Chain of Souls (Salem VI) (4 page)

He stood and they walked out together and through the dark streets. Amy buttoned her coat against the damp chill of the evening, and then she put her arm through John's and drew close to him. Her warmth and the scent of her perfume helped bring him back to the present. "Jesus," he muttered, "the past week has really knocked me for a loop."

"It's knocked both of us for a loop."

"I'm just glad you're with me," he said.

"Me too."

They went in silence for another couple blocks and walked into Victoria Station. Amy led John to a corner table near the back and when the waitress came she ordered two Hendrick's martinis, straight up with lemon twists. When they came she handed a glass to John and then raised hers in a toast.

"Here's to the next leg of our adventure."

John raised his own glass. "Let me amend that. Here's to a quiet, boring life for a while." He smiled and took a long pull, feeling the wonderful burn as the gin went down his throat.

He realized with a fitting sense of irony that his distress at the announcement of the paper's closing had begun to jar him from the shellshock of having killed five people and narrowly saving Amy's life and his own. At the same time, he realized that as much as the past week had been about welcome numbness, it was a luxury he could no longer afford.

Up until then, the numbness had been absolutely necessary. It had helped him get past the violence and horror of the night in the Coven's catacombs, and his grief at discovering that the Coven had been responsible for the car accident years earlier that claimed his wife's life, and for the years of betrayal when his ostensible friend, Rich Harvey, had actually been a member of the Coven. As much as he had needed the numbness, the announcement of the paper's closing now required him to have all of his senses engaged. He needed to be aware, to feel every bit of what was going on now. Deep down, what he was feeling most of all was rage.

He couldn't yet prove that Jessica Lodge was the seventh member of the Coven, the leader known as the Inquisitor, but in his guts he was certain of it; however, right then, he wanted something else even more. He wanted to confront her, to look her in the eye and force her to tell him why she had
really
destroyed the paper that for so many years had mattered more to her than all of the other companies in her family's vast corporate portfolio.

At no point in the past had profit been the slightest motivation where the
Salem News
was concerned. Jessica Lodge had loved that paper, at least assuming the things he thought he knew about her were anything but a network of carefully fashioned lies. Now he wanted to confront her and force her to acknowledge the hurt she had brought to so many people who had worked so long and tirelessly for her paper.

He took another long pull of his martini, looked down at the mostly empty glass, and signaled to the waitress to bring him another then raised his glass. "The next leg of our adventure."

"You sound like you already know what it's going to be."

"I do. Is your passport up to date?"

Her eyes became cautious, but she nodded.

"Good, I think we need to go to England."

"Why?"

"I'm going to find that bitch and make her tell me why she's really closing the paper."

"What good is that going to do? We both know why she's doing it."

"Because she doesn't want anybody writing about the other members of the Coven and digging into the topic of Devil worship in Salem and other places. And the reason she doesn't want it is because she's involved in the Coven up to her armpits, and she doesn't want to ruin her good name."

"As much as I know you want to get back at her, we've got a lot on our plates right here. We've got to get the paper closed by Friday and help everyone figure out what they're going to do next."

"And what are we supposed to do after Friday?"

Amy looked down at her glass and shook he head.

"We can't just take this lying down." John went on, "Did you read the agreement she wants everyone to sign? The whole point is to keep us from finding the truth and letting the public know. I know that I, for one, am definitely not done with getting this story into the hands of the public."

The waitress brought his second martini, and John drained the rest of his first drink, handed her the glass, and took an immediate hit on his second.

Amy's lips were pressed in a tight line, and he could see that she wanted to argue. Before she had a chance to open her mouth, John's cell phone rang. He took it from his pocket and glanced at the caller ID. Seeing it was Andrew Card, he hit the answer button.

"Well, look who's finally getting back," he said.

"Well, hello to you, too."

"Where have you been?"

"Traveling," he said, offering no further details. "Have you heard the news?"

"What news?"

"Jessica Lodge is closing the paper. Friday is our last edition, then everyone is cut loose. She's offered two-year's salary as long as no one works for another paper within a hundred miles of Salem and as long as nobody writes anything about certain 'rumored disappearances' that occurred a week ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that, but how do you expect me to help?"

"Jessica Lodge has left the country. I want to find her." There was a long silence, then Card said, "Not a good idea."

John ignored the comment and plowed ahead. "That day I took you underground to the Coven's meeting room and their sacrifice chamber, you said something about
Covens—
plural, as in more than one."

"Did I?"

"Yeah, you implied it was an international problem." There was another long silence.

"Anyway, I'm assuming Jessica is in contact with another Coven, and I'm assuming it's in England because she spends so much time over there. I just thought I'd let you know that I'm going to head over there and see if you might be able to help me find her."

Beside him Amy started shaking her head.

"There may be a time for this later on, but it's not now," Card said. "It would be better to wait until some other things get lined up, until some other people are in a better position to help you. If you go over now, by yourself, you'll be getting into something much bigger and nastier than you realize."

"Bigger and nastier than what I saw that night in the catacombs?"

"Maybe."

He bulled ahead, ignoring his fear, his reporter's instincts telling him Card wanted to intimidate him. "How about helping me with a few more details. Like who are these 'people' you just referred to? How long am I supposed to wait until they're 'in a position to help' me?

"I'm sorry I can't be any more specific, but I am urging you to be patient."

"What if I can't wait?"

"Then I'll probably go to your funeral, and that would be a terrible waste."

"Is that a threat?"

"Of course not. I'm just trying to tell you you're making a terrible mistake trying to take this any further on your own right now. People are working on this problem, people who will be your allies. You have to trust me on that."

John was silent. He looked across the table at Amy and saw the worry and frustration in her eyes.

"Okay," he said into the phone. "I'll think about it."

"Don't think about it, just do it. Please, for everyone's sake."

John killed the call and looked at Amy. "Card's in your camp. It seems like everyone wants me to leave this alone."

She nodded, but before she could say anything, he reached across the table and took her hands in his, careful not to squeeze too hard where the cuts on her palms were still healing. "I know the
Salem News
is just a small city newspaper. We're not
The New York Times
or
The Washington Post.
We report on the school board and the city council meetings and high school games and road repairs and local politics. But at the same time, people who were involved in unspeakable acts of evil have betrayed this community. You
saw
it. You were there. You understand what we're dealing with."

Amy squeezed his fingers hard. "And that's exactly where I think we need to focus our energy. Right here, not go on a wild goose chase to England. Maybe you think I'm supposed to be braver than that and more intrepid and willing to go find Jessica Lodge and another Coven in England, but right now, I'm not. The pictures in my brain are just too horrible for me to go chasing after those people. I still see those two dead kids hanging from the wall and Cabby Corwin sticking that scalpel into my palms. I'm sorry, but I think we need to worry about this community first."

John struggled to swallow his impatience, because in some calm and more rational part of his mind, he had to acknowledge she was right. He nodded. "Sure," he said.

"Besides," she said, looking up from the table and smiling, "there are two other things we need to focus on."

"What are those?"

"We need to talk to Sarah."

John tensed slightly. His twenty-eight-year-old daughter was not happy that John was romantically involved with a woman only eight years older than herself, and she had let her feelings be known. Sarah could be hardheaded and judgmental, and talking to her was something that could easily turn into a confrontation if it wasn't handled properly. Even though he wasn't eager to take that risk, after a second he nodded, reminding himself that underneath her hard shell Sarah was warm and caring, and they had always enjoyed a wonderful relationship.

Amy was right. He wanted and needed to do everything he could to keep their relationship strong. However on the other hand he
had
been a widower for over four years now, and part of him expected Sarah to accept the fact he was a human being with human needs. Sarah needed to let him live his life and just get on with her own. However, even as he thought this it occurred to him that calling his daughter rigid and judgmental was perhaps like the pot calling the kettle black.

"Okay," he agreed. "I'll call her when we leave here and ask her to dinner tomorrow." He looked at Amy and a smile began to work its way up his face. "What was the other thing?"

"Well, I was thinking of a little adult physical contact."

John felt the warmth in his eyes spread all the way to the region beneath his belt. "When would you like to make that happen?"

"Are you done drinking martinis?"

He thought for a second then shook his head. The rage he had felt earlier at hearing the paper was being shut down was still too raw. "I think I need at least one more."

"Then how about tomorrow night?"

"After Sarah leaves? Excellent idea."

"I'm glad you don't think it would be a good idea to do it while she's there."

"Somehow I don't think she'd take it in the right spirit."

"No."

THE NEXT MORNING, NURSING A BITING HANGOVER,
John walked into the newsroom only to realize that almost the entire staff had gotten there before him. They were gathered around one of the desks in the middle of the room, and they turned as a group as he walked in.

"Got a minute?" asked Jefferson Daniels. He was one of the longtime reporters, in his fifties, heavyset, and mostly bald with a band of gray hair along the sides. His laugh was loud and infectious, and he was well liked and trusted by the other staffers. With the last name of Daniels and the telltale red nose and broken blood veins of a serious drinker, everyone knew him as Jack.

John glanced up at the clock and saw that it wasn't even eight o'clock. He shrugged. "Sure."

Jack Daniels glanced back at the others and several nodded for him to go ahead. "We've been talking," he began. "We know we get a lot more money if we sign the non-compete agreement."

"A
lot
more," John echoed.

"But, I mean, we're also newspaper people, right? So what're we gonna do if we want to stay in Salem but we can't work for another paper?"

Lucinda Jenkins, a heavyset matronly woman who had run the front desk and answered the phones for over twenty years, nodded. "Personally, I don't want to work at Wal-Mart."

"They wouldn't hire you at Wal-Mart," quipped Jack Daniels. "You're too rude. You'd scare away their customers."

"Only if they looked like you, you worthless old Irish drunk."

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

Bert Hagstrom, a short man with the bristly gray hair of a hedgehog, the belly of a professional beer drinker, and the arms of a stevedore, also nodded. Bert had been responsible for running the printing presses and every other mechanical thing at the paper for roughly the same number of years that Lucinda had run the front desk. "What the hell am I gonna do if I can't play around with these stupid machines?"

"You could always try playing with yourself, but that equipment probably doesn't work any better than your printers," Jack Daniels added.

Several people laughed, but they also grumbled their general agreement with the statements.

"So what are you saying?" John asked.

"A bunch of us don't want to sign. Our wives work, our kids are out of college, and we've all got a few bucks put away. Some of the others can't afford to turn down the money, and we old guys are stubborn and stupid," piped Jack Daniels. "We think in general you're a lousy editor who can barely put enough words together to order lunch. You're also a horrible person to work for, but we figure the evil we know is better than the evil we don't. If you'll do it with us, we want to buy the building and the printing presses and put out our own paper."