Blazing Nights (A Night Games Novel)

by Linda Barlow

  "I’m not sure that your new young man understands that, if it’s true," her mother went on. "You have been in mourning for a very long time."

  "I know I have. But I loved Arthur, Mom. He and I had known each other since we were little. He was always there, at my side. It’s been really, really hard to face my life without him."

  "I know that. But it really is time for you to move on."

  "I am moving on. Or at least, I was moving on until Daniel flew into a rage and left me."

  "It can’t be easy for him, trying to forge a relationship with a woman who keeps looking back to her past."

  Kate felt herself stiffen. Unless she was misinterpreting what she was hearing, her mother was doing something she rarely did: she was criticizing her. Feeling defensive, she shot back, "I wasn’t the one who called up my dead husband in front of Daniel."

  "I know, sweetheart. Of course you weren’t."

  "Anyway, it's gotten pretty obvious that I’m not meant to be with Daniel. Arthur—if it was Arthur—was warning me against him last night."

  Iris seemed puzzled. "Are you certain of that?"

  "Pretty certain. 'Beware the fire.' Daniel is the fire. I've always thought of him that way, and you know the spirits always speak metaphorically. Besides, his middle name is Blaze."

  Her mother shot her a somewhat arch look. "Is it indeed? Blaze." She seemed to mull this over for a bit before continuing, "It's a puzzle sometimes, what the spirits really mean. So don't presume too much. Even if that was Arthur’s spirit who spoke to you last night, the dead don’t know everything. In fact, they usually know disappointing little about this world."

  Kate laughed shortly. That was certainly true. She couldn't remember ever getting good advice from a dead person, and she had met quite a few.

  "They’ve moved on to a different reality," her mother went on, "They’re no longer connected with what's happening to us here in the living world. The 'fire' might refer to something else entirely."

  "Well, whatever it means, Daniel's gone, and he's not likely to come back. He doesn't love me, and he no longer wants to have anything to do with a freak who talks to ghosts. He hated that from the start." She dropped her mother's hands to rise and pace about the kitchen. "I wouldn't put it past him to come crusading against you now," she went on. "I was the only thing preventing him. He's been at me about interviewing you ever since I met him. He wants to put you on Facts and Fantasies and make a laughingstock out of you."

  "Really?" Iris's eyes were speculative. "I still think it might be quite an interesting experience to be on YouTube."

  Oh, dear God, thought Kate. Before Daniel had appeared, she was quite certain her mother had never even heard of YouTube. She spent the next fifteen minutes explaining to her mother exactly what sort of webcast D. B. Haggarty had in mind. And even then, she wasn't entirely sure she had sufficiently terrified Iris Carter.

  Chapter 17

  For the next week, Kate threw herself into her role at the theater with extraordinary passion. On stage she could forget herself. In the process of becoming somebody else, she could blank out her growing feelings of anger and loss. But as each day and each long, lonely night passed by, it became more difficult to maintain her balance in the face of Daniel's desertion.

  Secretly she expected him to relent and call her. Surely his hot temper had cooled off by now. Didn't he care enough about her to call and ask if she was all right? Or at least to send a text? Wasn't he curious? Wasn't his lust for her on the rise again? Or had he already replaced her with a new sexual partner?

  When the phone chimed early in the morning, nine days after the play’s opening night, Kate's first thought was that Daniel was calling her at last. Still half asleep, she put the phone to her ear without checking to see who was calling. Her uncaffeinated eyes weren't working too well yet.

  "Hello?"

  "Kate, it's Stephen."

  Stephen? Why was her old college friend phoning her at seven a.m.? That couldn't be good. She came more alert. His voice sounded odd. "Stephen? Is something wrong?"

  "I don't want you to worry, but Jeff had an accident yesterday. He's in the hospital, but he's going to be fine."

  "Oh my god, Stephen." Her heart had immediately gone into overdrive. "What kind of accident? How badly is he hurt? What happened?" Not Jeff, not Jeff. Ever since the accident that had killed Arthur, she had known how fragile life could be. In the space of a few minutes, or even seconds, you could lose everything. Tears came into her eyes. "Are you sure he's going to be okay? Have you spoken to an actual doctor?"

  "I have, yes." Stephen’s voice was calm, but Kate had the feeling that he was deliberately keeping it so. Trying not to alarm her. "I called the hospital and spoke to the guy in charge. Apparently, Jeff was working up on his roof repairing some damage left over from the hurricane, when he slipped and fell. He broke his leg and cracked some ribs. He was knocked out by the impact, which is why the hospital kept him overnight, but he's awake now, and they've done all the necessary tests and scans. Apart from a slight concussion, there's no brain damage or anything. They're going to send him home this afternoon."

  Thank god! But with a broken leg and cracked ribs, he would be laid up for a while. "I’ll go at once," she decided instantly. "Someone can play my part today, and tomorrow the theater will be dark, so I won't have to work. Jeff will need a ride home from the hospital, and he’ll need care at home."

  "I’m actually planning to go get him and drive him home. If you like, I can swing by and pick you up. We can go together."

  "That would be awesome. I can be ready whenever you can get here. You're sure he's going to be okay?"

  "I'm sure. Don't worry, Kate. Look at the plus side—we'll be able to tease him forever about falling off his own fucking roof."

  She smiled weakly. Her heart was still pounding. She was immensely grateful that Stephen had offered to drive her out to the college town in southeastern Massachusetts where Jeff lived. She hated hospitals, and feared that as soon as she entered one she would have flashbacks to her own hellish experience after Arthur's death. Stephen would know that; he would understand.

  "Are you okay?" he asked.

  "I will be. Just a little shaken up."

  "Is your new boyfriend there with you?"

  "No. We aren't seeing each other right now."

  "Taking a breather or is it over?"

  "I’m not sure. It’s probably over. He walked out on me one night after an argument, and I haven’t heard a word from him since."

  "What an asshole. Sorry to hear it. Everybody seems to be breaking up. Melanie and I have called it quits, too. Love sucks."

  "Hey, I'm sorry, dude. Are you okay?" Privately she had wondered what he had ever seen in Melanie, whom she hadn't liked at all on the few brief occasions when she had met the woman. Actually, she had a pretty good idea what he had seen in her. She knew Stephen very well.

  "I'm good. It was time. We turned out to be mismatched even in those few areas where I thought we were compatible."

  "I am so not going to ask what you mean by that."

  He chuckled. "Probably just as well. Can you be ready in about two hours?"

  "Absolutely. Drive safely."

  "Always."

  It wasn’t until after the call had ended that Kate remembered Sir Godfrey’s freakish warning about someone being in danger of a fall.

  * * *

  Kate was anxious when Stephen shepherded her through the hospital corridors. She could smell that unmistakable medicinal odor that hurled her back to those bitter days when she had lain in a Boston hospital, aching and sick to her soul with grief, unable to get her mind around the fact that she would never see her husband again. Stephen and Jeff had visited her daily, sometimes together, sometimes separately, disrupting their own busy lives to be there for her. Nick had been there, too; he'd left an archaeological dig in the Yucatan to come home and offer his support. Her friends had cared for her, cheered her, and protected her, and she
would never forget it.

  Because she hadn't been able to face going home to her empty house after being discharged from the hospital, Jeff had taken her to his home in Rolling Meadows. She had lived there for several weeks, recovering her strength, learning to breathe again with the help of the kindness and love her friends showered upon her. When at last she felt able, the three guys—Jeff, Stephen, and Nick—had taken her back to her own house in Cambridge. They had taken turns staying with her for several more days until she stiffened her spine and ordered them out, trying to prove to them, and to herself, that she could live there alone.

  She couldn't imagine how she would have made it through the aftermath of Arthur's death without her friends. Now, if Jeff needed her, she was going to be there for him, for as long as it took.

  Kate had performances of Macbeth later in the week, but since her role was small, she had been able to turn it over to another member of the company. She had informed Paul Tiele that she would be taking several days off, and, although he had grumbled, he had assented when he heard the reason. No one in the company had forgotten Kate's own accident, and she was touched to see how kind they were when they heard that one of her friends was hurt.

  Before they actually saw Jeff, she and Stephen talked to the doctor who was in charge of his case. When asked if they were relatives, Stephen shamelessly declared himself to be Jeff's brother. Jeff didn't have a brother, but his parents, who lived in Arizona, were planning to fly in, and they had encouraged Stephen to use whatever means necessary to get all the facts out of the doctors.

  "He's fine now," the young physician assured them. "Besides the broken bones he's got a slight concussion, but all his head scans are clear. There was one odd thing, though. When I first saw him yesterday he was conscious, but confused about his identity."

  "What do you mean?" Kate asked. "He had amnesia?"

  "Yes, but it didn't last long. We sometimes see transient amnesia after a head injury. According to the paramedics, he was knocked out by the fall, but recovered consciousness in the ambulance. When he came to, he was disoriented; that is to say, he didn't know the date, where he was or who he was. After a few minutes, he was able to identify himself correctly by his first name. The reports say he spoke strangely, with a foreign accent. Apparently he kept raving about la peste, which, as you may know, means the plague in French."

  Stephen and Kate stared at one another and shook their heads. "He was speaking French?"

  "Quite fluently, they claim. Has he ever lived in France?"

  "I think he was there for a few months doing research for his dissertation," Kate said. "He's a college professor and interested in languages. I don't think he's super fluent, but he certainly knows some French."

  "Well, the paramedics may have been inaccurate about how fluent he was. When I first saw him in the ER, he was speaking English, but he couldn't remember his last name. He seemed confused and a little alarmed by all the machinery and monitors around him. He kept asking whether anyone at the monastery was left alive or if they had all died of the plague."

  "The monastery?" Stephen said, looking as if he were trying not to crack a smile.

  "He also demanded to know what we had done with his sword, his armor and his warhorse."

  This was too much for Stephen. He began to laugh, and even the doctor looked as though he was about to join in. Kate felt like kicking them both. "It's not funny! He must have some sort of brain injury. Are you sure he doesn’t have a hemorrhage or something awful like that?"

  "We're sure," the doctor reassured her. "He snapped out of it within the hour and has been fine ever since. We checked everything out thoroughly, though, and observed him overnight just to be certain."

  "He's an historian," Stephen said. "His major area of interest is the 14th century, when there were knights with swords and armor. The Black Death also wiped out nearly half of Europe during that period. That could be what he meant when referring to la peste."

  "That's true." Kate felt relieved. Something else occurred to her: "Jeff's also into renaissance faire re-enactments and stuff like that. He actually owns a couple of swords, and he's a fencer."

  The physician nodded, "That goes a long way toward explaining it. Sometimes people are briefly disoriented after a head injury. It sounds as though he needed a little while to reorganize his memories and separate his knowledge of history from his experience of the present."

  "But he's going to be okay now, right?"

  "He'll be fine. Those broken bones will take some weeks to mend, though, so he'll have to take things easy."

  When they were finally allowed into Jeff's hospital room, Kate was happy to find that he was less badly injured than she had imagined. They found him sitting on the edge of his bed, glaring at his leg cast, and obviously trying to figure out how to walk without assistance. When they first entered, he said without looking up, in an uncharacteristically snappish tone, "Well finally. I've been pressing my buzzer for ten minutes. I need to get moving. Why don't I have any crutches?"

  "Jeff, it's us," Kate said.

  He looked up. One side of his handsome face was purple with bruises, and besides the cast, there were various pieces of gauze covering what must be lacerations. His ribs were taped up, too. But he smiled widely, his eyes lighting up when he saw them. "Hullo, you two! Have you come to break me out of this place? The docs all say I'm fine, and I want to leave."

  Kate hurried to his side and hugged him, careful not to squeeze too hard. Stephen wasn't far behind. They spoke simultaneously, with her saying, "How are you feeling? I've been so worried," while Stephen said, "Shit, dude, you look like you collided with a truck."

  "I fell off my roof."

  "I told you your jet pack wasn't ready for prime time yet, you idiot."

  Jeff groaned. "And that, I suspect, is only the first in what will be an unending stream of jokes at my expense?"

  "'Fraid so," Stephen said cheerfully, while Jeff, good-natured as always, laughed along with them.

  It took a couple of hours of hanging around the hospital and badgering the staff before Jeff’s discharge was written up and certified by the hospital bureaucracy. By the time he was finally wheeled out to Stephen’s car and helped into the front seat, Kate could see that Jeff was tired and in considerable pain, although he tried to hide it. "I’m really sorry to put you both to all this trouble," he said as they drove out of the hospital parking lot. "You needn’t have driven all this way. I have friends here in town who could have helped."

  "But we’re your best friends," Stephen countered, "so we get priority."

  "You took care of me when I needed you," said Kate. "No way you’re going to escape now without me taking care of you."

  "You might change your mind when you see what a terrible patient I am. I hate feeling helpless."

  "That’s because you’re a control freak," Stephen told him. "You like to solve everybody else’s problems. Heaven forbid someone should have to help you solve your own."

  "There’s probably some truth to that," Jeff admitted.

  "By the way," Stephen said casually, "You haven't added a horse to the various animals in your menagerie, have you?"

  "A horse? No. I have two dogs and several cats, whom I hope my neighbor has been caring for, but no horse. Why?"

  "The doctor said you were asking about your horse when you first woke up." He paused for a beat, and then added archly, "Your warhorse."

  Jeff snorted. "Bullshit."

  "I do not jest, milord. You also demanded that the louts bring you your sword, your armor, and your droit de seigneur maiden for the night."

  Jeff arched a golden eyebrow and grinned. He must have decided to go along with the teasing. Kate had never totally grasped the finer points of male insultology, but she knew you had to give back as good as you got. "In that case, you'd better have all the items that I require ready and waiting for me at the castle, young squire, or it'll be the stocks for you."

  "The sword and armor'll have to
wait til you're out of your straps and casts, dude," said Stephen, laughing. "As for the warhorse, for the time being, my car'll have to do."

  "And the maiden?"

  "You're gonna have to find one of those on your own, mate, just like the rest of us louts."

  Chapter 18

  A few blocks away from the New Cambridge Repertory Theater, Daniel Haggarty prowled the small park known for several centuries as the Cambridge Common. He had driven to Cambridge with the intent of going to see his favorite witch perform her role in the evening’s performance of Macbeth, the play no member of her superstitious theater company would even name. After not seeing or speaking with her for over a week, he couldn't take it any longer. He had been tormented by his memories of her for virtually every minute of that time.

  He had to see her from the audience, at least. He'd told himself that it needn’t be anything more than that. The theater would be dark and crowded. As long as he kept to his seat, she wouldn’t even know he was there. He could allow his eyes to drink their fill of her. Surely this would ease some of his anguish. He just wanted to see her, and hear her voice. Then he could quietly leave the theater and go home.

  He had bought a ticket, but he was early, so he’d walked north until he’d reached the Common. He had managed to kill half an hour and he should probably head back. But who was he kidding? There was no way he was going to be able to sit there and observe her from afar. If he got anywhere near her, he knew he would be sucked into her gravity well. He would crash. He would burn up and explode.

  He was beginning to think that witchcraft really existed. Ever since he had seen her pretending to tell fortunes at that party, he had been under Kate Kingsley’s spell.

  He couldn’t remember ever having felt so ripped up over a love affair before. When he had walked out on her that night after her mother’s appalling séance, he had been convinced that he was doing the right thing. Fond though he was of her, he had no hope of a future with Kate. They were too different. She believed in a lot of things that were, as far as he was concerned, utter bullshit.