by Pat Esden
—From West Mass Independent
Devlin paced across the motel room. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let Chloe get involved.”
“We’ll get her back. I promise,” Gar said.
“How?” Devlin glared at him. “We have no idea where the wraiths took her, and none of us have Chloe’s ability to locate things.”
Em slumped onto the foot of the bed, head in her hands. “I’m sorry. If I hadn’t frozen—if I’d driven them off sooner.”
“You didn’t freeze.” The mattress sagged as Gar dropped down beside her and draped an arm around her shoulder. “The whole thing happened before any of us had time to think.” His gave her a firm squeeze. “Did they feel exactly like the wraith at headquarters to you?”
Devlin slammed his fist against the kitchenette table. “Of course they did. It was the same damn pack of bloodthirsty bastards. I’m going to kill them. All of them.”
Gar’s tone hardened. “The last thing we need is for anyone to go vigilante. We need to keep our heads and play it smarter from here on out.”
Em leaned against Gar. Chloe. There had to be a way to find her in time. Chloe had to be okay. She couldn’t be dead already.
Devlin scraped his hands over his head. “This is so screwed up.”
“I’ll give you that,” Gar said. His voice deepened. “And what I said about you during your interrogation was wrong—you’re not a fuck-up. You’re one heck of a man. Powerful. Skilled. What I need is for you to be that man right now. We all need that, especially Chloe.”
Devlin turned away, facing the bathroom door. His shoulders rose as he took a deep breath. “You’re right. I need to get my shit together.”
“What’s important is that we rely on each other.” He took his arm off Em’s shoulders and slid her a sly smile. “Personally, I think we make one badass team.”
Em sat up straighter, hope seeping into her veins. Gar had something on his mind. Something doable. She could see it in his eyes. “What are you thinking?”
Gar raised his eyebrows and stared at her steadily. “Chloe isn’t the only one who can locate things, is she?”
Unsettled by the look in his eyes, Em shied away. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
His smile widened. “Couldn’t we use one of your spirit friends—like the Goodwill ghost—to find out where they took Chloe?” His gaze remained on her and her breath bottled up in her chest. He thought she could do it. He had total faith in her.
Devlin wheeled back around. “Is Gar right? Would that work?”
“It might.” Em thought for a second. She brushed her hands down her legs. It might work, but— “I think there’s a better way.”
“Yeah? Go on,” Devlin prodded.
Em licked her lips. “I haven’t run into demonic wraiths very often. The first time, I was working with the police.” She hated to even think about that day, let alone talk about it. She’d never told anyone the whole story, not the police, not her aunt or mother, not even Alice or her therapist. The serial killer she’d helped the police catch hadn’t been working alone. He’d had helpers. Demonic wraiths. She’d seen them when she lead the police to the cemetery near I-90, to the shredded body of the last girl. The little girl the same age she’d been. The ten-year-old.
“Are you saying you think we can use the wraiths to find Chloe?” Gar asked.
“Not exactly.” She thought for a second, struggling for the best way to explain. “The only way this cambion Magus Dux can control demonic wraiths is to let them feed on living people’s energy—and their flesh. Dux has to be close to a source of people. Maybe in the middle of town, near where I first saw Saille.”
“That’s great,” Devlin said, his voice brittle. “But how are we going to pinpoint an exact location?”
“This isn’t the same as when we held the séance. We don’t want to call a spirit to us. We want to locate one.”
Devlin folded his arms, muscles taut as wire. “Chloe isn’t dead. I’m certain of that.”
Gar nodded. “There wasn’t any blood.”
“I agree. I didn’t sense her spirit leave her body, or see her ghost.” That wasn’t to say Chloe was still alive, but it was better to stay silent on that point. “I’m willing to bet Dux is keeping Chloe near Saille, Athena, and Rhianna. If I had a personal object from all three of them, I should be able to locate them—the way I’ve located victims for the police by letting their spirits guide me to their own remains.”
“Dux will have warded his lair against things like that,” Gar said.
“That’s why I’m suggesting items from all three. If I focus on the energy from all of them at once, I’ll have three times the chance of breaking through whatever magical protection Dux has in place.” There were flaws to her logic and she suspected Gar and Devlin realized it. But they didn’t have time to second-guess everything. No one else was coming up with a better plan. She hesitated. “It wouldn’t hurt to use an object from Chloe too, just in case.”
Devlin’s eyes went flinty, but then he nodded tightly and glanced to where Chloe had left her bag. “She always keeps a hairbrush in there, a toothbrush…lots of things.” His gaze darted to Gar. “What did you and Chloe do with our bloody clothes? You didn’t burn them, did you? They had Rhianna’s blood on them. That’s all we have of her.”
“Don’t worry.” Gar beamed. “We bagged them and tossed them in a dumpster.”
Adrenaline flooded into Em’s veins. “I picked up the piece of silk Chloe cut from Saille’s casket. That gives us Chloe, Rhianna, and Saille. The only person we’re missing is Athena. That’s not ideal, but I could make do.”
Devlin stuffed his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a keyring. He showed her the fob: a faded piece of purple macramé studded with beads. “Athena made this for me. I’ve had it for years.”
“Perfect.” Em smiled at him, though she wasn’t so sure it would work. The macramé was more of a personal memento to him than Athena. Now she wasn’t feeling as sure about her plan as before. The only thing she was certain about was that they were about to attempt something beyond dangerous.
She closed her eyes to say a quick prayer for strength, but behind her closed eyes she saw a disturbing memory from the day she’d found the ten-year-old girl’s body and the wraiths: the inside of a tool shed, windows and walls sprayed with blood. Blood gleefully finger-painted across the ceiling.
“You do realize”—Gar’s voice drove off the nightmarish memory—“Dux will sense we’re coming as soon as we step outside the protection of this room and the van’s wards. He knew we were in the cemetery.”
Em weighed the idea for a moment. “Maybe not. He could have had an alarm-spell on Saille’s casket to let him know if someone discovered her missing body.” She nodded, agreeing with her own idea. “My magic will be pinpointed on the ghosts, not Dux or the wraiths. We just need to move super fast.”
She swallowed hard. More like they’d have to move lightning fast.
And even then, locating and getting into Dux’s lair was only half the battle.
Chapter 25
Blood drained from a taken life. The juice of grapes, unfermented.
Mix by the light of a conjuring fire. Serve with bread,
unleavened and black, in the basin of a summoner’s bowl.
—Gifts to Bind the Servitude of Wraiths
Translated from Archaic Welsh by Magus Dux
It was just after midnight when they pulled into a parking lot near Congress Park. Em waited in the van with Devlin while Gar scrunched his cap low over his eyes and went to dig through the dumpster where he’d left the bag of bloody clothes. A minute later, he returned with a scrap of stained cloth.
Em wasn’t surprised by the sick feeling that invaded her stomach as she rolled the bloodstained scrap and the satin from the casket around strand
s of hair from Chloe’s brush. Horrific thoughts reeled in her mind: Rhianna’s blood spraying the room at headquarters, Saille’s poisoning—
Em bit down hard on her lip to stop her mind from continuing down that gruesome path. Focus. She had to focus on the spirits’ energies and not worry about the past.
Clearing her mind, Em went to work. She secured the rolled fabric with the string from Devlin’s macramé fob, creating a bundle the size of cork. With that done, she palmed the bundle. No second thoughts now. No turning back. Just fearlessness and jumping in, like Chloe would.
“I’m ready to go,” Em said, scrambling out of the van.
The brisk night air cooled her heated face as she and Gar walked to the rear. Despite the late hour, they were far from alone. People roamed the sidewalks, under the streetlights, laughing and talking low. Music drifted from a restaurant. A car pulled into a parking space not far from them.
Em gripped the bundle tighter and focused on the press of it against her palm as she intoned, “Give me aid. Show me that together you’re greater than that which confines your spirits. Show me the way that I may free you.” A prickling sensation spread across her palm. “Show me where you are.”
“Do you feel anything?” Devlin whispered anxiously.
She nodded, then closed her eyes and focused only on the prickle and the ridged texture of the bundle against her skin. She let her mind move deeper, past the physical sensation of the string, fabric, and hair. Her magic and sixth sense reached out, latching hold of a faint tug: Athena’s love radiating from the macramé string, Rhianna’s anger and terror blazing from the blood, and Saille’s fierce determination even in death. Three witches. No trace of a fourth ghost, no Chloe.
Relief swept through Em and she opened her eyes. “I don’t sense Chloe. That means she’s still alive for sure.”
“Dear Hecate, thank you. Fucking thank you,” Devlin murmured.
Gar took her arm. The bulge of several assorted weapons at his waistline rubbed against her as he drew her close. “What do you need us to do?”
She leaned into him as if they were a couple walking home from a normal date. “Just make sure I don’t trip over anything. It’s not like I can’t see where I’m going, but I tend to get tunnel vision. A quick prayer for protection might be a good idea, too.”
Saying the last part wasn’t necessary—the crackle and heat of Gar and Devlin’s protective energies sizzled in the air. It was astonishingly comforting to have their presences on either side of her, rather than the chill of policemen and reporters who were certain she was a fraud—and an aunt whose only desire was fame and fortune.
Em squeezed the bundle and refocused on the spirits. “I can feel you. Lead me. Guide me to where you are.”
She let go of the world around her, feeling only the hardness of the pavement under her shoes as her sixth sense and the spirits led her forward. The pull was weak, which wasn’t surprising considering the power of Magus Dux’s tug-of-war spell or whatever was restraining them. Rhianna’s pull was the strongest, faded but blistering with rage.
Em’s subconscious registered moving past a concrete planter, skirting a tree. A gazebo, maybe. But they weren’t in Congress Park. They hadn’t gone that far from the van. They were on a sidewalk.
Gar’s grip clamped her forearm, helping her step off a curb. Wet leaves in the gutter. The clatter of a discarded can rolling across blacktop. He held her back and the breeze from a passing car brushed her skin. Her mouth watered at the smell of hotdogs. Sauerkraut. Brick buildings hemmed her in. A narrow street or fancy alleyway, like the one outside the Council’s headquarters.
“You’re doing fine,” Devlin whispered.
The tunnel in front of her eyes constricted to a speck of light. She walked toward it as if stepping into a dream. Faint awareness murmured to her, telling her what they passed. A boutique. A bookstore…
Be careful, Saille’s voice whispered in her head.
Kill the fucker, Rhianna snarled.
Flash! A bright light and surge of energy jolted Em from her daze.
A red, baseball-size orb pulsated an arm’s length in front of her. Blindingly bright. As fiery as a comet.
Gar released her arm. “What the fuck?”
“Athena!” Devlin stared at the orb, mouth open.
Em’s sixth sense told her Devlin was right. It was Athena.
The orb streaked away from them, rocketing low to the sidewalk, up the narrow street. It slammed itself against a first-floor window. Bang! Bang!
Pop! The orb evaporated, and every sense of Athena drained from Em.
Em took off, pumping her arms as she ran toward the window. Gar and Devlin trailed on her heels. Athena had to be showing them the way. Nothing else made sense.
She reached a blacked-out window and froze in her tracks.
Her mind flailed wildly. She couldn’t swallow. She couldn’t move.
A blacked-out window, like in her aunt’s van.
The day before Johnny helped her leave the persona of Violet Grace behind, someone had called the police to report a dog whimpering in a hot van. Blacked-out windows. Left chained up. Her punishment for refusing to eat lunch. The policeman had cried when he found her. She’d felt his tears on her arm. The heat had sizzled up from the blacktop. She’d shivered from the ambulance’s cool air—
“…a Blind Tiger’s another name for a speakeasy.” Devlin’s voice freed Em from the memory’s harsh grip.
She shook herself the rest of the way back to her senses and looked to see what he was talking about. Next to the blacked-out window was a bright blue door, tastefully dented and scratched to mock a neglected service entrance. A drumbeat of music and voices throbbed behind it. She caught a whiff of beer and liquor, and fried food.
Stepping closer, she read the words on a fake bumper sticker that was painted across the center of the door—obviously the name of the business. Below the name was an odd poem:
The Blind Tiger
Like the blind tiger in Pergamon
I seek the unseen and feast on its words.
She reread the sign and wrinkled her nose. “Pergamon? Unseen?”
“It makes perfect sense,” Delvin said. “Pergamon. Words. Half-demons.”
Gar frowned. “I have no idea what you’re getting at. Wasn’t Pergamon an ancient city?”
Devlin waved them into a huddle. He hushed his voice. “Pergamon was a Greek city. It’s also the name of an ancient library. Don’t you get it? This is the reverse of a speakeasy. This Blind Tiger looks like a bar, but I’m willing to bet we’ll find a secret entry to a hidden library somewhere inside.”
“Are you saying Dux is a librarian? Then why is he kidnapping and killing witches?” Gar shook his head, but his serious tone said he wasn’t ruling the idea out.
“Maybe not a library,” Em said. The Goodwill ghost. The stolen books. “Maybe he’s selling black market books about the dark arts or the Craft in general. He could be intending on using the power of three high priestess to enhance—” The words died in her throat as an image of wraiths covering priceless books in the skin of murdered high priestesses leapt into her mind, made more appalling by the fact that books covered in human skin truly existed.
She swallowed back the taste of bile. Dear Goddess, Rhianna had used necromancer magic and Athena’s skin to create the necklace that allowed her to impersonate Athena. The chance of her skin-covered books theory being right was not only sickening, it was a real possibility. But no way was she going to tell Devlin this was a fate his sister might have met—and one that awaited his girlfriend. They needed him in control, now more than ever.
Gar grumbled. “Black market books is a good theory, but it doesn’t explain why Dux went out of his way to take priestesses from the same coven.”
Em grasped the door latch. “I don’t know. But Dux has probably a
lready sensed our presence. We have to get Chloe out, now.”
“Not so fast.” Gar whipped out his phone. “I’m calling Zeus.”
Delvin lunged, closing his fingers around Gar’s hand before he could make the call. “The last thing we need is to wait for him—or have him to show up halfway through.”
“If something goes wrong, you’ll be glad he did.” Gar wriggled his hand free and put the phone to his ear. He frowned, then said, “Hello, Zeus. This is Agent Garfield Remillard. We’re about to go into The Blind Tiger in Saratoga Springs. If you don’t hear back from us in an hour, send in the troops.”
“Voicemail?” Em asked as Gar put away the phone.
“Let’s hope he checks his messages.”
Devlin raked his hand over his head. “You do realize he’ll alert the Council.”
“I’m counting on it. Now, let’s find Chloe.”
Chapter 26
Love is small things,
a coffee shared under a blanket,
sweetened from a packet of sugar you kept in your bag
for the day when we could afford nothing else.
—Memories. Alice. Atlanta. 16 years old.
As they stepped into the dark bar, the heady aroma of whiskey set Em’s senses on edge. She looked down, getting past the smell and the stares of the people who’d turned to watch them enter. She should have expected both things. But that didn’t make the panic rising in her chest any less real. Walking into the bar felt exactly like stepping into an audience to give a group reading: all eyes on her, the smell of liquor filling her sinuses.
“Stay behind me,” Gar said above the music.
Em nodded, more than grateful to stay in his shadow as he moved ahead of her. The only thing that made it even better was Devlin’s proximity behind her.
Gar wound between the crowded tables and along a narrow dance floor, pulsing with dancing couples and the strobe of a blacklight. Suddenly he wheeled, grabbed her upper arm and steered her to a vacant table.