Vendetta (Deadly Curiosities Book 2) (19 page)

The bell on the shop door rang, and we both looked up, expecting a customer. To my surprise, Father Anne walked in, with a large leather-bound book under one arm. “Hey there,” she greeted us, and glanced around to see if there were any customers. “Are you busy? Can I talk to you?”

“Sure,” I said. “If someone comes in, you and I can go in the back.”

“I heard about your accident at the cemetery,” she said. “Are you all right?”

I shrugged. “It could have been a lot worse. I’m a little banged up, but nothing that won’t heal. Insurance will cover the car, although I’m not sure ‘monster damage’ is on my policy.” Hard to believe that was just a couple of days ago.

“What have you got there?” Teag asked, coming around to stand next to me.

Father Anne set a large ledger-sized book on the counter. It had an old, worn leather binding, and even without getting close to it, I could feel a tingle of power. “I’m glad you called me. I got in touch with some of my people at the St. Expeditus Society. Thought you might want to see this.”

She flipped open the book. Two full-page colored prints of paintings stared out at us. The paintings were old, and I did not recognize the name of the artist. But there was no mistaking the subject.

On the left-hand page, I saw a trio of young men who looked like they belonged in an ad for every high-priced sin you could imagine in your fevered dreams. They were handsome, but not anyone’s version of the boy next door. Their faces had the chiseled features of a Bernini sculpture, but the thin lips were cruel and haughty, the eyes arrogant and cold.

On the right-hand page, a dozen handsome men stalked forward out of the shadows, but on second glance, they were in the process of transforming into something hideous. One had leathery arms that ended in wicked claws. Another had the cloven hooves and furred legs of a goat. The head and chest on one had changed into a monstrous creature with a gaping maw and slitted eyes.

“Is this what attacked you?” Father Anne asked.

“Yeah. At least he sure looked like he’d belong with them.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “So what are they?”

“Nephilim, supernatural creatures born when something from the Other Side seduces a human,” Father Anne replied.

“Yeah,” I replied, thinking of Coffee Guy’s rapid change from handsome heartthrob to ugly monster. “And I bet they hold the illusion just long enough to get what they want.” I didn’t want to think about how flirty Coffee Guy had been and where that might have ended up.

“Let’s just say it doesn’t go well for the women they seduce,” Father Anne said with an expression that told me I didn’t want to ask for details.

“I don’t get how these Nephilim guys can just show up. Aren’t they Lucifer-fell-from-heaven type angels?” Teag asked, bending forward for a closer look.

Father Anne gave a tired smile. “Actually, that’s more legend than fact,” she said.

“How do Nephilim decide where and when to appear?” Teag asked.

“It depends,” Father Anne said, closing the book. I wondered what else it contained, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. “Sometimes, they’re attracted to where a disaster is about to happen. Imagine vultures with foreknowledge of when there’s going to be fresh road kill.”

I could live without that image.

“Sometimes, they’re drawn by a person with a particular gift – like the monk who painted the original paintings reprinted in this book, or like poor, doomed Gerard Astor, a painter who could see them,” she added. “Or a powerful nephilmancer can a summon them to do his bidding. Fortunately, that’s a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of thing.”

“How long ago was the last blue moon?” Teag asked wryly.

Father Anne gave a wan smile. “It’s been about one hundred and fifty years since the last time a nephilmancer showed up on this half of North America. I gather it was quite a battle. Most people remember it as the Great Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1854. Sorren played a big role in defeating that nephilmancer.”

“Sorren destroyed him?” I asked.

“That’s what the record says. A guy named Sariel. Not that such things are actually recorded anywhere, of course,” she said with an exaggerated upward roll of her eyes.

“Of course not.” Teag echoed sarcastically.

“So what is a Nephilim doing back in Charleston?” I mused, staring at the big leather book as if it might bite. “And why was he shadowing me?”

Father Anne met my gaze. “That’s a very good question.”

“What do you know about Watchers and Reapers?” I asked. Father Anne looked a little startled. “Daniel Hunter mentioned them and so did Sorren. Now I can’t get a hold of either Daniel or Sorren, and we just had a run-in with some really bad juju. I feel like I’m in the dark on everything.”

Father Anne nodded. “Okay. A nephilmancer – like Sariel – is a sorcerer who can summon Nephilim from the Other Side. He can also call up other supernatural nasties, like Watchers, who punish wrongdoers, and Reapers, who feed on ghosts. It sounds like we’ve got a nephilmancer on the loose.”

“How do we fight them?” Teag asked.

“That’s the hard part,” Father Anne said. “Because usually, a nephilmancer is after some kind of prize. It’s a lot of magic to throw around, so there’s got to be something in it for him – or her. Beings like Nephilim and Watchers aren’t easily bound, and a nephilmancer brings them through to do something in particular, not just on a whim. We need to figure out the prize, and then we’ll have a better idea of how to fight back.”

A shiver went down my spine.
Sorren is certain the attacks are personal. Revenge is a very compelling prize for someone with a big grudge. And if the goal is a vendetta against Sorren, then if the sorcerer isn’t Sariel, maybe it’s someone picking up where he left off, someone who has a dog in this hunt.

Father Anne left after she made sure I had her personal cell phone number on speed-dial. “Call me if you need me – and I mean that!” she warned as she left the shop. I had no doubt that we were going to need her help, and probably sooner rather than later.

D
INNER WITH
A
NTHONY
was a little later than we had expected.

By the time Teag and I finally arrived, Anthony had already picked up everyone’s favorites from Forbidden City and had the table prepped. I had been over to Anthony’s house before he and Teag formally moved in together, but I hadn’t seen how they had blended their furnishings. The mix was just like the two of them: really different, but it somehow worked.

Teag used to have a studio apartment in a remodeled old house that had a lot of charm but no ghosts. It was full of books, one-of-a-kind art purchased from street sales of artists no one had heard of yet, a loom that took up one corner of the space, and his martial arts equipment.

Anthony’s single-house wasn’t on Battery Row, but it was South of Broad. The homes there are historic, well-kept and expensive. If I had any question as to whether Anthony was doing well in the family law firm, the house and its furnishings removed all doubt. Like Anthony, nothing was fussy or ostentatious. Instead, the quality was understated, in a way folks tend to do things if they’ve had money for a while and don’t have to show it off or prove anything. Together, their place had an IKEA meets Hepplewhite vibe that worked, in a quirky sort of way.

“I was beginning to worry.” Anthony lit a pillar candle in the middle of the table and poured us each a glass of wine. I caught a glimpse of the bottle, and it wasn’t a brand with a twist-off top. In the kitchen, a small flat-screen TV was still on, but muted, turned to a local news channel. One glance told me the broadcast was depressingly full of the week’s big stories: a serial killer loose in New England, a couple of gruesome murders with unlikely killers, and a workplace shooting. I resolved to block out the bad news and enjoy the evening.

We were starved, so for a few minutes, we dug into the food, passing the entrees family-style and filling our plates.

“So I’d say that we’re all in agreement that Valerie’s concern about juiced up ghosts wasn’t just her imagination,” Anthony said finally, when we had nearly finished eating.

I shook my head. “No. It’s not.”

“Do you know what’s causing it?”

“Maybe,” Teag replied.

“Something human?”

I sighed. “Not anymore.”

Anthony looked as if he were debating what to ask next. Teag and I don’t want to cause him any problems with the law firm, so there are some things we don’t tell him about, like breaking and entering for a good cause, and he doesn’t usually ask too many questions.

“Is the situation that has the ghosts riled up dangerous to you?” Anthony asked finally.

Teag hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Probably. But we’ve got back-up, and some tricks of our own.”

“Can you stop whatever’s doing this?”

“We plan to,” I answered. “One way or another.”

Anthony thought about that for a moment, then nodded his head. “All right. The less I know, the more plausible my deniability. So let me tell you what I heard today.”

He leaned back in his chair and took a sip of his wine. “There’s been another missing person. Utility worker went down a flight of steps to the mechanical room beneath an office building, never arrived. One of the other workers said he’d used those stairs earlier without a problem.”

“What are people saying?” Teag asked.

“Publicly, they’re attributing them to people walking off the job. There’s no blood, no evidence of a struggle, and no witnesses. Privately, people are a little weirded out about the whole thing.”

I could totally understand that reaction, which seemed pretty rational to me.

“There’ve also been a number of ‘malicious pranks’ played around town,” Anthony continued. “Previously locked doors standing open. Shutters pulled loose. Garbage cans turned over. That kind of thing. The cops are looking for teenagers.” He took another sip of his wine. “But after what we saw with Valerie, I’m inclined to think there might be a connection to your restless ghosts.”

“Are the pranks happening anywhere in particular?” I asked.

Anthony nodded. “Mostly around older homes and some of the lesser-known historic buildings. Normally, that kind of thing wouldn’t have caught my attention,” Anthony said. “Now, after what we saw, I’m wondering if it isn’t riled up spirits trying to make themselves heard.” Even speculating such a thing was a big step for Anthony, proof that his love for Teag had made him willing to consider the unthinkable. “Of course, I don’t dare say that to anyone but you two, and I don’t want to be quoted.”

“Of course not,” I said. Teag made a motion of zipping his lips, and Anthony grinned.

“Anyhow, I thought you ought to know. Oh, and there was something else,” he added. “You know those Ghost Bikes? People are reporting all kinds of strange things happening with those.”

“Like what?” Teag asked, leaning forward and sipping his wine.

“Wheels spinning when there’s no wind. Bikes jostle up and down and rattle the chain with no one around.”

No one but the ghosts, trying to get someone’s attention
, I thought.
Or desperate ghosts trying to get away from Reapers.

“Do you know if the same is true for the roadside shrines?” I asked, toying with my glass. “The crosses people put up on the side of the highway?” I was thinking about the shrine over by the cemetery, and the ghosts of the two young men who had helped me against Coffee Guy. I hated to think that those spirits might also be running from Reapers.
Damn. We’ve got to fix this.

Anthony frowned. “You know, I hadn’t connected it. But I overheard a couple of the state cops in line at Honeysuckle Café, and they were talking about how people have been calling in accidents, and when the police show up, there’s nothing but a memorial marker. When the people described what they had seen, the details were accurate – for fatal accidents that happened months or years ago.”

“I don’t even want to know what the morticians in town are running into,” Teag commented, and poured himself a second glass of wine.

“Or the gravediggers,” I added. Not all of Charleston’s cemeteries were consecrated. Public memorial parks might not have the same protections as old churchyards.

Just then, a familiar image flashed on the silent TV screen, and I glanced up. “Oh my God, turn it up!” I said, pointing. Anthony grabbed the remote.

A photo of Palmetto Meadows nursing home filled the screen, with a banner beneath it that read ‘Local Nursing Home Reacts to Bomb Threat’.

“…none of the residents were harmed, but police say several patients did require monitoring for stress,” the male anchor said.

“Makes you wonder what kind of people are out there, who would think it was funny to phone in a bomb threat to a nursing home,” the female anchor replied, shaking her head.

“In other news, a suspicious package in downtown Charleston turns out to be a real bomb,” the man continued. A photo of a stretch of King Street flashed up on the screen, filled with ambulances and police – right in front of Trifles and Folly.

“An anonymous call tonight to Charleston police about a suspicious package was too little, too late when a box left on the sidewalk in front of a local business turned out to be a homemade bomb,” the man said. “The bomb exploded at eight o’clock in front of an antique shop that’s been in the same location for over three hundred years, but for reasons the bomb squad does not yet understand, the blast was deflected backward, away from the curio store. A car on the street and a business on the other side of King Street suffered minor damage. No one was hurt. Authorities are looking for information as to who might have placed the bomb and why that location was selected.”