14 – Focus on What Can be Done

Two days into Erika’s second research project at the H. Finch Bibliotheca, and Erika felt like she was getting the hang of using antiquated methods of information retrieval. She hadn’t wanted to admit it to Anna, but she wasn’t just unfamiliar with the card catalog, the Bibliotheca was the first real library she had ever set foot in. Her school had a library, but she honestly couldn’t recall if she had ever been inside.

Books just weren’t her scene. Why go dig through physical books when all the world’s information could be found on her phone?

“Pass me that book on the Norse.”

Erika sighed a little, frowning at Daniel. The answer, of course, was because not all the world’s information was on her phone or, if it was, it was not easily discoverable. They had certainly found a great deal more here than they had been able to dig up online; the internet was especially rife with misinformation with regards to the supernatural, and it became exceedingly difficult to distinguish the differences between fact, fiction, and grifters masquerading as fact.

Sliding the perfectly ordinary book on the subject of Norse epic sagas over to Daniel, Erika couldn’t help but frown at how the library wasn’t all that much better.

It was too normal. While it was true that she and Anna had found some references to the Mother of Maggots, there hadn’t been any information on sealing the being away or warding off the creatures. There were no books on magic spells, no index of mystical creatures, no ancient tomes of vampiric lore. Just textbooks and reference guides—and a relatively small fiction section.

She was starting to think that this library was just that: a library. It was a library with admittedly obscure books, but without anything real that might explain the existence of someone like The Stalker, The Butler, or even her. She was even starting to doubt that the curator was a vampire. Earlier, he had been drinking red wine with crackers and cheese. Everyone knew that vampires never drank… wine… or ate crackers and cheese, for that matter.

“I’m not sure how Norse fiction is going to help us break a curse on a Roman sword,” Erika said, still frowning as Daniel flipped back and forth through the textbook.

Erika was tempted to ask Rick for a few pictures of his sword, but given his skittish nature around the thing, she figured this could be more of a surprise. She especially didn’t want to give him hope that he could be rid of it if it turned out she couldn’t break curses as easily as she thought. She had seen the sword, Daniel had seen the sword, and Leslie knew a bit about it. Utilizing a few weapon and arms museum websites, they had identified it as a Roman spatha circa the third century, a bit beyond the height of the Roman Empire.

Daniel knew exactly which sites to check for that kind of thing. Apparently, that joke about guys thinking about the Roman Empire all the time wasn’t as much of a joke as she had thought.

“I doubt the sword was cursed when it was made,” Daniel said, somewhat absently as he perused the book. “Meaning it picked up the curse at some point between then and now. Nearly two thousand years is a lot of time to cover; it will be impossible to pinpoint exactly when it was cursed. Same with the where, even assuming it was possible to track how it moved from Rome to Chicago.”

“Still not seeing the Norse part of things.”

“Norse mythology has a great deal of cursed weapons. Lots of them have to be blooded before they can be sheathed. Tyrfing, Dáinsleif, Skofnung—by some accounts. Culturally, it was apparently bad luck to draw a sword without stabbing someone.”

“Must have had a lot of dull swords if they couldn’t even sharpen them,” Erika muttered, wondering if guys thought about Vikings as much as they thought about Rome.

But Erika was slightly more intrigued. When Daniel asked her to run around and find every book on Scandinavian mythos that she could find, she had thought he was off on the wrong track. A whole culture around swords that needed blood sounded promising.

Erika dragged over one of the books—something more historical, a self-proclaimed guide to gods, heroes, rituals, and artifacts. She had already skimmed the ritual section, hoping to find actual rituals and not just the ritual habits of the people portrayed within. Now, she flipped to the artifacts section. It wasn’t long before she found the exact weapons Daniel just mentioned, often with references back to the heroes section for more information on the wielders.

That led her to another book on the stories of the heroes, and another book on the larger sagas. Wikipedia and a few other online articles helped out immensely, especially with figuring out relations between people and places that were a bit obscured in the text.

A few hours later, she started to come to an unpleasant realization.

“None of these stories end well, do they?” she said aloud. “No curses broken, ruin and death to the owners, mayhem across generations…”

Erika, once again, felt like she was running into a dead end. First, they had been unable to find books on real curses. Now, even the fantasy stories felt like they were mocking her. She doubted they had really investigated more than Rick surely had done on his own—nothing they uncovered here today was particularly supernatural, just myths and legends—and he had far, far more time than just a day or two to go through things like this.

Leaning back in her chair, staring at the dark rafters of the old library building, Erika wondered if she should just go back to her original idea. She was good at breaking things; surely she could break the sword and the curse as one. It was presumably what she had done with that gold bar. Maybe it hadn’t been a curse, but it was some kind of magic. If only they had told her what it was…

That was an idea. Erika pulled up her phone and sent off a text to The Stalker, asking what magic had been on that gold bar that she broke. She got back a reply almost instantly, as expected from the person who now owed her.

The Warrior, some mage in The Stalker’s faction, had put the spell on the golden bar. Unfortunately, The Stalker didn’t know what the magic was, exactly. Some kind of enchantment, she guessed. Not being a mage herself, The Stalker’s answers weren’t that satisfactory.

Erika sent her another question, asking if it would be possible to meet with The Warrior for a quick consultation.

“What do you suppose is the difference between a curse and an enchantment?” Erika asked, mostly talking to herself as she waited for The Stalker’s reply.

It did not come quite as fast as the first response.

Daniel looked up from his current textbook with a small hum. “Speaking solely as someone who knows nothing real but has played an excessive amount of games… I guess how beneficial the magic is? A curse on an item or a character is negative magic that causes problems or makes something harder to do. An enchantment is the opposite. Lots of cursed items make up for their downsides by being extra powerful, presumably as a balance thing.”

“I’d say that something like that wouldn’t apply in real life, but at the same time, I doubt that lanky, Hawaiian shirt-wearing Rick is an effective if not masterful swordsman… yet we both saw him wade through those maggots like they were nothing. Leslie said it possesses him, but it did help.”

“Then he turned around and looked about ready to cleave through us,” Daniel said with a shudder.

Erika stared at him for a long minute. Normally, she would have expected some skepticism. It was true that Daniel had been a bit more open as of late—she was fairly certain that all the undeniable proof of the supernatural, even if he hadn’t experienced all of it first-hand, had gotten through to him. At the same time, she fully expected him to rationalize the supernatural away where he could, and only choose to believe in it when there was no other option.

Now, with that shudder, she wondered if Rick’s actions on that day were just out of character to the point where it had to be supernatural.

Were their demeanors switched, Erika doubted she would feel the same. She would have tried to attribute it to bloodlust or panic before jumping to magic, but she also didn’t really know Rick. To the Kings, Rick was like some weird uncle who showed up on occasion, hung out with their dad, and even stopped by on birthdays or whatever.

Her phone beeped, drawing her attention back to her texts.

A meeting was possible, the text said. The Warrior was both willing and interested, and a bit too eager, according to The Stalker. They suggested a meeting in only a few hours.

That brought Erika to a pause. She expected at least a day, if not weeks, before the possibility came around. Were these people not busy? She thought they had some kind of minor war to run against The Eclipse or The Castle or something. A few hours didn’t leave a lot of time for planning or preparation.

Leah and The Fixer would probably be pissed if she agreed on a whim. Yet, what else was she supposed to do? Sit around and read more stories? The Mummy was being quiet, currently, but Rick’s cursed sword was right there.

Erika sent back an agreement. It wasn’t like this would be the first time she had disappointed Leah, and, while she was more open to giving The Fixer a chance now, she really didn’t care if they ended up disappointed with her. Text sent, Erika looked to Daniel. “You want to go meet with some undead girl and a witch?”

“What.”

“The Stalker. She’s a Specter-class being, which I think means she died and came back somehow. And The Warrior, The Stalker’s… friend? Coworker? Boss?” Erika shrugged. “She might shed a little more light on magic and curses since she’s a mage.”

“That’s the person who helped you that one time.”

“Eloquent,” Erika said sarcastically, “but correct.”

“I don’t think my dad would be all that excited about it.”

Erika didn’t doubt that. “I’m not going to force you into anything,” she said. After that dressing down she got following her little unauthorized seance, she didn’t want to upset Leslie. Especially not now that she didn’t have a missing parent and burning house to dampen what otherwise might have been a more severe admonishment. “But the meeting is pretty soon. Surprisingly soon. I might have to leave you here for an hour or so, if that’s alright.”

“I didn’t say no,” Daniel said, making Erika cock an eyebrow. “You’ve gone alone to a lot of things that you probably shouldn’t be alone for.”

“I could probably call up Anna or Rick.”

“Both are working today. So is Dad. I don’t know about the other one—”

“Sofia.”

“Yeah, her. Rick and Anna have been family friends for a while, but I don’t really know anything about Sofia.” He paused a moment, thinking some thoughts that he didn’t share with Erika, before shrugging. “Anyway, I know they’re all working their regular jobs today. Ghost hunting doesn’t exactly pay, but I’ve seen how much some of those toys cost.”

“They aren’t toys. You’ve seen them work.”

Daniel shrugged again. “Regardless, they’re expensive.”

That was true. Erika’s stash wasn’t as varied as all the equipment Rick had in his van, nor were most of her things quite as high quality. It had cost her a pretty penny to get it all. She had since looked into fancier ghost hunting equipment and balked. She would have to borrow from a fair few ATMs if she wanted to afford it.

It just didn’t seem worth it. Ghosts weren’t really her business. She would let Rick and Leslie know if she came across another one, but otherwise, she wasn’t really part of The Hunters, even if she spent most of her time with them these days. Ghosts weren’t that big of a concern.

One little ragtag group in Chicago could hardly police the world’s ghosts, yet they weren’t a problem everywhere, or someone would have heard about it. Thus, they weren’t as big a deal as The Hunters believed. Erika wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but after thinking about it for a while, she was guessing that more than just Sofia were ghostly-attuned, or whatever.

Her working theory was that regular people wouldn’t sense ghosts at all, not even if they touched haunted whiskey bottles. It wasn’t an easy theory to test, however, and Erika just didn’t care enough to investigate further. She had enough on her plate with The Fixer, The Mummy, and The Church.

Perhaps Daniel would be interested? He seemed like he would be happy to go investigate oddities like that, maybe get some explanation for why his family was so into ghosts.

“Surprised you managed to collect all that,” Daniel said, carrying on the conversation about the equipment, ignorant of her current line of thought. “Especially on such short notice before our little incident. Couldn’t have been cheap. Or easy to find.”

“It wasn’t, but I borrowed some cash to afford it. As for finding it… that was pretty simple. You can find just about anything online if you know where to look.” Almost anything. Half the texts in this library, despite still being regular textbooks, couldn’t be found online anywhere that she looked. “But if you are coming with me…”

Although she had asked, Erika wasn’t sure about actually bringing him along. She didn’t expect any trouble. The Stalker was an ally, even if she had kind of maybe attacked Erika a little over a misunderstanding. At the same time, because of that incident, Erika wasn’t sure that she could guarantee Daniel’s safety. He lacked her supernatural abilities; he didn’t have the guns, cursed sword, or experience of the other Hunters, and he wasn’t even particularly athletic. If something went wrong and they had to run or fight, he would be more of a liability rather than someone trying to reassure her by not letting her go into this alone.

This wasn’t going into a haunted house and asking a ghost to politely leave. Erika had seen The Stalker and her companions in action; she knew they had no hesitation about shooting threats.

“If you don’t want Leslie upset, how about waiting in the truck? Then you aren’t physically meeting with these people, you can keep the engine warm if we need to get away quickly, and if I don’t come back after a while, you can call in backup.”

Daniel didn’t look particularly pleased with her suggestion. “If you’re trying to get rid of me, I can just stay here until you’re done.”

“Kind of,” Erika admitted. She wasn’t going to lie to him, at least not about this. “I don’t want Leslie pissed at me again, for one. Secondly, I really don’t know what to expect from a meeting like this. Presumably no trouble. Presumably something like what happened the first time I met The Stalker. But I can’t be sure.”

After the whole subway incident and stumbling across those maggots that Rick ran through with his sword, Erika felt far less confident about their ability to avoid trouble than she had with the initial Stalker meeting. She still had no idea how they recognized her.

Had she forgotten to cut up ID cards one time? Had that little trick simply not ever worked? Was it just bad luck, something she said that tipped them off, or what? It felt too planned, like The Hanged Man knew he would be delivering her to The Church. The Banker had been waiting for their car to roll up with no sign of communication from The Hanged Man.

It was frustrating, annoying, and worrisome.

“But,” Erika continued as Daniel huffed a little, “it would be a reassurance if you were near enough to call in for help if something does happen.”

“If you’re asking for help, then my dad can’t get mad. He’s very big on helping people who need it.”

Erika wasn’t sure that Leslie would count this exact situation, but who was she to discourage Daniel from finding loopholes? She wouldn’t be Erika if she weren’t breaking a few rules. “I suppose I’m asking for help then,” she said with a conspiratorial grin.

“Great!” Daniel slammed his book closed. Perhaps he was a little too excited. “So, where are we headed?”

“Some old laundromat. I’ve got the address, but…” Erika frowned as Daniel stood. “It isn’t for a few more hours. You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

“So? You don’t want to scope the place out? Find all the good escape routes and plan the best ways to approach?”

“That sounds like a lot of work,” she said slowly. She had been planning on just walking in when the hour came. If something happened, she would break her way out just like she always did. She had bested The Stalker once already, not that she was expecting a fight. “And I’m not sure if this is some neutral ground or if they invited me over to wherever they call home. If it is the latter, they probably don’t want people snooping about.”

“Unless this is some magically protected place, we could surely drive past a few times. Just one car among many.”

With The Stalker’s abilities, Erika driving past even once would get noticed. She wouldn’t want to offend potential allies by investigating the locale as if she didn’t trust them. “I’m surprised you’re so excited about this,” she said, mostly as a distraction. “Didn’t you like outings that weren’t supernatural?”

He hummed a little, sitting back down. “I guess I’m just curious. We saw that woman at the diner, but she looked pretty normal. Very full-figured,” he said, gesturing in front of his chest. “Not like a skeleton or zombie or—”

“You fell in love at first sight or something?” Erika interrupted with a grin. Her grin widened as his ears turned a little red. “She’s pretty hot, I guess. Bit…” Erika trailed off, trying to find the right word to describe The Stalker’s appearance. “Stringy for my tastes, but if cute dead girls are your thing—”

“No, what? No. I’m just… That’s not… I was trying…” Daniel stopped, took a breath, and tried starting over completely. “You say she’s undead… how does that work? Does she have a pulse? Does she bruise? How have her eyes not rotted out of her head? Or is she fully revived? Like she’s just someone who flatlined in the hospital, got revived by the doctors, and now is going around saying she’s undead?”

There was the skepticism that she expected from Daniel.

Not that it was a bad question. Erika had no idea how Specter-class beings came to be. For all she knew, The Stalker could have simply suffered a brief moment of clinical death before being revived through entirely mundane means. It wouldn’t explain her powers, but that was another matter entirely.

“Seems like it could be a sensitive subject, talking about how people died and came back,” Erika said. “Might have been traumatic.”

Daniel hummed a little more, withdrawing into his own thoughts as he scratched at a little scruff on his chin. Erika left him to it. As long as he was thinking, they weren’t running right into the lair of The Puppet. Erika set a quick alarm on her phone, just so they wouldn’t accidentally miss their appointment, before looking over Daniel once more.

Maybe now was a good time to go through her theory on why The Hunters could all see ghosts.

It would certainly give Daniel something to think about that wasn’t their upcoming meeting.