Twilight Heart

by Adam J. Wright

  I angled my body into the exit tunnel and crawled to the surface, sucking in a lungful of sweet, cold, Fall air when I finally emerged into the daylight. Gingerly, I lifted the tee from my shoulder and inspected the wound. It was still bleeding but it didn’t look too deep.

  Leon came running over to me. “Alec, are you okay? What happened?”

  “It’s dead,” I told him. “That’s all that matters. How are the officers?”

  “The ambulance took them to the hospital. Come on, I’ll drive you there.”

  I shook my head. “No hospital. I’ll be okay.”

  “Dude, your arm—”

  “It’s okay. Just get me home and I’ll sort it out there.”

  “If you’re sure, man.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. But before we leave, you have to do one more thing.”

  “Name it.”

  “You need to go back into the tunnel and cover the ghoul’s body with lye. And make sure there aren’t any more in there.”

  He looked at the hole and nodded. “Okay. Wait here, I’ll be back soon.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” I leaned against a tombstone and closed my eyes. Leon was still hanging around so I opened them again. He was taking off his shirt.

  “What are you doing?”

  He crouched next to me and put the shirt around my shoulders. “Here, you need to stay warm.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled. Exhaustion pressed on me like a weighted blanket. I watched as Leon went to the hole in the ground but then the world went blurry.

  I slipped into the black hole of unconsciousness.

  9

  When I woke up, I was lying in the backseat of the Land Rover. Leon was driving. I sat up and leaned against the door, watching the world rush past the window for a moment while my head cleared.

  It was raining. The windshield wipers whirred as they traveled across the glass. We were moving fast along the wet road. Water sprayed from beneath the tires and splashed against the car.

  “Hey, you’re awake,” Leon said, eyeing me in the rearview mirror. “I was gonna take you to the hospital.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Take me home, Leon. Please.” My shoulder ached but at least the bleeding had almost stopped.

  “You sure? You probably need stitches.”

  “I’m sure,” I said. I wanted to clean and inspect the wound myself. If I thought I needed stitches after that, then I’d go to the hospital.

  “You really should take care of yourself,” Leon said. “Those two cops went to the hospital without any argument.”

  “Yeah, well they deserve to get the best care.”

  “So do you, man.”

  Did I? If it wasn’t for me, those two officers wouldn’t be in the hospital right now. They’d probably be at home with their families.

  I’d let myself be distracted by Felicity’s call and I hadn’t checked for more ghouls. That was on me. The wound in my shoulder was the price I’d had to pay for being careless and I was going to let it heal in its own time. The scar that would eventually take its place would be a constant reminder that I had to be more vigilant.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Leon asked, watching me closely in the rearview.

  “I’m sure.”

  When we got to my house, Leon parked the Land Rover on the driveway and helped me inside. I felt weary and I wasn’t sure if that was due to a loss of blood or because the ghoul had given me an ass-kicking before I’d finally killed it.

  Leon went to the bathroom to get medical supplies and I sank onto the sofa. I removed the T-shirt from the wound. The blood-encrusted cut ran in a dead straight line down my shoulder, cutting through one of my magical protection tattoos. It didn’t look deep enough to require stitches but the skin on either side of the wound had turned a sickly green color.

  That wasn’t right. I touched the green flesh gently with the tip of my finger. I had no feeling there.

  “Shit.”

  “What’s wrong?” Leon asked, coming into the room with the First Aid kit.

  “I’m not sure. You see that green tinge around the wound?”

  He inspected it closely. “Yeah, what the hell is that?”

  This was the moment I would usually call Felicity and she’d tell me some little-known fact about ghoul scratches and tell me what to do to cure it.

  Maybe Carlton would know something useful. It was probably a long shot but I had to try. The green color seemed to be spreading across my shoulder.

  I called the office. Carlton picked up on the second ring. “Harbinger P.I. Carlton Carmichael speaking, how may I help you?”

  “Carlton, it’s me.”

  “Hi, Alec.”

  “Listen, what do you know about ghouls?”

  “Ghouls? Well, I’ll have to think back to the lessons of my academy days. I’ve never actually seen one in the flesh. What do you want to know?”

  “Do they have a poisonous scratch or bite?”

  “Hmm, I’m not sure. I can look it up if you like.”

  My shoulder was beginning to feel numb. “Yes, please.”

  “Okay, hold on a second.” I heard him typing on his keyboard. “There doesn’t seem to be much information here. Wait, here it is. Yes, the bite or scratch of a ghoul contains a poison that causes necrosis in the victim’s tissue which eventually leads to death.”

  “Is there a cure?”

  There was a pause and then he said, “It doesn’t mention a cure. It wouldn’t be a good idea to be scratched by one of those guys, eh?”

  I hung up. Leon was on his phone. When he saw that I’d finished with Carlton, he hung up.

  “It’s bad news,” I said. “The wound is going to turn necrotic and there’s no cure listed in the Society database. Those two police officers are going to die because of me.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean because of you? We saved their asses.”

  “We saved them from a quick death and cursed them to a slow one.”

  “Not necessarily. While you were on the phone to Carlton, I called Merlin.”

  “Merlin?”

  “Yeah, Merlin. If there’s a cure, he’ll probably know what it is. He was a druid, wasn’t he? At least, that’s what the stories say. Anyway, when I told him you’d been scratched by a ghoul, he sounded confident that he knew what to do.”

  I sat back on the sofa and looked up at the ceiling. “He always sounds confident, even when he has no idea what he’s talking about.”

  “Well there isn’t any other option. I could see you weren’t getting anywhere with Carlton so I thought Merlin would be your best chance.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Half an hour, a knock sounded on the door and Leon answered it. Merlin pushed past him and carried a cardboard box of plants into the kitchen. Leon looked into the box and quickly drew his head back, his face screwed up in an expression of disgust.

  “Dude, that smells like horse shit!”

  “Among other things,” Merlin said. “Now, I’ll need a large pot in which to mix the ingredients and a stove to heat them up.” He started rummaging through the kitchen cupboards.

  Leon came back into the living room, followed by the smell of whatever Merlin had in that box. “I’ll open the windows,” he said.

  I nodded. “Good idea.”

  We sat in silence while Merlin heated a pot of God-knew-what on the stove. The smell was even worse now. Merlin, humming--a tune that was either a spell or a ditty he’d heard back in the Middle Ages--seemed oblivious to it.

  When he was done, he brought the foul-smelling concoction into the living room in a bowl. In his other hand, he held a wooden spoon. “This poultice should have you back to normal in no time, Alec.”

  Siting on the coffee table, he spooned liberal amounts of the goopy stuff onto my shoulder. It didn’t sting or even feel warm because by now, my shoulder was completely dead. I could smell the stuff though and turned my head away in an attempt to lessen the foul odor’s assault on my senses. It
didn’t work.

  “Don’t use all of it,” I told Merlin. “You need to use it on two police officers in the hospital as well as me.”

  “There’s plenty to go round,” he said cheerfully. “You’re lucky I remember my druidical training. Otherwise, you’d be dead by morning. A ghoul’s poison is no laughing matter.”

  “No one’s laughing,” Leon said.

  Merlin sat back and inspected his handiwork. “That should draw the poison out in no time. Once it dries and you feel all right again, just wash it away.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “I’ll just use a quick spell to check you over.” He held his hand over me and a dark blue glow emanated from them. Merlin closed his eyes and smiled. “Ah, yes, the poultice is working already. Good. good.” Then his expression changed. His brows knitted together and his smile disappeared as his lips pursed. “What’s this?” he muttered so quietly that he might be saying it to himself.

  His eyes snapped open and he looked at me intently as he lowered his hands. The glow emanating from them dissipated. “You didn’t tell me you were enchanted, Alec.”

  “I’m not,” I told him.

  “There’s an enchantment inside you.”

  “Oh, that. I don’t know what it is. Something happened to me when I was younger.”

  My childhood memory of lying in a cave surrounded by witches while my father watched from the shadows resurfaced. I pushed it away.

  Merlin, still frowning, shook his head. “Whatever it is, I don’t like it.”

  “Yeah, well I’m not exactly thrilled about it myself but I have to live with it.”

  He got up and collected his things from the kitchen. His usually ebullient mood was gone. “I’ll go to the hospital and see to those police officers,” he said solemnly. Without another word, he left.

  “What’s eating him?” Leon asked.

  “I have no idea.” I tested my shoulder by poking it with my finger. I actually felt something. “At least this poultice seems to be working.”

  “Good,” Leon said. “Could I borrow a shirt?”

  His own shirt, the one he’d put around me in the cemetery was covered with blood.

  “Of course. Take anything you want from my closet.”

  “Thanks, man.” He went upstairs to the bedroom.

  I wondered why Merlin had gotten so spooked. I wouldn’t have thought a powerful wizard like him would be scared off by any sort of magic or enchantment. But when he’d left, there had been a look of fear in his eyes.

  Trying to work Merlin out wasn’t going to get me anywhere and besides, I should probably hit the books again. We still didn’t have any leads regarding the location of Tia’s mummy and I didn’t hold any hope that Carlton would have discovered something. In fact, I regretted leaving the books with him at all because now I only had a handful of texts here to research.

  I called Carlton at the office again. He’d probably be leaving soon and I wanted to make sure he brought the books with him.

  There was no answer.

  Great. That meant he’d already left. Had he even cracked any of the books open? I’d know soon enough when he arrived home.

  Leon came back downstairs wearing one of my red flannels.

  “How are you getting on with the Midnight Cabal stuff?” I asked him. A couple of weeks ago, we’d purloined a laptop and a cache of electronic storage devices from a Cabal yacht. Leon, who was a computer genius, was trying to crack the coded material open.

  “They have some powerful security measures,” he told me. “I’ll get past them but it’ll take some time.”

  “Would you like to try something a little different?” I indicated the half-dozen Egyptian books scattered on the floor.

  “Sure, anything to help Mallory.”

  “I’ll order pizza and we can have a few beers while we work.”

  “Sounds good to me.” He grabbed one of the books and settled into the easy chair.

  I heard a car outside and went to the window to see if it was Carlton. It was. He parked his white Honda Civic on his driveway and got out of it in a hurry. Instead of going into his house, he ran over to my front door and knocked urgently.

  “Come in, Carlton,” I shouted to him.

  He came through the door in a rush, breathing hard. He was wet from the rain that was still pouring down but there was a smile on his face. “I did it!” he said breathlessly. “I found the pillars!”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “I was leafing through one of the books and there was a diagram of the pillars exactly like that.” He pointed at the pictures of the pillars on my wall. “I know where they are.”

  “Where?”

  “Egypt.”

  “Yeah, we kinda guessed that already.”

  “No, I know the precise location. It’s all in the book.”

  I led him to the sofa and sat him down. “Okay, so where are the pillars.”

  “They’re in a secret underground room.”

  “You said you knew the precise location.”

  He nodded. “The room is under the Sphinx!”

  10

  Felicity touched the frosted glass on the door and traced her fingers over the outline of the letters stenciled there.

  Lake, P.I.

  She’d done it. She’d achieved her dream of becoming a P.I. and her name on this door was proof of that. Her office wasn’t exactly in the nicest part of Manchester but she didn’t care. It was a perfect place to begin her career as a preternatural investigator.

  She placed the key into the lock and opened the door. As it swung inward, stale air that smelled of mold and damp wafted out of the building. A set of wooden steps led up to the office. Felicity entered and ascended the creaking stairs to a landing whose floor was covered with old linoleum that had seen better days.

  Unlike Alec’s office, there was no room for an assistant. The Society had told Felicity in London that she wouldn’t be getting an assistant and was expected to do her own paperwork. She was disappointed about that. Not because of the paperwork—she was used to that—but because it would have been nice to have someone around to talk to.

  The landing had two doors. One led to a grimy bathroom, the other to a small room which was to serve as the office. There was a desk and chair in here, along with a telephone and an answering machine but that was all.

  The Society seemed to have spared every expense. At least the house they’d provided Felicity with—which was a half hour drive away—was better appointed and furnished.

  She opened the window to let the damp smell out and some fresh air in. While she was at the window, she took in the view of Manchester. Dark gray clouds hung over the city and heavy rainfall seemed imminent.

  Turning back to the room, she noticed a red light flashing on the answering machine. She pressed the button to play the message.

  A young woman’s voice filled the room. “Hello, my name is Jessica Baker and I’ve got a problem I think you can help me with. Please call me back when you can.” She left a number and then the message ended.

  Sitting on the edge of the desk, Felicity used the office phone to ring the number. Her first case. Would it be something simple or a complicated, deadly case that would test her resolve as a new P.I.? She really didn’t mind which it was; it was a case and that was all that mattered.

  The same voice that had been on the machine answered the phone. “Hello?”

  “Hello, is this Jessica Baker?”

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  “My name is Felicity Lake. You left a message for me to call you. I’m a P.I.”

  “Oh. I left that message a couple of days ago but then the office closed down. I didn’t think anyone would call me back.”

  “I’ve taken over the business now,” Felicity said, wondering what had happened to her predecessor. “So I’d like to help you if I can.”

  “That’s great. Thank you.”

  “Would you like to come to the office and tell m
e how I can help?” She looked around the sparse space. She was going to have to get another chair from somewhere so her clients could sit down.

  “Would you be able to come to my house? My husband’s taken the car to work and I don’t fancy getting the bus.”

  “Of course,” Felicity said, relieved her office would escape the scrutiny of a prospective client. She could hardly pass it off as shabby chic; the place was just dirty. Where was all the furniture that must have been here before?

  “Shall we say one o’ clock this afternoon?” she said into the phone.

  “Yeah, that’s great.” Jessica gave her the address and then hung up.

  Rain began to tap on the windows. Felicity went over to the window and looked out. The city looked somber beneath the gray sky.

  She had a lot to do before she went to Jessica Baker’s house. She had an appointment with a Society tattoo artist this morning. Like all P.I.s, she was required to have a number of protective magical symbols tattooed into her skin. These would prevent anyone from finding or tracking her by magical means and also offered some protection against certain spells and magical environments.

  She’d never had a tattoo and didn’t know what to expect. It couldn’t be too bad; every Preternatural Investigator had them. Having the tattoos would be the final stage of her journey to becoming a P.I; an indelible confirmation of her role.

  As she turned away from the window, a vehicle on the street below caught her eye. A black van parked across the street. Something about it unnerved her.

  “Don’t be silly,” she told herself. “It probably belongs to someone who lives around here.”

  She knew that, logically, there was no reason to fear the van; it was probably parked there every day. But something inside her—something illogical but nonetheless real—made her feel anxious when she looked at the vehicle.

  Checking her watch, she realized that if she didn’t leave soon, she’d miss her appointment. There was no point standing in this smelly office looking at vans on the street when she had places to be. She went downstairs and out into the rain, locking the office door behind her. After taking another proud look at her name on the door, she hurried to the Ford Focus the Society had loaned her until her Mini arrived.