“The curse can only come through a portal from the other world?” I asked, trying to clarify.
“Yes. If someone is infected. It means there is at least a partially open portal somewhere nearby.”
“An open portal? As far as I know, Twyla is the only portal catalyst of this generation. Do you have any other ideas?” I said, putting my hand on my hip. I was getting tired of being here. At least some lead was better than nothing.
“No,” she finally admitted. “A cannibal with super strength who disappears out of thin air? This is the only creature in the grimoire that fits the bill. There are other ways to open a portal than by using a catalyst. There are special objects, totems that will help do it. Someone with a powerful enough totem could open a portal even in Twyla’s general proximity.”
“Just great,” I muttered. An open portal really complicated things. “First thing’s first, I have to take out the beast man.”
“The wendigo gets progressively harder to kill. In fact, it can only be killed with a specific kind of blade.”
“What kind of blade?” I asked, my interest peaked.
“A spelled blade made of titanium.”
“Like Benedictus,” I said.
“Precisely.”
“Well, could you give me the key to the long-term storage locker so that I can get the damn thing?”
“I don’t have the key,” she said defensively. “Mom has it.”
“Mom has it? She said Aster had it. Aster said you had it.” Anger boiled in my brain and I rubbed my temples.
“I don’t have it.” Margery threw her hands up. She was so snotty that I doubted she was lying. Unlike my mother’s cunning or Aster’s sweet manipulation, with Margery Fanning what you saw was what you got. She might be a pompous windbag, but she wasn’t capable of very sophisticated guile.
“Goddamn it,” I ground out.
“Why would they lie?” Raven asked. Margery and I shot him the same look at the same time. He threw his hands in the air. “Oh, right. Fanning women.” He shook his head.
“When you do find the sword, you need to know that you can only kill a wendigo by cutting its head off.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“You have to penetrate at the back of the neck, at the base of the brain stem. The throat is coated in an iron-like hide that even Benedictus can’t cut through.”
“Great.”
“You can also stab it right in the armpit. Those are your only two options.”
“Anything else?”
“The wendigo will find an underground pit near its original home. Because this thing can disappear it will help you to find its original human identity. If you approach it in its pit, it can’t blip out for more than a second because that is where it disappears to.”
“Okay. Any leads on this guy’s identity?” I asked Raven, turning to him.
“No missing persons match Olivia’s description. We are searching for matching dental records from the bite wounds on the victim. Three college girls have gone missing in the last few days though. We don’t know what the connection is, if any. We’ll have a better place to start with the killer once the dental records come back.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said to Raven.
“I’ve got to get going. Girls, it’s been… well. Bye.”
“Wait!” I said, following him to the door. I didn’t want to be with Margery a second longer than I had to. Even if that meant being with Raven.
Outside on the sidewalk, we went over what we’d just learned.
“So you haven’t seen any missing persons that look like a middle-age accountant?”
“No. But people that age, with no family, are rarely reported right away. After he misses work for a week or so, someone might go looking for him.”
“Well, keep me updated. I want to get this taken care of as soon as possible.”
“So you can leave with the sword, right?”
“I have important work to do,” I said opening my car door.
“Well, maybe next time it won’t take you five years to come home again.”
Chapter 15
As twilight fell, I drove back to my mother’s house, preparing my outraged speech informing her that I knew she was lying to me. When I got to the front door, all my original courage vanished.
How did these people do this to me? I was an Executioner for God’s sake. I opened the front door and found my mother sitting in her rocking chair beside the fireplace, a low fire crackling in the hearth.
“Olivia!” she said cheerily. “There’s tea. Have a cup.” She motioned to the tea pot beside her on the side table covered in a knit doily.
“Sure,” I said striding to the tea pot. I poured the hot liquid into a delicate china cup and sat on the couch across from my mother, who seemed to have completely forgotten my existence as she knitted a blanket.
“Mom,” I said, trying to bring myself to defy the woman who gave birth to me.
“Yes, dear,” she said, not looking up.
“I went to visit Margery today,” I finally said.
“Oh good!”
I sighed. This wasn’t going how I’d imagined while driving over here. In my plan, I burst through the door, guns blazing, and demanded Benedictus.
“She told me she doesn’t have the key to the long-term storage.”
“Really?” she said, looking confused. With Mom, I could never tell what was real and what was bullshit. “Aster must have it,” she finally said.
“Aster said Margery had it,” I said, feeling as if my trap was working well.
“Oh…” she said, going back to knitting. Her face revealed the slightest hint of anxiety. “I know, Iona has it!”
“Oh,” I said, sitting back on the couch. I sighed and then took a sip of tea. Mmm… lemon balm with honey.
“You should go see her at the apothecary, Olivia. I know she’d love to show you what she’s done with the place since she took over.”
“Okay, if that’s what I have to do,” I said, unable to hide my irritation.
Mom looked up at me like I’d just kicked a kitten. “Well, Olivia, you don’t have to go visit your sister at work. No one’s making you.”
“I’ll go. Okay. It’s been a long day. I need Benedictus to kill the monster from Aster’s farm. It’s killed a man. Did you know that?”
I stood above her with my hands on my hips. Maybe if she knew this wasn’t a joke and people were dying, she’d stop messing around. Keeping me away from the sword had serious repercussions for the people she loved. If she didn’t believe me about Vincent, then maybe she would believe me about the guy on Aster’s farm.
“That’s why you should go see Iona. The sooner the better. I’m sure she’ll have something for your fatigue.”
I turned away, rolling my eyes so hard they hurt.
“Great idea, Mother. I’ll do that.”
I hurried out of the house before I yelled at her. Yelling at Nelly Fanning never did any good. She’d just turn it around so that it was my fault and I was attacking her.
Maybe seeing Iona would be a break from the rest of the crazy people in my family. It couldn’t be any worse anyway.
Chapter 16
I pulled up in front of the apothecary as raindrops began to fall on my windshield. The parking lot was full. Through the big front windows of the shop, I could see the place was packed with people. Light glowed down on the sidewalk through the rain.
Inside, Iona looked up at me and smiled from the front of the room. Rows of chairs had been lined in front of the counter where Iona stood, making a tincture.
As she explained how to make the concoction to the people in her audience, I stood at the back of the shop and watched. Iona spoke with an animated voice and a bright smile.
How she could stand in front of these people and give them instructions on something like that was beyond me. I’d never be able to teach people anything. Except maybe how to decapitate a werewolf or stab a vampi
re in the heart.
When Iona finished her class, the white-haired hippies and dreadlocked hipsters crowded around her asking her questions.
My sister answered each one with joy and grace, while I picked at the sage stick at the back of the room. Finally, the last of the students left and Iona locked the front door.
“Olivia! What brings you to the shop?”
“I have to ask you about Benedictus,” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets.
Her cellphone rang and Iona excused herself to answer it.
“Oh, now. I’ll be on my way,” she said into the phone.
“I’m sorry Olivia, I have to go to a delivery. Want to come with me?”
“A delivery? Like as in a baby?”
“Yes. It isn’t as glamorous as killing people but bringing babies into the world has its merits!”
I shrugged. That was seriously the last thing I wanted to do. Aside from being in Portland in the first place.
“I guess,” I said reluctantly.
“Give me just a second. I need to get my things.”
Iona scurried into an office at the back of the shop behind the counter. A moment later she emerged with a bag slung over her shoulder.
“Let’s go!”
I followed her out to her minivan and piled into the passenger seat. I groaned inwardly. I was literally going to a homebirth with my herbalist midwife sister. What did my family get me into?
She sped across town, apparently unaware of speed laws or traffic lights. If I hadn’t been at risk for life and limb on a daily basis for the last five years, I would have pissed my pants driving with her.
We stopped in front of a yellow craftsman house in the suburbs, and she jumped out.
“You drive around with your kids like that?” I asked her.
“Like what?” she said, hurrying up to the front porch.
“Never mind.”
She smiled at me and knocked on the front door. A second later, a wide-eyed young man with a full beard and a flannel shirt answered the front door.
“Thank God,” he said. “Come in.”
He closed the door behind us as a wail of pain came from the living room. “Iona. I don’t think I can do this,” he said.
“Of course you can!” she said, grabbing his shoulder. “You are feeling better already.” The young man let out a long breath and looked visibly more relaxed.
Iona hurried into the living room where a fully naked, fully pregnant woman sat in a small tub of water on the floor.
She moaned as she tried to breathe. Iona set down her bag and knelt beside the woman. She put her arm on her shoulder and began to speak quietly into her ear.
The woman’s breathing slowed and the young man knelt beside her, taking her hand.
I sank back into the shadows, feeling ridiculous at being at this woman’s birth. No one seemed to notice or mind that I was even there, so I didn’t inject myself into the situation.
Iona rubbed the woman’s belly and body with some kind of herbal salve. When it came time to push, everyone was so relaxed—except me—that the whole process only took a few minutes.
A small, purple, wriggling child emerged from the poor woman’s body, screaming with new life.
“It’s a girl!” Iona announced.
Everyone laughed and cried. I turned away, cringing. Not that it wasn’t a joyous moment. But really, gross. I’d angled myself so that I didn’t have to stare at the poor mother’s naked body.
Iona offered a pair of scissors to the father to cut the cord, then she clamped it off and checked the baby’s vitals. The mother held the child in her arms, smiling and crying at the same time.
As I watched her, part of me kind of envied them. All of them. They were a family. The couple had each other. Iona had her family. I didn’t have anyone. I mean, I had my mom and sisters, but they were all kind of annoying and crazy. I didn’t have…this. I didn’t have Raven.
The father and Iona helped the mom dry off and get up into bed with her new baby. After a few minutes, everyone was comfortably in bed, the baby nursing away.
After she’d washed up and spoken with the father, Iona came back to where I was standing with a bright smile on her face.
“Beautiful family aren’t they?”
“Yeah. It’s nice for them,” I said, trying to disappear in the corner.
“Come on,” she said, moving toward the front door. We went out onto the front porch and Iona pulled out a hand-rolled cigarette. I looked at her with shock as she lit it and took a long drag.
“You smoke?” I asked.
“Aster grows this tobacco. It’s all natural.”
“I just wouldn’t have expected.”
Iona giggled and winked, crossing her arms in the cool air as the rain fell on the porch roof.
“What was it you wanted to ask me?” she asked, taking another drag.
“Benedictus,” I said. Was she messing with me like everyone else seemed to be?
“Oh, right. What about it?”
“Mom said you have the key to the long-term storage.” I looked her straight in the eye, lighting the warrior flame inside me to let her know I wasn’t messing around.
“I don’t have it,” she said defensively. Her face was so shocked and so earnest, I had to believe her. Iona could lie with the best of them, but I didn’t think she was doing it now. She seemed genuinely offended.
She put her hand on my wrist and said, “I’m sure Mom has it. She’s keeping it from you for whatever reason. I know she wants you to stay. So, that might be part of it. I’d just go back to the house and look in the last place you’d expect. I doubt she even has it in storage.”
“It isn’t in storage? Everyone keeps saying it’s in long-term storage.”
“Mom never put anything in storage as far as I know.”
“Oh my God! What is wrong with this family?”
Iona almost choked on her cigarette drag, and looked at me like I’d just said the funniest thing ever.
“You’re a Fanning, Olivia, like it or not. That means dealing with Mom’s games. Just go take the sword for goodness’ sake. It isn’t like anyone else can even use it.”
“Great. Just great.”
Iona finished her cigarette and then went to say goodbye to the new family before driving me back across town. This time it wasn’t quite as harrowing as the last, but driving with her wasn’t something I wanted to do again anytime soon.
Back in the safety of my own car, I drove back to my childhood home with murderous feelings in my heart.
I should tell these people you should never get a warrior witch angry. I could take them out in two seconds flat. They might be able to do all kinds of fancy things with plants and quilts, babies and books, but I could kill. It was my thing. Why weren’t they afraid of me?
I pulled up to Nelly Fanning’s house with the moon rising through the breaking storm clouds. The smell of the rain hung in the thick air, reminding me that I was home. Home.
I stormed up the porch stairs and went inside, but no one was there. The house was dark and still, as if everyone had gone to bed already.
I looked at the clock and saw that it was past midnight. Sighing, I made my way up to my bedroom and closed the door. Pacing in the room under the dim glow of the single lamp, I mulled over what Iona had said.
She didn’t think that the sword was even in storage. Iona had said it would be in the last place I would look. Where would that be? The living room? I sighed and sat down on my bed.
With a gasp, I sank down to my knees. No. My mother would not be that obvious. I reached into the darkness under my bed, feeling around.
My fingers brushed against something cold and hard. A spark snapped against my fingertip as I touched the titanium.
Benedictus.
I grabbed at the sword, pulling it out into the light. It gleamed with power under my touch and I felt a pulsing connection between us. My heart leapt and my father’s spirit seemed to surround me with the
intensity of his love.
I took a sharp breath, wrapping my hands around the hilt. I held it up into the light as the runes blinked to life, one by one. Benedictus was mine. It had chosen me.
The sword and I had become one. I could feel my father’s spirit bestowing the sword on me from across the divide of life and death.
As I breathed into the awareness of my birthright, my bedroom door burst open.
Chapter 17
“So, you found it,” Mother said, standing there in her ruffled white bathrobe. For a tiny creature I could decapitate in two seconds, she scared the hell out of me.
I had to keep myself from shivering under her stare. She’d left the sword under my bed. All I’d done was bend down and find it.
“Yeah, Mom. You left it under my bed.”
“Is that where it was?”
“Like you didn’t know.”
She gave me a mock look of offense that I totally did not buy.
“I had no idea,” she said, placing her hand on her chest.
“Mmkay. Sure. Well the sword has chosen me. Do you see the runes glowing? This sword will only ignite for the one it chooses. Like it did for Dad.”
“I can see that, Olivia. Do you think I’m blind?”
“I didn’t suggest that, Mom. But you’ve been messing with me since the moment I got here.”
“I have not been messing with you. Why would you say that?”
“Everyone’s been messing with me. Why did you tell me the sword was in long-term storage when it was under my bed the whole time, if you weren’t messing with me?” I was starting to get angry. My mother’s games were crazy-making, and I was in no mood to deal with them now. With the sword’s power pulsing through my veins, I was ready to leave Portland and never return.
“I forgot,” she said, stomping her foot. “I have a lot to do. You kids are a handful.”
“We kids are all adults with our own lives.”
“Lenore is here and Twyla is running a business out of my house. I’ve got all that going on and I have my own craft business too. Everyone wants one of my quilts. And I have to take care of this house. I resent the insinuation that I hid the sword from you on purpose, Olivia.”