Twelve

Locals

 

Melinoë slept soundly as the evening rolled on. Dry leaves crackled in the wind outside the motel room, rattling against the thin walls when a particularly strong breeze kicked up.

I had nothing from any of Dev’s friends—no suggestions, no sightings, and in some cases, no replies. I tried to track down an old girlfriend I remembered but she’d dropped off the virtual planet, which wasn’t entirely uncommon; I’d heard stories about how once upon a time everyone could be found online, but that made people easier to track. Particularly if you were into things you shouldn’t be—which, let’s face it, both Dev and I, along with anyone we associated with, tended to veer towards—it made sense to stay off as many radars as possible. The first decade of my life, governments and authorities were still trying to figure out how to police people who had magic and those not entirely of this world. I was too young to fully understand, but I grew up hearing discussions particularly between Dad and Aunt Roo but with Mom’s commentary thrown in—and the dominant conversation in our circles encouraged staying off the radar as much as possible. 

Humans had too many of their own problems to really go after us, though—too busy starting their own bullshit wars to come after demons and the like that otherwise kept in line. But that didn’t stop occult and supernatural divisions of both local and federal police forces from forming, hence Tanvi’s job. When she transferred to that department six months ago, that was officially the end of our brief—though intense—romance.

All the precautions that made Dev hard to find by police methods also gave me some challenges. And why take that pendant unless he was in terrible trouble?

In looking for news about Dev, I did a social media search for my city and any mention of the swarm—or anything about me.

Magic Alley came up immediately; the swarm had been a big fucking deal, even for people used to that kind of thing. Three in the apartment building were dead and someone got a video of the creatures on the street. My heart hammered at the thought that Melinoë and I had been caught on camera fleeing—last fucking thing I needed—but it must’ve been after we left as there was no sign of the car, just thousands of the demon swarm running down the road.

At the end of the forty seconds of video, though, they seemed to bubble and melt into the pavement and disappear.

Was it some kind of dimension hopping they did? What the hell were these things?

I scanned through more posts and checked news coverage but enough supernatural things went on in the city during a normal night that it wasn’t much of a blip. National news outlets were still owned and operated by humans, and three people dead in Magic Alley wasn’t a big deal to them.

With trepidation swirling in my gut, I searched my name and for any new arrest warrants.

Nothing came up—not under the name I was commonly known by nor my legal name.

Had the police just been at my place for routine questioning? Would Tanvi have really told me to leave for something as simple as that? She might, as she didn’t know what kind of precautions I took and alibis I typically laid out ahead of time—hadn’t ever wanted to know either.

I might’ve felt better if there had been a warrant, though—at least then I would’ve known why they were at my place, and what to expect when I eventually made it back to the city. It couldn’t be too bad if they hadn’t checked in with Dad yet, I thought. Dad would’ve given me a heads-up no matter how busy he thought I was looking for Dev, and there wasn’t even a text about it.

In the hours I’d spent searching online, I had nothing. No witch declaring that they knew what the swarm was, no further understanding of why the police were at my apartment, and no one who’d had contact with my brother.

I still wanted to check Dev’s former room but Melinoë had trusted me enough to fall asleep—if she woke to find me gone, even for a few minutes, she might not sleep again. Having a sleep-deprived ally for this would undoubtedly put me in danger, so I remained where I was as the evening outside darkened.

Since I’d run out of other leads to check, I started searching for her.

Melinoë Takata. Peri Takata. Neither drew any hits, no matter the spellings and variations I tried. I didn’t even know what Peri was short for, and I wasn’t about to ask Dad for more details. So Melinoë didn’t exist online any more than I did—that wasn’t in itself a red flag, obviously, but it raised a few more question marks over her that there was nothing I could verify.

I glanced over at her, watching for a few minutes as she slept. A fine line formed between her brows, as if she was frowning even in her dreams. She had a wariness about her I recognized, and it bothered me that I didn’t yet know where it came from—it seemed to go beyond the immediate threat. What happened to Dev, the swarm—all of that was enough to throw off the average person, but Melinoë, like my brother himself, was not average. I knew little about her, but that much was apparent.

Untapped witch power, part demon from what amounted to royal lineage, but she relied on a gun. Who was this woman, really? And for all her pointing out that Dev didn’t have a lot of friends, didn’t she have anyone of her own to rely on for something like this? Where was the rest of her family, her friends? I hadn’t a chance yet to check her wallet for ID to see where she was even from—it was either in the pocket of her jeans, or on the leather jacket she almost always wore.

Just as I glanced across the room to where her coat rested on the back of the chair, Melinoë rolled over with a yawn, blinking up at the ceiling as she woke. “How long...?”

“Four hours.” I set down my phone. I’d turned on the bedside lamp near me but that was it; with the sun down, the room was comfortably dim and a baseboard heater kicked on to take some of the rising coolness from the room. “The bar’s open for a few more hours—we can get food there. What, well, I’m not sure. Might just be pretzels and beer.”

She yawned and rose, padding for the bathroom. “I’m in for pretzels. Always.”

The bar was under ten minutes on foot—probably less if we cut through some of the wooded area and fields that made up the motel property, but I didn’t think stumbling around in the dark would be the best idea—so we walked rather than take my car. The road beyond the motel was poorly lit but a crisp moon hung overhead, lighting the way. Not a single car passed us and other than a few streetlamps on, the town itself was entirely dark and silent as well. 

The orange glow of an OPEN sign blinked ahead. The bar—which didn’t have a name that I could see—sat a little separate from the rest of St. Philip Point, sort of like the motel did. Not in the little town core, a ways from the residential area. Possibly the location was from when it was connected to the main highway and offered some entertainment for those stopped at the motel overnight, but nothing new had been built to expand the town and connect it to the bar. Or maybe there was a little council of busybodies who didn’t like the bar corrupting locals so there was no attempt to integrate it more.

Regardless, it was open and promised food, which was enough for me. 

It was the first time in town I’d smelled cigarette smoke; a cloud of it drifted from around the side of the bar, the smokers out of sight of the entrance. I opened the creaky wood-and-screen door first, warm air smelling of beer and humans folding over me immediately. Melinoë crowded behind me as we paused in the entrance and took the space in.

Though technically larger than our motel room, it was just barely.  Four tables were jam-packed against the walls, and old country thrummed from a jukebox outside the door to the bathrooms. Two of those tables were occupied by folks who didn’t look up, and probably only because all three bar stools had been claimed. Muted light shone from a domed cracked lamp in the center of the room as well as sconces around the bar, and the wood-paneled walls were covered with ancient vanity licence plates, framed photos barely visible with dust, horseshoes and other bits of farm memorabilia. 

Essentially, it was exactly what I’d expected.

Melinoë and I walked to a small round table at the far side of the room, the top of it at least clean of smudges though with old deep grooves in the wood, and sat at mismatched chairs. There was no table menu, but a chalkboard by the bar listed the three items. No pretzels, but they had soup, sandwiches, and fries. 

The fries were an actual main course; the only option for sides was veggie sticks.

The bar seemed run by just the one guy—late fifties, clean-shaven though he looked like he should have a scraggly beard or something to match his silver hair, wearing plaid and jeans—and I didn’t think he came over to take orders, so Melinoë headed over to tell him what we wanted. She returned with two pint glasses and a pitcher of deep reddish amber. 

“He said the red ale is good.” She set the items down and sat across from me. “From a microbrewery two towns over.”

All the barflies at the counter had whiskey, the bottles at the back indicating at least it was top shelf. There was no television and I found it somewhat disconcerting to see this many people drinking without sports in the background. Other than a pair of ladies at a table near the jukebox with three other men, we were the only women present. And definitely the only ones under thirty if not forty.

Melinoë poured the beer and spoke in a low voice. “I didn’t see any of these people in town today, did you?”

I studied their faces and slowly shook my head. “No. So maybe someone here was more familiar with Dev.”

“Do you have your phone?”

I did, in my back pocket. Not like the photo had been necessary since there was only one young stranger in town recently—other than us—but she’d texted it to me earlier just in case. 

No one here seemed too welcoming, though. I’d maybe start with the bartender when he finished our food.

He reappeared a few minutes later, without our fries. Perhaps there’d been an additional employee back there cooking, but it didn’t seem like the bartender was needed much there anyway—no one had moved in his absence, all still nursing their drinks. He leaned on the bartop to carry on a conversation with someone at the far end, and the din of voices and music made it impossible to make out anything anyone was saying.

“Let’s say we spend tomorrow searching,” she said. “What do we do if it turns up nothing?”

I drank silently as I thought, though I didn’t need to buy time—it had been on my mind the entire time while she slept.

This wasn’t my job—none of this was. Yes, I had a PI license; yes, I had training. But that wasn’t the same as experience. Dev had vanished. Maybe literally—maybe he finally got the hang of Dad’s teleporting spell and took off. But, again...his car. Can’t teleport with that. Even taking teleporting off the table, there were a dozen possibilities that would mean no trail for me to follow, and I had no idea what to do. My job—or hobby, really—was to kill people. It wasn’t always easy but it was simple. I knew where my targets were. I had all the information I needed. I made quick work of them. I didn’t have to hunt anyone down.

Dev, whatever had happened, seemed like he didn’t want to be found. If he was actually taking precautions to cover his tracks, there was fuck all I could do.

“Elis?” she said softly.

I took a gulp of beer and set down my glass, fingertips dragging along the condensation. “I’m not sure. Maybe hit an occult shop for supplies and try some spells that might help locate him or divine a location.”

“You can do that?”

I chuckled and took another drink. “Not particularly well. I’m not like Dev—he’s a true student of magic. I am decidedly not. I like practical application.” And setting people on fire, even if it wasn’t practical.

“Would your dad—”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to involve him anymore than he already is.”

“Isn’t he worried?”

“He is. Great poker face, but Dad is an exceptionally excellent worrier. I’m willing to bet he’s already put calls out to all his contacts in case someone might know more about the swarm. It’s why I have to do this—if I don’t look for Dev, he might, and he...has better things to spend his time on.” Just don’t ask for details. Because I couldn’t even come up with a convincing lie for it—reclusive wealthy vampire with nothing but time on his hands shouldn’t have anything better to do than look for his missing son, right? But it was much more complicated than that.

“Does he know...?” She gestured as if that would complete the sentence.

“That I’m a whole man garbage disposal agent?”

She chuckled and took another sip of her beer. “Creative way of putting it.”

“Yeah, I was thinking of getting business cards. I think he knows plenty but he doesn’t bring it up. He is many things but tries not to be a hypocrite with us—Dad did some fucked up shit at my age. Not that he advertises, but Aunt Roo told us the stories. So he’s never said anything about my hobby and would more than likely approve, probably.” I wasn’t about to test that supposition, however.

“You’re very lucky,” she said, an edge of wistfulness to her voice that I didn’t think I was imagining.

Might as well show some cards. “I admit I know absolutely nothing about your family.” I took a long sip of my beer and waited.

She skirted my gaze, both hands folding over her glass and fingers smudging the condensation. “I don’t have one. I know my mom had kids before I was born but they were killed.”

A shiver rolled down my back that I fought not to give into.

“Mom died when I was young,” she continued. “Her family was dead as well.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it. Because I believed her, and she was right—I was very lucky. I grew up with amazing parents. And I missed my mother fiercely, every day, but I still had a father. I had a brother, somewhere out there. I had Aunt Roo. And for a moment Melinoë looked a little lost, a little younger, a little smaller, and I knew that whatever my particular brand of damage, she had probably been through a hell of a lot more herself. “Your dad?”

  She shook her head and lifted her glass again, tipping it back and swallowing down the remaining half pint of beer in the ensuing silence. Then she poured another glass and I suspected she wished for something stronger. Her dark eyes peered up at me briefly, a little twist to her lips. “I was created in a lab. My biological father was apparently a doctor, and my knowledge of him begins and ends there.”

I lifted my own glass. “Some of my very favourite people in the world were created in petri dishes—makes no difference to me.” I tipped my glass, and she met it with her own—along with a rueful little smile that looked like thanks.

“That’s a better way of looking at it, absolutely.”

“And now you have Dev, at least.”

“I do. Provided we can find him.”

A woman just short of forty came through the swinging kitchen door then with two baskets of fries balanced in her arms and another basket of veggie sticks and dip angled atop them. Her faded red hair was bound in an equally faded bandanna, ringlets damp with sweat and steam bouncing around her tired face. “Here you go, ladies.” She set each basket down carefully.

As I saw her approach, I’d pulled out my phone in preparation, and quickly thumbed to the photo of Dev that Melinoë had sent me to use. “Excuse me—can you tell me if this man looks familiar?”

She paused there with a sigh and her hands on her hips, peering down at my phone. “He came in a couple of times I think, maybe a few weeks ago?”

“It would’ve been about a week ago.”

She nodded. “Probably. Days bleed into each other here, I don’t remember exactly when. Maybe two evenings? Kept to himself.”

“Did he talk to anyone? Say anything?”

A shrug. “Sat at the bar.” She looked over her shoulder. “Hey Donnie!”

The bartender looked up, gaze going from her to us, then he straightened and came to stand at the end of the bar. “Yeah?”

“That boy from out of town that was here—he talk about anything?”

Donnie the bartender shrugged. “Nope. Regular conversation. Did see him once out at Cemetery Road, though. Thought maybe he was visiting a grave out here or something, like he had family once this area?”

We most certainly didn’t have family out here—even Dev’s mom’s side couldn’t have anything to do with St. Philip Point. 

“Did anyone see his vehicle?” Melinoë asked. “It was a—”

“I remember the car,” Donnie interrupted. “Not often we see anything built in the past decade here. Not seen it since, figured he took it with him, didn’t he?”

“Thanks for your help,” I said rather than answer that. The waitress went back to the kitchen and the bartender slung a towel over his shoulder and returned to his conversation.

“Cemetery Road?” Melinoë said in a low voice.

“Already on it,” I responded as I typed it into the maps app on my phone.

Surprise surprise: the only thing there was the actual cemetery by the looks of it, but the signal wasn’t great in here and I gave up waiting for the rest of the page to load. I tucked the phone back in my pocket and dug into the fries. “At least it’s somewhere to start tomorrow.”

We ate and drank in relative silence for a bit, just the changing music in the background and the mumbling voices around us. More were looking our way the longer we were there, though, either growing comfortable enough to gawk or drunk enough.

One in particularly, a man maybe fifty or sixty, openly stared from his perch at the bar. Thinning, graying hair, beard and glasses, that nebulous creepy air about him. I hadn’t missed the quick glances the waitress made his way the brief time she’d been out of the kitchen, words hovering on his lips if only she’d make eye contact, and I wondered if he was the reason she stayed back there rather than socialize out here. 

“Barfly nearest to us,” I said in a low voice without looking his way.

Melinoë glanced at me instead of him as well. “I saw. He’s on his third whiskey since we’ve been here, too.”

Maybe it was that he overheard us talking about Dev and knew something, but I personally doubted it. Irritation buzzed under my skin though I knew I should consider us lucky he hadn’t started speaking yet. Something about men in bars—maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the location, but they always felt entitled to speak to random women, even those clearly in conversation, and I sensed that coming from him.

Unfortunately for him, we’d also polished off our pitcher, of which I’d had my fair share, and the loose comfortable feeling in my veins from the alcohol definitely peeled back what little impulse control I had. 

Melinoë chewed on a carrot stick and swallowed it back with the last of her drink. “Maybe we should head out.”

I was not being run out of this podunk bar in this podunk town just because of the dickhead who was now rolling off his bar stool and heading toward us. 

“Counterpoint: we don’t head out and I kill him.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re not killing him.”

“Not while there are witnesses, no.” But it was impossible to be without witnesses for long, especially if I encouraged him to step outside with me.

She shook her head. “We’re here to find Dev, not become murder suspects. Although they probably don’t have that great of a police force.”

I started to respond, but then had to stifle my irritation—just barely—as he reached our table and thumped his glass down between us.

“Ladies.” His voice was a little slurred. “How’s your evening?”

“Busy,” I replied without looking at him.

“Love to know what you’re talking about—I can bring a chair over.” His hand came down half an inch from mine, close enough for me to feel the heat from it.

The irritation that prickled along my skin turned into a wave of rage through my veins. At no point had either Melinoë or I turned to face him, made eye contact, or displayed any interest in speaking to him. We were focused on our own conversation and meal. Anyone with an iota of awareness, respect, or fucking common sense would be able to see that and not corner us, and that this man had made it through his entire goddamn life thinking this was okay told me no one pushed back when he encroached on their boundaries like this.

He was about to learn a lesson.

He tipped closer to me, wrist brushing my upper arm. “What brought you to St. Philip Point?”

I held Melinoë’s gaze for a moment, my body stiffening. Then I slowly twisted to stare blankly up at him.

Because he was not a smart man and had no sense of self-preservation, he chuckled and raised his hands in mock defence. “I’m just making friendly conversation. You don’t need to have an attitude.”

I let several long beats of silence pass before I parted my lips to speak. “My friend and I are having a conversation you weren’t invited to. Go away.”

“Knew you were a stuck-up bitch,” he started to rant, the volume of his voice rising enough that Donnie the bartender squared his shoulders in a brace and other patrons turned to look. None of them, I noticed, actually came over to stop him. “Know how I knew? Fucking prissy little—”

“You knew because I deliberately telegraphed my body language to warn you to back off,” I interrupted. “I gave you time to back up, but your shitty little ego wouldn’t let you go on your way. This is your second warning. You will not like the third.”

He got his back up and I knew he was, in fact, going to require a third warning, but the bartender finally stepped over with a firm hand on his upper arm. I couldn’t make out what he whispered to this asshole beyond the warning of a growled, “Jim!”...but it was enough to make ol’ Jimbo stalk back to the bar without another word.

Melinoë leaned across the table to speak to me in a low voice. “Do you want to head back?”

I swung around again to face her and drained the rest of my beer. “Fuck that—let’s get shots.”