“But how?” Patrick dropped onto Riga and Donovan’s bed, and the springs squeaked. “Is it quantum mechanics?”
In the wingchair, Donovan raised his magazine higher.
Riga didn’t turn from the laptop on her desk. Wincel had given her Aries’s password. Answering their questions was the least she could do. Just not now. Mac’s thesis was extraordinary. “It’s complicated. Too complicated for quick explanations.”
A bird chirped outside the open window, and Riga glared in its direction.
“Sure,” Patrick said. “Like that stupid ceremony Aries made us perform when we got here.”
“What ceremony?” Riga asked sharply, twisting in her chair.
“He said it was a summoning,” Wincel said.
“Summoning what?” Why did people have to summon things? It almost never went well. That was one truth about magic that Hollywood had nailed.
Wincel’s freckled face creased. “We were supposed to summon the opposite, he said.”
“Opposite of what?” she asked.
The two younger men shrugged.
“Tell me about this ceremony,” she said. “Where exactly did you perform it?”
“In the woods by some fairy spring.”
Riga muttered a curse. “And?”
“You know,” Wincel said, “the usual. A pentagram in a circle. Candles. Salt. Weird symbols.”
“Do you remember the symbols?”
“They were made up,” Patrick said.
“What do you mean, made up?”
Patrick flushed. “Made up. Aries made them up. He said it was the opposite’s name. But they were garbage.”
“How do you know?”
He lifted one hip and pulled a phone from the rear pocket of his jeans. “Look.” He scrolled through the phone. “I did a reverse image search. These aren’t any language. It’s all made up.” He handed the phone to Riga.
Her mouth went dry. It was a summoning circle all right. And inside it were sigils, created symbols like the sigil that formed the logo for the Black Lodge. She’d never be able to unravel them in time.
“What’s wrong?” Wincel creased his broad brow.
“Nothing.” She swallowed. “This is helpful. Do you mind if I text myself this photo?”
Patrick shrugged. “Sure. I guess.”
“What time was this ceremony?” Riga asked.
Wincel groaned. “Three o’clock Wednesday morning.”
“Are you sure?” Riga asked.
“You think we’d forget getting up that early?” Patrick asked.
Absently, Riga shut the laptop. But she’d felt that snap, that release of magical tension when Mac had died. She’d been so certain…
“He said something about three and three.” Wincel’s face scrunched, as if at the challenge of recalling the memory. “The call was at three, and then the opposite would come at the opposite hour—”
“At three in the afternoon?” Riga asked.
“Maybe.” Wincel shrugged.
“Where were you at three Wednesday afternoon, the day of the shooting?”
“Aries dragged us to some spice shop in this little alley behind Main Street,” Patrick said. “I thought he was looking for magical herbs, but he got a steak rub.”
“Did you hear the shot?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Patrick said.
“How can we learn magic?” Wincel asked. “Can we do what you did? Teleporting, I mean.”
Since Riga suspected that particular power hadn’t come from her, she doubted they could. But magic was about more than talent. It ribboned through the world, and was always there for those who looked.
Blowing out her breath, she turned the chair to face them. She was never going to finish reading Mac’s thesis with all these interruptions. “Magic is an art and a science, and the art part means it works differently for everyone. But you can still work the magic that fits you, if you’re willing to work hard and learn.”
“We are,” Wincel said. “What do we do?”
Donovan lowered the magazine.
And Riga realized she had two more apprentices she didn’t want. She sighed and pulled the B&B’s complimentary notepad closer. Riga scribbled a list of titles and handed it to Wincel.
“There’s a bookstore on Main Street,” she said. “Ask for Lenore and give her this list. If she doesn’t have the books, she’ll order them.”
“Who’s paying?” Patrick asked.
Donovan opened his mouth to speak, shook his head, raised the magazine.
“Since the books are for your studies,” Riga said, “you are. And tell Lenore to prepare for a shamanic journey.”
“Shamanic journey,” Wincel said. “Right.” He hurried from the room.
Patrick heaved himself off the bed and limped after him.
“More students?” Donovan asked mildly.
“Soon I’ll have to open my own mystery school,” she grumbled and returned her attention to the laptop. So much for not being a joiner.
The curtains at the window rustled.
“How did you guess one of them had the passwords to these computers?” he asked.
“I was counting on Patrick’s suspicious nature.”
“So. Aries summoned the sluagh.”
“It looks that way. I wish I knew why, or what this business is about the opposite.” That answer wasn’t on the stolen computer.
“I thought Aries didn’t have much magic.”
“You don’t need much to summon something like that. They’re always waiting for an invite to make trouble.”
“This Black Lodge doesn’t seem very impressive.”
She dropped her hands into her lap. “That’s because they sent the D team this time. They thought they might be able to slide some low-talents under the radar.”
“Why?”
Riga grinned. “Because the Bonheim sisters keep beating their top magicians like a drum.”
“And now Aries is dead. Think he knew he was D team?”
“Oh, he knew.” She nodded to one of the laptops. “But I don’t think Wincel and Patrick knew they were cannon fodder. Aries probably thought he could use them as human shields.”
“Anything else interesting on that computer?”
“Aries was and wasn’t exaggerating about his organization owning people. But… It isn’t some grand conspiracy. It’s more cooperative. Politicians, media, and tech are turning people against each other. They’re using our own anger and fear for money and power. Last year’s riot in Doyle was just a taste. They actually got people thinking their neighbors had been taken over by aliens.”
He whistled. “That’s… something. And the lodge? Where do they fit in?”
“They feed off violence to power their magic. That riot worked a drop in the stock market. It made them a mint.” She looked up. “You don’t look surprised.”
“I guess I’m not,” he said slowly. “There’ve always been people who care more for power than people, who only see the gains to be made in this world, who think people’s only worth is as tools.”
“I’m not sure if I should be depressed or heartened that nothing ever changes.” She lifted her hands and dropped them into her lap. “I don’t know how to fight this. If it were just the lodge… But it’s not, and what’s happening is opportunistic.”
“We know what they’re up to. It’s a start, and a start is all we need. Like you said, nothing ever changes. But the good will have its day again too.”
There wasn’t any sense to turning this laptop over to the FBI. The lodge had identified “helpful” elements inside that agency too. “You can’t trust anyone.”
“You can trust me.”
Their gazes locked. “I know,” she said quietly. “But when the Devil came, I didn’t act like I could trust you. I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry.”
“But you did tell me, today.”
The moment stretched. She knew it had been even harder for Donovan to leave their children behind than it had been for her. It was the first time he’d done it after the threat against them a year ago. But he’d come here. For her. Riga’s chest tightened.
“It’s okay, Riga,” he said. “I understand.”
I don’t. A warm breeze from the open window tossed the curtains and ruffled her hair.
“And what about last year?” he asked. “Have you come to any conclusions on that?”
Riga cleared her throat. “Yes,” she said lightly. “I conclude I’ve been a coward.”
Brigitte had made that much clear. And she and Jayce had clarified some other things Riga hadn’t wanted to look at too closely either. But she would look at them. She had to.
He set down the magazine. “A coward? Come on,” he chided.
“And I think…” Just say it. “I thought I was being noble, giving up my agency after…” Riga swallowed. She’d been blind, and she’d chained herself. “After everything. I thought…”
“You thought you couldn’t be trusted to do the right thing. But you did do the right thing when you shot that SOB. He was threatening you, and he was threatening our children, and he was in our house.”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely.”
She shook her head. “It’s more than him. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for what happened in that gas station.” Her voice cracked on the final syllable. “But I can’t tell these witches to live with it, learn from it, and move on, and then not do that myself.”
“Do you want to return to your regular work?”
She wouldn’t have kept her PI license active if she hadn’t. She knew that now. “Yes.”
And maybe the Devil hadn’t been a warning about their children after all. Maybe it had been just what it seemed, the obvious, the simplest explanation. It had been a warning for her.
It seemed embarrassingly obvious now. Donovan and Brigitte had seen it, and they hadn’t even known the Devil had turned up in her walk-in closet.
“Then you should restart your agency,” he said. “And as to Jack and Emma, the binding might not be such a bad idea.”
“Then you’re not completely opposed to the idea?”
“I want to learn more about the spell. But I didn’t come into my powers until I was an adult. I can’t imagine how I would have turned out if I’d gotten them earlier. I was an arrogant jerk when I was young, I would have... It wouldn’t have been good.”
Riga relaxed. He understood, because they’d walked this path together. She couldn’t imagine walking it without him. “Donovan…”
“What?”
She shook her head and returned to Mac’s thesis.
After fifteen minutes, she gasped.
“What?” Donovan asked.
“Wits’ End. It’s in the thesis.”
“That would explain why Mac and Oonagh were staying here.”
“But get this, the Doyles were the founders of Doyle—”
“People do like to name towns after themselves.” He turned a page in the magazine.
“The first Doyle’s daughter, Patience Doyle, somehow... connected with the spirit of the place. It blessed their family. It says here that the spirit and family honored each other.”
“And Patience’s original home was on this site?”
“No. But the Witsends are related to the original Doyles.” And it could explain everything. “Mac wrote that the spirit and the family continued to honor each other through the Witsend line. That’s why the sluagh couldn’t cross into the B&B’s property. That’s why there’s a spirit house. That’s why the roses here are always in bloom.”
“I’m not making the rose-spirit connection.”
“Well, it’s implied, isn’t it? The spirit is returning the favor somehow, and the roses…” Riga returned to her reading.
An hour later, footsteps thundered up the stairs.
“The boys are back.” Donovan rose and opened the door. Wincel and Patrick crowded into the room and dropped onto the king bed.
Lenore trailed behind. “Thanks for the order.” She pinked. “I meant the book order. Not ordering me around.”
Though she’d been doing a good bit of that. In Lenore’s shoes, Riga would have been irritated too.
“What do you need?” Lenore asked.
Riga explained about the spirit of the place and the B&B’s role. She eyed the two younger men. “Did you know about this?”
“Nope,” Wincel said. “Aries had us do some research on Doyle’s history, but nothing about Wits’ End.”
“Did you always plan on staying here?” Riga asked.
“Uh, uh.” Patrick ran two fingers between his jeans and his leg brace, scratching. “He told us to keep that woman who runs the place busy. The only way we could keep her busy long enough was to make reservations.”
Wincel snorted a laugh. “Aries was pissed, because there’s a cancellation fee here and at our other hotel. But then, later, he seemed to be okay with it.”
After he’d gotten his hands on Mac’s laptop and read the thesis.
“So there’s a spirit here that’s working with Susan Witsend?” Lenore’s gray eyes widened. “So that’s why the roses...” She shook her head. “But it can’t be. The roses bloom all year at Mrs. Steinberg’s house too.”
“Let’s find out why.” Riga picked up her phone and called the old woman.
“What now?” Mrs. Steinberg barked.
Riga put the phone on speaker and explained.
There was a long pause, and a slow exhalation. “So that’s what it was.”
“What?” Beside the desk, Riga shifted her weight.
“Susan’s grandmother was a dear friend of mine. She knew all about my lodge and the perils of Doyle, but for some reason, nothing seemed to touch her.” She cleared her throat. “She left a thank you gift every day for the nature spirits. When she died, I took a bit of the soil from her yard and to honor her, I began doing the same.”
“And you put the soil in your yard?” Riga asked.
“Where else would I put it?” she asked irritably.
“And that’s when the roses wouldn’t stop blooming,” Riga said.
“I assumed it was some magic in the soil. But now, I wonder if there was more to it than that.”
Riga nodded. “Your offering.”
“Like Susan’s grandmother, I prefer to think of it as a thank you gift rather than an offering.”
Riga pulled her map of Doyle from the desk drawer and handed it to Lenore. “Would you mark Mrs. Steinberg’s house on this?”
“Sure.” Lenore pulled a pen from her ivory purse and bent over the desk. Her blond hair tumbled forward, and she brushed it aside.
“What do you think it means?” Mrs. Steinberg asked.
“I think it means the spirit of the place isn’t the spirit of Wits’ End,” Riga said. “It’s the spirit of Doyle, of the entire town. But it’s been somehow… limited.”
“Why limited?” Mrs. Steinberg’s voice squawked over the phone.
“The protection extends to the cabin next door,” Riga said. “But there’s a dead rose bush in it.”
“In fairness,” Lenore said, “there was that dog.”
“Wits’ End has a dog too,” Mrs. Steinberg said. “What are you getting at? Do you think the protection’s extension to that cabin is recent? That there hasn’t been enough time for it to affect the roses there.”
“Yes,” Riga said. “Exactly. I’m stretching, but—”
“No,” Mrs. Steinberg said. “It’s a good thought.”
“If we could remove whatever’s keeping the spirit of the place contained,” Riga said, “set it free—”
“It might be the end of our fairy problem,” Mrs. Steinberg finished.
And the end of the sluagh.
“You’re talking about changing the polarity of the magic here,” Mrs. Steinberg said. “That’s not possible.”
“I think it is,” Riga said.
The old lady snorted. “You don’t have a reputation for optimism. Magic is energy. It’s neither good nor bad.”
“True,” Riga said. “What I’m talking about is altering the natural environment for the magic.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.
“I think I see what you mean,” Mrs. Steinberg said slowly.
“I don’t,” Lenore said.
“Why do we cast expansion spells during a waxing moon and spells that reduce or take away during a waning moon?” Riga asked.
Wincel’s hand shot up. “Because it’s easier to cast a spell when you’re working with the natural energies.”
“Er, yes,” Riga said. “And if the energies of Doyle are positive…”
“We can change the flavor of the magic,” Wincel said.
“I’ve never heard of that,” Mrs. Steinberg said.
“I have,” Riga said. “There’s a hoodoo practitioner I know who does something similar for people who’ve been cursed using poppets. It’s nearly impossible to find and get rid of the poppet, so changing the flavor of the energy is the only option.”
“Hoodoo. That’s… interesting,” Mrs. Steinberg said. “And it would be nice not to have so many murders.”
“Let’s not go crazy,” Riga said. “People are still people.” But the change should reduce or eliminate any negative magical influence.
“You’re talking about transforming the energy of an entire town,” Mrs. Steinberg said. “More than that—the forests, the mountains. Do you have any idea what’s involved?”
“None,” Riga said. “But the genius loci might.”
“It’s madness.” There was a long exhale, and Riga imagined a stream of raspberry-scented smoke. “But it just might work.”
“We’ll let you know what we discover,” Riga said.
They said their goodbyes and hung up.
Riga turned to Lenore. “I could use a shaman’s help with this.”
Lenore eyed her. “You want to journey to talk to this spirit.”
“Sometimes,” Riga said, “the direct route is best.” It was certainly the quickest. The lodge might send reinforcements, the sluagh was still out there. They couldn’t afford to take the scenic route.
“We should go outside then,” Lenore said. “I’ll talk to Susan, and ask her to keep it clear while we’re there.”
“What are you going to tell her?” Riga asked.
“I’ll tell her...” Lenore’s slender hands fluttered. “I’ll tell her something..” She hurried from the room.
“What do you want us to do?” Wincel asked.
“Write down everything you can remember about the summoning ceremony Aries performed.”
He reached for the notepad on the desk.
“In your own room,” Riga said. “It’s a little crowded in here.”
Wincel’s freckles darkened. “Oh. Right. Sure.” He started for the door.
“But we’ll need you for the journeying later,” she added.
He brightened. “Cool.” Wincel ambled from the room, and Patrick limped after him.
Donovan raised a brow. “You’ll need them?”
“No, but they look so… I feel bad, okay? And they can help,” she muttered.
A smile lurked about his lips, but he said nothing.
Lenore returned five minutes later. “Susan said we can have the side yard, and she’ll try to keep the other guests away. But the sooner we do this the better. No one aside from us is in, and she can’t really guarantee being able to keep the other guests off the lawn.”
Riga nodded. “Got a drum?”
Lenore pinked. “Um, do you mind a recording of a drum? The thing is, I usually work alone and don’t have my own drummer, and—”
“It’s okay,” Riga said. “So do I.”
They retrieved the men and laid out a wide blanket on the lawn.
Wincel and Patrick stood at either end of the garden to ask any visitors to stay out until the ritual was done.
Donovan sat on the porch steps, watching, as Riga and Lenore laid down, feet touching.
Riga turned her head. “Look, this isn’t a normal journey. What we’re searching for is something different, bigger, and it will expect respect. And even if we give it that respect, we don’t know how it will react.”
“You’re saying we could run into trouble.” Lenore rerouted a ladybug off the blanket and onto the lawn.
“Yeah.”
Lenore touched her phone and drumming began, slow and even.
“Middle World?” Lenore asked.
“I think so. If not, he’ll let us know, wherever he is.” Riga closed her eyes.
At first, nothing happened. The drum beat, a steady thud. And then there was a swooping sensation in her stomach, as if she were flying backward. Objects passed in a blur in alternating darkness and light. Riga turned her head, and Lenore was flying beside her, smiling.
“This... looks familiar,” Lenore said. Light crossed her face, the shadows beneath the planes of her cheeks moving like on a sundial.
“What do you see?” This was not the Middle World Riga was used to. Middle World was the unseen world layered on top of our own, the world of ghosts and other spirits. But it was still our world, and this blur of sickening motion was not it.
“I think… It’s Doyle,” Lenore said. “See those boulders, there? Doyle before it became Doyle.”
Riga looked and only saw more of the same blur. She frowned.
The drumming continued, a slow, steady beat. And then sparks of colors emerged, lengthened, shifting and iridescent.
Lenore gasped. “They’re beautiful.”
And Riga knew they weren’t seeing the same things. Lenore was a woman of Doyle, and Riga was not. They were in the vision together, but somehow they didn’t share it.
“What do you see?” Riga asked. Shifting columns of colored light moved back and forth across her field of vision.
“Tall people and winged beings, and… They’re what I thought fairies looked like, before I actually met any.”
A black stain rushed towards them. Riga winced as it flooded across her. It carried the scent of carrion and a flesh-crawling sensation of corruption. The air pressure changed, grew sticky, like it had that night in her children’s nursery.
She remembered her children’s would-be attacker falling to his knees. She remembered sickening darkness spiraling from the nape of the big man’s neck. She remembered the demon emerging, scales and teeth and claws tearing at his host. And she remembered the man looking up and smiling, unrepentant.
It was the same corruption she felt now. The corruption that dismisses humanity, that sees its neighbors as less than human, unworthy. It was evil.
Lenore sucked in her breath. “It’s changing them.”
“Changing…” Riga forced away the memory. The iridescent columns flitting around them darkened. She could still make them out, faded to twisting shadows against a background dark as the inside of a grave.
There was a flare of light, and Riga raised her hand against it, wincing. And then she and Lenore stood on the lawn at Wits’ End. But this Wits’ End was brighter, sharper.
Relieved, Riga released the tension in her shoulders. This was the Middle World she knew. The roses glowed with life. And Donovan, the young men, were gone. Riga and Lenore were alone.
“NOT ALONE.” The voice was an energy wave, rippling through her. A swirl of iridescent mist, twice her height, hovered above the lawn.
Riga locked her knees, repressing the urge to bow, and she nodded. “Thank you for receiving us.”
Lenore curtseyed, then blushed.
“WHY HAVE YOU COME?” The voice seemed to come from everywhere. It echoed off the mountains. Rattled the Victorian’s windows. Even her teeth clattered.
With an effort, Riga’s muscles unclenched and she breathed normally. They were on its turf, and she had no idea what it could do. “We... wished to understand what happened here.”
“AND DO YOU NOW?”
“You were the spirit of all this place,” Riga said, feeling her way. She motioned toward the mountains. “But then something happened, driving you here.”
“A GREAT BATTLE, A MASSACRE. THE EVIL TWISTED THE OTHERS.”
“But not you.” Lenore’s voice quavered.
“NO, DAUGHTER OF DOYLE. NOT ME.”
“You know about Doyle?” Lenore whispered.
“I KNOW MANY THINGS.”
“And you’ve stayed because of the Witsend family?” The spirit seemed friendly, but that assumed it was responding like a human would. Pain flared in her shoulder, and she rubbed it. Whatever they’d found here was far from human.
“THE LADY OF THIS HOUSE KEEPS A WILD SPACE FOR US. SHE ALLOWS US TO DO WHAT WE NEED. SHE ASKS FOR OUR HELP, AND WHEN WE GIVE IT, SHE THANKS US.”
“The tall woman we saw in our vision,” Lenore said. “She was the fairy queen, wasn’t she?”
The woman Lenore had seen. What had she seen?
It nodded.
“Did she cause all this?” Lenore asked.
“NO. SHE WAS NOT ALWAYS CRUEL,” the being said. “BUT THE DARKNESS SPREAD. IT AFFECTED MY KIND.”
“It’s affecting our kind as well,” Riga said.
“YES,” it said.
“And the sluagh?” Riga asked.
“MY OPPOSITE. HE IS NECESSARY.”
“Opposite?” Lenore asked.
Necessary?
“IN EVERYTHING, THERE IS BALANCE. THOUGH SOMETIMES THE SCALES TIP, AS THEY HAVE HERE.”
It had answered her thought, because the vision was, in a sense, pure thought. And that was dangerous.
“How can we stop it?” Riga asked. “Not just stop the sluagh—your opposite. I mean how do we stop all of it?”
The mist shifted, solidified. Riga caught a glimpse of something basketball player tall and with long, dark fur...
“AT THE SOLSTICE.”
The drumming sped, calling them back. It pulled at her, and the vision blurred.
“But how?” Riga asked, desperate.
“YOU KNOW.”
Then they were rushing backward as if blown by a hurricane. Over the mountain and up, her stomach falling behind.
And then she came to an abrupt stop. Riga opened her eyes.
The sky above was unrelenting blue. She breathed deeply, and rolled onto her side.
Lenore sat up. “Was that...? Did you see...?”
“Yeah,” Riga said shakily. “I guess it is real.” And why should she be surprised? She’d met a lake monster. Why not this?
A blond woman sat on the deck of the A-frame next door, watching. She took a slow sip from a mug. The black and white dog sat beside her and thumped its tail.
Lenore shook her head. “But that looked like big—”
“I’ll take the UFO tourists any day,” a woman said behind them, her tone sardonic.
Riga twisted toward the Victorian.
A young woman with a green streak in her hair sat on the porch steps beside Donovan.
Susan stood behind the two and clapped one hand over her eyes. “Dixie,” she groaned. “We appreciate all our guests.”
Donovan smiled.
“Huh!” The other young woman, presumably Dixie, stood. She brushed off her cargo shorts and stomped inside. The door banged shut behind her.
“Sorry,” Susan said. “I hope we didn’t, er, interrupt.”
“You didn’t.” Riga glanced at the A-frame.
The blond woman and the dog were gone.
Riga clambered to standing and rolled her shoulders. “Susan, how much do you know about your ancestry?”
The innkeeper blinked. “Not much. Why?”
“Did you know you’re related to the original Doyles who founded Doyle?”
“What?” Susan stepped backward, and her hip nudged a plant balanced on a small, red table. “No. And why do you know?”
“It’s a long story,” Riga said.
Lenore took Susan’s arm and guided her inside. “And it’s not as creepy as it sounds.”