A Grave Situation, page 6
part #2 of The Infernal Artefacts Trilogy Series
‘Just get on with it, Sam,’ the captain interrupted. ‘What have you found? Some actual Broken Heart, as in the potion that causes people to die and have it look like they’ve had a heart attack?’
‘No.’ Sam grinned. ‘But I like where you’re going, because I checked for that potion, just in case she was murdered because she witnessed what happened at the grave. I didn’t think I’d get a result, mind you. I totally thought Pauline was involved in her husband’s scam.’
He picked up a vial of Pauline’s blood. It had turned purple, with a question mark on top. ‘Turns out, I was wrong. I added What’s My Poison? to her blood. And as we know, the question mark means there’s an unknown substance in there. I sent it to our Potions people, and they’re doing a more thorough scan on it, but so far they’ve identified two substances – Fox Hill Foxglove Essence and Tincture of Tipperary Toad.’
I felt the same way I had when I walked into Shane’s office last Sunday morning and saw that leather bag. A memory was trying to come back to me, but it couldn’t make it to the fore. The substances Sam had just mentioned were known to me, but I just couldn’t remember how.
Other thoughts tumbled through my mind, too. My father told me that the Spellcaster would dig up bodies he’d prepared, and it had made no sense to me – if he couldn’t truly resurrect people, then why was he digging up their dead bodies?
‘Oh, my goddess!’ I cried, as I thought of a possible reason. ‘They’re not dead. Tom wasn’t dead.’
‘Well, duh,’ said Finn. ‘We’ve kind of established that already.’
‘No, no, he wasn’t dead, but he was buried,’ I clarified. ‘He did seem dead. Pauline wasn’t lying about that. She genuinely thought her husband had a heart attack and passed away. But he … he was prepared beforehand somehow, to be the Spellcaster’s Servant. He …’ I looked around the lab. ‘Shane, where’s that latest box of wands I dropped off?’
He moved to a drawer and opened it. My wands were laid out neatly on some padding. I quickly picked up the one I wanted.
‘This is the most sensitive wand I’ve ever designed,’ I said. ‘Willow, infused with a hawthorn solution and then tempered in a … you know what, never mind the details of how I made it. The point is, I designed it to detect even the faintest heartbeat. If there is anything there, the wand will amplify the sound it so we can hear it. I was thinking of use in pregnancy, but I sent it to you because I thought that in certain circumstances, it might even be more useful than the scanners you use.’
Shane looked eagerly at the wand. ‘Yeah, I watched the tutorial. You know, the details of how you made it aren’t boring, Ned. I’d love to know more.’
‘Oh, for Hecate’s sake.’ Finn shook his head. ‘Can you two just save whatever’s going on between you for when we’re not solving a case?’
‘Oh. Yeah. Of course.’ Red-faced, I moved to Pauline and pointed the wand at her heart. As I did so, the wand changed form into a long wooden horn, and a sound began to emanate: a faint Th-thump, th-thump, th-thump.
Shane moved closer, his face next to mine as we listened. ‘She’s alive? She’s … how? I was thorough. She registered as dead.’
I moved away from Pauline, my body shaking with a mixture of nervous excitement and abject horror. I glanced at Sam, and found that he was looking at me with narrowed eyes.
‘That’s convenient, isn’t it?’ he remarked. ‘You just happen to have some … some super-wand that can detect some supposedly faint heartbeat, when every single one of our tests say Pauline is dead? What’s your game here, Nedina?’ He turned to Shane and Finn. ‘What’s she done to you? Why do you trust her so much? A woman from the most horrible enclave I’ve ever known. A woman who sells necromancy supplies. She’s gotten to you now, too, Captain Plimpton. I don’t think either of you are in your right minds.’
Finn sighed. ‘Ned has not gotten to us, Sam. But as for what’s going on here, it’s not something I need to discuss with you. You went way outside of your remit. We told you to go home, and you stayed and ran tests instead.’
‘And I discovered an unknown potion!’
Finn put a hand on Sam’s arm. ‘I need you to go home now, all right? I’ll be in touch. Just … take a couple of days off, okay? And we’ll see where we go from there.’
Sam rushed out, swearing beneath his breath – and he seemed to be aiming most of those swears at me.
≈
With Sam gone, Finn, Shane and I moved back to the captain’s office.
‘All right,’ I said, taking a seat on the couch. ‘This is just a working theory. I have to read more from the Book of Balance to be sure, but I think … I think that someone is dosing people with a substance that makes it look like they’re dead. But they’re just … on pause. Then, they dig them up and revive them. I think that the Spellcaster calls them Servants. They’re sort of … slave-zombies, doing his every bidding. If it is a guy. We don’t really know for sure who it is, do we? But someone’s trying to become the One True Necromancer, and it’s probably not Alison. Whoever it is, they’re going to want to kill the Balance, which by now, everyone seems to know is me.’
‘Kill you?’ Shane locked his eyes on mine. ‘That’s what the Spellcaster has to do? Well then we need to get you under Wayfarer protection, Ned. Round the clock.’
I averted my gaze. I hadn’t mentioned Cassandra’s prophecy, and I had no intention of telling him now. But if it came true, then all the protection in the world wouldn’t matter. ‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary,’ I said. ‘But I would like my knife back – the Dagger of Desolation, the one Alison used when she supposedly came to kill me.’
The captain sent an incoming call to voicemail while he focused his attention on me. ‘Of course,’ he agreed. ‘We were going to give it back to you today, anyway. Alison didn’t want a defence lawyer, and the Wyrd Court works fast when guilt is clear. She’s been convicted; we don’t need it as evidence.’
‘Good. Thank you.’ I felt a small leap of relief. Cassandra had told me my only way out was if I identified the Spellcaster and killed them before Halloween. With the Dagger of Desolation at my disposal, it might just be possible. ‘Should we … should we be worried about Sam? More than Professor Sweeney, I mean?’
Finn considered my question for a moment before he responded. ‘Well … maybe. He matches the witness description of one of the grave robbers, and he gave us a very loaded version of your conversation with his father. He had every opportunity to drug his dad, too. Plus, he went against a direct order. It’s standard for us to run bloods and screen for potions when anyone dies. We would have done it anyway, and Sam knew it. There was no need for him to stay. We’ll have to go over everything he’s done, check security footage. There’s … there’s something else, actually, that makes him a suspect. Your phone.’
‘What do you mean?’ I looked at them both. During her murder attempt, Alison told me she’d implanted technology in my phone which she’d used to disempower me, so I couldn’t fight back. The Wayfarers had removed the tech and returned my phone since then.
‘The tech on your phone was identical to something we were planning to roll out for our undercover officers,’ said Shane. ‘A mobile phone with disempowerment capabilities. I know that criminals do their best to keep up with our developments, so we kept an open mind that it might not be ours. But there’s no doubt about it. Paul, our top tech wizard, he worked with Hamish on this. Those two leave digital signatures on everything they do. Alison disempowered you with our equipment. Someone inside our station is stealing from us, and right now I’m wondering if it could have been Sam.’
11. My Last Week and One Day on Earth
My dad wasn’t the only one who had a workroom in one of the many basements below the shop. I had an entire laboratory down there, which I used for mixing and testing potions. It was a little on the old-fashioned side – think heavy cauldrons, magical flames and a questionable ventilation system – but it did the job.
As an act of good faith, I’d given the Wayfarers a portion of the samples I’d collected from Benny, but I wanted to check things for myself. Shane worked along with me, marvelling at the objects down there.
‘You could take over the world with some of this stuff, Ned.’
‘I could, but it sounds like a lot of work.’ I looked down into the last cauldron I had boiling. So far, all of Benny’s samples had come up clean – nothing had been added to anything he ate or drank, by the looks of things – but this last sample was one of his blood, and I was checking it for signs of memory spells or sandman spells.
‘Ah ha!’ I pointed into the cauldron. The surface of the liquid parted, and the image of a sleeping cap and a half moon rose into the air before fading away. ‘That’s how my testing solution depicts a sandman spell. Which means you probably won’t find a magical signature of who did it in the cottage. You don’t need magic to set it in motion – all you have to do is to blow the dust in someone’s eyes. If they’re already asleep and you blow it at their eyelids, they’ll fall into an even deeper sleep. They’ll have a shocker of a headache either way, just like Benny did.’
Shane was standing over my shoulder, and I could feel the heat coming off his body. ‘Well, we didn’t find any magical signatures at the cottage, so you’re right about that.’
‘You guys did a search of Benny’s place already?’
‘This morning,’ Shane informed me. ‘At the time, I didn’t know that Sam had snitched on you. And whoever did the travelling spell to get the robbers and Tom’s body out of the cemetery, they scrambled their signature. But … we also didn’t find anything like those bottles of unbreakable glass you told me the culprit could have used to deal with the ghosts, so … if it was Sam, he probably hid the ghosts’ lost memories somewhere else. And if it was Sweeney … well, we need a bit more of an excuse before we can search his place.’
His stomach rumbled and he laughed. ‘Want to go get dinner? We could go to the Plain Old Cauldron. I would suggest somewhere closer, but I get the impression you don’t want to be seen out and about with a Wayfarer in this enclave.’
‘I don’t,’ I admitted. ‘But it’s nothing personal. It’s only that they hate the law with every ounce of their beings, and will come after me with pitchforks if I’m seen dating you.’
Shane swallowed. ‘Dating me?’
‘I …’ It had been a stupid slip of the tongue, and I wished the ground would swallow me up. ‘I meant that’s what people would assume, maybe. If they saw us together.’
‘Oh.’ He gave me a gorgeously coy smile. ‘And there was me hoping it was a Freudian slip.’
‘You were, huh?’
He nodded and moved closer. ‘I was.’
I felt a flurry in my chest and my stomach, and my breath hitched as I looked at him. I wanted to kiss him – it was all I’d really wanted to do since I first saw him this morning – just go somewhere, alone, get to know each other again, and, well, kiss. Because what if this was my last week and one day on Earth? Shouldn’t I spend it doing the things I really wanted to do, and kissing the people I really wanted to kiss?
Judging by the manner in which he was leaning towards me, and the way his eyes were clouding over, it seemed as though he might be thinking exactly what I was.
I leaned in too, putting a hand on Shane’s shoulder, inclining my head towards his.
He inched even closer, his lips moving to mine, when suddenly we heard: ‘Meow.’
Groaning at the interruption, Shane glanced at the doorway. ‘Cleo just said “Meow”. Said it. With words.’
‘You know perfectly well I can talk,’ Cleo retorted, trotting into the room and rubbing against my legs.
‘I do,’ Shane conceded. ‘But you don’t normally say “Meow”. You … never mind. I guess it’s a familiar thing. Anyway, Cleo, we’re going to go out for dinner. Where would you like to go?’
‘Nowhere close. We can’t afford to be seen with a Wayfarer. But it’s a pointless discussion, really, seeing as we can’t have dinner with you. Ned and I have things to do. Don’t we, Ned?’
As my cat looked up at me, my face fell. ‘What time is it?’ I glanced at my watch. ‘Oh crap, Cleo is right. I have to …’ My mind darted through possible excuses. Shane couldn’t know about the enclave’s buried demons. No one could, except the few who knew already. Even the mention of them was far too dangerous. Oh, dear goddess, had I actually thought I could have a relationship with someone outside of my circle?
Then again, if I genuinely had until next Sunday to live, then I wouldn’t have to keep it a secret for long. I could spend my days with Shane, and I could–
‘Are you all right, Ned?’ Shane asked, interrupting my manic musings. ‘You said you have to go somewhere? I should go with you, don’t you reckon? In case Sweeney is the Spellcaster.’
I looked in panic at Cleo, while Cleo busied herself by licking a paw. ‘It’s a client,’ I said, finally coming up with a lie, no thanks to my cat. ‘You know, someone who wants me to put them in touch with a dead loved one. I really can’t let them down.’
‘Oh.’ He moved away, disappointed. ‘Do people still ask to do that this close to Halloween?’
‘You of all people should know that only empowered witches can actually see their loved ones on Halloween,’ Cleo said, finally chiming in.
Shane blinked, his face filling with hurt. ‘I do know that, actually. But thank you for reminding me.’
‘Cleo.’ I scooped her into my arms. ‘That wasn’t very sensitive.’ She knew all about Shane’s parents dying in a house fire, because as soon as my memories returned, so did hers. She also knew that I’d found Cary’s grave this morning, because I told her about it the moment I got home.
‘Sorry.’ She gave Shane an apologetic glance. ‘It’s just that we’re late, and I was getting worried. And you know, even if you can’t see your parents or your sister because you’re unempowered, it doesn’t mean they don’t visit you. Either way, we can’t take you with us. It’s a weredog’s house, and it’s very small, and they don’t like strangers.’
‘And a million other excuses why I should keep my mitts off your witch, right?’ Shane gave Cleo a knowing stare.
She heaved her shoulders in a shrug. ‘She tends to rush into things. Like kissing men who were really mean to her until very recently. Your phone’s about to ring.’
The moment she said it, Shane’s phone rang.
‘How did you …? Never mind.’ Shane left the room to answer the call.
I plopped Cleo on a workbench and bent down to her level. ‘What was that about?’ I whispered.
‘His phone makes a vibrating sound before it starts to ring. Why? Did you think I was psychic?’
‘No. I mean … I did, a bit, but I don’t really care about that right now. Were you mean to Shane because you thought I was moving too fast? Because you know, I might just have a few days left. Don’t you think I should be happy?’
She bumped her head against mine, purring. ‘Of course I think you should be happy, Ned. But can you really be happy when you’re keeping so many secrets? Does Shane know about your upcoming appointment with Death? And don’t bother responding, because I already know the answer. Sure, he knows that the Spellcaster is after you, but you haven’t told him about Cassandra’s prophecy. And he certainly doesn’t know that you sing away the enclave’s memories of dangerous demons every night. Plus, he was really mean to you for ages. If he’d just come up to you and talked to you, you would have realised what Angelica did much sooner. And he’s … he’s got his hands in dead bodies all day long, which is gross. And he’s a Wayfarer, which is even grosser. Why should someone like that get to hog all of the very few days you might have left?’
‘Oh, Cleo.’ I pressed my head even closer, breathing her in. ‘I’ve not even been thinking about you, have I? You must be so scared about Halloween.’
‘Not really.’ She didn’t sound at all convincing. ‘I’ll get to see Leo again. That’ll be nice.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, tears streaming down my cheeks. ‘That’ll be nice.’
I had just pulled her into my arms, cradling her, enjoying her weight and her warm, clean smell, when Shane walked back in.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I think we can rule Sam out as a suspect.’
12. With a Capital L
Cleo and I looked at the photo on Shane’s phone. A local reporter had been at Tom’s funeral – Tom was such a popular resident that the paper would be running a piece on his life and death – and in amongst the photos he’d taken at the wake, the reporter noticed something strange.
A bald man with sunken eyes was standing close to Pauline, unnoticed by anyone in the room. His hand was raised, and he was pouring something from a small vial into Pauline’s unattended glass of sherry.
‘That’s not Sam,’ I said.
‘Nope. Bald guy. Sunken eyes. But not Sam. I actually know this guy – or I did, anyway, when I was at Wentforth’s. He wasn’t so drawn-looking back then, but it’s him all right. Gill Curran. He was a student of Professor Sweeney’s. I believe he’s the professor’s assistant these days.’ Shane sighed. ‘There are some more things I have to tell you before I go. Finn wouldn’t go into the details, but he says he’s had a long chat with Sam, and an alibi has come to light. Sam couldn’t have been the one out in the graveyard with Tom’s body, even if we didn’t have this photo as extra proof.’
‘Oh. So I guess he was just throwing accusations my way because he genuinely thinks I’m a scummy necromancer who’s tricked you into liking me, instead of because he was trying to take attention off himself.’ I grimaced. ‘That’s nice. And is he definitely Benny’s son?’
‘Definitely,’ Shane confirmed. ‘He’s submitted DNA to prove it, but Finn’s pretty certain we can rule him out and bump Sweeney right to the top of the suspect list. Which would be great, if Sweeney hadn’t just done a disappearing act.’
