Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist 1)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  I absorbed that piece of information. Then while we watched, Benjamin drained every last ounce of blood from Nigel, carefully packing the full bags in boxes and storing them in the upper shelves in the fridge.

  When he was done, he retrieved four bags of human blood from the fridge, placed them on the IV stands, and began giving Nigel a transfusion.

  “He didn’t mean to kill him,” I said.

  “Why would he? Four bags of human blood isn’t enough to revive him,” Kett said. “But I’m sure the boy planned to come back.”

  “If the transformations didn’t work?”

  Kett was silent as we watched Benjamin pack up the boxes, carefully balancing them atop each other. He was stronger than a teen his size should have been.

  “There is more to being a vampire than blood,” Kett said. “The teen appears to be well organized. Foolhardy but not stupid. We also don’t know what information he’s gathered about the vampiric relationship between master and child. Perhaps he believes that killing Nigel would kill his offspring as well.”

  Balancing his boxes, Benjamin crossed to the stairs and climbed out of the reconstruction. His eyes were bright, fevered. His skin was ruddy with exertion, and a painful-looking grin was plastered across his face.

  “He’s about to kill all his friends,” I whispered. “Or try to.”

  “Yes.” Kett removed his hand from my back, tilting his head as if listening. “Jasmine has returned. Please finish your collection and begin the next one. Don’t go near the vampire.”

  He disappeared, then reappeared at the top of the stairs, quickly passing out of my line of sight.

  I shook my head as if that might help clear it. Perhaps I should give Kett the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he had no idea he was moving too fast for regular witches to track. But he had slowed at the door, presumably so Jasmine wasn’t too startled when he suddenly appeared in the kitchen.

  I allowed the circle to go dormant while I shifted the magic of the reconstruction I’d collected in my hands, directing it down to the oyster-shell cube on the carpet by my feet.

  If things kept up at this pace, I was going to need to construct more cubes or get my hands on some inferior containers. I had used crystals when pressed in the past, but they were notoriously unreliable.

  As I channeled the magic into the container, I kept a wary eye on Nigel’s corpse on the metal gurney across the room.

  ❒ ❒ ❒

  Kett returned to the basement as silently as he’d left. He crossed to the fridge, retrieved four bags of blood, and quickly swapped out the empty bags Ben had left hanging from the IV poles around the bed.

  I pulled a second cube out of my bag, eyeing him questioningly.

  “Apparently, it will take more than four bags to revive him.” Something caustic underlay the vampire’s words, and I briefly wondered whether Nigel was going to be revived just to be executed after questioning. That was Kett’s job title, after all.

  But it wasn’t any of my business.

  In fact, the more evidence we gathered, the more obvious it became that the Convocation had absolutely no jurisdiction in this matter at all.

  Kett appeared beside me, slid his hand into my trench coat and up the back of my blouse again without asking, and turned his stoic gaze to the center of the inactive circle.

  I willed my magic out along the edges of the circle, touching each of the anchoring candles in turn and closing it a second time. The residual magic rose up eagerly, as it had before, but I brushed the most prevalent pathways away, reaching deeper for the energy I’d felt bubbling just underneath.

  A whirl of sunset-tinted magic rose before me, resolving into an image of two people. One dark-haired and on his knees — Nigel — and one with brown wavy hair brushing her shoulders. This second figure stood over the kneeling vampire with a silver stake raised high in her right hand.

  “Teresa Vern,” I said, more shocked than I probably should have been.

  “Teresa Garrick,” Kett said grimly. “I became suspicious when Ben used the name, and had Jasmine start looking into it.”

  I glanced at him, allowing the reconstruction to run its course backward in the circle. Ben had called himself Garrick right before he’d attacked Nigel. And apparently, the vampire had access to information that allowed him to connect that name to Ben’s mother, Teresa.

  “And the silver stake?”

  “Useful, in the right hands.”

  “Such as a vampire hunter?” I’d had no idea that such a person actually existed, other than Kettil the executioner himself.

  Kett turned his cool gaze on me. “Such as a necromancer of power from a family of vampire hunters thought to have been … eradicated.”

  I nodded thoughtfully, trying unsuccessfully to match his detachment. He had years of experience over me, and no fear of knowing too much about xenophobic vampires. Such knowledge got witches like me killed. As well as entire families of necromancers, apparently.

  The magic I held within the circle flickered, threatening to deconstruct. I focused, then attempted to prolong the conversation.

  “Twenty or so years ago?” I asked, basing my guess on the records Jasmine had cobbled together on the Verns.

  “Approximately,” Kett said. “Apparently, the information held within the Conclave is incomplete, and a child survived the unsanctioned slaughter.”

  A pulse of relief ran through my limbs. “Unsanctioned?”

  “A group of rogue vampires banded together. Otherwise, they would have failed. The Garricks had successfully kept the rogue numbers low enough that the Conclave had no need of a presence in the American territories.”

  “Then what happened?” I whispered the question as the reconstruction faded away, ready to be replayed. I was fairly certain I already knew the answer.

  “Then I was appointed executioner of the Conclave.”

  “And you … took care of the rogue vampire issue.”

  “Do you doubt it?”

  “No.”

  “Show me the conversation between the necromancer and the weakling vampire.”

  I nodded, refocusing on the circle. When the reconstruction was of a conversation, I often tried to ignore the first glimpses of the scene, as I’d done in this case. Following dialogue backward was disorienting. And when I wielded magic, I preferred to be focused and precise.

  I took a deep breath, drawing all the magic before me toward my raised palms. The edges of the candlelit circle pulsed with power once, then I exhaled and retriggered the sequence I’d uncovered.

  Teresa Vern stood over Nigel, silver stake in hand. The vampire was kneeling on the carpet, his head bowed as if in defeat.

  “You will do this for me, vampire.” Teresa’s steely voice sounded nothing like the woman who’d greeted us at her door less than twenty-four hours ago. “Or I will end you.”

  Nigel shook his head. “I will not subject another to my curse.”

  “I’ve tried everything else. Your blood is my last hope.”

  “Then you have no hope, necromancer,” Nigel said, raising his blood-red eyes. “I am death.”

  Teresa snorted.

  Nigel suddenly reared toward her. He got within inches — and then froze with his arms outstretched.

  “Jesus!” I exclaimed, involuntarily. “She … she’s … controlling him.”

  “Yes,” Kett said tersely. “A trait the Garricks were known for. The ability to control the undead. Few necromancers are capable of wielding such magic.”

  Nigel’s eyes shifted from side to side, as if he were fighting Teresa’s hold. But with a fierce, painful-looking grimace, she somehow forced him back onto his knees.

  “You will do this,” she panted. “I absolve you of any complications.”

  “Such as your son dying?” Nigel snarled.

  “He’s already dying, vampire.”

  “Take him to a healer.”

  I glanced over at Kett. “But Ben isn’t magical. Unless his father was. Necroma
ncy is traditionally only inherited by the female line.”

  Kett nodded at my hasty, uncharacteristic assessment, keeping his gaze trained on the reconstruction.

  “No healer or witch can help my boy,” Teresa said, choking back tears. “He doesn’t possess a single drop of magic. Like I said, you are my last resort.”

  Nigel shook his head, but the gesture was weaker, less determined.

  “I work in a hospital. I’ll bring you quadruple the blood you give me.”

  “Why don’t I just tear your son’s throat out and be done with it?”

  Teresa didn’t appear to be even remotely fazed by Nigel’s posturing. “Because I’ve been watching you. And you don’t kill humans.”

  “I have killed.”

  “But you choose not to.”

  The dark-haired vampire fell silent.

  Teresa straightened, tucking her silver stake in her pocket as she turned away from the vampire. “I’ll have some medical supplies delivered tomorrow.”

  “You’ll kill him,” Nigel whispered.

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  Nigel nodded dejectedly.

  The magic of the reconstruction faded away.

  With dozens of questions whirling around in my head, I leaned down to channel the residual I had collected and reformed into an oyster-shell cube.

  Kett’s hand slid from my back as I moved, but he remained rooted to the carpet beside me.

  “Benjamin Vern had leukemia,” I said, speaking to myself more than to the vampire at my side.

  “Has,” Kett said. “He has cancer.”

  “But Teresa seemed to think Nigel’s blood would heal him.”

  “Not heal. But perhaps counter the virus. Overwhelm it …”

  “But?”

  “But the transfusions would need to be weekly. Daily, perhaps. Tiny doses, if the necromancer wanted to be careful.”

  “Careful not to turn Benjamin, but just to heal him.”

  “Not heal,” Kett said again, his tone icy. “Maintain.”

  I straightened, slinging my bag over my shoulder and tucking the reconstructions I’d collected within its depths. I’d make duplicates for the Convocation just as soon as I was out of the vampire’s abode.

  Kett was standing so still that I realized he wasn’t breathing. Then I found myself wondering whether he even needed to breathe, except to speak. But I shoved the thought away quickly, reminding myself that cataloguing the ins and outs of being a vampire was not my job. It was another thing that might potentially put me into the category of ‘knowing too much.’

  Kett abruptly broke his fugue-like state, striding across the basement to the fridge, retrieving more blood and changing out the now-empty bags attached to Nigel on the gurney.

  The vampire appeared as corpse-like as ever. Just a long length of withered skin and hollowed-out eyes strapped down to cold, hard metal. But beating heart or no beating heart, he’d absorbed the first bags of blood somehow.

  I snuffed out the candle closest to me, leaving it so the wax would cool as I moved on to the next. “But then Benjamin must have figured it out,” I said, picking up the thread of the conversation as though it hadn’t lapsed.

  Kett didn’t answer, though. His gaze was on Nigel, watching him for signs of revival perhaps.

  “You can see how a boy who’d been sick his entire life would think immortality was a …” But I trailed off, thinking better of my intended wording.

  “A gift?” Kett finished my thought coolly.

  “Well, better than constantly dying.”

  “And bringing his friends with him? Will you justify the immortality pact as well?”

  I hesitated. “I guess no one wants to be alone.”

  Kett eyed me.

  I dropped my gaze. I was way out of my depth. I collected my candles, tucking them away in my bag.

  Then Nigel opened his eyes, revealing two whirling red pools of blood. He spotted Kett standing over him and began to scream, straining against his bonds. I slammed my hands over my ears, the volume was seemingly loud enough to shatter my eardrums.

  Kett locked his gaze to the panicked vampire’s. Nigel immediately relaxed.

  Jasmine slammed open the door at the top of the stairs, running halfway down before spotting me at the base of the stairwell.

  “What the hell?” she cried.

  I dropped my hands, watching as Kett crossed to the fridge to retrieve still more blood. Nigel remained in his docile state. Evidently, the executioner didn’t have to maintain eye contact to control his mind.

  The implications of that were stomach churning.

  “Wisteria?” Jasmine prompted.

  I shook my head.

  “Go,” Kett said without looking at me. “Thank you for your service. You’ve performed adequately. I’ll pay your fee through the Convocation.”

  Relief flooded through me. He was officially dismissing us. I could walk away unscathed, taking Jasmine out of Kett’s sphere of influence.

  And then Nigel and Benjamin would die.

  And Teresa Vern … Teresa Vern was a necromancer.

  I looked up at Jasmine.

  As if instantly gleaning my thoughts, she nodded once in agreement.

  “We won’t be leaving,” I said, putting as much steel as I could muster into the statement. “This is a Convocation matter.”

  Kett pinned me with his gaze. I looked resolutely at his left shoulder.

  “How do you figure that, witch?”

  “Teresa Vern … Teresa Garrick is a necromancer. A necromancer within the jurisdiction of the Godfrey coven.”

  “I won’t argue with you,” Kett said.

  “You don’t need to argue with me,” I said calmly. “I don’t make or enforce the rules. The Convocation does.”

  I turned to climb the stairs, and Kett was beside me before my foot fell on the second step. His fingers were a steel band around my upper left arm.

  I swallowed my shriek of terror, deliberately turning my head to look him in the eye. “When was the last time you texted with Pearl Godfrey, Jasmine?” My voice was shaky and thin.

  “Fifteen minutes ago,” my cousin said.

  “And you informed her that we’d found Teresa Garrick?”

  “Yes. She said you were to call her as soon as you had finished the reconstructions.”

  Kett’s painful grip on my arm was going to leave a deep, dark bruise. I called up all the magic I had at my disposal, slowly raising and gathering my right hand into a fist.

  “Unhand me, vampire.”

  A smile ghosted across Kett’s face. Then he was standing back beside the fridge.

  I stumbled, almost falling off the stairs. I hadn’t realized that he’d effectively been holding me upright.

  “What the hell?” Jasmine muttered. Then she flapped her hands in my direction, urging me toward her.

  Kett was back beside Nigel in a flash, pouring blood down the immobile vampire’s throat, forcing him to drink. I was fairly certain Nigel was sobbing as he choked on it.

  I wondered if he had been hoping he was finally dead when Benjamin drained him. Finally free of what he called his curse. But if that was the case, I wondered why he’d screamed at the sight of Kett, as if fearful for his immortal life. Or maybe the executioner of the Conclave was just as terrifying to other vampires as he was to everyone else.

  I looked resolutely away. And, seriously hoping that we hadn’t just bluffed an elder of the Conclave, I steadily climbed the stairs, placing one foot in front of the other to safety.

  Assuming that anywhere could be safe in a world that Kettil walked.

  ❒ ❒ ❒

  “You will ascertain the whereabouts of Teresa Garrick and her son,” Pearl Godfrey said over the speaker of my cellphone. “You will verify the reconstructions, and a tribunal will be called.”

  Jasmine hadn’t actually been bluffing about texting with Pearl, so the first thing I’d done — after firmly shutting the kitchen door between me
and the vampires in the basement — was to call the chair of the Convocation. My cousin and I were crammed around a tiny table beneath the corner kitchen window, which would have offered a pretty view of the backyard foliage during the day. A view the vampire who owned the house would never see.

  The overhead light in the kitchen was on, having been triggered by a timer as anachronistic as the rest of the dated furniture. Nigel, like Kett, was obviously trying to pass as human for the benefit of his neighbors. I wondered whether he’d forget to turn on any lights at night without the timers.

  “At least she didn’t kill him,” Jasmine said to the phone, which she cradled in her hand as far away from me as she could hold it and still be at the same table.

  “It wouldn’t matter if she had,” Pearl said aloofly. “As long as she could prove he was a threat to someone. And unaffiliated vampires are always a threat.”

  “What matters is her dosing the boy with vampire blood,” I said. Ironically, Teresa Garrick would most likely be held accountable for trying to save her nonmagical son’s life, but not for assaulting Nigel in the process.

  “What matters,” Pearl said steely, “is that Teresa Garrick was hidden by the Convocation for her own protection. She was to set aside her necromancer powers and live a normal life. By her own request. It took considerable resources to ensure and enforce that protection.”

  “Watching someone you love dying and not acting isn’t easy for most of us, Pearl,” I said, instantly wishing the words back as soon as I had uttered them.

  Silence fell on the other side of the line.

  Jasmine gave me a wide-eyed look, then wrinkled her nose in a grimace.

  Pearl picked up the conversation as if I hadn’t spoken. “We’re on the edge of a major incident here with the Conclave if the vampire is already insisting on jurisdiction. Normally, I’d send in a team to take over your investigation at this point. But I trust you two to help mitigate, not exacerbate, this situation.”

  “Of course,” I said, not at all convinced that we could ‘mitigate’ anything when it came to Kett. But, even knowing as little as I did of the vampire, it was easy to agree that an escalation in the Convocation’s involvement would unbalance the tension-filled circumstances even more.

  “To that end, you will inform the executioner that Teresa Garrick will be assessed and sentenced by the Convocation. He is to leave her to us. She is under our protection. Under your protection.”