The Prophet (Graveyard Queen)

by Amanda Stevens

  “Things are happening in this city.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Devlin paused, his gaze lifting to the trees and for some reason, I thought of the nightingale and his strange insistence that I’d heard a mockingbird. “A woman was found dead on the east side a few nights ago. The toxicology screen turned up some interesting chemicals in her bloodstream. A cornucopia of botanical psychedelics, the coroner said, along with a substance that no one has been able to identify.”

  “What’s that got to do with Darius?”

  “Everything if that unknown substance turns out to be gray dust.”

  “Gray dust? Jesus.” Ethan turned once again to scan the darkness. He looked pale and tense in the light that streamed through the doorway, and I could have sworn I heard a note of fear in his voice. “I thought that stuff disappeared years ago.”

  “Apparently, it’s resurfaced just when Darius Goodwine returns from a long African sabbatical,” Devlin said grimly. “There’s only one source for gray dust and only a handful of outsiders that have ever been granted access. He’s one of them.”

  “Yes, but he’s not the only one.”

  “Come on.” Devlin sounded impatient. “Today was no coincidence. He wanted you to see him just like he made sure those rumors about the gray dust got back to me. Just like he made sure the right chemicals turned up in that woman’s body to create a mask. Every move he makes has a purpose.” Again, Devlin tilted his head, as if trying to detect some distant sound. I glanced up, but the trees remained silent.

  “What is it?” Ethan asked anxiously.

  “Nothing. I guess I’m hearing things, too.”

  “Darius has that effect.” Ethan rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s hard to believe a man in his position would take such a risk. It’s not like he needs the money these days.”

  “Money was never his motivation. Gray dust gives him the power to play God.”

  “The wielder of life and death,” Ethan murmured. “Isn’t that what he used to say?”

  Devlin moved over to the steps and stood gazing out into the yard. If he looked down at just the right angle, he would surely spot me. I wanted to fade more deeply into the shadows of the porch, but I was afraid even a slight sound would draw his attention. Discovery would be the ultimate humiliation, but I was also fascinated by the conversation. Mariama’s maiden name was Goodwine so I suspected she had some connection to Darius. What I didn’t know was why the very utterance of his name seemed to invoke dread. I felt a tremor of something in the air that made my heart beat even faster.

  “I used to think gray dust was a myth,” Ethan said. “I always scoffed when Father and Mariama talked about it so reverently. I still say it’s just a very powerful hallucinogen.”

  “It’s more than that,” Devlin said. “It stops the heart and people die. And the ones that come back…” As he moved down the steps, he turned his head away, and his voice became muffled. I couldn’t make out the rest of his comment.

  “You’ve seen them?” Ethan asked.

  Devlin moved back to the steps. “They’re still out there if you know where to look. Take a walk on the east side sometime, down along America Street. You can still spot one now and then among the crackheads and heroin addicts. Eyes frosted like a corpse, shuffling around all slumped over as if they’d dragged something back from hell with them.”

  Ethan was silent for a moment. “Father used to call them zombies.”

  “They’re not zombies,” Devlin scoffed. “Just fools that trusted Darius Goodwine.”

  Ethan rose and moved down the steps. I couldn’t see either of their faces now, but their voices carried clearly to my hiding place.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked Devlin.

  “He’ll have to be stopped.”

  “Not by you, I hope. He’s a powerful man, John. From what I hear, he’s got disciples all over the city. Some in very high places.”

  “I’m not afraid of him.”

  Something in Devlin’s voice, a hint of excitement, sent a warning thrill up my spine.

  “Maybe you should be,” Ethan said.

  “And why is that?”

  “You know why.”

  “No, I don’t. But I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”

  In the tense silence that followed, I was almost afraid the rapid thud of my heart would give me away. I hadn’t a clue what they were talking about. I’d never heard of gray dust, but it made me think of what Fremont had said earlier about the place in between the Light and the Dark: It’s called the Gray.

  “I’m talking about the night of the accident…after you found out about Mariama and Shani,” Ethan said. “You went to see Father at the Institute, remember?”

  “What of it?” Devlin’s voice sounded terse and wary. Almost suspicious.

  “You demanded that he help you contact the other side so that you could see them one last time. So that you could say goodbye. When Father couldn’t help, you grew extremely agitated. Violent, even.”

  “I was still in shock,” Devlin said in exasperation. “Out of my mind with grief. That’s the only reason I went there. You know I don’t believe in any of your father’s nonsense.”

  “And we both know there was a time when you did. You were once Father’s protégé. I’ve heard him say a million times you were the best investigator he ever had.” Was that a note of jealousy I heard in Ethan’s voice?

  “That was a long time ago,” Devlin said. “I was looking for a way to annoy my grandfather and Rupert’s dog and pony show was a novelty to me.”

  “It was more than that. Even after you moved on…I don’t think you completely let go. You married Mariama, after all.”

  “What are you getting at?” Devlin asked coldly.

  “Some remnant of that belief must have remained. Grief and shock alone wouldn’t have driven you to the Institute that night.”

  “Think what you want. I have no idea why you’re dredging all this up now.”

  “After you stormed out, Father sent me to look for you, but it was as if you’d vanished into thin air. Where did you go that night?”

  Devlin said nothing.

  “You went to see Darius, didn’t you? You asked him for gray dust.”

  Still, Devlin remained silent.

  “I waited on this very porch for hours to make sure you were okay. You came home the next day looking like a corpse. Almost as if—”

  “I’d just lost my daughter and my wife,” Devlin cut in. “How did you expect me to look?”

  “I didn’t expect what I saw. You weren’t just grieving, you were terrified. You couldn’t stop shaking. I’d never seen you like that. That’s why I gave you an alibi when the police came around asking questions about Robert Fremont’s murder.”

  “I never asked you to lie for me.”

  “I was afraid not to,” Ethan said. “You were barely able to drag yourself through that door, let alone handle a police interrogation.”

  “Interrogation? You make it sound like I was a suspect.”

  “You may well have been if they’d discovered your whereabouts that night. They already knew you and Robert had had a falling-out. Someone overheard the two of you arguing the day before he was shot.”

  Devlin’s voice had gone quiet again. “Careful where you take this, Ethan.”

  “I’m only taking it to its logical conclusion. If Robert knew that Darius had supplied you with gray dust, he could have made things very difficult for you in the police department. A cop found using that stuff…” His voice trailed off.

  “So you think I killed him.” It was statement, not a question.

  “No, of course not. But you do have a motive.”

  “And what about you?” Devlin asked, still in that same deadly quiet voice.

  “What about me?”

  “You told the police you were with me the whole night. You didn’t just give me an alibi. You gave yourself one, too.”

  “What?” E
than sounded taken aback. “Why would I need an alibi?”

  “That’s what I’ve always wondered.”

  A dog barked from someone’s backyard, and I could hear the muffled roar of traffic over on Beaufain. But here in Devlin’s front yard, everything was silent, the air so thick with tension I could scarcely draw a breath.

  “You can’t really think I had anything to do with Robert Fremont’s death.” Ethan sounded more hurt than outraged. “What possible motive would I have had?”

  “Just forget it,” Devlin said. “We need to stay focused.”

  I heard Ethan expel a breath. “You’re right. We have to stick together. Even after all this time, there could still be questions about that night.”

  “I’ll take care of any questions. You just call me if you see Darius again,” Devlin said. “No matter the time.”

  Their voices faded as he walked with Ethan to the curb. A moment later, I heard a car door slam and the engine start up. I expected Devlin to go back inside, giving me a chance to slip away undetected, but instead, he sat down on the steps to finish his beer as he gazed out into the darkness.

  He sat with shoulders hunched, forearms to knees, as if the weight of the world rested on his back. I wanted to go to him, but how would I explain my sudden appearance? What excuse could I give him for lurking in the bushes and eavesdropping on a private conversation? A very disturbing conversation. I was still reeling from the revelations and innuendoes, all of which seemed to lead back to Robert Fremont. The stars have finally aligned.

  I also had a feeling the moment I showed myself, Mariama would materialize.

  At the mere thought of her, the air grew colder. I shivered in the chill and braced myself in dread.

  I must have made some involuntary movement because Devlin’s head whipped around, and I saw his hand slide inside his jacket where I suspected he still wore his shoulder holster.

  A cat darted out of a clump of bushes near the street and sprinted across the lawn to the house next door. Devlin’s hand fell away. Slowly, he rose and scoured the yard before he turned to go inside.

  As the door closed behind him, I started to emerge from my hiding place, but that terrible cold gripped me. I stood paralyzed as Shani’s ghost manifested at my side.

  Her hand was in mine, the frost of her existence chilling my whole being. She clung to me as she gazed out across the yard.

  I was horrified by the contact, and my first instinct was to jerk my hand away. Already I could feel my strength waning. But, ghost or no, she was Devlin’s daughter. I couldn’t turn her away.

  Her gaze lifted, and when she saw that she had my attention, she lifted a tiny hand and pointed to the cluster of bushes from which the cat had bolted. I almost expected to find Mariama’s ghost swooping down on me.

  Instead, I saw the gleam of human eyes in the darkness.

  Chapter Ten

  Someone was watching the house. Someone besides me.

  My first instinct was to call and warn Devlin, but even the slightest movement or sound would alert the watcher to my presence. I remained motionless, hardly daring to even breathe as I shivered in the chill emanating from Shani’s ghost.

  The night was very dark. I could pick out little more than a silhouette until the moon peeked from a cloud, and in the sudden illumination, I got a clear view of him. He was black and uncommonly tall, though the shadows surrounding him may have added to the illusion. His gaze seemed transfixed on Devlin’s house, and as I stood watching him, I heard the nightingale again. The trill was soft and mellow, like a dream. The man tilted his head to the sound, and I could have sworn I saw him smile.

  Then he turned back to the house and lifted his hand to his mouth. Uncurling his fingers, he blew something from his palm. The shimmering particles hung suspended for a moment before they fell one by one to the ground and disappeared, leaving nothing but the faint odor of sulfur.

  Throwing off the spell cast by those sparks, I cut my eyes back to the bushes. The man was gone. A moment later, I heard the thud of a car door down the street and the gentle hum of an engine. I waited until the vehicle was well away before I stirred. It was only then that I realized Shani had vanished, too.

  Crawling from my hiding place, I hovered indecisively. I wanted nothing more than to head straight home to the safety of my sanctuary. Forget about this night, forget about the ghosts, forget about the troublesome connections to Fremont’s murder that my eavesdropping had uncovered.

  But I couldn’t leave without warning Devlin, even if it meant giving myself away. For all I knew, he could be in terrible danger. His conversation with Ethan had certainly unsettled me. I didn’t know what to make of any of it, but I knew that as soon as I was alone, I would go back over every word, dissecting nuances and inflections as I tried to figure out where these new details fit into the puzzle.

  I hurried up the veranda steps, casting a wary glance over my shoulder. The wind had risen, rustling the palmettos, and already I could feel the aberrant cold seep from Devlin’s house. I didn’t want to go in there. Ghosts resided in that house. Not just Shani and Mariama, but entities from another realm, from beyond the Gray.

  Minutes went by before Devlin finally answered. When he drew open the door, my breath escaped in a painful swoosh. He must have already been getting ready for bed because his shirt hung open and his hair was mussed as if he’d been running his fingers through it. Or as if someone had.

  It hit me then that he might not be alone. That maybe Ethan and I had both interrupted his evening.

  “Amelia?” He rested a hand against the door frame. “What are you doing here?”

  “I…had to see you.”

  I tried to glimpse past him into the foyer, but I could see nothing beyond the doorway. My gaze flicked back to his and then, despite my best efforts, dropped. Where his shirt parted, I could see a strip of chest and against his pale skin, the gleam of his silver medallion. The talisman of the Order of the Coffin and the Claw, a secret society with a membership chosen from the city’s oldest and most influential families. Devlin had shunned the constrictions of his upbringing, turned his back on his grandfather’s legacy and expectations, yet, he still wore that symbol. He was still tied to his past in more ways than one.

  All that strobed through my mind in a flash. In the next instant, I tossed another anxious glance over my shoulder toward the street.

  He seemed to pick up on my urgency then, because he said sharply, “What’s wrong?”

  “I just saw something…I don’t know what it means, but it frightened me.”

  “Come in.” He took a step back so that I could enter.

  Memories assaulted me the moment I stepped into the foyer, and my gaze went immediately to the staircase. I saw myself slowly climbing those steps, Mariama brushing by me, frightening me with her coldness, teasing me with a glimpse of her eyes in the mirror. I could almost hear the beat of those drums and the thud of my heart as I walked down the hallway to the bedroom. Her bedroom.

  “What is it?” Devlin asked. “Tell me.”

  I turned. “Someone was in your yard just now. I saw him watching the house.” I moved back to the door and pointed to the bushes where the man had been hiding. “He was there.”

  Devlin’s demeanor instantly altered. “Wait here.” He pulled open the drawer of a console in the foyer and removed a gun. I heard a series of snaps and clicks, and then he took another glance out the front door. But he didn’t exit that way. Instead, he disappeared through the tall archway into the front parlor. I followed him, hovering just outside in the foyer as I watched him slip through the French doors into the side garden.

  It was getting noticeably colder in the house. Devlin’s ghosts were near. I could feel them. Fear shot through me.

  An errant draft rustled paper on the console behind me, and the light in the foyer flickered, though the storm was still some distance off. I could feel a strange heaviness in the air and a pulse of electricity that tingled my nerve endings. Slo
wly, my gaze traveled through the parlor, probing dark corners.

  I’d glimpsed this room once before when I came to see Devlin. I’d thought then as I did now that the weighty antiques and gilded frames were not at all to his taste. This room was Mariama’s. I was certain of it. The lush decor belied the more common scent of lemon verbena stirred by that draft.

  Over the mantel hung a portrait of Mariama dressed in a simple black dress that covered her arms and throat. The plain attire was no accident. Nothing detracted from those almond-shaped eyes, those cheekbones, that bewitching smile.

  The only light in the room came from the chandelier in the foyer. It swayed gently, throwing shadows across the walls and over the painting so that Mariama’s face alternated between dark and light. The movement was hypnotic, and it was only with some effort that I resisted the trance.

  At one end of the room, a large window faced the street. Shani’s ghost was there, motionless, as she peered out into the night. Watching for Devlin. Waiting for him to come back just as she had on the day of the accident.

  Ethan had told me once that Mariama and Devlin had had a terrible row that day. Shani kept tapping on John’s leg to get his attention. I think she was trying to console him, but he was too angry…too caught up in the moment to notice. He stormed out of the house, and when he drove off, Shani was standing at the window waving goodbye. That was the last time he saw her alive.

  She was still at the window waiting for him, still trying desperately to get his attention. She must have sensed my presence—or felt my warmth—because she glanced over her shoulder with a finger to her lips.

  My breath accelerated as I turned and lifted my gaze to the top of the stairs where Mariama’s ghost hovered, the unnatural current stirring her hair and the hem of her gossamer dress. She was pale and cold, but her eyes were lit with an inner fire as she moved down the stairs, her feet floating inches from the steps. The papers swirled on the console, the light flickered and the air grew so frigid I could see the frost of my rapid breaths.

  I looked down to find Shani at my side, nearly transparent save for the faint glimmer of her aura. She clung to my hand and I sensed Mariama’s rage as she drifted ever closer.