The Hollow Ones(58)

“Righting it?”

“A gateway was opened into our world. A seam exposed. A thruway that I do not know how to close.”

“And do you…?”

“I have to push back at what comes through. Every time. I have to right my original wrong.”

“So you are a…a guardian of sorts?”

“A penitent. A zookeeper. A negotiator. And, on occasion, an exterminator. DON’T TOUCH THAT!”

The sudden force of his voice, always so calm and soothing, achieving volume and depth she had not imagined possible, sent terror up her spine. She had been looking at a sphere of fine crystal, perfect but for an interior crack like gossamer thread, almost like the neural network inside a single diaphanous brain cell. Her hands were by her sides.

“I wasn’t going to!” she snapped back at him. “And you can stop treating me like a child.”

Blackwood started to disassemble the small book pile, no apology forthcoming. The sphere sat upon a small stand resembling an upside-down crown. Now she was curious.

“What is it?”

“An orbuculum.”

“What I mean is…what is it to you?”

Blackwood’s eyes were low-lidded, lacking his usual air of curiosity. He was in a foul mood suddenly.

He said, “You mentioned that you succeeded in tracing ownership of the botanica.”

Odessa nodded. Unexpectedly, his angry reaction rendered him more human in her eyes. Instead of feeling like she had offended him, she felt that she had broken through his persona, which had perhaps settled in him over four and a half centuries of living.

Odessa said, “What happened to your wife?”

Blackwood’s expression did not change, at all, which conveyed meaning in and of itself. She wondered what she looked like to his 450-year-old eyes.

“Hmm,” he murmured finally, as though arriving at a judgment. “You are perceptive. It is frankly tiring. To be honest, I prefer dealing with persons of lesser intelligence.”

That wasn’t a compliment. She didn’t know what it was.

“So sorry,” she said, in a way that let him know that she was not—not at all.

“The owner of the botanica?” Blackwood said, prodding her. He rolled up the leather kit full of implements and vials.

Odessa nodded. “I traced the tax records back through two shell corporations, to an address in Englewood.” She nodded at the kit sticking out of his jacket pocket. “What are you going to do if we find her?”

Blackwood slid the compact collection of spirit-hunting tools deeper into his jacket pocket. Then he turned to the door they’d entered through.

“We will find her,” he said as he exited. “Hopefully before she finds us.”



The house was unviewable from the street, due to an eight-foot solid gate and tree-lined fence. A keypad with an attached camera stood at the side of the short driveway.

Odessa said, “Are you going over, or am I?”

Blackwood looked at her, saying nothing.

“Thought so,” she said. She found the sturdiest-looking pine and climbed it, offsetting her weight by pushing her feet against the wall. She got to the top, which was a few inches wide, not sharp, and surveyed the property. It was a low-slung contemporary, unusual for the neighborhood, with a widely angled roof and a paired front door. No car in the driveway. No sign of movement inside the front windows.

She lowered herself down, landing softly upright on the grass. The gate latch pulled mechanically from the inside, and she swung it back just wide enough to admit Hugo Blackwood. He eyed the quiet house.

“You do know that I don’t have a gun,” she told him.

He nodded.

“And you don’t have a gun,” she continued. “You don’t even have a phone to call nine-one-one. I’m not sure your little kit there is going to be enough if something bad goes down. Just so you know, I will be calling the local police if we get into an issue.”

If Blackwood was listening, he did not answer, starting up the curling driveway to the double doors. Odessa moved to the doorbell but Blackwood stopped her. She noticed he had a small chapbook in his hand.

“What?” she said.

Using the tiny print as a guide, he recited a few lines in Latin, quietly. An incantation. He tucked the book back inside his jacket.

“That was…?”

“A spell of protection. Before we cross this threshold.”

Normally she would have laughed. But everything she had seen and heard had disabused her of the luxury of skepticism, at least for the moment.

“I’m going to ring the doorbell,” she said, an act of incantation itself.

The bell rang inside, a series of musical notes, faintly echoing. Odessa did not expect it to be answered.

She saw movement inside, obscured by the opaque door glass. The anticipation of a confrontation spiked the adrenaline in her system, hitting her like a shiver. The door opened.

It was a man in his mid-thirties. Hispanic, maybe Cuban. Barefoot in bulky sweatpants and a half-zipped linen hoodie.

He blinked, looking from face to face. “Who are you?” he said.

Odessa saw no one behind him. His hands were empty. “Is Juanita here?”

The man squinted as though confused. The sun had a disorienting effect on him. “What do you want?”