Chapter 18
Herald circled the house a third time, drawing a line on the ground with pinches of something from a little jar. It turned out to be a barbecue rub that dad had lying around. Herald muttered as he went, sprinkling the earth with something that would have gone nicely on a slab of ribs.
Dad looked on in suspicion. “Seems like a waste.”
“Shush,” I said. “And when were you going to barbecue around here, anyway? This place looks dead. I don’t think you even have any neighbors.”
“Oh, they’re around,” he said, looking at the other houses. “They just keep to themselves is all.”
Night had fallen, and it was a little strange how so few of the surrounding houses had any lights on at all. I guess I could begin to understand why dad liked it. It was a place for him to hide, to be away from everyone and everything, but especially his thoughts and his past. But it was time to change that.
“This is a temporary measure, you realize?” I said, gesturing at Herald. “He’s casting wards, but you’re going to have to move back to the city soon.”
The corner of dad’s mouth lifted, the bristly mustache he’d grown over the months lifting with it. “You miss me that much?”
I chucked him on the shoulder. “Stop being so sappy. But yes. Besides, I’d feel safer with you nearby. You don’t know how dangerous shit gets for me sometimes, and I’d be happier knowing we won’t have to drive out to bumfuck nowhere just to check on you.”
“I’ll be fine until then,” he said reassuringly. Then he jabbed his thumb at Herald again. “Though
I don’t know if all this is necessary. Especially that. Now that seems like a waste.”
Herald was emptying an entire bottle of beer over the patch of dirt right across the front door. I had no idea what the hell he was doing, but I trusted him implicitly. I’d always known he was a proficient sorcerer, and knowing that Carver held him in high regard deepened that trust even more. Plus who was I to argue with an alchemist? If he thought that barbecue rub was the best thing for drawing a magical perimeter, then who was I to say otherwise?
Herald dropped the bottle. It fell to the earth with a soft thud. He stopped incanting, then snapped his fingers. Dad gasped, stepped away from the house, and grabbed at my arm.
“Holy shit,” he said, the brilliant purple of so many flames reflected in his eyes.
“I know,” I said, turning my attention to the ring of violet fire that had sprung up around his house. “I know.”
The fires subsided in a matter of seconds, vanishing into the ground, as if called back by the earth. Herald dusted off his hands, a gesture to symbolize that the ritual had ended – or maybe just a way to get rid of the extra rub clinging to his fingers. He thrust the jar into my dad’s hands. I could tell he was trying not to smirk at the sight of my dad’s face.
“There wasn’t any sage in the house,” Herald said. “I had to make do. The beer cements the connection to the earth. Wheat and spring water, and all that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What, really?”
Herald shrugged. “I dunno. Sure, why not. Listen, the point is, this will offer some preliminary protection, and a kind of early detection system. You’ll find out if something’s wrong with Norman here.”
Dad frowned. “Hey now. I can take care of myself.”
I cleared my throat. “Just like you took care of yourself when the homunculus clocked you in the back of the head? No way. We’re not taking any risks.”
Dad grumbled.
“But Herald, you were saying. An alarm? I mean, how would I even know?”
The circle of protection he’d drawn around the house flared purple once again, the briefest flash of light, and a siren began screaming in my head. I groaned and clutched at my temples.
“Kind of like that,” Herald said, frowning. He put his hand across dad’s chest, already incanting. In his other hand, razor-sharp fragments of ice were starting to form, growing in size by the second.
I straightened myself up, willing the noise away. I guess I’d get used to it, but I’d have to ask Herald if there was some way of adjusting the hellish volume on that thing. But before that, we needed to deal with whatever threat was setting off the occult security system in the first place. I readied myself, surveying the darkness beyond the house, wondering whether I’d need to resort to flame or shadow.
But it wasn’t another homunculus. The shape that appeared from out of the shadows was familiar, except she wasn’t. I knew her face, or perhaps I didn’t, because her features kept shifting. Yet even as her form wavered, I knew that I recognized something about the woman, about her cloak of shadows, her head of raven-black hair that seemed to melt into the night.
Hecate.
“Holy shit,” Herald murmured. “Holy shit, it’s really her.” He dropped his hand, the icicles evaporating into thin air, and he lowered his head, as if in reverence.
Dad nudged me with his elbow. “Is – is that a vampire?”