Speak of the Devil - 05 Read online

  Nothing. Not the slightest hint of anything. Which made her stiffen, sitting sharply up.

  Something was wrong. And it wasn’t that she’d found a threat. No, it was rather, she was getting no impression of the house around her.

  She ought to have been able to picture it clearly in her mind’s eye. But she was getting not so much as a small glimpse. And what in the name of heaven could be doing that?

  She had the sense to remain quiet. But then she reached out with her inner voice, the one she used for talking with her sister on the rare occasions that they were apart.

  Dido?

  There was no response. And even if Dido was asleep, that soundless voice would have awoken her.

  Dido, please dear, talk to me. I can’t tell what’s going on.

  Still nothing.

  Cynthia eased herself out of her bed. She was in a floor-length flannel nightgown, with her long hair hanging in unruly curls about her shoulders. And she looked to be in her late forties, but in truth she was considerably older.

  She found her carpet slippers and a housecoat and she pulled them on. Went to her bedroom door and opened it the tiniest crack. Moveless darkness waited for her on the landing. The house was as quiet as a graveyard, empty of even the tiniest sound.

  But why had she abruptly lost so many of her powers? What could be the cause of that?

  Her heart banging against her ribs, Cynthia headed for her sister’s room. She reached Dido’s bedroom door, to find it hanging open.

  There was nobody inside. So perhaps Dido had gone downstairs to heat herself a glass of milk. She did that sometimes when she could not sleep. But Cynthia was still concerned.

  Rather more than a year back, Dido had suffered a mild stroke. Not even their magic could put that type of damage right. It hadn’t messed her up too badly, but she got forgetful sometimes, and was prone to lose her bearings. Cynthia had found her – several times and usually at night – wandering around puzzledly in the surrounding gardens, trying to find her way back to a house that was in clear, plain sight. And if that was the case again, in this kind of weather …?

  She put caution to one side and hurried down.

  The front door was firmly shut and bolted, and so Cynthia went straight through to the massive kitchen at the back. The windows’ blinds were rolled up, a distant amber streetlamp providing a little light. She could make out the cupboards, double sink, the stove and hobs. The massive fridge was humming away like an annoyed bee, the way it always did.

  There was a worktop that protruded into the main body of the room. And when she looked in that direction, Cynthia could see a pool of liquid on the tiles beyond it. Could Dido have been pouring her milk and then spilled some?

  Cynthia went cautiously across. The closer that she got, the more that she became convinced this was not milk that she was looking at. It was far darker in color, even in this weak light. Was she going crazy, or could that be …?

  She went past the worktop, to find Dido lying back there. Face down, limbs crumpled beneath her. And the pool around her – it was blood. Maybe she had slipped and struck her head. Cynthia let out a frightened wail, crouching down and trying to turn her over.

  It was like trying to move a big loose sack of coal, but she kept on until she managed it. Dido’s face gawped up at her. Her mouth was slack, her eyes wide open. There was not a flicker or a spark left in them.

  And … this couldn’t be! It wasn’t happening! Cynthia’s mind emptied out for a few seconds, and then began filling with a cacophony of wild emotion. Dead? That couldn’t be the case. Not like this, with not even the slightest warning. They had been together for so many happy decades. And it couldn’t end this way. It wasn’t fair!

  Her hands were going to her cheeks, her green eyes filling up with tears, when she noticed something else that was entirely out-of-place.

  There was not the tiniest mark on Dido’s forehead. No bruise, certainly no cut.

  And so where was the blood coming from?

  She was breathing through her mouth by this stage, making strangled noises. But Cynthia’s hands worked frantically across her sister’s nightgown, coming back smeared with warm fluid when they reached the chest.

  Her mind raced. Could Dido have cut herself? Become confused again, and tried to harm herself? Or else …?

  There was a shuffling on the tiles behind her, and she abruptly went rigid. There’d been nobody else back there when she had come into this room. And the kitchen door was firmly bolted too. So who had gotten in, and why?

  She tried to summon up her magic, once again with no success. But a rage had started building in her. If this intruder was the one who’d hurt her sister ... well …

  She stood up sharply, whirling round. And caught the briefest glimpse of a cloaked figure standing directly behind her, a curved dagger in its grasp.

  Then the blade winked amber, reflecting the distant streetlamp as it started moving in.

  It closed the distance to her heart before Cynthia could do anything to stop it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  We’d agreed that armed guards ought to be assigned to all the major adepts. If they couldn’t use their powers, then they’d almost certainly need that thing. Let’s face facts here – most, if not all of them, were so used to having their magic protect them, they’d be lost without it.

  Saul opted to remain with the judge, and if Martha and Willets stuck around as well, then it would make his job a whole lot easier. Other patrols were dispatched to Gaspar Vernon’s mansion, Kurt van Friesling’s sprawling modern home, Walter Cobb’s place and the McGinley sisters.

  Me? I drew the short straw.

  I climbed back into my aging Caddy, Lauren coming with me. But I didn’t intend to head up to the very top of Sycamore Hill immediately. There was another, rather different visit that I needed to make first.

  I was turning my car around, though, when there was a bright flash of electric blue inside my head. So it turned out there was no real need to head down onto Marshall Drive. Why bother visiting the Little Girl when she could visit me instead? She had already picked up on where my thoughts were going, and it wasn’t the first time she had done that.

  “Hello, Mr. Ross,” came her high-pitched voice, inside my skull.

  I closed my eyelids and could see her face. As usual, it was on the turn, revolving. The face of a blond female child. She hangs in the air of her nursery in a deserted house on Bethany Street, and nobody has the first notion what she is or how she got there. She’s certainly not human. I found that out once when I tried to touch her, and got something like a strong electric shock.

  But she is a being of tremendous power. And she tries to help us whenever she’s able.

  “Hi.” I said. “And how’ve you been?”

  “I’ve always been the same. I don’t believe I change too much.”

  So would you mind telling me precisely what you are? I thought.

  And I knew she’d heard that, but her face remained a perfect blank.

  “Your mind is a strange blur,” she told me.

  “That’s because I’m pretty baffled.”

  “Everything is baffling at the moment, Mr. Ross.”

  “Even for you?”

  “Yes. Absolutely.”

  And this was somebody possessed of almost limitless perception. She could see into the past and future. She could look inside your head. She could even observe matters way beyond the borders of our town, and not even our most powerful adepts can do that.

  And even she had no clue as to what was happening?

  “Explain?” I said.

  “I can see what you are doing. I can see everyone else. But the people who are causing all this trouble – they’re invisible, even to me. I can’t detect the littlest thing about them.”

  “Which means …?”

  “The conclusion that you’ve come to is the right one, Mr. Ross. Their sorcery is of a very different and dangerous nature. I will keep on trying to learn mo
re about it, but in the meantime there is very little I can do to help.”

  And then she suddenly stopped. Everything. Stopped talking. Stopped revolving. And her tiny mouth dropped open.

  “Oh my word, but there is bad news on the way,” she said.

  And then she disappeared, taking the blue light with her.

  When my eyes fluttered back open, Lauren was staring at me like I had gone nuts.

  And I was about to explain, when a loud yell brought both our heads around. Saul was emerging from Judge Levin’s house, brandishing his cell phone.

  The call he’d gotten was from Sergeant Ritchie Vallencourt, who’d recently arrived at the McGinley place.

  And as it turned out, the Little Girl was dead right. Terribly bad news indeed.

  The same glum, weary sadness that had claimed Judge Levin settled over me as I headed up on Plymouth Drive. I’d never particularly cared for the McGinley sisters, but that wasn’t the point.

  The real point was that it was people from our own town who were doing this. Folks who lived next door to us, perhaps. That really went against the grain, since we’re a tightly knit community. We avoid making waves and look out for each other. Face it, we’ve had no real choice

  As I’ve said, we’ve had a couple of bad apples. Millicent Tollburn, for instance. But she was just one individual, and besides, was crazy. Whereas this was looking like a bunch of citizens – of what size was anybody’s guess – who were working to a carefully thought-out itinerary.

  How could anybody turn against their neighbors this way? The whole idea kept chewing at me till it halfway mashed me up.

  Lauren sensed my mood, and she was silent and uncomfortable the whole way up. We parked beside a pair of rusted gates.

  The darkness of the night was starting to thin out. We could make out the dim jungle that the grounds around Raine Manor had become, the first few tendrils of a newly risen morning fog creeping in between the tangled branches.

  I looked back, and saw the fog was only up here, at the very highest point in the entire town.

  Things were always very strange round this particular house. We both got out and started heading for it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As dawn’s light started breaking at her window, Cassie awoke gently in her hospital bed. Her eyelashes were sticky, but she rubbed them clean, then peered out through her room’s big picture window. Apparently, there’d been a rainstorm last night, the glass beaded heavily with drops of water. But she’d slept right through it. Who’d’ve thought she’d be so comfortable in hospital? She normally hated any place that answered to the name of ‘institution.’

  Perhaps it was her love for her unborn daughter, doing that. The idea that – while she was here – May was being well looked after and kept safe. Cassie smiled, then rolled fully onto her back.

  Only to find Quinn staring down at her. He was standing, ghostly and translucent, right beside her bed.

  He was tall, clean-limbed and handsome, with blond hair that reached down almost to his shoulders – he was wearing a white singlet above pale blue jeans, as always. But the colors of his body and his clothing were extremely muted. He was little more than a faint outline in the room’s gathering brightness.

  They’d enjoyed the briefest but most passionate of romances last October. But then he’d perished, and that should have been the end of it. Would have, if he’d been a normal human being.

  Quinn Maycott had been an extraordinarily powerful adept, though, strong enough to even partially cheat death. His body might be buried but his soul remained, kept in this world by his supernatural strength.

  He’d been visiting her every evening. This was the first time that he had come to her at sunrise, though. So it appeared that ghosts could do the unexpected, just the same as normal folks.

  Quinn bent down and pecked her on the lips. And even though it was a very light sensation, it felt really nice, like the air from a butterfly’s wings brushing up against you.

  Cassie smirked, then squinted puzzledly. “Hey, what’re you doing here at this time of the day?”

  She started to sit up, only for Quinn to motion with his hands. It was a ‘slow down’ gesture, which bemused her even further. She raised herself more gently the rest of the way, then pulled a pillow in behind her back.

  “What’s up?”

  “Cass?” He crouched down, bringing his face close to hers. “I’ve got something to tell you, and you need to take it calmly.”

  Which was precisely the wrong thing to say. Her heart started tripping at a faster rate.

  “I said ‘calmly,’ and I meant it,” he admonished. “Absolutely nothing’s wrong with May – you need to know that from the get go. And there’s nothing wrong with you either. You’re both perfectly healthy. But …”

  He faltered, looking unsure how to go at this.

  “May is growing at such an advanced rate, it’s putting an additional strain on your whole body.”

  What did that mean? Cassie tried to speak, but the ghost shushed her.

  “You’re going to have to live a little differently from this point on. No exertion or excitement. No running about or riding on your Harley. And definitely no monsters for the next four months. That kind of stuff’s completely out.”

  Cassie’s mouth had begun working like a fish’s. She could scarcely believe what she was hearing.

  “Are you serious?” she blurted.

  But she could see it, right there on his face.

  “I’m perfectly serious, sweetheart.” And his brow creased sympathetically. “I know how hard it’s gonna be for you. You’ve got this fire in your belly … it’s a big part of the reason that I love you. But there’s something else there that takes precedence right now. You have to see that.”

  “But …” Cass stammered, her head whirling. “But the town! But Ross!”

  “The town can look after itself a while. And Ross grew up into a big boy a long time ago.”

  Quinn reached out and brushed his thumb against her cheek, trying to smile cheerfully, although his eyes were sad.

  “It’s gonna be murder for you – yeah, I get that. But there’s only one person who’s needing your protection these days, and she’s not even been born yet. Can you do that?”

  Cassie’s thoughts had turned into a swirl. It felt like there was something clogging up her throat, and she could feel a tear break loose from the corner of one eye and then go trickling along her nose. This was mental shock, she figured. She had never been expecting anything like this, and couldn’t get her head around it.

  But she finally sorted out the mess inside her mind and nodded.

  “If May needs me to do that thing, then sure. Whatever it takes.”

  Quinn’s smile transformed into a broad, white grin.

  “That’s my girl.”

  He leant across again and kissed her on the cheek. And then he vanished.

  He never usually disappeared so fast. So had this been a dream? Am I still asleep, Cass wondered, and imagining this stuff?

  There was a gentle knock at her room’s door. A weary looking Dr. Stromberg was standing in the corridor outside, his bald pate glinting in the pale fluorescent light.

  He had a clipboard in one hand and an extremely stern expression on his face. So it was obvious he had something to tell her.

  But she already knew what it was, now didn’t she?

  Cassie sat up straighter, and then beckoned him inside.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “This is totally preposterous and utterly unnecessary,” Woodard Raine complained, loudly. “I ought to throw you out of here.”

  But considering the fact that he could do that simple thing with no more than a brief snap of his fingers, and he hadn’t, I could tell that this was something of a half-hearted protest. Two adepts already dead? Samuel Levin still with us far more by luck than judgment? Even a mind as addled as Woody’s was capable of figuring out that there was something badly messed-up in the state of
Denmark.

  But that didn’t stop him moaning. Nothing ever did.

  “How can I possibly be at risk?” he asked me. “You know perfectly well, Devries, that no one else’s magic can be used inside my home.”

  We were in the massive ballroom of his mansion, where he usually entertains his guests. A few slim candles flickered round us on their ornate stands. Otherwise, Raine Manor was entirely dark. No light gets in, however sunny it might be outside. And Woody is afraid of electricity.

  Hampton – his manservant – had already headed off to make us breakfast, finding his way through the blackened corridors by means of an oil lamp. And Lauren had decided to go help him. She’s not the domestic type so far as I’m aware, so I presumed she’d done that to escape from our host’s whining.

  “This is a different kind of magic, Woods,” I pointed out. “And possibly, it’s never heard of your particular set of rules.”

  “Nonsense! I am –“

  Then he stumbled to a halt, trying to figure out how precisely to finish up that sentence

  I peered at him through the gloom. The only things that you could really see of him were his enormous golden eyes. They’re slitted like a cat’s. Don’t ask me why, but he has altered himself physically a good number of times during the past few years. It’s a manifestation both of his great ability with witchcraft, and his madness. Crazy old King George had nothing on our Woody. But his sorcery is very strong. He can be useful when he puts his mind to it, except that those are rare occasions.

  “I’m the master of this manor,” he insisted. “I am last in line of the family that founded this whole town. What I say goes. Nothing can alter that.”

  “That remains to be seen,” I said.

  He squinted at me like I’d cursed.

  Lamplight was wobbling down the hall toward us. And I thought at first that it was Hampton coming back. But it turned out to be Lauren. Her gaze hunted for Raine’s shape in the gloom, and then she pivoted uncomfortably to face him.