Page 33 of Adepts and Alchemists

I glowered straight ahead, making a mundane man in a three-piece suit move aside without conscious thought. I didn’t influence his mind, though I had some talent in that area. Reading people, understanding their auras and how best to track them was my best talent. I could project it outward, sometimes, like now. No one got in our way.

At least the crowds were getting thinner as we turned off Main Street. The Halloween aesthetic the town clung to was less when you reached the suburbs. No one wandered the side streets looking for kooky characters, though they’d undoubtedly find them if they did.

“Why are we wearing these costumes anyway?” I snapped. “This seems completely ridiculous.”

“Right. Because they’re funny. At least, the people around us think they are. The point is—they’re a lot less likely to stop us or get involved in our business if it looks like this is some sort of planned touristy thing.”

“You seem very sure of that.”

He nodded. “Anyone asks, I’ll say we work for Haven Hollow’s tourism board.”

It wasn’t my idea of plausible deniability, but it just might work. Or at the very least, if what we were about to do became the talk of the town, any report of monsters chasing us would be chalked up to a performance, not a risk to Hollow security. Police Chief Morgan would likely praise the solution. At least, I hoped so. Less work for her, in the end… right?

“It still looks ridiculous,” I griped, clutching the spectrometer in one hand. I checked the display on another gadget I had no name for. It beeped like a Geiger counter but looked closer to a flip phone than anything else. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Henner, the technomancer, had managed to preserve call function.

“Cheer up. We’re getting readings now, right?” Marty continued.

“Faintly.”

It meant we were in the right neighborhood, at least. It was too much to hope that Lydia was nearby on Main Street somewhere. The Masked Lords weren’t idiots. The best way to hide was in plain sight, with mundanes as their shields when we came knocking. They knew we couldn’t try a full-scale assault with so many humans nearby.

“The readings are better than we’ve had for the last hour. It’s a good sign,” he continued.

Maybe. Maybe not. I didn’t share the same optimism as Mother’s would-be beau. How she could even flirt with this guy was beyond me. They seemed incompatible, at the very least. He was too bright, too shiny to be in her world. I stared at his profile when we passed beneath a street lamp. They’d begun flickering on not long after we’d left my house. Night was descending fast, and Andrea would once again be in her element. Sun wouldn’t kill her, but it did make her less potent. And I’d take any advantage I could get in these trying circumstances.

Marty caught me looking at him and raised an eyebrow. “Is there something wrong?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s just....”

I sucked in a deep breath and shook my head again, this time to clear it. I wasn’t doing myself any favors by getting hung up on the why. The point was, I had my own skeleton key to Murrain’s defenses. Only the mundane’s presence had secured Indigo’s victory over Animus. It didn’t matter how ludicrous I found my position now. I just needed to be grateful I had an in at all.

“Just what?”

I sighed. “Not important at the moment. What does that thing say now?”

Marty squinted down at the gadget in his hands. I hoped it was for effect, not that he was in dire need of glasses. That was the last thing I needed. A half-blind mundane hunter (who happened to be dating my mother) who couldn’t point me in the right direction without a prescription. He was getting to be the right age for that kind of thing.

“Not much. We’re heading in the direction of the ghost hotel. That’s going to throw all our readings off. I’m not going to be able to give you anything more concrete until we’re past it.”

“And why are we heading toward the ghost hotel again?” I asked.

They’d set up for a confrontation there last time. An aspect of death had founded the damn place to impress an ex-ghost turned medium. Ever since, it towered above the rest of the Hollow like a golden eyesore, only visible to those of us who had magical blood. I was absolutely certain Murrain would avoid the place like the plague after Animus’ untimely defeat at the hands of the mundane next to me. They certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to set up shop there.

Unless the bluff was the point. Where better to hide a ghost than a place filled to the brim with them? Most supernaturals preferred to lay their head elsewhere, but the unlucky or curious bedded down in Death’s love nest from time to time. It was under the supervision of the Spook Society, and Blaise Howard in particular. I doubted he’d know who to avoid booking for a weekend.

“We’re meeting Darla,” Marty said. “If we find Lydia, she’s going to need a place to stay. Being bonded to an object or just possessing another body isn’t ideal, but it beats wherever she’s at now.”

I wanted to smack my head into the nearest telephone pole in sheer frustration. Of course Lydia was going to need a medium to speak. Even if we were successful in our venture, Lydia was vulnerable as pure spirit. Putting her in a suitable body until the problem was solved made sense.

“Right,” I muttered. “I think we ought to check the rooms while we’re there.”

“Why?”

“Because Murrain isn’t an idiot. He’s going to realize we’re on the lookout for Lydia. You were the weak point in their plan last time. They’ll have looked into you since. They might even take your ghost hunting seriously now that you’re a faithful dog to Jonathan Moses.”

“I’d hardly call myself a dog,” Marty said with a frown. “But yeah, I guess you’re right. It’s not like they can afford to let me get the better of them twice. Hiding Lydia in a ghost motel would be like putting a needle in a needle stack. The equipment would pretty much be useless once we get inside.”

“Exactly.”