37

The Darkness, that supreme enitity of the essence of dark, had inhabited a young, angry girl seven years ago, and had tricked her into allowing it to remain with her after our deal had finished. The girl had been close to being driven mad and I lost track after her mother had cut off contact, angry at what had happened, and I couldn't blame her in the slightest. Now I had to find her, so that I could find the entity and ask it a favor. I'm afraid I knew what it would ask for in return. Another conduit to this world, this time mine. I shuddered at the thought. I think I'd almost rather take my chances with Anolyn's barrier.
I went over to where Anne Maystack resided. For a while she stayed well hidden, fearing reprisals from those that her husband turned evidence against. Her husband, before he went to the state with the evidence of the smuggling, had hire myself and Zhirk, a troll, to kidnap his wife and daughter, and keep them safe when all hell broke loose. We managed to do that, but it took calling the entity of darkness and borrowing some of it's power for a while to do it. Once the ringleaders had been caught and the smuggling operation dismantled, she was able to come out of hiding. But her daughter had made her own pact with the Darkness, and she wasn't do careful and it took her over.
I tried to find out the details after we'd stopped Ahiah, but the mother refused to talk to me then, and she and her daughter disappeared for four years, when she surfaced again and got a small house near Dayning. I'd heard through the professional grapevine that she'd hired a investigator to find her daughter, who was supposedly here in Dayning somewhere. She was, and mother and daughter were reunited, but I'd heard the daughter had been changed by the Darkness, and not for the better. I wasn't sure what I'd find, but in lieu of calling the entity up, I decided to talk to Megan. But first I had to find her.
I went to talk to Anne. She opened the door when I rang, and I saw her eyes go flat and ugly when she saw me. This didn't seem all that promising. “Mrs Maystack, I'm Fern” I started to say but she interrupted me. “ I know who you are, now leave or I'll call the police.” “Mrs Maystack, I need to talk to Megan, could you tell me where she is.” The statement made her even more hostile. “You do not need to talk to my daughter, you do need leave right now however.” She shut the door in my face and I heard her loudly start talking. “Mrs Maystack please, I need to talk to Megan. It's very important.” I paused. “I know of a way to get rid of the entity.”
The door jerked open and she was there, angry eyes flashing. “I'm listening. Explain to me how you're going to do that, get rid of that darkness in her.” “I'll take it. I'll offer myself in trade to the entity to make it let her go.” I spoke the words and knew that there was no other way. The entity wanted it's time on earth and Megan, the angry child she was, was a perfect choice for the entity. The one thing I had over Megan was experience, and the huge magick that had been linked to me. The creature wanted me the last time because it thought it could tap that magick. Why I didn't, and probably didn't want to, know.
Why offer myself? For starters, Megan was under my protection when she was possessed, and I felt responsible for what happened. I know that she made her own choice, but still, it was a uninformed one and she had paid for it for a long time now. Plus, with Cobb and trying to open the Way, I wanted something big in my corner so that if push came shove, I had serious firepower. But mostly it was because she had been hurt when I was supposed to be protecting her. That darn maternal instinct. What else can I say?
I got an address from Anne where Megan might be found. She told me Megan had changed locations often due to the entity, and this was the most recent address for her. But the implication was that she might no longer be there. Only way to find out was check it out.

36

I went to Underhill next morning at sunrise, and Cobb was waiting for me. He took me back to his territory in a sullen silence. Apparently he was still angry with me about the conversation last night. Once he had gotten me to his place and into the phone booth room, I stopped and waited until he turned to face me. He started to speak, but I started first. “I know we should have said it last night, but everything was still too unsettled for any of us to think clearly, so I want to say, “thanks for helping us out with that creature.”
Cobb looked at me and I smelled a satisfaction come from him like pine. “You are quite welcome Ms Fatelli, now if you would please update me on your progress, I would be most interested as what you have found so far.” He said with a smile and a slight bow to me. Well, if he was going to be so accommodating, I suppose I could live with the situation until the job was done. “Thanks, now let me start with what we found in the books.....”
For about fifteen minutes I gave him a detailed outline of the data we found and how the aging spell was found and counter-spell ed by Fawn's on-staff wizards. He listened with apparent interest, even asking a few questions about the spell and a little more on how it was extracted. I didn't know the details but told him I'd ask Fawn about it, and she would ask the wizards, and get back to me.
He leaned back against the wall he been standing next to as I detailed the information for him, and crossed his arms. “Very interesting report Ms. Fatelli”, he said when I finished. “Now, do you have any idea of the creature that attacked you?” “None at all”, I answered him. The memory of the fear it generated around itself made me rub my arms for comfort. “Do you wish help in driving it away?” He said that in a peculiar way, as if there was something of a ritual in asking. I looked sharply at him, and saw the hunger in his eyes for a moment, and I went cold.
Fawn had seen something, but she got it wrong. I could feel his eyes boring into me, almost willing me to say yes so that he could claim something he wanted. And he wanted it so very much. I could smell the need coming off of him like a thick wave of musk. How had he kept this consuming hunger under iron control before? Or was it something that was new? Something he just had discovered? Regardless, he wanted an answer now.
“I can manage the creature, I'm certain, and I have to finish the service you so neatly maneuvered me into, so no I do not desire help in dealing with the creature.” I told him. He reacted with an enigmatic look, and he accepted the answer with a quiet, stiff bow. “Very well, Ms Fatelli, I will leave you to your work. Please keep me accurately apprised of your progress.” he said with almost no inflection at all. Whatever he was feeling and thinking, he buried deep suddenly.
“Yes, I shall do so”, I said, and suddenly I wanted out of Underhill very badly. The place now had the feel of a prison rather than a place to visit. Cobb smelled like dust, and death. I caught a very faint whiff of rotting meat under the dust, and this change caused me to think of Cobb as dangerous to me. I had thought him manipulative and petty, but not truly dangerous, not until I smelled him this time.
I kept myself firmly under control until I got back to my car and then I threw it open and scrambled in and drove wildly away. Cobb had scared me at the end, and I needed time to sort out what had changed, and try to figure out why. I didn't need this. I was going to take on a very dangerous spell soon, and that needed all the concentration I could give it. We had to be subtle, and the power of the spell would be anything but if we didn't control it absolutely.
“It isn't going to work.” Larry shouted, then threw his fistful of papers at the wall in his work room. They splashed against it, and scattered, then drifted down like large white snowflakes. Larry muttered something unintelligible, and then started picking them up. “Why not? We know how to do the spell, we've got the echo of what was there before, and we've got enough wizards signed on that we can do the work in shifts like you suggested. So why isn't it going to work?”
“Because no matter how slow we go with it, a spell that big is going to be noticed. We need a powerful spell to hide the effects and I don't know of anyone here in Halifax that has any idea of how to quiet a spell with a spell. Hell, I don't know how, and until we can, there's no way I'm going to let anyone risk casting it.”
I grimaced in frustration. We had a solution, but without a solution to keeping the spell quiet, we were no better off than when I first was forced into service. I didn't want to talk to Cobb about it, knowing he would offer help again, but I didn't wan his help. There was a feeling there of knowing that accepting his help would come with expectations and consequences. I hated the first and was worried what the second might be. I had resolved never to find out if I could help it.
Cobb had gone from irritating to downright scary over the last week as we got the materials together. His demands for updates to the situation were now daily, and his eagerness was very unsettling. More I was thinking past the service when I could get away rather than focusing on surviving. That could be lethal, especially with the spell we were trying to cast. There had to be a way to silence the spell. There was, but it meant looking up something that had haunted me for years. I could try finding the entity of the dark. Really, it was one of the last things I wanted to do in this lifetime. However, those things are precisely the things that find you when you least want them to.

35

He relaxed as he got a good look, and lowered his hands to his side, and Larry, after a quick spell to spot illusions, dropped the barrier. Cobb started forward, a half-smile on his face, and then pulled up short and straightened, becoming once again the tall, odd, fae. “I came Ms Fatelli, to determine your progress on re-opening the way.” “I think we may have an idea, but it still needs the details hammered out yet” I said to him. Larry added quickly, “Thanks for driving that creature away, how'd you do it anyways? That thing is seriously bad news.”
“Fae are privy to some powers more effective than yours against such a creature”, Cobb said haughtily, and made a dismissve motion with his hand. “Yes, I understand that sir”, said Larry, “but if you could tell me, I'd like to at least try as Fernie, er, Ms Fatelli, has been attacked twice before by that creature or one like it.” “I said, Mr. Potter, that my magick is more effective against it. Your type of magick would at best create a stalemate. There is no more to discuss”, and he made that dismissing hand gesture again. Larry looked at Cobb for a moment, and let the conversation go, though he clearly wasn't satisfied with Cobb's answer.
Cobb walked over to me after the last of the spell dissipated. “Ms Fatelli, I would like to know what this solution you hinted at consists of.” I looked at him, and decided just to be ornery. “When we get the details figured out you'll be the first to know, I promise you.” I turned to look at Fawn, and she was watching both Cobb and I with that 'cop look'. She had sensed something and was looking for clues to what it was. Cobb decided to get surly at that moment, as his whole demeanor changed. He stood straighter, and a haughty sneer formed on his face.
“I do not care for human promises, I care about the Way being re-opened Ms Fatelli. That is your service. And that is all I care about.” the words grated out at odds with his bearing. What was he mad about? I'd think that we actually had an idea might have made him happy, yet here he was berating me because of something, and I had no clue what it was. “Thank you very much for showing up to yell at me, now could you go back to Underhill and get out of my hair? I'm working on the Way, tough if you don't like it. I'm getting the job done, that's what the bottom line is.”
We glared at each other for a few moments, and I caught Fawn smiling out of the corner of my eye. I started to turn to snap at her, but Cobb snarled, “Ms Fatelli, I expect to be kept abreast of developments, do so. I expect a report first thing tomorrow morning”, and he stepped out of the room and stalked to the front door. I started to go after him but Fawn grabbed my arm and held me back. I turned on her and pulled my arm free.
“What the hell are you doing? I'm going to go rip his face off!” “Ease up Fernie”, Fawn said, almost chuckling, but she grabbed my arm again, and this time held on hard enough that I couldn't get free. “Oooh, has he got it bad” she said with a laugh. “What are you talking about? What's he got bad? Oh I know, he's got a attitude that badly needs someone to smack around the block it a few times” I snarled at her.
“No Fern, what I mean is that he's got a crush on you! I'd never believe it if I hadn't seen it. A fae mooning over my sister.” I stared at her, slack jawed. Cobb infatuated with me? What the hell for? “You have got to be kidding me, that guy hates my guts. He backed me in a corner so I had to take the service, or he'd have made you do it!” “I know shorty, I know, you told us that already. But he is definitely after you Fern. I think you ought to talk to him some more. Maybe you can get him to help with that plan of yours.” My sister the matchmaker.
“Don't even think it Fawn, that guy is an arrogant prick that needs his ego shrunk seriously before I even think about something like that. And just where do you get off telling me that anyways, we just about got ourselves killed here if not for that idiot....” and that brought me up short. We did probably owe our lives to Cobb showing up here. I kind of felt bad about the fight now looking at it from that point, but what'd he expect us to do? Thank him? Yeah, that's exactly what he'd expected. And he got miffed when we didn't. I did owe the thanks, but it left a sour taste in my mouth. You don't expect thanks, you just enjoy it when you get it.
This was going to make working with him harder than ever. Now I had to do the job and not lead him on in any way. Everything I did would be magnified according to what he thought I meant. Gods what a stupid thing to happen. I just did my best to put it out of my mind and started helping Fawn and Larry clean up the mess in the front room. As soon as we finished, Larry cast a barrier over the door to keep the cold and unwanted visitors out until he could get a new door. I went back to my office to get some sleep before I went to see Cobb.