It was the High Witch from Tyburn. And it looked like she was still able to use her powers.
Emaline Pendramere extended a hand, her long nails gleaming in the muted moonlight.
“Hold on tight, please, my good man,” she said.
And seconds later, they were gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Well, at least we now know several things we didn’t,” I pointed out to the rest. “The Deth House might be gone, but its inhabitants are still around. And it looks like they’re a good deal more invulnerable than they originally were.”
Maybe that was part of some new deal that Ryan had been making with that devil in the cellar.
I turned to Gaspar Vernon. “Did the bullets bounce off them, or just pass through?”
“My door was closed, and so I have no way of knowing. And besides, I don’t see how it makes any real difference.”
And he had a point. Gaspar looked pretty grateful to still be alive, and rather puzzled that he had a High Witch from Tyburn to thank for that. We were all back at the central station house, perching on whatever chairs and desktops we could find. It was well into the small hours of the morning. Everyone looked drawn in the fluorescent light, their faces lined with more than merely tiredness.
Except – that is – for Emaline, who still looked perky. I’d never known anything slow her down. And so I transferred my attention to her. She had on yet another floor length dress, a cream-colored one this time, so that – with her alabaster skin and yellow locks – she looked like some tall candle made of beeswax.
“The first few times these creeps attacked,” I asked her, “nobody here sensed it, not even the doc. So how did you know what was going on?”
She tipped her face to one side slightly airily.
“It wasn’t that I saw them there. Far more like … I could feel a sudden emptiness on the night air. I traced it to its source, picked up on Gaspar’s sheer anxiety and fright, and that was when I made my way to his place.”
So the rules had changed, and in several important ways. The Deth boys weren’t as undetectable as they had previously been, but had become a lot more difficult to hurt. Maybe they had swapped one power for another. But the real question was … where were they coming from?
“Wherever it might be, I’m sure they’ll try to cause more trouble,” Willets nodded. “But the issue here is motive. Why?”
“Power?” I suggested to him. “Didn’t the one who came at Levin say that? ‘The new rulers of Raine’s Landing.’ How they hope to achieve that, I’m not quite certain. But I know one thing for sure. We have to find out where that house has gone.”
But in a town like ours, with the rules of reality so badly messed up, that could be almost anywhere.
“Is there any way that you could track it down?” I asked the doc. “I mean, to move a building of that size, you’d have to leave some kind of trail.”
“I keep on trying to explain this to you, Ross. This is not the kind of magic that I’m used to. I can’t even get my head around it properly, much less begin guessing where it’s moved stuff off to.”
At which point, Saul broke in across us. He’d been silent this whole time, and we had practically forgotten he was there. But now, his tone was so insistent every eye swung to him and we all fell silent.
“I don’t give a righteous damn where that infernal house has gone,” he barked.
He was sitting at a desk, his arms folded in front of him, his eyes blazing with a cold, grim fire. And I had known him long enough to figure why.
“And I don’t give another damn what magic they’ve managed to acquire. All I know is, we’ve got cop killers on our hands. And we might not know where they’re holed up, but we certainly have the means to find them.”
He got up and started marching to the door.
“You coming, Ross?” he asked me, without looking back.
He was talking about doing some plain, straightforward police work, and I had a good idea where we were headed.
From out here on the open street, you couldn’t even see the Eastlake mansion. There were tall, dense trees the whole way round, and I could make out wire mesh beyond that. There were glimpses of electric coils as well, which was unsettling. The front gates were heavy metal, green-enameled. And when I peered closer, I could see they had some kind of crest on them.
Which was purest bull. Harker Eastlake came from humbler origins than I did. He was raised in East Meadow, in a few rooms of one of those misshapen wooden tenements they have up there. His father had walked out on them when Harker had been less than a year old. Hardly the most promising of starts to life.
Harker had left school at fifteen and begun working as a carpenter’s apprentice. He had kept that up until he had the wherewithal to build his own first house. Which he didn’t live in, no. He rented out the rooms to people, and that was the start of his property empire.
There was a sentry booth beside the gate, a sturdy little structure made of wood and glass. The man inside it had on black pants, a black padded jacket with the logo of some kind of private security firm emblazoned on it, and an equally black baseball cap. He looked puzzled when we rolled up, glancing at his wristwatch before coming out. Saul rolled down his window. And the fellow squinted in.
“Are you aware what time it is?” he asked.
“I don’t care if it’s three seconds to Doomsday,” Saul came back at him. “This is police business.”
That got him a startled jerk.
“But … everyone’s asleep.”
“Well wake them up.”
The guard looked agitated, going back inside his hut and picking up a handset. It took a good long while before anybody answered. And when they did, we were forced to watch a load of headshaking and shrugging.
The man peered at us warily and stepped back out.
“Can you tell me what this is regarding?”
“Two dead cops,” Saul snarled. “And if you make me get a warrant, I’ll end up in an even more angry and vengeful mood than I already am.”
The next phone conversation was a good deal shorter.
Then the metal gates came whirring open.
CHAPTER THIRTY
We rolled up along the broad, gravel-strewn drive. There were tennis courts off in one direction, their nets rolled away for the winter, and what looked to me like a croquet lawn in front of those. There was a big wooden gazebo too. What was it with rich folks and those things? I knew that, in the summer, Eastlake senior liked to throw some lavish garden parties, though I’d never got an invite.
There were a couple more guards in those same black uniforms walking round the outer edges of the grounds, one of them with a big German shepherd. They made the place look like a prison camp, and I wondered if they were genuinely needed. But then I remembered an important part of Eastlake’s history.
There was real tragedy in his past. He’d been married and living in Greenwood, far from wealthy at that stage, his business starting up.
His wife had borne him a son. And presumably, they’d been planning for more children. But that hadn’t stopped Harker working all the hours God gave and then asking for a couple extra.
He’d been at his office when disaster struck. Burglars had crept into his home. His wife must have surprised them and …
They’d had a knife, which had never been found.
This town has few normal murders. It was one of our most notorious crimes. An unsolved one as well. And it had all happened a long while back, but everybody knew about it.
Eastlake’s house was looming up ahead of us, and my jaw slackened just a touch. The place was flat-roofed, very broad, and was built largely out of wide blocks of pale stone. And with those Grecian pillars round the portico, it was practically a matching copy of the Vernon mansion.
Which set me wondering. The Vernons had been, for a good long time, pretty much the richest and most influential family in the Landing, not counting the Raines. So was this Eastlake’s way of
pointing out that he’d become their equal?
One of the front doors swung back as we went up the broad steps of the porch. The man who’d made that happen was wearing a butler’s uniform. His tie was crooked, and his jacket had been pulled on far too hastily, but every other detail was impressive. He was in his early forties, and had to be almost seven foot tall. Massive hands. Enormous feet. His face was very long, rectangular, with reddish-brown hair cropped short at the top.
His eyes were gray and barely blinked. And he stared at us like bugs as we got closer to him.
“The master will be with you presently,” he muttered, his mouth barely coming open.
Then he showed us through the lobby, into some kind of reception room. The walls were painted off-white and the floor was lacquered tile. And it was furnished in a style I hadn’t seen before, some sort of Italian designer line maybe. Which you definitely couldn’t purchase in a town like this. Either the owner of this place had conjured the stuff up, or he’d had someone do it for him.
There was a marble fireplace up against one wall. Hung above the mantelpiece was an enormous head-and-shoulders portrait of a woman. And I felt a tingle running down my spine, remembering my own lost wife.
Davina Eastlake had been in her early thirties when she’d died. She’d had a long neck like a swan’s, skin so pale that it was practically translucent, flushed delicately at the cheeks. Perfect, even features. Long black hair. Eyes that bridged the gap between light hazel and pale green.
A natural beauty. Eastlake had never remarried, and had brought his son up on his own.
“There’s something rather sad about her,” Saul said, looking where my gaze had gone.
And I could see that he was right. There was a touch of dampness captured in the woman’s eyes, as if she’d had a premonition about what was going to happen. And I couldn’t figure that out, so I changed the subject.
“Get that butler?”
Even in the bad mood that he was in, Saul got out a smirk. “Yeah. Sixties TV didn’t lie to us – we’ve finally met Lurch.”
Then we fell silent as the door that we’d been ushered through swung open and the man who we had come to see stepped in. I’d never been up close to him before, and was surprised by his appearance.
He had to be – what – in his early sixties? But he looked a whole lot older than that. Only medium height, but twisted over like a question mark. Walking with a stick. Shuffling along, in fact, like some octogenarian. And I’d not been expecting that.
The peejays that he had on were maroon-dyed silk ones. But the housecoat he’d thrown over them had a muddy plaid pattern and was frayed around the edges. He looked pretty much like any normal, aging guy. Even had on corduroy carpet slippers that were fraying round the edges too.
He still had a full head of hair, mostly gray, but silver at the front. But what had made him age this way? His face was badly lined, and there were wattles round his neck, and you could see his sagging waistline.
I could tell he bit his nails and, by the color of his teeth, he smoked. I stared at his withered face, trying to spot any of his son’s harsh arrogance, but finding not a touch. His mouth was just as wide, but looser. His eyes were a lighter brown, and dewy. We had woken him up awful early, but he didn’t look annoyed.
“Gentlemen?” he croaked. “Can I help you?”
He shuffled over to us, and then stared in the direction we’d been looking.
“You’ve been admiring her portrait, I see. The love of my life. No one will ever replace her.”
Which left us floating in an uncomfortable silence until Saul managed to clear his throat.
“Mr. Eastlake, with the greatest of respect, we’re here about something else entirely.”
The man’s eyelashes batted, his face taking on a dismayed look.
“Two dead officers. Yes, Donald told me. Dreadful. A quite awful thing to happen. But I don’t understand why it has brought you here.”
I was studying his features, listening closely to his voice, trying to detect any hint of falsehood. This was not what I had been expecting from a businessman with such a hardened reputation.
“Perhaps you’d like to take a seat?” Saul asked.
“No, I’ll stand. How bad can this be?”
But – about a minute later, once that he’d heard what was going on – Eastlake senior needed to sit down anyway. He was practically in tears and swaying hard, like he was going to collapse.
“You’re certain about this?”
“We’ve no slightest doubt that Ryan’s behind all of it,” Saul said. “I’m genuinely sorry, Mr. Eastlake.”
Harker seemed to lapse into a partial trance. His eyes were focused on mid-air, his shoulders hunched up practically around his ears. And his mouth had formed a slack, uneven zero. He kept trying to form words. Kept on failing though, and practically gave up.
Until he managed to blurt, “Satanism?”
“I have to ask this, Mr. Eastlake, and I hope that you’ll forgive me. Ryan must have learnt that stuff from somewhere. So what kind of magic gets used round this place?”
Eastlake’s face jerked, his brow crumpling up as though he had a migraine.
“Practically none. And certainly nothing of that kind.” His hand went to a thin chain at his neck, pulling out a tiny metal disc from beneath his pajama top. “It’s an Amulet of Helios. Protects me against winter illness. That’s about the furthest that my use of magic has ever extended, lieutenant. Ryan must have gotten all that bad stuff out of books.”
“And how about that?” I asked, pointing at his walking stick, which he was clutching with one wizened hand across his knees.
I’d been noticing it for a while. It was a beautifully polished length of cane that spread out wider at the top. Embedded in the pommel was a lump of quartz about the same size as a lemon. The thing looked like some manner of magic wand, to my eyes.
“This? It’s for luck, is all – no witchcraft to it. This piece of quartz came out of the ground when I was digging the foundations for the first house that I ever built. I’ve always had it with me, sure, but for its sentimental value. It’s got no more power than a four-leafed clover.”
And then Eastlake started going a peculiar color, even pastier than he had been, with blue shadows round the eyes. His breathing became unsteady. Saul picked up on that.
“Would you like a glass of water, Mr. Eastlake?”
The man’s head shook wordlessly.
“Should I call your butler?”
Harker forced himself to suck in a deep breath, then began to recover.
“I’m not having a heart attack, if that’s what you’re concerned about. Which is not to say that my heart isn’t broken. Ryan always was a difficult, wild boy but … this?”
He pulled himself together, breathing deeply through his nose.
“I can’t understand it for the life of me. How could it possibly benefit my son to start murdering adepts?”
“That’s what we’re still trying to work out.” Saul stepped over to the man and crouched down before him until their faces were level. “The important thing is that we find him before he goes getting himself any deeper into trouble. And I don’t simply mean trouble with the law.”
Harker peered back at him anxiously.
“Ross here heard him talking with a devil,” Saul explained. “Apparently, a powerful one. And those things aren’t what you’d call famous for their straight dealing and honesty. Ryan has to be in danger from it. Can you tell me where he might have gone?”
“I haven’t seen my son in quite a while, lieutenant. He’s almost always at that frat house … which has disappeared, you say? He’s been financially independent since he turned eighteen. I have no say in his life, and no real idea what he gets up to.”
“Is he likely to get in touch with you anytime soon?”
“He’d be breaking the habits of a lifetime if he did so.”
“But if he does, you’ll let me know?”
/> “Of course.”
And that was that. We were leaving here with no result. Donald was already waiting by the door to show us out.
When we’d first walked through the lobby, most of the lights had been switched off. But now, a crystal chandelier was blazing. We could see the place in far more detail. There was the kind of decor that you might expect, a statue and some marble busts, a couple of amphorae, great big Grecian urns. A massive staircase curved toward the upper stories of the house.
Glancing off in that direction, I caught the briefest glimpse of yet another face. One with long dark hair, this time. A woman, in her early twenties. She jerked back out of sight immediately I spotted her.
“You saw that as well?” Saul asked me quietly, once we’d hit the open air.
“The Eastlakes seem to have a thing for young female companionship,” I nodded.
And it didn’t really fit in, did it, with the infirm stance, the wheeziness, the cane? Or perhaps it did when you had that much money.
“That wasn’t what I really meant,” Saul said. “You didn’t notice? She looked like a younger version of his wife.”
Which was maybe a coincidence, but maybe not.
And told me there was more than met the eye to Harker Eastlake.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
But that encounter left us with nowhere to go and nothing much to do, forced to wait till something else disastrous happened. And neither of us really cared for that particular scenario.
Saul was determined to keep himself busy, and went back to his office to help organize the Deth House search. Me and Lauren could have both joined in, but there were plenty of guys on it and we didn’t see the point. Dawn was almost breaking. And Cassie was an early riser these days, so we went over to see her.
“She isn’t going to be too cheerful,” Lauren told me, as we went in through the hospital’s main entrance.
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