Storm Secrets, page 24
part #4 of Scarlet Jones Series
“Put me down,” I told him, looking around for the familiar faces that were supposed to be there but weren’t. “I don’t…I don’t understand.”
They should have been there by now. I had the sphere. I had that damned piece of wood.
“Arius, you bastard!”
“Scarlet, calm down,” said Wilder, but he didn’t get it. He didn’t understand.
“Hey! I’m talking to you, you asshole! Give them back, right now!”
“For God’s sake,” Wilder whispered, but I didn’t care.
“You got what you wanted. You got it! Give them back, you bastard.” Tears in my eyes. I couldn’t control the shaking of my body. “Arius!”
My legs gave up, and I hit the ground hard on all fours. There wasn’t enough air left in the world. He’d tricked me. The asshole had sent me to Adams’s house to steal for him, and now he had disappeared. He wasn’t coming. He wasn’t going to set everyone free. He was going to just leave them here to die.
“Breathe,” Wilder said.
Suddenly, I was looking up at the blue sky, at his face.
“Breathe, Scarlet. Just breathe.”
But I didn’t want to. Everybody was gone, and I didn’t know what else to do to get them back.
“Arius, please,” I whispered, drowning in my own tears, though only two of them had spilled.
“Breathe.” Wilder’s voice kept me company in the darkness that took over my mind.
***
Waking up in Wilder’s house was getting old, fast. On the plus side, my stomach no longer hurt. I no longer felt like passing out.
That didn’t help when it dawned on me that he’d taken me away from the monastery. That he’d taken me to his place.
“Wilder?” I called, angry as hell, but glad to be able to stand without doubling over. I wasn't wearing my own shirt but his. A white one, loose enough to fit another me in there, but very comfortable. My shirt was probably soaking in blood. I hoped Wilder had just thrown it away. I checked my wound and a clean bandage covered it completely. No blood, which meant he’d cleaned me up. He’d taken off my shirt and had touched me in places he had no business touching me. The thought made me shudder against my will, but that was stupid. It didn't matter what he’d done. I was no longer in pain. Probably another Pretter.
“Wilder, where the hell are you?”
But he wasn’t there. He’d left a note for me on the counter in the kitchen, next to a plate with two ham sandwiches and a glass of milk.
I’ll be back soon. Eat.
It was just past noon. He must have had to go into the facility for a meeting. I’d have freaked out, except I had my bag with me. The sphere was in there, as well as the notebook. I took my sandwiches and my bag and sat on the couch again.
“Arius,” I whispered to myself, thinking of his face, of his intense eyes, of the way he’d kissed me. “Arius, I have what you want. Come and get it. Release my friends.”
The answer was silence. I watched the walls, searching for his face like a lunatic. He was messing with me. Or he’d been messing with me when he told me to steal from Adams. Dammit. What the hell was I going to do now?
“He’ll be here,” I said to the walls. “He will.” He had to. I just had to wait.
And while I waited, I ate Wilder’s delicious sandwiches, and opened the notebook from Adams’s safe. It was a report of some sorts. A report of a study. It was marked in days, not dates. Day 1 until Day 89. The drawings were those of a man, an ordinary man with normal height and weight. Nothing special.
But then the drawings became strange. Every page had a close up drawing of every part of the man’s body, and where the bones and flesh should have been, there were just these strange lines, some thinner, some really thick, and some interrupted.
Then, on Day 43, the spells began. I didn’t recognize any of them, but they sounded hard. Not like dark magic hard, but harder than any Blood or Storm magic spell I’d heard. And that word: necromancy. It scared the hell out of me just to read it.
From what we learned in school, necromancy was a myth. The dead were dead, there was no way around it. You couldn’t reach them, couldn’t communicate with them, couldn’t bring them back. No magic could do that, period. Here, on this notebook, it said: Necromancy ritual in proceeds. Necromantic power level below average. And that was it. No mentioning of those words anywhere on the notebook again.
The ritual had many drawings, symbols I’d never seen before, and each one seemed to be associated with a body part of the man drawn in the notebook. It was freaky as hell. On Day 77, the writer wrote: completed ritual resulted in failure. Then, Day 78, Level, average. Which could only mean that they’d moved on to a different ritual, with an average necromantic power. It was like reading old tales in the books the school gave us as kids. Nothing about it made sense, except the names that had signed the notebook at the very end. Five names.
Frederick Kahn
Plorin Daur
Michael Torvic
Baron Smith
Christopher Jonus.
I’d read those names before, many times. They were the names of the five ECU leaders who’d led the earth army against the fairies a century ago. And there was only one name below them that I didn’t recognize: Paul Tanner.
Calling Wilder meant dealing with his questions, so I did something better. I called Stacey.
“Who’s this?” she answered after the first ring.
“Hey, it’s Scarlet.”
A pause. “Scarlet?”
“Yep. And I’m calling behind Wilder’s back, so please don’t tell him.”
“Oh,” she sang, and I could see the grin on her pretty face. “Are you planning a surprise for him? Because he’s really grumpy again today.”
Oh, God… “No, no surprises. But he insisted I stayed home to rest, and I might have a lead on the demons.”
“So why not call him?”
“Because he’ll tell me to stop researching. You know how he is.”
“No, honey. I don’t, but you do.”
A shiver washed down my back.
“You know, if you help me out, that would make me really happy. It would make me feel right at home, I promise. Like really, really good.” I let that sink in for a minute. “I just need to research a name, nothing more.”
“What name?” Stacey sounded different now, almost like she didn’t want to talk to me anymore.
“Paul Tanner,” I said in a rush. “Just put his name in the database and see if you can find me an address or a phone number, okay? I’d be forever grateful, Stacy.”
My voice dripped sweetness.
“If the Captain finds out, how much trouble will I be in?”
“Zero. I’ll take the blame. He already loves to yell at me,” I reassured her.
“Like, in bed?”
She began to laugh. All the blood in my body rushed to my cheeks.
“Okay, okay. I’ll do it. Keep your phone close. I won’t call twice.”
And she hung up.
Splashing some cold water on my face, I took a second to breathe and check myself in the mirror in Wilder’s bathroom, in which I felt so relaxed, it scared the hell out of me. This was not my place, dammit. I wished I felt more uncomfortable.
My face looked okay. There were tiny red scars where the demon had clawed me with his fingernails, but they were barely there. They’d be gone by tomorrow, probably. And my stomach was fine. The throbbing pain didn’t even register with so many things on my mind.
Luckily, Stacey was fast. She called less than five minutes later.
“Paul Tanner, huh? Didn’t know you had a thing for dead guys,” said Stacey.
“He’s dead?”
“Duh. Exactly a hundred and one years ago. What are you up to, dragon girl?”
A sigh left my lips. “Does he have any family members alive? Any direct descendant?”
“Mhmm. He had a son, who’s also dead. Albert Tanner. Not much of a name, but hey. And Albert Tanner had a daughter who’s registered as single but definitely still alive.”
“Can you give me an address?” I asked halfheartedly, expecting her to tell me she couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.
“I’ll text it to you,” she said, bathing me in relief. “What does this have to do with demons, anyway?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll find out soon.”
“Great. If you need anything again, call Wick,” she said cheerfully.
I rolled my eyes, smiling. “Is he in?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Who, your lover boy? Your baby boo? Your schmexy Captain?”
“Stacey! Come on, stop it. Please.” I’d get on my knees if she would.
“Yes, he’s in. And I’ll stop if you tell me one thing.”
She took in a deep breath, and I already knew she was going to make me want to start running with what she said next:
“Are you guys into role play? Does he play the foul-mouthed Captain and you the naughty sailor?”
I hung up the phone. She sent me the address a minute later, with a LOL at the end. God, that woman was incredible. She made me want to hide from her even though she was fifteen minutes away. By car.
Shoving all those words of hers away in a corner, I focused on the address. The woman, Barbara Tanner, lived in Astoria, Queens. Not too far away. I could probably be there in less than an hour. And if Wilder got held up at the office, I could go and get back without him even realizing.
The alternative was to sit around in his place and wait for Arius to appear. No, thanks. Besides, I had my father’s money to spend now. I could afford the cab fare without even a thought.
Twenty-three
The Greek restaurant wasn’t exactly what I was expecting to find when I gave the driver the address. Maybe Stacey had texted it wrong? The street was quiet, full of restaurants and one-story houses, and the people coming and going didn’t pay any attention to me. The healing spell Wilder had put on me was starting to fade, but I could still walk without needing to double over. With a deep breath, I entered the restaurant.
It was spacious, with lots of tables, and so much color, my eyes hurt. It was worse than Jeanne Dubois’s house-slash-prison. All greens and yellows and oranges with no rhyme or reason, just thrown together in a way to make a grown woman puke her guts out. I focused on the counter since only three people were sitting inside, eating their lunch.
The young girl behind the counter wore a sickening green uniform with the name tag Eliana over her left boob. “Hey, there. Welcome to the Greek Geek. Would you care to take a seat?” she said, bright smile and all. Definitely a witch.
“Hi, there, Eliana. I’m actually looking for Barbara. Is she in?”
Eliana’s smile faltered. “She’s upstairs. Who’s asking?”
“Oh, just a friend. You could tell her I’m down here, or I can go up?” I asked, pointing my finger at the ceiling.
The girl flinched. “Um…okay, just go up, but tell her you let yourself in or she’ll fire me. And delay her as much as you can.”
She waved me to the door opposite the counter, behind which was a stairway.
“Will do,” I said with a smile, and I made my way to the stairs.
There was a door with a blurry window in the middle on the second floor. I knocked on it, checking to see if my white shirt and jeans were stained with blood. So far, my wound seemed to be okay.
Barbara Tanner opened the door in a rush. She had salt-and-pepper hair cut short, an oversized red sweater, and Bugs Bunny slippers. She was older than I expected, possibly pushing sixty, judging by the wrinkles on her face.
“Who the hell are you?” she said, looking me up and down.
“Hi, Miss Tanner. I’m Scarlet Jones. I’m, uh…I’m with the ECU, working on a case. Do you mind if I come in?”
“ECU?” she said, still analyzing me. The look on her face said she didn’t believe me.
“Yes, I’m a detective, and we’re working on a case that involves your grandfather, Paul Tanner.”
Then, her eyes sparkled. “Well, he’s dead, so what the hell you want from me?”
I could see why Eliana downstairs wanted me to delay the woman. She spoke like she was reproaching you, even if she was just saying something casual.
“I want to talk to you about a notebook that was recently discovered. It has his name on it, and we wanted to ask you a few questions about his line of work.”
“Well, he worked for you.” She folded her arms in front of her chest.
“A hundred years ago,” I said with a polite smile. “I’m afraid the people who remembered him have all passed away.”
With a loud sigh, the woman stepped aside to let me in.
Her…living room? Office? Maybe something in between. It was full of food boxes, all with the name of her restaurant on them: Greek Geek. It was also full of magazines, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she had some with naked dudes all over them. The couch was covered in a colorful blanket, and the TV across from it was on, tuned to a very, very old show I couldn’t name.
“What happened to your face, Missy? Did you get run over by a car or somethin’?”
She waved for me to sit on the couch. I reluctantly pushed the blanket away and sat at the very corner while she moved some boxes to the floor and sat down.
“Just a little accident at work,” I said, clearing my throat. “So, Miss Tanner, I—”
“Barb’ra. Just call me Barb,” she said with a nod.
“Right. Barb. So, we found this notebook with drawings and spells for rituals we haven’t come across before. We were hoping you could tell me anything you remember about your grandfather. What he was involved in, what he did for a living.”
“Dead people.”
My breath stuck in my throat. “Excuse me?”
“He studied the dead, Missy. He worked for the ECU, or that’s what my father said. But the man wasn’t entirely sane, so…”
She shrugged.
“Do you mind telling me more about how your grandfather studied the dead, M…Barb?”
“How should I know? The man was crazier than my father, if you can believe it. He spent all day staring at dead bodies, trying to get them to come back or some crap.”
Shivers washed down the length of me. “Like…necromancy?” The word tasted bitter in my mouth.
“Yes, Missy. Necromancy.” She said it so simply, like the word held no meaning at all.
“So he tried to do necromantic magic,” I said.
“Tried? No, he didn’t try. He did. You heard about the Tanners? Necromancy was the family’s specialty until my father, who had a screw loose in that small head of his. Good thing I took after my mom,” Barbara said, shaking her head like she was disappointed. “He never taught me anything, and now I have to work in a restaurant.”
“Excuse me, Barb, but you do realize that necromancy is…is…” A fairytale, I wanted to say, but I was afraid that would make her shut down.
“Yeah, yeah, I know what it is. My family did it for centuries, until my father. My granddad was the best at it. He brought back more people than God himself.”
She laughed at her own joke and didn’t seem to mind that I was frozen in place.
“I’ve got all his trash. My father left it to me, as if he thought I cared. He didn’t. Why should I?”
“You have his things?”
“His trash. It’s all trash. Old notebooks that aren’t worth shit. Tried to sell them once.” Barb shrugged as if to say it hadn’t worked out.
“Do you mind if I take a look, Barb? I wouldn’t take long, I promise.”
Barb slapped her hands on her knees. “I would let you if you order food from downstairs.” And she stood up.
“Then I’ll have the most expensive item on the menu.”
Ten minutes later, Eliana brought me a tray with some sort of stew on it. To be honest, it didn’t look very healthy, so I just nodded for her to put it on the floor. I was in the back of Barbara’s apartment. She apparently lived in that place. The room she put me in was full of unopened boxes. Most were labeled Me and Dad, but seven of them were labeled PT. Barbara hadn’t bothered to stay with me or help me find what I needed. She’d rushed downstairs to make my order. Maybe that was why Eliana was throwing me pointy looks.
The boxes had thirty-seven notebooks, some big and some small, all written by hand by the same guy who’d written the book I’d found in Adams’s safe. Most of them were in a very bad shape. Pages torn and missing, the handwriting smudged like the papers had been soaking wet at one point. Maybe more than once. But some were perfectly clear.
I stacked the legible ones in three piles around me, and I got to work.
Two hours later, my eyes stung and my legs were numb. In fact, my back and neck were numb, too. I could hardly feel any part of my body, sitting cross-legged on the floor, going through the twelve notebooks. I read them once, then went through them again. At first, my mind didn’t know how to make sense of any of it. Necromancy, the art of speaking to the dead, was real, according to the notes in these notebooks. It was real and it could be done through any kind of magic, though Hedge was the most successful. To speak to the dead, the ritual required sacrifice in the form of blood from the conjurer, a string of really complicated spells, a potion made of nine kinds of herbs, and—-I bet you didn’t see this coming—a dead body. As much as it felt like I was reading a fairytale, the way Paul Tanner had described the rituals, all the tests he’d done, and, I suspected, the new methods he’d invented himself, sounded terrifyingly real.
But Tanner hadn’t stopped at the speaking to the dead part.
In 1909, he was recruited by The Order. According to the history books in school, that’s what the Executive Control Unit—ECU—called themselves back in the days before the Great War with the fairies. That’s when shit began to get really strange.
Body parts were drawn in his notebooks in such details, it was easy to imagine that Tanner had had said parts right in front of him when he drew them. Hearts, lungs, intestines, brains—you name it. He had seen and studied it all. Then, he’d gone on a testing spree. He’d recorded about a hundred and twenty necromantic spells, and he’d used each of them on the same body part to see which worked better. Thinking about where he got all those body parts to test made me very uneasy, so I didn’t for a while. After Tanner had tested the spells, he began to put the organs together. Two, at first. Then four, then eight…the notebook that he wrote on after this was a messy blur, and the next continued with full bodies, and more spells, new ones.
