by Karen Duvall
I rounded the corner onto Logan Street, and there it was. The cathedral, rising like a great, white dragon from the concrete and asphalt. My background in art history helped me appreciate the French Gothic architecture and I recognized the Cathedral of Chartres as this building’s source of inspiration. Two-hundred-foot spires pierced the sky, the anthus stonework an impressive accent. And there was so much stained glass! Brilliant colors, all the more vibrant when a break in the clouds passed a streak of sunlight over the windows. It looked almost choreographed, a purposeful show for my benefit. I stood transfixed on the sidewalk.
I willed my feet to move and crossed the street like a zombie. When I stubbed my toe on the curb, it startled me back to life. I had to find a way inside.
The bronze doors at the front were locked tight, so I went to the back of the church to find another entrance. Cars sputtered by in white plumes of exhaust, their drivers more intent on getting to work than checking out what I was up to. Those who commuted on foot didn’t spare me a glance. It was like hiding in plain sight.
Once I found the rear door, I slid my lock picks from the little leather case I carried with me everywhere, and got to work. I was inside within seconds. And if the outside of this place wasn’t mesmerizing enough, the inside took my breath away.
Out came the earplugs, the nose filters and the contact lenses. I wanted to experience this wonder with my bare senses. Eyes closed, I concentrated on a sound that was like a melodic hum that sent calmness through me like water in a stream. The scent of humanity was overwhelming, but there was also a unique sort of sweetness, a fragrance unlike anything I’d ever experienced. It lifted my spirits and brought an involuntary smile to my lips. I’d burgled dozens of churches all over the world, and there had always been an intangible sense of purity inside each one. But this church felt different. And I guessed it had something to do with Saint Geraldine.
When I opened my eyes, the dazzling effect of stained glass reaching toward the heavens intensified. I felt drawn inside the colors, my soul wrapped in hues of cerulean and crimson. Each windowpane was haloed by its own aura of pale silver that shimmered and pulsed with whatever life force existed here, and it wasn’t a human one. It was…more.
I tried focusing on the saint’s remains, but her scent eluded me.
Another smell pushed its way in front of all the others, its familiarity grabbing me by the throat. It was him. It was Gavin. Shit.
“So you found me,” I said to the once-peaceful air. It was turgid now, tinged with an acrid odor of Gavin’s sweat and his penchant for pesto.
“It took you long enough to notice,” he said, rising from a pew and turning to face me.
“I was distracted.” I replaced my sensory armor, pushing the filters firmly inside my nose.
He yanked up the lapels on his black woolen coat, the tailored sleeves falling back to reveal the thick cable-knit of his sweater. “I knew you wouldn’t find her.”
“Find who?” Playing dumb rarely got me anywhere, but no harm in trying.
He smirked, ignoring my question. “There’s a reason for that, you know. Saint Geraldine is highly valued and it’s imperative we keep her safe. From everyone, and everything.”
I frowned. “Then why don’t you guard her remains inside the Fatherhouse?”
His smirk vanished and he looked far less amused. He ignored that question, too. “You know better than to go off on your own without instructions.”
I shrugged as if I didn’t care, but the twinge at the back of my neck came from more than just my tat. I felt enough anxiety to make my hair bristle. “Okay, I give up. Where is she?”
He held his arms up and out from his sides while looking left to right. “She’s inside this beautiful church. Come with me and I’ll show you.”
He led me down a flight of stairs into the basement, then down a narrow hallway that was barely lit. It reminded me of the underground tunnel to Elmo’s.
At the end of the hall we stopped in front of a tapestry hanging against the wall. Gavin turned to face me.
“What?” I asked.
He flashed me a grin, then went stoic. “I should prepare you before we go in.”
How could anyone be prepared to confront a corpseless head? “I’m fine.” Though I was disappointed. Gavin showing up here had spoiled my plan. Now I couldn’t ask the saint my questions. I couldn’t show her my mother’s note, couldn’t ask her to translate the rune divination my mother had left for me, assuming she knew how to read runes.
“She’s not a bona-fide saint, you know.” Gavin lifted the tapestry, using his body to shield me from seeing whatever was underneath. His hands worked at something I assumed was a combination lock of some kind. “She was never canonized by the Catholic Church because she was a pagan.”
I shifted my earplug slightly so that I could hear the tumblers. Only they weren’t tumblers, they were beeps. It was an electronic lock. “Pagans don’t believe in angels.”
He turned to scowl at me and I remembered I wasn’t supposed to know anything about Saint Geraldine. Elmo was Aydin’s secret so I couldn’t reveal who had told me what little I knew. “Gavin, come on. You said yourself that she’d help me find my father, who you claim is a fallen angel, so I just assumed she must have been a Christian.”
His face relaxed. “You assumed wrong. Some pagans believe in angels, we just don’t call them that. They’re Guardians, guides, messengers. Like angels, their purpose is to serve the divine.” He turned back to his task. “What do you know about Saint Geraldine?”
I dared not lie, but I could usually get away with half truths. “I investigated how she died.” He would assume I had searched the internet or studied one of the historical tomes in his library.
I heard a distinct sucking sound when the door opened and a whoosh of air blew past me and into the room beyond.
“Air lock,” Gavin explained. “So what did your investigation reveal?”
“That she was executed, then drawn and quartered.”
“You’re correct. We’re still looking for the rest of her remains.” He motioned me ahead of him. “The hand, her left one, is probably still at the Grandville mansion. Retrieving it will be your first order of business after we finish our work here in Denver.”
Great. More hellhound duty. I could hardly wait.
I blinked in the darkness. “I can’t see.”
“Remove your contacts.”
I hesitated. Too many shadows, and therefore, too many spooks, as Aydin had called them. Harmless as they might be—and a rare few weren’t harmless at all—I preferred ignorance over observation when it came to ghosts. “Why can’t you just turn on a light?”
“Chalice, your contact lenses,” he said in a tone that I knew meant business.
Ire burned through my pores, and I seriously considered drawing my knife. But then I’d have the entire Fatherhouse to deal with and a fight with them was the last thing I needed.
I removed my contacts and the room abruptly lightened. I was happily surprised to find it empty of any ghosts. Four blank walls painted black surrounded an ordinary wooden table. The shape of a head haloed by a thin silver aura was set at its center.
“She’s still alive,” I whispered.
Though I didn’t understand how something mummified could continue living, missing body parts or not. The leathery skin was cracked around the cheeks and temples, the nose skeletal, and her scalp a patchwork of hairy tufts. Eyes? She had no eyes, unless that’s what you’d call the black raisins in her otherwise-empty sockets. She was a disturbing sight. From what I’d learned about her, I had expected to see something reverent and impressive, not a shriveled-up dead thing that would collapse into dust at the slightest touch. But she wasn’t dead, and that alone filled my heart with pity. Poor, poor woman. No one deserved to live a thousand years in that condition. No one.
“We can make her whole again,” Gavin said quietly, and I was surprised to hear the hushed respect in his voice. “Two h
ands and two feet, that’s all we need to conjure the rest of her body. Her ability to channel the voices of angels is a priceless gift the Vyantara can profit from. Do you realize how much our clients would pay to have their fortunes told by an angel?”
His question was a rhetorical one, so I didn’t answer. If Gavin made her whole, he’d just use her like he was using me, maybe even bond her to a gargoyle, and I didn’t wish that on anyone. She had a right to either live free, or die in peace.
“She’s not speaking to you.” Gavin sounded surprised. “I thought for sure she’d say something by now.”
“She can’t see me in the dark,” I said. Though the corpse had to be blind considering the condition of its eyes. “If she could see me she might speak.”
Gavin shook his head. “That shouldn’t matter. I don’t understand what’s wrong.” He maneuvered around the head so that he stood behind it, and as he did, I noticed a sudden change in the saint’s expression. What there was of one, anyway. The skin around her eyes softened and I swore I saw her wink at me.
“Uh…” I swallowed and saw what looked like a scowl form on the mummy’s forehead.
Gavin stepped back around to face Geraldine. “Did she say something? Take out your earplugs.”
“She didn’t say—”
“I said to remove your earplugs!”
Fine. So I did. Silence. Hey, I liked this room. This was cool! No sensory distractions anywhere.
“Gavin, she’s not talking to me.” Though I knew at some point she would. She just preferred not to have any witnesses.
Gavin ran a hand through his hair, looking slightly unhinged. Nice. The look suited him and I hoped to see it more often. “Maybe if you left me alone with her.”
“That’s not going to happen.” He started to pace, then stopped when he saw that his footsteps caused the table to shake. “If I did, and she spoke, you wouldn’t tell me what she said.”
Too true. “Then I don’t know what you want me to do.”
“Damn it!” He didn’t shout, but his whisper was forceful enough to spray spittle.
I didn’t meet his eyes, not that he could see me if I did. He was in the dark, but I could see everything.
“I can’t trust you, Chalice.”
“I know.”
“But I could threaten to withhold Shui from you if you refuse to do what I say.”
I considered that. “Maybe, but I don’t think you will. Would she speak to me if I were a gargoyle?”
“No.”
“No,” I agreed, not disguising the smile in my voice, though I should have. Complacency could get me killed, or worse. I was lucky Gavin hadn’t noticed. Or if he did, he pretended not to.
“We’ll come back later,” he told me. “First I’ll speak with the Vyantara elders to see what they suggest. Geraldine will talk to you. I’m certain she will.”
And so was I.
Gavin opened the metal door and stepped out into the hall, holding the door open for me to follow. I spared one last glance at Geraldine. Her emaciated lips, which could use a serious coat of lip balm, puckered and blew me a kiss. Gotta love a mummy with a sense of humor.
“I hate this room,” I said, letting my gaze sweep the walls of my assigned room in the Fatherhouse. “It’s creepy.”
Zee let out a theatrical sigh. “I put you in here because I thought you appreciated fine art.”
I stood beside the canopied bed, not wanting to touch the bedding that was probably the shroud of a long-dead sorcerer whose spirit waited for just the right vessel to possess. No way would that vessel end up being me. “Everything in this room is enchanted. I can’t stay here.”
Zee threw her hands in the air. “That’s ridiculous, Chalice.” She looked at Gavin, who stood in the room’s open doorway. “Can’t you talk some sense into her?”
Gavin grinned. “I’ve never known anyone more sensible than Chalice. Just give her a different room.”
Zee’s eyes widened and she did something strange with her eyebrows. She might even have winked. It was hard to tell from this angle, but her anxiety over having her plan foiled was way too obvious. I knew it! The room was rigged. The bitch was trying to pull a fast one and Gavin had caught on.
He stepped into the room and turned in a slow circle. “Well, well. Look at this. There are the Cévennes Mountains in France. Don’t we have a Fatherhouse there?” He gestured at another painting. “The Tembe National Elephant Park in South Africa was always my favorite, though I try not to visit in summer. Too hot.” He straightened a frame at the far side of the room. “Is this Zurich? No, Gstaad. I haven’t been to Switzerland in ages.”
“All right, all right,” Zee said, hands on hips. “So I wanted help keeping an eye on her. Can you blame me? She’s a reckless girl, totally unreliable. I had no idea where she went last night.”
I narrowed my eyes to stare her down.
“Don’t look at me like that, young lady.” She stomped toward me, halting within an inch of my face, though she had to bend forward to get that close. One more inch and her enormous bosom would knock me on my ass. “Respect me, or suffer the consequences.” She wiggled her fingers and green sparks danced between them.
I grinned up at her round face, its shape reminding me of an overripe pumpkin. “Stop pretending to be my mother,” I said. “I already have one.”
“You mean you had one,” she corrected, lip curled. “Past tense. About twenty-five years past, isn’t that right?”
My throat swelled with the words I wanted to say, but I wasn’t going to take the bait. Instead, I’d swallow my rage and when I finally released it, I’d let her have it. And she’d be sorry for what she said.
“Ladies, ladies.” Gavin put a hand on Zee’s back and her eyes closed, her expression looking as if he’d just engaged one of her erogenous zones. “Let’s not bicker. There’s work to be done. Shall we?” He motioned for us to exit the room, and I gladly rushed out into the hall, feeling the staring eyes from inside the paintings follow my every move. Very unsettling.
I half ran, half walked to the elevator. Zee and Gavin followed at a snail’s pace.
I leaned against the cab wall as we made our descent, my head throbbing with fatigue. Though I didn’t need much sleep, I needed some, and I hadn’t had a wink of it in more than twenty-four hours. When the elevator doors opened, I said, “So where will you put me now?”
“Not sure yet,” Zee said, sounding petulant. She still pouted over her foiled plan. “Gavin, have any ideas?”
“Not a one, but we’ll figure something out.”
I followed them both through the cavernous room on the main floor. There was way too much power here. Acclimate, hell. The pressure overwhelmed. I strode past a glass case filled with a number of items I recognized because it was me who had stolen them.
The Raggedy Ann doll looked innocuous in her glass cage, her big button eyes and railroad-stitched mouth an innocent facade. Except the thing packed a wallop of bad mojo. It was a soul sucker. Enchanted by a witch at the turn of the century, the tattered old doll would steal the soul of a child as it slept, and replace it with one of a demon. I’d filched it from the attic of an aristocrat in Washington, D.C., who had used it to bargain for political favors. It was no wonder I didn’t trust politicians.
“Hand it over,” Gavin said, holding out his hand.
I fisted my bottle of salt water, shoving it deeper in my pocket. He knew I carried it with me everywhere. “I promise not to use it. Holding it makes me feel safe.”
“Just give it to me.” He flexed his fingers.
“I need protection against the curses and charms here,” I said, my voice purposely close to a whine. I knew it irritated him when I sounded like a girl. “Something almost got me last night, you know. A big bad ugly from beyond the black veil.”
“Throwing salt water on it would have done no good.” Fast as a striking snake, he grabbed my arm and forced my hand from my pocket. He roughly peeled my fingers from their d
eath grip on the bottle. “I’ll not have you disarming the magical objects in our collection, is that clear?”
Crystal. Besides, I could always make more salt water.
The three of us entered a large room dominated by a heavy oak table surrounded by chairs in the same style. All but one chair was empty.
“Chalice,” Gavin said, holding his arm out to the man who stood up when signaled. “I’d like you to meet Aydin Berkant, one of our most loyal Vyantara members.”
eight
AYDIN? THE INVISIBLE MAN, AYDIN? MY HEART banged against my rib cage so hard that Gavin must have heard it.
Aydin stared right through me, his expression completely blank. He’d lied to me. The bastard got me to trust him, to follow him to a place filled with supernatural creatures as duplicitous as he was. My fingers twitched to grab my knife, and though I had limited talent for throwing, I’d make an exception just for him.
“But of course you two have already met,” Gavin said, looking snide. “I trust Aydin made you feel welcome?”
I was so confused now that I couldn’t even speak. I checked Aydin’s face for a change, something to let me know our meeting hadn’t been a ploy. I was usually very good at reading people, so to say I felt betrayed was an understatement. I was mortified.
Gavin grunted to get my attention. “You had a nice night on the town? Saw the sights? Clubbed to your heart’s content?”
What the hell? There had been no “night on the town” and certainly no time sightseeing. There was obviously some secret keeping going on, but I dared not breathe a relieved breath just yet.
Sounding totally reasonable and not one bit apologetic, Gavin said, “Chalice, you should understand that I had to arrange for a spy to keep an eye on you. I know how much you hate being tracked, but it couldn’t be avoided. You’re a very headstrong young lady and it appears Mr. Berkant kept you entertained and out of trouble for most of the evening.” Head tilted back, he looked down his nose at Aydin. “But it was bad timing, eh? I hadn’t taken your bondage cycle into account when I arranged for your services. I apologize.”