From the gold and crystal pendant that rested on Jeremy’s chest came a single clear note, silver and beautiful. Bob flinched as if the sound was filled with pins. Prosperine whimpered and backed away, her arms coming up as if she feared being struck.
Jeremy reached for his champagne flute again. “I’m less alone than it may appear.”
“Of course,” Bob said. “And no need to bother your guardian angel. We’ve heard of Shadowheart and have no desire to provoke a meeting with her.”
“Prosperine,” he turned to the woman. “Wait outside.”
She walked away without a backward glance, the pantherish power and grace of her movement catching the attention of all the men and some of the women in the restaurant.
Jeremy pulled his glance back to Bob with an effort.
“Jeremy, what I like about you is that you’re smart. So many people on both sides see it all in black and white. You’re wise enough to see a need for some gray. Take your…relationship… with Debbie Middleton.”
This time it was Jeremy’s turn to flinch. The vampiress was his sometime ally and occasional bedmate. He couldn’t say lover; Debbie’s arrangement with him was more pragmatic, part of a truce between her and humanity. But she remained a vampire and a source of friction with his guardian angel. “Let’s leave her out of this.”
“Sure. I’m just envious. Anyway my point is that you see the need for accommodations, for boundaries. After all, there has to be a Yin for your Yang.”
“I gather you would like to set some boundaries?” Jeremy replied.
Bob nodded. “Exactly. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t fight evil. Let’s just say you get around to my evil last, after you clean up everything else. Then if we have to dance, well, we dance.”
“What exactly is your particular evil?” Jeremy asked. The waitress returned with menus and they shelved the discussion until she retreated to a discreet distance.
“Nothing disgusting I assure you,” Bob said. “I do high-end evil. None of this blood and guts stuff. Hell, this is a banking town. I can do all the evil I want financially. I’m the guy that makes sure the developers get everything they want. I arrange for arenas when the voters turn them down. I had light rail put in the wrong place for twice the price.”
“Are you the reason the local Democratic Party never runs anything for office but a dead cat?”
Bob laughed. “Oh, those guys don’t need my help. They’re aces on their own.”
“Point is, I’m your local evil. I’m invested here. I like the place. Got a comfy home in Ballantyne, membership at the country club. I've got reasons to oppose these out-of-towners kibitzing in with their apocalyptic, kill everyone and make Charlotte a big smoking pit, type of evil.”
“What do I get out of this arrangement?”
“For one thing, a truce with me. Not inconsiderable. I’ve been the death of many a soldier of light. Beyond that, information and assistance in rubbing out selected evil.”
Jeremy laughed. “You’re going to help me destroy other evildoers?”
“What do they teach you guys these days? We’re not organized like your side, with God and angels at the top. Essentially we’re all independent contractors locked in a literally cut-throat competition.”
“What about your allegiance to the Dark Lord?”
Bob looked over his shoulder. “Enough with the names already, sometimes they summon things. Look, I pay my dues to the big guy and kiss his ring at the Vegas convention, but other than that I’m my own demon.” Bob picked up a menu. “Shall we order something?”
“How do I know you haven’t arranged for me to be poisoned?”
“Let’s make a pact. Pewter Rose will be totally safe, kind of like holy ground in Highlander. I loved that series.”
“And what oath of yours would I trust, Demon?”
“Hey,” Bob said, with an injured air. “I swear it.”
The crystal on Jeremy’s chest chimed again and Bob’s pleasant veneer slipped.
“Now you know the power that guarantees your oath,” Jeremy said. He waved the server over and ordered the most expensive items on the menu. Evil would suffer tonight, if only in the pocketbook.
After a few seconds Bob recovered his good humor and joined him.
“Your offer is intriguing, but I want to see some more tangible benefit than just your not trying to kill me.” Jeremy said, watching as Bob drained more champagne with relish and no evident effect.
“Of course,” Bob said. “Witches, my friend, it’s witches. A coven of bad ass wiccans is moving in with lawyers, guns and money. There are places on the earth where certain unnatural forces occur. These forces wax and wane and only adepts can use them. There’s a pool of magical force collecting in Charlotte at the site of the Coliseum.
“What the locals used to call the Hive, from when the Charlotte Hornets were here?” Jeremy said. “But they blew that up even though it was only nineteen years old.”
“Yeah, my doing. It was kind of an evil twofer. I conned the city into putting it in the wrong place and bankrolling the owner. Millions down the rat hole.” Bob grinned rapturously. “You see, I knew a force pool would form there and I finished the con by getting the City to blow it up. It’s not a force amenable to demonic control, so I’d set up pentagram to divert the force pool to somewhere out of my territory, but something broke the pentagram. The force pool has only been delayed in forming. And it is calling out to those who could use it, witches and warlocks.
“The Agnesi coven is trying to buy the site so they can have a ritual there. They’ll use the pool to boost their power and ascend to a higher realm. It'll leave the launching pad, our fair Queen City, in smoking ruin. They’re already setting up Al-Queda to take the fall for it. Not that I object to that, fuck those ragheads.
“Since I thought the pool was destroyed, I didn’t try to buy the property and there’s no way I could outbid the Agnesi anyway. Fortunately, there isn’t a major law firm in this town I don’t do business with, so I know the lawyer repping them. In fact, Bob Lanier just won a lawsuit for me. We’ll be taking possession of a nice piece of change shortly.
“So, Jeremy, it’s going to be up to you to save the town. I can’t go up against the Agnesi directly; they know me, but I’ll loan you what aid I can, including Prosperine.”
Jeremy grimaced. “Lovely, does she like Friskies Buffet and scratches behind the ear?”
“She’s a kinky minx and I’ll leave you to find out what she likes on your own, if you dare. But she’ll be useful against witches. As a familiar, she’s resistant to their spells.”
“Any ideas on how to stop them?”
“You’re a bright boy, Jeremy,” Bob said with a grin. “You’ll think of something.”
Dinner arrived, surf and turf, with glorious side dishes and a fine French Beaujolais.
“Dig in, Templar,” Bob said. “This is, after all, what we’re both prepared to die to protect.”
After an excellent dinner, Jeremy made his slightly unsteady way back to the parking lot, leaving Bob to head into the cigar bar with some cronies for brandy.
Shadowheart waited for him outside by his red Mini Cooper. She was, he noted with relief, in her more terrestrial form, a small blond girl with cornflower blue eyes dressed in jeans, a peasant blouse and a denim vest. Her archangel manifestation was a formidable seven-feet of black-haired warrior princess, with red and black wings. Neither body was human, merely formed ectoplasm, and sometimes she appeared only as an image.
She looked up at him. “So it’s not enough you’re regularly banging a vampiress, now we’re working with demons?”
Jeremy sighed. Shadowheart’s manifestation seemed to affect her speech and attitude and the snarkiness of her late teen incarnation was a cross to bear. “Three times is hardly regularly and the first time wasn’t my idea.”
“She had little trouble persuading you.”
“With what Debbie knows about sex and the human body after two
hundred years she could persuade the College of Cardinals. As for the demon, I trust him no more than you do. But he’s bound to his oath made in front of you.”
“Don’t overestimate that,” she warned. “You’re safe from him and catwoman to the sidewalk over there,” she gestured at South Boulevard. “He knows not to strike at you directly; that would free my wings. But his familiar is a creature of space-time like you. My mandate does not allow me to strike the creatures of the Realm of Earth, save under specific violations of the Code of the Balance.”
“What a damn shame that eating my innards isn’t one of those,” Jeremy grumbled.
Shadowheart shrugged. “You’re the guys who always go on about free will. Well, heaven can’t interfere while you want to be more than puppets. You ask me; all this free will crap is overrated.”
“Did I ask you?” Jeremy said. “Anyway we need to check out this story of his about Wiccans from hell nuking my adopted hometown. It would look bad on my annual review if I lost a whole city. What do you know?”
Shadowheart shrugged again, looking cross. “Little. Witches are still live humans and I cannot see them astrally. Not clearly anyway. More of that damn free will. The Agnesi coven is made up of thirty witches. I doubt that they are all here, but these are powerful creatures, Jeremy, intelligent, ruthless and subtle. A direct attack is not a good idea.”
“Was Diablesse telling the truth about the pool of magical force?”
Shadowheart’s lips drew into a grim line. “Yes. I checked in the overworld while you were at dinner. It’s there and it is growing. It should ripen around the witch’s holiday of Mabon. If it is not used immediately, it will dissipate.”
“September 23nd,” Jeremy mused. “Three days, not a lot of time. Diablesse’s banking connections have found the Agnesi’s office space and he knows their bankers and lawyers. They have a lunch meeting on the deal tomorrow.”
“Bon appétit,” Shadowheart said. “Just don’t end up on the menu.”
*****
For lack of a better plan, Jeremy wanted to see his enemies. Diablesse had told him of the meeting and given him a number to contact Prosperine. She met Jeremy in the underground garage below The Green, Charlotte’s newest downtown park. She was leaning against a silver Porsche almost as powerful and sleek as herself. Jeremy walked up but stopped far enough away to draw the bloodsword from its concealed sheath in his custom-made, black leather longcoat. “So, do you talk or what?”
“My master,” she said in throaty Lauren Bacall voice, “orders that I ally with you until his work is done. I don’t like it.”
Between eye-blinks, Shadowheart appeared between Prosperine and Jeremy. This time she was in archangel mode, her long blue-black hair spilled down her between her shoulders to the belt that held her own sword. Jeremy had a moment to see Prosperine’s terrified face before Shadowheart’s red and black wings spread, blocking the sight of the familiar. Then Shadowheart was gone as if she was never there. Prosperine stood pressed against her Porsche, rigid with terror.
“My side,” Jeremy said mildly, “doesn’t like my working with you either.”
Prosperine straightened slowly. She had to pull her fingers out of holes in the Porsche’s sheet metal. Jeremy made a mental note of the claws.
“Let’s see what we are up against,” Jeremy said.
“Yes,” Prosperine returned, straightening her clothing in an exaggerated display of calm. “Bob says they’re meeting at the Ratcliffe.”
“Good,” Jeremy replied. “We’ll get a table nearby. Your side will pick up the tab.”
The two took the stairs out of the garage, with Jeremy shedding his black coat. Charlotte was shirtsleeve weather in September.
As they walked through the park, Jeremy studied his companion. He suspected her to be more a panther in the form of a woman than a woman who could change to a panther, but even his trained senses could pick up little magical about her. Prosperine seemed as comfortable in the bright fall sunshine as did he. Her elegant suit covered a body that was more toned than muscular, but there was an extra power in her walk that attracted the eye. Her skin was pale and her red hair shone, her eyes were wide and green betraying her feline origin. A human would have to squint in such full sun.
“Take a picture,” she growled.
They crossed the park to the Ratcliffe. It had been a flower shop in the 1920s and retained its beautiful Tiffany stained-glass windows and bright yellow walls. They took a table in the back. The server brought over menus. Jeremy ordered a plate of appetizers, Pasta Alfredo and bottle of Pellegrino.
The server, a fresh-faced girl of about nineteen, asked, “And for the lady?”
“Do you have any fresh mice?” Jeremy asked.
The server gave an uncertain laugh.
Prosperine ignored the comment and the laugh. “I’ll have the tuna poki and a Chardonnay.”
As the server departed, probably wishing she could trade tables, Jeremy turned to Prosperine. “That Bob of yours must have a forgiving expense account.”
“He isn’t mine,” she growled. “And I’m his only under duress. He devoured my last mistress.”
“Not happy with your employer?”
“Who’s happy being subject to the will of others?” she asked.
“Se la guerre,” Jeremy said.
Appetizers arrived and forestalled further conversation. By the time the main course was served, Jeremy was beginning to wonder if they had picked the wrong restaurant. The doors opened at that moment and in walked six striking women trailed by a number of more ordinary, if well-dressed, men and women. The servers scrambled to get together the long table to hold the party.
“The coven,” Prosperine whispered, delicately poking at her tuna sushi with chopsticks. “The others are the bankers from Worldbank and Lanier and Boswell lawyers. Worldbank is bankrolling the wiccans.”
“Wow,” Jeremy said, “that has to be the most gorgeous coven of witches in history.”
Next to him, Prosperine made a cat-like hiss of disgust. “They invest so much of their power in appearance. Below the glamour they’re only ordinary women, even ugly ones.”
“So why the glamour?” Jeremy asked.
“To manipulate simple-minded men. You invest beautiful women with all manner of virtues they don’t have. You laugh harder at the pretty woman’s jokes, praise shallow wit as deep thought and will do harder tasks for a woman you desire, than one you don’t.”
“Hard to argue that point,” Jeremy said. “I notice you chose an appealing form.”
“I didn’t choose it. Bob did. I would rather run on all fours and sink my fangs into the skulls of creatures like you. Thank the Dark Lord that Diablesse likes an athletic build and didn’t choose to hang big tits off me. Look at the black-haired cow in the middle. Those aren’t even real looking.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Jeremy replied. “Which one do you think is the leader?”
“The bright blonde must be Agnesi; I sense power dripping off her. I don’t think I’ve seen such a powerful witch in decades. The twin brunettes are the Echol sisters, the cow is Llewellen, the black woman is Saytha and the Asian is Kitsune.”
Jeremy studied the women surreptitiously, memorizing the details of their faces. If they caught him looking they would put it down to their collective beauty. The blonde had an elegant Germanic look to her. She caught Jeremy’s eye and gave a reflexive smile then her eyes tracked past him to Prosperine, who suddenly busied herself with her food. The smile faded slightly and turned to a frown, then Agnesi was distracted by her companions and said something that set the table laughing.
“Tell me she doesn’t know you,” Jeremy said, with a forkful of pasta in front of his lips.
“She knew my mistress,” Prosperine said, “but not me.”
“Wish I could hear what they are saying,”
“Easy enough,” said Prosperine. “They cast a spell around their table to keep their conversation unintelligible- it won’t wor
k on me. Hold my hand.”
Jeremy moved his chair closer and took Prosperine’s left hand as her right, concealed from the witches by the table, whipped through a series of intricate moves. Suddenly it was if they were at the same table with the coven.
“The contract price is agreeable,” Agnesi said, “and we’ll sign the memorandum of understanding now with the final paperwork to follow. But we want the transfer done by the morning of the 23rd.”
A balding man of about fifty frowned at her. “This is all highly unusual. A deal like this normally takes months to set up.”
“The inconvenience and our unusual needs are why we’re paying the premium we have offered you. Worldbank has our financing. They’ll send the money to the Lanier Trust fund and then by wire to the owners in the morning. We are waiving all risk on clouded title or appraisal. We simply need access to the property as quickly as possible.”
“Of course,” he said, “though I would give anything to know the reason for such haste.”
Agnesi smiled at him, “If you are in town on the afternoon of the 23rd you’ll learn everything then.”
The luncheon continued with details of the transaction being discussed at length. Jeremy scribbled surreptitious notes. A plan began to unfold in his head. When the meeting broke up, Jeremy and Prosperine dallied over desert so the coven could leave ahead of them.
“Get the check,” Jeremy said. “Tip extravagantly as we’ve killed this table for two hours. Then get hold of Bob. He needs to get into Lanier’s office as soon as he can and switch the keyboard for Lanier's computer with one I’ll give you when you come by my office tonight. I suspect your boss has off-shore accounts. I’ll need the information on how to transfer some money into one. He’d better be prepared to move the funds instantly to other accounts.”
“Could I polish your shoes too?” she said with mock sweetness.
“Hey, be good and there’s some catnip in it for you.”
“Keep it up with the jokes, human. That’s quite a tab you’re racking up.”
“Tell Bob he’ll have to get Lanier out of his office tomorrow night and you hidden up there so you can let me in.”
Knight in Charlotte Page 5