Deadly Curiosities (35 page)

“Yes, I think they can be stopped, and yes, I think that will end the killings and most likely stop the hauntings,” Sorren replied, but I sensed a cautionary note in his voice. “The difficulty comes in the number of attempts it takes to find the right approach, and the price to be paid.”

I didn’t like the sound of that at all and I was guessing Teag didn’t either from the way he tightly folded his arms.

If this had been a movie, I imagine that right then, there would have been a loud clap of thunder or the lights would have suddenly gone out, or the wind would have blown a shutter loose. When the moment passed and absolutely nothing startling happened, it seemed anticlimactic, as if the director had missed his cue.

“We can even the odds as much as possible by bringing in help,” Lucinda said. “That’s one reason Sorren asked me to join you. As you saw at the Archive, I have skills,” she said with a hint of a grin. “In Voudon, you’re never alone, and I’ll bring my family ghosts and ask the Loas to lend us a hand.”

She leveled a conspiratorial look that seemed designed to lift my spirits. “And I have asked my sister seers to send me their power. You’ll see. We’ll give Moran and his demon a run for their money.”

I suspected that both Lucinda and Sorren were far too experienced at these kinds of things to be cocky about the odds for success. Still, Lucinda’s confidence and the revelation that we had more back-up than I expected did cheer me up a little. I looked to Sorren.

“What are you bringing to the party? Legions of the undead? An Alliance hit squad?”

Sorren looked askance at me. “The undead would not be of help, even if I could summon them.” “Alliance hit squad… I like that.” Teag volunteered.

I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t mean it literally. I meant, what tricks do you have up your sleeve to increase the odds that we all make it back in one piece?”

“I’ve heard from the demon hunter. That’s as close to a ‘hit squad’ as I can come. He’ll come to my house tonight,” Sorren said. “I’d like all of you to meet him. It would be good to do our planning on safe ground.”

He gave a wan smile. “As for ‘tricks up my sleeve,’ my only magic is the Dark Gift,” Sorren added. “My maker left me a few magical relics. You held one of them in your hands. I apologize for the oversight in not having collected it sooner.” He paused. “The whorl did not accept Evan. Perhaps Secona favors you.”

“You said that your… maker… received the whorl from a Viking witch,” I said. “Is she a vampire too? If she’s immortal, can you get her to help us out?”

Sorren looked away, and his expression was unreadable. I saw sadness, regret, and other emotions I could not place. “Secona has slipped farther and farther from the mortal realm with every passing century – more so than the rest of us. She was not a vampire. She is… other. I have not seen her in several lifetimes. The last time I asked for her intervention, she did not heed my call.”

He didn’t need to add that Secona’s lack of help had caused a tragedy. I could see that in his gaze. It was also apparent that, however long ago the betrayal had occurred, the memory still hurt him deeply.

“Well then, who needs her?” I said, trying to brush past an awkward moment. “We’ll figure it out as we go.”

“Teag” Lucinda said, “I have something for you.” She reached into her purse and withdrew a head wrap that was red and white. On it, I saw the veve for Ogoun, one of the more helpful Voudon Loas.

“Please, accept this as a gift and wear it,” Lucinda said. “I have asked the blessing of the Loa on it, and since you have weaving magic, I believe that the cloth will speak to your power and give you strength.”

“I would be honored,” Teag said, accepting the piece of cloth as if he were holding a sacred object.

“And I will definitely wear it. I’ll take all the help I can get.” After a pause, Teag gave Sorren an embarrassed smile. “Don’t suppose you found any magic blades I could use?”

Sorren laughed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Teag’s Filipino martial arts tradition meant he could fight with blades, and use just about anything as a weapon. He was dangerous enough with regular knives, but if we could locate something that would tie into his Weaver magic, he could be awesome.

My gaze wandered back to the head wrap Lucinda had given Teag. I hadn’t expected to learn much about Voudon in Charleston – we were far from New Orleans. But Sorren had told me about how Mama Nadege – Lucinda’s ancestor – had brought her customs with her when as a slave more than one hundred and fifty years ago, her mistress had brought her from New Orleans to Charleston. Mama Nadege’s spirit had never left Charleston’s shadowed alleys.

I was sure she was not the only secret practitioner of those rites. Once I was alert to the traces of Voudon, now and again I spotted the beautiful, complex drawings –
veves
– that were used to invoke the Loas. Lucinda had passed along a powerful gift, since some Voudon practitioners wore head scarfs and ‘aprons’ in the colors sacred to their favored Loas when they attended rituals and ceremonies. I was betting that’s where Teag’s scarf had come from and I hoped that the Loas were inclined to listen to petitions for our safety.

I looked at the others. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m hungry. Let’s go in the kitchen.”

They followed me and found seats around my table. I pulled a bag of cookies out of the pantry and put them on the table.

Teag laid out an aerial photographic map of the facility. “I printed this out,” he said. “And digging into the information I could find on Stor-Your-Own, I turned up some interesting tidbits.”

Sorren leaned over to get a better look at the map. “Do you have an idea of where the disturbances are localized?”

Teag nodded. “Here’s the office,” he said, pointing. “There’s a fence around the whole compound, but with the electricity turned off, the gate won’t work, so we’ll have to cut our way through the fence.

“There are four buildings.” He continued. “One of the buildings is the shell of the original brick warehouse. The others are newer pole barn buildings built when the storage facility was set up.”

“So someone gutted one of the old warehouses that had been used as a morgue and a prison, and turned it into storage units,” Lucinda mused. “Lovely.”

I shrugged. “You know Charleston – everything gets re-used. I mean, if you can’t sense the resonance, why would you waste a perfectly good building?”

Teag pulled out another sheet, a printout of a diagram Flora had probably used to orient new tenants.

“Here’s a map of Building Four,” he said. “It’s the one where Flora said she saw ‘bad things’ happening.”

He raised an eyebrow. “According to what Flora said, it’s where Russ Landrieu had his storage unit, and where I suspect Moran and his demon are doing what they do.”

Teag pulled some papers out of the messenger bag he had slung across the back of a chair. “Believe it or not, most of Stor-Your-Own’s information was online. The court executor hired another storage company to help notify renters after the murder and closing to help wrap things up and they weren’t so great on security. They left the door wide open for me.”

He paused. “Using the information in those files, I called the tenants who hadn’t paid their rent at the time Stor-Your-Own closed,” he said. “I found out that three of the people were dead. Three others had gone missing. The only thing they all in common was that they had rented at Stor-Your-Own right before it closed down.”

He sighed. “Some of the calls were dead ends – phones disconnected, that sort of thing. But the people I did reach all told me that they didn’t collect their things because they were afraid. They had seen things at the storage buildings that scared the hell out of them.”

He gave us all a pointed look. “Bad luck clings to that place like stink on a skunk. When I looked up the other two late-rent people, I found that one of them has been in a coma from an unidentified disease for the last four months, and the other is in prison. From everything I read about what happened, it seems like a very normal, devoted and hard-working man suddenly snapped one day and killed his family and his neighbors without any explanation.”

“That’s some powerfully bad mojo,” Lucinda remarked.

He nodded. “People said the place was freezing cold when the units were supposed to be climate controlled. They saw shadow men and heard terrible noises. Lights wouldn’t stay on or constantly flickered. And every one of them said a terrible feeling of despair hung over the place.”

The four of us exchanged glances. “Looks like at least a few of Stor-Your-Own’s tenants had some run ins with ghosts,” Lucinda said.

Teag nodded. “And it makes me wonder about the other folks, and whether their bad luck started when they rented their units. Maybe they were more susceptible to being influenced by whatever’s out there.”

I looked at Teag. “Speaking of which, thanks to Sorren and my grandmother and Bo, I have several ‘charms’ to help me focus and control positive energy. What about you? We need to make sure you’re going to be safe. Do you have anything beyond Lucinda’s gift?”

Teag chuckled, and removed his hoodie. Underneath it was a finely-woven scarf that hung around his neck and went down to just above his waist. I could see the runes woven into the scarf, both in the texture of the fabric as well as in the colored pattern. A long thread hung from one end.

“I’ve been working on this for a while,” he said. He followed my gaze. “That’s a ‘spirit line’ to allow the spirit of the woven piece to leave the piece. I’ve woven intentions and protective magic into it.”

Then he reached into his pocket and held out a handful of different-colored threads. “Weaving lines,”

he said. “I can store my magic in the knots and patterns, and draw on them as we need them.” He gave a self-conscious smile. “Sorren found me a good teacher.” He shrugged. “I needed something to do in my spare time.”

Lucinda smiled, looking at the workmanship in the scarf. “Very nice,” she said. “I can feel its magic.

Very strong.”

“What magic have you learned that you can use?” Sorren asked with concern.

“Not nearly enough given what we’re up against.” Teag said. “It’s mostly defensive. I can use the knots to anchor my spirit and dispel attacks of illusion, fear, and magic. I can also bind others if I can get them to look at the weaving. Well, I could also tie someone up so they couldn’t get loose – but they’d have to sit still. Sorry, I know it’s not much.”

Lucinda approached Teag and placed her hand on his chest. “Child, don’t discount your gift. You’re early on your journey but your power and spirit are strong. Can you also anchor Cassidy if needed?”

“Sure, I’d probably need to be able to touch her, but I can do that.”

“You must remember that if Cassidy gets caught in a vision. Being able to limit her involvement could save both of you.” Sorren said. “We should expect our adversaries to use our weaknesses. Cassidy’s talents are much more widely known than yours. Moran will try to use her magic against her.” He stood. “I need to go prepare for our demon hunter. I’ll see you all later tonight.”

I’
D NEVER MET
a demon hunter before. I’d seen movies, so I guess I was thinking of someone who looked like a cross between Van Helsing and Blade. Taras Mirov didn’t.

Mirov was about five and a half feet tall and muscular. He didn’t look like he worked out at the gym.

His kind of build came from a grueling military regimen and hard physical labor. Mirov had sandy blond hair, cut short. His eyes were light blue, cold and unreadable. I put his age at early thirties, give or take a few years. He wore an olive green jacket and fatigues with a black t-shirt and heavy lug-soled boots.

“I’m here to take care of your problem,” he said when Sorren met him at the door. Mirov’s English was good, but his accent was thick. He carried himself like a soldier. Hard to change old habits. He shrugged out of a battered backpack as he entered. I couldn’t see any weapons on him, but I was betting he was armed to the teeth.

It was close to ten o’clock, and we had driven out to Sorren’s house in the country, a short way beyond the city limits. It was one of many homes he owned around the world, he had told me, acquired through third parties that kept his name – and therefore questions about his age – out of the public record. The house was newer than antebellum, but not by much. By Charleston standards, it was small as former plantations went. The fields held thoroughbred horses, not crops. A small but very loyal and discreet staff meant Sorren was insulated from the day-to-day management, making it easy for him to stay out of sight.

In the time I’d been working with Sorren, I’d only been to the house once or twice. It was old and grand, decorated simply and tastefully. Comfortable, but with very few personal touches. I wondered if Sorren didn’t go in much for knick-knacks, or whether over the centuries, things become a burden and mementos hold too many memories. Or maybe, this was just a safe-house and his real home was elsewhere.

There were some questions you just didn’t ask your vampire boss.

Sorren showed Mirov in to the living room, where Teag, Lucinda, and I were already seated. Mirov did not wave or make a move to shake hands. All business.

He did, however, accept a cup of tea. Sorren had made it the Russian way, in the large antique samovar that sat on the dining room table. It was a gesture of respect, and it made me see Mirov as more than just a hired gun.

“Your trip was uneventful?” Sorren asked, taking a seat and gesturing for Mirov to sit down.

Mirov shrugged. “Fortunately, yes. Eventful is usually a bad thing,” he said, allowing a faint smile.

Sorren made introductions and recapped what we knew thus far. Teag, Lucinda, and I added our details. Mirov listened intently, not speaking until we had all finished.

“So you’re not completely sure yet where the demon’s made his nest?” he asked.

Teag unrolled the map of the old Navy yard. “The bodies have either been found near or within the grounds of the Navy yard, or were men who had some kind of connection to that location. And we’ve got evidence that Moran was using one of the buildings at the abandoned storage facility, so that’s our starting point, and probably the demon’s lair.” He shrugged. “I just don’t want to assume anything until we have evidence.”