Vendetta (Deadly Curiosities Book 2)

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Get out of the way!” I yelled. And she did, but not the way I expected. Alicia swung to her left, bringing up Josiah Winfield’s pistol as if the motion were the most natural thing in the world, and she fired right through the fog, plugging Crow at point blank range without blinking an eye.

  “Die, you son of a bitch,” she growled as the shot blew the Nephilim’s head apart. Just for good measure, she clubbed the creature with the butt of the pistol as he fell, and kicked him square in the throat before his body hit the ground.

  Either Alicia had been taking secret bad-ass lessons, or I was witnessing Josiah Winfield in action.

  Four dead Nephilim lay on the cobblestones of Dueler’s Alley, their bodies already beginning to crumble. Alicia, or maybe I should say Josiah, turned to me and gave me a nod that said I had earned an answer to my question.

  “You want to stop the Watchers, you’ve got to kill the Judge who’s bringing them through. Find the entry points, and seal them off,” Josiah said. “But you’ve got to stop them before the Judge brings five of them through. That’s all he needs to start the Harrowing, and when that begins, even the Archangels can’t shut it down before it runs its course.”

  “How do we find the Judge?”

  Alicia was losing her connection to Winfield. I could see the tension in her features, and her expressions were mostly her own again. For a heartbeat, it looked as if I could see two figures superimposed in the same spot, Alicia and Winfield.

  “Find the biggest, baddest sorcerer nearby, and you’ll have your Judge,” Josiah replied. “Keep the guns. They’ll help.”

  Alicia wobbled then, as Josiah’s spirit left her. She looked around at the smoking corpses and at Bo’s ghost, which sat next to me, then from me to Teag. “What did I miss?”

  In the distance, I heard sirens. No one else might have seen the ghosts or the Nephilim, but the sound of gunshots carries. “I’ll tell you later,” I said. “Right now, let’s get out of here before Detective Monroe shows up.”

  “OF ALL THE foolhardy, boneheaded moves!” Sorren didn’t usually get angry, and when he did, it was very rarely with us. Now, he was annoyed, and that’s when I remembered that it’s not wise to tick off an ancient vampire.

  “I left you a message. You didn’t reply.” It was the same tactic I had used for years on my mother. Sorren gave me a withering look, which suggested that he wasn’t going to be easily dissuaded.

  “You know that Nephilim are on the loose. You’ve been warned that the Reapers like to snack on magic even more than they like to eat ghosts. Watchers are here in Charleston. And you took Alicia with you!” Sorren was pacing the back room at Trifles and Folly. I had received a terse text message telling us to meet him at the store while we were taking Alicia to her house. Sorren had moved into the secret day crypt built into the foundation of the basement beneath Trifles and Folly.

  “It was a perfectly logical move,” I countered. “We got good information. And we got out okay.”

  “This time,” Sorren snapped. “You are only mortal, Cassidy, and both you and Teag are relatively new in learning to use your magic. Creatures like the Nephilim are ancient.” I suspected that Sorren was testier than usual about our safety because he had just lost several people close to him, and that his sense of guilt on this had nothing to do with the Watchers’ magic.

  “The Nephilim die pretty easily for being that old.”

  Sorren shook his head, and he may have rolled his eyes. “You haven’t actually destroyed them. They can’t be ‘killed’ like that. When you destroy their physical body, it drains them, so they go back to their realm to recover, but they can return – and they remember.”

  Holy shit. “So Coffee Guy could come back – and he’ll remember that Daniel Hunter and I whipped his ass?”

  Sorren nodded. “Exactly. Which is why, when I say that I have gained many enemies over the centuries, I mean exactly that. I have been fighting some of these creatures since the beginning of the Alliance.”

  “Any fight you can walk away from is a good fight,” I said, not ready to back down.

  I had the feeling that Sorren would have sighed if he had needed to breathe. “Good partners are difficult to come by,” he said, and there was a pained note in his voice. “I am painfully aware of how easily humans break.”

  “Thank you,” I said, dropping my argument. “But we’ve got a job to do. Teag and I went into the alley loaded for bear. We’re no use to you if we aren’t doing everything we can do to stop the bad guys.”

  Sorren looked away without saying anything. “There’s been another attack, on one of your other stores, hasn’t there?” I guessed.

  I was willing to bet that he had the same kind of relationship with those stores’ owners as he did with my family, working with them generation after generation. We were the only family he had left.

  “The store in Quebec was destroyed,” Sorren said, his voice gravelly. “Wards breached, everyone dead.” I saw grief and anger in his face. “I have worked with that family for more than two hundred years. And I have failed them.”

  “That’s where you were?”

  He nodded. “That, and trying to connect with all my locations, strengthen their defenses. Someone is striking at them to get to me, and I’m fucking tired of it.”

  “Can we at least be certain whether or not Sariel is behind the attacks?” I asked. Teag had stayed quiet through the whole charged conversation, but I knew he was following every word.

  Sorren shrugged, and ran both hands through his blond hair. I had never seen him like this, and it rattled me to realize that despite his age, experience and supernatural mojo, he didn’t have everything completely under control.

  “It sounds like Sariel, but I thought he was well and truly destroyed. I would have bet my life on that.” He looked haggard. “I did bet the lives of people who depended on me on that belief. And now they’re dead.”

  Teag laced his fingers together, stretched out his arms, and loudly cracked his knuckles. “Well then, boss, put me to work. Who do you want me to dig up – figuratively speaking?”

  I grinned. “We’re already in this hip-deep, so it’s too late to turn around now. I know you asked Lucinda to bump up the wardings on the store and our houses – thanks for that, by the way. I got the feeling old Josiah might be willing to lend a hand, and we’ve got Daniel Hunter, plus our usual crew. Whether it’s Sariel or someone else behind this, we need to find him and kick his ass all the way back to the Great Beyond.”

  “Speaking of Daniel Hunter, have you heard from him?” Sorren asked.

  I made a face and shook my head. “No. I’ve left messages. I don’t know why he gave me his cell phone number if he had no intention of answering it.”

  “Daniel has always done as he pleases,” Sorren said. “If we’re lucky, he’ll show up when he’s needed, on his own terms. He’s a perverse bastard, but he’s good at what he does.”

  “If Watchers cause major guilt trips, then at least one of them is here already,” I said. “Josiah told us the Judge would need five.”

  Sorren nodded. “One Watcher is bad enough. Five would be a catastrophe. Sariel – if that’s who’s behind this – has us chasing our tails. We’ve got to get out in front of him if we’re going to win. Because he’s not just gunning for me. If it’s Sariel, he knows how much I love this city, and he’ll take down all of Charleston to get to me. I can’t let that happen.”

  “We won’t,” I promised. But I had no friggin’ idea how to make good on that vow.

  ANTHONY WAS WORKING late again, and I didn’t have plans, so Teag and I opted for Nicky’s Bar, a favorite with Charleston locals, especially the younger King Street and Charleston City Market store-owners. We walked in and half the folks there waved or called out hello. That’s one of the things I like about Nicky’s. It wouldn’t turn away tourists if they showed up, but it doesn’t go out of the way to put itself on the map, either. It’s a local place, and we love it for that.


  “I was able to reach Mrs. Morrissey today,” I said. “She’s home from the hospital and says she’s feeling much better. On the other hand, I was hoping they might postpone the Angel Oak fundraiser. I’d like to figure out how to get that Gerard Astor painting out of there before the Archive is full of people, or we could have a real problem on our hands.” I paused, because Teag didn’t seem to be listening. “Is everything okay?” He seemed quieter than usual, although with the attacks we both had a lot on our minds.

  He sighed. “Anthony figured out that there had to be a link between the bomb at Trifles and Folly and the explosion at Sorren’s house. And there’s been no hiding the fact that I’ve come home the last few nights the worse for wear. That scares him, so he gets angry. We had a fight.”

  Teag made a gesture as if it was no big deal, but he avoided looking at me, and I knew it was weighing on him.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Nothing for you to be sorry about. I’m proud of what we do. We make a big difference. He’s going to have to learn to live with it.”

  Before I could say anything else, I saw two men heading for our table. “Cassidy! Teag! Mind if we join you?” Kell Winston said. He was with Ryan Alexander, who grinned and slid into a chair on Teag’s side of the table while Kell sat down next to me.

  Ryan is friend of Teag’s and an urban explorer, someone who enjoys going into modern ruins, abandoned buildings, and forgotten places to see what he can see.

  “Not at all,” Teag said. We wouldn’t be able to talk about business, but I think we were both a little relieved. I needed a break.

  “What’s new?” Kell asked.

  “We got mobbed by a busload of Canadians,” Teag replied.

  “Were they lost?” Ryan is taller than Kell, with chestnut hair and dark brown eyes. They’re both close in age to Teag and me, late twenties, and the nature of what we do means we cross paths a lot and work together when we can.

  “No, just in need of some vintage jewelry,” I replied, taking a sip of my wine. “Has your team recovered from the Blake house?” I asked Kell.

  He nodded. “Pretty much. We lost some equipment, but it could have been a lot worse.”

  We chatted for a while, and Kell and Ryan ordered something to eat. Ryan regaled us with tales of his urban explorer group’s most recent adventures, including exploring the old drainage tunnels around the Charleston City Market, and an old cotton warehouse out on the edge of town that was slated for demolition.

  “Everyone’s in such a big hurry to build new things,” Ryan said with a sigh. “But there are so many amazing buildings that could be one-of-a-kind fantastic if someone would just give them a little love.”

  Considering that preservation and restoration are big business in Charleston and it seems like every other house has a historic plaque, I was amazed anything had been overlooked. But that’s what UrbEx’ers do – they go looking for the beauty in ruins, finding the hidden gems in places others never notice.

  “If I spend enough time with Ryan, I feel like I’m in one of those commercials to adopt a shelter dog – only he wants everyone to adopt an old building,” Kell quipped. “Seriously, though, since we teamed up, it’s been amazing. Our group can document hauntings and paranormal activity in places no one else has been – except for graffiti artists – in years. And Ryan’s team helps us navigate safely in places that aren’t exactly, shall we say, up to code?”

  “Found anything really interesting recently?” I asked.

  Ryan leaned forward. “Actually, yes. Which is one of the reasons I’m glad we ran into you two tonight. We’ve been out at your favorite place – the old Navy Yard.”

  I shivered. Ryan and Kell both know I’ve had bad experiences out there. “I’m telling you, there’s a lot of bad mojo there.”

  “Believe me, we know,” Kell said. “But even after what happened at the Blake house, these buildings are too good to pass up. Ryan wants to get in and explore before all the good old places get rehabbed and sold to businesses.” The old Navy Yard had been getting a slow make-over for years, with the hope to convert the land someday into a profitable business park. Unfortunately, the area’s bloody past and bad luck – pirates, epidemic victims, military casualties – wasn’t easily erased.

  “Have you ever seen the old power generation plant?” Ryan asked. “It’s a prime spot for exploring. The first two times we went out to the plant, it was pretty clear that no one had been there for a long time. But when we went back last week, we found a large burned circle on the concrete at the bottom of a flight of steps.” Ryan looked to Teag and me for a response. “I mean, that sort of thing doesn’t happen spontaneously. No blood. No suggestion of foul play, but there was a perfect circle there in a room where it hadn’t been before – and a bunch of salt all over the place.”

  Ryan pulled out a photo and showed it to us. The basement room was mildewed and badly lit. Paint peeled from the walls in sheets and from the ceiling, wires and old pipe insulation dangled like industrial Spanish moss. A large, scorched circle was clear in the middle of the floor. Just like something someone with a lot of magic power might use to summon a creature from beyond.

  “You’re sure what you found was salt?” I asked.

  Ryan nodded. “Yeah. Why?”

  “People who believe in magic think that salt is protective,” Teag replied.

  “You think someone did some kind of ritual in there?” Ryan asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Teag shrugged. “Who knows?”

  I glanced at Kell. “Kinda reminds you of what we saw at the Blake house, doesn’t it?”

  Kell leaned forward and studied the photo. “That’s weird. You think there’s some Satanist cult in town?” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the real answer was worse.

  “Did you find anything else unusual at the old power plant?” I asked.

  “We aren’t the only ones to have been there recently,” Ryan said. “There were at least two different sets of footprints in the mud near the back door. We saw the same footprints in some of the dust inside. But here’s the weird part – it looked like there was a third set of prints near that circle in the basement – and whoever made them was barefoot.”

  “Trust me,” Kell broke in, “that is not the place any sane person would take off his shoes.”

  Teag and I exchanged a glance. A supernatural creature like a Watcher wouldn’t care.

  I looked over at Kell. “What did your folks find out?” I asked.

  “People have said the place was haunted ever since a technician got electrocuted back in the nineties.” I’d heard the rumors. The power plant sat outside the city limits, a hulking concrete box of a building, but so far, no one had bothered to tear it down, even though a new generation plant had taken over its job a long time ago.

  “Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard,” I replied. Teag nodded and started typing on his phone, so I figured he was either looking up intel on the power plant, or hacking into a satellite that could give us a visual if Google didn’t do the trick.

  “What happened?”

  “Since other sites have been pegging lately, we figured we’d go back and see if the power plant was juiced up – supernaturally speaking,” Kell said.

  I sighed. Of course he did. Charleston might be on the verge of a supernatural smackdown, but for Kell and his people, it would be like a neon sign offering free ice cream. Unfortunately, I couldn’t warn them off without having to explain what I knew, and their eagerness to explore could put the ghost hunters right in the middle of the danger. If we couldn’t keep them away, they might be safest if we went with them.

  “Harry clued us in to things being weirder than usual out there,” Kell continued. “You know him? The homeless guy who’s usually caging coins in the median by the traffic light out that way?” I could picture Harry, a short, grizzled-looking guy who held a cardboard sign claiming to be a disabled vet.

  “Yeah, he’s a decent s
ort.”

  “He helps us keep an eye out for the cops, and we try to help him out with whatever he needs,” Kell said. “So anyhow, Harry told me spooky stuff was going down, so I got the crew together and we went out to have a look.”

  He paused to take a bite of his food. “Our meters started going bonkers as soon as we went inside,” Kell said. “EMF, audio, orbs – you name it. Melissa, the psychic who comes along sometimes, was freaking out because she said she could hear ghosts screaming.” He had our full attention. “Harry said he wanted to show us something really weird down in the basement. We let him lead us, since he knows the place better than anyone. He started down to the basement with a flashlight. I was right behind him, a few steps back. All of a sudden, his flashlight goes dark, and I hear Harry yell. I thought maybe he was playing a trick, or the flashlight failed, you know?” Kell paused. “So after a moment, we went on down. We looked all around. No Harry. We called his name, but he didn’t answer. Not only that, but there weren’t any fresh footprints in the dust at the bottom of the stairs. He just vanished.”

  “What happened then?” I was afraid I knew what happened to Harry, and I bet that if Teag ran a search on him, we’d find that somewhere in Harry’s past, he had been charged and acquitted of a crime, just like the other men who disappeared.

  “We got out of there fast,” Kell replied, sounding embarrassed. “Weird, huh?”

  I exchanged a glance with Teag. I was sure he was thinking what I was thinking. We needed to make our own trip out to the old power plant and see for ourselves what was going on. Two big circles for major magic – two Watchers brought over from Beyond. Three more, and it all goes ‘boom’.

  Kell sipped his beer. “The poltergeist activity is getting worse. We kept getting hit with pebbles and little chunks of plaster that were definitely thrown – they didn’t just fall off the ceiling. Doors slammed and opened on their own. We heard engines humming, but nothing was turned on.”