He raised an eyebrow. “How are we gonna stop their car? You have some magical device that will turn off their engine or something?”
“No, but I have a big sword in the trunk. If I stand on the road in front of them, they’re either going to try and run me down or try to get away. Either way, I’ll slice their engine block and stop them I’ve done it before and it works every time.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I bet it does. Cool. So we question them and find out who they are and what they want.”
I nodded. “We just have to find a quiet stretch of road.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard at this time of night.”
“That’s what I’m hoping.”
We drove through town with the Taurus in pursuit. It hung back at every stoplight but didn’t let us get too far enough away that we were out of sight. The driver was good at this and in any other circumstances—if it wasn’t the dead of night with barely any traffic on the road and if I hadn’t already been aware of him—he’d be all but invisible.
When I hit the highway, I headed north. The Taurus, of course, followed.
The driver’s skill in tailing us would also be his downfall. The fact that he was so far behind the Land Rover meant that I’d have plenty of time to pull over and get the sword out of the back before the Taurus reached us. Once I had the sword in my hand, our pursuers weren’t going anywhere.
Ten minutes later, I pulled over and got out. Leon joined me at the tailgate and we each took a sword from the variety of weapons in the trunk.
“When the car gets here, I’ll stand in front of it,” I said. “You get on the road behind it in case they try to back up.”
“Okay,” Leon said, moving into the trees by the side of the road so he wouldn’t be seen before heading back the way we’d come.
I waited by the Land Rover, sword in hand.
The headlights of the Taurus cut through the night and illuminated me. I imagined the confusion on the driver’s face, even though I couldn’t see anything past the glare of the lights. This was the moment of truth. The men in the Taurus knew I’d seen them. They would probably try to run.
I tightened my grip on the sword, waiting for the Taurus to speed up.
It didn’t. Instead, it slowed down and came to a stop behind the Land Rover. The driver turned off the lights and both men got out.
“There’s no need for any trouble, Harbinger,” one of them said.
“Why are you following me?”
Leon was walking back along the road. If this turned nasty, at least I’d have backup.
The two men were getting closer. “Stop right there,” I said. “Tell me who the hell you are and why you were outside my house.”
They stopped in their tracks but didn’t say anything.
I raised the tip of the sword slightly. “I’m waiting.”
“We just want to talk,” the dark-haired one said.
“You have a strange way of introducing yourself. If you want to talk, why not knock on my door instead of lurking outside my house?”
“We were working up to it,” the blond guy said. “We weren’t staking out your house or anything. We’d only just arrived when you opened your front door and obviously saw us. We were going to knock.”
“But instead, you tailed me all the way out here.”
“Okay, I’ll be honest with you,” the dark-haired guy said. “We were hesitating because we want to do a deal with you but we know that because of who we are, you might not want to do that.”
I frowned, confused. “What do you mean? Who are you?”
“I’m Tom Meyer,” the blond one said. “And this is Doug Chance. We’re members of the Midnight Cabal.”
13
Felicity parked the Ford Focus in front of Jessica Baker’s house. Her shoulders, back, and legs were sore and she could still feel the sting of the tattoo gun. The outlines of the protective symbols had been tattooed onto her body and she had another appointment in a couple of weeks to get them filled in.
According to Deb, the outlines were the worst part and the filling in was much easier to endure. Felicity hadn’t found today’s procedure grueling or anything like that but it had been uncomfortable. With the magical symbols inked on her skin, she felt like a real P.I. Deb had said that even though the symbols were only outlines at the moment, they worked just as effectively as they would when they were filled in.
As she was about to get out of the car, Felicity’s phone rang. She fished it out of her handbag and checked the number. Unknown. She answered it, hoping it wasn’t some sort of telemarketing call. She was surprised to hear the voice of Nigel Lomas, the man who’d given her the keys to her office, house, and car at Mysterium Imports in London before she’d travelled to Manchester.
“How are things?” he asked.
“Great. I’ve got a case already.”
“Oh.”
Oh? That wasn’t the reaction she’d expected.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
There was a pause and then Lomas said, “What kind of case?”
“I don’t know yet; I haven’t spoken to the client about the details yet.”
“I want you to contact a P.I. named Mike Fawkes and give him the details once you’ve got them.” He gave her Mike’s phone number and the address of his office, which was a few miles away from her own.
What the hell was going on? This was her first case; why would she give it to someone else? “I don’t understand,” she told Lomas.
“You’re brand new to all of this,” he said. “A freshly minted P.I. You’re going to need some help. There must be plenty to do around the office. I thought you’d be sticking around the there for a while, getting it fit for purpose.”
“But I have a case.” What was he talking about? She became a P.I. to help people, not to clean up the office. She’d planned to hire a local cleaning company to get the office into shape and then she was going to bill the Society for it. But Nigel Lomas thought she should do that herself and pass her case on to another P.I.? Her grip tightened around the phone.
“You can interview the client,” he said. “Bring her into the office and explain that the office is being refurbished. Then pass the details of the case onto Mike.”
How did Lomas know her client was a woman? Was her phone being tapped? Was she being watched?
She turned in her seat and checked for the black van. There it was, parked among a row of other cars behind her.
“Do you know anything about a black van that’s following me?” she said into the phone.
“No,” Lomas said, without missing a beat. “I don’t.”
He hadn’t asked her what van she was talking about or why she thought she was being followed. He’d merely denied any knowledge of the vehicle immediately.
What was going on?
As she watched, the black van pulled away from the curb, drove past her car, and turned left at the end of the street, disappearing from view. Had the driver just received a phone call from the Society telling him he’d been spotted? Or was she just being paranoid? Why would the Society be spying on her? It didn’t make sense.
“I have to go now,” she said.
“Don’t forget, you need to pass on the--“
Felicity ended the call.
She sat in the bubble of silence within the car for a moment, her mind replaying the conversation she’d just had with Nigel Lomas. Why would the Society bring her over to England and carry out surveillance on her? Why did Lomas want her to stay at the office?
A thought crossed her mind that made her feel sick. Had she been promoted to P.I. because the Society thought she was good enough or because it suited their purposes?
There was obviously more going on than she’d been led to believe.
She got out of the car and pushed through a small wooden gate that opened into Jessica Baker’s front garden. A concrete path cut through the small lawn to the front door.
Before Felicity reached the door, it op
ened and a woman who looked to be in her late thirties smiled at her. “You must be Felicity. I’m Jessica. Thanks for coming.”
She was dressed in jeans and a baggy gray sweater. Her black hair was scraped back into a pony tail. She looked tired, as if she hadn’t slept for a while.
She led Felicity into a small living room and indicated a dark green sofa that had seen better days. “Sit down and I’ll make us a tea.”
Felicity sat, took her notebook out of her handbag, and let her eyes wander the room. A number of framed photos sat on a wooden mantelpiece over the gas fire. Most of them showed Jessica with a slim dark-haired man Felicity assumed was her husband. The pictures had been taken while the couple were on holiday. Spain, Felicity guessed, judging from the scenery.
Her guess was confirmed when she saw the Sagrada Familia church in the background of one of the pictures.
Jessica returned with two mugs of tea and placed one on the coffee table in front of Felicity. She looked at the pictures and smiled. “Those were taken last year when we went on holiday to Barcelona. That’s my husband Rob.”
“Looks like you had a nice time,” Felicity said. She took a quick sip of the scalding tea and turned to face Jessica, who’d taken a seat next to her on the sofa. “You said on the phone that you have a problem.”
“That’s right,” Jessica said. “I’ll just come right out and say it. I’m being haunted.” She grimaced. “You probably think I’m crazy now, don’t you?”
“No, not at all,” Felicity said. She did, however, feel a sinking feeling in her stomach. If Jessica’s case had involved a flesh and blood preternatural creature, there would be physical evidence that could be examined, traits that could be researched to find the creature. With a ghost, there wouldn’t be any physical evidence at all and it would be difficult to prove that Jessica was actually being haunted and didn’t just have an overactive imagination.
“Tell me more,” she said. “When did this haunting start?”
“A couple of weeks ago, when my mother died. Her name was Linda Dean. It’s her that’s haunting me, you see. The first time I saw her was at the cemetery where she’s buried. She was standing in the trees, gesturing to me. Rob was with me at the time but he didn’t see anything. So at first I thought it was just stress or something that was making me imagine her. Part of the bereavement process. But then I started to see her in the house at night.”
“Did Rob see her as well this time?” Felicity asked. Without some sort of corroboration, it was going to be difficult to accept Jessica’s story.
“No, he wasn’t here. He works for a delivery firm and he’s out at all hours.” She looked closely at Felicity. “You don’t believe me, do you? You think that because I’m the only person who saw her, I must be imagining it.”
“I don’t think that at all,” Felicity assured her. “It just would have been nice if someone else has seen the ghost as well.”
“Someone else did,” Jessica said. “Charlie, the groundskeeper at the cemetery. He saw her one night. He wasn’t going to tell me because he thought it would upset me but when I told him I’d seen her ghost in the house, he said he’d seen her as well. She’d been standing by the trees in the cemetery one night.”
Felicity made a note. “Do you know Charlie’s full name?”
Jessica shrugged. “No, he’s just Charlie. He’s been working at the cemetery for years. I first started talking to him after my dad died. That was ten years ago.”
“And the name of the cemetery?”
“It’s the one on Cedar Street, not far from here. I can take you there if you like and we can talk to Charlie. He’ll confirm what I just told you.”
Speaking to an independent witness would definitely be helpful but Felicity wanted more details first. “Perhaps after I get some more information. How did your mother die, if you don’t mind me asking.”
Jessica’s lips began to quiver and her eyes filled with tears. “She was murdered. Her body was found in the canal. At first the police thought she’d fallen in and drowned. It happens a lot. But the postmortem revealed that she’d been strangled and then pushed in. They’ve got no clue where she was actually killed because she’d...drifted for a couple of days before she was found.”
“I’m sorry,” Felicity said, placing a comforting hand gently on Jessica’s arm. “That sounds terrible.”
Jessica nodded and wiped her eyes. “It is. I sometimes wonder if that’s why she’s a ghost now, because she suffered a violent death. A psychic medium told me that’s how ghosts are created. They wander around, trapped here until the injustice that was done to them is righted.”
“Where exactly do you see her in the house?” Felicity asked.
“In my bedroom usually. She’s standing over my bed and trying to tell me something but there’s no sound coming out of her mouth.”
“And how do you react? Are you scared?”
“No, I’m not scared. She’s my mother. She’d never harm me. She sometimes stands at the foot of the bed and points out of the window, as if she’s trying to show me something.”
“What is she trying to show you?”
“I don’t know. The first time she did it, I turned the light on and she vanished. I can only see her in the dark. The next time, I went to the window and looked out. But there’s nothing out there except the other houses on the street.”
“Do you mind if I have a look?”
“Of course. It’s this way but you’ll have to excuse the mess.” Jessica got up and took Felicity upstairs to the bedroom.
The room was small but cozy with a double bed and a dressing table. Because the bedroom was at the front of the house, the window looked out onto the street. Felicity had no idea what the ghost of Linda Dean was trying to show her daughter. She looked beyond the street. There were more houses and then fields in the distance.”
“See,” Jessica said. “There’s nothing out there.”
“What does the ghost do after she points out of the window.”
“Nothing. I tell her I don’t know what she’s trying to tell me and she seems to get frustrated and disappears.”
Felicity took a photo of the view from the window on her phone just in case there was something she was missing. It was better to be thorough than overlook a vital clue.
“Perhaps we should talk to Charlie at the cemetery,” she said.
“Yeah, that’d be a good idea,” Jessica said. “At least you’ll know I’m not making all this up.”
“I already believe you.” And that was true; she did believe what she was being told. The ghost’s actions were too specific for this to be a figment of Jessica’s imagination. Felicity had heard that ghosts sometimes had unfinished business and that certainly seemed to be the case here. Like the psychic medium had told Jessica, her mother might be trapped here until the wrong that had been done to her was righted.
They went back downstairs and Jessica said, “We can walk to the cemetery if you like. It isn’t far. Only up the road.”
“Yes, that’d be nice.” She wanted to find out what Jessica knew about the P.I. who worked out of the office before her and a walk would give her plenty of opportunity to broach the subject.
Outside, there was a chill in the air but no sign of rain. That had thankfully stopped by the time Felicity had left the tattoo studio. They walked along the street in silence for a moment and then Felicity said, “When you called my office a week ago, do you remember who was working there at the time?”
“He never called me back so I didn’t speak to him.”
“But do you remember his name?”
“No, sorry. Oh, hang on.” She dug inside her handbag and brought out a phone. “When I saved the number on my phone, I put the name of the business in my Contacts. It’s always your name isn’t it? Like if I was a P.I. it would be Baker P.I.”
“That’s right,” Felicity said, remembering her excitement at seeing the words Lake P.I. on the frosted glass of the door.
&nbs
p; “Just give me a minute and I’ll find it,” Jessica said, scrolling through her Contacts list. “Here it is. Fawkes P.I. That’s it, I remember now. His name was Mike Fawkes.”
14
“Maybe we could go somewhere else to talk,” Meyer said. “I don’t feel comfortable conducting business at the side of the road.”
I scoffed. “What business do you think we’re conducting?” If he thought I was going to deal with the Midnight Cabal, he was mistaken.
“Like I said, can we go somewhere else to discuss this?”
“No,” I said. “And stop following me.” I turned to the Land Rover and waited for Leon to join me.
As I opened the door, Meyer said, “You can’t get through the pillars of Khonsu without us.”
That made me pause. I turned to face him. “What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re trying to get through the Pillars of Khonsu to save your friend. We know you’re looking for them. But only we know how to open the gate.”
I looked at Leon. He gave me an almost imperceptible shrug. We were both thinking the same thing; how did the Midnight Cabal know what we were doing? I was sure that the same name came into both of our heads at the same time. Carlton Carmichael.
I trusted everyone who had been at the meeting at my house except for Carlton and Merlin. There was no way Merlin would speak to the Cabal because he hated them but I couldn’t be so sure about Carlton. Was he a mole who had been planted into my team to report back to the sworn enemies of the Society?
“Come on,” Meyer said, sensing my hesitation. “Let’s talk.”
I supposed there was no harm in hearing what they had to say. “Okay,” I said.
Chance, the dark-haired guy, said, “There’s a diner a little farther along the road. We can talk there.’
“Sure,” I said, getting into the Land Rover after stowing my sword on the back seat.
Leon did the same and slid into the passenger seat. “We’re not really going to deal with those guys are we?”
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