Modern Magic
Page 255
“In the vision, the man kept looking at the wall, as if he were checking on something,” I said, beginning to let my hands slide over the rough bricks, testing them as I moved down the wall. “What if—”
I found two loose bricks, and jiggled them out of their place. Inside was a small hollow, and in it, a small, round object lay wrapped in a stained kerchief.
“I’ll get it,” Teag said before I could reach for the cloth. He reached into the hiding place and withdrew the bundle. Carefully, Teag peeled back the covering to reveal a tarnished pocket watch.
Everything happened at once. The lights went out, and the temperature dropped like a miniature blast of winter. Something shoved Teag, hard. Footsteps sounded nearby, though none of us were moving. The door to the hallway slammed shut.
“Hey!” Teag yelled at the darkness, protesting the shove.
Kell, Teag, and I stood with our backs to each other. I heard Kell snapping the switch on his flashlight, to no avail. Teag held up the light on his phone. It shone for a moment, before the light died away. Ghosts are hell on electrical objects and batteries.
Nearby, glass shattered. We heard pounding on the hallway door and shouts from Kell’s worried team, but the door stayed closed.
“Sa-rah.” The voice was muffled and distant, but there was no mistaking what it said.
As abruptly as the lights went out, they struggled back on. The hallway door burst open, spilling Kell’s team members into the room with the sudden release. Kell’s flashlight and Teag’s phone gleamed brightly.
The glass case holding the shaving kit was completely smashed.
“What happened?” Tom asked.
Kendra focused on the broken glass. “Damn! The museum isn’t going to charge us for that case, are they?”
Teag moved forward, holding the watch out for them to see. “There’s an inscription—JCS,” he said, pointing to the back of the case. He pressed the release gently, and the two sides swung out.
“Look,” Kell said. “Want to bet that’s Sarah?” Inside the watch cover was a picture of a dark-haired young woman.
Kendra had already gone over to the roster of names showing the servicemen who died during the First World War. “JCS,” she mused, scanning the columns. “Geez, there are a lot of names here.”
“Odds are, this is what the ghost was trying to protect,” I said. “I know a medium who’s pretty good at convincing spirits to pass over. If you’d like, we can bring her out tomorrow night,” I offered.
Kell nodded. “That would be great. If the ghost has hung around here since 1918, he’s overdue for his eternal rest, and once he’s at peace, we can get on with the rest of the exhibit.”
“James Carl Sturdevant.” We all turned toward Kendra, who was pointing to a name on the list. “He’s the only one with those initials—assuming all of the dead made it onto the list.” She glanced nervously at her phone.
“Don’t you think we should get out of here?” she asked, looking from Kell to Tom. “You know… before?”
“Before what?” I asked.
I couldn’t read the expression on Kell’s face. He might have been annoyed at Kendra, or he might have been worried. He seemed to be trying not to show whatever emotion he was feeling at the minute, but he was definitely uncomfortable.
“I should have told you,” he said. “We’ve had some problems in the parking lot. No one’s harmed the cars, but someone’s out there, watching when we leave the building.”
“Or something,” Kendra muttered. “It’s freaky. Tom and I have both caught a glimpse of something moving, but when you look, it’s gone. We all go out to the cars together, and we park together.” She paused. “It’s worse the later in the evening it gets.”
“Have you called the cops?” Teag asked.
Kell sighed. “The museum doesn’t want any bad publicity—it will be enough of a stretch to get people to come out to the old Navy Yard to see the exhibit in daylight. It’s probably just some vagrants.”
I knew from experience that vagrants were the least of the dangers to be worried about in the sprawling old Navy Yard. Bad things and dark magic gravitate to abandoned and decaying places, especially when those places have a bloody history. Teag, Sorren, and I had seen some really scary stuff go down out here, so Kendra’s concern worried me.
“Well, here’s another item for the exhibit,” I said as Teag handed over the watch. “I’d like to come back in daylight and try to get a reading on the watch, if you’re interested,” I said. “James and Sarah might give the museum a nice human interest story.”
Kell nodded. “If you’re up for it, I would love to record their story, although we may have to fudge the source a little unless we want to explain things to the museum.”
“Did you show them the thing in the wall?” Tom’s expression was somewhere between worried and defiant. “You said she might know what it was.”
Teag and I looked at Kell. “Was there something else?” I asked.
Kell looked uncomfortable, but nodded. “Yeah, but we’re not sure what to make of it.” He placed the pocket watch in a drawer for safekeeping, and gestured for us to follow him from the room and down the hallway.
“The museum isn’t doing a huge renovation, but it’s got to make some updates for wiring, air conditioning, and modern plumbing,” Kell said as we walked. “So they’ve had to bust open some walls, take down some plaster, that sort of thing. And yesterday, when they opened up a wall, they found something kind of strange inside.”
“Something hidden in the wall?” I asked.
Kell shook his head. “No. More like something actually embedded into the wall—cemented in with mortar.” He flicked on the lights and led us into a large, plain room. Crates and cases were stored against the inside wall, some covered with moving blankets or sheets to keep out dust.
On the far side of the room, looking out over the back parking lot, were a bank of large windows. I could see where the old asphalt in the lot had been torn up, waiting for a fresh base and resurfacing before the museum opened. Beneath the windows, the old plaster had been torn away in a long stretch to allow for new lines to be run. Right in the center, a larger square had been cleared, and set into the bricks was an odd-shaped hole. Sitting on a nearby desk was a black stone carving of a menacing-looking figure.
“Wow,” I said, moving a little closer for a good look. Even from here, I knew I didn’t want to touch that thing without some serious preparation. It was magical—and it radiated a prickly energy I didn’t like.
“What is it?” Kell asked, leaning over my shoulder on one side as Teag crowded in on for a better view on the other side.
“I’m not sure,” I said carefully. “But can we make sure no one touches it until we do some research? I don’t know why it’s there—but even from here, I know it’s got a lot of mojo.”
Kell sighed. “We’re just the ghost busters. We don’t have any clout with the construction guys, but I can put in a word with the foreman, maybe make it sound antique and valuable…”
“Sounds like a plan,” I replied, snapping a photo with my phone and texting it to Sorren. “I’ll get back to you with something tomorrow.”
* * *
Teag and I hadn’t eaten yet, so we picked up a pizza and headed to my house. I have what locals call a ‘Charleston single house’, meaning that the narrow side of the house faces the street while the front porch looks into a walled garden. My front door leads onto the wide, covered porch, not into the house itself.
It probably says something about my life that I was not in the least surprised to find a vampire sitting on my porch swing.
“Hi Sorren.” Yes, my nearly six-hundred year-old vampire business partner texts and emails. Then again, he looks like he’s still in grad school, forever in his late twenties, and tonight in a black t-shirt and jeans with sneakers, he might have even been able to pass for younger.
“I got your text,” Sorren said as we crossed the porch. “Figured I
might as well meet you here.”
I put my key in the lock, and my little Maltese, Baxter, went ballistic, yipping and prancing like a maniac. He took one look at Sorren, and sat down with a goofy, adoring look on his face.
“You glamoured him again, didn’t you?”
Sorren grinned and leaned down to pet Baxter. “Who, me? Maybe he just wants your pizza.”
Sorren had fed recently. I could tell because he wasn’t as pale as when he’s hungry. I didn’t want to know the details, but he had assured me he had learned long ago to feed from donors without needing to kill. And he had sworn an oath more than three hundred years ago to protect my family and those who worked with us, so I had never had cause for fear. Still, I felt a little guilty sitting down to eat the pizza without offering him some.
“Go ahead,” he replied, shaking his head. “Fill me in on what you saw at the museum exhibit.”
Teag and I took turns munching on pizza and talking with our mouths full. When we were finished, Sorren was quiet, his eyes pensive.
“The flu was bad that year,” he said softly. “So many died. I hadn’t seen death on that scale since smallpox, back in Belgium. The cemeteries were full. That’s when they started to take the dead outside of town, to potters’ fields, anywhere to bury them.” His voice was distant, remembering.
“We buried some of them in the land where part of the old Navy Yard sits,” he continued, finally looking up. “Quite a few were buried behind the military hospital.”
“Kell said there’s a parking lot over that land now,” I replied. “And Kendra thinks something scary is out there in the shadows.”
“Kendra’s right,” Sorren said. “Did you have any trouble getting out to your cars?”
I shook my head. “No. But we all went together, the cars were parked close to each other at the front, and we stayed under a street light. I wouldn’t have wanted to be out there by myself—even with some of the weapons we’ve collected.”
“I have a suspicion, but we need to go over there to test it out,” Sorren said.
“What about a medium, to help set the ghosts at rest?” I asked.
“If I’m right,” Sorren replied, pulling out his cell phone. “What we really need is a witch.” He paused. “Finish up your food—we’re heading back to the museum.”
Half an hour later, a woman in her early forties rang my doorbell. She wore a cute twinset over dark jeans and boat shoes, and her blond hair was smoothed back in a high ponytail with a headband. She was carrying a designer handbag that was large enough to be a shopping tote. Just what I don’t need—a real estate agent.
“Sorry, I’m not interested in selling the house,” I said impatiently. “Just leave me your card, and I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”
She tugged on a silver chain around her neck and pulled out a pentacle. “Not a real estate agent. Not Avon calling. Not trying to convert you. I’m Liz Mitchell. Is Sorren here?”
“Oh, you’re the witch!” I said with a sigh of relief, then realized just how strange that sounded. Her laugh let me know she did not take it the wrong way.
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” she said. “And before you ask, no, I’m not related to the housewife witch in the old TV show, although people say there’s a resemblance.”
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered… “Come on in,” I said.
But before we could get farther than the front hall, Sorren and Teag were coming toward us. “I don’t think we should wait,” Sorren said. “If I’m right, we’ve got a big problem.” He nodded in greeting.
“We’ll fill you in on the way,” Sorren said. We piled into Teag’s old Volvo, since it was a more comfortable ride for four than my little Mini Cooper. As we drove, Teag and I caught up on Liz what we knew.
“Old graveyard full of war dead and plague victims that’s been sealed under a parking lot for a long time, and now everything’s being ripped up,” she summarized.
“Yep,” Sorren replied.
“All right then,” Liz said matter-of-factly. “Ghouls.”
“Ghouls?” Teag echoed.
Sorren nodded. “Unless good wardings have been put down and refreshed frequently, old cemeteries draw ghouls like roadkill draws flies. One or two at first, then more if the feeding is good.”
He looked at me. “That’s probably what the ghost hunters saw lurking in the shadows. When there aren’t many of them, they’ll hold off on attacking the living unless they can get an easy kill. Once there are enough to swarm, all bets are off.”
I shivered, despite myself. “All right,” I said. “Go ahead and hand me the duffle bag. I don’t think we want to fight those guys bare-handed.”
I was already wearing plenty of magically protective gear. Besides my agate necklace, I had an onyx ring and tourmaline earrings, all good protective stones. In one pocket of my jeans, I had a very old stone disk with a hole in the middle, a protective charm Sorren had given me that had some serious mojo. Packets of salt were stuffed into my other pockets, and I was wearing the dog collar wrapped around my left wrist. In the duffle bag, I had a walking stick that had belonged to Sorren’s maker, something I used like an athame to channel my touch magic into defensive energy. I learned the hard way that I could tap into the strength of a memory and sometimes into the magic of an object’s former owner, and use both for a power boost. Since ghouls were physical as well as magical, I also had a long knife in a sheath I could clip to my belt.
Teag wore a vest beneath his hoodie into which he had woven protective magic, and he stored extra energy in some knotted rope that hung from his belt. He also had his share of salt packets. Teag wore an agimat charm and a hamsa on a chain around his neck, and he had a wicked looking knife with a blade even longer than mine. Teag’s fighting staff was in the back, along with Sorren’s sword.
Sorren didn’t need much beyond the supernatural speed and strength that came with being a vampire. But he did have a sword, and I’d seen him fight with it. A couple of hundred years of practice makes perfect. I had no idea what Liz had in that huge designer bag of hers, but I now suspected it was more than lipstick.
“What about the ghosts?” I asked. “Don’t we need a medium to get them to rest?”
Liz shook her head. “I’m pretty good with ghosts, so I can handle that if we can’t resolve things any other way, but I don’t think that’s our problem. The construction people disturbed the graves when they tore up the parking lot. That stirred up the ghosts, and the ghost activity was like an ‘Eat at Joe’s’ sign for the ghouls.”
“And ghouls put the ghosts into a frenzy,” Sorren finished. “So, let’s take things in order. Ghouls first.”
“And the strange carving? The thing that was in the wall?” Teag asked, keeping his eyes on the road.
Liz studied the photo on my phone. “Once we deal with the ghouls, I’ll take a look at it. My bet is, there’s been a ghoul problem before, and that totem was how the last witch smoothed things over.”
The last witch. Before I had inherited Trifles and Folly, I had no idea what a supernatural hot bed Charleston was. Now, it seemed like the city was teeming with all kinds of magic, good and bad. And we were always right in the middle of it.
The old Navy Yard was deserted when we drove up. Teag shut off the lights when we were a block away, and we relied on the streetlights overhead. I knew from experience that even the cops didn’t like to spend a lot of time in the abandoned military campus, although they made an effort to patrol the sections where new businesses had moved in. Even the police stayed well clear of the boarded up old buildings. That was okay, because for the most part, criminals didn’t like this place, either.
We coasted to a stop in front of the hospital-museum. A few security lights glowed dimly through the windows. Staring up at the light, I thought I saw a shadow or two take shape and then disappear.
“Oh yeah, you’ve got ghosts all right,” Liz murmured. “We’ll take care of them later.”
Teag pulle
d into the old hospital’s driveway, moving slowly so we could see what we were up against as he pulled around and parked the car facing the temporary fence. Most of what had been the back parking lot had been scraped down to the bare, sandy soil. I guessed that work had halted when the construction teams discovered what was underneath the asphalt. A temporary plastic mesh fence sagged on its supports, cordoning off the area.
I couldn’t see the ghouls, but I could feel them watching us. Many of the streetlights in the area no longer functioned, so it was darker than usual. Teag switched the headlights back on, since none of us wanted to take on the ghouls in the dark. The flash of light caught a half dozen hunched, disfigured shapes loping into the shadows. Game on.
We opened our car doors together, and no one wasted time getting out. Weapons drawn, we moved carefully along what remained of the asphalt around the lot’s edges. Now and then, I caught a whisp-like shape floating above the torn-up ground, only to have it vanish when I turned to look.
“The ghouls have been digging.” Teag pointed toward the sandy soil. The entire area was marred by deep pits that looked like they had been dug by hyperactive dogs. In a few places, I glimpsed a yellowed bone or a bit of old cloth. “They’re feeding on the corpses.”
Liz bent down and chalked a circle around herself, chanting as she drew the line that would help her summon and control her power. She added candles and lit them, then sprinkled salt and bits of broken mirror between the candles.
“I’ll handle the ghosts,” Liz said. “And I’ll work up some energy to help you with the ghouls. But that will take time. For the first while, the fight’s all yours. Don’t worry about me—the circle will keep them out.”
Liz closed the circle and stood, murmuring an incantation as she turned to face each direction in turn. Sorren, Teag and I advanced warily, weapons in hand.
I knew the ghouls were out there, and they still scared the hell out of me when they attacked.
Ghouls are every bit as ugly as the stories say. Their bodies are twisted and emaciated, like dried-up corpses that won’t stay dead. Long-fingered hands with nails broken back to the quick. Lantern jaws filled with sharp, blackened teeth. Naked, sexless bodies and oversized feet with claws where toes should be.