Beneath the Mall of Madness (A Jaspar Windisle Mystery Book 1) Read online

  Since Fiona was waiting for me, I didn’t bother unpacking. I just put my suitcase at the foot of the bed and headed back to my car. Jeremiah had been replaced by a dark-skinned, middle-aged woman with curly red hair. She nodded at me as I left the lobby.

  “Don’t forget to be back before midnight!” she called out.

  “I won’t.”

  I reminded myself that there were no better hotel options, and headed out to the parking lot.

  Chapter 3: Saving mankind can be a pain in the ass sometimes

  Fiona appeared to be taking a nap when I got back to the car. She opened her eyes when I got in.

  “So how did you like it?” she asked.

  “It’s surprisingly nice,” I said. “I thought the trout painting in my room was a nice touch, but his sales pitch could use some work. Maybe he could just shout ‘Get out!’ at everyone who walks in.”

  “I think my cousin might be a tiny bit burned out. Mostly from people complaining about the atmosphere.”

  “Compared to the other options, he could have mounted an elephant on the wall and I think I would have been okay with it.” Fiona snickered.

  “You haven’t even seen the trophy room. Our great-grandfather was very into hunting. Most of his trophies aren’t displayable, but what was, he’d put up. Jeremy took all of it down when he took over. He had more of an interest in attracting new business back then. It wouldn’t surprise me if that picture was replacing a real fish.”

  “That would have been interesting.” Fiona directed me to turn just before we reached downtown. “How far away do you live?” I asked her as we drove through a neighborhood and started up a narrow road that had a bare mountain on one side and evergreen forest on the other.

  “Not far. Few people want to live next to the cliffs, so I don’t have many neighbors.”

  Sure enough, after the road had gone around a curve and out of sight of the town, the forest began to give way. The road left the mountain and headed across a meadow, straight towards another cliff. This one was so high that the top was hidden by clouds.

  “And that’s my house,” she said. “Take the left driveway.” What she called driveways looked like roads to me. I couldn’t see any of the houses she claimed were there. Fiona’s driveway was over a mile long. It curved around a pile of boulders and into another dark forest. Once I got past the trees, it did lead straight to her front door.

  Fiona’s house had a large front yard to make up for having no backyard at all. Her house wasn’t just next to a cliff; it was built into one. The house had a large front porch. There was a pond, and signs that in any other season the garden would be something to see. At this time of year, her maple trees were starting to turn color, and the oaks lining her property were almost bare. There was also a greenhouse on one side of the house and a storage shed at the edge of the property. The house had two main stories plus an attic large enough to have its own window. I noticed as I stopped the car that there was an ornamental rock border all around the yard, even stretching across the driveway. They looked like the dark green triangular rocks that you can pick up at garden centers, but larger.

  “Thanks for the ride,” Fiona said, fiddling with her leg brace as she got out of my car. “Would you like some lunch? You must be hungry.”

  “I’d love some,” I said. I don’t really need to eat. If I did, I would have died long before Steve had a chance to rescue me. I do like food, however, so I prefer to eat whenever the opportunity arises. I admit to having a little hope that if I eat enough, I might grow an inch or two taller.

  The inside of Fiona’s house had not been updated like the hotel. Her house was tiny, and the floor and baseboards were all dark, hard wood. I could understand why she hadn’t remodeled. The front door opened directly onto a narrow flight of stairs leading up, and if I owned an entire staircase made of ebony I wouldn’t give a shit about opening up the space either. Fiona led me around the stairs and into the kitchen. Unlike the entryway, the kitchen had been modernized to within an inch of its life. It was on the side of the house, with the cliffs on one side and the greenhouse on the other. Fiona was the kind of person who put lacy cloth curtains in their kitchen, but it did need lightening up.

  “Would you prefer lunch or breakfast?” she asked me.

  “Whatever you feel like making is fine with me.”

  “Breakfast then.” She took off her robe, to reveal a much plainer wool dress underneath.

  “That’s nice,” I said. “Did you really need to wear the robe as well?”

  “Oh, this? I’ve got a date later, and I thought it would save time. Besides, that robe isn’t at all warm. It’s made for summers in Africa, not fall in Washington.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Where in Africa do they make prints that loud?”

  “Nowhere, but they used to before their clothing market was overrun with bell bottoms and band t-shirts.” She was putting on a much more prosaic frilly apron as she said this. “I have a friend who knows someone who still makes textiles. She’s sent me some prints that you wouldn’t believe were done with tie-dye. It’s like wearing a painting. And in the summer it’s very comfortable.”

  “It’s still a little fancy for a muddy field.”

  “It may be art, but it’s still clothes.” She started pulling food out of the fridge. “And that isn’t any old robe. It’s my wizard robe.”

  “Oh, you’re a wizard?” If she was, it was news to me that wizards didn’t count as psychics. “Did you know your fridge is unplugged?” She’d almost stepped on the cord.

  “Yes, I come from a long line of them. And yes, I know about the refrigerator. I can’t get electricity up here.”

  “Then what’s the point of having one?” I wasn’t sure how to deal with her claim to be a wizard.

  “I use magic on it,” she said. “It’s more convenient to put a spell on a giant box than to individually enchant all my perishables.”

  I might have challenged her at that point, but something on the counter had caught my attention. There was a squid sitting there, staring at me. Its tentacles were on the counter, its body raised in the air. It was mainly white, with thin red stripes, but other colors flashed across its skin. It was bobbing up and down, and its fins were waving.

  “Fiona, did you know that there’s a live squid on your counter?” I asked as calmly as I could.

  “Oh, that’s Gregory. He thinks he’s my familiar, but really he’s a baby. Do you want to help make lunch?” She addressed that last question to the squid. It turned to her and turned purple.

  “Then get me a spoon and you can help stir,” she told it. It wriggled speedily across the counter and grabbed a wooden spoon with its longest tentacles. When it came back to where Fiona was cracking eggs into a bowl, she took the spoon from it like it was nothing.

  “Shouldn’t Gregory be in an aquarium?” I asked. He turned towards me and the rapid color changing began again.

  “No. He isn’t really a squid,” Fiona said. “I don’t know how long he’s been in the family, but little Gregory is the infant stage of an alien life form. He came through a portal in the attic and since he won’t say where he’s from it seems cruel to toss him back through and hope for the best.”

  “What’s the adult stage look like?” I asked.

  “Bigger. Much bigger, but still basically a squid. In his own atmosphere, he should be able to fly. Here he gets along fine by crawling.”

  “What does he eat?”

  “Fruit mostly, but he’ll also eat rocks. I thought he only ate fruit until I remodeled the kitchen, and he tried to eat the granite countertops.”

  “Does he eat amber?”

  “Worried about your pendant? Don’t be. He won’t eat insects. He’s a resolute vegan.”

  When I thought about it, it made perfect sense. Even a wizard wouldn’t keep a carnivorous land squid in their house. That would be crazy.

  “Good.” As she continued to cook, I looked around.

  “So you said
you come from a long line of wizards . . .”

  “Yes. There have been mages of one kind or another in the family since before we arrived in America, and we’ve been in America a very long time. One of my ancestors was in the Lewis and Clark expedition. They split away from the rest of the group once they reached the ocean and eventually made their way here.” She set a plate of waffles, eggs, and sausages in front of me, along with orange juice. “Would you like strawberries or maple syrup?”

  “Strawberries please.”

  “There are several old magic families living in this town. This is one of the largest mystical focal points ever discovered in this world.”

  “Is that why your ancestor came here?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ve never left, so I can’t say for certain, but according to outside sources anyone looking for that sort of thing can detect the mystical emanations of this town as far away as Boston.”

  “So the tourists are right?” I asked. “This is delicious, by the way.” Fiona grabbed her own plate and sat down.

  “More like late,” she said. “Some of them are thrill seekers who wouldn’t know what to do with a baby squid alien if it ate them, but we get plenty of people who followed the same signs our ancestors did. That’s part of the reason Jeremiah gave you a hard time. He can tell when people are magical.”

  “Is he a wizard too?” I didn’t see how anyone could have time to be a wizard and run a hotel. They both seemed like full-time jobs to me.

  “Oh no, if it doesn’t concern the hotel, it doesn’t concern Jeremy either.” Gregory, the squid, had joined us at the table and was watching me eat my waffle. He picked up and put down a fork.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked him. He immediately shrank down, then inflated himself, and did an excellent impression of a strawberry. Fiona laughed.

  “Don’t be greedy,” she said. “You can get your own from the greenhouse.”

  Sparks had emerged from my pocket and was watching the squid.

  “Let’s ask the spirits,” I said, pulling out the pendant. “What do you think, spirits? Should I share my lunch with Gregory?” Sparks batted at the pendant then grabbed it. I pulled it out of his reach, and let it circle my plate. Sparks watched it and pounced again. He missed, but it made the pendant twist around in the air. I put it away. “I suppose that’s a yes.” I passed the squid a strawberry. He grabbed it and pulled it under his body.

  “Alright, what did the spirits really say?” Fiona asked. “Not that I believe there are dead people in my kitchen.”

  “You’d be right,” I said. “Fortunately for my appetite, sausages are not self-aware, and other than that there are no corpses nearby.”

  “That’s good to know.” Fiona stared at me. “Do you need that pendant to talk to spirits?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve always wondered about necromancers. As a wizard, I had to study, acquire ingredients and practice every spell in my repertoire. If I sold all my books and equipment and quit casting spells, I wouldn’t be a wizard anymore. Could you swear off communing with the dead and have a normal life, or are you stuck with it? I mean, it seems like such an anti-social profession, but people keep getting into it. There are as many tomes about necromancy as there are books on every other magical discipline combined.”

  “I see,” I said. “No, I can’t quit. If it weren’t for my pendant and my spirit guide things would get worse for me.”

  “Oh?”

  I don’t know why I decided to confide in Fiona. She didn’t seem especially trustworthy. Maybe it was the waffles, which were delicious. Or maybe it was the way she was paying attention. Whenever Steve asked, he sounded bored. I took the pendant back out and held it out to her.

  “Do you see the moths trapped inside?” I asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “They’re what’s powering the pendant. I can give the residual energy of the dead some power to move. They’re still insects and act like insects, but if it weren’t for the amber they would abandon their bodies and try to do everything a moth should do, with limited success.”

  “What do you mean limited?” Fiona asked.

  “They could pollinate a flower, but they can’t mate,” I said. “If I created a rattlesnake shade it wouldn’t have venom, but it could still scare the hell out of people until they realized it was transparent.”

  “I think a ghost rattlesnake would still be scary,” she told me. “There are plenty of people who can’t handle seeing a garter snake and those are harmless when they’re alive, too.”

  “That might have been a poor example,” I admitted. “What I was getting to is that it’s very easy for me to create these shades. Sometimes I don’t have to think about it at all, but to get rid of them I have to find their corpse and get them back into it. They don’t just go about their business in the wild, either. They follow me. If I’m busy or not paying attention, I end up trailing dead animals like an undead Disney princess.” She laughed.

  “That sounds like it would be great to see.” I glared at her. “I’m sorry; I can see how it would be difficult for you.”

  “So what does a wizard do apart from handing out food at environmental protests?”

  “Oh, the snacks aren’t part of my job,” she said. “I just like to feed people. I spend most of my time guarding the Earth from horrors from beyond.”

  “Really? Don’t take this the wrong way, but isn’t someone more able-bodied available?” Fiona tsked, then took a sip of her orange juice.

  “What I lack in speed I make up for in tenacity,” she said. “And it’s a job that comes with this house. There’s a naturally occurring mystical convergence somewhere in the cliff above us that creates tears in the space-time continuum. One of my ancestors had more brains than sense and focused those tears into a single permanent portal. I won’t bore you with the details, but baby squid aliens are among the least of what’s shown up in the attic.”

  I still don’t know why, but I asked if I could see. Fiona didn’t hesitate to agree.

  The stairs up to the second floor were so narrow and steep I didn’t see how a normal sized man could navigate them. Fiona grabbed the railing and hopped all the way up. Gregory remained downstairs, and so did Sparks.

  The attic was empty. Except for an irregular patch in the middle and the small round window I’d seen from the driveway the whole room was covered in plaster. There were footprints pressed into the floor and some marks that weren’t as easy to make out.

  “What’s with all the plaster?” I asked. It didn’t seem in keeping with the rest of the house. Fiona scowled.

  “It was for a spell,” she said. “Saving mankind can be a pain in the ass sometimes.” She limped to the bare wood in the center of the room. “I’d clean it up but as you can see the portal is taking care of it a little at a time.” I moved closer. Inside the bare spot was a pentagram no bigger than the palm of my hand.

  “This is it?”

  “It moves around and changes size. If the changes are based on any kind of system, no one in my family has been able to figure out what it is. It never leaves the floor or the attic. It’s a two-way portal, so I take care not to leave anything in this room.” As we walked across the floor, it crunched.

  “Do you keep plaster on hand for monster emergencies?” I asked.

  “No, it’s for repairs. Sometimes things get out. I find a shotgun solves most problems, and lye takes care of the rest.”

  “And the wizardry comes in when?”

  “The plaster,” she said. “No regular exterminator would think to ward off psychic cheese wasps with plaster of Paris, but it works like a charm.”

  “Psychic cheese wasps?”

  “I’m sure it had more gravitas in their native language,” she said, frowning at the floor.

  “If you ask me, they weren’t really wasps, but they sure did like cheese.”

  “Who doesn’t? Cheese is delicious.” I looked out the window. “Your garden is lovely, by
the way.” From this vantage point, I could see the part of her yard that was hidden from the driveway by the greenhouse. It was too late in the season for all but a few stubborn roses, but what was there, was beautiful.

  “Thanks. I used to have a vegetable garden, but none of the vegetables turned out quite right, so now it’s strictly flowers and fall color.”

  “What do you mean by not quite right?”

  “Blue,” she said. “It’s true what they say about blue food. Even if there was nothing else wrong with it, I couldn’t have brought myself to eat it. The flowers also have a blue tinge. I try to keep that in mind when I decide what to plant.”

  “It worked.” I turned to head back downstairs. “Why did you agree to show me this?”

  “I’m trying to impress you,” she said as if it were obvious. “You seem semi-sensible for a trendy consultant. . .”

  “So?”

  “So if the next time you step onto that site you find out it’s less harmless ghosts and more cheese wasps, please fill me in.” She escorted me out of the attic.

  “You don’t want outsiders messing around in your territory, do you?”

  “No. There are already enough cults and wanna-be super villains lurking in our woods. The last thing we need is an evil mall or God forbid, an occult reality show.”

  “I’ll remember that,” I promised. “Thanks again for lunch.”

  “See you around,” she said, waving goodbye. “If you’re still here you can have lunch with me again the day after tomorrow.”

  As I drove away, I thought about Fiona and the town. Clearly the locals and the tourists thought that this place was crawling with supernatural activity. Until now I’d only had experience with the dead, and I preferred it that way. There was enough oddness in my life.