Hellsinger 01 - Fish and Ghosts (P) (MM) (12 page)

“When the ring hit the water, it was like an explosion of… something. Nothing real. Not like how you count real, but there was something there. It churned up the waters. I could see the pond ripple out, much bigger and darker than the ring could have made.” Tristan shuddered. “I saw it come up over the gardens. Then the storm hit, and we… Mara and I… ran inside. I thought maybe it would stay out there… whatever it is… go away after the rains are done. I never thought it would reach the house.”

“Could be natural,” Wolf pondered. “Something in the clouds. Stuff like that happens. Rains frogs in some place. Could be something as innocuous as spores caught up and dumped back down. Or ash. Stranger shit’s happened.”

Tristan was about to say something when the howling began. It started small, a shriek off in the distance, then grew louder until the windows rattled from the fury of the sound. The library door slammed, over and over, until the frame cracked with the force of the repeated impacts. Frightened, Boris somehow leveraged himself under one of the wingbacks, toppling the chair over, his tail high in the air, his long legs splayed out from under him.

“I think they broke something… something that held this all back from the Grange,” Tristan murmured, his fear cut by the growing anger he felt at his home being invaded by something he couldn’t quite see. “What the hell did they do?”

H
E
DIDN
’
T
have an answer for Tristan. Not by a long shot. Wolf could definitely see the black tendrils spreading over the windows, and the door’s suicide couldn’t be explained away by wind. The banshee wails coursing through the manor rose and fell, roiling through the rooms. He could have explained it away by a faulty sound system or perhaps an ancient intercom buried beneath layers of plaster from a past remodel, but he’d not found any evidence of that when they’d set their cameras up. More importantly, the man he held in his arms was cold, a bluish tint beginning to form at the edges of Tristan’s lips.

“Come on, we need to get you warm.” Wolf nudged Tristan’s motionless body. “This room is freezing.”

Their breath frosted the air, plumes of mist heaving out of their mouths as Wolf half carried Tristan out. Not wanting to be left behind, Boris bolted out of the room ahead of them, nearly knocking the men off their feet. As soon as they cleared the library, the shrieking stopped and the apartment’s temperature rose, hitting Wolf in the face like a wave of steam from a sauna. Shivering, Tristan stumbled, and Wolf held on tightly, easing the man into the apartment’s living space. Settling Tristan down on a couch, he pulled a soft cashmere afghan over him, tucking it around Tristan’s legs, then kissing him briefly on the mouth.

Boris was nowhere to be seen, so Wolf figured the hound had found a way to hide under Tristan’s bed.

“I’m going to make you some tea, okay?” Wolf wondered if Tristan had something stronger somewhere in the cabinets, because his stomach clenched at the thought of going any longer without fortification.

As if reading his mind, Tristan stuttered through chattering teeth, “There’s some Macallan in the sideboard.”

Kissing the man’s cold away seemed like a better idea, but he wanted them to have their senses about them. Since pushing Tristan up against the back of the couch to ravage him seemed like a more mind-altering experience than getting drunk, he’d settle for alcohol.

His cock disagreed, but his brain was firm on the subject. There had to be answers… sane answers other than Gidget tossing something into an old pond and opening up a mouth to hell.

Wolf found the whiskey, whistling at the bottle as he dusted it off. It was a simple tall vessel with a white label bordered in black and gold, but that white label bore an imprint of rare quality, and Wolf looked over at the man behind him. “You want me to crack open a twenty-five-year whiskey.”

“A gift from my agent,” Tristan murmured, his silky rasp wrapping its warmth around Wolf’s dick. “For my monsters. I think it’s fitting. I got that for my monsters. I’m going to drink it because of monsters.”

“You’ve got a Macallan Cask Strength in here too. Let’s pop that one instead. If I’m going to drink a whiskey that cost more than my first car, I want to enjoy it.” Wolf blew out two tumblers and padded over to the couch, handing the other man the glasses so he could undo the bottle’s top. After splashing some of the heady amber liquid into one glass, he took the other from Tristan and poured one for himself.

Toasting the blond next to him, Wolf raised his glass and said, “
Slàinte mhòr agad
.”

He would have said more, something witty and warm to take away the tremors coursing through Tristan’s slender body, but he had the glass halfway to his mouth when he spotted a familiar red ball on the couch. Usually when the ball reappeared, it showed under his feet or in his bed, sometimes on a table or in his bathroom. This time, its appearance wasn’t so much a shock as where it was.

This time, the ball was firmly in the jaws of a transparent, filmy-blue dog standing proudly on a couch cushion, its stub tail wagging so furiously, Wolf had a hard time seeing it through the blur. Moving closer until he straddled Tristan’s legs, the rough-coated terrier dropped the ball and lolled his cornflower-blue tongue out, a cunning smile pulling up his doggy lips. The ball rolled across the cushion and came to rest against Tristan’s covered leg, its pungent smell reaching Wolf’s nose nearly as quickly as the dog’s hot breath touched his face.

“Well, shit.” Wolf gulped at the Scottish brew, burning his throat. “I guess that’s Jack.”

Chapter 7

T
HE
BED
was cold underneath him but ragingly hot on top when Wolf finally woke up. Worse, it seemed to have lost a few feet and grown a hard back he’d somehow gotten his elbow lodged into. Something smelled of wet dog, and there was a whirring sound he couldn’t quite place. Then he turned his head and realized the whirring sound was coming from behind him… in the form of a sleek purple vacuum being run over hardwood floors.

His eyes weren’t quite working, blurring everything around him whenever he tried to blink, and sitting up proved to be a huge mistake, especially when something in his head began to pound against the inside of his skull, perfectly in time with the whirring. The bed turned out to be a couch that while comfortable, certainly wasn’t meant to be shared with a floppy-legged wolfhound that seemed slightly damp, either from the rain or perhaps from diving into a sewer, because the dog certainly had a special odor seeping up from his fur.

Beneath the whirring and now the snorfling grunts of a sleeping wolfhound, the storm railed at the manor, slamming into it with as much fury as Wolf’s headache on his temples. Dislodging Boris was more difficult than he thought, and for a moment, Wolf debated just dying on the couch, his bones pressed down to dust beneath the heavy dog’s weight.

“Isn’t that how they tested for witches?” he mumbled, starting the cacophony in his head again. “Wait, that was just one witch. Corey?”

“Giles Corey. And he was an American,” Mara supplied as she turned off the vacuum. “Most people who died by
peine forte et dure
were those who refused to enter a plea in Great Britain. But by the looks of that beast on you, it won’t be long for you.”

“It’s not the dog. I feel like shit,” Wolf grunted, shoving Boris behind him as he rolled off the couch. His stomach joined his head in complaining, and he clutched at his belly, wondering what the hell he did to deserve the assault. Even his bones ached, and he had a sneaking suspicion he’d swallowed either a pumice stone or cleaned the Grange’s fireplaces with his tongue.

Coming face-to-face with an empty bottle of Macallan’s brought it all back, including the sloppy kiss he gave Tristan before he collapsed into a deep-black unconscious sleep.

“Fuck.” Wolf rubbed his forehead. Even his hair hurt. The bottle was definitely empty, and the dog snored on, content to have the couch to himself. “Where’s Tristan?”

“Downstairs.” Mara picked up an accent pillow, beating it back into shape, then tucking it back into a chair. “It’s Tuesday. He’s waiting for Cook to come in. Then I think he plans on working. You’ll have to ask him.”

“He’s not….” Wolf bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from whimpering as he stood up. It was one thing to show his frailty to the dog, but the sharp-eyed woman bustling about Tristan’s apartment was something else.

“Hungover?” The woman fluffed another pillow, then grabbed the empty whiskey bottle from the table. “No, the boy’s fine—not a headache or anything. You still a bit ossified?”

“Is that a fancy word for fucked up?” He glanced up at the woman as he bent over his own knees, catching his breath before standing up again.

“Yes. Yes it is.”

“Then yes, I’m ossified, fossilized, and any other –ized you want to call me right now.” The world tilted a little bit when he stood up straight, but his stomach seemed to stay in place. “I’m going to head for a shower.”

“And then?” Mara turned, her shoes squeaking on the floor.

“Then I’m going downstairs to bell the cat,” Wolf said, grabbing the red ball off of the low table in front of him. “And maybe a dog too.”

A
SHOWER
made him feel more human—barely—but Wolf didn’t trust himself with a sharp blade against his face, not even one set into a safety razor and primed with skin softening gel. The room across the hall from his was quiet, so either Gidget and Matt weren’t inside or they’d killed one another and joined the Grange’s spectral guests.

“Good, they can throw the ball for the damned dog.” Jack hadn’t made an appearance yet, but he wasn’t holding his breath. Something had happened to either push him over the edge into seeing Tristan’s delusions or he’d jumped onto the crazy train all by himself. “Fucking hell, my mother’s going to laugh her goddamned ass off about this.”

The ballroom doors were open, and he heard the soft murmur of voices coming from inside the cavernous space. Voices that not only seemed to be getting along but cooing excitedly over something.

“I liked it better when they were fighting.” Wolf bit the bullet and headed into the ballroom, hoping both of his technicians were dressed and oohing over a kitten or something. Of course, he owed them an apology for not showing up last night. “I didn’t even get laid or anything. Just fucking drunk.”

What he found was much more thrilling than a kitten.

The ballroom’s chandeliers were dimmed, the bank of monitors and analysis equipment casting an eerie glow over the tables and floor. Both Gidget and Matt were hunkered in front of the camera feed displays, tapping furiously at their keyboards and cackling between their gleeful mutters. Their boards were lit up, dancing with waves of green and yellow as the feeds and sensors picked up activity through the Grange.

Matt was the first one to spot him, and he grinned up at Wolf, motioning him over with a frantic wave. “Dude, you’ve got to come see this. It’s been insane since last night. Readers are off the board.”

His body sung with the chase, and Wolf was torn between diving into the team’s results and hunting down Tristan to talk about what happened between them the night before. A few beeps and a flash of something on the screen in front of Gidget and Wolf decided a few minutes staring at the feeds wouldn’t hurt anyone.

“Here, watch this one.” Gidget got out of her chair, bouncing up on the balls of her feet. “I’m going to get some coffee. You want some coffee? We should have enough. Deidre… she’s one of the morning staff… she set us up with an espresso machine. One of those packet jobbie things. We’ve been using it all night. Awesome stuff.”

“Sure, an espresso would be nice.” Wolf’s head throbbed when he plopped into the chair Gidget vacated.

“Look at what I’ve got keyed up,” Gidget called out. “There’s some clear manifestations on the edges of the film. No faces or anything but still, forms! Or something!”

Wolf flicked the playback to the beginning of the patch Gidget started. Frowning, he tried to distinguish which of the manor’s many hallways was being shown when the marker flashed up on the screen, labeling the feed’s origin. The second-floor feed had been promising before, and the junction camera flickered and danced with static, then settled down to a strong, steady view of the birdcage lift landing.

The time markers flew by at double speed, advancing the video quickly. For a few minutes, the feed appeared normal. Then a white shape dashed across the screen, just beyond the camera’s fixed lens. Curious, Wolf paced the film back in increments, slowing the form down until he could barely make out what looked like the curve of a shoulder and maybe an arm. The rest of the shape was sporadic, a lacy construct of light and shadows, but there was definitely something there.

“Did you run this through the infrared feeds?” He took the cup Gidget offered him when she shoved it over his shoulder.

“That’s the fucked-up part.” She dragged another chair up to the table. “They went offline every time we tried flaming them on. Matt even went upstairs with a handheld, but as soon as he got off the elevator, everything went dark.”