Halfway Dead (9 page)

I took Gus to Gran for an impromptu vacation. When I put him down inside the door, he flicked his tail in derision and promptly leapt up on the foyer table, demanding that she pet his enormous, furred head. While she obliged, she examined me with a critical eye. “You’re going to Thendara.” It was statement, not question, and I gave her a simple nod in response.

I sketched out Jim Dietrich’s presence, his purpose for being in Halfway, and my thoughts on Major Pickford.

Gran curled her lip in displeasure. “Have you considered the possibility that this Major Pickford isn’t human?”

“Yes, but he might be a simple thief.” That seemed to be plausible as well, although given the paranormal activity surrounding Halfway, anything was possible. “It’s a
lot
of money.”

“True,” Gran said, drawing the word out and adding an element of doubt. “But what if it isn’t about money at all?”

I looked at Gran sharply. It was an idea that had passed through my thoughts like a will o’ the Wisp, too. It’s easy to be cynical and assume that something nefarious is happening because of money. But witches don’t think like that. When living in the magical world, motivations become skewed by power. Or revenge. Even, on rare occasions, love.

“I thought the same thing, Gran. But I can’t figure an angle,” I said.

Gran traced shapes on the table with one long finger. “Have you cast a spell?”

“No, but I will. Tonight. There’s enough moon for what I want, and I feel like something is under the surface of this whole story. I think that I was meant to find Erasmus, and maybe this entire nonsense about the trees is a vessel to sail me there. To him, to bring him home,” I said.

She looked out at the afternoon sun, a glorious array just beginning its slide over the western hills. “I couldn’t see anything, and I tried last night. This morning, too. There’s some element of uncertainty, and I know it’s out there.” Her lips pressed together, and for a moment, she look tired. Keeping Halfway safe for all these years had been taxing.

I took her hand, and it was warm. The comfort of her presence spread through me like the first day of summer, and we both smiled. I could hear Gus bumbling away underneath the table; he’d positioned himself as close to her feet as possible. Gus was no fool. He knew who held the can opener.

“Before you ask, I’ll be careful, but I’ll be gone for at least two days . . . maybe three. You know the general area, but in the event I don’t come back . . .” I let the sentence die in my throat. It was too strange to say aloud. Gran smiled, and this time it was a warning for persons unseen.

“I’ll turn the mountains to dust if you come to harm, Carlie.” Her voice was like stone. I believed every word of it. Her power was frightening, even though she controlled it with ease.

“I know, Gran. I just want to do what’s right, and try not to bring harm to us. Or, to here,” I said with a wave.

She nodded again, the heat in her eyes cooling, but only just. “Whoever is playing about over a grove of trees will be unmasked, and when that happens, you must preserve yourself first. Thendara is an old place. See to it that your eyes remain open at all times.”

I considered her warning, and took it to heart. “I will. I leave in the morning, and with any kind of blessings, I’ll be home with answers, and perhaps closure for Erasmus.”

“Do that, and then we’ll worry about the imposter named Major Pickford.” Gran’s voice chilled me, and I decided that whoever he was, Major had crossed a line from which there was no return.

The moon was well up when I sat, cross legged and breathing easily on my trusty kitchen floor. I felt that peculiar lightness as the spell built within my bones, a beautiful kind of vertigo that transforms my spirit and frees me from my own mind. I considered the moonlight as it moved across my scrying dish. The ancient black bowl was filled with salted water I’d had under the moonlight since the third quarter; to that I added hyssop and the wilted petals of roses. The surface was mirror smooth and caught the night sky perfectly.

I let a long breath flow smoothly from my lips, and focused on the surface of the bowl. When my chest began to flutter, the first images crawled across the water like a diorama of woven starlight. First, there was gloom that could only be the forest at dawn. A series of shapes moved through the—chestnuts? It looked like the grove, I decided, then watched as a small figure edged toward the tumbled stones that had been Bentley’s dig site. Was that me? I thought so, although I was barefoot and holding a staff of some sort. I looked to the wobbling edges of the scene as it began to break up, seeing nothing dramatic until two, then three more shapes began to crowd the scene. The woman, if it was me, turned over a flat stone to reveal a small, white skull that was missing its jaw. There were marks on the bone, as if it had been carved, and then the image faltered. I softened my intensity and let my hands fall loose, and the waters of the bowl cleared again.

One of the figures, a man—yes, it had to be a man, he walked too broadly, with too much heft—charged the woman. Charged
me
. I wanted to cry out, but my training kept me silent until the two figures were nearly touching, their poses rigid with anger. He raised a cudgel, its woody knots gleaming with polish, and swung it at her head—

My phone rang, and I squeaked in shock. I looked back to the bowl, now a shattered pastiche of fragments, like a small pond raked by a hard wind. The scrying was ruined, my own lack of discipline to blame. I swore softly and lifted the phone to my ear.

“Carlie?” It was a male whisper, barely audible. It was also familiar, but so soft I strained to hear.

I found myself whispering back. “Who is this?”

There was a long pause, and a rush of breathing. It was fearful, and I grew cold listening to it. “It’s Brendan.” Again, a long pause. I heard the smallest noise of footsteps on hard wood, then nothing. “I have a stupid question to ask you. Wait a minute, don’t answer.” The footsteps came again, heels thumping lightly across wood, then faded again.

“Brendan, you’re scaring me. What is it?” I did not have time to wait if he was in danger.

“Umm, are you on my back porch, dressed up like a . . . well, in a black dress and boots?” He paused again, and his breathing quickened once more. The footsteps returned, then faded, but this time more slowly.

My blood went to ice. “Brendan, listen to me very carefully. Take your phone, and go into your cellar as quietly as you can.” He lived two blocks from me, and I was already on the move. “Do
not
open your door until I tell you a safe word, do you understand?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Umm, what’s the safe word?”

“You know that place I was looking for? Don’t say it out loud. That’s the word,” I said as I gained speed. I was barefoot and running at full tilt now, my feet barely touching the pavement. I could see his house as he said yes and we hung up.

I ran in a soundless fury after casting a spell of silence on my body. My legs are short, but anger pushed me into a streaking rush until I pulled up three houses from Brendan’s tidy bungalow, letting my breathing normalize with a few great drafts of the cool night air. A single sodium light burned overhead one house down from my position next to a looming clump of birch trees.

I glared at the light, then muttered, “Mall scáth.”

A nebulous shadow crept over the streetlight, and the area began to dim gradually. It wouldn’t due to merely cause the lamp to explode; I wanted some degree of surprise for who or whatever was lurking on Brendan’s porch. I was barefoot, and my soles tingled from the run across gravel and pavement, but I pushed the discomfort from my mind and opened my senses to the scene before me.

I heard it first. A low, short creak of the boards on the side porch gave away
something
moving with incredible delicacy, and my eyes zeroed in on a dark patch that seemed to flow from one window to the next. It was looking for a way in. A quiet way, I decided, and my witchmark began to flood my neck with a heat that could only mean danger. I flicked both hands outward, fingers spread, and spells at the ready. I knew nothing, except that Brendan was in danger, and I was still unseen.

Good enough for me
, I thought, and began running across the dew-slicked lawn with both hands held before me. As my feet hit the smooth wood of the porch, the woman turned, her eyes a seething red in a face of inhumanly blank whiteness.

“Wrong house, love.” I released the bolt of sunlight dead into the creature’s chest, blasting her backward with the force of an oncoming truck. I’m not big, but I hit hard.

She skidded across the boards before crashing headfirst into the decorative spindles, shattering four of them with her skull in a spectacular spray of wood chips and blue light. Without stopping, I shouted a cantrip of cold to slow whatever she might be, but not fast enough. Before my second spell hit, I knew she was not human. Her feet hit the porch, and I took a horrendous punch in my stomach, sending white stars flickering across my vision like I was in a vintage cartoon. I heard a hiss and mumble of something in a tongue even I didn’t recognize, and felt my eyes clear just as the second blow caught me clean in the neck.

Big mistake. The creature’s hand hit my witchmark, and a shockwave of golden light raced up her, or him, or whatever it was, terminating by setting its hair on fire with a muffled
whoomp
.

“Now it’s a fight,” I muttered, then saved my breath for another spell. To keep my opponent busy, I stomped on its foot with my heel, and heard a satisfying squeal like an enraged piglet. In that brief second, my next spell was ready.

“Cnámh clack!” I shouted, loud enough that my ears were ringing, and the beastie began to stiffen, but not before catching me with another one of those damned hard punches. This one clipped my elbow and my whole arm went dead, a chill running up into my shoulder like I’d lain in the grave for a week. My silence spell had failed, and, with it, the additional bubble of magical protection. I was now open to all manner of attack, and apparently loud enough to blow my own eardrums out. I was hit again, a thunderous punch to the side of my nose. Stars shot through my vision in a brilliant spray, and I felt the cartilage shift. Blood flew from my nostril and I spun, halfway, thinking that I might not win this one.

I staggered, then righted myself like a floundering ship. My spell was currently turning the skeleton of the creature before me into something like stone; it wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while, and I could ask a few questions while I shook off the chill—

—
Aha!
I’d been touched by a wight. The cold, the numbness—it all added up to a rather nasty variety of undead who almost
never
came after people in their own homes. Wights are antisocial by nature, and this one appeared to be relatively fresh, if I’m any judge of magical hooligans. She still had vestiges of makeup on her face, and could not have been dead for more than a few days at most.

The wight collapsed to one side and folded conveniently for me to kneel next to her without moving my feet. That was good, because I was already sore. I couldn’t imagine how crappy I’d feel in the morning. I sensed a healing tea in my future, preferably after a few hours’ sleep. With a grunt, I settled next to the creature, who was trying to hiss at me and having more than a little trouble. My spell had some punch.

“Who sent you?” I asked, getting right to the point. Wights tend to eat people; they don’t necessarily go on excursions in town without someone else calling the tune.

She turned her head from me, and a gray tongue lolled to one side. I felt a wave of uneasy anger. This woman had once been quite pretty. She still looked young, maybe late teens.

I placed a hand near her eyes and began a low, complex chant. Wights, being dead, generally have fairly low cognitive capacity. I like to think of them as exceptionally nasty teenagers who like to bite people. There was confusion in her eyes, and I sensed a geas upon her. Someone had pointed this poor, dead woman at Brendan for reasons unknown, then placed a spell of silence upon her. If there was any spark of the girl left in this wight, I could only imagine the howling frustration at being turned into a repulsive, dead tool, incapable of speaking the truth. My spell concluded, and I waved my fingers near her mouth, which hung slack from my earlier magic that slowed her so badly.

A shower of carmine sparks rained into her mouth, and the area they touched became free of both my magic and the geas holding her prisoner. Whoever I was up against knew nothing about keeping a wight silent; the magic had been badly formed and was easy to circumvent.

She turned her head to me incrementally as my spell allowed her body to regain some degree of control. I wasn’t afraid of her attacking me again, so I leaned close when she tried to speak.

Her voice was a gravel whisper. “Nurse.” Two eyes bore into mine, begging me to understand.

I let my eyes roam over her body, but there was nothing indicting she was referring to herself. “You were a nurse?” That was unlikely, given the apparent youth under her deathly pallor.

“N-o-o . . . ” she stammered in a painful ratcheting series of sounds that were more cough than word. “Nurs-seee.” Her eyelids flickered rapidly over orbs that were milky with decay. Her small shoulders lifted in frustration, and one arm flipped back and forth slightly. She was angry. “Grooooowwww.” The last word came out in a fetid blast of air. Her lungs were ripe, and I began to feel the beginnings of a dangerous rage. Someone had done this to the girl.