“That was a long visit, Casanova.” Indigo lifted her eyebrows as I stepped through the door to the apartment. I was in no mood for the back and forth barbs.
“Visiting her dying mother wasn’t exactly an aphrodisiac.” I slung my jacket on a hook by the door and stepped directly toward Sammy, who sat at the desk by the makeshift office entry. “Anything new in the tip line?”
“Been fielding calls all day, but mostly bullshit.”
The words all day took me a bit my surprise until I realized that it had, in fact, been almost all day and the sun had been working its way toward night even as I’d parked Sammy’s car in the downstairs lot.
Since the skirmish with Davit Sivaslian on George’s Island, the influx of calls into the paper had increased dramatically, though so far it had mostly just resulted in additional work from Sammy in filtering out the extra garbage. There had been an influx of vamps throughout the city streets, an influx that Agent Fenric’s team was trying to keep stamped down, but interestingly, that hadn’t resulted in much more activity from our part.
“Keep me posted if there’s anything of interest.” I knew my voice was coming clipped, even as I worked to avoid the glare that Indigo gave me from across the room, standing, cross-armed in the kitchen.
“So you run into your ex and now you’re going to be an asshole?”
Leave it to Indigo not to mince words. “Is that what I am?”
“Kinda leaning that way.”
I heard Sammy muffle a snicker, though he kept his eyes affixed to the computer screen. “All right, all right, fair point.” I showed my palms in a defensive posture.
“What is this about her being your wife, anyway? Is that real?”
I sighed, unsure if I was ready to go down this rabbit hole. “We swore a blood oath, and in our world that’s the equivalent of marriage. And once you do that blood oath— there really is no undoing it.”
“So— what happened? Where has she been? Why haven’t you said anything?”
“The covens and the Caretakers aren’t necessarily on speaking terms these days.”
“Seems like the better question is, who do the Caretakers talk to? Between the vampires, the humans and the witches— they seem to have more enemies than friends.”
“That happens when you end up in a position of particular power. The Caretakers are a force of nature by necessity— that has a tendency to create enemies.” I strode across the floor past the kitchen and toward one of the far windows, the blackout shades pulled across the glass to shield from the sun outside. Dragging my fingers across the polished wood of the pool table, I glanced at Indigo briefly to ensure she was far enough back. Seeing that she was, I clawed the curtain open slightly, peering out into the cityscape.
“Sun is setting,” I said, “what say we grab a cigarette upstairs?”
“Man, I thought you’d never ask.” Indigo pushed off from the counter and walked past me, toward the window facing the fire escape.
“Sammy, you coming?”
“Nah, have a blast. Nicotine gives me a headache and I want to button some stuff up here before I leave.”
“Cop for almost fifteen years and nicotine gives you a headache?”
“Nicotine gives me a headache because I was a cop for almost fifteen years.”
Indigo had already pried open the window and stepped out onto the fire escape, pausing for a moment, holding her hand out as if waiting for rain. Only instead of waiting for rain, she was waiting for the sun to burn a layer of skin off her palm. Once she was satisfied it wasn’t going to happen, she continued up the stairs and onto the roof.
“Did you try it?” I offered Indigo a Marlboro and she took it, pressing it between her lips.
“Try what?” Her voice was muffled around the cigarette.
“The synthetic blood. Sammy and I had to slap around an orc to get our hands on that.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
I paused as I held the lighter out, giving her a sideways glare.
“All right, all right, all right. Yes, I tried it, okay? It was like— eating a pound of fried tofu or something. There was sustenance to it, but no taste and less pleasure. Frankly, I’d rather eat a rare steak.”
“Of course you would— who wouldn’t? The point is, you might get to a point where a raw steak isn’t enough.”
“No offense, but if I do get to that point, I’m not sure the synthetics will help much either.”
“They will. Or they should, anyway. Even if they don’t satisfy the taste, they should at least numb the cravings a bit.”
“And I’m just supposed to take your word for that?”
“I’ve spent my fair share of time around vampires, Indigo— I sort of know how they tick, even if the half-bloods are a mystery. When it comes to blood, their desires are deeper than just hunger or thirst. It’s about that sort of predatory instinct we talked about before. A subliminal urge to seek it out and nourish yourself. When that urge overtakes you, and eventually, I believe it will, you need a way to satisfy it that isn’t a living, breathing person.” I lit Indigo’s cigarette and she pulled a long, deep drag.
“You just got done telling me that I’m some weird half-blood— that you don’t have a lot of experience with— whatever this is. Now you’re talking like you’re some kind of expert.”
“I’m about as much of an expert as you’ll get.” We stood near the ledge of the roof, listening to the sounds of the city. Evening rush hour pumped through the streets like blood through the city’s arteries, car engines and horns crafting an indelicate backdrop of noise. Alongside the noise was a slight tremor in the air, a sense that I could feel that things had changed in the days and weeks since the battle at Fort Warren. More than ever, the supernatural world bled into human reality, something that had happened slowly over years and years, but had accelerated since.
“So what am I supposed to do, exactly?” Indigo rested her arm over the ledge and flicked ash down onto the sidewalk, six stories below. “Drink that crap twice a day to stave off cravings?”
“If that’s what it takes. It’s certainly preferable to the alternatives.”
“And— what are the alternatives?” Indigo flicked her cigarette again and I watched as red embers trailed several stories down to the sidewalk.
“The alternatives are— you black out and wake up with the taste of someone’s blood in your mouth, only you don’t know whose it is or where it came from.”
“Jesus, Gus.”
“I’m not trying to scare you, okay? Just trying to share the honest truth. I’ve seen it.”
She nodded, her eyes closed and in the scant light of sunset I could see the melancholy stare she cast down toward the sidewalk. It wasn’t a look of pity, to her credit, just a forlorn look of loss. Loss of innocence, loss of the person she’d once been, while not perfect, still somehow— her.
“We’ll get through it, okay?”
“If you say so.”
“Meanwhile, I still owe you some help.”
“Yeah?” She rested forward on her elbows and twisted around to face me.
“Yeah. Miranda. We started scraping the surface, right, but there’s more work to do.”
Indigo nodded. “Berklee.”
“You still think that’s a likely target? That’s where she might head?”
“I think it’s possible. Though considering she’s homeless and somewhat directionless, I’m not sure what she’d be hoping to achieve.” Indigo turned and looked up toward the darkening sky. “You said it’s on Boylston?”
“Several buildings along Boylston, yeah— though that’s a somewhat nicer part of town than this. No offense to Miranda, but if she was walking along Boylston, homeless, searching for a way to get face time with Berklee admissions, I’m just not sure how far she’d get.”
“We have to start somewhere.”
“You have a picture? Anything that belonged to her?”
Indigo kept her cigarette clamped in her teeth and fished into a pocket, withdrawing a somewhat crumpled and folded photograph. She delicately opened it up and looked at it in silence, considering what she saw. I leaned over to get my own look and saw what seemed to be an innocent photo booth selfie, an image captured in time. It had been, by all appearances, a much simpler time, a time of at least some happiness. Indigo and the woman I could only think was Miranda, shoulder-to-shoulder in the cramped confines of a photo booth. Indigo showing two fingers, Miranda giggling almost uncontrollably, the two young woman seemingly enjoying a night on the town.
I wondered, just for a moment, how they’d paid for that experience— whether they’d had a good day of panhandling and had decided to blow four precious dollars on memories, bound to fade over time. I didn’t ask Indigo that question, feeling like it was truly none of my business. She sighed, didn’t offer to show me the photo, then placed it back in her pocket, drawing the cigarette from her mouth. For once there didn’t seem to be a wisecrack or pun that could appropriately express the emotions she was feeling, not just for herself, but for the woman she’d considered a close friend.
“How will I even talk to her?” She dragged the Marlboro down to nothing, then kicked the butt out into open air. “I mean, if we find her? How can I even tell her what I am now?”
“Let’s worry about that when the time comes.” I extended my palm toward her. “Did Miranda touch that photograph?”
“Yeah, she did. Why?”
“Can I hold it for a moment?”
Indigo looked hesitant, clearly not enthusiastic about handing it over.
“I won’t damage it, I promise.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to do some weird sightseer wizard shit.”
I shrugged, letting a half smirk crease my lips. “Maybe.”
She fished out the photograph and handed it over, pressing the paper into my palm and holding it there for a moment, unwilling to let it go. I finally drew my hand back and closed my eyes, letting the cigarette hang from the corner of my mouth as I lifted my shirt and tugged the knife free of its sheath.
Knives are complicated tools in my hands, designed primarily as a way to tear open a rip in the veil between worlds, allowing me to draw in some of the magical energy from the supernatural realm. I can’t do it natively— I was only born a half-elf and my magical powers had been cultivated over a few lifetimes of learned behavior. Each knife typically had a very distinct purpose, etched runes or sculpted shapes that allow them to leverage very specific magical abilities. Creating fire out of mid-air— harnessing stale ultraviolet radiation into a focused sunlight-powerful blast of energy. Lightning, even makeshift shields or other projectiles like I used against the orc in Fuentes’ office.
However, as long as I can pierce the veil, there’s a potential for me to touch upon other magic as well, as long as it’s not too complicated or esoteric. Location spells were one of the first spells I was taught as I was learning the ways of an Enforcer for the Caretakers— though it had been a long time since I’d actually used one.
I closed my eyes, feeling the brush of paper in my palm and I sliced the knife, a horizontal gash through mid-air, picturing the gentle rip of purple light in my mind. The hilt warmed against my palm, a tingling rush of power flooding into my hand and up my limb. Quietly, I murmured a chant in a language few would realize as spoken words and even fewer still would understand. The photo paper tingled and bristled, like the rough hair of a scrub brush against my flesh. Behind my closed eyelids, I pictured the city, a roadmap of Boston, each street and block forming into gridwork imagery in my mind.
My fingers curled and my sightless eyes roamed Boylston Street, moving up and down the rows of parked cars, veering in and out of traffic, pausing every so often to examine a section of the street a little bit deeper. I saw, against the backdrop of cityscape, a faint outline moving through the crowd, the shifting movement of someone walking, stopping every so often to speak or look. My eyes squinted more tightly, so tight it hurt as I tried to focus on the moving spectral figure. Sure enough, as Indigo suspected, she’d paused by the admissions office for Berklee, if only for a moment, standing longingly as she looked upon its stonework facade. Caught in hopeful anticipation— or perhaps just a dream— I couldn’t tell which.
“Your guess was right,” I said in a whisper, speaking still from behind my closed eyes. “But then— she went somewhere else.” I studied the darkness behind my eyelids, trying to trace the fluttering motion of the ghostly figure. I saw the figure halt in front of a restaurant under construction less than a block away, shadowed by scaffolding, speaking with— someone. Then, the cloudy after-image trailed inside the restaurant and vanished from view, leaving an empty sidewalk and the shuffling of pedestrian traffic. I fluttered my eyelids open and tucked the knife back into its sheath, pressing it tight with my palm and offering the photo back to Indigo. “There’s a burger place just down the street. I think I saw her go inside. It looked like she took a minute to talk to someone first, but then followed them in and I— I lost track from there.”
“And this GPS magic spell— you’ve used it before?”
“It’s been a while.”
“But it’s reliable?” Indigo looked dubious— beyond dubious, actually.
“Guess there’s only one way to find out?” I tossed my cigarette off the roof and gestured toward the fire escape.