Chapter 11

11

T he town is a mere twenty-minute drive from the cabin, now that the tree is neatly chopped to pieces and branches cleared off to the side.

Delina stares out at them as they drive by, the frustration and awfulness of even the day before almost foreign to her, but they're past it in a blink of an eye, the break in the foliage small.

"Okay," Gurlien says, as soon as they're into the small town, with its Americana stores and tiny cafes. "Chloe, you need the library or Charlies?"

"Charlies," Chloe says confidently, hoisting her backpack over her shoulder once Gurlien parks on the sparsely populated street. "Internet's better and we can get coffees."

Without the biting wind, the rain drifts like an afterthought once Delina steps out of the car, but she pulls the jacket tighter around her chest as Chloe and Gurlien step into one of the indistinguishable cafes.

Mason catches her by the elbow before she can follow them in, just touching her jacket and not her. "Delina, one sec."

In the chill air, his cheeks are pink, and the rain settles into his brown hair like a mist.

She jerks her elbow out of his grasp. "Yeah?" she says, and they're actually in public, there's some people across the street, she doesn't know what could be said when out and about like that. There's still so much she doesn't know, an aching chasm of unknowing.

Maison hesitates, then leans forward, as if they were still a normal couple and they were discussing something idle. "If you don't want to do the test they're going to put you through, tell me, and I'll get you out of there." His grey eyes flicker up into the cafe, tracking Gurlien ordering something and Chloe opening the laptop and plugging it in. "There's a chance it won't be nice and friendly."

The sarcastic, biting comment is on the tip of her tongue, but the tension still across his shoulders stops her from speaking it.

So she exhales, consciously, attempting to loosen up the knot of hurt. "It would help if I could make an informed decision on what it might be," she says, trying to keep her tone just as soft as his but failing miserably. "I don't like going into things blind."

"I know," Maison says, "I want them to be wrong. I don't…I don't think they're wrong."

Delina can't think of anything to say.

"But if they're not wrong, then we have more important things to deal with than a missed call into the College," he continues, though his face twists. "I can do a lot, but I can't defend against everything."

The half answers itch at her mind, but she nods. "My mother was really that bad?"

"I read her research, she was insane," Maison says, and it's so close to his normal grumbling of people that it tugs at Delina. "Utterly batshit, made enemies right and left, couldn't be trusted with anything. She tried to…" he trails off, conspicuously so, then sighs. "She's lucky she didn't kill you before you were born, there's no way anything that she did was ethical. It's a miracle you're not…it's a miracle you're at all normal."

"Can I read it?" Delina asks, and he raises an eyebrow at her, the hint of the dimple coming back for the briefest of seconds. "The research. So I know?"

He narrows his eyes at her, and it's his expression like he thinks she's making a foolish choice, but he's not sure he wants to dispute her on it.

How many of those decisions on disputing things like this were because they threatened his own mother if Delina left him?

"I don't think you'd like it," he says instead, then steps ahead, opening the door to the coffee shop for her. "Ask Chloe to download it."

The inside of the coffee shop is far warmer, so Delina sheds the rain jacket as she sits next to Chloe, who studiously ignores her, tapping away at the computer

"Anything I can help with?" Delina asks, sinking into the overly comfortable chair. No coffee shop chairs should be this comfortable.

"No, it's not that complicated," Chloe says, tapping away. "I'm only doing this because Gurlien's afraid he'll get caught."

Maison drifts over and joins Gurlien next to the register, the frown still on his face.

"Did…did your College do this a lot?"

"You're gonna have to be way more specific," Chloe says, still tapping away.

"Keep people prisoners?"

"Oh you have no idea," Chloe responds. "Anyone they might consider dangerous, they either lock up or they leverage things against them." She throws a nod towards Maison. "My bet is he's too useful, so they went with the leverage. Or his mom is also something strange, but I feel like that would've been mentioned by now." She glances up at Delina, brief, before her brown eyes return to the screen. "Like I said, they're dicks. They're just the dicks in charge."

Delina glances back over at Maison, where he and Gurlien are obviously arguing in whispers while waiting for the coffees to come out. "I take it they didn't get along well in school?"

"Gurlien got along well with absolutely nobody, and Freddy always avoided all his classmates when he could," Chloe answers, and it's so much information on Maison, so much she doesn't know. "Sure, he was nice when he had to interact, but you know, it was obvious he'd rather be anywhere else."

When they had first started dating, Maison had been so obviously twitchy at parties, though that'd calmed down completely after just one year of being with her.

She had just thought he was sheltered before undergrad. Her dad had told her she helped him come out of his shell.

"And then nobody's seen him for years, we all thought he was doing fancy things in France with research scientists," Chloe continues. "Which made sense, he's way more powerful than the average student and he didn't like us anyways."

"Nope, just in Arizona," Delina says. "Working on graphic design in a small town."

Though who knows how much of the graphic design job was real and how much was just a smokescreen to prevent her from figuring things out.

"And…got it." Chloe taps a few more beats, then gestures for Delina to glance in. "Carolina Schmidt, kept in cell 82C on the fifth basement of the Atlanta branch."

The screen is grim, just a diagram of an architect's drawing, with numbers over way too small of rooms.

"He always had business trips to Atlanta," Delina says before she can stop herself. "One a month."

All this time, he was just visiting his mom.

"Here." Chloe double taps on the diagram, bringing up a too-short paragraph. There's a small picture of an unsmiling woman, hair gone white, and if Delina squints then she can see the hint of Maison's nose and eyebrows in her facial features. Her eyes are gray, just close enough Maison's that it suddenly sends some homesickness through her.

"Carolina Schmidt, age 58, gave birth to half-demon at age 23. Monthly visitation, library use allowed, no research facilities. Must remain warded at all times."

And then there's a long string of numbers, completely incomprehensible.

"Those would be the wards placed around her, I think half of those are demon related, don't know the other ones," Chloe says, poking at the computer screen, her lips pressed together. "So that part checks out."

"That's it, they keep her locked up because she gave birth to him?" Delina asks, sitting back, as Gurlien and Maison walk over, both carrying multiple coffees.

Chloe immediately spins the computer to Gurlien, and Maison only glances at it, before blinking away, his face pinched. He passes a cup to Delina, and though their fingers graze, there's no snap of whatever magic had happened before.

Gurlien disinterestedly clicks on the computer a few times, though his eyes are sharp. "All this tells us is there's someone with that name who had a Half Demon," he says. "Not that it's you, not that your sob story is correct."

"I have pictures of me and her on my phone," Maison replies, his voice tightly controlled. "I don't even have to touch the phone, I'll talk her through the check in."

"They don't even make you do voice check ins?" Gurlien asks, then glances to Chloe, and they have one of their brief nonverbal arguments.

And the woman had his eyes.

"Alright," Delina drawls, pulling out the phone and pressing the on button. "Let's see this."

"Hey," Gurlien blurts out, but Maison just sits back, something satisfied glittering in his eyes.

The phone clicks back to life, and his lockscreen is still the picture of them on their third anniversary, when they had driven to the Texas coast and spent the entire weekend getting horrendously sunburned.

"Code is one-zero-zero-eight," Maison says, and it fits the pattern she always saw him swipe. "Pictures are in the google drive, under the folder titled floral references." He shrugs, though he watches her like a hawk. "Figured nobody would snoop there."

Sure enough, picture after picture of Maison and the white-haired lady, one for each month of the year going back ten years. Of him before she knew him, of him when they first started dating. Of him that one time he got his haircut way too short and he looked like a stranger for a month.

"Is that proof enough?" Maison asks, the same shimmering anger underneath his words.

Chloe's already nodding along, though Gurlien scowls.

"Go in the messages, there's a contact named Human Resource Director."

Delina does. Text after text from Maison, all with the date, time, and the words "check-in all good."

Gurlien hovers over her shoulder, and it feels like an invasion of privacy.

"If you scroll up, you can find one of the last times we traveled and the reason why," Maison continues. "But type in the ‘day, time, check-in all good,' then put ‘flew with target to Seattle for surprise.'"

"Target?" Delina asks, and he shrugs.

Gurlien scrolls up, leaning well into Delina's personal space, until a similar text is in view, then he sits back as well.

Before she can second guess if it's smart, before she can second guess if he's telling the truth this time, she types it out and presses send.

And, just minutely, Maison's shoulders relax. Just enough that she could only tell because she watches.

"You should have verified more," Gurlien says, but he sighs, grabbing at his coffee instead. "We're still going to turn your phone off before we get to the cabin."

"Sure," Maison replies.

After a brief time to drink the rest of their coffees, Gurlien drives them to a derelict corner on the outskirts of the small town.

"Oh," Maison says, as they once more step out into the chill. "I see why you picked this place for the test." He bounces on his toes, eyes alight.

Delina eyes it. There's a run down, boarded up church on one corner, a burnt-out husk of a restaurant, and what looks like a house nobody has lived in for years, blackberry brambles growing up the sides of the brick.

The rain has settled into a fine mist, squashing all sound, as if they are the only people within miles. The pavement is cracked, and dead leaves blow across the street.

Chloe conspicuously heaves the backpack off of her shoulders, unzipping it and settling it at her feet.

"Okay," Gurlien says clinically, "this is going to have three parts. One," he holds up a finger, "we're going to see what you naturally sense without any augmentation. Two, we're going to put a small amplification circle, and then you're going to try again. The third…" he trails off, glancing at Maison, who's giving him absolutely nothing to go off of. "The third will depend on the first two."

"But there will be three parts," Chloe chimes in. "Standard beginning test when you find someone in adulthood."

"Not quite standard," Maison grumbles.

All three of them watch Delina, all of the sudden, and if she could be swallowed up by the pavement she would. "Okay…?"

"Close your eyes and tell us what you feel," Gurlien says, and Chloe's nodding. "Yes, this is vague. That's important."

With one last glance to Maison—he looks distinctly unhappy—Delina lets her eyes shut, and focuses on her breathing. Focuses on reaching for that strange bit in her mind that feels like a loose tooth, like she has to worry at it until she figures it out.

Immediately, there's a gut punch of awareness, right past the church, blossoming and growing until all she can perceive is…there. Something on the other side of the church, many somethings, old somethings, laying cold in the ground, the dirt crawling over with damp and bugs and mold and moss and—

"Stop," Maison's clear voice commands, and she pops her eyes open, and wobbles. "This is unnecessary."

"Do you want a surprised magician only using instinct? Because unless we learn specifics, it's going to be instincts only and that is not going to be a good thing the first time she gets in danger," Gurlien shoots back. "Delina, what did you tell?"

She opens her mouth to speak, but everything's dry, like she fell asleep in the Arizona sun for too long.

Maison's eyes reflect red at her, inhuman and bright, but he crosses his arms and huffs, his breath puffing out in the chill air.

"There's something in the ground behind the church," she says, shakily. "I don't…"

Maison glares over at Gurlien. "We don't have to do more, Delina, you can sit down."

Well now she's not going to, so she shifts until her feet are stronger underneath her, until she doesn't wobble, then strides off towards the church.

A rickety wooden fence, half broken, surrounds the back property, back where the crawling sense of horror pulled at her. She ducks underneath one shattered beam, the throat clawing tightness just getting worse.

"Delly," Maison catches her by the elbow again, and this time, another crackling spark hits him, but he barely flinches. "Delly, don't…"

She rips her arm out of his grip. "Don't touch me."

Inside…is a graveyard. Cracked tombstones, overcome with moss and blackberry brambles, the dirt rich and black.

And underneath them…

Delina's legs shake, and she sits down, hard.