Shadow Rising (17 page)

He leaned down and gently brushed my lips with a kiss, then reached for Nerissa’s hand. She offered it to him, and he lifted her fingers to his lips and planted a firm, quick kiss on the top of her hand. He held it for a beat longer than necessary and Nerissa’s breath quickened, then she pulled away.

“As always, it’s a pleasure to see my beautiful consort, and her beloved.”

Oh, he was courtly, all right, and the vampires around us
were drinking it in. Several of the women shot me venomous looks, and I realized that they coveted my spot. I knew why, but even though I enjoyed Roman’s company, I would have happily given up the position, if I could have. I wasn’t cut out for courtside manners or decorum.

Roman settled in beside me, and his retinue of guards—some ten strong—followed suit, surrounding us with their presence. They included my sisters, Morio, and Rozurial within their protective circle.

Camille was sitting on the outside, next to Morio, and I glanced down the row at her. She was eyeing the vamp next to her with a combination of wariness and curiosity. He was a burly man, wearing dark glasses, and the standard garb that Roman’s contingent wore—black wraparound sunglasses, black turtleneck with the crest of Roman’s house on it, and black jeans.

I leaned close to Nerissa and whispered, “Looks like we’ve stumbled into some beatnik poetry slam.”

She snickered and covered her mouth with her hand, stifling a laugh. Roman glanced at me, amusement playing across his lips. He leaned over to whisper to both of us. “I happen to write poetry and if you two continue to make fun of my fashion choices for my bodyguards, I’ll make you listen to it.”

“It’s not
Vogon
poetry, is it?” Nerissa choked out.

Roman slapped his thigh with a thunderous laugh. “I’m afraid I can’t measure up to Douglas Adams’s standard for greatness, my dear.”

Just then, Wade took the podium. As always, he waved to the crowd and said, “Hi, I’m Wade, and I’m a vampire.”

“Hi, Wade!” the crowd thundered back.

Row by row, one by one, every vampire in the room stood, took their turn, and—like the “wave” in a sports arena—echoed the call.

It came to my turn. “Hi, I’m Menolly, and I’m a vampire.”

“Hi, Menolly!” The first few times, I’d developed a horrible case of the giggles when they’d echoed back to me, but now it was like an old shoe. While not fancy or flashy, the ritual was comforting.

As the meeting got under way, Wade had the secretary—my middle-aged daughter Erin—run through the minutes of the last meeting. I flashed her a smile and a wink. She had blossomed out the past month, and was coming into her own.

After the old business was finished, Wade said, “And now, Menolly D’Artigo has an urgent matter she wishes to speak to us about. Menolly—will you take the podium?”

I slid past the others in the row and stepped up to the podium. When renovating the mansion, Wade had had the construction workers build a three-foot-high stage in the front of the room in order for the speakers to be seen better. At my height, that was a good thing.

I tapped the microphone. “I won’t take up more time than necessary, but I have a couple of urgent questions. If anyone has any information, please see me and my sisters after the meeting, or call us if you remember anything. The desk will have our phone number.”

Pausing, I sought for the right way to approach the subject. “You know that my sisters and I are from Otherworld. We recently learned that a friend was sent over Earthside. He ended up in the White Center district of Seattle and has vanished. We’re worried about him. His name is Andrees, and he’s full-blood Otherworld Fae.” I ran down a description of him and added, “If you have seen him, or heard of him, or if you see him, please let us know.”

As a murmur went through the crowd—it always did after an announcement—I cleared my throat. “And on another subject, if anyone has any information on either the Aleksais Psychic Network, or someone by the name of Halcon Davis, would you please contact us. We just need to talk to them. Thank you.”

I leaped off the stage instead of using the stairs, noticing that Roman had leaned over to whisper something to Nerissa. Hoping he wasn’t pressuring her, I frowned and hurried toward them, but as I neared my seat, Camille held up her phone.

“Menolly, we have to book. We’ve got a problem.” She was already making her way toward the door, the others following her.

I glanced over at Wade and waved, then at Roman, who nodded his good-byes. As we headed to the door, I wanted to ask Nerissa what he’d said to her, but that would have to wait.

The look on Camille’s face was grim. “We can’t take Nerissa with us—it’s too dangerous.”

My girlfriend might be a werepuma but she wasn’t a trained fighter, and I wasn’t going to put her in more danger than she already was just because she was my fiancée. But I couldn’t leave her here alone, among a bunch of vampires.

Roman, who had followed us, said, “I’ll make sure she gets home safely. You have my word.”

I gazed into his eyes. They were unreadable. “You promise?”

“On my honor.” He looked past me to Nerissa. “Do you trust me to escort you back to the house?”

She nodded. “It’s all right, Menolly. I’ll meet you when you get home. Considering what’s going on, I don’t want to sleep at my condo tonight. Be safe, love.”

“I will. Don’t worry about me.” And with that matter resolved, I gave her a quick kiss. But I still fretted as I headed out the door.

“What’s up?” We hit the street just as the skies opened up and a downpour started. The streets glistened under the fat drops splattering to the ground, and the ripples in the puddles shimmered under the street lights.

Drenched, Camille held up her phone. “Chase texted me—he said there’s something going down over at the monastery.”

I blinked. “Seattle has a monastery?”

She shrugged. “Well, it was a monastery at one time, that started out as an old mansion. A group of Buddhists took it over in the early 1950s. But in the late sixties, the monks abandoned it, claiming it was haunted, and they couldn’t put the spirits to rest. Nobody really paid much attention, until recently, when the land was purchased by friends of Chase. They started renovations last month, I think. I gather this
afternoon, all hell broke loose and they called Chase because they didn’t know what else to do.”

I had a nasty feeling that I already knew the answer, but had to ask. “Where is this mansion?”

Camille nodded. “You guessed it. The Greenbelt Park District.”

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Of course it is.
Of course it’s in the
Greenbelt Park District
.” I kicked the curb and almost broke one of my toes. The toe didn’t bother me—it would have healed up so fast I would have barely noticed it. But I’d scuffed my new boots and that was the icing on the cake. “Hell. I just bought these. Now look!”

The Greenbelt Park District was the most haunted district in Seattle. Somehow, the ghosts had taken over. We didn’t know why they congregated there, but congregate they did.

We hurried toward the parking lot that Wade had built on the property.

I pulled out my keys. “It occurs to me that we should trace the roots of why the district is so overrun with ghosts. My first thought is that it’s the fault of the rogue portals.”

“That wouldn’t make sense, though. The rogue portals are a recent occurrence. The hauntings have been going on for decades in that area. There must be something that pulls the ghosts there—that stirs them up.” Morio headed toward the Lexus. Roz opted to ride with them again, too. “Camille will text you the directions.”

Camille held up her phone in one hand while she opened the driver door of her Lexus with the other. “Already done. See you there, and drive carefully. The roads are slick with all the rain tonight.” She, Morio, and Roz headed out first.

I followed. As I plugged the directions into the GPS, I was dismayed to see how close the haunted monastery—or mansion, or whatever it was—was to the underground lair that Charles, a vampire serial killer, had nested in. Yeah, definitely the Greenbelt Park District.

As I sped through the silent streets, following my sisters, I mulled over what Morio had said. He was right—with the hauntings going on for so many decades, there was no real way it could be Shadow Wing or the portals at fault.

Sometimes, an atrocity could scar the land, make it a haven for ghosts and spirits. When a series of murders or horrible acts took place in one area, the spirits could latch onto the land. Or, sometimes, the energy of the acts twisted and tainted it in some way. I didn’t fully understand the concept—that was more up Camille’s alley—but I knew that some places felt evil. More often than not, something horrible had happened there.

The Greenbelt Park District was shrouded in history. The buildings had a weathered feel to them; they were old stonework, gray and beaten down by the rains. The masons who’d worked on them didn’t build a
development
—they had built one building at a time, to the specifications of the old money that had lived here. Even the buildings and houses that had been abandoned or let go had an aura of mystery to them, and a quiet, decrepit elegance.

Seattle was known as the Emerald City because it was rich in trees, and the Greenbelt Park District more than lived up to its name. Looming firs and cedars overhung the streets in the residential areas. A number of the shops were interspersed with old, crumbling apartment buildings. The neighborhoods still had people living in them, but a lot of the stores sat empty, and there was a deserted, uneasy feel to the streets.

Following Camille, I turned right on Foster. The street narrowed and I wove in and out around the few parked cars. They were nice cars, but older makes, and weathered as if the owners didn’t have the money to keep them up. The ever-present trees crowded the streets, their branches leaning on power lines that stretched across the roads.

Three blocks more and the Lexus turned into a large circular turnaround, pulling through what had once been a gated drive. The gates hung open, half yanked off their posts. Up at the house, I could see lights glowing from within the two-story mansion, and Chase’s car was already there, on the side of the drive away from the house. It sat alongside a black BMW and what looked like a silver Camry. The tires of the cars had rutted the road, and mud puddles sparkled under the glow of a series of lampposts.

I pulled in behind Camille and jumped out of the car,
hurrying over to her. “You feel anything?” I asked, staring up at the foreboding mansion.

Morio frowned, worrying his lower lip. “There are spirits. I can feel them from here. They aren’t just in the house but on the grounds. In fact, remember Harold Young’s place?”

“How can I forget? That was a house of horrors.” I didn’t want to remember. Some memories—some people—were better off being pushed to the past and left there.

“This is worse.” Morio looked around at me, his eyes glowing. “This…is scary big.”

Camille slid her arm through his and nodded. “He’s right. I guess we should go in. I don’t want to be out here when the ghosts begin to walk.”

We headed across the drive, careful to avoid the ruts and muddy water, and dashed up the wide stairs leading to the veranda. A long porch ran the complete length of the house and curved to both sides. My guess was that it completely encircled the mansion, bound on the outside by a white—or what had once been white—banister. The steps creaked, a symptom of old age, and as we reached the door and knocked, I felt a give in the porch floor that strongly suggested it would soon be time to change it out for a new one.

The door opened. Chase was standing there. He silently stood aside, letting the others enter.

I paused, unable to cross the threshold. “You have to invite me in, Chase.”

“Oh shit, that’s right. Come in, please.” He nodded me through and I was able to pass the invisible demarcation line. Contrary to popular rumor, the owner of the building didn’t have to be the one issuing the invitation—just someone who was already welcome in the home. Nor were private residences off limits if they were used in a public manner—like a frat house, for example, or an apartment above a grocery, or a law firm housed in a home.

As I entered, it struck me that a lot of mansions were laid out in similar patterns. A grand staircase in the center of the foyer, a left and right wing off to the sides. But unlike Sassy’s mansion, or even the grand hall of the Rainier Puma Pride, this one had seen better days.

Old paper that had once been a deep crimson, with ovals containing yellow pineapples in their centers, hung in strips, curling off the walls. It looked like the new owners were helping it along, but I could tell that—along the molding at the ceiling—it had started to peel on its own. The crown molding was worn, and I thought I saw mildew on one end. The staircase was badly in need of a makeover, the polish long gone from both steps and railing. The chandelier—whatever it had been—had been removed and it looked like a new one was ready to go up, sitting to the side in a pile of plastic wrap.

Camille raised her eyebrows. “Real fixer-upper.”

“Looks like they’re diving into the project.” I turned to Chase. “Who are these people? You said they’re friends of yours?”

He nodded. “Fritz and Abby Liebman. I’ve known Fritz from when we were in the police academy together. He decided to switch fields and go the lawyer route. Abby works from home. She’s an artist and illustrates bird-watching guides for several major publishers.” He nodded to the right of the stairway. “They’re in the living room, waiting. Let’s go.”

We followed him down the dark hall until we came to an open door. As we entered, I noticed that one entire wall had been gutted, with the exception of a load-bearing beam. We were looking into another room, just as spacious. The wallpaper had been fully stripped; primer spackled the walls. The lights were hanging from the fixtures. A sander sat on the floor—which was stripped of its stain and polish—and so much dust filled the air that Camille and Delilah started to sneeze.

A woman leaped up from her place on one of the footstools that was covered by a tarp—all the furniture in the room was swathed in plastic. She was short, about five three, with short red hair. Sturdy, she looked like an athlete. She bobbed her head at us.