Revenant (18 page)

“You faked all that?”

“No. But it was not so overwhelming as it may have appeared. We were lucky that she was only a student. Her master chose to channel the ritual through his own body to control it if she should make a mistake. If he’d had more confidence in her and chosen to take part directly, we would have had to deal with him on his own ground rather than with his cocksure apprentice whose first concern was protecting him. Her shield kept him from turning the tide of this skirmish, and only the deaths of the two lesser priests gave me power enough to make such a show.”

I wanted to curse at him, but I put my attention on more important things. “Priests . . . ?” I thought about the robed men and the perversion of a church they’d died in; I thought about the man in the clerical collar with a strange, violent aura who’d stood in the little plaza below the small white church on the hill. I shuddered, sickened to the core.

He nodded. “Most of the Kostní Mágové are priests, nuns, monks. . . . They are religious fanatics who believe in the allegory of the bones—death in life, the transience of worldly power—but only as a conduit for their own. I am sorry for the pain their deaths caused you, but it was a necessary risk.”

I resisted the urge to punch him for putting me through the agony of their passing—and nearly that of Quinton as well. He gave me a measuring look. “What do you plan to do with the child? It won’t be safe for her to return to her mother.”

“We’ve made arrangements. Quinton and I can handle it from there—if Quinton is still able, that is.”

“I will look after him as well.”

“I’m not sure about your variety of care, Carlos.”

“Without it, he will die.”

I pulled my eyes from the road only long enough to glare at him.

“Griffin’s spell allowed the bones of the dead to draw life from him,” he explained. “I can remove that connection before it kills him. It touched you also, but you’ll heal yourself of it—being what you are. His niece’s injuries can be cured by medicine, but his cannot. We must return to the house.”

“So long as we get everyone into your house without any interference from the ghosts, you can save him?”

Carlos interrupted his nod to frown at me. “The ghosts have caused you a problem?”

It was hard to turn my mind back to the topic of the ghosts in Carlos’s house as I continued to think about Quinton and Soraia, bones and priests, and ghosts imprisoned in boxes the way my first Grey client had been. I shook my scrambled thoughts off and concentrated on the matter of the spirits that haunted Carlos’s house.

“Not a problem so much as a . . . conundrum. When I arrived, I was let out of the box by a woman named Rafa, who used to be the housekeeper until she retired in 1992. She died in 2000. I don’t know why she’s been interfering, but she gave me keys that unlock not just the house, but a particular time frame of the house’s past—Rafa’s time frame. I lost one of the keys and had to get in the old-fashioned way—by knocking—or I never would have been sure what was going on. I haven’t seen her since I relocked the temporacline.”

“I never knew her. . . .”

“Which is kind of weird, because she seemed to know you. She called you ‘Dom Carlos,’ and talked about ‘the family’ as if there
were others around, but the only other ghost I’ve had any contact with is another woman—she seems to want something, but I haven’t been able to ask her what. She said ‘I don’t forget,’ but I have no idea what she was referring to. Her name was Amélia. Ring any bells?”

Carlos raised an eyebrow and leaned away from me. He seemed stunned—an emotion I’d
never seen on him before.

“Amélia was my wife.”

FOURTEEN

N
ow it was my turn to be stunned. “Your wife? You were married?” I couldn’t imagine it. “I thought your preferences ran in another direction.”

Carlos chuckled, seeming relieved I’d pick that topic rather than Amélia herself to start with. “My preferences are broader than you know.”

“I’m having a hard time imagining you married to anyone.”

“I was sixteen when we wed. Amélia was thirteen. It was common for the children of important houses to marry young by arrangement.”

“I know the history of marriage in Europe, Carlos,” I said. “I didn’t know you came from an influential family until today.”

“They are no longer.” He glanced back at Soraia, who was asleep in her uncle’s arms as we drew closer to Alfama. “Perhaps we should continue this discussion another time. . . .”

“Is this in the same category as showing me the window you were thrown out of?” I asked.

“It is.”

I humphed, but honored his desire to let the subject lie for now.

When we arrived at the house and drove the tiny car into the courtyard for safekeeping, we found Sam waiting in her own small car just outside the gates. She ran to scoop up her daughter the moment the girl stumbled, half asleep, from the car.

“Soraia! Are you all right?”

Soraia nodded, looking frightened, sleepy, and overwhelmed.

Sam was panicky. “
Anjinho
, say something. I’ve been so worried about you. I just want to hear your voice.”

“Estou bem, Mamãe,”
she whispered, then looked ready to cry. “Oh . . . English. I’m sorry,” the little girl said, hanging her head and breaking into sobs.

“Oh, little angel, it’s all right. I don’t care if you speak
Russian
right now. I’m so glad to see you!”

“Where’s Martim?” Soraia asked, her voice still so low I could barely hear her. “I don’t want Avô to hurt him, too. . . .”

“What? Your grandfather hurt you?” Sam said, her eyes huge with fear. She held her daughter and looked back at her car, not knowing what to do first. “Oh God! I left Martim in the car seat!”

Quinton walked to Sam’s car and extracted his whimpering nephew with unsteady hands. I caught up to him as he carried the baby back to Sam and Soraia. He was shaking as he held Martim out for his sister to take into her arms.

Sam stood, accepting Martim while Soraia clung to her leg. “Thank you! I was so worried about Soraia, I forgot Martim!”

“He’s just anxious,” Quinton said, taking a step back. Sam frowned, knowing something was wrong, but too distracted with concern for her children to fix on it yet.

I started to put my arm around Quinton, but he closed his eyes and shook his head. “Not now, Harper,” he muttered, his aura
flickering tight to his body, as if he were exerting considerable effort to remain upright and any touch would break him. I let my arm drop but stayed close, whether he liked it or not.

His sister had already turned her attention back to her kids, holding Martim close and bending down again to look at her daughter. “What happened,
fadinha
? Avô hurt you? Where?”

Soraia held out her arm, still scratched and red but no longer bleeding. She pointed at Carlos. “He fixed it.”

For a moment, Sam was relieved it was just the little girl’s arm; then she whipped her head around to stare at Carlos, but he was already walking toward the house. She turned her gaze up to Quinton and then me. “What is she talking about? What happened?”

“I think we should have this discussion indoors,” I said.

Quinton, moving a little unsteadily, knelt down and peeled Soraia off her mother’s leg. “Come on, Fairy Princess. Let’s go in.”

Soraia bit her lip and frowned at the house, then dug her heels in, shaking her head.

“Are you afraid to go inside?” Quinton asked.

She nodded.

“This is Senhor Carlos’s house. He won’t hurt you.”

Soraia’s mouth turned down and her lip trembled. “He’s a bad man, like the old man from the bone house,” she whispered. “Black.”

Sam cast a confused look between her brother and me.

“I think she means he’s wearing black, like one of the men who hurt her,” I said, but I didn’t believe it. If Soraia had a touch of power to her, it wasn’t unlikely that she could see his death-black aura and thought it resembled the energy of the
bone mages.

Quinton put his arm around her. “I know he seems scary, but he’s not like that man. He made your arm better. He doesn’t want to hurt you.”

She still wasn’t convinced, hanging back.

“Not everything that’s frightening is hurtful.”

“Will you keep the ghosts away?”

Quinton hugged her tight. “Yes, we will, Fairy Princess. Me and Harper and your mother and even Carlos will keep you safe. I promise.”

Soraia chewed on her lips for a moment. Then she turned to face the house, putting her hand in Quinton’s, and nodded.

We all filed in through the open door; I was in the rear with some of the family luggage. Carlos was waiting for me in the entry and put out an arm, restraining me from following the rest of the party.

When they were gone, he gave me a dark look from the side and said, “You understand that without Quinton’s niece, the Kostní Mágové will have to seek the bones of another suitable child.”

“I suppose that’s true. You’ll forgive me if I was more worried about rescuing my almost-niece from being flayed than about what would happen if she wasn’t.”

He turned all the way to face me, blocking my way in and my view of anyone inside. “I do not question your motives, Blaine. But what we’ve done won’t stop them. It will only infuriate them and redirect their efforts.”

“Are you suggesting that they would come after some other member of the family?”

“Without knowing precisely what they intend to conjure, I can’t know what change they will have to make or who their victim will be in exchange. If the Night Dragon that Griffin produced had been her own work, I would know what they intend. But it wasn’t a true drache, and without the bones, informed guesses are the best I can do at the moment—though it pains me to say so.”

“There were bones.”

“Not drachen bones.”

“Not at the church. That’s what I think fell from the sky when the dragon Quinton and I saw earlier broke down. They looked like sticks, but I didn’t see them well. They were pale green and they smoked where they touched the ground—like the ones we saw in Seattle last year.”

Carlos scowled and I felt a stab of cold. “That bodes ill. There’s much yet for me to do before dawn, so I must rely on you to communicate the appropriate information—or withhold it as you see fit. I may be able to discover more tomorrow night, but it will be risky and I must prepare in what time remains tonight. There is also the matter of your spouse-in-soul.”

“You’re tired. I’ll help you.”

“You cannot. Your presence would be a liability for both of us.”

“Then what are you asking of me?”

“Look after him and search for news of bones—of anything bizarre or unusual that has happened recently in Europe—especially in the more superstitious corners. And make sure that the children are truly safe. If you have to take them yourself, do it. We cannot risk any of the family falling into the wrong hands. The girl’s mother cannot comprehend and your beloved is not, at the moment, clearheaded enough. I can trust only you to know the real dangers of this.”

His focus on me was intense and I found myself wincing and drawing my shoulders in defensively as if his stare had physical weight. He seemed to realize it and stepped back, cutting his gaze to the side. “My apologies.”

I let out a breathless chuckle. “You’ve apologized to me more in the past twenty-four hours than in our entire acquaintance up to this point.”

“Have I?”

“Yes. I might start to think you’re growing a conscience.”

“Never that.” He growled and turned his back so he could walk into the house.

I followed him, once I had conquered my urge to laugh.

There was no sign of Carlos when I cleared the door, but Quinton was waiting for me near the stairs. He looked horrible even in the subdued light of the room.

“There was a message on the answering machine—I didn’t know people still had those,” he said. “The Danzigers’ car died, so we’ll have to get Sam and the kids to Spain ourselves.” We’d known the Danzigers wouldn’t be here too soon, but I hadn’t expected this complication—it was almost as if Carlos had known it was going to happen. . . .

I looked at Quinton and saw that the color of his flickering aura was a sick olive drab with thin threads of black wound through it. “I’ll do it. I don’t know my way around as well as you, but Sam can help me. You need some rest and I have an assignment from Carlos that you’ll be much better at than I could be.”

“I’m not feeling too well and I—I am disturbed by what I did. I killed a man. . . .”

“You did it to save your niece. You didn’t have much choice.”

“It hurt you and I didn’t have to . . . kill him. I could have disabled him, left him alive. . . .”

“I’m not sure you could have. You had no idea what he was capable of, and if it had become a fight, or if he’d gotten back up in a few minutes, the advantage would have been lost. We would have lost.”

He hung his head. “I don’t know. And I don’t feel right about sending you off—”

“I know you don’t, but I can see that you’re sick and I’m sure Sam will understand.”

“Do you think we did the right thing . . . ?”

“Of course we did. Why do you ask that?”

“I’m not stupid. Dad—or these mages—will be looking for a substitute for Soraia.”

“Yes. But you can’t worry about that now. You need to rest and I’ll deal with the other stuff. Where are Sam and the kids?”

“They’re in the kitchen. There’s a clean bedroom on the second floor I figured they can have.”

“Good idea. Go join them and I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” His voice was breathy and unsteady.

“To dump the luggage and risk the wrath of Carlos before he gets too involved in whatever else he needs to do. He thinks he can find out tomorrow night what the Kostní Mágové are trying to make, but he’s got to do something first. I want to intrude before he gets too immersed.”

“All right. But if you’re not back down in fifteen minutes, I’m coming to get you.”

I was afraid he might not be able to, but I smiled and hugged him. He felt stiff, slick with sweat, and too warm. “Go get Dr. Rebelo to look at you,” I said as I let him go.