Crushed (City of Eldrich Book 2) (12 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

O
wen’s sleek BMW
convertible was too small to carry them all, so they commandeered Edna’s enormous Crown Victoria. Sid and Jhoro didn’t know how to drive and Owen could only drive with the adaptive equipment he had in his own car. That left Meaghan and Annie, but Meaghan felt so exhausted she wasn’t sure she’d be safe behind the wheel. She climbed into the backseat with Jhoro and Sid, leaving Owen and Annie to navigate.

Jhoro was big and warm and solid next to her. She put her head on his shoulder and said, “Let me shut my eyes for a minute.”

When Meaghan woke up, she found herself alone in the car. She looked out the window for the others, but couldn’t see anyone. Trees crowded around the small clearing where the car was parked. She vaguely recognized her surroundings, but it definitely wasn’t the clearing where Finn was buried.

Then she saw a shimmer on the other side of the clearing and within it a distant figure walking across a barren plain. That’s why the place looked familiar. She wasn’t awake. She was dreaming. Someone from the other side wanted to chat.

She stepped out of the car. While she hoped to see her father, she wasn’t surprised when the figure resolved into a young man with dark brown dreadlocks. And wings.

Finn.

He smiled and raised his hand. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You speak English?”

“No. Is that what you’re hearing? I’m speaking Fahrayan.”

“But I’m hearing English.”

“Yet I hear you speak Fahrayan. Even without the requisite number of vocal cords.”

“Curious,” Meaghan said.

“Not really,” he said in a soft voice. “Death tends to erase such differences. We aren’t really speaking to each other in any case. This is happening in a dream.”

“Yes, I’m aware. Which means you don’t have a lot of time to say what you’ve come to say.”

He shook his head. “No. Is he well?”

Meaghan knew he meant Jhoro. “At the moment, no, not particularly, but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. Ignoring grief only makes it worse. As much as he hurts now, he’ll be better for it.”

“You take good care of him. Like a mother. Thank you.”

“You miss him.”

Finn nodded. “They say that passes, but it hasn’t yet.”

“I’m so sorry you had to die.”

He shrugged. “It was my time. Nothing could change that.”

“It must be hard to see him with Marnie.”

“Unexpected, certainly.” Finn smiled for a moment, then grew serious again. “But death takes all that away. Resentment, jealousy, disappointment—it all fades.”

“All of it?”

“Everything but the love. The love stays.” He looked away, his face sad. “The love stays.” He turned his attention back to Meaghan. “There isn’t much time. You have questions to ask.”

“You saw the wizards take Marnie?”

Finn nodded. “I did.”

“Do you know why?”

“A sacrifice. To bring something evil into this world.”

Meaghan frowned. “Jamie’s not the sacrifice?”

“No, he’s the conduit.”

“So, the Order isn’t going to kill him?”

Finn shook his head. “They don’t need to. He won’t survive their passage.”

“Whose passage? The Order?”

“No. The wizards serve what’s coming.”

“That thing inside V’hren?” Meaghan shuddered involuntarily.

“No. Things long trapped that want to break free.”

She waited for him to say more.
I don’t have time to play twenty questions.
When Finn failed to fill the silence, she sighed and asked, “Trapped where? How?”

“A place between the worlds.”

“Where that thing inside V’hren went? Is he one of them?”

“He serves them, but he’s only a shadow of his masters.”

Meaghan felt a stab of fear. “So these things are worse?”

Finn nodded. “Much worse.”

She shuddered again. Her first encounter with the Power, when she’d had her drug-induced psychic skills, had been bad enough. “So do those sigils they carved into Jamie summon them?”

“They don’t need to be summoned. They’ve been waiting for millennia. But they need a way in. The sigils are the spell needed to open the way.”

“But why now? And why Jamie?”

“The fulfillment of a prophecy.”

Meaghan scowled. “Prophecy is nothing more than hindsight and good guessing. I don’t believe in prophecy.”

Finn smiled. “As was prophesied. Prophecies are tricky things, though. Your father told me to tell you to use your head and find the . . . loopholes? Am I saying that correctly?”

Now Meaghan smiled. “Good old Dad. Once a lawyer, always a lawyer. Yeah, you’re saying it correctly.”

A prophecy, she thought. Great. More cryptic, mystic nonsense. She didn’t bother to ask him the details. He’d merely smile enigmatically and tell her he couldn’t talk about it. “You see my father a lot?”

Finn didn’t disappoint her. “I only spoke with him once, not long after I died. I can’t really tell you more than that.”

“Of course you can’t. Any suggestions on how to get Marnie back?”

“Help is coming. But you have work to do before it arrives.”

“Help from where?”

Finn looked over his shoulder and then turned back to Meaghan. “My time is up. I wish I could tell you more, but . . .” He shrugged.

“Yeah, I know. No peeking beyond the veil. That would make it too easy.”

“Keep him safe,” Finn said.

The dream dissolved into the sound of gentle tapping. Meaghan jerked awake and saw a face smiling at her through the car window.

A woman about Meaghan’s age, with wild black curls threaded with a few white hairs, stood outside the car. Meaghan, still fuzzy with sleep, gazed at her, confused. Where the hell was she?

Annie appeared behind the woman and waved.

Meaghan opened the door and climbed out of the backseat.

They were in the clearing where Finn was buried. Owen and Sid stood on either side of Jhoro, who sat by the stone at the head of the grave with his face in his hands. Sid had his small, blue hand on Jhoro’s shoulder.

“No luck,” Annie said. “There’s no sign of him.” She gestured at the woman with the curly hair. “This is Ruth Greene. Ruth, meet Meaghan.”

Meaghan stared a moment, her head still fuzzy with sleep. “Sorry,” she finally said. “I fell asleep and I’m not waking up very quickly.” She didn’t want to say anything about her dream until she knew who this woman was. “Um, Ruth, I don’t mean to be rude, but . . . who are you and why are you here?”

“Owen didn’t tell you?” Ruth sighed. “He told me you knew all about us. I’m here to help you with the Fahrayans. Owen didn’t tell you any of this?”

That was fast.
But Finn had also said they had work to do before the help arrived, so he probably hadn’t been talking about Ruth Greene.

“He gave me a proposal this morning, but I haven’t had a chance to read it. You know what’s going on here?”

“Love is in the air, and it’s starting to stink. There’s a missing witch?”

“Yeah,” Meaghan said. “Sorry to be so blunt, but who are you? Who do you work for?”

Ruth shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

“Simplify it for me.”

“Basically I work for an agency that deals with magical . . . stuff.”

“Seriously? Is this a government agency? The feds are trying to hide the existence of magic?”

Ruth rolled her eyes. “Please. You don’t believe in that
X-Files
crap, do you?”

“I’ve worked in the public sector for over twenty years. What do you think?”

“I think you know how rare it is for government to get its shit together enough to pull off a competent conspiracy.”

“So who do you work for?”

“It kind of depends on who you ask. Everybody thinks we work for the other guy.”

“You’re double dipping?”

“More like quadruple dipping. We get funding from several levels of government under several different names.”

Meaghan raised an eyebrow. “Fraud?”

Ruth laughed. “Big time. But what else can we do? It’s not like we can submit budget requests for what we really do.”

Despite everything else going on, Meaghan was fascinated. “You know, that sounds a lot like a government conspiracy.”

“Ha! You got me. But there’s only five of us so it’s a lot easier to pull off. And we’re conspiring to con the government, so the conspiracy’s on the other foot.” She squinted a moment. “Or something like that. But we’re small potatoes, so we get away with it.”

“So, no super-secret lairs or fancy equipment?”

“Like what? Invisible flying aircraft carriers?” Ruth snorted and shook her head, her dark curls bouncing. “I should have such a budget.” She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb to a blue minivan parked on the other side of the clearing. “We could barely afford the magic bus.”

Meaghan wondered if she was still dreaming. “So, what do the governments funding you think you’re doing?”

“Weather-stripping. Promoting energy efficiency through better use of weather-stripping. Research, advocacy, and weatherization grant programs.”

“Do you really do that?”

“Hell, no. We tried to pick something that sounds vaguely useful and really boring at the same time. You should see how quick a legislator’s eyes glaze over when you start talking about R-values.”

Meaghan nodded. “So they rush you along and approve whatever you ask for as long as you don’t ask for too much.”

“And then they can say they voted for a conservation program that benefits homeowners, but not so much that they can be accused of being enviro-bunnies.” She laughed. “You know the drill. But it looks like you got bigger problems at the moment.”

Annie finally broke in. “Ruth didn’t get into town until after the spell was cast so she doesn’t seem to be affected.”

“Also, I like girls,” Ruth said. “Let’s get that out there right from the start. So you know you don’t need to worry about me.”

Meaghan raised an eyebrow. “We all thought Jhoro liked boys and look how that worked out.”

Ruth shrugged. “It’s a continuum, they say. He’s pretty, I’ll grant you, but he’s got the wrong parts for me. I prefer indoor plumbing. I don’t like . . . big hoses lying on the porch. Doesn’t look right to me.”

Meaghan had no response to that. “So, um, Ruth, are any more of your people here?”

“My wizard should be here soon. Not evil, by the way.”

“Is Owen part of the team?”

“More like an angel investor. On our own, we don’t have the resources to help relocate five hundred people. But we do have the expertise. Owen bankrolls us from time to time.”

“And how did you know to come here?”

“Owen called me. Led me in. The magic bus has some nifty upgrades. Kind of a magic-based GPS capability. I’d be lost in a second if I had to find my way around in these woods on my own.”

“Hang on a sec,” Meaghan said. “I’ll be right back.” She walked over to Finn’s grave. “Owen, is she who she says she is? You know her?”

Owen nodded.

“Why ask him?” Sid’s tone was petulant. “I know her, too. I’ve worked with her. She’s legit.”

Meaghan—surprised—frowned at him. “A fact you’ve managed not to mention until right now despite knowing how badly we need help with the Fahrayans. I think you and I need to have a talk. About prophesies.”

Sid’s eyes widened. “How do you know about that?”

Meaghan tilted her head toward the grave. “Had a chat with a dead man.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

M
eaghan returned to
the car. “Ruth, have you been over to see the Fahrayans yet?”

“I stopped by. I was supposed to meet Sid there. But he was gone and I didn’t see anybody else.”

So that’s what he was doing at John’s, the little shit.
Secrets from Owen she could live with. But Sid? He was supposed to be helping her, not hiding things from her.

Meaghan took a deep breath. Sid might be annoying at times, but she couldn’t believe he’d betray her. If he was hiding stuff, he must have a reason, but she didn’t have time right now to pry it out of him.

For the moment, she’d let it go. “The Fahrayans weren’t around?”

Ruth grinned. “Oh, they were around, but they were all . . . busy.”

Meaghan was sure she didn’t want the answer, but asked anyway. “Busy doing what?”

“Judging by the sounds, busy making little Fahrayans.”

“Oh, God. No jealous rages? No violence?”

Sid had finally wandered over. “Fahrayans don’t mix sex with violence like humans do. They can’t. Or at least they couldn’t.”

Ruth nodded. “The second jaw. Right.”

“Fahrayan men,” Sid said, with a giggle, “have a special incentive not to skimp on the foreplay. Fahrayan men are dynamite in the sack because they have to be. Or,” he sliced one small blue hand through the air, “thwack. Hello, Mr. Pain.” He shrugged. “At least that’s how it used to be, and I suspect the ladies have not bothered to inform the menfolk about their new plumbing.”

Meaghan shut her eyes and shook her head. The nap hadn’t refreshed her. It had only made her feel punchier. “Do I want to know? About any of this?”

He sighed. “Meggy, if you would head home and unclench, John would be happy to show you some of those fancy moves.”

She felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “Sid, I swear to God, if you don’t drop this, I’m going to drop-kick you all the way back to Troon. What the hell are we talking about? What’s the second jaw?”

Ruth gave Sid a look. “Let me handle this one, okay?”

Sid shrugged and walked away.

“See, here’s the thing. Fahraya is—sorry,
was
—a tiny little place, right?”

Meaghan nodded.

“So, overpopulation would be a big problem if procreation hadn’t been very tightly controlled.”

“Yeah. John said something about how Jhoro and Finn being together let another couple have a second baby.”

“Exactly. A couple of the things I really like about Fahrayans. All their kids were wanted and nobody got fussed about same-sex relationships.”

Meaghan frowned. Considering how brutal the Fahrayans could be, she suspected a very dark cloud surrounding at least one of those silver linings. “So, there’s a lottery or something?”

“Yeah. That’s where John came from. His parents won the baby lottery and got to have a second kid.”

“I thought it was because his father was the king.”

“Nah. No special privileges on procreation even for the bigwigs.”

“But even the best birth control can go wrong. What happened to the accidental babies? Nothing good, I suspect.”

Ruth grinned. “There were no accidents. Truly, every kid was wanted.”

“No accidents? Give me a break. How is that possible?”

“Magically induced adaptation happens a whole lot faster than natural selection. And in this case, it was way more precise.”

A realization stirred in the back of Meaghan’s mind. “The second jaw?” She burst out laughing. “Fahrayan women had an extra set of teeth, down
there
?”

“Not teeth. A bony protuberance about halfway in they could shut at will. Forcefully, if need be.”

Meaghan shook her head. “The ultimate barrier method.”

“That, plus—you remember a little while back that idiot politician who claimed that women’s bodies can shut down conception during rape?”

Meaghan snorted. “Yeah. What a moron.”

“Well, Fahrayan women can . . .
could
do exactly that. They could ovulate at will, as well as flush their systems with hormones to neutralize conception. Very useful adaptations for a world that couldn’t support more than a thousand people. The jaw was an additional form of contraception. Plus, it didn’t take Fahrayan women long to learn that it was also an effective male behavior modification tool.”

Meaghan let that one sink in. “No . . . rape? At least not intercourse?”

“No sexual violence of any kind. Because of the critical need to control population, the taboos against forcing sex were so deeply ingrained in their culture that it was nearly unthinkable, with either gender, and regardless of the sex act involved. And for the rare few who tried, well . . . you know how fierce Fahrayans are.”

“An attacker would have to get past the stone knife and killer instincts before the second jaw even became an issue.” Meaghan shook her head. “Wow. I can barely wrap my brain around that. How do you know so much about this?”

“Alex, our anthropologist. He’s a little obsessed with them to be honest. The only reason he’s not here now is because he’s out in the field somewhere. In Asia. I think. He never tells me where he goes until he wants me to reimburse him for his expenses.”

Meaghan nodded. At least she could stop worrying about the Fahrayans for the moment. It was the rest of the town that was in trouble. And Jamie. How was she going to save Jamie this time? She could feel her alertness beginning to slip away again, oblivion preferable to panic. “So, Ruth, you mentioned a wizard. Where do we find him?”

Ruth glanced at her watch. “Probably at your house by now.”

“Then that’s where we need to go. Would you take Sid with you? If he starts in again about my sex life, I’m gonna kill him.”

Ruth snorted with laughter. “Gladly.” She put her fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly. “Yo! Time to head out. Mr. Blue, you’re with me.”

“Where are we going?” Owen called.

“My house,” Meaghan called back.

Owen gave her a skeptical look. “All of us?”

“All of us. I don’t have time to chaperone the junior prom. If there’s trouble, you can take Jhoro back to Edna’s.”

“Eliot can help keep the peace,” Ruth said to Meaghan.

“Eliot’s your wizard?”

“Yup. Nice guy, but scary when he needs to be. Very powerful. Vodun background.”

Meaghan looked at her blankly.

“You know,” Ruth said. “Voodoo?”

“Oh, great. My brother can lecture him about why he should sacrifice only free-range chickens.”

Ruth chuckled. “I wouldn’t say that in front of him. He’s a little sensitive about the . . . um . . . inaccurate cultural stereotypes associated with his training. And whatever you do, don’t mention zombies.”

“Other than me? I feel like a walking corpse right now. I gotta get some more coffee. Okay, no zombies. You know how to get to my house?”

“It’s programmed into the magical GPS.” Ruth motioned to Sid to follow her.

Owen and Annie led Jhoro to the big Crown Vic, followed by Meaghan. Annie drove them home in silence. Meaghan, her head on Jhoro’s shoulder, again drifted off as soon as the car started. After what felt like a moment, she jerked awake as the car came to a stop in front of her house. Ruth pulled in right behind them.

A slender man of medium height, his arms folded across his chest, leaned against the rear bumper of Brian’s police cruiser, still parked in Meaghan’s driveway. Simply but elegantly clad in tailored tan trousers and a white collared shirt that accentuated the dark caramel of his skin, he smiled when he saw Ruth climb out of the minivan.

“I’m trying not to get a complex about this, Ruthie.” He patted the police car. “You invite me to this lily-white town and this is what’s waiting for me?”

Ruth smirked. “Like it? It’s been kind of a weird day around here.”

“No kidding. I couldn’t get any closer to the house because of the spell wall somebody put up. There’s so much sexual energy flying through the air in this town that it’s about to start raining Viagra.

Meaghan frowned. “You didn’t run into any magical barriers trying to get into town?”

He shook his head. “Was I supposed to? Trying to keep wizards out?”

Meaghan nodded. “Yeah. No offense.”

The man grinned. “None taken. I heard you had some wizard trouble a little while back, but whatever you had up is gone. Those Order freaks are crawling all over the city hall building.” He grinned broadly. “But whomever or whatever’s guarding it against them is kicking ass quite effectively. You know how much I enjoy watching them get their asses kicked.”

Meaghan stepped forward. “Guarding it? You mean the wizards aren’t holding it?”

“Heh. Not even close.”

“Do you have any idea what’s in there?”

“Something with some big power. And it’s pissed off at the Order in a major way.”

Relief swept through Meaghan. “They don’t have him. Annie, did you hear that? They don’t have Jamie. He’s keeping them out.” She turned back to the man. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day. I’m Meaghan, by the way.”

The man smiled. “I know who you are. You’ve been upsetting magical folks big time.” He held out his hand. “Eliot Milton. Government wizard.”

Meaghan shook his hand. “Is that your official title?”

He laughed. “No. It’s not. Officially, I’m a community grant implementation specialist. Ruthie told you about us?”

Meaghan nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t think you’re here to inspect the weather-stripping.”

“All joking aside,” Eliot said. “We better get indoors. I’ve been attracting some attention from the neighbors.” He gestured toward Edna’s house. “We’re being watched.”

Meaghan shook her head. “That’s Edna. She gets bored. And she only has eyes for him right now.” She pointed at Jhoro who now stood next to her, staring at his feet. “Love charm gone wrong.”

“No kidding. He’s the object of affection?” Eliot scrutinized him. “He looks awful. Why so sad?”

“Misses his dead boyfriend,” Ruth said. “Despite his live girlfriend’s best magical efforts. But the results aren’t consistent. Some people love him, some people hate him, some people are getting busy with whoever’s handy. The girlfriend’s missing by the way. Last we heard the Order has her. It might get dicey inside. Be ready.”

“Please tell me whoever drove this here,” he patted the police car again, “doesn’t have a gun.”

“He doesn’t have a gun,” Meaghan said. “I locked it up. My father had a gun cabinet up in the attic, but my brother got rid of it right after the funeral. But my brother does have high-grade professional cookware.”

Eliot looked puzzled. “Cookware?”

“I beat up an Order wizard with a saucepan back in June.”

Eliot grinned. “Oh, I’m gonna like working with you. You got style.