“Sorren destroyed him?” I asked.
“That’s what the record says. A guy named Sariel. Not that such things are actually recorded anywhere, of course,” she said with an exaggerated upward roll of her eyes.
“Of course not.” Teag echoed sarcastically.
“So what is a Nephilim doing back in Charleston?” I mused, staring at the big leather book as if it might bite. “And why was he shadowing me?”
Father Anne met my gaze. “That’s a very good question.”
“What do you know about Watchers and Reapers?” I asked. Father Anne looked a little startled. “Daniel Hunter mentioned them and so did Sorren. Now I can’t get a hold of either Daniel or Sorren, and we just had a run-in with some really bad juju. I feel like I’m in the dark on everything.”
Father Anne nodded. “Okay. A nephilmancer – like Sariel – is a sorcerer who can summon Nephilim from the Other Side. He can also call up other supernatural nasties, like Watchers, who punish wrongdoers, and Reapers, who feed on ghosts. It sounds like we’ve got a nephilmancer on the loose.”
“How do we fight them?” Teag asked.
“That’s the hard part,” Father Anne said. “Because usually, a nephilmancer is after some kind of prize. It’s a lot of magic to throw around, so there’s got to be something in it for him – or her. Beings like Nephilim and Watchers aren’t easily bound, and a nephilmancer brings them through to do something in particular, not just on a whim. We need to figure out the prize, and then we’ll have a better idea of how to fight back.”
A shiver went down my spine. Sorren is certain the attacks are personal. Revenge is a very compelling prize for someone with a big grudge. And if the goal is a vendetta against Sorren, then if the sorcerer isn’t Sariel, maybe it’s someone picking up where he left off, someone who has a dog in this hunt.
Father Anne left after she made sure I had her personal cell phone number on speed-dial. “Call me if you need me – and I mean that!” she warned as she left the shop. I had no doubt that we were going to need her help, and probably sooner rather than later.
DINNER WITH ANTHONY was a little later than we had expected.
By the time Teag and I finally arrived, Anthony had already picked up everyone’s favorites from Forbidden City and had the table prepped. I had been over to Anthony’s house before he and Teag formally moved in together, but I hadn’t seen how they had blended their furnishings. The mix was just like the two of them: really different, but it somehow worked.
Teag used to have a studio apartment in a remodeled old house that had a lot of charm but no ghosts. It was full of books, one-of-a-kind art purchased from street sales of artists no one had heard of yet, a loom that took up one corner of the space, and his martial arts equipment.
Anthony’s single-house wasn’t on Battery Row, but it was South of Broad. The homes there are historic, well-kept and expensive. If I had any question as to whether Anthony was doing well in the family law firm, the house and its furnishings removed all doubt. Like Anthony, nothing was fussy or ostentatious. Instead, the quality was understated, in a way folks tend to do things if they’ve had money for a while and don’t have to show it off or prove anything. Together, their place had an IKEA meets Hepplewhite vibe that worked, in a quirky sort of way.
“I was beginning to worry.” Anthony lit a pillar candle in the middle of the table and poured us each a glass of wine. I caught a glimpse of the bottle, and it wasn’t a brand with a twist-off top. In the kitchen, a small flat-screen TV was still on, but muted, turned to a local news channel. One glance told me the broadcast was depressingly full of the week’s big stories: a serial killer loose in New England, a couple of gruesome murders with unlikely killers, and a workplace shooting. I resolved to block out the bad news and enjoy the evening.
We were starved, so for a few minutes, we dug into the food, passing the entrees family-style and filling our plates.
“So I’d say that we’re all in agreement that Valerie’s concern about juiced up ghosts wasn’t just her imagination,” Anthony said finally, when we had nearly finished eating.
I shook my head. “No. It’s not.”
“Do you know what’s causing it?”
“Maybe,” Teag replied.
“Something human?”
I sighed. “Not anymore.”
Anthony looked as if he were debating what to ask next. Teag and I don’t want to cause him any problems with the law firm, so there are some things we don’t tell him about, like breaking and entering for a good cause, and he doesn’t usually ask too many questions.
“Is the situation that has the ghosts riled up dangerous to you?” Anthony asked finally.
Teag hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Probably. But we’ve got back-up, and some tricks of our own.”
“Can you stop whatever’s doing this?”
“We plan to,” I answered. “One way or another.”
Anthony thought about that for a moment, then nodded his head. “All right. The less I know, the more plausible my deniability. So let me tell you what I heard today.”
He leaned back in his chair and took a sip of his wine. “There’s been another missing person. Utility worker went down a flight of steps to the mechanical room beneath an office building, never arrived. One of the other workers said he’d used those stairs earlier without a problem.”
“What are people saying?” Teag asked.
“Publicly, they’re attributing them to people walking off the job. There’s no blood, no evidence of a struggle, and no witnesses. Privately, people are a little weirded out about the whole thing.”
I could totally understand that reaction, which seemed pretty rational to me.
“There’ve also been a number of ‘malicious pranks’ played around town,” Anthony continued. “Previously locked doors standing open. Shutters pulled loose. Garbage cans turned over. That kind of thing. The cops are looking for teenagers.” He took another sip of his wine. “But after what we saw with Valerie, I’m inclined to think there might be a connection to your restless ghosts.”
“Are the pranks happening anywhere in particular?” I asked.
Anthony nodded. “Mostly around older homes and some of the lesser-known historic buildings. Normally, that kind of thing wouldn’t have caught my attention,” Anthony said. “Now, after what we saw, I’m wondering if it isn’t riled up spirits trying to make themselves heard.” Even speculating such a thing was a big step for Anthony, proof that his love for Teag had made him willing to consider the unthinkable. “Of course, I don’t dare say that to anyone but you two, and I don’t want to be quoted.”
“Of course not,” I said. Teag made a motion of zipping his lips, and Anthony grinned.
“Anyhow, I thought you ought to know. Oh, and there was something else,” he added. “You know those Ghost Bikes? People are reporting all kinds of strange things happening with those.”
“Like what?” Teag asked, leaning forward and sipping his wine.
“Wheels spinning when there’s no wind. Bikes jostle up and down and rattle the chain with no one around.”
No one but the ghosts, trying to get someone’s attention, I thought. Or desperate ghosts trying to get away from Reapers.
“Do you know if the same is true for the roadside shrines?” I asked, toying with my glass. “The crosses people put up on the side of the highway?” I was thinking about the shrine over by the cemetery, and the ghosts of the two young men who had helped me against Coffee Guy. I hated to think that those spirits might also be running from Reapers. Damn. We’ve got to fix this.
Anthony frowned. “You know, I hadn’t connected it. But I overheard a couple of the state cops in line at Honeysuckle Café, and they were talking about how people have been calling in accidents, and when the police show up, there’s nothing but a memorial marker. When the people described what they had seen, the details were accurate – for fatal accidents that happened months or years ago.”
“I do
n’t even want to know what the morticians in town are running into,” Teag commented, and poured himself a second glass of wine.
“Or the gravediggers,” I added. Not all of Charleston’s cemeteries were consecrated. Public memorial parks might not have the same protections as old churchyards.
Just then, a familiar image flashed on the silent TV screen, and I glanced up. “Oh my God, turn it up!” I said, pointing. Anthony grabbed the remote.
A photo of Palmetto Meadows nursing home filled the screen, with a banner beneath it that read ‘Local Nursing Home Reacts to Bomb Threat’.
“…none of the residents were harmed, but police say several patients did require monitoring for stress,” the male anchor said.
“Makes you wonder what kind of people are out there, who would think it was funny to phone in a bomb threat to a nursing home,” the female anchor replied, shaking her head.
“In other news, a suspicious package in downtown Charleston turns out to be a real bomb,” the man continued. A photo of a stretch of King Street flashed up on the screen, filled with ambulances and police – right in front of Trifles and Folly.
“An anonymous call tonight to Charleston police about a suspicious package was too little, too late when a box left on the sidewalk in front of a local business turned out to be a homemade bomb,” the man said. “The bomb exploded at eight o’clock in front of an antique shop that’s been in the same location for over three hundred years, but for reasons the bomb squad does not yet understand, the blast was deflected backward, away from the curio store. A car on the street and a business on the other side of King Street suffered minor damage. No one was hurt. Authorities are looking for information as to who might have placed the bomb and why that location was selected.”
The news anchor looked into the camera. “If you have any knowledge about this crime, we need your help.” The phone number for anonymous tips came up on the screen. “And remember: if you see something, say something.”
My hand was shaking as I set down my wine glass. Teag reached over and put a hand on my arm. “It’s okay, Cassidy. No one was hurt. The store is all right. Everyone’s okay.”
I blinked back tears, and at the same time, felt a swell of anger fill me. “This time,” I said savagely. “But what about next time? The attack in Boston, the retirement center, the cemetery… none of us are safe!”
Anthony looked at us worriedly. “This is where I put on my lawyer hat and remind you that withholding information from a criminal investigation is a crime.”
Teag met his gaze. “Even if the perp is somehow connected to ghost-eating supernatural monsters?”
“And a powerful sorcerer who can call up fallen angels?” I added.
Anthony knocked back the rest of his wine in a gulp that didn’t do the vintage justice. “Is there any way you might be able to rephrase that if your testimony was required?”
“No.” Teag and I spoke in unison.
Anthony sighed. “Assuming that I actually heard you say something just now – which I didn’t – and understood what you said – which I didn’t – theoretically, would that situation have anything to do with what we might or might not have seen happen on the ghost tour?”
“Yeah,” Teag replied, finishing off his glass. “This is the part we weren’t going to mention to keep you from worrying.”
Anthony said something pointed which was not the kind of phrase they teach at law school. “And you two are involved because, why? You’re antique dealers, not paranormal vigilantes…”
His voice trailed off as he realized what he had just said. Teag and I looked back at him, neither confirming nor denying.
“Oh, no. Please tell me that I didn’t just –” A series of emotions crossed Anthony’s face. I could tell he was putting the pieces together, especially when the last expression was one of horror.
“Those explosions out at the Navy Yard a while back… how badly you were hurt, you said…”
Teag reached across the table and took Anthony’s hand. “Do you remember when you were working on that case about the whistleblower who outed the crooked financial firm? Remember the death threats you got – at the office, and here, where I heard them on the machine and almost had a heart attack?”
“I remember,” Anthony said in a choked voice.
“I asked if you would consider dropping the case,” Teag said quietly. “And you told me that it was part of your job to take risks. That someone had to take the unpopular cases, the ones that resulted in rulings that could change things for the better. And that you had to do it, because not everyone could.”
“I meant me, dammit!” Anthony said with a glare, his voice rising to a shout. “Not you!”
Teag gave a sad smile. “I’ve found a calling of my own,” he said with gentle determination. “Something much bigger than I ever expected to be part of. Something that makes a difference, even though if we do it right, no one will ever know. We aren’t alone. We have colleagues – powerful ones. But we’re saving lives, Anthony. Because of what we do, lots of people get to live.”
“You go up against those things?” Anthony said, not bothering to hide the fear in his voice. “Angry ghosts? Bad magic?” He shook his head. “Isn’t there someone else?”
Teag met his gaze. “I have to do it, Tony. Because not everyone can.”
Anthony wrapped his arms around Teag and hugged him fiercely. And then, unexpectedly, he reached out and grabbed my hand as well. “Now you listen to me,” he said urgently. “I don’t like this. I don’t understand it. And frankly, it scares the shit out of me. But I love you,” he said, looking toward Teag, “and you’re one of my best friends,” he said, meeting my gaze. “And I am not – not – okay with losing either of you. So just don’t let that happen. Okay?”
Teag managed a teary smile and hugged Anthony tightly. “Okay,” he said, although all three of us knew the promise wasn’t really within our full ability to keep.
“Okay,” I replied. And I really hoped it would be.
I LEFT SHORTLY after that. Teag and Anthony had things to discuss, and I was a third wheel. I drove the rental car I’d gotten from the insurance company home on the main streets, steering clear of any landmarks with particularly dark histories, and was pleased to find a spot on the curb right in front of the door onto my piazza. Pleased, but not completely surprised. I had asked Lucinda to put a distraction warding on the parking place, something that doesn’t so much keep other people from taking the spot as it keeps them from noticing it’s even there.
I looked all around before I unlocked my door, worried that I’d find either restless ghosts or Daniel Hunter. I wasn’t sure which was worse, but I didn’t want to see either. My head ached, and it wasn’t from the wine. There was too much going on too fast in too many places, and I didn’t have enough of a grip on what we were doing to fix it. I grabbed my purse, shook out the dog collar so that I’d have Bo’s ghost as an escort, and kept my walking stick in hand. Forget about blasting something with cold power. Anything that got between me and that gate tonight was going to fry.
Good thing that Sorren was already inside, sitting on my couch, petting my dog.
“Don’t,” he said as I came through the door and froze. Bo’s ghost wagged and winked out. Sorren’s tone wasn’t compulsion. He had promised he wouldn’t use compulsion on me, unless it was truly a life-or-death situation. Because of my family’s long bond with Sorren, neither glamouring nor compulsion would work right on me anyhow. But there was a tone of command in Sorren’s voice that made me stop in my tracks long enough to think before I reacted.
That was good, since neither my vampire boss nor my dog – or my couch – are flame-proof.
“You’re back sooner than I expected. I thought the clean-up in Boston would take longer.”
“I need your help.”
Sorren didn’t look good; he was paler than usual and his eyes looked haunted. There were a lot of things I wanted to ask Sorren, and a lot of things I t
hought he might say, but that wasn’t one of them. “How?” I asked.
“Have you seen the news tonight?” There was a sadness in his voice I hadn’t heard before.
I nodded, put down my purse and came closer. Sorren was slumped on the couch, petting Baxter absently. If I hadn’t known what he was, I would have pegged him for a grad student who had just failed out. My god, he looked awful.
“Trifles and Folly is okay,” I said. “I’ve already had two phone calls from the police on the way home. No damage.” I paused. “You want me to go to Palmetto Meadows, don’t you?”
He looked up sharply. “You know?”
I nodded. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I was there a couple of nights ago, when I took Baxter for our therapy dog evening. I saw you in the garden with Mrs. Butler.” I paused. “And I also met old Mr. Thompson – the warlock.”
Sorren gave a melancholy chuckle. “You never cease to amaze me, Cassidy.”
“Do you need me to go over there now and make sure she’s all right?” I asked. Going out again was the last thing I wanted to do, but I knew what it was like to be worried about a loved one.
Sorren shook his head. “No, but thank you. I appreciate the offer. When I heard, I went myself, got close enough to make sure there was no real danger. But I didn’t dare go in. Too many questions.”
I nodded. Sorren had assumed many names over the years, and had been careful to disappear and reinvent himself at regular enough intervals so that no one wondered about his extremely long lifespan and exceptionally youthful appearance. Still, falsifying identification and creating fictitious back stories was harder these days, even for the Witness Protection Program. Fingerprints didn’t change, and retina scans didn’t lie. The nursing home would not have run a background check on ‘Mr. Sorrensson’, but the FBI might.
“I can go over first thing in the morning,” I offered, and glanced at my watch. “Odds are, the residents are in bed by now anyhow, and there are probably police on watch. I can say that I was worried about the friends Baxter and I have made, and wanted to see if there was anything I could do.”
Vendetta (Deadly Curiosities Book 2) Page 14
