The Unseen (31 page)

“We can save The Count for now,” Ibis said, standing up with her. “We should go back to your house for a minute.”

“We should?” Cassidy wondered about his intentions. “Why?”

“I’ll show you when we get there.”

“Oh, you’re so mysterious and cool.  Here, I’ll get the check.”

“Mine.” He dropped a pair of twenties on the little tray with their tab, which left their elderly server about a thirty-five percent tip.  Cassidy had waited tables before, and her brain still did the calculation instantly. “It’s a down payment on The Count.”

They made the quick drive back to Cassidy’s bright yellow house.  Ibis opened the trunk and took out a very old and worn leather satchel before accompanying her inside.

“What’s that?” Cassidy asked as she opened the front door. “Let me guess.  It’s the one piece of mysterious luggage you’ve taken with you all around the world for your whole life.  It contains all your secrets.”

“No,” he said. “I’ve only had this one for about two hundred years.”

“Whatever.” Cassidy led him upstairs.  Stray and his band were blasting away in the basement, while Allie and her boyfriend Whitley assembled the new, much taller Christmas tree in the living room.

“Looks good!” Ibis said.

“It’s awesome!  You’re awesome!  I love you!” Allie shouted at Ibis, standing and pointing at him with both fingers.  She looked sweaty, and so did her boyfriend.  It looked like they’d both had ecstasy for breakfast.

“She’s very friendly,” Ibis said in a low voice while waving back at Allie.

“That’s what landed her a pair of boyfriends.” Cassidy led him into her room and closed the door against the loud din downstairs.  She felt a little nervous, a little excited, and just a touch scared to have this new guy in her room, though she didn’t plan to do anything serious with him.  If he happened to feel like kissing her and maybe touching her with those long fingers until she had to go to work, she might just go along with it.

Instead of reaching for her, he untied a leather knot on the satchel.

“My second guess,” Cassidy said. “Handcuffs and whips.”

“Try again.  Here’s a clue.” Ibis handed her a few sheets of standard printer paper.  They appeared to be photocopies from the inner pages of a small book.  Each page featured a row of symbols made mostly of straight lines cross-hatched with each other.  Several of them had been highlighted in yellow on the photocopy. “The original book was too delicate to bring with me,” Ibis told her.

“I have no idea what this is.”

“Amazing.” He shook his head.

“What?  It’s just a bunch of stick figures with no heads.”

“They’re ogham symbols,” Ibis said. “It’s the ancient writing of Ireland.”

“How did you know I was Irish?”

“It was a long and difficult investigation, a lot of plot twists and red herrings, a lot of witnesses turning up dead along the way,” Ibis said. “First, I looked at your red hair.  Then I noticed these freckles on your nose.” He touched the tip of her nose, just where her father used to kiss her. “Finally, I asked around and discovered your name was ‘Cassidy.’”

“It was possibly a stupid question,” Cassidy said. “Okay, so translate it for me.”

“These are all words related to healing, health, life, and growth,” Ibis told her. “Do you have paint?”

“What color?” Cassidy reached into an overflowing box of paint brushes, mixing trays, X-Acto knives, and acrylic paint tubes.  She hadn’t painted much recently, and had always preferred pencil or ink, anyway.

“One that makes you think of healing.”

“Um...green?” Cassidy handed it to him.

“Good choice.  You’ll want to sit down.”

“I will?” Cassidy asked.  She sank to the edge of her bed, her right leg jutting out ahead of her, throbbing. Ibis stood over her and took her left hand, the one with which she did most of her drawing and all of her writing.  He squeezed a blob of forest green onto her index finger.

“What are we doing, again?” she asked him.

“I want you to paint those words onto your leg,” Ibis said, pointing to the three sheets of paper with the highlighted oghum symbols.

“Seriously?” Cassidy asked.

“You tell me your life is filled with supernatural things,” Ibis said. “Perhaps you should prepare to face them instead of telling yourself they don’t exist.”

“So this is just standard physical therapy, then.”

“I’m not joking, Cassidy.  Try it.  Copy the symbols exactly.  Be attentive, like a monk transcribing a sacred text.  Every stroke of paint matters.”

“Okay.  On my leg, though?  This is acrylic, it blocks up your pores...”

“Your pores will recover.”

“Just so you know, this is not what usually happens when I bring a guy into my bedroom.”

“I’m glad I could offer something unique.”

Cassidy laughed, but her sense of trust in him was slipping.  She decided to play along and see where it led, though.  She studied the old line-words carefully, then drew back her skirt and painted them along the surgery scar on her leg, over her ruined Venus flytrap garden.  She looked up at Ibis when she was done.

“Do you feel anything?” he asked.

“It kind of tingles,” Cassidy told him with a shrug, but then she felt it.  The symbols radiated a kind of gentle, green warmth, like summer sun filtered through a canopy of lush trees.  The energy moved inside her leg, cooling and soothing her flesh, all the way into the core of her bone.  She let out a sigh.

“It’s helping, isn’t it?” Ibis smiled.

“That’s crazy,” Cassidy said. “We’re both crazy.  This can’t be working.”

“How far can you bend your knee?”

Cassidy found that it was easier to raise her leg, easier to extend it and to bend it.

“It’s getting more flexible!” Excited, Cassidy pushed herself back to her feet. “It’s getting so much better, Ibis!”

“Don’t get too cocky.  You still need time to heal.”

“It’s stiff, but it doesn’t hurt.  I can balance so much better now.” She hugged him, then remembered why she was hugging him and pulled back. “What did we just do?”

“All I did was give you some pieces of paper,” Ibis said. “What
you
did was inscribe yourself with ancient Irish words to focus your own insanely underused talent.”

“
What talent?” Cassidy looked at the green hash marks on her thigh. “These are magic words?”

“
They’re magic because you wrote them,” Ibis said. “I just thought ancient Irish would carry a little emotional heft for you, help open you up a little.”

“
What are you talking about?”

“
I brought you another present.” Ibis looked into his bag.  He hesitated and looked up at her again. “Maybe this should wait.”

“
No way, I want my present.” Cassidy held out her hand. “If it’s half as good as the last one, I might kiss you.  And then I want a full explanation of all this magic stuff, with footnotes, citations, and references.  Okay?”

“
It’s a deal.”  He brought out a zipped plastic bag holding a crumbling leather book small enough to fit a child’s hands. The front cover’s illustration had mostly flaked away, but from what remained, she thought it looked like a golden castle, possibly with a horse in the foreground somewhere. “This is a very limited edition.  Probably the only edition left in the world.”

“
How old is it?”

“
Printed in the city of Cork, 1801, for children of Irish aristocrats.  Now the last copy belongs to you.” Ibis placed it in her hands.

“
What?  I can’t be trusted with something this old and valuable.  It’ll be broken in an hour.”

“
I believe you’ll take good care of it.”

Cassidy studied the front cover through the bag. The title, written in a swirling script, in fading and flaking words that must have once glittered like gold, was
Fairy-Stories and Ghost-Tales of the North.

“
It’s pretty,” she whispered. “You can tell it was pretty.  You’re really giving this to me?”

“
I marked one story with a ribbon,” Ibis said. “You can look at it later.  Need a ride to work?”

“
No, wait,” Cassidy said. “I have to see what the big mystery is.”

“
It can wait.” Ibis folded his arms, looking nervous. “We should get going.”

“
It’s like you don’t
want
me to look.” Cassidy unzipped the plastic and gently removed the book.  It felt dry and fragile. She eased open the cover with one fingertip.

The yellow pages felt like they would crumble at her touch.  Many pages were missing, but the book seemed to be a collection of Irish lore.  The first letter of each story was a fancy gold and green Gaelic-style drop cap, and each story ended with a colorful illustration, though these tended to be darker than she expected from a children’s book—a huge wolf breaking down a farmhouse door, a pale wraith of a woman screaming by a gravestone.

Cassidy very carefully turned to the page marked with the long red ribbon.  A single word jutted out at her from the title.  She gaped up at Ibis’s face, feeling a ball of icy fear form in her stomach.  His smile was fading at Cassidy’s shocked expression.

Cassidy kept her eyes on him as she edged back toward her shelves, toward the box with the X-Acto knives.  She could grab one in each hand if she needed them.

“Something upset you?” he asked, but he didn’t seem surprised.

“
You marked a story called ‘The Enchantress of Darmoughan.’”

“
Yes,” Ibis said.

“
That’s the village where my parents are from.”

“
Yes.”

“
You can’t just say ‘yes’!  I never told you the name of the town.  I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it to anybody.  Are you stalking me?” Cassidy’s hand moved to the lip of the box, closer to the knife.

“
I suppose I am,” Ibis said. 

Cassidy reached into the box and closed her hand around the slim metal shaft of the sharp-tipped X-Acto.

“Since when?  The hospital?” Cassidy asked. “How did you hear about Darmoughan?  Did you talk to my mom?  Or my brother?”

“
I first read about the witch of Darmoughan in a manuscript from 1512.  It was the unpublished work of an English priest who attempted to collect stories of witchcraft, demons, and devil worship from around the British Isles.  All of his accounts involved a lot of sex and Satan. The fairy-tale book is probably more accurate.”

“
You didn’t answer my question at all,” Cassidy said. “Why did you mark this story for me?”

“
It seems like a good place to begin.  Your mother must have taught you nothing.”

“
Excuse me?” Cassidy was scared and confused already.  It was not a good time for him to start insulting her mom.  She felt instantly defensive. “What are you talking about?”

“
If she had, you wouldn’t have consented to have that steel installed in your leg.  The witch of Darmoughan doesn’t need crude hardware to heal her own broken bone, does she?” Ibis pointed to the signs on her leg. “You could have healed yourself.”

“
You’re not making any sense.  Tell me where you found out about my parents’ village.”

“
What do you know about this group?” Ibis reached into his bag and brought out a color pamphlet.  The cover read
Are
You
the Messiah?

“
Oh, not you, too,” Cassidy said. “You’re one of them?”

“
No, I’m keeping watch on them,” Ibis said. “They’ve invested in a large new temple complex not far from here, a compound with offices, apartments, underground rooms, a sanctuary.  I want to know why.”

“
What does that have to do with me?”

“
This cult is more dangerous than they look.”

“
That’s not saying much,” Cassidy replied, thinking of the adolescent boys in their suits and ties handing out leaflets.

“
When they initiate a new disciple, that person agrees to be possessed by a minor dark energy personality essence.”

“
Which is...?”

“
A demon,” Ibis said. “The disciple gains a feeling of immense power.  The demon gains the ability to act on the earth and experience the pleasures of the flesh.  This cult, the Church of First Light, is a front for a host of demons gathering up bodies to inhabit.”

“
Of course,” Cassidy said. “That makes so much sense.”

“
It does?” Ibis looked relieved.

“
No.  Look, I’m trying to subtract craziness from my life, not add it.” Cassidy started for the door.  This was too much, too crazy.  The part of her that wanted to understand was suddenly driven down by a surge of fear and confusion.  She didn’t want to deal with it.  The more she learned, the more insane it all became, and she was suddenly eager to escape from all the strangeness.  “I need to get to work.”