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mhalachaiI hope you enjoy! This chapter came a lot easier... plot development ahoy.
Inevitable Thirty-six: This Wasn't In The Brochure
by Mhalachai
Note: Language warning for Angry Anita Swearing. This chapter will reference material in Obsidian Butterfly, of which I am a huge fan. I really enjoy the book, no matter the creepifying material.
~~~~~~~
When Edward didn't say anything, I leaned back in my chair. "What's happening, Edward?" I knew he wasn't calling to ask how I was doing. He never made social calls.
"I hear you've been having some interesting magic-related deaths in St. Louis recently," Edward said, all business.
"You've heard of Nigel Spencer's death?" I asked.
"I did." Edward fell silent for a moment. "I didn't expect you to get involved with Death Eaters, Anita. They don't seem like your type."
Death Eaters? How the hell did Edward know what was going on? A second later, my suspicious nature kicked in, and I wondered if Edward was bluffing to get me to talk. "I suppose you got hold of the information in the police file somehow?"
"I did."
"So why are you calling?"
"Because I know more about Nigel Spencer than I think you do."
Edward seldom volunteered information, not unless... "Are you coming to town?" I asked.
"No."
"So why are you telling me this?"
"How long have you know that Harry Potter is your vampire's grandson?"
The plastic receiver of the phone cracked as I gripped it a little too hard. "What the fuck--" I stopped myself. "What are you talking about?" I asked, more calmly.
"Can we just stop playing games, Anita?" Edward asked. "It's in the police files, about Damian." There was a distinct hint of disgust in Edward's voice. He disliked Damian's tie to me more than he did any of my other guys. "And everyone knows about Harry Potter."
I wanted to dispute that, but I let it go to deal with the more pressing matter. "What does any of this have to do with Nigel Spencer?" I asked.
Tiny beeping sounded in the background. "I'm going to fax you some information that I gathered on him," Edward said. "About two years ago, he started buying magical paraphernalia, all very illegal. He acquired a few fetishes from a voodoo practitioner in Florida, which is how he came to my attention."
"Two years ago? That's about when his wife died," I said, thinking hard. I pushed the graveyard folders off to the side and reached for the Spencer file.
"I know," Edward said. "But that's not all he was buying."
He stopped, and I waited for almost twenty seconds before I caved. "What else did he buy, Edward?" I asked.
"Construction materials," Edward replied promptly. "Concrete, metal bars. Everything you'd need for an underground holding cell."
My fingers stilled as I realized what he was talking about. I had to fight down a wave of revulsion before I answered. "Why are you telling me all this?"
I swear, I could almost hear Edward smile over the phone. "Maybe you'll have information that I'll need one day."
"Damn it, Edward," I said, already on my feet, gathering up my keys, "This isn't funny."
"I know it's not," he said, amusement gone. He hesitated for a moment. "Anita, have you seen Olaf?"
I froze. "Why?" I demanded over the sudden pounding of my heart..
"He's gone to ground. I can't find him anywhere."
I made myself put my keys in my pocket. "I know I fit his victim profile, and he's got this sick idea that I should be his little serial killer girlfriend, but why do you think he'd be around here?"
"I don't know, Anita," Edward said, sounding weary. "Whenever he vanishes this completely, he's always gone back to killing."
"And you think he might come after me."
"I don't know."
Hearing Edward admit that he was in the dark on this chilled me more than anything. "I'll keep an eye out for him."
"You do that," Edward said. "And if you do see him, put as many bullets in him as fast as you can."
I closed my eyes briefly. As much as the idea scared me, we didn't know where Olaf was, or even what he was planning to do. It could wait for a bit. "Are you sending me all your information on Nigel Spencer?" I asked.
"Yes." And we were back to our normal selves. "It should be enough."
With that, he hung up.
I stared at the phone. The thought that Olaf might be coming after me, either to rape and kill me, or to try and get me to go on a killing spree with him, was not what I needed to hear today. Or ever. If it had just been me and him, I knew I could kill him before he laid a finger on me, but here in St. Louis, I was surrounded by people who I cared about. Not all of them were fighters, and might be caught in the crossfire. What would I do if someone got hurt because of me? I didn't know.
In the meantime, there were things I needed to do. I hung up the phone and grabbed the Spencer file on my way out of my office. Once I picked up the faxes Edward sent me, I could be on my way to the police station. Only it didn't work out quite like that.
My co-worker John Burke was standing over the fax machine when I turned the corner. Any hopes I had that he was looking for something of his own were blown away when he turned around, paper clenched between his hands. "What the hell is this?" he demanded, brandishing pages at me. "Who has been buying this?"
I snatched the paper out of John's hands. The pages contained a hand-written list of voodoo fetishes, magical talismans and assorted other items. "Nigel Spencer," I told him, gathering up the rest of the fax. Sure enough, Edward had sent me the purchase orders of building supplies, everything one would need to build a cage big enough to hold a person, and secure enough to hold a zombie. "He started buying this after his wife died, a wife who's no longer in her grave at the Sacred Heart cemetery."
John clenched his jaw. "These things should never be used together!" he exclaimed. "Raven claws? Snake skin? The zombie that would rise would be animistic, or worse!"
"I know!" I shot back. "I'm going to the police station now. If Nigel really did build that cage, and raised his wife as a zombie like that--"
"I'm going with you," John interrupted.
"No, you're not," I said as I pushed past John down the hall. He was right on my heels and ducked in front of me in the lobby, drawing the curious attention of Mary, the secretary.
"I'm a federal marshal too, Anita," John said through clenched teeth. "I also know more about voodoo that you do. If there's a zombie, raised and guarded by those talismans, you will not know what to do with it, I guarantee."
I glared up at him. We never got along, mostly because we were way too much alike, but he was right. He'd been one of the most powerful voodoo priests in New Orleans before an incident with the law drove him out of town. "There was also a talisman over the empty grave," I said grudgingly. "Detective Reynolds said it would raise an Inferius, a..." my voice trailed off when I saw John's eyes grow wide. "You know what they are?"
"I do, but I'm surprised that someone told you about them."
I shook my head. Why did everyone else know about the magic stuff that I had never heard of? "Come on."
John insisted on getting his zombie kit, which privately I thought was a good idea, but would never admit out loud. While he retrieved his bag from his office, I went to the large window and stared out onto the brilliant afternoon. Shadows were beginning to gather, even though sunset was a few hours off. The day was bright, but I hadn't felt quite so dark inside for a very long time.
Necromancers and the vaudaun did not raise their loved ones. It was our strongest unwritten rule, the first lesson I'd learned from my maternal grandmother in Mexico. I'd toyed with the idea of raising my mother in spite of that, for years, until that day I'd told Harry about, when the lessons I'd learned at my grandmother's side finally made sense. The zombie of my mother wouldn't have been my mother, it would have been an empty shell.
That was my mother, someone who was my whole world, but as a parent. Love for a child was much different, and that was why when a voodoo priest or priestess lost a child, it was tradition to have someone stay with them for forty days, so they wouldn't try and raise that lost child.
The most repulsive part of the situation with Nigel Spencer, however, was that he might have raised his wife as a zombie, or an Inferius, or some bastard hybrid of the two. I knew some people got off on having sex with zombies, but it was the single most nauseating thing I could think of. Maybe I was being unfair to Nigel, but what other reason would he have to raise his wife?
If Spencer was a wizard like Harry, he might have been able to raise her with all that black magic paraphernalia, even without having any aptitude for death magic. From watching Harry these past few nights, I had figured out that the reason Harry hadn't been able to raise a zombie was because he insisted on using his wand alone. It hadn't even occurred to him to use talismans or fetishes, not that I planned to encourage him. It was enough to know that, in spite of having vampire blood in him, his magic was all life and warmth.
John stormed back into the lobby, face like a thunder cloud. I never knew the details behind his leaving New Orleans, but I wondered now, seeing his reaction to the Spencer case, if he had lost someone he cared about. But he was not my friend, and I would never ask.
"Let's go see what Spencer has hidden in his basement," I said, going for the door.
"I hope you are wrong," John muttered, glaring at me as I held the door open for him.
"I hope I'm wrong too." Somehow, though, I knew I wasn't.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Harry bumped into Micah as he walked through the front door of the house.
"Sorry," Harry tried to say, but Micah waved it off.
"I have to go, an emergency in town," Micah said, hand on the doorknob. "But there's a note for you in the kitchen table, okay?"
"Okay," Harry said as Micah ran toward his car. Micah was moving fast, but he wasn't panicked, so Harry decided that the emergency must have been a shape-shifter coalition emergency, not something to do with Anita or the pard.
I don't know if I can handle any more emergencies, Harry thought, dropping his many bags on the floor of the hall. He wandered through the silent house to the kitchen, where a surprising thick stack of paper sat on the table. The top sheet was a note written in Micah's messy scrawl, while the rest seemed to be a computer print-out.
The note from Micah read, Harry, I have to head into town. Anita called, she's stuck at the office for a bit, and Nathaniel's at work. There's food in the fridge. Also, your friend Hermione called this afternoon.
Harry blinked. Hermione called again? Was something wrong? Then he shook his head. No, if there was trouble, Micah would have told him when he saw him. He continued reading.
She wanted to leave a message, but started talking so fast that I suggested that she just email you, but she told me that she's not sure you know how to use a computer. Long story short (although it may be too late for that), she emailed her message to my email, and I printed it off for you. If there's any emergencies, you know my cell number. Damian's downstairs and will be up at sunset.
Harry laid Micah's note to the side and picked up the print-out. His eyes couldn't seem to move past the names at the top of the page. The crisp white paper with the precise lettering was so unlike Harry's vision of Hermione, all flying hair and quills and parchment. But Hermione's parents were dentists, Harry reminded himself as he headed for the living room and flopped onto the couch, remembering just in time to kick off his trainers. The Grangers must have a computer, and Hermione would probably have used it before she came to Hogwarts. Harry had never used a computer, as Dudley had thrown heavy objects at him when Harry even looked at Dudley's computer.
Harry read the letter through, then once again. He could almost hear Hermione's voice, straying over the edge into a lecture at times. The bit about Hermione's parents leaving England surprised him slightly, but he supposed it made sense. It wasn't like they were hiding; they were going to help people. Had that friend of Hermione's mum been given a nudge to suggest it to the Grangers? Would any of the people in Harry's world care about two muggle dentists?
That's not fair, Harry scolded himself. A lot of the people in the Order of the Phoenix would care.
He looked back at the letter. He'd never tell his friends, but knowing that Tonks was with them did make Harry feel a little better. Even though she was clumsy at times, Tonks was a fully trained Auror, and dead quick with a wand. Hermione and Ron were both over seventeen, so they could use magic in public, and they had passed their Apparition tests early in the summer. Ginny was safe as houses with them.
The fact that Harry had only been sixteen when the school year ended, and wasn't allowed to take the last Apparition lessons, rankled him to no end. He had argued with Professor McGonagall that not knowing how to Apparate was an advantage to any Death Eater who came after him, but she hadn't listened to him. Of course, Harry hadn't thought that he would end up in the woods with werewolves after him during the summer, or else he would have tried to learn Apparition on his own.
While he lay on the couch, thinking, Harry's stomach growled. What's wrong with me? Harry wondered, pushing himself to his feet. I ate only three hours ago. Now that Harry thought about it, Jason seemed to eat a lot too. Maybe it was a werewolf thing.
By now, Harry knew where everything was in Anita's kitchen, and quickly filled a plate with leftovers. He leaned against the kitchen island and ate while reading the remainder of Hermione's message, copies of those muggle science studies on vampire children. A lot of the language went over his head, especially the bit about the maths, but he managed to struggle through the summary paragraphs.
All of them said the same thing. Other than a tendency to sunburn easily, children with vampire fathers, the ones without Vlad's Syndrome, were normal humans. Hermione was right, Harry mused, smiling at the familiar refrain. Just another stupid prejudice.
Then he lost his smile. The Wizarding world's 'stupid prejudices' could be deadly. Look at how they treated werewolves and muggle-borns. Harry might have a bit of all three in his blood now. Well, I'm not going to let them tell me what to do, he thought fiercely. My mum was a good person and I am too. Remus is a good person, and Hermione is the smartest witch I know.
Slapping the paper down on the counter, Harry turned around, and almost jumped out of his skin. Damian stood in the doorway to the basement, looking at Harry with a raised eyebrow. "You seemed upset," Damian said abruptly.
"Yeah," Harry mumbled. He must have been too worked up to even sense Damian. "It's nothing."
"It does not sound like nothing," Damian said, closing the door. "Is anyone else here?"
Harry shook his head. "Micah had an emergency, and Nathaniel and Anita are at work."
"I see."
Harry looked back down at the print-out. He found being around his grandfather rather awkward. The man was positively ancient, but looked so young. But this was the first time Harry could remember having family that actually wanted him around, and he was resolved to making an effort, at least. "So, um..."
"Yes?"
"Anita thinks she knows what made the ghouls attack last night," Harry said, finally lighting on something that he figured Damian was interested in. "Nigel Spencer's wife was buried in that cemetery, but her body's gone. Anita and Tammy-- I mean, Detective Reynolds, think that might have something to with why the ghouls rose like they did."
Damian frowned. "Another necromancer?" he asked, gliding silently across the kitchen.
"No. I mean, probably not," Harry said, watching his grandfather. Was he levitating, or just being really quiet? "Detective Reynolds said they found a medallion in the dirt, that can be used to raise an Inferius."
"What are those?" Damian asked, leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest.
"A wizarding type of zombie," Harry explained as he rinsed his plate and put it in the drying rack. "Voldemort used them, years ago, and the authorities in England have been warning everyone about them for over a year. I've never seen one, and I sure don't know how they are made."
"What does Anita plan to do about it?" Damian asked.
"I don't know," Harry said. "She's at her office now, researching stuff on the graveyard."
Damian nodded, dropping his eyes to the floor. His skin was paler than normal, and it made his hair seem that much redder in the light. Harry bit his lower lip.
"Have you fed?" Harry asked, then winced as he reviewed the words. Were you allowed to ask a vampire about that? Was it rude?
Damian did not seem at all disturbed by the question. "No, I have not." He quirked his mouth into a sardonic closed-lipped smile. "I will feed at work this evening."
"Oh." Harry didn't sense any discomfort from Damian, so he pressed ahead with the question that had been nagging at him for days. "What's it like, being a vampire?"
"It is..." Damian seemed to search for the words. "It is what I am," he finally said. "It is all I know. I have been such for a very long time."
"But don't you remember before? Being a Viking and all that?"
All expression was wiped off Damian's face, and Harry knew he shouldn't have asked the question. "I do remember parts of it," Damian said, his voice steady, but only just. "For very many years, my past, what I once was, was used by my old master to torment me." Drawing in breath, Damian continued. "My old master was a mora, a night hag. She fed off fear, the way Jean-Claude feeds off sex."
Harry had no idea what to say, so he kept his mouth firmly shut. He did wish, however, that he had never started asking questions.
"And she did not wish to let me go, but the Vampire Council insisted." Damian looked very intently at Harry. "Her name was Morvoren."
He said the name like everyone back in England said 'Voldemort', and Harry felt a shiver run up his spine. "She sounds awful."
"Yes." Damian finally blinked. "What you said to me and Nathaniel, about your Voldemort and his name, is true. Fearing a name feeds that fear."
"But with Voldemort, it's kind of different," Harry argued. "He was a man once. He made this whole new identity, but even if he knew all sorts of dark magic, he was still Tom Riddle under it all. No one wants to think that he was once just a person, like them."
Damian shook his head. "She is not a person, Harry. She is a master vampire, one of the most powerful to walk the earth. We are not humans with fangs, and we never will be. We are vampires."
Harry let out a breath. "Are you trying to scare me?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light, although his heart was jackhammering in his chest.
Damian looked away. Instead of answering Harry's question, he said, "A vampire takes a lot from its master. Since Anita became my master, her humanity has been slowly seeping into me. I can walk in the light, but that is not all. I am more... human, than any other vampire."
"Is that a good thing?" Harry asked.
Damian certainly didn't look happy. "It is what it is," he said. "It cannot be changed."
That was another thing he and his grandfather had in common, Harry reflected. Neither was what they were supposed to be. "That's life, I guess."
Damian pushed himself off the cabinet. "I must prepare for work," he said. "What are you planning to do for the rest of the night?"
Harry shrugged. "Maybe wash my new clothes, or watch some movies?" Something occurred to him. "Are you guys keeping an eye on me?" he asked, feeling the heat begin to rise in his cheeks. "Why are you always making sure I'm with someone?"
"I do not know what you are talking about," Damian said. "No one has said anything to me." He tilted his head. "A newly infected werewolf should not change this soon, so it is probably not that."
"Great," Harry muttered under his breath. Damian headed for the basement door while Harry gathered up the print-out into a neat pile.
Harry couldn't remember any time in the past few weeks when he had been alone. He was always with Anita, or Nathaniel, or Jason or someone. Maybe it was protection against Death Eaters, or maybe some of the vampires like Meng Die? Hadn't Harry shown them that he could handle himself?
Or maybe I'm overreacting, he thought as he walked down the hall to the front door and picked up his clothes bags. We're always doing stuff, and no one seems to mind having me around. Maybe it was that people around here seemed to like his company.
That might be it. Even if they were worried about him, they didn't need to be. He could handle any situation that came his way, even if he was sitting around the house, watching movies and eating popcorn. He had always wanted to do that, just like a normal person.
Leaving his new clothes on his bed, he went back downstairs and flipped through the movies, coming to the ones he had been interested in that first night, when the pard was over and he learned that Damian was his grandfather. Hopefully, this night would be buckets less exciting.
Movies selected, Harry headed for the kitchen to make popcorn. One nice, normal night was all he wanted. Although, he thought cynically, I'm not even sure that I know what normal is.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The sounds from the doorbell hadn't even faded when I was kicking myself for coming out here. What the hell was I thinking? That was it, wasn't it? I wasn't thinking. I didn't want to think any more. I just wanted to turn my brain off and forget this whole evening.
Screw this. I had already half turned back toward my car when the door opened. "Anita?" Richard said, almost filling the doorway. "Are you okay?"
I didn't answer for a few moments, and it was embarrassing because I forgot how to form words. The only clothing Richard had on was a pair of ragged cut-offs, hanging so low on his hips it was almost indecent. His hair was long enough to reach his shoulders, and it was messy, as if he had been running his hands through his hair while he was thinking. He looked good enough to eat, and I had to swallow hard. "I'm fine."
He smiled suddenly at me, and the look in his eyes told me that he knew how he was affecting me. That was a familiar look, and it made me shake my head. Yeah, just another day of being me.
"Is there something I can do for you?" Richard asked. If there had been even the tiniest hint of a leer in his voice, I'd had bailed, but he sounded genuinely curious.
"I just wanted to come by and see how you were," I said. That wasn't it, but hell, even I didn't know what I wanted.
Richard looked at me for a moment, then stood aside. "Do you want to come in?"
I walked past him into the house, kicking off my heels by the door. "You changed stuff around," I said as soon as I hit the living room.
"I usually do once a summer," Richard said, right behind me. I could feel the warmth from his skin, so close, and it made me realize how cold I was. "I'm done my degree now, and I've been stuck here all month. I've been going a bit stir-crazy."
"I guess it doesn't hurt that you can lift your sofa without breaking a sweat," I said, looking over my shoulder at him. He smiled gently at me, and touched my elbow.
"Do you want something to drink?"
"Some water would be nice," I said. He went to the kitchen, and I examined the magazines on his coffee table. He still had subscriptions to all the preternatural biology magazines, and I leafed though one with a picture of a kelpie on the front until Richard returned. "Thanks."
"Do you want to come out onto the back porch?" Richard asked. "I was drafting up a new lesson plan, and it's nicer outside."
"Sure," I said, and followed Richard through his bedroom and out the open French doors. The night air hung still and warm, a typical Missouri summer night. I sank onto the porch, curling my legs around so I didn't flash Richard in this skirt, and set my glass of water down on the wood.
He went back to where he had obviously been sitting before I arrived, papers strewn this way and that. As he sat down, it occurred to me that he was totally comfortable in his own skin, out here like this. He'd always loved teaching, and just sitting on the edge of the forest that bordered his house.
"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" Richard asked, watching me.
I looked out at the darkness. "I don't know," I said softly. "I don't even know why I'm here."
"But you're not leaving," Richard pointed out.
"No." An owl hooted off in the distance, and for no reason I could think of, the events of the night just came rushing back to me and I started talking, still staring out at the forest. "Edward called me this afternoon. He read the police file, and sent me a bunch of stuff on Nigel Spencer." I detailed what Edward gave me as briefly as possible. Richard really didn't like how being around Edward put me in danger, and I was too tired to argue. "So John and I went to Spencer's house with Tammy and a few people from RPIT. Tammy called this witch she knows, and that was the only way we found it."
"Found a hidden room?" Richard guessed. I nodded.
"Found a cage. It was warded up tight, with voodoo charms and everything. John got most of the fetishes down, but he needed the help of Tammy's friend to get the last of it out. If a witch alone had tried to open the room, the gris-gris would have gone for her throat."
"What was it guarding?"
I swallowed, this time to push down the revolt of my stomach, before I said, "Elaine Jones. Or Spencer, I don't know what she wanted to be called."
I picked up my water and quickly gulped it down. I couldn't remembered when I'd last eaten, and even the thought of food made me want to throw up. Then Richard took the glass out of my hand and sat down beside me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and pulling me against him. I let him, which just told me how horrible I felt.
"And it wasn't like a normal zombie at all," I said after a minute. "She wasn't rotting or anything, she just sat there. Like a puppet, but her eyes..." Zombies don't have opaque eyes like you see in movies. Either the eyes are normal, although empty, or they're dried up. Elaine's eyes were clouded, but they followed everyone in the room. I tried again. "She didn't move until John picked up a talisman on the wall, then she did whatever he told her to."
"Do you know how long she'd been down there?" Richard asked. The rumble of his voice through his chest was soft against my cheek.
"We think about two months," I said. "Spencer's credit card bill for the last few years has had strange purchases for pretty much every week, up until two months ago. Then everything stopped. The last purchase was some lingerie." I closed my eyes, but that didn't make the image of that lingerie, spilling lacy and red out of a dresser drawer in the claustrophobic underground room, go away.
"Oh, God," Richard whispered, his arms tightening around me.
"The sick son of a bitch even bought her lingerie," I said, too tired to be angry, or anything but horrified. "What kind of fucking psychopath reanimates the body of his wife and sticks her in a room like that?"
"I don't know," Richard said, reaching up to touch my hair. When I didn't protest, he brushed the hair back from my face.
I let Richard hold me. The heat from his body slowly warmed me up, until I was feeling a bit better. "What are you going to do now?" Richard asked after several minutes.
"We took her back to the cemetery, and John, the witch and I managed to lay her to rest. John's watching over the grave with a team of exterminators all night, and Dolph's trying to find out if Elaine has any family to get them to okay a cremation," I explained. "I don't want to leave a body lying around that's been animated with all that magic."
"Was that why the ghouls attacked you last night?" Richard asked. "The different magic?"
"I don't know," I said, reluctantly pulling away from him. "There was a lot of bad magic in that room and in that grave. It might have done it, been enough to pull the ghouls out of their graves."
Richard took my hand in his, and I welcomed the contact. "Are you going to be okay?" he asked.
I looked down at our joined hands. "I'm just getting sick of this shit," I said. "Sick of coming across people who do this kind of thing. It's like I'm a stone, and everything I come across wears me down just a little more, until I don't know if I'm me anymore."
"You are you," Richard said, squeezing my hand. "If you weren't, this wouldn't bother you."
I laughed at that, rather bitterly. "If I ever get to that point, please shoot me," I said snappishly, only half-kidding. I pulled my hand away from Richard and stood up. Walking down the shallow steps to the lawn, I felt the dry grass under my stocking feet, and just wanted to keep going until I walked this night out of my head.
I knew Richard followed me, close but not touching, and for some reason, it didn't bother me. "Why did you come here?" he asked.
I looked down at my toes. I was going to get runs in my thigh-highs, and I didn't care. "Maybe I wanted to talk to someone who'd be as shocked as I was," I finally said.
"What do you mean?"
I didn't turn around. "I didn't want to tell someone who knows about this kind of fucked-up shit. I didn't want to be the naive one, okay?"
"So you didn't go to Nathaniel or Jean-Claude or Micah, you came to me," Richard said.
"Fuck, why are you picking at this?" I demanded, whirling around. "Maybe I just wanted to see you, okay? Maybe, for once, I wanted someone to lie to me and tell me it would be okay, and you're the only one who ever tells me that!" To my abject horror, tears welled up in my eyes, blurring my vision. I brushed angrily at them, to no avail. I hated being so emotional, but more than that, the tears came from fear. Fear that some day, someone wouldn't be able to let me go like they needed to. Or worse, that I would be the one who couldn't let go.
Richard put his hands carefully on my arms, and when I didn't hit him, pulled me into a hug. I hugged him back, wanting something solid.
"Why does the world have to be like this?" I whispered after a few minutes.
"I don't know," Richard said. He disentangled from the hug and guided me back to the house, through the French doors, and sat me on the bed. He knelt in front of me, hands on my knees.
I sniffled. "And it's not like it's even really my world," I said. "It's all Harry's world, with its torture curses and fucked-up zombies and dark magic. How can any kid hope to survive in a world like that?"
Richard shook his head. "I don't know, Anita." He hesitated, then said, "Do you think you're still affected by the after-effects of Bellatrix's curse?
I snorted indelicately. "You think?" I said, reaching to the bedside table for the box of kleenex. I blew my nose, then stood up to throw the tissues in the wastepaper basket. When I turned back around, Richard was sitting on the bed, watching me. "Look, maybe I should go."
"If you want to," Richard said carefully. "But if you want to stay, you can stay."
I looked into those chocolaty brown eyes of his, warm with the promise of comfort. I could stay over, I'd done it before. Micah was used to phone calls from me, telling him I'd be home the next morning. Sitting on his bed like this, I knew exactly how warm Richard would be, how good it would feel to stay here and try to chase the nightmares out of my head. But it wasn't that simple. It never was.
I didn't know what to do. About any of it.
..tbc
Inevitable Thirty-six: This Wasn't In The Brochure
by Mhalachai
Note: Language warning for Angry Anita Swearing. This chapter will reference material in Obsidian Butterfly, of which I am a huge fan. I really enjoy the book, no matter the creepifying material.
When Edward didn't say anything, I leaned back in my chair. "What's happening, Edward?" I knew he wasn't calling to ask how I was doing. He never made social calls.
"I hear you've been having some interesting magic-related deaths in St. Louis recently," Edward said, all business.
"You've heard of Nigel Spencer's death?" I asked.
"I did." Edward fell silent for a moment. "I didn't expect you to get involved with Death Eaters, Anita. They don't seem like your type."
Death Eaters? How the hell did Edward know what was going on? A second later, my suspicious nature kicked in, and I wondered if Edward was bluffing to get me to talk. "I suppose you got hold of the information in the police file somehow?"
"I did."
"So why are you calling?"
"Because I know more about Nigel Spencer than I think you do."
Edward seldom volunteered information, not unless... "Are you coming to town?" I asked.
"No."
"So why are you telling me this?"
"How long have you know that Harry Potter is your vampire's grandson?"
The plastic receiver of the phone cracked as I gripped it a little too hard. "What the fuck--" I stopped myself. "What are you talking about?" I asked, more calmly.
"Can we just stop playing games, Anita?" Edward asked. "It's in the police files, about Damian." There was a distinct hint of disgust in Edward's voice. He disliked Damian's tie to me more than he did any of my other guys. "And everyone knows about Harry Potter."
I wanted to dispute that, but I let it go to deal with the more pressing matter. "What does any of this have to do with Nigel Spencer?" I asked.
Tiny beeping sounded in the background. "I'm going to fax you some information that I gathered on him," Edward said. "About two years ago, he started buying magical paraphernalia, all very illegal. He acquired a few fetishes from a voodoo practitioner in Florida, which is how he came to my attention."
"Two years ago? That's about when his wife died," I said, thinking hard. I pushed the graveyard folders off to the side and reached for the Spencer file.
"I know," Edward said. "But that's not all he was buying."
He stopped, and I waited for almost twenty seconds before I caved. "What else did he buy, Edward?" I asked.
"Construction materials," Edward replied promptly. "Concrete, metal bars. Everything you'd need for an underground holding cell."
My fingers stilled as I realized what he was talking about. I had to fight down a wave of revulsion before I answered. "Why are you telling me all this?"
I swear, I could almost hear Edward smile over the phone. "Maybe you'll have information that I'll need one day."
"Damn it, Edward," I said, already on my feet, gathering up my keys, "This isn't funny."
"I know it's not," he said, amusement gone. He hesitated for a moment. "Anita, have you seen Olaf?"
I froze. "Why?" I demanded over the sudden pounding of my heart..
"He's gone to ground. I can't find him anywhere."
I made myself put my keys in my pocket. "I know I fit his victim profile, and he's got this sick idea that I should be his little serial killer girlfriend, but why do you think he'd be around here?"
"I don't know, Anita," Edward said, sounding weary. "Whenever he vanishes this completely, he's always gone back to killing."
"And you think he might come after me."
"I don't know."
Hearing Edward admit that he was in the dark on this chilled me more than anything. "I'll keep an eye out for him."
"You do that," Edward said. "And if you do see him, put as many bullets in him as fast as you can."
I closed my eyes briefly. As much as the idea scared me, we didn't know where Olaf was, or even what he was planning to do. It could wait for a bit. "Are you sending me all your information on Nigel Spencer?" I asked.
"Yes." And we were back to our normal selves. "It should be enough."
With that, he hung up.
I stared at the phone. The thought that Olaf might be coming after me, either to rape and kill me, or to try and get me to go on a killing spree with him, was not what I needed to hear today. Or ever. If it had just been me and him, I knew I could kill him before he laid a finger on me, but here in St. Louis, I was surrounded by people who I cared about. Not all of them were fighters, and might be caught in the crossfire. What would I do if someone got hurt because of me? I didn't know.
In the meantime, there were things I needed to do. I hung up the phone and grabbed the Spencer file on my way out of my office. Once I picked up the faxes Edward sent me, I could be on my way to the police station. Only it didn't work out quite like that.
My co-worker John Burke was standing over the fax machine when I turned the corner. Any hopes I had that he was looking for something of his own were blown away when he turned around, paper clenched between his hands. "What the hell is this?" he demanded, brandishing pages at me. "Who has been buying this?"
I snatched the paper out of John's hands. The pages contained a hand-written list of voodoo fetishes, magical talismans and assorted other items. "Nigel Spencer," I told him, gathering up the rest of the fax. Sure enough, Edward had sent me the purchase orders of building supplies, everything one would need to build a cage big enough to hold a person, and secure enough to hold a zombie. "He started buying this after his wife died, a wife who's no longer in her grave at the Sacred Heart cemetery."
John clenched his jaw. "These things should never be used together!" he exclaimed. "Raven claws? Snake skin? The zombie that would rise would be animistic, or worse!"
"I know!" I shot back. "I'm going to the police station now. If Nigel really did build that cage, and raised his wife as a zombie like that--"
"I'm going with you," John interrupted.
"No, you're not," I said as I pushed past John down the hall. He was right on my heels and ducked in front of me in the lobby, drawing the curious attention of Mary, the secretary.
"I'm a federal marshal too, Anita," John said through clenched teeth. "I also know more about voodoo that you do. If there's a zombie, raised and guarded by those talismans, you will not know what to do with it, I guarantee."
I glared up at him. We never got along, mostly because we were way too much alike, but he was right. He'd been one of the most powerful voodoo priests in New Orleans before an incident with the law drove him out of town. "There was also a talisman over the empty grave," I said grudgingly. "Detective Reynolds said it would raise an Inferius, a..." my voice trailed off when I saw John's eyes grow wide. "You know what they are?"
"I do, but I'm surprised that someone told you about them."
I shook my head. Why did everyone else know about the magic stuff that I had never heard of? "Come on."
John insisted on getting his zombie kit, which privately I thought was a good idea, but would never admit out loud. While he retrieved his bag from his office, I went to the large window and stared out onto the brilliant afternoon. Shadows were beginning to gather, even though sunset was a few hours off. The day was bright, but I hadn't felt quite so dark inside for a very long time.
Necromancers and the vaudaun did not raise their loved ones. It was our strongest unwritten rule, the first lesson I'd learned from my maternal grandmother in Mexico. I'd toyed with the idea of raising my mother in spite of that, for years, until that day I'd told Harry about, when the lessons I'd learned at my grandmother's side finally made sense. The zombie of my mother wouldn't have been my mother, it would have been an empty shell.
That was my mother, someone who was my whole world, but as a parent. Love for a child was much different, and that was why when a voodoo priest or priestess lost a child, it was tradition to have someone stay with them for forty days, so they wouldn't try and raise that lost child.
The most repulsive part of the situation with Nigel Spencer, however, was that he might have raised his wife as a zombie, or an Inferius, or some bastard hybrid of the two. I knew some people got off on having sex with zombies, but it was the single most nauseating thing I could think of. Maybe I was being unfair to Nigel, but what other reason would he have to raise his wife?
If Spencer was a wizard like Harry, he might have been able to raise her with all that black magic paraphernalia, even without having any aptitude for death magic. From watching Harry these past few nights, I had figured out that the reason Harry hadn't been able to raise a zombie was because he insisted on using his wand alone. It hadn't even occurred to him to use talismans or fetishes, not that I planned to encourage him. It was enough to know that, in spite of having vampire blood in him, his magic was all life and warmth.
John stormed back into the lobby, face like a thunder cloud. I never knew the details behind his leaving New Orleans, but I wondered now, seeing his reaction to the Spencer case, if he had lost someone he cared about. But he was not my friend, and I would never ask.
"Let's go see what Spencer has hidden in his basement," I said, going for the door.
"I hope you are wrong," John muttered, glaring at me as I held the door open for him.
"I hope I'm wrong too." Somehow, though, I knew I wasn't.
Harry bumped into Micah as he walked through the front door of the house.
"Sorry," Harry tried to say, but Micah waved it off.
"I have to go, an emergency in town," Micah said, hand on the doorknob. "But there's a note for you in the kitchen table, okay?"
"Okay," Harry said as Micah ran toward his car. Micah was moving fast, but he wasn't panicked, so Harry decided that the emergency must have been a shape-shifter coalition emergency, not something to do with Anita or the pard.
I don't know if I can handle any more emergencies, Harry thought, dropping his many bags on the floor of the hall. He wandered through the silent house to the kitchen, where a surprising thick stack of paper sat on the table. The top sheet was a note written in Micah's messy scrawl, while the rest seemed to be a computer print-out.
The note from Micah read, Harry, I have to head into town. Anita called, she's stuck at the office for a bit, and Nathaniel's at work. There's food in the fridge. Also, your friend Hermione called this afternoon.
Harry blinked. Hermione called again? Was something wrong? Then he shook his head. No, if there was trouble, Micah would have told him when he saw him. He continued reading.
She wanted to leave a message, but started talking so fast that I suggested that she just email you, but she told me that she's not sure you know how to use a computer. Long story short (although it may be too late for that), she emailed her message to my email, and I printed it off for you. If there's any emergencies, you know my cell number. Damian's downstairs and will be up at sunset.
Harry laid Micah's note to the side and picked up the print-out. His eyes couldn't seem to move past the names at the top of the page. The crisp white paper with the precise lettering was so unlike Harry's vision of Hermione, all flying hair and quills and parchment. But Hermione's parents were dentists, Harry reminded himself as he headed for the living room and flopped onto the couch, remembering just in time to kick off his trainers. The Grangers must have a computer, and Hermione would probably have used it before she came to Hogwarts. Harry had never used a computer, as Dudley had thrown heavy objects at him when Harry even looked at Dudley's computer.
- From: H Granger [h_granger0112@hotmail.com]
To: micah_callahan@aol.com
Subject: For Harry
Mr. Callahan, here is the message for Harry. Thank you very much for passing it along to him.
-Hermione.
Hi, Harry! We're about to go to the Burrow for the rest of the summer, and I wanted to write you a message that I'm pretty sure no one will see. From the way Ron carried on about the computer, I think it's safe to assume that no DE will be able to suss out how to hack into hotmail.
We really wish you were here with us. We went to a movie yesterday, and Tonks came with us. She says that when her dad used to take her to movies all the time as a kid, and that it was fun. It was fun, but really, she was guarding us. So you don't need to worry about us. And for the rest of the summer, we'll be at the Burrow with the Weasleys. Fleur is there with Bill, and they've pushed up the wedding to Christmas, when we are on holidays and can attend.
I found out who the Head Boy is! Blaise Zabini! I'm surprised it wasn't one of the boys in Ravenclaw, but I think it was Blaise's marks in arithmancy that really added that last little bit.
Ron says I need to stop talking about school. We'll be back there soon enough, right? One more year of school. Then we need to start looking into what we are going to do afterward. Ron's been threatening to go work at his brother's joke shop, much to Molly's chagrin. I'm not sure what I plan to do, it will depend on how many NEWTs I write.
No word on You-Know-Who. The Ministry of Magic continues to put out useless pamphlets and round people up for no reason. We don't know if anyone has died recently, but I think that Professor Dumbledore is still trying to get that batch of Gringott employees out of Azkaban. It doesn't make any sense, what's happening here. The Ministry isn't responding to a threat, it's whipping up fear and panic until people forget where the real danger is.
My parents are going to Spain next week, on an extended vacation, then going on a working sabbatical to Asia for the rest of the year. One of the dentists my Mum went to university with started a travelling dental clinic for developing muggle communities. They will be far away for a year, whatever will happen. They wanted me to go with them. I think they know what the dangers are, but I can't leave. I don't know if they understand. I don't know if I understand some days. But you're coming back, and you and Ron will need someone to keep you out of too much trouble. We all know Ron never listens to Ginny.
I should go. My parents are taking us out for one final dinner in the muggle world. Mum really likes Ron and Ginny, and Dad's stopped glaring at Ron. Parents are so strange.
I found a bunch of articles of muggle scientist studies on the children with vampire fathers, and I'm sending them over as well. As I thought, the whole prejudice against them just seems to be superstition, like muggle-born witches and wizards. If the baby's not born with Vlad's Syndrome, then they appear perfectly normal. There doesn't seem to be any correlation between that and magical talents, but I don't think the researchers were looking for that at all.
If you need to get in touch with us, Harry, we'll be at the Burrow. Please take care of yourself. I'm sorry we couldn't talk to you.
Hermione.
PS: Ron wants me to tell you that the Kenmare Kestrels beat the Chudley Cannons only by 50 points, and that's because their Seeker caught the Snitch.
PPS: Ginny got a O in potions. One more year of Snape for her!
Harry read the letter through, then once again. He could almost hear Hermione's voice, straying over the edge into a lecture at times. The bit about Hermione's parents leaving England surprised him slightly, but he supposed it made sense. It wasn't like they were hiding; they were going to help people. Had that friend of Hermione's mum been given a nudge to suggest it to the Grangers? Would any of the people in Harry's world care about two muggle dentists?
That's not fair, Harry scolded himself. A lot of the people in the Order of the Phoenix would care.
He looked back at the letter. He'd never tell his friends, but knowing that Tonks was with them did make Harry feel a little better. Even though she was clumsy at times, Tonks was a fully trained Auror, and dead quick with a wand. Hermione and Ron were both over seventeen, so they could use magic in public, and they had passed their Apparition tests early in the summer. Ginny was safe as houses with them.
The fact that Harry had only been sixteen when the school year ended, and wasn't allowed to take the last Apparition lessons, rankled him to no end. He had argued with Professor McGonagall that not knowing how to Apparate was an advantage to any Death Eater who came after him, but she hadn't listened to him. Of course, Harry hadn't thought that he would end up in the woods with werewolves after him during the summer, or else he would have tried to learn Apparition on his own.
While he lay on the couch, thinking, Harry's stomach growled. What's wrong with me? Harry wondered, pushing himself to his feet. I ate only three hours ago. Now that Harry thought about it, Jason seemed to eat a lot too. Maybe it was a werewolf thing.
By now, Harry knew where everything was in Anita's kitchen, and quickly filled a plate with leftovers. He leaned against the kitchen island and ate while reading the remainder of Hermione's message, copies of those muggle science studies on vampire children. A lot of the language went over his head, especially the bit about the maths, but he managed to struggle through the summary paragraphs.
All of them said the same thing. Other than a tendency to sunburn easily, children with vampire fathers, the ones without Vlad's Syndrome, were normal humans. Hermione was right, Harry mused, smiling at the familiar refrain. Just another stupid prejudice.
Then he lost his smile. The Wizarding world's 'stupid prejudices' could be deadly. Look at how they treated werewolves and muggle-borns. Harry might have a bit of all three in his blood now. Well, I'm not going to let them tell me what to do, he thought fiercely. My mum was a good person and I am too. Remus is a good person, and Hermione is the smartest witch I know.
Slapping the paper down on the counter, Harry turned around, and almost jumped out of his skin. Damian stood in the doorway to the basement, looking at Harry with a raised eyebrow. "You seemed upset," Damian said abruptly.
"Yeah," Harry mumbled. He must have been too worked up to even sense Damian. "It's nothing."
"It does not sound like nothing," Damian said, closing the door. "Is anyone else here?"
Harry shook his head. "Micah had an emergency, and Nathaniel and Anita are at work."
"I see."
Harry looked back down at the print-out. He found being around his grandfather rather awkward. The man was positively ancient, but looked so young. But this was the first time Harry could remember having family that actually wanted him around, and he was resolved to making an effort, at least. "So, um..."
"Yes?"
"Anita thinks she knows what made the ghouls attack last night," Harry said, finally lighting on something that he figured Damian was interested in. "Nigel Spencer's wife was buried in that cemetery, but her body's gone. Anita and Tammy-- I mean, Detective Reynolds, think that might have something to with why the ghouls rose like they did."
Damian frowned. "Another necromancer?" he asked, gliding silently across the kitchen.
"No. I mean, probably not," Harry said, watching his grandfather. Was he levitating, or just being really quiet? "Detective Reynolds said they found a medallion in the dirt, that can be used to raise an Inferius."
"What are those?" Damian asked, leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest.
"A wizarding type of zombie," Harry explained as he rinsed his plate and put it in the drying rack. "Voldemort used them, years ago, and the authorities in England have been warning everyone about them for over a year. I've never seen one, and I sure don't know how they are made."
"What does Anita plan to do about it?" Damian asked.
"I don't know," Harry said. "She's at her office now, researching stuff on the graveyard."
Damian nodded, dropping his eyes to the floor. His skin was paler than normal, and it made his hair seem that much redder in the light. Harry bit his lower lip.
"Have you fed?" Harry asked, then winced as he reviewed the words. Were you allowed to ask a vampire about that? Was it rude?
Damian did not seem at all disturbed by the question. "No, I have not." He quirked his mouth into a sardonic closed-lipped smile. "I will feed at work this evening."
"Oh." Harry didn't sense any discomfort from Damian, so he pressed ahead with the question that had been nagging at him for days. "What's it like, being a vampire?"
"It is..." Damian seemed to search for the words. "It is what I am," he finally said. "It is all I know. I have been such for a very long time."
"But don't you remember before? Being a Viking and all that?"
All expression was wiped off Damian's face, and Harry knew he shouldn't have asked the question. "I do remember parts of it," Damian said, his voice steady, but only just. "For very many years, my past, what I once was, was used by my old master to torment me." Drawing in breath, Damian continued. "My old master was a mora, a night hag. She fed off fear, the way Jean-Claude feeds off sex."
Harry had no idea what to say, so he kept his mouth firmly shut. He did wish, however, that he had never started asking questions.
"And she did not wish to let me go, but the Vampire Council insisted." Damian looked very intently at Harry. "Her name was Morvoren."
He said the name like everyone back in England said 'Voldemort', and Harry felt a shiver run up his spine. "She sounds awful."
"Yes." Damian finally blinked. "What you said to me and Nathaniel, about your Voldemort and his name, is true. Fearing a name feeds that fear."
"But with Voldemort, it's kind of different," Harry argued. "He was a man once. He made this whole new identity, but even if he knew all sorts of dark magic, he was still Tom Riddle under it all. No one wants to think that he was once just a person, like them."
Damian shook his head. "She is not a person, Harry. She is a master vampire, one of the most powerful to walk the earth. We are not humans with fangs, and we never will be. We are vampires."
Harry let out a breath. "Are you trying to scare me?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light, although his heart was jackhammering in his chest.
Damian looked away. Instead of answering Harry's question, he said, "A vampire takes a lot from its master. Since Anita became my master, her humanity has been slowly seeping into me. I can walk in the light, but that is not all. I am more... human, than any other vampire."
"Is that a good thing?" Harry asked.
Damian certainly didn't look happy. "It is what it is," he said. "It cannot be changed."
That was another thing he and his grandfather had in common, Harry reflected. Neither was what they were supposed to be. "That's life, I guess."
Damian pushed himself off the cabinet. "I must prepare for work," he said. "What are you planning to do for the rest of the night?"
Harry shrugged. "Maybe wash my new clothes, or watch some movies?" Something occurred to him. "Are you guys keeping an eye on me?" he asked, feeling the heat begin to rise in his cheeks. "Why are you always making sure I'm with someone?"
"I do not know what you are talking about," Damian said. "No one has said anything to me." He tilted his head. "A newly infected werewolf should not change this soon, so it is probably not that."
"Great," Harry muttered under his breath. Damian headed for the basement door while Harry gathered up the print-out into a neat pile.
Harry couldn't remember any time in the past few weeks when he had been alone. He was always with Anita, or Nathaniel, or Jason or someone. Maybe it was protection against Death Eaters, or maybe some of the vampires like Meng Die? Hadn't Harry shown them that he could handle himself?
Or maybe I'm overreacting, he thought as he walked down the hall to the front door and picked up his clothes bags. We're always doing stuff, and no one seems to mind having me around. Maybe it was that people around here seemed to like his company.
That might be it. Even if they were worried about him, they didn't need to be. He could handle any situation that came his way, even if he was sitting around the house, watching movies and eating popcorn. He had always wanted to do that, just like a normal person.
Leaving his new clothes on his bed, he went back downstairs and flipped through the movies, coming to the ones he had been interested in that first night, when the pard was over and he learned that Damian was his grandfather. Hopefully, this night would be buckets less exciting.
Movies selected, Harry headed for the kitchen to make popcorn. One nice, normal night was all he wanted. Although, he thought cynically, I'm not even sure that I know what normal is.
The sounds from the doorbell hadn't even faded when I was kicking myself for coming out here. What the hell was I thinking? That was it, wasn't it? I wasn't thinking. I didn't want to think any more. I just wanted to turn my brain off and forget this whole evening.
Screw this. I had already half turned back toward my car when the door opened. "Anita?" Richard said, almost filling the doorway. "Are you okay?"
I didn't answer for a few moments, and it was embarrassing because I forgot how to form words. The only clothing Richard had on was a pair of ragged cut-offs, hanging so low on his hips it was almost indecent. His hair was long enough to reach his shoulders, and it was messy, as if he had been running his hands through his hair while he was thinking. He looked good enough to eat, and I had to swallow hard. "I'm fine."
He smiled suddenly at me, and the look in his eyes told me that he knew how he was affecting me. That was a familiar look, and it made me shake my head. Yeah, just another day of being me.
"Is there something I can do for you?" Richard asked. If there had been even the tiniest hint of a leer in his voice, I'd had bailed, but he sounded genuinely curious.
"I just wanted to come by and see how you were," I said. That wasn't it, but hell, even I didn't know what I wanted.
Richard looked at me for a moment, then stood aside. "Do you want to come in?"
I walked past him into the house, kicking off my heels by the door. "You changed stuff around," I said as soon as I hit the living room.
"I usually do once a summer," Richard said, right behind me. I could feel the warmth from his skin, so close, and it made me realize how cold I was. "I'm done my degree now, and I've been stuck here all month. I've been going a bit stir-crazy."
"I guess it doesn't hurt that you can lift your sofa without breaking a sweat," I said, looking over my shoulder at him. He smiled gently at me, and touched my elbow.
"Do you want something to drink?"
"Some water would be nice," I said. He went to the kitchen, and I examined the magazines on his coffee table. He still had subscriptions to all the preternatural biology magazines, and I leafed though one with a picture of a kelpie on the front until Richard returned. "Thanks."
"Do you want to come out onto the back porch?" Richard asked. "I was drafting up a new lesson plan, and it's nicer outside."
"Sure," I said, and followed Richard through his bedroom and out the open French doors. The night air hung still and warm, a typical Missouri summer night. I sank onto the porch, curling my legs around so I didn't flash Richard in this skirt, and set my glass of water down on the wood.
He went back to where he had obviously been sitting before I arrived, papers strewn this way and that. As he sat down, it occurred to me that he was totally comfortable in his own skin, out here like this. He'd always loved teaching, and just sitting on the edge of the forest that bordered his house.
"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" Richard asked, watching me.
I looked out at the darkness. "I don't know," I said softly. "I don't even know why I'm here."
"But you're not leaving," Richard pointed out.
"No." An owl hooted off in the distance, and for no reason I could think of, the events of the night just came rushing back to me and I started talking, still staring out at the forest. "Edward called me this afternoon. He read the police file, and sent me a bunch of stuff on Nigel Spencer." I detailed what Edward gave me as briefly as possible. Richard really didn't like how being around Edward put me in danger, and I was too tired to argue. "So John and I went to Spencer's house with Tammy and a few people from RPIT. Tammy called this witch she knows, and that was the only way we found it."
"Found a hidden room?" Richard guessed. I nodded.
"Found a cage. It was warded up tight, with voodoo charms and everything. John got most of the fetishes down, but he needed the help of Tammy's friend to get the last of it out. If a witch alone had tried to open the room, the gris-gris would have gone for her throat."
"What was it guarding?"
I swallowed, this time to push down the revolt of my stomach, before I said, "Elaine Jones. Or Spencer, I don't know what she wanted to be called."
I picked up my water and quickly gulped it down. I couldn't remembered when I'd last eaten, and even the thought of food made me want to throw up. Then Richard took the glass out of my hand and sat down beside me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and pulling me against him. I let him, which just told me how horrible I felt.
"And it wasn't like a normal zombie at all," I said after a minute. "She wasn't rotting or anything, she just sat there. Like a puppet, but her eyes..." Zombies don't have opaque eyes like you see in movies. Either the eyes are normal, although empty, or they're dried up. Elaine's eyes were clouded, but they followed everyone in the room. I tried again. "She didn't move until John picked up a talisman on the wall, then she did whatever he told her to."
"Do you know how long she'd been down there?" Richard asked. The rumble of his voice through his chest was soft against my cheek.
"We think about two months," I said. "Spencer's credit card bill for the last few years has had strange purchases for pretty much every week, up until two months ago. Then everything stopped. The last purchase was some lingerie." I closed my eyes, but that didn't make the image of that lingerie, spilling lacy and red out of a dresser drawer in the claustrophobic underground room, go away.
"Oh, God," Richard whispered, his arms tightening around me.
"The sick son of a bitch even bought her lingerie," I said, too tired to be angry, or anything but horrified. "What kind of fucking psychopath reanimates the body of his wife and sticks her in a room like that?"
"I don't know," Richard said, reaching up to touch my hair. When I didn't protest, he brushed the hair back from my face.
I let Richard hold me. The heat from his body slowly warmed me up, until I was feeling a bit better. "What are you going to do now?" Richard asked after several minutes.
"We took her back to the cemetery, and John, the witch and I managed to lay her to rest. John's watching over the grave with a team of exterminators all night, and Dolph's trying to find out if Elaine has any family to get them to okay a cremation," I explained. "I don't want to leave a body lying around that's been animated with all that magic."
"Was that why the ghouls attacked you last night?" Richard asked. "The different magic?"
"I don't know," I said, reluctantly pulling away from him. "There was a lot of bad magic in that room and in that grave. It might have done it, been enough to pull the ghouls out of their graves."
Richard took my hand in his, and I welcomed the contact. "Are you going to be okay?" he asked.
I looked down at our joined hands. "I'm just getting sick of this shit," I said. "Sick of coming across people who do this kind of thing. It's like I'm a stone, and everything I come across wears me down just a little more, until I don't know if I'm me anymore."
"You are you," Richard said, squeezing my hand. "If you weren't, this wouldn't bother you."
I laughed at that, rather bitterly. "If I ever get to that point, please shoot me," I said snappishly, only half-kidding. I pulled my hand away from Richard and stood up. Walking down the shallow steps to the lawn, I felt the dry grass under my stocking feet, and just wanted to keep going until I walked this night out of my head.
I knew Richard followed me, close but not touching, and for some reason, it didn't bother me. "Why did you come here?" he asked.
I looked down at my toes. I was going to get runs in my thigh-highs, and I didn't care. "Maybe I wanted to talk to someone who'd be as shocked as I was," I finally said.
"What do you mean?"
I didn't turn around. "I didn't want to tell someone who knows about this kind of fucked-up shit. I didn't want to be the naive one, okay?"
"So you didn't go to Nathaniel or Jean-Claude or Micah, you came to me," Richard said.
"Fuck, why are you picking at this?" I demanded, whirling around. "Maybe I just wanted to see you, okay? Maybe, for once, I wanted someone to lie to me and tell me it would be okay, and you're the only one who ever tells me that!" To my abject horror, tears welled up in my eyes, blurring my vision. I brushed angrily at them, to no avail. I hated being so emotional, but more than that, the tears came from fear. Fear that some day, someone wouldn't be able to let me go like they needed to. Or worse, that I would be the one who couldn't let go.
Richard put his hands carefully on my arms, and when I didn't hit him, pulled me into a hug. I hugged him back, wanting something solid.
"Why does the world have to be like this?" I whispered after a few minutes.
"I don't know," Richard said. He disentangled from the hug and guided me back to the house, through the French doors, and sat me on the bed. He knelt in front of me, hands on my knees.
I sniffled. "And it's not like it's even really my world," I said. "It's all Harry's world, with its torture curses and fucked-up zombies and dark magic. How can any kid hope to survive in a world like that?"
Richard shook his head. "I don't know, Anita." He hesitated, then said, "Do you think you're still affected by the after-effects of Bellatrix's curse?
I snorted indelicately. "You think?" I said, reaching to the bedside table for the box of kleenex. I blew my nose, then stood up to throw the tissues in the wastepaper basket. When I turned back around, Richard was sitting on the bed, watching me. "Look, maybe I should go."
"If you want to," Richard said carefully. "But if you want to stay, you can stay."
I looked into those chocolaty brown eyes of his, warm with the promise of comfort. I could stay over, I'd done it before. Micah was used to phone calls from me, telling him I'd be home the next morning. Sitting on his bed like this, I knew exactly how warm Richard would be, how good it would feel to stay here and try to chase the nightmares out of my head. But it wasn't that simple. It never was.
I didn't know what to do. About any of it.
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Date: 2005-11-16 03:20 pm (UTC)It was only a week ago to her, no matter how hard she is trying to ignore it. It opened up a lot of door for her that she thought she'd shoved closed... and those doors aren't shutting the way they used to.
I like the comparison between Anita's family and the Weasley's.
They all love Harry, and consider him part of the family. Plus there is an overabundance of red-heads on both sides :D