Someone had planted lavender and rosemary along the edges of the front walk, from the sidewalk to the door.
Jasmine — attached to two computers and a phone now — stayed in the SUV that had been waiting for us at a private hangar at King County International Airport five miles south of downtown Seattle. As far as I could tell, the vehicle was identical to the one Kett had driven while in Vancouver. Which made me wonder if the vampire was a bit OCD or simply a massive control freak. It also made me wonder whether or not the Conclave maintained a presence in Seattle, Washington, where I also resided when I wasn’t working. Because if so, that was news to me.
Kett and I stepped onto the sidewalk to observe the brown-and-beige rancher. It was deep into the evening, nine thirty or so. The clouds had partially cleared as we’d landed, and the crescent moon was bright. The curtains were drawn in the front windows of the house.
“Magic?” Kett asked.
“I don’t see or feel magic just like that,” I said. “I have a process, but it would look out of place on the front lawn in a residential neighborhood without a distraction spell for cover.”
“You could see all the magic you wanted.”
“How would you know?” But as soon as I’d snapped the words, I instantly regretted letting my professionalism slip.
Kett turned his distant gaze on me, observing me as thoroughly as he had the house. The moonlight reflected off his silver-blue eyes. “I know because we share a similar magical ancestry. Similar talents, if you will. Retained from before I was remade.”
I wasn’t sure how to continue my half of the conversation. Kett unnerved me. If I ever dropped the magical blinders I held carefully and diligently in place and took a peek at him, I had a feeling he’d appear so intimidatingly powerful that I would have been practically incapable of standing at his side without constantly quaking with fear.
And I wasn’t interested in spending any second of my life paralyzed by fear. I’d done enough of that as a young teen.
I already knew that Kett was more powerful than he’d appeared in either of the reconstructions I’d collected of him. Just as Jade felt more powerful, even through my personal shields.
Magic was like that. Eager to fill a void, or to strengthen a weakness.
Nonetheless, I wasn’t interested in explaining myself or my choices to a vampire. To anyone, really. I’d seen what my family did with great power, and I had no wish to fulfill any sort of inherited familial destiny. Or to indulge in my genetic predisposition toward embracing darkness.
“You would see magic here, then,” I said, speaking instead of allowing the strained silence between the vampire and me to stretch out any longer. “If there was any to see.”
“Perhaps. Witch magic isn’t completely compatible with vampire. But there is a lot a person would give up for immortality.”
Some Adepts would have suggested that a vampire gives up his or her soul for that particular gift, but I wasn’t about to voice that out loud. Instead, I attempted to change the subject. “If this is the house where the vampire lives —”
“Doubtful. No basement.”
“You appear to have no issue with daylight.”
Kett chuckled quietly. “A fledgling would.”
“There could be a crawl space.”
Kett snorted, as if no self-respecting vampire would spend the daylight hours huddled in three feet of cement-walled darkness. Then, without further warning, he strode up the walk, climbed the short steps, and rapped on the front door lightly with his knuckles.
I followed, stopping a step below and to the right of his shoulder.
The vampire lifted his hand to knock a second time.
“Wait a moment,” I said quietly. “Humans move slowly.”
Kett stretched his arm in front of me, pressing the doorbell nestled beside a traditional brass mailbox.
I almost laughed at his insolent behavior, but satisfied the impulse by smirking behind his back instead as I glanced around. Well-tended flower beds lined the front of the house under the windows. Though they likely boasted daffodils and tulips in the spring, they were currently edged with pansies beneath mostly-spent roses. A bird’s nest was tucked into the eaves just above the left side of the door. I stepped nearer, standing on my tiptoes to look inside, involuntarily flinching at the sight of its contents.
“What?” Kett asked, not taking his eyes off the door.
“Nothing … just dead birds that I wasn’t expecting to see.” I remembered having read somewhere that when baby birds died, the parents were sometimes unable to push them out of the nest, but I brushed the morose thought away and returned my attention to the door. “Is anyone inside?”
“One person,” Kett said. “Slowly approaching now.”
I eyed the door, waiting for it to open. It appeared to be newer than the house, and the lock looked heavy duty. “That’s odd,” I murmured. “Is the door reinforced?”
“Yes?” a female voice called from inside.
Kett glanced over his shoulder at me.
“Teresa Vern?” I called, hoping I was speaking loudly enough to be heard without yelling and potentially disturbing the neighbors. “My name is Wisteria Fairchild. I’m here to ask after your boy, Benjamin.”
A series of locks clicked open down the length of the door. Teresa was evidently serious about security.
An olive-skinned woman in her early thirties opened the door. She had tousled brown hair and had thrown a Seahawks sweatshirt on over blue scrubs. Spotting Kett standing before her, her welcoming smile faded, and she started to close the door.
“Wait,” I said, stepping up beside Kett.
Teresa’s deep-brown gaze flicked to me, then back to the vampire on her doorstep. Not that she knew he was a vampire — as far as I could tell, she didn’t have a drop of magic in her — but he was an intimidating figure nonetheless. “Fairchild, you said?”
“Yes. Wisteria.” I kept my tone light. “I know it’s an unusual name. My parents were hippies.”
Teresa’s eyes narrowed. “In the eighties?”
She was technically correct. My parents weren’t of the hippie generation, but no one had ever called me on that fact when I’d used the line before. I couldn’t exactly lead with the information that I was a witch, and that witches were traditionally named after colors … or colors and flora, in the case of my family.
I smiled. “They were late bloomers.”
Teresa’s gaze settled on Kett to my left. “You said you were here to ask about Ben?”
“Is he alive?” Kett asked coolly.
“Of course,” Teresa snapped.
“I apologize, Ms. Vern,” I said. “We’re investigating a series of suicides connected to an online game that we understand your son plays.”
Teresa blanched. She was still poised in the process of closing the door, and her grip tightened on its reinforced edge. “Suicides?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“May we speak to Ben?” Kett asked. “Ascertain if he knew the boys or communicated with them?”
Teresa shook her head emphatically. We’d upset her, and her gestures were becoming jerky. “He’s not here right now. He’s visiting his father.”
“But you saw him today?”
“Two hours ago,” Teresa said. “How … how many boys are dead?”
Kett turned his back on her, abruptly walking away. Flustered, Teresa stared after him.
I sighed inwardly. I was surprised that the vampire had bothered to address a human in an even remotely polite fashion, but he had no cause to upset her further.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Vern. I’m glad we were mistaken.”
Teresa nodded, but her gaze was still on Kett. She hadn’t loosened her grip on the door.
“You’ll check in with Ben?” I asked. “If he had contact with these boys —”
“I can take care of my own, Ms. Fairchild.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you for your time.” I stepped awkwardly away from the
door and the situation, quickly moving down the walk.
Teresa hadn’t turned on any exterior lights when she answered the door, and the moon had gone behind a cloud, forcing me to be careful with my footing. Kett was standing by the rental SUV, gazing up at the darkened sky. He was a pale smudge in the night.
As I neared the sidewalk, I turned to glance back at the house. Teresa Vern was a shadowed figure in the window of what I assumed was a living room off the entrance, watching us depart.
“She was scared,” I said tersely, on the unprofessional edge of pissy.
“Her child is alive,” Kett said, not at all ruffled by my bluntness. “There is no magic in the immediate vicinity. He is of no consequence.”
“Still, we could have spoken to him.”
Kett lowered his gaze from the sky. I defiantly met his icy stare.
“Do you think the woman would have granted us access to her boy?”
I didn’t. “Teresa Vern,” I said, correcting him waspishly.
He smirked. “Do you think Teresa Vern would have granted us leave to speak with her boy, Benjamin?” Every word out of his mouth was deliberately enunciated.
I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me or actually attempting to communicate more effectively. “No,” I said begrudgingly.
“Would you have had me rip her from her home, coerce the boy’s location from her, then alter her memory of the incident?”
“No,” I said quietly.
“Who does my behavior remind you of, Wisteria Fairchild?” Kett’s silky-smooth tone implied that he already knew every little thing about my life.
I didn’t take the bait. “Something is still off. She was too scared.”
Kett shrugged. Perhaps he was accustomed to having everyone around him continually quaking with fear. “There is nothing here. We will move forward with the next name.”
“The one who was cremated? What are we going to do? Harass his parents? Steal his ashes?”
Kett smiled, his white teeth a bright spot in the darkness around us.
First thing I would do if I ever wanted to move out of the city and into the middle of suburbia would be to petition for more streetlights. But then, I knew all about the monsters that lived among us.
“That sounds like fun.” The vampire turned, climbing into the SUV.
I shivered, suddenly aware of the chill settling in with the night. “I was being sarcastic.”
My protest went ignored. Grumbling to myself and my lack of professionalism, I crossed around and climbed into the back seat of the vehicle. Who made stupid jokes about stealing the ashes of a teenager around a vampire? Apparently, me.
❒ ❒ ❒
Fuming and feeling useless, I stood tucked into the deep shadows beneath the front eaves of the Memorial Funeral Home on the outskirts of the upscale Capitol Hill area of Seattle. Kett was checking the perimeter while Jasmine compromised the security system.
And I was doing nothing. It served me right for being less than professional, for being flippant with the executioner of the Conclave. And for involving Jasmine. I always had to be the superior reconstructionist, always had to prove I was the best at that one thing. The one thing I could control —
“Sneaky bugger,” Jasmine said from the front doors. She was fiddling with her phone and some other electronic device I couldn’t see because I wasn’t allowed to get close to it. “Just blending into the shadows underneath the security lights like that.”
She took a long slurp of a milkshake she had ordered from some drive-through we’d stopped in at, just off the highway. I hadn’t ordered anything. Neither had Kett. Obviously.
“He is a vampire,” I said.
“Cute, too.”
“Don’t start.”
Jasmine burst into peals of laughter.
“Shush,” I said. “We’re supposed to be stealthy.”
“He’s just not your type.”
“I don’t have a type.” And I didn’t. I just had one long, large heartbreak. One person who I couldn’t have in my life without hurting him — or worse, getting him killed. Thanks to my family. But Jasmine knew all that, upside down and from every angle. She’d been there. And we’d all made our choices in the moment. We’d chosen to save each other and damn our futures in the Fairchild coven.
“You should, Betty-Sue,” Jasmine said sadly. “You should have a type.”
The security pad that Jasmine was fiddling with beeped once, then appeared to short out. I had lots of experience with things shorting out. I probably could have just held my hand over the device and created the same reaction. Though likely not without setting off the alarm first.
Jasmine grunted with satisfaction, tucking her phone and other gizmos into her satchel, then reaching back to brush her fingers against the back of my hand. Her skin was chilled from the milkshake.
“This is more than crazy, you know.” I deliberately changed the subject.
“What? Breaking into a funeral home or working for a vampire?”
“Both.”
“You’re the one who called.”
“You’re the one who answered.”
Jasmine laughed. “Hell, yeah, I did. You can’t do this without me. And I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
I brushed my fingers against her hand this time. She shivered, smiling. My magic always did that to her, but she claimed to not mind. I was the witch who was uncomfortable around any magic I couldn’t control, not her. I knew that was odd, but it didn’t change the reality.
Kett materialized out of the dark night.
I flinched.
Jasmine squeaked, dropping her milkshake.
Kett caught the to-go cup before it was anywhere near the ground, right above Jasmine’s knee. He remained stooped there for a moment, smiling up at her. Charmingly.
She smiled back at him coyly.
He straightened, handing the milkshake to her.
“Thank you, sir.” She was flirting shamelessly.
I laughed. So very little fazed Jasmine for any length of time. My life was always quieter, and far too serious, when she wasn’t around.
She flashed me a smile.
Kett regarded me with a raised eyebrow. Perhaps I was as much of an enigma to him as he was to me. Though it seemed unlikely.
“Are we breaking in to this place or what?” I asked.
“Already broken,” Kett said. He stepped away, then paused as if correcting himself. He turned to Jasmine. “Thank you for your assistance.”
“Oh, yeah? Cool. It’s what I do.”
Kett regarded her for a moment more, his expression almost quizzical. Then he melted into the darkness without offering further instructions.
“I guess we’re supposed to follow him,” I said.
Jasmine tucked her arm through mine, and we stepped into the darkness along the edge of the gray-sided building. The security lights didn’t trigger with our passing, and I wondered whether that was due to Jasmine’s fiddling or if Kett had turned them off somehow.
“I’ve never broken into a funeral home before.” Jasmine’s stage whisper was loud in the dark.
“But you’ve broken into other places of business?”
“Of course,” she said, seemingly affronted by the question.
I laughed quietly. If my branch of the family was mired in tradition, Jasmine’s acted as though they’d invented the concept of tradition in the first place. Neither of us was in any way wild, but Jasmine was better at faking it, hence the flirting with a vampire. At least I hoped she was faking.
The back door of the funeral home was still illuminated by an overhead light highlighting the four-foot-square concrete landing and the two steps leading to it, but I couldn’t see Kett anywhere. Farther along, a small parking lot was currently occupied by two hearses, with a short paved ramp leading from it to a double set of loading doors. The third parking spot was empty.
The loading door to the far right was slightly ajar.
Jasmine pulled a set of p
lastic gloves out of her bag and tugged them onto her hands.
“Um, excuse me?”
Jasmine giggled. “Static electricity,” she said, as if that would explain anything to me. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“I hadn’t formed any particular opinion,” I said. “But thanks for that series of images.”
“Something needs to wake you up.”
Jasmine was still smiling, so I pretended she wasn’t referencing my lack of a sex life, or my lack of any relationship potential at all … sexual or otherwise.
I was content with the small life I’d built, though. It was safe and comfortable, and I contributed to my small circle of Adept society. I opened my mouth to say as much, then shook my head at my dourness. “Whatever … or whoever chooses to wake me for breakfast the next morning better not be wearing those.”
Jasmine laughed, allowing the awkward pause to pass unacknowledged.
“Shall we?” I attempted to recapture the lightness I’d felt a moment earlier. “We’re following a centuries-old vampire with extensive, unknown powers into a funeral home. What could possibly go wrong?”
“Well, we could lose our accreditation. Then we’d have to resort to running an organic grocery or holistic clinic.”
“You’ve thought this through.”
“Extensively.” Jasmine tugged the door open further, then stepped inside the dark, wide corridor beyond.
The smell of antiseptic wafted from the shadows ahead. The odor was so pungent that I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out the halls were mopped with an industrial-strength cleanser after closing every evening.
I followed my cousin into the building. “You could always become Kettil’s blood slave,” I whispered.
“Oooo,” she whispered back. “Do you think the position is open?”
The door clicked shut behind me, taking with it the wash of light that had been partially illuminating the corridor.
I smacked into Jasmine, who’d abruptly halted in front of me, mashing my teeth against my lips on the back of her hard head.
“Ouch!” she cried dramatically.
“I haven’t had the need for a stable,” a cool voice said behind us, “for over two hundred years now.”
Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist 1) Page 11