Dervishes Don't Dance: A Paranormal Suspense Novel with a Touch of Romance (Valkyrie Bestiary Book 2)

by Kim McDougall

  The fresh tiles and good lighting only lasted for a few steps, and then we moved through a darker tunnel, its walls propped with metal bracers and only a few gleams to light the way at wide intervals.

  The genny walked at a steady pace. A ghost popped out of the wall and floated down the tunnel ahead of us. The genny paused, as if sensing its disturbance. Curious.

  “Keep going,” I said and the genny plodded on. The banging sounds continued, getting more agitated as we delved deeper into the excavations. I poked my head into any offshoots, but I was snooping rather than searching. The ghost would show me the way.

  We followed the unearthly glow until it disappeared into a larger cavern. It was natural, by the looks of it, though digging had enlarged it at one end. A machine sat silently in the middle of the open space. It was a digger, abandoned here when the work halted. A huge mound of rock and dirt butted up against the far wall, as if it had caved in.

  The knockers were going crazy now, and I could barely think with all the noise. A stray wind buffeted me. something that shouldn’t happen in this enclosed space. And then I saw them.

  Knockers aren’t little grumbly gnomes. They are spirits of the restless dead. Souls that want to be acknowledged for one reason or another.

  “All right!” I shouted. “I’m here.”

  The knocking stopped but the unnatural wind picked up, blowing through my thin shirt as more ghosts whipped around me.

  I stepped around the digger. It had disturbed a grave site. Bones were tossed in a heap to one side. Others were scattered across the open ground. I counted five skulls. The leg bones all looked adult-sized. Who were these people? I looked at the ceiling and the mass of stone above me as if I could find the secret to this odd burial ground.

  Traveling through the tunnels had turned me around, but I thought we were under the outskirts of Hedge. Had a homesteader family strayed into this cave and become trapped? More likely, the bones were older than that, possibly from the Flood Wars. Back then, people tried to hide from the magic bombs underground.

  These people hadn’t found refuge here, only death. And their spirits lingered. They hovered nearby, invisible now, but I could still keen their presence.

  If you’d asked me last spring to use my sword’s power to release a group of excavated souls, I would have balked.

  Valkyrie were the battlefield cleanup crew of old. We followed in the wake of wars between gods and giants and dispatched to Valhalla those who had died honorably.

  I hadn’t wanted that power. It seemed…presumptuous. How could I judge which death was honorable? If a man thought of his wife in the last moments of battle and fled so he could live and feed his family, was that dishonor? If a man wept in fear as his blood leaked onto the field, was he a coward?

  I refused to be that judge and Dana, Freya of the Valkyrie, decided to teach me a lesson in blood and broken bones, so I would remember my duty. The lesson hadn’t stuck and I left Asgard soon after.

  For years, I skirted around the issue of my sword. So even when I’d cut Joran by accident and watched him turn into a walking corpse, I’d been loathe to finish him off. I didn’t want to choose his afterlife. But in the end, I’d done it. I’d released his soul. And I didn’t regret it.

  Joran taught me an important lesson. I was not a god—benevolent, vengeful or otherwise. I didn’t decide what happened to Joran when he left this earth anymore than I decided what he did with his time here. Now I looked at myself as more of a priestess, giving last rites and a little push in the right direction.

  My Aunt Dana would be proud. Well, probably not. She didn’t like me enough for that. But she’d grunt something like “I told you so” and make me run fifty laps around the training yard, just for questioning her.

  I no longer refused to let my sword do its job. I wouldn’t be hunting down victims to satisfy its blood lust any time soon, but I could help these lost souls, regardless of who they were. They could have been a family, a band of smugglers or human traffickers. But I didn’t need to decide their immortal fate. I only needed to get them to stop harassing the locals.

  I unsheathed my sword and scraped it against a skull. A ghost burst from the bone. It loomed over me, a great wash of blue light only faintly reminiscent of a human form. Then it seemed to shatter against the rocks, exploding into a million little shards of light, and it was gone.

  My sword sang with glee. This was what it was forged for. A Valkyrie blade cleaning up the stray dead.

  I poked another skull, releasing another soul. I repeated the process four more times until only one ghost remained. It zipped around me in agitation. I dug around in the dirt, letting my sword lead me. I was sweating in the cool, damp air when I finally uncovered its bones and sent it home.

  I sheathed my vibrating blade and wearily turned to the genny, thinking I was done.

  Two more ghosts sat on the fallen rocks. These wore modern construction clothes and hard hats.

  I counted the skulls: six in all. I’d released all the spirits here. So where were the bodies for these two men?

  “Where?” I asked, but the ghosts melted into the rubble and were gone.

  I turned to the genny and stopped short. Its expressionless face somehow looked sad. My keening was picking up its emotion. Again, curious.

  “Genny, contact Debra Housing.”

  A half hour later, Housing made an entrance. She was alone, though I’d asked her to bring a digging crew.

  I pointed at the rockfall.

  “There are at least two more bodies under there, but you know that already, don’t you?” I didn’t give her time to make excuses. “The cave-in five months ago. It wasn’t the first one, was it?”

  Housing glared at me, but I pushed on. “Let me guess, you found this old burial site and while excavating it, the roof caved in. So you just left them. How many men died here?”

  I waited a long moment before she answered.

  “Four.”

  “Strange that I didn’t hear that on the news. Because you never reported it, right?”

  She gave her head one curt shake.

  “Because it’s just more fuel for the Terra protesters. I get it. But you still have to do the right thing and retrieve the bodies.”

  “This cave is unstable,” Housing said. “Why should we dig them up just so we can bury them again?”

  It was a good question for someone who didn’t see ghosts. So I explained to her the origin of the knockers.

  “I released these spirits.” I pointed to the ancient bones. “But you may find yourself with another knocker problem if you don’t do the right thing and retrieve the bodies of your colleagues. When you do, call me.”

  I turned to the genny. “Get me out of here.” It wasn’t a precise instruction, but the genny understood me just fine.

  Chapter

  8

  For the rest of the day, after leaving the GenPort site, my sword’s hum was a constant background irritation.

  “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” I grumbled. It wasn’t. It liked poking bones and sending spirits onto the afterlife. Now it purred while I watched the sun set in a wash of morbid purples.

  I leaned against the brick wall beside the front door to Cyril’s building, waiting for Angus, and thought that if—by some slim chance—I ever ended up with Mason, I’d be doing this a lot. Waiting for the sun to fall below the horizon. Waiting for Mason to come alive again.

  And what did Mason do all day long, petrified in his own body? Did he play word games to pass the time? Did he sit in front of his video screen, never able to change the feed? Or maybe he sat by the window and counted the seconds until the sun set.

  Gods, it was enough to make you throw yourself off a roof.

  I glanced up at the roof in question, where Cyril had met his end. A Guardian perched on the eave, facing the window of Cyril�
��s apartment. As I watched, he stretched, fanning wings behind him.

  The sun had gone down. Angus would be here soon. We’d made a date to search Cyril’s apartment, though I had no idea what we were looking for. Perhaps we’d know it when we saw it.

  A screech and a hiss came from the shadows, and then an orange tabby flew by, followed by Jacoby. I grabbed him by the arm.

  “Leave the stray cats alone!”

  “But they makes funny noises when I chases them.” He pouted.

  “That’s because they want to scratch your eyes out.”

  Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to bring him along, but Jacoby had a lot of energy. He needed a job to keep him busy.

  “Why don’t you walk around the building and report back to me if there are any fae living nearby. Underground dens and the like.”

  Jacoby scratched his furry belly. “You wants that I brings them to you?”

  I had visions of him hog-tying some poor garden gnome and hauling him back here.

  “No. Just make a note about where they live for later. I might want to question them.”

  Jacoby grumbled something rude about questioning vermin and wandered off. Well, I’d always wanted an assistant, and he was cheap labor.

  “Aren’t you as pretty as a peach pit,” Angus said, strolling up to the building entrance. “Standing there in the last light of the day. You’re a gift to these old eyes.”

  I curtsied. “Thank you. I put on my best jeans just for you.”

  “Ah, don’t flirt with an old man. My heart can’t take it.” He pressed a hand to his chest.

  “Oh, you can take it better than most.”

  Angus lowered his twiggy eyebrows. “Mason been his usual ornery self, I take it?”

  “Ornery isn’t the word I’d use.”

  “Frustrating? Stubborn? Morose?”

  “Now you’re getting closer.” I leaned against the stone building, still warm from the day’s heat. “I just never know what to expect from him.”

  “Give him time. He’s an old stone. Unmovable until you put the right force under him. I can tell you that when Mason loves, he does it with his entire being. He won’t be able to stop that force.” Angus winked. “He’s already a rolling stone. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  He dangled keys to unlock the apartment as Jacoby rushed around the corner and nearly bowled me over.

  “Did you find anything?” I asked as I steadied him.

  “Brownies.” He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Just a den. Filthy brownies not home.”

  “Okay.” I could come back tomorrow to question them. Brownies were worse than little old ladies for gossip. They might have heard something.

  We climbed three stories. This old building had no elevator. Angus fluttered his stubby wings and lightly bounded up the stairs. I had to move fast to keep up. That was fine; I didn’t want to spend any more time than necessary in the stairwell. It stank of rotten food and mold. The walls hadn’t seen paint in the last century. Scuff marks and graffiti made it difficult to tell what color they had originally been. I didn’t touch the banister that was covered in something sticky-looking.

  “Why would Cyril live in a place like this?” I asked, stepping over a broken bag of garbage spilling used tissues and fruit peelings down the stairs.

  “It’s as good a place as any around here. Old Port was Cyril’s turf. He patrolled this area every night.”

  “I saw a gargoyle on the roof before you arrived.”

  Angus hopped onto the top floor landing and headed for a door with a brass “3B” hanging at an odd angle.

  “Aye, we’ve got someone watching the place. Can’t imagine Cyril was killed for something in his apartment, but…” He shrugged and opened the door, “if so they might come back.”

  “You really believe that Cyril was murdered?”

  He turned in the open doorway and smiled sadly. “I believe it’s a possibility.”

  “And so is suicide, you mean.”

  He stretched his wings and scratched under the waistband of his pants. “Let’s just search the place so we have all our ducks on the same page.”

  “Right.”

  Inside, the apartment was a complete contrast to the dingy hall. Cyril was either a neat freak, or he spent little time there. The door opened right into a living room and kitchen separated by an island counter. To the right, a short hall led to a bedroom and bathroom. Ahead, the far wall of the living room was all glass with a narrow balcony beyond. Curiously, a plain wooden chair sat beside the window, pointing toward the glass.

  I studied the space. One throw pillow lay flat on the couch while the others were propped nicely. On the kitchen counter, a row of containers marked flour, sugar and coffee were misaligned, with the sugar too far forward. In my apartment, those details would be nothing, but this space was exceedingly tidy, and they stood out.

  “Does it look like someone searched it already?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” Angus said. “If so, they were careful.”

  “You take the living room. We’ll do the bedroom.”

  Angus nodded. “What are we looking for exactly?”

  “Dunno. I’m no detective. Look for anything that seems wrong.”

  “Well, those drapes are just wrong with that sofa print, but I expect you’re looking for something more substantial.”

  “Decor aside, letters would be nice. Or pictures. And look for his widget. Let’s see who he spoke to last.”

  Jacoby was running up and down the short hall, so I nabbed him on my way to the bedroom.

  “Start in the closet,” I said. “Look through all his clothes. Check the pockets.”

  The dervish nodded and went to work. I looked over the room. It seemed undisturbed. A twin bed was pushed against the wall, looking like it was never used. Another plain chair sat beside the window. Now it made sense to me. Cyril wouldn’t sleep in a bed. He was stone during the day. What need for comfort did he have? No, he would spend his stone hours sitting on one of those chairs, watching the sky outside his window.

  I opened the drawers in a dresser and quickly searched them, feeling dirty at having to paw through Cyril’s personal things. He had just a few changes of underclothes and shirts. Behind a pile of balled up socks, I found a wad of bank notes.

  Did anyone even use this stuff anymore? I counted forty-five twenty-dollar bills in the old United States currency. Nearly a thousand dollars, but no one would accept it. I wondered why Cyril even kept it. Beside the money, I found a small pouch of gemstones. These had real value. At least we could be sure that no one had burgled the apartment. I left the stash out for Angus. He would know if Cyril had any family to give it to.

  I moved on to inspecting the rest of the room. The walls were covered in photos of sunny landscapes—beaches, snowy mountainsides, rolling pastures, and city parks. I guessed that for someone who lived in darkness, those vistas were exotic.

  One digital frame on his bedside table caught my eye. I picked it up. It flicked through a series of images—Cyril with a blond woman, Cyril with a group of fae and humans, party-goers laughing into the camera and so on. Most were of the same gang of friends, all smiling for the group selfies. Cyril, with his wide gargoyle mouth and heavy brow, didn’t look out of place in this gang. One was a troll of some sort, another had the look of an elf. They were an eclectic bunch for sure, and they seemed to be having a grand old time at various night clubs around town.

  I put the frame down and tapped it with my widget to upload the images. It was hard to imagine a Guardian with such a busy social life. Gargoyles tended to be solitary creatures. Or maybe I was projecting that idea onto Cyril because I was so used to Mason’s introverted ways.

  A crash came from inside the closet, then a muffled, “I’ms fine!” Jacoby staggered out with a scarf wrapped around his waist. A large shir
t was draped over his head and one arm.

  “You weren’t supposed to try on the clothes,” I said. “Just search them.” I helped him untangle the twisted shirt. “Did you find anything?” He nodded, ducked back into the closet and came out with a bedraggled teddy bear of brown, threadbare plush with fake glass eyes and a plastic nose that was bent to one side. It was a much-loved bear. Jacoby turned it over and showed me the straps. It was a bear backpack. I unzipped its small pocket and searched inside. Nothing. I handed it back to Jacoby.

  “I haves it?” He cuddled the thing against his chest.

  “If Angus says it’s okay.” Jacoby dashed into the other room with his treasure. I rifled through the rest of the closet. There was nothing here. Cyril had led a spartan life. If he’d been killed, it wasn’t for a teddy bear and a few gemstones.

  I found Angus in the living room going through the contacts on Cyril’s widget. I handed him the wad of antique money and the pouch of gemstones.

  “If Cyril had any heirs, they might want those. I don’t know if the cash is worth anything.”

  Angus whistled and took the money and pouch. “No family, other than the Guardians. He was a good man, though. He’d want this to help someone in need. I’ll be sure it does just that.”

  Jacoby was curled up with his bear on the chair by the window.

  “Did he ask about the bear?”

  “Aye, he can keep it. Better than throwing it in the bin. Guardians will come pack up the rest of his stuff and give it to charity. Did you find anything?”

  I shook my head. We sat on the barstools by the kitchen island.

  “Anything in his widget?”

  “Nah. Lots of calls, but I recognize all the names. Cyril liked to party and he had a lot of friends.”

  “I gathered that.” There were more pictures of Cyril with various people in frames in the living room. “He must have taken comfort from them.”

  “He was a good friend.” Angus’s woody lips flattened to a grim line. “This is a bad business. I don’t know which I’m hoping for more, that we find a reason for his murder or his suicide.” He shook his head, rustling the leaves in his brambly hair.