Finn Fancy Necromancy (28 page)

“Stop!” Zeke shouted, to no effect.

The boy moved to stand beside Giselle and shimmered as he moved, expanded, until the man who attacked me at the restaurant and stalked my house the night of my return stood there glowering at me.

“And now,” Giselle said, her eyes fixed on Zeke. “It's time you pay the cost of invading our home.” She lifted an object that looked like a dead mouse with a bird skull attached. The veins along her arms and neck went black against her pale skin, and droplets of red appeared on her fingers and lips.

The amulet against my chest grew warm.

I pointed the pistol at Giselle, and Zeke reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a grenade. He yanked the pin free.

“Go ahead!” he said. “Make another move, and I'll toss this back into your little room of fun.”

“No!” Giselle said. “Wait!” She lowered the talisman and held up her empty hand instead. The signs of blood magic vanished from her skin. “We can talk.”

“Good,” Zeke said. “Let's try this again. Why don't you tell us exactly what you've done to attack Finn here?”

“Nothing,” Giselle said. “We've never attacked him, I swear.”

Zeke gave a surprised grunt. “She ain't lying, not that I can tell.”

I waved the revolver at the man. “But your family tried to poison me in the restaurant last night.”

“That wasn't poison,” the man said, his Austrian accent returned. “We only wanted to talk to you.”

“You tried to slip me a witch's brew.”

“Ya, just a little something to make you more … cooperative, to answer our questions.”

“Oh, well, that's okay, then,” I said, then remembered that witches were immune to sarcasm. “That is, it wasn't okay at all. What questions?”

Giselle exchanged glances with the man, then said, “We wish to know who was Felicity's lover?”

Felicity had a lover? That was a surprise, but my brain started turning over the possibilities. “I don't understand. Why do you want to know about her lover?”

“Because we think her lover was the same person who attacked her, and forced her into hiding.”

Would that mean my father had been Felicity's lover? No, I refused to believe that. He had loved Mother too much, even after her death. But maybe the Króls were right, maybe Felicity's lover was the person who controlled my father. In which case, we were both after the same thing.

“What do you know about this lover of hers?” I asked.

The man beside Giselle said, “He must be someone of influence. He took Felicity away from us, and continued to block our attempts to immigrate here after you were exiled.”

“Why did he want Felicity, exactly?” Zeke asked.

I'd never really thought about it before but realized what an important question that was. If the person who brought Felicity to America was the same person who killed her, why go through all that trouble? Why not just use an au pair from closer to home?

“She was beautiful in the eyes of men,” Giselle said, the disgust thinly disguised in her tone. “She refused to use her blood gifts, so was not blessed with the markings of our craft.”

“That's hard to believe,” Zeke said. “You witches tend to eat your own if they don't follow your ways.”

“She had … other uses,” Giselle said. “We require many materials, and she possessed great skill at obtaining them, particularly plants.”

The man snorted. “That's all she ever wanted to do, play with her plants.”

Giselle smiled at me, an unpleasant smile. “Men desire women who appear beautiful, innocent, pure. They desire to possess such girls as Felicity, to corrupt them, it is in the darkest corner of every man's heart. I understand the one who took her away from us. He was more our kin than Felicity, in some ways. But he must pay nonetheless.”

“Do you know anything else about him?”

“Only that her lover was someone in your family,” Giselle said. “In your house.”

“How do you know it was— Wait. What makes you so sure
I
wasn't her lover, then?” I felt oddly offended.

Giselle laughed. “Because we smelled the virginity on you, at the trial.” She cocked her head. “Interesting. You're not a virgin now, though. You've been busy since your return.” She sounded disappointed, and I didn't think it was because she'd hoped to be my first. Unicorns and blood witches both loved virgins, and for similar reasons. There was some kind of power in virgin blood. Apparently powerful enough to smell even through a wall of laundry scents.

I wrestled with the possibility that the Króls might be right. Who in our family might have been Felicity's lover?

Petey had been too young, so that wasn't a worry at least.

Sammy? Possible, if unlikely. True, she'd never felt she was part of the family, never liked the family business or much of anything for that matter, and she did resent Felicity for taking Mother's place. But even though I could almost believe her capable of attacking Felicity, I couldn't imagine her pretending to love someone she hated, or hurting someone who was her lover, and I certainly refused to believe she would frame me. Besides, the attack had involved magic, which Sammy was allergic to.

Grandfather—no, just because—
ewww
! And while he'd supported the decision to hire an au pair, he'd also died before Felicity's attack. I supposed it was possible that his was the spirit that possessed Father, but only if summoned by someone else, and even then, why attack Felicity? And who then blocked the Króls' immigration? Who'd been attacking me since my return from exile? Even if Grandfather did manage to somehow exert his will once from beyond the grave for some unknowable reason, he could not have done everything else.

Father? Age difference aside, he'd truly loved Mother. And why would he have himself possessed, attack Felicity, and frame me?

Once again, I was back to Mort. If someone in my family really had been Felicity's lover and attacker, I hoped it
was
Mort. Not because I wanted to believe he was guilty, but just because I wanted even less to believe my father or anyone else in the family was guilty. And I could almost believe it, except for three things: He'd passed Zeke's truth-sensing test, I didn't want it to be true for Mattie's sake, and of course, if he'd slept with Felicity, there's no way he'd have been able to stop himself from bragging about it.

“Don't you have anything else you can tell me, to help me figure out who it is?” I asked. “You've had twenty-five years. What've you done in all that time to find Felicity's real attacker?”

“We did nothing at first,” Giselle replied in an icy tone, “though I now regret it. Felicity contacted us after your trial, and told us that she had framed you for some greater purpose, that we were not to take blood vengeance on your family. I thought she had perhaps at last embraced the way of her people. But then she disappeared. For twenty-five years we heard nothing. And then, two nights ago, she sent me a message via the gnomes.”

I took a step forward. “You got g-mail from Felicity?”

“We … do not call it that anymore, but yes. Felicity told me she was going to apologize to you, and warn you of some danger. She said that—” Giselle's face twisted in disgust. “That guilt had eaten at her heart. She knew I had begun searching for her again, and to … research your family. She said that if anything happened to her, that we were not to blame you, and that we should take no action for we would only endanger ourselves.”

Zeke grunted. “So you've just been good little witches,” he waved back in the direction of the secret room. “It looks to me like you've been busy playing Leave it to Cleaver here.”

Giselle shrugged. “We gather our power and influence. Such things will be needed, I think, when we discover what has truly happened to Felicity, and who is responsible.”

“The power is not for vengeance, I think,” Zeke replied. “You do that for the fun.”

“Why, I'm offended,” Giselle said, then looked back at me. “We have used all the magic at our disposal to unveil which of your family tasted Felicity's soul, and we've found nothing.”

“Then why are you so convinced it was someone in my family?”

“Because the bones say so, and because I feel it.”

“Right,” I said. “Okay, look. I don't know anything about a lover. But it seems we both want the same thing. So why don't you just agree to leave me alone while I find out who's behind all this, and I'll agree not to bring the ARC down on your heads.” Of course, I didn't promise Zeke wouldn't do so.

Footsteps on the stairs again, and the pale girl who'd acted like our waitress the night before burst into the room. “The wards! Something is coming at us, fast!”

“Is this your doing?” Giselle demanded, looking between me and Zeke.

“No,” I said.

Any remaining hint of color drained from her face. “Move aside, then! We need access to our magics.”

“I don't think so,” Zeke replied.

“Damn it—”

Something slammed into the door upstairs, rattling the house, and everyone in the room jumped.

Giselle lifted her talisman like a gun, pointed at Zeke. “Move! Now!”

“Forget it,” Zeke said, hefting the grenade. Or at least he started to. The girl on the stairs threw something at him from the side and Zeke froze, frosting over with spiderwebs. At the same time, the man shouted something and flicked a Bic lighter under his hand, and the gun in my hand burned red hot. I dropped it, screaming in startled pain.

Giselle barked a command in Witchese, and a ball of darkness and crackling red energy shot from her talisman at my chest, too fast to dodge.

In the split second before the curse struck, my butt cheeks twitched and felt as though I'd decided to squeeze a burning tortilla between them.

The curse struck me in the chest—and my chest ate it. Well, to be more precise, a glowing image like Pac-Man with a tribal face tattoo appeared on my chest, and ate it.

The energy sat in my chest like heartburn. This wasn't the work of the hex protection amulet. The amulet acted like a shield; it didn't eat stuff, or, for that matter, make my butt cheeks twitch.

“What the—?” I said.

“How'd you—?” Giselle said.

Crash!
the upstairs door said. At the same time something huge and hairy slammed into the glass slider doors to my left and was thrown back with a blinding orange flash. The glass cracked with a sound like Prince squealing over a gunshot, and the orange lines of the ward runes faded.

Giselle howled in frustration, then said, “Upstairs. We'll use the attic.”

The Króls retreated up the stairs. Giselle shouted back at me and Zeke, “We won't forget this.” And then they were gone.

I was a little preoccupied by the fact that I had just Pac-Manned a curse. I turned to check on Zeke—and burped.

All that dark energy in my chest exploded from my mouth and struck Zeke.

The webbing melted away as if eaten by acid.

Zeke stared at me. “What the—?”

“I know!” I said. “What the—?”

The sliding doors exploded inward, shards of glass showering the family room. A sasquatch stumbled through them wearing clown-sized combat boots. Harry, from Fort Worden, though he looked a bit ridiculous with his hair smoking.

I snatched up the revolver. It had thankfully cooled, though the burns on my hand still made holding it difficult. Harry turned his glare to us, and his beady eyes widened in surprise.

“Youselfs?” he said. “Youself not witchbrights.”

“Uh, no,” I said. “We're definitely not witches.” The stench of burned hair wafted into the laundry room.

“Youself hurt me bigbad at fort,” Harry said to Zeke, his voice becoming somewhat growly.

“We'll hurt you a lot more,” Zeke said, displaying the grenade.

A crash sounded from upstairs, followed by a roar.

“Youself not the job, you rabbit away now.” Harry ran upstairs.

“Sounds like good advice to me,” I said.

“Agreed,” Zeke agreed. We stepped cautiously out of the laundry room.

A wave of ick rolled over me, causing my skin to prickle into goose bumps and my stomach to gurgle in protest. The amulet grew hot on my chest. More dark witchcraft was being used nearby.

A sasquatch screamed in pain somewhere upstairs.

“Move it, Gramaraye,” Zeke said. I crossed to the broken slider doors, and Zeke raised the hand grenade, aiming back into the hidden room.

“Wait!” I said.

I unplugged the television, and yanked out cables from its back.

Zeke scowled at me. “Are you crazy?”

I lifted the television from the entertainment center. It wasn't overly heavy, though its size made it really awkward, and my hand still stung from the gun burns. “Okay, bombs away.” I shuffled out through the remains of the slider doors as Zeke tossed the grenade.

Zeke joined me on the back lawn and sprinted to the tree line while I lugged the television along behind him.

The grenade exploded. A cloud of smoke rolled out of a new hole in the side of the house.

From upstairs, I heard an inhuman screech that I doubted belonged to either sasquatch, followed by a roar that most certainly did, and what sounded like a sofa, or possibly one of the sasquatches, being thrown against a wall.

Zeke glared at the television as I joined him in the trees.

“My brother's a dick,” I said. “But I don't want to go back into exile feeling I owed him anything.”

“Theft is a sign of corruption, whatever the reason,” Zeke said.

“Hey, they probably paid for this with blood money. And they're here illegally. And possibly dead. So is it really stealing?”

“You're walking a thin line, Gramaraye.”

“Actually, I'm walking through the woods with a giant television and my fingers are killing me. Lend a hand?”