Split at the Seams (22 page)

“Very busy,” I said, pointing at the answering machine.

He whistled. “You take care, Ms. Fox.”

“Sierra,” I said. I hated people calling me that. It made me feel old. I let Mr. and Mrs. Wicker get away with it, as well as Roe. But no one else.

“Take care, Sierra. And you can call me Gareth.” He took another step out into the corridor. “If you ever need backup, or see something that needs reporting…don’t hesitate to contact me. I’m curious about what you do.”

I didn’t respond. The last thing I needed was a nosy cop who wanted a ride along with me. It was enough that I’d probably have to take Lavie on one soon.

When he was finally gone, I stuck his business card into my top drawer. Then, I released a heavy breath. It felt good, as if I was letting go of everything just by exhaling. So much was happening right now and I felt like I didn’t have one lick of control over anything.

A monster was after me, Ebony was risking her life, spooks were fading all over the place, I hadn’t taken care of business all week, Papan was going out into the wild, Vixen still wanted him dead, and Jonathan was attached to some mysterious group out to get me. All of this and I’d also lost a whole day while unconscious.

My life was a bigger mess than usual, and I had to do something about it.

“You look tired,” Oren said, striding back into the office.

“Too bad my day’s nowhere near over.” I groaned. “I do want to get out of here, though. I wouldn’t mind tackling some of my outstanding cases.”

He shook his head. “We’re not going to be able to go anywhere for a while.”

“Why not?”

“The constables called in detectives and forensics,” he answered, looking toward the corridor. “They might want to ask us more questions and are already investigating.”

“How long’s that going to take?” The last thing I wanted to do was go around in circles answering the same questions. But it might give me a chance to look for the letter opener.

“Probably a few hours,” Oren replied.

“Uh…”

“Listen, while we’ve got some time to kill… I was going to save this for your birthday later this year, but I think now’s the right time to give it to you.” He stood by the side of my desk, holding out a leather-bound book. It was just a little bigger than my hand and looked pretty thick. “This is rightfully yours.”

I took it. “What is it?” On closer inspection, the leather was actually burgundy, not black as I’d first thought. I flicked through the pages and found they were all blank.

“It’s your grimoire.”

“My what?” I knew what it was but wanted to hear his explanation.

“A grimoire, journal, book of spells, book of shadows—whatever you want to call it, it’s the same thing.” He sighed. “A place for you to write down every new spell you learn, or are interested in learning. You can list ingredients for potions, draw diagrams to help you learn everything I’ll be teaching you, that type of thing.”

“But I’m not a witch. This is the kind of thing witches have.” I’d read about these, but for some reason had always imagined it to be some big and heavy tome kept locked up inside a dark attic or basement. Not something I could conveniently stick in my pocket and carry everywhere.

Oren shrugged. “You’re part witch. Besides, you can always add your own spook catcher details too. And anything you learn from Burr and the other hunters. Anything you think needs referencing.”

I nodded, running my fingers over the cover. It appeared smooth but was actually bumpy, as if it had something inscribed on it. I lifted it closer to my face and noticed my name etched into it, with some sort of symbol placed below it. It might look like an average notebook, but there was a certain hum vibrating from within it.

“It feels…warm.”

“I’ve put a spell on it,” he said with a grin. “You don’t want others to learn all of your secrets. So if anyone but you opens it, they’ll only see blank pages. It’ll be useless to them. Actually, it’ll be useless to you too, until you say these words…”

I repeated them, and this time when I flicked through it found several pages near the front were filled with neat cursive writing.

“Then how did
you
write in it?”

“I added a few things before casting the spell, of course.”

“Of course.” I smiled.

“Actually, while I’m in the mood for handing out gifts, I have something else to give you.” Oren reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a rectangular-sized case.

“How the hell did you fit
that
inside your pocket?”

His light eyes smiled down at me. “Magic and spells come in handy for many things.” He placed the black leather case with a zipper on three of its four sides on my desk. “This is for you.”

“And what’s this?” The same crest was inscribed into the leather.

“Some tools of the trade,” Oren said with a shrug. “Things you’ll need.”

“Tools of
what
trade, exactly?” I never quite knew which he was talking about. Sometimes I suspected he might turn out to be a spy or something.

“The trade that is witchcraft,” he answered, taking a seat in the chair the police officer had recently vacated.

“I thought the journal was all I needed.”

“It’s a start, and to be honest with you I wanted to help hone your skills a lot more before giving you these, but given the circumstances…”

“Right,” I whispered. Things were definitely moving too fast.

“Aren’t you going to take a look?” Oren pushed the laptop-sized leather case a little closer.

I sighed, secretly anticipating what could be inside. I had no idea what a witch’s tool box entailed. I honestly thought spells, and whatever ingredients were needed, would be enough. Obviously, I was wrong.

Reaching out, I slid the case closer and stared at it. I unzipped it all the way around and flipped the top, exposing a bunch of shiny silver-colored apparatus neatly held together by elastic straps, displayed on both top and bottom.

For a second, I wondered if maybe he’d given me the wrong thing. This looked more like something a doctor or a dentist would use—maybe even an assassin—not a witch.

“What is all this stuff?” I focused on the one thing I recognized and pulled it out. This was the double-edged dagger I’d used twice now—once at the cemetery to seal off the ley line rift, and the other to feed a different ley line for dowsing. I’d never seen it inside the decorative leather scabbard with lovely designs etched all over it. I slid the shiny blade out and it seemed to attract every bit of sunlight filtering in through the office window. The hilt and blade were one continuous piece of silver and looked to be about six inches long. My hand fit perfectly around the grip and the etchings matched its sheath. The tip looked lethally sharp on both sides, ending in a severe point. “This is the dagger I’ve used already, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It’s a short ceremonial athame—a boot dagger blade. It serves as a compact, concealed weapon. It’s already tasted your blood and will respond perfectly to every one of your moves.”

I ignored the creepy blood comment for now, since the sharp edge looked perfectly clean. “Is it made out of pure silver?” I was almost hypnotized by its luminescence.

“Everything is made out of silver. It’s the one metal vampires, demons and were-animals are all allergic to. It’s not always enough to kill them, so the athame you hold in your hand was dipped in holy water for several days and then blessed by both a Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi before you even touched it. It also holds the runes of my native land, Ireland. The Celtic faith has a lot of weapons to combat these types of creatures. And a voodoo priestess performed a ritual on it too.”

“Wow, so if I stabbed the ugly dog with this…he wouldn’t survive?”

“It’s highly unlikely that he would.”

“Looks like I’ll be carrying this around with me from now on.”

“If it’ll make you feel safer, I agree,” Oren said with a nod. “I’ll also teach you a shrouding incantation to put on it.”

“What will that do? Make it invisible?”

“Not exactly, because you will still be able to see it, but others won’t.”

I looked at it for a few more seconds. “But I can still use it?”

Oren nodded.

“This sounds like something I should
definitely
have with me at all times.” I stuck the blade back in its sheath and put it beside the leather case. “So, what else is in here?” I turned my attention to a weapon that looked like a small, silver hand crossbow, with a syringe beneath it. A small, silver handgun sat next to the crossbow.

I pulled out the crossbow and stared at it. “What the hell is this?”

Oren laughed. “That’s a witch’s favorite weapon.”

“A crossbow?”

“You can load arrows, tranquilizer darts, and even inject someone with whatever you’ve loaded it with.
This
holds a variety of arrows and lethal needles for the crossbow.” He placed a square cardboard box in front of me. “And for the gun, there are silver bullets, holy-water bullets, salt bullets, tranquilizers strong enough to put someone to sleep for a week, and a few silver-tipped arrows. Oh, and I’ve even included five very special shells for you—salt with holy water tips.”

I gasped. How did he know about those shells? It was a trade secret I’d learned but never used. The Council taught their top students how to make the only types of bullets capable of “killing” a spook. Once a spook was hit with one of these, they wouldn’t be moving anywhere else—they’d simply fade like ashes in the wind. It was why I’d never even bothered to make one.

“Pepita told me about them,” he answered my unasked question.

“Was there anything Grandma didn’t share with you?”

“We shared just about everything,” he said, with that familiar sad look in his eyes.

“Can I ask you something?” I hesitated for a moment, unsure about whether I should ask what was on my mind. Not only was it none of my business, plus I didn’t particularly want to hear any more intimate details about Oren and Grandma, but I needed to know this one thing.

“Sierra, you know you can.”

Here goes…
“If you and my grandmother were so close and obviously meant so much to each other, why did she end up marrying another man?”
Instead of you
was the bit I left out, because my intention wasn’t to hurt him. I was just curious.

Oren’s eyes flashed pink for just a microsecond, before returning to their icy blue. “The truth is complicated. Nothing was ever straightforward between Pepita and me. We were too much alike, too different at the same time. We might both have been involved in the supernatural world, but her path was very different to mine.”

“That still doesn’t answer—”

“I know it doesn’t, I’m getting to it.” A small smile curved his lips. Almost as if I’d once again done something to remind him of her, which really didn’t surprise me.

I was a lot more like my grandmother than I’d ever been like my mother. I even looked more like her than Mum. My mother had been disappointed in me from very early on. Shortly after she realized what I could do, she freaked out and the great dividing distance began between us. My grandmother stepped in and helped as much as she could, but she’d died too young.

When I was a kid, I’d often wished it was my mother who’d died and not her. Morbid, I know, but I would’ve preferred to live my teenage years with Grandma and Grandpa. As it turned out, I did live with my grandfather in this house, until I enrolled with the Council and into Mace Clamber’s seductive clutches.

“Okay,” I said. “Take your time.”

“When your grandmother decided she didn’t want to be in the game anymore, she told me. She suggested we both stop. She dreamed of moving away from the congested cities to enjoy a quiet life. As much as I loved her, I just wasn’t ready to retire yet. So I tried to encourage her to hold on for a bit longer. She did, but eventually left without telling me.” Sorrow hardened his features. “She probably didn’t believe I would ever retire, but she was wrong. I actually did, but by the time I tried to surprise her, she’d already married another man.”

“So you waited too long?”

“I was stupid,” he said. “I put the right thing off for all the wrong reasons and she slipped away from me. I’ve always regretted it, but when she had my daughter…” At this point, he stopped. He knew how much it hurt for me to know Grandma had not only cheated on Grandpa, but also had another man’s child. My stupid mother was the result. Would she have been a different, more understanding person if Oren wasn’t her father? I didn’t want to dwell on it.

Without hesitation, I reached for his pale hand and squeezed it. “She was right, though.”

“About what?” Unshed tears shimmered in his eyes.

“You never did retire.”

He chuckled, but it sounded more like a cough and his eyes had the glare of a man lost in deep thoughts of past regrets.

“So, what’s the symbol on both the book and case?” I thought changing the subject might help ease him back to the present and away from painful memories.

“It’s the McKee family crest,” he said, looking into my eyes. “You’re my family, my descendant, so it’s also yours to wear.”