Mara surveyed the room from her position at the foot of the table and nodded. “Well, if we’re to get any peace from nixies, we’ll have to set an example ourselves. Brian?”
Brian became still and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” He fell silent and put his hands in his lap, waiting for her approval, but not fool enough to take his attention completely off the food. In a moment, everyone but Mara had followed Brian’s lead—even the baby—and a calm fell over the group. I couldn’t see Mara doing anything, but somehow the lull in the noise and activity made the room seem cooler and everyone in it more serene, less worried, and less stressed.
Mara sat down and looked us all over. She picked up her glass, which Ben had filled with water, and said, “May the hinges of our friendship never grow rusty.” Everyone but Martim got the hint and took a sip from their own glass. Then Mara took a long, slow breath and let it back out again with a satisfied sound. “Well, then. Everyone start a dish.”
We each turned our attention to the nearest dish of food and all sense of decorum and silence died.
Lunch was magnificent, the sort of huge, languorous meal Americans eat on holidays and at formal dinners, but in the Danziger household it was served without the stuffy manners and polite service. As I’d hoped, the kids got along like old friends and Soraia was ready to go investigate Brian’s room as soon as they’d finished eating, but Mara insisted they stay until the adults were ready to settle into postprandial conversation.
When we finally got up from the table, Brian and Soraia took some cookies and repaired to Brian’s room. Sam went to clean up Martim and tuck him under a blanket on the sofa for a nap while I helped the Danzigers clear the table.
“What have you been up to?” Ben asked while we washed dishes.
“The usual—working for ghosts and fighting monsters in between pretrials and background searches.”
“I’m serious. You seem different.”
“Less annoying?”
“Less annoyed.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been good at analyzing myself.”
“You’re more calm,” Mara offered.
“Me? At the moment I’m only calm because I’m tired.”
“I wasn’t meaning that,” Mara said, putting leftovers into the fridge. “I meant your magical state seems more settled, stronger. You’re doing very well in that respect, yes?”
“I guess I am. Not much comes completely out of the blue anymore, and I generally know what I’m doing—or I can make an educated guess. No more unintentional slipping sideways through the Grey, less flying by the seat of my paranormal pants.”
“Good. So, what’s the situation with the Rebelos?”
“I don’t know about the husband—I haven’t met him, so his personality is a blank—but Sam’s another hardhead like I used to be. She’s a doctor and she isn’t as open-minded about the paranormal as she tried to be when we met yesterday. It’s been rough on her, trying to take in so much and make the necessary mental adjustment to what her father’s done and what it’s connected to. So she’s going to need help on her own end as well as needing to help her daughter.
“The biggest complication is that Soraia sees things. She talks to ghosts and claims to see fairies, and she’s guessed that Carlos is a vampire. We had a little chat about ‘being strange’ and how it’s not a bad thing, but she’s still confused about what she’s experiencing in paranormal terms. She’s got no context or background to help her understand this stuff in the best situation and now her situation is far from the best. She’s very tough, but I suspect this shy, calm appearance is unusual for her. What she experienced last night alone was pretty terrible and we haven’t yet discovered what she may have been through in the three days she was missing. A couple of bone mages were planning to cut her up for spare parts after they let her bleed to death so they could make something Carlos hasn’t figured out yet. In addition, we saw these mages imprisoning revenants last night in the same sort of boxes Sergeyev was stuck in.”
Mara stopped me and asked, “So there are likely to be more willful spirits in boxes somewhere?”
“Yes,” I said. “And like Sergeyev, they’re probably aware of their state—dead, but imprisoned and being used like slaves and spies, moved wherever Purlis and the bone mages want them—and we don’t know exactly how they mean to use them, but you know what happened with Sergeyev. The boxes on the site last night burned and the ghosts escaped—the Guardian rounded them up—but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more of them elsewhere. Quinton believes there are some already in place throughout Europe.”
Mara and Ben both looked sickened at the thought. They’d been in at the beginning of the Sergeyev case, though we’d barely gotten acquainted by then, and knew very well what sort of nightmares it brought to adults, much less little girls. “I am afraid of what’s going to happen as soon as Soraia has the luxury of slowing down,” I continued, “and Sam isn’t prepared to help her. That was the real reason I wanted you two to take them in. Sam’s a doctor, so she understands trauma, but she doesn’t have the mental preparation or any magical ability to help her daughter with the paranormal aspects of this, and if she doesn’t get help . . . you know how badly that can turn out.”
Mara covered her mouth in shock for a moment—a gesture I had rarely seen her make even when we’d faced things more monstrous than vampires. “Oh . . . bloody hell. She’s a lovely child—poor thing. I’d have to test her—which won’t be appropriate now—but I suspect she may be a witch herself. And not a hedge witch like me, but something much more unusual.”
“Like what?”
“I’d rather not be saying until I’m sure.”
“Is it a good thing?”
“It can be. It can also be terrible if twisted by bad teachers and evil circumstances.”
“Then you’re going to have to find some way to talk to her without her mother going off the deep end. Soraia knows she’s what we’re calling ‘strange,’ but she’s terrified that she’s going to be evil, as if it’s something she can’t avoid after seeing what she saw.”
“I’ll find a way. . . . I’m glad you brought them to us. I think there’s a touch of something unusual in the baby as well. I’d like to meet their father. . . .”
“You’ll have to hold off until Carlos and Quinton and I can put a stop to whatever his father is up to. It’s not going to be safe for Sam to contact Piet—that’s her husband—or go home until this situation is completely dismantled with no hope of a rebuild.”
“I can see that. I only wish I’d be having a hand in serving up some just deserts to a man who’d do this to his own grandchild. The vile bastard. I’ll work it out with Sam, then, shall I?”
“I think you should.”
I told them the rest of the background as we finished up and then went into the more recent points once we were all seated in what Mara laughingly called “El Salón,” since the main part of the apartment was mostly one large room broken up by the placement of furniture to indicate what each area was used for. Sam was less comfortable than ever with the details Ben and Mara dragged out of me.
“So these Kostní Mágové are another type of necromancer?” Mara asked.
“I’d say they’re more like a subclass. They don’t seem to have any affinity for death in general, only for bones. Carlos said it’s related to a more mainstream religious thing taken to a bizarre extreme. It’s pretty odd.”
“It’s rather medieval,” Ben put in. “The cult of bones goes back a long way in the Catholic Church, and it’s still active in pockets throughout the Christian world. A lot of the belief turns on the principle that we are only shadows walking toward death and our heavenly reward. Our earthly lives are toil and suffering, so we shouldn’t be overly proud, materialistic, or live an ungodly life regardless of our social station, because we’re all going to be food for worms eventually. It was very common up through the plagues and later abominations like the Inquisition—the mortification of the flesh is a great excuse for all sorts of torments in the name of God. It’s one of the reasons you find these medieval ossuaries all over Europe.”