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He moved closer to her. "Please forgive my momentary madness the other night. My actions were inexcusable. I assure you they will not happen again. I am your protector, and I will protect you, even from my own base urges."
"Base urges? Protection? Oh, shit, I was so distracted today, I forgot to buy condoms. I'm sorry. Really sorry, because another night like last night might actually be enough to forget today. Or I wish it could."
So she didn't regret being intimate with him last night? That was a relief, because he hadn't been able to stop thinking about it. About her. And about the little sounds she made when he caressed her body just right. But something was still wrong. "Did something bad happen today?"
She buried her head in her hands. "No? Yes? Actually, mostly good things have happened today. The artist I wanted to team up with for the virtual world agreed to help, and I think I might have found Sean Bell. I might have even solved the mystery of why there's no record of him until he appeared in the colony and married Carline. I'd thought the women in my family cast big shadows, but if what I've discovered today is true, his secrets are likely to overshadow us all. And I don't know what that will mean for this project, because it's hardly a normal family secret."
Harlow thought for a moment. What was the worst thing he could imagine? "Was the man a convict? Did he escape and change his name?"
Octavia laughed. "Oh, that wouldn't be a problem. Having a convict in the family is considered cool now, as long as they're long dead. No, if Sean had just been a criminal, I could have included his story alongside Carline's and thought nothing more of it. Now...I'm still trying to wrap my head around Carline having a spell book, with spells that actually worked. Like the spell that summoned you, and maybe more."
If Harlow'd had blood, it would have run cold. "Wait. Carline, the woman you think killed me, was a witch?" Actually, he'd heard rumours of such things back in Scotland, but Stan had always denied them, ready to challenge anyone for even mentioning them, that Harlow had dismissed them as the scurrilous lies Stan said they were. But if they were true...
"Yeah, I guess she was."
Wait...that wasn't the family secret that had her so upset? "What could be worse than finding out your ancestress was a witch and a killer?"
Octavia let out a nervous laugh. "When you put it like that...I guess that part didn't occur to me. I suppose we know who performed the successful summoning, then. And why she married him."
Harlow was even more confused. "You mean there are more secrets?"
"The night we summoned you, we used a spell from a book that belonged to Carline. We were supposed to be summoning a demon, not four gargoyles, which is a different spell entirely, but we were only working off Callie's translation of the original Latin, and she left out the...footnotes? Annotations? The bits that were scribbled in the margins and between the lines that weren't part of the spell. That's where I found Sean Bell's name in the original book – beside the part of the spell where you can put in the demon's name, if you're summoning one demon in particular." Octavia took a deep breath. If she were telling this to anyone except a two hundred year old gargoyle who'd actually met Carline, they'd think she was crazy. Hell, she thought she might be crazy for even thinking it. "I think Sean Bell might have been a demon. A demon Carline summoned because she wanted to marry him. Maybe he died, and the only way they could be reunited was for her to bring him back from the grave. And if she did that to him, and she had a spell for turning people into gargoyles, maybe she didn't just kill you and your family. Maybe...maybe she's the one who turned you into what you are, and when we used her spell, or her magic, we accidentally woke you."
He was under a spell? Harlow didn't know much about magic, but he did know spells could be broken. But in order to break it, he'd need a witch, and someone who knew Latin, to better translate the spell book. Which meant he needed Grant's help, and the witch he was bound to protect.
Harlow gritted his teeth. "Then we need to find your Callie, and talk to her about this."
Octavia nodded. "She's down south for a wedding at the moment, but she should be home in a few days. As soon as I see her, I'll ask her about it."
Harlow shook his head. "Wait until I'm there with you, and I can protect you. She's a powerful witch, and she has her own gargoyle protector. She's evidently been keeping secrets from you for some time now, and who knows what she might do if you confront her. Please, promise you'll wait until dark, when I can stand beside you."
Octavia snorted. "It's just Callie. Sure, she's capable of an impressive array of really nasty curses, but she'd never use one of them on her family. She'd sooner cut out her own heart than hurt one of her family!"
Carline had been family, though only a distant cousin. Grant and Stan and Wystan had been family, too, and they'd all gotten him killed. This witch had kept her powers a secret from her own family, the girls who lived under the same roof. Octavia might trust her, but Harlow wasn't so sure.
"Please promise me," he repeated.
"All right! I promise I won't ask Callie anything about spells until you're standing next to me, all hard and shirtless, to distract her. Happy?"
No, but he did feel a tiny whisper of relief. "Happy to serve and protect you, as always."
She sighed. "Thank you. But what I really need is your help with some of these structures in Hooghly Town. You said the tavern was just a tent? I've tried to match it up with the details in the archaeological reports, but I can't seem to find evidence of anything that big. Are you sure it was here?"
Harlow took a deep breath. "Of course I'm sure. Perhaps your archaeologists simply haven't found it yet. Ah, but are you looking for a stone floor? Oh, no, the tavern floor was dirt, and it wasn't even a canvas tent so much as a hut made of branches and bark, like the native ones. The owner didn't come over on the same ships as we did. He and his wife were ex-convicts from Sydney, and it wasn't hard to see what crimes they'd been sentenced for. He bought barrels of drink, then watered it down and sold it for ten times the price to the desperate people from theGilmoreand theHooghly. His wife was very pretty, and much younger than him, and a great favourite among the single men, for it was whispered that her favours were available for a price, as she was only his common law wife, and perhaps not even his wife at all..."
Octavia laughed. "The oldest industries in the world – drinking and sex. Nice to know they were alive and thriving, even in the early colony. Do you remember her name? Perhaps I can weave her story into the immersive, too..."
TWENTY-FIVE
It was mid afternoon when Callie's car pulled into the driveway. Octavia was eating breakfast on the veranda, making the most of the watery winter sunlight, so she lifted her hand to wave hello...only to realise that Callie wasn't alone in the car.
A strange man sat in the passenger seat, engaged in an argument with Callie.
Even stranger, she was actually arguing back, instead of threatening to curse him, or actually putting the curse into effect.
"They were tempting me! I could not refuse their siren call!" the man insisted.
"They were cold and wrapped in plastic. Vacuum sealed. There was no way you could smell them. I get that the hot pies I bought for lunch smelled irresistible, because I couldn't wait to eat them either, but the bulk pack was supposed to be for my lunches for the next week!"
