Buried Memory (Harbinger P.I. Book 2)

by Adam J. Wright

  “Yeah, this is it. I’m going to put it somewhere where it won’t cause any more trouble.”

  “Can I see it?”

  I didn’t see any harm in letting her see the box, so I unwrapped it and held it up to show her.

  “Wow, that’s pretty. You say it’s magical; what does it do?”

  “It raises the dead.”

  She looked at me like I was being a wise ass. “No kidding,” she said sarcastically.

  “We didn’t know that until now,” I said. “We’ve been doing research and trying to determine what it is. Now we have more to go on.”

  Amy nodded slowly, looking into the trees as if she were thinking about something. Then she turned her attention back to me and said, “This magic stuff, it’s real, isn’t it? I mean, you believe in it.”

  “I know it’s real,” I said simply.

  She stood with her hands on her hips and turned slightly to look south toward where the cemetery was situated, even though the trees shielded it from her view. “I’d like you to do something for me,” she said quietly. Then she turned to face me and said, “I want to hire you to investigate that church in Clara.”

  “All right,” I said. “I can do that.”

  “Good.” She sighed. “I thought I was certain about how my mother and those other people died but now I’m not so sure. Maybe there are more things in this world than I or the FBI agents investigating the case know about, and maybe something has been overlooked.”

  “I can look into it for you,” I said, “as soon as I get back from London.”

  “London?”

  “Yeah, I have to go there on business.” I didn’t mention the Society. Most people assumed that P.I.s were self-employed, working for themselves. It didn’t occur to them that we were organized by a secret society formed in the seventeenth century to combat the supernatural forces in the world. Without the use of the Society of Shadows’ resources, most P.I.s would be floundering in the dark.

  The Society provided us with enchanted weapons, artifacts that were useful in the hunting of supernatural forces, and, maybe most importantly, a huge online database of creatures, rituals, potion recipes, spells, and magical items that had been compiled from just about every magical grimoire and lore book known to mankind through the ages. We also had some of the actual books, bound in leather, with pages that smelled of mildew and age. They were pretty cool.

  “Okay,” Amy said. “That’s fine. It isn’t like it’s going to change anything anyway. Those people will still be dead and Sherry Westlake is in the wind. Your investigation will be a matter of closure more than anything. I want to make sure no stone has been left unturned.”

  “If there’s anything to find, I’ll find it,” I said.

  “Thank you. And I don’t need to remind you that….”

  “Your father won’t know anything about it,” I assured her.

  She smiled, but I could tell she was wondering if she was crazy or not for hiring me. After months of believing that her mother had been killed by a P.I., I’m sure I was the last person she’d ever considered hiring. But that was before her mother had crawled out of her grave.

  Which reminded me—we needed to get the hieroglyph box to a safe burial site.

  “I’ll be in touch,” I told Amy.

  “Sure.” She got back in her cruiser and drove back toward town.

  I turned to Felicity and held up the box. “Let’s get this thing back in the earth. We’ll head north for a few miles and then hike back into the woods before we bury it.” We got into the Land Rover. “And then we can take a look at that church,” I said.

  “I thought we were going to do that when we got back from London.”

  “Sure, we’ll start the investigation then, but we can take a look now. Just to get a feel for the place.”

  Felicity shrugged. “Okay, that suits me. I was going to spend the rest of the day doing research anyway. Now that I know what the box does, it should be much easier to find on the database. In fact,” she said, reaching into the back of the Land Rover to grab the laptop I kept under the seat there, “I can get started on that now.” She balanced the computer on her lap and opened it up.

  A half-hour later, I pulled over on a deserted stretch of road and checked a map of the area. We were in the middle of nowhere, an ideal place to bury the box.

  “I’ve got it!” Felicity said. She’d been typing on the laptop all the way here, entering various searches into the Society’s magical items database. She turned the laptop so I could see the screen. There was a black and white drawing that was unmistakably a representation of the box on the back seat.

  The title above the drawing looked ominous.

  “The Box of Midnight,” I said to Felicity. “Oh great. Sounds harmless.”

  “That’s a loose translation from the ancient Egyptian,” Felicity said.

  “Okay, so what does it do?”

  She spun the laptop so she could see the screen and typed a couple of keystrokes to bring up the description of the Box of Midnight. Her face went pale as she read.

  Looking at me, she said, “It was used by an evil sorcerer in ancient Egypt to raise an army. An army of the dead.”

  Chapter 5

  Three hours later, we were eating cheeseburgers in Darla’s Diner. The mouth-watering smell of fried meat and onions that drifted from the kitchen at Darla’s was one of my favorite things about Dearmont. And the burgers tasted every bit as good as they smelled.

  I’d buried the Box of Midnight as far away from civilization as I could and I’d made sure the hole was deep. Just its name gave me the creeps, so I wanted to make sure it was in an isolated location where nobody was going to find it and buried deep enough that its energy leak wouldn’t affect anything.

  After all the digging and hiking through the woods, my burger tasted even better than usual. Darla’s burgers were always amazing, but having just hidden a powerful, dark magic artifact made me feel like I’d earned this piece of Heaven in a bun.

  “What I don’t understand,” I said to Felicity a through a mouthful of meat and cheese, “is why someone thought I could use the box against them. What’s that about? If it raises the dead, I don’t see how I’m going to use it against anyone. It isn’t like I’m going to raise an army of zombies to defeat my enemies.”

  Felicity had the laptop on the chair next to her. She opened it and put it on the table, eating her burger absent-mindedly, her brown eyes wide behind her glasses as she became absorbed in her work, trawling the Society’s database.

  I watched her, thinking that of all the P.I.s in the entire Society of Shadows, I must be the one with the cutest assistant. Hell, most investigators didn’t even have assistants. The only reason I had one was because my father had sent Felicity here to spy on me. I had no idea what he hoped to gain from that.

  “It might be something to do with this,” she said, spinning the laptop around to face me. The screen showed a drawing in the same style as the one of the Box of Midnight, only the item in this picture looked like a staff inscribed with hieroglyphs instead of a box. Its name was apparently the Staff of Midnight.

  “The Box of Midnight and the Staff of Midnight,” I mused. “I’m guessing the two items are related.”

  She consulted the computer and nodded. “They were made to work together. The box contains magical power, like a battery, and the staff directs that power. Whoever holds the staff controls the power in the box.”

  I shrugged and took another bite of my burger. “I still don’t get it. I only have the box, I don’t have the staff, and it sounds as if the box is useless without the staff and vice-versa.”

  She ate in silence for a moment, tapping away at the keys and concentrating on the screen. After a couple of minutes of reading, during which time I finished my burger and started on my fries, Felicity looked at me over the thick rims of her glasses. “What if the person who wants to kill you has the staff? According to what it says here, the staff has no power of
its own; it has to be in the vicinity of the box before it can do anything. Once it’s close enough to the box, the wielder of the staff has the power to raise the dead and make them do his will. The box itself holds the power but doesn’t actually do anything. Like I said before, it’s just a magical battery.”

  “But that,” I said, pointing a French fry at her, “doesn’t explain why the person who sent Tunnock to kill me told Tunnock that as long as I was dead, the location of the box was irrelevant. If Tunnock’s employer has the Staff of Midnight, he needs that box to work it. So telling Tunnock it doesn’t matter where the box is doesn’t make sense.”

  “Actually, it does,” Felicity said. “Remember, Tunnock saying that if he killed you, you couldn’t use the box against his employer? But the box can’t be used in any way, so that’s what doesn’t make sense. Until you realize that the box and the staff are linked. You can use the box against the person who holds the staff.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “By destroying it. If you destroy the box, the staff is useless.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “But what if Tunnock had killed me? His employer would never know how to find the box that powers the staff.”

  “He would know eventually. The Staff of Midnight and the Box of Midnight are inextricably linked to each other by powerful magic. The staff will eventually lead its wielder to the box.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “Does that work the other way around too? Could the box lead us to the staff?”

  She shrugged. “Yes, I think so.”

  “So maybe that’s why this person doesn’t want me to live. Maybe he thinks I’ll use the box to track him down and kill him.”

  “Or her,” Felicity added.

  I nodded. “Or her.”

  “That’s a reasonable assumption. It sounds like something you would do.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or insult. I chose to believe it was the former. “It does,” I said. “If this person has the Staff of Midnight, then they obviously want to use it to raise an army of the dead. I can’t allow that to happen.”

  “I know,” Felicity said. “That’s why I said that tracking them down is something you would do.” A light smile played over her lips.

  So, it had been a compliment after all. I returned her smile and then said, “We need to find out how to use the box to find the owner of the staff. We also need to know how to destroy it, just in case we don’t have any other option. At least destroying it will ruin the plans of whoever has the staff.”

  She nodded and went back to typing. She began reading the text on her screen again. Then she wrinkled her nose and said, “Ewww.”

  “What is it?” I asked, leaning forward over the table to see what she was reading.

  “I just found out what’s inside the box. There was a sorceress in ancient Egypt during the 18th Dynasty, named Tia, who cast spells and enchantments for the pharaoh, Amenhotep. According to legend, the high priest of Heliopolis, a man named Rekhmire, was jealous of Tia’s power and found a way to harness it for himself.”

  Felicity paraphrased the words she was reading on her screen. “He cut out her heart one night and magically sealed it inside a gold and silver box inscribed with hieroglyphs. He murdered her at midnight on the night of the royal jubilee, so the box became known as the Box of Midnight. Rekhmire created the Staff of Midnight and used it to raise an army of the dead to march against the pharaoh. But his plan failed, his undead army was destroyed, and Rekhmire disappeared, along with the box and the staff. The box and staff have appeared on the underground antiquities market over the years but their whereabouts is currently unknown.”

  “Well, we know where the box is,” I said in a low tone. Darla’s was a busy place and the hum of conversation from the tables and booths, as well as the clatter of cutlery and other sounds that came from the diners around us, meant that we probably couldn’t be overheard by our fellow customers. But I was still cautious. For all I knew, my enemy could be sitting at the table behind me, listening in on my conversation with Felicity. Hell, they didn’t even need to be sitting in the diner; there were plenty of magical ways they could eavesdrop on us, too.

  As a precaution, I took the crystal shard from my pocket and removed it from its pouch. Placing it on the table, I watched it closely for a telltale glow.

  Nothing. The shard remained dull. At least we weren’t being spied on. I put the crystal back into its pouch.

  “Destroying the box isn’t so easy.” Felicity said, watching me stuff the pouch back into my pocket. “The box is magically locked and only opens when the staff is being used to direct its power. At that time, the box opens, exposing Tia’s heart. It says here that if the heart is stabbed with a blade, it will die.”

  “That sounds easy enough,” I said. “We wait for the bad guy to show up with the staff and when the box opens, we stab the heart.” I dipped my last French fry in ketchup and popped it into my mouth. “Then I kill the bad guy.”

  Felicity shook her head. “It isn’t that simple, Alec. There’s a curse built into the box. Whoever destroys the heart of the sorceress will have only one year to live from that day.”

  I sighed. “Why couldn’t ancient sorcerers keep things simple? Those guys cursed everything in sight. Okay, new plan: we wait for the bad guy to show up and kill him before he can use the staff.”

  “Or she,” Felicity added.

  “Or she.”

  “This bad guy, as you put it, will have considerable power of their own. If they’re even attempting to use the Staff of Midnight to raise an army of the dead, they must have some serious magical knowledge and experience.”

  I shrugged. “And I have some serious enchanted swords.”

  She closed the laptop. “I’ll do some more research later and see if I can find out anything else about the box.”

  My phone buzzed. I looked at the new text on the screen and frowned. “Crap. My dad is sending a jet to pick us up tomorrow. We need to be at Bangor International in the morning.”

  Felicity’s face fell slightly. I guessed that she’d been so absorbed in her work that she’d forgotten about Jason and London. Now, instead of thinking about long lost civilizations and ancient curses—which Felicity loved—she had to turn her thoughts to more mundane matters. The disappointment was obvious in the way her face softened and her eyes dropped from mine to the surface of the table between us. She let out a slight sigh and nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll need to go home and pack.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “the church will have to wait. Hey,” I reached across the table and touched her hand for a brief moment. “We’ll be back here before you know it.”

  Her eyes remained fixed on the table. “If I ever come back at all.”

  Chapter 6

  I dropped Felicity at her house and she got out of the Land Rover, muttering, “See you in the morning, Alec,” before closing the door and walking down the driveway to her front door. We had driven there in silence, Felicity sitting sullenly in the passenger seat, staring through her window but probably not seeing what was out there.

  Her statement at the diner that she might not be coming back had shocked me. As far as I was concerned, Jason sounded like a dick. The fact that he had given Felicity an ultimatum proved it. Her decision to leave him should be easy.

  At least, that’s what I thought. I didn’t know all the facts, but from what I did know, I had thought that there was no way Felicity would even be considering moving back to England permanently. Now that I knew she was considering it as an option, I felt like someone had punched me in the gut.

  I drove to my house, which was just next door, and parked next to Mallory’s orange Jeep Renegade. The Jeep, which had been battered by werewolves a couple of weeks ago, had just come back from being repaired and looked as good as new. Because Mallory had been assisting me on a case at the time, I’d claimed the vehicle repairs as an expense related to the case and the Society had footed the bill.

 
Running my hand over the smooth bodywork of the Jeep, I had to admit that the repair work was undetectable.

  “Looking good, huh?” Mallory came out of the house and joined me in the driveway. She was wearing jeans, army boots, and a tight black T-shirt. Her long auburn hair blew slightly in the warm breeze.

  “Looks amazing,” I said.

  She patted the Jeep. “Now that she’s all fixed, I can get out of your hair for a while. Maybe I’ll go visit my sister for a while before I resume my hunt.”

  “No leads yet?” I asked as we went into the house.

  She shook her head. “No crazy killings involving occult symbols carved on the victims’ bodies anywhere. Unless there’s a police force somewhere keeping it quiet.” She looked at me with concern in her hazel eyes. “It isn’t like Mister Scary to go this long without leaving a bloody mess somewhere. I’m afraid I might lose the trail completely. What if he just disappears?”

  “He won’t,” I said. “You’ll get a new lead.” I went into the kitchen and poured us both coffee from the pot. As I handed Mallory the mug, I said, “But if you don’t have anywhere to go right now, I’d like to ask you a small favor.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Why do I get the feeling this favor is anything but small? I’m not putting my Jeep in danger again.”

  “No, this really is a small favor. All I want you to do is hang around for a couple more days while I’m in London.”

  “That’s it, huh? I just stay here until you get back?”

  “And make sure nobody gets their hands on the box. I sent the coordinates of its new hiding place to your phone.”

  “Yeah, I saw that. Anyone in particular I should be wary of?”

  “Well, if anyone arrives in town with a staff that can raise the dead, you need to be particularly wary of them.”

  “I’m pretty sure that would get my Spidey sense tingling,” she said.