Soul Merchant (Isabella Hush Series Book 5)

by Thea Atkinson

  I had placed a bat by the door after the last break-in. I knew where it was, and I could grab it pretty much without entering the foyer. So I twisted the knob and eased the door open a crack, just enough that I could slip my arm around the door jamb and felt for the handle. It was rough and solid in my palm. I pulled it out through the doorway and palmed it the way a pitch hitter might.

  Then I slunk through the door, nice and quiet, pushing it aside with my shoulder.

  I'd left a light on over the kitchen sink, and I could see the glow of it from the hallway. The steps up to the third floor were filled with the boxes and books I'd put there because I didn't use the third floor. Nothing looked disturbed.

  If someone was here, they were not up the stairs.

  I listened for the telltale signs of an intruder, prepared to wait perfectly still for almost five minutes. I knew from experience that a professional intruder would freeze for at least that long if there was any inkling they'd been heard. I didn't think I'd made much noise to alert my presence, but I wasn't taking a chance.

  Even knowing all that, my heart was hammering against my ribs, and my breath was short and sharp. I waited with the bat clenched in my fists. I barely breathed because I wouldn't be able to hear with my rasping breath in my ears. My lungs protested even as tension tightened the muscles in my legs.

  A minute passed.

  Two.

  I swallowed, certain that the sound of it was far too loud.

  My nostrils whistled as I exhaled.

  Still, no sound inside the apartment. The breeze from the door clawed at the back of my neck but I was too amped up to care.

  When I was sure at least five minutes had passed and there was no sound within the apartment, I took a long slow, noiseless breath and inched forward, craning my neck to peer around the doorway to the living room.

  Nothing.

  Well. Next to nothing. The cat was stretched out on a pile of socks in the middle of my sofa with her belly exposed. The most recent purchase of a pair of Harry Potter character socks lay in a ball on the floor, threads cast out in every direction.

  I dropped the bat onto the floor with a thunk and closed the door. There was no way that feline would be so relaxed if someone was still in the house. Her fur had just grown back from the scorching it got from the dark sorcerer who'd found my digs.

  I stared at the knob and replayed that information in my head. Sorcerers, fae, Scottie and his thugs. All had gotten in to my humble abode.

  And now, apparently, someone else had decided to let themselves in. Or had they?

  I scanned the knob and the lock. It hadn't been forced. Only one other person had a key. My landlord. He'd obviously let himself in and not bothered to lock back up after he'd left.

  That explained the cat's exhausted respite on the sofa. She loved my landlord. But what he was doing in my apartment at all was the real question, and why he couldn't be bothered to secure it afterwards was enough to make me decide that I didn't care what time of late night hour it was, Mr. Smith was going to get a call from a very upset tenant.

  I yanked out my cell and stabbed at the contact list until his number showed on the screen. The speaker rang in my ear several times and still he didn't answer.

  "Bastard," I said and the cat perked up her head.

  "I know," I told her. "I love him, but he can't just come in here when I'm not home."

  She flipped onto her belly and arched her back in a huge stretch before jumping down and strolling toward me. She rubbed against my legs and purred up at me, but it did very little to assuage my annoyance.

  "Did he feed you at least?" I said. "I'm guessing not." I picked her up and carried her to the kitchen where her bowl was empty.

  "I think his neglect puts him in deserves-to-get-woke-up status, don't you?"

  She purred and climbed up onto my shoulder, all the better to leap onto the counter. I opened the cupboard and let her pick the can of food. Tuna. The good stuff.

  "You're one expensive pussy," I said, then recalled Maddox and his new kitten and got riled up all over again, because his demand to meet me meant I wasn't home to growl at Mr. Smith for taking such liberties during a decent hour.

  I had already decided to visit the landlord by the time I dumped a can of albacore solid white into her bowl. Before I could rethink it, I was out onto my stoop and closing my door purposefully. I rattled the knob to make sure it was locked.

  He lived two doors down from me. The air felt crisper now that I'd been inside, and I had to hug my arms to stay warm as I bustled along the sidewalk to his door.

  His porch light was on and he had piled half a dozen garbage cans along his sidewalk. A trash heap of broken furniture and electronics held up the fence on the edge of his property. I caught a whiff of feces and urine, and spied a small opened bag of diapers. My landlord was in his sixties but I knew he wasn't incontinent. He'd somehow collected a bag of baby diapers and deposited them on the side of his property that bordered that of a year-old McMansion.

  The war had gone too far as far as I was concerned. I was pretty sure he would have all of it conveniently removed by the time the city came to investigate, but it made me wary as I inched my way up the paving stones. The last thing I needed was to have a rat scuttle across my feet or a raccoon leap out at me.

  The state of his yard, however small, was indicative of how badly he wanted to piss off the zoning committee. I knew they had a quarrel, but I had no idea it was this bad.

  I made my way onto his porch, only narrowly escaping the wide swath of spider web that stretched from rafters to pillar because the hallway light shone out onto it through the doorway window.

  I stood before the sidelight with my finger hovering over the doorbell as I considered exactly what it was I was about to do.

  It was nearly two A.M. What seemed like a good idea in the warmth and light of my home showed itself to be a ridiculous decision now that I was standing there.

  I peered in through the slat of lead glass. There was more illumination inside than I expected for this time of night. As far as I knew, he wasn't a nighthawk and the lights in the hall foyer weren't the only things on in the house. If I peered through the window just right, I could make out a light in the living room, and beyond that, the kitchen. The television cast images of the news into the room.

  His brownstone was laid out similar to mine. I knew he used his third floor as an office. Light streamed down the stairs from there as well.

  I didn't feel the least bit guilty pressing the bell then. It rang inside the house with all the old-fashioned charm I'd hoped mine would have had if it worked. All I got was an annoying buzz and I'd made him disconnect it the first month I moved in.

  I waited, stomping my feet on the porch to warm up and hugged myself tighter. I was beginning to regret my hasty storm to his property. A smart woman would have grabbed a sweater.

  A few moments went by without a sound coming from within. I rang again, thinking he was up on the third floor. Just in case, I held the buzzer longer.

  I expected the rudeness of the bell would bring him running, cursing, to the door. When it didn't, I tried one more time, this time getting up on my tiptoes and peering more judiciously through the window. I hadn't come out without a sweater for nothing. I wasn't going to waste the stupidity by running back home without speaking to him.

  It was in craning to look downward that I noticed his slippered foot lying at an odd angle at the bottom of the stairs.

  My heart pummeled my chest as the connection of all the dots came together. He'd fallen. Maybe broken his neck or his back. Terror clutched at my throat as I grabbed the handle and twisted. It should be locked, but I had to try.

  Yet it swung all the way to the left as easily as my own doorknob. I pushed at the door and it bumped into something. A body. His body.

  "Mr. Smith?" I yelled. "Are you alright?"

  I hoped he'd answer. I wasn't surprised when he didn't. I pushed at the door, shouldering it with a
ll my weight to get it to make enough room for me to slip through.

  "Wake up," I said when I made just enough space between the door jamb and the door that I could wiggle my way in sideways. "Are you alright? Mr. Smith?"

  I pulled in my breath and lifted onto my toes, lengthening every fiber of tissue that I could.

  "Mr. Smith," I said again, this time louder. When I realized he was lying on the floor sideways, I finally understood he couldn't have fallen. The angle wasn't right.

  He must have fainted or something. I hoped it wasn't a heart attack.

  I managed to free myself from the gap in the doorway and fell to my knees at his side. He looked pale and gray. Greying hair with a nice salt and pepper beard were the most color he had from the V-neck of his yellowed, white t-shirt to his hairline.

  His arms were flung out sideways. His mouth was slack and open.

  "Oh fuck me," I whispered as I leaned over his mouth.

  I listened, trying to smother the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears for the telltale sound of his breathing.

  Nothing. Not one breath. If he was breathing at all, it was infrequent and shallow.

  I suffered a searing moment of panic. Should I breath into his mouth, start CPR, phone 911?

  Phone 911.That should come first. God knew how long he'd been lying there already. I laid my palm on his chest as I did a quick visual scan of the hallway. Maybe his phone was handy.

  Thankfully, I felt a faint heartbeat.

  "Sweet Jesus," I said to his chest. "You are one lucky old man."

  I pushed myself to my feet as I scoured the area. Umbrella stand. Box on the floor. Coat tree. Table.

  No freaking phone.

  Unless it was on the wall. My foster parents had an old-fashioned phone on the wall. I pivoted on my heels, swinging in a circle.

  There. Right by the stairs.

  "Thank you, God," I said and ran for it. It had a long, winding, twisted cord, one that I could bring right over to him as I spoke to the operator. I laughed out loud at the good fortune.

  At least it was push buttons and not a rotary phone. I jabbed at the numbers and in seconds, an operator barked out at me, requesting my emergency.

  "I need an ambulance," I said and gave the address and a description of the scene. "Should I do something?"

  CPR apparently. I left the phone on the floor next to me so I could talk and hear them at the same time.

  I sweated as I pumped at his chest. It was taking forever. The operator said the ambulance was dispatched. Moments if anything. I'd be relieved soon.

  "Do you know what happened to him?" she asked. "Is there a bottle of pills nearby? A knife, a gun?"

  Laughter burbled up as my anxiety increased.

  "No," I said. "Nothing."

  I scanned the area as I spoke. The floor was neat and swept. There wasn't a lick of dust on any of the surfaces, a stark contrast to the outside of the building.

  "I don't see anything out of the ordinary," I said loud enough for her to hear.

  My gaze landed on a box lying on the floor next to the table. It looked like a boutique box of some sort tied with string.

  String that was lying on the floor too.

  "There might be something," I said. "A box of some sort."

  "Give it to the paramedics when they come," she said. "Don't stop compressions."

  I was getting tired but the box kept nagging at me by virtue of its position. It didn't lie straight up. It had been tipped over, as though it had fallen. I eased up on my haunches, trying to read the label or see inside as I worked at my compressions.

  That was when I saw the side of the box had a weird rusty spot on it as though something had dripped and bled down the side. The more I looked, the more I realized I knew exactly what it was.

  Blood.

  I hesitated on the next compression. My gaze went involuntarily to Mr. Smith's face before I began again. He looked dead. He just did. There was no two ways about it. He'd gone too far with his taunts, and someone had sent him something dangerous inside a beautiful boutique box.

  Someone had just tried to kill him.

  I believed it right until I noticed the label. It too, looked boutique. Big and square, it had lovely script written out in curly letters as though it was a formal invitation to a highbrow party.

  His address was clearly readable.

  The trouble was... the name on the label was clearly mine.

  CHAPTER NINE

  MY FIRST THOUGHT WASN'T one of panic. I was already soaked in adrenaline, and it took a while for the paranoia to creep in past it all. With each compression onto Mr. Smith's chest, I grew more certain someone had sent the man a death package.

  But they hadn't meant to. That was the kicker. That package was for me. You can mistake an address, but you can't mistake a name.

  Sirens wailed up the street, making the nervous ringing in my ears a bit less obnoxious. I flicked my gaze from my landlord's face to the box again as I considered what to do with it. I was supposed to pass it over to the paramedics in case it had some sort of clue inside.

  I knew it was a clue all by it's lonesome. I couldn't give it over to the paramedics. Not until I knew what was in it.

  I ran through the possible culprits pretty quickly; Cleo, the new kingpin of Scottie's vast criminal enterprise, the shapeshifting Absalom—who wanted whatever power was tethered to my soul by the Lilith Stone. I even threw in the incubus Errol for good measure. He hated me plenty. With good reason.

  But Absalom was the one that won the round of Who's Your Villain and I was already sorry I'd ragged on Maddox for being so careful. Stupid, Isabella. Just plain dumb.

  The wail of the alarm grew louder as the flashing lights filled the entrance sidelight. The ambulance had arrived, and I was more sure than anything that I'd have to at least look inside before I even thought of passing it over.

  There were three short raps on the door that nearly scared the bejesus out of me but I managed to holler out that the door was unlocked.

  The paramedics had the same problem I had getting in. The door butted up against Mr. Smith's shoulder for a moment, but while I'd been just one small woman pushing her way in, there were two paramedics. Big burly gorgeous men who pushed both me and my landlord aside as easily as if we were scraps of cardboard sliding along a waxed floor.

  I was never so happy to see an official.

  "Move aside," the first one said as he yanked out a mask and strapped it onto Mr. Smith's face. "How long have you been doing the compressions?"

  "What is his medical history?" the other fired at me. "Is he diabetic, cancer, heart issues?"

  "I don't know," I said. "I just found him like this."

  "How long ago?"

  I backed away, giving them room as I stammered out that I couldn't be sure. A few moments at least. Maybe ten. I couldn't tear my gaze from the activity. They seemed to have five hands a piece, and each of them roamed over the unmoving body at the same time as they shot questions at me and scanned his face, mouth, and eyes.

  "He's in his sixties," I said. That one I knew. "I'll go look in his cabinets for prescriptions."

  I clung to the banister railing as I waited to see if that was a good idea. At least, I thought that was what I was doing, waiting. I realized I hadn't budged to go looking for meds, and that I was wringing my hands. I liked the old codger. Despite the idiosyncrasies, he was a good man. Odd, but good.

  "Is he going to be OK?" I said.

  One of the paramedics shot a look at me over his shoulder. He had kind eyes. Liquid brown with molten bits of gold in them.

  "I hope so," he said. "He's still breathing. But knowing his meds would help. Are you his daughter?"

  I shook my head and felt the need to swipe at my cheeks. My fingers came away wet.

  "I'm his tenant," I said.

  "Do you know where he keeps his meds?"

  I nodded although I really shouldn't have. I had no idea if he was even on meds or where they'd be. A mom
ent's thought assured me that if the house was like mine, he'd have a second-floor bathroom as well as the company one on the first floor. No doubt his meds would be upstairs. If he needed some.

  "I'll go look," I said.

  The box caught on my toe as I strode for the stairwell. It scuffed across the floor and butted up against the wall. Right. The box. I'd almost forgotten it.

  I stooped to pick it up and held it against my chest. A strange smell wafted up from it. My nose wrinkled involuntarily as the stink perfumed my nostrils, coating them in an oily fragrance not unlike that of fish.

  "That's it," said one of the paramedics. They weren’t talking about me or the box, but to each other. "Right there."

  "Get him on the gurney," said the other. "Call it in."

  I swiveled to look at them. They were already hoisting him onto a gurney they had hauled into the hallway when I'd stepped away. They'd found something. I could tell.

  "What is it?" I said. "What's wrong?"

  They were all business. Strapping him in.

  "Get a list of his meds," the first one said to me. "And bring it to St. Anne's. It will be helpful for them to know what he needs if he recovers."

  "If," I said. "What do you mean if?"

  They were hustling out the door and I had to follow them onto the step.

  "The box," I said. "Don't you want the box?"

  It was empty. The stain was blood, I could see that now. But it wasn't exactly useful to me. It would be more useful for the doctors. Might help the old guy.

  "Did you find anything?" I said.

  "Some kind of bite," the first one said, swinging those compassionate eyes onto me again. "Snake maybe."

  He jerked his chin toward Mr. Smith's arm where for the first time, I noticed two bloody dots surrounded by a black and blue bullseye rash on his crêpey skin.

  "Looks like it might be poison."

  Poison. His voice didn't change as he said it, just delivered the news as if it was something he said every day. Maybe he did. Maybe they were trained to show no emotion or let emotion rule them. It would be useful, wouldn't it, that skill?