Impervious (City of Eldrich Book 1) (10 page)

Chapter 16

M
eaghan took the
elevator because she wasn’t sure her legs would support her. She slumped against the back wall of the car, eyes shut, her whole body shaking. The amulet thrummed in her hand.Kady had been posted as lookout. When she saw Meaghan, she unlocked the office door. “Did you get it?”

Meaghan opened her hand and displayed the amulet.

“Oh, thank God,” Kady said. “Natalie has to keep hexing him so he doesn’t knock the file room door down.” A metallic boom echoed through the office suite. “There he goes again.”

Meaghan ran back to the file room. Natalie was leaning against the door.

Boom!

Natalie looked grim. “The hexes aren’t working anymore. He’s too strong. And still crazy. City hall’s about the worst place for him to change.”

Meaghan held up the amulet. “How do we get this around his neck?”

Boom!

Natalie turned her head and shouted at the closed door. “Damn it, you little shit, we’re trying to help you!”

“What if you magic the door open from behind me and I’ll be waiting with the amulet to throw it over him and you can try to net him with my trench coat if I miss.”

Boom!

Natalie shook her head. “Won’t work. If you miss, he’ll blast through that coat like a bullet and we’ll never catch him.”

Boom!

“Or.” They heard Kady behind them. “We can use this.” She held a Taser gun. “I was hoping it wouldn’t go this far.”

Natalie glared at Kady. “I told you to leave that at home.”

“And aren’t you glad I ignored you?”

“You know how to use that thing?” Meaghan asked.

Boom!

Kady nodded.

“Can you hit him with it?” Meaghan asked.

“Oh, yeah. I’ve taken classes,” answered Kady. “And I practice at the range. I’m a real good shot.”

Boom!

Meaghan leaned against the door with Natalie. “He’s so small,” Meaghan said. “Won’t that much electricity fry him?”

Natalie said, “No, the mass he’s lost has been converted to magical energy. It would take a lot of juice to really hurt him.”

“Should affect him like it would at his human size,” Kady said. “I’ll need to get close or the probe spread will be too wide to catch him.”

Boom!

“How close?” Meaghan asked.

“Give me a second,” Kady said. Eyes narrowed, she paced several steps from the door, and stopped about seven feet away, then nodded. “He’ll come straight out at me and then I need to pop him when he’s a little closer. I’ll go for his wings, so I need to hold it sideways.”

Boom!

“Okay,” Meaghan said. “Natalie, get the door and Kady, zap him. I’ll get the amulet around his neck. If the first blast doesn’t drop him or Kady misses, we all dive on and try to wrestle him to the ground.”

Natalie unlocked the door and pulled it open. Jamie zipped out, once again naked. Kady squinted, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The wires shot out, caught both wings and—zzzt. He convulsed and dropped to the ground like a rock.

Meaghan dove on top, threw the amulet around his tiny neck, and rolled away. A flash of bright green light filled the hallway.

And there was Jamie, full size and lying naked on the hallway carpet.

The Taser probes lay on the floor on either side of him. Kady retracted them back into the gun while Natalie grabbed Jamie’s tan raincoat out of his office and threw it over him.

After a few tense moments, his eyes fluttered open and he groaned. “Oh, that sucked.” Awareness flooded back and his face grew bright red. “Oh, shit, I’m so sorry. Is everybody okay? Did I hurt anybody?”

Kady crouched down and rubbed his shoulder. “No, dumb ass. You shook your junk at us and flipped me off but no harm done.”

“Oh, shit, shit, shit.” He curled into a ball and pulled the raincoat over his head. “Where are my clothes?” he asked, voice muffled.

“In your office, hon,” Natalie said. “We’ll all go out front and give you some privacy. Take your time getting up. Kady just Tasered you.”

“Thanks,” Jamie’s muffled voice responded. He pulled the raincoat off his head and looked at Kady. “You Tasered me?”

“You flashed me,” Kady said, with a broad grin. “And may I say, wowza. Nature has been generous.”

Jamie turned a deeper shade of red and groaned. He dove back under the raincoat.

“Kady,” Natalie said. “Still not helping.” She grabbed Kady by the arm and pulled her down the hallway. Meaghan turned to follow.

Jamie pulled back the raincoat and called after her. “Meaghan, I’m . . . I don’t . . . I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you.”

Meaghan stopped and looked back at him, lying curled up on the floor. There was dried blood on his cheek from the gash Emily had inflicted. “Get dressed and we can talk about it. And don’t worry. I think that was something I needed to see to believe.” She continued down the hallway after Natalie and Kady, and followed them to the front office.

“Okay,” she said, and the room began whirling around her again. Natalie led her to a chair and sat her down.

“Head between your knees, deep breaths.” Natalie hovered over Meaghan, rubbing her back.

In a few moments, the spinning in Meaghan’s head stopped and she sat up. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. She had a pounding headache. Opening her eyes, she saw Natalie and Kady staring at her, as if waiting for her to detonate.

“Okay,” Meaghan said. “Let’s try this again. I guess we have a lot to talk about.”

They all fell silent for several long moments. Meaghan didn’t have a clue where to start. Natalie and Kady avoided her eyes. Kady stared at her shoes and spun her chair in tight half circles. Natalie stared at the ceiling. Now with the immediate panic over, nobody knew what to say.

Meaghan finally broke the silence. “What time is it?”

“Three thirty,” Kady answered in a small, subdued voice.

“I think we’re closing up shop early today,” Meaghan answered. “Is there any alcohol stashed away up here? I could use a drink.”

Natalie reached into the file cabinet behind her desk and, with a guilty grin, pulled out an unopened bottle of Irish whiskey.

Meaghan raised an eyebrow. Irish whiskey had been Matthew’s beverage of choice during his drinking days.

“I found it tucked into a box of really old files in long-term storage,” Natalie said. “It was really dusty and the label is faded. It’s never been opened. I think he stashed it when he first got here, just in case, and forgot about it.”

Meaghan nodded. It made sense. If his first day on the job had been anything like hers, then drinking again might have seemed like a good idea.

“Let’s crack it open,” Meaghan said. “I think we need it.”

Natalie nodded. Kady pulled some plastic cups out of another file drawer and Natalie poured a stiff shot into three of them.

The women lifted their drinks and stared at each other. Meaghan raised her cup. “Here’s to the absolutely weirdest first day on the job I’ve ever had.” She drained it in a single gulp and began coughing. Meaghan’s usual drink was white wine or the occasional fancy mixed cocktail. She loved the smell of whiskey, but it tasted like liquid fire going down.

When Meaghan’s coughing subsided a bit, Kady said, “You’re taking this all really well.” She took a careful sip of her drink. “Why aren’t you freaking out? I’ve lived with it all my life and it still freaks me out sometimes.”

“You know, I don’t know,” Meaghan answered. She paused, mulling what to say. “I knew there was something going on, this whole silent conversation everyone seemed to be having around me.” She shook her head. “I kept getting the creeps, but thought I was overreacting from stress. Russ was so weird about leading me through the woods when I first drove in. And my dad calling me a witch and bowing to Jamie, and Meb downstairs not wanting me to take the stairs. And that dream, my mom . . .”

Meaghan stared into the empty air. “Oh, shit. Did my mother really come see me? Are there ghosts too?”

Kady nodded. “Oh, yeah. Especially in city hall.”

Meaghan nodded. Of course there were. “And Jamie,” she said. “I thought he was a refugee from somewhere in Eastern Europe.”

“I was a refugee,” Jamie said as he walked into the office. “But not from there.” He had his clothes back on, except for the tie, and his shirt was untucked, but he looked normal again. Except for the haunted look in his eyes and the cut on his cheek. He’d wiped off the blood. The cut appeared shallow, but his eye had started to bruise and swell. He walked with a stiff gait, like he was in pain.

Natalie said. “I don’t know how much you remember, but you’re gonna be one big bruise the way you were banging on that steel door.”

“I think I already am. Got any ibuprofen?” He sat on the edge of her desk. He wouldn’t meet Meaghan’s eye. Natalie gave him the requested pills and he swallowed them dry with a grimace. She tried to examine his cut cheek and swollen eye, but he waved her away. Again silence fell. The three women stared at Jamie. He stared at the floor.

After a long silent moment he said, “I’m fine. I’m sore and beat up and embarrassed as hell, but I’ll be fine.” He looked up at everyone. “Quit staring me at like that. Please. It’s bad enough without you all acting weird. Is that whiskey? Can I have some?”

Natalie poured him a cupful. He took a healthy gulp, made a face, and said, “I guess a margarita was too much to hope for.”

Natalie and Kady sagged with relief at Jamie’s attempt to make a joke. “Yeah, ha ha,” Kady said. “Blender’s on the fritz.”

More awkward silence descended. Again, Jamie spoke first. “I’m so sorry. I know what a shit I can be when I’m . . . that way. I’m just relieved I didn’t hurt anybody.”

“It’s not your fault,” Meaghan said. “Quit apologizing. It’s Emily’s fault. She’s the one who’s going to be sorry if she pulls something like that again.”

The silence returned.

Meaghan took charge. She was the boss, after all. “Natalie, send the phones to voice mail. Kady, put a sign on the door that says we’re closed for a staff retreat.”

“Already made it,” Kady said. “While you were downstairs.”

With the phones forwarded and the closed sign on the door, Meaghan grabbed the whiskey bottle, told everyone to bring their cup, and led them back to her office.

Chapter 17

T
he small office,
with its round walls and big windows, felt safe and welcoming. It smelled good too, Meaghan realized. Lavender and some other scents she couldn’t identify. When Meaghan commented, Natalie pulled a small bag out from behind a book shelf. “Hex bag,” she said. “Keeps the bad juju out. They’re all over your house too.”

Another round of drinks poured, her staff arranged in front of her desk, Meaghan leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath. “Okay. Spill.”

The universe, they explained, was a far weirder place than even quantum physics suggested. Eldrich was—for lack of a better description—a hole in the fence of reality. Worlds, most of them magical in some way, collided here. Energy leaked in from other dimensions, feeding the paranormal. Ghosts and witches predominated, but there were many other things roaming the woods where the gateways were located. Supernatural creatures that existed in the human world were drawn to Eldrich like moths to a porch light.

“So,” Meaghan interrupted, “what’s the deal with city hall?”

“It’s not a gateway, exactly,” Natalie said. “More like a big radio tower for supernatural energy.”

“Is it why I got woozy in Jamie’s office?”

Natalie nodded. “It happens a lot in there. I goosed Jamie’s amulet so the energy doesn’t affect him. Basically, a bunch of mystical whatsits converge here and the building was designed to amplify them.”

“Whatsit? Is that the technical term?” Meaghan asked, with a grin. “Is this like Sedona?”

“Um. Sort of but not really,” Natalie answered. “Like Sedona. Not the technical term thing. Sorry. Just know that if you get wobbly it’s probably that and not something you need to worry about.”

Meaghan nodded. “So, why’d they build it like this?”

Natalie shrugged. “The founder of the town was nuts? He wanted to talk to his dead wife and got sick of being conned by fake mediums, so he decided to cut out the middle man and build a big phone and talk to her directly.”

“Did he?” Meaghan asked. “Talk to her?”

“Not that way. He died before the building was finished,” Natalie said.

“But does it work?”

Kady snorted. “Oh, it works, only not as planned. You really need to get more of the basics before city hall makes any sense.”

Meaghan nodded. “Okay, you were talking about witches before I interrupted.”

Natalie continued. She was training Kady, who had been raised by her widowed father and was a bit of a late bloomer, but generally the craft went from mother to daughter. Natalie came to work for Matthew when her mother, Vivian, died. Vivian had worked for Matthew since he first came to Eldrich. It was Vivian who made Jamie’s first amulet, when he was still a boy.

“So is it only women who do magic?” Meaghan asked.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be, but for some reason in Eldrich it is.”

“Why is that?”

Natalie thought about it a moment. “I don’t think there was ever any intent to exclude men. It just sort of happened over time because they weren’t as interested and now everyone assumes only women do magic. Since no boys in the past learned how to do it, there are no men to pass it on. So for now, you have to learn it from women, and boys with raw talent take one look at their mom’s pack of crazy friends and decide to try out for Little League instead.”

Those residents so inclined saw the ghosts, felt the magic, and came to accept the supernatural as merely another local quirk, like the rain and the problems using GPS. Those not so inclined did their best to ignore the weirdness swirling all around them, or left town. The end result was a town full of people who either accepted the paranormal or were so skillful at denial they could overlook it.

“And those who flee tell stories about their strange experiences,” Meaghan said. “That’s why the trucking company didn’t want to deliver my storage pod and the driver was in such a hurry to get away. I thought it was because they broke all my stuff.”

Natalie and Kady nodded. Jamie gazed out the window behind her, a blank look on his face.

And then there was Matthew. And now Meaghan. Being impervious to magic in a magical place gave Matthew a unique power. He was the perfect mediator for disputes within and between magical worlds. He couldn’t be hexed. He couldn’t be charmed or manipulated. He couldn’t be glamoured or confused. With a powerful witch at his side to spot attempts to hex the things around him, he stood alone and above the fray.

He was also the perfect gatekeeper to protect the human world from those who saw humans as easy prey. Humans were clever—frighteningly clever—which is how they thrived as a species even while surrounded by more powerful magical entities. But humans, despite their cleverness, were vulnerable—their general lack of magical ability, coupled with their susceptibility to magical influence made them easy to manipulate and confuse. In Matthew, magical bad actors had to contend with human ingenuity without the accompanying human frailty, and it terrified them.

Being impervious to magic was rare and only occurred among humans. When Matthew lost his capacity to continue, order began breaking down. Species who’d stayed clear of the human world now saw opportunity.

“Think about what happened to Europe when Rome fell,” Natalie said. “The Dark Ages. That’s why we . . .” She paused and looked away from Meaghan. Her face flushed pink.

“You tell her or I will,” Kady said. “She deserves to know.”

“Tell me what?”

Natalie lifted her head and met Meaghan’s steady gaze. “That’s why we did a spell to nudge some people and events in ways to make it very easy for you to decide to come here.”

Meaghan let this sink in a moment. Magic didn’t work on her, so they had to go after the people around her. Her former boss? Russ? The Canadian real estate investor who bought her house in Phoenix for cash sight unseen?

“You hexed my boss,” Meaghan said. She wasn’t angry, which surprised her a little. She’d been bombarded with such weirdness for the last couple of hours that she thought she no longer had the capacity to react to anything.

“Yes. We did.” To her credit, Natalie continued to maintain eye contact. “And the grumpy old guy who picked that fight with you. And the guy who bought your house.”

“Russ?”

“No. Not him. It was kind of Russ’s idea to do it.”

Meaghan’s blank gaze shifted into the fearsome glare. Now she was angry. “He knows about all this? And he had you cast spells to get me back here?”

Natalie withered under Meaghan’s stony glare and looked down at her feet. Her face was bright red.

Jamie broke his silence. “Of course he knows. It took you a couple of days to figure out something was weird about this place. He’s been here on and off for nearly thirty years.” He scowled at her. “He needed you to step up and he knew there wasn’t any other way. Russ has been there for Matthew for a long time.”

And you haven’t.
Meaghan could almost hear the unspoken words. Now it was her turn to blush and look away.

No one spoke and Meaghan felt the numbness return. Her own brother had blown up her entire life. With magic. So she could protect the world from scary things from other dimensions. Anger seemed pathetically inadequate to convey what she was feeling at the moment. She poured another shot of whiskey into her empty plastic cup and drained it in one gulp. She didn’t even cough this time.

“The mediator thing,” Meaghan said, looking at Jamie for his reaction. “That’s how Matthew got hooked up with you and your father?”

Jamie nodded. He refused to make eye contact with anyone, Meaghan noticed. He looked ready to bolt at the slightest provocation.

“How did you know we were refugees?” he asked, staring at his knees.

“I figured it out the first time I met you,” she said gently. “Russ told me the rough outlines of the story when I asked, but I knew you’d fled from somewhere and the generic name . . .” Meaghan took a deep breath. No point in shying away from it now. “And something my mother told me in a dream I had right before I met you. About the war starting.”

Jamie glanced up at her. He was more than merely wary, she realized. He was ashamed. Of what she might think of him.

“The war?” Natalie asked in a high choked voice. “We . . . don’t . . . that was something else entirely. The war . . .” She fell silent under Meaghan’s withering glare.

Meaghan saw Jamie and Kady exchange confused glances. They didn’t know what Natalie was talking about either. No time to worry about it now, Meaghan thought. She wanted to know about Jamie.

Meaghan continued. “I figured I’d found a highly dramatic way of telling myself something I already knew. I hit on Bosnia, that general conflict, based on your age and appearance and when you got here.”

Jamie nodded, allowing her to hold his gaze.

“And your father’s accent seemed to confirm it,” Meaghan said.

Jamie’s brow furrowed in a scowl. “You met my father?”

Meaghan nodded. “He dropped off some honey at our house for Russ and then we saw him at the farmers’ market.”

Jamie’s eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. “Was he drunk?”

A rush of maternal feeling for Jamie swept through Meaghan. They’d taken both his parents from him. His father had, for all practical purposes, died at the same time his mother had. But John kept walking around as a broken reminder of what Jamie had lost.

“No,” she answered. “He appeared to be sober. Both times.”

“Something new,” Jamie said, his voice bitter.

After a long moment, Meaghan said, “I’m sorry. There’s no tactful way to ask this. But I have to know. What are you?”

Jamie’s mouth twitched into a humorless grin. “Not human. But I guess you already figured that out.”

“Well, yes,” Meaghan said, unsure how to respond. “The . . . uh . . . wings kind of gave it away. And your . . . height.”

Kady snorted, choking back a laugh, and the tension broke. Unable to contain herself, Kady burst out laughing and Natalie joined her. Jamie grinned for the first time since before their meeting with Emily, and started laughing too.

The weirdness of the day broke over Meaghan and she lost it. Huge belly laughs shook her. She could feel the tears not far behind, but she resisted them. She could weep when she got home. Right now laughing was what everybody needed.

Guffawing, as tears streamed down her face, Kady slapped Jamie’s arm. “The wings,” she gasped. “Your height.” She choked unable to say more.

Natalie and Jamie laughed so hard they couldn’t speak. After a bit, Meaghan started coughing and everyone settled down as she caught her breath.

“I needed that,” Jamie said, dabbing his eyes with his shirtsleeve.

Meaghan grabbed a tissue out of the box on her desk, then handed the box to Jamie. Everyone wiped their eyes and blew their noses and regained a bit of composure.

She sat back in her chair and surveyed her staff. Jamie, in particular, looked much calmer. “So,” she said. “Now that we all feel better—”

Jamie finished her sentence for her. “You still need to know what I am.”

Meaghan nodded.

Jamie nodded in response. “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “Here goes. I’m one of several different species that are the source of human stories about . . . fairies, pixies, gnomes . . . et al.”

Meaghan smiled. “Et al? You may not be human, but you’re definitely an attorney.”

Jamie grinned back. “There’s a lawyer joke in there somewhere.”

“So,” Meaghan said, not letting him get off track. “You’re a . . .” For a moment she saw him in her mind, as clear as a photograph, hovering naked in front of her, leering. She felt her face get hot. “You’re not Tinkerbell, I know that.”

“No. Not by a long shot,” he said. “We call ourselves a name I can’t really say with human vocal cords. When I’m . . . like that I have an extra set and can make sounds humans can’t make.”

“Is there something approximate in human?” She’d never referred to “human” as a language before.

“Your dad called us Fahraya.”

“Is that the source for the word fairy?”

Jamie shook his head. “No. Fairy legends existed long before we showed up. Our contribution to the folklore are the wings. Our name sounds different when we say it, but with human vocal cords and preconceived notions . . .” He shrugged.

Meaghan nodded. The Southwest was full of bastardized Spanish and Indian names for things that sounded very little like the original word. If English speakers could screw up Spanish that badly, imagine what they could do with a language that required an extra set of vocal cords to pronounce.

“The name I get,” she said. “But you . . .” Again she had to push the image of naked, flying Jamie out of her head. “I wouldn’t describe what you looked like as a . . . well, you know. The whole Peter Pan ‘I do believe in fairies’ thing. Not at all like that.”

Kady jumped in. “More badass, less pixie dust.”

Jamie looked out the window behind Meaghan’s head, the look of shame back on his face. “More brutal. And more blood. So much blood. Think the Stone Age with wings.” He shook his head. “Yeah, it’s a mystery. The first time I ran across the human conception of fairies, I decided you were all crazy.”