by Debra Dunbar
I thought for a second while I ate my bagel. We’d made progress last night, and I felt like we were narrowing in on the vampires if not the mysterious mage who they were working for. It worried me not knowing who she was, how powerful she was, if she was working alone or with a group of mages, or what she wanted to achieve in Baltimore with a group of vampire flunkies.
“So what do you have on Rick?” I asked, deciding to move on to the other issue.
“Hotel records showed that the room was accessed by a key card at one thirty Wednesday morning.”
I nodded. “That’s about when we dropped Liz off.”
“After that, the only access is through the housekeeping keys. I reviewed security footage—and let me tell you that made for a very long night last night. The hotel security footage shows someone matching Liz’s description leaving the hotel at seven the next morning, and I don’t see her returning.”
“She was probably heading to that seminar,” I mused.
“A seminar that didn’t exist,” Tremelay informed me.
I stared at him. “Seriously? That means someone went to a lot of trouble to set that up and get Rick and Liz to Baltimore.”
“That also means this wasn’t random, or an attack of opportunity. Whoever grabbed Rick, and I’m assuming Liz, wanted them for some reason—them specifically.”
I thought back to Liz, leaving the hotel at seven o’clock and either being waylaid in route to the seminar, or possibly at the seminar location itself.
“Did the place where the seminar was supposed to be have security footage? Did anyone see Liz enter or exit?” I asked.
Tremelay shook his head. “No footage that I’ve been able to find, although we’re checking neighboring buildings. No one saw her enter or exit that they remember. The doorman at the Marriott remembered Liz and said he’d offered to call her a taxi, but she said she’d called for an Uber. I’m hoping to have the information on who drove her and where she was dropped off by this afternoon.”
The detective had been just as busy last night as I had—and probably had gotten even less sleep.
“But why wouldn’t she have called you if Rick hadn’t been back by morning?” I mused. “Why the heck did she head to a seminar with her brother missing and not call the police?”
“There are no records of a missing person’s report for Rick Dimond,” Tremelay said. “I didn’t see any sign of him in the hotel security footage. I reviewed the Ottobar security cameras outside the back fire door exit and the one in the front, and clearly saw you and your vampire boyfriend leaving with a woman I assume to be Liz. There’s also some footage of Rick staggering down the street with a woman. At least I think it’s him. It’s kind of grainy and he’s not really in frame, so it’s hard to tell. It was at the eleven twelve mark.”
“That’s about when I saw him making out with some blonde woman by the bathrooms,” I told Tremelay. “Liz said she couldn’t find him soon after that, and none of us saw him again. We figured he’d left with the blonde and would show up back at the hotel early in the morning.”
“Well he didn’t take his car. We found it down the street from the club, and it looks like it’s been there since Tuesday night from the amount of tickets it’s got and the boot attached to one tire.”
“So the blonde drove.” Which was probably a good thing given how out of it Rick had seemed.
“I’m hoping you can come down to the station sometime today and work with a sketch artist given that you’re the only one who got a good look at the woman Rick left with.”
I grimaced, thinking about how my day was getting overwhelmed with things I needed to do. Good thing I didn’t have to be at the coffee shop until tomorrow, but I hardly expected to spend my weekend off doing everything but relaxing.
“Okay. I’m picking up Rick in an hour or so and taking him to see Russell. Hopefully we can get some information from whatever spirit is possessing him before we banish the thing.”
Tremelay nodded, nonplussed by the idea of getting investigative information from the dead via a necromancer. How far he’d come from months ago when he thought I was crazy with my talk of magical rituals and demons.
“Oh, and one more thing. Whoever has Liz is definitely the same person or people who grabbed Rick.”
I shrugged. “Well, we kinda figured that. It would be a weird coincidence for a guy to go missing for days, and his sister to also go missing not twenty-four hours later.”
“We’re not just assuming anymore. I ran by Walmart last night and picked up a new phone for Rick, then went back by the hotel. We spent a few hours on the phone with Verizon, getting it onto his account and getting all his data downloaded. It seems he, or someone with his phone and access to his thumbprint, sent Liz a text message at six ten Wednesday morning asking her to meet him and bring a clean shirt.”
I could imagine how irritated she would have been by that. Her brother stays out all night with some pickup from a club, and the morning of their seminar wants her to drop off a change of clothes.
“Did she reply?” I asked
Tremelay grimaced. “It was a bit snappy, but she agreed. I went to the address in the text message on my way here and it’s a house up in Woodberry. The woman who lives there is off on vacation according to the neighbors. Homeowner’s name is Sarah Brunner. They said a few people have come and gone—the cleaning service, the lawn maintenance people, and a woman they figured was a relative bringing in the mail and watering the plants. Nice nosy neighbors, just the sort we cops like.”
“Please tell me the woman bringing in the mail was a younger, attractive, blonde?”
“Yes, but so was one of the cleaning service. The lawn maintenance people were all ‘Mexican guys’ according to the neighbors.”
I rolled my eyes at that. “So what’s next?”
“Sleep, because I haven’t done much of that in the last few days. We’re trying to see if we can get the towers the text message came from and try to pin down a general location to search. We’re also going to see if we’ve got enough for a warrant to search Sarah Brunner’s house and dust for prints—if we can’t get a hold of her and get her permission to have a friend or someone let us in that is. We’re hoping she can also tell us the lawn and housekeeping service she uses, along with if she was in fact having someone come in to water the plants. We’ll track down from those angles and see what we can get. The sketch of the woman Rick was last seen with will help as well. I’ll run the sketch by vice and see if any of them recognize her. She may have been a prostitute hired to slip Rick something and entice him away from the club to the kidnappers, or whatever they are.”
“What do you think our chances are of finding Liz alive?”
“Normally I’d say not good with her missing four days, but Rick came out of this alive. If it’s the same people, there’s a good chance they’ll do to her whatever freaky thing they did to him and let her go.”
“I get the feeling they let Rick go because whatever it is they wanted to do, it didn’t work. Or it only partially worked. I’m worried they might succeed with Liz.”
“Let’s hope they’re just a bunch of nutjobs, and not actual mages or murderers who think Liz is a replacement for Rick.” Tremelay slugged down his coffee. “And after I do all that, I still need to track down who drained Melbourne Cassidy of blood and left his body out on the street. And investigate dozens of attacks and murders that might or might not be done by vampires.”
I smiled up at him as he stood. “Go get some sleep. I’ll text you if I find anything out, and let you know what Russell says.”
“Just make sure you let me know before you talk to that reporter.” He scowled, but there was a hint of a smile around his mouth as he waved a finger at me.
I held up my hands. “Hey, Janice has had some good information for us in the past. Sharing a little is well worth access to that information. Besides, she’s always held back on stories if it’s really important. She’s good people, Tremelay.”
“I just don’t want to find out about something by reading it in the paper.”
“I promise I’ll give you at least a few hours head start.”
I waved at him and watched him leave, then I sat and finished my coffee and bagel until it was time to drive over to the hotel to pick up Rick.
He met me down in the lobby and I noticed that in addition to a new cell phone compliments of the Baltimore Police Department, Rick had new clothing.
“My overnight package got here.” He did a little pirouette with arms outstretched. “Maria grabbed the spare set of clothes I keep at the funeral home and sent them along with my passport, cash, and credit card.”
“I’m sure it’s a relief not to be wearing the only clothes you’ve had for the last five days.”
“Now that I have ID I was able to get our suitcases out of the hotel lockup. Luckily the hotel had shaving stuff and a toothbrush as well as their complimentary toiletries.”
These are the things you never really think about. What would happen if suddenly you found yourself in a city with nothing but the clothing on your back?
“How are you feeling?” I asked. “I mean, do you still feel like there’s someone else inside you, or with a good night’s sleep and a shower has that feeling passed?”
Rick’s mouth thinned into a grim line. “Oh, I always feel it. Or him. Or whatever. It’s like a splinter that you just can’t manage to get out no matter how much you dig. I try to ignore it, but it’s there eating away at my concentration. I don’t know if I’d eventually get used to it, or if it would drive me crazy, but I’m worried it will be the latter.”
I hoped Russell could help. The man had really impressed me with his ability, but I knew every mage had their limits.
It wasn’t a long drive to Russell’s house, but Rick remained silent, gazing out the window at the buildings we passed. It reminded me of when Dario and I drove Liz back to the hotel and she’d worried the whole way about Rick. I shouldn’t have brushed off her concerns. I should have taken her word for it that Rick wouldn’t have gotten drunk and run off to have sex with a woman he’d just met, stranding his sister and not even letting her know where he was going. Maybe if I’d taken her to Tremelay that night, Rick wouldn’t have been jabbed with needles and been possessed by a spirit. Maybe Liz wouldn’t have been taken and possibly be suffering the same fate—or worse.
Had they killed her? Sacrificed her like the Fiore Noir mages had done so they could bring some powerful spirit or demon fully across the veil? Was Rick spared because of a fault in their ritual, or because there was something not quite right about his physiology? I glanced over at the man, and knew that as concerned as I was, he worried even more. If this were Athena, or Roman, I’d be frantic. I had no idea how the man was managing to hold himself together.
Although panic did no one any good. Rick was strong. He’d prevailed against whatever these people had done to him, and was managing to keep his sanity with whatever spirit was possessing him. He was remaining calm and doing all he could to cooperate and help get his sister back safe and sound.
I parked outside of Russell’s rowhouse, waving to the neighbor woman rocking on her tiny front porch as Rick and I climbed the stairs. Russell ushered us in and told us to take a seat, informing the pair of us that he would bring tea before vanishing into the kitchen.
“It’s not what I expected,” Rick whispered. “I thought he’d be some dude with eyeliner and a head scarf, and his place would be full of incense with silk curtains everywhere.”
“He’s got a Ouija board. And tarot cards. And bones. And I think he’s got a crystal ball somewhere.” I sat on the beige sofa that I was pretty sure Russell had gotten at Ikea and motioned for Rick to do the same. “There are a lot of different levels when it comes to magic that specializes in spirits, the dead, and the world beyond the veil. There are those who use spirits to divine the future and reveal the past, and those who can actually command those spirits and the bodies that used to house them. A high-level necromancer can raise the dead. A very high-level necromancer can manipulate undead such as wraiths and vampires. There are even legends of necromancers in history who walked among an enemy’s army and ripped the souls from their bodies, killing them with a wave of their hand.”
Rick shivered and I suddenly regretted my little lecture. I’d been brought up with a Templar Librarian as a father, and was just as fascinated with lore and the supernatural as he was. Rick was less fascinated, and more terrified. He looked as if he were about ready to pass out on Russell’s Ikea couch.
“Russell is a good guy,” I assured him, even though there was a time in the not-so-distant past when I wasn’t sure whether Russell was a good guy or not. “He’ll do everything he can to help you. I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t think he could, or if there was any chance at all that he’d hurt you.”
Rick leaned his head back against the couch cushions and took a few deep breaths. “If you’d told me a week ago that I’d be possessed by a spirit or a demon or something and visiting an occult practitioner to perform some sort of exorcism, I would have laughed my head off. I don’t believe in this stuff—well, I didn’t believe in this stuff. I was the pragmatic guy, the one who didn’t believe in luck or God or anything. I didn’t play the lottery. I didn’t go to church. I’d never had my fortune told at a county fair or flipped a coin to make a decision. Logic. I was all about logic and what I could see before my very own eyes. But here I am.”
I reached out and patted his arm. “I’m all about logic and what I can see before my very own eyes as well, but the things I’ve seen in my lifetime are very different than what you’ve seen. There’s more to this world than what you’ve experienced, Rick. Just because you’ve never traveled to Japan doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Likewise, there are things of legend that truly walk this earth.”
He closed his eyes and took a few more deep breaths. I wasn’t helping. I needed to just shut up and let him live in his own world, like so many humans did. I was trying to help him make sense of all this, but instead all I was doing was scaring the guy. Templars and demons and ghosts and vampires and necromancers…it was all too much and too soon for him. Actually, it might always be too soon for Rick. I got the impression that he was one of those people who truly wanted to turn a blind eye to the supernatural and live their life unaware.
I’d lived my whole life with this as my reality, but Rick hadn’t. Tremelay had been able to accept all this and work it into his life. So had Janice. Rick…I got the feeling he wouldn’t. After all this was over, he’d probably push it all to the back of his mind and maybe even deny it had ever happened. He’d probably treat it all as if it had been a bad dream.
Zac was struggling with all of this. It’s no surprise that Rick would as well. And I couldn’t fault him for that. Realizing everything you’d thought was just a fantasy, was only metaphorical mythology, was actually real? That was a reality many people just didn’t want to acknowledge.
Russell walked in with a plastic tray holding three glasses of iced tea, looking like a middle-aged, blue-collar man serving beverages to his church group. Rick took the tea and drank, his eyes bugging out as he swallowed. I almost laughed.
“Russell likes his tea sweet,” I commented.
“There’s no other way to drink tea,” the necromancer announced, picking up his own glass and motioning for us to follow him. “Let’s go into the dining room. That’s where I have everything set up.”
Rick eyed me nervously but followed. The dining room was more of what Rick had imagined when I’d told him we were going to consult a spirit-worker. There weren’t colorful scarves hanging everywhere, but the faint odor of sage and myrrh hung in the air. The oak farmhouse table with captain’s-style chairs around it held the tarot cards, bones, Ouija board, and a whole host of other occult paraphernalia.
We took chairs across from Russell, who was not wearing robes or a head-scarf, but some rather worn jeans and a t-
shirt with a picture of a black bear and two cubs climbing a tree. As he sat, the necromancer took a swig from his ultra-sweetened tea and ran a hand over his thinning hair.
“Now, Mr. Dimond, what can you tell me about the spirit that possesses you?”
Rick’s eyes grew huge. “You believe me?”
Russell waved the hand that wasn’t holding his iced tea. “I sense its presence, but you’ve managed to push the spirit into the far reaches of your physical form. That either means that you’re a very strong individual psychically, or that the spirit is very weak, or that he, or she, was not fully brought across the veil. You’ll excuse me if I believe the latter is the reason. I’m open to considering one of the other options though. I’ll know more once we begin and I make contact, but I’d like to hear your take on things beforehand.”
Rick swallowed a few times and looked at his hands wrapped around the glass of tea. He told Russell the story he’d told me, from coming to Baltimore for a seminar, to his hazy recollections of medical experimentation, to finding himself on the streets, confused and feeling as if his body was being wrested out of his control. He went on to tell Russell of his experience in the hospital, his coming to see me, and the disappearance of his sister.
Russell listened intently, his hands steepled before him, nodding occasionally. At the end of Rick’s story he waited a few moments before speaking.
“I believe I can help you, but it will involve you placing your trust in me. In order to remove the spirit from your body, I’ll need you to allow it to come forth, which means giving up control. Is this something you’re willing to do?”
Rick grimaced. “What’s my choice?”
“You can live the rest of your life with a spirit who is fighting to fully cross the veil and take your physical form for his own. There are times during the year when the veil between the worlds is thin, and those are the times the spirit will fight hard to gain control. He may succeed. And even if he doesn’t, you may go insane fighting him.”