Dead and Disorderly (Behind the Blue Line Series Book 2)

by Craig, Alexis D.

  Nigel was at her side as soon as he pried himself off the floor, rubbing and rotating his shoulder, but Nico took a bit more convincing. It took another five minutes for him to give up on the knob and to stop eyeballing the ancient hinges. She was prepared to go that route if necessary, but that all depended on the thing in the room that they couldn’t see.

  “Well, we’re here.” She slipped a hand into her pocket, her fingers wrapping around the vial immediately. “Show us what ya got.” Nico’s fingers twitched, clenching her arm tightly as they waited for a sign.

  The breeze picked up outside, whistling ominously through the jagged holes in the old glass. Waiting gave her time to take in the room, to imagine its former glory, burgundy walls and tattered shreds of gold-threaded curtains and valances. There were always valances in a place like this. There were large windows on all the exterior sides, including a bay window overlooking the fountain and the shattered sun room.

  “You bored?” she taunted, much to Nico’s upset, if his sharp inhalation was any indication. “You pulled us in here. Surely, that’s not all you got.”

  The sound of the large armoire shifting behind them made them jump. “Nye,” Nigel warned, keeping an eye on the furniture, just in case it got any funny ideas.

  “We’re cool,” though she wasn’t quite clear if she was trying to calm them or herself. In other circumstances, she would have preferred having their backs to the wall closest to the door, but given the noncorporeal nature of their foe, she figured standing still would have to be enough. “You were big and bad the other night. Slamming doors and whatnot. You pulled us in here today. You obviously want something from us. Why don’t you knock off all the parlor tricks and—” She never got the chance to finish her thought as the wardrobe went sailing past the three of them and into the wall next to the door, taking out a portion of the plaster as it disintegrated into splinters and odd pieces of clothing and other debris.

  “Fuck me!” Nico jumped, keeping Nahia behind him, even though he clearly had no idea what he was facing. The fact that his gun was out would have been more amusing had they not just had the bejeezus frightened out of them.

  “Jesus,” Nigel wheezed, though thankfully, he left his piece holstered. They both sounded like this was probably going to be their last adventure together, at least, if they got out of it alive. “This has never… I don’t know…” His inability to finish a sentence more than adequately illustrated his state of mind to her.

  Nico seemed disinclined to blink, watching the pile of debris like he expected it to animate at any given moment. They had to get out of here, though the ‘how’ portion of that thought was still a bit hazy to her.

  Reaching into her pocket, she produced the pouch and pulled at the strings, taking her time to show that the destruction of antiques was of little interest to her. “You know you don’t get to hurt us, right?” The tacit portion of the threat was in her hand, and she knew more than enough to be dangerous.

  She rubbed the crystalline dust inside between her fingertips, her knowledge of its power calming her. This wasn’t how she saw this going at all, and while she had enough extraneous gear inside her pack to throw an altar together quickly, that hadn’t really been on her agenda for the day. Especially with two people for whom the price of admission was quickly losing its value.

  Nahia stepped away from her two friends, hoping to draw the spirit’s attention by placing her hand on the nonfunctioning handle. She knelt down next to pile of detritus that had been a chifferobe and grabbed the first thing her fingers found, a tiny wooden rosette that had been cast aside from the blast, before standing again. “We’re gonna leave. You’re going to release the door, and we’re going to go.”

  “And if I don’t?” The hiss in her ear dropped the temperature in the room an easy thirty degrees as gooseflesh erupted over her entire being. Her eyes darted to Nico and Nigel, though she couldn’t tell if they’d heard the voice as well.

  It didn’t matter, this was a challenge she couldn’t ignore. “Then I’ll confine you in here. This,” she gestured around the room, “will be your eternity. I will take the house from you. I will take everything from you. I came to help you, but make no mistake; I am far more dangerous than anything you’ve seen.” When she spared a glance at Nico and Nigel, they were both staring at her in slackjawed confusion. Obviously they hadn’t heard what she had, which was probably for the best. Hopefully the recorder in her pocket captured it. “Open the door.”

  There was a tense moment when she feared there was going to be a fight, but then the knob shook a bit in her hand and the door swung wide. She didn’t even have a chance to turn around before she was tucked under someone’s arm and being dragged forcibly through the hallway and down the stairs.

  No one spoke until they were outside, everyone silently agreeing to congregate at Nigel’s car. Nigel dropped his pack to the ground and followed it, legs stretched out in front of him as he stared, dumbfounded, at the house.

  Nico helped her out of her own pack and then pulled her into a tight hug, pressing kisses to the top of her head, keeping her tucked against him tightly. After a moment, he pulled back and looked at her, the shadows of fear in his eyes still fresh. “What. The entire fuck. Was that?”

  Nahia took a deep breath and blew it out through her mouth as she stepped away from him with her hands in her back pocket. “That,” she said as she pulled out the recorder and shut it off, “was a very, very pissed off human spirit.”

  Nigel closed his eyes, but nodded vigorously. “You can say that again.” He pulled a hand down his face, stretching his features as he looked from the house to her. “Somehow when you said it might get ugly, I didn’t see that coming.” He gave her a tremulous smile which she returned. “Airborne furniture never really occurred to me.”

  Nahia toed the ground, pushing against the cobblestones. “Yeah, it wasn’t on my list of possibilities, either.” This was, by far, the most intense encounter she’d had, and if she was freaked out…she looked to Nico, who was leaning against the car, playing with his cell phone with a hand that shook like it was ten below outside. “Are you okay?”

  He shook his head and didn’t look up from the screen. “Absolutely not.” Closing his eyes, he sighed deeply and put his phone in his pocket. “Are you okay?”

  She shrugged, but didn’t answer, continuing to pace as the adrenaline drained from her system. His question was tough to answer since she was still so hyped up from the experience. It was everything she’d ever wanted from a hunt, except for the whole exchange of threats thing. And then there was their unceremonious exit. Hell.

  She’d tried to tell the guys as they were running out of the house that they were leaving their gear behind, but they hadn’t been interested in hearing anything other than the sound of birds chirping by their cars. The stuff on that equipment…man, she could not leave it behind. “I gotta go back in there.”

  Nico was at her side in an instant and had to refrain from grabbing her arms to physically restrain Nahia from acting on her crazy idea to go back into the house. The challenge in her eyes spoke volumes, and he knew better than to stoke it, but he’d carried her out of there for a reason. “No. Under no circumstances.”

  She looked him over, and he could see her ruminations and calculations. Finally, her lips twitched in a smile. “You’re the one who needs a middle name now.”

  He had to give it to her, she never ceased to catch him off guard, and he smiled at her change of subject. “Ignazio, and that’s not the point.”

  Her lips drew back in a pleased grin. “Ignazio. I like it. Fits with the sainted theme.” She winked at him before turning serious again. “The equipment’s expensive and I am not leaving it behind. I’ve never been run out of a house, and I damn sure will not be today.”

  He could see from her stance, hands on hips and feet braced apart, that her position was intractable. One look at Nigel, who hadn’t moved from his comfy spot on the cobblestones, yielded only a sha
ke of the head. A sinking feeling burst through full-blown at the idea that he was going to have to either let her go alone or go with her. Either way, she was going back into the house, regardless of his thoughts on the matter. “We’re gonna discuss this when all this is over.”

  She nodded and gave him a tiny smile as she turned to go into the house. “Fair enough.”

  He moved to stand next to her, against all of his instincts. “I’m going with you.”

  Her tense smile brightened as she nodded. “Okay. In and out in less than five minutes.” She looked to Nigel and tossed him her phone. “If we aren’t back in five, you call Mags. Don’t come in until she gets here. You hear me?”

  For a moment, Nigel looked like he was going to balk, but some sort of silent conversation passed between the old friends, and he nodded.

  Nahia knelt by her bag and pulled out an extra silver vial and pouch. She pressed them into Nico’s more than a little unwilling hands with a wink and a flash of a grin. “Just in case.” Somehow, he didn’t find the gesture comforting.

  They paused at the entryway and both took a deep breath. “You get down here, and I’ll go upstairs,” she said, without looking at him.

  Nico gave in to his urge and laced his fingers with hers, completely ignoring her attempts at escaping. “With me or not at all. That’s how this works.”

  The fight drained out of her as she snorted. “E tan, e epi tan?”

  It was the little giggle when she said the words that got him. How she could find humor in a moment like this…he leaned over and kissed her hair. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. C’mon.”

  The methodical run through the house was quick and surgical, with the ground floor taking longer than the upstairs. Thankfully. He was in no mood to spend any more time than necessary there. As it was, they both jumped at every creak they heard in the old house. By the time they emerged with the cameras and recorders, Nigel was on his feet with her phone in one hand and looking at his watch.

  “You had forty-five seconds and I was going to bring the world to your door.”

  Nahia smiled triumphantly as she handed over his camera and recorder while reclaiming her phone. “No worries. I was betting throwing a wardrobe across the room took enough out of him to keep us safe.”

  Nico gaped at her. He didn’t know if he wanted to strangle her or applaud her. He was leaning toward the strangling. “You went back in there on a theory?”

  She shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?” Now that the fear had subsided, the giddiness he’d seen on their last trip had surfaced. She looked at the house and sighed with a smile on her face. “That was pretty damn crazy.”

  Both men nodded immediately. Nico knew if he never saw anything like that again, it would be far, far too soon. “So what now?”

  He knew something was up when her smile changed from elated to mischievous. “How do we feel about exploring the garage?”

  Nico looked at Nigel as the blond man picked up his backpack and dusted it off, shaking his head as soon as the question was posed. “My heart can’t take it, Nye. I’m sorry. Normally, I’d be down for whatever, but when the ‘whatever’ in question wings furniture at me— large pieces of furniture, I might add— then I need to reevaluate how I spend my day. I’m sure you understand.”

  Nahia pouted at her best friend, who only laughed at her outright. “Fine,” she harrumphed. “Burgers?”

  The ride to the Steak N Shake was free of conversation, the silence filled by an All 80s Weekend on one of the radio stations at the far end of the dial. She didn’t mind, though, since it was like a tacit agreement to talk about it when the three of them were together again.

  The waitress placed them in a far corner booth, away from the rest of the patrons. Nigel wasted no time in getting down to business as he took the seat across from her and Nico. “Okay, I gotta know, what the hell happened in the room? Who the hell were you talking to?”

  She sighed and devoted her attention to carefully peeling the paper wrapper from her clear plastic straw. Though her best friend had no way of knowing this, there was a fine line between explaining what happened as it happened, and not sounding as though she was three days out of the ward and all out of medication. She just didn’t know if she was capable of pulling it off. “See…there was this thing…” Once her straw was stripped of its dignity, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her recorder.

  As she moved back through the recording, pausing every now and then to hold it up to her ear and listen to the progress, the waitress came and took their orders. She was so focused on her need for proof before the explanation that she missed Nico speaking to her until he took her hand.

  “Nye, are you okay? You’ve been kind of quiet since we left the house.”

  She opened her mouth to reply when she heard it. The voice from the room. On the recording. Suddenly gone was the feeling of dread, of withdrawing from the conversation for fear of sounding mad. “I’m great! I’m perfect! Check this out.” She set the recorder in the middle of the three of them and they all hunched over to listen, since it wasn’t exactly the kind of thing that needed a large audience.

  “We’re gonna leave. You’re going to release the door, and we’re going to go.” On the playback, she sounded confident, her voice completely steady, even as a million thoughts had whirled through her mind.

  “And if I don’t?”

  Nico and Nigel both sat back at that voice, that viciously angry, chilling vocalization that was clearly not from her.

  “God damn.” Nigel took the straw from his drink and started fiddling with it, chewing on it like he used to when they were younger. Regression was not a good sign.

  Nico’s hand was over his mouth, muffling the deep sigh as he simply stared at the recorder. More than anything, she needed to know what he thought, what he believed and understood about the situation, because it had happened, and none of them was crazy. As his hand moved from his mouth, it started a journey of massage, rubbing his eyes, his temples, and then returning to his mouth. “The door was locked,” he said as he rubbed his eyes again.

  “It was.” She wanted to convince him, but it was one thing for her to say it was true, and it was another for him to see for himself. Neither of them did he have to accept, but seeing, or in this case hearing, the proof was a better shot than just her speaking.

  “It wouldn’t open. At all. It wouldn’t move.” His gaze flickered over her before returning to the recorder, his expression pensive and inscrutable. “You heard it. You heard him speak.”

  Nahia nodded, since the waitress had returned with their plates and she didn’t want to have to explain. When she reached out for the recorder, Nico shook his head and pocketed it. “I didn’t know what to say…how to tell you.”

  Nigel held up a french fry that appeared to be bleeding to death in front of him. “Apparently you said the right thing, since he let us out.”

  That wasn’t what she meant, but she wasn’t going to correct him. One look at Nico’s face, though, and she knew he understood what she’d been trying to explain: it really happened and she wasn’t insane. He reached out and linked their fingers in his lap underneath the tabletop.

  “And you’re missing the important part.” He held another slaughtered fry aloft as he spoke.

  Nico waited until he’d finished chewing to speak. “Which is?”

  “It threw furniture at us! Not an end table, not a footstool, a damn wardrobe! At us!” With the way he was practically yelling in the middle of the restaurant, it was hard to tell if he was happy or upset about the situation.

  “Can’t take you anywhere,” she admonished as she laid siege to her burger with the steak sauce and pickles. “Besides, I’m pretty sure it was a chifferobe, not a wardrobe.”

  “I don’t even know what a chifferobe is!” Nigel wailed. They continued to snipe and eat, as was their usual custom, with even Nico wading into the fray now and then. It felt good to kick back and chill after their harrowing adven
ture and the massive adrenaline dump.

  Nico reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, frowning at the screen before he put it away. The scowl increased as he reached for his pocket again and withdrew the phone.

  She tugged on their linked hands slightly to get his attention. “You okay?”

  He nodded tightly and put his phone away again. “Yeah, I’m good, but I gotta go.” He looked across the table to Nigel, who’d straightened up as soon as he saw the expression on the darker man’s face. “Can you take her home?”

  Nigel nodded immediately, and Nahia moved to scoot out of the booth. “You get called in to work?” She’d been around Nigel long enough to know a day off wasn’t necessarily set in stone.

  Nico rose and took her face in his hands, covering her lips in a lingering kiss. “No, family thing. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  So long as he kissed her like that, she would promise him anything. “Of course. I hope everyone’s okay.”

  He nodded, his eyes already on the door. “Me too.” He gave her a weak smile and nodded at Nigel as he left.

  Nigel waited until she slid back into the booth and picked at her plate to sit down. “So, you two look cute together…”

  “Jesus, do you ever quit?”

  As bad as his manners felt leaving Nahia in the restaurant with her best friend, he couldn’t be bothered with that right now. The texts from his sister he’d yet to answer whining about her newest ex-boyfriend would also have to wait. It took all his restraint not to floor it as he drove down to St. Francis Hospital on the south side, because all he wanted was to be by Mrs. I’s side in the emergency room.

  That tough little old lady, damn. She had been his rock when he’d moved here from Staten Island, feeding him, keeping a roof over his head while he went to school. The whole Ianucci clan had done so very much for him, and…dammit! He pulled over as soon as he noticed the cherries and berries in his rearview mirror.