4 The Infernal Detective

by Kirsten Weiss

  The hallway chandelier flickered above her, brightened. Fingers trembling, she touched the slim silver cross that hung from her neck, gathered the forces from above and below. Fueled by her fear, the energies rushed through her and outward, creating a bubble of safety around her, cutting a path through the rot and horror.

  She pressed her fingers against the bedroom door. It swung open at her touch and she sidled through, barefoot and silent. Her fingers curled, palms ready to strike as she prowled down the truncated hallway, turned the corner into the bedroom.

  It was empty.

  Chapter 2

  Riga snapped shut her jaw.

  The bedroom was empty. The body, which had once lain beside the bookcase, was gone. Donovan was gone. She turned in a slow circle, disbelieving. Gone.

  She threw open closet doors, stormed through the master bathroom, even checked beneath the bed.

  Nothing.

  Riga rubbed her arms and glared at the fluffy white throw rug, denuded of its corpse. This couldn’t be happening. But it was, and denial was an indulgence she couldn’t afford.

  Riga walked to the window, her gaze unfocused. In the darkness, her reflection gaped back at her, overlaid upon the inky lake and the wavering trail of the moon. She shook herself, and moving to the bureau, cursed under her breath for not using her head. Riga picked up her cell phone from the dresser, called Donovan.

  No answer.

  She sank upon the bed, her head bowed, clutching the phone. Dark magic. A missing corpse. A missing Donovan. And not just any dark magic – necromancy, the worst sort of magic, magic driven by death, pain, fear… Necromancy would explain the missing corpse. Her vision blurred. Good God. What had happened to Donovan?

  She leapt to her feet, pacing. Think! If he’d left the house, the security cameras would have picked it up. If only she’d been watching the live feed rather than the past…

  She raced downstairs, tripping over her long gown.

  “Riga!” Dot materialized in the foyer. Her over-sized eyes blinked up at Riga from behind her spectacles. “There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “I’m a little busy right now.”

  “But your Mr. Mosse asked me to tell you…” She steepled her wrinkled hands beneath her chin. “Oh, what was it now?”

  Riga clenched her fists to stop herself from grabbing her aunt by the shoulders, and realized she still gripped her phone. “Donovan? When did you see him?”

  “Five, or ten minutes ago, I believe. He was running after that young photographer, said he’d be back, and you shouldn’t worry. Oh, and he called the Sheriff, told him not to come.”

  “He was… running? And the photographer was running too?” The photographer had been dead. And she knew dead. Absently, Riga patted her aunt’s hand. “Thanks. I’ll look into it.”

  “But Riga, there’s something we need to talk about…”

  Unhearing, Riga turned her back on her aunt and strode to the security room. Cam Mitchell had been dead. Been dead? He was dead. The photographer was dead. Dead. But if a necromancer had reanimated him… Then none of them were safe.

  She gnawed her lower lip. No. It was too far-fetched. But could that have been why Donovan’s father had tried to keep them from the room? Had a necromancer been there the entire time? Necromancers used death to fuel their magic – a nasty combination that sent most of them mad, made all of them dangerous. Had Cam been some sort of sacrifice? And if so, to what purpose?

  The guard, Thomas, looked up from his seat at the monitors. “Problem?”

  “There was a mistake. The cops aren’t coming. I need to see the last ten minutes of footage.” She put her phone down upon the narrow table.

  “Sure.” The guard fiddled with the controls and the screens flickered, scenes jumping backwards.

  “There! Stop.” Riga pointed to one of the screens – an image from the garage of the photographer, chestnut-colored hair mussed, jaw clamped shut. He was handsome, Riga thought with surprise, with a rangy build, high cheekbones and solemn, deep set eyes, alight with intelligence.

  She rocked back on her heels. Intelligence. So he wasn’t a zombie. Had she been mistaken? Had life been inside him? But it made no sense. Donovan had felt for a pulse and found none. And she hadn’t been mistaken about that residue of dark magic, of necromancy. She shuddered at the memory.

  There was something familiar about Cam in black and white, something she hadn’t noticed when he’d been alive, something about the eyes. He stood inside the door to the garage, one hand motionless on the door frame.

  “Roll it forward,” she said, “slowly.”

  She watched as Cam descended the steps. Donovan appeared close behind, and she sagged with relief. He was okay. Cam turned, spoke, and Donovan nodded, followed the photographer down the gap between the wall and the cars. She sucked in her breath. Donovan wasn’t running after Cam. They were together.

  They disappeared from view and a few moments later the screen flared white – the rear lights of a car.

  “Do you have a shot of the garage door? The driveway?” she asked.

  “Both.” He tapped two other screens, pressed buttons.

  From a high angle, she saw the garage door lift, a black SUV pull out. The driver looked left. Cam. That ended the zombie theory. They weren’t smart enough to drive. But why the hell was Cam driving at all? It was Donovan’s car.

  And Cam had been dead.

  The SUV rolled off the view screen and Thomas pushed another button, a view of the gate. They watched the guard there lean out of his box, wave the SUV through.

  “Play those shots again, will you?”

  He did. She gleaned no new clues.

  She picked up the phone, and called Donovan again. The phone rang once, twice, three times.

  And then he picked up. “Yes?”

  She stood, walked to the door, trying to give herself some distance, privacy, in the cramped room. It was impossible. “Donovan? It’s Riga. What happened? Where are you?”

  “I’m fine. Look, I can’t talk now.”

  “Are you in danger?”

  “No.”

  “Then what—?”

  “I’ve got to go. We’ll talk tomorrow.” He paused, and she thought she heard another man’s voice. “Meet me at the penthouse in the morning.”

  “But—”

  He hung up.

  She stared at the phone. Anger burned through her, a methodical trail from heart to head. She swallowed it down. Something was seriously wrong, and he couldn’t talk about it. She should be worried, not angry. The hell with that. She was worried and angry.

  Riga preferred the anger.

  “Everything okay?” the guard asked.

  “No.” She remembered all the times she’d gone her own way, no explanations, hoping Donovan would trust her instincts, honor her wishes. He hadn’t been happy about it, but he hadn’t tried to control her either. She could do the same. But she’d been trying to break her lone wolf habits, had thought acting together was part of being married.

  “You need anything?”

  She shot him a brittle smile. “No. I’m fine. Thanks for your help.”

  There was a necromancer here, in her house. The dead were walking.

  Chapter 3

  Riga stood beneath the arch that separated the foyer from the living room, watching.

  The room was long, with a thirty-foot-high ceiling and tall windows that, in the darkness, reflected the room and its haze of Christmas lights. The bottom half of the walls were lined with uneven rectangles of stone, now swagged with garlands of holly and evergreen boughs. Above this, tall pine beams stretched upward to a gabled roof traversed by beams. A U-shape of brown leather couches formed a low barrier, dividing the room in two. In the smaller seating area, a Christmas tree dressed in silver and gold stood beside a grand piano, and another couch faced the lake.

  Guests milled in groups of twos and threes, shifting in an unseen tide. One of them had put a bag
over Cam’s head, was a murderer, or attempted murderer, and possibly a necromancer. In Riga’s mind, they amounted to the same thing.

  Beside the piano, her aunt, Dot, chatted animatedly with a newspaper editor, with Cam’s wife, and with a young actor. Dot’s baggy dress swayed, jellyfish-like, as she waved her hands to make a point, and Riga wondered if Dot believed she was fooling anyone, disguising her bulk beneath oversized clothing.

  Abruptly, Dot clutched the actor’s hand. His eyes widened, then his expression smoothed. He was one of the few men in the room short enough for Riga to look in the eye. How did he manage to look so commanding on TV? What was his name again? Oh yes, Briian something. She remembered the two i’s at least. He caught Riga’s eye and flashed her a wide smile, teeth gleaming unnaturally white against his olive skin, all dimples and artfully-tousled hair. Too young to be a successful necromancer, Riga thought dismissively. He adjusted the open collar of his white sports shirt, exposing more bronzed chest.

  The newspaper editor, Dora, swigged back her wine, grinning appreciatively. She was a diminutive woman with close-cropped iron gray hair, and Riga could see headlines and story angles flashing through the editor’s brain. Dora put the glass down, looked about, and slunk toward the tall sliding glass doors in the back of the room, her expression hungry. Off for another cancer stick.

  Cam’s wife (widow?) watched her go, then turned back to Briian. She smoothed the front of her slim-fitting, emerald gown, her long brown hair almost covering the deep v in its back. Her head tilted, as if listening, but the expression on her softly rounded face was abstracted. Riga looked away before their eyes could meet. She didn’t want to talk to Terry, unsure of what to say about her husband.

  Riga scanned for the actress Briian had come with, Madison Henna, and found her chatting with Riga’s teenage niece, Pen. If it was possible to appear rapt and self-conscious, Pen had achieved it, leaning forward on the couch to catch the actress’s words, and fidgeting awkwardly in the simple black sheath the aunts had shoehorned her into.

  Madison had twined a section of her long, glossy brown hair around her finger, and was gnawing absently on the ends, while Pen spoke. Lithe as a nymph, Pen bent to place her glass upon a coffee table. Madison’s full lips turned down, strands of hair caught between them, and Riga regarded her carefully. Madison had achieved stardom when Riga was a teen, which probably put the actress a few years ahead of her. There was an unnatural tightness to Madison’s tanned skin, and her ribs bulged in her thin frame, her glamshackle dress hung loosely where it should have hugged. Food apparently was the price of fame. But America’s darling still looked good on film.

  Yeah, she could be a necromancer.

  Riga glided down the two steps to the living room, enjoying the rough feel of the crimson kilim beneath her feet. A man, tall and spare, his red hair graying, disengaged himself from a trio of guests.

  Unsmiling, he strode toward her, and adjusted the cuffs of his gray suit jacket. “Where’s Mosse?”

  She bared her teeth, her dislike for the man instinctual. John Smith worked for the Treasury Department, and had been Donovan’s constant companion as they worked out a deal to get Donovan’s casinos clear of government sanctions. But that wasn’t what got under her skin. Smith combined the bland, forgettable look of a spy, with the smug bossiness of a high-level bureaucrat. Riga’d always had trouble with authority.

  Riga crossed her arms over her chest. “Why, Mr. Smith If-That-Is-Your-Real-Name – how nice to see you.”

  He gave her a fixed stare, his eyes pale with loathing.

  She’d hit a nerve, and her smile broadened.

  “The feeling’s mutual.” He turned his back on her, pulled a book from the shelf embedded in the stone wall. “So. Miss Hayworth.” He opened the book, ran a finger down a page. “Where is he?”

  “Donovan, you mean? Why are you looking for him?”

  “Don’t you know where your boyfriend is?”

  “You’re the one who’s been dogging his steps for the last two weeks.” Her eyes glinted malevolently. “You’re not going to get into any trouble if you lose him, are you?”

  “No.”

  “I’m prostrate with relief.” She hadn’t been involved in a Treasury investigation before, but was fairly certain the agents didn’t attend the wedding parties of their… suspects? Victims? Smith was hiding something.

  “I’ll bet you are.” He returned the book to the shelf and turned to her. “What are you hiding?”

  Her lips parted in surprise at hearing this echo of her thoughts. “All sorts of things. And they’re none of your business.”

  His lips imagined a smile. “There’s something not quite right about you.”

  “Ouch.” He was baiting her. But he was right – things weren’t quite right with her. Nothing was right tonight.

  “You look just like that dead actress, Rita Hayworth, which is weird considering your name. And I checked; it is your real name. But there’s something else.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll figure it out,” he said, and walked away.

  The muscles in her neck and shoulders relaxed. What really bugged her about the agent was that Donovan had told her he couldn’t talk about Smith. It was part of the deal he was trying to cut. Her logical half didn’t expect Donovan to tell her every single thing. Her other half wondered if that was a mistake.

  And then she felt a spark of shame. Her behavior towards Smith had been childish. She should have been more conciliatory, taken a softer approach.

  Riga watched Smith walk up the two steps to the foyer, knock into one of the caterers and continue on without an apology. She took it back – he deserved what he got. He was the type of man who’d see good manners as a weakness.

  Riga sat down beside her niece, Pen, and Madison Henna.

  Smile dazzling, the actress unwound the hair from her finger and swiveled on the leather couch toward Riga. “Your niece was just telling me about the reality TV show the two of you worked on. Pen, if you’re looking for contacts in Hollywood, I’ve got friends who are always looking for hardworking film students.”

  “The key word there is ‘hardworking,’” Riga said. “And Pen’s too young to go to Hollywood.”

  Pen’s brows drew together. “You’re not my mom!”

  “Thank heaven for small favors,” Riga said.

  “Do you know if the show’s been picked up by the network?” Madison asked tactfully.

  “Not yet,” Riga said. “But tell me about your latest project.”

  The actress laughed, a light, tinkling sound, glass breaking. “A vampire love story. I know vampires are all the rage, but I don’t know a thing about them.” She snapped her fingers. “I should interview you.”

  “Me?” Riga gave her niece a hard look. “What exactly has Pen been telling you?” Pen wouldn’t have told Madison about the ghosts, would she? Pen and Riga had agreed to keep it secret. Or at least Riga had agreed. Pen had muttered something evasive.

  “About your metaphysical detective agency,” Madison said, “that you’ve studied the dark arts—”

  “Only from an anthropological perspective.” Reddening, Pen tugged on her mop of chestnut-colored hair. “Riga’s not all darky arty or anything.”

  “Well, of course she’s not,” Madison said. “So Pen, will you be videotaping the wedding?”

  Pen wrinkled her nose. “Ew. I don’t do weddings.”

  “What happened to our photographer?” Riga asked. Perhaps Madison had seen something. Perhaps Cam hadn’t gone upstairs alone.

  Madison picked up a red patterned throw pillow and held it flat against her stomach. She plucked at a thread hanging from the corner. “I haven’t seen him, and that’s fine with me. I can’t relax when a photographer’s around.”

  Neither could Riga, though Cam had been fairly unobtrusive. And in their contract with the magazine, Donovan had included veto options. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll get to approve any photos that are p
ublished.”

  The actress snapped off the loose thread, put the pillow aside. “And what about the other photos? They’ll all come to light eventually.”

  “Donovan’s lawyer knows how to write a contract. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

  “You don’t know photographers,” Madison said.

  “I suppose you must get tired of the paparazzi,” Riga said.

  Madison smiled wryly. “Oh, I’m cynical enough to know they have their place. I need them to stay in the public eye. But the lack of privacy does get tiring. Briian’s having a hard time adapting.”

  “Oh?”

  Briian slipped onto the arm of the couch beside the actress. “Did someone mention my name?” He nuzzled Madison’s neck.

  The actress arched up and away from him. “We were talking about the paparazzi. One in particular.”

  Briian flashed that artificially white smile. “The one I punched, you mean?”

  Madison rumpled his hair. “Naughty boy. You shouldn’t look so proud.”

  “I’d do it again.”

  The actress reached for a wine glass on the square coffee table in front of her. “Do you know how I met Donovan?” she asked Riga.

  Riga shook her head.

  “On a boat in the Aegean. He rescued me from a handsy Greek. A very rich Greek, but handsy.” She grinned wickedly, raising her glass in a toast. “You’re a lucky woman, Riga Hayworth. I didn’t think anyone would get him to the altar.”

  “We’re not there yet.” Riga tried to crush the anxiety worming its way to her heart. Donovan knew what he was doing. All would be explained tomorrow.

  “You will be,” Madison said. “Once Donovan’s made a decision, he doesn’t let anything get in his way.”

  Riga stood. “Neither do I. Pen, can I borrow you for a moment?”

  Pen struggled from the couch, and followed her aunt to an empty corner. She kicked a fallen piece of garland beneath an armchair. “What’s up?”

  Riga retrieved the garland, hooked it onto the rough rock wall. “Someone was practicing dark magic in my bedroom. You know anything about it?”