Larry started a slow clap, and Michael joined in because if nothing else – he’s a joiner. Irish and Gianna scowled at me, and as the clapping went on, turned to glare at the boys. “What?” Larry asked. “Come on, that was a great line! ‘The scariest one in the room?’ Are you kidding me? It just aches for a closeup, a glint of light off that ruby, and some swelling theme music! I am so blogging this.”

Gianna’s face was growing smoother and younger again as she composed herself. Frowning, she approached until she was standing just in front of where I sat. With each step, she shed flakes of ice clinging to her Victorian granny boots. Her blouse adopted a heavy crimson color, adapting to hide the bloodstains, and her lips darkened to match. “It doesn’t answer the question, though, does it?” she murmured, and demurely gathered her skirts around her knees as she knelt down to get a closer look at me. “You smell human. Always have; I would have noticed if you didn’t. Cold, though. Colder tonight than usual. That thing with the ice… you weren’t using an item. Not that I could see. Michael,” she prompted, without looking away from me, “what have you overheard?”

The vampire hung his head, looking guiltily at the floor, but he’d never been able to resist a direct question from his Mama. “She talks about the shadows like they’re a part of her, sometimes. She doesn’t turn her head when she notices something in the dark. It’s like she has eyes in all the shadows. Also, Irish was praying for her when she wasn’t paying attention, and he says she’s possessed.” Larry smacked his shoulder, and Michael ran his fingers through his thick black hair, shrugging and looking miserable and guilty. “Sorry. He was whispering, but I have good hearing.”

An elegant eyebrow arched, as the last bloodstain on her porcelain skin was absorbed away into nothingness. “A demon?” She looked over to Irish, and even her hair had arranged itself into artfully curled strands hanging around her face and down around the loosened bun. “You mentioned a demon earlier, talking to that violent child in the leather. Is it in Alice? Can I use it?”

“What? No!” Irish looked horrified at the very thought. I had to raise a hand to my face to hide my smile.

She looked back at me, with a friendly, intimate smile. “If it’s a question of souls, rest assured they can be obtained.” Wow. She had no idea how right she was.

“Sorry, Gianna. No demon here. Despite what Irish might or might not be praying about, I’m the one doing the possessing around here.” The shadows rose at my command, and in my left hand I held a sphere of absolute darkness. “My shadow requires a host to live in this world. She’s no demon, but she’s not local, either.”

“You’re talking about an outlander.”

Now it was my turn to look surprised. “How do you even know that word?”

“Honestly, do you think you’re the first magician I’ve had in my employ? In the fifties, I found a young man with remarkable talents for divination. His will was much weaker than yours, but the hepatoscopy was remarkably useful. Sadly, the Arcana found out he was under my sway, and he was killed. In the seventies, I employed a medium of some talent. Strictly for money, since my mental controls had been discovered before. That worked much better, but when her lifestyle began to attract attention – she spent far too freely – it fell to me to remove her before she betrayed me to your Knights. So. You have an outlander in thrall. Fascinating.”

I nodded, reappraising the poised, petite lady kneeling across a broken table from me. She’d always seemed cruel and callous, and I’d chalked it up to the whole undead thing. Cool blue eyes met my stare, and I could almost hear the gears turning in there. Gianna was, perhaps, much more dangerous than I’d given her credit for.

The silence dragged on for several seconds, the men watching us watching each other. The shadow grew bored, and the sphere in my palm dissolved. I turned my attention back to the ring, deciding that ignoring her would be the best approach just now. Still, I caught her smile widening in the corner of my eye and cursed myself for being the first to look away.

“Whoever built this used some kind of epoxy to see the stone in,” I muttered, digging into my pouches and coming out with a jeweler’s loupe. I tucked the loop into my eye and held the ring up, glaring at the thin layer of epoxy preventing me from breaching the stone’s defenses. The stone was a ruby, no doubt about that, pigeon blood red, maybe two carats, and probably heat treated for inclusions. No sign of lead filling, though. All of which meant this was one pricey ruby, set in what was almost certainly lunar silver.

Odd choice, that. You usually set rubies in gold. The contrast helps even out the color, makes the stone look a deeper, richer red. The silver setting played up purple in the stone, giving it a slightly bluer cast in the light. Instead of looking cheap, which is what you’d usually get, the setting made this stone look a deeper, darker red, the near purple you see in oxygen-depleted blood.

Part of that had to do with the lunar silver. Lunar silver costs a goddamn fortune, and a lot of artificers will use it in illusion-based magics, because it hangs on to an illusion so well, and its natural properties make everything look better. It was good to use in magic mirrors, too. It did wonders to improve reception when used as the silver backing.

“Who made them?” Gianna asked. I didn’t look up at her, but her tone was pure innocent interest. I didn’t believe her for a second.

“Can’t tell. There’s no maker’s mark.” Although… A big fat ruby, and lunar silver. Hmmm. Not a jeweler’s first choice, really. Of course, not all artificers were jewelers.

“Is that strange?” Irish raised an eyebrow at me. “I mean, should there be?”

“Kind of strange, yes.” I frowned. “Magicians like to brag. Also, most artists sign their work, right? But it’s not required or anything. It’s tradition, and we mages do love tradition.”

“Artists?” Irish’s tone took on a hint of derision and I shot him a sharp look, which was probably spoiled by the jeweler’s loupe. “Just because you dabble in the ‘Dark Arts’ doesn’t make any of you an artist.”

“Dabble?” I flipped him the bird. “Dabble this. Look, just because you can draw doesn’t make you the final judge on what’s art. What I do is appreciated in some circles, okay? Let’s leave it at that.”

Irish snorted at me, but had the grace to look at least a little apologetic. I cut him some slack since he was probably still sore about his only child having sold out to the underworld, and went back to examining the ring, looking for telltale signs in the craftsmanship. I frowned as I tasted the ring, band and stone. I shook it close to my ear and gave it a good listen, while Irish stalked away to retrieve his sword and Cat’s knife. Caressing the ring, holding it up to the light, it felt like my nerves were extending out through my hands to explore it inside and out.

Ruby was a good choice for an artifact like this. It was an energy booster, and you’d want that in an artifact that was meant to channel and direct energy. Considering the visionary properties of lunar silver, it made a sort of sense, too. Meiter was using these rings to look through his minions and check on his patterns, and the silver would help with that. Not the way I’d do it, of course. I’d have wanted a piece of Carl to incorporate into each piece of the set. A hair, maybe, or a teardrop. Yeah, a tear, absorbed into a salt crystal and encased in a stone of some kind. Something of the city… granite from certain buildings, maybe. Organic, tied to the man and to the city itself. This was… well, it’d work, but it wasn’t ideal. It was kind of a kludge, and the whole thing had a cobbled-together feel.

Gianna cleared her throat. “The work of a master is recognizably his, even if there’s no signature on the painting. Can you recognize any of the… stylistic touches?”

“Some of it seems familiar, but that’s not enough to make a guess on. Might be someone whose work I studied all the time – just not in this form.” That actually seemed about right, now that I heard the words fall out of my mouth. “This is a unique enchantment, not something mass-produced for sale or something published in the trades.”

“You have trades? Can I read some?” Larry asked, as Irish scoffed and growled “Alice! Stop pulling our legs, will you?”

“Who’s pulling legs?” I asked, letting the jeweler’s loupe fall out of my eye and catching it in my free hand. I pocketed it, staring at the ring in my palm. “There aren’t a lot of artificers out there, and I’ve worked with more than a few.”

“Why so rare?” Michael moved to stand over my shoulder, and the light bulb floated around to my other side automatically, so my light wasn’t blocked.

“It’s not a skill set you see much of. Magical talent, plus a head for engineering, design, the physical skill to build something… you can’t enchant something you pick up at Wal-Mart. It has to be something you make, yourself. Also, it’s only been a recognized craft for a little while. A few hundred years ago, someone like me might be lucky to make one artifact in their whole life. One, and one only. Usually they’d die in the final stage, and they’d never know if they succeeded.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Think Excalibur, or Ali Baba’s flying carpet. Even now, you just don’t get the combo very often. And even when you do, it takes longer to get any good at it. Tyler was blowing up buildings when he was seventeen. I was still learning to sew.” The shadow crept forward in my mind, watching me as I studied the ring. That epoxy was going to be a bitch. I needed to dissolve it to get the stone loose, and I needed to get the stone loose to break the ring’s defenses. The magical defenses had been built around the ring’s physical sturdiness, which wasn’t the worst plan I’d ever encountered. Then again, not the best, either.

This ring was put together by someone who had only half an idea of what they were doing, and hadn’t ever done anything just like this before. A consignment job for sure, and probably Carl had kept his cards close to his chest when the artificer had asked for the job specs. Little tendrils of shadow stroked and licked the silver as I considered it, and through her, I could feel ticks and flaws I hadn’t been able to see. These were tiny flaws made during the enchantment process. Like tempering steel and cooling it too quickly – it makes it sharp, sure, but too brittle. A hammer would be all it took to destroy this thing.

So. The rings were slapped together in a hurry, from quality materials, just not the best materials for the job. No wonder the damn things broke so easily.

Wait… why did that sound so familiar?

Voices muttered in the background. The shadow identified them, Irish, Larry, Gianna. They’d probably gotten bored while I was lost in thought and stepped away to talk amongst themselves. Fine. I ignored them. I nudged my shadow, and showed her the shape of my thoughts, the burgeoning hunch. She liked patterns, and was immediately fascinated by the challenge. I felt her sifting through my head, looking for something that matched. Looking for the right patterns. The shadow searched my memories, and I listened to words as I stared at the ring and thought about it.

Larry was on the phone, relaying some news from Pardell. I heard “– and stuffing them in a van.”

“That can’t be good,” Irish murmured darkly. “What can he be doing? Is he making more vampires?”

“No, you idiot. Worse. He’ll be churning out ghouls and revenants.”

“What d’ye mean?”

“Making vampires is difficult under the best of circumstances,” Gianna said. I listened to her voice, explaining the process. Part of my brain was filing the information under “interesting, think about that later,” as the shadow returned thoughts and memories of other artifacts I’d encountered, read about, studied. Hundreds of them, easily. Shit, it was right on the tip of my tongue. Keep looking, I urged. Gianna’s voice droned on in the background. “… and even then, it can go wrong, and the get is starving, mindless. They eat everything, flesh, bone, muscle…”

The shadow showed me the image of a broken wand, two lacquered halves, one in each of my hands, the ragged edges trailing bits of feather and string, and I sat up straight.

“Motherfucker,” I slapped my forehead and stood up fast, and Michael jumped, surprised by my movement. I turned to call to Irish, just in time to hear Gianna saying “– revenants are worse. So mindless, they won’t stop eating. They’ll drink until they burst, and keep going.”

I stared at her for a second, doing a quick replay in my head of the conversation the shadow had memorized while I’d been ignoring everyone. Pardell had called Larry to let him know what was going on, and mentioned that Rabbi they knew had seen something odd. A vampire matching Benny’s description was abducting people at random, biting or killing them and stuffing the bodies in a van, and driving off. And now Gianna was… well, she was being awfully damn forthcoming about vampire husbandry, is what she was doing. I stared at her spilling her guts to Irish.

The shadow was still in search mode. This was another pattern. She helpfully pointed out I’d been doing a lot of that sort of thing myself, lately. Last night in shop, I’d talked about Gene to Irish. Later on, telling him all about hollowmen, even though that wasn’t strictly in my best interests. Still later, spilling the beans on thaumaturgy, and artificing, and Gene, and… “Motherfucker,” I repeated, narrowing my eyes at Irish.

“What is it, Alice?” Michael was studying the open-mouthed expression of outrage I could feel on my face. I glowered up at him, snapping my mouth shut.

“I just figured out who made this.” I held the ring up. “And when I get a spare minute, I’m going to kick his ass. But first, I’m going to clear my name, put Carl’s balls in a vice, kill a hollowman, and maybe save a city. After I’m done with that, I’ll have to talk the Knights into not killing me and chase the Order out of town, so it looks like it’s going to be a busy night. We better get a move on.”

“What?” Irish turned to stare at me, and Gianna abruptly shut her mouth, pressing her lips tight as a worried little line appeared between her brows. Possibly, she’d just realized she’d been spilling her beans all over the place, too.

“You heard me.” I leveled a finger at Gianna. “You.  You’ve got the best chance of finding Carl. Benny. Whoever. Find him, but don’t go after him for fuck’s sake. He’ll fry you alive, and then we’ll never find where he’s hiding those bodies. Let me get this working, first.” I held the ring up. “You!” I jabbed Michael in the chest, “– go get your brother, and call a truce with Duane. If we’ve got rogue ghouls, corruptions, and fuck knows what else, we need every hand on deck. If you’re all alive later, you can have your turf war as planned, okay?”

Michael turned to his mother to confirm the order, and though she pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, she nodded at him before glaring daggers my way.

“Watch your tone when you speak to my son, you half-breed slut. He’s mine.”

“Bite me. You know what’ll happen if we don’t get a lid on this. We’ll be flooded with Knights and Order and caught in the crossfire. You really want to be Eldest of a scorched city?” That shut her up. “Larry, you go with Michael. He’s tough, but he’s not good at improvisation. You are. If you have any more friends like Soo Lin and the Rabbi, anyone who’s any good in a fight…?”

He nodded, slipping his sunglasses back on. “A few, sure.”

“Wake ‘em up. We might need them.”

“And what about you?” She turned, watching Michael as he caught Larry by the arm and hustled him up the stairs.

“Me?” I stuffed the ring in a pouch. “I need to get back to my workshop, and find something to open this ring up. I can’t just break this one.” I aimed a sharp little smile Irish’s way. “I have to do this one right.”

Irish opened his mouth to speak, and I put a finger against my lips and shook my head. He set his mouth in a flat, unhappy line, but held his peace as Gianna turned, waving at Robert. “Fetch the car.” She shot a sharp look my way. “Don’t get too used to giving the orders, dear.”

“Who, me?” I pressed a hand to my chest and made innocent eyes at the vampire. She studied me for a long, cold moment, then turned to follow Robert up the stairs. This time she looked away first.

I held a hand up, waving for Irish to stay quiet as the shadow trickled after her, making sure she actually left. She loitered for a few minutes upstairs while Irish paced back and forth, until Robert brought the car around and they left.

“Okay, she’s gone. And you’ve got some –”

“What about Cat?”

“– explaining to do,” I finished over him. “And don’t worry, I thought about her, too. That’s why I sent everyone else out first, in case she’s up there waiting with a sniper rifle.”

“You what? That’s not what I meant, Alice. I meant –”

“You probably meant you’re going to explain to me how the hell you got Gianna talking like that.” I snatched my light bulb out of the air and stuffed it into a pouch, catching Irish’s arm as I headed for the stairs.

“I don’t know what yer talking about…”

“Please. You had the vampire bat singing like a canary, and you know it. You’ve been doing it to me, too!” I started up the steps, pulling him along. “Shit, I can hardly keep my mouth shut around you the last couple of days!”

“And about time, too, wasn’t it? Ye’ve been lyin’ to me how long, now?”

“You can’t call it ‘lying’ when I’m doing it to save my own life,” I sniped over my shoulder as the shadow flowed ahead, on watch. “Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is me telling you more than I ever told my own damn husband.” I paused in the kitchen, and Irish bumped into my shoulder. “All three of them,” I added for emphasis, holding up three fingers.

Irish smiled at me. “Maybe you don’t like keeping things from me. Maybe you like being able to trust me. Have you ever thought of that?”

“Not really, no.”

He stepped closer, and my ass bumped against the counter in the tiny little kitchen. Irish was very close. “Maybe you should, Alice.” His voice was low and husky, and he took my still upraised hand in his, gently.

I stomped on his foot and he hopped back, yelping in surprise. “What do you think I am, stupid? Your daughter is maybe right outside, bought and sold by the devil, and you expect me to believe that you’re whipping out the smooth on me? What kind of women does this actually work on?” I started to tell him he wasn’t as hot as he thought he was, but he smelled really, really good and I had to admit I kind of liked being pushed up against the wall like that.

Irish heaved a sigh. “Maybe I wanted you to think better of me, is all.” He leaned against the pantry door and crossed his arms, and the coat strained and creaked as his biceps flexed. “It’s just – I don’t even think about it, much. We’re trained for interrogation, Alice. You ask the right questions, you get the answers ye need. After a while, it’s reflex. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah? Do I strike you as the sort who confides in people who are interrogating me?” I poked him in the shoulder, avoiding his armored vest. “And what ‘right questions?’ Like, ‘hey, how do those hollowmen work, anyway?’ That kind of right question? I had to be out of my damn mind to tell you about that!” I tossed my hands up, striding into the living room as the shadow flowed through the darkness, out into the yard. The coast was clear, as far as she could tell. Which was pretty far at the moment.

From the kitchen, she heard him sigh heavily. “And maybe I wanted ye to trust me. Maybe I wanted ye to feel something human for once. For me.”

I sent my reply through the shadows, all the corners of the kitchen whispering to him in my voice: “I heard that.”

Another sigh. “O’course ye did.” He shook his head. “Witches.”

The street was deserted when I stepped out on the porch. Naturally. The houses were boarded up, burned out, and generally decaying back into the ground, and there wasn’t so much as a pop of gunfire to be heard. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed my home phone, waiting for Gene to pick up. Irish pulled his coat tighter as he stepped out of the house behind me.

“And how are we getting back to your house?” There was just a hint of smugness in his voice. “Care to confide that?”

“Don’t be an asshole. The house can come to us, remember?” I hoped. I was caught by surprise at the sound of Honey’s voice, answering my phone. “Alice’s House of Creepy, this Honey. How can I help you?” Oh, that’s right. I had a roommate now.

“You’re fucking hilarious.” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. New place for Honey, added to the to-do list.

“Oh, hey, girl. I love that garden tub you’ve got. You must have a huge hot water heater.”

I stepped down to the crumbling walk leading out to the sidewalk. “You don’t want to know what I’ve got heating my water. Is my car fixed yet?”

“How should I know? I haven’t been out of the trunk all day. Also, Gene? Does a killer manicure, did you know that? Why do your nails always look so bad?” She was having my zombi doing her nails? New place for Honey, moving higher up on the to-do list.

“Focus, Honey. Put Gene on, would you?” I nudged Irish, pointing down the street at the crooked sign on the corner. “Go find out where we are.”

“Hamtramck,” he answered without looking. “Desner and Bloom, not far off Davison.”

“How do you even know that?”

He smirked. “Because I was payin’ attention when we drove here.”

“So was I,” I muttered as Honey snickered in my ear. “Sort of.”

“He takes you to the nicest places. You’re such a lucky girl. Here’s Gene.”

I waited for her to hand the phone off, ignoring Irish’s smirk. “Gene?” Silence greeted me, but it was that still, listening silence that meant Gene had the phone. “I need you to bring the car, if it runs. I’m on –”

“Desner and Bloom.”

“I. Know.” I cut my eyes Irish’s way and he returned the look with dry amusement. “Desner and Bloom. South off Davison.” I turned a sharp eye on Irish to see if he had anything else smart to offer, but he just raised his eyebrows and stayed quiet. “If the Barracuda’s not ready, have Honey call me back, and we’ll figure something else out.”

There was another still moment of silence, and the phone clicked dead. I tucked the phone away, and pulled out my cigarettes, lighting one.

“Why drop the ring into the void?” Irish asked as I put my cigarettes away. “Why not just… feed it to yours?” I opened my mouth to answer, and then, before I let a single word out, stopped and thought about whether I was answering because I felt like answering, or because Irish wanted an answer. I turned a suspicious gaze on him, and he held his hands up. “My hand to God, I’m not doin’ a thing.”

I frowned, wary. Finally, I said, “That wouldn’t be the best idea.”

“Fine.” He tucked his hands in his coat pockets, and turned to watch the street. Silence fell, and we listened to the distant sound of traffic. I smoked as the silence grew more awkward and uncomfortable. After a while, I flicked my cigarette butt away into the street sending a little scatter of red embers across the pavement. My shadow chased each one, snuffing them abruptly.

“Oh,” Irish said, as though he’d just caught on. “You don’t dare.”

“Excuse me?” I shifted to look at him. He eyed the street, thoughtful.

“You don’t dare,” he repeated, tone musing. “Ye must not, or ye would’ve fed Carl to it first thing.” He rubbed his jaw as I watched him, keeping my face neutral. “It must get stronger when it eats.” He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “Sure, that makes sense. And it’s already had more than yer used to givin’ it, hasn’t it? It fed a lot at the bar, I’m thinkin’. On the geists, and on the energy Carl was throwing around.” He looked up at the sky, the overcast night lit by the city until the clouds looked like rusty metal. “You keep acting like it’s just done something you’re not used to. Like with poor Larry, earlier, in the living room.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I lit another cigarette and turned a bit, so I wasn’t looking at him.

“Yer scared t’ death it might get away from you.” He paused. “I’m right. Aren‘t I?” He waited to see if I’d answer. When I didn’t, he said, sternly, “What happens if it does, Alice?”

My heart pounded in my chest, and I felt the shadow’s interest. She seemed to think it was a good question. What did happen if she got away from me?

“That’s not going to happen.” I straightened my shoulders, inhaling a deep lungful of smoke while the shadow bristled. She felt it might happen. Maybe soon.

“No? It just won’t? Oh, well, that’s all right, then.” Irish’s voice was skeptical, and I felt the shadow echoing that skepticism, stretching against my will just the teeniest bit.

I resisted the urge to clamp down on the shadow. It was a panic reaction, and that was the sort of thing she seized on. In the depths of my mind, we watched each other, gauged each other. I could hear her humming, a low, whispering purr as she studied me. Then she diverted some of her attention, and I had to fight the urge to clamp down on her again.

She was studying the ring in my pocket, curious and speculative. She knew I was going to open the locks, and when I did, all of Carl’s delicious power would be waiting. She was deciding to be patient.

“Irish?” I said.

“Aye?”

“Sometimes I wish you weren’t so fucking smart.”

“Sorry?”

“You have no idea.”

Table of Contents / Chapter Thirty-Six >>

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