“I don’t mean to bother you,” Grace said.
Rev. Swift took a seat behind his desk. “Believe it or not, I get a lot of people sitting in the parking lot, looking a little lost. It’s kind of my job, helping people find their way.”
Grace studied the desk. There was a model of the Starship Enterprise, a small statue of Bigfoot. “I’m not particularly religious.”
“Neither was your mother, but she was a great friend of the church, so I’m excited to see you.”
This was news to Grace. She remembered attending services on Christmas and Easter, and that one final service… “How so?”
“Well, they still call this the ‘New Church,’” Rev. Swift made quote marks in the air. “But back when we really were a new church in town, your mother was one of the few who attended regularly.”
“Mom went to church regularly?”
“I think she was lonely, more than anything. Your father was away a lot on business...I guess it’s your business now. She was pregnant with you, new to town. You know how people can be here if you’re a stranger.” His eyes dipped. For a moment, Grace felt outraged. A pastor staring at her boobs?
“I don’t know if I should tell you this,” his eyes rose again. “But your mother was a little afraid of the business. Your father gave her that cameo. To protect her, she said. I’ve heard some pretty wild rumors about the antiques your family has appraised over the years.”
Not the jugs, but the jewelry. Grace relaxed a little. “I didn’t know that.”
“She put on a brave face. But you have to admit. Everyone in town is a little leery of that shop. Probably you as well.”
Time to jump into it. Feeling a little buttressed by the Trekkie and Sasquatch angle, she asked, “Do you believe in cursed objects? Or magic that protects you from it?”
“My business is good and evil, with a heavy slant on the good part. I don’t mean to proselytize, but I believe the Lord finds all kinds of ways to help people. As far as curses go, I’ve seen it before. Maybe more than you. This town just seems full of them.”
Grace leaned forward a little. “What do you do if someone asks you to help with a cursed object?”
“I pray over it,” the reverend said. “If I find some sense of the demonic, I’ll exorcise it.”
“Really?” Grace felt a little bowled over.
“It’s not something I take lightly, and if I never had to do it again, that would be awesome.” His words were light, but his face was serious. “I feel I was called here for just that reason. To allow people to find peace, and this is one way I do it.”
Before Grace could bring up the stick horn in her trunk, her cell phone rang. She saw Paisley as the contact. “Dammit. Oh. Sorry. I better take this.”
“It’s okay.” Swift smiled.
“What’s—”
“It’s happening again, Grace!” Paisley’s voice crackled with weird static. “In the music shop! It’s happening—”
The phone boop-booped the end of the call. Grace jumped to her feet. “I gotta go.”
Chapter 27
Nothing seemed amiss outside Sal’s Strings. A few daytime shoppers visited the antique stores up and down the street. Paisley’s orange scooter sat in front, and she parked the Prius behind it. Hurrying, she pushed open the front door. And stared.
Paisley floated near the ceiling...green hair flowing around her like seaweed. Closer to the floor, Sal hung in the air as well, hands and feet pumping, trying to swim but making no headway. Other than that, the shop seemed normal. Grace saw no sandy ocean bottom, no shadowy barracuda.
Still, Sal threw up a forearm, defending himself against some invisible predator. Paisley shouted, her voice coming from a long ways away. Grace couldn’t understand the murky words. But Paisley pointed at the door. She raced out, knowing what she had to do. Unlocking the trunk, she pulled out the stick. It was ungainly in her hands, almost as if the ivory squirmed.
She didn’t know how to play the horn, but she understood it was like blowing over a bottle top to make a sound. Hauling in air, she raised the hole to her lips. The cameo gave her a shock that she ignored. She blew and blew. After a moment, there was an airy note. Fumbling, moving her lips slightly, she blew again. This time, a full-sounding note issued.
Through the shop window, she saw Paisley’s hands and feet flailing as she fell to the floor. Grace raced back inside.
“Orca!” Paisley shouted, laying on her face. She stopped screaming. Lifted herself up. Her hand moved to the side of her jaw. “Ow!”
Sal rolled on his back, hands clutching his throat, breathing hard.
“What happened? Did you play the recording again?” Grace crouched down, helping Sal to his feet.
He shook his head, unable to speak.
“It just started happening.” Paisley maneuvered to a sitting position. “It was really cold. Icebergs and seals, and then the killer whales.”
Grace pondered this. “There has to be a time lag or something. You played the flute twice, once live, once recorded.” She checked the time on her cell phone. “That last time was thirteen hours ago.”
Once Sal got enough air, he nodded. “About the same time between the first time I played it, and the barracudas.”
Grace put one end of the stick on the floor and leaned on it. “Awesome. I have thirteen hours to figure out what to do.”
Except she didn’t. Immediately, the air chilled, lights dimmed. For a moment, the only light came from the windows. Then, they too, went dark. Half-visible shapes loomed, the skeletal forms of coral, hemming her in. “What the hell? Where are my thirteen hours?”
“Play it again!” Sal shouted, his voice watery and far away.
“No!”
Something flashed in her face. Grace fell back, the strange buoyancy keeping her upright. She swung the flute with discouraging sluggishness. Still, she connected, a snake-like form swimming away. But there were more, many more, slithering, swimming through air that became more dense by the second.
“Play it!” Paisley said, mostly hidden behind a stand of finger-like coral. “Grace!”
She had seen enough undersea nature shows to recognize the swimming threat. Moray eels. She swung the stick around, the resistance in the air making her slow. One swooped down, going right for her face. Grace couldn’t raise her weapon in time.
Lights blazed back on in time with the screaming peel of the alarm bell. The dual feelings of heaviness and buoyancy vanished, the chill becoming warmth, the missing coral revealing wares of the shop.
The three of them stared at each other, breathing heavily. Sal hurried over, shutting off the alarm.
“Bells,” Grace said. Stoughton mentioned shaman using flutes and bells. Could the clamor of the bells…?
She raced to the Prius, throwing the stick between the seats and taking off. The sun was already set, time lost again.
“Grace, what the hell?” Paisley appeared on the street. But Grace started up and rolled away. A dozen theories filled her head. Maybe, because she only played one, sad note, the sea seized upon them more quickly. Maybe the bells stopped whatever magic swept them off to the ocean floor. Her vision, perhaps her mother’s cameo was giving her the answer. The bell pull, the steeple, the belfry—Grace made a beeline for the town square.
St. Paul’s parking lot stood empty. The church was probably locked. Grace ran to the arched doors with the stick. She knocked hard to be heard. The force of it opened the door half an inch.
She heard Reverend Swift’s voice in her head. I believe the Lord finds all kinds of ways to help people.
Grace looked skyward. “Thanks.” And shoved into the empty church.
Although she hadn’t noticed before, there were doors leading off the main space on nearly every wall. Which one would lead her to the bell tower? She chose the most likely one, and was rewarded with the sight of a steep, narrow staircase.
As an archaeologist, Grace had visited the North Church in Boston many times. They
offered a behind-the-scenes tour to students. Grace knew a bit about church steeples and bells. Which was why she wasn’t looking forward to this.
At the terminus of the tight, winding stairs, a ladder stood beneath a trap door. The door, she figured, led to the chamber beneath the bells. She gripped the ladder with one hand, managing the flute with the other. The cameo crackled at her neck as she adjusted her grip.
“Just don’t look down,” she said aloud. Awkwardly, she reached the top, her palms slippery with sweat, her heart pounding. She pressed the bottom of the trap door, and though heavy, she could swing it up. Once again on a solid floor, she caught her breath. The last of the daylight streamed through slats in the shutters. A bell pull hung in the center of the square chamber.
Grace lifted the flute, looking at the carvings, the blow hole the size of a jug opening. Licking her lips, she raised the instrument. “I’m gonna ring your bell, Stick.”
She blew and blew, and after a few minutes, she found the right angle to make a note. As she fiddled around the tone got fuller, fatter. She found one of the hidden finger holes and played it one step higher. Then she leaned it in a corner.
“All right.” She grasped the rope leading to the bell. “Bring it on, Ivory Stick.”
It took a few moments. Her hands were sweaty on the rope. From below, she heard the gurgle of water. In no time, it became the sound of a raging surf. Her ears rang, popped, her weight suddenly less. As dark as it was in the belfry, it soon faded to black. Tiny lights winked on above her, circling, dropping closer. In the bio luminescence, she caught the horrible face of a fish, its mouth all fangs, its eyes looked insane. Angler fish, she thought. Were those dangerous, or only dangerous-looking?
When one swam close, it gave her a very real bite. “Ow, you jerk! Boy, are you gonna get it.”
Another one slid forward, biting her knee, the glow of the lantern stuck to its head left an afterimage.
She found it difficult to breathe. Her chest felt compressed. It was time. Grace reached up as high as she could. Gripping, she dropped to her knees.
No bell rang above.
Chapter 28
She heaved again. No ring, no response. The angler fish swarmed around her. In their lure lights, she saw enormous, bug-like critters creeping on the floor, the walls. Quick moving, one took a bite out of her shoe. Grace yelped, her voice lost in the depths as she kicked it.
With each passing second, her chest felt tighter. Each breath was more shallow than the last. Barb’s words came to her. The drug dealers hadn’t drown, they’d been crushed. Grace let go of the rope and floated gently to the floor. Bottom feeder bugs attacked, and she did her best to fight them off. Her attempts became more feeble with each charge.
Enormous black spots danced in front of her eyes. She breathed in, as hard as she could, but got no air. Suffocating. She lashed out in panic, which only made her dip below consciousness for a second. She snapped back, slapping a bug and an angler fish away. But adrenalin could only take her so far. She collapsed on the abyssal seabed, watching the monsters close in on her.
Three quick notes drifted to her, so distant. Grace thought she recognized the song. Phantom of the Opera, the theme from every Midnight Monster Movie show she’d ever seen. Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Pressure let off slightly, enough to get a short breath. Louder this time, she heard the second phrase, an octave lower than the first.
“Paisley?” Her voice hardly made a sound.
The chord part built up, one note joined by a second, a third. It was easier to breathe with each added tone. Yet the big insects and little fish continued their assault. Grace received a bite on the hand and she punched a bug in what she thought was the face. The pipe organ could diminish the effects of the flute, but not dissipate them fully.
The chord swelled, the final note added. A flurry of fish bit at her, sea bugs pinching through her clothes with their spiky mandibles. She fought and fought, but the feeding frenzy had begun. Grace was dinner…
Gong!
Grace screamed, covering her ears. But the sound was lost in the tolling. Light again shined through the slats of the shutters. She was directly below the bell. Looking up, she saw no bell hanging. Instead, there were four loudspeakers.
Gong!
Teeth rattling, hands tight on her ears, Grace struggled to her knees. Her blouse and slacks were dotted with bloodstains that grew larger as she moved. She had to get out of the belfry before she went deaf. In order to do that, she needed her hands. To grab the stick, to clamber down the ladder.
Gong!
With the vibration, the stick slid down the wall, landing on the floor. If it made a noise, Grace couldn’t hear it. She crawled over. Cracks ran down its length, through the heavy carving. She knew the fall hadn’t damaged it. Not after she swatted a few fish with it, and Paisley tried to saw it in half.
Gong!
“Paisley, stop!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. Grace crawled to the trap door, wondering how she was going to mount the ladder without her hands. She didn’t dare remove them, the digital bell tone would burst her eardrums. She got to her feet. Kicked the stick down the stairs. Winced against the next toll.
It didn’t come.
In her haste, Grace half-fell down the ladder. She managed to shut the trap door before losing her footing. Clacking down four steps uncontrollably, she finally caught herself. It would be just her luck to fend off angler fish and hungry ocean bugs only to break her neck falling off a ladder.
Finally, she made the constricted staircase. At the bottom, she found the stick. When she picked it up, she felt neither the crawling sensation in her hands, nor the electric shock from the cameo.
When Grace pushed into the main part of the church, Paisley still sat at the organ. “This thing is wicked cool,” she said. “I gotta get one.”
Grace moved closer, the ringing in her ears making it hard to hear. “I think you just saved my life.”
“Damn, you look beat up from the feet up.” The Goth gave her the up-and-down. “Sorry it took so long. It took me forever to find the bell thingie.” Paisley pushed a button on the console. Much more distantly this time, the bell tolled. Paisley grinned. “That’s so savage.”
“We should probably get out of here before the cops come,” Grace said.
“Why are you shouting?”
Grace pointed at her ear and shook her head.
“Oh. So you probably don’t want to hear some ragtime.” Paisley faced the keyboard again, pumping out a jaunty tune. It took a moment to register in Grace’s damaged ears. The theme from “The Sting.”
Suddenly, she stopped playing and hopped off the bench. “We better go.”
“What?”
“Sirens,” Paisley shouted before running out the front door.
Chapter 29
The rented launch bobbed in the chop. Paisley switched off the engines. She lifted a hand to shade her eyes. “Think we’re far enough out?”
Grace faced the stern, the shore no longer in sight. The motion of the waves made her feel a little green. “I hope so.”
Bandaged from the fish and bug bites, ears still ringing, Grace struggled to remove the stick horn from the fishing pole bag. Paisley produced a bicycle lock and ran it through a finger hole to one of the big cracks. She slipped the end through a cinder block and locked the two together.
“How long before the water destroys it?”
Grace looked at the carving, the cracks, the difference between the smooth relief of the surface and the rough texture of the carving. “Not long. Even though this is from a walrus, ivory is hygroscopic. It will absorb the seawater, swell, and hopefully crack completely apart.”
Paisley nodded. She wore a black sailor dress with a square collar and silver piping, the print was subtle silver sharks. On her head was a matching black sailor’s hat and a hat pin with an octopus decoration. On her legs were buccaneer boots folded over at the top. Her eye shadow and lipstick were sea green. Nauti
cal Gothic. She hefted the brick. “You want to do the honors?”
Grace shook her head. “Throw it overboard.”
Paisley hefted the cinder block on top of the gunwale and let it go. Leashed by the bike chain, the huge stick knocked the sides of the boat before trailing after. The two of them watched a few bubbles surface. Then nothing but the choppy surface. “Anti-climax,” Paisley said.
“Just as long as no one ever sees it again.”
“You could’ve clued me in, you know. About the bells.” Paisley continued to watch the waves.
Grace’s stomach couldn’t take it. She sat in the pilot’s chair. “I just don’t want to pull anyone in. These things are dangerous.”
“That’s why you should ask me for help. I used to be a cop, remember?”
“I know.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
Grace kept her eyes on the horizon, hoping her stomach would settle. “Look, Paize, you do some crazy things. You look like a total weirdo. I mean, in a stylish way.”
“Thanks.”
“But I do.” Grace thought about it. “For some reason, I do trust you.”
Paisley stood up and shooed Grace from the pilot’s chair. She started the engines. “You’re into some very weird stuff yourself, Grace. But I trust you, too.”
“Thanks.”
Paisley aimed the launch at the unseen coast. “Say, the place we rented this boat from isn’t far from Ipswich. You wanna go to the Clam Box?”
Grace felt her stomach lurch. “Nope. I don’t even want to think about fried clams.”
“Until next year,” Paisley gunned it.
Grace shrugged. “Until next year.”
*****
Here's the link to the next book in the Sinister Case Series:
The Sinister Secrets of the Enchanted Blaze
If you missed it, here's the link to the first book in the Sinister Case Series:
The Sinister Secrets of the Deadly Summoner Page 10
