by J L Terra
“Maybe I’m screaming on the inside,” she said, holding a water glass with a shaky hand. “My boyfriend turned crazy. My guest freaked out because of the wind and the dark and started going on about shadows, then she got chased and bitten by the crazy boyfriend.” She eyed him. “I always knew you weren’t like other people. And, you know, you’re old and stuff.” She shrugged. “I just didn’t know how old. Maybe it’ll hit me later.”
“It has been an eventful night.”
“You can say that again.” She eyed him. “You don’t grow up the way I did, sheltered from other people with a rich uncle who goes off saving the world all the time, and not think there’s something different about you. But you should have told me about the blood thing, besides always telling me to be careful.”
“I’m telling you now.”
“Only because you had no choice.”
“I could have lied.”
“Did you?”
He shook his head.
“Thank you,” she said. “Also thank you for not being a vampire. I’m not sure I could let you be here around my guests if you were.”
Daire shook his head and felt the edges of his lips curl up. There was still so much to talk about. Amelia would likely think of a million questions later. For now, he let her have time with her thoughts. It was a lot to take in, and he’d been living with it since that hilltop in Brigantia where he’d been blasted by his magic. Whatever the power behind that storm, Daire only knew it had done to him what the Druid had been attempting to do to himself.
Both of them had been caught in it.
And for years he’d wondered if Providence hadn’t designed it that way. Created two sides of a coin. A yin to the Druid’s yang, in order to balance the scales. Good to fight the evil.
And then he’d finally defeated the Druid. Thrust his sword in the old man’s chest and killed him.
For years since then, he’d lived in peace, but with no purpose. No one to fight. No mission. He’d gotten lost in the Great War. Then he’d joined a unit of British Special Forces soldiers outside Berlin, and found himself captured in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. So many lives he’d seen begin and end, and it felt like he’d been standing still during all of it. As though the world had moved on and left him behind.
Was it possible his enemy was alive? That Daire hadn’t managed to kill him, and the Druid was still out there somewhere? Daire didn’t know what the old man might have planned. The last thing he’d been working on was a way to end the world. To end this life they were both living, and everyone else along with it.
His enemy had adopted a Norse set of beliefs and then twisted the myth looking for a way to destroy the source of all life. Even if it wouldn’t have worked, Daire had hidden the books anyway. The things the Druid had written throughout those early centuries should never get out.
Maybe some part of him had known that deep down, despite feeding his sword into the Druid’s heart and watching the life bleed from his body, he might remain alive. Somehow. The chance to be free of the mission, to be able to live the life he wanted, had been far too tempting to pass up.
Was that life over now?
His phone rang. He looked at the screen and saw Advanced Computer Holdings and swiped to answer. “Yeah, Remy?”
“We have a problem.”
Chapter 13
New York, NY
Daire strode out of the elevator into the penthouse apartment. His penthouse apartment, at least in a legal sense. Shadrach stood by the desk in the office looking through the ocean of papers sprawled across the top. Daire rapped his knuckles on the doorframe and his teammate looked up.
“Remy said you were in Nevada.”
Daire nodded. “My niece lives there.”
“I didn’t know you had a family.”
He shrugged. “I try to get back there as often as I can.”
Shadrach nodded. “I hear that. Nadia is pregnant again.” He had a sister who had lived in a secret witness protection town a few years back. Now they lived in Hawaii. “It would be nice to see my nieces more than just over FaceTime.” He started to laugh. “Apparently Bolton is praying it’s not another girl. He’s going crazy about the glitter in the carpet and the nail polish stains on the dining table.”
Daire said, “Ah, yes. Those days.” He surveyed the room and the humor dissipated almost as fast as it had come. “So what happened?”
“You tell me,” Shadrach said. “I’ve been holed up across the street. No movement since you left New York, and then all of a sudden the doorman is calling in a break in.” He shrugged and waved at the room. “Curtains were drawn, but I didn’t see anyone on the heat scope.” Shadrach paused for a second. “Remind you of another time that happened recently?”
Daire hissed out a breath. “Those guys are dead.” At least, he was kind of sure they were. This time.
“So how come I never knew you had a penthouse in New York?”
Daire looked from the credenza back to his teammate and had to grin. “A niece. A penthouse.” He shrugged. “So I have a life you don’t know about.”
Shadrach laughed, back to going through papers on the desk. “I guess I knew there were things. But it’s still weird looking at it for real. And now your life is tied up with this mission.”
Daire nodded.
“Did you have any idea that a search for a missing archeologist would have so much to do with you?”
“Nope.”
“What about this break in? I guess it was the housekeeper who found the mess and then told the doorman.” Shadrach paused. “But you didn’t stop in when you were in town?”
Daire shook his head again. This wasn’t a place he slept. Just an apartment to give the look of someone occupying the place. The doorman wouldn’t even recognize him—just the guy Daire paid to come here a couple of times a week and eat dinner. Take a shower.
That was the man who “lived here,” as far as anyone was concerned. All for the sake of having dishes in the sink for the housekeeper and a bathroom that wasn’t a waste of time to clean. It was the same man who had spoken to the police investigating the break in, who had told them he had no idea why someone would want to trash his apartment.
On paper, Daire was just the private investigator looking into what happened for the owner after the fact.
“The housekeeper isn’t going to like cleaning up all this fingerprint dust.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
Daire said, “I’m guessing they were looking for whatever Penelope Silver was trying to find. Which means either the people who employed her decided to outsource the rest of the job after she killed herself or someone else is in play here. A competitor.”
“Okay.” Shadrach straightened. “So what do you have that someone—or more than one someone—is looking for?”
Daire wandered out of the office. Who kept their valuables in their office? Really. Talk about no imagination. He walked past the double doors that led to the master bedroom, Shadrach followed. He went into the guest room. Then the guest bathroom.
Daire pulled open the mirrored door to the medicine cabinet. He scooped out the meds and the tiny bottles of lotion and shampoo he’d put there and removed the glass shelves. Then he slid the back of the cabinet to one side like a pocket door. Behind it was the dial for a safe.
“Clever.”
“I try.” Daire typed in the code. Whatever they’d come for, they hadn’t found it. Otherwise, they’d never have trashed the rest of the place and left this medicine cabinet completely undisturbed.
He swung the door open.
Shadrach said, “It’s empty.”
Daire gritted his teeth. He reached in and pulled out the bright green ash tree leaf. One stem, two leaves on either side and one coming out of the top.
“What’s that?”
“It was taken.” Daire stepped back and tried to process what must’ve happened. “He was here, and he took the book.”
“Who took what boo
k?”
Daire strode past his teammate and back to the hall, not even sure of where he was going. He paced the living room, needing to expend pent-up energy but not sure what to do next. When was the last time he had he not known what to do? Protect Amelia. Do the best he could for Ben. Keep the book safe—and make sure the other two were never found.
It was all about control. About managing risk and maintaining security.
Now everything was wrong.
Shadrach stood across the room, arms folded. “What book?”
He’d thought it was safe. That he’d done enough to keep the books secure. That he’d killed the Druid and removed his threat from the earth.
“Dude,” Shadrach said, louder this time. “What book?”
“It’s centuries old. Nearly completely faded. The notes of a crazy old man with the power to do things you can never comprehend. And wouldn’t want to.” Daire shuddered. “Trust me. It’s the collected works of the most evil man to have ever walked through this world. Everything he had ever conceived and then spoken. The sum of his knowledge split into three books. The Past, the Present, and the Future.”
Shadrach didn’t look convinced. “And someone took one of them? Broke in and made it look like they were looking for something, but left no evidence that it’s gone?” He motioned to Daire’s hand. “Except that leaf.”
“It’s a calling card.” Daire opened his palm. The leaf was crumpled. Broken by the strength of his grip. Too much strength. He’d crushed it. Destroyed it.
The leaf unfolded in his palm. As it curled open, the broken parts of the leaf knit themselves back together. When it flattened all the way out, it looked as it had in the safe once again.
His magic was still in this world.
“I killed him.”
“Dude,” Shadrach said, moving closer. “Explain what that was. Now. Or I call a meeting and you tell it to all of us.”
Did he want all of them to know? Amelia was one thing. Being family meant they stuck together through anything. He’d taught her that. But the team would look at him differently if they knew the truth of who he was. The truth of what he’d allowed to get stolen. Because it was his fault. All the security in the world didn’t mean anything with the book gone.
Daire sank onto the edge of the couch. “I have an enemy.”
Shadrach stood silent to allow him to finish what he was about to say.
“He’s the only one in the world who knew about the book.” Daire lifted the leaf. “This is his signature. He took it. But how can that be when I killed him?”
“And those men trying to kidnap Penelope Silver? I couldn’t see the one on my heat scope in Caperman Wells. Could be they broke in here before all that and took this book of yours.”
“Maybe.” How would they have known? Could the book really have been gone since before they arrived in New York to find Doctor Silver? He tossed the leaf on the table and ran his hands down his face. “We’re dealing with powers none of you understand.”
“Kind of like we were with Ben?”
Their boss had been tied to a mythical golem. A bringer of justice—through death. Ben had been able to withstand any injury, and who knew how long he’d have lived if the connection hadn’t been severed. The golem had been poisoning Ben with its evil.
All that was done now. But for Daire, this was his whole life. The team could help him fight whatever this was. And when it was done, they would be able to go back to their lives.
It was never going to be done for him. Not until he managed, somehow, to die.
“What’s in this book they want so badly?”
“There are three books,” Daire said. “And they contain everything.”
Together, they spelled destruction for the world.
The source of his power was pure darkness. Daire had wanted to study the words the old man used in order to figure out how to combat the evil. He only had his sword, but words could both create life and destroy it. Words had incredible power to bring a person’s will to life. And if that person had the kind of power his enemy had…
There was nearly limitless power in his words.
“But I killed him.”
Shadrach said, “So he’s dead and someone else has taken up the mantle?”
“No,” Daire said, immediately. “I would know.”
He had to believe that he would know. Had to trust that if there was another in the world then Providence would have told him. It would be another war to fight, but that was why Daire was in the world. Here to face this specific evil.
Not all evil—that was impossible. And overwhelming.
His job was to face down the evil he had seen with his own eyes. To stand for the truth, for what was right. To bring victory.
A light in the darkness.
Shadrach pulled out his phone and made a call. “Yeah, it’s me.” He paused, then said, “Okay,” and lowered the phone, then pressed a button on the screen. “Go ahead.”
Daire stood and moved to him.
Through the phone’s speaker, Remy said, “I went through surveillance. Looks like the same three guys from Caperman Wells.”
“So it happened before Caperman Wells exploded.”
Daire looked up at his teammate but said nothing.
Remy said, “No. It happened after that.”
“When they were dead.” Shadrach frowned. “That makes no sense.”
Maybe, considering Shadrach didn’t know what Daire knew about these people. Who they could be. Their possible abilities. Daire had only an inkling of an idea as it was. “Remy?”
She sighed audibly through the phone. “I ran background checks on the images I have, and I got nothing. Seriously. No one is invisible these days. But they’re ghosts. Less than ghosts. There’s nothing.”
“They work for him,” Daire said. “It’s the only explanation I can handle right now.”
Shadrach said, “What does that mean?”
“It means only he knows about the books. They’re only valuable to him. And he sent those men to get one of them.”
“Three books.” Shadrach pinched the bridge of his nose. “And you killed him. That’s what you said, right?”
Daire stared his friend down. “I’ve killed a lot of people. Some of them actually stay dead.”
“Who is he?”
“My enemy.”
Shadrach was quiet for a second, then said, “Remy, call a meeting. I want everyone together. We need to figure this out.” He pinned Daire with a stare. “And you’re going to tell us everything.”
Daire was already shaking his head.
“Too bad, dude. We can’t be in the dark,” Shadrach said. “Not when supposedly dead people, who already had no heat signatures to begin with, are running around stealing and murdering.”
Daire had to face the fact that it had been just a matter of time. Just like it had been with Amelia’s curse. It was inevitable—he would never have been able to keep the secret forever. And yet, now that the Druid might actually be in the world again, it was the worst time for it to come out.
There was no time for a team meeting.
“I need to concentrate on figuring out whether he’s alive, how on earth we ended up with zombies for goodness’ sakes, and how to stop him. Again. Not sit in a meeting so you lot can pester me with questions.”
He realized he’d slipped back into a thick British accent at the end and stopped. Shadrach had to know there wasn’t time to spare right now. Not even to wait for his friends to catch up.
“He came after Amelia and the woman she was with. I’m sure of it,” Daire said. He explained about the boyfriend going crazy and biting Bryn. About the curse in Amelia’s blood that had affected the wolves. About Bryn’s explanation of what happened in the cave.
“Even though she let the wolves and Roy get close enough that she infected them, I still think the Druid is behind it. The weather. The guest, Bryn-whatever-her-name-is. It’s connected. And I was purposely drawn there in order
to keep me from New York.”
He’d had the penthouse under surveillance. Still, the Druid had gotten past everything, and now he had the book.
“That’s why we don’t have time for a meeting.” He barely had time for this conversation.
“You could have brought us into your life already,” Remy said. He’d just about forgotten she was on the phone still. “That way we’d already be up to speed.”
“I’m sorry.” The apology tasted bitter in his mouth.
Shadrach lifted his chin. “Because we know now that you’ve been keeping secrets?”
“Everyone keeps secrets.”
Shadrach said, “You’re only sorry you got caught doing it.”
“And the rest of you are so good you haven’t been found out?” Daire yelled back at him. “I’m so sorry it’s intruding on work.” He let the sarcasm come through loud and clear. “But this isn’t the team’s business.”
“Mei got stabbed. You think she’d agree it’s not her business?”
Daire said nothing.
“You need our help.” Shadrach paused. “Sounds to me like Remy has been helping you already. Keeping your secrets safe. Right? Because deep down you knew you couldn’t do this by yourself.”
Daire took a step back. “Now I’m done. I have to finish this myself.”
He’d thought he already had taken care of it. But clearly the Druid’s presence still existed in the world. Which meant it was up to Daire to stop him.
“We’re having a meeting.” Shadrach hung up the phone. Like Daire hadn’t argued anything. “You need us.”
“We need to get out of here. There’s nothing more to learn.”
Shadrach said, “Fine.” Probably determined to make Daire go with him. To the point he’d likely stun gun Daire if he thought that would incapacitate him. His teammate would probably drag him to the meeting. Mostly because Daire would do exactly the same if he thought it was what his teammate needed.
“Door’s locked.”
Daire tried the handle for himself.
“I wasn’t lying.”
“We need to get out of here,” Daire said. “The last time we were in the same place as these men, the building exploded.”