“If he does take it,” she said, “and he finds he needs to talk to Courey, let me know. I can help with that.”
“Thanks.”
Erin squeezed his shoulder. “Anything you or Brad need, let me know.”
In her office, she sat at the computer and stared at the draft report. It didn’t make any sense. It looked like German to her. Her body felt about ready to fall into pieces. She hadn’t slept more than an hour at a time in three days. Sitting in an uncomfortable chair beside William’s bed for hours on end hadn’t been conducive to relaxing. Neither had watching doctors and nurses pumping bag after bag of antibiotics into her husband, a desperate bid to keep him alive just so the cancer could finish killing him.
Coming to work had been a mistake in more than one way. She abandoned the computer for the couch. Lying down, she was asleep within moments.
Chapter 6
I stopped by Vogon Books on my way out of the city. It’s a dingy little place, long and narrow with ‘mood’ lighting. That is if the mood you’re going for is repressed maturity with a hint of sexual frustration. Which described the usual customers to a T, though they wouldn’t care to hear me think that. I’m sure their D&D circle thought they were very cool indeed.
Yeah, that’s harsh but considering the meeting I’d just had, I figured it was fair enough. And hey, it’s not like I was saying it to their faces.
Jacob, owner operator of Vogon Books, wasn’t frustrated sexually, however. For a very nearly middle-aged guy still living with his parents, he got lucky with statistical improbability. I wasn’t jealous one bit.
“Hey, man,” he greeted me. As usual, he was leaning over the counter. It wasn’t an ‘illustrated’ novel that held his attention, though there were loads of bright, colourful pictures.
“What’s that?” I asked before the suave, cool parts of my brain could override the less evolved lobes.
“Collectibles catalogue. I’m thinking of expanding.”
I peered at the pictures. “Are they really asking that much for a Spiderman figurine?”
“It’s a pewter casting of an original model made for the first movie. Of course they’re asking that much. Did you come for a reason?”
“Couple actually. Cleaned up about seventy imps yesterday, out at The Gap.”
For the few of us in the supernatural know in Brisbane, Jacob is our archivist. He keeps track of all our encounters and looks for patterns we might miss. Since the fiasco with Veilchen, as a group, we’d been a little more dedicated to keeping in touch. It was tough going. Whether it’s a mental requirement to deal with the freaks of the Old World or just something that develops through experience, we’re a pretty reclusive mob. We didn’t have monthly meetings, but we had Jacob. We all liked him. Couldn’t say as much for the rest of us.
Jacob shoved his glasses up his nose and wiped his hand over his bald head. “Seventy? That seems… exaggerated.”
“I kid you not. Sixty-five to be exact, but I figure we can round it up without too much trouble.”
He pulled out a black ledger and opened it to the next empty page. Pen in hand, he gave me one last chance to admit to the apparent lie. I just met his sceptical gaze. After a moment, he sighed and began writing.
“How did you take down that many imps?” he asked.
“It’s not like they’re any sort of heavy weights, is it. It wasn’t too hard.”
“Mercy do it for you?”
“It was in the day time, so no.”
This time, he looked at me over the top of his glasses. Maybe it’s just me, but that sort of look terrifies me. Perhaps it’s the memories of my childhood when Granny would look at me over her half-moon glasses and, without having to say a word, pry confessions of boyhood mayhem out of me. I gave in and told him.
When he’d finished laughing, he wrote down the incident. As he did so, I tried to read previous entries. I couldn’t help but wonder if someone else had been stealing the work out from under me. It was a long shot because I was the baddest, toughest anti-supernatural warrior in town. Okay, I was the only one. The rest were scholars and psychics and small-time enthusiasts.
“Not a lot going on,” Jacob said. He had a touch of psychic talent, but not enough to read a mind. He just knew me. “No one’s reporting much of anything lately.”
“Do you find that peculiar?”
He shrugged. “Ambrose seems to think it’s natural. You know, sort of tidal. Which reminds me, he came up with a new theory about were-creatures. He’s on this whole tidal kick at the moment. The were-curse is tied to the phases of the moon, right? Well, he thinks that just as the moon influences tides, it might influence the flux of magical energy in the world. When the moon’s full, it’s kind of a king tide of mystical influence. Sounds good, eh?”
“I suppose. He didn’t come up with a new way to kill them, though, did he? Silver might hurt them, but it doesn’t necessarily kill them, or even slow them down much.”
“He didn’t say. But if this tidal influence is right, maybe you have to kill them at low tide.”
“When they’re normal humans? For the police and forensics to look at like it’s a run of the mill murder case?”
Jacob stared at me. “Um, yeah. I guess not.”
“Disposing of monster bodies is easier, trust me. Right, while you have the book out, did anyone make any noises about the death of a physicist last week?”
“Geraldine Davis?” Jacob’s eyes lit up. “Nothing about her. Why?”
“I’m probably going to be working on the case.”
“Cool, man. You’re turning into a regular PI. Like that chick last May.”
I carefully ignored the reference to Erin. “Can you check and see if anything was recorded around the time of her death?”
He flipped back a couple of pages. “Um, that was when Ambrose called me about his were-tide idea. Was it a were-creature?”
Six months ago I would have scoffed at the thought. Now, I considered it seriously. In popular myth, people were bitten by a were-creature and then turned into said creature. In reality, it was a bit more complex than that. Animals could also be bitten and turned into were-creatures. Erin and I had faced down a dog that’d transformed into a werewolf. Oh yeah. Honest to God. A werewolf-dog. And it’d been a bastard to kill. It had been a very rude awakening to the sheer breadth and depth of the supernatural world. I’d had the last of the conceit knocked out of me with that one. So now, I was wondering if one person could be transformed through the were-virus into another human. Or… an animal into a human.
Crap. I hadn’t even officially taken the case and I was hating the array of possibilities opening up before me.
“Let’s not rule it out,” I said. “But if it was, it had to have a way of getting out of the lab without being seen. Anything else?”
Jacob sped read the page. “Caroline had a dream. Her usual sort, all foggy and whimsical. Just some feeling of something big coming to town. Big and dark and powerful. Happened around the time we began noticing the lack of vampires about the place.”
I cocked an eyebrow.
“You thinking it’s significant?” he asked.
“It’s vague enough to either be nothing or something. But ‘big and dark and powerful’ doesn’t make me think it’s nice. As much as I’d like to think it’s a coincidence the vampires pulled up fangs and left at the same time, I’d be an idiot to believe it. But that was several months ago. The Davis murder only happened last week.”
Jacob tapped his pen on the entry about Caroline’s dream. “So probably nothing to do with the murder. I only mentioned it because it’s the last entry I have. Hasn’t been much of anything for some time now. Not since the Mount Coot-tha schmozzle.”
“Tell me about it,” I muttered bleakly.
It was hard to think I’d made a big enough and tough enough rep for myself with the decapitation of Veilchen that all the other nasties cleared out of town. It was slightly easier to think that perhaps Aurum—th
e grandest of the vampire granddaddies and the master puppeteer of the Veilchen fiasco—had something to do with it. The whole deal had been his test of how brassy my balls actually were. So while it could be plausible he’d boosted my passing grade with an ‘exceeds expectations’, it was also a little scary.
“Except for the imp issues,” Jacob said brightly. “But they’re hardly worth noting. Do you really think this Davis thing is your sort of trouble or are you desperate? So they didn’t catch the guy leaving. There could be any number of explanations, only a couple of them supernatural in nature.”
“There’s also the fact the murderer looked just like the husband, but the husband has an alibi to rival any submarine.” Even as I said it, I realised leaving the note for Ivan had been a mistake. I’d pretty much said I would take the case and upon reflection, that decision might have been influenced, in a small measure, by Erin’s certainty that it wasn’t my sort of deal. Yeah, that touch of guilt I felt for Ivan suffering because of me played a part, too, but neither of them were sterling reasons for taking a case I should probably have left to the professionals.
Shoving that conundrum to the side, I went onto the next potential disaster. “Who’s our local ghost expert?”
Jacob whistled. “Imps, murders and ghosts. What aren’t you dipping your fingers in lately? Um, ghosts. Your best bet would be Tobias Waldbridge over at the St Lucia campus of UQ. In the history department. I’ll give him a call.”
The ghost expert didn’t answer his phone and with little else to fill the rest of my day, I decided to spring a surprise visit on him.
I boogied on over to St Lucia and the University of Queensland campus there, found the Michie Building and parked illegally as close as I could get to the front doors. There was no one manning the information desk, so I dinged the bell a couple of times and tried not flatten the poor thing.
A minute or so later, a girl trundled out of a room and smiled at me. “Can I help you?”
“I’m after Tobias Waldbridge. I need to talk to him.”
Her smile turned a little vague. “Tobias…?”
“Waldbridge. I was told he worked here. This is the history department, isn’t it?”
“And philosophy, religions and classics, yes. But I don’t know any Professor Waldbridge.”
I was going to throttle Jacob. “Maybe he’s new. Is there any way you can check for me?”
“Give me a minute.” She went back into her room with more speed than which she’d left it. Her haste left the door open slightly and I could hear her talking. “Do we have a Tobias Waldbridge on staff?”
Whoever else was in there with her didn’t speak very loud. I couldn’t make out any response.
“There’s a man here looking for him.” A short pause. “I don’t know. Average. Bit cranky. Seems pretty anxious to find this person.” A longer pause. “Yeah, I guess.”
There was a lot of silence for a long time. I started to think they’d brushed me off. About to go knock on the door, she spoke again.
“Really? Wow, that’s strange. I’ll page him then.”
After a moment, she trotted back out to me. “Found him for you. I just paged him. He shouldn’t be long.” She turned and went back into her room, closing the door completely this time.
This day was shaping up to be about normal.
Five minutes later, I sat down to wait. Five minutes after that, I pressed my face against a window to see if my car had been towed yet. Still there. Five minutes further and someone clattered down the stairs at the back of the foyer.
Maybe I have high expectations or something, but when I’m sent to find an expert on a given subject at a university, I’m kind of inclined to think professor or PhD student or something. Tobias wasn’t any of those things. I knew because his name was stitched over the pocket on his dark-blue work overalls. He also carried a mop and a bucket.
Tobias was probably my age, a bit heavier around the middle and completely unremarkable. Brown hair, brown eyes, round face. You’d look past him even in a crowd of fair haired, blue eyed people when you were looking specifically for dark hair and eyes.
“You the guy looking for me?” He came to a stop well within my personal space.
“I think so. You’re the ghost expert?”
His face split into a wide, totally gleeful grin. “Sure am.” He juggled mop and bucket to free a hand. “Pleased to meet a fellow aficionado.”
I took his hand. “Ah, not an aficionado. More like an interested novice. I’m Matt Hawkins.”
Tobias goggled at me. “The Matt Hawkins? No joke?”
“No joke.” Dear Lord. I was famous.
“Hey, this is great. Afzal’s told me a bit about you.” He spun around with boundless energy and started away down a hall.
Presuming I was to follow, I did so. “You know Kermit? I mean, Afzal.”
He laughed. “He told me you called him Kermit. He doesn’t really understand the meaning, but he doesn’t like it all the same. Yeah, I met him couple of months back. I was doing some studies in the Dutton Park Cemetery and came across him. Neat fella. Knows a lot of stuff about ghosts.”
Kermit, aka Afzal, was a ghoul. As far as ghouls go, he’s pretty decent. He’s only tried to kill me once, so that’s a tick in the pro column. As a species, ghouls are disgusting creatures. They eat rotting flesh and hence, love graveyards. Further hence, they stink of corrupting flesh and decay. Personality wise, they’re as varied as your average conniving, mercenary, low level scum can get. A ghoul convention would make Mos Eisley look like Disneyland. But, like I said, I can tolerate Kermit. If I’m in a good mood. Him talking about me to strangers didn’t really put me in a good mood.
“You want to know about ghosts?” Tobias asked, leading me to certain doom amongst the endless seeming corridors of a university building.
“Yeah. Specifically, how solid can they get?”
“Solid? You mean, like poltergeists? Where they can affect their physical surrounds? That’s not really solid. They use a lot of psychic energy to do that, not physical.”
“Could a poltergeist break a man’s nose?”
We went up a set of narrow stairs about as steep as the slops on Mount Everest.
“Sure. Poltergeists are well known for breaking things, bones amongst them. They’ve even been documented to pick people up and throw them out of windows.”
“Cool.” Morbid, but you can’t deny that’s not cool. “And poltergeists are generally very angry, right?”
“Generally. It takes a strong residual emotion after death to bring back a spirit with the ability to affect its physical environment. A lot of the strong emotions have negative connotations.”
The stairs ended in another long corridor. But this one had a distinctive smell. Tobias hurried along and then stopped abruptly. He put down his bucket and began mopping with furious intent. I caught up just in time to get a glob of vomit on my shoe.
“Sorry. Let me get that.” He mopped off my shoe. “Bloody kids. Go out drinking all night then think they can come to lectures. Where’s your poltergeist? Need me to come along and help with the banishment?”
“It’s in Adelaide and I don’t know anything about banishments. I just wanted to find out if what this guy told me is even possible.” While Tobias mopped with surprising efficiency I related Nick Carson’s story.
“Nick Carson? Wow. He’s really big in the shark world.” He finished and we were off and racing once more.
“I’m sure he’ll be pleased you recognise him. Can you help him with his girlfriend?” I hadn’t done this much cardiac exercise in a long time. I’d need a nap when I got home.
“Probably could. But I’ve never been to Adelaide. And it’s a really fascinating case. I’ve not heard of a ghost watching TV before.”
“Me neither.” Not that that said much. “Perhaps you could talk to Nick personally. Maybe you can help him over the phone.”
“That would be great. I can ask him about this book I read.
” He stopped suddenly and looked wistful. “It’s about a giant, prehistoric shark that comes out of the Mariana Trench. I don’t think it could ever really happen.” Then he shook off the mood and rushed on. “What’s his number?”
“I don’t have it. Our phone conversation was cut off abruptly. I’ll have to hunt down his contact details or wait for him to call back.”
“The ghost cut off the phone?” he asked excitedly.
“No, I think he did, to stop her from talking to me. Their relationship hasn’t been so crash hot since she died, I guess.”
“She thinks she’s alive. If he’s calling her a liar, that’s got to be making her angry. Strange case, but fascinating.”
“My thoughts exactly. Jacob gave me your number, but I’ll give you mine as well, in case you think of anything that might help.”
Thankfully, he stopped to take my card and then bang, we were hurtling along at the speed of sound again. Tobias deposited me back in the foyer, said he’d wait for my call and sped off.
A little shaky from the turbulence, I went back to my car and decided to go home for a rest.
The phone rang.
For someone who’d not so long ago been bitching about not getting any calls, I sure took this one with truckloads of grace.
“What?” I snapped.
“Matt? It’s Ivan.”
“Sorry. Bad moment. How you doing?”
“Better. Me and Erin had a talk. She’s going to cooperate. So, you’ll take my case?”
Here was my chance. Bow out with a shred of grace. Admit I wasn’t the right person.
But...
I was honestly intrigued. Possible were-people-animals who can vanish into thin air?
“Yeah. I’ll look into it. But remember, if at any time I feel it’s not in my field, I’ll back off. Then you’ll know it’s more Erin’s case than mine.”
“Great. Can we meet tonight to talk with Gerry’s husband?”
“Sure.”
We set up the meeting and I hung up. Back on the job.
Whacko.
Chapter 7
Amaya glared at Nick. He ignored her, sitting at his computer, looking for the email with the number for Night Call. Well, good luck to him. She’d deleted it.
Night Call (Book 2): Demon Dei Page 5