by Alex Gordon
Lauren killed time wandering through the public parts of the house, the main living room furnished with a massive round sofa built around a specially ventilated fire pit, and small sitting areas designed to take full advantage of the views. Eventually she came to the vestibule, a four-story, metal-spined glass tower overlooking the sweeping pavered driveway, and decided that this must be what a goldfish felt like when it got dumped into an aquarium.
Photographs lined the vestibule on two sides, framed in clear acrylic and hung so that they seemed to float above the glass walls. Sepia-tinged, most of them, whether by age or the restorer’s art. They spanned well over a century, starting with the wild, early days of Portland, corruption and bordellos, shanghaied sailors and murder in the streets. Lauren stopped before one of the first images, a Gold Rush–era shot of rough-clad men standing by a stream. She thought she could pick out the Carmody in the group. Something about the smile spanned the generations.
Then she noticed one of the faces in the background. Framed by dark curly hair and obscured by a ragged beard though it was—yes, she’d have bet the rent. Wherever you find a Carmody, there’s a Kaster close behind. This time, both men shared the same smile, a bright expression that claimed ownership of the world.
Lauren moved on through the history of Carmody Incorporated. From the Gilded Age, through the world wars. Korea. Vietnam to present day. Most had the same general theme—a Carmody, a Kaster, assorted executives, and larger and larger buildings in various stages of construction.
But one photograph stood out from the rest. Steven Carmody and another man, standing in front of a wooden pole gate. Carmody wore jeans and a white T-shirt and supported a small boy who sat on the top railing. Young Andrew, wearing a western-style shirt, shorts, and a cowboy hat, his feet bare, face scrunched in a smile.
But it was the man standing next to Carmody who captured Lauren’s attention. No lab coat this time. Instead, Elliott Rickard dressed like his boss, and topped the ensemble with a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap. He stood so that the gate hinges, ornate diamond shapes painted black, pointed to him, like arrows indicating the person of interest in a crime scene photo.
She hunted for a date, found one etched in a corner of the frame. April 1978. A couple of months before Rickard disappeared. He and Carmody were close. This wasn’t a staged photo, a memento for an underling—it wouldn’t have been hanging in this place if it were. They were friends. She studied the photograph until she heard the loud clump of footsteps, then left it reluctantly.
“Sorry I took so long.” Sam stood waiting at the foot of the stairs. “First I couldn’t find my shoes. Then I couldn’t find my socks. That’s the last time I let Heath pack the bags.”
They circled behind the staircase to the elevator that would take them down to the rear exit of the house. That route led them past the sweeping windows that ran along the patio. Outside, Carmody stood with Kaster at the same railing he and Lauren had stood by the previous night. The two men weren’t arguing, exactly. Kaster did all the talking, his face inches from Carmody’s. Judging from their expressions, Kaster wouldn’t have taken kindly to an interruption, but Carmody might have welcomed it.
If Sam sensed the undercurrent of drama in the scene outside, she kept it to herself. “God, Andrew’s so gorgeous, isn’t he?” She pressed her hand over her heart. “If Heath wasn’t here, I would probably be doing my damnedest to be a very bad girl.” She gave a theatrical sigh. “Then again, maybe I wouldn’t. One hears stories.”
Lauren just nodded. She didn’t have to ask which stories one heard.
They rode the elevator down to the lower level, where a staffer provided them maps of the trails and day packs complete with water bottles, snacks, and other assorted necessities, including bug spray, which Lauren dug out and applied generously.
“It’s just like being at a state park.” Sam looped her pack over her shoulder, bounced on ahead for a few strides, then stopped and turned around. “I wanted to thank you for what you did last night. Changing the subject when Heath seemed bound and determined to put his foot in it.”
“Not a problem.” Lauren answered automatically as she struggled to recall that part of the dinner. Only twelve hours before, yet it seemed like years.
“Heath and Andrew grew up together. Well, to a point. Heath’s parents worked for one of the Carmody companies. They didn’t exactly run in the same circles.” Sam waited for Lauren to draw alongside, then resumed walking. “Men always have to compete, you know. Even when they know there’s no chance of winning.”
They continued side by side. Then Lauren lagged behind, stopping every so often to wander down a side trail or sniff the air, in search of the place she had passed into back in Gideon. How hard could it be to find one little ledge on a mountain? It didn’t help that Sam took a ballistic approach to hiking; she seemed more interested in covering as much distance as possible rather than stopping occasionally to look at the scenery. It wasn’t until they arrived at a small clearing a mile or so from the house that she stopped.
“This is weird.” She pointed to the ground near the base of the tree nearest the trail.
Lauren looked over Sam’s shoulder and saw two short sticks a foot or so from the tree’s base, laid one atop the other to form an X. “They could’ve fallen that way.”
“I know what it is—it’s some kind of—oh my God.” Sam ran back and forth across the clearing. “They’re by every tree. They form a circle, almost. Something’s been going on around here.”
“I think I know what this is.” Lauren broke off a dead branch and stuck it into the ground under the nearest set of crossed sticks.
Sam ran up to her. “What the hell are you doing? You don’t want to disturb it. You don’t know what it is.”
“I’m not disturbing anything.” Lauren worked the branch up and down. “Have you ever gone camping? Backwoods camping, where there are no facilities?” She pulled the branch out of the ground, then held it out for Sam to examine. “What’s that on the end?”
“Is that what I think it is?” Sam sniffed, then took a step back. “That is what I think it is.”
“You dig a toilet hole, you do what you have to, you bury it.” Lauren shoved the branch back in the ground. “Then you mark the spot so that no one else hits it when they’re digging their own hole. Camping manners.”
“You’ve done that? Oh my God, that’s just—” Sam pretended to gag. Then she gave the scene a final disgusted look and leapt back onto the trail. “You know, when you said that you could get the sense of an object, feel its history, I knew we were kindred souls. I feel that way about plants. I can touch them, and know whether they’re safe or not, whether they’ll make me feel happy or calm.” She walked backward so she could talk to Lauren face-to-face. “The fact that you can touch something and know all about it—that’s some gift.”
“It’s not that simple.” Lauren kicked herself for letting slip her talent in front of the others, since it gave them that much more of a reason not to trust her. “It has a mind of its own. It doesn’t always work.”
“Really? I lose my touch sometimes, too.” Sam turned to face forward. “Nice to know it happens to the best of us.” She grinned like a kid let out early from school, then bounded ahead, jumping up every few strides to slap at overhanging branches.
Then, just before a bend in the trail, she stopped. “Phantom orchids.” She pointed to a cluster of the eerie flowers growing in the shade of a dying spruce. “I’ve heard folks say that they live on decay, but they get their food from the fungus that lives on decay. Of course, that’s just one step removed from the rot. Splitting hairs, don’t you think?” She took a deep breath. “But they smell good, don’t they? Like cookies.”
“Just like.” Lauren pulled out her phone and checked the time, wondered if Kaster had yet talked to Nyssa, and what Stef’s reaction would be when she learned of his plan.
“Did you want to go back?” Sam’s voice sounded small, a field-tr
ip-cut-short tone. “It is almost lunchtime.”
“We’ve got granola bars in the packs.” Lauren dug her trail map out of her pack. “Besides, I want to see Jericho.”
“Oh, good. So do I.” Sam pulled out her own map. “I love old places like that. They give you a real sense of history.”
“History.” Lauren folded her map and stuffed it back in her pack, then reached into her pocket and massaged the toy car like a lucky charm. Nothing she had seen so far looked or felt like the trail she saw in Gideon, and the rooms she had seen in her sensing of the car weren’t the types you would find in a long-deserted logging camp. Lauren’s power lets her down, example the first. She debated turning back and letting Sam go on alone, but ingrained outdoors etiquette stopped her. Ideally, there should be three of us. If one person got hurt, one would stay with them and the third person would go for help. We’re one short. But they weren’t in danger, were they? She had yet to see any flies or sense anything even remotely threatening, and they walked a path so nicely groomed it might as well have been paved.
“We’ve about a mile to go. If we hustle, we can be there in fifteen–twenty minutes.” Sam went into speed-walk mode, elbows flying and heels kicking up dust.
“Right behind you.” Lauren picked up her pace, even as she wondered what in hell she would find at the end of the trail.
CHAPTER 13
A brisk twenty-minute walk later, Lauren and Sam came upon a short stretch of old railroad track almost hidden by heavy undergrowth. At that point the trail curved uphill, out of the woods and into the open.
“This is so exciting. Just like the driver said.” Sam broke into a run.
Lauren trotted after her to the top of the hill, then stopped. So this is Jericho. It was smaller than she expected, the tumbled gate and guard shack, the skeletons of smaller cabins surrounding the main building.
“It’s disappointing, isn’t it?” Sam walked down the narrow path through the gate to the ruined shack. “They should restore it, like Colonial Williamsburg. Get the train working again. Hire guys to impersonate lumberjacks.”
“I don’t think Carmody would go for that, do you? All those people driving around his mountain.” Lauren followed her inside the shack and immediately felt the currents in the air. A quiet place. Well removed from the noise and bustle of civilization, a location where the dark space would remain stable. She walked around the small room, felt the old wood flooring flex and squeak beneath her feet.
Then she caught a flash of white in one corner, and headed toward it. Slowed, then stopped before a small pile of bones surrounded by a ragged ring of feathers.
Sam pressed alongside. “Is that what I think it is?”
“I think it’s a ward of some kind.” Lauren crouched in front of it, passed her hands over it, felt the rippling in the air.
“Oh! That’s horrible. Some poor little creature gave its life.” Sam clucked in disgust. “I hate sacrificial spells, don’t you?”
“I don’t know much about them.” Lauren ran a finger over the still-scabbed wound on her hand, the source of the blood she’d used to ward Katie’s house and car. “But anything made from something that lived is supposed to be pretty powerful.” The order of sacrifice rattled through her head. Self-sacrifice unto death. Partial sacrifice of self. Sacrifice of the other. Sacrifice of something inanimate. After that, it was a matter of degree. How valuable the offering. How close to death one came. Entire books had been written about the rankings. Discussions over interpretation dissolved into feuds between witches that spanned generations.
“What little I know about these bone mounds, which isn’t much.” Sam crouched in front of the pile. “The skull is positioned so that it can see all that happens in the protected area. If it sees something bad, it contacts the person who cast it.”
“So you would expect to see one of these in each of the buildings.” Lauren worked to her feet.
“I guess, if they wanted to keep an eye on the whole entire place. Personally, I think cameras and motion detectors would work better.”
“Depends what they want to keep an eye on, doesn’t it?”
“I suppose.” Sam bent close to the mound. “That’s weird.”
Lauren saw one of the feathers tremble, the black shape emerge from beneath. “Sam, get back.”
Sam waved her off. “I just want to see—”
In a burst like a flare, the flies erupted, swarming over Sam’s hands, her face. She screamed and fell backward, then rolled to and fro as through trying to smother a fire, arms waving and legs kicking. “Get them off me—get them off!”
Lauren tried to bat away the flies with her hands, but they darted past her and resumed their attack on Sam. She pulled off her shorts and swept them back and forth, whipping the flies away, then grinding them into the floorboards with her boots. “Get up! Get outside.”
“Ow. Owowow!” Sam scrambled to her hands and knees and crawled out the door.
A few flies tried to follow, but Lauren snapped them in midair, then smashed them when they fell to the floor. Their stink filled the shed, and after she killed the last of them, she tried to scrape their remains off her shorts before they soaked into the cloth. But their foul guts stuck like glue and spread like oil, leaving one leg and the backside blackened and reeking. She carefully extracted the toy car from the now-soiled pocket and stuck it in her pack, weighed modesty against the idea of wearing innards against her skin for the duration of the hike, and decided that if anyone got off on seeing her purple boy-leg briefs, they could go nuts because no way in hell was she putting those shorts back on.
She checked the condition of the ward, and found the feathers swept about the room and the bones scattered. Damn. She would have to inform Carmody or Kaster and hope that whatever the ward was supposed to contain remained trapped by the other protections that were in place. She pulled out her phone, realized she didn’t have the house number, swore softly, then searched her outgoing calls until she found Kaster’s. She called it and was immediately switched to voicemail. “Gee, what could you be up to, Gene?” She tried not to visualize the possibilities as she left her message.
She walked outside to find Sam still slapping at her ears and the back of her neck. The woman’s bites had bloomed into red welts on her cheeks and forehead. She also sported a gash under her knee that she must have gotten during her crawl out the door.
“They sting like hell.” Sam sniffled, then wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I’m sorry for going off like that, but damn. One second I’m fine, and the next I feel like somebody’s jamming needles in my face.”
“A few got in my room last night and attacked me the same way.” Lauren showed Sam her bandaged fingers. “I’m sorry. I should’ve warned you about them. They’re vicious little bastards.”
“I’ve never seen anything like them before and oh God they stink so bad. Why do they stink so bad?” Sam looked down at Lauren’s underwear and bare legs, and her eyes goggled. “And your shorts are ruined.” She started to scratch her face, then jammed her hands in her pockets. “I guess we should start back. Dammit.” She turned and headed back up the hill toward the trail. “So much for Jericho.”
Lauren went back inside the shed and made one last circuit of the space, sniffing the air all the while. The stink of the flies had weakened, letting the other forest scents seep through, the aroma of old wood and the musty undercurrent of small animals. She started to leave, then paused in the doorway, pressed her hand to the dry wood, and felt . . . nothing.
“Are you coming?” Sam paced at the top of the hill and rubbed the backs of her hands. Her neck. “I don’t mean to be a pain, but if I don’t get a shower soon I’m going to scratch the skin off my face.”
“In a second.” Lauren dug through her day pack, extracted a ballpoint pen, and drew an Eye of the Lady on the jamb. The ink skipped several times, so she pressed harder, sacrificing the pen tip as she inscribed the X-centered circle into the wood. Then she left to
join Sam.
As she approached the tumbled gate, she stopped. Stared. The backdrop of trees had changed over nearly forty years and the gate itself had fallen into disrepair. But the hinges remained. The blackened metal had rusted over the decades, and in a couple of places the bolts that held them in place had fallen out, leaving the plates hanging. But nothing had altered the distinctive diamond shape, and she imagined Elliott Rickard standing there as she approached, his smile as wide as the one he wore in the photograph hanging in the vestibule back at the house.
It was taken here. At Jericho.
“Lauren.” Sam started down the incline toward her. “Please?”
“Be right there.” Lauren resumed her hike up the hill, as the feelings settled that the breached ward needed to be healed as quickly as possible, and that as they departed Jericho, something watched them leave.
LAUREN AND SAM spoke little during the return trip, and finally broke into a run in their haste to return to the house. When the first outbuildings came into view, Lauren slowed her pace and let Sam jet ahead. The woman disappeared into the lower level, then returned a few minutes later, a bath towel in hand.
“That’s all they had, sorry.” Sam tossed her the towel, then resumed patting her face with the palms of her hands, her alternative to scratching.
Lauren checked the condition of Sam’s welts as she wrapped the towel around her waist. “They look better. A few are almost gone.”
Sam pretended to shiver. “I never want to go through anything like that ever again. I swear I’m going to spend the rest of the weekend out on the patio.”
“I’d go with the Jacuzzi myself.”
Lauren and Sam turned to find Jenny Porter ambling down the path toward them. She wore a bright orange one-piece bathing suit over which she had tied a multi-hued pareu, and had bound her hair in a tight topknot.
