Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
They’re all the way to the marbled foyer when the vertigo makes him stagger. Ophelia, still tucked against him, tightens her grip, gets him to the front door, his back leaned against it.
“Did I just …?” Mateo tries to ask in whispered panic, reaching a hand to his mouth, but recoils at the sharp coldness his horrible hand encountered there.
Ophelia grasps hold of his cheeks, looking up into his terrible face with grim determination. “You did. But it’s okay.”
He wants revulsion to overtake him, the taste of blood and salty skin still in his mouth.
But he can’t summon nausea, a cold nothing where there should be a lot of some sort of complex human emotion.
The absence leaves him trembling, but not properly freaked out.
“I fully said I wasn’t going to hurt him,” is all he can think to say.
“You improvised. I’ll handle it.” Ophelia takes his bizarre hand into hers and pulls him with her, out the door, and back to the car where Quincy and Ethan wait.
Expectant eyes turn to them—more on Ophelia than on him because he’s still hard to look at.
“We got him to talk.” Ophelia recounts what Christopher revealed about Linnéa and Topher. She talks around Mateo eating his goddamned finger, instead saying they had to get a little rough when Christopher wouldn’t answer.
Quincy looks strangled about the revelation—finding out his boss is part magical luck spirit was not on his schedule for the day.
“This is probably where I get off the ride,” Ethan says uncertainly. It’s got nothing to do with him, so it’s exceptionally fair that he looks like he desperately wants out of the car.
Mateo gets his little medical mask back on and then struggles with the gloves a moment before getting out of the car with him. They wait quietly as Ethan summons a rideshare, Ophelia and Quincy giving them the pretend privacy offered by being inside a car with open windows.
“Sorry things got … weird,” Mateo says weakly.
Silence greets his feeble attempt. It’s not like Ethan can say, “It’s cool, no prob, we should still hang out some time.” And it’s not like Mateo can say, “Wow, wasn’t this crazy, but it’s temporary, and my whole deal isn’t normally this messed up so we should definitely talk again.”
Eventually, a black car rolls slowly toward Christopher’s front gate, the driver looking around in that way only rideshare drivers and kidnappers do.
Ethan lifts a hand to the rideshare but finally turns fully to Mateo—a thing he’d been avoiding.
“But, like, are you a demon? Or witch or … warlock?” The words are difficult to get out, like he can’t believe he’s asking it but can’t not when Mateo is standing right there looking undeniably evil.
It surprises Mateo because it’s not a sprint into anonymity. “It’s complicated,” he says, which is the worst answer, and he sees Ethen’s expression close off. There’s no world where he gets into it right now, even though Ethan’s owed something like the truth.
Ethan smooths the front of his perfectly smooth button up—Armani, with fussy red piping along all the edges—looks at the car, looks at Mateo, the car, and Mateo. “Maybe once this situation, which I’ll deny all involvement in, is wrapped up, we can talk?”
“Perfect. Excellent. A plan.” Mateo just barely stops himself from a fourth confirmation, relieved at an olive branch in all this.
A crooked smile flicks across Ethan’s lips.
“You are the weirdest occult specialist I’ve ever met.
” And then he’s gone, into a car and out of this magical murder mystery.
Which is something Mateo has to deal with so he can’t really linger on the sensation Ethan’s ambiguous and non-negative departure fills him with.
“I should drive Christopher,” Quincy says, he and Ophelia both getting out of the car. “Make sure he actually bails Topher out. Get them back here after.”
It’s an amazingly above and beyond offer.
“You’re a solid guy, and I hope Topher’s paying you so freaking much an hour, but maybe you should tap out.
” Mateo holds up his gloved hands as evidence of how out of control the situation is.
“Shit is getting weird. And there’s at least two magic people running around causing chaos, one that threw me out a window. ”
A pause, every worry in the entire world cycling through Quincy’s stalwart gaze. But then he shakes his head. “Topher’s a nice guy. I’ve been working for him for four years. It’s all I can do and the least I can do.”
Ophelia adds, “Quincy’s kept Topher whole so far.
” She means the Tokyo-drifting. “And it’s not like we can chaperone.
” Right. A demon shouldn’t walk into a police station.
Never mind that it’s probably a bad idea for him to be in an enclosed space with Christopher right now—also super awkward.
And Christopher’s as trustworthy as a snake filled with smaller, shittier snakes.
Someone should make sure he doesn’t skip town.
This plan leaves Mateo and Ophelia carless and inside Christopher’s house. Not a dynamic Christopher deeply loves, but he’s not in a position to say no. There’s a lot of question in Quincy’s eyes as he herds Christopher with his haphazardly bandaged hand into his car and away.
Sitting in the living room trying not to drip demon ichor on anything, Mateo and Ophelia regard each other.
“Don’t freak out,” Ophelia advises, and he gives her a tired smile that she probably can’t interpret as such because of his nightmare teeth.
“I’m not. Which is kind of freaking me out,” he admits, sitting back on the couch and staring at the ceiling.
Three sensations war inside of him: dread, indifference, and more dread at the indifference.
And they’re all useless. Actionless. Soon, Topher will be safe in this house, but it still means there’s an evil wizard somewhere out there who’s inexplicably after Linnéa and Topher.
Linnéa’s still MIA. Possibly dead. And Christopher’s confession has nothing to do with Dagger Lady.
Is she also after Linnéa? Or is she really after the person after Linnéa?
A blood witch hunter. A new thing he has to be wary about that he hadn’t known existed yesterday.
“Phee,” he says, a wild thought occurring to him. “Do you have the address book?”
Digging in her purse by way of answering, she holds up the thin green book.
“We’d assumed that Dagger Lady was a Seattle-local, but she could be from anywhere. Look for anyone from San Francisco,” he says.
With a raised eyebrow, she starts paging through the address book. She gets a little way into the back half and swears. “Linnéa and Christopher Nystrom are in this fucking book,” she says hotly, turning it for him to see.
Linnéa Nystrom sits on the left page, a note under her name that says: Mejorar o disminuir las probabilidades. Luckily, his mother’s handwriting is neat, and the internet exists. He struggles with claws on his phone for a moment before Ophelia takes over.
“It’s something like improve or diminish odds. Luck,” she says with a grimace.
“Fuck,” Mateo says. “Fuck us. We had this the whole time.”
Christopher Nystrom sits on the right page. Mateo doesn’t have to look anything up to translate the one-word note. Inútil. His mother considered the man useless too.
Ophelia flips to the end, but then doubles back to the front, pausing on a page a dozen in and reads aloud: “Ulla Kindell. Mejorar o disminuir las probabilidades.”
Same exact note as for Linnéa. “What the hell does that mean?” Mateo says more aggressively than he means, but seriously. “Like, what? A rival?”
“Or relative,” Ophelia adds. “Nystrom’s Christopher’s family name. She’s San Francisco local, too.”
“Fuck it. Let’s call,” he says.
Ophelia dials.
Ulla picks up in the middle of the first ring. “Who is this?” The voice is unmistakable. One thousand percent Dagger Lady, and she sounds even less pleased than when she was stabbing him.
Locking eyes with Ophelia, they have a silent back and forth where it’s clear neither has an actual approach in mind now that they have her on the line.
Honesty it is.
“I’m the guy you’ve been stalking and tried to stab in Seattle.
That Linnéa Nystrom’s son Topher hired to uncurse him.
Except Topher’s not cursed—I’ve just learned from his crap-dad.
He’s magic. And maybe you are too? And he’s in jail for his mom’s murder, except no one knows if she’s actually dead.
But he definitely didn’t kill her if she is.
And someone is after her, but that someone isn’t me because we both saw who was probably that person push me out a window.
Linnéa seems like she was nice, and the Nystroms and you were in my scary witch mother’s address book of magic-people contacts so I called you because I can’t figure out what the hell you have to do with anything except you have the same magic description as Linnéa. ”
Silence greets this which is super fair.
“Who’s your mother?” Ulla Kindell asks acidly.
Interesting first question, and it’s his turn to pause. Shit. He hadn’t thought about what it might mean to tell her how they’re related. Probably nothing good. But Ulla hasn’t hung up, so he goes for it. “Ignacia Luisa Reyes Borrero.”
Sharp breath. Not good. Or very good.
“The boy who fell out the window is Ignacia’s son,” Dagger Lady says slowly, like she’s testing out the concept. He’d have preferred young man who fell out the window, but that’s fine. She’s thinking, and thinking might lead to explaining anything. “Topher’s … like us?”
“I’m pretty sure.” Promising. Us implies she has a connection to Linnéa.
And she’s talking about Topher like she knows who he is.
“Actually, it might be less good luck and more the bad kind. Since his mom ran off, a lot of people have died in his proximity. Topher didn’t know who you were, and I don’t wanna get all up in your business, but I need to help him, and I can’t help him if I don’t know what’s happening.
” Bold statement because he might not be able to help even if he knows exactly what’s happening.
The pause is longer this time. Mateo can feel his claws growing, which is a disconcerting reaction to stress. A splatter of the black stuff his eyes are leaking falls on the phone’s screen. How is that helpful, body? He’s afraid to wipe it away because he might accidentally hang up.
“Where are you?” she asks.
He sits up straighter. “Christopher Nystrom’s house.”
A soft huh that might be consideration or might be confusion and then, “I’ll be there in half an hour.”