"Big night?"
"I've spent the last forty-eight tripping through books trying to find an explanation for the water. I've searched every online forum I could think of for references to spel s or creatures or prophecies that might explain what's going on.
And to show for it, I have nothing. I haven't slept. I've hardly eaten. Mal ory is in a tizzy, and Simon is cal ing my house every five goddamned minutes. I need a break or I am going to lose my shit."
There was no mistaking the defensiveness in his voice or the dark circles under his eyes.
I tried to lighten the mood, and pointed at the house shoes - the last things I'd have expected to see Catcher Bel wearing. "And the shoes?" I asked with a grin.
"My house, my rules. These shoes happen to be comfortable," he said. "If you two roamed around the house naked and carrying bows and arrows before I moved in, it's none of my business."
The snark notwithstanding, he moved aside to let me in.
"How's life in the post-Ombudsman era?" I asked as he closed the door behind me.
He smiled thinly. "Like I said, exhausting, but surprisingly wel organized. You know that room in the back of Chuck's house he uses for storage?"
I did. That had been my grandmother's treasure room.
She loved garage sales, and she inevitably found something she thought one of us needed. A wooden pul toy for Charlotte's daughter, Olivia. An antique desk blotter for Robert. A book of poetry for me. She kept them in boxes or paper bags in tidy stacks and passed them out during visits like Santa Claus. When my grandmother died, my grandfather left the room and its treasure trove intact. At least, he had before . . .
"Wel ," Catcher continued, "it's been reorganized. It's now home of the Chuck Merit School of Supernatural Diplomacy."
"Tel me you aren't real y cal ing it that."
"It's only a temporary name," he assured. "The point is, we're stil on the map for folks who need help."
"And the folks who need your help probably don't care if you're working out of a fancy office or a back bedroom."
"Precisely." Catcher assumed his position on the couch
- ankles crossed on the coffee table, TV Guide in one hand, remote in the other, his gaze on the television over the top of his glasses. A lemon-lime soda and a bowl of gummy orange slices sat on the coffee table in front of him.
This was a man ready for a break, uninterrupted by trips to the kitchen for nosh.
I assumed that was my cue. "I assume Mal ory's home?"
"She's in the basement."
That was a surprise. It was an Amityvil e spider trap down there. I couldn't imagine she'd be down there on purpose, much less studying.
"Seriously?"
"It's chemistry night. She needed quiet and room to make messes. I wasn't wil ing to give up the kitchen."
"Basement it is," I said, and walked to the back of the house. The door to the grungy cel ar was in the kitchen, which also housed the ice-cold diet sodas Mal ory usual y kept on hand. I grabbed two from the fridge and opened the basement door.
The smel of vinegar that poured up the stairs made my eyes water instantly.
"Mal?" I cal ed out. The basement stairs were dark, but some light crept around the corner from the main part of the basement. "Is everything okay down there?"
I heard the clunking of what sounded like pots and pans
- and then she began to belt out the lyrics of a hip-hop song with much gusto.
I considered that the al clear and began to pick my way down the basement stairs.
I'd never been a fan of basements. Before my parents moved into their modern, concrete box of a house in Oak Park, we lived in a Gothic house in Elgin, Il inois. The house had been a century old, and looked - and felt - like the setting for a horror movie. It was beautiful but haunting.
Luxurious, as was their way, but lonely.
The house had a basement in which my mother had stored the pottery kiln she'd purchased when ceramics had become her temporary obsession. She kept the kiln immaculately clean, but it was the only clean item in the basement; the rest had been dark, cold, damp, and spidery.
"Not unlike this one," I muttered, final y reaching the concrete floor and peeking around the corner.
A single, white-hot bulb hung down into the room. There was no sign of the source of the vinegary smel , but the scent was definitely stronger down here. Mal ory sat at a giant worktable made from sawhorses and sheets of plywood. Books and bowls of unidentifiable bits were stacked feet high upon it, as were a variety of potted plants.
Some looked like regular houseplants; others had viciously pointy leaves with crimson-red tips or thick, luscious leaves that looked like they were ful to bursting with water.
Mal ory's ice-blue hair - now showing a little blond at the roots - was pul ed into a ponytail, and black headphones covered her ears. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks looked a little more gaunt than usual. The exams must have been taking their tol .
She spit out lyrics with nimble speed while she perused a hefty book that sat open on the tabletop before her. She was oblivious while I picked through the maze of cardboard boxes, unused furniture, and waiting bags of ice melt that covered the basement floor . . . and she jumped when I put a can of soda on the table.
"Jesus H. Roosevelt, Merit!" she exclaimed, ripping off the headphones. "What are you doing here? I nearly zapped you into next month."
"Sorry. You were busy communing with Kanye. What's with the smel ?"
Mal ory pointed to a series of homemade wooden shelves tucked into a nook across from the table. It was probably eight feet tal , and each of the shelves was lined with rows of home-canned fruits and vegetables. I could identify pickles, apples, and tomato sauce. The rest of the jars were a mystery. But the vinegar smel wasn't - there was an empty slot on the pickle row.
"Missing a jar?"
"I blasted one of Aunt Rose's pickle jars," Mal ory said, looking ksaire a down at her book again. She'd inherited the town house, and its contents, when her aunt died a few years ago. Since the jars had been sitting in the same spot unused, Mal apparently wasn't a fan of her aunt's canned goods.
"I didn't even know this stuff was down here."
"I didn't bring any jars upstairs," she flatly said. "They didn't taste very good. They were garlic-spiced apples."
I wrinkled my lip. "Foul."
"Hel a foul. After that, I didn't open another jar. Until last night. And that wasn't on purpose."
"Funny the pickles didn't make it smel like dil ."