Revenant (21 page)

Amélia crashed into the ghostly wall as if it were solid and rebounded, broken into shards of herself like the reflection in a shattered mirror. She put up her hands and hid her face, her voice like the sobbing of mourning doves.
“Tenha misericórdia! Fiz tudo isso para você!”

I wasn’t sure I got the gist, but I spat back in words that cut the mist in heat and barbed red anger, “When I want a favor from you, I’ll ask for it! Get out! Or I’ll rip you into shreds and feed you to the Guardian Beast! Get out!”

She vanished in a cry. The mist sank where she had been, drawn downward as she left the room.

My chest was heaving and the cold mist of the Grey made me feel frozen through. I backed from the mist world into the normal, keeping an eye peeled for her return and fell over the bed.

Quinton stirred and rolled to the side with a grunt of discomfort.

“Hey,” I said as he opened one bleary eye.

“Hey.” He sounded like he’d been gargling with glass.

“I brought you a sandwich, but I dropped it. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t need a sandwich,” he muttered, trying to draw me down into the bed with him.

I traded some dopey kisses with him for a moment, warming myself in his affection. Reluctantly, I pulled away in a minute.

He made a disappointed-puppy noise but didn’t fight it.

“None of that,” I said. “I feel guilty enough as it is. I’m about to leave with your sister.”

“I’ll get up—”

I pushed him back down as he tried it and it wasn’t hard to do. “No, you won’t. You need more sleep and I need you to do some research for Carlos while I’m gone.”

“What kind?”

“Online. He wants to know about any recent incidents concerning bones or bodies being disinterred, disturbed, or stolen or anything bizarre connected to bones or relics. Anywhere in Europe. He’s looking for information that could tell us what the Kostní Mágové are building out of these bones and what they’ll have to do now that we’ve denied them Soraia.”

“Oh. All right.” He slumped back into his pillow. “I feel wretched.”

“I think the term you’re after is ‘like death warmed over.’”

“Twice.”

I started to go but turned back. “Be careful of the ghosts around here. I know you can’t see them like I can, but if you have an eerie feeling, heed it.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, but some of them have their own agendas and I don’t want you sucked into them.”

“Oh. OK.” He closed his eyes, sleep trying to drown him once again.

I returned to the bed and kissed him one more time. “I love you, my superhero.”

“Love you, too,” he murmured, sinking into sleep as I watched.

I didn’t feel quite so bad about leaving once I knew he was asleep again. I only hoped I’d scared Amélia off badly enough to keep her from repeating whatever she’d been doing. Quinton was still too close to his brush with death to be immune to the machinations of ghosts. I was going on faith that he’d been awake enough to remember what I’d told him.

I picked up the scattered remains of the sandwich and took them back downstairs.

SIXTEEN

I
don’t remember the trip to Spain. I slept through most of it in the backseat with the baby. Apparently, I managed to miss a minor temper tantrum, two lost “binkies,” and a diaper change without so much as wrinkling my nose. Soraia decided this was my superpower and I was anointed—in my sleep—as the coolest aunt in the world. And I’d thought it was because I walked through walls—shows what I know about how to impress six-year-olds. We arrived in a modest city called Valverde del Camino after five hours on the road. We’d hit several patches of bad traffic getting out of Lisbon, then had to take a detour around some road work, which had added time to what I’d expected to be a three-hour drive.

The oldest parts of Valverde looked a lot like the nice parts of Mexico City, while the industrial bits looked exactly what they were. As far as I could tell from the places we passed—including a fenced yard filled with wooden chairs piled two stories high—the area produced a lot of furniture, olives, and leather goods. We searched for the Danzigers’ address for forty minutes and found it in a pleasant
public square, above an old-fashioned cobbler’s shop in a building with a front of bright yellow tile.

Sam found a parking space for the tiny management company car—we’d decided it was better to leave hers in a long-term car park near the Lisbon airport, where tracing the plate would do no one any good. As we walked up to knock on the Danzigers’ door, Martim began fussing. Such is my lack of charm for toddlers—though it might have been that Mara’s wards around the building woke him up. The curling, vine-like magic wasn’t identical to the protections around their house in Seattle, but it was still recognizably hers in my Grey sight.

The black door ahead of us swung open and Mara stepped out onto the landing. “Oh my! Is it past time for lunch?” she asked, looking at the baby. “Oh, there’s a hungry lad, aren’t you? Better come in, then. I’m so glad I thought to make extra. What’s this little one’s name, then?”

Sam gazed up at the tall, redheaded woman as if she’d never seen a more welcome sight. “Martim. And I’m Samantha—Sam Rebelo. This is my daughter, Soraia.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all. I’m Mara Danziger and you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.” Mara held out her arms and offered to take Martim off Sam’s hands, which earned her a smile of a radiance fit to blind angels. Mara wiggled her fingers at the baby, letting tiny blue stars sparkle off her fingertips as she cooed what sounded like nonsense. He quieted down at once and watched her with complete fascination.

The apartment seemed to glow with soothing golden light, just as their house had, and I felt the brush of Mara’s magic, as warmly reassuring as a fireside after a night in the cold. I could see the tension and paranoia dropping away from Sam as she walked inside.

Soraia also watched Mara and my friend noticed her as we straggled through the doorway.

“Hello, there, my little love,” Mara said.

Wavering, Soraia murmured, “Hello, Miss Witch.”

Mara laughed her whooping, infectious laugh. “My! You’re a polite one. Welcome to my home, little witchling.”

Soraia almost smiled. “I’m not a witch.”

“Oh, but you might be. It’s never wise to assume otherwise.” Mara winked at her and Soraia finally smiled.

Sam didn’t even seem upset by the exchange, though she did look a bit puzzled.

Mara turned her gaze on me and graced me with the same beaming grin. “And you! Harper! I feared you’d never cross my threshold again. I’m that pleased to see you!” She threw her free arm around me and pulled me into a hug. “I hope you’ve not been spreading yourself too thin as usual,” she whispered in my ear. “You look done in.”

“I’m better than I look.” I backed away far enough to see her whole face, rather than just an ear. “Rough night, that’s all.”

“So I gathered. Oh, Ben’s in the study with Brian. They’ll be out in a bit.” She turned her attention to Sam and Soraia. “Let’s go to the kitchen. The best parties always happen there. The lads’ll be along in a moment and I’ve got fresh flan, if you care for it. Brian’s decided it’s the best food in the world, so I’ve been making it by the busload!”

Like most boys, Brian seemed to have a well-honed radar for food, and he came scrambling into the kitchen a few minutes later with Ben in tow, chattering with glee.

“I saw one this time! I swear I did!” Brian had grown leggy and gangly like his father, his dark hair falling in his face and a sparkle of mischief in his eyes that was pure Mara. He looked older than
Soraia, but it could have been his unusual height as much as an actual point of age. “We’ll catch one next time, Da!”

He saw all of us and stopped dead at the edge of the large painted table Mara had ushered us to. She was busy putting Martim into a wooden high chair and looked up at Sam to introduce them. “These beasts are my son, Brian, and my husband, Ben. You’ll excuse the lack of manners—they’ve been off down the alleys hunting snarks, I suspect.”

Brian rushed forward, ignoring his mother completely, and threw his arms around my hips to give me a hug that almost knocked me down, while he shouted, “Harper!”

“Wow,” I said, giving him a half hug from my constrained position mostly above him. “I didn’t think you’d recognize me, Brian.”

“I would always rec’anize you, Harper. You’re all glowy. I missed you!”

Mara barely turned her head to chide her offspring, “I’m sure she was after missing you, too, y’little hellion. And did you wash your hands, or will I have to dump you in the sink and scrub you like an oyster again?”

“I washed!” Brian objected, letting go of me. “Da made me.”

Mara laughed and turned around, having secured the baby to her satisfaction. “Brian, say hello to the rest of our guests. This is Mrs. Rebelo and her children, Soraia and Martim. They’re going to stay with us for a few days.” Sam and Soraia both looked stunned. Martim just laughed and pounded on the high chair’s tray.

“Hello,” Brian said, nodding at Sam and Martim. Then he looked to Soraia. “Do you like flan? My mother makes the best flan in Spain.”

Soraia nodded, biting her lip and Brian abandoned me to go stand closer to her and discuss important things, like food, instead of how much soap he’d saved.

Mara looked at Ben who was standing where Brian had been a few seconds earlier. “And you?” she asked. “Was this one-sided washing?”

“You can’t tell from the water stains?” Ben, tall, stooped, and still looking more like an escapee from a road show production of
Yentl
than he did like an esteemed scholar of things religious, linguistic, and paranormal, was wet all down the front of his shirt and his black hair hung in damp curls around his face.

“Ah! That should have been a giveaway. You’re soaked through!”

Ben looked at Sam and started to offer his hand, then thought better of it. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Please excuse my drips. Brian thought he saw a nixie, so we had to chase it. I say it was pipe leak, but I’ve been wrong before.”

Mara scoffed. “Well then, dry off and sit down before our guests die of hunger.”

Martim made a fussy gurgle as demonstration. Ben darted out of the room and returned with a towel around his shoulders, but not much drier. He looked over the kitchen full of guests and his face lit as he saw me. “Harper! You made it! Where’s Quinton? Is he coming?”

I shook my head. “No, he’s ill. I tied him to the bed and made him stay in it to get some sleep or he’d have been here, too.”

Ben strode around the table and gave me a hug even more exuberant than his wife’s or son’s had been. I had to gasp for breath before he put me back down—Ben being one of the few men I know who’s substantially taller than I am.

“It’s so good to see you! I want to hear about every creature you’ve met in the past three years—any really good monsters? Didn’t you have a run-in with some merfolk and
dobhr chú
a while back? I’d have loved to see them!”

“I’m sure you would, but you’d have been a lot more wet than you are now,” I said, shooting a glance at Sam to see how she was taking all this.

Sam still seemed utterly confounded, her mouth slightly open and her eyes blinking. I wasn’t the only one to notice.

“Oh, Ben,” Mara said. “Don’t be pestering the woman already. There’re children starving in Spain, you know.”

He looked at her and tried to appear contrite. “Are there? Are any of them black-haired nixie-chasers?”

“No!” Brian shouted back, dragging up a blue chair next to Soraia’s red one. “I’m not starving. But Soraia and Martim are. C’mon, Da. We want to eat!”

Sam fell into her chair as if she were giving up all attempts at rationalizing any of the conversation so far. Ben helped Brian into the blue chair and made sure Sam and Soraia were comfortable while I helped Mara put the food on the table.

“She’s managing fairly well,” Mara whispered to me as she handed me a bowl.

“Who? Sam or Soraia?”

“Well, I was thinking of the little girl, but her mother does seem a bit dazed by it all.”

“She’s not too comfortable with the magic angle. And the kidnapping . . .”

Mara pursed her mouth and made a speculative sound. “True,” she said, and went back to getting the meal on the table. I wondered what she was thinking, but I couldn’t ask.

I should have realized that meals with the Danzigers wouldn’t have changed except to become more noisy as Brian got older.

Mara surveyed the room from her position at the foot of the table
and nodded. “Well, if we’re to get any peace from nixies, we’ll have to set an example ourselves. Brian?”

Brian became still and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” He fell silent and put his hands in his lap, waiting for her approval, but not fool enough to take his attention completely off the food. In a moment, everyone but Mara had followed Brian’s lead—even the baby—and a calm fell over the group. I couldn’t see Mara doing anything, but somehow the lull in the noise and activity made the room seem cooler and everyone in it more serene, less worried, and less stressed.

Mara sat down and looked us all over. She picked up her glass, which Ben had filled with water, and said, “May the hinges of our friendship never grow rusty.” Everyone but Martim got the hint and took a sip from their own glass. Then Mara took a long, slow breath and let it back out again with a satisfied sound. “Well, then. Everyone start a dish.”

We each turned our attention to the nearest dish of food and all sense of decorum and silence died.

Lunch was magnificent, the sort of huge, languorous meal Americans eat on holidays and at formal dinners, but in the Danziger household it was served without the stuffy manners and polite service. As I’d hoped, the kids got along like old friends and Soraia was ready to go investigate Brian’s room as soon as they’d finished eating, but Mara insisted they stay until the adults were ready to settle into postprandial conversation.

When we finally got up from the table, Brian and Soraia took some cookies and repaired to Brian’s room. Sam went to clean up Martim and tuck him under a blanket on the sofa for a nap while I helped the Danzigers clear the table.