"So, let me tell you what happened after you guys left last night," Missy said.
The sales floor at S-Mart was quiet at the moment and Rotten Josh, the store manager, was nowhere in sight. Mary took a quick look around anyway. She didn't want to get barked at. Not because she was intimidated by a middle aged, overweight man with a nametag and delusions of power, Mary reflected. More because she was still feeling a little too 'Mariah' to take Josh's attitude without responding in a way that might risk blowing her cover.
"Sorry we ran out like that," Mary replied. "Mandy wasn't feeling well."
"She did look kinda upset," Missy said. "Anyway, it's OK. Clay and I stayed with Knox."
"Actually, he and Clay got into a big argument about Evergreen Development," Missy continued.
"Well, Clay did kind of ask for that," Mary chuckled. "I mean, he did try to distract Knox by asking him about 'evil developers.'"
"... and Knox went right into this whole thing about protected lands, shady deals, crooked politicians and stuff like that," Missy chuckled. "Of course then Clay went into his whole thing about investment and jobs and hard-working people. They really got into it."
"OK, I'm sorry but I'm glad we left when we did," Mary chuckled.
"I know, right," Missy laughed. "And there I was, trying to play peacemaker. I swear, at one point it got so bad I told them if they really wanted to settle things, they should just whip out their peckers and compare."
"Cavoli! No way. You didn't say that?" Mary laughed.
"I did," Missy grinned. "You know, your accent gets thicker sometimes."
"Really, I never noticed," Mary said, cursing inwardly. "Anyway, they didn't... did they?"
"Of course not," Missy grinned. "Not that it would have settled anything, really. They're about the same."
"You know this for a fact, do you?" Mary blinked, reflecting that Missy might at that.
The vivacious redhead was notorious in the neighborhood for considering casual sex roughly the same as a hug, just a nice thing between friends. When they had first become friends Mary had made it very clear that she wasn't a hugger... or anything more. She was pleased that Missy had accepted that with the same relaxed good cheer she seemed to do everything else.
"I mean, I haven't done a side-by-side comparison or anything, but..." Missy glanced down at her hands, making a gesture that had Mary biting her lip not to laugh out loud. "Yeah, about the same."
"I did not need to know that," Mary said firmly.
-----------
"Home, sweet home," Mary said softly.
Apart from gossip with Missy, work had been uneventful. Annoying but uneventful. Mary had passed the time, as she did most days, trying to quietly analyze the customers. Someday, she hoped to put her psychology degree to real use, maybe doing social work. Sadly, it just wasn't something she could safely do while hiding out.
Still, hiding out wasn't all bad. The little house she and Mandy rented was nice. Paying bills was a new experience for both of them. Mary, at least, had some experience with living on modest means. Mandy, though she'd never been snobbish or thoughtless about it, had grown up never needing to think about money. She was still adjusting to the idea of a grocery budget. Mary smiled at the memory of watching her wife trying to navigate S-Mart's grocery aisle for the first time.
The living room was cramped and the furniture was simple, cheap and mostly supplied by S-Mart again. We're getting a lot mileage out of my employee discount, Mary thought.
Music wailed loudly from the stereo, a lone violin like a mournful ghost, slow and sorrowful but already building toward a howling fury. Mary recognized the solo from "Lost In Nightmare," a song from Cassie Goth's album Haunted. In Mary's personal opinion it was one of the Raven Witch's best, but also most painful, songs. Not everyone appreciated Haunted.
Being Mandy had freed her wife to finally really embrace Cassie Goth's music, something she had never been entirely willing to do as Cassie's daughter Miranda.
"Mandy, are you home?" Mary called and added half to herself, "Or did you leave the stereo on again?"
"Upstairs," Mandy called back.
"OK, that explains why I could practically hear your music from work," Mary teased as she started toward the stairs.
No reply came, but Mary wasn't sure Mandy had heard her anyway. Loud music and short responses usually meant her wife was focused on something. Haunted was an unusual choice for Mandy, but it fit with the brooding mood she'd been in when Mary left for work this morning.
Putting on a smile, Mary headed for the stairs.
Mary found her wife right where she expected to, sitting at the little table in the bedroom they used as a desk, laser-focused on the laptop.
"Hey, what's got you blasting the Raven Witch at the neighbors?" Mary asked brightly.
"Our nearest neighbors are a vacant lot and a busy street," Mandy pointed out curtly, not looking up. "I don't think they'll mind."
"Si, OK," Mary said more gently. It wasn't like Mandy... No, it wasn't like Miranda to be so short with her. "So, what are you working on?"
"I'm trying to find out more about Shannon's murder," Miranda answered.
Kicking herself for not realizing how deeply bothered Miranda was by the news of her old school friend's death, Mary... no, she needed to be Mariah now... stepped into their shared room. Even as the door swung shut behind her, she could still hear the music of Cassie Goth's grief, pain and rage wailing from the floor below.
"But there's nothing!" Miranda continued, visibly frustrated. "One short article in the Windenburg News. That's it! A woman was murdered on the streets of Windenburg, and it hardly rates a mention! Seriously?"
"What does the article say?"
"Shannon Charm, 21, was killed during a mugging in Gesellschafter Square," Miranda read. "National police are pursuing all leads, but confidential sources close to the investigation say that the police believe the murder is connected to a gang of local ruffians. Like I said, nothing."
"What did you expect to find?" Mariah asked softly.
"More. Something," Miranda groaned. "I don't know. Something to tell me if this was really just random gang violence."
"It could be," Mariah suggested.
"It's not. There's something more going on here," Miranda said with absolute conviction. "I know it. I can feel it... Goddess, I feel like I'm 16 again, hiding out in Moonwood Mill and just wishing I could talk to mom or to Gwen. I do wish I could talk to mom or Gwen. They'll know more about this. I'm sure of it. Gwen knows the Charm family."
"Why don't you?" Mariah asked. "I mean, I know we can't call them. Even with the Altos' leadership being rounded up by the police, it's still too risky for us to contact people we know right now. At least, not in the usual ways... but you have some unusual ways, mia amata. That little fairy friend of yours... what's her name? Tinkerbell?"
"Bluebell," Miranda corrected. "I can't summon her. She might be seen."
"I don't think our non-existent neighbors, or people walking by the street, would even believe they saw a real fairy flying through our window," Mariah pointed out.
"It's not our neighbors I'm worried about. Not directly anyway," Miranda said. "But Evergreen Harbor is big enough to have a vampire nest. If the wrong person sees Bluebell and word reaches the vampires, the Dark Court could track us down. The Altos would be the least of our worries."
"Right," Mariah sighed.
It wasn't enough that they were hiding out from gangsters. They were also hiding from the secret power behind the gangsters - the Dark Court.
The secret society of vampires and their minions lurked in the shadows, hiding, hunting and waging their centuries-old blood feud with the equally secret society of witches.
When they'd first met, Mariah had only half-believed Miranda's stories of the war between vampires and witches that threatened her and her family. She had never imagined that her own life had already been defined by that war. That her own father had been killed in it, an almost incidental casualty in a power struggle between vampire factions.
How many others, she wondered as she looked out the window at the street below. How many people had lost a loved one? How many children had lost a parent? All just collateral damage of a war they didn't even know was going on around them?
The more she thought about it, the more she understood why Miranda needed to know what was going on.
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