Autumn Bones aoh-2, page 21
part #2 of Agent of Hel Series
“Other than the Fabulous Casimir? No,” I said. “Not for sure. But I look forward to finding out.”
Twenty-four
Late on Saturday afternoon, I got a call from Cody.
“Hey there, Pixy Stix.” Even over the phone, his voice had a hint of a low rumble that would have made me feel tingly if I weren’t so annoyed by the nickname. “Are you busy tonight?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I have an appointment at seven. Why?”
“I have to pay a visit to Twilight Manor,” he said. “I thought it might be a good idea to have Hel’s liaison riding shotgun.”
“What’s up?”
“We’ve got a sixteen-year-old girl who went to a poetry slam at the coffee shop and never came home last night.” All traces of humor vanished from his voice. “Witnesses say she left with someone who sounds a lot like Bethany Cassopolis.”
“Shit.” That was Jen’s blood-slut sister. “Are you serious?”
“Unfortunately, yeah. I checked with the Cassopolises and they haven’t heard from her since she went back to her vamp boyfriend,” Cody said. “I stopped out at the manor, but it’s locked up tight during daylight hours. Their minions won’t even answer the door and they’ve got a state-of-the-art security system. Can you reschedule?”
“Not really. But sunset’s not until a little after eight. Can I call you when my meeting’s over?”
He hesitated. “I’ll give you until eight thirty. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll go it alone.”
I didn’t like that idea. “I’ll make sure I’m out by then.”
“Good. Call me.” He hung up.
Of course, I immediately called Jen to see if she knew anything. She didn’t have any idea why Bethany would be picking up stray teens at the coffee shop, but she had the lowdown on the missing girl already—Heather Simkus, moody, isolated loner, alleged to be a serious cutter.
In other words, perfect vampire fodder.
I hadn’t planned on attending the coven’s meeting in agent-of-Hel working attire, but this put a different spin on the evening. When the time came, I opted for jeans instead of a nice skirt, and buckled dauda-dagr around my waist. For good measure, I hauled out a motorcycle jacket I bought at Goodwill, one of my all-time best thrift store finds. And yeah, okay, it’s black leather, but it’s not a duster. I don’t care how cool it looked in Blade or The Matrix, no one in their right mind would choose to fight in a duster. There’s just too much damn material. My jacket, on the other hand, is fitted and has a high collar that makes it perfect for calling on vampires. After my last visit to the House of Shadows, I’d take any extra ounce of protection I could get.
A bit before seven, I drove out to Sinclair’s place to pick him up.
It was the first time we’d seen each other since the breakup, and there was a moment of awkwardness on the doorstep while we both tried to figure out if we were supposed to hug or play it cool.
Then Sinclair broke into a broad grin. “Damn, sistah! You look like you’re ready to kick ass and take numbers. You expecting trouble?”
I smiled back at him. “No, something else has come up. I have to leave by quarter after eight or so.”
He slung a friendly arm over my shoulders, giving me a squeeze. “Then let’s roll.”
The Fabulous Casimir lived in a charming Arts-and-Crafts-style bungalow in East Pemkowet, nestled under pine trees on a bluff with a distant view of the river. Casimir met us at the door in a brocade dressing gown and matching gold satin head scarf tied in an elaborate bow at the nape of his neck.
“You must be Sinclair Palmer,” he said, extending one manicured hand. “Enchanté, my dear. A pleasure to finally meet you. We all appreciate the business your little tour brings into town.”
“Thank you.” Sinclair shook his hand. “I appreciate your meeting with me.”
“Of course.” Casimir glanced in my direction. “Thanks for bringing Sinclair, Daisy. I’m sure one of our members can give him a ride home.”
I blinked at him. “Excuse me?”
Casimir pursed his lips. “Oh, this is awkward. I’m sorry, Daisy. But coven business is a private matter.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so.” My right hand dropped to dauda-dagr’s hilt. Funny how the gesture had become instinctual in such a short time. “Not this time. I don’t mean to pull rank, but I’m Hel’s liaison, Cas. We’re talking about a supernatural threat in Pemkowet. That makes it my business.”
We had a polite staredown. For a moment I thought Casimir was going to call my bluff—and it was a bluff, since I didn’t really have any options if he refused to admit me—but he relented.
“You have a point,” he said. “Do I have your oath that you’ll treat everything you see or hear as confidential?”
“As long as it doesn’t interfere with my duty to Hel, yes,” I said. “Fair enough?”
“It will have to do.” He gestured. “Come in.”
The living room looked more like I imagined the Fabulous Casimir’s place would be than the sparsely appointed altar room at his shop. It was filled with cluttered elegance. Paintings with gilded frames hung in rows three-deep on the walls, knickknacks on every surface, old-fashioned stuffed furniture with scrolling wood trim, an Oriental carpet on the floor. And seated around the perimeter of the room, the other six members of Pemkowet’s coven.
The only two people I’d more or less expected to see here were Mark and Sheila Reston, who owned the tattoo parlor across from the Sisters of Selene, because . . . well. If you’ve got matching tattoos of the Wiccan rede—which, by the way, is “An it harm none, do what ye will”—around your neck, that’s pretty much a dead giveaway.
The others . . . not so much.
There was Kim McKinney, who graduated a year ahead of me and worked at the deli counter at Tafts Grocery. I didn’t know her well, but I definitely didn’t see that coming.
There was nice Mrs. Meyers from the historical society, her expression placid, her lap full of yarn, and her knitting needles clicking away industriously.
There was taciturn Warren Rogers, who owned a nursery and a landscaping business and had done some work out at my mom’s place a couple of years ago in exchange for her making his plus-size daughter, Naomi, a kickass prom dress that flattered her curves to hell and gone.
And there—holy crap—was my mom’s friend Sandra Sweddon, recently referred to by my former teacher Mr. Leary as “that infernal do-gooding busybody.”
Okay, maybe I should have known that one. After all, I did know she collected crystals. But frankly, I hadn’t even suspected it.
Casimir bustled around, pouring tea and making introductions. “Wonderful,” he said once acquaintances were made or in my case, renewed in a very different context. “If everyone’s ready, I’ll give a quick invocation and then we’ll begin.”
A murmur of assent ran around the room.
Fetching a long-handled lighter from a drawer, Casimir lit the first of two candles on the coffee table, a silver pillar. “Hail, fair Lady, queen of night, enfold us in your grace,” he said, and then lit the second, a gold pillar. “Hail, great Lord, ruler of day, protect us in this place.” He set the lighter down. “So mote it be.”
“So mote it be,” the others echoed.
Now that I wasn’t suffering from an excruciating hex-induced migraine, I could feel a faint charge in the air after Casimir’s invocation—nothing like the vastness of Hel’s presence, but a change. Interesting.
“We invoke the Lady and Lord in their archetypal forms,” Casimir said to Sinclair. “Of course, everyone is welcome to address whatever particular facet of the deity speaks to them. Are you dedicated?”
I didn’t understand the question, but Sinclair gave a brief nod. “You might say so. I was raised to honor Yemaya.”
Also interesting. I made a mental note of the name.
“Wonderful,” Casimir said again. “All right! Everyone, please help yourselves to the lovely cheese tray Kim was kind enough to bring for the occasion. Mr. Palmer, tell us about yourself and your situation.”
Snacking on cheese and crackers, I sat and listened while Sinclair related his story. At the coven’s prodding, he went into more detail about his own youthful studies in obeah, which involved using his ability to see auras to diagnose ailments in individuals and gradually acquiring the herb lore to prescribe cures.
“And you didn’t think that was worth pursuing?” Warren Rogers asked in a neutral tone. He was a guy who knew a thing or two about herbs. “The healer’s path?”
“Not at the cost.” Sinclair met his gaze squarely. “The further I went down that path, the further my sister went down the other.”
The other members of the coven nodded in understanding. I guess this whole path of balance thing was a cornerstone of most occult practices.
With a few assists from me, Sinclair finished up with a description of Emmeline’s visit and her ultimatum, followed by a short discourse on the nature of duppies, during which the coven attempted to determine whether obeah’s concept of an earthly soul that was somehow distinct from a heavenly soul corresponded to the notion of an etheric body that was distinct from the physical and spiritual bodies.
Okay, I tuned out for a while during that part. But at least the cheese was good.
At around twenty to eight, Casimir deftly turned the conversation to ways of protecting Sinclair from his sister’s threat.
“Obviously, we should start with a ritual cleansing,” Kim McKinney said. “I’d be happy to oversee it.”
I’d just bet she would. I suppressed an irrational surge of jealousy.
“Have you done any work with crystals and visualization?” Sandra Sweddon asked Sinclair. “White light? Chakras?” He shook his head. “That’s okay, honey. We’ll work on it.”
“How do you feel about ink?” Mark Reston stretched out his arms to reveal a pair of large and intricate seals tattooed on his muscular forearms. “Sheila and I have a portfolio of sigils we designed ourselves. Some of them are for protection. You’re welcome to stop by the shop and see if any of them speak to you.”
“I’ll knit you a prayer shawl, dear,” Mrs. Meyers said in her kind voice. “There’s a blessing in every stitch.” She caught sight of Sinclair’s expression and chuckled. “Don’t worry, it’s more of a scarf than an actual shawl.”
Warren Rogers scratched his chin. “Sounds like you’ve got a bit of herb lore, then. You any good with plants?”
“Not bad,” Sinclair said. I wondered if that had anything to do with the elemental nature fairies’ fondness for him.
The landscaper gave him a shrewd look. “I could use a new assistant. Lost a couple of college kids to the fall semester, and I hear your tour’s only running on the weekends during the off season. You interested?”
“Point of clarification.” Casimir raised one finger before Sinclair could answer. “Are you talking about a job or an apprenticeship, Warren?”
He shrugged. “Depends on Mr. Palmer here. I could use a good worker either way. Don’t know that I’ve got a handle on this obeah business, but his studies sound close enough to my journey on the right-hand path. If he’s willing to dedicate himself to our craft, I’m willing to mentor him.”
Casimir turned to Sinclair. “Well? Are you?”
Sinclair frowned in thought. “What happens if I say no?”
“If you’re asking if we’ll withhold our assistance in the matter at hand, the answer’s no.” The Fabulous Casimir steepled his fingers. “We’ll do everything in our power to protect you. But to be perfectly honest, it will be more effective if you’re on your way to becoming an initiate. And if you’re asking if we’d like to have you, the answer is yes.”
Glancing around the room, Sinclair studied the members of the coven one by one—reading their auras, I assumed.
After a moment he nodded. “I’m in.”
Twenty-five
For another half hour, the coven discussed the specifics of implementing their various plans of occult protection. I listened and made mental notes on the individual members and their different areas of expertise, figuring it was all good input for my thus-far-hypothetical database.
Hey, I’d promised to keep confidentiality, but I hadn’t promised not to make a record of what I learned. It might be useful someday.
At quarter after eight, I excused myself. “Cas, I’ve got to leave. Sorry, but duty calls. You said someone could give Sinclair a ride home?”
“I’ll do it,” Kim McKinney volunteered, smiling sidelong at Sinclair. “No problem.”
He smiled back at her. “Thanks, sistah.”
The Fabulous Casimir spread his fingers. “Et voilà.”
It’s not like I had any right to complain. I was the one who’d broken up with Sinclair, and I was the one to arrange this meeting. Now that he was back on the market, I couldn’t blame Kim for flirting with him.
Still, it gave me an inward pang.
Of course, that was offset by the fact that I was meeting with my childhood crush and sometime partner in police business, Officer Down-low himself. Too bad we were headed out to Twilight Manor to locate a missing kid. Not exactly a fun date.
I called Cody from Casimir’s driveway. He picked up on the first ring. “Hey, Pixy Stix. Ready?”
“Yep.”
Unless I imagined it, there was a faint sigh of relief on Cody’s end. No matter what he’d said, no one in their right mind wanted to enter the House of Shadows without backup. I know, I’d done it. “Meet me at the gas station on the corner of Sixty-fourth Street,” he said. “I’ll pick you up. If you’re coming as Hel’s liaison, I think it’s best if we present a united front.”
“See you in five,” I said, and ended the call.
One thing about living in a small town: It’s easy to estimate travel time. Five minutes later, I pulled alongside the squad car in the parking lot of Pineview Gas & Convenience.
Leaning over, Cody opened the passenger-side door for me. “So what was this important appointment you couldn’t reschedule?”
I slid into the seat. “None of your business.”
“I heard you broke up with the fake Jamaican,” he said. “I heard he’s not so fake, and his baggage is a problem.”
I gave Cody a sharp look. “Did the chief talk to you?”
“He worries.” Cody gave me a scowl in return. “I just wish the timing was better, Daise. Whatever’s going down with this sister of Sinclair’s, I wish it wasn’t happening around the full moon.”
“Yeah?” I buckled my seat belt. “Me, too. But right now, we’ve got a missing kid to worry about, right?”
“Right.”
The House of Shadows was located on a huge piece of property out in the countryside, not far from the lakeshore. Depending on how far the actual boundaries of Little Niflheim extend, it might be situated atop the underworld itself. It was purchased in the 1940s by the mistress of the manor, the beautiful, wealthy, and undead Lady Eris, who promptly moved her brood of a dozen or so vampires into the place. I’m not sure what their number is today, although it hasn’t grown as much as one might think. Vampires form blood-bonds with their chosen mortals, but they’re very picky about who they actually turn. Bethany Cassopolis’s undead paramour had been stringing her along for eight years.
For the record, I’d done some research into breaking the blood-bond. So far, the only method I’d found other than killing the vampire in question was a massive blood transfusion, which wasn’t exactly a procedure that could be done on an unwilling subject.
Anyway, the House of Shadows was awake for the night, blackout curtains drawn, lights ablaze. I checked the zipper on the collar of my motorcycle jacket as Cody pounded the door-knocker.
“Yes?” The blond vampire who opened the door a crack sounded annoyed. Maybe it was because he’d been stuck on reception duty for years.
“Pemkowet PD.” Cody held up his badge. “We’re looking for a sixteen-year-old girl who’s gone missing. I have reason to believe she may be on the premises.”
Over Cody’s shoulder, I saw the vampire’s eyes narrow. Without thinking, I kindled the merest spark of a shield, holding it in my thoughts. “I assure you, Officer, there are no minors here.”
“I’d like to have a look.” Cody’s voice sounded casual, but there was tension in the line of his back.
“Do you have a warrant?” the vampire inquired, curling his lip to reveal the tips of his fangs.
“Even better.” I stepped out from behind Cody so the doorkeeper could see me, raising my left hand to display Hel’s rune. “He’s got me.”
Maybe it was because I was bolder with Cody at my side and a psychic shield at the ready, or maybe it was because the word was out that I’d used dauda-dagr to dispatch two ghouls since last I’d been here, but the doorkeeper backed down a lot more quickly this time. “Wait here,” he said with resigned disdain, ushering us into the foyer. “I’ll announce you to her ladyship.”
We waited.
The sound of classical music drifted in fits and starts down the majestic stairway that led to the grand ballroom on the third floor. It sounded like a string quartet rehearsing rather than a party in full swing, which is what I’d encountered the last time I’d been here. Periodically the music would stop, and we could hear someone issuing arcane instructions that hovered on the verge of audibility.
The doorkeeper returned. “Lady Eris will receive you in her sitting room,” he announced. “She is not pleased by the early hour of your visit.” He flashed another hint of fang tip. “You recall what passed the last time you displeased her, Hel’s liaison?”
“I remember.” Not as much had happened as he thought, actually, but I’d let Lady Eris save face in front of her minions in exchange for a temporary no-hunting decree. “But it was just after sunset that time, too.”
The vampire heaved a sigh, a disconcerting sound in someone who breathes only in order to speak. “When the nights are short, we make the most of them. As they begin to lengthen, we enjoy a more leisurely pace.”
