J.L. Doty - Dead Among Us 01 - When Dead Ain’t Dead Enough (14 page)

“Belinda, my dear,” It said, “I have a task for you. You must bring back that foolish and troublesome Tertius. And then I think I’ll have you play a more direct role in this young Lord’s seduction.”

Chapter 9: Elves?

McGowan helped a badly dazed Paul up to one of the spare bedrooms, helped him out of his clothes and into bed, then spelled him into a deep sleep. He called a doctor, a friend and an arcane practitioner who understood the need for discretion.

The doctor prodded and poked, peeled back eyelids and did other doctor things. “He was conscious when you brought him up here?”

“Pretty groggy,” McGowan said, “badly dazed. Nasty smack on the head when he hit the floor.”

“Remove the sleep spell, please.”

McGowan extinguished the spell and Paul responded immediately. “Wassa happens  . . .” He tried to lift his head, blinked his eyes.

The doctor pressed Paul’s shoulders back down to the bed. “I’m a doctor. You’ve had a bump on the head and I’m examining you, so hold still.”

That calmed Paul a little. The doctor did more prodding and poking while asking Paul a continuous stream of questions. Paul answered each in a reasonably coherent fashion, though between answers he kept mumbling about snake-legged demons.

The doctor looked at McGowan. “It would be helpful if he slept now.”

McGowan renewed the sleep spell and Paul lay back peacefully.

The doctor stitched up a few cuts and bandaged them while commenting, “Nasty concussion, though not life threatening. But it wouldn’t hurt to have Colleen do some healing on that. She’s better at that than me.

“Couple of nasty cuts, some serious bruising, but no broken bones. Fellow took quite a beating.”

When the doctor finished McGowan escorted him to the front door, thanked him, then returned to the bedroom where Paul slept peacefully. From the small wastebasket near the bed he retrieved a bloody bandage and examined it carefully. With threads containing Paul’s blood he could locate Paul almost anywhere, at least while the blood remained fresh; perhaps three or four days.

And Katherine’s bloody nose had dripped all over the floor of his workshop. He had the means at hand to keep a close eye on both of them. With that thought, he turned and headed for his workshop.

McGowan was standing before the fireplace in his study when the knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. He’d been contemplating the flames in the hearth, trying to see in them some insight into young Conklin. He didn’t turn from the flames as he said, “Come in, Sarah,” knowing with his wizard’s senses it was the woman he employed as an assistant, a witch of medium strength who would not look askance at his unusual lifestyle.

“There’s a man at the front door, Mr. McGowan. He wishes to see you, and he offered his card.”

McGowan turned toward Sarah. She was an attractive, older woman, though there’d never been anything between them but shared loyalty and mutual friendship. And trust; he trusted her implicitly. They met in the middle of the room, she held out the visitor’s card, and said, “And he’s clearly a Sidhe mage, Seelie Court, I’d say, and powerful.”

McGowan took the card, knowing that since it was meant for him it would be blank to her eyes. For him it bore one, single word:
Cadilus
.

She added, “I didn’t give him permission to cross your threshold.”

Sarah was not strong in arcane powers, but McGowan had attuned the wards of his house to her so she could activate them even if he was absent. Even one so powerful as Cadilus wouldn’t attempt to breach such defenses. “Please tell Colleen Cadilus has come, and ask her to wait for us here in my study. I’ll see to this personally.”

Sarah smiled and said, “I thought you might,” then turned and left the room. McGowan followed her out into the hall. She turned toward her office at the back of the house and he turned toward the front door. When he opened it, he found Cadilus waiting there casually, a sardonic half-smile on his face.

“Old Wizard,” the Sidhe mage said politely. In front of mortals he always affected the appearance of a British diplomat: expensive, conservatively cut, dark, pinstripe suit, white shirt, dark tie. And though he hadn’t opted for the Bowler hat, he did carry a silver-tipped walking stick. His dark hair had just the right hint of gray at the temples, and he spoke with a refined accent. The pointed ears were hidden by a glamour, but McGowan knew the aristocratic nose, cheeks and jaw line were as close to the reality of Cadilus as any mortal would ever see.

McGowan chose his words carefully. “Lord Cadilus, I’m honored. I’d invite you in  . . .” he said, taking great care to insure there was no invitation in his words until the proper protections had been agreed to, “ . . . but I must have your parole before doing so.”

Cadilus smiled, though the smile contained no mirth or joy. “We’ve been friends for so long, Old Wizard, you know I have only your best interests at heart. You can rest assured I’ll bring no harm to you.”

McGowan shook his head sadly. “Your parole. Now. Plainly spoken, with none of the dissembling typical of Sidhe promises, or there’ll be no conversation between us today.”

Cadilus shrugged and sighed. “While I am your guest, I’ll take no action against you, your family, friends, guests, acquaintances, colleagues or enemies. I’ll leave nothing behind, not a hair, a fiber, a whim or a wish, nothing magical, nether, or mundane. I ask of you only audience. You have my parole, and that of my queen. But only while I’m your guest.”

McGowan stepped to one side and gestured down the hallway. “Well then, old friend. Please join me in my study.” He looked at Cadilus and smiled warmly. “I have some of that cognac you like so much.”

Colleen was waiting for them in his study, but it was a different Colleen who stood before the fireplace looking into the flames as McGowan had looked earlier. She was turned away from them, and did not turn to face them as they entered. Her hair had been carefully arrayed atop her head, and she wore a dark-green gown of rich brocade. Embroidered into it were Druid symbols that shifted with the shadows cast by the dancing flames of the fire. Like any women she could take hours to prepare for such a meeting, and yet she’d managed to change her appearance to that of an elegant courtier in a matter of seconds. And McGowan knew full well it was no illusion or glamour.

Cadilus stopped in the middle of the room and hesitated. Only Colleen could do that to an immortal Sidhe mage. He spoke tentatively, “Lady Armaugh!”

She didn’t react in any way for several seconds, then turned slowly to face him. “Lord Cadilus,” she said coldly, like the noblest of queens addressing a common peasant. Somehow, in all her court elegance, she still projected a hint of the savagery of her Celtic ancestors.

Cadilus stepped forward carefully, and dropped to one knee in front of her. She held out her hand and he kissed it gently, then he stood, and still holding her hand he said, “It’s been some time since I’ve had the pleasure of your company, Your Ladyship.”

Without moving a muscle her eyes glanced down disapprovingly at the hand he still held. He released it, and she said, “But you’re not here for the pleasure of my company.”

McGowan turned to the bar and poured three glasses of cognac. Colleen had known exactly how to put Cadilus off balance, or at least as off balance as an immortal Sidhe mage could be. McGowan had long suspected she and Cadilus had once been lovers. It also appeared Cadilus had done something to poison the relationship, and still regretted his mistake.

McGowan handed them each a glass, got them seated in two high-back chairs, decided to remain standing. Cadilus took a sip of the cognac, looked at McGowan. “It is excellent cognac, Old Wizard.”

Colleen said, “Nor are you here to discuss the quality of the old man’s cognac.”

Cadilus nodded his acquiescence almost imperceptibly, then spoke slowly. “My queen wishes me to inquire after some arcane incidents recently manifested on the Mortal Plane.” He paused and looked carefully at Colleen, then at McGowan. “Incidents in which you played some role, Old Wizard. Are you trafficking in demons now?”

McGowan swirled the cognac in his glass. “And why would you ask that, Lord Cadilus?”

Cadilus ignored his question. “These incidents involved your daughter, and a young sorcerer of which we had previously been unaware. And someone in this house opened a portal to the Netherworld, a portal of the kind that might portend chaos and destruction in our realm as well as yours. Is this young mage a demon, or demon possessed? Need we concern ourselves that he might be a danger to us all? Need the Seelie Court act in this matter?”

McGowan watched Cadilus stroll down the sidewalk away from his house, and as the probability of the Sidhe’s existence on the Mortal Plane diminished, his image slowly grew translucent, then disappeared altogether. The old man and Colleen had verbally sparred with the Sidhe for more than an hour, attempting to gain as much information as possible, and yield only enough to keep the Sidhe Courts out of it.

Back in his study Colleen had returned to wearing her Druid garb. He asked her, “Do you think they’ll stay out of it?”

“For the time being,” she said. “But they’re going to watch closely.”

McGowan stepped up to the fireplace and looked into the flames again. “I didn’t like that question about Conklin being a demon. It’s natural for them to ask if he’s demon possessed, but to ask if he’s actually a demon. I don’t like that.”

“Neither do I,” Colleen whispered. “Especially since it’s a concern I share.”

McGowan turned to her sharply. “Why do you say that?”

McGowan could see fear in her eyes as she spoke. “Because I’m not sure he’s human. Because I don’t know what he is. And he could be quite dangerous.”

Paul struggled to find consciousness. In a bleary state half way there he recalled a sequence of half-formed, disjointed memories of some doctor working on him. He recalled something about a “serious concussion,” and some of the memories clearly belonged more to the land of delusion. Then there came a stretch of time in which he laid in bed, conscious, but with no volition to move, like sleeping in on a Sunday morning with the unfettered knowledge there were no demands on his time that day. And then, between one heartbeat and the next, he made that last leap to full consciousness.

It must’ve all been a dream. The story was just too fantastic to be real: demons and vampires and leprechauns, wizards and witches and sorcerers. He hoped Katherine McGowan was real, but he couldn’t believe the rest of this crap. The answer was clear enough. He’d hallucinated his wife and daughter so much lately he’d gone over the edge, had completely lost touch with reality and was lying in that bed in that straight jacket in that nut house he and Katherine had talked about.

He was lying in a nice, comfortable bed, covered in soft, maroon sheets. He sat up slowly, though his abdominal muscles complained painfully, had been strained a bit in his exertions. He was alone in a large bedroom with the kind of furnishings and decor that were far beyond his meager means. Someone had carefully bandaged his ribs and stitched up several cuts in his arms and shoulders. He threw back the sheets and paused for a moment to inspect the bruises on his legs and more stitched-up cuts. A clock on a nearby table told him it was early evening, though he didn’t know which evening.

He swung his legs off the bed and that hurt like hell. He sat there for a moment to catch his breath and let the pain subside, then climbed to his feet like a frail old man and was not surprised to learn his legs were still a bit unsteady. He wore nothing more than a lot of bandages. He spotted a pile of clothing folded neatly on a nearby chair, with a pair of his sneakers on the floor beneath it.

He shook out the shirt and pants. They weren’t the clothes he’d been wearing, but they were his so someone had gone to his apartment to retrieve them. He found the clothes he’d been wearing in a wastebasket near the bed: cut to shreds by the paramedics, torn further by his misadventures, caked with blood and sweat and that dirty brown grit from hell. He dropped them back into the wastebasket.

He dressed quickly, which wasn’t at all easy, and turned out to be a painful exercise that left him panting to catch his breath while the pain from a dozen injuries slowly receded. He found a small bathroom attached to the bedroom, was appalled at what he saw when he looked in the mirror. The left side of his face was badly swollen, had turned into one giant, yellowish-brown bruise. Cuts above his left eye, neck and cheek had been stitched, while several other cuts had been left to heal on their own. He carefully splashed water on his face and felt a little better.

He noticed his wallet and keys and a few coins sitting on a small writing desk against one wall. They hadn’t been in his pants when he’d retrieved them from beneath the bed in the hospital, so someone had gone to the trouble of retrieving them for him. He tested the bedroom door, found it unlocked and opened it cautiously, then stepped into a short hallway with three more doors like the one through which he’d just come. One end of the hall opened onto a broad staircase, the kind of space usage found in only the most expensive places in the city. Feeling like an intruder, he limped his way carefully down the stairway to what appeared to be an entrance foyer. A large door inset with leaded glass panels clearly opened to the outside world.

In the other direction he heard someone talking calmly. His recent delusions had made him paranoid enough to want to know what he was involved in, so he limped and tiptoed quietly down the hall to the back of the house. He stopped just short of the end of the hall and hung back in the shadows there. He could see just a little bit of the room beyond, barely enough to know it was a kitchen.