Magic Graves (15 page)

She steered her Honda up the narrow road, past her driveway, forcing it to climb higher and higher up the mountain. A shadow loomed ahead, blocking the way. She flicked on her brights. An old pine had fallen across the road. She'd have to hoof it to Gnome's house. The road was muddy with recent rain and she had new shoes on. Oh well. Shoes could be cleaned.

Audrey parked, pulled the emergency brake as high as it would go, swiped the plastic bags off the seat, and climbed out. Mud squished under the soles of her shoes. She climbed over the tree and trudged up the narrow road, following it all the way up to the top of the mountain. By the time she made it to the clearing, the sky had grown dim. Gnome's house, an large two story jumble of weird rooms sticking out at random angles, was all but lost in the gloom.

"Gnome!"

No answer.

"Gnooome!"

Nothing.

He was inside. He had to be - his old beat up Chevy sat on the left side of the house, and Gnome rarely left the top of the mountain anyway. Audrey walked up to the door and tried the handle. Locked. She put her hand to the keyhole and pushed. The magic slid from her fingers in translucent currents of pale green and wove together, sliding into the keyhole. That old ornery knucklehead would probably kill her for this. The lock clicked. Audrey eased the door open smoothly, making sure it didn't creak more out of habit than real need.

Flash was a pure expression of one's magic. But most people born with it had a talent or two hidden up their sleeve. Some Edgers were cursers, some foretold the future. She opened doors.

Audrey passed through the narrow hallway into the main room, sectioned off by tall shelves filled with Gnome's knickknacks and merchandise. Being a local fence, he had enough inventory to put Costco to shame. He also functioned as an emergency general store. If Edgers needed deodorant or soap in a hurry and didn't want to drive all the way across the boundary, they stopped at Gnome'. And ended up paying ten bucks for a tube of toothpaste.

A fit of wet hoarse coughing came from deeper within the house. Audrey slipped between the shelves, like a silent shadow, and finally stepped out into the clear space in the middle of the room.

Gnome, a huge bear of a man, sat slumped over in his stuffed chair, an open book on a desk in front of him and a shotgun by his chair. Flushed skin, tangled hair, feverish eyes, all hunkered down in a blanket. He looked like a mess.

"There you are."

He peered at her with watering, bloodshost eyes. "What the hell are you-" Another fit of cough shook his large frame.

"That sounds awful."

"What are you-" Gnome sneezed.

"I brought you goodies." She pulled a box of decongestant pills out of the bag and put it on the desk. "Look, I've got canned chicken soup, Theraflu, and here are some cough drops, and here is a box of Puffs tissue with lotion, so you don't scrub all of the skin off that big beak of yours."

He stared at her, speechless. Now that was something. If she had a camera, she should take a picture.

"And this here, this is good stuff." Audrey tapped the plastic cup of Magic Vaporizer. "I had to hunt it down - they don't make it as much anymore, so I could only get a generic version. Look, you boil some water and put these drops in here and inhale - clears your nose right up. I'll fix you one and then you can yell at me."

Five minutes later she presented him with a steaming vaporizer and made him breathe it in. One, two, three...

Gnome sucked in his first breath. "Christ."

"Told you." Audrey set a hot bowl of chicken soup on his desk. "Works wonders."

"How did you know I was sick?"

"Patricia came down the mountain yesterday and we ran into each other at the main road. She said you had a cold and mentioned that you undercharged her for the lanterns by twenty bucks."

"What?"

Audrey smiled. "That's how I knew it was bad. Besides, I was tired of hearing you hack and cough all night. The sound rolls down the mountain, you know. You're keeping Ling awake."

"You can't hear me all the way down there."

"That's what you think. Take this generic or Theraflu before bed. Either will knock you out. The red pills are daytime."

Gnome gave her a suspicious look. "How much is all this gonna cost me?"

"Don't worry about it."

Gnome shrugged his heavy shoulders and put a spoon full of soup into his mouth. "This doesn't mean you're getting a discount."

Audrey heaved a mock sigh. "Oh well. I guess I'll have to ply you with sexual favors then."

Gnome choked on the soup. "I'm old enough to be your grandfather!"

Audrey winked at him, gathering the empty bags. "But you're not."

"Get out of here, you and your craziness."

"Okay, okay, I'm going." He was fun to tease and she was in such a good mood.

"What is with you anyway?" he asked. "Why are you grinning?"

"I've got a job. With benefits."

"Legit?"

"Yes."

"Well, congratulations," Gnome said. "Now go on. I'm sick of looking at your face."

"I'll see you later."

She left the house and slogged her way through the mud down to her car. Gnome was a gruff old bear, but he was kind in his own way. Besides he was the only neighbor she had within two miles. Nobody was around to help them. Either they took care of each other or they toughed it out on their own.

Backing Honda down the mountain in the gloom turned out to be harder than Audrey thought. She finally steered the vehicle to the fork, where the narrow road leading to her place split off and took the turn. Thick roots burrowed under the road and her Honda rolled over the bulges, careening and swaying, until it finally popped out into the clearing. On the right the ground dropped off sharply, plunging down the side of the mountain. On the left, a squat pale building sat in the shadow of an old spruce. It was a simple structure - a huge stone block of a roof resting on sturdy stone columns that guarded the wooden walls of the house within like the bars of a stone cage. Each three feet wide column bore a carving: dragons and men caught in the heat of a battle. A wide bas relief decorated the roof as well, showing a woman in a chariot pulled by birds with snake heads. The woman gazed down on the slaughter like a goddess from heaven.

Nobody knew who had built the ruins or why. They dotted this part of the Edge, a tower here, a temple there, gutted by time and elements and covered with moss. The Edgers, being poor and thrifty, knew better than to let them go to waste. They built wooden walls inside the stone frameworks, put in indoor plumbing and electricity illegally siphoned from the neighboring city or provided by generators, and moved right in. If any ancient gods took offense, they had yet to do anything about it.

Audrey parked the car under an ancient scarred maple and turned off the engine. Home, sweet home.

A ball of grey fur dropped off the maple branch and landed on her hood.

Audrey jumped in her seat. Jesus.

The raccoon danced up and down on the hood, chittering in outrage, bright eyes glowing with orange like two bloody moons.

"Ling the Merciless! You get off my car this instant!"

The raccoon spun in place, her grey fur standing on end, put her hand-paws on the windshield, and tried to bite the glass.

"What is with you?" Audrey popped the car door open.

Ling scurried off the car and leaped into her lap, squirming and coughing. Audrey glanced up. The curtains on her kitchen window were parted slightly. A hair-thin line of bright yellow light spilled through the gap.

Somebody was in her house.

Audrey slipped from the seat, dropping Ling gently to the ground, circled the car and opened the hatch back. A tan tarp waited inside. She jerked it aside and pulled out an Excalibur crossbow. It had set her back nine hundred bucks of hard-earned money, and it was worth every penny. Audrey cocked the crossbow and padded to the house, silent and quick. A couple of seconds and she pressed against the wall next to the door. She tried the handle. Locked.

Who breaks into a house and locks the door?

She peeled from the wall and circled the building, moving fast on her toes. At the back, she slipped between the stone framework and the wooden wall of the house and felt around for the hidden latch. It sprang open under the pressure of her fingers. She edged the secret door open and padded inside, into the walk-in closet, and out into her bedroom. The house had only three rooms: a long rectangular bedroom, an equally long bathroom, and the rest of it was taken up by a wide open space, most of which served as her living room and kitchen, with the stove, fridge, and counters at the north wall.

Audrey peeked out of the doorway. An older man with curly reddish-brown hair stood at the kitchen stove, mixing batter in a glass bowl, his slightly stooped back turned to her.

She would know that posture anywhere.

Audrey raised her crossbow and took a step into the living room.

The man reached for a bag of flour sitting on the counter. Audrey squeezed the trigger. The string snapped with a satisfying twang. The bolt punched through the bag inches from the man's fingers.

The man turned and grinned at her, his blue eye sparking. She knew the smile too. It was his con smile.

"Hi, munchkin."

Audrey let her crossbow point to the floor. "Hi, Dad."

*** *** ***

"A good shot." Seamus Callahan bent down, looking at the shaft protruding from the bag of flour. "I'd say you killed it. Bull's-eye."

Audrey set the crossbow down and crossed her arms. Inside her a tiny pissed off voice barked,
"Get out, get out, get out..."
He was here in her house, and she had to clench her fingers on her arms just to keep herself from attacking him and pushing him out.

But she was Seamus's daughter and twenty three years of grifting made her voice calm and light. "How did you find me?"

"I have my ways." Seamus opened the bag and poured some flour into the batter. "I'm making my patented silver dollar pancakes. You remember those, don't you?"

"Sure, dad. I remember." He was in
her
kitchen, touching
her
things. She would bleach it all after he was gone.

Ling slipped from the back door, scurried around her feet, and showed Seamus her teeth.

"Your little critter doesn't like me much," he said, pouring the batter into a sizzling pan.

"She has good instincts."

Seamus looked up at her, blue eyes like two flax petals under bushy red eyebrows. "There is no need for that."

Screw it. "What do you want?"

Seamus spread his arms, a spatula in his right hand. "My daughter disappears for four years, doesn't tell me where she is going, doesn't call, doesn't write. What, I don't have a right to be concerned? All we had was a little note."

Yeah, right. "The note said, 'Don't look for me.' That was a clue."

"Your mom is worried, kiddo. We were all worried."

Get out, get out, get out.
"What do you want?"

Seamus heaved a sigh. "Can we not have a meal like a normal family?"

"What do you want, dad?"

"I have a job in West Egypt."

In the Weird. The worlds of the Weird and the Broken had similar geography, but their histories had gone entirely different ways. In the world without magic the huge peninsula protruding from the South Eastern end of the continent was known as Florida. In the Weird it was West Egypt, the Alligator to the Cobra and the Hawk of the triple Egyptian crown.

"It won't take but a week. A good solid payoff."

"Not interested."

He sighed again. "I didn't want to bring this up. It's about your brother."

Of course. Why would it ever be about anybody else?

Seamus leaned forward. "There is a facility in California -"

She raised her hands. "I don't want to hear it."

"It's beautiful. It's like a resort." He reached into his jacket. "Look at the pictures. These doctors, they're the best. All we have to do is pull off this one heist and we can get him in there. I'd do it myself, but it's a three-person job."

"No."

Seamus turned off the stove and shoved the pan aside onto a cold burner. "He is your brother. He loves you, Audrey. We haven't asked anything of you for three years."

"He is an addict, Dad. An
addict
. How many times has he been through rehab? It was eighteen when I left, what's the number now?"

"Audrey..."

It was too late. She'd started and she couldn't stop. "He's had therapy, he's had interventions, he's had doctors and counselors and rehabs, and it hasn't made a damn bit of difference. Do you know why? Because Alex likes being an addict. He has no interest in getting better. He is a dirty low-life junkie. And you enable him on every turn."

"Audrey!"

"What was the one rule you taught me, Dad? The one rule that we never, ever break? You don't steal from family. He stole mom's wedding ring and pawned it. He stole from you, he stole from me, he ruined my childhood. All of it going right up his nose or in his mouth. The man never met a drug he didn't like. He doesn't want to get better, and why should he? Mommy and daddy will always be there to steal him more pills and pick him up off the street. He gets his drugs and all that attention. Hell, why should he quit?"

"He's my child," Seamus said.

"And what am I, dad? Chopped liver?"

"Look at you!" Seamus raised his arms. "Look, look you have a nice house, your fridge is full. You don't need any help."

She stared at him.

"Alex is sick. It's an illness. He can't help himself."

"Bullshit! He doesn't want to help himself."

"He'll die."

"Good."

Seamus slapped the counter. "You take that back, Audrey!"

She took a deep breath. "No."

"Fine." He leaned back. "Fine. You live happily in your nice house. Play with your pet. Buy nice things. You do all that, while your brother is dying."

She laughed. "Guilt, dad? Wait, I'll show you guilt."

She stomped to a book shelf, pulled out a photo album, and slapped it open on the counter in front of him. In the picture her sixteen year old self stared out from a mangled face. Her left eye had swollen shut into a puffy black sack. Dry tracks of blood stained her cheeks, stretching from half a dozen cuts. Her nose was a misshapen bulge. "What is this? Do you remember this?"