Night Hunt, page 8
part #9 of Harbinger P.I. Series
“And you unearthed it,” I said, admiringly.
“Yes, I did. An eyewitness report of the events at Blackstone Citadel. The Templars couldn’t act on the knowledge that Ariadne’s Thread was hidden in the north tower of the citadel because they were being questioned and imprisoned by the Vatican at the time. Besides, it was hidden and locked inside an Archon Seal, like all of their other relics, so they probably thought it was safe. And when the Vatican later sealed the citadel behind wards and used a misplacement spell to hide the island, there was no chance of anyone recovering the Thread.”
“Until now,” I said.
She nodded. “Until now.”
I ate some French fries while I pondered the situation. “So you want me to nullify the wards around the citadel and dispel the Archon Seal.”
“That’s all there is to it,” Dad said. “Then Ariadne’s Thread will be dropped into this realm like a magical candy bar from an interdimensional vending machine, as you put it.”
I waved a couple of fries in his direction. “That isn’t all there is to it, though, is it?”
He frowned. “I don’t follow.”
“You’re forgetting the fact that there could be something very nasty in that tower. Something that took out a band of knights and a couple of Vatican inquisitor teams.”
He screwed his face up. “I’m sure that whatever creature came through that portal seven hundred years ago is long gone by now.”
I sat back and began to eat my burger. I didn’t share my dad’s opinion. Just because more than half a century had passed since the monster had come through the portal and onto the island, that didn’t mean it wasn’t still there somewhere, lurking in the citadel or roaming the streets of the ruined city.
If I was going to do what Felicity and my dad wanted, I couldn’t risk landing on the island and being overconfident. To do so would be foolish. I had to be wary and expect the worst. That was the only way to survive.
“How badly do you want this thing?” I asked them. “There’s a lot of risk involved in procuring it.”
“If we don’t have it,” my dad said, “we could lose many of our students when we send them to other realms. Those deaths could be avoided if we have Ariadne’s Thread.”
“They could also be avoided if you didn’t send your students to the other realms in the first place,” I told him.
He sighed and nodded. “True, but unfortunately, that isn’t an option.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, before taking another bite of the burger.
“The research we’ll be undertaking at the academy will be crucial to the survival of humankind in the future,” he said.
I wasn’t sure if he was being melodramatic or stating a fact, so I looked at Felicity for clarification. She’d taken a sudden interest in the salad again.
“If the Thread is that important,” I said, “I’ll get it for you.”
She looked up at me and nodded. “It is, Alec. It’s vitally important.”
“Okay, I’m in.” I took another bite of the burger, but even its succulent taste couldn’t distract me from the question that burned in my mind.
What was I getting myself into?
Chapter 10
Five minutes later, while I was enjoying my Darla Double Burger despite having just agreed to get a magical artifact from an island so dangerous that the Vatican had sealed it off, my phone buzzed. Bud Clarke’s name came up on the screen.
“Bud,” I said as I answered it. “How can I help you?”
“I need to meet with you,” he said. His voice was low, level, and devoid of emotion, very different from the last time I’d spoken to him.
“Sure, do you have any place in mind?”
Expecting him to name a location somewhere between here and Massachusetts, I was surprised when he said, “I’m at the crime scene.”
“The Dawson place?”
“The place where he killed my son and his friends.”
“Okay, I can be there in twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be waiting.” He ended the call.
I placed the phone on the table and looked at Felicity and my dad. “I’m going to the Dawson place to meet Bud.”
“I’d ask you to pass on my condolences,” Dad said, “but he can’t know we’re here. Bud is a friend but he’s still part of the Society.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, getting up from the table. “I won’t tell him you’re here.” I took my keyring out of my pocket and gave Felicity the spare key to my house. “You’ll probably get back to the house before me, so let yourselves in and make yourselves at home.”
Felicity looked up at me and said, “Alec, we’ll help you with the Mister Scary case in any way we can.”
“Thanks,” I said. For some reason, Felicity’s offer of help felt too much like quid pro quo. I was going to get Ariadne’s Thread for them, so they were going to help me with the Scary case. That didn’t sit well with me.
I left the diner, walking across the cold parking lot to the Land Rover while fishing my phone out of my pocket. My dad and Felicity couldn’t go with me to meet Bud Clarke, but Carlton could—and probably should—since he was officially working on the Mister Scary case with me.
He answered after a couple of rings. “Hi, Alec.”
“Hey, Carlton. Are you busy right now? Bud Clarke wants to meet me at the Dawson place. I’d like you to tag along.”
“Sure, I’ll be right there.”
“Great. I’ll meet you there. Do you know where it is?”
“Yeah, I’ll find it.”
“Okay, see you later.” I hung up and climbed into the Land Rover. As I drove out of the parking lot, I glanced at Darla’s. Through the window, I could see my father and Felicity deep in conversation.
Whatever they were doing at the Academy, it seemed to be important, or important to them, at least. My father’s barely veiled expressions of concern and worry seemed to be borne of a genuine anxiety regarding the future.
Felicity also seemed more solemn than usual when discussing Academy matters and she was definitely holding something back from me. That hurt the most, because I’d always thought that she and I had a relationship based on honesty and trust.
If she knew something and didn’t think she could trust me with the information, then my assessment of our relationship was obviously wrong.
I headed north on the highway, turning up the radio to drown out the thoughts that jostled for space in my head.
Fifteen minutes later, when I saw the Dawson house squatting on the hill that rose above the trees, I looked for the road that would take me through the trees to the base of the hill. I spotted it and left the main road, noticing that the narrower road winding through the woods had been plowed, and looked very different to how it had looked when I’d driven along here on Christmas Eve with Lucy.
The newly churned snow lay in tall banks at the sides of the road, probably to allow easier access for the large number of official vehicles that had been through here in the last couple of days.
The track the led up the hill to the house had also been cleared. As the Land Rover reached the top of the hill, I was surprised to see seven Ford Crown Victorias parked outside the house, along with a Lexus. All of the cars were midnight black.
When Bud had called me, I’d assumed he was alone at the house. But judging by the number of cars, it looked like he’d brought an entire team of investigators here.
That rankled me slightly. I’d been tracking Mister Scary all this time and had received minimal assistance from the Society. Now that his son had become a victim, Bud was pulling out all the stops.
As I got out of the Land Rover and made my way across the plowed area to the porch, I decided I couldn’t blame him for that; I’d do everything in my power to help my friends and family. I just didn’t have the resources that Bud—as head of the Society’s Massachusetts branch—had at his fingertips.
The front door was open. I stepped inside.
The foyer, which had been mostly in shadow when I’d been here two days ago, was brightly lit by halogen work lights that stood on tall tripods. The tinsel, garlands, and Christmas tree were still here, making the foyer seem gaudy, like a department store trying to attract Christmas shoppers.
The two bodies that Lucy and I had seen beneath the Christmas tree had been taken away, but dark stains remained on the wooden floor.
Two men dressed in black suits with white shirts and dark green ties stood together at the foot of the stairs, staring into a crystal ball that stood on an iron pedestal. The pedestal had a number of symbols etched into its surface.
The men wore what looked like sunglasses but in actuality were probably some type of magical scrying device that allowed them to interpret images in the crystal ball, because all I could see in there was an amorphous, swirling, dark green mist.
The suited men paid me no heed as I skirted past them and entered the living room. Four similarly attired members of the team were in here. Two of them were men, two women. All wore black suits and white shirts, but the ties that adorned the necks of these four people were deep orange in color, and no one was wearing shades.
While one of the women held aloft a handheld device that seemed to be made of wood and brass and had a small, revolving antenna, the other three consulted leather-bound tomes and dealt a handful of tarot cards onto a small wooden table that they seemed to have brought with them. At least, I didn’t remember seeing it the last time I was here.
Like the two men in the foyer, these people ignored my presence. I had no idea what they were doing or how delicate the process they were carrying out might be, so I didn’t ask them where Bud was. I merely left the room as quickly and as quietly as I could.
As I stepped back into the foyer, Carlton came in through the front door. He looked at the two guys and the crystal ball, frowned, and then saw me and came over to where I was standing.
“Who are these guys?” he asked, pointing his thumb at the two suited men.
“Some kind of magical CSI,” I said.
A door on the opposite side of the foyer opened and Bud appeared. I could see more suited people in the room he’d just left before he closed the door behind him.
“Alec,” he said somberly. “Thanks for coming.” Like everyone else in here, except Carlton and myself, he was wearing a suit. His tie was decorated with a multi-colored pattern of interlocking circles. He looked older than he had the last time I saw him, and the muscles of his face seemed to be heavy, pulling his expression into one of weariness.
He looked at Carlton. “You must be Carlton Carmichael.”
“Yes, I am,” Carlton said. “Pleased to meet you.”
“We can talk outside,” Bud said to both of us. “There’s some sensitive work being carried out by my team, and it’s better if we don’t disturb them.”
As we followed him to the open front door, I realized that he seemed to be more stooped than I remembered, as if he had the weight of the world pressing on his shoulders. Given the circumstances, that was probably how he felt.
“Ethan’s body was found in there,” he said, pointing at the living room. “Along with the remains of his friends Steve and Tricia. I don’t want to be in this house any longer than I have to.”
The cold wind bit us as we walked out onto the porch. Bud turned to face us. “I understand there was a scene at the hospital earlier today. The girl who survived the attack told you to save the others. What does that mean, exactly?”
His knowledge of the details regarding what happened in the hospital room took me by surprise. He’d just quoted Marcia Petresky verbatim. Was the Society spying on me? And if so, were Felicity and my father in danger?
I felt every muscle in my body tense. My mind ran over the events of the day, trying to remember if I’d been followed to Darla’s. I realized that I had no idea; I’d been comatose in the passenger seat of the car at the time.
If Bud sensed my sudden tension, he didn’t show it, but his next words calmed me, either by design or by coincidence. “We have a number of Society members in every hospital, especially since it was revealed that the Cabal runs Paraworld Medical, a company that supplies hospitals around the globe with medical supplies. The nurse who walked in on you at Merciful Angel is one of ours.”
I inwardly relaxed. The fact that Bud knew Marcia’s exact words wasn’t due to the fact that someone was spying on me, but simply because a Society member had been in the room at the time. The nurse had obviously reported the incident to the Society and now Bud wanted to know what I’d been doing in Marcia’s room and what her words meant.
“She was talking about the other final girls,” I told him. “It seems that the being that was once Henry Fields, and is now known as Mister Scary, is a creature called a yaghul.” I told him about the ancient Sumerian legend and the Harvest of the Maidens ceremony. I skipped over the part where I’d nullified the rune on Marcia’s arm and told Bud that she’d regained consciousness naturally. I couldn’t afford to have anyone in the Society make a connection between my magic and the Melandra Codex.
As I spoke, I could see Bud becoming even more crestfallen. “Are you okay?” I asked him.
He nodded slowly. “I thought that maybe Marcia’s words meant that there was a chance that my boy was still alive in some way.” He looked at me with tears in his eyes. “You and I have seen a lot of weird stuff, Alec. We know that everything isn’t always as it seems. I thought that maybe, just maybe…” His words trailed off and he gestured helplessly at the house.
“Only Marcia survived,” I told him, as gently as I could.
He nodded and wiped his eyes. “I understand.”
After letting out a long breath, during which he seemed to compose himself, he said, “Keep on it, Alec. We’ll get this guy. We have to. I’ll let you know if we find anything here.”
“Just out of interest,” Carlton said, “what are they doing in there?”
“I don’t understand most of it myself,” Bud said. “Magical analysis, time dilation, tracking spells. It’s a complex process, but hopefully we’ll get some useable data at the end of it.”
He turned his attention to me. “Thanks again for coming, Alec. Keep in touch.”
Looking at Carlton, he said, “Make sure those records are kept up to date on the database.”
“I will,” Carlton said. “You can rely on me.”
We walked back to our cars. Before I got into the Land Rover, I said to Carlton, “I’ll see you tomorrow and we’ll plan our next move.”
“Okay, boss,” he said, getting into his car.
He left before me, shooting me a quick wave through his window as he drove away.
I followed at a sedate pace, my mind running over the conversation on the porch. Bud had implied that my encounter at the hospital had been reported to the Society purely by chance. His explanation had seemed genuine.
But as I drove away from the house, I found myself checking the rearview mirror every few seconds.
Chapter 11
Before I reached the main road, I saw a crimson-colored Porsche coming toward me, heading for the house. It looked like the same Porsche I’d seen on Steve Kershaw’s driveway.
Since there probably weren’t many crimson Porsches in Dearmont, I assumed that this car belonged to Steve’s sister, the young woman who’d been too sick to attend the party and had therefore escaped an untimely death.
It wouldn’t be good for her to go to the house and stumble upon Bud and his magical CSI team. I had no idea what measures they’d take to avoid discovery, but it would probably involve some kind of “mind wipe.” Having had some of my own memories wiped from my brain for a while, I didn’t want anyone else to have to go through that kind of experience.
I flashed my headlights at the oncoming vehicle and gradually applied the Land Rover’s brake until I came to a dead stop.
The Porsche also slowed and as it got closer, I could see that it was indeed Steve Kershaw’s sister behind the wheel. She came to a stop next to me and rolled down her window as I did the same.
“Hi,” I said. “Remember me?”
She scrutinized my face and then nodded. “You’re the guy who came to the house, looking for Ethan.”
“That’s right. If you’re thinking of going to the Dawson place, you should turn back. It’s a sealed crime scene.”
“I have to go,” she said, holding back tears. “I have to see where it happened. And I need to leave these there.” She reached over to the passenger seat and held up a necklace and a framed photo of herself and a fair-haired young man I assumed was Steve. They were on a beach somewhere, both smiling at the camera.
“That’s me and Steve,” she said. “And this is a necklace that Tricia always loved. I want to leave them at the house as a tribute. A piece of crime scene tape isn’t going to stop me.”
“It isn’t just the tape,” I told her. “There are people there too.”
She put the items back on her passenger seat and stared out of her windshield at the road ahead. For a moment, I thought she was going to put her foot on the gas and continue her journey. But she seemed to think better of it and dropped her gaze to the steering wheel. Her shoulders slumped and she sighed. “What do I do now?”
I wasn’t sure if she was referring to this precise moment in time or her life ahead, which she’d have to live without her brother and her best friend.
I didn’t have an answer to either question, so I made a suggestion. “Why don’t you go home and come back tomorrow? I’m sure there won’t be anyone at the Dawson place then.”
She looked at me and nodded slowly, then narrowed her eyes. “Are you the guy Marcia was telling me about on the phone? She thinks you’re gonna save some girls she dreamed about or something. I don’t know, she sounded confused. They probably pumped her full of meds at the hospital.”
