Chapter Seventeen

“Problem?” Magnus asked, crooking an eyebrow and then wincing when the action tugged at his sore temple.

Donata sighed. “I think I talked to him earlier today.”

That got both Magnus’s and Astrid’s attention, as the older woman swiveled around holding a can of tuna. “What?” Astrid said. “I thought you couldn’t talk to our ghosts.”

“I can’t,” Donata said. “At least not in the way I usually do. My great-aunt sent me her Ouija board to try, and I used it this morning before we went into town.”

“A Ouija board?” Magnus sounded dubious. “I thought those things were just toys.”

“Oh, they work, more or less,” Donata said. “They’re just not very reliable, because the people who use them either don’t know what they’re doing or treat them like a game, or both. Also, they can’t call up the spirit of Cleopatra, or whoever it is most folks attempt to call on, and they can be dangerous in the hands of amateurs, which are pretty much the only ones who use them regularly.” She shrugged. “But a talented Human, or a Witch like my great-aunt Tatiana, whose magical gifts lie in other areas, can sometimes make one work the way they were designed to. I’d never used one before today, because I never had the need.”

“I’m curious as to why you didn’t mention it,” Astrid said, giving her a look that stopped just short of disapproving.

“Honestly, what I got was so muddled and incoherent, I wasn’t really sure I’d succeeded at all,” Donata said. “Mostly what looked like babbling about being called home or wanting to go home or something to that effect. And at the end, one name, Calder.” She gazed at Magnus. “I’m sorry. I had no idea it had anything to do with you. When I saw you this evening, I was going to ask if you knew anyone in the area with that name who had died.”

“That would be a yes,” he said, tossing the ice pack over his shoulder and into the sink without looking.

“I got that.”

Astrid handed Magnus a towel to dry his face with and patted him on the arm. “Why don’t you and Donata go to your room and talk? You can tell her about Calder, and she can tell you about her phone call from Clayton Moore.”

And her visit from West. After Magnus’s reaction the last time she didn’t mention the Major Anemoi, she knew better than to keep the information to herself for one more minute than she had to. She stood up to go with him.

Magnus rose, towering over Donata as usual. She was going to have to get boots with higher heels. Or stilts. “Moore called you again? That man is more persistent than a heat rash in the desert.”

“And about as pleasant,” Donata said, following him out of the room.

Magnus leaned back against his headboard, a solid piece of walnut carved with fanciful creatures and wild animals that looked as though they were peeking out from behind trees in a forest. He’d told her when she first saw it that he’d carved it himself as a teenager. Naturally. Sometimes she thought there was nothing he couldn’t do if he put his mind to it. Hopefully, keeping his temper when she told him about her visit to town would be one of those things he’d put his mind to.

She was perched on the end of the bed, as far away from him as she could get; it was going to be hard enough to talk about this stuff without being distracted by his scent and his sheer physicality. “Sixteen missed calls?” he said. “I’ll give it to the man; he’s persistent.”

“He’s a pain in my ass,” Donata said. “Persistently.”

“What did he want this time?”

“Oh, the same thing as the last time. For me to tell him if the Ulfhednar are breaking the rules of the Compact and having more than two children each.”

Magnus scowled. “And what did you tell him?”

“What do you think I told him? That you all had huge families and walked them down Main Street in parades every Sunday?” She rolled her eyes. “I’d already told him that I hadn’t seen anything that would indicate that the Ulfhednar have broken any rules, barring the crimes against fashion you people commit with all that flannel. But I think that’s more of a rural-Maine thing than an Ulfhednar thing.”

Magnus snorted, looking down at the flannel shirt he was wearing. “I’m assuming that went over well.”

“Sure,” she said. “If by ‘well’ you mean ‘threatened to revoke my certification as a Witness Retrieval Specialist so I couldn’t work my job anymore.’ Then yes, he took it just fine.”

Thunderclouds formed on Magnus’s brow, almost eclipsing his new bruise. “He threatened your job? The son of a bitch!”

“Your mother and I had agreed on ‘ass,’” Donata said mildly. “But sure, ‘son of a bitch’ works too.”

“Why aren’t you more upset?” Magnus asked, the fury slowly ebbing out of his eyes. “You love your job. Can’t he do what he’s threatening you with?”

“Oh, he can do it all right. Probably with one well-placed phone call,” Donata said. “But (a) I stalled him, and (b) the threat I got next was much worse, so I don’t really have the energy to waste worrying about Clayton Moore.” Okay, that was almost a lie. She was plenty worried about him. But she had some chance of persuading him to see reason and, as far as she could tell, no chance at all of stalling the Major Anemoi forever.

Magnus narrowed his eyes in her direction. “Want to explain the second part of that statement?” His expression suggested he thought he wasn’t going to like her explanation. Good guess.

“I got another visit from Mr. West, demanding that I tell him where Anton Eastman is.” She held up a hand to keep him from exploding. “Please note that I informed you immediately, as previously requested.”

Magnus rolled his eyes. “Duly noted. And don’t think I don’t appreciate it. You said something about a threat?”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s bad, Magnus. He’s not just threatening me. He said the Major Anemoi would bring some kind of natural disaster down on Gimle if I didn’t tell him where Anton is. I believe the words ‘forest fire,’ ‘earthquake,’ and ‘flood’ came up. I’m so sorry.”

“What exactly do you have to be sorry about, Donata?” Magnus scooted down the bed until he was sitting at her feet. Since she was positioned with her legs drawn up to her chest and her arms around them, that put him a little too close for comfort. Or just close enough, depending on how you looked at it. “I asked you to come here. It’s not your fault that trouble followed you.”

“It may not be my fault,” she said glumly, “but that doesn’t make it any better. The problem is, I can’t possibly give him what he wants. He’s demanding I give him Anton’s whereabouts by the next full moon. Which is swell, except I killed the bastard, and I can’t exactly bring him back, even if I wanted to.” She thought about it for a minute. “Which I don’t, although I wish I hadn’t been forced to do it.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said slowly. “I promised I’d help you get to the bottom of this ghost issue, and I don’t want to abandon you and the rest of the Ulfhednar. But I’m afraid that if I stay, I’ll bring down the wrath of the Major Anemoi on your whole town. I’ve seen what they can do, and it is nothing to take lightly. But wherever I go, they’ll follow, and I’ll put innocents at risk. Maybe I should just admit what I did and face the consequences.”

“Bullshit,” Magnus said. “You’ve spent too much time as a cop.”

“Excuse me?”

To her surprise, he grinned at her, those devastating dimples flashing. “You tend to think in terms of right and wrong, lawful and unlawful. That was always part of the problem between us. But things have changed in your life in the last year; your thinking just hasn’t changed with them.”

Donata had no idea what the hell he was talking about. “I have no idea what the hell you are talking about.”

“You need to think more like a mercenary,” he said. “What happened the last time one of the supposedly all-powerful Major Anemoi threatened you?”

Donata closed her eyes, wishing she could block out the memory that easily. “I killed him,” she said.

“Exactly.” Magnus sounded like a teacher whose slowest student had finally answered a question right in class. “If you can kill one Major Anemoi, you can kill another. You know the secret to destroying their physical manifestations. Maybe if they keep disappearing when they get anywhere near you, the other Major Anemoi will learn to steer clear and leave you alone.”

“I can’t just go around killing people right and left,” Donata protested.

“Of course not,” Magnus countered. “Only the ones who are threatening to hurt you or the ones you love. I think that’s a perfectly reasonable response, under the circumstances, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t,” she said.

“Do you have any better ideas?”

Donata had to admit she didn’t. “I’ll think about it,” she said. “In the meanwhile, what can you tell me about your encounter with your friend Calder?”

The corner of Magnus’s mouth slanted upward. “Changing the subject, are we?”

He clearly decided to let it slide. For now. She knew it was only a temporary reprieve. That had always been one of the biggest barriers to a relationship between them—his idea of how to deal with problems and hers were worlds apart. She wasn’t sure whether to be glad or worried that these days his way seemed to make more and more sense.

“I was sparring with Gunnar,” Magnus said. “Suddenly, there was another face superimposed on his. Calder. I couldn’t react fast enough and Gunnar’s foot connected with my head, with the obvious negative results.” He touched his forehead gingerly.

Donata blinked. “When you say ‘superimposed,’ do you mean Calder actually took possession of Gunnar’s body?” That would be a new twist.

“No, I don’t think it was that. More like he was standing in almost exactly the same space. Gunnar said afterward that he got a sudden chill, as if a cold breeze had blown through him.”

“That’s pretty typical of a manifestation. Did your friend say anything? Acknowledge your presence in any way that made you think he was there for you in particular?”

Magnus thought for a minute, scrtching his fingers through his stubble. “I’m pretty sure he mouthed my name, although there wasn’t any noise to go with it. He reached one arm out in my direction. How does that help?”

“I’m not sure if it does,” Donata said ruefully. “I think it is clear that the Ulf candidates are being targeted somehow; everyone is being haunted by a ghost who means something to them personally. That is to say, you aren’t just being visited by random dead Ulfhednar. Freddy was visited by his brother, you by your friend. Someone is doing this on purpose. I just can’t figure out why or how. Thanksgiving is a week away, and I’m still not getting anywhere.” She ground her teeth in frustration. “I’m sorry. You brought me here to help, and I’m useless.”

Magnus moved her—effortlessly, as usual—until she was turned so he could put his arm around her. “You are certainly not useless, Donata. I hadn’t even thought about people being targeted in some way, beyond just being Ulf candidates. And I’m sure you’ll come up with a solution eventually.”

“Even though I can’t seem to talk to the ghosts successfully and broke my great-aunt’s Ouija board,” Donata said glumly. “And have half the universe waiting for me to give them the impossible or else.”

“Even though,” Magnus said with a laugh. “I have faith in you.”

Donata thought about her conversation with her great-aunt and the brown bag from the pharmacy tucked under the sink in her bathroom. “Maybe you shouldn’t,” she said. She sighed, kissed him gently on his bruised forehead, and left the room before she burst into tears.