Steele Life (Daggers & Steele Book 8)

by Alex P. Berg

  “Let’s say I’m investigating it, too. That and Nell’s disappearance. You remember her, right?”

  Bertrand hung his head. “That…was a long time ago. I don’t recall much about it. The fire. Flashes, mostly. Sensations. The heat of the flames on my face. A tight grip on my arm, biting into my flesh, holding me in place. Thick, acrid smoke. And screams, going on forever. Maybe they were mine…”

  “Have you ever wondered what caused the fire?”

  The eyes had lost their fear, becoming hollow. “More times than you can imagine.”

  “And?”

  Bertrand brought his head back up. “Look. Daggers. Whoever you are. Why are you tormenting me with this? It’s been seven years. I live with the results every day. If you think you’ll find anything…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

  I sucked on my lips. My candle’s flame flickered on the floor, illuminating Bertrand’s pants, now dusty from his bout with the floor. Dried mud caked his shoes, half hiding a collection of pale green stains.

  “Do you get out much, Bertrand?”

  He gave me a look, as if I might be daft. “I have what I need here. I prefer not to.”

  I pointed toward the gap in the wall. “This leads somewhere, I presume?”

  “There are multiple basement entrances. One near the coal shaft. Provides service access for the furnace. Another on the south side of the home, in back.”

  How convenient. “Nice having the furnace nearby. I probably would’ve put my bed closer, you know, for the winter months. Keeps things nice and dry down here, though.”

  “Look, could you…go away?” said Bertrand. “I’m not fond of strangers.”

  “Sure. As soon as you tell me what you were up to in the graveyard last night.”

  Bertrand’s eyes snapped open. “What?”

  I loved looks like the one he shot me. Snagging them was a mixture of luck and guesswork, but when the punch landed? It was beautiful. “You’ve got mud and grass stains on your shoes. It was foggy last night, and it’s dry as a bone down here. You told me you have access to the grounds through that passageway. So talk. What were you doing out there? Why were you spying on me?”

  Bertrand adopted another spooked look, and I coiled my muscles, ready to dart after him or fight back should he attack.

  He stood his ground. “I…didn’t spy on you. I mean…not on purpose.”

  “So you admit you were there.”

  He nodded. “I went to visit my mother’s grave. She’s…been on my mind.”

  “Why?”

  “She just has. Maybe because of Mrs. Vanderfeller’s disappearance. I don’t know.”

  “So you think Clarice’s disappearance is related to your mother’s death?”

  “I didn’t say that. I told you, I don’t know anything about what happened to her.”

  Was it just me, or was there a hint of fear in his voice? “Maybe not. But you’re investigating cold cases, same as I am. Don’t lie to me. I know you broke into my room, took a look at my files.”

  “What? No.”

  Something about his tone of voice made me believe him—for once. “I’m starting to lose my patience, Bertrand. What do you know about this? What aren’t you telling me?”

  The young man twisted his hands together. “Look, I…I haven’t lied, okay? I went out last night. I couldn’t sleep. My mother had been on my mind, as I said. I walked to her grave, trying to get my thoughts straight, when I heard someone coming up the path. I hid in the trees. That’s when I saw you. Looking at Nell’s grave, and my mother’s.”

  “So why did you follow me?”

  “I didn’t.”

  I scowled.

  “But I, ah…know who did.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

  “When you ran off after looking at the tombstones? Someone emerged from the trees behind you. Angela. She followed you along the path toward the manor.”

  That threw me for a loop. “You’re sure?”

  The young man nodded.

  I sucked on my teeth. “Why were you in the graveyard last night?”

  “I’ve told you twice, I’d been thinking about my mother. Other things, too. I hoped walking would help clear my thoughts.”

  “But why? Why last night?”

  Bertrand crossed his arms. “I don’t know. You can’t control what you think about.”

  “Most people can, actually.”

  Bertrand just muttered.

  “Don’t leave the house,” I said. “I’ll be back.”

  I grabbed my candlestick from the ground, turned, and headed toward the wine cellar.

  Bertrand called out behind me. “You’re leaving?”

  I stopped. “Why do you care? I thought you preferred your privacy.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “That’s what I thought.” But he did care. He wouldn’t have asked, otherwise. Why? Because of his mother? Mrs. Vanderfeller?

  I didn’t have time to sift through his lies. I needed to corner Angela.

  29

  Though folks in the Aldermont apparently wandered hither and thither based on unexplained motives and the vagaries of the wind, Angela moved to the beat of a different drum. She stood exactly where I’d last seen her, in her studio in front of her enormous painting of the pond by which Shay and I had kissed.

  “Why am I not surprised to find you here?” I said as I walked in.

  As before, she didn’t turn. “I’m surprised it took you so long to come back.”

  I stopped at her side. “Why?”

  “People are drawn to me. I have a magnetic personality.”

  She tilted her head and looked at me with dull eyes, not as pale as her hair but close. Yet again, her face was an emotionless mask. It unnerved me.

  “You were right about Sydney,” I said. “She’s more than she seems. Fancies herself a power broker, I take it, and isn’t above dirtying her hands to get the job done.”

  “You listened. Good. Then again, we’re all more than we seem.”

  I snorted. Wasn’t that the truth. “What do you think she’s after? Sydney, I mean.”

  “You’re the detective. Consider her motives. Her wants and desires. If you discover those, you’ll see.”

  She held her dragon brush in her right hand, twirling it around her fingers, the tips of the bristles saturated with a deep purple. Her palette rested on the stool to her side.

  I glanced at the painting of the pond. I couldn’t remember every detail from the day before, but if anything, today it stole away my breath even more forcefully. Every blade of grass, every strip of bark, every striation across every leaf of every tree possessed a texture and depth that brought it to life. The ripples in the pond almost moved as I stared at them, and I suspected my fingers might get wet from touching them.

  “I went up to the attic yesterday. Looked at your paintings. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  Angela didn’t say anything.

  “You’ve painted a number of portraits of Nell. You must miss her. Seven years… At your age, I suppose that seems like an eternity.”

  Angela blinked, a flicker of emotion passing over her. “You have no idea.”

  “I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like. First dealing with the fire and the deaths of two servants, then the loss of your sister. Do you think the fire affected Nell? Impacted her reasoning? Forced her into a premature decision?”

  “It affected us all,” said Angela. “Some more than others. Maybe not as much as you think.”

  I gave her a moment, but all the young woman did was stare at me.

  “You can drop the act. I know you followed me last night. Broke into my room. Rifled through my jacket. You know more about the fire than you let on, just as Bertrand does, and you’re looking for more information. So I’ll make you a deal. Tell me everything you know. I’ll offer you immunity. Protect you from whoever it is you’re
afraid of.”

  Angela’s face tightened. She was a cool customer, but I could tell she was considering my offer. She kept twirling her paint brush as she thought.

  She glanced at her painting. “I prefer to express myself through art, Detective. I find it’s an excellent outlet for my emotional excesses, as well as my creative ones. You noticed this one when you first arrived, unless I’m mistaken. Do you like it?”

  “It’s awe-inspiring.”

  “But not accurate. You pointed that out when you first laid eyes on it.”

  “I implied it. You said it was a representation. Not of what is, but what was, or perhaps what you wished it could be.”

  “I said many of my paintings are, not this one in particular. But you’re right. This isn’t a depiction of our grounds as one might see them today. It’s not even a depiction of what they were like on that fateful day of my sister’s disappearance. But it is representative of that time. It holds meaning, to me at least, as well as other things.”

  I creased my brow. “If you’re trying to tell me something, then say it. I’m not one to beat around the bush, or mistletoe-ravaged tree as the case may be.”

  Angela flicked her brush toward the painting. “The path that skirts the pond. You know where it leads.”

  “I do now. The Vanderfeller family plot.”

  Angela stepped back. “Take a look at it.”

  “Really, a testimony is what I’m after. Or an explanation of any kind…”

  Angela flicked her paintbrush again, toward the same spot. I sighed and took her place before the painting. I tracked my eyes along the path, the stones smooth and white and close-fitting. They disappeared into the trees.

  “I’m looking, but I’m not seeing anything. The graveyard isn’t visible. It’s behind the trees.”

  Angela spoke softly behind me. “Look closer. Look through the trees to what lies beneath.”

  I took a deep breath, feeling my patience wearing thin, but I did as she asked. I brought my face to within a few inches of the canvas.

  “There,” said Angela.

  “I don’t—”

  I felt a boot slam into the middle of my back. I tumbled forward, bringing my hands up to keep myself from crashing face first into the paint, but they passed right through.

  Then the rest of me did, and I fell.

  30

  Colors swirled around me, a rushing maelstrom of pastels intermixed with bold purples, deep blues, and forest greens. I flailed, trying to stop my spinning, but I could barely move my arms, like a gnat trying to swim through syrup. I opened my mouth to scream, but the colors blanketed me, suffocating me with an unnatural weight. My heart beat like a war drum and my mind spun as fast as the whirlpool of multicolored hues. Panic surged within me. Where was I? What was happening?

  Either I began to slow, or the colors around me did. They coalesced, the pastels fading and the earth tones strengthening. Greens combined into globs, streaks, spears. Blues darkened, merged and sunk, while others lightened and stretched above me. Strokes of brown solidified into hard textures.

  Something popped, and I fell, in a singular direction this time. I slammed into the ground, grunting as the breath left my lungs, breath I’d been happy to find I still possessed but wished I could have back. I blinked and groaned, feeling as if I’d ingested a barrel of whiskey, fallen in a lake, and washed ashore, which wasn’t an activity with a comforting rate of success.

  I brought a hand to my face and stared at it. It was dry, or so my eyes would have me believe. I passed said hand through my hair, only to find that bone dry as well. My hand didn’t come back covered in paint, either.

  I pushed myself off the ground and up onto my knees. My nausea and disorientation fled with surprising quickness as I worked air back into my lungs. Grass stretched out before me. As I lifted my head, I saw trees, water, and sky, but not a random combination of the three. I knelt before the pond in back of the Aldermont, its waters blue and clear, the trees around it thriving, the grass neatly manicured, and all the beds mulched and planted.

  I turned. The tree under which I’d kissed Shay stood there, free of mistletoe this time, but I was willing to forgive it the transgression.

  Behind the tree hovered a portrait, but not the one I’d stared at in Angela’s studio. Rather the portrait was of Angela’s studio, the back of it, filled with assorted frames and easels and looking decidedly dark in the full light of day.

  Nonetheless, it hovered there. Not by itself, either. The air around it shimmered and vibrated, bending light that approached it, almost as if it were submerged at the bottom of a pool. Wisps of color swirled through the haze, further obscuring the portrait within.

  I looked up, but the portrait and surrounding miasma weren’t suspended from anything. They simply were. And beyond that, other things were not. Beyond the painting’s frame, I saw the back of the Aldermont. To the sides, the grounds. Beyond that? Nothing. Whiteness stretched from ground to sky.

  Panic spread through me again. I approached the shimmering haze and stretched out a hand. Rather than spread out in anticipation of my touch or swallow me whole, it resisted. The surface felt soft, rubbery, but solid.

  I pushed harder. It pushed back.

  I tried once more, with two hands, grunting from the exertion. The sphere deflected but didn’t budge. I felt myself pushed back, my feet slipping in the grass.

  I stepped back, panting and feeling faint. I tried to slow my breathing, telling myself the situation might not be as it appeared. I might be dreaming. Angela might’ve whacked me in the head, causing me to fall into a coma. LeBeau’s five-course dinner might’ve been laced with the wrong kind of wild mushrooms.

  It didn’t help. I was a detective, and I based my conclusions upon objective analyses. I needed more data, but the initial observations suggested a clear result.

  Somehow, I’d been locked inside Angela’s painting.

  I closed my eyes and forced air in and out of my lungs in regular breaths. In. Out. In. Out. I knew better than to panic. I’d been in homicide for over a decade and found myself mired in situations that could’ve killed me too many times to count. I’d faced drug-addled dwarves with broadswords, ogres twice my size with bloodlust flowing through their veins, been captured and imprisoned in an underground dungeon, and faced off against any number or sorcerers and thaumaturgists, and that was all within the last year. Whatever had occurred, I couldn’t let my nerves get the best of me. That wouldn’t help in the least. I simply had to approach the problem calmly and use whatever wits were left in the battered skull that rested upon my shoulders.

  Of course, if I really was stuck in a painting—an idea that sounded as ludicrous as getting sucked into the pages of one of my revered Rex Winters novels—then I wasn’t sure how much my wits could help me. To be fair, I’d learned a fair bit about magic during my time at Shay’s side. Even before meeting her, I’d known about the elemental magics. Fire, ice, lightning, and so forth. I’d met enough of those mages to know roughly how their powers worked. Then there were the psychic magics, like those Shay had initially pretended to possess: clairvoyance, telepathy, telekinesis, and mind control, among others. Shay and I had come across that last one recently. Then there were the so called dark magics, like divination, witchcraft, demonology, and necromancy. Thankfully, I didn’t have much experience with those, although an encounter with a certain priest came to mind.

  But this? Painting magic? I didn’t even know what to call it, much less understand the faintest details about it. In fact, if Shay was right, none of what surrounded me should be possible at all. I vaguely recalled an interaction in one of our early cases where she suggested enchantments weren’t possible. That magic was innate, existing only in the self. But where the heck was I if not stuck in an enchanted painting? In an alternate universe? That was the realm of astrophysics, not magic.

  I kept forcing air through my lips and into my lungs. My heart slowed, an
d I felt the tingling in my extremities fade. You can do this, Daggers. You can do this.

  I heard a crunch, and my eyes snapped open. I spun, casting my gaze into the trees. The pond lay calm, with nary a hint of breeze in the air. The trees’ boughs hung still and heavy, thick with leaves.

  Were there animals in here? Squirrels and foxes and deer, like in the grounds behind the Aldermont proper? By the gods, Angela hadn’t created life, had she?

  I took a step along the path in the direction of the woods. “Hello? Anyone there?”

  No one answered. As I continued, I spotted movement. There, at the edge of the trees. A figure emerged. A young girl, perhaps seven or eight years old, with golden blonde curls that fell to below her shoulders. Despite her hesitation, her face radiated an indescribable warmth.

  I knew exactly who she was. I’d seen so many portraits of her, after all.

  I blinked, unable to believe my eyes. “Nell?”

  31

  It wasn’t possible. Not that she was here—I was only now churning through the repercussions of the artificial universe around me—but that she hadn’t aged a day. She looked exactly as she had in the numerous paintings I’d seen spread throughout the house and attic. How could that be?

  She stood at the edge of the trees, eyeing me with more curiosity than fear. I approached her slowly, as I would a wounded animal.

  “Nell? Nell Vanderfeller? Is that you?”

  She drew her eyebrows together, but she responded, her voice girlish but rusty from lack of use. “Yes. Who are you?”

  “I’m…Jake Daggers. I’m an investigator, with the police department.”

  She nodded. “I see.”

  I neared to within five paces of her. “Have you…been here? The whole time?”

  She cocked an eyebrow at me. “What do you mean?”

  I knelt to get to her level. “Here, in this…place. Nell, it’s been seven years.”

  She blinked, clearly confused.

  “You must understand what surrounds us is different than the real world, the one you and I came from, the one where you were born and raised. Nell, you went missing from your family seven years ago. Are you aware of that?”