Spectral Evidence

That’s the fucking pity of it.

Then remembering a little further on, the last time she’d seen him, after the date’d finally been set and all his appeals wrung out. Sitting there across from a man she barely recognized anymore, listening to him rant about how if she ever found out where her little sister was he was counting on her to finish the damn job, this time, sentiment aside. You hear me, Dionne? To which she’d just shook her head and answered no, on no account, no fucking way—you hear me, Dad? Just goddamn no.

They’d sat there a minute, glaring at each other with the same fierce eyes. Because she’s my sister, and I love her, no matter what. You do remember how that goes, right? Family is family, that’s what you always said...up ‘til the night you decided it wasn

’t, anymore.

Think I didn’t love your Mama, Dee? he’d answered, finally. I did. Still do. But—

—sometimes, that didn’t mean as much as it should, in context. Sometimes it couldn’t. Not when civilians were involved. And she knew that, too.

Britishisms aside, the Maartensbecks had to “understand” it just as well, if anybody did.

(Civilians like Jesca Lind? that voice at the back of Dee’s mind asked her, though its tone also Jeptha’s, as it often was. Not that that likeness was ever enough to keep her from ignoring it.)

I made my choice, Dee thought, giving her machete a last quick, sharpening scrape. And tuned back into the conversation still going on to her right, even while stowing the whetstone away in one of her jacket pockets.

“Now, you got to keep a tight hold, this time, Princess,” Chatwin was warning Sami. “Don’t wanna go spinnin’ off all unexpected-like, not given the forces we’re playin’ with, here...”

“You just make sure we all arrive together—me, you and Dee,” Sami replied. “Because if I come out of fugue and find her gone again, first thing I’m gonna do is put a thrice-blessed iron cross-nail right through your Third Eye.”

“Witch’s lobotomy? Perish the thought.”

Dee stood up, tucking the machete out of sight. “All that mean we’re good to go, or what?” she demanded, eyes firmly on Sami, who sighed. Replying, as she did—

“Good as we’ll ever be, I guess.”

Things contracted, then: there was some old-fashioned Appalachian hair-knotting and a bit of haemoglobin fingerpaint action, followed by a three-way handfasting and widdershins footwork on three, two, one. Seconds later, with a pitch-black spacetime rip through a wormhole where only Sami’s lit-up tats showed the way, they stumbled like one clumsy, six-legged animal into the parking lot in front of one of those weird new airport motels with the courtyard inside the building, six stories of glass-fronted apartments looking only inward, where a sunken fountain-pool combo and some scattered built-in couches lurked.

Those apartments were all vacant now, though not exactly empty, their redly hand-printed vistas giving only the impression of drawn blinds, or maybe a fall of particularly virulent-coloured cherry blossoms. While down in the pit sat Professor Maks Maartensbeck, leant back in the now deep-dyed fountain’s bowl with his equally-scarlet eyes half-shut and his long legs delicately crossed at the ankles, frankly luxuriating, dyed head to toe in unlucky moteliers’ blood.

He’d swapped his Twister Relief dumpster outfit for what looked like the remains of a security guard’s uniform along the way. Still slightly too big for him, but a far better overall impression.

And: “Well, ladies,” he called up to them as they stood rooted in the doorway, ridiculously polite voice anti-naturally resonant, some distant silver key dragged over ice. “Two witches, both demon-blooded, both by the same sire—and one full human, by the same dam; hmmm, let me see. The fabled Dionne and Samaire Cornish, I presume, here to chastise me for my many sins...but who, pray tell, are you?”

Chatwin shrugged, then sidled in crosswise and sauntering, though Dee could tell even her hackles were up, under that don’t-care prison swag show. Calling down: “Allfair Chatwin’s my name, sir, thanks for askin’. But you can feel free t’call me A-Cat, you find yourself so inclined.”

“Ah, yes. Descended from the fabled demoiselles de Chatouye, I’d wager, whose village was burnt by none other than these two’s equal-distant genetic author, Witchfinder Cornîche. Voulteuses of great power, all, as I’m sure you must be yourself, to find me so quickly...especially once one takes into account your—other connexions.”

“Too kind, Professor. Just a humble holler-worker out of Black Bush, that’s all.”

“Oh, hardly.”

They’re fast, too, Moriam’d said, that long-ago night, so don’t forget it—and holy shit was that ever true, what with all that fresh type whatever jacking up Maartensbeck’s system. Because all it took was a blur of movement, a single tiny eyelid-flick, and there he was, right up in all three of their faces at once and smiling horribly, a highly-educated human shark with blood-breath sporting a manicure that—now you saw it close on—read halfway between Fu Manchu and full-on ten-fingered raptor.

“You see, modesty truly does ill-become creatures such as we, my dear,” he told Chatwin, who stood there frozen for once, while Sami and Dee both shifted a half-step back into automatic attack-stance.

“Why quibble terminology? Be proud, whatever you choose to call yourself.”

Chatwin breathed out, visibly smoothing her face back into its usual smarm-charm lines. “No argument from me on that one,” she replied, lightly. “In fact, you’ll find monster pride’s pretty much my middle name, under most circumstances...unlike some I could mention.”

He smiled, gore-mask crinkling. “Well, then. Since you’ve mentioned her—” Switching over, to Sami: “What a very decorative object you’ve made of yourself, Miss Cornish, to be sure. Can those be binding sigils? In Crossing the River, no less?” She nodded. “One would think they’d make it rather more difficult to summon your power, even when faced with imminent threat. And yet one can only assume you thought that a desirable outcome, when you carved yourself all over with them.”

Dry: “Uh huh.”

“Why?”

“Less people get hurt this way.”