide mouth broke into another smile. “My child has feelings for her, for this Aspen. It is about time, Du Guerre was no good for you!”

“It isn’t like that, Marie. She’s my friend and my familiar, I wouldn’t be much of a Mistress if I didn’t miss her,” Raven said.

Marie shook her head. “You may tell yourself that, Ravenel, but I know better. It shows in your eyes. Call her and bring her home.”

Raven had to admit that she was tempted. She could feel the kid out there, somewhere, and she missed her. But she had work to do.

“Can we talk about something else?”

Marie sighed. “As you wish, Child. What brings you to my door this night, if it is not your love?”

Raven pulled the photo out of her pocket and placed it on the counter. “Do you recognize this symbol?”

Marie turned it for a better look. She then nodded and the look on her face was not a good one. “I do. It is the five-fold circle, an ancient symbol of balance, of justice. Where did you get it?”

“It was tattooed on the right shoulder of a man that tried to kill me and Rupe this morning.”

Marie nodded and rubbed her lip with one finger. “Tell me, girl. This man, did he have companions?”

Raven put the photo back in her pocket. “Yeah, seven of them. They exploded like vampires when I shot them, but the ash was shiny, like fine glitter. Do you know what they are?”

“The Gallowglass,” Marie said, then spat as if the word itself was distasteful.

“The who?”

“The Gallowglass,” Marie repeated. “Gallowglass Knights. Like you, they bring the weight of the law, but there is no justice in it. They hunt Faeries that can challenge the current king’s right to rule.”

Raven stared at her. “Faeries. Are we talking about the little winged things about the size of a toy doll?”

Marie smiled and began sorting through the tomes behind the counter. “That is but one of their forms. In the Faewild, yes, most have wings and are perhaps five feet tall. In our world, what they call the Earthrealm, they are human. Or at least human looking.”

She pulled down a tome and placed it on the counter. The open page was a charcoal drawing of a humanoid woman with butterfly wings. She was nude, save for a sash around her waist. Raven examined the drawing then flipped to the next page, which looked like a map of some huge forest.

“What is the Faewild if it isn’t part of Earth?”

“Your father neglected your studies. The Faewild is as much a part of Earth as any other. It isn’t as much a ‘where’ as a ‘when.’ It is a primordial forest that exists in the time between now and then,” Marie said.

Raven fought to keep her annoyance off her face. “You’re talking in riddles.”

Marie shrugged. “When it comes to the Fae, it is the only way to talk. Much like the Veil, where lost souls exist, the Faewild is a place that exists atop ours. It is populated by the Fae, who used to be a kind and carefree people. Many years ago, the rightful king was murdered, as were all his descendants, and a regent rose to power. He took the Gallowglass, who previously were simply police, and tasked them with hunting down anyone who would oppose his will.”

“He sounds like a swell guy. What would they want with humans?”

Marie put the book away. “Ravenel, vampires are not the only ones who may give birth to half breeds. Many humans carry Fae blood, more even than carry vampire or lycan. I would suspect anyone who has the attention of the Gallowglass is a distant cousin of the murdered king. He is paranoid and sadistic, more interested in power than anything else. His people are simply being thorough and killing anyone who carries royal blood.”

Raven shook her head. “Not in my city.”

Marie smiled. “That is why I love you, Ravenel. Your sense of justice is immutable. I take it from what you said, you already dealt with them?”

“Some, but maybe not all. They had more than one target. They killed the first one and were hunting the second when Rupe and I stopped them. If there are more, how would I know?”

Marie shrugged. “Not easily, child. In our world they are nearly identical to us. If you had their blood and a witch, you could enchant a followstone. Otherwise, it will be like finding anyone else in this city. You will have to use your experience and seek them out.”

“Marvelous.”

Raven pulled a fifty-dollar bill from her pocket and placed it on the counter. “Thank you for the tea.”

She had a hand on the door when Marie called after her. “Will you contact your familiar? This Aspen?”

Raven didn’t look back. “No. Not right now, anyway. Not until I know she is safe. Goodnight.”

She stepped out into the night and looked up at the sky. The odd purple-black clouds were still swirling, and they gave her a bad feeling. Something wasn’t right and it was worse than some Faeries hunting where they didn’t belong. There was something else, a sense of danger she couldn’t place.

But the priority was to make sure Aspen and anyone else with dormant Fae blood was safe from the Faerie Gestapo. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and pressed a number she could dial in her sleep. It was picked up almost immediately.

“Levac.”

“Rupe, it’s me. Who do we know in town who makes quality fake id’s?” Raven asked.

Levac was thinking. She could hear him tapping his teeth with what was likely a takeout chopstick. “The quality we found on the eight stooges? Only one guy. Oliver Becker. He works out of a—”

“Jewelry store on the loop,” Raven said. “I encountered him when I was with vice, but I thought he left the business and went legit.”

“He did. But word is, when the recession hit and sales went down, he returned to his old ways. Murtaugh had some of his good about a week ago,” Levac said.

“Meet me at the Donut Vault, we’re going to go have some words with him.”

II

Devil’s Lake, MO, 1:00 a.m.

The Grand Hotel had never lived up to the name. It was a six-story monolith that stood in the center of town, a grey shadow only somewhat taller than the others with the letters Grand Hotel picked out around the top in white letters. The building faced the main street, with a pair of doors just a few steps from the pavement. A single light, the kind with a metal shade and steel support popular in noir films, beamed a pitiful yellow glow onto the entryway. A smear of blood so old it was black, covered the wall to the right of the doors and continued across the sidewalk where it vanished into a noisome storm drain. Aspen tried the door. It opened with effort and jammed against the sidewalk.

Inside, the lobby was a mess. It had once been well appointed, for a small rural hotel, with a large registration desk, two brass-doored elevators and a coffee shop that opened into the lobby. Now, the tables were upturned and shattered, the chairs lay in disarray and the elevator doors were painted with the words ‘No Hope’.

Rather than risk the rickety elevators, Aspen led the way through the side door and up the stairs, which were dirty and smelled strongly of old urine. When they reached the third floor, she pulled the fire door open and braced it with a rusty nail that appeared to have been left for just that reason.

The third floor hallway led the length of the hotel and met a secondary corridor just beyond the center, forming a cross. The carpet was off-green with a pattern that made it look like a cheap Persian knockoff and the walls were of torn flowered wallpaper so faded it was hard to tell what color the flowers had been. They were now a sort of washed-out red, like old blood.

Aspen started down the hallway, her light held high. The corridor was almost devoid of debris, save for dust that had fallen from the flaking ceiling and piles of ash that rested against the walls. Most of the room doors were open and it was clear they had been ransacked for anything useful. Bedsheets, towels, mirrors and toiletries had all been scavenged at some unknowable time in the past. It was so bare that Aspen felt as if some kind of apocalypse had happened, and somehow they hadn’t noticed.

“I don’t get this,” Jynx said. “This town was supposed to have been evacuated due to a mine fire, right? They somehow ignited sulfurous coal and couldn’t put it out.”

Aspen shined her light into yet another abandoned room. “Yes, that’s what all the reports I could find said.”

Jynx looked at her. “So who scavenged everything? Not the nosferatu, they don’t have the brains of your average squirrel, and not Martel, he’s only been missing a few days. These rooms have been open for decades.”

Aspen cocked her head. “It isn’t like the town was walled off or something, Jynx. People have been coming here for years to debunk the ghost stories. Come on, tell me you never took a bath towel or something as a souvenir from a hunt.”

Jynx looked away. “If I’m honest, most of our towels back home were borrowed from hotels we stayed at during hunts, but that’s because I like the thread count. But really? The sheets and everything too? You don’t think that’s just a little weird?”

“Have you seen what’s for sale on Ebay? People will buy toast with Jesus on it.”

Aspen stopped at the last door in the hallway and pulled the key out of her pocket. The door was different than the others. Where they were dirty and looked as if they’d been wedged open for a hundred years not just fifty some-odd years, this door was worn and well-used. The key slid into the lock as if it had done so hundreds of times. But she had to wiggle it in the mechanism to make the door open. She pushed it aside and looked into a room that looked much more like a loved apartment than an old motel room. It looked as if it had once held two beds, but now there was only one. The rest of the space included a scavenged desk and chair so worn the stuffing was held in place with duct tape. All around the desk were bedsheets that had been torn into pieces about the size of an average white board and they were covered with black script.

“One mystery solved,” Jynx said.

The bed was clean, the bathroom was used, but clean and contained a collection of toiletries scavenged from other rooms.

Aspen started sorting through the pile of fabric.

“What language is this? It’s like a cross between hieroglyphics and Dr. Zhu’s autopsy reports,” she muttered.

The writing was difficult to decipher, but it looked as if two different people had been using the cloth to keep notes about the town and something they called “the other”. She could tell by the loops and whirls of the writing that one of the people had been a man, the other female.

She sorted the pile of cloth into two sets and placed one on the floor, the other on the bed. She then started going through the desk. It looked like the kind of furniture that might have been in an executive office, at least until the fire. Then it had been moved here. The center drawer contained a map of the town cobbled together from everything from road maps to the low-detail things given to tourists at rest areas. It looked as if the pair had explored the town very thoroughly, with several areas circled and labeled with simple words. “Danger” and “No Exit” were the most common.

“They were busy, they did all this in just a few days,” Aspen said.