The Collected Christopher Connery (32 page)

“Of course not!” Nia answered, maybe a little too
quickly. Then she took another moment to think. “That is, it’s true that so far
this case has proved… difficult, even perilous, but only to those of us
investigating, never to outsiders.”

“Until now,” Arthur said quietly from the door, looking
seriously at Xavier.

“I’m fine,” Xavier said again, but the roughness in his
voice made it hard to buy. The dead man didn’t seem to have any more strength
to him than a scrap of water-eaten plywood, but he had come to close to choking
the life out of Xavier in that alley.

“The circumstances were unique,” Nia argued. “The spell
controlling him had broken and the magic made him – unstable. However, his
presence here suggests we’re getting closer to what we’re looking for and we
have to find it as soon as possible. He –” And by the sudden darkness in her
tone, Gail knew this “he” was Connery. “– likely made sure his protections
would escalate as we come close to the end.” Before Arthur or Gail could offer
any opinions, she looked directly at Xavier and added, “However, I promise you
that if I come to believe that our presence here would put you or anyone else
in danger, I will put a stop to the investigation and ask the Academy to send
more Illuminators to protect you.”

Gail and Arthur looked at each other. They knew what Nia
was really saying even if Xavier didn’t. Calling for assistance again would mean
giving up the case. It would mean blacklists and early retirement and
everything else Nia had told Gail about the morning after they’d escaped the
subway tunnels.

Do you mean it, princess?
But Nia wasn’t looking at
her. Her eyes were on Xavier, waiting for his answer.

When it finally came, it didn’t surprise Gail much. “All
right. That sounds fine to me. But we should put him somewhere else. You don’t
want to be staying in here with him.”

We’re used to rooming with dead people,
Gail
almost said, but then figured they’d thrown enough weird shit in Xavier’s face
for one day. “If we wrap him up tight, he’ll probably be safe enough in the
garage.”

“The toolshed,” Xavier said. “Sometimes kids duck into
the garage if the rain starts suddenly.”

“Right. I’ll help you.”

Before Xavier and Gail went to gather tarps and ropes,
Nia said she would “apply some anti-putrefication spells to help the body
retain its integrity, maybe even an obscuration enchantment or two to make sure
no one stumbled upon him by chance.” Xavier just nodded slowly in response,
clearly not having the foggiest idea what she was talking about, which wrung a
smile from Gail despite the shit day they’d been having. After all these weeks,
the magic talk had started to sound almost normal.

When Nia’s work was done, Gail and Xavier wrapped the
dead man in two layers of plastic sheeting, tied him up like a stack of
firewood, and carried him out to the toolshed. Arthur offered to help, but Gail
told him to stay inside and help his sister get their things set up in the
guestroom. Not only did she want Connery tucked out of sight as quickly as
possible, but she also wanted some time alone with Xavier to set the record
straight on a few things.

“You don’t have to put us up, you know,” she said, once
the dead man was tucked as gently and respectfully as possible behind a row of
shovels and rakes. “Nia’s probably right that something like this won’t happen
again, but this whole case has been screwed up. We’ve been attacked by dead
people, furniture, trains…” She could only shrug helplessly when Xavier stared
at her. “Magic, you know?”

Judging by his expression, he didn’t know at all, but he
only nodded and said, “I guess that makes things different.” Then he just stood
there silently, looking at the dead man and rubbing the needle scars beneath
his cuff while his jaw worked like his questions were a tough piece of old
meat. “Can I ask you something about it?”

“Sure.” Yeah, she hadn’t wanted to involve him,
especially not back at the hotel when he was just playing music to pay the
bills, but now they’d brought Connery into his house, which made him involved
whether she liked it or not. And it was only fair he have the whole story
before he decided if he wanted to stay involved.

Still, she wasn’t at all sure where to start. It wasn’t
exactly the kind of story she could cover in a few quick bullet points. But
Xavier was watching her and, as she stood there with her tongue sitting useless
in her mouth, the Graveses were moving Connery into his funny-shaped but
much-loved house. If she was going to come clean, now was the time.

“You know I’ve spent a bunch of years hunting Christopher
Connery, right?”

Xavier nodded. “Yeah, but he died, right? I saw it in the
papers.”

“Yeah, well, turns out it wasn’t that simple…”

The Graveses were probably wondering what was taking them
so long but had the manners not to come check. That turned out to be a damn
good thing because it took Gail the better part of an hour to cover the most
important parts of what she and the magicians had been up to. She tried to keep
it brass tacks, avoiding any private information about Nia and Arthur. Still,
by the time she had reached the end, she and Xavier were both sitting on
overturned buckets in the toolshed. It was raining again and the toolshed
wasn’t the most watertight structure ever made. Gail would’ve been lying if she
said the raindrops drumming on the roof weren’t pulling her shoulders up, but
she wasn’t gonna interrupt Xavier, who was deep in thought, eyes on his knees.

At last he sighed heavily and sat back, hands planted on
his kneecaps. “Damn, Gail, how do you always find yourself in these kind of
messes?”

“I don’t go looking for them, trust me.” Gail tugged an
unlit cigarette from her pocket to twirl between her fingers. “It’s been – it’s
been something else, that’s for sure. I think we’re getting down to the end,
though. Thank god.” She felt a twinge of guilt as the words passed her lips,
but it was true, wasn’t it? Regardless of what else was going on, getting
Connery dealt with once and for all could only be a good thing.

“And they think that by finding Connery, they’ll be able
to discover new magic that’ll help everybody?”

“That’s the plan.” And at this point, Gail almost believed
it. There was no denying that Connery, evil bastard though he was, had managed
to pull off some extraordinary shit. She still wasn’t sure she could count on
the Academy to turn that extraordinary shit toward something good, but Nia
probably could. She was pretty sure Nia could.

Xavier nodded slowly. The rain was coming down harder now
and Gail put the unlit cigarette between her lips.

“All right.”

Gail looked up. “All right?”

“Yeah. That sounds like good work, so if I can help you
out, I will. Anyway, you seem to trust Illuminator Graves and I trust your
judgment.”

I hope your trust is well placed.
Gail got up from
her bucket. “Thanks, Xavier. I promise, we won’t get in your way.”

“Nah, it’ll be nice to have company.” Xavier pulled a
smaller piece of plastic sheeting from a shelf and offered it to her.

“Thanks.” Gail shook the plastic out into a makeshift
poncho. As she tucked the cigarette into her pocket, her fingers brushed
against an envelope. Blinking, Gail pulled it from her pocket before realizing
what it was. Right. Arthur’s letter. She had almost forgotten about it. She’d
also been dumb enough to pull it out with Xavier’s name facing up, so when he
asked, “That for me?” she couldn’t very well say no.

With no choice but to hand it over, Gail said, “Yeah,
it’s – uh – Arthur wanted to say thanks.”

Xavier gave her a perplexed smile as he took the
envelope. “Thanks for what?”

“I don’t know. Read it and find out.”

After taking another moment to study the letter with a
thoughtful smile, Xavier tucked it into his pocket. Together, they returned to
the house, Gail holding the sheet of plastic over her head.

Xavier was a hell of a host, especially considering they
were basically uninvited. Nia and Gail shared the guest bedroom, which was very
comfortable so long as Gail didn’t remember that a man had recently died in it,
and Arthur slept on the couch downstairs. Xavier had tried to offer him the
master bedroom, but doc had declined, making the interesting excuse that he’d
‘never slept on a couch before.’

When he’d been spreading his blankets on the cushions,
Gail had taken a moment to mention that she’d passed his letter onto Xavier.
He’d made the kind of face she would have expected to see if she had pushed him
out of a moving trolley, but he pulled himself together.

“I don’t think he’s read it yet. Want me to ask for it
back?”

Arthur kept his eyes down as he smoothed his pillow. “No,
he was going to read it at some point anyway. It might as well be now.”

To further repay the cost of lodging them, Nia took time
out of her location spell scribbling to do a bit of waterproofing. Doing the
whole house was too much work for a single magician, even one of Nia’s skill,
but she sealed the pipes and windows, making the whole place feel cozier in
just a few hours. In return, Xavier made them a much too elaborate dinner and
to pay
that
back, Arthur agreed to take a look the old truck in the
garage, which had stopped working a few months prior.

At this rate, they’d be exchanging favors until even the
magically protected bits of Connery had rotted away to nothing, but Gail
couldn’t deny that things were a lot more pleasant when they felt like proper
guests rather than interlopers.

Still, being back in Gracetown was… weird, to say the
least. Yeah, she’d been back for cases and hell, she’d stayed in this very
house – or an earlier version of it at least – for weeks a few years back, but
that had been during the winter when things were dry. Now the rain was coming
down in squalls, beating against the newly waterproofed windows with resentful
violence. Long after Xavier had turned in and Arthur had dozed off on the
couch, Gail sat up in the kitchen staring out the window at the rain with the
unlit cigarette in her hand. She told herself she was just giving Nia space upstairs
to finish up whatever spellwork she was doing, but mostly she just worried that
if she stopped watching the windows, they might spring a leak and no one would
notice until the water had seeped into the house. Or maybe it would rain so
hard that the ground would become a mushy sinkhole, gaping wide to swallow the
house whole.

It wouldn’t happen, but they were hard thoughts to shake.

Sighing, she tossed the unlit cigarette aside before she
could give into the temptation to light it. It never helped as much as she
thought it would anyway.

“Detective?”

Gail jumped, but it was only Nia standing at the foot of
the stairs. Arthur, sound asleep on the couch with an arm under his head,
mumbled a little but otherwise didn’t stir. Gail guessed that when you roomed
with Nia regularly, you got used to sleeping through anything. Right now,
though, Nia was just watching her quietly, one hand on the bannister, the other
toying with her chalk-dusted skirt.

Realizing the silence was stretching beyond what could be
considered comfortable, Gail dropped the cigarette back into her pocket and got
up. “What is it, princess?”

“I just wanted to see if you were all right.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, you’re sitting down in the dark.”

Fair point. “I was just –”
hoping the house didn’t
sink.
“– thinking.”

Nia, bless her, didn’t ask her what she had been thinking
about. Instead, she just said, “It’s getting late. I’m done working for the
night, if you wanted to come up.”

Gail wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to do, honestly,
but some sleep would probably do her good.

Because she’d already showered and changed clothes
earlier that day after dealing with the dead man, she didn’t bother washing up
again before dropping on top of the blankets, arms folded behind her head. She
hoped Nia didn’t mind, but now that Gail was in the presence of a bed, the
exhaustion of the day hit her like a sandbag. She wasn’t sure she could keep
awake long enough to change into pajamas anyway.

Luckily, Nia didn’t seem to care. She shimmied quickly
out of her own clothes, complaining in a whisper about the cold before tugging
a nightgown over her head and crawling under the blankets next to Gail. She
seemed a little uncertain what to do with herself, eventually deciding on
curling up on her side of the narrow bed and watching Gail with questioning
eyes.

In spite of everything, Gail couldn’t help laughing.
Reaching over, she wiped a smudge of chalk dust from Nia’s cheek. “Being a
magician is messier than I would’ve figured.”

Nia smiled a little bashfully, wiping at her face with
the back of her hand. “Yes, well, these are somewhat unusual working
conditions.” She inspected her hand for chalk. “Did I get it all?”

“Almost.” Gail brushed away a white streak beneath Nia’s
eye before settling back on the pillow. “There you go.”

“Thank you.” Nia was quiet for a moment, fingers toying
with the corner of the pillowcase. “Gail?”

“Hm?” Eyelids suddenly heavy, Gail let herself sink back
on the mattress. The rain was pattering loudly against the drains on the roof,
but knowing she had another floor between her and the wet ground helped. It was
no seven stories, but it was something.

“I hope… I hope I didn’t offend you or Mr. Rivers today.”

Gail’s eyes opened. “What do you mean?”

“Earlier when we were talking about the case. I just hope
I didn’t sound – well, too much like an Academy magician.”

Turning her head on the pillow, Gail tried to study Nia’s
face, but the other woman’s eyes were downcast as if she were trying to count
every pale purple flower embroidered on the sheet. “Is that a bad thing?”