Chapter 4

4

D elina idles the car, a knot in her throat.

Throughout the day, she never even entertained the idea that the property might be inhabited. That she might be rolling up, well after 1 AM, with a key to the place and the deed in the will, and be kicking someone out.

She had driven by a ton of cutesy bed and breakfasts not ten minutes back, she could probably just stay the night at one of those.

A figure walks by the window, followed by another, silhouetted against the cutesy floral curtains.

So they're also awake at this ungodly hour. Whoever they are.

Carefully, she turns off the headlights, the rain clattering on the roof of the car until the only light is beaming from the cabin.

The cabin that belonged to her mother. The cabin that her mother sent her to, with the express reason to help her, whatever that may look like.

Maison would have a fit laughing at her right now, chewing on her lip like she's a person who gets shy. He would tease her about it, probably throw his arm around her shoulders, guide her to the door to knock. Say something pithy like, ‘you're not one to let other people stop you,' or, ‘if it's yours it's yours.'

For some reason, contemplating the actions of her maybe-fake boyfriend doesn't help.

"Fuck this," she mutters, palming the key with the red ribbon in her hand and kicking the door to the sedan open into the sheets of rain. The downfall immediately plasters her hair to her face and her ponytail unpleasantly to her neck, but she yanks out the rolling pink suitcase and stomps through the gravel to the front door.

On the concrete slab, instead of a welcome mat is a complex circle with symbols scrawled all over it, neatly spray painted in a shiny, chromatic gold.

The key in her hand grows warm as she approaches.

Not hot, not painful, but she presses her thumb against it for a small reassuring thrum, then strides across the circle and all but shoves the key into the door.

The lock clicks, and she throws her shoulder into the door to open it, before it creaks and relents, stumbling inside.

And all at once, three things are obvious.

One. Those stupid symbols are scrawled everywhere. One on the roof, a few embroidered onto pillows on the floral couch, some etched in the dark wood over the fireplace and on the granite counter tops, all the same glistening gold.

Two. Two people stare at her like they've been caught doing something they really, really shouldn't.

Three. One of them has a gun.

Delina yanks in her pink suitcase from the rain, and pulls herself as tall as she can, fixing her best glare on the man with the gun. "Who are you and what are you doing in my cabin?"

The man opens his mouth, then closes it with a click. He's blond with floppy hair, and holds the gun like he thinks it'll bite him. He's maybe the same age as her and looks like he's never done a hard day's work in his entire life. He's even wearing a pressed suit.

The woman shoots him a look, then focuses back on Delina. Large, thick rimmed glasses dominate her small face, and short cut black hair gives her the overall impression of a mad scientist going through a rebellion.

Delina just pulls any self-confidence she can into herself, crossing her arms.

"Uh," the woman says, and her voice is surprisingly high pitched. "Who are you?"

"I asked the question first," Delina snaps back.

"How'd you find this place?" The man breathes, still holding the gun limply. "Nobody should be able to find this place."

"My mother left it to me in her will, apparently," Delina says, wishing there was something she could throw at him. She grew up in Arizona, she could hold a gun better than whoever this guy is. "So legally you're the ones who aren't supposed to be here."

The man and woman glance at each other, eyes wide, and the guy slowly lowers the gun, and the only sound is the crackling of the fire.

In the middle of one of the embroidered pillows on the couch, a tabby cat sleeps, curled up.

"Oh my god," says the woman, her brown eyes light up. "Oh my god, you're her." She covers her mouth with one hand, and her fingertips are stained with gold spray paint.

The guy sets the gun onto the side table—just the side table, no security whatsoever—and crosses his arms over his chest. "Aren't you supposed to be ignorant somewhere in the south-west?"

"Excuse me?" Delina says.

"Oh my god, Gurlien, stop," the woman says, then she stands, shaking herself visibly. "I'm Chloe, we didn't know you'd ever find out about this place, I'm so sorry."

"Delina Frisse," Delina responds, narrowing her eyes at her. "Why are you here?"

The man—Gurlien, apparently—scowls, a somewhat hopeless scowl, like he's just as lost as she is. "But seriously, we thought you were under lock and key in New Mexico or something," he says. "Not able to stride across an active trap circle like it's nothing."

"Trap circle?" Delina asks skeptically. "You think a little bit of spray paint is gonna stop me?"

Chloe glances at Gurlien again, and they have a brief, wordless argument, the sort of non-verbal communication that immediately highlights how much of an outsider Delina is, before Gurlien sighs.

"When did you find out that magic is real?" he asks, disgruntled. "The official line from the College—" he throws the word out with some real disdain, "—is that you weren't ever supposed to find out."

"About fourteen hours ago," Delina replies, finally allowing herself to squeeze out her drenched ponytail. Her fingers are already like ice, after just that brief walk outside. "Been a bit of a weird day."

"Oh no," Chloe mumbles, rubbing her face. "Oh no, and you have to find out from us." She paces across the room, like this is somehow her problem and her crisis as well.

Gurlien pays her no attention, just squinting at Delina, a shockingly fake bored expression over his face. "And you booked a plane and drove out?"

"Pretty much," Delina says, losing patience and stomping over to the open-air kitchen and grabbing a floral towel. "You two still haven't explained what you're doing in my cabin."

"Oh that's easy," Chloe pipes up from her pacing. "We needed a place to hide that the College wouldn't get us, and Gurlien did like all of Dr. Frisse's estate paperwork so he pulled this as a good place to run."

"You knew my mom?" Delina asks, as fast as she can.

"Unfortunately," Gurlien snips back. "Where's your jailer boyfriend?"

Delina flinches.

"We know you have one, he was supposed to stop you from figuring this out, where is he?"

"God, Gurlien, don't be a nightmare," Chloe says. "Think, we need to think. If she's here," Chloe jerks a thumb at Delina, "then we really need to figure out some more defenses."

"Why?" Delina asks, finally drying off, the floral towel much softer than she would have expected.

The two of them freeze again, staring at each other, like she's thrown a wrench into all their plans.

Before Gurlien sighs, put upon once more. "I'm going to make some coffee," he announces, pointing to the couches. "Might as well get comfortable, this is going to be significantly not fun."

Turns out her mother also had an affinity for over complicated coffee machines and it takes him forever, so Delina gets an opportunity to grab a throw blanket and kick off her shoes so she can properly curl up on the couch and approach comfort for the first time since she read the letter.

The cat blinks up at her with tranquil green eyes, but ultimately decides to not move.

Gurlien carries three mugs—all chipped and worn—and sets them on the coffee table next to the gun. Chloe doesn't stop staring at Delina like she's going to grow an extra head.

"You do have a boyfriend, though, right?" Chloe asks, after they all take a few sips of the coffee in silence. "We know they assigned someone to you."

"Don't know who, though," Gurlien says, tucking his legs underneath him on the giant armchair. He's still wearing pressed slacks, completely out of place in the rustic cabin.

Chloe, at least, is wearing functional overalls, and the pockets clink with tools.

"Yes," Delina forces herself to say. "Found out about that fourteen hours ago, too."

"That's rough," Chloe replies immediately, and it's just enough sympathy that the hard shell of Delina's composure starts to crack. "How'd he react?"

"Oh, I didn't tell him," Delina says, clutching the warm mug against her icy fingers. "I just…left."

It still feels weird to say.

"What's his name?" Gurlien asks, clinical even over coffee. "What, we need to know who we're up against."

"You think he's going to follow me?" Delina asks, blinking at him.

"If his whole job was preventing you from finding out about your mother, he's going to try to collect you," Gurlien says. "Drag you off to the College and wash his hands of you."

"Oh my god, Gurlien," Chloe mumbles.

"So us knowing who we have to defend this place against would be helpful," Gurlien continues. "Chloe's good with traps, she can ward this place all to hell."

"Ward?" Delina asks, and they both sigh.

"Just…what's his name?" Chloe asks, way more gentle than Gurlien. "We both used to be in the College, we probably knew him, so we can plan."

So these strangers probably knew Maison as well.

Knew him better than she ever did.

"Maison Shutze," Delina says, and it feels like a confession.

The two people in front of her give her identical blank looks.

"So a code name." Gurlien recovers first. "What does he look like?"

The entire conversation tugs at the sadness in her chest, but she wills her composure back into place. "Brown hair, grey eyes, about six feet tall? Has a dimple on the right side of his chin and freckles on his chest?"

Still nothing.

"He's an artist." she continues, her voice tilting up. "Works in graphic design?"

"Devin, Freddy, or Lutes, what do you think?" Chloe remarks, picking up a pen from the coffee table and drumming it against her leg.

"Devin would be the easiest option. If it's Frederick, we're fucked," Gurlien says, and Delina's known him for all of an hour and swear words still seem out of place in his mouth. "Lutes would give up, though, so maybe that's better."

"Devin is the best looking, though," Chloe says, still drumming the pen, the muffled thumping noise horrible. "If I was to send a boyfriend to a mark for a long term, I'd pick the handsome one."

"He is good with snares," Gurlien remarks, and it's like they're discussing the weather. "He could have trapped her in a seduction spell, then got close to her."

"Ew," Chloe says.

Delina carefully sets the coffee on the side table away from the gun, then rubs her face. "I have pictures on my Facebook," she says.

"Yes, because the internet works here," Gurlien says. "Please tell me you left your phone elsewhere?"

To that, at least, Delina can nod.

"We'll drive into town tomorrow," Gurlien declares, "get the picture, then make a plan."

"Wait, isn't Shutze Freddy's mom's maiden name?" Chloe asks, tilting her head. "Or was it Schmidt?"

"Schmidt," Gurlien quickly replies, "but if it's Frederick, we're fucked, unless…" He snaps his attention onto Delina. "Did you sleep with your boyfriend?"

Delina and Chloe lock eyes.

"I've lived with him for five years," Delina says.

"That's immaterial," Gurlien says.

"Gurlien, she's saying yes," Chloe murmurs. "Subtext."

He shrugs that off, scowling. "I hope it's Devin," he says instead. "You can easily overpower Devin."

"Can one of you two tell me about who these people are?" Delina asks, pitching her voice up. "So I'm not just here guessing about what wild person I apparently slept with for the last five years?"

"Devin is a moderately skilled spell weaver who's excellent at snares and bespelling people, and he's a dream to look at," Chloe ticks off a finger. "Freddy is a Half Demon who I thought was on assignment in France or something, and Lutes is an alchemist specializing in art forgery."

She says all these things like she's expecting Delina to understand. Spell Weaver. Demon. Alchemist. Traps.

"Demons exist?" Delina says skeptically. "Do angels?"

"Not as far as we know," Gurlien says, just as skeptically, like she's the one being somewhat ridiculous, then ducks his head. "You should know about demons, regardless."

Delina crosses her arms.

"Your mom was obsessed with doing experiments around them," Chloe chimes in. "Near as we can tell, pissed off a lot of them."

"She wanted their power," Gurlien says clinically. "Wanted it controllable in a human form, ended up creating a monster."

"Monster, right," drawls Delina. "That sounds possible."

"Demons can only possess dead bodies. She put one in a live one, then lost control," Gurlien lists off, and Delina's skin crawls. "The entire College has been working for decades to carefully gain access to demon skills, and she just blew up all the research and knowledge with one super careless act."

Delina stares down at her hands, the shiver winding up her back again. "So they might've sent a half-demon to watch me."

Makes a certain kind of twisted sense.

"Oh, Frederick's more human than the College would have liked, they call him a failed vector of the experiment," Gurlien says, which isn't better. "Still powerful, not what they wanted, can't even teleport. That's like…basic demon shit."

"Wait, Lutes," Chloe says, brightening up and snapping her fingers. "He did all that research in Necromancy against Frisse, six years ago. Stopped her from getting that grant."

"Fat lot of good that did," Gurlien says, then, as an aside, "your mother found a necromancer. It was a disaster. There were two, maybe three, demons that got drawn in, half of America got their magic destabilized, and there's now at least three formerly dead people up and walking around."

"Is…one of them my mom?" Delina asks, moderately horrified.

"Absolutely not," Gurlien replies, and Delina isn't sure if she should feel relief or not. "In fact, the necromancer used the power from your mom dying to kill one of the demons, we think, though the theory is real shaky."

Delina stares at him. "They told me she died in a car accident?"

"No, it was a demon battle, anyways," Gurlien starts, "that does put Lutes back in play. He would stick around to make sure everything was done, he hated Frisse."

The idea that Maison, her Maison who listened to all of her rants about not knowing her own mother, would have strong opinions, sits so very poorly with Delina. Like an open maw of hurt, widening inside her gut.

"Okay, I'm done," Delina announces, pushing the cup of coffee away and jolting to her feet. "It's two AM, you two can give me a list of definitions in the morning. Is there a room in here that isn't already inhabited by you two?"

"Master bedroom, there's a bio-trap in there," Chloe says nonchalantly, then sits up straight. "The bio-trap, do you think it's for her?"

"What, and I mean this politely, the fuck is a bio-trap?"

"It's a spell circle meant to do a specific thing for a specific person when they walk in it," Gurlien recites, like it's practiced. "Everyone else it's useless, but for one person it'll do…something."

And the letter sent her here to unlock some nebulous power.

Right now, she just wants to unlock some sleep.

"Can I get in the beds without tripping the trap?" Delina asks, and they both nod, so she yanks her pink rolling suitcase down the hall and slams the door.