Chapter 7. Temple #2
“It’s all right.” Jenny spoke to me with the same soothing tone she used to console her patients. It only made me angrier. “We’ll find a different way.”
“Are we sure Annette got the name right?” I snapped. Casting a spell with the wrong name was like fishing without a hook.
Annette tapped her phone and handed it over, clearly humoring me. An old obituary filled the screen. There was no picture. I zoomed in and squinted at the short, generic text.
“Her maiden name was Wentworth,” I said.
“But she changed it,” said Annette. “Her legal name—”
“Don’t get me started on the rules and caveats and exceptions surrounding True Names.
A name isn’t inscribed into your bones by some clerk at the county courthouse.
If she thinks of herself as Wentworth, that’s her name.
It’s who she is.” Before they could argue, I read the spell again, finishing with, “Margaret Wentworth.”
Power pulsed through the house, through my body, and into the candle. The smoke bent away sharply, like it was caught in an unfelt breeze.
I slumped in my chair, not bothering to hide my relief. “The smoke will lead us to her.”
“Good work.” Jenny picked up the coffee mug and candle.
Annette handed me my cane.
I should have thought to verify the name before I cast the spell. A stupid mistake, but it didn’t matter now. My magic had worked.
I closed the book and ran my fingers over the worn dust jacket with the drawing of Stuart Little paddling his birch bark canoe through the reeds.
I was still a magician.
I was still Temple Finn.
· · ·
I sat in the front of Annette’s red 1972 BMW. The candle and coffee mug were in a plastic cup holder clipped to my door. Jenny was squeezed into the back.
Annette started the engine.
The car wasn’t alive, but it responded like a living thing, purring in response to its owner’s love. Maybe it should have been alive. It wouldn’t take much, given how deeply Annette loved it. But both Annette and Jenny had been clear that I wasn’t to enchant their belongings without asking.
“Where to?” asked Annette.
The smoke traced a line forward and to the right.
“East.” As we drove, I watched Salem pass by through my open window.
So much had changed. I remembered coming this way when I was young to watch anti-sub patrols take off from Winter Island in the early days of World War II. There was so much more traffic now. Cars had multiplied and spread like rabbits overpopulating their habitat.
I’d seen so much, both magical and mundane.
In many ways, the mundane was just as magical: the first helicopter; television; the atomic bomb; Apollo 11 landing on the moon; the internet.
It was exciting and overwhelming and often infuriating, watching history spiral through the same conflicts and mistakes as each generation forgot the lessons of the past. But though they were as clumsy as a blindfolded minotaur in an antiques shop, still they moved forward.
“Turn left,” said Jenny. She’d twisted in her seat to watch the smoke.
“Sorry, yes.” I checked the candle. The smoke was darker now. “We’re close.”
The candle died in front of a bed-and-breakfast on Hardy Street, a red-painted building called the Maule House. An American flag hung on one side of the door, and a large pentagram dominated the other.
Jenny spotted the black van at the back of a small parking lot that had been a public playground seventy years prior. I remembered bringing a date there and sitting on the swings, talking and watching the stars.
Annette parked near the front, away from the van. She double-checked her weapons after getting out. I double-checked my cane and fanny pack.
A flicker of spectral movement caught my eye as we started walking. “She knows we’re here.”
“You mean the van?” asked Jenny. “Do you think she recognizes me?”
The van’s engine growled to life.
“Yes.”
Headlights stared warily at the three of us. Dark smoke belched from the tailpipe. Margaret Wentworth backed out of her spot, then froze as the front door of the B&B swung open with the cheerful chime of bells.
A family emerged. The older child waved a carved wooden wand with feathers and a bit of rose quartz tied and glued to the end.
The younger was sucking spilled maple syrup from her shirt.
The man I assumed to be the father gave us a weary wave and asked, “Do you know how to get to the Real Pirates Museum?”
“It’s on Derby Street.” Jenny was always so quick to help.
It didn’t matter whether it was exhausted tourists or a squirrel with a broken paw or a half-strangled sea serpent caught up in a discarded fishing net.
She had a good soul, despite everything the Guardians Council had done to her. I wished she could see it.
She walked over to talk to the family, which confused me until I realized she was deliberately keeping them away from the haunted van. She joked with the kids and laughed with the parents and waved goodbye as they climbed into an SUV and drove off.
The instant they were out of sight, the van lurched forward. Annette reached inside her windbreaker for her knife.
“Stop that, both of you.” My spells might not have been as strong as they once were, but I could still see. There were no curses on this vehicle, and the presence inside was no cranky poltergeist.
Some people were born with 20/10 vision.
Others with hearing that picked up frequencies and fluctuations few could hear.
My senses just stretched further into the magical spectrum.
It was probably a combination of genetics and growing up in that house with magic seeping into my cells like radon or lead paint.
Annette drew back her empty hand and waited. It warmed my spirit that despite everything, she trusted me enough to follow my lead.
Margaret Wentworth revved her engine.
I sent a tendril of magic through my cane and into the van, triggering the windshield washer. It sprayed twin fans of cleaning fluid onto the glass. The van reversed, jumping backward like a cat sprayed with a water bottle.
“We’re not here to hurt you.” I stepped closer. I felt Margaret Wentworth’s suspicion and mistrust. “Or your child.”
“We’re not?” asked Annette.
“She’s not trapped because she died violently or had unfinished business.” Those ghosts always had an edge of panic and adrenaline. Their presence made my palms sweat and wrecked my blood pressure. This one was different.
I placed my left hand gently on Margaret’s hood. “You stayed to protect your son.”
The wipers swiped once, clearing the washer fluid. I sensed wariness, worry, and a loneliness so powerful, it brought tears to my eyes.
“He doesn’t talk to you anymore, does he?” I asked. “He treats you like a van, not a mother.”
The headlights flashed once.
I used the bottom of my T-shirt to wipe a smear of bird poop from the hood. “I know you’re afraid. Afraid of fading and losing yourself. Afraid of not being here for the people you love.”
Another flash of headlights.
“Temple Finn, Van Whisperer,” said Jenny.
I kept my attention on Margaret. “We don’t know what Ronnie’s trying to do, but it’s important that we speak with him. If he keeps going the way he is, he’ll end up hurt or worse. You know that, don’t you? Let us help him.”
“Time out,” said Annette. “This isn’t some wounded kitten you found on the porch. That kid is dangerous.”
“Aren’t we all?” I asked.
“You’re both right.” Jenny stared into the distance.
“I was like Ronnie when I was young. Stab first, ask questions later. I thought I was doing good. Things like attacking a harvester or spying on a magically warded house to see what danger lurked within its walls . . . they’re things I might have done. They don’t prove he’s evil.”
“Would you have sent your friends to try to murder an innocent succubus?” asked Annette.
Jenny appeared to ponder the question. “I’m sorry, are you describing yourself as innocent?”
I chuckled. One point to Jenny Winter.
“You know what I mean,” snapped Annette.
“This is all bigger than we’ve seen so far,” said Jenny.
“Artemis told me Ronnie was the harbinger, whatever that means—yes, I know what the word means, but a harbinger of what? Ronnie said he was trying to save the world. As for the Gauntlet, weren’t you the one who told me we didn’t know for certain that the guys who jumped you had anything to do with Ronnie?
He acted genuinely confused when I asked him about it.
We should get more facts before we start breaking bones. ”
“Fine.” Annette huffed. “Facts first. Then bone-breaking.”
The van inched forward.
Annette raised her hands. “All right, all right. No violence. Unless he starts it.”
The van hesitated, considering this.
“Where is he, Margaret?” I asked.
“Inside.” Her voice was strong with a pleasant drawl and only a slight hint of the elongation ghosts were prone to.
“What did she say?” asked Annette.
I kept listening. “Ronnie has a room on the second floor. He’s probably still sleeping. He’s always been a night owl.”
Margaret shared a memory of seven-year-old Ronnie stumbling out of bed, a worn plush octopus in one hand. A feeling of warmth and love flowed through me, and I laughed. It had been a long time since I laughed like that.
Jenny gave me an odd look, a smile that sat on the fence between fondness and worry. “Annette and I will go find him. Why don’t you stay here and see what else you can learn from the—from Margaret? Will you be all right?”
I patted Margaret’s fender. “We’ll be fine.”
“A werejaguar?”
“We used the scrying lens. Noah translated the aura using the instructions you downloaded. The guy was either a werejaguar or an enchanted petunia. We left him alone, just like you ordered.”
“Good. What else did you see?”
“A vampire, two half-fey, and a few things we couldn’t identify. Oh, and the gargoyles are hella weird.”
“Define weird.”
“Like, magical weird. I thought I saw one of them move, but it could have been a bird. I checked the aura and saw traces of elemental magic. In the gargoyles, I mean. The bird’s aura was normal. It wasn’t an evil bird or anything.”
“That ill-advised altercation with Annette Thorne may turn out to be a blessing from R’gngyk. When the ritual is complete, the Gauntlet will be the first place we cleanse.”