“Alicia Peters” shone on the caller-ID. Now I really was curious, since I figured it might be Sorren or Kell, or even Teag. Not our friend the psychic medium.
“Alicia? Is everything all right?” Alicia and I were colleagues more than friends, making me pretty sure she hadn’t called to chat.
“Cassidy, there are so many.”
Goosebumps rose at her tone. “So many what, Alicia?” I asked carefully, afraid I knew the answer.
“All the dead men. So many. So young. They want you to find them.”
Alicia doesn’t usually sound like something out of a late-night horror movie. Every other time we’ve spoken, she’s sounded perfectly normal, and while I knew she had a strong gift, I’d never seen it overwhelm her before. “What’s going on, Alicia? What are you hearing?”
“There are more than you know,” she said as if I hadn’t spoken. I don’t have Alicia’s gift with spirits, but if it works at all the way my touch magic does, then the pictures can be maddeningly incomplete, fuzzy, or all mixed up. Real psychic gifts don’t work the way they do on TV. Ghosts don’t speak in complete sentences, or always have correct information. Spirits can be misled by anger or jealousy, or go dark and crazy with guilt and grief. Visions can be spotty, providing just enough bits and pieces to tell you danger is coming without any help on where or when.
“More ghosts? So more murders than what we’ve found so far?” My mouth went dry. If Kell’s count was correct, there had been far too many deaths already.
“Happening again,” Alicia said, her voice raspy and not at all her usual tone. “Now. He’s back. The ghosts want… justice.”
“Help me,” I begged. “I want to find out the truth about what happened to them. And I think the disappearances are connected to what happened before. But I need more—”
“Blue to green. Green.” Alicia’s words made no sense to me, but I wrote down everything she said, because the ghosts knew, even if they couldn’t easily share the answers with the living.
“What else, Alicia? What can the ghosts tell me?”
“Urn. Shining urn.”
“Okay. Do they remember anything else?”
“So many voices. So many all at once.” Alicia sounded like she was in pain. I knew what having a single vision could cost me. I couldn’t imagine having hundreds of dead people screaming in my mind at the same time. “The walls are hollow.”
That at least squared with my vision. I waited, but Alicia remained silent. “Alicia?”
I heard her take a shaky breath. “They’re gone,” she said finally. “Did it help?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Nothing about this is simple.”
“If they come back, or if I remember something, I’ll call you,” Alicia promised. She sounded totally wrecked.
“Are you okay?”
“I will be,” she said, rallying a bit. “Goes with the gift, you know?”
I did and promised to check in on her tomorrow, and ended the call.
Baxter and I settled in on the couch to watch a movie and eat popcorn, and somewhere along the line, I fell asleep. A knock at the door and Baxter’s yipping roused me, and a glance at the clock said it was almost three in the morning. The knock came again, harder this time I frowned, and grabbed my athame from where it lay near my purse, just in case. Only a handful of people can get through the wardings around the house to come up on the porch unescorted, so most visitors ring the bell from the sidewalk door, outside the piazza. I wasn’t expecting anyone, certainly not at this time of night.
Teag stood on my doorstep, pale and haggard. “What’s going on? What happened?” I asked, thinking he might have been in a car accident. Red-rimmed eyes met mine.
“It’s Anthony. He never came home, hasn’t answered his phone. I found his car, but he’s gone and no one’s heard from him. Cassidy, I think he’s been taken.”
Haunted Memories
I put on a pot of coffee, because I knew neither of us were going to get any sleep. Teag looked like hell. He’d obviously been awake all night, and I could see his barely-controlled panic every time I met his gaze.
“Here. Hold Baxter. Certified therapy dog, and all that. Make him earn his biscuits,” I said, jokingly gruff, and handed off the little furball. Teag took Bax gratefully, settling in on the couch like he was in shock. A few minutes later, I came out with two cups of coffee and handed one to Teag.
“Okay. If you’re up to it, tell me what happened. Then we’ll call Sorren and get out the laptops and crack this wide open,” I said with more confidence than I felt. Anthony wasn’t the first man to go missing, but he was the only one I knew, and that made it worse.
“Anthony had to stop by the new project—the real estate deal he talked about at dinner, remember?” When I nodded, he continued. “He was running late because one of the investors wanted to tour the property. Anthony agreed to show him around. But that was at seven o’clock, they were done by nine. Even if he had stopped by the office on the way home—he didn’t—he would have been home by ten.” Teag swallowed hard. “He knew I had dinner in the oven. He always calls.”
“One thing at a time,” I coaxed, watching Teag’s hands tremble as he held his coffee. “How do you know Anthony didn’t go to the office?”
Teag blushed a little. “I hacked their security cameras. No Anthony. And he hadn’t logged onto his computer there since five.”
Teag has hacked the NSA and the FBI, so how hard could it be to get into a small law firm? “Do you know anything else about the big project he was working on?”
“I didn’t—until I got into his computer.” For the first time, Teag looked guilty about breaking into something. “I know it’s a violation of privacy. Screw the law. I wouldn’t have just done it if I didn’t think he was in danger. I wouldn’t—”
I put my hand on Teag’s shoulder. “I know. It’s okay. What did you find?”
Teag took a deep, steadying breath. “The real estate project is down by The Citadel. Taking old houses and tearing them down, building ‘mixed use’ retail/condo units instead.” That squared with what Anthony had told us, but something niggled in the back of my mind.
“The Citadel?” I echoed. Teag met my gaze.
“I never put two and two together, Cassidy. This is all my fault. I should have realized, I could have protected him—”
“I don’t—”
“When the Expo was over, the city made part of the land into Hampton Park. They sold the rest off—to The Citadel. So the murder house wouldn’t have been near the well. It could have been a few blocks over, along the part of the Expo property that now belongs to The Citadel.”
“Oh, god,” I murmured. “So you think… that the houses in his project… one of them was the Brannigan house?”
Teag looked like he might be sick. “When I adjusted my search, I found a house on that street registered to a ‘Victor Brennan.’ Brennan—Brannigan—might be the same guy. And it’s not far from the well. Easy for someone to walk by and toss something in on their way to or from the Expo. He owned some other properties, too.”
“Who owns the place now?” I asked.
“Technically, the developer who is working on the project. The house has been vacant for a while. From what I could find, the title’s been enough of a mess that no one’s lived there for at least ten years. Rentals before that, but the records aren’t worth much.” He pulled up a photo of the old house on his screen and I gasped.
“Blue to green,” I murmured, pointing to a section of the front where on layer of blue paint had peeled off, revealing an older green color underneath.” A stained glass window above the front door caught my attention.
“Can you enlarge the photo?”
Teag did as I asked. “Shining urn,” I said, as I made out the image in the Victorian window. A classical urn, which would shine if the lights were on behind it.” I looked at Teag. “Alicia called me. She had a spook-a-palooza going on, and those were the two solid things
she said, but it didn’t make any sense until I saw the picture.”
“So this is definitely the house.”
I nodded. “You’re sure Anthony was taken?” Of course Teag was sure. At three in the morning, there were few places Anthony could be, and taking off without telling Teag didn’t fit.
“When he didn’t come home by midnight, I called his parents. They hadn’t seen him. I knew he didn’t stop by the office and lose track of time. Ryan and Kell hadn’t seen him, and neither had our other friends. So I hacked the GPS on his phone.” Teag dropped his head. “Jeez, I sound like a stalker.” He looked up defiantly. “But it was gone, Cassidy. Not turned off, just gone.”
I took Teag’s empty coffee cup and curled my fingers around his hand, steadying him. “All right. That’s bad. But—”
“While I was waiting, I researched,” Teag went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “I looked at the Facebook pages and other social media sites for the men who’ve vanished lately. They did have something in common. And I can’t believe I didn’t realize it. They were all gay.”
An awful possibility hit my stomach like ice. “You don’t think—”
Teag nodded. “Remember what Hibbard’s niece said, about him ‘not fitting in?’ How we figured none of the wallet men were married because there were no photos of pretty girls in their billfolds?” I fought down bile, and nodded. “And Tomlinson, how you thought he might be blackmailed about an affair?
“I dug up what I could online about the wallet men. Of course back then, being gay was illegal. They didn’t dare come out, be open. They could have been thrown in jail, disinherited. But there are usually hints, ways people said things back then that implied a wink and a nod.”
“The equivalent of liking ice dancing and Streisand?”
That got the barest of wan smiles. “Yeah. And it was all there, for most of them at least. I can’t believe I missed it.”
Another piece of the puzzle came together in my head with a thunk. “At the Chicago World’s Fair, Holmes—Mudgett—preyed on young single women because they were vulnerable.”
Teag nodded. “Brennan, or Brannigan or whatever the hell his name is, he saw easy pickings. Gay men wouldn’t go to the police. They might not be able to count on their families. And if their families did make inquiries, if they suspected at all about being gay, they wouldn’t press too hard. Wouldn’t dare have the police look too closely.”
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered under my breath.
“Yeah. And one more thing—all of the men who’ve gone missing lately had some tie to the Expo. Alistair’s assistant, working on the exhibit. One of the other missing men interned for the Archive. Another worked for a company involved in the renovation. And Anthony—” his voice choked off.
A knock came at the door. Baxter jumped down off Teag’s lap and ran barking to the door, then abruptly sat down and shut up, tilting his head with a goofy look. “Sorren,” I said over my shoulder to Teag as I went to open the door.
“How do you know?”
I jerked my head toward Baxter, who hadn’t moved. “Vampire mojo.”
Sorren barely spared Baxter and me a hello, looking immediately for Teag. He didn’t hide the worry in his expression. “I got your message. This definitely forces our hand.”
“Ya think?” I muttered. “Except we don’t even have a hand right now.”
“Maybe more than you give us credit for,” Sorren said. “I verified my memory of the Expo with the Alliance. No one knew about the murders or sensed the kind of entity you’ve described. So whatever killed those men was human at the time.”
“But a human from 1901 isn’t snatching men now,” Teag replied.
“No, but that entity might be influencing someone, returning to old habits,” Sorren said. “I went to see Archibald Donnelly. He’s certain there’s no necromancy involved.” Donnelly was head of the Briggs Society, a member of the Alliance, and a powerful necromancer. “But he did say that a particularly twisted soul can work some dark magic to make its ghost into something almost demonic. An entity like that can possess a willing victim.”
“So what’s happening now could be the same guy from back then, with a new… host?” Teag asked.
“And when I saw the shadow? Did it go walkabout and leave its body behind?” I tried not to sound sarcastic, but I’d been up all night, and this was a lot to take in.
“An inelegant comparison, but accurate enough,” Sorren replied. He paused and lifted his head, his extra-sensitive vampire hearing picking up a sound we didn’t. “They’re here.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Father Anne and Chuck Pettis,” Sorren replied. “I told them what was happening, and what we knew so far. We’re going to need backup. Donnelly said he had to check with some resources, and he’ll be here too.”
“It’s oh-dark-thirty,” Teag protested.
Sorren raised an eyebrow. “So? Chuck’s ex-military. Father Anne still keeps grad student hours. And Donnelly is… Donnelly.”
“The Briggs Society exists outside of time, right?” The odd time-traveling building, a private club for adventurers throughout the ages who had vanished on the hunt, still made my head spin when I thought about it too hard. “Could he go back to the Expo? Find out what happened, even if he can’t change history?”
Sorren nodded. “And that’s exactly what he meant to do, assuming his building will oblige. I don’t pretend to understand how the magic works, but I get the feeling that Donnelly is more of an empowered caretaker than actually in charge. And I think the building has a mind of its own.”
At another time, I’d be intrigued. Now, I just wanted to help Teag find Anthony before it was too late, and stop the entity from hurting anyone else.
I opened the door and stood aside to let the newcomers enter. Father Anne led the way. She’s taller than I am by a few inches, with short-cut, spiked black hair. A complex tattoo wound down one arm beneath the black shirt with the priest collar, marking her as a member of the St. Expeditus Society, a secret group of hunter-priests. She’s fast with an exorcism as well as a gun, and her knife skills are scary awesome. Dressed all in black down to her Doc Martens, she looked almost as dangerous as she really was. “Hey, Cassidy. Hi, Teag.”
Chuck trudged in a few steps behind her. He’s in his middle years, short and stocky, and everything about him says “former soldier.” He also has a superstition about watches and wind-up clocks, fearing that if all of his timepieces wind down, he’ll die. Chuck wears a vest lined entirely with working watch faces. He ticks if you get close to him. Hell if I’m ever going to try to get through airport security with the man. But he’s good in a fight, and since he was special ops against supernatural threats in his military days, he gets his hands on very cool, useful weapons and we don’t ask how.
They listened as I filled them in on Alicia’s desperate phone call and what had happened with the ghost hunt at the well. Teag recapped everything else.
“You’re right about the Brennan-Brannigan connection,” Sorren said. “I remembered a men’s boarding house—several of them—near the Expo grounds. And when Donnelly and I talked, he reminded me that Holmes had helpers with his murder house in Chicago. One of them was a man named Victor Brennan. He was just a janitor and claimed he hadn’t known what was going on. The police let him go; he never faced charges. But I always wondered how Holmes managed to do everything himself. I don’t think he did. I think Brennan was more involved than he let on, and I think it’s mighty suspicious that he turned up here, just in time for another Expo and a slew of missing people.”
“The closest match we can come to is a Chindi, which is a Native American vengeful spirit that takes all the bad traits of a person and magnifies them,” Father Anne said. “Ghosts don’t worry about ethnicity, they just do what they do, but it’s a helpful description. Chindi kill with ‘ghost sickness,’ which is kind of like supernaturally-induced Spanish flu.”
Teag paled. “How do we get rid of it?
And if the men it’s taken are… infected,” He paused and swallowed, then went on, “how do we cure them?”
Father Anne laid a hand on Teag’s shoulder. “Fortunately, that’s the easy part. Once we get rid of the Chindi, the ghost sickness goes away.” I heard what she didn’t say. If Brennan’s ghost works like a regular Chindi.
“Or, as I like to say, let’s blow the fucker up and let the chips fall where they may,” Chuck said.
“Brennan-Brannigan came from Charleston originally, moved around a bit through the Midwest, and came back,” Sorren said. “He was a distant cousin to Lavinia Fisher.”
Great. The crazy innkeeper psycho killer. This just kept getting better and better.
Teag looked up. “So he decided to recreate his family history here? It would make sense—and Brannigan would be ripe for ghost possession.”
“That’s what we think,” Sorren confirmed. “And if Archibald was able to convince the Briggs’ building to do us a favor, we might know for sure that Brennan-Brannigan is our guy. We’ll see what else he comes up with. It’s amazing what you notice once you know what you’re looking for.”
As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Sorren, Donnelly, Father Anne, and Chuck were on the short list of people who could get through the warding. Baxter sat quietly in Sorren’s lap while I went to open the door. Archibald Donnelly stood framed in the entrance. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a British accent and the look of someone who had been a colonel somewhere during the height of the Empire. A shock of white hair looked windblown over unruly eyebrows, and his pale cheeks had a flush to them that might have been windburn or good scotch.
“Bloody Hell. I had forgotten how much I hated the Edwardians.” He tramped inside and only then seemed to notice the others. “Don’t mind me. Been arguing with the damn building all day. Never bet against the house, my ass.” Charleston’s most powerful necromancer, wrapped in the guise of an eccentric English uncle.
“Come on in Archie, we’re just starting to strategize,” Sorren invited. Donnelly huffed into the room, made a beeline for my liquor cabinet and poured himself a stiff bourbon, then settled into a wing chair.
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