His face paled. “What?”
“It called me Harbinger and said that my death had to be confirmed to its masters.”
My father put his drink on the side table, in the pool of lamplight. He stared into the fire for a moment, frowning.
“What’s going on?” I asked him. “You seem to know something about this that I don’t.”
“Are you sure the demon called you by your name?” His eyes didn’t look so tired now. Instead, they looked worried.
“Yeah, I’m positive.” I could have added that I’d already been the target of an attempted assassination by ogres and a hitman named Tunnock, but I kept that to myself. My father didn’t know I had a magical box that could raise the dead, or that someone was gunning for me because of it. He wasn’t the only one who could keep secrets. “So are you going to tell me why the demon knowing my name has you so worried?”
He turned his face to me and smiled. “I’m just worried for you, Alec. Can’t a father be worried about his son?”
I was pretty sure it was more than that, and the fact that the worried look remained in his eyes told me I was right. “Okay,” I said, sighing. There was no point pursuing this; if he wanted to keep something from me, there was nothing I could do to convince him otherwise. “So you flew me all the way here to tell me about the Midnight Cabal. They’re still around. Got it. I’ll be on the lookout for Cabal members in Dearmont just as soon as I get back there. I’m sure they’ll be more interested in a place like Dearmont than, say, oh, I don’t know, New York.”
He frowned at me. “There’s no need for sarcasm, Alec. The discovery of the Midnight Cabal makes your loss of the satori in Paris even more disastrous. She would have been a great help to us in these troubled times.”
“I didn’t lose her, Dad, I let her get away.”
“That makes it even worse. And we aren’t exactly sure what happened, are we? Because the satori wiped your memory of most of it.”
I didn’t have a sarcastic comeback for that because he was right. Some of my memories of Paris had been taken and replaced with false ones. I had a vague recollection of going to the catacombs, finding the satori there, and telling her to run from the Society because I knew there was some sort of corruption within the organization. But bits and pieces of the timeline were missing. Devon Blackwell had told me that there was a magically-locked door in my mind and the memories must be behind it. Unless Felicity’s plan regarding the statue at the museum worked, I had no idea how to open that door and recover what had been stolen from me.
“Anyway, let’s not go over old ground,” my father said. “There isn’t much point when you can’t remember any of it. But the reason I called you here is in regards to what happened in Paris. We may have lost the satori but I gained some valuable information regarding the Paris investigators. Pierre was right when he said they were traitors. Most of them were found dead in the Paris catacombs but some have gone missing. I fear they may have been working for the Midnight Cabal.”
I thought about that for a moment. “Okay, I guess that makes sense. If any organization is likely to infiltrate the Society and work its evil from the inside, it’ll be our oldest enemy.”
He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I believe I know who those French investigators were secretly working for. I had the Coven do some magical digging and their spells led them to a member of the Inner Circle, a man named John DuMont. Alec, you understand that everything I am telling you is in strictest confidence and not to be repeated to anyone, not even other members of the Society.”
“Yeah, I got that with the whole traitor thing. I have two questions.” I whispered, “Why are you telling me this and what is the Coven?”
“I’m telling you because, as my son, you are the only person I can trust. I need you to do something for me. I can’t ask anyone else in case they’re working for DuMont. If he was able to get to the Paris investigators, there’s no doubt he controls others in the Society, probably even members here in London.”
That made sense. If a member of the Inner Circle was responsible for the corruption within the Society, then it probably spread far and wide. “And the Coven?” I asked.
He looked at me and pursed his lips as if deciding how much to tell me.
“Hey,” I said, “I’m the person you trust, remember?”
He considered that and then nodded slowly. “Very well. Come with me and I’ll show you the Coven.” He stood and started toward the door before stopping and turning to face me. “Alec, again, I have to tell you that this is strictly….”
“Yeah, I know, confidential. Either you trust me or you don’t, Dad. You can’t have it both ways.” I followed him to the door.
“I trust you, Alec,” he said as we left his office and walked toward the elevators. “The Coven is, as the name implies, a group of witches situated within this building. There are nine of them, and together, they provide the enchantments and spells the Society needs to function. To fight magical creatures, we sometimes need to use magic of our own.” He stepped into the elevator and took a key from his pocket. Inserting the key into the elevator control panel, he pressed a series of buttons. The doors closed and we began to descend.
“The witches discovered that John DuMont is most likely a traitor, after I asked them to look into the matter.”
“And you trust the Coven?” I asked.
“It isn’t a matter of trust. These nine witches are the real Society of Shadows. They banded together in 1682 to fight malevolent supernatural beings and protect mankind. They called themselves the Society of Shadows. Everything you think of as the Society—this building, the investigators, the Inner Circle, the cases—has been built around the witches over the centuries. But they are the organization’s core. They are the source of its power.”
The floor indicator above the door dropped down to B for basement, then went blank. We were still descending.
“They’re underground?” I asked. “Beneath the headquarters basement?”
My father shook his head. “Not really. They don’t exist in an actual physical location beneath the basement, if that’s what you mean. They don’t exist in our world at all anymore. They died centuries ago but they now exist in an otherworldly place.”
“And this elevator can take us there,” I mused.
“I don’t know exactly how it works,” he said, “Nor do I care to.”
We came to a halt. I waited for the doors to open, curious to see the witches who had formed the Society of Shadows over three centuries ago. The doors remained closed.
“It takes a while,” my father said. “We’re shifting into their realm of existence.”
A couple of minutes later, the door slid open, revealing a passageway hewn out of rock. Although there were no torches to light the passageway, a dim glow seemed to emanate from the rock walls. The air was warm and smelled of cedarwood and lotus flower.
“This way,” my dad said, stepping out of the elevator and striding along the passageway. I followed him to the end of the passageway where a set of stone stairs spiraled down further into the earth. The same glow lit the wide stone steps.
We descended slowly until we reached a small area at the foot of the stairs where a rough archway had been cut in the rock. Beyond the archway, there appeared to be nothing but impenetrable blackness.
I reached into my jacket and took out the mini Maglite I always carried.
“You won’t need that,” my father said. “The darkness is a magical barrier set into the archway. It will let us through and there’s light beyond it.” Her stepped into the archway and disappeared into the blackness.
Putting the flashlight away, I followed and felt a slight tingling all over my body as I stepped through the archway and into a large circular cavern that was lit with the same dim glow as the passageway. Stalactites hung from the high ceiling and stalagmites rose from the floor here and there, but most of the floor was laid with granite flagstones. They widened into an area where
nine cowled figures knelt around a circular pool. The figures’ faces were shrouded in shadow.
My father stepped forward and I followed. There was a hum of energy in the cavern, like an electrical storm building power before shooting lightning to earth. We reached the pool, which I could now see didn’t contain water at all but a jet black fluid that writhed and flowed sinuously.
The nine figures didn’t look up. They continued to gaze at the inky black pool.
“I’ve brought my son,” my father said to nobody in particular. “He’s going to help us with the DuMont matter.”
A soft, feminine voice said, “The boy has become a man. He will assist us well.”
The voice seemed not to be coming from any of the cowled figures but from the pool itself.
A second voice, also emanating from the pool in soft, dulcet tones, said, “He will assist us well, but the door will be unlocked.”
A third, similar voice replied, “Yes, but it is perhaps time.”
I whispered to my dad, “What are they talking about?”
He silenced me with a glare.
A fourth voice said, “The dead shall rise.”
In reply, a fifth voice answered, “A difficult decision must be made.”
“The curse of the heart,” said a sixth voice.
“Blood must be spilled, despite the consequences,” said a seventh.
“All will be lost and all will be gained,” an eighth voice said.
The ninth said, “These things may come to pass or they may not. Nothing is certain.”
“Can you see my future?” I asked them.
“We see a future.”
“Whether it shall come to pass depends on many things. A thread can unravel in an infinite variety of ways.”
“What can you tell us about John DuMont?” my father asked.
“The traitor shall be among the dead tomorrow at midnight.”
“Beneath the Cedar of Lebanon.”
“Beware the undead.”
“Strike their hearts.”
“The door may be already open.”
“A flood of memory.”
“Our work shall be undone.”
“Perhaps it is time.”
“These things may come to pass or they may not. Nothing is certain.”
I sighed. “Are they always this cryptic?”
“Alec, be quiet!” my father said in a low, angry tone. To the witches, he asked, “Is there anything more you can tell us?”
“The thread will unravel when the time is right.”
“The box.”
“The staff.”
“The hour.”
“Three things of midnight.”
“The Cabal makes four.”
“A time of darkness.”
“A time to weep.”
“These things may come to pass or they may not. Nothing is certain.”
We waited for a few moments longer but the witches said nothing more. My father tapped me in the shoulder and nodded toward the way we’d come in. We left. As we walked back the way we had come, I went over the witches’ words in my head. Some of what they’d said was obvious, such as the box and the staff.
I assumed the curse of the heart referred to the curse attached to the Box of Midnight but wondered if it might mean the situation between Mallory and me. That was a curse of the heart if ever there was one. It might even refer to Felicity having to leave a job she loved to be with Jason. That was the trouble with prophecy; it was always so damned enigmatic.
I reminded myself that I hadn’t come here for a fortune-telling session, merely to meet the Coven. At least they’d told us where John DuMont would be tomorrow at midnight.
“Did you get the clue?” my dad asked as we entered the elevator. “The Cedar of Lebanon?”
“Of course. It’s the big old tree in Highgate Cemetery, the one above the circle of crypts called the Circle of Lebanon.”
He put his key into the panel and hit the sequence of buttons that would take us back to our own realm. “Good lad. So we’re going to have to make our plans before we go there tomorrow at midnight.”
“We? Dad, I think your days in the field are long past.”
“Nonsense. I’m just as capable as I’ve always been.”
I arched an eyebrow and gave him an “are you sure?” look.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“I think there’s going to be vampires there. One of the witches said to beware the undead and another told us to strike their hearts. That’s the best way of killing vampires that I know of, a stake through the heart.”
“Yes, you’re probably right.”
“So get me a team of investigators and we’ll go there armed to the teeth with stakes. There’s no need for you to come.”
“I told you, I can’t trust anyone. I don’t know who’s working with DuMont and who isn’t. I can’t send you to Highgate Cemetery with a group of investigators who will kill you as soon as you arrive.”
“There must be someone you trust in this organization.”
“I trusted DuMont. He was a member of the Inner Circle. My trust was misplaced in him so I can’t be sure that it isn’t misplaced in others as well.”
“Dad, I’d rather go to Highgate Cemetery alone than have to worry about your well-being while fighting DuMont. By the way, what is the actual plan when I confront him? Do you want me to kill him?”
“Good heavens, no! We need information from him, names of other traitors. He might even be able to lead us to the Midnight Cabal. There are a few different items we can use to capture him. I’ll get a couple sorted out tomorrow.”
“There’s that ‘we’ again.”
He sighed and punched in a new sequence of numbers on the elevator’s control panel.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you back to the lobby. We aren’t going to argue about this, Alec, so you may as well leave and go to your hotel. I’ll be there tomorrow night and we’ll go to Highgate Cemetery together. That’s my final word on the subject.”
I shook my head at his stubbornness. There was no point arguing. The elevator doors opened onto the lobby.
“Do you have a vehicle?” my dad asked.
“No, I’m going to get a cab.”
“No need for that.” He shouted to the front desk, “George, get my son a vehicle from the garage. You prefer Land Rovers don’t you?” he asked me.
I nodded.
“A Land Rover,” he told George.
“Of course, sir,” George replied.
I stepped out of the elevator and walked toward the desk.
“Tomorrow, Alec,” my father said from behind me.
“Yeah, tomorrow.”
As if facing DuMont and a bunch of vampires wasn’t already going to be bad enough, now I had to do it with my father in tow.
10
The hospital where Felicity had been admitted was situated on the bank of the River Thames, overlooking expensive riverfront properties with a view of the Parliament Buildings farther downriver. I found her room after being told at the front desk which ward she was in. It was a regular, mundane hospital, but the Society owned a couple of wards, and employed a compliment of private doctors and nurses that had received training at the Academy of Shadows as well as their usual medical qualifications.
I went up to the ward in the elevator, holding a bouquet of flowers I’d bought at the shop downstairs. The bouquet consisted mainly of hyacinths and daffodils in bright spring colors. It would add a little color to Felicity’s room and hopefully cheer her up when she regained consciousness.
On the ward, a nurse asked to see my I.D. before she’d let me see Felicity. I obliged, showing her my P.I. card, and was shown to the open door of a room. I thanked the nurse and went inside.
The lights had been turned down low. Felicity was lying in the bed with her eyes closed, an IV tube snaking out of one arm. She looked peaceful and her pulse and oxygen levels, displayed on the machines by the bed,
were normal.
I felt relieved that she was in good hands now, as far as medical care went, and she seemed to be doing okay.
“You must be Alec Harbinger,” said a male voice from the shadows by the bed.
I started, almost dropping the flowers. A young man with neat, short hair, and dressed in a shirt and tie, got up out of the chair next to the bed and came over to me, hand outstretched. “I’m Jason Farmer, Felicity’s partner.”
We shook. He had a weak grip and I felt like I was crushing his hand with my own, stronger handshake, so I made it brief.
“You’re the person she worked for,” Jason said. “The investigator of the supernatural.” There was a definite note of disdain in his voice and I noted his use of the past tense.
I placed the flowers gently on the table by the bed. “That’s me,” I said.
“So can you tell me what happened to Felicity?”
“What did the doctors tell you?”
“That she was in a plane crash and she suffered a concussion.”
“Then that’s what happened.”
He didn’t seem satisfied with that answer. He pointed his finger at me in a manner that was probably supposed to be threatening but failed miserably. Jason was thin and weedy. He was nothing like the muscled Adonis I’d imagined whenever Felicity had mentioned him. “Look, I have a right to know what happened to my girlfriend. Just because she went gallivanting off to America doesn’t mean you can hide things from me. I know there’s more to this than meets the eye.”
“Did the doctors say she’s going to be okay?” I asked him.
He dropped his finger. “Yes, in a day or two.”
“Then that’s all you need to be concerned about. She’s going to be fine.” I turned to leave. It was getting too stuffy all of a sudden and I needed air.
“It isn’t only her physical state I’m worried about,” Jason said. “I know you’ve been filling her head with crazy nonsense.”
“What?” I turned to face him.
“You know what I’m talking about. Every time I called her she was like a giddy schoolgirl, telling me how she loved her job and that little nowhere town. She told me you were helping her put in the time she needed to be an investigator herself. I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, but Felicity doesn’t belong over there. You’re making things worse by telling her she could be an investigator, too, filling her head with crazy ideas.”
The Harbinger PI Box Set Page 24
