Midnight Blood

by Adam J. Wright

  Gerald looked at me with a worried expression. “Alec, please, I’m begging you. Don’t make me go with them. I haven’t done anything wrong. I got involved with the wrong crowd, that’s all.”

  “How?” I asked him. “How did you get involved with the Midnight Cabal? How did you first make contact with them?”

  “If I tell you, will you help me out?”

  I wasn’t sure how I could possibly help him. If I let him go and he fled into the woods, the two agents would catch him easily. “I can’t help you, Gerald, it’s too late for that.”

  I heard a vehicle approaching and looked in that direction to see a police cruiser making its way along the track to the farmhouse.

  “Oh, thank God!” Gerald exclaimed, “It’s the police!”

  I could see Merlin sitting behind the cruiser’s steering wheel, a mischievous grin on his face.

  I let out a long sigh.

  Gerald took the opportunity to run forward, pulling his arm out of my grasp. “Sheriff! Sheriff, I’m being harassed!” He bolted for the cruiser.

  Merlin had parked next to the SUV and was getting out of the car.

  Todd began sprinting toward Gerald to block him before he reached the sheriff. He tackled Gerald to the ground in much the same way I’d taken him down in the woods. But instead of letting Gerald get back to his feet, Todd sat on his chest and pinned his wrists.

  “Sheriff, help!” Gerald shouted.

  Merlin took in the scene in front of him, said something under his breath, and flicked his hands forward. Todd, Gerald, and Honoka froze. I don’t mean they were covered in ice or anything like that; they simply stopped moving.

  I continued walking out of the woods. At least he hadn’t frozen me along with everyone else.

  When Merlin saw me, he asked, “What in the name of Cernunnos is going on here, Alec?”

  “More to the point,” I countered, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Aha!” he said, smiling. “I understood your message at the front door.”

  “What message?”

  “You said I couldn’t come in their car. Your unspoken message was obvious; you wanted me to follow in my car.”

  “There was no message. I wanted you to stay at home.”

  His face fell. “Oh.” Then he brightened again. “Well it looks like I came at the right time. There’s all manner of chaos happening here. Who is this fellow?” He pointed at Gerald, whose motionless mouth was open as he shouted soundlessly for help.

  “That’s Gerald Garland. He has some connection with the Cabal.”

  “And remind me who these two are again.” He gestured to Todd and Honoka.

  “Todd Benson and Honoka Chan. Agents of the Shadow Watch. They want to question Gerald about his involvement with the Cabal, see if they can get him to tell them other names higher up in the ranks.”

  He thought about that for a moment, touching his finger to his lips as he looked from Gerald to Todd and then to Honoka. “And why are we aligning ourselves with these people?”

  “It’s the only way we could get to a Cabal member quickly.”

  “And what makes you think they would share any information they got from this man with you, Alec?”

  “We’re all on the same team” I said. “At least we were until you came along and zapped them. Now they’re just going to be pissed at me.”

  He stepped forward and put a hand on Todd’s head. Then he made a gesture with his other hand and closed his eyes. “This man’s intent has nothing to do with sharing information with you. He didn’t invite you to join him so that he could share information with you; he wanted to question you.” He frowned. “Something about your father.”

  I should have known the Shadow Watch would take this opportunity to ask me about my father. As I’d guessed in the car on the way over here, they probably thought he was a traitor and that I knew where he was.

  Merlin took his hand from Todd’s head and walked over to Honoka. He placed his hand on her head, closed his eyes, and repeated the magical gesture. “She had the same intent as her partner; to question you about your father.” Removing his hand and opening his eyes, he added, “All of this was nothing more than a ruse, Alec. You were allowed to participate in this bust only so they could gain your trust and later question you.”

  “Like I’d tell them anything,” I said.

  “If they couldn’t learn anything from you by pretending to be your friends, they had further plans.”

  “Oh? What were they?”

  He went to the SUV and opened the tailgate. Reaching inside, he picked up something and brought it over to me. “They were going to use this.”

  The object in his hand was something I’d seen before and never wanted to see again; an enchanted iron collar used by the Spanish Inquisition to extract confessions from heretics. I’d been forced to wear one of these collars before, when the Society questioned me about the events in Paris. The magic infusing the collar forced the wearer to tell the truth when questioned.

  “So, Alec, what is your plan now?” Merlin asked.

  Looking over the scene in front of me, I said, “Can you unfreeze Gerald but leave these two as they are?”

  He nodded. “I can but the spell only lasts a short while. The agents will regain movement and thought again soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “Fifteen minutes or so.”

  “That’s long enough.”

  He flicked his hand at Gerald and muttered a few indistinct words. Gerald continued the shout that had been cut off by the spell. “Sheriff! Sheriff, help!” He realized that Todd was immobile and let out a short scream before wriggling his way out from beneath the Shadow agent.

  As he stood up and brushed dirt off his clothes, he saw Merlin and me standing by the SUV. In that split second, he looked like he might flee into the trees again.

  “Don’t even think about it, Gerald,” I said.

  His eyes darted from Todd to Honoka. “What happened to them?”

  “That isn’t important,” I told him. “What is important is that if you tell me how you made contact with the Cabal, I’m going to let you go. But we don’t have long before the spell wears off and they wake up.”

  “Okay,” he said, nodding. “Just give me a head start, that’s all I need.”

  “Give me a name or a location and you get about fifteen minutes before they come after you.”

  “There’s a meeting place,” he said. “In Rockport. A house near the harbor.”

  “How did you find out about it?”

  “A chatroom called The Emerald Tablet. That’s where they recruit members.” He looked at Todd and Honoka and then at the battered blue Toyota. “Please, I’ve told you everything I know. Now let me go.”

  “You haven’t told me the address of the house in Rockport.”

  He gave me the address and then ran for the car. The engine roared into life and the wheels kicked up dirt before the Toyota lurched forward and sped toward the track.

  “Well that was most productive,” Merlin said happily.

  I watched the Toyota disappear into the distance and ran over what I’d just learned from Gerald in my head.

  The address he’d given me was Lucy Hawthorne’s.

  8

  Felicity stopped her Mini at the gate of the Hawthorne residence and waited for the security guard to appear from the red brick booth.

  She’d spent most of last night thinking about Charles Hawthorne’s words regarding a car wreck and she was still sure he hadn’t been referring to the night his driver had driven the car off the road.

  She accepted Alec’s theory that Charles might have made a mistake due to being drunk but she wanted to be sure. The only way to do that was to question the man now that he’d hopefully sobered up.

  “Do you think he’ll let us in?” Leon asked from the passenger seat.

  “I know he specifically hired Alec,” she said, “But I can’t think of any reason why he wouldn’t want to
speak to us.”

  “I can think of a couple of reasons,” Leon said.

  The guard appeared from the booth, eyes hidden behind sunglasses. He leaned down to Felicity’s window and adjusted his head so that he was looking at her over the top of the glasses. “What can I do for you today?”

  “We’re here to see Charles Hawthorne,” she told him.

  “Is that right? I’m pretty sure he isn’t expecting any visitors today. And we’re on a lockdown after some trouble last night.”

  “Yes, we know all about that, we were here. If you could just tell him that Felicity Lake and Leon Smith are here, I’m sure he’ll want to talk to us.”

  He arched his eyebrows incredulously. “In regard to what? Mr Hawthorne is a busy man.”

  “Tell him we’re from Harbinger P.I.”

  Letting out a short laugh, he said, “I’m pretty sure Mr Hawthorne doesn’t want to talk to any ghost hunters.”

  “All right,” Felicity said, deciding to end this game right now. “Tell Mr Hawthorne that two associates from Harbinger P.I. came by to see him today and you told us to leave without even checking with him if he wanted to see us. I wonder how happy he’ll be about that.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “Wait here.” Letting out a sigh, he sauntered to his booth and disappeared inside.

  The guard didn’t reappear but a couple of minutes after he’d entered the booth, the gate clicked and swung open.

  “Nice work,” Leon said.

  “Thanks.” She put the Mini into gear and drove along the driveway to the parking area. The mansion sat silently in the cold sunlight. A blonde man with a ponytail was out front washing a black Bentley with soapy water. The peaceful scene was a world away from the chaos of last night.

  Felicity parked next to a silver Rolls Royce and climbed out of the car. Leon joined her and together they walked to the front door, which was already open. The butler appeared in the foyer and looked taken aback when he saw them.

  “Oh,” he said. “The security guard said someone from Harbinger P.I. was here. I assumed it was Mr Harbinger himself. That’s the message I relayed to Mr Hawthorne.”

  “We’re working on the case,” Felicity told him. She thought it prudent not to mention that she’d actually taken over the case from Alec. “We’d like to see Mr Hawthorne now, please.”

  “One moment,” the butler said. He disappeared through a door at the far end of the foyer.

  When he reappeared, he beckoned them to follow him and led them to a brightly lit room at the rear of the house that looked out over the garden. Charles was sitting in his wheelchair, staring out of the window. When Felicity and Leon entered, he spun around to face them, his face like thunder.

  “I’m paying your boss good money to work on this case so why is he sending two lackeys around to my house? Where is he?”

  “I’m Felicity Lake and this is Leon Smith. We are associates of Mr Harbinger. He’s currently busy so we’ve come here to ask you a couple of questions about last night.”

  “Ask me questions? I thought you were the ones who were supposed to have the answers. I should be asking you questions. Like what the hell was that damned smoke and where did it come from?”

  “That’s what we’ve come to talk to you about,” Felicity said. “Last night, you said you saw a car wreck in the smoke. Can you tell me more about that?”

  He looked at her like she was crazy. “What are you talking about? I didn’t say anything like that.”

  “Yes, you did,” she said, realizing this interview wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Was Charles Hawthorne just being annoying on purpose or was he trying to hide something?

  “Get out of my house,” he said. “You’re supposed to be finding out who’s doing this to me, not asking me foolish questions about car wrecks.” He pressed a button on the arm of the wheelchair. “Wesley, our guests are leaving.”

  Wesley came into the room and swept his arm toward the door. “This way, please.”

  Felicity knew there was no point in protesting. Without a word to Charles Hawthorne, she left the room with Leon. The butler showed them to the front door and closed it behind them after they’d stepped outside into the chilly air.

  “We should have known that wouldn’t end well,” Leon said as they crossed the gravel parking area to the Mini. As they passed the black Bentley that was being washed, he paused and said, “Wait a minute, all might not be lost. That guy washing the car is Jonas, Charles’s driver. If Charles was involved in a car wreck, Jonas would know about it, right?”

  “It’s worth a try,” Felicity said.

  They approached the blonde, pony-tailed man. Leon said, “Hey, it’s Jonas, isn’t it?”

  The man nodded. “I know you. You are Brad’s friend.” He had an accent that Felicity placed as Slovakian.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Leon said. “My name’s Leon and this is my friend Felicity.”

  Jonas nodded to her.

  “I was just wondering,” Leon said casually. “Have you been working here long?”

  “Exactly one year,” Jonas said. “Mr Hawthorne hired me the day after the Fall party last year.”

  “That’s cool. I bet you’re a careful driver, right?”

  “Very careful. Of course.”

  “Me too. But sometimes it doesn’t matter how careful you are, you get involved in an accident that isn’t even your fault. You know what I mean? There are some crazy people on the roads. That ever happen to you? It happens to me a lot.”

  “Crazy people, yes. Accidents not so much.”

  “But you were run off the road the other night, weren’t you? I heard about that.”

  Jonas nodded. “Yes. Drunk driver. Very crazy.”

  Felicity knew that Charles Hawthorne’s official story of the accident was that Jonas had swerved to avoid a drunk driver heading straight for them. Obviously Jonas was sticking to that version of events.

  “That the worse thing that ever happened to you?” Leon asked. “I was involved in a car wreck once when I wrapped my Porsche around a tree. Anything like that ever happen to you?”

  Jonas shook his head earnestly. “No. No car wrecks ever. I was run off the road by…the drunken driver…and that was the worst that ever happened to me.”

  “Cool,” Leon said. “Hey, good talking to you. Take care.”

  Jonas nodded at them both and resumed his work.

  When they were both inside the Mini, Felicity said, “So if Jonas is to be believed, there hasn’t been a car wreck in the last year. At least not one when he was at the wheel. Of course, he might be lying. He’s lying about the other night, saying what Charles told him to say.”

  “Yeah, but he’s hardly going to mention a demon to two people he doesn’t know.”

  “True, but he’s also not going to mention a car wreck if Charles told him to keep quiet about it.” She started the engine. “There has to have been a car wreck. Why would someone attack Charles Hawthorne with an illusion spell and make him see a vision of one?”

  “Yeah, that would be crazy,” Leon said. “And at the party, didn’t Charles say he didn’t want to see it again? So that must mean he’s seen it before.”

  The gate opened as they approached it and Felicity drove past the guard’s booth. When she reached the end of the driveway, but before she joined the traffic on the highway, she pulled over and took her phone out of her handbag.

  A quick search of car accidents in the area revealed only one major incident last year. “This is interesting,” she said, showing Leon a photo of a crumpled car. The picture was part of an article that described an accident that had killed a young man and injured two other people.

  “Did that happen around here?” Leon asked.

  Felicity nodded. “Not far from here. It happened last year. On the same night as Jane Hawthorne’s Fall party.”

  9

  “This is it,” I told Merlin. “Pull over here.”

  He pulled the police cruiser over and kill
ed the engine. We were about fifty yards from Lucy Hawthorne’s house, far enough away to not look too conspicuous.

  “Are we going to go and confront her?” he asked.

  “I am” I said. “You’re going to wait here. And there’s no unspoken message in what I’m saying. I really want you to stay in the car.”

  “But why? If she’s a member of the Cabal, you may need my help. You don’t have Excalibur to hand.”

  “No, but I have this.” I showed him the enchanted dagger I’d taken from Todd and Honoka’s SUV.”

  “That knife is no Excalibur.”

  “No, it isn’t but that’s probably a good thing. I’m not going to kill Lucy, just talk to her. If her house is used as a Cabal meeting place, she probably has a wealth of information we can use to infiltrate their organization.”

  “And how will you extract that information from her? I have a number of spells that—”

  “Just leave this to me, okay?” I got out of the car and slid the dagger into the back of my jeans. It wasn’t raining like the last time I was here but a strong breeze was tossing the dead leaves around the street. Before I closed the car door, I leaned in and reiterated to Merlin, “Don’t leave the car.”

  He sighed. “Very well, I will await your return.”

  I closed the door and walked the fifty yards to Lucy’s house with my hands in my pockets. Wearing only the T-shirt and jeans I’d had on when Honoka had knocked at my door earlier, I felt chilled to the bone.

  The large federal style house looked empty as I approached the porch. There weren’t any lights on that I could see. The windows were like empty black eye sockets.

  I stepped onto the porch and rapped the front door knocker three times to announce my presence.

  I wasn’t expecting an answer. I was prepared to go around back and break into the house. So I was surprised when I heard movement and then the sound of someone drawing back the bolt on the inside of the door. It opened a crack and a young woman’s face appeared. She looked me over and smiled shyly. “You’re Alec Harbinger.”