Of course, we didn’t know what that plan was, or when she or her minions would strike again. There was no sign of Kenneth Willow or Marjorie Phillips. Micah Cranston was still missing, too, and the magical community of San Diego was on a general high alert. We were lucky to have additional security forces from the Los Angeles Coven, by order of the California Mage Council. They’d been sent over shortly after the gargoyle incident, and there were plenty of them to also help us keep track of the magical kids who had yet to move into the coven.
We didn’t like having them out there in the open, but we knew we wouldn’t get a better chance to catch the Ryders without them.
Dylan was close to making a full recovery. I had a feeling he’d be out of the infirmary by morning. Astrid was busy monitoring all channels for any sign of the Ryders or the missing kids, while also waiting for her Smartie system to return some information on Sál Vinna, the Icelandic spell Harley had mentioned.
On top of it all, we were checking the archives and old CCTV footage from the San Diego area, looking for images of Isadora Merlin. Alton had asked us to look into her and find out where she’d been and what she’d been up to. Needless to say, that was an incredibly difficult task, since Isadora seemed to be quite the expert at hiding her tracks.
Much like Katherine Shipton.
On Wednesday night, I was still languishing in one of the archive rooms, looking through a pile of journals and newspaper clippings, trying to find something on the Ryder twins and Katherine Shipton. But something was off. Entire pages were missing from some of the notebooks. Certain articles had been torn from their slots.
“This isn’t right,” I murmured, flipping through a fifth journal.
I was the last one in the hall, except the nighttime clerk, of course, who was huddled at her small desk all the way on the other side. I had enough privacy to talk to Oberon without anyone thinking I’d lost my mind.
Somebody didn’t want you to dig up information on these people, obviously, Oberon said, his voice echoing in my head.
“That would mean we’ve got Katherine’s people inside the coven,” I replied, frowning. “Or maybe Finch cleaned these pages out during his two-year tenure here.”
By that logic, Finch knows the Ryder twins. Oberon sighed.
“He’s untouchable while he’s in Purgatory. They won’t let anyone near him.”
What are you looking for in particular?
I exhaled, pulled my hair into a loose bun, using one of the bands I always carried around my wrist, and proceeded to check online maps, using the few snippets of information I’d gathered so far.
“Possible hideouts, for the most part,” I murmured. “They’ve got to have some kind of base of operations in town. Without a Portal Opener, they’re dependent on the usual modes of transportation, and, based on how quickly they get from one part of the city to another, they must be somewhere in San Diego.”
Ah… Finally! Oberon exclaimed. Close your eyes, darling. There is someone here to see you!
I looked around, checking to see if anyone else had come into the hall. Fortunately, it was still just me—well, us—and the clerk, who was gradually dozing off in her seat. I closed my eyes, welcoming the darkness of the veil as it unraveled around me.
“Did you find who you were looking for?” I asked Oberon.
“And then some!” he replied, his voice becoming clearer and sharper as I descended into the spirit plane.
I looked down and noticed Oberon’s spiritual form visible over mine, like an iridescent glaze of sorts. I hadn’t paid attention to myself back at the Devereaux mansion, but I could definitely see how those spirits had been able to spot him.
“This is still weird,” I said.
“Well, I don’t want you to feel suffocated, darling,” Oberon replied, and I could feel him smiling. Needless to say, this partial separation between us, even though we were still occupying the same space, made me feel less anxious about his presence in me.
Above us, dozens of wisps hovered around the room—spirits of magicals that had died in this interdimensional pocket, warlocks and witches whose lives had either come to a natural end or had been cut short. No matter how many times I saw them, it always felt eerie to watch.
One of them approached us. The closer it got, the better I could see it.
It was a girl. Medium height, slender, with long brown hair and hazy blue eyes… semi-transparent, like the others, but somewhat more colorful, as if her spirit was stronger. She wore a pair of jeans and a white flannel shirt. There was a large bloodstain on her chest. I figured it was her cause of death.
“What are you doing here?” the girl asked, scowling at me.
“Do I know you?” I asked her, confused.
“I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to the arrogant dweeb you’ve got inside you!” she retorted. I’d already forgotten that spirits could see Oberon riding along in my meatsuit. “What are you doing here, Oberon? I thought I told you years ago that this hall was off limits!”
“Helen, please don’t be such a grouch!” Oberon replied, chuckling. “You can’t let a bad date define the rest of our relationship, darling. We could be looking at an eternity together.”
Oh, these two clearly had history, and it made me blush. This was getting awkward, fast.
“I’d rather burn in hell forever,” Helen snapped.
“Then move on, sweet cheeks,” Oberon retorted.
“Hey, guys… still here,” I said, raising a hand. I smiled at Helen. “I’m Tatyana. And sorry you have to deal with Oberon. Though I’m not sure what happened between the two of you—”
“I’ll tell you what happened!” Helen hissed. “Oberon thinks that no means yes. I had to kick him in the nuts, twice, to make him understand that, in fact, no means no.”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Ironically, Oberon’s embarrassment was burning through me, pumping more heat into my face.
“Okay, I’m sorry,” I replied. “But Oberon is helping me. It’s important. Lives are at stake, Helen.”
She raised an eyebrow. “So, that’s how you called out to me, Oberon? By hitching a ride inside a Ghost-Whisperer?”
“A Kolduny,” I muttered.
“Same thing. Different name,” Helen said, crossing her arms.
“Helen, please. You know I’ve kept my distance like you asked. It took me forever to find you again, and trust me, it doesn’t give me any pleasure to have to reach out to you. But we do need your help,” Oberon said.
Helen stared at me for a long moment, then let out a sigh of defeat. “Fine. What do you want?”
“You knew the Ryder twins, didn’t you?” Oberon asked. “I know you mentioned them a couple of times, since… you know, since you’ve been around.”
I found myself intrigued by how even dead people tiptoed around their condition. Death was never an easy word to work with, it seemed.
“Yeah, I knew them back in the Houston Coven, before I moved here,” Helen replied. Only then did I finally identify her accent—that Texan drawl that spoke of hot summers and spicy barbecues.
“You were in the same coven,” I said. “What can you tell me about them?”
Helen put on a sad smile. “They were decent kids, you know? Thoroughly misunderstood, from the beginning. They wanted to be good, but the other magicals didn’t like them much,” she explained. “Some looked down on foster kids in general. They were picked on a lot. I was one of the few who knew about their Shapeshifting abilities. I caught them changing into two of our preceptors at the time. They begged me not to tell anyone. I’m not the kind of girl to gossip, so I kept my mouth shut.”
“What happened in Houston then? What got them kicked out?” I asked.
“They crossed a line,” she said. “To be honest, those bullies had it coming. They’d been tormenting Emily and beating the daylights out of Emmett on a weekly basis. The twins just had enough one day. They snapped. They shifted and infiltrated the bullies’ group and set them up with a very dangerous curse. They nearly killed three magicals.”
“Whoa,” I breathed.
“Like I said, those guys did deserve some punishment, but what the twins delivered was far too extreme. Besides, the curse they used was forbidden,” Helen replied. “There was an investigation, and a couple of weeks later the Ryders left town. I never saw them again.”
What Helen had just told me wasn’t crucial information, but it did shed some light on what might’ve triggered the Ryders to descend into such brutal darkness. I was well aware that some people were just born with a predilection for violence and evil, but there had to be turning points—switches one could flip at various points in their lives. The Ryder twins were victims of their circumstances, all right, but the choices that followed were theirs and theirs alone.
“Did you ever see them in San Diego?” I asked.
Helen shook her head. “If I did, I wouldn’t have recognized them. By the time I moved here, they’d already gone AWOL after their third strike in Albuquerque. They would’ve shifted to stay under the radar. It’s one of the reasons why magicals are wary of Shapeshifters. Most of them don’t mean any harm, but not knowing who they really are or who they can turn into… that doesn’t sit well with anyone. And the Ryders did plenty of damage before falling off the edge of the Earth, if you know what I mean. They certainly didn’t help diminish the stigma.”
A second spirit came closer, a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair and brown eyes, stocky and still wearing his bathrobe. He’d died in it. Poor thing. He stopped by my side, staring at a fixed point in the darkness, specifically where my laptop was in the living plane.
“What’s up, Martin?” Helen asked the spirit.
“I overheard you and couldn’t help but step in…” Martin replied. He bent down to get a better look at my laptop’s screen, then remarked, “If that’s where you’re looking for the Ryders, you’re wasting your time.”