Midnight Blood

by Adam J. Wright

  This wasn’t strictly true, of course; the police had no idea that the body in the Libby’s yard and the empty grave in the cellar were in any way connected to Charles Hawthorne and might mean he was in danger but the lie was necessary because otherwise, Hawthorne would probably refuse to let them onto his property.

  The guard didn’t offer a word of protest. He went back into the booth and the gate swung open. Amy drove onto the gravel parking area and switched off the lights and the engine.

  “We’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” she said to Abigail.

  There was no reply. Felicity glanced into the backseat and saw that Abigail was sleeping soundly.

  Before they had a chance to get out of the car, the front door opened and the butler came outside with a worried look on his face. “Is there a problem?”

  “Is Mr Hawthorne at home?” Amy asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “We need to speak with him.”

  “All right.” He led them into the foyer. “I’ll make Mr Hawthorne aware of your presence. Can I give him any details of what this visit is in relation to?”

  “No, we’ll tell him everything to his face.”

  “Very well.” He disappeared through a door and returned moments later with Charles Hawthorne.

  “What is it?” Hawthorne said, looking them over.

  “Mr Hawthorne, we’ve come to warn you that you may be in danger,” Felicity said.

  “I know I’m in danger. That’s why I hired your boss to find out who I’m in danger from.”

  “We believe it’s Mason Libby.”

  Hawthorne looked bemused. “What are you talking about? Mason Libby is dead.”

  “Yes, he is,” Amy said. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t coming here right now to take revenge for his death.”

  Hawthorne looked worried but acted as if confused. “What do you mean?”

  “We know you caused the accident that killed Mason,” Amy told him.

  “No, that isn’t true. The matter went to court and I was completely exonerated.”

  “I’m not talking about technicalities or whatever your lawyers told the court,” Amy said. “I’m talking about the reality of the situation. And the reality is that he might be on his way here.”

  He narrowed his eyes. Felicity couldn’t work out if he believed their theory or not.

  “Would you like me to stay here?” Felicity asked.

  “No, I wouldn’t. We have security guards, walls, and cameras. What the hell could you do?”

  “The nature if what we’re dealing with—”

  “Where’s Harbinger?” he asked, cutting her off. “Why isn’t he here?”

  “He’s busy with something else at the moment.”

  “That isn’t good enough. When I hire someone, I expect the head man to be working for me, not his assistant. Get out of my house, both of you.”

  “Mr Hawthorne,” Amy protested.

  He sighed. “Wesley, please escort our guests out of the house. Get security to help you if need be.”

  “Never mind,” Amy said. “We’re leaving.” She and Felicity went out into the rain and hurried to the cruiser.

  When they got inside the vehicle and closed the doors, Abigail stirred in the backseat. “Huh? What’s that?”

  “Everything’s okay, Abigail,” Amy said. “Go back to sleep.”

  Abigail peered through the windshield at the Hawthorne mansion. “Hey, this is the place. This is where Mason and Owen were going on the night they had the accident. I have a photo somewhere.” She patted her pockets and this time came up with something. She held it up so Amy and Felicity could see it.

  “Don’t they look sweet?” she asked proudly.

  Felicity looked at the crumpled photograph. It showed Owen and Mason standing on the porch of the Libby farmhouse, arms around each other. They were smiling at the camera and wearing tuxedos.

  “They look lovely,” she told Abigail.

  But when Amy started the car and they drove away from the mansion, Felicity was wondering how coincidental it was that Owen and Mason crashed into Charles Hawthorne’s Rolls Royce miles away from here on a night when all three of them were supposed to be attending the same party.

  14

  When I came to, it wasn’t a slow rise from the depths of unconsciousness. There was no gradual awareness of my surroundings. I was awake suddenly, my eyes snapping open to instantly look for a way out of my predicament.

  I was chained to a chair. Sitting across from me, Mallory was also restrained but with ropes instead of chains. Her eyes were closed and her head lolled to one side. She was still out.

  I looked around, taking in my surroundings. The room was windowless and the walls were painted with sigils and patterns. I recognized some of them as wards and others as magic-nullifying symbols.

  A single bare bulb hung from the ceiling, casting a circle of pale yellow light upon Mallory and me.

  There was one door, which was painted with magical glyphs in the same manner as the walls.

  Mallory woke up suddenly, her eyes wide as they looked first at me and then at our prison.

  “Where are we?” she whispered.

  “Some sort of room that’s been designed to hold paranormal creatures or people with magical abilities,” I said.

  “What’s that around your neck?”

  With the weight of the chains on my shoulders, arms, and legs, I hadn’t noticed anything in particular around my neck. “What does it look like?”

  “A collar with magical symbols etched into it.”

  “Oh crap.”

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “We’re in the hands of the Shadow Watch, probably the two bozos Merlin cast a spell on.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “It could be. They seem to think I know where my father is. This collar around my neck forces me to tell the truth.”

  The door opened. Todd Benson and Honoka Chan walked into the room, still dressed like extras from a Matrix movie.

  “Harbinger,” Todd said, circling us slowly, walking just beyond the circle of light, “Who’d have thought you’d end up here?”

  “Not me,” I said. “There’s been a misunderstanding.”

  He grinned. “That’s right. You misunderstood why we agreed to let you ride with us. Did you really think we’d give information about the Midnight Cabal to a lowly P.I. like you?”

  I shrugged. “I guess I thought you were decent people. That we were all on the same team.”

  “If we’re all on the same team, Harbinger, then why have you been keeping secrets from us? Hmm?”

  “Secrets?”

  He leaned in close to my face, his eyes boring into mine. “You know what I’m talking about. Are you keeping secrets from us, Harbinger?”

  I tried to say, “No” but the word that came out of my mouth was, “Yes.” Damned collar.

  “Aha!” he said, grinning. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  My mind began to race. The truth was, I had no idea where my father was but I did have another secret, one so powerful that I’d once asked a satori to erase it from my head. I knew where the Spear of Destiny was hidden. That wasn’t the kind of information I wanted to give to anyone, especially not the super-tool known as Todd Benson.

  He was going to question me regarding my father but could inadvertently reveal something extremely dangerous.

  My one saving grace was how the collar worked. It made me answer direct questions with a truthful “yes” or “no” but that was all. It didn’t compel the wearer to answer open-ended questions.

  For instance, Todd could ask me if I had a secret and I would be forced to answer “yes” or “no,” whichever was the truth. But if he asked me, “What secrets are you hiding, Harbinger?” the collar wouldn’t make me reply, “I know where the Spear of Destiny is hidden.”

  It was like playing Twenty Questions except for the fact that the interrogator could ask as many “yes” or “
no” questions as he or she liked.

  If Todd was an experienced interrogator, he might be able to get to the truth simply by asking me enough “yes” or “no” questions. I couldn’t let that happen.

  He began by asking the question that was the crux of the matter. “Do you know where your father is?”

  “No,” I said.

  He seemed a little shaken by that. He’d probably been sure I’d answer in the affirmative.

  “Okay,” he said, nodding to himself. “Okay. Let’s try something else. Has your father ever given you something and asked you to hide it for him?”

  “No.”

  He pursed his lips and seemed to dwell on that answer. “Okay, fine. Maybe you didn’t hide it for him. Or maybe he didn’t ask you to. Have you ever hidden something for your father?”

  “No.”

  His frustration was almost palpable. It seemed to hang in the air between us like a heavy boulder ready to drop. Todd shot a look at Honoka, who was standing by the door. She shrugged at him helplessly.

  “Okay, here’s one I asked you before, only you weren’t wearing a collar then. Let’s see what you say now. Have you ever heard of the Melandra Codex?”

  “Yes.”

  His face brightened. “I knew it!” Pacing the floor excitedly, he tried to work out his next question.

  “Wait a minute,” Honoka said from the shadows by the door. “Harbinger, had you ever heard of the Melandra Codex before Todd mentioned it to you earlier today?”

  “No.”

  “Fuck!” Todd slammed his fist into the palm of his hand.

  “I don’t think he knows anything,” Honoka told him.

  “He does. He knows something. He said he has a secret.”

  “Everyone has secrets, Todd,” I said.

  He pointed at me accusingly and shook his head. “No, Harbinger, you’re not getting out of it that easily. You know something big. Okay, you may not know it’s called the Melandra Codex. So I’ll ask you this: do you know the location of something your father has hidden from the Society of Shadows?”

  “No.”

  Todd didn’t say anything but a vein in his forehead began to pulse.

  “You should let me go now,” I said.

  “No, you’re not going anywhere. Do you know where a powerful item is hidden?”

  I tried to stop myself from saying anything but the word just slid past my lips. “Yes.”

  “Has this item been hidden because it’s very powerful?”

  “Yes.”

  “See,” he said to Honoka. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  She sighed. “He doesn’t know anything about his father or the Codex. That’s all we were told to find out. Whatever you’re doing now isn’t part of our job.”

  “Of course it’s part of our job. We can’t let pissant P.I.s like him make us look stupid.”

  “You don’t need me to do that,” I told him. “You’re doing a fine job all by yourself.”

  He gestured to me and said to Honoka, “See? He’s got a smart mouth. For all we know, he’s a Cabal sympathizer.”

  She shook her head at Todd. “It’s easy to find out.” Directing her attention at me, she asked, “Are you a Cabal sympathizer?”

  “No.”

  “Let him go,” she said to Todd.

  “Not until I find out what he’s hiding.”

  Mallory spoke to the Shadow Watch agent for the first time. Her words were tense, almost whispered through gritted teeth. “You really need to let us go right now.”

  Todd looked at her and grinned. “Is that so? You know there’s a reason you’re only bound with ropes instead of chains, right? Harbinger may be nothing more than a two-bit ghost chaser but I have to be a tiny bit careful of him because I’ve heard some stories. But you’re nothing. The amount of threat you pose to me is less than zero so don’t sit there telling me what I need to do.”

  “You don’t know who I am.” Her head had dropped forward, her hair falling over her face.

  “Mallory Bronson,” Todd said, pacing slowly around the room. “Only survivor of the Bloody Summer Massacre. So-called Final Girl. Location unknown for the past couple of months because you’ve been chasing the guy who murdered your friends all those years ago. I guess when you find the guy, you’re gonna call on your ghost hunter friend here to help you take revenge. Is that right?”

  She didn’t answer him. Mallory had become silent.

  “Am I right?” Todd pressed.

  “Todd, leave her alone,” Honoka said. “She’s nobody. I don’t even know why you insisted we bring her here.”

  “Because she’s a friend of his.” Todd pointed at me. “And that means she might know something about the Codex.” He leaned forward, getting in my face. “Did you tell your friend, Mallory Bronson, where the Melandra Codex is?”

  “Todd, we’ve already established he doesn’t know anything about the Codex.” From the tone in her voice, it was clear she was losing her patience with him. “Let’s finish up here. We’ll wipe their minds and call it a day.”

  I looked at her. “Wipe our minds?”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll only forget about this meeting. The spell we use is very precise and hardly ever goes wrong.”

  “It never goes wrong,” Todd said.

  “There was that one time in Baltimore.”

  He nodded. “Oh, yeah. It hardly ever goes wrong.” Standing back, he looked at me with narrowed eyes. “But before we do the spell, I still want to know what this guy is hiding. Hell, if the spell goes wrong like it did in Baltimore, a powerful artifact might be lost forever.”

  Honoka shook her head. “No, Todd.”

  “Is the powerful artifact hidden in this country?” he asked me.

  “No.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Is it in Europe?”

  “Yes.” Damn it. This line of questioning had to stop right now.

  “Eastern Europe?”

  “No.”

  “Northern Europe?”

  “No.”

  “Western Europe?”

  “Yes.”

  “Germany?”

  “No.”

  “Austria?”

  “No.”

  “Todd, this isn’t right,” Honoka said. “This isn’t what we were asked to do.”

  “France?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aha! France!” He leaned in closer to me. “What is this item? Is it a weapon?”

  “Yes.”

  Rubbing his hands together, he said, “This is getting even more interesting. Is it a sword?”

  “No.”

  “Dagger?”

  “No.”

  “Todd, stop this right now,” Honoka shouted at him.

  “Shut up!” He pushed away from my chair and jabbed his finger at her. “I have every right to do this. If we suspect the enemy is hiding something from us, we have the right to find out what it is.”

  “Just stop for one second and listen to yourself,” she said. “He isn’t some high-ranking Cabal member we’ve brought in for questioning; he’s a P.I. We all work for the same organization. He isn’t the enemy.”

  Mallory, whose head was still lolling forward, her hair hanging over her face, said in a strained voice, “He isn’t the enemy you need to worry about. I am.” She whipped her head up and I saw that her face was covered with hieroglyphs. They seemed to be under her skin, as if the symbols were part of her skull and her skin was stretched over them.

  Her eyes had also changed. The usually-hazel-colored irises were as black as midnight.

  Mallory whispered something in a language I didn’t understand and the ropes that bound her unwound and slithered across the floor like snakes.

  Pure panic had entered Todd’s eyes. “What the fuck? Why aren’t the wards working? Why aren’t the wards working?” He stepped back, trying to get as far away from Mallory as he could but she flicked her wrist and he was sent crashing into the wall.

  Honoka was reaching f
or something inside her coat but whatever it was, I doubt her fingers even made contact with it before she too was flung against the wall.

  Mallory touched the chains that bound me to the chair. They slithered to the floor and I got up, trying to shake the creepy feeling of having steel snakes sliding over my body.

  “Mallory,” I said, “What’s happened to you?”

  “Not Mallory,” she said. Her voice was cracked and strained, as if it were trying to reach her mouth from somewhere deep inside her. “Tia.”

  “Tia,” I said. “We have to get out of here.” I removed the bolt that held the collar in place around and my neck and took it off.

  Tia indicated Todd and Honoka, both of whom were climbing to their feet. “First these two must die.”

  “No,” I told her. “We’re not going to do that.”

  “They are your enemies.”

  “We’re not going to kill them.”

  She looked at the two Shadow Agents and I got the feeling she was contemplating whether or not to kill them anyway. Then she pointed at the animated chains and traced her finger through the air toward Todd. He tried to run for the door but the chains were too fast for him. They slithered over his body and tightened like boa constrictors. He fell to the floor, arms bound behind his back, and was knocked out cold when his head hit the concrete.

  Tia performed the same action with the ropes. They slithered toward Honoka, who raised her hands in surrender and then sat in the corner, putting her wrists together in front of her as the ropes wound around her.

  “I’m sorry this had to happen, Harbinger,” Honoka said. “Todd is just…he gets a little crazy sometimes.”

  “I don’t want to see you or him ever again,” I told her. “You’ve confirmed that I don’t know anything about my father’s whereabouts or whatever damned Codex you’re looking for. Leave me alone or it won’t end so nicely next time.”

  She gave me a nod of understanding. “We did the job we were sent to do, which was to ascertain if you knew anything about your father or the Melandra Codex. You don’t. You won’t be hearing from us again.”

  “Just tell me one thing,” I said. “What the hell is the Melandra Codex?”

  She shrugged against the ropes. “I have no idea. I wish I’d never heard of the damned thing.”