Chapter Ten

Lydia

Police Chief Taliyah Morgan was waiting for us in the central waiting room.

In an unlikely turn of events, the place was deserted except for a few of Haven Hollow's supernatural citizens. Taliyah was pacing, her coat draped over one arm, looking thoroughly unsettled. The waiting room was about twenty degrees cooler than the rest of the hospital. Being in proximity to a spooked faerie princess of Winter felt a lot like waltzing into a meat locker.

She turned to me when I walked into view. Some of the nervous energy bleeding off her lessened. Her eyes softened when she said, "Hey. How is Ivan doing?"

"He's in surgery right now," I answered. "Doctor says he should be fine." I frowned as something occurred to me. "Uh... aren't you guys a little afraid that Ivan's going to heal too quickly?" As I understood it, most supernaturals had the ability to heal faster than ordinary humans. "I mean, wouldn't that raise suspicions with the human hospital staff?"

"It would, normally, but Wanda and Maverick came up with contingencies for these types of situations," Taliyah said.

"What sort of contingencies?"

Taliyah shrugged. "They make their own medical supplies with various spells and potions laced into the material."

"Like healing potions?"

"Healing potions mixed in with other things," she nodded. "The doctors had to have come into contact with the supplies on Ivan while they were operating, so they'll be very fuzzy about this particular patient. Maverick will take care of the rest when he's well enough to travel."

"So, let me get this straight," I began. "You guys are going to... Jedi mind trick Ivan out of the hospital with no one being the wiser?"

"That's pretty much the skinny, Dollface," the dark-haired woman in the corner piped up. "Since we ain't got no supernatural doctor ‘round here, we do what we can." Then she paused and gave me a huge grin. "Why don't you sit down? Watchin' both of you dolls pace is makin' me real dizzy."

The woman looked vaguely familiar. I remembered she'd attended meetings of the Black Cat Cocktail Club. The few I'd been to, at any rate. I'd been busy setting up my shop, so my time was usually better spent sober elsewhere.

Regardless, she was also friendly with her big, girlish grin. Currently, her hair was tucked under a cloche hat. She looked to be around my age, though she had the porcelain fine features I could only dream of. There was a classical look about her, but I couldn't put my finger on what in particular gave her that quality.

The quality is age, Indigo answered. She used to be a ghost, remember? Dead over a century?

Oh, that's right. What was her story again?

The coven's High Witch, Wanda, had her power blighted by a vampire. She created all the abominations in town.

‘Abomination' is a harsh word, I thought back. And not every single one of them was made by Wanda. Florence was the creation of a former Blood Witch named Betanya Tayir.

The irritating exchange did work in my favor, though. The shock of our discovery had made things fuzzy for a while. Now the details were coming back to me. The woman in the corner was an ex-ghost named Darla. She and Libby the zombie used to live together, but as I understood it, Darla now lived in Taliyah's brother's house, because he'd been murdered and now he was possessing Darla or something like that. And he had been the former Police Chief of Haven Hollow, which probably explained what Darla was doing here—Taliyah wanted her brother's take on what had happened to Ivan.

Two blood witches in this goddess forsaken town, Indie spat. That's so much better.

Again, glass house. Rock. Throw at your own risk, Indie. Because from where I'm standing, you were already cut to slivers by your own hypocrisy.

She didn't say anything to that, but I got the sense I'd hurt her feelings. Good. It was probably cruel of me, but there wasn't a reason I could fathom that would excuse what she'd been a part of.

"Are you okay?" Angelo asked. He wrapped his fingers around my arm, squeezing gently. I didn't respond immediately, and he frowned. "Hey, what's the matter? What happened?"

"Other than the obvious?" I asked with a bleak laugh.

"Yeah, other than that." He continued to study me and then shook his head. "But it's not just that that's worrying you. Talk to me."

I took a deep breath. I didn't expect it to be as shaky as it was. "Nothing. I'm fine, just worried."

He gave me another scrutinizing look. "No, that's not worried. I know worried, worried is Rodney opening credit cards in your name. This isn't worried, this is something else." He leveled his gaze with mine. "Talk to me, Lydia."

I swallowed hard. "It's silly."

"Tell me what's wrong."

I paused. "I think I need to talk to Marty first."

I didn't mean to let the thought slip out and regretted it almost instantly. Put like that, there were only so many ways that Angelo could take my meaning, and none of them were close to the truth. I'd have to spill Marty's secret if I wanted to back out of this one and I wasn't going to spill it—not when I'd given him my word that I wouldn't.

Instantly, Angelo's expression shifted from concern to suspicion. "Why?"

"Because," I said quickly. "He's... he's sort of looking out for me."

"I'm looking out for you," Angelo replied tightly.

"Right. I, uh, I guess you both are." I didn't meant to sound so sheepish, but there it was.

Angelo's expression said he was pissed and then some. "I went to literal hell to find you. Marty takes you to lunch and buys you tofu or something and now you both are best friends?"

"I... It's not..." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "It's not like that."

"Then what is it like?"

"I'm not dating Marty. We're... he's... well, he's..."

"It's okay," a gentle voice said from the doorway.

My head snapped up, and I twisted at the waist to watch Marty stroll in. He looked like he'd just rolled out of bed and put on the first thing he'd found. The jeans had what looked like an oil stain on one calf, and his shirt needed a date with an ironing board stat. His graying hair stuck out in every direction, and dark shadows ringed his blue eyes. Still, his smile was good-natured and handsome, like it always was. He shoved his hands into his pockets, staring at me expectantly.

"Marty..." I began.

"Go ahead and tell them," he answered.

"But—"

"—it has to happen sometime, and Tally needs to hear whatever you have to say too. This is about more than just me or you now."

My throat constricted painfully. Marty was a good guy—too good to survive this world for long. This world of monsters tended to chew you up and spit you out—and that was if you were lucky. If you were unlucky, you got the Roman candle treatment like Indie had.

My eyes were burning with the effort it took not to cry. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to blurt anything out."

"It's fine." Another big, boyish grin. "And you really didn't blurt anything."

Marty took the steps that separated us and took me by the hand, tugging me to a row of empty seats. I didn't struggle when he pushed me down into one of the cheap, green chairs that lined the wall. He took the one across from me and leaned forward in his seat.

"What happened?" Taliyah asked, making a fresh circuit of the room. Angelo made no motion to do anything, just stood there staring at Marty and me, and his expression wasn't a happy one. Meanwhile, frost was spiraling out from every slap of Taliyah's shoes on the tile. The rings of ice shone for a few seconds and then began to melt without magic to keep it cold. I wondered how she didn't slip in the water and fall on her ass. Then her face clouded as she settled her eyes on Marty who, as I understood it, was actually her cousin. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I have lots to tell you," he started.

Taliyah's jaw tightened even further. "Marty, you better start telling me what the hell you know about what happened to my deputy, to Ivan or to Florence," she demanded.

He held his hands up defensively. "I don't know what happened to Florence and Ivan or your deputy."

"Then I'll repeat my question—what are you doing here?"

"I'm supposed to look out for Lydia, that's all."

"You," Taliyah repeated skeptically. "You're supposed to look after her?"

Marty's smile was sheepish. "Yeah, kind of. There are dangerous people after her and Jonathan Moses thought she needed someone who couldn't be bespelled watching over her." He took a breath. "And you might remember, I'm a null." He looked proud of himself when he said it.

"Jonathan Moses?" Taliyah repeated, and looked completely flummoxed. And also still annoyed.

Marty nodded. "We've been working on ferreting out what Indigo was up to before she was killed. Lucretia Boline, the head witch of the Hexus Rangers—"

"—I know who Lucretia Boline is!" Taliyah interrupted.

"Well, she's given me all the details she has about this whole Indigo situation, but even those details fall short of what Lucretia suspects was going on."

"What does any of that mean?" Taliyah asked and scrunched up her eyes like she was getting a headache.

"Since Indigo isn't alive to testify against her criminal buddies, Lydia is the next best thing," Marty explained. "So, we are trying to get everything we can from Lydia's dreams."

"Jonathan Moses," Angelo repeated, sounding out the words like they didn't make sense. "Of the Hunter Guild of America?"

Marty shrugged as he looked over at Angelo. "Yeah, that's the one."

"When the fuck did you become a hunter?" Angelo suddenly exploded, his face flushing as anger overcame his features. "You're supposed to be a graphic designer or a ghost hunter or some shit!"

"Can't I be all three?" Marty asked innocently with a shrug. "I'm a graphic designer by day, a ghost hunter on occasion and a monster hunter when Jonathon Moses needs me."

"When did that happen?" Darla asked. She looked a little disturbed by the revelation, but not angry like Angelo was. Actually, Angelo wasn't angry, he was fuming.

"And why did that happen?" Taliyah added.

Marty ducked his head. "I just... I couldn't stand by after that incident with the Fury. So many of my friends could have been hurt, and I was too weak, too ignorant about magic to help them. So, I decided to do something about it."

"By becoming a hunter?" Angelo continued, shaking his head. Taliyah was still staring at Marty like he'd just grown another eye.

Marty shrugged. "Yes, and I'm also Lydia's… well, bodyguard, I guess you could call it."

"I'm her bodyguard," Angelo insisted.

"Can't she have two?" Marty asked.

"No," Angelo answered and gave him a glare.

Marty ignored him and, instead, turned his attention back to Taliyah. "The guy who's after Lydia seems to prefer to use magic as his weapon."

"And what the hell can you do about that?" Angelo demanded.

Marty didn't take his attention away from Taliyah. "I'm working with someone to try to project my abilities of dampening magic outside of myself, so I could theoretically shield someone else from magic, too—using my null abilities."

"So, you don't want to off us, not-quite-human folks, right?" Darla checked and looked a little nervous.

Marty appeared genuinely horrified at that. "No, of course not! I want to keep the people in Haven Hollow from getting hurt!"

Darla considered that and then nodded slowly. "That's good enough for me."

"It's not good enough for me," Taliyah snapped. For a faerie of Winter, her temper was scorching. "Explain what you mean about Indigo being a criminal."

"Um... so far as I can tell, she was wanted by other witches for some kind of dark magic violations," Marty answered, mainly because I couldn't. No, I felt like a huge toad had taken up tenancy in my throat and I could barely swallow. I wasn't sure if that was Indie's doing or just my own reaction to this tangled web.

"What sort of dark magic violations?" Taliyah demanded.

"Like seriously dark stuff, not the curses that Wanda and the other witches do," Marty answered.

"Explain," Taliyah ordered.

"Necromancy, and that sort of thing," Marty responded. "Which is different than blood witches raising zombies, though I'm kind of fuzzy on the magical distinction between the two."

"So, Lydia is fused to the magic of a seriously disturbed witch?" Taliyah asked, as Marty nodded. "What's to say that Lydia couldn't also have been involved in these illegal proceedings?" Taliyah continued as she turned her cold gaze to me. "She still could be."

"Jesus," Angelo muttered, shaking his head. "You could win the Olympics with that leap, Chief Morgan."

"I have to consider all angles," Taliyah answered.

For my own part, I could understand why her suspicion extended to me—it was only natural since Indie and I were sharing the same body—but she didn't know that. No, as far as everyone was concerned, I'd simply absorbed Indie's powers. I couldn't seem to find the strength to defend myself though, so I was beyond relieved when Angelo carried that mantle for me.

"I can tell you that Lydia absolutely had nothing to do with this," he insisted. "At the time the deed with your deputy, Ivan and Florence was done, Lydia was screaming herself awake from a nightmare."

"A nightmare?" Taliyah repeated, spearing her narrowed gaze from him to me.

Angelo nodded. "Indigo's memories don't seem to be a pleasant place to be. Not to mention the fact that Lydia would have had to gain about three hundred pounds and sprout claws to be responsible for what happened to Ivan and the deputy."

"That's not to say—" Taliyah started.

"Tally, does she really look like she can eviscerate a dragon shifter and upend a cop car?" Marty cut in.

Taliyah gave me a frank appraisal, as if she was taking the question seriously. She frowned after a second and turned away, an arctic wind whipping through the room in time with her movements.

"I want to find whatever or whoever did this," she whispered, and her words somehow managed to be audible, despite the rush of her power through the room. It was almost as if the wind carried her words. She turned back to face me. "So, tell me what you know, Lydia."

I shrank in my seat, cowed by the sheer alien nature of her presence. Staring at her, I had the sense that behind the mask of a small-town cop lay something that could bury me under layers of ice, watch me turn blue, and not care about it in the least. The old stories, like the ones in the books at Occult Oddities, painted faeries as things that were completely separate from humanity. Modern fairy tales had scrubbed that understanding clean, making the fae seem like they were just like us, but it wasn't true. Not when they were at their most elemental, anyway.

I had to clear my throat before I could speak. "Yesterday I thought I saw Indie's nieces in the Half-Moon Bar and Grill. Marty says they can't be related to Indigo though, because they're mundanes. Which obviously means they have no magic." I shook my head. "But I swear to you, that Estelle and Lavinia Hallewell are in Haven Hollow, somehow posing as humans."

"How do you know that?" Taliyah asked.

"Well, I don't for sure. But I'm going on what I do know from Indie's memories. The dark stuff Indigo was involved with had to do with draining magic from creatures." Taliyah swallowed hard at that as Angelo swore. I ignored them both. "So, I figure it's not out of the question that someone targeted Estelle and Lavinia and sucked the magic right out of them."

"But that doesn't explain why they're alive," Marty added. "As far as we know, removing magic from supernatural creatures results in the death of said creatures."

I nodded and continued explaining. "From what I could see from Indigo's memories, separating monsters from their magic does usually kill them, as Marty said."

"Right," Taliyah nodded. "So?"

"So, I think it's possible that whoever was after Indie is coming here, to Haven Hollow, to do the same thing she was doing. And maybe they started with Ivan and Florence, I guess."

Taliyah's face was still that unnerving, alien blankness as she listened to my explanation. A little animation crept back in when Maverick returned to the room and reported, "Wanda can't go out in daylight thanks to the vampire ruse, but Betanya and Olga have agreed to take a look at the scene when you're ready."

Taliyah nodded. "Good. I'll call some more of our people to guard Ivan while he's recovering in the ICU. Now, all of you out. I need to talk to Maverick, and I don't need you listening in."

Marty gave me a shrug and a ‘what can you do' look. He offered me a hand, but Angelo beat him to it, seizing my arm before Marty could take it. He gave Marty a look that dared him to argue. Marty didn't, as easygoing as ever.

"Let's take a walk," Angelo said, pulling me to my feet.

We were out the door before I could even think to argue.

"We need to talk," he continued.

"Probably the worst four words in the English language," I said dryly.