“I’m sorry,” Festus grumbled, “did you say spit hound?”
Ignoring him, I ran down the situation for Greer who was immediately all business.
“Is there a way out of the store that does not require us to appear upstairs?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, “we can go through the cobbler shop next door and go out into the alley.”
“Show me,” she ordered.
As we started out of the lair, Festus said, “Hey! What am I supposed to do with this thing?”
“His name is Duke,” I shot back. “Play fetch with him. He loves to catch balls.”
“You do know I’m a cat, right?” Festus called after us.
Greer and I managed not to laugh until we were inside the small passage leading to Chase’s basement. “Be grateful the poor creature is a ghost,” Greer said. “Festus can’t do anything to him now except swear.”
“You ever heard Festus swear?” I asked.
“Point well taken,” she said. “We must hurry.”
By the time we made it outside, the twilight hour was long past and full night had fallen. We stayed in the alley for an extra block and then doubled back to join up with Beau.
“Any trouble?” I asked, handing him the amulet.
“No,” he said, “but there have been people passing by the entrance to the alley intermittently.”
Greer reached into the pouch on her belt and pulled out a small bottle of what I could have sworn was glitter. Removing the lid, she shook a few of the sparkling flakes onto the palm of her hand and blew them behind us. They hung suspended in the air for a second, and then expanded across the alley creating an opaque barrier. Stepping a few feet past Beau, she repeated the maneuver.
“Fairy dust,” she explained as she put the bottle away. “Anyone who glances down the alley will see only what they expect to see. Now, will you remove your spell please?”
The coherence of my spell impressed even me. The magic held perfectly until I waved my hand over the boy’s body and said, “Exsolvo.”
When Greer crouched down to examine the corpse, she snapped her fingers to ignite a small illuminated ball that followed the movements of her hands. When the light fell on the puncture wounds in the boy’s neck, for the first time I thought I might get sick. The dull red holes stood out in stark relief against the pallid, bluing skin.
“Exsanguinated,” Greer muttered clinically. “As I would have expected. The bites are precise and even. This is not the work of new vampires. They have fed on the living before.”
Then she did something that I’m ashamed to say surprised me. With infinite gentleness, Greer brushed her long, graceful fingers down over the boy’s face to close his eyes. The gesture, filled with so much empathy, brought a lump to my throat, but this was not the moment to mourn the death of an innocent. There would be time for that later.
“Wouldn’t we have heard reports of other killings?” I asked.
The hoarseness in my voice was not lost on Greer. She stood up and caught hold of my hands. “There are many seen as disposable in this world,” she said gently. “The homeless, transients, runaways. Those are the ones who can disappear without a trace. It is a sad, but real fact.”
One of many sad facts, I thought, before getting back to business. “Would the Strigoi Sisters kill often?” I asked.
“No,” Greer said, lightly squeezing my arm before she removed her hand. “Strigoi mort do not have to feed daily, nor do they have to drain their victims. They could easily choose transients or homeless people as a source of food.”
“Or,” I hesitated, “do what you do?”
“Seduction is a long-standing method of acquiring a willing blood donor,” Greer agreed, “but I was born as I am and modified my habits by choice. The Strigoi mort have baser instincts. They would have required instruction to refine their feeding patterns.”
We had at least two candidates for Teacher of the Year — Anton Ionescu and Irenaeus Chesterfield.
“How will you get rid of the . . . of him?” I asked.
“The body can’t be found in this condition,” she said. “You know that already or you would not have come to me. I must dispose of him where he will not be found.”
I looked down at the boy. He would become just another name on a missing person list. Someone somewhere would spend years waiting for him, watching for him. If my magic had raised the Strigoi Sisters, his death was on me as well as on them.
“Do not think that way,” Greer said as if she could read my mind. “You did not kill this boy.”
“No,” I said, “but my actions may have started the path that led to his death.”
“Hear me,” Greer said, “and accept what is a fundamental truth of the Fae. All magic has consequences. You cannot escape the effects of your actions, only seek to model them for the good.”
“Tell him that,” I said, staring at the dead boy again.
“Use his death to sharpen your choices,” she said, “not to dull your resolve. Do not cheapen his sacrifice with weakness of purpose. They did this to make you fear your actions and doubt yourself. Will you give them that victory?”
I had a short answer for that question.
Hell no.
But the idea of a “disposable” person didn’t sit right with me. “I understand what you have to do, Greer,” I said, “but isn’t there any way we can make sure his family has a chance to bury him?”
She stared down at the body for a minute and then said, “Did you check his pockets for a cell phone?”
The question startled me. I hadn’t touched the body at all. “No,” I said. “Beau felt for a pulse, but otherwise we haven’t done anything.”
Greer reached into her pouch again and took out a pair of latex gloves. Snapping them on, she felt in the boy’s clothes, finally reaching under the body and coming out with an iPhone.
She thumbed the screen on and spent a few minutes looking over the text messages. “This is one of the boys who shot the video of the baseball game?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I sold them both t-shirts the day it happened.”
“Then I would assume his partner in the endeavor is this Lester person. Can you replicate the boy’s manner of speaking?” she asked.
When I said I’d try, she handed me a pair of gloves and then gave me the phone. I read over the messages. “Sure,” I said, “I think I can pull it off. What do you want me to tell Lester?”
“Indicate that Danny here has acquired female companionship and will be in touch in a few days.”
Danny. So that was his name.
Using my thumbs, I typed, “Bro, scored with a hot chick. Headed for the woods. Don’t wait for me.”
I sent the text and waited. Within seconds a reply came in. “Cool, dude. See you back in the city.”
Greer nodded. “Perfect,” she said. “I will see to it that the body is taken to this boy’s natural haunts and that it is discovered in a likely location. It will take some effort, but I believe the scene can be staged in such a way as to suggest he was the victim of an assault. Do you wish to know further details?”
“Uh, no,” I said. “And thank you.”
It wasn’t much, but it was all I could do for Danny. The rest I’d just have to live with.
28
Anton Ionescu stared out the window of his study at the sun rising over the mountains. The man standing behind him said impatiently, “Are you listening to me? This cannot be allowed to continue.”
Without taking his eyes off the dawn sky, Ionescu said, “I hear you Cezar. You are sure Seraphina and Ioana are responsible for this boy’s death?”
“Of course, I’m sure,” Cezar said. “We haven’t made the mistake of hunting the girls as a group again after the electrical mishaps on the square that first night. I have two men on surveillance duty at the festival. Last night, Emil saw Seraphina approach the boy. As she led him toward the alley, Ioana joined them. Emil could not follow without attracting attention
to himself, so he signaled Petre. By the time he reached the scene, both girls were draining the boy’s blood. Petre called out to them to stop, but it was too late. They vanished, and the human fell to the ground dead.”
Anton made an impatient sound. “And why didn’t Petre dispose of the body?”
“Because that infernal ghost hound started howling and Petre couldn’t get him to stop,” Cezar said angrily. “Petre could not risk being seen and attracting any attention to our family. He is known in the area as an electrician. That is why I selected him, so he would blend into the crowd.”
Anton sighed. “Of course,” he said. “I understand. Tell me again about this red-haired woman. You are certain she was Fae?”
“Yes, according to Petre, she veiled the scene with fairy dust. When the barrier dissolved, only the Hamilton girl and Longworth were left in the alley. The other woman and the body were gone.”
“Thank you, Cezar,” Ionescu said. “You may leave now.”
“Anton, Seraphina and Ioana will kill again.”
“I am aware of that, Cezar,” Ionescu snapped. “Leave.”
He listened as the door of the study opened and shut again. Only then did Ionescu lean his head against the cool glass of the window pane and close his eyes.
So, the Hamilton girl had help. He suspected the red-haired woman was the baobhan sith MacVicar who worked with the DGI. Chesterfield had files on all of them. Powerful wizard or not, did the man really think he could overcome the Mother Trees?
Anton Ionescu was not an unethical man. All his life he’d sought to abide by the rules of behavior Father Damian helped the Strigoi develop when he brought them to the New World and saved them from the bigoted vengeance of the Church. But that code of conduct failed to guide Anton when he lost his entire family and was left to raise his daughter and niece alone.
In the aftermath, Anton did what was required of him to prevent their resurrection as Strigoi mort blasfematoare. He drove the silver stakes in their hearts. He severed their heads from their bodies. But he only found the strength to do those things because he had a reason to live — two reasons. Seraphina and Ioana.
The girls were all that was left of joy in his world. He spoiled them, indulging their whim to attend the human school to “fit in” even though the elders in the clan advised against it.
He knew Seraphina and Ioana would encounter the youngest Daughters of Knasgowa there, but what did he understand of the rivalries teenage girls develop? He’d laughed when Seraphina and Ioana explained at length the drama involved in the cheerleader tryouts. They were so young, so innocent to think that such things would retain relevance over the scope of a lifetime.
But then the morning of the car accident, collapsing to his knees on the cliff overlooking the mangled wreckage and the girls’ broken bodies, Anton had sensed the lingering traces of magic in the air. The memory of Seraphina’s voice rose through the cacophony in his head. “Kelly and Gemma swore they’d curse us so they could get on the squad, Daddy, and that’s just not fair.”
How many nights since had he walked the floor in this very room wondering if his leniency caused their deaths and debating the wisdom of the weakness that followed. By Strigoi custom, a private funeral was held, and then Anton was left alone in the family chapel to complete the death rituals. With shaking hands, tears streaming down his cheeks, he drove the stakes into Seraphina and Ioana’s chests, but he could not bring himself to perform the beheading.
The night before the service, Anton had consoled himself reading Father Damien’s private papers. In the darkest hours before the dawn, an idea began to form in the grieving man’s mind. If Damien’s vision of curing the Strigoi vui of their hunger by finding an alternate food source could be realized, could there not also be a way to cure the Strigoi mort blasfematoare?
Now, looking back, Anton knew he’d been grasping at the thinnest of straws. Using the ritual sword, Anton cut a slice on his forearm, binding the cut with his handkerchief. Once hidden under the sleeve of his suit jacket, the bandage wasn’t even visible. All he needed was enough blood on the blade to make it appear as if his job was done. Closing the casket lids, he summoned the pallbearers who carried the girls to their final resting place; a crypt in the private burial ground at the bottom edge of the Ionescu property.
And there his daughter and niece stayed, slumbering in suspended animation while Ionescu searched for a way to awaken them safely. He forestalled his immediate vengeance against the Daughters of Knasgowa, but as he watched Kelly Ryan and Gemma Foster grow, hatred hardened his heart. Why were they allowed to live? To realize their dreams? To marry? To have children?
The bulk of his ire fell on Kelly. She seemed so contrite, so broken by what had happened. An innocent girl would not have reacted as she did. When he learned that Kelly was with child, anger swelled in Anton’s heart. That was when he made a critical mistake. He confided in one of his clients, a Creavit wizard named Irenaeus Chesterfield.
“Why should you suffer this insult?” Chesterfield asked. “This witch caused the deaths of your daughter and niece. You are due your revenge. Curse them. It is within your power.”
Under Chesterfield’s goading, Anton gave in and issued the curse, only to relent in part when the aos si intervened and offered a deal that would spare the boy’s life. Chesterfield seemed sympathetic, agreeing with Anton that his greater responsibility lay in preserving the peace with the Fae in Shevington for the sake of his clan.
The years passed, and Anton learned to live with the gaping hole in his soul. Then came the night, six months ago, when Chesterfield offered him a new hope. “Dear Anton,” he said, “I have not lost sight of your lonely plight these many years. I believe I have found a way to cure your girls, but it requires the blood of the child who was sent into exile. The ritual must be performed before the second child, the girl called Jinx, attains her 30th birthday this December. It would appear that our interests converge. Perhaps we can work together to accomplish our individual goals?”
Chesterfield went on to explain that he required a living branch of the Mother Tree in Shevington for purposes he did not care to divulge. If Ionescu could find a way to get the boy, Connor, through the portal and ransom him for the branch, Chesterfield would use the boy’s blood to cure the girls. “As an added caveat,” Chesterfield offered, “you may then do as you please with the Hamilton woman.”
It had all seemed so easy. Anton planned to leverage the legendary feud between the Pikes and the McGregors to get his hired kidnapper, Malcolm Ferguson, into the Valley. But yet again, his plans were thwarted by a Daughter of Knasgowa. Jinx raised the dead in the local cemetery by accident and the magic spilled over to the crypt where Seraphina and Ioana slept.
To Anton’s complete horror, he answered a knock at his door one night and opened it to find the girls standing on his porch, confused and hungry. Not knowing what else to do, they’d come home. He’d tried to contain them, locking them in the guest house and feeding them the blood of stolen livestock, but as the girls’ strength grew, so did their resolve to be free.
Everything unraveled in rapid succession. First Ferguson failed, and then the girls broke out of their makeshift prison. Anton had no choice but to confess everything to his trusted lieutenant, Cezar. After all, the clan was bound to honor Anton’s curse, but his efforts to blame Seraphina and Ioana’s current state on the Hamilton woman met with uneasy acceptance from his people.
They had lived in peace with the humans and Fae around Briar Hollow for more than 200 years. For the time being, his clan was helping Anton in his efforts to contain the girls, but if the corpses of drained victims began to pile up, that support would quickly evaporate.
Anton had no choice. He must now do what he had failed to do thirty years earlier. The girls must be put down. Cezar would help him, but only if Anton could offer a credible plan to accomplish the deed without calling attention to the Ionesus as a whole. That meant talking to Seraphina and Ioana.
Cezar and his men had already searched the crypt and found it empty. Anton suspected the girls had returned to the “hide out” they’d used as children for shelter; a shallow cave in the hills above the compound. Now was the time to go there, when most of his own people were still asleep in their beds. Shrugging into a coat, Anton let himself out through the back gate of his property and began to climb into the woods.
His breath created clouds of vapor as he ascended the slope, following the winding course of a mountain creek to reach the outcropping of rocks where the cave lay hidden. As Anton approached the entrance, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Although he had never fed on the energy of a living creature, Anton possessed the sharpened senses of his kind. He felt the girls long before Seraphina’s voice spoke from the depths of the cave.
“You’re not going to lock us up again, Daddy,” she warned. “We won’t let you.”
“No,” Anton said, “that’s not why I’m here. I came to apologize for the way I’ve treated you. I understand now that you have ascended to the highest form our kind is capable of achieving. I let my fear rule me. I want to help you, to join with you, if only you will trust me again.”
Slowly Seraphina, and then Ioana emerged from the cave, faces dark and suspicious. “Are you trying to trick us, Daddy?” Seraphina asked.
“I would never do such a thing,” he said, allowing love to color his expression and willing his muscles not to clench at the sight of the murderous creature his daughter had become. “I truly am sorry, Seraphina.”
He watched as a challenging gleam came into her eyes. “Then prove it,” she said. “Let us make you one of us.”
Swallowing the bile that rose in his throat, Anton said, “I want that more than anything, but I think I must stay in this weak form a little longer to put everything in place for your safety. Our people are foolish. They will fear me and turn against me if I ascend to your level now.”
Seraphina seemed to consider that. “We still need proof that you are on our side,” she said. “Help us with our plan.”
Witch on Second: A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 5 (The Jinx Hamilton Novels) Page 22