Chain of Souls (Salem VI)

by Heath, Jack

  Amy nodded. "Recently there were a bunch of letters and other documents found in the House of the Seven Gables. They're at the Phillips Library, and John has seen them."

  John shrugged. "I've been over there going through them twice in the past two weeks. The first time I saw some of Nathaniel Hawthorne's writing he'd wanted kept secret until after his death." He looked at Faust. "Hawthorne knew about the Coven. Some of his ancestors had been members. He wanted the world to know about the Coven but he feared retaliation against himself or his family, so he wanted the papers hidden until after his death.

  "Then just yesterday I was at the Phillips Museum again, and I saw some letters written from someone in England to a woman named Elizabeth Turner. I'm pretty sure she was the wife of Captain John Turner, who originally built the first part of what later became known as the House of the Seven Gables. After I read the letter I found another page I think may have been sent in the same envelope. That page didn't have any writing, but instead it had a drawing of a house very similar to the House of the Seven Gables. It wasn't the same house, but it was similar in some ways, and it had lines drawn from the gables. A second drawing showed the house as a point in the world with the lines radiating out and going everywhere."

  Faust's eyes narrowed, and John saw an eager gleam. "Can you show me that document?" Faust asked.

  "I'll take you first thing in the morning."

  Faust glanced at his watch. "Then I need to get some sleep."

  He stood and took his plate to the kitchen, where he helped Amy and John load the dishwasher. Afterward, they walked him to the front door. "Where are you staying?" Amy asked.

  "The Hawthorne Hotel."

  "I'll pick you up at nine," John said.

  He walked Faust out onto the sidewalk, shivering in the cold air. Glancing overhead, he saw a thick layer of low clouds covering the sky, and he felt a penetrating dampness that seemed to threaten rain or maybe an early snow. He started down the street with Faust, intending to accompany the priest to Derby Street to flag a taxi, and that was when he spotted the movement. It was subtle, hardly anything more than a shadow moving a little more than it should have.

  John said nothing, but he turned his head slightly so he could keep watching through his peripheral vision. The movement had come from a car parked just down the street, and when he looked more carefully, two heads were barely visible through the tinted glass. Even as his now-familiar sense of paranoia flashed, the rational part of his brain tried to squelch it. Salem was a big tourist spot, he told himself. Even though Halloween had just passed, there would still be plenty of visitors in town. The two people could very possibly be a man and a woman who had just met that evening in one of the nearby bars. They could be two old friends who hadn't seen each other in a long time, or maybe a young couple having an argument.

  But they could also be two killers sent by the Coven.

  Operating purely on instinct, but realizing that at this point paranoia could save his life, John grabbed Faust's arm. "On second thought, why don't you stay at my house tonight?" he said.

  Faust looked at him, and seeming to recognize the intensity in John's expression, nodded and didn't try to fight or argue as John turned him around and they started walking quickly back the way they'd come. John saw Faust's hand snake into his coat pocket where he knew the priest kept his pistol.

  "What was that about?" Faust asked as John unlocked the front door and ushered him back inside.

  "I saw two people in a car outside." He shook his head. "I just didn't like it."

  "A gut feeling?" Faust asked without any trace of mockery or humor.

  John nodded.

  "Listen to your gut."

  "I try to." John went upstairs into his office and a second later came down with his Browning .45. He checked to make sure the clip was full then jacked a shell into the chamber.

  "I don't think you're going to need that," Faust said.

  "What makes you so sure?"

  "The Coven would have attacked this house long ago if they thought they could get away with it. Whether the spirit of Rebecca Nurse is gone, as you suspect, or whether it is still invested here, they believe the house is protected. That, plus what you did to their leaders means they almost certainly will not confront you directly, especially in a place where you can draw strength. The Coven is small in numbers, and they operate in secrecy and darkness. They are not risk takers."

  Faust's words reminded John of what he had done to the leaders of the Coven, and he unconsciously flexed his fists. Would that power be there again if he needed it? He wondered because he certainly couldn't feel it now, nor had he felt even a hint of it again since the one time he used it in the Coven's catacombs. Since he hadn't understood what happened at the time, and since he really didn't understand it any better now, all he knew for sure was that he couldn't control it, and he had no reason to believe he would ever be able to call on those powers again.

  He clicked the safety on and shoved the big automatic pistol into his belt. "Better safe than sorry," he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  SRAH SHIVERED IN THE COLD MORNING, THEN buried her hands in the big pockets of the old Barbour coat and pulled her arms in tight to her body for warmth. The clouds were low overhead and heavy with moisture. The air was full of fog and dampness that rolled in off the ocean. Sarah couldn't see the water from here, but she knew it was near because she felt its humid presence and smelled brine in the air, just the way she had all her life in Salem.

  Jessica Lodge seemed to know what Sarah was thinking because she turned her head toward the sky and sniffed. "You can smell the salt, can't you?"

  Sarah nodded. "I can tell we're near the ocean."

  Jessica pointed to their left, then straight ahead and then again to their right. "Just a few miles in almost all directions," she said.

  Sarah stopped walking. They had come out a door at the rear of the large house, walked through the formal gardens that Sarah could see from her bedroom window, and then gone out a garden gate and headed through a path that led to a dirt lane. It was the second day she and Jessica had taken a walk after breakfast.

  They went along the lane for perhaps twenty minutes, most of it in companionable silence, when Sarah turned to Jessica again. "This is a bit embarrassing, but how long have I been here? I know that's a crazy question, but I feel like I've lost track of time. Just this morning I was thinking about my job, and I realized I haven't thought about it for days."

  Jessica gave her a gentle smile. "Do you want to leave?"

  "No!" Sarah said quickly, trying to understand the confusion she was feeling. "I've loved being here, but I'm feeling like a little bit like Alice in Wonderland, as if I've tumbled into a hole and fallen out of the world."

  Jessica laughed and linked her arm through Sarah's. "I think you needed a vacation far more than you realized. I've spoken to some people at your television network and explained that you are with me here in England and that you are making some very important contacts that will give you invaluable access to some very significant stories. And that, my dear, is absolutely true. The people you met last night at dinner are going to be of great importance in many aspects of our world going forward. And you are going to have personal access to all of them."

  Jessica laughed gently. "Trust me when I tell you, the world of the future is going to look a great deal different than the world you have known growing up. The people I know, the movers and shakers who operate outside the eye of public scrutiny, have been putting things in place for a number of years now. The world is preparing to change radically, and you, my dear, are going to have the inside track on reporting and interpreting these changes to the rest of humanity. It's going to be a very exciting time."

  Sarah nodded, flushing with pleasure at the idea that she had been chosen for such an honor and wondering why she had felt even the slightest misgiving about being away from work for so long. After all she was learning and meeting people, and just as impo
rtantly, someone as important as Jessica Lodge was taking her under her wing and telling her that this was where she needed to be. That should have been good enough to overcome any anxiety she was feeling. "Thank you for giving me the opportunity."

  "You are more qualified for this than you know."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THE NEXT MORNING JOHN, AMY, AND FAUST ate an early breakfast and left the house together right afterwards. As he exited his front door, John looked around the street, relieved to see the world bathed in early morning light that somehow removed much of the threat he'd felt the night before. Off to his left at the end of his street, he could see the harbor glittering cold and unyielding. Overhead gulls cried, and to his right the city of Salem was waking up, as early delivery trucks rumbled through the intersection.

  Glancing around at his immediate block, John saw only a few parked cars, none of which were the one he had seen the night before with the two people sitting inside, and no one else on the street other than one of his neighbors walking a basset hound. Trying to silence the question that rose up in his brain as to whether his long-time neighbor was secretly a member of the Coven, he waved to the man as he led Amy and Father Faust to his Audi, which was parked a few feet down from his house.

  John clicked the locks and was about the climb into the car when Faust said, "Just a second."

  John turned to see Faust squatting at the trunk, looking underneath the car, and then running his hands along the inside of the bumper.

  "Would you please open the hood? But don't start the engine," Faust said.

  John climbed into the car, pulled the hood release, and watched as Faust gave the engine a quick check. After a second he closed the hood, came around, and climbed into the rear. "Okay," he said.

  John glanced at Faust in the rearview mirror. "Were you looking for bombs?"

  "Yes," Faust replied. "Just like you said last night, better safe than sorry."

  John felt his stomach tighten as he clicked his seatbelt, started the engine, and pulled away from the curb, and he was thinking that he had never appreciated what it was like to live every day without feeling like a hunted man. Every afternoon, an anxious dread now began to grip him as evening darkness approached, and he had started looking at every single person on the street with suspicion, as if they might be a potential enemy. He realized that the easy feeling of wellbeing he'd enjoyed for so many years might be something he would never experience again.

  John gripped the wheel tightly and felt the reassuring lump of the .45 he had jammed into his belt before he walked out of the house. He shook his head as he drove the short distance to the Peabody Essex Institute where the Phillips Library was located, thinking that Massachusetts was one of the strictest states in the union where gun laws were concerned, and here he was with a concealed handgun and no permit. He felt like an accident looking for a place to happen.

  "You think anybody will be there this early?" Amy asked.

  John shrugged. "Joe D'Angelo was there at this time yesterday. I'm hoping he's a creature of habit."

  He hadn't tried to call D'Angelo the previous evening or that morning because he feared that after his visit just a day earlier, D'Angelo would refuse his request to see the boxes of old documents from the House of the Seven Gables again. He was hoping that if he just showed up on the library's doorstep at the same early hour he had the day before that D'Angelo would find it harder to refuse his request.

  They drove through the light traffic in silence, each of them alone with their thoughts. John glanced at Amy several times, but she kept her eyes on the road straight ahead. Her lips were pressed together and he could see tightness around the eyes he recognized as a combination of stress and concentration. He couldn't help but wonder whether she was reexamining the idea of getting involved with a man who had almost certainly been marked for death by the Coven.

  If she was, he knew he couldn't blame her, because who in their right mind wanted a life spent looking over their shoulder every single moment? The previous night as sleep refused to come he had lain in bed beside her staring up at the ceiling and wondering how his own existence had come to such a pass, with a death threat held over his head, his daughter abducted, and constant suspicion bubbling in his guts that almost every single person around him might be a member of the Coven.

  When they pulled into the lot at the Peabody Essex Institute they climbed out and walked across the nearly deserted grounds toward the library. A cold wind blew across the dead grass, tearing some of the last brown oak leaves from the trees and sending them scudding.

  John checked his watch as he led the way up the steps of Plummer Hall. Ten to eight. The library wasn't supposed to open for another hour and ten minutes, but D'Angelo had been there at this hour a day earlier, even though the two of them had been just about the only two people in the library. Now John just had to hope D'Angelo was a creature of consistent habits.

  He looked inside and felt a flush of dismay as he saw that there were very few lights burning, and those that were looked like the ones that would be left on all night. He rapped on the door and then waited a minute or two, pulling his coat tight to his throat to keep the wind from working its way inside. When he saw no one moving inside, he rapped again, and then, as an afterthought, he tried the door to see if D'Angelo had come to work and perhaps left the door unlocked for his co-workers.

  To his delight, the door swung inward and he waved Amy and Faust in behind him. They walked into the main library, and their footsteps echoed on the polished wood floors as they looked around in the dimness to try and spot D'Angelo or any of the other librarians.

  "Hello?" John called. "Is anybody here?" He paused and waited, and for a second he thought he heard distant footsteps, so he called out a second time.

  Getting no response either time and thinking D'Angelo might be down working on the collection in the rare books section, John led the way through the small side door and down the staircase to the sign that read "Rare Books and Manuscripts Sections. Restricted Access."

  John knew the room was locked and could only be accessed with a magnetic key card, but he remembered seeing a buzzer beside the lock that would enable visitors to summon one of the librarians to let them inside. John pushed the buzzer several times and stood back, hoping D'Angelo would soon open the door.

  He turned to look at Amy and Faust as they came down the last steps and joined him outside the locked door. Amy was the one who noticed it. She glanced down at the floor by John's feet and pointed. "Is that blood?"

  John stepped back and looked down. Where he had been standing the floor was smeared with something dark and red that made the soles of his shoes tacky. His heart went into his mouth, and he was just reaching behind his back for the .45 in his belt when the door to the rare books section jerked open from the inside.

  Joe D'Angelo stood there blinking at him through bleary eyes, his cut scalp dripping blood down the side of his face. The rare books curator's arms was braced against the wall to help him stay on his feet, and as soon as he had the door open, he brought the handkerchief he was clutching in his right hand back to the cut on his head to try and staunch the flow of blood.

  "Help me," D'Angelo whispered, and he took a step forward and collapsed into John's arms.

  John took D'Angelo under the arms and together with Faust they managed to get him up the stairs and into the main reading room, while Amy whipped out her cell phone and called 911. By that time several other people had reported in for work in the main part of the library, and they helped get D'Angelo to a table where he sat and rested his head on his folded arms.

  John sat down beside him at the table. "Don't go to sleep," he warned.

  "Easy for you to say," Joe mumbled.

  "Seriously," John insisted. "Sit up."

  Joe sat up, and on his other side one of the other librarians, a heavyset woman in her late fifties, dabbed his head with damp paper towels to clean off the blood while someone else brought ice wrapped i
n a towel and laid it against his cut.

  "What happened?" John asked when the bustling settled down again.

  D'Angelo shook his head. "Somebody snuck up behind me and hit me. I left the door unlocked, and they must have just walked in after I got here."

  "After they hit you, what did they do?"

  "Dragged me into the rare books area and left me in the little room where we keep the gloves and sweaters. They went on into the collection and came out a minute later carrying something, I think. I was barely conscious and could hardly see.

  John felt the anxiety building in his guts again. "Do you have any idea what they took?"

  "I can't be sure until I have a chance to check, but I think it was those three boxes of new papers you were looking at yesterday." D'Angelo shook his head and mumbled something else.

  "What was that?" John asked. "I can't understand what you just said."

  "I said it doesn't make any sense to take those boxes, not when we've got Audubons and a Guttenberg Bible and lots of other books that are worth so much money."

  John sat back and looked up at Amy and Faust who had been waiting behind his chair. "Yes, it does," he said under his breath.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  A SHORT TIME LATER THEY WERE BACK AT JOHN'S house gathered around the breakfast table drinking a fresh pot of coffee. John was hunched over with his elbows on the table and his hands on both sides of his head as he leaned forward and stared at the worn and scarred mahogany.

  "They broke in and stole the three boxes. It had to be because of the drawing and the Elizabeth Turner letters. I'm certain of it."

  "Weren't there a lot of other documents in those boxes beside those letters?"

  "Yes, but everything else was straightforward. I mean, they might have wanted the Hawthorne journal, as well, but nothing was like the Elizabeth Turner letters. They were so . . . cryptic."