Finn Fancy Necromancy (19 page)

Father looked up at me, and nodded sideways at the tree. “Branches and brains,” he said. “Make you do funny things.” He returned to studying the branches.

“Father, concentrate! Try to make sense. This is important. What possessed you? Who keeps trying to frame me? Why did Felicity blame me? Did she do it on purpose, or did somebody make her do it? Please, help me understand.”

Father prodded at a branch with the pruner, and waved me away with the other hand. “The blame for frame falls mostly in the rain. Go dig dirt, it's what monkeys doo doo.”

I didn't immediately dismiss his words as gibberish, hoping that maybe a real answer hid among them, that enough of my father remained to try to reach me through the madness. Father had a touch of prophecy, and that gift was always made stronger by madness for some reason, which led to the unfortunate fact that the more important a prophet's words, the less likely they were to be heeded. “Are you saying—is there a clue of some kind buried in the yard outside? Or someplace else, in the dirt?”

Father laughed. “Monkey did it in the parlor with the banana lickity-split. Dance little monkey!” He danced the shears across the desktop and hummed tunelessly.

I paced away from him. Tears burned my eyes. There were no clues in his words, just gibberish after all. The truth behind everything that had happened to me was within reach, and yet still unreachable.

But I still couldn't believe that my father was beyond help, beyond helping me. I'd seen him stare down trolls who demanded all the magic from their deceased, seen him spend hours patiently piecing together a delicate artifact, felt his strength and quiet wisdom throughout my life before exile.

I paced back to him, and knelt at his side. I squeezed his arm. “Father, please. I need your help. I need you. I know you can do this, you can fight this madness and speak to me clearly. What happened with Felicity?”

Father frowned, and the whole left side of his face twitched. He shook his head, as though arguing with someone, and pounded his fist on the table. “No! I … I have to make the snakes dance right. Go ask your mother. She knows everything about every ring around she knowsy.” He shuddered, and closed his eyes for a second, then went back to inspecting the branches.

I sat a minute and watched him, watched his bleary eyes scanning the branches, his left cheek still twitching every second or so in a barely perceptible tic. Finally I stood and rubbed his back with one hand. “I love you, Father. And I forgive you. I know you didn't want to hurt Felicity, or me. I promise you, I'm going to make this all right somehow.”

A tear fell from Father's nose onto the nearest tree branch, but otherwise there was no sign he understood me.

I crossed the room to a painting that hung between two bookcases. Created hundreds of years before my birth, the painting showed a desk of wood that looked black except for the deep red-brown highlights, its surface covered by a book, ink, quill, and several objects of silver and bronze and bone, artifacts of the necromantic arts. Painted above the desk hung a round mirror of polished bronze framed in what looked like pale wood, but I knew it to be shaped bone.

I touched the painting and felt a chill seep from it into my hand. I called up a portion of the magic at my core, and shaped it to my intent. “
Facere realis,
” I said. The magic drained from me, through my hand to the painting, and the glamour lifted. I stared into a real bronze mirror now, which reflected my face back at me. “I am of the family blood and have a right to that which you protect,” I said. My face in the mirror wavered, and then said back, “Proceed then, child of Gramaraye.”

I reached into the painting, now become a portal, and grabbed the book. If I'd not been of Gramaraye blood, the portal would have closed, neatly cutting off my arm and adding my hand to the objects in the painting. But I was able to pull the book free without incident.

I knew right away this wasn't the family ledger I remembered. The leather binding was new, not blackened from age, the pages white and crisp, not yellow and filled with the records of all those for whom my family had performed necromantic rites over the past few centuries. And the entries in this book started soon after my exile. I reached back in, searched the desk drawers for the old ledger, patting around the edges of the space out of sight just to be sure. No luck.

“Damn it!”

I turned to ask Father where the old ledger was but realized that would be pointless. He wouldn't answer. And I could guess anyway—destroyed, to hide exactly what I wanted to know.

I did find a copy of Grandfather's will, and glanced at it before putting it and the new ledger back. Grandfather had set up rules for inheriting the family business—first, that the person be of Mother's lineage, thus bypassing Father even though he'd taken the Gramaraye name. And that it go to a Talker, and if no Talker was of age and able to run the business, then to the oldest Gramaraye that had a child to carry on the family line.

Which conjured up a terrible thought—did Mort have a child just to secure his right to run the business?

I looked up, in the direction of Mort's room.

Father wasn't really the killer, he was the weapon. He was as much a victim as I was. And how perfect an opportunity for Mort, to get rid of Father and me with the same single act of betrayal and murder and have the business all to himself, to be in charge the way he always wanted.

Yet I'd seen Mort in all his inept glory and thought I'd made some progress in understanding him. I still saw him more as the boy I grew up with than whatever man he'd become. I just couldn't believe that Mort, my big brother, would have willingly participated in harming Felicity and Father, even if he nurtured some kind of obsessive grudge against me.

Still, I wasn't willing to risk anyone else's life on that brotherly feeling. I would need to confront Morty and get some answers from him once and for all.

I restored the glamour on the painting, and crossed back to Father. He rocked in small, fast bobs now as he studied the tree, and he began to hum the tune to the Doors' “Light My Fire.”

“It's okay, Father,” I said. “Here, I want you to wear this. It'll keep you safe. Do not take it off.” I showed him the amulet I'd grabbed, a protection against possession, and hung it around his neck. I kissed the top of his head, tucked the amulet beneath his shirt, then left and closed the door.

I stood in the hall facing the door, collecting my thoughts.

If I told the others about Father, it could destroy what life he had left. Mort might insist on sending him to the Hole. Pete would be devastated. Sammy, I had no idea how she'd react. And if the ARC found out—I didn't know what they'd do. But I certainly wasn't going to throw my father to the enforcers on maybes and half-crimes. If he'd been possessed, then he wasn't at fault for the crime. And he didn't make Felicity testify against me.

But if the Legion possessed Father before, even through the house wards, I had to assume they could again. The last thing I wanted was to wake up in the morning with Vee's body on my floor, or someone else hurt.

Father did have the amulet now. And if someone possessed him again, it would most likely be while we slept like last time, when the Legion needed some kind of sneaky work done and no necromancers were awake to banish the possessing spirit. Besides, I'd already slept one night at home without incident, and it'd been twenty-five years since the last possession. Whatever trick they used to get past the house wards before, maybe they couldn't do it now.

Either way, it looked like I'd be crashing in Father's room until this was over. If he did become possessed, I didn't want him harming anyone but me, not if I was keeping silent about the danger.

Well, I had to tell Zeke the truth, at least. I couldn't put his sister in danger without telling him. And I'd need his help to confront Mort.

“Uncle Finn?”

I jumped, and turned to face Mattie.

“Uh, hey. Yes?”

Mattie looked down and tapped at the carpet with her toe. “I know you and my dad don't get along the best—”

“No, Mattie, that's not true—”

“It's cool. My dad doesn't get along with a lot of people. But … he's not a bad person. He's just worried all the time about the business and stuff, you know?”

“I know.”

“And Sammy, she tells me stories about when you guys were younger, how you used to play around, and play jokes on each other and stuff. That you and my dad were like a team, at least until you had to do all the Talker training.”

“Yeah. We definitely had some good times.” Lots of them dangerous and stupid, but good.

“So, well—maybe you can try to be his friend again, and help him have a little bit of fun? I just—I worry about him. I don't want him to be so unhappy all the time, you know?”

I sighed. “Yeah. Okay, Mattie. I'll try.”

Mattie smiled. “Thanks, Uncle Finn.” She put on a pair of headphones and went bouncing back up the hall, humming.

Talk about bad timing.

I left to go find Zeke, and accuse my brother of framing me.

13

Bésame

I headed back to the dining room and found Heather and Pete sitting at one end of the table, eating pasta. Heather also had a bottle of wine out, and it looked like she'd drunk at least half of it. Zeke stood spooning pasta into two shallow bowls. He looked ready to fall asleep on the spot, wobbling a bit as he stood there.

The smell of butter and garlic made my stomach growl, reminding me I hadn't eaten since breakfast. Heather stood and moved beside me. She put a hand on my chest and asked quietly, “You okay? Need to talk?”

“No. Thank you. Maybe later, but not right now.” I looked past her. “Pete? I don't suppose you know what happened to the old family ledger, the one in Father's room?”

“Someone burned it,” he said around a mouthful of pasta. “Same night as … you know, the bad stuff happened. At least that's what Mort said.” He went back to eating.

Right. Pretty much what I'd guessed. “Actually, Heather, maybe you could help me research something? You were always better at the research than me.”

“Of course,” she said. “Whatever you need.” Her cheeks flushed red.

Music began playing from her pocket. She pulled out a mobile phone, and frowned at it. “I … I need to take this. Excuse me?”

“That's fine. I need to talk to Mort about something first anyway.” I moved to stand beside Zeke as Heather rushed from the room. “Where's Vee?”

“Upstairs resting,” he said. “She's pretty drained.” He paused and looked at me. “I hope it was worth it.”

“It was,” I said. My mouth watered as I eyed the pasta, but lunch would have to wait. “I'll walk up with you, and we can talk about it.”

“And don't worry,” Pete said as he scooped seconds of pasta. “I'm saving room for dinner with Dawn.”

Oh. Crap. I'd completely forgotten about the “date” I'd set up. What had I been thinking?

“Dinner?” Zeke asked. “You taking your brother on some kind of date?”

Petey blushed. “It's just a practice date. Right, Finn?”

“Totally,” I said.

Zeke turned, scowling. “You can't be serious?”

“We can talk about it upstairs,” I said.

Zeke yawned. “Fine. Then let's get walking so you can start talking, fool.”

Neither of us spoke until we reached the second-floor landing.

“So,” Zeke said. “You're going out on a date while someone's trying to kill you?”

“Yes, I am. Whoever's out to get me, they've already taken twenty-five years of brotherhood away from me and Pete. I'm not going to let them take any more. Besides, my enemies don't seem to want me hurt, right?”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Zeke said. “One of the many reasons I don't believe you're all innocence and flowers, Gramaraye, whatever you say. But even if you're officially in hands-off status, that won't do much to keep them from hurting your fool brother or his date.”

“Pete's date is a mundy, and we'll be around other mundies most of the time. If the Legion attacked mundies—”

“Legion?”

“It's what I'm calling our enemies. If they attacked mundies, that'd get the ARC's attention in a way I don't think the Legion wants.”

“Maybe not. Still seems like a pointless risk.”

“Helping my brother isn't pointless.”

Zeke headed for the hallway to our left. “Fine, little miss Emma, you go play matchmaker and I'll keep trying to get us clear of this mess.”

“Wait, did you just make a Jane Austen reference?”

Zeke paused, then resumed walking. “The only Austen I know is Steve Austin, the six-million-dollar man.”

“Uh-huh. Then what did you just say, then?”

“I don't remember.”

“I do. My mother used to read Austen's books, and I'm pretty sure—”

“I'm pretty sure you'd better drop it, fool! If Steve Austin ever writes a book—”

“Wait, the character, or the actor?”

“—writes a book about his adventures kickin' ass, and they make it into a movie starring Chuck Norris, then you go right ahead and bring up the name Austen again. Otherwise, why don't you just start over and tell me about the memories you recovered?”

Right. I took a deep breath.

“Twenty-five years ago, something possessed my father and made him attack Felicity,” I said in a low voice. “Or made him help her to stage an attack. I'm guessing whoever summoned and controlled the spirit is the same enemy trying to frame me now.”

Zeke stopped in front of Vee's door and squinted at me for a second. “All right. So we go to the ARC and let their sorcerers poke around in your father's head now that you know where to start, maybe figure this all out. We can get some enforcers in here to protect everyone, and finally start busting some feyblood heads for answers—”