by Kate Baray
Don’t touch the knife.
“You want me to leave the biting knife that makes an entire limb numb with a scratch. Is that wise?” Jack blinked. “Wait—what the hell is going on with my arm? That’s fixable, right?”
Sure.
“Shit. You have no clue.”
Nope. It’s definitely a good sign that you’re still alive.
“Good to know.” He was too old for this shit.
Jack pushed off from the wall and stumbled to the table where the book was still open. “Can I touch the damn book?”
I think so.
“You’re just full of information tonight.” Jack gritted his teeth then reached for the book. And it hurt about as much as he’d expected. Getting shot sucked. Book in hand, he turned back to the stairs.
Surprisingly, it didn’t take him nearly as long to get up the stairs as he’d expected. He only had to stop and puke once, and he didn’t drop the book. Score one for him.
He leaned on Marin as they walked side by side through the main room. She stopped when they got to the second gaping hole, the one that led outside. He walked ahead and stopped on the other side, swaying. When she’d joined him, he asked, “Where’s the body of the second guy you offed?”
You stepped on him earlier, behind the altar.
“You ashed a guy, and I missed it?”
Marin flashed a mouthful of dragon teeth. Then she turned and, in a blinding moment of blue fiery destruction, burned the church to the ground.
He choked on a laugh. The impossibility of it—the ashy remains he’d stepped on unknowingly, the decimated place of cultish worship—it was just too much. He knew it would hurt, tried to stop it, but out the laughter came. And his head pounded, and his shoulder bled, and his body ached. “Let’s go home.”
That was when it occurred to him how screwed they were. It was still dark, but Marin wasn’t fit to fly. He couldn’t drive, and even if he could—what car would that be? And where the hell were the cops? The cranky neighbors? The firing squad, the witch burners? Anyone? They’d lit up an entire building, and not a soul appeared curious or concerned.
“We just wiped out the entire Lorietta police force, didn’t we?”
Most likely.
“And the neighbors?”
Terrified and hiding? Do we care?
“Yeah, who gives a shit. Unless they’re a part of the magic-knife, bloodthirsty book cult—then maybe it’s a problem.” He tried not to slur his words, tried to walk straight—but he was doing a piss-poor job of both. “Don’t suppose you know of a healer in the area? Scratch that. Don’t suppose you know of a way to get to a healer in the area?”
After a few moments of contemplation, they both turned to the old blue sedan with the torn-off trunk.
“Aren’t you wishing you’d popped that trunk now?”
Marin chuffed out a warm breath.
Her sense of humor was coming back; maybe she was starting to heal.
“We gonna do this?”
Hell yes.
“Those wings will work like a rudder…in a pinch…if I start to pass out…right?”
Why not?
So with Marin perched precariously atop the sedan and camouflaging herself as best she could and Jack driving one-armed, they pulled out of the Church of the Book’s parking lot in their stolen, shredded car.
Jack glanced once in the rearview mirror. All he could see was charred rubble. The sight was more satisfying than a local brew with a medium-rare steak.
Epilogue
Jack felt someone shaking his arm. He opened his eyes to a blurry image of Marin in the driver’s seat of a strange car. “Five more minutes, Mom.”
“Cute. You’re home.”
He rubbed his eyes then looked out the window to find them parked in his driveway. “Wait—wasn’t I driving? Weren’t you a dragon?” He jerked upright in the passenger seat. “And we were in a sedan. How’d we get in this car?”
“Good Lord. The healer said you’d have some holes in your memory—but this is ridiculous.” She sighed. “You made it—mostly—to that healer north of town.”
“Whoa. No way. That’s, like, a two-hour drive.”
“Yeah.” Marin blinked too-innocent eyes at him. “Let’s just be glad you don’t remember all of that.”
“What the hell did you do to me?”
“Nothing the healer didn’t fix up, good as new. So stop bitching. We’re here, right?” Marin tipped her head in the direction of Jack’s house.
“Okay, outside of whatever you did to torture me into consciousness long enough to drive two hours, what else happened? Clearly he sorted you out.” Jack prodded the back of his head. He’d acquired a pretty nasty bump earlier in the night. That much he definitely remembered. He couldn’t find any evidence of it now.
“He sorted both of us out—even though neither of us understood how you were still breathing. That knife, the one I very specifically told you to be careful of? It’s designed to drain your energy when it cuts you.”
“Okay—but it’s not like my neck or my groin was slashed wide open. The victims we discovered had lost a lot of blood. So I wasn’t ever really in any danger, right?”
“Sure. Tell my dad and Harrington that. They’re both in transit, on their way to pick up that completely innocuous knife.” Marin shot him an annoyed look. “You’re a lucky bastard.”
Maybe he was. Maybe he had some kind of mysterious edge. Maybe the knife hadn’t cut deep enough. Maybe they were all wrong about how powerful the thing was or how it worked.
“Where’s the book?”
Marin reached behind his seat and pulled out a plastic grocery bag. She raised an eyebrow. “Think you can manage to hang onto it for a few hours? Dad’s swinging by to collect it after he and Harrington secure the knife.”
“I’ll manage.” Jack grabbed the bag. “Uh, before we part ways—can you tell me what it does?”
“I flipped through it; I didn’t study it. And I can’t read it.
“Right, only a spell caster can do that. But…?”
“But—underneath the stench of death magic—it definitely has a geo-locater vibe. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s likely the magical map of everything. Underground water supplies, rare minerals…hell, it might have led those goons that stabbed me and kidnapped you to The Junk Shop.”
“Ah. Your freeze frame in dragon form. I wondered how that had happened.” Jack winced. “Are we going to be reading about dinosaur sightings for the next month?”
“The human ability to deny the existence of magic—even in the face of scaly, winged proof—is infinite.”
Jack hopped out of the car. He was surprisingly limber considering the damage he’d undergone such a short time ago. Healers were a wonderful thing. “So, no dinosaurs?”
She flashed a smile at him—a genuine one. “Don’t be foolish, Jack. You know I always eat the witnesses.”
After she’d driven away in a car he suddenly realized he didn’t recognize, he remembered they hadn’t discussed the partnership offer.
Tomorrow.
Maybe next month.
He headed up the steps of his porch.
He’d get around to it.
The Heartbeat in the House
Episode 6
Chapter One
Jack scrolled down the spreadsheet on his laptop. Even with the fifteen percent loss of stock The Junk Shop had recently suffered, it looked like they were in the black. He leaned back in his chair and looked for his furry buddy Bob. Only a bit of Bob’s magical luck could make up for a fire inside the shop. Not that he could blame Marin; she had been trying to save him from kidnap, torture, and possibly the sacrifice of his soul to a magical book. What was a little dragon-fire damage when compared to the sacrifice of his soul to an evil book?
But he could hardly give his insurance company those particular details, so he’d taken the hit. And still the shop was in the black.
Bob had curled up atop of one of the sweatshirt
s he’d thrown on the old leather sofa in his office.
“Thanks, Bob.”
Bob picked his head up from his front paws and tilted his head.
“Looks like the shop bills are getting paid this month.”
Bob didn’t acknowledge Jack’s thanks; he just went back to sleep.
Marin had mentioned Arkan Sonney were shy about the help they gave. Really, they seemed shy about a lot of things. Jack had never seen Bob eat or exercise. He hadn’t seen the guy do much but sleep. He might look a little like a mix between a corkscrew-tailed lab puppy and a hedgehog, but he certainly didn’t act like either.
“Crab?”
Bob perked up.
As soon as Jack stood, Bob hopped off the sofa.
Jack retrieved one of his stashed cans of crabmeat, opened it up, and dumped it in a small bowl he kept in the office just for Bob. He set it on the ground and walked out to the main shop floor, closing the office door behind him. The bowl would be pristine when he came back, but he’d never once seen Bob eat. Jack wasn’t worried Bob would vacate the premises if peppered with too many questions—their relationship had evolved beyond that. But he didn’t want to offend the polite little creature. Bob was great company—and not bad for The Junk Shop’s bottom line.
Marin looked up from behind the counter where she was ringing up a customer. “Here he is now. Jack, Mr. Kaisermann wanted to meet you.”
Odd. Bob didn’t usually stick around when customers came into the store. Maybe he was really hungry today.
“I’m Jack Spirelli.” Jack extended his hand as he approached the older gentleman.
The man offered him a frail hand, but his grip was firm. “Spirelli Paranormal Investigations?”
Jack nodded. “Yes. How can I can help you?”
“It’s possible I might need you to…” Kaisermann paused, and his gaze drifted away for a second, but then his expression cleared. “…exterminate a building.”
Exterminate… Pest control? Unlikely. Blow it up? Jack knew his morals could occasionally be skewed in a direction that didn’t directly align with the law, but blowing up a building? “Maybe you’d like to join me and my, ah, Marin in my office?”
Marin was technically just his assistant—but that seemed an inappropriate label given their ongoing partnership negotiations.
“Yes, of course.” Kaisermann didn’t seem to notice Jack’s hesitation—or was too polite to show interest.
As Kaisermann made his way through the twists and turns of the display tables to the back of the store, Jack realized that the man’s frail appearance belied his grace and agility.
When Jack opened the door, there was no sign of Bob—or of his sweatshirt. Jack indicated one of two client chairs.
Marin sat on the sofa, and Jack took a seat behind his desk.
Picking up a pen, Jack said, “Now tell me about this building.”
Kaisermann rattled off an address on one of the major highways in town. “The government has asserted its right of eminent domain and has been pursuing condemnation of the property. They’ve offered a fair price, and truth be told, I’d be glad to relinquish the responsibility of the property.”
Jack waited while the Kaisermann considered his words.
Kaisermann pulled on his right earlobe. “Well, the building—it’s a house, really—was left to me by my father. And his father left it to him, and so on.”
“The house has sentimental value?” Marin asked.
“Oh, nothing like that. It’s more a familial duty than anything else.” Kaisermann’s bushy grey eyebrows did a little dance as his brow furrowed and smoothed. “The house is…special.”
“Haunted?” Jack asked. He had some experience with ghosts. Generally, he wasn’t a fan, though he knew there were better and worse ghosts. But the thought of having to exterminate a ghost gave him indigestion.
“Ah. I hadn’t considered that. Ghosts, ah, they’re real, are they?”
“We offer clients an evaluation of their property. We can check and let you know what we find, but in my experience it’s unlikely that your property is haunted.” Jack wasn’t about to confirm or deny the existence of ghosts. Spirelli Paranormal Investigations existed in the mundane world as a skeptical believer in the paranormal, more concerned with debunking paranormal fraud than proving it.
“Yes, well, maybe that would be wise, just to be sure. But that’s not why I’m here. No, it’s the house itself.” Kaisermann shook his head. “It’s mad; not really believable, but… Well, just in case… I couldn’t in good conscience just let them tear it down.”
“What’s mad, Mr. Kaisermann?” Marin asked. “We can’t help you if we don’t understand the nature of the problem.”
“The house is…magic.” Kaisermann sighed. “That’s what my father was told, what he told me.”
“And by magic—what do you mean exactly?”
“I’m not entirely sure. My grandfather called it a refuge. And he warned we shouldn’t ever let anything happen to the house—but he didn’t say why.” Kaisermann pulled at his earlobe again. “There’s a trust, for the house’s upkeep. And you have to understand, my family isn’t particularly well off, but that trust is a good chunk of change.”
“So whoever set up the trust thought maintaining the house was very important.”
Kaisermann nodded. “My grandfather, I believe—though I’ve no idea where he got the money. And while I’m not in any particular need of those funds, my father didn’t have much growing up. They didn’t have that kind of cash to spare.”
Jack considered the facts. Where there was money, there was usually a fix. “If you have the funds, why not move the house to another location, magic and all? I’m not entirely sure what you expect us to exterminate.”
“I’m not certain I can move it. Not with the”—Kaisermann spread his hands wide—“well, the other, intangible aspects still attached. I don’t know much about the house. My father died when I was young, so he either didn’t have time to tell me or he didn’t know himself. But—”
“You’re leery to move it not knowing what makes the house so special.” Marin leaned forward. Banishing any trace of her creepy dragon vibe, she gave Kaisermann a calm, reassuring smile. “It’s wise to be cautious, certainly, but if you’re not certain why your father called it magical then that’s the place to start. Depending on what—if anything—is there, it might not be possible to remove it.”
Kaisermann nodded. “I did have a structural engineer take a look, and he couldn’t see any reason we couldn’t do it. So if you can prove there’s nothing special about it, then that would mean I can move forward. Or if there is a something, someone—a metaphysical or paranormal presence—then I’d like reassurance that it’s safe to move. Or a way to get it out of the house.”
Jack pulled a contract out of his right-hand desk drawer. After filling in a few blanks, he passed the document to Kaisermann. “If you’ll fill in the address of the property, initial the space next to the fee in the second paragraph, and then sign and date on the last page, we can schedule the inspection of the property. As Marin said, that’s the place to start. Note that the fee listed includes only the inspection of the property. If we discover anything, we’ll discuss your options and the accompanying fees.”
“Yes, that’s fine.” Kaisermann scanned the document and then quickly filled in the appropriate spaces. Handing the document back, he said, “When can you see the house?”
Jack pulled up his calendar on his laptop. “This afternoon? Three o’clock.” With any luck, he and Marin would be out of there in thirty minutes and would beat most of the afternoon traffic.
“I appreciate your promptness.” Kaisermann stood up and pulled a key from his pocket. “I hope you’re comfortable going on your own?” When Jack nodded and accepted the key, Kaisermann extended his hand first to Marin and then to Jack. “I’ve been very uncomfortable with moving forward. This will put my mind at ease.” But his tone didn’t entirely match the confi
dence of his words.
After the front door shop bell had rung, confirming Kaisermann’s exit, Jack leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the desk. “What do you think? Someone died in the house, and there’s a family legend of ghosts?”
“Or the place is just old and spooky. It doesn’t take much for a legend to develop.” Marin tilted her head. “Although to set aside significant funds for the maintenance of the place…that does raise the bar somewhat.”
“Well, whatever the reason for the family legend, I’m betting fifty bucks we’re out of there in less than twenty minutes.”
“Watch it, Jack. You of all people should know better than to tempt the fates.” Marin flashed him a toothy smile. “Oh, and I’ll take that bet.”
Chapter Two
“Holy shit.” Jack took his magic specs off, scrubbed at them with the hem of his T-shirt, then put them back on.
Unfortunately, scrubbing the glass clean didn’t change the brilliant vision in front of him.
“Yeah. I’ll take that fifty bucks now.” Marin’s gaze remained riveted on their client’s house.
Jack could only imagine what it looked like through her dragon eyes. “Is it even safe to go inside?”
“Huh, let’s see.”
Jack touched her forearm as she started to walk forward. “As my soon-to-be partner and the supposedly more informed and levelheaded of the two of us—are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“I can’t tell what kind of magic it is, but Mr. Kaisermann said the house is a refuge. Does that sound dangerous to you?”
“A refuge for ghosts, demons, dragons, witches, or who knows what else. So, yeah, maybe dangerous.” Jack turned back to the house. He could barely look at it straight on. The walls of the house seemed permeated with magic, as if the stone façade itself were constructed of magic.
“What demons have you ever run into? Ghosts aren’t always an issue. Dragons, no problem. And if there are Coven of Light witches hanging out plotting the end of the world inside, the magic would taste different.” Marin cocked her head. “I think. Besides, when are you cautious about anything but driving?”
