Midnight Marked

Living on the edge, Ethan said silently to me. Much like Caleb Franklin. He glanced at Annabelle. “How do you know so much about it?”

She smiled. “I come across all types, and I pick up information here and there, file it away. Context is important in my business. You never know what information you’ll need. The folks who request my services aren’t always on the up-and-up. And, frankly, ’mancers like to talk. This job can be dangerous. We try to keep each other aware.”

“Any idea where in Hellriver the sups might be?”

“No, sorry. I stay out of there physically.” She patted her belly, as if her touch would protect her child from the darkness around her. “Especially with Peanut, who is currently again kickboxing my internal organs. Enough already, kid.”

“We’ll let you get back to work,” Ethan said. “If you do hear anything, could you let us know?”

“Of course,” she said with a smile, and we exchanged numbers.

“It was a pleasure meeting you.” Annabelle smiled and offered a hand.

I looked instinctively down, realized the skin of her palm was dotted with hundreds of black dots the size of pinpricks. When I looked at them, she looked down, squeezed her fingers.

“Each handshake with a client leaves a mark,” she explained. “Not all ’mancers do it; they don’t like the permanent reminder of death. But it’s important for me to keep a memento of the ones I’ve spoken to. They trust me, and I take that trust very seriously.”

I had no doubt of that. I took her hand, shook it. “I’m really glad we got to meet you, Annabelle.”

“I’m glad you did, too. Be safe. And stay away from ghouls if you can.”

I intended to, absolutely.

• • •

“Where to now?” I asked Ethan when we made our way to the sidewalk again.

“I suppose we should take a look at Hellriver. See if we can find alchemy or other sorcery.”

I nodded, and we walked south toward the broken fence that marked the boundary between Franklin’s neighborhood and Hellriver.

“We’ve discovered something our stalwart Sentinel is squeamish about,” Ethan said. “Dead things.”

“Dead things should stay that way. Present company excluded,” I added at his arch look. “Because you’re the most handsome ghoul of them all.”

He snorted.

“Annabelle seems cool. Very levelheaded for a woman who does what she does for a living. She seems like the type who gets the job done, takes care of her family, fries up the bacon or whatever.”

“Are you casting a sitcom?”

“It certainly sounds like it.”

We reached the chain-link fence that separated Hellriver from the rest of the world, which still bore enormous yellow signs warning of the chemical spill. We walked over a section of fence that had been flattened against pavement, passed a peeling billboard of the neighborhood’s once-famous dogwood trees. FOR BACKYARDS, FOR COMMUNITY, FOR YOUR FAMILY, it read.

Belle River hadn’t made good on the promise.

The houses beyond the billboard were nearly identical—one-story rectangles with overgrown shrubs and attached, single-car garages. Their bright pastel paint had faded and chipped, yards were full of last year’s dead weeds, and the asphalt was pitted and buckled. Streetlights had pitched over across sidewalks. The spill and evacuation had happened during the summer months, and lawn mowers still sat abandoned in the middle of several yards. Their owners had picked up and walked away from their lives.

Much like Caleb’s, this neighborhood was utterly silent, which added to the sensation that we’d fallen into an alternative, dystopian universe.

“Is it just me, or is this just . . . wrong?” Ethan asked.

“You’re not wrong, and it is.”

If there were supernaturals or anybody else currently living in the neighborhood, they weren’t showing themselves. The houses were dark, and nothing but dead weeds in the light breeze.

But there was something else, I thought, as the hair on the back of my neck lifted. There was magic.

You feel that? I asked him, switching to silent communication.

Ethan nodded, coming to a stop. Look, he said, and I followed his gaze to two images stenciled in dark paint onto the sidewalk. The alchemical symbols for the sun and moon—a circle with a dot inside, and a thin sliver of crescent moon.

I didn’t think this was supposed to be part of an equation. It didn’t feel like that, didn’t have the same number of symbols or breadth of magic, of energy. It seemed more like a calling card. The demarcation of territory.

He’s been here, Ethan said.

Yeah. He has.

Annabelle’s instincts had been right. Hellriver was the type of neighborhood for a maverick supernatural. And more specifically, for an alchemical sorcerer. It also meant Caleb Franklin lived only a few blocks away from what seemed to be the sorcerer’s territory. And wasn’t that interesting?

Be ready, Ethan said as we moved forward again.

I nodded, my fingers already on the handle of my katana.

We reached a four-way stop, reviewed our options. Belle River was built to be a self-contained neighborhood. The houses surrounded a small commercial area—shops and diners around a central square. It was supposed to simulate a New England village, like Stars Hollow come to Illinois. Houses stretched to our left, the square to our right.

Right, Ethan suggested, and I nodded my agreement, fell into step beside him.

The square was one block over, with ornate streetlamps and reaching trees around the edge, the remains of a gazebo now a tinder pile in the middle. On the other side of the gazebo was a small stream topped by a wooden bridge, the water still gurgling merrily after all these years. I wondered if it, too, had been spoiled by the chemical release.

The houses might have been empty, or seemingly so, but there was visible activity here—flickering lights in some of the narrow buildings that surrounded the square. Candles, I guessed, unless the users had brought their own generators.

We crept into the square, hiding in the penumbras of trees to stay as invisible as possible. We still hadn’t actually seen anyone, but the sense that we were being watched hadn’t yet faded.

Ethan stopped and glanced up at the building across the street.

It was a slim, three-story building. The windows had been painted black, but slivers of light shone through the glass where the color had been scraped away. LA DOULEUR was painted in gold letters across the sidewalk in front of it.