Impervious (City of Eldrich Book 1) (14 page)

Chapter 24

T
he margaritas were
a hit even if they weren’t quite what Meaghan was used to. They had to replace her favorite prickly pear syrup with some of John’s honey, which, she had to admit, made them even better. She, Russ, and Melanie had a nice mellow glow by the time the rest of the dinner guests arrived.

When Jamie walked in laden with a diaper bag and a giant tossed salad, Meaghan couldn’t resist giving him a hug.

“What’s that for?” he asked, grinning.

“I’ve been looking at some old pictures. Looks like we’re family.”

Jamie grimaced. “You didn’t see the really old ones, did you? With the hair?”

Meaghan chuckled. “The hair and the dirt. You weren’t kidding about that. Don’t regrow the dreadlocks, okay?”

“No worries there. I get cranky if it’s touching my collar.”

A small girl ran into the kitchen. She was wearing a purple-and-orange striped polo shirt, a blue-and-yellow flowered skirt, and red cowboy boots. Her curly red hair spilled off her head in a tangled cascade to her shoulders. She stopped short when she saw Meaghan.

“I don’t know you,” she said to Meaghan. “Are you a stranger?”

“I don’t think so. I’m Meaghan. I live here. I’m Russ’s big sister.”

The child perked up. “I’m a big sister too.”

“Are you Liddy?” Meaghan asked. “Are you Ben’s big sister?”

Liddy looked cautious again. “How do you know me?”

“I work with your daddy.”

She thought about it a moment. “Like Natalie?”

“Like Natalie.”

“Well, that’s okay then,” Liddy said. She did a twirl. “Do you like my outfit? I picked it out all by myself.”

Meaghan smiled at her. “I’m sure you did. Very nice.”

Liddy nodded. “Daddy, is Melanie here?” she asked Jamie.

“What do you say to Meaghan for complimenting you?”

Liddy sighed dramatically. “Thank you, Meaghan.”

“You’re welcome, Liddy.”

Jamie rolled his eyes. “So gracious.”

“Melanie’s in the living room,” Meaghan said.

Liddy ran down the hall.

“She loves Melanie,” Jamie said. He set the salad bowl on the counter. “So I hear you’ve met the Troon.”

Meaghan nodded. “It’s been an interesting day. You and Natalie will be relieved to know that I’m finally coping.”

“Good,” he said, eyeing her like she might explode. “And how’s that going?”

“Better than I expected. I want to meet your other kid. Do you and Patrice want a margarita?”

Jamie nodded. “God, yes.”

More margaritas emerged from the blender. The burgers were great. Matthew appeared lucid, although he continued to act with happy surprise every time he saw Meaghan, and kept calling Natalie “Vivian.” The kids crawled all over him and Meaghan heard him call the baby “Russ” on several occasions. Still, he seemed to be content and enjoying himself.

And, boy, did he love Jamie. Matthew beamed with pride at the sight of him. Meaghan felt the last dregs of her resentment melt away. It was clear to her that Matthew hadn’t been lonely for a long time, and much of that was due to Jamie. Despite her sadness for all the lost time, the jealousy was gone, replaced with gratitude that her father hadn’t spent that time alone.

Over dinner, Meaghan tried to get to know Jamie and Patrice better. The dynamic was becoming familiar to her. It was a slightly different take on the oddness she’d felt when asking Melanie to stay for dinner. Then she’d been struck about how normal the conversation sounded despite Melanie’s obvious physical differences.

Sitting in the backyard with Jamie and Patrice asking about their children
looked
like a normal conversation, but the things being discussed shoved the whole thing off the deep end. Like trying to find a tactful way to ask the young parents if their children were completely human.

Patrice divined right away what Meaghan was trying to ask. “When I got pregnant with Liddy, we checked it out. We did a lot of ultrasounds with a local doc who’s clued in. To make sure, we had an amnio done. Completely normal human DNA.”

Jamie jumped in. “Natalie assured us the amulet makes me human. It doesn’t only change my appearance. But . . . well. Better to make sure.”

Meaghan nodded. She spared them having to explain what they would have done if Liddy had wings or extra vocal cords. Or if she were only a few inches tall.

“So,” she asked Patrice, “what does your family think of all this?”

Patrice shrugged. “Don’t have any other family as far as I know. I was raised in the foster care system. Down in Harrisburg.”

Meaghan blushed, embarrassed. “God, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Patrice shook her head. “Don’t be. I did okay. I don’t have any foster care horror stories. I had good placements. I got bumped around enough that I didn’t really settle in with any one family, but I liked most of them. I still send Christmas cards to a few. And it’s certainly made all this easier. I’m not sure how we’d explain Jamie to the in-laws if he had any.”

“Just a normal all-American guy,” Jamie said, with a big cheesy grin.

Patrice smacked him gently on the cheek. “Smart ass. It’s what made us so close so fast. We both understood what it was to feel different. To not have a so-called normal childhood.”

Fascinated, Meaghan pressed tactfully for details.

Jamie had told Patrice only days after they met about his “condition,” as he called it. “I knew the moment I met her she was the one,” Jamie said. “I almost dropped to one knee and proposed right there.”

“You did look kind of dazed,” Patrice said. “Like Cupid hit you with a shovel instead of an arrow.”

“So how do you have that conversation?” Meaghan asked. “‘Hey baby, wanna see my wings?’”

Patrice snorted with laughter. “He wasn’t that smooth.”

“He didn’t just rip the amulet off, did he?”

Patrice shook her head. “No. Natalie was there to help him.”

“Natalie?” Meaghan asked.

“Yeah,” Jamie said. “She followed me to college and law school. The amulet needs the occasional tune-up. The closer she is, the easier it is to sense if something’s going wrong. ”

“We met in Philly. I was finishing up my nursing degree. He was in law school. I thought Natalie was an ex who didn’t want to let go. It was kind of a relief to discover she was actually his magical babysitter.”

“That’s relief?” Meaghan asked and laughed.

“Well, it took me a little while to get there.”

“Before things went any further,” Jamie broke in, “I thought she should meet little Jamie—”

Patrice raised an eyebrow.

“Not that little Jamie,” he muttered, blushing.

Meaghan thought of him naked and blushed too. Little was really the wrong word. “Moving on,” she said.

Patrice laughed, a deep throaty chuckle that bordered on salacious.

“But,” Meaghan said, eager to change the subject. “How did that work? You were totally nuts when it happened last week.”

“Part of that was the city hall effect,” Jamie said. “Magnifying the magic. And I didn’t have time to prepare. My control is much better if I have time to center myself first. And Natalie built a magical . . . cage, I guess, before I changed so I couldn’t take off and so she could get the amulet back on.”

“Without a Taser?” Meaghan asked.

“Without a Taser. Thank God. I felt wrong for a couple of days after that.”

Meaghan had much less success chatting up Natalie. She wanted to talk to Natalie about the Order and the other force she’d sensed, but Natalie didn’t give her the chance. She dodged Meaghan whenever she got within speaking distance.

Natalie didn’t seem to welcome the news that Meaghan had started working through Matthew’s journals and files. Every time Matthew called her Vivian, she started and looked guilty for a moment. And Meaghan caught Natalie and Russ exchanging a couple of meaningful glances.

Which meant they were hiding something. It was either more occult crap or they were sleeping together. Since the big secret had already been revealed, Meaghan was betting on sex. Just so long as he doesn’t propose, Meaghan thought. I don’t need my office manager and head witch to be another ex-sister-in-law.

After Matthew almost fell asleep at the table, around eight thirty, Russ and Jamie helped him up to bed.

Meaghan chased lightning bugs with Liddy for a little while, then the Smiths headed home, Liddy sound asleep in Jamie’s arms as he carried her to the car. Ben was likewise asleep. Jamie and Patrice made the rounds, saying good night to Russ and Meaghan, the Troon, and Natalie who bolted out the door right behind them.

“Are the Troon staying here tonight?” Meaghan asked Russ.

Russ shook his head. “Nah. They’re going home. I need to drive them out to their gateway.”

“Gateway?”

“Some standing stones out in the woods.”

“Is that the hole in the reality fence?”

“One of them,” Russ said. “I’d bring you along, but somebody has to stay with Dad in case he wakes up. And you can’t drive them out there alone because you don’t know the woods well enough to get back on your own.”

Meaghan simply nodded. After her drive through the forest the day she arrived, she was no longer inclined to argue.

Melanie and the “boys”—Meaghan couldn’t help thinking of Sid and Wally that way despite their pan-gender status—cleaned up the kitchen while Meaghan and Russ put the folding tables and chairs back in the garage.

The Troon said their goodbyes, Melanie promised to return the following weekend to do more indexing, and they and Russ were out the door.

Chapter 25

M
eaghan took a
couple of ibuprofen, refilled her water glass, and headed out to the front porch. She wasn’t drunk, not really, but she’d had a lot of tequila throughout the evening and knew from experience how crappy she’d feel the next day if she didn’t drink a few glasses of water before going to bed.

This was the first time she’d sat outside at night since arriving in Eldrich. She shut off the hall and porch lights to see the fireflies better. The only light came from the kitchen at the back of the house. The moon hadn’t risen yet. No one else on Holly Lane had their porch lights on, and there were no streetlights in this part of town. Meaghan was surprised by how dark it became once night descended.

She stepped off the porch and gazed up at the stars. They were softer here, twinkled more. In Arizona, the dry air made the stars look like holes of light punched into black painted steel. Hard stars. No nonsense.

Meaghan felt a sudden, overwhelming pang of homesickness for the desert. In June, Phoenix was only beginning to experience the full heat of summer and it would stay that way until early October. For now, Eldrich was a fine place to be. But she dreaded the cold and dark of a northern Pennsylvania winter.

Maybe she could sneak away for a January visit, but she wouldn’t be living in Arizona again anytime soon, she suspected. Meaghan couldn’t imagine Phoenix had much magical activity going on. Phoenix seemed as impervious to magic as Meaghan herself. Too much new stuff.

With a heavy sigh, she sat on the porch steps. You never really want to be somewhere until you aren’t there anymore, she thought.

As Meaghan’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she began to see more than the flashing fireflies. After a few minutes, she realized that what she had assumed was a shrub, sitting next to the driveway four houses down across the street, was actually a figure. Crouching motionless, watching her. A figure in a dark cowled robe.

Her heart lurched. The tequila fuzz evaporated as adrenaline surged through her.

The Order. The women-hating bastards were staking out her house. Her eyes darted around trying to spot more of them as the panic rose within her.

And like a loyal fierce dog, the anger rose with it. The bastards were watching her house. With her father asleep upstairs. They were stalking her. They were coming after her in
her own
home.

“I see you,” she whispered. “I know who you are and I see you watching me.” She wasn’t sure why she knew, but she knew he could hear her. The dark figure, startled, scuttled away and dissolved into the night. If there were any others around, she hoped they had also heard her and fled.

Feigning calm, Meaghan picked up her water glass and strolled into the house.

Once inside, she shut the door, twisted the deadbolt, and closed and locked every open window she saw on her way back to the kitchen, flipping on lights as she went. Heart pounding, she rushed to the kitchen door, slammed it shut, and locked it. She pulled a giant chef’s knife from the block next to the stove, and, shaking, sat at the table to wait for Russ.

Cell phone, idiot, call his cell, she thought after a few frozen moments. Warn him. Hands shaking, she dialed his number on the kitchen wall phone. After five rings it went to voice mail.

“Russ, the Order, I think it’s them, are watching us. Get home now. I’m locked in the house. I think I scared away the one I saw, but I don’t know if there’s more. Hurry. Please. Call me on the landline.”

Meaghan hung up and returned to her seat at the kitchen table, clutching the knife in her trembling fist. After two very long minutes, she called Russ again. She got a recording this time saying the phone was out of the service area. The panic bubbled back up until she remembered that Russ was driving through a forest where cell phone coverage was notoriously spotty.

“Get a grip,” she told herself in a stern voice. “Think it through.” She forced herself to take several slow deep breaths. Panic wouldn’t help.

She’d seen one guy, only one, and he fled the moment he knew she’d seen him. That suggested reconnaissance, not attack. Besides, why come after her and Matthew? In his addled state, Matthew was no threat. Neither was Meaghan, for that matter, this early on the job. Besides, both of them were impervious and the house was filled with Natalie’s protective hex bags. If they couldn’t attack Meaghan, why watch her? And why tonight?

Jamie, she thought. Emily had attacked Jamie. What if her actions had been about more than scaring Meaghan away? If Emily had simply wanted to pull the rational world out from under Meaghan’s feet, she could have turned someone into a toad or whatever the hell it was bitchy witches did to show off. But, she’d gone after Jamie. With borrowed magic. Emily knew that Matthew and Meaghan were both impervious. Yet, she’d been visibly shocked when she couldn’t hex Meaghan.

It made no sense. Unless somebody told her the borrowed magic would overcome Meaghan’s imperviousness. The Order were mercenaries. But who had hired them? Between Emily and the unnamed baddy that Natalie had sensed, Meaghan’s bet was on Big Bad.

Natalie said that Matthew’s absence had made some bad actors bolder. Was Fahraya blowing up again? Although Meaghan didn’t know the details, there’d been a power struggle and John, the king, had lost. He could never go back without his wings, but Jamie was still intact and the rightful heir to John’s throne. Which made him a threat to somebody.

Heart in her throat, she ran upstairs for her cell phone. She didn’t know Jamie’s home number, but had his cell number programmed into her phone. Before heading back downstairs, she looked in on Matthew. He snored, his breathing soft and steady, sound asleep.

Meaghan crept back downstairs to call Jamie. She got one ring, then right to voice mail. She hoped he was on the other line and hadn’t shut the phone off for the night.

“Jamie,” she said, walking into the kitchen. “It’s Meaghan. Russ is taking the Troon home and I’ve got a little trouble. We’re okay, but call me as soon as you get this.” She didn’t mention the Order because she wasn’t sure he knew about them.

But Natalie knew about them. And Meaghan really needed to hear a familiar voice right now, to calm her down if nothing else.

More voice mail. Considering how weird Natalie had been acting earlier, she might be screening.

“Hey, Natalie, it’s Meaghan,” she said to voice mail. “I’ve got a problem. One of those Order guys is skulking around—”

The back door exploded open, the glass inset shattering with the force. Meaghan screamed and dropped the phone.

A figure in a dark gray robe stood in the broken doorway. The deep cowl hid his face. She could tell it was a he by his large hands, which he held out in front of him. He laughed, the sound cruel and full of malice.

A mistake, she reflected later, always made by bad guys when dealing with those they perceived as weak. Her rage rose up like a monolith, smooth and huge.

“Get the fuck out of my house.”

Instead, he stepped further into the kitchen, muttering and waving his hands. Time seemed to slow in the same way it did when Emily attacked Jamie and Natalie in the conference room.

With detached calm, Meaghan observed every detail of his appearance. He was about the same height as Meaghan, but thin, his forearms bony where they protruded from the sleeves of his robe.

She even had time to remember the old trope about vampires requiring an invitation to enter a home. Something to do with the protection provided by a threshold.

So much for that idea. The man in the gray robe strolled in like he owned the place.

Which angered Meaghan even more. Her vision began to get red around the edges, but not the red she sometimes saw behind her eyelids if she stood up too fast or looked at the sun too long. An angry red, a murderous red, framed the wizard.

So that’s where the cliché comes from, she thought, watching the man come closer. The rage left no room for fear. Meaghan surveyed the kitchen for a weapon. The cowled figure stood between her and the knife she’d left on the kitchen table. Judging by his scrawny arms, the man took his asceticism to heart. He was a skeleton with skin. And because he relied on magic, she bet he didn’t make much effort to take care of his body, while Meaghan ate well and kept fit. In a physical confrontation, she knew she could take this guy.

He continued chanting and waving, seemingly unaware that magic didn’t work on Meaghan.

Time to clue him in. She grabbed a small saucepan out of the dish drainer. Russ only used high-grade commercial cookware, solid stuff made out of stainless steel. With riveted handles and heavy, reinforced bottoms. This particular saucepan had a copper disk in the bottom, sandwiched between two thick steel layers. It was a lot heavier than it looked, but small enough for Meaghan to wield with ease.

The hooded figure, now standing directly in front of her, finished his chant with a guttural cry and one last flourish of his hands.

Nothing happened.

He gasped and stepped back fast.

Meaghan stepped forward. “Nice try, Mr. Wizard,” she snarled. With a firm backhand, she slammed the bottom of the saucepan into the center of the cowl. She felt a satisfying crunch and heard a bubbling gasp of pain. He bent over, face buried in his hands.

Broken nose, she thought. Not good enough. With a savage, wordless cry, she swung the pan with both hands, hitting him square on the temple.

He crumpled to the ground. Meaghan kicked him a few times until her rage began to wane. She pulled back the cowl and looked at a half-starved boy of about seventeen, his face covered in blood from his mangled nose.

Meaghan’s anger evaporated. He was only a scrawny kid. What the hell?

With shaking fingers, she checked his pulse. It was strong and steady. At least she hadn’t killed him. She rolled back his eyelids. Both pupils were the same size.

Now what? First thing, she had to restrain him. The strong pulse and equal pupils assured her she didn’t need to rush him to a hospital. She wanted some questions answered first, while she still had leverage.

Meaghan’s cold pragmatism startled her. What if he was seriously injured? She realized she didn’t care. He attacked her in her own home and she defended herself. She decided she could be appalled by her callous indifference later. Right now she had more urgent things to worry about.

She yanked open the junk drawer. Duct tape. Perfect. She pulled out the roll and stared at the body on the floor, considering the best way to proceed when another bang, accompanied by a flash of light, shook the kitchen.

This time it was Natalie. And Kady. And several women Meaghan didn’t know. All suddenly materialized around the table.

“Wow,” Meaghan said. “That was fast. Help me duct tape this guy to a chair, okay?”

Kady, her eyes wide, said, “What did you do?”

“Hit him with a saucepan,” Meaghan said.

One of the other women, older with a tidy silver bouffant, stared at Meaghan, somewhere between impressed and disbelieving. “You did that with a saucepan?”

Meaghan shrugged. “It’s a good saucepan. My brother only buys the best.”