A Familiar Sense of Dead Page 8

  “Why did you bring this mundane here?” Circe asked, now leveling her gaze at Alex.

  Hazel wasn’t going to just let that slight go. She hadn’t spent the last month working her tail off and suffering Clancy’s verbal slings and arrows just to let Ms. JCPenney call her quaint.

  “I’m not mundane!” she protested, her voice clanging in the gymnasium. “I have the Knack.”

  Circe grimaced for having been interrupted. “A knack for speaking out of turn?”

  “The Knack,” Hazel said.

  The entirety of the Council started at her blankly.

  “I’m marked!” she offered instead, turning her back to the Council and lifting her hair to show the roselike birthmark on the nape of her neck. The same mark that graced her niece, had graced her Gammy’s, and as family history told it, graced the neck of every Bennett woman with the Knack since the family had set down roots on the shores of Lake Champlain hundreds of years ago.

  When Hazel turned back to the Council, Circe Strange was staring down at her over the end of her pointed nose, her lip curled in disgust. “Ms. Bennett shall refrain from showing any other marks, scrapes, nicks, knacks, or other bodily oddities she may or may not possess.”

  Hazel blushed fiercely. She was bombing this audition hard.

  “The Council is not familiar with the terms you use,” said the man with the wings, looking, for the first time, interested in the proceedings. “Would you care to explain?”

  Circe grimaced again at the interruption and at, it seemed, having ceded floor time to another Council member. “Yes,” said Circe. “If she would care to explain.”

  “I’m a witch,” Hazel blurted. The term still made her flinch. There was something about it that made him think of cheap Halloween decorations and Monty Python movies, but, she supposed it was accurate.

  “You aren’t registered with any covens that we know of,” said the winged man. “Where is your wand?”

  “I . . . I don’t have one.”

  Circe burst out laughing. “A witch without a wand? And where is your familiar? You do have one of those, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” Hazel responded, telling what she felt was only a lie by a technicality. She and Clancy were processing. Close enough. “I just don’t know where he is right now . . .”

  “Of course you don’t,” Circe said, sneering. “With no wand and no familiar, how do you cast spells, my dear? Or are you a witch in name and hope only?”

  Hazel’s cheeks burned, though not from embarrassment. She didn’t get embarrassed in front of crowds. She was ticked off. She didn’t suffer bullies, even the gavel-banging variety. She mustered every bit of training she had and delivered her next line with forced cheer. “Your daughter didn’t have a wand either.”

  The Council collectively gasped. Marge the harpy squawked and fast-stepped on her perch. Triton’s tank bubbled. The blackened suit of armor creaked and groaned.

  “You will pay for your insolence,” snarled Circe, her eyes hardening to flakes of ice.

  “She will do nothing of the sort, Circe,” said a woman sitting next to the elder Strange. Somehow in the lineup of bizarre and interesting characters, Hazel had failed to notice this new woman until now. She was the picture of a wizened matriarch, her miles of thick snowy hair braided into a loose lobster-tail that draped over her shoulder. She wore a baggy Mickey Mouse sweatshirt and pair of electric blue half-moon glasses with matching hoop earrings big enough to jump a dolphin through. When she spoke, her voice was richer than chocolate cake. She looked at Hazel and smiled, the corners of her eyes folding like the creases of an ancient map. “But you will show this Council the respect it deserves.”

  She spoke with a sort of perpetual amusement, an impish quirk at the corner of her mouth, a dangerous twinkle in her eye that immediately reminded Hazel of her Gammy. Though they certainly didn’t look the same. While her Gammy had been a wisp of a woman—so short and slight that she was more spirit than body—this woman was all flesh, like a bulldog.

  Hazel blushed. There was something about this woman that she instantly liked, and it seemed important to make a good impression. “Yes, ma’am,” she said.

  The woman laughed, a deep hooting like a delighted owl. “Ma’am!” she repeated. “To think, the granddaughter of Helena Bennett calling me ma’am.”

  Hazel eyed the placard on the table: Cassandra Prim, Oracle.

  “Yes, Mrs. Prim.”

  “Call me Cass, honey—your Gammy did,” the woman said, tilting her head to look over the tops of her half-moon spectacles. “You look just like her.”

  “I’ve heard.”

  Circe banged her gavel. “This is not a reunion. The Chair will remind the Councilor who is in charge of this proceeding.”

  Cass clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes. “The Councilor would be unable to forget, even if she wanted to.”

  Circe grumbled something and then returned her attention to Hazel. “The Council has summoned you here, Miss Bennett, because, in the oh-so brief time you’ve been in our humble town, you have already managed to create quite a stir. The Council again puts to you its original question. What has brought you here?”

  “I brought her here to investigate Silas MacGregor’s death,” said Alex.

  “And I was under the impression we had called this meeting to discuss just that, not to address all the petty concerns of a single Councilor,” said Cass. “Tilda, can you bring up the files on Silas?”

  A young woman with snow-white hair wearing a black cardigan and black slacks stood up suddenly, sending a stack of manila folders and papers on her lap spilling onto the floor. “Oh dear,” the woman stuttered. “Oh that’s not good.” She clumsily tried to gather the mess but only seemed to be making it worse.

  “Really now,” chided Circe.

  Hazel, instead of returning to her seat, rushed over to help the young woman, kneeling next to her and gathering the fallen flock of papers.

  The girl looked up. She was cute, with her pinched nose and Bambi eyes.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “I’m Tilda.”

  “I know,” Hazel whispered in reply. “I’m Hazel.”

  “I know,” Tilda said. “I’ll need to start your file after this meeting.”

  “Sorry for the extra work.”

  “I consider it job security,” she said, smiling. They gathered up the last of the files, and Tilda placed the reassembled stack on her chair with such fervor that it nearly toppled over again. Then she smoothed her pants, straightened her cardigan, and turned to the Council again. “My apologies,” she said to the Council.

  “I’m impressed you made it out without a single paper cut,” said Cass, smiling.

  Tilda smiled back as she produced a wand from a patent-leather holster on her belt. The wand was a flashy thing—a tapering piece of wood that had been intricately carved and painted in bright floral patterns. She waved the wand, mumbled a few words and a flash of light erupted from the gym floor in front of the Council tables. From it, emerged a figure of an older gentleman with a grizzled dark goatee and wild white hair.

  Why did Silas look so familiar? Yes, it was clearly an older version of the Silas MacGregor she had seen in the pawnshop picture, but there was something that seemed familiar in the older Silas that she hadn’t noticed in his younger self.

  “There is nothing to investigate,” Circe blurted out. “The man was killed by a giant spider, for goddess’s sake! He could have been in the exotic pet trade for all we know!”

  “I was attacked by this so-called spider!” blurted Hazel.

  The Councilors again stared at her blankly. “Could you say that again?” asked the fae.

  Hazel ran through the account of the attack, and by the time she was finished, the Council, with the exception of Circe, was leaning forward intently. The merman had even popped up and leaned over the edge of his tank.

  “That doesn’t sound like your standard pet-shop mishap,” said Cass. “That sounds mo
re like we have more than a mere direspider on our hands.”

  “Does this mean what I think it does?” asked Triton.

  “That we’ll need a lot of handcuffs?” quipped the harpy.

  “Werespider . . .” came a deep, creaking voice from inside the suit of armor.

  “Like a werewolf?” asked Hazel.

  “Yes, dear,” said Cass. “A werecurse manifests itself in many forms, depending on the nature of the cursed. It brings out the beast that was already lurking in their heart, manifesting itself in two forms: the direcreature and the hybrid. The direcreature is an unnaturally large version of their werecreature, and their hybrid form is part human and part beast. You were fortunate to have only encountered the dire form, my dear.”

  “Fortunate?!” cried Hazel.

  “I once had a near-deadly encounter with the hybrid form of a wereduck. If you had met the hybrid, we might very well be here to discuss the investigation of two murders.”

  “A bizarre man died a bizarre death,” said Circe coldly. “Should we be surprised?”

  “Silas MacGregor was a good man and a decent chess player,” said Cass. “Being eccentric doesn’t rob a person of their dignity or rob them of their legal rights. Even in death. It is of this Councilor’s opinion that something strange is going on here. I think on that we can agree.”

  There was a murmur of agreement and a nodding of heads up and down the table, with one notable exception. Circe glowered.

  Hazel wanted to bring up the note that Clancy had received from Cass saying that Silas had been murdered. But how did she explain everything that had happened from coroner to cannoli—that was it!

  Hazel sprang forward to the Council tables and dropped her satchel in front of Circe and Cass. “What is the meaning of this, Ms. Bennett?!” barked Circe.

  Hazel ignored Circe, even when the Councilor picked up her gavel and started banging on the table. Hazel swung her satchel around to her front and fished out the newspaper bundle.

  “This!” she said, fishing the newspaper package out of her bag. She shook the newspaper open, sending the shattered remnants of cannoli to the floor in a pile of shrapnel and peppermint filling.

  “Oh foul!” exclaimed Cordelia from her seat in the back.

  “You will not disgrace these chambers!” shouted Circe Strange.

  “Circe, it’s a gymnasium and cafeteria,” said Cass. “Usually there’s a pile of sloppy joe’s at half-court.”

  Hazel ironed out the newspaper, scraped away the lingering peppermint filling, and then held up the picture Charlie had shown her that morning.

  “It’s a picture of Silas MacGregor,” said Circe, clearly unimpressed.

  “No,” retorted Hazel. “It’s a picture of John Doe. Or at least that’s what the Green Mountain Police are calling him. He was found dead in Larkhaven, on the other side of the Postern, two days ago. Mauled by a wild animal. No name, no connections, no leads. But it’s a fairly striking resemblance and a startling coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

  The harpy nervously quick-stepped on her perch, the fae’s wings pulsed deep red, and the suit of armor creaked.

  Even Circe paled, as she leaned forward in her chair. “How?” she asked dumbly.

  Cass held up a hand to stay the murmurs from up and down the tables. “It would be unwise to jump to conclusions. May I see that, Miss Bennett?”

  Hazel brought her the clipping and she inspected it, grease stains and all.

  “This certainly looks exactly like Silas MacGregor.”

  “What does this mean?” asked the fae.

  “It could mean a lot of things,” said Cass, staring over the tops of her half-moon glasses with unmasked consternation. “None of them are good news. But it means that Silas MacGregor was riven—and somebody, or something, killed both of him.”

  “Something riven wanted to kill him,” the fae pointed out.

  Circe guffawed. “Oh please. The newspaper says he was mauled! Are we as a Council now dealing in fairytales and fables? Riven indeed.”

  “Riven?” asked Hazel.

  The fairy leaned forward. “Riven are people that are split in two, young one,” he explained. “It’s a broad term and covers all manner of curses, afflictions, and mishaps. But the results are widely varied. It covers everything from doppelgangers to werecreatures. The riven are said to never be the same, even if their affliction is reversed and they are made whole again. It’s a relatively rare occurrence.”

  “Rare? How about impossible. Old wives’ tales,” spat Circe. “This Council will deal with cold, hard facts. Not speculative fantasies brought to us by a . . . by an outsider. We do not suffer interlopers, Miss Bennett. Quark can police its own matters.”

  “With all due respect, Councilor,” said Cass evenly. “Much has changed in the last few minutes. Perhaps we could use the help. I’m sure the Councilor has noticed that Quark is a little low on Wands these days.”

  “The last thing we need,” snapped Circe, “is another Bennett here causing problems.”

  “Really?” said Cass. “The way I see it, the Council already has one heck of a problem on its hands.”

  “I could use more help,” said Alestranos, stepping forward. “Tracking down a riven who murdered another riven. There are a lot of unanswered questions here. And there is the matter of the developing . . . issue in the Dimwood.”

  Circe shot Alex a withering look. “I will remind you that some issues that the Council deals with are still confidential.”

  “I would be free to contend with the confidential issue if we allow Hazel Bennett to assist with the investigation,” he responded. “She proved her mettle solving the incident across the Postern that the Council itself sent me to investigate.”

  “We do not need help policing our own town,” Circe said, practically spitting with anger. “And it is not for you, Alestranos Rosewood, as a Wand of the Council, to deputize your own agents. The girl can’t just run around town playing detective. We need vigilantes like we need another manticore taking up residence in the orchards.”

  “Agreed,” said Cass, leaning forward and looking very sternly at Hazel over the top of her half-moon spectacles. “Which is why I think we should give her an assignment.”

  “What!” Circe’s utterance was neither question nor statement. More like a hairball she had just coughed up.

  “I completely agree with you, Councilor, that we can’t have unregulated people administering justice in Quark.” Cass leaned forward again, dipping her spectacles as she looked up and down the Council table. “Which is why we need to make her official. The Council can grant conditional status as a Wand of the Council—”

  “But she doesn’t have a wand.”

  “—with a majority vote. If the Chair would be so kind as to call the motion to vote.”

  A few on the Council shifted in their seats, and she thought she heard some dusty utterance ringing from inside the suit of armor that sounded something like, “Here, here,” but she couldn’t be sure.

  “So what are you suggesting?” demanded Circe.

  “Councilor Strange, you yourself said that this issue was hardly the most pressing matter demanding the Council’s attention,” said Cass. “So long as she works with supervision, it will give her a chance to prove herself. And perhaps one of our agents will get the chance to redeem herself.” She looked to the back, where Cordelia sat glowering, her feet up on a chair.

  “It would seem the perfect pairing,” said Cass. “Miss Bennett needs a knowledgeable guide who can show her around Quark, and Cordelia needs somebody who can cast magic in order to perform her duties.”

  “I wouldn’t need anyone’s help if you would just remove this,” Cordelia cat-called from her seat, rattling a chunky bracelet on her wrist.

  Cass just smiled in a grandmotherly fashion and turned to Hazel. “If this is an investigation that spans both worlds, then we need people on both sides of the Postern involved. Are you willing to accept this assignment and
these conditions?”

  This was it. She had nailed the audition. She had come here to help Clancy, even if Clancy had pulled a runner on her. “Yes, I am willing to accept.”

  “How can she accept?” shrieked Circe, her voice rising to a pitch that made even the harpy shift on her perch.

  “According to Alestranos, the girl has demonstrated clear magical ability,” said Cass. “I make the motion that we grant Hazel Roisin Bennett the status of Wand of the Council on a provisional basis until such time as the Council no longer needs her services. All in favor.”

  The Council rang out a chorus of yays.

  “All opposed.”

  “Nay,” spat Circe, glaring at Hazel.

  “The motion passes,” said Cass, striking the bench with her gavel. “The Council of Quark hereby grants Hazel Roisin Bennett exceptional and temporary status as an agent of the council strictly for the purpose of investigating the death of Silas MacGregor . . . or MacGregors. She will report directly to the Council if she makes any significant gains in the case, and upon completion of the investigation, or at the discretion of the Council, her status as agent will be revoked. So the Council decrees.”

  Cass raised her gavel somewhat dramatically, winked at Hazel, then rapped the table. A flash of light erupted like the block had been sprinkled with gunpowder. Instead of extinguishing, the spark catapulted forward, unfurling into a lance of fizzing light that hurtled straight at Hazel.

  Hazel barely had time to flinch and close her eyes before it struck her chest. She waited for a burst of pain letting her know she had been cored like an apple. But when nothing came, and she was certain she hadn’t been harpooned, she pried her eyes open and examined her chest.

  Where there should have been, by all rights, at least a cavernous hole burned through her torso, there was instead a piece of metal—a badge—affixed to her shirt. She tilted it up, and couldn’t help but grin at what she saw. The metal—cool to the touch and dark like tarnished brass—was fashioned in the shape of a bird clutching a wand.

  “Well,” she said to nobody in particular, but maybe to Circe Strange. “Looks like I finally got a wand.”

  Circe scowled. “Remember that wherever you go, you represent this Council. And Bennett or no, you will conduct yourself accordingly. Being a part of the law does not put you above the law. You are to report to us immediately upon any advancements in the investigation. If you think the punishments for civilians are harsh, wait until you see what happens if you step out of line as a civil servant.”