Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist 1)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  Jasmine texted back some emoticon that I didn’t get a good look at.

  “What are the chances he knows what that is?”

  Jasmine’s phone pinged. She tapped the screen, then giggled. “He got it.”

  Lovely. My cousin was flirting with a centuries-old vampire via text messaging now. What was next? Snapchat?

  “Magic time,” I murmured.

  Jasmine dropped my arm as we came abreast of the laurel hedge for the second time. I slowed my pace, carefully reaching out with my witch senses for traces of residual magic.

  Jasmine stepped past me. “Garage with a side gate. Or maybe it was a carriage house at one time. So he might use either entrance.”

  “I imagine he could also go over the hedge,” I said, eyeing the large branches of a pair of trees in the backyard. “What’s that? An elm?”

  “Oak,” Jasmine said. “Look at the shape of the leaves.”

  “What am I? A botanist?”

  “You asked.”

  “Looks climbable.”

  “Magic?”

  “None I can sense from here. But there’s something around the corner.”

  We stepped around the hedge. I kept my gaze on the sidewalk and greenery so I didn’t get distracted.

  “Vampire magic,” Jasmine said.

  “Really? Where?”

  She pointed ahead of us.

  I looked up.

  Kett was standing by the front gate. He didn’t look happy. I could tell because his arms were crossed.

  Jasmine smiled at him sunnily. “I was just going to text you.”

  He shook his head almost imperceptibly as he reached over and opened the gate. “Wait here.” Then he disappeared into the front yard.

  Evidently, I’d been wasting my time casing the Victorian manor subtly.

  We stepped up to the gate. Deep shadows loomed over the first floor and patio. The evening was taking hold of the cloudy day quickly. Kett was nowhere to be seen.

  “Loitering out here isn’t going to seem suspicious to the neighbors at all,” I muttered.

  Jasmine stepped through the gate.

  “Hey!”

  She glanced back at me over her shoulder. “It was your idea.”

  I followed her just far enough to latch the gate behind us and scan the front walk, noting that it was crumbling at the edges.

  “I was just going to suggest a barrier spell or something,” I grumbled.

  Jasmine shrugged. “I don’t have many. Why waste them when the hedge does a better job?”

  Kett appeared on the front patio, turning to glance back at us. “As far as I can tell, the house is devoid of life. Wait two minutes, then follow.”

  He snapped the lock on the front door, opened it, and entered the house.

  Jasmine sucked in her breath through her teeth. “I could have picked that.”

  “Devoid of life?” I echoed. “I’m not sure that rules out a vampire, does it?”

  We crossed to the red-painted front stairs, which felt firmer underneath my feet than they looked. The solid, dark-stained wooden double door still stood partially open. As far as I could tell, it was a newer addition to the manor, though it might still have been twenty years old or more. I couldn’t hear anything inside.

  “Who owns the house?” I asked Jasmine.

  “Nigel,” she said, consulting the notes on her phone. “Nigel Farris.”

  “How long has it been in his name?”

  Jasmine shook her head. “Longer than I can access the records. The city hasn’t digitized everything yet.”

  “Nigel isn’t much of a name for a vampire.”

  Jasmine snorted.

  Kett appeared in the doorway. “I said follow.”

  “In two minutes,” Jasmine said indignantly.

  “And it’s been two minutes. Downstairs. Through the kitchen at the back.” The vampire disappeared into the house again.

  Jasmine looked at me. “Did he sound … grim?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great.” She rolled the ‘r’ of the word for as long as she could make it last.

  Then we followed a vampire into the house of a rogue vampire.

  Unless, of course, this had all been some sort of massive setup from the beginning, and we were about to be sacrificed to some sort of vampire deity or something. Fairchild witches were highly sought after.

  ❒ ❒ ❒

  On the inside, the Victorian manor was surprisingly immaculate. A winding wooden staircase led to the second floor almost immediately inside the front door, with the living room to the left and the dining room beyond an open set of dark wood sliding doors. Fourteen-foot ceilings and inlaid hardwood ran throughout the first floor. The furniture was older but untarnished, and there was still enough light from outside to negotiate the corridor between the open stairwell and the living room, leading us to the kitchen at the rear of the house.

  Based on the appearance of the appliances, I estimated that the place hadn’t been remodeled since the early sixties. The kitchen counters were devoid of small appliances or dishes, and again, everything was pristinely clean.

  A white-painted, heavy wooden door opening into the space beneath the upper stairwell stood half open. Open-tread wooden stairs led steeply into a deep darkness.

  “Well, that’s not creepy at all,” Jasmine drawled. She clicked the flashlight on her phone on, pointing it just ahead of our feet.

  I glanced at her uneasily. Neither of us was a fan of basements, or the dark deeds that too often unfolded beneath the ground. Witches in general — and Fairchilds specifically — were fans of dirt-floored basements, though. Access to the earth made casting spells easier. I swallowed my irrational fear and headed down.

  Jasmine was practically glued to my back as we descended. More illumination bloomed when we were halfway down the stairs. Someone — hopefully Kett — had turned on a light.

  Plush wall-to-wall carpet spread out from the base of the stairs, rather than the dirt cellar floor that I’d expected. I paused, turning to carefully observe the large room. The mostly below-grade basement took up about half the footprint of the house. The walls were drywall, rather than plaster covered in multiple layers of paint as they were upstairs. The brick that covered the high windows looked fairly new as well. Obviously, renovations had been done much more recently here than upstairs.

  A king-sized bed was neatly made and tucked into the far left corner of the room. A tiffany lamp on the bedside table was the only light source, but it managed to illuminate all but the deepest shadows in the basement. Except for a large fridge in the corner opposite the bed, every other wall was covered in bookshelves, which in turn were covered with endless rows of books of all shapes, sizes, and bindings.

  “Jesus,” Jasmine muttered, stepping down beside me. Her head was craned to our far right.

  I followed her gaze. A man was strapped to a steel hospital gurney that sat near the rightmost wall of bookshelves. The top of his dark-haired head was angled toward us. His feet pointed toward the fridge.

  Even from the base of the stairs, I could tell he was dead. And that he had been so for some time. His skin was shrunken and hollowed, every bone in his body standing out in sharp relief. He was dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt.

  Kett opened the door of the fridge. It was half-full of what appeared to be bags of blood.

  “Jesus,” Jasmine muttered again. Then she squared her shoulders and strode farther into the basement, snapping pictures with her phone as she crossed to the fridge.

  I dutifully trailed after her, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the corpse on the gurney. Four empty IV bags were strung from poles mounted to the gurney’s frame, with all four lines attached to his arms, which were strapped down.

  “He … he was a vampire?” I asked.

  Kett tossed a bag of blood back into the fridge, though I hadn’t seen him take one out. He ignored my question.

  “Someone killed him by draining his blood?” I asked, steppin
g closer to the corpse. “And storing it in the fridge? Why?”

  Jasmine was taking pictures of the bagged blood.

  “The blood in the fridge is human.” Kett spoke at last, appearing beside me to peer down at the corpse. “It’s his stash. His sustenance.”

  Baffled, I just stared at him. He met my gaze, his expression stony. I wasn’t sure if he was angry that the vampire had been killed, or if he was just pissed off at the situation in general. Specifically, that our trail had abruptly gone cold.

  “A mixture of blood in here,” Jasmine said, consulting her phone. “All different types, all originating from a blood bank in Seattle.”

  “I want you to walk me through the reconstruction as you trigger it,” Kett said.

  I opened my mouth to protest, but the vampire curled his lip at me. I nodded instead.

  “Make your circle wide, witch.” Kett eyed the IV bags still attached to the corpse. “Then we will revive him.” His voice was cold with fury.

  “What do you mean?” I whispered. “He’s still alive?”

  “Jesus,” Jasmine said a third time.

  Kett turned back to the fridge. “Set up your candles.”

  I locked my gaze to Jasmine’s. Her eyes were as wide as mine felt.

  I had no idea what was happening, or what could have happened. All I could do was my job. I clutched onto the thread of stability that thought provided for my suddenly overwhelmed mind.

  I would do the reconstruction, and then everything would get sorted. Somehow.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Walking another Adept through a reconstruction while commanding the residual magic was difficult — and uncomfortably intimate. I had to balance the residual magic alongside whatever the witness brought with them into the circle, while maintaining physical contact with that Adept at all times.

  Holding Kett’s cool hand was like gripping a piece of moldable marble. Or maybe a sentient stone capable of randomly deciding that crushing every bone in my hand was a good idea. But though touching him was distracting, the vampire kept his magic well contained, so that I didn’t need to struggle to reconstruct the events that had occurred in Nigel’s basement over the last few weeks.

  Of course, the ease with which I picked up a brown-haired boy in his late teens draining every last ounce of the vampire’s blood might have also had something to do with the brutality of the attack.

  Jasmine had gone back to collect the SUV at the post office, removing herself from the house so the magic of the reconstruction didn’t fry her devices. I had closed the circle I’d paced out to encompass the bulk of the basement, leaving Kett and myself about a foot of room to move alongside the bookshelves at the farthest point away from the immobilized vampire on the gurney.

  The residual captured within the circle was strong. It responded immediately to my magic, no coaxing needed. We watched the scene that sprang forth in silence — the events playing out backwards, from the point where the boy hauled the boxes of blood up the stairs to the moment of him initially confronting Nigel while the vampire was reading on the bed.

  “Benjamin Vern,” Kett said, identifying the teenager. His grip on my hand didn’t intensify, but his tone was dark.

  I nodded. Thanks to Jasmine, we’d seen enough pictures of all the teens involved to know on sight who it was that had attacked and stolen Nigel’s blood, then mailed it to the others.

  “He’s not fully human,” I said. “Otherwise, we might see the results of his actions, like with Luci in the graveyard, but not him.”

  “He’s not fully vampire, either,” Kett said. “Play the reconstruction back.”

  I hesitated, analyzing the streaks of residual magic shifting around within the wide circle before us. “There’s something underneath.” I glanced over at Kett. “Another layer.”

  He nodded stiffly. “Please continue with your first reconstruction in that case. Collect it within one of your cubes. Then we’ll uncover what lies beneath.”

  I nodded. “I need both hands, but you need to maintain contact with me, skin to skin —”

  The vampire slipped his hand within my trench coat and up the back of my silk shirt. He placed his cool palm lightly against my lower rib cage, just above the top of my navy-blue wool crepe pants.

  Right. I’d been about to offer him my forearm.

  Swallowing down on my amped-up discomfort, I spread both hands toward the circle, drawing the magic to me a second time.

  The reconstructed scene played from beginning to end.

  Benjamin Vern — an unruly-haired eighteen-year-old standing five-foot-nine in scuffed sneakers, artfully torn jeans, and a too-large black leather jacket — jogged down the wooden staircase to our right.

  Nigel, who appeared to have been in his early thirties when he was turned into a vampire, had been reading a book on the bed at the beginning of the reconstruction. But at Benjamin’s entrance, he stepped to the center of the room so quickly that the reconstructed magic blurred around him. He was lanky and pale, though not as pale as Kett, standing over six feet tall with dark, unkempt hair. Definitely a vampire, but one who could likely have passed among humans without issue.

  “Weak,” Kett spat.

  “Benjamin or Nigel?”

  “Both carry only the magic of the blood with which they were reborn.”

  “They were both human, you mean? Before they were turned?”

  “The boy isn’t a vampire. Merely enhanced. Continue.”

  I had paused the collection when Kett spoke, taking the opportunity to glance around the circle and make sure I was capturing all the residual elements. I had to see them at least once to collect them within the cube.

  Though two weeks had passed since this incident, at least by my best estimation, the room looked strikingly similar. The bed, the fridge, and the metal gurney each all stood in the same places. But the IV poles attached to the gurney were empty.

  “Who are you?” Nigel asked, though it sounded as if he already knew the answer.

  “You can call me Garrick.” Benjamin paused a couple of steps from the base of the stairs, scuffing his feet nervously.

  Nigel tilted his head. “Or I can call you by your name, Benjamin.”

  The teen clenched his hands, then stuffed them into the pockets of his oversized jacket. “I want you to turn me.”

  “I will not.” Nigel answered without hesitation. “I’ve done all I can.”

  “It’s not enough,” Benjamin shouted. Then he gritted his teeth at his own outburst.

  “You shouldn’t be here.” Nigel softened his tone. “Does your mother know?”

  “Of course not,” Benjamin spat.

  “Go home.”

  The teen lifted his head, glaring at Nigel. “I’ll make you.”

  “You cannot possibly force me to turn you. It is not as simple as a transfusion.”

  Benjamin stiffened his shoulders. “I get that I have to die to trigger the transformation. I know more than you think.”

  Nigel narrowed his eyes at the sullen teen. Then he turned away, completely rebuffing him.

  That was a mistake. Or maybe Benjamin had just been waiting for an opening.

  The teen charged across the room, pulling something out of his pocket. Nigel spun to face him, more annoyed than surprised.

  “The boy is too fast,” I said. “Faster than a human.”

  Kett didn’t respond.

  As Nigel lifted his arm to bat the teen away, Benjamin slammed a Taser into the palm of the vampire’s hand. The shock jolted him but he remained upright, managing to wrap a hand around Benjamin’s neck.

  The teen gurgled in pain, but the vampire didn’t immediately press his advantage. That was Nigel’s second mistake.

  Benjamin wrestled another Taser out of his other pocket, hitting Nigel with it and the first Taser at the same time.

  They went down in a tangle of limbs.

  Benjamin managed to crawl free of the pile, hacking and coughing. Still on his hands and knees, h
e pivoted back, slamming the vampire twice more with fifty thousand volts. This time, he applied the Tasers directly to Nigel’s temples.

  “Weak,” Kett said again. His voice was cool and distant.

  We continued to watch the reconstruction play through while I gathered the residual magic underneath my hands.

  Benjamin managed to drag Nigel to the gurney. With a great deal of struggle, he lifted him onto it, then strapped him down.

  Moaning as he woke, then shaking his head, the vampire became aware of his surroundings as the teen inserted the first IV needle into his arm.

  “Even his skin is too easily pierced,” Kett said dismissively. But despite his underlying ire, he kept his hand gently pressed to my back and his gaze glued to the scene I was collecting.

  “Could be a tender spot. Repeatedly used,” I said, not sure why I felt the need to defend Nigel. “Maybe from the blood in the fridge? Maybe he doesn’t drink it?”

  Benjamin inserted a third and fourth empty IV bag, positioning them so they drained downward to the floor.

  “He drinks it,” Kett said. “He’d have to. If only to survive in this weakened state.”

  “But the gurney and the IV stands —”

  “Are apparently here for another reason.”

  Nigel began to struggle against the bonds that held him to the metal table. “Stop this, Ben. You’re just going to end up killing yourself —”

  The teen slammed the Taser against the vampire’s neck.

  Nigel’s scream was short-lived, but his convulsions ripped out two of the IVs. Benjamin hastily grabbed one, then became suddenly mesmerized by the blood dripping from it. He put the tube directly into his mouth, moaning as he sucked on it.

  Kett’s hand flexed against my back, then instantly relaxed.

  The boy reached down with his free hand to briefly hold his now-bulging erection. Then he continued to suck on the IV tube while continually checking the three other blood bags he was filling.

  “Vampire blood … is addictive?” I asked quietly.

  “The power is addictive,” Kett said. “The teen’s ecstasy is self-generated. Nigel’s venom, even if he doesn’t possess the talent to cloud his donor’s mind while drinking, is the narcotic.”