Vendetta (Deadly Curiosities Book 2) (28 page)

“Looks like he didn’t die of the epidemic,” she said brightly. “I hope that helped.”

“Oh, it did,” I replied, still thinking about the battle sketch. I wanted to ask if there had been missing people before the plague broke out, people who started down staircases and never made it to the bottom, but I didn’t. I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.

We had to cross the ballroom again on our way out. I was pondering what we had seen in the sketch book.
You’re no good at protecting people,
I found myself thinking.
What good were you to the people at Belle Terre? They’re dead because you didn’t warn them. If you were faster on the uptake, you’d have known they were going to be in danger…

I caught myself, and shook my head to clear it. Alarm replaced the overwhelming, unnatural tide of guilt.
Sorren said Watchers stood in judgment. That means either a Nephilim or a Watcher is nearby, and we’re in danger.

The room’s energy shifted. The lights dimmed and the air was cold. Mrs. Morrissey shivered. “Something’s wrong with the air conditioning!” she fussed. “I’ll have to have someone take a look at it.”

I shook my left wrist, and the old dog collar fell out of my sleeve, but I didn’t put the power into it yet to call Bo’s ghost to my side. I let my athame slip into my right hand. I could use it in more places than the walking stick, since shooting blasts of flame in a museum is generally frowned upon, except as a last resort. I moved into the ballroom, wary and ready for an attack.

Something moved over on one side of the exhibit, and my gaze traveled toward Gerard Astor’s dark, haunting ‘Nephilim Rising’. That’s when I blinked and caught my breath, because one of those darkly handsome fallen angels was peeling himself off the canvas.

“Who are you?” Mrs. Morrissey spotted the Nephilim as he stepped away from the painting. She had drawn herself up to her full height, chin raised. “No one’s supposed to be in here until the event tomorrow night.”

The Nephilim did not answer her. He only had eyes for me. I figured that he could sense my magic and wanted to take a bite. Painting Creep sauntered toward us, and there was a lethal, panther-like grace to his movements.

Mrs. Morrissey moved toward the alarm by the door, but Painting Creep was faster, and before I could draw my athame on him, he got between her and the alarm panel. He gave her a shove that sent her off balance, and she fell against a large, solid display table, smacking her head on the way down. She moaned but did not try to get up, and a combination of fear and anger moved through my veins like rocket fuel.

“Get away from her, you bastard.” I willed power to my bracelet and my athame at the same time. Bo’s ghost went to stand watch over Mrs. Morrissey’s fallen form, while the cold force of my magic caught Painting Creep square in the chest. The force sent him tumbling, barely missing some of the large granite angel statues, throwing Creep across the room. I kept myself between him and where Mrs. Morrissey lay, but remembering the fight with Coffee Guy by Magnolia Cemetery, I was afraid this wasn’t going to end well.

Painting Creep rose to his feet, then he laughed as if it was all a game to him and headed for me again.

I backed up one step and then another. Painting Creep moved like he had all the time in the world. Bo’s ghost lunged at the Nephilim, barking and snapping, and his ghostly teeth managed to rip open the fallen angel’s left arm from shoulder to wrist. Dead, undead or other, the bite must have hurt, because Painting Creep gave an angry cry and shook loose from Bo’s jaws.

I blasted him with another shot of cold white energy and Painting Creep started to transform. His model-perfect good looks twisted and stretched, and I knew that if he completely transformed, I would never be able to beat him on my own.

I took another step back, and found myself backed up against a marble statue of an angel. It stood two feet taller than I was, with wings partially unfurled. Now, with my back against the smooth, cold marble and my magic wide open, I could feel the vibe that I sensed when I first entered the room. All of these pieces except for ‘Nephilim Rising’ had a warm glow to them, carved or painted with good intentions, a sense of awe and consecration. The Angel Oak replica had the strongest essence.

I grabbed on to the edge of the angel’s wings as I drew my will to me, focusing on that warm glow of power in the art and the tree sculpture, summoning it to envelop me, charging my magic until I could hear it buzz in my mind. I gathered all the power I could hold, and sent it streaming toward Painting Creep in one massive thrust.

The paintings and statues took on an inner glow and beams of light appeared, linking the artwork together like a giant grid, with the Angel Oak at the center. All except for ‘Nephilim Rising’. I felt the magic growing stronger, amplified and reflected, taking on more power as it pulled from the strong emotions of the art’s creators and beholders.

This time, the magic was a tide, not a single blast, and it rolled toward Painting Creep like an overwhelming, golden wave. It swept over everything in its path without damaging a thing, but when it struck the Nephilim, the surge of magic stopped him mid-transformation, and knocked him off his feet, hurling him back toward the huge, life-sized canvas of ‘Nephilim Rising’, into the blackness that yawned where his image had once stood.

I expected a crash as his body connected with the large painting, to hear the tearing of canvas and the splintering of the frame, but there was no sound at all. One second, the Nephilim’s form was borne on the tide of magic, and the next, he was disappearing into the darkness of the painting. I blinked, and Gerard Astor’s masterpiece stood intact as it had been when I first entered the room, except for the fact that it was missing one Nephilim.

Bo’s ghost barked, rousing me as I stood there trembling in shock. I turned, trying to pull myself together, and saw Mrs. Morrissey lying on the floor. Bo barked once more, then vanished as I knelt beside my friend.

Mrs. Morrissey moaned and tried to turn over. I helped her onto her back, and her eyes fluttered open. “What happened?” she asked. I could see where she was going to have a goose egg on her head where she had hit the table, and blood matted her hair from a cut on her scalp.

“We were coming back from the stacks and you must have tripped,” I replied. I felt awful about lying to her but the truth was much, much worse. “You fell, and I tried to find someone to help, but there’s no one else here.”

“No, there wouldn’t be anyone else right now,” she said, her voice sounding thin and reedy. “Everyone else is at lunch.”

“Let me call an ambulance,” I offered, worried.

Mrs. Morrissey reached up and touched the side of her head, coming away with bloody fingers. “Maybe that would be a good idea. I don’t have time to be hurt,” she said with a sigh. “There’s so much to do for the gala.”

I sat with her as I dialed for help on my cell phone. The downstairs door was unlocked, and the EMTs arrived sooner than I expected. Even though I knew it was standard procedure to put her on a backboard and brace her neck, I hated to see Mrs. Morrissey looking so frail. They carried her carefully down the steps, and for a moment I held my breath, terrified that a void might open up out of nowhere and swallow them whole the way it had taken the other missing people, but the stairs remained just steps. I hoped that Mrs. Morrissey would be fine, and out of the hospital soon. At the same time, I was worried about the Archive hosting a big public event with ‘Nephilim Rising’ on display. That could be a disaster.
Maybe she’ll be okay, but they’ll postpone the event,
I thought
. At least until we can take care of Sariel and his fallen angels.

Somehow, I wasn’t surprised that Detective Monroe arrived a few minutes after the ambulance crew. “Well, well. You again,” she said, eyeing me with a very cold gaze.

“Hello, Detective,” I replied.

She looked around the foyer of Drayton House. “Aren’t you supposed to be running your shop?”

“Mrs. Morrissey is a friend of mine, and I often consult with her on the history of pieces that come into the store. I brought her a latte, and she wanted to show me the new Angel Oak exhibit. She tripped and hit her head. I called for help.”

“You show up in strange places too often. It’s a bad habit.”

“I didn’t think they sent detectives out to follow up on ambulance calls,” I replied, thankful that at least this time, my fight with the Nephilim had not left the exhibit hall in ruins. That would have been difficult to explain.

“Normally, I don’t,” Monroe said. “I happened to hear the call on the scanner, caught your name attached to it, and thought it might be worth dropping by.”

I tried to keep a handle on my annoyance, and hoped I didn’t look as pale and shaky as I felt. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing in a fight, but once the fighting is over I usually want to throw up. “You don’t look so good,” Monroe observed.

“It was the blood,” I lied. “Blood makes me sick.” Actually, since I’d taken up with the Alliance, I’d seen my share of blood, ichor and lots of other really nasty fluids that don’t have names and I’d been just fine. I figured it was an answer the detective would accept, and she rolled her eyes as if I had lived up to some unspoken stereotype.

“Go back to your shop. Stay out of trouble. You might just be unlucky,” she said, giving me a skeptical glare. “But if you keep showing up in the wrong places, I
will
find out why.”

I walked two blocks before I sank down on a park bench and let myself have a good round of the shakes. I wanted to call the hospital to find out how Mrs. Morrissey was, but I knew it would be a couple hours before she was through the emergency room, and no one would release information to me, anyhow.

My head was full of what I had seen, trying to figure out where Josiah Winfield and his pistols fit into the picture. It seemed like too much of a coincidence for his prized guns to show up right when we had monsters and ghost-eating spirits loose in Charleston. I walked back to the store, but we were busy enough with customers that it was over an hour before I had the chance to catch Teag up on what I had seen.

“I’ve got some news as well,” Teag replied when I finally filled him in. “In between customers, I did a little digging on the Darke Web. I looked up good old Josiah Winfield, and also tried to find out more about your mysterious Mr. Thompson.”

“And?” I poured the last cup of coffee and rinsed out the pot and filter, then drew up a chair at the break room table.

Teag brought in his half-finished cup of tea and joined me. “Let’s start with Josiah. Sorren described him right: Josiah was a combination private investigator/hit man/demon hunter.” He grimaced. “He was kind of a splashy guy.”

“As in style or blood?”

“Both. Josiah liked to make an impression. He rode a huge, black stallion, and wore all-black clothing and favored a long duster that resembled a priest’s cassock.”

“That squares with what I saw in the vision, and the drawing Mrs. Morrissey showed me at the Archive.”

“He had the pistols, but he also carried a crossbow and a nasty modified shotgun. Oh, and he had a penchant for making things freeze over with magic,” he replied, raising an eyebrow.

“Yikes. As in making hell freeze over?’

Teag nodded. “Yep, and that’s how he seemed to look at it, too. Not much of a sense of humor. When he rode into town, people got out of his way, especially demons and dark magic types.”

“I can imagine that he made an impression.”

“He passed himself off as a traveling preacher who did exorcisms. A lot of the magical community doesn’t remember him favorably. Apparently, he was known for double-crossing more than one ‘colleague’ whom he considered to be a little too close to the dark side for his taste.”

“Wow. A real fun guy.”

“That’s just it. Some people questioned whether Josiah was really playing for one side or the other, or both ends against the middle. He shows up doing some sketchy jobs for the Family, and then helps out the Alliance. No one liked or trusted him, but he was good in a fight, so he kept getting asked back to the party.”

“What kind of magic did ol’ Josiah have?” I asked, sipping my coffee. “That might be important.”

“He seemed to have a knack for cheating at cards,” Teag replied, “but mostly, he liked freezing things.” He raised an eyebrow. “One more thing, Cassidy,” Teag said as I rose to check my email. “About Mr. Thompson at the nursing home? He’s a direct descendant of Josiah Winfield, right down to the magic.”

I raised an eyebrow. “That old guy was a supernatural hit man?”

Teag nodded. “More of a paranormal soldier of fortune. Kinda like Josiah. Jobs done, grudges settled, no questions asked. Depending on who you talk to, Josiah was either a tarnished hero who took care of problems no one else wanted to touch, or an enforcer for powerful society folks who got in a magic-related jam.”

“Or a bit of both,” I mused.

“Either way, he was a dangerous man in his day. And even though he’s dead, we have no idea what he’s still capable of doing.”

I took my coffee cup to the sink and rinsed it out. “Do you and Anthony have plans tonight for dinner?”

Teag shook his head. “No. Big court appearance tomorrow, so Anthony’s holed up preparing.”

“Want to hang around and we’ll get something to eat? I’m wondering if we can find out more about Josiah.”