Buried Memory (Harbinger P.I. Book 2)
Page 6
“There’s no way she was going to stay for pizza, Alec. You know she doesn’t like me.”
“What do you mean? Of course she does.”
Mallory pointed her finger at me than back at herself. “She’s confused about what’s going on here.”
“Between us?”
She nodded. “Look at it from her point of view. You’ve known me for years. We’ve been living together for the past two weeks. She sees how easy we are in each other’s company. It makes her feel uncomfortable. She’s confused.”
“No, she isn’t.”
“Alec, even I’m confused about us.”
I shrugged. “I don’t see why the situation between you and me would make Felicity feel uncomfortable.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really? You’re going to play dumb?”
“Felicity has a boyfriend.”
“You mean the boyfriend who is going to dump her if she stays here? The boyfriend who works at a bank? Hmmm, let me see, a boring accountant who works at a bank or a preternatural investigator who hunts and kills monsters? Nah, there’s nothing to choose between you two.”
“Very funny. I’m going to order the pizza. What do you want?”
“Pepperoni. And don’t act dumb with me, okay? I know you like Felicity. I’m not going to turn into a banshee and trash the place just because you find her attractive.”
“If you turned into a banshee, I’d have to kill you,” I said.
“Don’t try to change the subject.”
“I like her,” I said, “but I work with her. She’s a good assistant and I don’t want to do anything that would affect our working relationship. And you may joke that there’s nothing to choose between me and Jason, but if that were the case, why is she so torn about her decision to stay here or move back to England and be with him?”
“Is she? That’s surprising. I thought she’d stay here for sure.”
“Me too,” I said, “but we must be underestimating her relationship with Jason. And England is her home, so she could be homesick, too.”
“Wow, so you might be coming back here without her.” Mallory looked as surprised as I was at that possibility. Felicity had only been around for a little while, but she’d fit right in and become a part of the “gang” that had helped in solving the Robinson changeling case.
“Yeah, it’s possible,” I said, shrugging in an attempt to cast off the heaviness that settled in my gut whenever I imagined Felicity leaving. “Hey, it’s not like I’m even supposed to have an assistant anyway. She’s only here because my dad sent her. I’ve worked alone before; I’ll just have to do it again.”
Mallory was silent for a moment, then she said, “I hope she comes back with you.”
“Me too,” I said. Then I added, “But that’s only because she’s a good assistant and I’d like to help her put in the required time in the field to become a fully-fledged investigator. I don’t have any romantic inclinations toward her.” Even as I said that, I wondered if I was kidding myself, but I had to forget about any kind of romance with Felicity. She was far away from home, she had a boyfriend, and I had feelings for Mallory. It was complicated.
“Okay,” Mallory said, in a voice that told me she didn’t believe a word of what I’d just said. “But if any of that denial is to do with your feelings toward me, you might as well forget about them now. I’m broken. And until I kill the bastard who broke me, I’m too screwed up to enter into any kind of relationship.”
“If it’s because we can’t have sex, I don’t mind about….”
“I mind,” she said. “I can’t go on living in fear. And until I destroy that fear, I’m not going to enter into a relationship where there will always be an issue like that, a huge-ass elephant in the room. I just need to take out Mister Scary, erase him from the face of the planet, and everything will be okay again. And I can’t ask you to wait until then.”
“I’m willing to wait,” I said.
“I know you are, and that scares me a little. We’re in too deep, Alec. Neither of us is really facing that fact, but that doesn’t make it any less real.”
“I know it doesn’t,” I said. “I’m just saying that if you wanted me to wait until you get Mister Scary, I would. If you want me to help you find him, I will.”
She shook her head, her wet hair brushing her neck. “That’s something I have to do. Anyway, Mister Scary isn’t a preternatural being, so he’s not really your problem.”
“He is my problem. He’s hurt you. Anyway, he might be preternatural, for all we know. Or using magic to carry out the murders. The occult symbols he carves into his victims’ bodies kind of points to that.”
“I need to take him on my own, Alec,” she said simply.
“Okay,” I said. I respected her decision to go after Mister Scary alone, but I didn’t like it. The guy was a serial killer, and if he was using magic as well, that made for a lethal combination that might be out of Mallory’s ability to handle.
“You know what I’m looking forward to the most?” she asked, her voice light again.
“Seeing Mister Scary dead at your feet?”
“Yeah, but I was thinking more along the lines of a pepperoni pizza.”
“Right,” I said, getting my phone out of my pocket and scrolling through the contacts list. I had all the local fast food joints listed in there, as well all my favorites from Chicago. I should probably get around to deleting the Chicago ones at some point. It didn’t look like I was ever going back there.
Forty minutes later, the pizza guy arrived and delivered Mallory’s pepperoni and my meat feast. We watched Jessica Jones on Netflix while we ate and I told Mallory that her dress sense was like Jessica’s. Combat boots, jeans, T-shirts, and leather jackets.
“I don’t mind that,” she told me through a mouthful of pepperoni pizza. “Jessica’s cool.”
I nodded, “She is.”
“And she faces her problems head on.”
“She does.” I wanted to add that even if Jessica managed to get the bad guy at the end of Season One it wouldn’t make her life perfect. Her problems would continue into Season Two.
But I said nothing.
Chapter 7
The next morning was cold and gray as Felicity and I were ushered by two black-suited men in shades across the tarmac at Bangor International Airport and onto the Society of Shadows’s private jet. The men looked identical in build and had identical stoic expressions. If it wasn’t for the fact that one of them was bald and the other had long shaggy hair, I’d guess that they were clones of each other. The plane was unmarked, of course. It didn’t have “Society of Shadows Airlines” painted on the tail with a symbol of a pentagram or anything. It was nondescript and unremarkable, much like the guards in their secret service attire.
Felicity was dressed in her white blouse and black pencil skirt, making me the odd one out in my casual attire. Jeans, boots, a T-shirt, and my favorite flannel shirt were the perfect clothes for a flight as far as I was concerned.
As we boarded, Felicity asked one of the shade-wearing men how long it would be before we arrived in London. He ignored her question and showed her to her seat.
“They won’t speak to you,” I told her as I took the seat across the aisle from hers and fastened my seatbelt. “I’ve tried to strike up a conversation before; there’s no point.”
“Oh, I suppose I’ll have to speak to you, then.”
I laughed. “Nice to know I’m your last choice for someone to chat to.”
She looked flustered. “No, I didn’t mean it like that, Alec. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. I could tell by the way you were quiet all the way here that you have more on your mind than idle chit-chat.” She’d spent most of the drive from Dearmont looking out through the windshield at the dark road ahead or drifting in and out of a light sleep. I’d remained awake, of course, which was a good thing since I was driving, fueled by two strong coffees and a promise to myself that I’d sleep on the plane. At the mom
ent, that was all I wanted to do: close my eyes and catch up on the sleep I’d missed getting up early to drive to the airport.
“It’s a long flight,” I told Felicity. “There’ll be plenty of time to chat.” I folded my arms, adjusted the position of my seat, and closed my eyes. I really wasn’t a morning person, so it would be better for everyone concerned if I got a few hours of shut-eye now and tried to be sociable later.
I was asleep before we took off.
When I awoke, we were thirty thousand feet over the Atlantic. I checked the time on my phone. I’d been asleep for six hours. Felicity was sitting in her seat, listening to something through white earbud headphones. I roused myself with a few stretches. My back ached. I hated flying.
Felicity picked up her phone from the seat beside her and turned off whatever she’d been listening to. Removing the headphones, she looked across the aisle at me. “Have a good sleep?”
“No, I don’t sleep well on planes.”
“You seemed to be doing a good job of it.”
“What are you listening to?” I asked her.
“A lecture on ancient and magical languages.”
“Sounds riveting.”
“It’s very interesting, actually. It was recorded at the Academy of Shadows a few years ago.”
“Maybe I was there, then. If you hear snoring coming from the audience, that’s probably me.”
She shot me a disapproving look. “You act like you don’t care about any of this stuff, but you’ve acquired the knowledge somehow. You don’t just pick up all that knowledge without having a passion for the subject.”
“You do when you’ve been living at the Academy since the age of ten.”
“What? Ten? Really?”
“Yeah, after my mom died, my dad made sure I was going to follow in his footsteps, so he sent me to the Academy of Shadows as a residential student. Most of the other students there were much older than me so I had to learn how to protect myself from bullies. I was always more interested in the combat classes than the language lectures, but I guess the language stuff rubbed off on me after a couple of years.”
“I’m sorry about your mother,” Felicity said softly.
I shrugged. “It was a long time ago. She died in a car accident.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. Were you in the car too?”
“No, I was at my aunt’s house. We lived in Oregon at the time, in the town where my mom was born. She took me there after she left my dad because that’s where her family lived. She said she wanted me to have a normal childhood and not spend it learning about the preternatural world. So, I had a few years of living just like any other kid. I had friends, I went to school, and I had a loving family around me. When my mom was killed, my dad arrived in Oregon and took me to London, to study at the Academy of Shadows.”
Felicity said, “That sounds terrible. To be taken away from your family like that and sent to a boarding school at the age of ten. I can’t imagine what that would be like.”
“I grew up fast,” I said. “I had to. I was determined that I wasn’t going to be the little kid everyone pushed around, so I learned to fight. And yes, I did studying the ancient languages, but that wasn’t because I had a passion for it; I just wanted to be better than everyone else. I enjoyed learning about preternatural creatures and lore, but I think I’ve forgotten most of those language lessons. That’s why it’s useful having you around. You love that stuff.”
She smiled. “Yes, I do. My father and mother were both Egyptologists and they passed their love of ancient things on to me. Although they’d be shocked if they knew that the dusty old relics they were studying had real magical power. Or that the hieroglyphs could be used in real spells.” She laughed lightly.
“Are they still alive?” I asked.
“Yes, they live in Sussex.”
“And what do they think you do for a living?”
“They know I work for a preternatural investigator in America, but they think that preternatural investigators are charlatans fleecing gullible people of their money.”
I smiled at that. “Well, maybe that’s not a bad thing to believe. It must be comforting, in a way.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” She paused for a long time and then said, “They want me to marry Jason. It’s their dream to have their daughter married to a wealthy banker, with a nice house and a couple of kids. You know, the usual thing.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think that’s the kind of life my mom wanted me to have. So, Jason’s wealthy, huh?”
She groaned and sat back in her seat, looking up at the ceiling of the airplane. “There’s more to life than money. That’s what I keep telling my parents, and now it looks like I’ve got to tell you, too. Jason’s financial position means nothing to me.”
“I get it,” I said. “I keep telling myself that there’s more to life than money, especially when I don’t have any.”
She sat forward again, leaning across the aisle, her dark eyes suddenly excited. “But don’t you see how great your life is, even though you’re not rich? You fight monsters, you keep people safe from the things that inhabit the darkness. You’re like a knight in shining armor. I couldn’t imagine you doing a mundane job like banking.”
“No, I guess not.”
“What do you think your father wants to speak to you about? Do you think it’s a case of some sort?”
“I have no idea. The truth is, this trip couldn’t come at a worse moment. I need to be in Dearmont in case some nut-job turns up and goes after the box. I don’t like leaving Mallory there alone.”
Felicity nodded. “You care for her a lot, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
“If I … stayed in England, do you think Mallory would work with you? The way I am now?”
“No, that wouldn’t happen. Mallory will leave eventually to hunt down Mister Scary. It’s what she does.”
“So you wouldn’t get a new assistant to help with cases and running the office?”
“No, it isn’t usual for investigators to have assistants. So I’d be working cases on my own and the office would become a mess, much like my Chicago office was.”
She grinned, not sure if I was joking or not. I wasn’t. My Chicago office had been as untidy as any private eye office you’d see in an old movie. It wasn’t that I liked mess, or had a romantic image that I was Sam Spade or someone like that; I just didn’t have time to clean.
“Was Chicago your first posting as a P.I.?” Felicity asked.
“No, I wouldn’t be trusted in a big city like that, even though I only worked the East side. My first assignment was in a small town in Ontario, Canada, near Algonquin Park. I worked closely with another P.I., a First Nations guy. He was a good investigator and we worked some interesting cases. Werewolves, wendigos, and faeries, mainly.”
“Then Chicago?”
“Then Chicago. I really liked it there and I thought I’d be there until I retired. Then Paris happened.”
She was quiet for a couple of beats then she said, “At least you have a chance to get your memories back. Maybe when you can go to the Society and tell them what really happened in Paris….”
“They know all they need to know about that. I let a satori escape. In fact, I told her to stay away from the Society for her own good. That was all they needed to know to send me to Dearmont. Anything else is irrelevant to them.”
“But not to you,” Felicity said.
“Of course not. I want to know what the hell really happened in Paris and how I came to mail the Box of Midnight to myself. I don’t appreciate having my memories erased by magic. I like things to be straightforward. The Blackwell sisters said there’s a magical locked door in my mind, so my natural inclination is to open that door, whatever may be lurking behind it.”
She nodded. “Yes, I suppose it’s best to have everything out in the open.” She sat back in her seat, a faraway look in her eyes, and I wondered if she was thinking about Jason again.
“Yes, please, but I think one will suffice, thanks.”
“Coming up. And a coffee?”
“Cup of tea, please.”
“Of course.” I went up to the kitchen area, past the two guards who sat a few rows ahead of us. They still wore their shades despite being inside the plane.
In the kitchen, I took four TV dinners from the fridge and microwaved them one by one. Soon, the smell of chicken, beef, and vegetables drifted from the heated meals. I set them aside while I made a tea for Felicity and a coffee for myself.
Beyond the window, the sky was bright blue, the clouds floating below us like white puffs of whipped cream.
When I returned to the seats, balancing the hot meal trays on my arms while I held the drinks in my hands, Felicity was writing something on a slip of paper, copying it from her laptop.
I put her meal and drink on her seat tray and gave her a packet that contained a plastic knife and fork as well as salt and pepper. “If you want the meal to have much taste, you’ll need the salt and pepper,” I told her.
She waited until I’d sat down again, my three meals stacked on the seat next to me, before she handed me the slip of paper. “This is the magical formula you need to recite when you touch the statue of Hapi.”
I looked at the hieroglyphs neatly lined up on the paper in Felicity’s precise handwriting. The formula looked simple enough. I folded the paper and put it in my jeans pocket.
“This food isn’t bad,” Felicity said after tasting a mouthful of the chicken dinner I’d given her.
“You think?” I asked, tearing open sachets of salt and pepper and sprinkling them over the roast beef dinner I’d decided to eat first. “It’s hardly a Darla’s Double Burger. Now that is good food.”
We ate in silence for a few minutes before she asked me, “Alec, can I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure,” I said.