Faerie Storm, page 7
part #8 of Harbinger P.I. Series
“See?” Carlton said when the message ended.
Leon laughed. “Carlton, if you think that’s Alec’s voice, you must be crazy.”
Carlton looked confused. “What do you mean? Of course it’s Alec’s voice.”
“That’s what you hear?” I asked him. “My voice?”
“Of course,” he said, looking at us like we were idiots. “It is you.”
“That’s Merlin,” I said. “You hear my voice because that’s what he wants you to hear. He’s obviously cast a spell on the message.”
Carlton frowned at his phone. “What? But why?”
The sound of another car approaching reached us from the road.
“Because he followed you here,” I said.
The Dearmont Sheriff’s Department patrol car stopped next to Carlton’s Honda and Merlin got out, looking pleased with himself when he saw me on the porch.
“Alec,” he said. “There you are.” He went around the back of his car and opened the trunk. When he reappeared, he was holding something long wrapped in cloth. I didn’t need to ask him what it was.
“Keep that thing away from me, Merlin,” I warned him.
He stopped in his tracks and looked at the bundle in his arms. “Alec, why are you trying to reject the sword? I don’t understand. She gives you energy.”
“No,” I said. “It drains my energy. I was just fine until that damned thing came along.”
He offered the cloth-wrapped sword to me. “Perhaps if you just hold her for a moment.”
I folded my arms. “Put it back in your car.”
He hesitated for a second, and then sighed in resignation before returning to the car.
“Alec, I’m sorry,” Carlton said. “I had no idea he’d cast a spell on me. I wouldn’t have led him here if I’d known.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “You were only doing what you thought was right. Now I need to figure out a way to get rid of him. If he finds out what Leon and I discovered about this area, he’ll definitely want to stick around.”
“Oh?” Carlton looked interested. “What did you discover?”
“I’ll tell you later. Did you translate those symbols?”
“Almost done,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper as Merlin joined us on the porch.
“Well,” Merlin said, “This is a jolly gathering. What are you doing up here in the wilds, Alec?”
“Just getting away from it all,” I said.
He looked from me to Leon to Carlton and then back to me again. “Really?” He didn’t sound convinced.
“Why else would I be here?”
“You expect me to believe you’re out here taking a break?”
“Yes,” I said. “Do you want a beer before you head home?”
He pursed his lips and I could almost hear his brain ticking over as he considered what to do next. I was sure he didn’t believe my story about taking a break but I wasn’t going to give him anything else. He could take it or leave it. Either way, I just wanted him to go and take the sword with him.
“Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll leave you to your vacation. But don’t forget that still have an obligation to the Lady of the Lake. You’re supposed to be looking for the Midnight Cabal.”
“Leon’s on it,” I assured him, pointing to the two open laptops on the table.
He went back to the patrol car but stopped before opening the door. “Shall I leave Excalibur here?”
“No, take it with you.”
“But, Alec, you two are bonded now. You should…”
“Goodbye, Merlin.”
He got into the car and started the engine. He didn’t look happy but I didn’t care. After our journey to the realm where Rekhmire was imprisoned, Merlin had all but forced me to accept energy from Excalibur.
What he described as a symbiotic union between the sword and its wielder was actually a one-sided relationship that Excalibur controlled. Because I was sure that the energy it had fed me was the same energy it had stolen from me earlier when it had sent me into some sort of hypnotic trance in my basement.
Merlin backed the patrol car onto the road and drove away in the direction of the Lodge.
“I’m sorry, Alec,” Carlton said. “I had no idea he was tricking me into coming here.”
“It’s fine,” I told him. “There’s no way you could have known.”
“He’s one of the most powerful wizards in history,” Leon said. “I think we should all be a little worried about that.”
“I am worried,” I said. “I have a feeling that he isn’t going to leave Sheriff Cantrell’s body willingly when it’s time for him to go and I’m not sure what we’ll be able to do about it.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out when the time comes,” Carlton said. He sighed and looked at the darkening sky. “I guess I should get back home. Muriel will be wondering where I am. I dropped everything as soon as I got your—I mean Merlin’s—message.”
“You’re welcome to stay the night and go back to Dearmont in the morning,” I said. “There’s plenty of room.”
He thought about it for a moment and then grinned. “Yes, that would be great. I’ll call Muriel and let her know.” He jabbed at his phone and wandered away to the edge of the lake as he began talking to his wife.
“Good thing we brought extra burgers,” Leon said. He got up from the table and went to the charcoal grill that had been built into a brick pillar near the porch.
While Leon tried to get the grill lit, Carlton returned, a grin on his face. “I let Muriel know I’ll be spending the night here. Hey, are we have a cookout? Great!”
“Grab a beer from the kitchen,” I said, “And then tell me how far you’ve gotten with those Enochian symbols.”
“Okay, will do.” He disappeared into the cabin and reappeared a few seconds later with a beer in his hand. I took a plastic chair from the stack in the corner and gestured for him to sit.
“So, I went through the photos you sent,” he began, “and discovered that the symbols refer to a magical rite called The Ritual of Passing into the Eternal Summer.”
“Not a very catchy title.”
“It’s an old spell that seems to open a gate to Faerie. Basically, the spell-caster performs a human sacrifice by carving a magical symbol into the chest of his or her victim and then—”
“Human sacrifice?” I cut in. “There are easier ways to get to Faerie than killing someone.”
“Yes, there are but the Ritual of Passing into the Eternal Summer allows the spell-caster to take the life essence of the sacrificed person with them. From what I’ve been able to find out, the victim’s blood and vital organs are magically transferred into a jar. The spell-caster takes the jar to Faerie through a portal and can then use the jar’s contents to create a Faerie being.”
“What kind of Faerie being?”
Carlton shrugged. “I don’t know. An ogre, a troll, probably anything. Faerie beings come in all shapes and sizes, eh?”
I swallowed a mouthful of beer and looked out over the dark lake. Why would someone want to steal Dan Pelletier’s life essence to create a Faerie creature? “It doesn’t make any sense,” I said aloud.
“It does when you consider the fact that the newly-created Faerie being is enslaved to the spell-caster,” Carlton said. “Power over others is a strong motivator.”
“It certainly motivates most politicians,” Leon said from the grill. The pile of charcoal briquettes he’d placed in the grill was glowing orange and crackling, sending its unmistakable smell into the air via a stream of white smoke. “So you’re saying this spell creates some kind of Faerie Frankenstein monsters?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s what it does,” Carlton said. “The blood and guts of the human victim are used to create a new Faerie creature. Pretty gross, eh?”
“You could have told us about this after we ate the burgers,” Leon said, eyeing the raw meat patties sitting on a paper plate next to the grill.
“Sorry, but Alec asked. Besides, I wanted to show you guys that I’m not totally useless.”
“No one said you were,” I assured him.
“No, but you were probably thinking it. I know I didn’t do much on our last case but I want to show you what I’m capable of. Felicity Lake is a hard act to follow—I’ve read her reports and they’re so detailed and concise—but I’m here to do my best.”
“That’s all anyone can ask of you,” I told him.
“Yeah, I know but after my last three P.I.s all…died, I feel like I have something to prove.”
“Was it your fault they got killed?” Leon asked.
“No, not at all.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about,” I said.
He shrugged. “Yeah, but you know how word gets around. I’ll get a reputation in the Society as being cursed or something. No one will want to work with me. Especially if anything happens to you. Then I’ll have four P.I.s on my conscience.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I intend to stay alive.”
My phone buzzed, the screen showing a number I didn’t recognize. I answered it. “Alec Harbinger.”
“Hi, Alec.” It was Laura Pelletier. “I’ve made an appointment for us to visit Cathy tomorrow morning at ten. I hope that time is okay with you.”
“Of course,” I said.
“Great. We can meet in the Butterfly Heights parking lot. Do you know where that is?”
“I do,” I told her. “See you there at ten.” I ended the call.
“We’ll be going to Butterfly Heights tomorrow morning,” I said to Leon.
“Great,” he said. “Maybe we’ll be able to piece together what happened that night she and Lydia went into the woods.”
“Hopefully,” I said. Discovering the meaning of the symbols on the cave wall didn’t explain what happened to Cathy or where Lydia Cornell was. The police didn’t find any bodies in the cave when they were searching for the girls so it was unlikely that the Ritual of Passing into the Eternal Summer had been performed there that night.
It was possible that the events of that night had nothing to do with the cave whatsoever. There was no evidence that Cathy and Lydia had been anywhere near the place but I found it difficult to separate the fact that the Cabal were active in the area and the cave was probably a place where its members performed a magical rite to get to Faerie.
Maybe the girls had stumbled into the middle of a performance of the ritual and the result of that had been Cathy’s unwillingness to talk and Lydia’s disappearance.
If the Cabal had hurt those girls in any way, it was even more reason for me to bring the organization down.
I wouldn’t rest until it was completely destroyed.
11
The next morning, Leon and I drove to Butterfly Heights in the Land Rover. Carlton had left an hour earlier and was now heading back to Dearmont with instructions to find out the name of the company that owned the mental health facility and crosscheck it with the company that had owned it in the 1940s. If the two names matched, then we could safely assume the place was owned by the Midnight Cabal.
What that meant for Cathy Pelletier and the other patients at the facility, I had no idea. Why had Dan Pelletier’s Cabal contacts been keen to find his daughter a room there? Was it so they could keep an eye on her and make sure she didn’t speak about what she’d witnessed in the woods? Or had they resurrected their old gene project and decided Cathy would be a good candidate for their twisted experiments?
“At least it isn’t raining,” Leon said, looking out of his window at the dry and bright morning. He turned to face me and added, “Do we have a plan for when we meet Cathy Pelletier?”
“Yeah, I have a crystal shard in my pocket so we’ll know if she’s under any sort of spell. And there’s a vial of holy water in the trunk so we can make sure her father’s fear that she’s possessed is unfounded.”
“Demons and holy water? Sounds old school.”
“I don’t think Cathy is possessed but I’ll try anything to get to the truth. We might as well rule it out.”
“And if she isn’t under a spell or possessed by a demon?”
“Then there’s something else I could try but only as a last resort. In fact, I’m not even sure I’m going to use it at all.”
His brows furrowed for a second. “Sounds bad. What is it?”
“A Collar of Truth.”
“Isn’t that what those Shadow Watch agents used on you when they wanted to find out about the Melandra Codex?”
I nodded. “It is. It’s a device that was originally used by the Inquisition in Europe. It forces its wearer to answer simple yes or no questions truthfully. If Cathy is physically able to speak, then the collar would compel her to answer any questions we asked her.”
“Compel her?”
“Yeah, using the collar raises some ethical issues.”
“You can say that again.” He watched the trees flashing past his window.
“It’s dangerous too,” I said. “If Cathy’s silence is some sort of barrier that her mind put in place to protect her psyche, forcing her to speak could do unspeakable mental damage.”
“Okay, the collar is out. Anything else in your bag of tricks?”
“Only my gut instinct.”
“I’d rather rely on that than a Collar of Truth.”
“Me too,” I said.
We reached the turn-off for the Butterfly Heights and a narrow road led us through the trees to a circular clearing that served as the facility’s parking lot. There were at least a dozen cars here, including Laura Pelletier’s black BMW. I parked the Land Rover in one of the few remaining spaces and Leon and I got out.
The driver’s door of the BMW opened and Laura appeared. She gave us a slight wave. Even from this distance, I could see she’d been crying. I had no words to comfort her. Only time would gradually heal the feeling of loss that consumed her right now.
I opened the Land Rover’s trunk and grabbed my backpack. It held the items I’d been speaking to Leon about, including the Collar of Truth. I’d decided I wasn’t going to use it but there was no point taking it out now; Laura might ask what it was and that could spark an uncomfortable conversation.
She came over and said, “I called the police last night to see what they could tell me about the way Dan died. They were cagey at first, trying to avoid telling me any details but I told them I had a right to know and I wasn’t going to stop bothering them until they told me everything.”
She took a tissue from her purse and dabbed her eyes. “I probably shouldn’t have done that; I wasn’t prepared for what they told me. They said Dan had been stabbed, that someone had carved some sort of symbol on his chest. That was bad enough but what made it even worse was that parts of him were missing. Officer Davis told me there was hardly any blood left in Dan’s body and the amount he lost due to the stabbing doesn’t account for anywhere near what he lost. And some of his organs were gone too. His liver. His lungs. His heart. Someone cut out my brother’s heart.”
She buried her head in her hands and wept.
Leon put an arm around her shoulders but said nothing.
When Laura’s weeping finally subsided, she looked at me and said, “Please tell me you’ll get whoever did this. Dan didn’t deserve to die like that. Someone has to pay.”
“I’ll get them,” I said. It wasn’t an idle promise; I intended to use every resource in my arsenal to catch the person or persons responsible for destroying the Pelletier family. The information from the police confirmed that Dan had been a victim of the Ritual of Passing into the Eternal Summer and that meant the Cabal was somehow involved.
Now I needed to find out what kind of operation they were running in this area before I burned it to the ground.
“The best place for me to begin is with Cathy,” I told Laura.
She nodded and wiped her eyes. “Yes, of course. We should get up there or we’ll be late for our appointment.” Her bloodshot eyes swept over the tops of the trees to the hill that rose from the woods in the distance.
Butterfly Heights sat upon the hill; an old, rambling building that looked like something out of a Gothic novel. I could almost feel myriads of eyes staring down at us from behind the arched windowpanes.
We set off through the woods, following a dirt path that ascended the hill. The path terminated at a tall, black iron gate. The lawn beyond the gate was covered with dead leaves, just as it had been the last time I was here with Felicity.
Laura pressed the button on an intercom next to the gate. A crackle came from the speaker, then a female voice that said, “Miss Pelletier, come in.” The gate opened with a mechanical click and swung open, allowing us to proceed onto a gravel path that crossed the lawn and led to a large wooden door.
Cameras set high on the walls followed our progress as we approached the building.
“This place is creepy,” Leon whispered.
I nodded almost imperceptibly so that cameras wouldn’t pick up the movement, although I wasn’t sure why I was trying to hide the gesture. “Well, considering the fact that this is where the Cabal ran some sort of genetic experiment and is also the birthplace of Mister Scary, I can understand why you’d think that.”
“Don’t you agree?”
“I agree whole-heartedly.”
When we reached the wooden door, it opened with a mechanical click and swung inward. Before following Laura and Leon into the building, I looked back at the high iron gate as it closed behind us.
The lock engaged with a heavy, mechanical click.
The reception area looked much as it had the last time I was here; a clean, airy space with a high ceiling and bright white walls. A hatch in one wall revealed an office, which was furnished with a desk and a computer. The furnishings out here in the waiting area consisted of plush vinyl chairs and a low table stacked with magazines.
A dark-haired woman appeared at the hatch and offered Laura a sympathetic smile. “Miss Pelletier, I’m so sorry to hear about your brother. My condolences.”
