by Sharon Joss
CHAPTER 26
Rhys followed me from room to room, as I tore the my apartment apart, searching for the journal. I hunted everywhere, but all I found only a gleam in Rhys’ eyes as he considered my unmade bed.
“The journal isn’t here. I must have left it at Lance’s.”
“No problem.”
We arrived at Lance’s house in minutes. I unlocked the front door to discover the place had been ransacked. All the cushions had been pulled off the couch, the furniture had been moved around, and drawers and cupboards had been left open.
At first I thought Hector had come back. My heart pounded as I raced from room to room, to no avail. The journal wasn’t in the living room, the kitchen, or Mina’s bedroom either.
“It’s not here.” Rhys handed me a search warrant. “The FBI took the journal with them. It’s listed right here on the receipt.”
I stamped my foot in frustration at my own stupidity. “Oh man, I can’t believe I left it here. We’ve got to get that journal back.”
Rhys pulled out his cell phone. “Maybe Frank can help us out.” He dialed, and put the phone on speaker so I could hear.
“You’re out of luck.” Porter was adamant. “That journal is the smoking gun the taskforce needed to get the arrest warrant for Lance McNair. That diary is hot property. Nobody is going to get their hands on it anytime soon.”
“What are you talking about? She wrote the journal decades before Lance was even born. It doesn’t have anything to do with him.” I looked to Rhys.
“I can’t say anything specific, other than the journal talks about a series of murders back in the thirties. We checked, and the journal entries coincide with the newspaper accounts of the time.”
“They should, we’re the ones that told you about it.”
“Well, the new theory is that the journal gave McNair the idea for using a demon as a murder weapon. When you start looking at the body count, the feds are now talking about a weapon of mass destruction. The paranormal branch of the counter-terrorism task force has been asked to step in. I am now officially assigned to the case.”
Rhys grimaced. “They think Lance is the demon master.”
“He knew several of the victims.”
“Oh come on, Frank. This is a small town. Everybody knows somebody dead here.”
“He was hiding from law enforcement.”
“No he wasn’t. Not really.” I ran my hands through my hair. “This is all my fault.”
Porter wasn’t finished. “There’s nothing more I can tell you, other than to say your brother is in deep shit. They are even talking about bringing in the National Guard to quarantine the town. I want you both down here in less than an hour for a formal interview.”
Rhys hung up. “If the taskforce is going after Lance, they’re coming after us, too. At the very least, they’re going to want to lock us up in a room somewhere for hours of interrogation. We can’t spare the time. We’ve got to get out of here.”
I hesitated. Never in my life had I disobeyed a law officer, but Rhys had the right idea. The only way to take suspicion off my brother was to find the demon master ourselves, even if we had to ignore a direct order from Porter. This was definitely crossing the line.
“Okay, let’s go.” I already knew where. There were a lot more journals at my great-grandmother’s house, and no one would think to look for us there.
Rhys parked the truck around the corner from the big Queen Anne, and I followed him through the alley toward the back of the house. To my surprise, he had a key. He opened the door and we went in. I followed him through the darkened kitchen, sniffing the air for licorice, but smelled nothing more than my own little posse; the big djemon was long gone. Rhys turned on the lights in the front parlor while I closed the curtains. We immediately turned to the journals, and Rhys started flipping through one of my great-grandmother’s green diaries. After a moment he put it down and started flipping through another.
“A lot of these are written in French. You don’t read French, do you?”
“No.” I gazed around the cluttered parlor. The room such a strong reflection of my great-grandmother’s personality, I could almost feel her presence. I wanted to stop and examine every photo and read each framed certificate, but the journals were waiting.
I sank down to my knees and began paging through the closest leather-bound volume. Sure enough, most of the cramped entries were written in miniscule French script. The woman had been a prolific writer. Just looking at the pages made me sleepy. I flipped the book closed and checked the date on the spine, which said 1922.
“There is no way we can get through all this tonight, Rhys. I’m so tired I can’t see straight. What if that big djemon comes back?” Rhys ignored me, totally engrossed with the journal in his hands. I threw a pillow at him.
“What?” He glanced at me, then back to the journals. “Oh, sorry. Until the other day, I didn’t know about these. If they are what I think they are, they document the entire oral history of her family tree, going back generations. This is an incredible find.” He began to page through another volume.
“Earth to Professor Warrick. We need to focus here, remember?” Being a mage, I imagined these old dusty journals appealed to Rhys as much as Lucky Charms appealed to me. I picked up a later volume, dated 1940. “Hey, this one’s in English. Where’s 1931? We should start there.”
“I’ve got it right here. A good bit is written in French, but most is English. I think I’ve got someone who can do this translation for us.” His voice was distant. He was already deep into reading the entries.
I found 1932 and turned to the first page. Sure enough, the entry had been written in English. The room was stuffy, my eyes heavy, and the penmanship tiny and perfect. All the lines jumbled together, and I closed my eyes for just a moment, but that was all it took.