Emerald City Dreamer (23 page)

"
You think violence will make me do what you want? You think that? Well it won't!" Jina's voice had risen in volume, and Sandy feared she might throw something herself. She didn't. She just reached for a phantom cigarette case, and ran her hand through her hair when she didn't find any. "Jesus. Just... just..."

Sandy stared at the glass shards on the floor. There was a dent in the plaster. Her own hands were shaking.
With rage? With fear?

Jina was right. The alcohol wasn't working anymore.

"
I'm sorry," Sandy whispered.

"
You know what's sad?" Jina said. "The real reason I didn't sign with that record label? I wanted nothing more. A chance for everyone to hear my music. Constant spotlight, videos on MTV, national radio airplay, interviews, tours... god, tours. Did you know most bands go on tour, Sandy? Even indie bands, like
Fates
. No, I threw it all away because of you. Because you needed me."

Sandy nodded slowly. Through the blur of numb tears, she understood.

If she lost her temper again, Jina would be within her rights to leave. She couldn't lose Jina, not now.

"
I'll quit. That's what I'll do. I'll stop drinking."

Sandy expected Jina to smile, give her a hug, give her some reward for giving in. Instead she grimly nodded her head. "That's something at least. But you've quit cold turkey before. Remember? Until you can heal the hurts that drive you to self-medicate, you'll fall off the wagon again."

"
No," Sandy said. "I'm strong. And smart. I can do this on my own this time. I'll prove it to you."

"
Of course you're strong," Jina said. "You're one of the strongest people I know. But you're not super-human. Do you still have that number I gave you?"

It would take a super-human to call that hotline.

"
I'll consider it."

"
Thank you." Jina stepped close and gave her a hug. "I know you're doing your best. We got a lot done today. You should seriously take a break tonight and celebrate our success. If you're going to drink, at least do it a bar, in public, with other people. Okay?"

"
I said I'm quitting," Sandy said.

"
Good," Jina said. "Anyway, I gotta go."

Sandy saw Gretel on her way down to the main floor.

"
Everything all right?" Gretel asked. Sandy noticed the bags under her eyes, and wondered if she was working the others too hard, too.

"
Never better," Sandy said. "I just need some time to think."

She wandered to her office alone. She poured herself a drink from the bottle of Lonach she kept in her desk.

Obsessed. Jina had used that word before. Sandy didn't have any other choice... How could she get through the day without the alcohol, without the work itself?

A card sat on her nightstand upstairs. The image of it flashed into her mind. She stared at it every night before falling into nightmares. The number, etched in bold lettering against the bright-orange surface, was etched into her memory.

She needed to be super-human to catch faeries, too. Maybe after she found the courage to call a hotline, hunting down Scarf would be easy.

Sandy picked up her cellphone.
800...656...H-O-P-E.

Her thumb hovered over the dial button. She imagined what she might say.

Hello, my name is Sandy. I won't be able to sleep tonight because there was this faerie...

No.

Because all I can see is his sweaty blue skin...

No.

Because demons are real.

No.

Because I let myself be rap...

God no.

Sandy shook her head. She could admit to none of those things, not even to a faceless stranger at the other end of a phone line.

No one could help her, but she would at least stop drinking, like she promised. She owed it to Jina.

There was a glass half-full in her hand. She wondered how it got there and dumped it into the soil of a potted tree. The bottle of Lonach nearly received the same fate. She paused with the cork half-removed. This was the good shit. Thirty-nine years old. Two-hundred a bottle, purchased out of state. It would be good to keep around, just in case, in case later she wanted to celebrate just a little bit...

As for Ezra... She could not stop pursuing him. He was vulnerable, weak. And they knew where to find him.

Scarf was older, wiser, and undoubtedly more powerful. Sandy wouldn't stand a chance against him. Not yet. No, not yet. Not until she knew just a little more... She imagined what might happen if she tried to capture him and failed, and the effort brought back memories.

Jina said she could handle Scarf, at least for a while. First Ezra, and then Scarf right after.

Sandy realized she had not thought beyond the chase. What did the tigress do once the rabbit was in her jaws? She'd imagined experiments. Yet if the boy had done nothing wrong...

Was there a way to neutralize his power, to prevent him from hurting anyone?

An idea struck her. She rushed to her library and grabbed several books. As she read, she felt the alcohol wear off, felt her mind clear, and a plan began to form. Maybe Jina was right... Maybe she would get more done sober.

She marked several passages for later reading. It just might work, but she would need his true name. It warranted more research. She knew one thing - it wouldn't work if she didn't have an Ezra to try it on. First things first.

Jina wasn't around to write a new spell. She had an old one, from years ago, when she'd hoped to scry on Haun. She didn't have her own source of glamour back then. Instead, her spell had tapped into Haun's glamour where he'd stored a message for her.

This time, with her own pure glamour, it should work fine.

She descended into the Dungeon and walked to an off-white vanity beneath the basement window. Its surface was piled with unused scientific instruments, a hoax faerie corpse, and a remote-viewing box permanently set to a fixed location exactly one hundred years past. She cleared these away from in front of the medium-sized antique mirror mounted on the vanity, its silver frame decorated with intertwined vines.

She dug through an old filing cabinet until she found a ratty notebook. It had pages and notes sticking out all over the place. She wiped off the cover and flipped through them until she reached the verse written in Jina's hand.

The spell would need a minor modification. She didn't know Ezra's true name, but she clearly remembered what he looked like. Hopefully that would be enough.

Across the room, she adjusted a knob on the glamour generator, with the redcap sleeping peacefully inside. The room filled with glamour then, she supposed. The proof would come soon enough.

She sat down in front of the mirror and chanted:

Mirror shiny, mirror bright,

Reflect to me just one tonight,

Mirror shiny, mirror true,

Scry to me a face of blue,

Mirror shiny, mirror tame,

Use the power of his name,

Mirror shiny, mirror show,

To me the Ezra I know.

The reflection of the room grew dim, the image turned black. Within the darkness an image formed. She felt her will collect at the center of her mind. Something tugged at it and pulled it flooding towards the image. She fought to dam it back up, to retain herself inside her own mind.

"
No, not you!" she shouted. "I said Ezra!"

"
Why, hello my dear. It's been years since you've called. Why so estranged?"

Haun still wore a top hat, this one not nearly so tattered. His black hair hung in greasy strings around his pointy ears. The translucent pale blue skin stretched back on his face to frame his rictus grin.

"
Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. I didn't want this to happen!"

"
Watch your mouth, young lady. This time I can hear you. I'm tricksy that way."

"
Get out of my mirror, bastard. I'm busy." Sandy glanced around the mirror frame as if looking for a dial or knob, like it was an old television set and she could just change the channel.

"
Is that any way to speak to your husband? Even though we're separated, I still send you alimony."

Confusion and uncertainty filled her mind. Just like he wanted. "What alimony?"

"
You didn't notice all the luck you seem to have? I'm hurt! Somehow you only end up with winning investments. Even when the market falls, you get ahead. How do you like your success?"

"
I don't need your fucking money. I can do fine on my own." She crossed her arms.

"
Are you sure about that? Really sure?"

Sandy pressed her lips together, her breath coming in angry huffs. She craved the feel of a glass in her hand, just a sip, to numb this rage, this stifling of breath. But no, she'd promised Jina; she'd promised herself.

"
At any rate, I'm doing quite well myself," he said. "Thanks for asking. I have plenty of cash, and luck, to spare. It's the least I can do for the one I love."

"
Stop sending me anything. I don't need it."

"
Anymore..." he said as if finishing her sentence for her. "I suppose you mean to say, you don't need money as long as you have my love? Sometimes I can feel you, you know, frolicking through my dreams. You dream about me so often. You just can't leave me alone, babe."

Almost calmly, she said, "I want a divorce." She felt a touch of power in her cool response.

"
Faeries don't get divorced. We're like Mormons and Catholics that way. Till death do us part, that's what you said."

"
So be it, Perrihaunisplaun!" She pronounced his true name. "I'll see you dead one day. Until then, I don't believe you're here talking to me. I never spoke to you tonight. I am scrying someone else, and that's who I got!" She focused all her skepticism at the mirror, and Haun's grinning face vanished, leaving Sandy relieved and shaken. She closed her eyes and rubbed her arms as if to scrape off the things she felt crawling over her skin. "He's gone, he's gone, he's gone," she whispered to herself over and over as she rocked back and forth in her chair.

In the stillness behind her eyelids, she had two simultaneous thoughts: How grateful she was to be sobering up, so she could focus on disbelief to make Haun disappear. And how much she wanted to feel the burn spreading out through her veins, to make the whole world disappear.

Slowly she opened her eyes, wondering if she'd see Ezra, or if Haun would still be there, or if there would simply be a reflection of her lab.

She saw the bark of a pine tree. Frowning, she adjusted her will, and the view shifted around. Then she saw a hole in the dirt and a shovel with a boot on it, digging into the ground. She zoomed out, and she saw him: Ezra. Only this time he wasn't the handsome young boy she'd remembered driving to the woods a few days earlier.

The mirror showed his true faecast.

This creature was monstrous. His rot-colored hair surrounded goat horns jutting like growths above his pointy ears. His face was twisted, his nose too long, his mouth and eyes too big. He was tall, even though he hunched over to try to hide it. The shovel he held looked like a beach toy. And his arms, long and sinewy, grew patches of scraggily black hair like that on Haun's head. His hands hooked and ended in knobby, narrow fingers. With claws.

Jina was wrong. Ezra
was
a monster. How many young girls had suffered under the weight of this creature, crushed by the grip of those horrible hands? How many children, like Gretel, had been literally dragged into hell by this hulk?

No obsession was enough while beasts like Haun and Ezra still roamed free. Obsession was the wrong word. Determination. Sandy pursed her lips, and the pain of Haun's words, of his memory, fled.

Those religious people had Ezra under close guard. They watched him, and he continued to dig. What was he digging, a grave? Did they know what he was, then? Surely they didn't have the power to hold him. If he chose to get free, those two unarmed guards could not stop him. He looked as if he could massacre the whole camp without so much as a scuffle.

She needed a plan. She needed spells. She needed weapons.

"
Gretel!" she called. "Hollis!"

Those two understood. They would have enough determination to work through the night, if need be, to catch this ogre before he had a chance to hurt anyone else.