Night Terrors (Sarah Beauhall Book 4)

by J. A. Pitts

  Which meant there had to be another player in the area. I was bone tired of all the interference. What the heck was Qindra doing letting all this crap go on under her nose? Of course, I was happy she’d overlooked Black Briar for so long. Maybe these Mordred folks were low key enough to ignore.

  Katie spoke up. “You said there was someone else. A second order member to die?”

  He nodded. “Don’t laugh.”

  I shot Katie a puzzled look. This guy was really rattled.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “Madame Gottschalk’s talking cat.”

  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot … Katie looked as bemused as I felt. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  He put his head in his hands and sighed. “I know it sounds crazy and I’m not supposed to talk about the cat, but there it is.” He looked up, his face pale. There were bags under his eyes that I hadn’t noticed at first.

  “The old lady you work for is a witch, right?” Katie was suddenly serious. “Like a real witch, not one of those wannabe pretenders.”

  Charlie just nodded. “Old school,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “And she’s freaking out. The cat has been with her since the old country.”

  “What happened to the cat?” Katie asked.

  “Which old country,” I asked at the same time.

  Charlie looked from one of us to the other again, his eyes practically vibrating in his skull. “Russia,” he said, nodding at me, “and lightning” he said, looking at Katie. “Madam often sent the cat over to give me instructions. It carried notes tied to its collar. It had delivered a few messages before I heard it complain that I never tipped it. Imagine how surprised I was that the cat talked.” He chuckled. “After that I always had a can of tuna handy.”

  He paused as the waitress set an order of crab wontons and a steaming dish of pineapple fried rice in front of us and refilled our water glasses.

  “Some beggar had been hanging around my neighborhood,” he continued, scooping rice onto his plate, “creepy guy with one eye. Anyway, one night last week, after the cat had delivered me the news of Bobbi’s death and had finished his tuna, he decided to investigate our Dumpster. He did that, must be a cat thing.” He smiled at us, but neither Katie nor I smiled back. This was the most bat shit conversation.

  His smile faltered. “Anyway, this homeless dude was digging through the Dumpster and didn’t take kindly to the cat’s intrusion. One second the cat was hissing and shouting in one of the Slavic languages and the next this bolt of lightning flashed down from the sky and the cat exploded. It was crazy. When I could see again, the old man was bent down over the cat, poking it with his walking stick and laughing. ‘Tell the old woman I repay my debts,’ he said, and he struck the ground three times. Then the cat got up,” Charlie paused here, his eyes wide. “I’m telling you, the damn thing was a blackened husk one minute, then it was up and stretching. The old man pushed the cat with his staff and laughed. ‘Four to go,’ he said. The cat arched his back, hissed at the old man and ran into the darkness.”

  Katie kicked me under the table. I knew what she was thinking. Odin was haunting Charlie’s apartments. What’s up with that?

  “Have you seen this old man since?” I asked.

  “Three times,” he said, quickly looking toward the door. “I’m beginning to think he’s following me.”

  Katie gave me a look and I grinned at her. Better him than us. He drew the wrong kind of attention, that crazy old man. I didn’t relish being jumped by another pair of giants.

  “So, about meeting up with Black Briar,” I said. “What is in it for us to join forces with your lot?”

  Charlie looked at me and had the good sense to look chagrinned. “We have contacts, lots of secret knowledge, and,” he lowered his voice again, “we have new information about your parents’ trip to Reykjavik.” He was looking directly at Katie.

  He wasn’t grinning at her, just had his voice lowered and his face ducked down, like he didn’t want to be seen. I thought he was acting pretty damned suspicious. That’s probably why I didn’t see Katie move.

  She punched him, just above his right eye. His head snapped back and then forward, going nose first into his plate of fried rice.

  “Ow, fuck,” she said, shaking her hand out, her fingers loose.

  The other patrons were looking at us. Our waitress stopped in the middle of refreshing water at another table, just staring at us.

  “Why’d you hit me?” he asked, brushing rice from his face.

  I reached over and put my hand on Katie’s shoulder. She was going for round two.

  “You know about my parents, you prick. You just tell me. You don’t negotiate.”

  She was fired up. Charlie had a hand over his punched eye and his other eye was wide, scared. “I was gonna tell you. Geez.” He scooted to the left, further away from Katie. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that yet. Madame will be pissed.”

  Katie slumped back with a sigh, the fight going out of her. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  He shook his head and reached for his water, watching her for any movement. “I wanted to get with you and your brother, tell you both at the same time.” There was something scared in his voice, something that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “We have something of theirs. Something they left in London before they went to Iceland.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Katie was tense, her face taut and her mouth set.

  He opened his messenger bag and pulled out a small envelope. He slid it across the table and Katie picked it up. For a moment I got a spark of green—made me think sympathetic magic. But it could’ve been a trick of the light.

  Katie looked inside and went pale. She handed me the envelope and I looked inside. Laying in the bottom were a pair of wedding rings.

  Her eyes were hard, her face tight. I placed a hand on her arm closest to me. She was tense. I squeezed her, lending her my support.

  “They left these on the nightstand of their hotel,” he said, his voice quiet. “They were protected by some sort of spell. The maid never saw them, but someone else did. A player named McTavish.”

  I glanced up at him, “Is that name supposed to mean something?”

  He shrugged, obviously disappointed we didn’t react. “Probably not. He was pretty active during the Troubles, real cat burglar type. Did some work for the IRA. Had a knack for getting into places no one thought possible.”

  “Why was he trying to steal my parent’s wedding rings?” Katie asked, her voice deadly calm.

  I watched her. Blood was slowly welling up from her left nostril. I handed her a napkin and she clutched it to her face, “Tell me.”

  Charlie’s head snapped around and he had the strangest look on his face—part panic, part incomprehension.

  “He worked for the Dublin dragon,” he intoned, his voice wooden and strained. “The order thinks he was an elf, traveled through mirrors somehow. We’ve never heard of that before.” His hands were shaking like he struggled to move them. “There’s speculation it could explain some of the things we’ve observed out at Black Briar. I was thinking maybe you knew who he was in context, and why am I telling you all this.” He was breathing really fast—his voice a staccato machine gun delivery.

  It was creepy. I glanced at Katie and she was staring at him, mouthing the words that flew from his mouth.

  “Touching the rings killed him,” he went on. “Whatever wards were on them seemed to be gone by the time our operative arrived. The police wrote it off as electrocution and the body went into a pauper’s grave. We acquired the rings and have been studying them for years.” The tendons in his neck were standing out and his whole body trembled. “I just found out about them in the last few weeks.”

  Blood dripped down onto the table from Katie’s fist. The napkin was a dripping crimson mess. “Katie?” I asked her, jostling her elbow. She was as rigid as Charlie, vibrating. She stared at him as if she was trying to bore a hole through his skull
and see inside. Maybe that was exactly what she was doing. “Katie!” I barked and snapped my fingers in front of her face.

  She flinched and lowered her eyes. Charlie jerked back, gasping. “Sorry,” she said, pushing her chair back and standing up. “Ladies room.”

  Charlie was wide-eyed with panic. “How did she do that?” he asked. “What did I say?”

  “Stay,” I ordered him, pointing at my index finger at his face. “Do not leave.”

  He nodded once and I turned to follow Katie.

  That had gotten totally out of control.

  I found her in the ladies room washing her face and hands. The blood had run down the length of her arm and her pale skin was streaked with lines of sticky red.

  I stepped to her, put one hand on the small of her back and looked at her in the mirror. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded and splashed water on her face. I took a stack of paper towels out of the dispenser and handed her a handful. She mopped up her arm and began washing her hands with soap and water again.

  She wasn’t crying, but there was something distant in her eyes. Something cold. What the hell was happening to her?

  “Bleeding’s stopped,” I said, filling the silence. She nodded again and kept scrubbing her hands and arms. After a few minutes her actions became less frantic and her shoulders began to relax.

  I stepped behind her and put my hands on her shoulders, kneading the muscles there. She was tight, like nothing I’d ever encountered.

  “Come on, baby,” I whispered into her hair. “It’s okay. I’m here. It’s over.”

  She shook a little, put her hands on the sink and sagged down onto her arms.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to. He just …” she trailed off.

  “Shhh,…” I said, wrapping my arms around the front of her.

  She grabbed my arms, hugging them to her.

  “It was like I’d opened his head and pulling the words out,” she said after a moment. “Like I was scooping them out with a spoon and couldn’t stop.”

  “It’s over now,” I said, struggling to keep my voice calm.

  She turned and pressed her face into my shoulder. We stood there for a few minutes while her breathing evened out. I stroked her hair and just breathed with her.

  When we’d cleaned up the mess and left the bathroom, Charlie was long gone. The envelope with the rings was gone as well.

  The server was clearing the food away and I dropped a couple of twenties on the table.

  “You want food boxed up?” she asked, her Thai accent thick and sweet.

  “No thanks,” I said, trying to smile. Probably wouldn’t go back to that restaurant for a while.

  I helped Katie out to the truck, settling her in the passenger side and closed the door.

  How the hell was I supposed to fix this?

  Three

  I called Charlie and left him a voicemail. I didn’t blame the guy for bolting. That was some freaky shit. Katie was quiet all the way out to Black Briar, but she hadn’t shut me out. She kept glancing my way, keeping one hand on my thigh as I drove. It was a peaceful way to share each other’s space. By the time I put the truck in park at Jimmy’s, she had come to grips with the events of lunch.

  “Thanks for loving me,” she said, leaning over to kiss me.

  I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her back.

  “Have you done that before?” I asked her, thinking of other times she’d gotten pissy and demanding. All minor things, but when you see things like that, it brings everything else into question.

  “Once or twice,” she said, putting her head on my shoulder and holding my hands in hers. “Scares me. It’s like I have this power to compel people to tell me things. Maybe even do things.”

  I squeezed her hands gently. “I’m comfortable at our current pace of sexual exploration,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows. “You don’t need to try that stuff on me, ’kay?”

  She chuckled and hugged me again. “Makes my head hurt,” she said into my shoulder. “Definitely not conducive to intimate moments.”

  We got out of the truck and slowly made our way to the house. It was a beautiful day and the sun was warm for a change. I held her hand and looked around at the farm. It was a good place. I could see the Cascade Mountains climbing to the east of us—tall and snow covered even this late in the spring. Over top of it all was a sky so blue it made my eyes water.

  I absorbed all that in the second it took me to turn my head and settle back on Katie. It all paled compared to the light in her eyes. I touched the side of her face, caressing her.

  “We have dinner with Melanie and Dena later,” she said, turning to kiss the palm of my hand. “I’ll get a nap and we’ll have a quiet dinner. Give them a chance to meet Jai Li. Maybe it will just be normal. What say?”

  “If you’re wiped out, we can reschedule,” I said. “Your health is more important.”

  “It’s been months,” she said, smiling. “Melanie is going to show up on her own if we don’t do it formally. She’s beside herself about the kiddo.”

  I nodded. She’d seen Jai Li in the hospital after the battle with the necromancer, but a quiet evening of normal would be totally different.

  That night we had one of the best nights in a long time. We let Jai Li pick out the music and we all played games. I knitted while the other four played Parcheesi. Then Jai Li convinced them to play Candyland for a while.

  Dena was shy at first. I’d never gotten on with her very well, but Jai Li thought she was aces. Seemed to confuse the woman. Melanie and Katie had no trouble connecting again after a long dry spell. I felt almost like an outsider as the four of them interacted, and I was on heightened alert. Jai Li was too damned vulnerable and Katie too frail. After a bit I put aside the knitting and got settled into a wicked game of three way War with Jai Li and Dena while Katie and Melanie talked in the kitchen.

  I knew Melanie was grilling her about her health. Being a doctor and an old lover gave her an insight that many people didn’t have. Twice Melanie caught my eye and just shook her head. She was not happy.

  We had popcorn and cider, told stories and generally enjoyed the peace of being surrounded by family and friends.

  The night was so amazing that after everyone had gone home we got the nest built in the living room again. No way we were sleeping in the bedroom. Too risky in my book. I didn’t want to wake up in the Sideways. Too many things wanted to eat me there.

  I was beginning to hate this apartment, but tonight had been a slice of normal we hadn’t experienced in a very long time. After Jai Li and Katie were asleep I sat up on the big chair, watching the street lights through the front windows with Gram on my lap. A night this peaceful had to be a precursor to something nasty.

  At one, Katie came and dragged me back to bed. She even made me tuck Gram away. The apartment was still. Katie snuggled up against me, naked under her T-shirt, all curvy and warm. I pulled her against me, hugging her back to me, one hand over her breasts, and fell asleep. That night, for the first time in a very long time, I had no dreams at all.

  Four

  We went back out to Black Briar on Saturday. I needed to spend some time at the new forge and wanted to give my kobold buddy, Bub some one-on-one time. I felt like I’d been neglecting the little guy. Forget his unfortunate habit of eating anything that wasn’t nailed down and his obsession for the old barn that had been burned down by dragon fire, he was great with the other kids and acted just like one most of the time. I tended to forget he was a fire being from another plane with a mouth that hinged open allowing him to eat things—or people—bigger than his head. It was rather creepy.

  Of course, the second we got there, Jai Li took off like a shot, tackling the kobold and getting piled on by the troll twins. It had only been a few months since they’d joined our larger clan but they were already longer and leaner than the typical toddler. I bet those two topped seven feet by the time they finished growing. Glad they were b
eing raised by our side. I’d fought their kin in the past. They were nasty fighters.

  But Jai Li owned them. That girl had those three boys following her around like puppy dogs. It was comical, our little waif girl, a four foot tall scaly red kobold, and two troll twins nearly as tall as Bub though they were not quite a year old.

  Trisha sat on the back porch mending something leather. An old hauberk, it looked like. One of the old sparring bits. I let the kids have at it while I chatted with her briefly, checking on things, exchanging kid stories. Soon enough I was waving at the kids and heading to the smithy. Katie went into the house to visit. I was itching to get back to some fire and steel. It had been more than a month since I’d been out here last and I was itching to make some blades.

  We didn’t have a good coal forge out at Black Briar yet, but it was on my Christmas wish list. I liked the way coal heated better than propane. Felt cleaner to me, a quality heat. Propane was fine, but it felt too modern, like cheating.

  But that’s what I had, so that’s what I used. I had a dozen or so sword blanks prepped from old leaf springs we’d salvaged at a junk yard down near Lacey. I’d been doing some studying in guerilla smithing circles about using what is around in case of apocalypse—zombie, nuclear, alien invasion, or the generic technological break down. I expected that last one over any of the others. I’d fought the recently risen dead with the necromancer before Christmas and there’s no way they could translate into a global epidemic. Not enough blood mages out there willing to keep them animated. They were not self-regulating. With the magic present in the battles I’d been in, firearms were problematic. Give me a solid hammer and Gram and I was ready to rock.

  Leaf springs would be plentiful, no matter the apocalypse, if you knew how to salvage them off old cars. I figure I was just preparing for the end of civilization. It was silly, but I guess part of me wanted to be ready, just in case.

  I was heating and punching out the first blade when Bub rolled into the smithy. I felt him before I saw him. The amulet around my neck was tuned to his presence—that thing that tied him to me. It had belonged to Anezka for a lot of years, but somehow it had given me its allegiance. I don’t think she’s that chuffed about it these days. At the time she was a little on the crazy side, in no small part because of the amulet’s connection to the fiery little guy.