M. Hanover - Graveyard Child

I drove with my mind scattered. Part of me was scanning the streets for the Invisible College, and I kept drawing my will up through my spine and into my eyes, ready to peer through the magical disguises that they could use. Part of me was being buffeted by memories that came from driving down streets I hadn’t been on in years. And below them both, there I was, shifting in the solitary part of my mind. I had gone home, where I’d dreaded going. I’d gone there for answers, and I’d gotten nothing. I didn’t know one new thing about Eric or about my mother or how my family fit in with riders and vampires and body thieves. My own father had come inches from shooting me.

What I felt, there in that private corner of my mind, was a deep relief. I didn’t know what it was or what it meant, but I’d gone home, everything had gone pear-shaped, and the sick pressure that had been on me since I’d made that first phone call home was gone. Maybe it was because things couldn’t get much worse. Maybe it was because I felt like magical attacks and gun-toting wizards put the conflict back on my home turf. Or maybe it was just that I’d gone to that house, been with those people, and it hadn’t turned me back into the girl I’d been before I left.

I pulled into the parking space beside the hotel, turned off the engine, and sat for a moment with my hands on the faux leather steering wheel.

“You know,” Ex said, “we should really put together some kind of contingency plan where someone feeds the dog if we all get killed.”

“Would be kind of rude to just leave her locked in the hotel room,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Ozzie met us at the door to my room, jumping a little on her front legs. Her tail wagged so hard it pulled her a little off balance. I scratched her ears while Chogyi Jake got a towel from my bathroom and a bucket of ice. Ex grabbed the leash, and Ozzie danced in anticipation as he fixed it to her collar.

“Be careful out there,” I said.

“I’ll keep my eyes open,” Ex said, and then, before I could go on, “I’m not only doing this for the dog. If I see anything off, I’ll let you know.”

The door closed behind them and I let myself fall back on the bed. It wasn’t the best place we’d been. Not even the best place recently. The truth was that with the money Eric had left me, I could have bought a house and had it furnished and not particularly noticed the expense.

“I think those two hit it off pretty well,” Chogyi Jake said.

“Yeah, it’s funny,” I said. “I would have picked Ex more as a cat guy.”

“He has a soft spot for loyalty,” Chogyi Jake said. “Do you want to reset your nose here or go to a hospital?”

I looked up at him with an expression that was supposed to say Really? You have to ask? My history with hospitals hadn’t been good. His either. He smiled and handed me a towel.

“Blow out as much as you can.”

Sighing, I sat up and did my best. He’d been right to go with the towel. Kleenex wouldn’t have been up to the task. I plopped back down on the bed and he sat next to me, his thumbs on either side of my nose. It sounded like some ripping cardboard, and the pain was intense but brief. He handed me a washcloth filled with ice and three Advil. I sat back. It was easier to breathe, so I took that as a good sign. I took my cell phone out of my backpack. Twenty seconds and three rings later, my lawyer was on the other end.

“Jayné, dear,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, I need a couple things,” I said. “Do you remember that report I had you put together on Randolph Coin?”

“Of course, dear.”

“I think a few of his friends and associates are in Wichita, and I need to find out what we can about them.”

“I’ll have something put together. Anything else?”

“Is there a way to set up a trust so that if something happens to me, my dog still gets taken care of?”

“Nothing easier. Would you want to put my phone number on her tags?”

There were times I loved my lawyer. There were a lot of times, in fact. As far as I could tell, nothing fazed her. If I’d asked her to ship me quicklime and a shovel, she’d have asked if I wanted a defense lawyer along with them. On one hand, it meant never having to explain anything. On the other, I had to wonder whether she’d have been the same for Eric.

My guess was yes.

“That would be great. I’ll do that. And also I need to send some money to my family. Just a couple thousand to cover some repairs.”

“What address should I send it to?” she asked.

I told her, and we spent about a minute exchanging pleasantries: The new car and phone were great, the research grant had gone through, they’d had word from the property manager in New Orleans that the house there needed a new roof. It struck me as we were speaking just how innocuous the conversation sounded and how much it left out. The new car and phone were there because I’d been on the run from a band of compromised exorcists. The research grant was going to my old boyfriend’s girlfriend to help clear my conscience for the years her career had suffered because of Eric’s professional and personal destruction of her. The property manager in New Orleans was an ex–FBI agent who’d been possessed by a rider and killed at least a dozen people including her own parents, and the man taking care of her was a wanted serial killer who had been victimized by the same rider. If anyone had been listening to the conversation, it would have sounded like nothing. It was nothing, until you scratched it, and then all the deep weirdness shone through.

I dropped the call as Ex and Ozzie came back in. He had a duffel bag over his shoulder that had been empty when it was in the car. It was loaded down now, probably with shotguns. The dog’s tail was still wagging, and I had the impression that it hadn’t stopped at any point in between. She scrambled up onto the bed and curled up with a look that said What? I’m small.

“Anything?” I asked.

“Nothing I could see,” Ex said. “Nothing out there’s under a glamour. No surveillance that I can see either. It would have been difficult if the city were denser, but there’s hardly anything out here to hide behind.”

“There’s a small blessing.”

Ex smiled.

“More like faint praise,” he said, sitting on the cheap black desk chair that seemed to come in all hotel rooms and propping his feet on the other bed. “So what’s plan B?”

“Don’t know. Things didn’t go too well with my dad.”

“I know,” Ex said.

“I mean before that. We were in the garage, and—”

“Yeah, the sound carried pretty well,” Ex said. “We didn’t hear all the words, but the tone of voice was clear.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, that’s embarrassing.”

“The big question is what the Invisible College was doing there,” Ex said, unzipping the duffel bag and taking out one of the guns. “If they came because they knew we were coming. If they’ve been staking out your home turf since Denver.”

He racked the gun, ejecting a brass-and-blue-plastic shell. Chogyi Jake picked it up, frowning, and pulled a tiny Leatherman out of his pocket.

“Yeah,” I said. “I was under the impression that we’d broken them back in Denver. Didn’t killing their grand pooh-bah break all their spells?”

“All the ones that were tied to the rider that had taken Coin’s body,” Ex said. “And we kicked the anthill. But enough time may have passed that they got their boy band back together.”

“A new Randolph Coin,” I said. Then I shook my head. “That wasn’t what this guy seemed like to me. He was young.”

“The body was young,” Chogyi Jake said, stepping into the bathroom. “The thing inside it may have been quite old. And possibly quite powerful.”