Vendetta (Deadly Curiosities Book 2) (24 page)

My heart broke as I stared at Sorren’s burning house. There was no way we could possibly go inside without full firefighting gear, and given how hot the flames were and how much of the structure was burning, I wasn’t even sure the firefighters would chance it.

“They’re inside,” the woman rasped.

“Who?” I asked.

“The rest of the staff.”

“How many?” Teag asked. He was eyeing the house, but I knew from the look on his face that he, too, had concluded that going in would be suicide. On my few prior visits, I had only met a butler and a housekeeper. I was betting a house this size needed more people than that to maintain it, and I feared for anyone who had been inside when the ’copter hit.

“Two,” she croaked. “Ben was in the garden with me,” she added with a nod toward the man.

Running footsteps made us turn, expecting an assailant. Instead, a woman with red hair tied back in a thick braid, jeans and a work shirt came from the direction of the horse barn, which was far enough away to be out of danger.

“Patsy! Ben!” she cried out, then drew up short at the sight of us. “Who are you?”

“We work for Sorren, at Trifles and Folly,” I explained. “We came by to drop off a package for him.”

“Well, it’s good you weren’t a little bit earlier, or you and your package would be in there,” she said with a jerk of her head. “I’m Anna, and I take care of the horses.”

I felt sick, staring at the fire as the house was rapidly reduced to a charred shell.
Did Sorren have his day crypt under the house? If he did, will the heat affect him even if the flames can’t reach him? And can he get out, if the house collapses on top of the cellar?

In the distance, I could hear sirens. Teag and I exchanged a glance that told me we were on the same wavelength.
Detective Monroe is going to have a field day finding us here.

“Get out of here,” Anna said. “Go out the back way. It’s unpaved and unmarked, so you won’t run into the cops and the firefighters on the way out. I’ll see to Patsy and Ben.”

Teag and I nodded our thanks and ran for the car. The sirens were closer, and I did not want to end up in a holding cell while Detective Monroe tried to figure out what to do about us. Teag’s car bumped and jostled as we stayed to the outer edge of the driveway as it circled the burning house, not wanting to leave tell-tale tracks on the grass. We picked up speed as we headed past the horse barn, and followed the two lines of bare dirt that marked the maintenance road. I held my breath as we reached the main thoroughfare, but let out a sigh of relief as I realized it was not the same road we had come in on; this stretch was deserted.

I didn’t start breathing evenly again until we were halfway back to the city. “Wow,” I said.

Teag had a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. “Yeah,” he replied. I was still in shock, and I figured he was, too. Things blow up in the movies all the time, but when your friend’s house explodes right in front of you, and you know there were people inside you couldn’t help, words just aren’t sufficient.

“Do you think he –” I started, but couldn’t finish.

Teag shrugged, with a pained look on his face. “No way to know,” he said. “He’s survived this long. It’s probably not the first time someone’s tried to burn him out.”

I would be thrilled if Sorren survived the attack, but that didn’t blunt the loss of his staff. They had been in the wrong place at the wrong time – as we nearly were – and whoever had caused the explosion didn’t care about civilian casualties. Sorren would be devastated. He chose his household staff very carefully, and many had been with him for years. A few, those trusted with his secret, had served him for decades. Losing them would be like losing family.

“Whoever did this isn’t just trying to destroy Sorren,” I said, feeling anger rush in to push grief aside. “Whoever’s doing these things wants to hurt as many of Sorren’s people as possible in the process. He’s right – someone’s got a vendetta against him.”

“After all the years Sorren has been with the Alliance, he’s probably made more than a few immortals angry,” Teag replied. “But why now? And who?”
Sariel
, I thought. But until we could prove it, we couldn’t fight anything, and I was ready to do some fighting.

Teag was careful to keep to the speed limit. We did not need to be pulled over anywhere close to the explosion. He chanced a look at me. “Do you have any contacts at the Alliance? Anyone you could connect with?” He didn’t have to finish the thought.
In case Sorren is really gone.

I shook my head, and forced myself not to tear up, although it felt like I had a rock in my throat. “No. Sorren was my only direct contact. He said it was safer that way.”

“Daniel Hunter knows how to contact the Alliance.”

I glared at him. “Daniel Hunter might be involved in the explosion. I don’t like him and I don’t trust him.”

“I agree. But he
is
a link. Just something to keep in mind.”

I crossed my arms, still badly rattled by what had happened. Someone had tried to kill Sorren. Someone had almost killed us. And whoever it was had almost certainly killed whichever unlucky staff members had been in the house at the time of the blast. I didn’t want justice. I wanted revenge.

“Let’s go back to your place,” Teag suggested. “We can see what’s on the news, and I can do some digging online to see what the police and fire investigators found out.”

“What about Anthony?”

“He’s going to be working late again. Unless you’d rather come to our place. If it would make you feel better, you can even pick up Baxter and spend the night.”

Much as I appreciated the offer, I declined the invitation. When we got to my house, I checked to make sure Lucinda’s wardings were in place. Since I lived downtown, I was hopeful that whoever had dropped a helicopter on Sorren’s house wouldn’t do something quite so splashy in a more populated area, but I still resolved to talk to Lucinda about assuring I was protected from overhead threats the next time I saw her.

Teag seemed to be thinking the same thing. “I’ll check the wardings on our house when I get home,” he said. “Just in case.”

Baxter greeted both of us with furry frenzy, and I was particularly glad to cuddle with him as I switched on the TV. Teag poured us each a glass of wine. I had lasagna in the freezer that would make a good emergency dinner, and enough lettuce for a salad, so we were covered for supper. I put the lasagna in the oven and took a quick shower to get the smell of smoke and the light covering of soot off my skin and out of my hair, then I settled in on the couch to channel surf coverage of the explosion, while Teag got a shower and went in my office to work his magic on the web.

“Minute-by-minute coverage of the recent bombing –”

“We’ll give you the latest on what could be a terrorist attack right here in Charleston –”

“Reporters are on the scene for updates on a helicopter crash and house fire –”

In each case, a perfectly-coiffed news reporter looked earnestly into the camera against a background of smoke and flames. I stifled a sob as one of the cameras panned to show the scene. Sorren’s magnificent old mansion had been reduced to rubble and a few burnt walls.

My phone rang, and I snatched it out of my pocket, hoping it was Sorren. Father Anne’s number came up, and her voice was worried. “Cassidy – I’m watching the news and that house fire, is that Sorren’s place?”

“Yes it is,” I confirmed, but I was leery of going into more detail over the phone. “We haven’t heard from him, and we don’t know any details. But if we find out something, I’ll let you know.”

Lucinda called a few moments later, and I told her the same thing. The next time my phone rang, I did not recognize the number, but the voice was familiar, if surprising.

“I told you this wasn’t a game.” Daniel Hunter’s voice was a growl.

“It’s about time you returned my calls,” I said, sorrow turning quickly to anger. “I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”

“Doesn’t matter. Someone got past your boss’s defenses. Not too many people could do that. Are you ready to take this seriously yet?”

His arrogance made me angry, and I was already in the mood to hit something. “I’ve always taken this seriously,” I snapped. “Sorren asked me to set up a meeting with you. What can you help us do to fight the problem?”

“Now you’re asking the right questions,” Hunter replied, with a tone that said he enjoyed being insufferable. “I’ve been watching the power spikes in the magic around here. I think that something is trying to come through to our world from somewhere else, maybe bring a few of its buddies with it. Whatever it is feeds on the ghosts for energy, and it’s munched people on staircases, too. I’m trying to get ahead of it, and you should be doing that, too, unless you want it all to fall apart on your watch.” He paused. “Let’s wait on a meeting until we see whether Sorren is still around or not.” He hung up on me before I could reply.

All Hunter’s talking had made me miss the updates about the explosion. I flipped through the channels quickly.

“ – helicopter seen right before the explosion…”

“ – no flight plan filed, not sure who it belonged to…”

“ – house owned by an old family trust, not yet able to find out who lived there…”

I froze as the next channel showed smoldering ruins and EMTs carrying out a stretcher with a body under a white sheet. “No word yet on whose remains were found in the wreckage of the house. Police say three bodies have been recovered, but given the nature of the explosion, it might be some time before we discover who they were.”

The reporters seemed so detached, and while I knew that was their job, tonight I wanted everyone else to be stirred by the same rage and need for vengeance I felt, the anger that propped me up and kept me from sinking into despair.

I knew the stories wouldn’t update again for a while, so I turned the volume down and leaned back on the couch. Whenever I shut my eyes, I saw the helicopter falling from the sky, saw it hit the house and explode, and watched flames shooting higher than the tallest trees.

I must have fallen asleep, because Teag woke me by calling my name. I shook my head to clear it, and turned up the volume on the news since the background footage had changed again.

“Helicopter was stolen –”

“Pilot believed to have died in the crash, although teams will be sifting through the wreckage –”

“The organization which owned the house has released the names of two of the people killed in the fire –”

Teag motioned for me to turn down the volume. “I found a few leads,” he said, sitting down on the couch. “All the law enforcement agencies are fighting over whose turf this is on,” he said. “FBI, Homeland Security, FAA, State Police and the Charleston Police – they all want a piece of it.”

“And?”

“The Feds know a little more about the helicopter than what’s being said on the news,” Teag replied. “It was stolen yesterday, which means whoever did this had almost twenty-four hours to upfit the copter as a bomb.”

“Do you think someone actually flew it into the house?”

Teag shrugged. “Looks likely, but the Feds aren’t saying much – though there was an extra body near the ’copter wreckage.”

“What about Patsy and Ben and Anna?” I asked. “Any word on how they are?”

Teag nodded. “I hacked into the EMT report. Patsy and Ben were treated for smoke inhalation and Ben had a concussion. Anna was fine.”

“Did they tell anyone they had seen us?”

“Not according to the reports that have been filed so far,” Teag replied. “I’d expect Sorren’s staff to be trained not to volunteer information. Patsy and Ben weren’t really up to doing much talking, and Anna was mostly worried about the other two staff members in the house.”

“Can they trace the property back to Sorren?”

Teag chuckled. “As the original owner back in 1670, but since then, the land has passed through a maze of holding companies and trusts. It would take a team of lawyers a lifetime to unsnarl the ownership – which is what I’m sure Sorren intended.”

“Anything else?” I was feeling the effects of the day and the wine, and I wanted to know whether Sorren was dead or alive.

“Yeah – and it wasn’t what I was looking for,” Teag replied. “The NSA measured two big EMF spikes in the last two weeks near Charleston, and the base EMF frequencies jumped up ten percent above normal after the spikes.”

“The souped-up ghost activity,” I said, meeting his gaze. “And two big spikes could mean magical events that did something to cause that baseline jump.”

Teag nodded. “That was my suspicion, although of course the NSA is more worried about terrorists.”

I didn’t protest as Teag refilled my wine glass. “We’ve got plenty of pieces, but no idea what the puzzle picture looks like. And I think Mr. Thompson and Mrs. Teller and everyone else who has been warning us about a storm coming are right. Something big is building, but what?”
And how do we fight it if Sorren is really gone?

Teag was just getting ready to go after supper when I heard a knock at the front door. Most people ring the bell at the door on the side of the piazza, since it’s generally considered that the porch is part of the house itself, so it would be rude to walk in uninvited.
Unless you’ve got a good reason not to want to be seen,
I thought, jumping up to answer the door with my heart pounding. I stopped long enough to grab Alard’s walking stick and ready the collar on my left wrist, just in case there was trouble. Teag was right behind me, ready for a fight. No one should have been able to get through the wardings, but with everything that had been going on, I wasn’t taking any chances.