I opened the door and recoiled at the smell of marigolds and hawthorn berries. The room was full of thick smoke and I had to wave my hand in front of my face to be able to see.
The Blackwell sisters stood by the altar, staring at a Devon’s phone.
“Has he called?” I asked.
They both looked up and shook their heads.
I stepped into the circle and beckoned Mallory to do likewise. “Get us there,” I told the Blackwells.
Victoria shook her head. “We can’t. Leon might call us with seconds to spare. If we’re casting the spell to send you to the boat, we can’t cast the spell to bring him back.”
I left the circle, frustrated that I couldn’t help my friend.
Devon’s phone rang. She answered the call and said, “What? What does that mean? Oh, okay. We’ll do it now.” She turned to Victoria and said, “He’s ready to come back.”
“What was the confusion when you answered the phone?” Victoria asked.
Devon frowned. He said, “Four to beam up, Scotty.”
“Oh,” Victoria said. “How strange.”
They began to chant the spell, chanting words that meant nothing to me. The air in the room suddenly felt electrified. The smoke that had been drifting lazily over the magic circle began to swirl, gaining momentum with each passing second until it formed a miniature tornado, sucking all of the smoke in the room into its spinning wall.
Victoria and Devon’s chants, which had been disparate until this moment, merged into one and now I could see shapes within the smoke. The chanting ended, the spell was done, and the swirling vortex settled, revealing Leon, Michael, Lucy, and Brad.
Leon and Michael were brandishing guns. Lucy and Brad looked shaken.
“What happened?” I asked Leon.
“You’re going to want to see this,” Leon said. To Victoria and Devon, he said, “Can you send us back?”
“But the window of opportunity,” Devon protested.
“It’s still open. We anchored the boat. It’s still over the wreck.”
“All right,” Devon said. “But we’ll need a moment to prepare the spell.”
“Good,” I said. “I need some fresh air.” I opened the door and we all stepped out into the bookshop.
Lucy and Brad still looked shaken so I led them to a reading nook that was furnished with easy chairs and sat them both down. “How are you guys doing?”
Lucy looked at me with fear in her eyes. She was trembling. “I only wanted to talk about the Midnight Cabal. It was just a bit of fun, like solving a mystery. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“Her posts on the Emerald Tablet website attracted the attention of the wrong people,” Leon said.
“I didn’t realize they were reading everything I wrote in there,” Lucy said.
I looked at Leon. “The Cabal?”
He nodded. “And you’re going to love what we found on their boat. In fact, we’re going to need a bag to bring some of it back with us.” He went into another room and came out with a canvas bag.
Victoria stuck her head out of the room. “We’re ready, boys.”
“And girl,” I said, indicating Mallory. “You’re coming too, right?”
She shook her head. “No, you go ahead. I’ll stay here with Brad and Lucy. It sounds like they’ve been through an ordeal; they probably need someone to talk to right now.”
“Okay. Michael, you coming?”
Michael had been cleaning his shotgun. He looked up and nodded. “Yes, sir, I’m right behind you.”
The three of us entered the room and stepped into the circle. Devon handed out knives and we cut ourselves before dripping blood into her silver bowl of herbs.
The spell began and the smoke filled the room. It swirled around us as the witch sisters chanted and then, when Devon poured the herbs and leaves from the bowl into the cauldron, everything changed. We were suddenly standing on the deck of a boat bobbing in the ocean.
I guessed it to be a forty-foot yacht. It had a small aft deck, on which we now stood, and a large foredeck. A set of steps led up to the bridge where the boat’s control consoles were housed along with its navigation systems.
There were two bodies on the deck, both dressed in black. Pools of bright blood mingled with the rainwater on the deck where they lay.
“There were six of them,” Leon said. “The other four are below decks.”
He led me up to the bridge and when we got inside, out of the rain, pointed at a laptop sitting on a table. “I reckon there’s going to be navigational data on that computer. We can find out where this boat’s been and where they were taking Lucy and Brad.” He put the laptop into the canvas bag and said, “The mother lode is below decks, though.”
I followed him back down the steps to the aft deck and then through a door that led to a living area.
“Down here,” Leon said, opening another door that led down to sleeping quarters. “Those two are just bedrooms,” he said, indicating two closed doors. “That’s where we put the other bodies. What you’re gonna love is what’s behind door number three.”
He slid the door open and I could see that this room had been turned into a study. There was a desk bolted to the floor and another laptop.
“Look in the drawers,” he said as he slid the computer into the bag.
I opened the desk drawers and discovered an array of storage devices, both electronic and more old-fashioned. Thumb drives and external hard drives sat among a stack of notebooks.
There was probably information stored on these devices that revealed Cabal locations and personnel. I tossed them into the bag alongside the computers. “Great work, Leon.”
He grinned.
“Now let’s get the hell out of here unless there’s anything else you want to show me.”
“No, that’s it. Isn’t that enough?”
“More than enough.”
We went up to the aft deck where Michael was standing with his trusty shotgun in hand, keeping watch.
“We’ll weigh anchor before we call the Blackwells,” Leon said. “Let the boat drift. By the time the Cabal recover it, we’ll be long gone.”
He went up to the bridge and I heard a mechanical clanking sound as the anchor was retracted. Leon came back down the steps and called Devon. “I won’t bother with the Star Trek jokes this time,” he said. After dialing the number, he simply told Devon that we were ready to return.
We waited in the rain for a few moments before a vortex of energy seemed to rise around us. I could feel my hair stand on end and I smelled marigolds and hawthorn berries.
The boat and the sea were replaced suddenly with the smoky room in Blackwell Books. I stepped out of the circle and out of the room.
Mallory was sitting in the reading nook, talking with Brad and Lucy. They each had a glass of something that looked like sherry, no doubt provided by the Blackwell sisters.
Leon and Michael came out of the room, smoke trailing after them. Leon had the bag of goodies slung over his shoulder. “This stuff is probably protected with some high-grade security,” he said. “You want me to take it home and see if I can hack into it?”
“That’d be great,” I said. “I’ll take the notebook.”
He set the bag down and pulled the notebook out of it. He handed it to me and I flicked through the pages. It seemed to be written in some sort of code. Breaking it shouldn’t be too much of a problem for Felicity.
“Felicity,” I said. “I forgot to call her.” I fished my phone out of my pocket and dialed Felicity’s number.
“Alec,” she said when she answered. “I called you hours ago.”
“Yeah, I was kind of tied up. You okay?”
“I’m at the police station. Where are you?”
“Blackwell Books. What are you doing at the police station?”
“It’s a long story. I thought you’d be at home.”
“Also a long story.”
“I want to run something by you.”
&
nbsp; “Go ahead.”
“I’d rather do it face to face than over the phone.”
“Well I’m going home now so you can come over when you’re done at the station. You don’t need me to bail you out or anything do you?”
“Very funny. I’ll be over in a while.”
17
Felicity arrived half an hour later. Mallory had gone to bed and I was sitting on the sofa poring over the coded notebook we’d found on the yacht. No matter how many times I tried to decipher sections of it, I came up with nada. This was more Felicity’s field of expertise.
I opened the door for her and she came inside smelling of rain and a hint of perfume.
“You want tea?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I had a drink at the station. How is Mallory?”
“Sleeping again.”
“That’s probably the best thing she can do at the moment. Give her body and mind time to rest and heal.”
“Yeah. So how is the Hawthorne case going?”
“That’s what I came to speak to you about.”
“Have a seat and tell me about it.”
She sat on the easy chair and told me about her evening, from the moment Leon had discovered the details of the car wreck to the moment Abigail Libby had shown her a photo of Owen and Mason in tuxedos.
“So they were meant to attend the party that night,” I said. “Were either of them owners of local businesses?”
“No, they both worked on the family farm,” she said.
“I wonder why they were invited. Do they have any connection to the Hawthorne family?”
“Not that I can see. What I find weird about that night is the fact that Charles Hawthorne was driving near the Libby farm at all. It’s miles away from his house. Doesn’t it seem too coincidental that he’d be miles away from the party and crash into two people who were going to that same party?”
“I guess so.”
“And the place where the accident occurred is very close to the Libby farm. What was Charles doing there?”
“Maybe he knew the Libby family.”
“Okay, let’s say he knew them and he wanted to speak to them for some reason. They were on their way to the party anyway so why not just wait there for them to arrive?”
“Yeah, you have a point. So if they were on their way to the party and he left the party specifically to meet them before they got there, maybe he was trying to stop them from attending.”
Her eyebrows knitted together behind her glasses. “That makes sense, I suppose, but why would he do that?”
“His wife is in charge of the invitations,” I said. “Maybe she invited them but he didn’t want them there for some reason.”
The notebook I’d used the first time I’d met Charles in the folly was on the coffee table. I opened it and reviewed my notes from that meeting. “His wife had an affair,” I said. “He knew about it.”
“What if she was having an affair with one of the Libbys?”
“I guess that’s possible. In fact, if it was one of the brothers, I’d say it was definitely Mason.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I asked Charles if the affair might still be going on today and he said he was positive that his wife and her lover don’t see each other anymore. If Mason had been Jane’s lover, that would explain Charles’s certainty about it being over. She can’t have an affair with someone who’s dead.”
“Perhaps he was driving out to the Libby farm to confront Mason and tell him not to come to the party.”
“Or he drove the Libby car off the road on purpose,” I offered. “His lawyers stepped in and did their thing and he got away with murder.”
Felicity pondered that for a minute or so. “Yes, it certainly seems possible. So a year later, Owen decides to attack Charles with magic.”
“But why wait a year?” I asked.
“It probably took him that long to discover that magic worked, learn the spells he needed, and put his plan into action.”
“That makes sense. His attacks would culminate in the resurrection of his brother and the death of Charles so he had to track down and learn a resurrection spell. That would take time.”
“But he didn’t do it on his own,” Felicity said. “There’s no way he could get his wheelchair into the cellar where we saw that grave. Someone else did that part.”
“And that person killed Owen,” I said.
“It has to be Jane Hawthorne. She must have loved Mason enough to commit murder to bring him back.”
“So why didn’t the crystal shard glow when we checked her at the party?”
She thought about that for a while. “Because Owen did all the magic leading up to and including the smoke attack at the party and Jane only performed the final act, the Conjuration of the Midnight Blood. Which she did the day after the party. When we checked her, she hadn’t cast the spell yet.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. We should probably go find Mason and put him down. We can’t have a zombie wandering around in the woods.”
Felicity’s eyes went wide. “Oh my God, what if he isn’t in the woods? Amy and I assumed he was on foot because we saw Abigail’s car outside the house. But that was when we thought Abigail had cast the spell. If it was Jane who resurrected Mason, she could have driven him from the farm in her car. The security around the Hawthorne mansion isn’t going to protect Charles if Jane simply drives Mason through the gate.”
I grabbed my phone and tried to call Charles. There was no answer.
Felicity was already at the front door. I followed her outside and we climbed into the Land Rover.
“Keep trying to reach him on the phone,” I said, handing her my phone as I started the engine.
As I sped along the street, the rain hit the windshield in rhythmic bursts, ticking off each precious second.
18
When we got to the gate of the Hawthorne mansion, the guard peered lazily from the booth. “What do you want? It’s late.”
“Charles Hawthorne is in danger,” I said. “Let us in now!”
He snorted. “Yeah, right, pal. You can turn your vehicle around and get the hell out of here.”
I opened my door and slid out of the Land Rover. The guard went for his gun but before he managed to free it from his belt, I had an enchanted dagger pressed against his neck. “Open the gate now,” I said calmly.
“Okay, okay. The button is inside the booth.”
“So let’s go press it.”
We went into the booth together and he pressed the button. The gate swung open.
“Have you opened the gate for Mrs Hawthorne recently?” I asked.
“Yeah, she got back a couple of minutes ago.”
I ran out of the booth and jumped into the Land Rover, flooring the gas so hard that we lurched forward. I forced myself to ease up on the pedal and drove into the parking area. The Land Rover skidded to a stop on the gravel when I slammed the brakes on.
Felicity and I got out and grabbed our swords. We sprinted across the gravel to the front door. It was closed and locked. From somewhere inside, I heard Charles Hawthorne scream, No! No, please!”
There wasn’t time to find another way into the house. I sliced my sword through the heavy wooden door and angled it upward toward the top hinge. The hinge broke and I did the same with the one lower down. It only took a few seconds before I was kicking the door down. It fell into the foyer with a crash loud enough to wake the dead.
We ran inside and I shouted, “Charles, where are you?”
“Up here!” came a cry from somewhere on the floor above. “Hurry!”
I raced up the stairs to a long corridor lined with many doors. Only one of them was open. I dashed through it and saw Charles cowering in his wheelchair by the window as a creature dressed in rotting clothes shambled toward him. The stench in the air was stomach churning.
The creature that had once been Mason Libby turned to look at me with one milky eye. The other eye was gone, lea
ving only an empty socket Surely this monstrosity wasn’t what Jane Hawthorne had envisioned rising from the grave when she’d cast the Conjuration of the Midnight Blood.
Surely she hadn’t committed murder just so that this abomination of rotting flesh and crumbling bones could walk again.
I swung my sword at its neck. The blade sliced through the bloodless flesh and decayed spine as if it were nothing and the head of the creature fell to the floor.
Even decapitated, the body continued its relentless march toward Charles. A second swing of my sword took its right arm off, severing it from the torso just below the shoulder.
Felicity stepped in and swung at the monster’s hips. Her sword sliced through the zombie like a hot knife through butter and the torso tumbled to the floor. Still the legs walked forward.
I hacked and slashed until they were nothing more than formless pieces of meat lying motionless on the carpet.
Charles sat trembling in his chair, his panicked eyes roaming over the disconnected pieces of the zombie, probably wondering if they were going to come back to life and reform into the shape of Mason Libby.
“Where’s Jane?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. She set that…thing…on me and then left.”
I pointed at the flesh on the floor with my sword. “Get your butler to burn that. All of it.”
He nodded.
We turned to leave the room but as we did, I saw something fall past window outside and then heard a sickening thud.
I went to the window and opened it. Jane Hawthorne lay on the gravel below. I leaned out of the window and looked up. The third floor window was open. That was where she’d jumped.
“How terrible,” Felicity said, gazing down at the lifeless body on the gravel below us.
“She probably thought she didn’t have a choice,” I said. “She knew she’d be arrested for the murder of Owen Libby and didn’t want to spend the rest of her days in prison.”
“Or she was so distraught at what her love had become that she decided to go with him to the afterlife.”
“That’s certainly a different way of looking at it.”
Midnight Blood Page 13