Somewhere amid the glitter and tears was a demon loving servant of Satan, one of the chosen twelve, a negative echo of the twelve apostles of Christ. It made my muscles clench, and I swallowed with difficulty. They were studying me, the cluster of politicians and representatives. I could feel the danger crawling under my skin. So many innocent lives here. I was completely aware this funeral home boasted more than one chamber for visitations. I read the sign indicating in Parlor B was the family and friends of M. Boss Stevenson. So not only was the funeral home full to overflowing with the guests for Tom Carter, there was a whole company of innocents going to put their beloved M. Boss Stevenson to rest.
I shook my head, recognizing Abe was watching me. “Bad?” He asked quietly.
I nodded. How could I tell him how wrong it was? How horrid it could be? The devil didn’t hesitate to send his minions to create chaos, and this was the perfect opportunity.
“I don’t think we can stay,” I replied, my voice pitched low. “This is a mistake. I think if I stay, they are going to have to make a statement. There are too many people here, people who will get hurt in the crossfire.”
My eyes were darting from one face to another, struggling unsuccessfully to figure out who it was. No. I knew the evil was hiding behind one of those faces, a mask for something too dark to be seen. The problem was I couldn’t figure out who.
I felt an intense upsurge of dread, fear for all those who mixed and mingled unknowingly. Carter’s wife, the teenagers, the composed Mrs. Ashwood, the burly Connors, all were nothing but a line of potential casualties.
“We’ve been seen,” I said. “Let’s go and bid our best to the widow. Then we need to get out of here.”
“Any ideas who?”
“None,” I responded, the frustration making my voice edgy and raw.
“Okay then,” I felt Abe’s hand, long fingers easily looping my upper arm, firm and reassuring, gently ease me forward. “Let’s do our duty.”
I tipped my chin up, acknowledging the statement. I would keep my head held high, never let them know that I suspected. It was vital, it was life and death, that I carry this little charade off.
We approached the grouping of politicians, and I noted a few more now joined the throng. Some faces were familiar, some I recognized from the party only since they came after my father’s fall from grace. Some were strangers, possible family friends.
My skin was prickling, and I felt like I could practically see the ring around the grieving widow, an ominous radiance of evil which caused me to gasp slightly.
Abe was composed, stepping forward when I might have wavered, his blank banker’s face with the detached but concerned expression of a man trying to show his sympathy.
I stepped up to him, next to the widow, listening as he introduced both of us, his deep voice a smooth almost musical sound against the chaos taking place in my head.
“Mrs. Carter,” I said, deliberately blocking out the shoots of anxiety running through my body. “I am so sorry about Tom. He was always such a supporter of my father.”
Her dark ringed eyes considered me. I saw the recognition as it flooded her face. I wondered what she thought. Did she suspect Tom’s association with my father brought him the glory and fame he sought? Did she have any notion it would likewise be his downfall?
“Thank you,” she breathed. I could see as she mouthed the words they weren’t reaching her mind. She was on the surface there, her body, her brain, but there was something missing in her eyes, and I wondered what it was.
I didn’t want to touch her. I didn’t want to touch anyone there, knowing with a peculiar confidence if I felt their skin and they were a demon, it might flow inside me like the Watcher did before. I kept my hands clasped before me, trying to communicate without letting too much show on my face.
“Samantha,” Connors was speaking, his powerful voice ringing over the other conversations. “It’s nice of you to come. I’m sure the family all appreciates it.”
I looked at the sparkling of gold and silver as the light touched his mane and focused on his hair. Better to keep my mind alert to the details. Better to be on guard.
I gave him a nod, pasting a smile on my face. “If there’s anything I can do, we can do,” I responded, my hand reaching out to touch Abe’s sleeve. The contact settled me.
“Oh, thank you,” Tom’s widow said again. “I think, well, I know that I’ll be fine. It was just the shock.” Her voice trailed off.
I nodded. My own father perished in a violent wreck, but in a very different way. The explosion which took his life was a bomb, deliberately planted and detonated, and I still wasn’t sure my lover at the time didn’t have a hand in it.
“I understand,” I replied, and in a way, I did.
A pale young man with rumpled dress slacks joined the group, his hand moving to Mrs. Carter’s arm with the ease of familiarity.
“Auntie, they’ve set up food downstairs and mom said you need to eat now,” the boy declared, interrupting with the simplicity of the young who hadn’t learned any better manners.
“Okay, Scott.” The response was stated with some relief, and I thought perhaps leaving her deceased spouse’s side was a good thing. No matter what she did in the past, she still had a life to live.
Just as I did.
We excused ourselves after that, Abe moving with skillful grace, as though he dealt with politics and cordial conversation his whole life. As I folded into the car, I took a great drag of air, thankful to be free of the odors of death.
“Learn anything,” Abe slanted me a glance as I buckled my seat belt.
“One thing,” I replied dryly.
“And that is?”
“The devil is in the details,” I told him archly, and watched as the dimple appeared with his grin.
Chapter Thirteen
On my second review of the play-by-play from the funeral home, Alex shook her head.
“I can’t believe the Church could have gained such a foothold in the government,” she stated, shaking her head.
“My father helped them with that,” I told her.
“And what now?” She leaned back in her chair, glancing around the table expectantly. Abe stayed on, and along with Sister Eva, we devoured two pizzas and as many bottles of cheap red wine. Sister Eva was a wine snob and declined to drink. Coming from France, she was raised on the good stuff, and wouldn’t conceive of trying anything with a screw top.
The wine made me drowsy, but I felt safe. The hounds were prowling around the house, and I knew the damage they could inflict. They were good deterrents to any of our mortal adversaries. But Alex’s question was a legitimate one. What now? I worked through all the potential hiding places for the items the Church was amassing, the artifacts from the first Crusade. We still didn’t understand why they were collecting them, but we did recognize one fact. In the recent past, a new player had been introduced in the war between good and evil. The Soulless came from something. I felt deep down a strong suspicion it was all related.
“I don’t know what we will do now,” I told Alex. “I guess we need to let them make the next move or see what our partners have come up with.”
“I’ll talk with Brother J tomorrow,” Abe volunteered.
“I’ll call the abbey,” Sister Evangeline added.
“And I’ll start poking around, looking to see if Carter’s death was really an accident,” I told them. I knew there was little doubt I would be opening a whole new assortment of problems.
I was pissed. Royally. I contacted Rob to set him on the trail to finding out information about Carter’s accident, but also decided to do a little scouting around myself. There were crime scenes, most prominently the theatre we saw explode, that I still thought might contain some remnants of evidence.
When I got to the site, I was stunned to discover someone had been busy. The charred ground along with the heaps of rubble and burnt remains of the building, were completely gone. The lot looked like a bare canvas o
f dirt, pale brown and parched, not a single black streak of soot to break the expanse of it.
There was nothing, precisely nothing, left for me to look at. I roamed the lot, eyes intense, searching but not turning up anything I could use to help me figure out a means to trace the Church’s involvement in the fiasco. I blew out a breath of resentment, standing in the center of the vacant space. A few lone pedestrians passed, casting glances my way, but I must have looked strangely threatening, because not one of them asked me what I was doing, or why I was talking to myself. The Church managed to do in a few days what would take others weeks, if not months.
By the time I made it back to my little home, I was irritable, and Sister Eva’s greeting upped my temper.
I glared at her, impatience showing on my face. “What do you mean you accepted this?” I held out the neatly printed invitation on thick cream card stock, expensive and completely unnecessary.
“You suspect these political people are somehow associated with the Church,” she answered. “You said yourself you didn’t have any inroads into their area anymore. With your father’s old companion, Tom Carter’s death in the automobile accident, I think you should try to find someone else on the inside of the government. You stated this lady introduced herself, approached you. It sounds like she wished to get to know you better. It’s certainly not her fault her employer has terrible judgment.”
I blew out a frustrated sigh. After the run in with Roberts, I wanted nothing more to do with chasing after these fringe lunatics. I wanted to get to Rowan and take him down. The politicians were on their own, as far as I was concerned.
Of course, that was short sighted of me.
I didn’t assume for a moment going to tea with Mrs. Ashwood would be a hazard to my health, but I never travel anywhere unarmed. That is understood. When you’re battling the devil, you don’t let your defenses down.
I wore a sensible pair of trousers, loose fitting to disguise the .22 at my back, the throwing knife strapped to my calf, and twisted my hair into an elaborate bun, better to hide the lethal stickpin. At their insistence, Sister Eva followed at a distance, driven by Abe, this time in an ancient Chevrolet with out-of-state tags and a suspiciously powerful engine. I didn’t know where the man was getting all the rides, but it was entertaining to me. A man and his machine.
I drove my Hyundai, taking the back roads at a sedate five miles over the posted speed limit. The house was in Oldham County, a fifteen-minute drive from my own home. I was grateful for the GPS as it guided me onto a sparsely populated country road. I glanced in my rear-view mirror, but my backup was remaining discrete. It was going to be tough for them to remain that way.
The next turn was onto a long snaking driveway which split some wooded grounds into halves, the heavy branches of the trees blocking out the sunlight. I was uncomfortably reminded of what we discovered at the farm; the barn, the body, and the massacre.
As I rounded a corner, the trees opened into a clearing with yards and yards of open grass, a few flowers still flourishing. It wouldn’t be long before the weather cooled, and the blossoms were all burnt with frost.
The house was a traditional two-story, a quartet of columns out front, the bricked facing of the building broken by tall windows. The expansive front porch held an iron table and matching chairs, a picturesque potted plant on the tabletop. It was an oversized colonial, complete with a circle drive and miniature fountain in the center of the loop. I figured it fit Mrs. Ashwood to a T.
There were no other cars in the drive, which made me a trifle wary. The invitation implied a group of people, not a one-on-one meeting. I checked my watch, a practical weatherproof digital one. Eleven o’clock, I was exactly on time.
I put the car in park, leaving it in the driveway toward the end of the loop, easier for a quick get-away. I wasn’t concerned about my safety so much, as the chance the boredom would drive me crazy, and I’d need to escape. I stepped out into the sunlight and used the remote to lock the car. My katana was in the trunk in case I needed it, and I wanted it protected. I unconsciously looked toward the end of the drive, blocked by trees, and shook my head. Somewhere back there, Sister Eva and Abe were planted like extras in a bad movie. Sister Eva checked me before I left the house, holding me still while she traced a cross on my forehead with one damp fingertip, blessing me with holy water and the strength of her will.
I strolled toward the front door, my hand unconsciously checking the weapon at my back, tucking a strand of hair in my bun to feel the tip of the blessed pin. I gawked at Sister Eva with astonishment the first time she informed me she wished to consecrate such a mundane object. But I remembered the abbey, remembered the ceremony, the incantations, the incense, the melding of physical and spiritual.
“It doesn’t matter so much, ma petite, if there is doubt in your heart. The Lord doesn’t bless only those who are sure in their faith.”
I watched as Sister Evangeline gathered up the knives, her fingers moving without hesitation.
“They are blessed?” I asked. I watched it myself, the older priest, garbed in a sacred stole, sprinkling the water, lighting the candles.
“Of course. We wish for them to always be used as they were meant.”
I frowned. “How do you think blessing these things helps?” I asked doubtfully. More hocus pocus, in my opinion.
Her face lifted toward the light, the lenses of her glasses catching the brilliance in a glance.
“When you battle the devil, you need the strength of the Lord. We bless these things because without the Lord at our side, we are bound to be defeated. Satan knows the sovereignty of God; he has been overpowered before. Satan will succumb only to a Higher Power.”
“Then the demons, Satan, can tell if the weapons are blessed?”
Her eyes turned toward me, her face calm and oh so sure. “Of course,” she replied.
The blessed blade was in a sheath within easy reach, but Sister Eva gave my other weapons a blessing as well. Only the knife came from the abbey, but I knew she was firm in her belief I was armed with God’s grace as well as the metal and wood. Whatever my own belief, the blade was with me and I felt better for it.
I approached the porch at an even stride, but I was watching my surroundings, my eyes scanning for movement, the flutter at a window, the shift of tree branches. In this remote place, it would be easy to pick off an unwitting visitor with a long-range weapon. Shooting fish in a barrel.
When no demons burst from the bushes and no hellhounds came pounding across the green expanse of the lawn, I continued up the porch steps and rang the doorbell, hearing the musical chime from deep within the recesses of the house.
There was always a chance the visit was exactly what it claimed to be, a nice tea with pastries with a lovely older lady wishing for company. Perhaps.
The door swung open, and I was transfixed momentarily by the vision. It was a young man, probably five years my junior, with silky blond hair which tumbled past his shoulders in luxurious waves. His face was the type to launch a thousand ships, elegant as though carved from a precious stone, with eyes the color of emeralds. He wore dress slacks that fit him perfectly and a long sleeved white shirt, open at the collar to expose a hint of golden skin.
“Samantha?” The voice was as elegant as the man child. I blinked.
“Yes.”
He stepped aside and gestured me in. I followed him into the entryway, waiting for an explanation. None came. If he were a son or nephew, he didn’t say. He simply walked with a feline grace across the gracious entryway, lit by a chandelier dripping crystal light, into an expansive parlor.
The furniture was cream and gilt edged, the cushions on the antique couch a black and cream print. The carpet was an expensive swirl of pattern, an oriental rug, and it covered a wooden floor buffed to an almost mirror shine. Our Mrs. Ashwood might be only an assistant to someone, but she had wealth.
The youth gestured to a chair, and said, “sit,” in a tone which didn’t invite further c
onversation. I sat. My eyes were busy scouring the chamber. I had seen expensive things; I once lived in luxury. But my father was the nouveau riche, using magazine ads as a template to furnish his home. These pieces were old, carefully maintained, but unquestionably from another age.
Across the room from me was an oil painting, a charming depiction of a man standing in a well-stocked library, a volume in his hand. I stared and then shifted to look toward the boy who led me into the room. The painted man could have been the beautiful boy’s equally handsome father. His gold hair was a shade lighter, and much shorter, but it curled over his collar with the same graceful fall, and his well chiseled lips looked like he was about to smile.
I leaned forward. His eyes too were similar, the vivid green of a stone, the painting so exacting I could see the reflected lamplight in his gaze. And it seemed he was studying me, the book forgotten in his hands, because I was so fascinating.
The creases in his white shirt front, a style which went out with embroidered vests and ivory pipes, seemed to shift over his broad shoulders. His head seemed to tilt. And then he was moving, his body pulling away from the shelving in the painting, drawing closer to me, close to where I now stood in front of the fussy sofa, my hand hovering in midair over where the hilt of my katana should be were it not in the trunk of my car.
I wanted him there, wished to touch his glossy hair, to hear the words fall from his lips. He was desire and decadence, and the promise of everything I couldn’t have. I froze, the chill seeming to sink deep into my muscles, suspending me in place.
And he was there, one hand reaching for my face, the sculpted lips curling into a smile, all beauty and invitation. He was the suggestion of ecstasy untold, and I was sinking into him. I stared into the green eyes, but now they were black, fixated on me, growing larger, rounder, the mouth widening, not a smile now. A tongue like a greasy black slug appeared, running over lips split and oozing pus and blood. Flesh fell away from the bone, splattering to the ground like the sound of raw meat hitting a chopping block.
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