Chapters (50)
- Cover
- Roc Books by Jacqueline Carey
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- Forty-seven
- Forty-eight
“So you’re afraid Emmy’s going to be too strong to handle here?” I asked him. “Even for the whole coven?”
“Not exactly.” He frowned. “Island magic is unpredictable anyway. The coven asked me what would happen if Emmy tried to unleash a duppy here. Truth is, I don’t know. And I don’t want to take a chance on finding out. She might set loose more than she can handle.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” Sinclair repeated. “I just know there could be repercussions. On a primordial level, everything’s connected.”
Catching sight of Jen hovering behind the screen door, I beckoned to her. “It’s okay. We’re just talking about what would happen if Emmy succeeded in turning a duppy loose in Pemkowet.”
Jen slid into her seat. “Well, that would really make Halloween more exciting this year.”
I laughed. “No kidding.”
The three of us sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping our beers.
“Hey, is that video rental place that no one ever goes to still open?” I asked Jen. “The one next to the dollar store?”
She shook her head. “It closed down. Why?”
“Because you still need sheets,” I said. “And this conversation’s given me a weird urge to watch Ghostbusters.”
Thirty-three
On the first day of October, the calendar on Lee’s awesome database sent me a reminder via pop-up, e-mail, and text message that Emmeline Palmer might be returning tomorrow, which would have been four weeks to the day from her ultimatum. Not that I needed the reminder, but it was nice to know it worked.
Anyway, no Emmeline the following day, so I guess we were going by the date. Accordingly, I received a second reminder two days later. I’d entered both dates into the calendar just in case.
It’s funny, but it never occurred to me that dear Emmy was being anything less than literal about her one-month deadline. An ordinary mundane mortal might say, “I’ll be back in a month,” meaning approximately a month’s time depending on flight schedules and availability. But numbers and units of time have significance in the eldritch community. A month meant a month.
And on the fourth of October, the early-warning system I’d bartered for paid off.
It was Mogwai who sensed it first. I was at home in my apartment working my way through the 2009 X-Files. I should have been practicing psychic shield drill, but it was already late afternoon and I was too jittery to concentrate. At a little after three thirty, Mogwai went from a sedate lump of cat dozing in my lap to a hissing, caterwauling wild thing flinging himself at the nearest window, claws splayed.
My heart skipped a beat. “What the hell, Mog?”