Dead Rising (12 page)

D
AD WAS SERVING
up a dose of fatherly advice along with his famous French toast. Luckily I was the only one awake to hear it. I hated getting lectured in front of an audience, even if that audience was my family.

“I get it, Solaria, really I do.” He flipped the bread expertly and it sizzled in the pan. “We all need to sow oats, some of us more than others.”

He winked, and I knew what he meant. Great-grandma Essie’s blood flowed through our veins. We might not talk about it, we might pretend that she was just an eccentric branch off of our stately family tree, but in spite of our ability to deny what was right in front of our faces, we all knew. Essie was a witch, a gifted woman of the wild, a dark-haired gypsy from Eastern Europe. And thus she was the scapegoat for every undesirable trait her descendants possessed. I felt a stir of anger about that. I was more than a mish-mash of my family’s genetic pool, I was me. And only
I
was responsible for my life choices.

“I’m not sowing oats, Dad. Nor am I planning on harvesting grains of any kind. I’m just living my life, which happens to be different than the one you and Mom had planned for me.”

He smiled and shook his head. Mom got angry. My sister, my brother, and I got angry. Great-grandma Essie
really
got angry. Dad never got angry. I mean never. He’d get that stern look in his eyes sometimes, but that was as close to a display of temper as I’d ever seen. He was the most controlled man I’d ever met in my life. Dario came close, but his dry humor put him a lap or two behind my father.

“Come on. Your mother and I both know that vampire you brought home isn’t your boyfriend. Aren’t you a little old to be acting out like this? I get it that you feel this need to express your individuality, to rage against the family way, but this sort of thing is juvenile.”

He slid the French toast onto a plate and handed it to me, just a hint of disappointment in his bright blue eyes. It worked. I felt like shit. Why was it that when it came to my family I always reverted into an immature, rebellious teenager?

“He’s not my boyfriend. I’m researching something for the vampire
Balaj
up in Baltimore, and he’s allegedly facilitating.”

“Ah. Making sure you get the job done, huh?” Dad. There was no fooling him. “What are these vampires paying you?”

“Nothing,” I lied.

He smiled again, and this time it reached his eyes. Just barely. “Good. That’s my girl.”

Templars weren’t supposed to take payment for our work. It was all for the betterment of humanity, for the glory of God and the Righteous Path of Truth. Of course, even guardians of the Path can’t exist without food and shelter. There were donations, tithes. Substantial ones, and I suspect many of them were not voluntary. Basically we were all trust-fund babies, each earning according to the level of their knighthood. Inheritance rights also had some play in the matter. I’d never been privy to the details, but we had an estate in horse country, went to private schools, and enjoyed regular vacations in Europe.

I didn’t get a stipend. I wasn’t a Knight and thus was not eligible. Those regular deposits into my other, untouched checking account were courtesy of my parents. Yes, it stung to be the black sheep of the family, on a sort of allowance at the age of twenty-six, but I’d been raised to be a Templar. There weren’t exactly living-wage opportunities for those skills outside of knighthood, and slinging coffee on the corner didn’t even pay for my lousy apartment. Still, it would take a lot for me to swallow my pride and accept what I’d come to view as charity. Demanding payment for my work for the vampires somehow seemed better than dipping into my “allowance”.

“So, let’s see it.”

“Huh?”

A tiny frown creased Dad’s brow in response to my speaking with my mouth full of breakfast. Swallowing, I tried that again. “See what?”

“Whatever it is that brought you home this weekend.” He reached out a hand. “Normally wild horses wouldn’t drag you here for family time, so I’m assuming your visit has something to do with your research for the vampires.”

Did I mention that nothing got past Dad? Well, nothing except my lie about not taking payment. I took another bite of French toast and dug in my pocket, unfolding the crumpled copy of the symbol.

Dad ran a finger over the creases, smoothing them and tracing the lines of my photocopied version. “Got some Mars influence here, it seems.”

I felt a swell of pride. Yeah, I’d seen that.

“Did you check Cicero?” he asked.

“Yes.” Sheesh. I might not be a Knight, but I knew the basics.

“Swift and Beachum?”

I nodded. “Yes. It doesn’t match anything there either.”

Swift and Beachum’s Cabalistic Rites was a huge, heavy tome only printed in eighteen-by-twenty size. Thus I’d left my copy here. After I’d left Dario’s room, I’d been unable to sleep, so I’d stayed up nearly all night scouring the enormous book.

I leaned over, my shoulder touching his. “I thought this circle here could be the one for health, but maybe it’s life?”

His finger traced the symbol again. “I wish you had the original. Pressure points in the ink often reveal the individual symbols and which one is predominant in the spell.”

A warmth washed over me. This felt so good, so right, to be here with my father discussing the finer points of symbolism in magic. God, how I’d missed this. Had I made a mistake to leave all this behind? Then I remembered the joy I felt in the summoning circle—and the fear when the demon broke free. Never had I been so close to death, and to life.

“I also saw the symbol on some graves this week—graves where magic raised five specters.”

He nodded. “Necromantic?”

“That’s what I was thinking. The symbol on the graves was very faint. I’m thinking whoever the mage is, he or she figured it would have washed off before anyone noticed it. I don’t know how that relates to the vampires, or what their interest is in the symbol.”

Dad turned the paper upside down. Sometimes viewing from a different angle brought a revelation. “Well, technically they’re dead, too. Could be this is something that could be used against them?”

That was one possibility. “Or it could be they have an interest in the necromancer for other reasons, and are trying to find a way to track him or her through the symbol.”

Magic was personal. Even following a ritual from someone else’s grimoire didn’t keep a mage from leaving what amounted to a graffiti tag of magic on the sigil, the site, even the spell’s residual energy. Every practitioner knew to be careful with hair, fingernails, and especially blood. There wasn’t much they could do about magic tags, though. No matter how skilled, everyone left a calling card.

“We’ll need to check the vault tonight.”

I felt a tingle of excitement at Dad’s words. The vault could only be opened at certain times, and was sealed with a blood lock. The books there were some of the most definitive works on magic and the divine ever written. We were honored to be caretakers for a few original versions, but most were copies, laboriously scribed hundreds of years ago.

“Bible of the Curses?”

Dad nodded. “It’s a good place to start. Or possibly Peterson’s Monsters of the New World.”

I frowned. “You don’t think it’s European?”

My father folded the paper and handed it back. “I think it’s custom crafted, an amalgamation of European and North American magicks.”

I tucked the paper back into my pocket and thought as I finished my breakfast. Initially I had assumed that whatever this symbol did, it was detrimental to the vampires, rather than a method for them to trace the practitioner. To track down the necromancer, they’d need a magic user of their own. A Templar Knight was supposed to freely give information, but concocting a trace spell was beyond our duties and responsibilities. I doubted Leonora had a mage on retainer, or she wouldn’t have come to me for this information, so I was banking on the first theory. The symbol was involved in raising dead spirits, and something about that made the vampires very uneasy.

A custom symbol was one that only worked under the hands of a powerful magician. A question to add to my growing stack was one about the caster’s intent. Was he purposely targeting the vampires, or was the effect toward them only a byproduct? Hopefully we’d find out tonight once Dad opened the vault.

“You know, if you’d stayed, you would have had access to the vault yourself.”

I cringed, covering my reaction up by taking my plate to the sink to rinse and stack in the dishwasher. My brother and sister were good Knights, really good, but I had been the golden child. The youngest of three, I’d shown the most promise. The power of the third, Mother had always said. And thus the pressure, and the ultimatum.

“But that’s history.” Dad waved his spatula. “Go get your tennis clothes on while I finish cooking these up for your lazy siblings. We’ve got a busy day ahead of us.”

Shit. Tennis. I closed the dishwasher and glanced over toward my father. The bones in his hands were sharp; brown spots that I didn’t remember now dotted the skin. Time was a foe none of us could conquer. We’d had our differences. I still dreaded family time. But deep down, there were memories of my childhood that I’d always cherish, long after my parents left their mortal shells behind.

“Love you, Dad.” I kissed him, and saw him flush with embarrassment at the physical affection. “And this time I’m going to kick your ass on the court.”

He transferred the spatula and swatted at me. I easily evaded his hand. When had I become quicker than my Dad?

“Watch your language in this house, young lady,” he scolded. “And you most certainly won’t ‘kick my ass’. Not this time. Not ever.”

I
CAME IN
dead last at tennis. Again. Which is the reason why the entire family always argued over who was going to be my partner. Great-grandma Essie finally yelled that she’d participate. I wasn’t hoping for much, especially since I doubted she’d ever played tennis in her life. She hadn’t. It didn’t matter because she broke all the rules and used magic to return the ball, cackling gleefully when she managed to slam it into an opponent’s legs or torso.

Gran was finally banned from the court. Well, bribed by mimosas, actually, because no one banned Great-grandma Essie from anything. Which left me with Roman’s youngest son, Ajax…who was five.

Croquet was minimally better. By the time lunch was over, I’d had my fill of genteel sports and smoked turkey sandwiches and was glad that we had “free time” until tea.

Yes, tea. Because in my family it was a crime to go more than three hours without eating something. The fine china and tea growing cold in the pot were our nod to the customs of our ancestors across the pond. Tea in the Ainsworth family meant it was time to bring out the whisky and more sandwiches—ham this time. Evidently I wasn’t the only one who needed hard liquor after ten hours of family time. I was eagerly anticipating tea, err, whisky.

But first, the stables. I snagged a few carrot slices off the luncheon tray and made my way across the thick green grass to the picturesque brown and white building surrounded by looping rows of painted wood fencing. First things first, I searched the freshly cleaned stalls in my quest to find the puppies.

Oh, they were adorable. At eight weeks they were rowdy, plump little balls of white and brown fur. Their terrier of a mom had come to us pregnant, and I’d been told by a very sad Ajax that the rescue already had homes for all six of them. I wished I could take one back with me, but my landlord would have a fit. I’m sure a puppy would be happy to add to the collection of stains on the carpet padding, but I really didn’t have time for a pet or the money. Sheesh, I could hardly take care of myself.

I left the pups and went to visit another animal I wished I had the time and money for—the horses. We had quite a few here, and the staff to handle all the poop, feeding, and turnout schedules they required. There were four draft crosses, six hunters, and three feisty ponies. I checked the status board in the stable to see if any were lame or injured, then grabbed a grooming box and loaded up my arms with tack.

Peace was my choice today. My siblings usually went for the bigger horses, but I liked the ponies. Being able to hop off in the field without worrying how the heck I was going to climb back on was a plus, as was not getting constantly whacked in the head by tree branches. Peace and I had a lovely ride, and I fed the little gray mare my leftover luncheon carrots after we returned.

“Tea” required a quick shower and a change of clothes. Even taking my time, I’d beat most of my family downstairs. Roman was the only one in the sunroom when I came in. He already had a tumbler of whisky in hand, and quickly turned to pour one for me.

“So, how long did it take Mom to jump all over you about taking your Oath?” he asked, handing me the glass.

“Pfft. I don’t think you all were even in bed yet. Heck, my car was still warm from the drive up.”

He laughed, leaning back against the mahogany buffet cabinet. “Just do it, Ari. You know she won’t give in until you do.”

I gulped whisky, enjoying the burn and the warmth as it went down my throat. “It’s my life, Roman. I spent every moment except the last six months living it as others wanted me to. No more.”

He saluted me with his glass. “It’s not that I don’t admire your little rebellion, baby sis, but you haven’t toed the line since birth. In fact, you’ve done nothing
but
dig your heels in. The pink, frilly bedroom? Hiding from your tutor nearly every day? Sticking a giant dildo on the end of your lance at the tournament? Shall I go on?”

There was no rule against jousting with a penis. None. I’d checked. “I won that tournament. The youngest by five years at the least, and I won.”

“Because everyone tends to be thrown off their game seeing an enormous phallus coming at their heads. You won because you danced your way around the rules, Aria. Just like you dance your way around all the rules.”

There was a tinge of bitterness in Roman’s voice. It was the familiar bitterness of the eldest who’d always done as he was asked only to be upstaged by his wild, reckless youngest sister. I understood. And I also knew he was right. Still, even though I hadn’t always lived my life the way others wanted, those “little rebellions” hadn’t done much besides allow me to lodge a protest. I still learned Latin. I still jousted in the tourney. And I had to sleep in that pink bedroom. This was different. This was me deciding to be me.