Song of Wishrock Harbor (The Invisible Entente Book 2)

by Krista Walsh

  A knock at the door jarred Gabe out of his head before the panic set in.

  Who in the seven hells could that be?

  He glanced outside at the snow falling in gusts so heavy that there was no sign of the street two stories below.

  With wary steps, he approached the door. He peered through the peephole and found himself staring at a broad chest covered in a neat suit.

  Gabe didn’t owe anyone money, and as far as he knew he hadn’t irritated anyone enough to call for a beating, so he eased the door open.

  Two men stood in front of him. The one he’d glimpsed through the peephole stood at least seven and a half feet tall. Definitely some giant in his bloodline. He was broad-chested, with hands as thick as baseball mitts and a face that had been broken one time too many — flat-tipped nose, bumpy nose bridge, sagging left cheek, and a squinting right eye. Gabe would have guessed baseball bat, but doubted many people would have had the nerve to go after him with one. His bald head caught the light of Gabe’s single table lamp.

  The other man would have made a comical contrast if not for the scent of importance wafting off of his dark purple suit. He stood half a foot shorter than Gabe, but carried himself in such a way that few people would notice his height. His wavy dark hair was slicked back into neat folds that framed his square head. Striking violet-blue eyes and perfect white teeth flashed against his rich brown skin.

  “Gabriel Mulligan?” he asked, with a smile that sat somewhere between friendly television host and used car salesman.

  “Depends who’s asking,” Gabe replied, feeling that such a walking stereotype of arrogance deserved a cheesy cliché in greeting.

  It was a strange time of morning for a sales pitch, but Gabe braced for one anyway, working on a quippy answer to send the stranger away. The last arrogant sleezeball he’d dealt with had tried to steal his eyeballs. This man wore a nicer suit than Jermaine, but didn’t encourage any more trust.

  The man’s smile widened. “My name is John Deverill, and this is my butler, David.”

  He spoke as though Gabe should recognize the name, and when Gabe returned the introduction with a blank stare, John chuckled.

  “A thousand and one apologies for disturbing you at home at such an hour, but I believe we have a mutual acquaintance who’s having a spot of trouble in which we both have an interest.”

  Gabe eyed him, then flicked his gaze to the taller man. David stood without moving, his large face carved into an expression of neutrality.

  “Mutual acquaintance?” Gabe asked.

  “Mrs. Davidson,” John replied. “I ran into her at an event this evening, and she told me a most fascinating story about a siren. She mentioned she’d hired you to see to the issue. Considering my own history relating to it, I felt I would be remiss if I didn’t come speak with you at the first opportunity.”

  Gabe held the man’s stare through his sunglasses. Sales pitch or not, he had piqued Gabe’s interest in what he might be selling. Since so far none of what John said had raised any red flags, he stepped back from the doorway.

  “If we’re talking sirens, you may as well come in,” he said.

  John stepped past him into the kitchen, followed by David, who stayed close behind. Gabe had been around enough high-profile people to recognize a bodyguard when he saw one, and he wondered why John Deverill felt he needed protection.

  The Deverill name tugged at his memory, but he couldn’t grasp it. He let the thought go. Chances were good he’d learn who this man was soon enough.

  As both them looked around his cozy hovel, he watched them to catch their reactions, but if they looked down on him for the state of his home, they hid it well.

  “Can I get you anything?” Gabe asked. “Beer?”

  John smiled and cast a quick glance at his watch. Based on when Gabe had ended his call with Percy, it was probably around five o’clock in the morning. Maybe a bit early to be tucking into the alcohol, but that hadn’t stopped him yet.

  “I’m fine, thank you,” said John.

  “Grab a seat, make yourselves comfy.” Gabe gestured to the single chair at the kitchen table and the futon behind him. “Sorry I don’t have more options for you. We would have been more comfortable in my office.”

  The subtle reprimand for bothering him at home slipped out before he could stop it. He briefly considered escorting them to his office now, but decided against it. While he didn’t see a need to keep his traveling ability a secret among his own kind, he didn’t believe it was smart to flaunt it to all and sundry, either.

  “Please don’t concern yourself. David prefers to stand, and I’m always sure to be comfortable.”

  John sank into the chair at the table, and his butler moved into the space beside him.

  Gabe raised an eyebrow and settled on the edge of his futon, facing his guests.

  “So what brings you to my doorstep at this time of morning?” he asked. “Through a renewal of our city-special snowstorm, no less.”

  “A man who prefers to get right to the point. I appreciate that,” John replied. “Nothing but the utmost importance would have induced me to leave the comforts of home to travel to the end of town where the weather has hit hardest, although David has driven through much worse. What brings me here is that you are chasing after a legend, Mr. Mulligan. One that I put a stop to the last time she rose against the people of New Haven.”

  Gabe’s brain stuttered, and John chuckled at his reaction. “I see I’ve surprised you.”

  Gabe closed his mouth, realizing that it had fallen open. He licked his lips and said, “It certainly wasn’t what I was expecting, no. You mean to say that you’re the one responsible for the collar around that creature’s neck? And I’m supposed to believe that Clare just happened to mention this to you at some party?”

  “Clare knows who and what I am and trusted me with her concerns,” said John. “In fact, I regret that the state of the weather delayed her confiding in me earlier. Perhaps then I might have managed to save Sam, or prevented her from getting others involved.”

  “Why wouldn’t you want anyone else to know?” Gabe asked. Suspicion lurked along the surface of his thoughts, but he wanted to hear the man’s reasons before he made up his mind on whether to boot him out.

  “Because the siren is dangerous, Mr. Mulligan, and I can’t bear to see other people putting themselves at risk for a mistake I made. Yes, those chains are my doing.” John shrugged his shoulders and dropped his gaze to his hands. “Although I didn’t do as good a job as I thought I did, apparently.”

  Gabe frowned. “I have reason to believe she was trapped beneath the water at the tail end of the eighteenth century. You’re trying to tell me that was you?”

  “Surely you’re not the sort of man to be surprised by the idea of immortal beings.” The corners of John’s eyes pinched, as though drawing on a bad memory. “As it happens, you are correct. In 1787, I trapped the siren under the river to save people from her destruction and chaos.”

  Gabe clasped his hands and dangled them between his knees. “How about you tell your story from the beginning. I’ll butt in if I have any questions.”

  “Very well,” John said. He folded his hands on the table in front of him. “I’ll keep the tale brief, but in order for you to make sense of the facts, I need to begin with a few details about myself. I have been a part of New Haven since its founding in the early seventeen hundreds. Before you ask, because I see your thoughts and sense your burning desire to know, I am a jinni. I have watched civilization grow and develop for over eight centuries, and have witnessed firsthand the tragedies our supernatural brethren have wrought upon the world.”

  Gabe’s urge to laugh at the self-important speech was buried beneath his awe. The being sitting at his dumpy Formica table was one of the strongest spirits he’d ever heard about, and he was speaking to Gabe as though they’d just gone out to grab a drink.

  “I set up my home in New Haven because of its potential,” John said. “It sat
on a wealth of natural resources ready for the taking — it only needed the people to work for it. I saw it as my mission to make the town a place where people would congregate. I have invested in most of the infrastructure that those here today take for granted as the basis of their economy.”

  Gabe wracked his brain trying to place the man’s name. If he was behind so much of the town’s success, the Deverill name should have offered a spark of recognition, but nothing came to him.

  As though he could read Gabe’s mind, Deverill laughed. “I haven’t always held this name, of course. And I haven’t always lived here, for obvious reasons. At the time of the siren’s first rising, I owned Wishrock Quarry, one of the largest quarries in the state. New Haven was small, with a population of six thousand, but it was growing quickly.”

  Gabe watched the spirit closely as he spoke, taking in the taut lines around his mouth and eyes, the emotion blazing behind the unearthly violet-blue irises. His genuine passion for the city stirred Gabe’s blood.

  “With my help, as the end of the century approached, New Haven had grown into an independent town, built on logging and mining industries that other towns longed to copy. The population had risen to fifteen thousand and another boom was on the horizon. That’s when the siren, Ligeia Oddy, arrived in town. You’ve seen the damage she’s done to New Haven in the last two weeks — I believe the count is now at seven? Imagine how many men she killed in a time when social media couldn’t warn people to avoid the area. A time when superstitions made people weak. Even as they hung horseshoes over their doorways to protect themselves from the power of the evil eye, they spoke with women in the streets with mysterious reputations.”

  “Did she do much damage?” Gabe asked.

  “Much damage?” John repeated, and laughed. “She wiped out most of my miners. She took the quarry as her feeding ground, and every week we lost another worker or three. Most of my workers came from out of town, so they often weren’t missed right away, but when our production waned, I soon ferreted out the reason.”

  “So you trapped her?”

  “Eventually. It took some crafting and deviousness on my part to outmaneuver her, but in the end, I managed to chain her to the bottom of the quarry.”

  Gabe’s top lip curled with disgust. He understood the necessity of ending the destruction, but chaining someone to the ground just struck him as cruel.

  “Why didn’t you kill her?” he asked, deciding to get one of his questions off his mind.

  “I tried,” John said. “Multiple times. But she outwitted me. I’m strong, but she’s quick. The lure of her power grew with every attempt to approach her, and in the end I didn’t trust myself to commit the final act. On the third try, the desire to turn my power on my town and tear it down brick by brick was greater than my wish to end her life. I couldn’t risk her claiming full control over my thoughts.”

  “You’re not immune to her song?” This information surprised Gabe. His Fae blood kept him from being drawn into the siren’s grasp, and his power was only a fraction of what the jinni possessed.

  John’s mouth twisted in a grimace of regret. “No living being with ears can completely resist that voice. Fortunately, my magic held enough sway to control hers in the end. My remorse for imprisoning such beauty remains with me to this day, but I did what had to be done.”

  A stone formed in the bottom of Gabe’s stomach, a heaviness of discomfort as the necessity of John’s act battled with his conscience. “You chained her in the quarry, so how is it she came up from beneath the river?”

  John offered a soft chuckle, though the humor never reached his eyes. “Do you know of any quarry in this city now?”

  Gabe thought over the various sections of town and shook his head. “Nothing as big as you describe.”

  “Of course not. Even with Ligeia chained, her song remained a threat. She could sing a man to her, convince him to release her, and once again roam our streets with impunity. So I gathered my workers and we blasted the dam that divided the quarry from the ocean. What had once produced some of the best building materials in New Haven became the most convenient source of transport for our logging industry. We flooded the quarry and transformed it into the Haven River.”

  The stone in Gabe’s insides expanded until it pressed against his lungs and heart, constricting his breathing. His legs itched to stand up and pace the room. He imagined how the scene had played out: the woman chained in the pit, watching the water from the ocean flood toward her after the dam broke. The coldness washed over his skin as though he were there with her the moment the wave hit.

  John stared at him and nodded, his face hard with pain and sadness. He dropped his gaze to his folded hands. “I know, it sounds horrible. And it was. Believe me when I say the decision was not an easy one to make.” He looked up. “I did try to reason with her. I offered her amnesty if she would leave New Haven, but she refused. With her determination to stay, my options were limited. I had to do what was best for the town. New Haven would not have survived as the siren’s plaything.”

  Although the weight in his belly remained, Gabe heard his own beliefs in John’s statement. If the jinni couldn’t kill her and reasoning with her had failed, what else could he have done?

  Over the last couple of weeks, the siren had unleashed a reign of terror around the harbor. The train of unsuspecting men caught in her trap couldn’t continue. Like John, he would have to find a way to work within his resources to stop her.

  A pain throbbed behind his right eye, almost as though his head were preparing itself to accept a new wave of someone else’s memories.

  “Please understand that I don’t share this episode with too many people. I’m not proud of how I handled it. When Clare mentioned that she hired you to resolve the situation, I raised my hopes that this time I could do away with temporary solutions.”

  Gabe bent and rubbed his forehead as his headache grew worse. He found himself wishing Clare had never brought him this case.

  “So now I’ve come to ask you to stand down,” John continued. “Allow me to take over and lay this situation to rest.”

  Gabe jerked his head up. “Why you?”

  The jinni’s lips quirked in an off-centered smile. “I take Ligeia as my own responsibility, of course. If I had dealt with her better the first time, she would not have been able to return to her violent ways. Anything I can do to see this through would help put my conscience at ease.” His gaze drifted to an amethyst ring on his pinky finger, and he twirled it with this thumb. “But I can see you’re not the sort of man to back down from his responsibility, either. Especially one you’ve been paid to investigate.” He looked up and stared into the lenses of Gabe’s sunglasses. “If this is not the case, and you’re willing to let the situation rest with myself and David, I would take over the business without judgment and even compensate you for the work you’ve already done.”

  The offer buzzed past Gabe’s ear, a niggling temptation that nudged him forward. He felt as though he were caught in a test he could either pass or fail. The consequences of either choice were unknown, but his gut was urging him down the path of self-sufficiency.

  John smiled. “Perhaps having your assistance would not be the most foolish idea. There is the possibility that even after all this time, I’m not sufficiently recovered from Ligeia’s hold over me to ensure my mind remains my own. If she managed to turn me to her will, I’m afraid my city would likely be destroyed by the time she finished. Perhaps if we found a way to work together, we could overcome these challenges.”

  When Gabe’s silence stretched on, his thoughts tumbling over each other, John’s smile widened. “I see the wheels turning in your mind, Mr. Mulligan, and don’t wish to rush you into an answer. Think it over. Call me when you’ve reached your decision.”

  He pulled a card from his inside pocket and left it on the table as he rose to his feet.

  With a gesture to David that he was ready to go, the jinni saw himself out, leaving Gabe sit
ting on the end of the futon, wondering what the hell had just happened.

  11

  Gabe remained sitting until long after the sun rose. When he finally stirred from his musings and stood up, his joints popped and creaked, as though he had slowly been turning himself into stone.

  What frustrated him was that he hadn’t decided on anything. His mind still rushed with options and possibilities, and none of them seemed better than another.

  No matter how many times or from how many angles he played through his fight with the siren — Ligeia, he reminded himself — he didn’t see how he could have come out on top. John was right. She was too quick. Gabe rubbed his throat where her frozen hands had closed around his neck.

  But to allow John to take over felt like giving up. Like handing over the keys to the Mercedes because he couldn’t handle the speed.

  If he did hand off the responsibility, he didn’t know how he would feel if John tried to cage Ligeia a second time. Although Gabe agreed she had to be stopped, his conscience twisted at the idea of her being lost once again in the darkness, aware of time passing but unable to interact with the changing world above her.

  Gabe would rather kill her than cage her, but he knew the choice might be out of his hands if he couldn’t find a way to get close enough.

  If he agreed to let John help him, their chances of killing her were better, but it would mean working with a partner, something he hadn’t done with anyone except Percy. And Percy was a good many miles away.

  Gabe finally accepted he’d get nothing done at home while his thoughts were churning back and forth like this, so he grabbed his coat and rifted to his office. Once there, he marched down the stairs and into the blustering outdoors.

  He needed to clear his head, and he hoped the walk would do what sitting around drinking would not.

  Clare’s return visit had cleared away the snow from the front of the building that had accumulated since she first came to his office, so an open path carried him to the street. The route was no more than three feet wide, the snowbanks as high as his shoulders. He followed her footsteps until her path veered away from downtown, then he pressed on through the drifts. Snow trickled into his boots, but the farther he moved from the waterfront, the lower the snowbanks became until they only reached his knees.