Evocation

CHAPTER NINE

MOIRA

Moira spent the next twenty minutes listening to David walk them through everything that had happened, from the voice inside his head to the creeping feeling of dread that overtook him moments before the blackout. He had retired to one of the chaise lounges to tell his tale, looking uncharacteristically delicate. He looked, more specifically, like he might lose consciousness and crash against the ground at any moment. Moira didn’t feel like cleaning up a bloody nose, so she perched herself on the arm of the chaise lounge as a precaution.

Rhys stood framed by the walk-in fireplace behind him, arms crossed over his chest.

“So, you think whatever knocked you out was the same thing you felt during the séance?”

“That’s my best guess.”

“And the last thing you did before you lost consciousness was look through that book?” Rhys asked, moving towards the desk. David pushed himself up off the chaise.

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were…”

His voice trailed off as he swayed dangerously, any remaining color draining from his face. Snagging his elbow, Moira guided him back down into a sitting position. The gesture felt stiff and foreign, but David looked about two seconds away from unconsciousness, so she had to commit to it now.

“Don’t try to stand; you’re green in the gills,” she said.

“Then it’s not my fault if that thing takes the legs out from under him,” David grumbled.

Pages rustled softly as Rhys peered through the book, handling it with an archivist’s care. He flipped the thin paper with his pinky finger.

“Rhys is blind as a bat when it comes to second sight,” Moira said. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

Despite what a well-established fixture he was in Boston’s occult community, Rhys had no inherent supernatural ability whatsoever. The voracious appetite that had spurred an adolescent Rhys to beg his priest to teach him to perform the miracle of the Eucharist was the same one that drove him to devote himself to ceremonial magic. When you didn’t have the advantage of uncanny intuition or the ability to speak with the dead, you had to be twice as good as everyone else.

“I still wouldn’t go poking around in that book if he asks you to,” David said.

“I don’t ask Moira to scry for me,” Rhys said, never glancing up from the book. The twin furrows between his eyes were especially visible in the dim light of the study. “Ever. Our practices are separate.”

“Seems like a waste of a perfect match, doesn’t it? Sorcerer and psychic?” David ran his tongue over dry lips. “Some people spend their entire careers trying to find the right person to partner with.”

Rhys flicked a warning to him with his eyes. Moira could sense that this was an old argument, one neither Rhys nor David would be wading into.

“Those people don’t have marriages that come first,” Rhys said.

Moira laid the back of her hand against David’s forehead. He looked ruffled by the uninvited touch, a cat that had gotten its nose wet, but he allowed it. Whatever had him in its throes made him more amenable to her presence. She liked him better this way.

“You’re sick,” she pronounced.

“Tell me something I don’t know; I haven’t felt this nauseous since the morning after the Halloween party my sophomore year of college.”

“No, I mean psychically sick.”

It was a catch-all term for getting a bad high off low vibes or being left wrung-out after channeling something nasty, but it was the best language she had to describe what she felt. David was clammy to the touch, and there was something rancid beneath his blinding golden energy. She could pick it up like the smell of death under expensive cologne.

Moira indulged herself and took a moment to scan his emotions as well as his health. It was just a little indiscretion, slipping underneath his skin to find out how he really felt about her. She was probably never going to get this close to the inscrutable David ever again, so it was a breach of privacy she had a hard time feeling bad about.

She half-expected the hot irritation of jealousy, or the possessive prickling of someone who didn’t like their things being touched by outsiders, but neither were present.

To her great surprise, she picked up a cold wave of something far better hidden.

Fear.

What did he have to be afraid of, with her in this house?

“What kind of psychic safeguards do you have in place?” she asked.

“None,” David said flatly. “And I’ll thank you not to read me without my consent.”

Moira snatched her hand away, face flushing with heat.

“Moira,” Rhys groaned. “We’ve talked about this; it’s invasive. And David, don’t…” he waved vaguely, exhausted by having the two of them in the same room, “be an asshole.”

“Wait a minute,” Moira said, shaking off her embarrassment long enough to register what David had just said. “You have no safeguards? That can’t be right.”

“Depends on what you mean by safeguards.”

“Circles of white light, prayer caims, Florida water, trance meditation? Methods to keep your energy in and the energy of things that want to hurt you out?”

“I get five hours of sleep, go to the gym, and don’t talk to anything I don’t feel like talking to. I know you two are like, really religious–”

“Gotta love the way you say that like it’s a dirty word,” Rhys said with cutting sarcasm. “Didn’t miss that.”

“Spiritual, whatever. That stuff has never worked for me. If something pesters me, I tell it to fuck off. No woo needed.”

Moira rolled her eyes and muttered, “Lord.”

“Are you serious, David?” Rhys asked, kneading his brow.

“Why are you looking at me like I sacrificed your firstborn?”

“Because you’re a whole fool,” Moira cut in, a lick of anger flaming in her stomach. She wanted to be shocked that a man so careless had managed to rise to such a position of supernatural prominence, but she was too familiar with the nepotism and lineage-worship of occult circles to be surprised. “You’re lucky you aren’t dead if that’s how you’ve been carrying on all these years. It’s a disrespect to the spirits you work with, and to the clients who trust you to keep them safe.”

David looked like he had half a mind to ask Rhys to come to his defense, but Moira’s husband shook his head, unsmiling. In the end, David was smart enough not to snap back with any pithy remark.

“I’m not trying to disrespect anyone,” he said. “I’m just trying to answer your questions.”

“You don’t do anything to protect yourself while you work?” Rhys asked, and now it sounded more like an interrogation, like he might be ready to haul a couple skeletons out of the closet. “Nothing at all?”

“Sometimes I’ll wave some incense around the room for show if it makes the client feel better. I’d rather just do away with all the theatre and get down to channeling. Rhys, you know how I work; you’ve lived with me, for God’s sake.”

Something that had been pulled tight inside Rhys snapped. Moira braced herself for the thunderstorm.

“I always assumed you were doing protective work behind the scenes! You led me to believe that you had everything under control–”

“I did have everything under control!”

David tried to stand again, and Moira pushed him back down, this time with a little more force.

“Rhys,” she warned.

“You know the pains I took to make sure I was prepared every time we worked together,” Rhys went on. “To keep myself safe, to keep you safe. I brought you into circles that took me days to construct. I tried evocations with you I would never have attempted with anyone else. I trusted you with my life!”

“I don’t know why you’re making this about us. You knew what you were getting into with me, and you made it clear when you left that you couldn’t handle that.”

“This is not about us, David; this is about you, and how you never take these things seriously enough. Which I’ll remind you was a glaring issue on the few occasions I actually–”

“Don’t be nasty, either of y’all,” Moira snapped. She realized she was digging her nails into David’s shoulders and retracted them slightly. “I did not tramp all the way out here in the rain to watch you two go at it like cats in a bag. Rhys, if that’s all this is gonna be, I’ll send an Uber back for you when you’re done.”

“Moira,” Rhys began plaintively, but she waved his apologies away.

“Don’t make me chide; it wears me out,” she said. David shot Rhys a satisfied smirk, which Moira intercepted. “I’m not on your side, either. Stay focused on the problem at hand and spare me the attitude. Humans need rest. It’s part of our natural rhythms.”

David stared at her like she had just started speaking Latin. “You seriously think self-care can help me now? I was just possessed.”

“Maybe because you don’t do enough self-care,” Moira said.

“Can we move on, please?” David asked. “To something remotely helpful?”

“We are trying to help you. We wouldn’t have driven all the way into the city if we weren’t serious about wanting to help. But you’ve got to cooperate.”

David glowered at the ground, looking for all the world like a petulant child while Rhys paced a tight circle around the desk to cool down. Moira was surprised they had lasted two years together without killing each other. Hell, she was surprised they had lasted twenty minutes in this house together with her.

When Rhys spoke, it was with his eyes closed. As though not looking at David would help him feel less furious.

“You’re sure this isn’t just someone you channeled for a séance who never stopped hanging around?”

“Positive.”

“Or a spirit we called up during a Society meeting that decided to follow you home? You could have picked something up just from exposure; God knows we have our hands in some pretty dark stuff on any given week.”

“I would be able to recognize something like that instantly. Whatever this is, it’s new, and it came from inside me.”

“And you’re absolutely sure this isn’t just stress? Or a family history of mental illness manifesting?”

David’s eyes rolled back so far they almost disappeared into his head.

“Rhys, come on–”

“I’m being serious! You work constantly, you hardly sleep, you–”

“A little hereditary tendency towards perfectionism doesn’t put people on the ground like that. I know what I heard, and I know what happened to me. Look!”

He thrust out his hand, showing the slight tremor through his fingertips.

“None of this makes sense,” Rhys muttered. He slipped out of conversation and into dialogue with himself. Wandering legs carried him back over to the bookshelves, drawn by an irresistible force. Moira knew her husband well enough to know that he could easily lose hours, even days, in a library like this. “Perfectly healthy people don’t just start hearing voices. We’re missing something.”

He turned back to the book on Evgeni’s desk, flipping through page after page. Words passed his lips in murmurs and mutters, incomprehensible to anyone but himself. He was dissolving into the pages and his own hypothesizing.

Moira sighed. They might be here a while.

She settled down into the armchair across from David, far enough away to not presume familiarity but close enough that she could catch him if he tried to stand.

At the moment, Rhys was no more present than if he had stepped out of the room to put on a pot of tea. Moira very much wished she had a cup of tea to sip, or a cookie to nibble, or anything else to do besides sit with her hands folded and try not to look at David. David wasn’t trying. David was taking her in, arms crossed, like she was an armed home invader who had shattered his window and invited herself in for dinner.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” he said. Rhys didn’t even look up, which was just as well. David wasn’t talking to him.

“Do what?” Moira asked, trying not to shift uncomfortably in her chair. Her mother always told her she had the Magician’s Eye – that intense, perceptive look of magically gifted people – but whatever she had was nothing in comparison to the white-hot pressure of David’s gaze. She wasn’t sure if she preferred being ignored by him or put under this microscope.

“Read emotions. You did it to me at your house, too, didn’t you? You’re subtle, I’ll give you that. Who trained you? Or did you pick it up by yourself? Can you communicate with the dead, as well?”

She tried to dodge his questions gracefully. This was something she did not like discussing, not even with Rhys. It was family business. Her mother would have a conniption if she knew her daughter was running her mouth about what Meemaw had passed down.

“You know what I do for a living,” she attempted. “Don’t act so surprised.”

“You’re a tarot reader and an astrologer. I know damn good readers who aren’t psychic, and astrology is just math mixed with psychology. But you’ve definitely got the knack. You’re like me.”

“We’re nothing alike, Mr Aristarkhov,” she snapped back.

God, he knew. He could see the touch of death, circling her throat like a necklace.

“What else can you do?” David pressed.

Moira’s face warmed. This kind of conversation would not fly at her mother’s table, and it wouldn’t fly with her now. Even if she was sitting in an abandoned mansion with her husband’s ailing ex, some decorum had to be maintained.

“How would you like it if I asked you to share every trick you had up your sleeve?”

David’s eyes sparkled. With mirth or malice, it was hard to tell. “You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”

Before she had time to think of a snappy retort, David turned away from her and looked over his shoulder at Rhys. There was a fond smile on his face as he watched the librarian pore over Evgeni’s collection. “You’re looking at that library like you want to crawl into bed with it,” David noted, raising his voice so Rhys would hear him.

“Can you blame me?” Rhys asked. “There are books here I thought I would have to fly halfway around the world to see.”

“Help yourself. Maybe whatever’s making me feel like shit is in one of those books.”

“Maybe,” Rhys mused, making eyes at an antique copy of The Lesser Key of Solomon.

“You know,” David said slowly, and Moira was sure he was getting some sort of idea. That didn’t bode well. “You really might be able to find something in there. Certainly more than with a Google search.”

“Sure,” Rhys said. “But that would take time. Weeks of research, probably, and lists of possibilities to be tested and crossed out. I would need to take a fine-tooth comb to this place.”

David said nothing, just smirked at him with a tempting air that spoke volumes. Moira couldn’t riddle out what he was getting at, but Rhys seemed to understand immediately.

“Oh, no,” he said. “Don’t start. I can’t, David. Some of us work for a living.”

“I’m not asking you to make it a full-time job. I’m at the end of my rope here, Rhys. You’re the best occult researcher I know. Take a stab at figuring out what’s hounding me, and you can have free reign of whatever Evgeni left in here. Permanently.”

All the air left Rhys’s lungs in a soft whoosh, and Moira inhaled sharply at the same time. She didn’t quite share her husband’s passion for antiquarian books, but she understood it. She understood that if you cracked Rhys open, he would probably have paperback pages inside him instead of organs. Books had been his only saving grace through an impoverished, closeted childhood in a too-large family. The magic of the written word, both figurative and literal, had been responsible for all of his successes.

David wasn’t just offering Rhys a library. He was offering him the world.

“Baby,” Moira said softly. She didn’t know if she was pleading with him to take the offer or to walk far, far away from it. The drawback right there, nestled in with all those leather-bound treasures: David. Those were David’s books, and they came at the cost of deeper entanglement into David’s life. Something Rhys had spent years running from.

“You’re serious?” Rhys asked.

“As a heart attack. Catalog it, cross-reference it, take it home with you, I don’t care. Just help me figure this out. Hell, point me in the right direction and I’ll take it from there.” His voice took on a slightly darker tone, diminished somehow. “I can’t be sick, Rhys. I can’t.”

Rhys turned to stare at the floor-to-ceiling shelves, bringing his hand up to touch his mouth. Moira’s heart was beating so hard in her chest she felt sure that David must be able to hear it. If she told Rhys to refuse, she would never forgive herself. But if he waded right back into the middle of David’s life and tried to save him from himself, she wasn’t sure if any of them would survive it. It had almost killed Rhys the first time. He had told her, the same night he swore that he would never let David set foot in their house again.

Apparently, this was a week for breaking promises.

“I… I’ll have to think about it,” Rhys managed. He looked at Moira, and his face was pale and desperate. God, when was the last time she had seen him want something so badly? The moment he first saw her in her wedding dress, maybe.

“What’s there to think about?” David asked, pushing himself up to his feet. A bit of color had come back in his face, and although he winced, he was able to stand just fine. “All I’m asking is for a couple hours of your time.”

“This is more than a couple hours of work.”

“Then I’m asking you for a professional favor, and I’ll compensate. Come on, Rhys. For God’s sake, don’t leave me to figure this shit out on my own.”

Rhys plucked up his peacoat and shrugged it on. We’re leaving, his eyes told Moira. She quickly began to gather her purse and umbrella off the floor, happy to get out of this awful old house with its oppressive, stale air. She hadn’t been able to breathe right since setting foot inside.

“I need to think,” Rhys repeated. “Let me talk to Moira about it.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got something for her, as well.”

Moira couldn’t help the scoff that rose up in her throat. “What do you have that I want?”

“Do you really want to have that conversation right here, now?” David asked. He flicked his eyes over to Rhys and then back at her. She didn’t speak this language, but she got the impression he was passing her a note to show that he knew something Rhys didn’t. Inviting her into a secret.

“I don’t know what occasion I’d have to see you again,” she said crisply. “Anything you want to say, you’d better say it now.”

David fished another cigarette out of his box of Parliaments. He lit it, and took a long drag, looking at her squarely. This was more like the David she knew: haughty, self-assured, and ready to make a deal.

“You can do more than you let on to your clients. A lot more. You see things. You hear them. But you pretend like you don’t. Why?”

“Leave her alone,” Rhys said. “She’s allowed her privacy.”

“I can handle myself, Rhys,” Moira said. She arched an eyebrow David’s way. “You think I don’t know what I’m doing, is that it? That I need you to ride in on your white horse and save me from my uneducated ways?”

“No. I’m the one that needs you.”

This threw Moira for a loop. She couldn’t say she ever imagined finding herself in this position. It seemed like a trap. But her ego was purring, begging to be stroked, so she ventured, “Need me how?”

“You said it yourself, I’ve got no defenses up against anything that wants to hurt me. Maybe, possibly, I was foolish to go so long without them. If you know anything about how to protect myself from more of those blackouts, I’d be happy to hear it. But I know you’re a busy woman and you’re a professional whose time is valuable, so I’m offering you compensation.”

“You’ll teach me to channel the dead in return?” she said flatly. So far, he wasn’t dangling anything she wanted badly enough to deal with him for long periods of time.

David smiled, a whisper of triumph touching his lips. “Or show you how to make them shut up. Dealer’s choice.”

She tried not to let him see how much that bit rocked her. Did he really have the secret to peace and quiet, stowed away somewhere inside him? Could he really make the voices go away, disappear the long-dead figures she caught staring at her in grocery lines and salon chairs? She had wanted that, begged for it, for years. She didn’t think there was a way out. She thought the best she could do was just keep her eyes closed and press her hands over her ears and wait for the visions to go away. But now…

“You’re bluffing.”

“I’m not. I’ve got my back up against a wall here, so I’m offering you what I have. It’s not a lot, and it’s probably worth a lot less than what you’ve got to teach me, but I’m good at what I do. You know that. You could be too.”

Moira pressed her lips tightly together. “I’m not a babysitter. I don’t want you rifling around in my spiritual practice for tricks you can cherry-pick, making a God-awful mess of things as you go.”

“Is that a ‘no’?”

“That’s an ‘I’ll think about it’. Rhys?”

He nodded and crossed to her, knowing when her light usage of his name actually meant you’ve got five seconds to get going before I leave you behind.

“Are you safe to drive?” Rhys asked David. The words sounded old and stale in his mouth.

David’s eyes glimmered with disappointment, but otherwise he didn’t let it show. “I’m feeling better now. You’ll consider my offer?”

“I will.”

“We both will,” Moira said, already striding towards the door. “But don’t call on us at home again, please.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Rhys?”

Her husband stopped at the door and tossed one last glance over his shoulder.

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Rhys just nodded, then followed down the curling stairs after her.

They didn’t speak again until they strode out into the drizzling, gray day and filled their lungs with good, clean air. Immediately, the headache pounding at Moira’s temple cleared.

“He wants you, so he’ll take us both as a package deal,” she said as her heels clicked across the pavement. She didn’t know if she was furious or impressed. “Make us both offers we can’t turn down, so we’ll support the other’s decision.”

“I know.”

“He sure is one smart son of a bitch.”

“I know.”

“And that house… It’s damn malefic is what it is. It’s got some seriously bad vibes hanging around. You feel that?”

“You know I can’t intuit my way out of a paper bag. It just felt like an old house to me.”

“Hmm,” Moira said, still unsettled.

Rhys glanced warily over at her as he unlocked the Lincoln and opened her door. It was like he was seeing something in her for the first time. “What did he mean, Moira? About you seeing things?”

Moira bit her lip. Once Rhys was seated next to her, she covered his hand with her own and looked him square in the eye. Honesty, her mother always said, was the cornerstone of a marriage. But it was also a heavy and unyielding thing to carry around with you.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”