White Witch, Black Curse

Unfortunately, he was right. Whereas the I.S. policed the supernatural species, they would, and did, ignore a crime if it suited them. Hence the human-run FIB that had come into being. I had once thought that the FIB was way outclassed by the I.S., but after working with them for a year, I was impressed and shocked by the information they could dig up and put together.

It had been only forty years ago during the Turn that the combined Inderland species of vamp, witch, Were, and more had actively lent a hand to prevent humans from becoming the latest endangered species when a badly engineered, genetically altered tomato mutated and wiped out a large chunk of the human population. Though to be honest, if humans had died out, most of Inderland would suffer when vamps started preying on us instead of soft, naive, happy humans. Not to mention that Mr. Joe Vampire and Ms. Sue Were liked their high-maintenance lifestyles, impossible without the backing of a large population.

“What are you doing?” Ivy said, her hand on the door as I fumbled around under the seat.

“I’ve got an FIB sign in here somewhere,” I muttered, fingers jerking back as they unexpectedly found something cold and squishy.

A closed-lipped smile came over Ivy. “The entire FIB knows your car.”

Making a soft sound of agreement, I gave up and tugged on my gloves. Yeah, they did, seeing that they’d given it to me in payment for helping them out once, something most of them seemed to be forgetting lately. “Ready, Jenks?” I called, and got a half-heard stream of curses back. Something about my cream rinse and puking fairies.

Ivy and I got out together. The excitement of a run hit me when the doors thumped shut. Standing by my car, I pulled the sharp, dry air all the way to the bottom of my lungs. The clouds had that solid feel that they only get right before a heavy snow, and I could smell the pavement, white with salt and so dry and cold it would burn your fingers if you touched it.

Heels snapping, Ivy came around the car, and I followed her to the small house. The crunchy five inches of snow had been packed down, but a sad-looking three-foot snowman presided over a corner of the yard, his face melted and his hat covering his eyes. The curtains were open, and the yellow rectangles of light on the snow were starting to become obvious. Red and green lights from a neighbor’s display made an odd counterpoint, and I could hear the conversation from the duo on the corner. Cold, I tugged my bag up higher as we walked.

More neighbors were coming out; I felt a surge of disgust when the slow-creeping lights of a van with an antenna showed under the streetlight.

Crap, they were here already? I’d wanted to talk to the neighbors before the interviewers had them thinking sensationalism instead of realism. I was sure Edden had interviewed the closest, but his people wouldn’t ask the questions I wanted answers to.

“There,” Ivy murmured, and I followed her gaze to the dark shadow coming out from the garage’s side door to meet us.

“Hey, hi!” I called out, pitching my voice high to give the impression we were harmless. Yeah, right. “Edden asked us to come out. We’re from Vampiric Charms.” Asked us? It was more like forced into it, but why bring that up.

The young FIB officer flicked on the outside lights, washing the crusty drive in an artificial glare. “Can I see some ID?” he asked, then did a double take. “Oh!” he said, tucking his clipboard back under an arm. “You’re the witch and the vamp.”

From my hat came a disgusted “And a really cold pixy. Can you hurry it up, Rache? I think my ‘nads fell off.”

I stifled a grimace, pasting on a fake smile. I’d rather be known by our company name than “the witch and the vamp,” but at least Edden had told them we were coming. Maybe he wasn’t going to be such a pain in the butt about us helping. I watched the officer’s body language, but couldn’t tell if his impatience was from the FIB’s new distrust or simply the cold.

“Yes, Vampiric Charms. We’re here to help with the possible Inderland connection,” I said before Ivy could get all vampy. Her pulling an aura and scaring the crap out of him wouldn’t help—as entertaining as it might be.

“Can we go in?” Ivy asked with a faint promise of threat, and Jenks snickered.

“Sure.” The officer’s head was down as he wrote something. “Put on a pair of booties, okay?”

Ivy was halfway to the door off the garage, her motions stiff at his assumption that she didn’t know her way around a crime scene. I glanced back at the street, hesitating. The news crew had set up, and the huge light they had was gathering people like a bonfire. “Hey, uh, Ivy…,” I murmured, and she hesitated, a long, gloved hand resting on the open door.

She smiled with half her mouth. “You want to go talk to them?” I nodded, and she added, “You’ll be okay, Jenks?”

“Oh crap,” I swore under my breath. I’d forgotten about him.

“I’m fine!” he barked, and I felt a soft tug as he settled himself. “Nothing’s going to change inside, but I want to hear what the neighbors say. Gossip, Ivy. That’s where the truth is. It’s all about the gossip.”

I didn’t know about gossip, but if he said he’d be okay, I’d rather get first impressions than stale, regurgitated comments after everyone had had a chance to think.

Ivy frowned, clearly of the opinion that crimes were solved by carefully gathered evidence, not nebulous feelings and hunches. But with a shrug, she went inside and I headed out into the night.

Pace fast, I found a spot at the back of the growing crowd, trying to stay out of the camera’s line of sight. Jenks was probably hearing twice what I could, and I went on tiptoe to glimpse the man with red cheeks in the felt coat the newscaster was interviewing. I didn’t think it was live, seeing that it wasn’t six yet, and I eased closer, jostling for position.

“They were the nicest people,” the man was saying, his eyes bright with excitement. “Nice people. I never would have expected anything like this from them. They kept to themselves and were real quiet.”

My eyebrows rose, and Jenks snorted. Sounded like Inderlanders to me.

But then the kid next to me made a rude sound, and Jenks tugged my hair when the boy said snidely to his friend, “Like he knew him. The guy is a creep, and the woman is whacked.”

“Got it, Jenks,” I whispered so he would stop yanking on my hair. Slow and steady investigation was nice, but I wanted to find them before the sun went nova.

Smiling, I turned to find a young man in a black knit hat with the Howlers’ emblem, and encouraged by the show of Inderland acceptance, I felt an unusual surge of kinship. He wasn’t wearing a coat, and his hands were jammed into his jeans pockets. “Whacked?” I said, giving his friend a quick smile to include him in the conversation. “You think?”

“I know,” he shot back, then fidgeted. I was guessing he was in high school, and I turned the Mrs. Robinson charm on full.

“Yeah?” I said, almost bumping into him as the crowd grew noisy when the newscaster looked for fresh meat. “Don’t you love how they always say one thing in front of the camera, but at the bar, the truth comes out?”

He grinned, clearly thinking I thought he was older than he was. From under my hat came Jenks’s impressed “Nice. Reel him in, Rache.”

“So you know them?” I said, linking my arm in his and easing him from the news crew. I kept us close so as not to leave the highly charged atmosphere the news van was creating, angling so that if a camera should point our way, all they’d get would be my back. His friend had stayed behind, and was currently jumping to try to get in the background of the shot. He didn’t have a coat either, and I thought it unfair that they were warm and I was freezing my butt off out here. Witches had a lower cold tolerance than just about everyone else, excluding pixies.

“You’re not a reporter,” he said, and I smiled, glad he was smarter than I’d thought.

“I’m from Vampiric Charms,” I said, digging in my bag until I found a bent card and handed it to him. “I’m Rachel. Rachel Morgan.”

“Righteous!” he said, his face becoming animated. “My name is Matt. I live over there. Hey, I’ve heard of you,” he said, tapping the card against his hand. “Is that really you in that shot, being dragged down the street—”

“On my ass,” I finished for him, adjusting my hat to send a whiff of cold air under it to get Jenks to stop laughing. “Yeah, that’s me. But I don’t really summon demons.” Much.

“That’s cool. That’s cool,” he said, seeming to grow three inches taller. “You’re trying to find the Tilsons?”

A jolt of adrenaline made me shiver. Edden hadn’t told me their names. “More than just about anything. Do you know where they went?”

He shook his head, trying to look older than he was as he gave his friend a superior look. “No, but they are weird. The entire family. I mowed their lawn this summer. The guy is a janitor at my school. He says he’s allergic to grass.” Matt smirked. “He’s allergic to work if you ask me. But if you make him mad, stuff happens to you.”

My eyes widened. “Magic?” Were they Inderlanders, like Ivy thought?

Matt shook his head and looked ill. “No, stuff like your dog dying. But his wife is even weirder. I don’t see her much. She stays inside a lot with their kid. She talked with my mom once, and she wouldn’t let my mom touch her baby.”

“No kidding,” I said, hoping he’d say more.

“And that baby of theirs is just as freaky as they are,” he said, glancing at his friend. “Got these weird blue eyes that follow you around. She’s quiet, like she’s deaf or something. Her mom never puts her down. Mrs. Tilson wears the pants in the family, that’s for hell sure.”

“Is that so…,” I prompted, and Matt bobbed his head.

“Last year, someone put a firecracker in the can in the back toilet. Blew shit all over the place. Tilson was screaming about killing someone, so they sent him home. I mowed their lawn the next day. I was scared, man, but my dad made me. Tilson is nuts. He thought I knew who blew up the john and he pinned me against the fence. God, I thought I was going to die. But then she came out and he went all soft and stuff. He even apologized. Freakiest shit I’ve ever seen. She’s smaller than you, and all she did was say his name and he went all meek and shit.”

I blinked, my mind racing as I tried to figure it out. Mr. Tilson was a homicidal maniac with a chip on his shoulder. Mrs. Tilson was in charge. And the kid was weird. Living vampires, maybe?

“How old is the baby?” I asked, trying to keep him talking. This was pure gold.

Matt made a face. “I don’t know. A year? My mom says she’s going to be a spoiled brat and Mrs. Tilson shouldn’t wait five years before having another one, like she says she wants. Some kind of medical reason. She wants five or six kids, my mom says.”

“Five or six?” I said, truly surprised. Maybe the Tilsons were Weres and the woman was from a highly dominant pack. But why space them out over five years? “That’s a lot.”

“Yeah,” the kid said, scoffing. “I’m not having any kids. But if I do, I’m going to have them all right away. Get it over with. I don’t want to be sixty and changing diapers.”

I shrugged. There was eight years between me and Robbie, and I didn’t see anything wrong with it. He’d raised me as much as my parents, and I had no complaints. But my mom was a witch, so changing diapers at sixty was about the norm. Glenn’s attack was sounding more and more like an Inderland incident. “Thanks,” I said, suddenly wanting to get inside. Jenks was probably freezing. “I should get in there. But thank you. You really helped.”

The boy’s expression became disappointed, and I smiled. “Hey, I could use someone this spring to mow my graveyard.” I hesitated. “If you don’t think that’s too weird. My number is on the card.”

He beamed, fingering it. “Yeah, that would be great,” he said, then glanced at the house. “I don’t think my dad will let me mow their lawn anymore.”

“Call me, about April?” I said, and he nodded. “Thanks, Matt. You were a big help.”

“No problem,” he said, and I gave him a final smile and walked away. When I looked over my shoulder, he had his head bent to his friend’s, and they were ogling my phone number. “You okay, Jenks?” I said, hoofing it away from the lights and back to the garage. Damn, wait until Ivy heard what I’d found out.

“Yeah,” he said, gripping my hair harder. “But will you slow down? Unless you want pixy barf in your hair.”

Immediately I checked my pace, tripping when I took the curb without looking so I wouldn’t have to tilt my head. Jenks swore when I stumbled, but my pulse jackhammered when my head swung up. It wasn’t the almost-fall that shook me, but who was standing by my car, staring at it. Tom Bansen—it had to be—the same man who had tried to kill me by way of Al.

“Holy crap, it’s Tom,” I said, then shouted, “Get away from my car!” as I started to jog.

“Son of a fairy whore,” Jenks swore. “What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know.” Caution slowed me down as I approached. “Better be quiet. If he knows you’re here, all he has to do is knock my hat off and Matalina is a single parent.”

Jenks became quiet. Tom continued to stand with his hands in his pockets, looking at my car as if debating something. Nervousness coated my anger as I halted a careful five feet back, puffing out white clouds in the streetlight and looking at the man like the snake he was. I’d heard he’d gotten fired from the I.S.—probably for the stupidity of being caught summoning demons to murder someone—but since I’d been the one Tom had been trying to off, the I.S. had done nothing more than that.

“What are you doing here?” I said, not anxious to have to defend myself, but not wanting to let him poke around in my car either.

The young man had a new hardness in his blue eyes as he stood on the shoveled sidewalk and looked speculatively at me in the lamplight. He was clearly cold in his parka and hat, the chill almost killing the redwood scent that all witches had. I’d once thought he was attractive in a tidy, almost scholarly way—I still did, actually—but freeing Al to kill or abduct me had long since shifted the attraction to disgust.

“Trying to make a living,” he answered, a tinge of red showing on his cheeks. “I’ve been shunned, thanks to you.”

My jaw dropped and I backed up. I wasn’t surprised, but I wasn’t going to take the blame for it either. “I wasn’t the one kidnapping girls to pay demons for black curses,” I said. “Maybe you should rethink your logic, Sherlock.”

He smiled in a not-nice way. Turning as if to leave, he said, “I’ll be around if you want to talk.” I sputtered in disbelief at the invitation and he added, “Nice car,” before he walked away, hands still jammed into his big pockets.

“Hey!” I shouted, almost going after him, but the thought of his shunning and Jenks in my hat changed my mind. Rocking back on my boot heels, I exhaled loudly. Shunned? The coven of ethical and moral standards had shunned him? Damn! I hadn’t thought they’d go that far. Sure he summoned demons, but that didn’t get one shunned. It must have been kidnapping that girl for black magic. Shunning was exactly what it sounded like, and the man was in trouble. Getting the ethical and moral standards coven to reverse a decision was like surviving an I.S. death threat. He was absolutely cut off, and any witch associating with him ran the risk of being shunned in turn.

Making a living, I thought as I watched him. Tom had probably gone independent, seeing that the I.S. wouldn’t touch him now, even under the table. And looking like he was having a hard time of it, I added as he got into a rust-cut ‘64 Chevy and drove away.

I headed for the Tilsons’ house, jerking to a halt at a sudden thought. Fingers fumbling in my bag, I pulled out my key ring and the lethal-magic detection amulet on it. The thing had saved my life a couple of times, and Tom had a vested interest in seeing me gone.

“Rache…,” Jenks complained as I started to make a slow circuit around my vehicle.

“You want to be blown up smaller than fairy dust?” I muttered, and he tugged on my hair.

“Tom’s a weenie,” the pixy protested, but I finished my circuit, breathing easier when the amulet stayed a nice, healthy green. Tom hadn’t spelled my car, but a sense of unease lingered, even as I turned to the cordoned-off house and crossed the street. And it wasn’t because I might have some competition in the independent-runner arena. My car had originally belonged to an I.S. agent who died in a car bombing. Not this car, obviously, but a bomb had killed him.

Just that fast, my life can end. Tom hadn’t left a charm on my car, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask Edden if he’d have one of his dogs sniff around it. Boot heels clacking, I reached the door off the garage and went inside. Jenks sighed heavily, but I didn’t care if I did look like a paranoid chicken when I asked Edden for a ride home.

I was done with being stupid about these kinds of things.

Four

The sudden cessation of wind as I passed into the garage was a blessed relief, and I paused, taking in the curious mix of space and clutter, the edges stacked with old boxes from grocery stores and mail-order places. Close to the steps leading inside were several large toys, bright with primary colored plastic. The toddler sled had been used from the looks of it, but the rest was summer stuff. It had been a good Christmas, apparently.

Tracks of flattened snow showed where a big-assed truck had been on the otherwise swept cement. There wasn’t room for two vehicles, and I wondered if Mr. Tilson was overcompensating for something. ‘Course, maybe it was Mrs. Tilson who had the truck fetish. I sniffed deeply for the scent of Inderlander, finding only the dry smell of old concrete and dust, and I shivered.

I eyed the storage boxes, remembering what my dad had once told me when I’d tried to get out of cleaning the garage. People put things in garages that they don’t want but can’t get rid of. Dangerous stuff, sometimes. Too dangerous to keep inside, and too dangerous to throw out and risk someone finding. Mr. and Mrs. Tilson had a very full garage.

“Come on, Rache!” Jenks complained, tugging on my hair. “I’m cold!”

Giving the boxes a last look, I went up the cement steps. The hum of a vacuum was a faint presence as I opened the cheerfully painted door and entered a seventies kitchen, nodding to the officer with a clipboard seated at the table. The window above the sink looked out over the front yard and the news van. A high chair done in pinks and yellows was pulled up beside the square table. A box of throw-away boot covers was on it, and I sighed, taking my gloves off and tucking them in my coat pockets.

Plush baby toys were in a large basket tucked neatly out of the way, and I could almost hear a contented, gurgling laughter. The sink held a bowl of cookie-dough-encrusted utensils. A dozen sugar cookies sat on the counter, cooling for the last eight hours. A tear-away tag was tied to the oven, the upper part signed and dated, with the time, stating that Officer Mark Butte had turned off the oven. The Tilsons had left in a hurry.

The kitchen was a curious mix of warmth and cold, the heater on to combat the in-and-out traffic, and I unzipped my coat. My first impression of the house was just as jumbled. Everything to make a home was here, but it felt…empty.

There was the chatter of work in the next room, and when I bent to put a blue bootie over my boot, Jenks shot out from under my hat. “Holy crap!” he swore, flitting over the entire kitchen in three seconds, giving the seated officer a coronary. “It smells like green baby paste in here. Hey, Edden!” he said louder. “Where you at?” And he darted out, his wings a gray blur.

From deeper in the house came an exclamation as Jenks probably startled another FIB officer. A set of heavy steps approached, and I straightened. I’d gotten my boots at Veronica’s Crypt, and covering them in blue paper should be outlawed.

Edden’s squat figure suddenly took up the archway to the rest of the house. Jenks was on his shoulder, and the FIB captain looked better now that he was doing something to help his son. He nodded to the seated officer and smiled briefly at me, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He was still in his street clothes. In truth, he probably shouldn’t be out here, but no one was going to tell him he couldn’t oversee the investigation of his son’s mauling.

“Rachel,” he said in greeting, and I coyly waved a bootiecovered foot at him.

“Hi, Edden. Can I come in?” I asked, hardly sarcastic at all.

He frowned, but before he could start in on me about my lousy investigation techniques, I remembered Tom in the street. “Hey, can I ask a favor?” I said hesitantly.

“You mean more than letting you in here?” he said so dryly that I was sorely tempted to tell him about the sticky silk at Kisten’s boat, which they’d missed, but I held my tongue, knowing he’d find out about it tomorrow after Ivy had had a chance to go out.

“I’m serious,” I said as I undid my scarf. “Can someone check out my car?”

The squat man’s eyebrows rose. “Having trouble with the transmission?”

I flushed, wondering if he knew I was the one who’d trashed it while learning how to drive a stick shift. “Uh, I saw Tom Bansen at my car. Maybe I’m being paranoid—”

“Bansen?” he blurted out, and Jenks nodded from his shoulder. “This is the same witch you tagged in his basement for summoning demons?”

“He was looking at my car,” I said, thinking it sounded lame. “He said something about making a living, and seeing that there are lots of people who want to see me, uh, dead…” I let my thought trail off. I kept to myself that he’d been shunned and Jenks didn’t say a word. It was a witch thing. When someone got shunned, it was an embarrassment to all of us. “I checked for lethal charms, but I wouldn’t know a car bomb from an odometer cable.”

The FIB captain’s expression grew hard. “No problem. I’ll have the dog unit come out. Actually…” He looked at the seated officer and smiled. “Alex, go wait by Ms. Morgan’s car for the explosives team.”

The man stiffened, and I winced apologetically. “Don’t let anyone get within ten feet,” Edden continued. “It might turn you into a toad if you touch it.”

“It will not,” I complained, thinking being a toad might be pleasant compared to what Tom could probably do.

Edden shook his head. “There is a news van in the street. I’m not taking any chances.”

Jenks snickered, and I warmed. Chances were good nothing was wrong with my car, and I felt like a baby, but Edden’s hand on my shoulder made me feel better. All the way up until he turned me back to the kitchen’s door and Alex’s retreating back. “Maybe Alex should take you home right now,” he said, “so he can check out your church. For your own safety.”

Oh for God’s sake, he’s trying to get rid of me. “That’s why we’ve got a gargoyle in the eaves,” I said sharply, and slipping out from under him, I resolutely paced deeper into the house. Take me home for my own safety, my ass. He was letting Ivy stay. Why couldn’t I?

“Rachel,” Edden protested, his compact bulk spinning to follow.

Jenks laughed, taking to the air and saying, “Give it up, FIB man. It’ll take more than you to get her out. Remember what Ivy and I did to your finest last spring? Add Rachel to that, and you can say your prayers.”

From behind me came Edden’s dry “You think Ivy wants another stint as a candy striper?” But I was here and he was going to let me in on the evidence-gathering part of things. The FIB was confident that Mr. Tilson had attacked Glenn, seeing that it was his house, but his lawyer might try to pass it off on a burglar or something else. Not cool.

“Nice house,” I said, eyes roving over the bright walls, low ceilings, and clean but worn carpet. We passed a short hallway, then stepped down into a large living room. Immediately I stopped. “Oh my God,” I said, taking it in. “They have shag carpet.” Green shag carpet. This might be why Mr. Tilson was nuts. It would make me nuts.