Corruption

by Jennifer Blackstream

“But now you wonder if the priest may have had cause to see the exorcism stopped?”

  I bit my lip. “Father Salvatore didn’t tell me he knew Patrick. He misled me so he could get to Patrick first. And he left Thomas outside while he spoke to Patrick alone. Patrick killed himself before I could speak to him. I only have Father Salvatore’s word about what they talked about.” I hesitated.

  “You’ve thought of something else?”

  “I noticed that Lorelei was suggestive with Thomas. And when I asked Father Salvatore how Lorelei had introduced herself, he said ‘crudely.’”

  “You think Lorelei may have seduced him?”

  I sighed and rubbed my hands over my face. “He doesn’t seem capable of it, I didn’t get that impression from him. But he told me when I first met him that he’d worked with the ministry before. And if the ministry forbid the exorcism on Laurie…”

  “It is unlikely the priest knew of the ministry’s edict on Laurie’s exorcism,” Oksana pointed out. “I did not know of it, and I’ve worked with members of the ministry.”

  A knock at the door interrupted my response.

  “Enter,” MacTyre said.

  A man pushed the door open. He was a nondescript fellow with plain brown hair and eyes, and wearing an equally plain brown suit. He pushed a pair of gold-rimmed glasses up his nose and cleared his throat. “I apologize for interrupting, but…” He paused. “Um, Mother Renard, there’s an…issue, with your…cat.”

  “It’s not my cat,” I said weakly, wondering what the great black beast had gotten up to. “It showed up a month ago and sort of comes and goes as it wants. Flint says it might be an animal companion, but—”

  “But it can’t be her animal companion,” Peasblossom interrupted, “because I am her familiar and a witch doesn’t need an animal companion and a familiar. Especially when her familiar is me.”

  The man blinked at Peasblossom, then shook his head. “Um, if you would come with me? Please?”

  I looked at MacTyre. He sighed, then nodded. “Let us see what’s happened. We are finished here.”

  We all followed the brown-haired man to another room at the end of the long hallway. My nerves wound tighter with every step as I imagined what sort of trouble the black cat had gotten itself into. I wasn’t reassured as the man stepped aside and gestured for me to open the door myself. I held my breath and opened the door.

  Butterflies.

  Thousands of butterflies, blue wings with black stripes fluttering in the air as they filled the room from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. It took a second to recover from the shock, and another minute after that to orient myself.

  Majesty bolted around the room like a furry pinball. He sailed through the air, batting at the butterflies, knocking two or three out of the air at a time. From what I could see, he wasn’t eating them, but rather seeing how many he could smack out of orbit.

  “Is that really a cat?” the brown-haired man asked.

  I sighed. “Yes. Well, mostly.” I lowered my voice. “He was.”

  “They’re huge!” Peasblossom gasped. She glared at the room from behind my neck. “Make them go away.”

  “Yes, please make them go away,” the brown-haired man agreed. “It’s just, there’s quite a lot of them. And while they’re pretty, Ms. Reed was wearing a sweater, and they landed on her, and their legs got stuck, and… Well, she’s quite traumatized.”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about, but there wasn’t anything I could do about the butterflies anyway. “When did they appear?” I asked.

  “About a minute—”

  The butterflies vanished. Majesty froze in midair, recovering in time to land in a ball of fluffy confusion and disappointment. Black-striped grey fur stuck out at all angles, his tiny chest heaving as he searched the room with quick jerks of his head, before fixing his gaze on me. He mewled.

  “I didn’t send them away,” I told him. I wasn’t sure why I felt defensive about it.

  Someone knocked on the door, and the twitchy brown-haired man answered it. I didn’t recognize the man in the doorway, but I wouldn’t forget him. Six foot seven if he was an inch, with long silver hair that looked blond when the light caught it. His slender build and aristocratic features gave him that calm, authoritative look so many of the older sidhe had. The expensive grey suit shone like silk, and didn’t make a sound as the man crossed the threshold to stand in front of me.

  “Mother Renard?” he asked.

  “That’s me.” Blood and bones, I could see my reflection in his lapels. “Can I help you?”

  He tilted his head, and the light caught his eyes. Pale blue, not grey as I’d first thought. “The large black feline in the waiting room. Yours?”

  I sighed. “Not exactly.”

  “This is Aodhan Quinn,” MacTyre said. “Lord Quinn leads our fraud division. He is also one of the Vanguard’s most venerable members.”

  That was a nice way of saying he was really old. “I hope you don’t suspect me of fraud,” I said, only half-joking.

  “No.” He studied me as if trying to detect a lie—and I had no doubt he would detect a lie. “If I might inquire as to the relationship between you and the feline?”

  “Um,” I glanced at MacTyre, then at Quinn. “It saved my life a month ago. And then this morning it sort of…showed up.” I paused. “Then earlier tonight, I needed its help and it was there.”

  “Did you summon it?”

  “No.”

  “Was it gifted to you?”

  That was an odd question. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “So it appeared when you had need for it.”

  “Yes.” I opted against too many details. I didn’t like the level of interest in Quinn’s eyes.

  “That’s all?” Quinn asked.

  I shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about it.”

  He nodded. “Thank you.”

  He left before I could ask why he’d wanted to know.

  “Don’t mind him,” brown-haired guy said. “He’s always like that. Thinks he’s mysterious because he’s old and he remembers people most of the world never heard of.”

  I smiled, though there was more nervousness than humor in the expression. “There’s always one, isn’t there?”

  Chapter 18

  After the butterfly incident, the Vanguard decided they had enough information from me and permitted me to go home. I bounced in the driver’s seat of Andy’s SUV, holding onto the steering wheel to keep my hands busy as I stared at the door to the Vanguard’s offices.

  “They said they were sending him right out,” Peasblossom mumbled from where she was trying to sleep in my coat collar.

  “They should have let me walk him out.” I bit my lip, unwilling to look away from the glass doors for even a second. “How hard would it be to break into the Vanguard’s headquarters?”

  “For me, easy. For you, I wouldn’t try it.” She grunted and rolled over, curling her back against mine. “MacTyre wouldn’t lie to you about releasing them. If he said he’d send Andy and Laurie out, then he’ll send them out. If he wanted to keep them, he’d have said so to your face.”

  My phone beeped, letting me know I had a text. I dug it out of the side pocket of my pouch. My stomach sank.

  “Who is it?”

  “Flint.” I scanned the text.

  “What’s he say?” Peasblossom asked.

  “He’d like to have a word.”

  Peasblossom snorted. “What’s he really say?”

  I sighed. “He’s not happy about how the evening washed out.” I texted him back, assuring him the Vanguard had not asked about him beyond confirming he was my master, as per the auction last year. Flint must have made it clear to them he’d tried to keep me from meeting with the kelpies, which would explain why they’d questioned me about our contract when I’d first arrived at the interrogation room.

  Another text message. “I don’t know why he always needs to meet me in person,” I grumbled. “Why can’
t we text like normal people?”

  Peasblossom snorted. “You know why he wants to see you in person.”

  I didn’t respond to that. I’d pushed my luck with the leannan sidhe, and I didn’t want to dwell on what our next meeting would entail. Instead, I sent him a text telling him I could meet him tomorrow evening. His response made me grit my teeth.

  “He wants to meet at my house.”

  Peasblossom rolled over. “You’re in for it now.”

  Majesty made that horrifying growl/purr/scream cats were capable of and bolted from where he’d been reclining under the rear windshield to leap over the backseat, bounce off the passenger headrest, and back to his original spot. He sat there, tense and staring out the rear windshield, tail lashing side to side. Then he laid down neat as you please, just a fluffy kitten gazing at the stars.

  “I hate it when he does that,” Peasblossom grumbled. “There’s no reason for it. None.”

  “Let she who is without weird habits cast the first— There he is!”

  Peasblossom didn’t rouse from her sleeping spot as I sat up straighter, attention locked on the entrance to the Vanguard’s building. Andy was barely recognizable. Not because he seemed injured, the healers had done excellent work and there wasn’t a mark on him. But they seemed to share Mother Hazel’s view of wasting magic, and so hadn’t bothered to fix his clothes. The man shambling toward the SUV was not the sharp-dressed, cool and collected FBI agent I knew.

  Andy walked to his vehicle bare-chested, the ruined remains of his bloody shirt gripped in his fist. Lake water and blood stained his pants, making them cling to his hips before hanging in stiff, broken lines over his legs. His hair stuck up at odd angles, stiff in places where blood had dried. He ruffled a hand through his hair, and I recognized the gesture. Sand had a habit of getting everywhere, and it was almost impossible to get out of your hair once you’d rolled around in it.

  I half-fell out of the car in my hurry to get to him. “Are you all right?”

  He blinked at me, bracing his feet shoulder width apart and leaning forward, as if it required more effort to speak than it should have. “Yes.”

  I waited but he didn’t say anything else. And he’d stopped moving. My nerves tightened until they hummed, and my hands fluttered at my sides as I debated whether I should let him lean on me to get to the car. I didn’t doubt that the healers had done an incredible job, the infection gone and the wound sealed. But healing didn’t help exhaustion.

  The door to the building opened, and Laurie stepped out. Or Lorelei. I tensed.

  “It’s me, Mother Renard.” Laurie smiled, the expression tired, but reassuring.

  The Italian accent was more comforting than her words, and I relaxed. “Sorry, just checking. It’s been a rough night, I’m not sure I’m in the mindset to deal with a demon.”

  She sighed and shoved her hands through her tangled hair. “I feel I must apologize. If I’d had any idea how complicated this case would grow, I never would have dragged you into it.” She snorted. “I certainly never would have left you alone with her for so long if I could have avoided it.” She eyed Andy with concern. “Are you all right, Agent Bradford?”

  Andy nodded, then stopped as if he’d forgotten why he was responding. He put a hand to his temple. “I need to rest.”

  He was facing the vehicle, not the paladin, so he didn’t notice the way her attention lingered on his back. On his scars. Laurie met my eyes, a question in her gaze. I shook my head. I still hadn’t found an appropriate time to ask him about the scars. Given the line Andy drew between human and Other, I’m not sure there would ever be a time.

  “Healing that much that fast will drain your energy. You need food too,” I told him. “Come on, I’ll stop at a drive-through.”

  Andy didn’t insist on driving, which could have been a good thing or a bad thing. I studied him as he eased his body into the passenger seat. Something about his breathing didn’t sound right.

  “You shouldn’t be in pain.” I frowned. “The healers here are among the best in the world.”

  “Not in pain. Just tired.”

  He wasn’t just tired, but if he didn’t want to talk about it, I’d let it go. For now.

  Laurie slid into the backseat and fastened her seatbelt. Majesty cracked open one eye, giving her a look that suggested she should have asked permission before encroaching on his new territory. I froze with the keys hovering in front of the ignition. “Peasblossom, watch Majesty, will you? Warn me if he’s about to do something dangerous while I’m driving.”

  “No,” Peasblossom said, her voice muffled by my coat collar. “I’m tired and I’m going to sleep. If you’re concerned about safety, throw the beast out of the car.”

  I pressed my lips into a thin line.

  “I’ll watch him,” Laurie offered.

  “Thank you.” I aimed my next sentence at the stubborn pixie. “It’s nice to know someone can put others’ needs over their own.”

  Peasblossom snored.

  I rolled my eyes and started the car, easing out of the parking lot and heading toward Laurie’s house. I’d already set the address into the GPS while I was waiting for Andy.

  “How are you feeling, Laurie?” I asked.

  “Much better, thank you.” She relaxed in her seat, petting Majesty with a gentle touch. A soft purring filled the car. “I can’t believe I was being hunted by a bounty hunter. You would think after a thousand years, I’d have seen it all.”

  “I should have figured out what he’d done sooner,” I apologized. “He took me by surprise too.” I paused. “So they neutralized the poison? Clean bill of health?”

  “They had to hold Lorelei down to make certain it left my system. She didn’t appreciate that.” The last sentence smacked of smug satisfaction. “It was the most peace I’ve had in a long time.”

  I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. I wanted to ask her if the ministry had told her about their stance on future exorcisms for her and Lorelei, but I wasn’t certain how to bring it up.

  “They told me,” she said quietly.

  I sighed. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. At least now I can stop…waiting.”

  Something about her voice suggested she’d been about to say “hoping” but changed her mind at the last second.

  “Evelyn pointed out that my situation is an opportunity to serve God as no other paladin ever has. By giving up my life, or half of my life, I can stop untold suffering.”

  I’d already heard the speech from Evelyn, but I didn’t stop Laurie. She needed to say it all out loud, to convince herself it was true.

  “For one thousand years, I’ve held Lorelei trapped inside me. Looking back with my renewed focus, I can see the change in her.” She gazed out the window. “In the early days, I would awake after she’d taken control and see what she’d done and…” She stopped. “I won’t give you the details. But the distinction between me and the demon was much sharper.”

  She petted Majesty again. “But there has been change. I’m not in any way suggesting that she’s not still an evil creature who glories in sin and sex and violence, but she is different.”

  Again, I stopped myself from speaking up. Peasblossom hadn’t sensed evil when she was around Lorelei, so despite what Laurie claimed, the demon was no longer pure evil.

  “She is hedonistic, yes, and her habits are…” Laurie wrinkled her nose. “Distasteful. But she has not killed—other than in self-defense,” she added. “And she has not corrupted anyone against their will.”

  I’d thought Andy was sleeping, but now he met Laurie’s eyes. “Thomas said she brainwashed the Acolytes. You disagree?”

  “Yes. I’ve spoken to them at length. I’ll admit, at first I treated them as Thomas did. As children and fools led down the wrong path by someone older and more sinister than they could ever imagine. But Father Salvatore often spoke of listening to hear instead of listening to respond. He said if we only listen to lost sheep with t
he intention to argue with them, convert them, then we are disrespecting them as souls worthy of God’s love. We must listen and truly hear them, understand them.”

  Majesty leapt into her lap, arching his back into her hand. She stroked him absent-mindedly. “The Acolytes show a sad lack of interest in the greater good, but they are not evil, and they are not misled. They’ve chosen a hedonistic outlook because that suits their needs and desires.” She shrugged. “And who knows? Perhaps we will learn from each other.”

  I waited for Andy to respond, but he was leaning his forehead against the window. His chest rose and fell evenly, as if he’d fallen asleep.

  “I think,” Laurie continued, “that this will require a significant shift in point of view. I’m not suggesting that this is easy, that I’m not…disappointed that I can’t…” She laughed. “It’s so odd, isn’t it? To be disappointed I’m not allowed to die?”

  “You dedicated your life to service, with the understanding that your reward would be an eternity in paradise with your God.” I glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “It must be difficult to relinquish that idea.”

  Silence dragged on between us, long enough that I almost apologized. Perhaps that last comment had been out of line. After all, I wasn’t a paladin. What did I know about cushy afterlives? I fully expected to go another round on this plane when I finished this turn of the wheel.

  Laurie spoke again a split second before the apology left my mouth. “I am guilty of pride.” She said the words as if she were testing them, feeling the truth as she spoke.

  “In what way?” I asked.

  Laurie stroked Majesty until the purring grew louder. “If I’m honest, I had a self-view very similar to a famous actress. I was renowned for my skill, sought by the most powerful, the most influential of world leaders. I could perform miracles that others could not. I served God, but that service brought me fame and praise.”

  She kept petting Majesty, her face twisting as if she were trying to follow an elusive train of thought. “Now I am playing street theater. Performing smaller works for people outside the circles of my old life. I let that change in my circumstances make me doubt everything I was. I let my reputation define me instead of the other way around. I should have listened more to Father Salvatore. He always told me that serving God is not just about performing miracles and preaching the gospel. Sometimes it is being the one to sit with someone after the loss of a loved one, or seeking donations to feed and clothe those who cannot do it themselves.”