The Stubborn Dead

by Natasha Hoar

  Rachel stared at the wall of photos to avoid flinching. Lying was sometimes necessary in her line of work, but it didn’t mean she enjoyed it. “Something came up. We’re looking at this case from a few new angles.”

  “That sounds very vague.”

  “It’s supposed to be.” She smiled at him. “Tell me about Kit. Was he well liked?”

  Kevin flopped into a plush chair behind his glass-and-steel desk. “If there was someone who didn’t like him, I’ve yet to meet him.”

  “Everyone has someone who doesn’t like them, Mr. Fillion.”

  “Kevin. And no, Kit was that guy who believed life was too short to have enemies. Unless you count his crazy sister’s ex.”

  Rachel turned away from the wall and placed her hand lightly on the chair across from Kevin’s. “Ex?”

  “The one who tried to kill her a few times.” Kevin eyed her suspiciously. “I’m sure you guys have that in your records. I told the other investigators—”

  “There’s a side note, but no solid details.”

  Kevin snorted disbelievingly, shaking his head and gazing out over False Bay. Rachel was about to prompt him when he began to speak, his gaze still on the water. “Kit and I started this company when he was eighteen. He wasn’t the best snowboarder, and it wasn’t like there weren’t other custom board companies out there doing what he wanted to do. But he had mad passion for the creative process. And the guy was crazy good at the craft. It didn’t take long for people to realize he was making some of the best boards the market had ever seen. Not just from a structural standpoint, but designwise too.”

  She cocked an eyebrow and grinned. “I didn’t realize that a shred sled had to be pretty, as well as functional.”

  Kevin laughed, sliding her a mischievous look. “We built Wild Ride Boards from a two-man operation in his parents’ basement into a multimillion-dollar company with both custom-and production-run lines. And in what feels like an unreal timeline too.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning we did it in half the time anyone dreamed we could. Possibly less. Along the way, Kit always insisted on giving back to the community—organizing days on the hill for underprivileged kids, donating to where he thought he could make a difference.”

  “Stand-up type of guy. How does his sister fit in?”

  Kevin’s gaze dropped to the desk top, his fingers running small circles on the surface. “Sylvia couldn’t leave Vancouver fast enough after their parents died. She was literally on a plane an hour after her dad’s funeral. She wanted to be an actress but lacked the ambition, the drive. Instead of accepting that a pretty face and a great pair of tits wouldn’t automatically land her a leading role, she blamed the Vancouver film industry for not ‘getting her,’ and decided to try the growing Toronto industry instead. Kit immediately bought out her share of their parents’ home so he could hold on to the house he’d started Wild Ride in. After that, Sylvia squandered her money, took odd jobs where she could and created a general mess out of her life. Turned out the Toronto film industry didn’t ‘get’ her either.”

  “You don’t sound too enthralled with her.”

  His gaze grew hard. “When she couldn’t weasel her way into an acting career, and real work became too tedious for her, she made a living out of mooching off of any man who fell for her. She made an art out of throwing them away once she’d gotten her fill of cash and attention. Then, to help supplement her income, she stepped into the bed of a man almost twice her age and with several relationships under his belt—two of them ending in the accidental deaths of his spouses. She’d thought she could manipulate him like every other man—hell, every other person in her life. Problem was she’d picked someone a heck of a lot better at manipulation than her. He controlled her, beat her, but she insisted on staying with him. Then she started insisting Kit send her money so she could escape. Which she didn’t.”

  “So he sent her money?”

  “Several times, steadily increasing amounts. Reagan—the ex—always found out about it, always beat the shit out of her for not telling him, and she always made up stories so that the cops wouldn’t arrest his sorry ass. The one time Kit tried to intervene, she almost died.”

  “Why did Kit keep supplying her with cash?”

  “When you only have so much family, you tend to stick by them. Even if they’re damaged.”

  Chills raced along Rachel’s arms. “What made her finally leave?”

  “Kit stopped sending money.” Kevin tapped the desktop. “He had to face facts that his actions weren’t helping her. He told her if she found the strength to leave, he’d take care of her. But she had to walk away from Reagan and come to Vancouver. She did, and arrived at what we thought was the best possible time for Kit.”

  “How so?”

  “Kit was sick. He wouldn’t say what it was, but we suspected it was cancer. Either way, the stress of Sylvia’s antics accelerated whatever he was going through. By the time she arrived he was almost skeletal.” Rachel could see the pain of helplessness in his eyes. “He was fading away and nothing was helping. He was researching all this weird crap too.”

  “Weird how?”

  “He had all these old books about energy healing, esoteric nonsense, and myths and legends, of all things. Some of them were written in Gaelic. I didn’t even know he could read Gaelic!” He flung his hands up dramatically. “There was one in particular that he carried around everywhere with him—a tiny handwritten book he said came from the late Renaissance era. He said it had been extremely hard to find, that his grandfather had once had a copy of it, but it had gone missing. He never let anyone read it.”

  Rachel stepped closer, placing her hands on the desk. “Tell me about the day he went missing.”

  “Every year Kit organized a hike into the backcountry around Whistler, just before the first snow. Everyone who could take the time off went. We’ve had guys booking vacation time a year in advance to go with him. This past year, Kit was too sick to organize the hike. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, he went. Out of the blue and by himself.”

  “How?”

  “He packed up the Eldorado and drove himself up there. Left the car in the parking lot of our usual starting point and apparently just took off walking.”

  “Sylvia didn’t notice him leave?”

  “She was having her nails done that day.”

  “Witnesses?”

  “An entire salon. By the time she got back, she says he was gone.”

  “Did anyone actually see Kit at all?”

  “He didn’t stop anywhere, and no one was around when he pulled in to the parking area.”

  “No foul play expected?”

  “None.”

  “Not even from the friendly ex?”

  “No—the bastard was in court for pulling a gun on some guy in a traffic jam. He ended up being put away for three months. Don’t you have all of this in your files?”

  “Why didn’t Kit ensure his share of Wild Ride went to his sister, if he cared for her so much?”

  Kevin steepled his fingers on the desk a moment, eyeing her with intense suspicion. “Do I need my lawyer to be present, Ms. Miller?”

  “No, not at all.” She shook her head, raising her hand in a soothing motion. “It just seemed odd that he signed over almost everything to her, except the one portion of his life that would keep her financially secure for the rest of hers. She wouldn’t have to even interact with the business, just be a silent partner who regularly received a share payout.”

  “Maybe. But Kit came to me a little over a month before he disappeared and had our legal team draw up documents signing the entire business over to me in the event of…something going wrong. He wasn’t convinced Sylvia would be a good fit for the company, in any capacity, and he wanted to ensure the good name of Wild Ride Boards remained intact.”

  “You have insurance on each other, correct?” She flipped through the papers in her folder. “Would Sylvia have received any of that mone
y?”

  “Not a cent. What didn’t come back to the company was scheduled to be donated to the Covenant House Youth Shelter.”

  “Also a recent change to the paperwork?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Sounds like Kit suspected something wasn’t quite right with his darling sister.”

  “No. Kit just realized he had a responsibility to more than his sister. Ms. Miller—” he leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, “—we shut down our entire company for four days so that every staff member could go out and join the search. Management didn’t force anyone to go, either. The staff demanded it. Kit was family.”

  Rachel nodded silently, somberly, and returned her gaze to the wall. No violent deaths in the house. A weakened Kit walking away to certain doom after promising to care for his abused sister. Said abused sister and convict ex conveniently indisposed on the day Kit disappeared. And then a wraith—no, a supposedly extinct rodach—popped up in a house with no violently negative events linked to it. Nothing made sense.

  Ticktock, ghost buster.

  A picture caught her eye of a young, painfully thin blond man who bore a striking resemblance to Sylvia, standing proudly with a shiny snowboard. She squinted and could make out the stylized form of an opulently dressed man in seventeenth century clothing emblazoned across the board. She stared at the picture intently and noticed a small basement window behind the man. She tapped the picture. “When was this taken?”

  Kevin frowned and immediately jumped to his feet. “That was the weekend before Sylvia arrived in Vancouver. Kit had been hand-tooling a board for himself. He said it helped him feel better. It was an amazing piece, one of his best. He put his whole heart into making it, and it showed. I’ve been trying to get that board from Sylvia for months now. Even offered to pay her a ridiculous amount of money, but the bitch won’t move.”

  “Maybe it has sentimental value to her?”

  “Have you met the woman?” He cast her an incredulous look.

  Yes, she had.

  Time to make little sis spill her pretty guts.

  Chapter Six

  Most days Jophiel “Jo” Del Monte was a fabulous real estate agent. On the other days, she was a weapons master specializing in the procurement and sale of weapons used to protect supernaturals from one another. The fact that she was completely human made her an extreme oddity in that particular industry, but Rachel trusted her just a little more because of it. Hence she was Rachel’s go-to gal on the rare occasion that rock salt wasn’t quite enough to keep the stubborn dead from invading her personal space.

  “I’ll be honest, when you called to ask if I had anything on hand that you could use to defend yourself against a rodach, I just about fell out of my chair.” Jo gently eased closed a wire cage containing a collection of modified rifles. Nearby, spread across a well-worn wooden table, several other disassembled rifles lay waiting to have their interrupted cleaning completed. “Are you sure that’s what the entity is?”

  “That’s what my mother called it,” Rachel said around the last mouthful of a hastily acquired granola bar she’d grabbed while gassing up her bike. By the time she’d made it out of Wild Ride Boards it was well past lunchtime, but her knot-filled stomach simply wasn’t interested in sitting down and eating a sensible meal. Rachel knew if she was going to keep on top of her game—let alone make it through the remaining forty-two hours—she needed to eat something. A granola bar wasn’t the tastiest option, but at least it prevented her from falling over in a hunger-induced faint.

  She let her gaze wander across the armory. In the collection was every blade, gun, bow or general projectile you could ever want for hunting or defending against inhuman creatures. All locked away in a cluster of secret rooms, in a second basement, below a nice little house in the heart of suburbia. There were also underground archery and firing ranges just down the hall, but like the second basement door, they had biometric locks that needed Jo’s thumbprint to open them.

  “Yikes.” Jo cast a look over her shoulder, ebony curls framing an expression of subtle horror. “So the Order knows?”

  “Yup.”

  “So less than forty-eight hours to crunch time, huh?”

  Rachel frowned. “How do you know that?”

  Jo laughed. “I’m from one of the few human families that know there really are things worth being afraid of in the dark, Rachel. It behooves me to know things others might take for granted.”

  “Uh-huh. How?”

  “Trade secret. Now, where did I put it?” She tapped her right forefinger to her lower lip, her gaze drifting over drawers and cabinets dedicated to bladed weaponry.

  “It?”

  “I had to do a little bit of research and call in a favor or two to find out what could be used against such an unusual entity. That was when one of my contacts reminded me I’d made a very special acquisition not too long ago that would be more than suitable for our situation. “Here.” She lifted a silver dagger out of a small drawer. “This should do it.”

  Rachel took the weapon with care. The double-edged blade had a slight leaf shape to it, with tiny, worn, almost unnoticeable etchings in the metal closest to the guard. Its handle was sturdy, leather-wrapped and just short enough that it gave her the distinct impression it had been made for a woman’s hand. Over all, it was a beautifully balanced piece. She opened the subtle sensory gifts she’d honed at the Order House and tried to pick up energy and emotional residue left in the blade from previous owners.

  “You won’t find anything in it.” Jo smiled, guessing at Rachel’s actions. “Every weapon that comes in here gets a thorough energetic cleansing. That blade took me almost five weeks, but I got every last shred of energetic memory out of it.”

  “Sounds like there was some history attached to it.” Rachel withdrew her gifts and stifled a frustrated sigh.

  “There was. But not the history you might be expecting.”

  Rachel frowned. “So this isn’t a rodach blade?”

  “Oh no, honey. I’ve heard of many wonderful weapons, but to my knowledge there’s no such thing as a blade made specifically for rodachs.” Jo lifted the dagger out of Rachel’s hands and turned it this way and that. “This is an iron fae blade, made in Scotland.”

  “Iron?” Rachel’s frown deepened. “But the fae are allergic to iron.”

  “That they are.” Jo nodded. “But fae blacksmiths don’t earn their rank unless they can turn out at least one perfect iron blade to prove their skills are unshakeable, even under excruciating circumstances. Usually the knives are kept by the blacksmiths. But you know me.” She grinned impishly. “Once I have my eye on a nice piece of—”

  “Jo.” Rachel rubbed her eyes with the forefinger and thumb of her right hand. “Not that I don’t enjoy a good chat about your weapons fetish, but I’m kind of on the clock here. Apart from iron temporarily dissipating spirits on contact, what else about this blade makes it so suited to battling rodachs?”

  Jo gave her a sympathetic look. “The fae cursed the rodach men after that disastrous battle, so it made sense to use a fae blade. The first rodachs were Scotsmen, so the blade being made in their ancestral homeland is a nice touch. But the truth is—” she handed the dagger back to her, “—that any iron blade will do, so long as it’s wielded by a woman.”

  Rachel blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “Men were the only ones who could make the wraith-shift, but it turns out the women of the clan held the power to bring the men back to their human form during that first critical change.”

  The hairs raised on the back of Rachel’s neck. “How? Or maybe more importantly, why?”

  “Women bring more lives into this world than they take out, so it made sense that women would be beacons, if you will, of humanity.” Jo shrugged. “The specifics of the rodach traditions have been lost over time, and what few clues are available are interwoven in Gaelic myths, so it’s hard to figure out fact from fiction. We just know that w
omen had the power to bring the men back from the brink. And in more than one instance, an iron dagger—” Jo tapped the blade, “—was used to wound the rodach-wraith just enough to slow him down, so that he could think.”

  “Wraiths have plenty of time to think. They’re the arrogant ass-hats of the ghostly community.”

  “Not rodach-wraiths. At least, not when they’re trapped in the first change.” Jo took a deep breath, her lips pursing before she continued. “A transformed rodach may look like a regular wraith, but during the first change he’s closer to a wounded wild animal. He’ll lash out with increasing violence as he becomes more confused. Eventually, he’ll get to a point where nothing will get through to him.”

  “How do I know when he’s reached that point?”

  “Chances are you’ll be dead long before he reaches it.”

  “I’ve survived one run-in with him, so that should be a good sign, right?”

  “How many other people have come face-to-face with him?”

  “Hard to say. As many as ten, if you count the cops who refused to enter the house when they were investigating the ‘fall’ the last guy took when trying to exorcise the damn thing.”

  Jo’s eyes widened. “Do you know how long this man’s been kept in that form?”

  “If it’s who I think it is, then roughly six months.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “God help you if it really is six months since the first change was initiated.” Jo wrapped her arms tightly around herself.

  “Do I want to ask why?”

  “How do you think you’d feel being kept in an increasing state of pain and confusion for longer than the few days it was supposed to take to finish the ritual of transformation? And then to top it off, people kept invading your space, trying to banish you?”

  Rachel swallowed. “Pretty pissed.”