Upon her return to the shop, she found a middle-aged woman lingering outside, pretending to peer at the display when her eyes were trying to see behind it into the shop itself. By the way she was slowly moving from one side to the other, conspicuously trying to peer through the glass panel of the door, she needed something within.
Before she could arrive, the stranger had wandered off, deciding that she had hovered outside long enough only to be disappointed. Despite knowing she should call the woman back she went inside and shut the door, reminding herself she wasn’t here for that purpose. Moving through the shop she let its power, its siren song, lap against her skin like fresh water in a bath, engulfing her from toe to shoulder; she didn’t wish to be immersed in it just yet. There was a missing piece, something that caused the tones and chimes to falter, to sound discordant, an orchestra without a musician, or a quartet without a quarter. It was what her family had been wary of and had hoped they were wrong about.
When a fresh, cooling breeze came through the door, followed by the gentle clatter of the door closing, she looked around briefly, prepared for whatever face appeared under the archway. She wasn’t surprised that it was the same woman she had seen lingering outside.
“I’m sorry, we’re closed,” she announced clearly.
The older woman stopped mid-step and furrowed her eyebrows, gaze flicking down to the ground as she recalled the last thirty seconds of her life, what she had seen, and why she had dared to cross the threshold when she had been reserved before.
“The sign said ye were open,” she pointed out with a hint of uncertainty, as if her desire to be inside had caused her to see things that weren’t there.
Briefly her own gaze focused over the woman’s shoulder to the sign, with the closed side facing the shop. She hadn’t moved it on her way in. The shop’s talent was shadowed by her mild frustration that she hadn’t been the one to make the decision.
“I suppose we are,” she answered, a light smile grazing her features, “is there anything I can help ye with?”
“I was a regular customer of Duncan’s, and Isobel’s before that. I have trouble sleeping and they gave me a herbal concoction that’s worked wonders,” she babbled cheerfully.
“How long have ye been a customer?”
“Och, years, I’ve ne’er been an easy sleeper. I met Isobel in the bookshop down the road one day and she said she could help cure my insomnia. She was good to her word.”
“Since you’re a loyal customer I’m sure it’s been written down somewhere. I’ll find it for ye and have it made up. Come back tomorrow and it should be ready,” she informed the older woman.
The woman paused and subtly eyed her up, “Oh, are ye taking over this shop then? It’s been family run for as long as I can remember. Duncan did say he had some family up north.”
“I’m taking care of some family matters,” was the only reply she got, followed by a forced smile.
A strange silence extended, filled with mild tension and a battle of wills – who was going to be the first to back down, to either leave or share some personal knowledge? The older woman may have been determined, but the younger was a born and bred expert on keeping information close to her chest. Eventually, disliking the rippling atmosphere, the older woman backed down, but not without one last attempt.
“I’ll leave ye to it then,” she announced, beginning to float backwards towards the door, “I didn’t catch your name.”
She allowed a hint of a genuine smile to grace her lips, “Iona.”
“I’m Barbara, it was very nice to meet ye.”
“And ye.”
Iona watched as Barbara exited the shop, not without a few investigative glances around at the herbs and gems lying strategically, some to gain attention, and others for genuine protection. If everyone was as nosy as she was in the city, then the days when Iona could head back up north couldn’t come quickly enough.
***
It didn’t take long to make Barbara’s herbal concoction that invoked sleep in a restless mind, and it appeared from Isobel’s records that she had been slowly weaning the woman off such remedies. Duncan had not been so diligent in his writing, and there were intermittent entries since his arrival a few years previously.
Brewing the concoction didn’t take her mind from the discordant note that resonated through the shop, amplified by the crystals and gems that lingered. It had been a great fear of her family’s and once they even suspected something was missing, they had put her on the first train away to investigate. Now that their suspicions had been confirmed she had to find a solution before she could return home. A quick phone call the next morning and she had permission to find what had gone missing, and where it had gone missing to.
Deciding that identifying the object was the most helpful, she checked to see if the independent sign on the door had taken it upon itself to decide if she were serving customers or not, and then began her search through the relics and wonders held humbly within the shop, taking an inventory of sorts. It had been many years since one had been done, Duncan was haphazard and careless when it came to the family rules and traditions, shirking them at every corner, and the running of the shop was no exception to his whims. There were many additions, and just as many items missing, or sold, but that would be another job in itself.
A knock resonated around the shop, reaching her ears with polite clarity but making her sigh with exasperation. Barbara was early, and no doubt just as eager to sniff around the new arrival. Leaving the inventory notebook on a glass counter she went to unlock the door and allow the persistent woman entry, only to find that it wasn’t the avid insomniac. An older man stood in loose shirt and years old trousers, the piercing, inquisitive stare directed straight at her as she opened the door.
“Can I help ye?” she asked coldly.
Where she had tolerated Barbara, she would extend no such courtesy to the man before her. It wasn’t preferential treatment, or her being sexist, but out of the knowledge that he wasn’t, nor would ever be, a customer. He had the stench of something she despised, and her top priority was to rid the threshold of his presence.
“Duncan said this place wouldn’t be vacant long,” the older man commented as he motioned to the shop front.
A wave of exasperated irritation jolted through her, and in a wave of residual spite she was satisfied that Duncan had got what he deserved. It was a short effect. Patiently, but not without a hidden attitude, she gazed expectantly at the older man hoping he would soon get to his point.
“The Mistress would like to extend you an invitation, she has a desire to meet you,” he explained, handing her a white card with blood orange writing printed front and back.
“Who?” she queried with raised eyebrows and unimpressed tone.
“The Mistress of the spiritualists of this city. She is our leader. We are all in grave danger and she has promised to protect us from our enemies, and on that vein, she is interested in making your acquaintance.”
It was a polite way of saying she wished to broker an alliance. Enemies, danger, and a desire for protection was all a very dramatic way of saying that the spiritualists were not alone in their city where they had been before and wished to be so again. Her family ensured they kept abreast of changes to the secret structure of the world, the one behind the schedule of commuting and council budgets, but they rarely bothered to get involved. It appeared that others had a different idea.
On the card was a place and time for a meeting and Iona gazed at it with a mixture of fizzing, irritable emotions.
“Thank you for the courtesy. If I wished to learn more about the spiritualists, where could I find you?” she asked with insipid manners.
“There’s a bar, the Cemetery Bell, a few streets over, and that’s where we all meet. You’re very welcome to join us before your meeting,” he offered eagerly.
“I’m sure,” she replied, smiling thinly.
After accepting his gratitude and encouragement she closed the door to hear it lock, crumpling the card in her palm, crushing it with immense satisfaction before allowing it to fall from her hand to a ball of crumpling fiery ash on the floor.
***
Her meeting with the spiritualist zealot had darkened her mood, and it further plunged to bitterness when she found what object was missing from the shop. Duncan had managed to find one of a handful of extremely precious and dangerous objects in the possession of their family and given it to someone, and she had a very good idea who. The spiritualist’s mention of her predecessor had given her as many clues as she needed to paint a very condemning picture. After another tense phone call home, she was given very firm commands, ones she had become eager to obey.
Despite burning the small invitation card, she remembered, or sensed, the location that had been printed on it. Spiritualism, once tapped into, was like a faulty, leaking gas pipe filled with carbon monoxide, invisible but deadly to those surrounding it. Unlike the deadly gas, this type of magic left a trace, a tang in the air, a pulse through the ground, providing a subtle tint to the world, a shimmer like heat from tarmac on a hot day. No one else save her could sense it, or feel it thicken the air. It would only grow stronger if left unrestrained, and it did not look as though completing that task was high on anyone’s list.
After making her way to the bar she stood outside of it and tried not to wrinkle her nose. It was like a bad smell or an overpowering taste, whatever was oozing from the building made her feel nauseous. Her previous passion and eagerness fettered out against the incessant battering on her skin and the back of her throat. Clenching her fists, she centred her mind and placed a wall to block out the overpowering stench.
It was the middle of the day but unlike every other bar in the city this one had customers who were not middle-aged men with nothing to do. Her eyes flickered around the darkened room, no doubt for ambience when the sun went down and the daylight hid away. Some were lounging in comfortable chairs, whilst others were writing profusely in battered notebooks. There were those who noticed her entrance, perhaps weren’t so obtuse that they didn’t feel her power, but they were few, and the majority ignored her arrival. The man who had come to see her earlier was hovering near the bar, chatting to whoever was serving behind it. When he felt the cool breeze that she had brought in with her, his gaze shifted to the door and his eyes brightened eagerly. Dropping his conversation with the bartender he hurried over and took her hand like a compassionate family friend at a funeral for a loved one.
“I’m so glad you came! The Mistress will be very pleased.”
He spoke of the mysterious woman, if a woman she was, with such reverence it bordered on pathetic. The familiar sense of irritation washed over her, momentarily blocking out the magic that coiled like a dragon ready to breathe fire and burn the place to ash, her included.
“Please, come this way,” he ushered to a door that no doubt led to a private room.
Iona’s body stiffened and she became as immovable as a stubborn mule. She was not going to be summoned by one of them, she was not here because of some thinly veiled summons, and she certainly was not going to be at the beck and call of these parlour magicians.
“If she wants to speak to me then she can descend from her throne to do so,” Iona muttered through gritted teeth.
Something about the tone of her voice, the rigidity that her body held, or the burning, barely restrained wrath that lingered beneath her eyes caused the older man to recoil, his grip loosening on her hand. A brief flicker of courage quickly fluttered away, and after returning her hand he disappeared behind the door. Her outburst, or the anger crawling beneath her skin, had caused ripples to shimmer through the bar, and by the second more and more people were paying attention to her presence.
When the door opened Iona’s narrowed eyes found the young girl who appeared from behind it. Iona didn’t claim to be an expert on guessing people’s age, but the so styled Mistress looked no older than eighteen, barely mature enough to be in a bar let alone in one during a school day. Attempting to ignore the wall of prejudice that was being piled high in her mind she watched as the young woman approached with languid grace, the arrogant pout of her lips doing nothing to help Iona’s worsening opinion.
“You came,” the girl observed.
“I did,” Iona confirmed politely.
“Sit down with me, we have much to talk about.”
Once more Iona refused to move, to be silently commanded by a juvenile young woman who thought she could summon a Tulloch witch like a dog.
“I simply came here to ask ye to return one of my family’s relics. I believe Duncan lent it to ye.”
“He said we could keep it as long as we need it.”
“Circumstances have changed,” Iona retorted icily.
“Not for us,” the girl corrected.
They spent a moment gauging one another. It was a one-sided conversation. Iona had nothing to gain by staying, and she wanted nothing more than to walk out of the door and put as much distance between the building and her as was possible just to get some fresh, untainted air. The Mistress, on the other hand, seemed all too eager to have her stay. Her haughtiness vanished, replaced by an eager, bright-eyed teenager who thought she could have anything she wanted just by being determined enough. Iona had never been like that in her youth, but her upbringing had been different, almost unrecognisable to this young woman who now sought to woo her with words and doe eyes.
“You surely know about the infestation our city has suffered from these last few years?” the Mistress queried.
“I do.”
She wasn’t going to make their conversation easier just because she was the older, and supposedly wiser, one of the two. Her spite had been commented on by many members of the family; none complimentary.
“We have been trying to regain our city, to banish them to the abyss where they crawled from, but we are not strong enough and our numbers are frightened. We need a powerful relic like the one Duncan loaned us. He understood our need and offered to help us. Won’t you do the same? We are all witches; we should work together to rid our home of those abominations.”
Iona was sure it would have been a compelling argument to Duncan, the black sheep of the family, but for her it only served to fan the flames of irritation and chagrin. She had many curt retorts for the mistress, but she had been raised not to lose her temper so easily. It was hard, but it was necessary. Arrogance made enemies, and frequent outbursts of anger and spite ensured there was always a steady stream of new ones.
“Any dealings you had with Duncan was made independent of our family. Therefore, any alliance you brokered with him, and any advantages you reaped because of such an alliance, is void. My family wish no part in this petty war you have with the immortals of this city.”
“It’s no petty war!” the older man exclaimed desperately.
“My family wish for the return of the relic that was given to ye by Duncan. It’s dangerous if used.”
“That’s precisely why we wished for it.”
“Too dangerous to be used in squabbles over a city,” Iona reiterated curtly.
Despite her short, somewhat impolite way of speaking, she could sense their situation had come to an impasse. The relic wouldn’t be returned, not when they knew its value and when they thought it could give their city back to them. It would be easy to force their hand now, but her family abhorred the use of brute force tactics when nothing else had been tried, and unfortunately for the ruffled Iona this was her first encounter with the spiritualists, and she shivered to think of the punishment reserved for her if she disobeyed the Clan code.
“We could be allies,” the Mistress attempted again, a lulling hint to her voice like soft lavender, “Like Duncan was.”
“There’s no benefit to us to have an alliance with ye,” Iona replied brutally, “and we wish no further exchanges. Return the relic and I’ll be gone.”
“I can’t give away my people’s only hope,” the young girl reasoned.
She fought the urge to clench her fists, but her teeth received most of the brunt of her frustration. Her trip into the city was meant to be brief – visit Duncan in the hospital, take an inventory of the shop, and then return with a report. Naively when she had left she thought it wouldn’t take more than a week, and it would be more like a holiday. Her hope was slowly crumbling and had been since her arrival. From the determined insomniac in the shop to the haughty teenager who now stood before her, all seemed determined to trap her, to ensnare her for their purposes. A steady stream of air made its way into her lungs, and she expelled it evenly, taking a brief few moments to gather herself, and attempt to control her boiling anger.
“If ye don’t return my family’s relic, I will turn your cemeteries to dust,” Iona stated simply.
There was a flash of genuine fear on the Mistress’s face before it was engulfed by the haughty curve of her lip. The girl may be young, but she was in possession of good leadership qualities, bar the stubbornness and stupidity she had displayed thus far. The older man, to the contrary, seemed to know better than his youthful counterpart, and his anxiety remained in the grooves of his face.
“You have until the end of tomorrow,” Iona stated before spinning on her heel.
Before she could reach the door, another scent mingled with the spiritualist magic, one that was not as foreign to her as she would have liked. Pungent, and tasting as strong as it smelled, the unmistakable waft of blood that jumped down the back of her throat was almost enough to make her wretch. A quick glance in either direction revealed the source of the stench to be the enemy the spiritualists were holding her family’s relic hostage in order to defeat. The immortals. Spelled to a chair, the drips of blood congealed together on the floor emanating the sickening smell. Pursing her lips, she ignored it and closed the door behind her.