Vendetta (Deadly Curiosities Book 2) (26 page)

Again the memories shifted and spun.
Time passed. This time, when the images cleared, I was staring down the barrel of a gun. There was a reason a certain street in Charleston got the nickname ‘Dueler’s Alley’. Straight and nearly windowless, it was like sighting down a sluice. Charleston is funny about honor. Do what you please in the dark with whomever you will, and that’s all right. Speak the truth about it to someone’s face, and they aim to kill you.

It would have been a shame if I hadn’t engineered the whole damn thing. In the end, it wasn’t a Nephilim that got me. No, an upstart demon-spawn got its fangs into me. Poisoned me real good. Even witches couldn’t save me, and I’d have blacked my soul to beg a cure from them if they’d been able to fix me.

I could feel the poison in me, burning its way through, taking a little bit of me with each day. I didn’t know whether it would kill me or turn me into some new kind of monster, and I didn’t want to find out. I guess I could have put my gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger, but that seemed cowardly. So I did the next best thing and challenged the best duelist in Charleston, a man I was quite sure wouldn’t miss.

Son of a bitch. I’ve spent a lifetime dodging bullets just so that, here at the end, I could stand and take one like a man. I’m not a’feared of dyin’. There are worse things. I’ve seen them. I did not want to be someone else’s monster. So here I stood in the early summer heat, pistol in my hand, waiting for my chosen executioner. May God, if he exists, have mercy on my soul…

Abruptly, I was Cassidy again, gasping for breath and holding onto the table for dear life.

Sorren slid the dueling pistols out of reach and Teag moved a cold glass of iced tea close to me. I took the glass in both hands to keep from spilling it and drank it down.

“That must have been some ride,” Teag observed.

I finished off the iced tea and set the glass aside, still feeling my heart thud in my chest at the remembered fear of a man who had died in a gunfight more than a hundred and fifty years ago.

“I saw him fight a Nephilim,” I said breathlessly, and recounted the fight that I had witnessed.

“How are they different from Reapers?” Teag asked.

“Two different types of evil creatures, both exceptionally nasty,” Sorren said. “Reapers are like disembodied ghouls. They feed on the spirits of the dead instead of decaying corpses. But the Reapers themselves can serve as food for bigger, badder spirits – like the Nephilim.”

A horrible thought occurred to me. “Could a more powerful spirit consider Reapers like cattle to be fattened up, in order to provide a power boost for some kind of big magical attack?”

Sorren nodded. “It would take a very powerful spirit – or sorcerer – to do that, but it’s possible, at least in theory.”

“And Daniel Hunter said he thinks someone – or something – is trying to bring other creatures through from somewhere else,” I said. “As if Reapers and Nephilim weren’t bad enough on their own.”

“Those would be the Watchers,” Sorren said. “Especially if someone intends to bring a Harrowing, which is what Sariel did back in 1854. The Nephilim are the foot soldiers. Watchers are the generals. They can manipulate people’s thoughts, and since – like the Nephilim – the Watchers are fallen angels, they’re merciless judges of everyone except themselves.”

“And those guilt-fests are the Watchers manipulating our thoughts?” I asked, thinking about the odd moments of crippling guilt I had felt whenever Coffee Guy was around.

Sorren nodded. “Which is further proof that at least one Watcher has come across and is nearby. So Daniel is telling the truth in that, at least. And the fact that you’ve encountered the ‘guilt-fest’, as you call it, worries me. It means the Watcher is close enough to stalk you.”

“It’s the illusion part that worries me,” Teag said. “If Nephilim can pass themselves off as human, they’re going to be hard to spot.” He gave a lopsided grin. “We can’t go around shooting everyone who looks like a movie star.”

“What do Watchers look like?” I asked.

Sorren shrugged. “They’re basically senior Nephilim, so they can make themselves look just as human. They use their good looks to seduce, but there’s no reason they couldn’t make themselves look average if it suited their purpose – like blending in.”

I was beginning to see why the people I’d met in the supernatural protector business seemed paranoid. Handsome Nephilim were bad enough, but the idea that Watchers could look like regular people was downright terrifying.

“What now?” I asked.

“Now, we’ve got to find out how many Watchers have been brought across, and whether it’s Sariel or someone else, we’ve got to stop him before he can bring down a Harrowing on this city,” Sorren replied. “Since Daniel Hunter is being difficult, I’ll track him down myself and find out what’s he’s up to. He’s good in a fight, and we’re going to need all the help we can get. Not only is the clock ticking – we’re way behind.”

D
ETECTIVE
M
ONROE SHOWED
up at Trifles and Folly bright and early the next day. She didn’t bother with chit-chat. “What were you doing yesterday afternoon?”

I weighed my options. Legally, I didn’t have to answer her. I could route all questions through my lawyer, which happened to be Anthony. I could remain silent, make her jump through hoops to get scraps. On the other hand, Monroe was a pit bull, and she wasn’t going to go away easily. She might even enjoy the challenge, and we’d be locked in a tug of war. I didn’t have time for that.

“Minding the shop and running some errands,” I replied.

“A Volvo that looks a lot like your assistant store manager’s car was spotted near the big explosion yesterday,” Monroe said.

“Big explosion?” Teag had already hacked into the police database, so we knew Monroe had nothing on us. His Volvo looks like thousands of cars in the Charleston area, and Lucinda put a little spell on his license plate that makes it fuzzy for cameras or computers. Monroe was fishing, and I wasn’t biting.

“Out at the old Belle Terre plantation,” Monroe replied, eyes narrowing as if she guessed I was evading her. “Helicopter crashed into a house.”

“Sorry to hear that. Hope no one was hurt.”

“Three people were killed,” Monroe snapped.

My patience was wearing thin. “I’m sorry to hear that,” I repeated. “But I don’t know what it has to do with me, or why it brings you here. And I do need to get the store ready to open.”

“Have you ever been out to the Belle Terre plantation?”

I met her gaze. “This is Charleston. I’ve been to a lot of plantations. What’s your point?”

“First a bomb goes off in front of your shop. Then a helicopter crashes into a house – one that’s got the strangest history of ownership I’ve ever seen. Funny, isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure why you think that everything that happens in Charleston has something to do with me. I’m not that important,” I replied, stepping around Monroe and setting out fresh merchandise for the day. “Surely there’s something more urgent you need to do.”

“There’s something off about you and this store,” Monroe replied. I wondered if she had a bit of magic herself that fueled her hunches and fed her intuition. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to find out.”

Not if I can help it.
“Am I free to go?” I asked, “because I’ve got a business to run, and you’ve got an unfortunate accident to deal with, so we both have more important things to be doing.”

If Monroe thought she was going to intimidate me into pouring out my soul to her, she was wrong. I’ve fought demons and vampires and ghouls, stared down Loas and sorcerers, and held my own against hell spawn. She didn’t even make my radar of scary things, although having her poking around was likely to be inconvenient.

“Go,” she said irritably with a wave of her hand. “But I intend to look into any possible connection between this store and the Belle Terre plantation. And if I find one, I’ll be back – you can count on it.”

I didn’t turn around to watch her leave, although I relaxed a bit when the door slammed shut. It worried me that she might be able to find a connection between the plantation and Trifles and Folly. Sorren was exceptionally careful about things like that. Then again, several centuries ago, no one foresaw databases that stored information indefinitely.

Monroe would figure that any link between the explosion at the plantation and the bomb at the store meant we were hiding something from her, and we were. And, if she could find the connection between the plantation and the store, maybe someone else would, too.

Then again, if the bomber had a connection to Sariel, he – or she – had come here because of Sorren, had already known the connection between Sorren and the store. But despite the attacks on Sorren’s other properties, this vendetta seemed especially focused on Charleston. And that meant big trouble for us.

A few moments after Detective Monroe left, Teag stuck his head out of the back room. “Is it safe to come out?”

I sighed. “As safe as it ever is around here.” Teag had a glass of iced tea, and I took a swig of my coffee before I went back to arranging the displays.

“You know, I got thinking after I left your place last night,” Teag said, moving to the other side of the store to put out the jewelry and valuables we lock up each night. “I wondered whether old Josiah actually left Dueler’s Alley, or whether he hung around to keep an eye on things.” A gleam came into his eye. “It would be interesting to take Alicia Peters down there and see.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” I replied. “Josiah wasn’t the kind to give up and go home. He instigated the duel so that he wasn’t at the mercy of the demon-spawn who poisoned him. And that raises another question. Did he already have an escape plan in place?”

“Sounds to me like Josiah had a love-hate relationship with magic,” Teag said, leaning back in his chair. “And from what you’ve said, he was a little iffy when it came to the afterlife.”

“Either that, or he was pretty sure he’d draw the short straw if St. Peter got a look at his resume,” I replied. On bad nights, when I couldn’t sleep, the same worry had occasionally crossed my mind.

“So there’s a better-than-average chance that Josiah didn’t move on, if he got the choice,” Teag said. “After all, Mama Nadege is still around after all these years, looking after her descendants. What’s to say that Josiah didn’t pull the same kind of thing? He had an iron will. Purpose and stubbornness – the making of a ghost.”

“Monkey fist,” I murmured.

“Pardon?”

“It’s a phrase Father Anne used,” I replied with a thoughtful smile. “Some ghosts stick around because they’re hanging onto something. Like a monkey who gets his fist stuck in a bottle trap because he won’t let go of the banana inside.”

“Odd analogy, but I can see what you mean,” Teag said. “And thanks a lot for that image,” he added wryly. “Now every time we run into a ghost, I’m going to picture it with its hand stuck in a bottle, holding onto a banana.”

I chuckled and finished off my second cup of coffee “I think you might be right.”

“What? You’re getting the same mental picture too, with bananas?”

I shook my head. “No. You might be right about Josiah. Those dueling pistols are more than just guns,” I eyed the matching set warily. “Josiah had them custom-made. He chose the wood and the metal with care, for their magical properties as well as their durability. He built magic into them; runes etched into the metal in places no one can see. Blessings from powerful people. He even made the bullets himself.”

“You’re wondering whether or not you might be able to use those pistols and draw on that magic, aren’t you?” Teag asked.

I nodded. “Those pistols mattered to Josiah in a deep, gut-level sort of way. I might be able to tap into his power.”

It wasn’t as crazy as it sounded. I had done the same before. On my own without an object I can draw on for power, I don’t have combat-level magic. But I do have the ability to see the history of an object and experience an emotionally-resonant few moments of its history. That bond lets me become more of a fighter than I normally am, when I tap into a weapon’s resonance. I discovered the ability by accident, using a shaman’s walking stick, when I was fighting for my life.

“Dueling pistols only have a single shot each,” Teag said. “They weren’t meant for sustained combat. So even if you could draw on Josiah’s imprint, it’s not like he’s left you something that will mow down the bad guys.”

“Maybe not. But two shots with a little extra magic to go with them might turn the outcome of a fight.”

“I’ll call Alicia and see if we can get her to go down to Dueler’s Alley with us,” Teag said.

Before I could respond, we heard a knock at the front door. “That must be Maggie,” I said, and went to let her in.

“What a beautiful day!” Maggie said, grinning from ear to ear as she step-hopped her way inside with her crutches. “I bet we’re going to get plenty of customers!”

I couldn’t resist grinning. “If there are any more of those Canadian tour busses headed our way, you might be right.” It was peak season for visitors. Temperatures were cooler than at the height of summer, but compared to up North, Charleston was still comfortably warm. The gardens were in their fall splendor with colorful mums and pansies, along with ornamental kale and flowering cabbages. Fall is a fantastic season to see Charleston, for visitors and for those of us who live here and never get tired of it.