“Resourceful fellow,” I commented. “Would have helped if the family didn’t keep leaving the body behind.”
“Yeah, well, that was the pattern. Multiple attempts at stopping him, bludgeoning, trapping him, severing limbs, and each time, he got a few of them, used the fat to fix himself, patching up the wounds and replacing the missing parts, and he kept going, until it came to the brothers. He was stopped when the brothers took refuge in a church, repenting. Coincidence or no, the church candles melted some of the wax holding him together, and he burned up. The priest had heard them repenting the murder and theft, they went to jail, yadda yadda.”
“Weak to fire as the big con?”
“Something like that.”
I nodded. “That’s a problem, when we’re talking about the Eye. Pros?”
“He’s described as diligent, before he went all monster. The book that records his history suggests he’s been summoned with some regularity, and not just by diabolists. Maybe he’s the kind of guy we can keep on hand to do some of the mundane stuff for my sake, and if trouble comes up, we light his wick and point him in their direction.”
“I’m not entirely sold. If we’re going to dig into the sketchy stuff, I’d rather get something of value. Again, presuming we even do this.”
“Sure,” Rose said. She smiled. “Next option… well, you like your birds. What does it mean to you if I say James Corvidae?”
“Corvidae… crows, mockingbirds, ravens, rooks. Do I want to know?”
“Long thought to be a member of the seventh choir, chances are good he perpetuated the myth himself, to make himself scary even to the practitioners who had some idea what was up.”
“Oh, so this is a clever one. Fits, with the corvidae motif.”
“Yeah. Aside from deciding what he isn’t, nobody’s really stepped forward to say what he is. I guess, if you had to stick a label on this one, I’d say ‘Bogeyman’. Which seems to be a convenient practitioner label for ‘loner Other with a penchant for terror or murder’.”
“With a bird theme?”
“Peripheral. Names tend to find him. James Crow, Jamie the Rook, Jay Chough, and so on.”
“I’m seeing the theme.”
“Always the same general appearance. Slouch, black hair slicked back, hook nose, nice clothes that have seen too much use. Word is he came to the New World with the settlers, but there’s no record of him in the old world. There’s been theorizing that he was a curse bestowed on us from the First Nations, over some slight.”
“What does he do?”
“He forges connections between things. Very inconvenient connections.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“He takes that which people most love, then gives it to another. Your favorite possession finds its way irrevocably to the hands of your best friend. You can’t fault him for having it, but resentment builds. In a year or two, you’re mortal enemies, and you’ve lost both your favorite thing in the world and your friend. Except it’s not always an object. It could be your soulmate. Your mother or child.”
“That would suck.”
“Putting it mildly.”
“It would suck a lot,” I amended.
“I’ve thought about it, and I’ve read some of the side stories… I can’t help but feel it’s almost worse than what the Barber or the demon in the factory could do. If you go mad, or if you get erased, that’s… it’s horrible, but you’re still gone. James Corvidae, he leaves you completely and totally intact, but missing that one thing or person that gives it meaning and purpose.”
“I’m having a hard time picturing him helping you out. In fact, I’m having a hard time picturing us using him at all.”
“I’m not. He fits into a middle ground where he’s too scary to summon when he’s almost too weak to use. But I think we could use him.”
“How?”
“We talked about setting our enemies against one another. Corvidae is a tool we could use.”
I tilted my head to one side, then the other. “What about ‘too scary to summon’?”
Rose shook her head. “Grandmother had a note in her book. She summoned him once, and he was grateful enough to finally see some of the outside world that he was willing to play along with her needs.”
“Grandmother was good at what she did. We’re novices. If other people think this guy is too scary to fuck around with, I’m thinking that’s a pretty good indication to go by.”
Evan fluttered as he entered the room. I reached out a hand and he settled on the back of it, tiny bird feet hooking on the locket chain.
His head and mine turned to the door in the same moment.
Trouble? I tensed.
“Hey, Blake. Do you maybe want to tell your friend here to drop their weapon?”
She came into view. Jeans under a skirt, mismatched top under a long navy blue coat, a checkered scarf and wind-tousled black hair. Tiffany was behind her, holding a set of bolt cutters like a club, two-handed.
“Maggie,” I said.
She grinned wide enough to show her teeth.
“She’s Maggie?” Tiff asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Are you Maggie?”
“Oh boo on you, Blake. You do not want to hear the trouble I went through to be here. Yes, I am Maggie Holt.”
I relaxed some. “Are you compelled? Otherwise enchanted?”
“No and yes. I’m dressed up in my finery, so to speak. Ready to fight in your war.”
“I honestly didn’t expect you to come fight,” I said. “I though maybe a phone call, you could share your expertise on goblins, and if you felt particularly adventurous, you might do something to force Laird to head back to Jacob’s Bell.”
“Well, I’m here. Very curious for details. Starting with whatever the heck you were just talking about. Too scary to fudge around with?”
“Don’t worry, we haven’t gone off the deep end. We were talking about enlisting the aid of a bogeyman.”
“You’ve been big on the recruitment drive since I last saw you. Some underlings, a familiar, even…”
“Hi,” Evan said. “I’m Evan.”
“Not a very imposing name. I was hoping for Blake’s familiar to have a name like Melmoth the Skull-Fu-”
She stopped short, then frowned. “Melmoth.”
“Nope. Just Evan. I’m dead.”
“A ghost, Blake?”
“An exceptional ghost,” I said.
“A ghost. Bit of a bummer, but it’s better than the other extreme. You haven’t gone over the deep end?”
“Our local opposition twisted my arm, I wound up binding a demon,” I said. “Technically, I can’t say I’m not a diabolist anymore.”