Cloaked Campaign, page 6
Starlight yowled at Reg and followed her around the house as Reg tried to tidy up and prepare for Marta’s arrival. She looked at him.
“So you’re back to talking to me today, are you?”
He gave a low meow, his head lowered slightly so that he was looking up at her. Not ashamed, but evaluating her reaction.
“Fine,” Reg said. “I’m glad we’re on speaking terms again. You know that I need to train with Davyn, right? And if I’m going to see Davyn, I’m going to see Ember. That’s just the way it is.”
He gave a short, sharp meow that she could not take as a “yes.”
Reg rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I guess I’m just going to have to deal with you pouting every week after my session, then.”
He didn’t say anything to that. Maybe it gave him something to think about.
A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Reg looked around the room, which was in reasonable shape, and answered the door.
“Hi, come on in,” she told the detective.
Marta was in uniform, which was unusual. Most of the time, she was in plain, professional clothing. One of the perks of being a detective. She saw Reg eyeing her clothing and gave a shrug, motioning to herself.
“Sorry about this. I put in an extra shift as a patrol officer today. Lots of people out sick the last week or so. It’s a small department, so sometimes we have to cover other areas.”
Reg nodded and stepped back. “Make yourself comfortable.”
The uniform was an extra complication Reg had not been prepared for. She’d had a number of run-ins with the law in the past, and the uniform triggered a lot of anxiety. Her heart was beating hard and fast, even though she knew that Marta was just there for a friendly visit.
Marta said hello to Starlight and was allowed to scratch his ears. She picked a spot on the couch to sit down.
“Whose car is out front?” she asked. “I thought maybe you had another visitor. I guess it must be someone here to visit Sarah?”
“It’s my car,” Reg sighed.
Marta’s brows went up. “Really? You got a new car?”
“It’s a long story, but… yes. Actually, it’s not such a long story; I’m just not sure how to explain it.”
“I didn’t know you were looking for a new car.”
“I wasn’t. I went to talk to someone, and… he sold me a car.”
Marta’s brows went up. “Wilf Martin?”
Reg was surprised. “Well… yes. How did you know that?”
“The guy could sell ice cubes to an—oh, that’s probably not politically correct—to a polar bear. Seriously. We can’t even send law enforcement officers over there to question him about anything because they come back with an upgrade. Which is sort of awkward when they leave a department vehicle behind as a trade-in.”
Reg laughed. “I had no idea! Actually, that makes me feel a bit better about letting him sell me that one,” Reg motioned toward the front of the house. “I really did need a new car. I just wasn’t planning on buying one today. Or even looking at them.”
Marta nodded. “Yeah. I would suggest not going to his place of employment unless you’re in the market. Even going to his house… he always seems to have a few extra cars lying around there too. He has some kind of gift.”
“Is it… magic? Or just being a really good salesman?”
“Considering how he’s been able to sell to the cops who don’t even own the vehicles they’re driving… I’d say that there’s a little more to his abilities than being a smooth talker.”
Reg considered that. “And does that mean… is the car glamoured? Am I going to go out there tomorrow and find out that I bought a worse junker than I got rid of?”
“Oh, no,” Marta assured her quickly. “He sells good cars. It’s always a good deal. I’ve never heard of him selling a lemon.”
Reg breathed out a puff of breath. “Good. I’m feeling guilty about making an impulse buy for something as important as a car. I mean, not like I haven’t before, but… I know it doesn’t always turn out well.”
“You should be safe.”
Reg dished several scoops of ice cream into a couple of bowls. She should probably be serving tea instead of ice cream. It would be better for her expanding waistline. But it was sort of a tradition, having ice cream with Marta Jessup. She added spoons to the bowls and took them over to the living room, handing one to Marta before sitting down.
“Oh, that looks great,” Marta gushed, looking at it. “Chocolate, caramel, peanuts… are those…?”
“Marshmallows too,” Reg confirmed. “It looked really good, but I thought I’d better not eat the whole container myself.”
“I’m not sure how you managed to hold off for long enough.” Marta dipped her spoon into the sweet concoction and took a bite. “This is wonderful.”
Reg grinned and helped herself to a couple of bites. Marta was right; it was delicious. And there was no angry ghost nearby to throw it around the room and make a mess.
Marta saw her eyes flick around the room and paused, her spoon above the bowl. “We’re alone, right? My mom isn’t around…?”
“No. I haven’t seen her since you found out about Corvin. I guess that was all she wanted. For you to know the truth.”
“Good. I don’t think I needed any more demonstrations of paranormal activity from her.”
“I could try to reach out to her if you like. If you want to give her a message.”
“No.” Marta shook her head. “I’ve made my peace with her. She’s not the one at fault for what happened.” She looked at Reg and shook her head. Her eyes were shiny with tears.
Reg nodded her agreement. What had happened to Lily Jessup had not been her fault. The responsibility for the attack on her when she was pregnant fell upon Corvin.
“Have you talked to him?” Reg asked. “Did you decide to do anything…?”
Marta took a large bite of ice cream. Reg could see her wince with the coldness of it. Marta was prevented from answering immediately while she finished that bite.
“There isn’t much I can do. There’s nothing in the law that I could get him for. I could report him to the coven and have them convene another tribunal… but it happened so long ago and I don’t have any proof. I have Mom’s letters, but he could argue that she just had regrets and was letting them color what had happened. She was ashamed and wanted to cover up her own guilt, so she blamed him. It would cause a big stink, and then nothing would come of it. So it’s probably more important to keep the peace. Let the past stay in the past, and… just not have anything else to do with him.”
“That must be hard.”
“It is,” Marta agreed with a sigh. She licked her spoon off and stared into the shiny surface. “Corvin has kind of made himself indispensable over the years. I’ve come to rely on him way too much for insight into the magical community, history, the best way to deal with non-human species in conflict with humans… He knows all the details of the old treaties and I could just call him up and ask him for information and advice. Now… I don’t know where to turn if something like that comes up.”
“There are always others you could go to. Sarah or Letticia. Davyn.”
“I know, but it’s not the same. With Corvin, he was always eager to help. I didn’t know why. I thought he just liked showing off.”
“He does like to show off how smart he is.”
“Yeah. But dealing with someone else, they won’t be as eager to help. It will be harder to reach anyone and get them to cooperate.”
Reg nodded. She didn’t have any advice. She understood why Marta wouldn’t want to deal with Corvin anymore and wasn’t about to suggest that she should.
There was a thump in the bedroom. Reg looked at Starlight, who had climbed up onto the couch and was curled up against Marta’s leg, and then toward the bedroom. Who else was in the cottage?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Marta saw Reg’s eyes go from Starlight to the bedroom and was on her feet in a flash.
“Is someone else supposed to be here?” she demanded. “Is it an intruder?”
“I… nobody can get in here past the wards. And I was just in there a few minutes ago. There wasn’t anyone else around.”
Reg’s mind immediately went to Corvin, and she was sure Marta’s probably did too. Corvin shouldn’t be able to get past the protective wards, but he had once before, and maybe Reg had fallen down on her habit of strengthening the wards every morning like Sarah had instructed her to do.
“Who’s there?” Reg called out.
Marta was advancing toward the bedroom with her hand on her holster. Reg wasn’t sure whether to be glad that Marta was there and could confront an intruder with firepower or irritated that Marta would automatically assume that this was her domain and Reg needed to be protected. She thought she should make some point about Marta not using her gun. Whoever was there wasn’t going to be armed. It would be a ghost, or Corvin Hunter, or maybe Uncle Harrison, who was unaffected by the wards and could materialize wherever he wanted to. Harrison was probably the most likely culprit, so Reg called out to him.
“Is that you, Uncle Harrison?”
There was no answer. Harrison did not materialize in the living room to talk to her. So maybe not Harrison.
Marta gave a little shriek and swore loudly. Reg got to her feet, thinking belatedly that she should have been the one to check the bedroom, not Marta. What was she doing just sitting there and letting someone else take care of it?
“What is it?” Reg asked worriedly, hurrying toward her.
“It’s… what the heck is that?”
Reg pushed through the doorway behind Marta.
In the middle of the floor sat an enormous black cat. Closer to the size of a panther than a house cat. Reg smiled and breathed out, relaxing.
“It’s Horace. Hey, Horace, you gave us a surprise.”
Horace wandered over and rubbed against Reg’s leg. He was so large and heavy that he nearly knocked her down. Reg bent down and scratched his ears. She didn’t have too far to reach.
“Horace?” Marta repeated. She shook her head and looked at Reg. “Wasn’t Horace one of the kattakyns?”
Reg nodded. The kattakyns were the much cuter version of the draugr, their other form being large, foul-smelling zombie creatures that the Witch Doctor had animated from the dead. When they had fought the Witch Doctor, he had sent what remained of his powers and essence into the nine kattakyns. But his attempt to preserve his life meant that Francesca, a white Haitian witch, had been able to bind those pieces of the Witch Doctor to their cat hosts to keep him from being able to re-form again.
Of course, at the time, the kattakyns had been about the size of half-grown kittens. Not the size of a wildcat.
“Yes, this is the same Horace,” she agreed. “He got bigger when he went to see Nico in the dwarf mountain, and he seems to keep getting bigger.”
“What is he doing here? I thought Sarah said that you couldn’t have any other animals here.”
“Yeah. He doesn’t live here. But he does come back to visit now and then.”
“How?”
How was a little more difficult to explain. Normally, the kattakyns could travel through a victim’s dreams. They didn’t need to worry about getting past locked doors. The victim just dreamed about them, and then they were there. They had the unfortunate habit of lying on the victim’s chest until they grew too heavy and the victim smothered to death. Normally, Horace only came to her when she dreamed, though he had learned to lie beside her instead of on top of her.
“Well… this is different than usual. Usually, it is during the night. I’m not sure how they travel if I’m not sleeping.”
“Do they all come to see you?”
“Thankfully, no. Just Horace. Because Harrison brought him here and he lived with me for a little while.” Reg knelt by Horace and scratched under his jaw, looking into his face. “How did you come here? Is something wrong?”
She heard the voice of Merneith in her head. A powerful Egyptian Pharaoh who, though she had died millennia before, had chosen to inhabit Horace’s body and mind. And Horace had agreed to it, feeling empty and lonely after the piece of the Witch Doctor that had resided in him had been ripped away.
It is by my power. You were not asleep, Merneith told her.
“Well, no,” Reg agreed. “It’s just the afternoon here. I don’t know what time it is in Egypt.”
Horace wanted to visit.
“Okay.” Reg shrugged. She looked at Marta. “I guess he just wanted to visit. Come on; you can come see Starlight.” She led the big black cat out to the living room. “I’d better lock the door,” she told Marta, looking out the window into the yard. “I don’t want Sarah walking in while Horace is here.”
She bolted the door. Hopefully, Sarah would take that to mean that Reg was with a client and could not be interrupted and would not be suspicious. It was too early for Reg’s usual appointments, but sometime someone might need an earlier time slot if they had something to do later or could not come at night for another reason.
Marta slowly sat down on one of the chairs instead of the couch. She watched Starlight and Horace sniffing each other, Starlight lying on the couch and Horace with his back paws on the floor and front paws on the couch so he could get a good look at Starlight.
“That’s one big cat.”
“I know.” Reg shrugged. “Can’t exactly pick him up and carry him around anymore. I think he’s maybe even gotten a little bigger since I took him back to Egypt.”
“Will he ever stop growing?”
“I have no idea. Maybe the dwarfs would know.”
“And what do the dwarfs have to do with it?”
“They did something to Nico to make him grow… and then when I took Horace to see him, he got bigger too. So they must know something about the magic. They made Nico into a ‘warrior cat.’ Or maybe he was already a warrior cat and they just made him bigger.” Reg shook her head. “They don’t really share their lore and I don’t know if it’s proper to ask…”
Marta nodded. “From what I understand from fairy tales, they can be pretty guarded.”
“Don’t mention Horace to Sarah, okay? I don’t want to get in trouble.”
Marta mimed zipping her lips. “I won’t say a word.”
“It’s not like he’s staying here anyway. He just came for a short visit.”
“I’m not the pet police,” Marta said with a chuckle.
Reg picked up her ice cream and had another bite. “So, how are you?” she asked, trying to get to the stuff that, as a friend, she should be focusing on. “It must be hard, since losing your mom.”
“It is and it isn’t,” Marta said slowly. “Since my family kind of abandoned me when I joined the police force, it isn’t like I was seeing Mom every day. I was not even talking to them every week. We would maybe exchange cards at Christmas and I’d call if it was her or Dad’s birthday. But other than that, I haven’t had that much contact in the last few years. So it doesn’t feel real. I know she’s dead, but I’m not used to seeing her anyway, so it hasn’t sunk in. I prefer to go to work and not think about it at all. Maybe it will really hit at Christmas.”
Reg nodded. “Maybe. Did your dad manage to sell the house?”
“It’s on the market. At least he’s cleaned out all the books and personal effects. So when it sells, that’s it. I don’t have to worry about going back to deal with any of that stuff.”
“That’s good. Will it take long to sell, do you think?” Reg had never bought or sold a house and had no idea what the timelines looked like.
“Black Sands has a pretty slow market. We don’t get many new people moving in looking for a new house. So places can sit empty for years.” Her forehead wrinkled. “I hope it doesn’t take years. I want this to be over and done with. I want to put it all behind me.”
“Maybe that new witch is looking for a place.”
“That new witch?”
“Have you met her yet? Her name is something weird… uh… Verity. I don’t know if she’s buying or renting. She said she had moved in a couple of blocks away, but she could still be looking for something permanent.”
“Might be worth asking,” Marta admitted.
“Sarah probably knows more details. She is going to try out Sarah’s coven to see if it is a good fit for her. Sarah might have her phone number or other contact details. I didn’t get them.” Reg closed her mouth, cutting herself off from saying anything else.
“What else?” Marta asked. “You were going to say something else.”
“Who’s the psychic here? You or me?”
“You looked like there was something else you wanted to say,” Marta persisted, not laughing at Reg’s quip.
“No… just that I didn’t really want to be in contact with her.”
“What did she do to tick you off?”
“Not really anything. We just didn’t click. She’s…” Reg wrinkled her nose, trying to think of the best way to express herself. It wasn’t exactly nice to say that you didn’t like someone after the first meeting just because you didn’t like the way that they looked. “She’s very beautiful. Like, stunning. You don’t even know how gorgeous.”
