“Christ,” he said, as he propped up on his elbows and began to rub his eyes. He hadn’t had more than four hours sleep, and the urge to lay his head back on his pillow was a powerful one, but Isaac’s willpower prevailed. He twisted his body, slipped his feet out of the bed, and sat on the edge for a moment, checking to see if the act of moving made him dizzy. It didn’t. Isaac then went to the bathroom, washed his face with a cold splash of water, and unwrapped the bandage he had himself applied before bed.
Alice had done a good job with the stitching. The line of flesh was clean, the stitches were tight, and a little blood had begun to clot at the seam, sealing the wound further. He had finished applying fresh gauze and a clean, long Band-Aid to his upper eyebrow when his phone went off like an explosion of sound. The whole left side of Isaac’s brain seemed to wobble inside his skull. He grabbed the phone, set it to vibrate, and answered—without looking at the caller ID—with his right ear.
“Good morning, this is Isaac Moreau,” he said, his voice and the unconscious smile on his lips acting of their own accord to perfectly mask the pain he was in.
“Isaac,” said the voice on the other side. Female. Stern. Business.
Boss
. “A moment?”
“Of course. What can I do for you today, Linda?”
“What can you do for me? You haven’t forgotten, have you?”
“Have I?”
“Tonight? The opening? Your new wing? I thought you would be here by now.”
“Well, of course I haven’t forgotten
that.
I was under the impression there had been something else I may have forgotten, which is why you were calling.”
“Why else would I call?”
“Linda, I thought you knew me better than that by now. I don’t need babysitting.”
Although, in truth, if Linda Perkins hadn’t called, Isaac may have remembered too late about the opening of the new wing at the Ashwood Imperial Museum, and this would have been unacceptable. Linda, the director, had probably come to his office to go over a couple of things only to find him absent with no reason as to why.
“I am aware of that, Isaac, but I had expected you to be in the office early today to oversee the final placement and room organization. We have a full house tonight, and they’re all going to expect the excellence this institution is renowned for.”
“And they will have it, Linda, believe me. I’m just at the doctor’s right now. I had a bit of a tumble yesterday and hurt my head. Nothing incredibly serious, but I’ve needed several stitches.”
“Oh… are you alright? Do you need anything?” Her voice had suddenly changed. Until this point she had sounded like someone incapable of feeling, caring, or being vulnerable. But now Isaac could almost see her brows knitting together with concern, her neck flushed with regret, her heart aching.
“No thank you. I’m perfectly fine. As soon as I’m done here, I’ll be making my way to the museum. I shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours, but I made a tour of the museum last night and saw the placement myself. You don’t need to worry. Everything is perfect.”
“Good… good. You take care of yourself first, though. Don’t rush. Will you… be bringing anyone?”
“Bringing someone?”
“You’re allowed to bring a guest, of course.”
Isaac’s lips curled into a smile and he was about to tell her what she wanted to hear—that he would be alone—when a thought struck him with such force it caused his expression to harden. He couldn’t skip tonight’s event, but he also couldn’t leave Alice on her own to search for Emily. His gut told him she would get into trouble, and warned him against leaving her alone. Last night had been close, but they had escaped intact because they had worked together. Alice’s body language may have suggested she wasn’t fond of his company, but for a fleeting moment in her car while she patched him up, it seemed as though she cared for him.
Alice and Isaac needed to be together again today. Neither of them knew how to get to Emily, or what had become of her since last night. They needed to find a way to get to her, and they wouldn’t be able to do it on their own. He didn’t think she was dead yet. If the shadow woman had wanted Emily dead, it would have already happened. No. The shadow woman—this entity capable of countering Isaac’s magic—had other plans for Emily. As long as this was the case, it meant there was still time to save her.
But time was running short.
“Isaac?” Linda asked.
“Sorry,” Isaac said, “As a matter of fact, I think there is someone I may bring with me to tonight’s unveiling.”
“Oh,” she said after a moment’s pause, “Well, then, in that case, I’ll see you tonight.”
“You will,” Isaac said, and he bid her goodbye and hung up. But he didn’t set the phone to rest on the counter. Instead, he dialed the number Alice had given him last night. The phone rang out and went to voicemail, but Isaac didn’t leave one. “Sleeping,” he said to himself. He didn’t blame her. They’d gotten home late, and she didn’t have a conventional job like he did, so he didn’t think much of it and went about the business of preparing something to eat.
He produced two eggs from the fridge, some bacon, and a couple of plump sausages. His stomach grumbled at the sight and smell of crackling, cooking pork. When the eggs were done and on his plate, he wasted no time in wolfing the food down—breakfast followed by a cup of English tea with two sugars and milk.
Isaac read the paper—the Ashwood Standard—while he ate, following up on a number of events which had lately been going on around town. There had been skirmishes between two rival bands of werewolves and vampires in West Kensington. Neither side had reported fatalities, but the vampires had been the instigators of the skirmish. A Mage had been present to witness the event and said he had heard the vampires demanding the surrender of another vampire named Pixi Poison, who was believed to be in connection with Neo—a fugitive of the Count’s Court.
After breakfast, he picked out what he would wear to tonight’s event and laid it on his bed. The outfit consisted of a charcoal suit, a dark gray shirt, a black tie, and a polished set of black Italian leather loafers. He finished the look with a golden tie bar in the shape of an open human eye, but he didn’t put the suit on yet. This was for tonight. For now, he was happy to wear a pair of dark jeans, a white shirt, and a black blazer.
He grabbed his phone before leaving the house and called Alice a second time. Again the phone went to voicemail.
Damn
, he thought,
still sleeping
. Isaac could almost picture her in her bed, oblivious to the vibrating and blinking phone on her nightstand. But another image invaded his mind. In this one Alice was on her bed too, and the phone was also blinking and buzzing on the nightstand, but she wasn’t on her belly and breathing deeply.
She was on her back, her eyes glassy, and her lips blue.
Isaac’s stomach twisted, its contents churning uncomfortably. He spun around and scanned his living room as if he had forgotten something before leaving his house, only he didn’t know where—or what—it was. His heart began to race when a third attempt at calling Alice failed.
Something is wrong
, he thought, only he didn’t think it with his logical mind. This was a feeling given voice, and it carried enough weight to drive his nerves right into the ground, like a cigarette butt being ground into the sidewalk.
He clamped his left hand around the bangle on his right wrist, closed his eyes, and sent a call out into the chaotic place his magic came from—the Tempest. Standing atop a tower on an island beset by massive waves, torrential rain, and vicious lightning, the Good Doctor turned its head, and listened. Thunder detonated above, a whip of light split the sky in two, and the man with the long beak for a nose disappeared with a pop, leaving an inky black splotch in the air where it had stood.
Isaac opened his eyes and crossed into his bedroom. He had rushed into his bedroom closet, had pulled a box he had kept behind his shoes, and was looking through it when the smell of honey, herbs, and rot touched his nose. He carefully pulled the small locket out of the box, opened it, and produced a tiny lock of dark hair from inside.
“Something’s wrong,” Isaac said, and he handed the hair to his waiting Guardian. “Take me to her.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Eater of Souls
A slight pulse of pain beat at Isaac’s left eyebrow with each
whoomp
of the windshield wipers. The sky above Ashwood was a bumpy mantle of different shades of deep gray, and the rain was falling so hard the sound was like the ceaseless roar of an angry crowd. Water poured down the windshield making the world outside seem to swim, clearing only briefly when the wipers swept across the glass.
It had occurred to him, in the moments before he had summoned the Good Doctor, that he had no idea where Alice lived now. If someone had asked him two years ago, he would have been able to recite her address clearly. One year ago, his answer would have been filled with guesses and question marks. Today he doubted if she still lived at the same address from when they had been dating, so the only way he was going to find her was by using magic.
This was where Alice’s hair came in. A remnant of their relationship, Isaac had taken a lock of Alice’s hair so that he could keep an eye on her should the worst happen. Alice was a cop and frequently went out on the beat. He would never spy on her, but if she ever needed help—if she had ever been taken and needed someone to come find her—he thought having a piece of her hair would help.
Her hair didn’t do him any good then, but it was doing some good now.
“C’mon,” he said to the pair of shimmering red tail-lights ahead of him. Traffic on Arlington Avenue, a series of square blocks, low-rise buildings each indistinguishable from the last, had all but come to a standstill. It was probably gridlock, only Isaac didn’t have the radio on and wasn’t listening to local traffic reports. He didn’t want to be distracted. He wanted to be in his own mind where he could think despite the pain, or maybe because of it.
Isaac had rolled the right sleeve of his shirt up to his elbow, revealing the faintly glowing magic bangle on his wrist. A moment ago, it hadn’t been glowing at all. This meant he was getting close.
“How close are we?” Isaac asked.
“She is not far,” said a smooth voice in the back of his mind. “This way.”
Isaac peered out of the windshield, screwing up his face as he looked into the rainy sky. There, hovering at least twenty feet in the air, his robe billowing in the wind, was the Good Doctor. From down here, he looked like a wingless bird of shadow arranged in the shape of a man. He would have made a good comic book villain, Isaac thought, prowling the streets of the city with his plague mask on, hunting for good guys to torment.
“Where?” Isaac said to his windshield.
“There,” said the voice in Isaac’s mind, and the Good Doctor slowly stretched out his arm to point down the street.
He was gesturing at the next block down. City blocks, as Isaac had already thought, all looked to be cardboard cut outs of each other after a while. The only distinction between them being the rows of shops lining the ground level. Isaac scanned his surroundings. This was a two lane road, with a row of parking spots on either side as well. Isaac’s car was pressed against the last moving lane, the one closest to the line of parked cars. He checked the time—just before one in the afternoon—closed his eyes, and wrapped his left hand around his magic bangle with intent.
Fate itself bowed to Isaac’s will and he heard, in the instant which followed the warm rush of magic and the distant grumble of thunder, a car horn blare off nearby. When he opened his eyes, he noticed the red tail lights he had been pressed up against a second ago were a little way down the road. To the right, a flustered looking guy in a banged up hatchback was slipping into the space in front of him, his horn sounding off as a statement of “I’m going to do this whether you like it or not.”
This suited Isaac just fine. As soon as the car had cleared the parking spot, Isaac pulled his own car into the space, shut off the ignition, and grabbed his umbrella from the passenger seat. The residual effects of magic use caused his right hand to tingle as if he had sat on it for a few minutes, but he flexed his palm and the tingles went away. He hadn’t created a person out of thin air. He had simply nudged Fate to give him the break he needed, and the universe had obliged.
Alice,
he thought, and he stepped out into the pouring rain with the umbrella raised up over his head. The downpour made a sound like a thousand little hands slapping on a tarp, droplets so heavy they bounced off the wet asphalt.
He quickly squeezed between idling cars, racing to get to the other side of the road. When he did, he looked up and saw the Good Doctor hovering in the sky. It pointed down the street again, and Isaac broke into a fast walk, navigating through the sea of people and open umbrellas.
He crossed the street at the next intersection and spotted the plague doctor standing tall above the crowd of walkers, pointing to the door of a building. His heart beating hard, Isaac tried the door and it opened without resistance. It was unlocked or it was broken; Isaac didn’t know, nor did he much care. He was in the elevator with a closed, wet umbrella by his side in seconds, pressing one of the buttons purely on the magical guidance afforded to him by his Guardian.