Vesik 3 Winter's Demon (7 page)

I caught Mike’s smile in the rearview mirror. “I was alive long before the Old Man brought Rome to its knees, before the pharaohs built their tombs and the Gods of Light and Shadow waged their war in the Abyss.”

“So … older than Zola.” Sam said.

Mike let out a slow laugh. “Yes, much older than Zola.”

I glanced at Sam. She seemed to be taking that in stride. I wasn’t sure if she knew the legends of the Abyss or not. Hell, I was rusty on them, but I knew the Abyss was said to be a realm between ours and the Burning Lands. There was a passage in a very old tome I’d read some years ago.

For nothing wanders the Abyss where the Old Gods lie dormant. Nothing exists but death, and a pathway into insanity.

That book was one of the Pit’s oldest possessions. Warded against decay, it didn’t show its age. Vik had told me it was 7,000 years old.

Close to an hour passed in relative silence.

“Why couldn’t we take the Ways out there?” Sam asked.

A put upon sigh came from the vicinity of the coffee cup and Foster lifted the hat off.

“Foster!” Aideen squeaked. She wasn’t quite dressed yet, and he’d briefly exposed her topless form to the rest of the car. Foster slowly lowered the hat as he stepped outside the cup, a wicked grin etched onto his face.

“What?” he asked. “We’ve known everyone in this car long enough to go au natural. Except maybe Mike, but he’s a demon, so what’s the problem?”

“Perhaps a little warning next time so I’m aware you’ve made that decision for the both of us,” Aideen said. “Not that you’re wrong, you just surprised me.”

“Sorry, dear.”

“Oh, you will be,” she grumbled.

“Are those real?” I asked casually.

Sam swatted my arm, but not before she snorted a laugh and then covered her mouth, trying not to laugh harder.

“You’re going to get me killed,” Foster said.

“I’m quite sure you did that yourself,” Mike said, rolling his gaze away from the window and letting it fall on the fairy.

“I … I … never mind,” Foster said as he wiped his plastered hair out of his eyes. “Look, Sam, we can’t take the Warded Ways because there aren’t any around Rivercene. The closest jump would be thirty minutes away, and then we’d need to rent a car or something.”

“Or fly,” I said.

“Of course, if we could fly, we wouldn’t have had to drive,” Mike said, his voice bare of sarcasm.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Sam said under her breath.

I caught Mike’s smile in the rearview.

“Now, now, children. We’re almost there,” I said. “We’re already past Columbia.”

The landscape rolled by. Green forested hills were lit by the fading sun, and the river valley was cast into shadows by the same. In the daytime you could see more hills, colors faded by the distance. At night the darkness swelled and surged along the river, impenetrable and altogether threatening.

I flicked the signal on and merged off the highway. We passed a gas station, hotels, and a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Those monstrosities seemed to be a staple in every small town. It wasn’t long before the road narrowed into two lanes. Old homes began to crop up on either side of the road until full-blown subdivisions were suddenly flanking us on all sides.

A few chain restaurants and strip malls rolled by before we hit a surprising amount of traffic in downtown Boonville. While the cars stopped and started, I watched the old streetlights and brick buildings do the same. Boonville was another old town, close to the same age as Alton, but ravaged by the terror and brutality of the Civil War. An oppressive, dark energy settled on me as we bore deeper into the streets.

“This is a dark place,” Mike said from the backseat.

“No, it only has a dark past,” Aideen said. “There are many places that have overcome their pasts and risen beyond them.”

“I feel it,” I said. “We’re surrounded here. War, death, fear. I can feel the lost all around us.”

“The lost?” Mike asked.

“The souls that are left behind,” I said.

He nodded in the rearview. “It’s a good name.”

A small voice changed from a whisper into a shout as Foster said, “Irish Pub!”

I glanced to the left, in the direction of his pointing hops and grinned. A neon stein, bubbling over with suds, lit the entrance set in the old brick building’s green façade.

“I believe we found dinner,” Mike said.

Foster and Aideen huddled together, speaking quickly and flapping their wings in excitement.

“What’s up with you two?” Sam said, taking the words right out of my mouth.

“We’re trying to remember who owns the pub,” Aideen said.

“I think it’s one of Glenn’s friends,” Foster said.

“Great,” I muttered. Glenn was the nickname of Gwynn ap Nudd, the Fae King.

“Glenn has done nothing but help us,” Sam said as Foster and Aideen coughed back laughs.

“I would sooner trust a demon,” Mike spat from the backseat. I raised an eyebrow and glanced at him in the mirror a second before he frowned slightly. “Forget I said that.”

The rest of the car burst into laughter.

“Glenn’s okay,” Foster said as the chuckling died off. “Just don’t get in his way.”

On that cheery note, we continued our stop-and-go journey toward the bridge that would take us across the Missouri River.

The buildings grew more modern at the corner of East Spring Street, and then immediately returned to solid blocks of storefronts and brick. Antiquated streetlights adorned the curbs alongside historical markers, dormant trees, and a total lack of parking spaces.

The bridge was in view by the time we reached the next block, and when the signal changed, we started the incline up over the Missouri River.

“That’s an eyesore,” Sam said as she looked out to the west.

“What?” Foster asked. “The casino or the rusty old bridge?”

Aideen punched him in the arm. “Idiot. Of course the casino.”

“It is better than letting the town wither away, year after year,” Mike said. “A little sin can go a long way.”

“First you say you’d trust a demon,” Sam said as she held up a finger. “Now you’re telling us the benefits of sin?”

“To support a local economy?” Mike said. “Yes, there are many benefits.”

“Just stop,” Foster said. “I am going to hurl if I have to listen to you two debate economics. I’d rather talk about the rusty old bridge.”

“Sometimes I can’t believe I married you,” Aideen said. “That bridge is a living history, a testament to mankind’s ingenuity. MKT used that line—”

“MKT?” Sam asked.

“Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroad,” Aideen said. “They used it to complete a route between Hannibal and Texas in the 1870s, and this town boomed because of it, and because of the river, of course.”

“Why do you even know that?” Foster asked.

Aideen glared at him.

“So,” I said, rapidly changing the topic. “Zola is older than that historically important bridge.”

Silence filled the car for a moment before it exploded into laughter.

By the time we finished laughing, I turned the signal on and pulled the car onto a gravel road. We bounced onto County Road 463, gravel pinging off the wheel wells as we passed an industrial site of some sort. Its white silos and conveyor belts were silent.

Zola’s taillights brightened a little ways ahead of us and I followed her into the far side of Rivercene’s driveway. My foot eased off the accelerator and I gaped at the old Victorian mansion nestled among a few ancient, bare trees. Alex, one of the ghosts that frequented my shop to chat, tended to ramble about Victorian architecture and I immediately thought of him and his lingo. Two stories of brick topped with a third story, adorned in gray-green hexagonal shingles and half-sunken bay windows sat beneath a mansard roof with an elevated center. Dentils hung from the portico and from the base of the third floor. A short brick tower on the east side rose about halfway up the second story. Parts of the shingles and some of the woodwork showed wear, but the overall effect was inviting. I couldn’t wait to go inside.

“It’s kind of creepy,” Sam said.

“What?” I said, disbelief obvious in my voice.

“It’s alright,” Foster said as his gaze swept from one end of the mansion to the other. Aideen stood beside him with a small frown on her face.

“I’m going to have to agree with Sam,” Mike said.

“Oh, whatever,” I said as I parked beside Zola on the other side of the walkway. There was another building beside us, and I could only imagine it had been a guest house at some point in time.

Twilight sank over Rivercene in the time it took us to unload the trunks and start up the brick walkway to the front door. I walked beside Zola and we both turned our gazes to the sky. There was still light pollution here, but the Milky Way was plain to see. It was a glorious band of light, sprawled out across the heavens.

“It is better here,” Zola said. “Better here than in town. The spirits are restless around Boonville.”

Something large and winged streaked across the disc of the moon.

“I’d say they have a right to be,” I said as we walked up the short flight of stairs to the mansion, shivering from the cold as much as the unseen eyes watching our arrival.

“Your mother would love it here,” Dad said, his eyes distant as he picked up his old green suitcase.

Mom.

Philip was going to die.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I
reached out for the doorbell and then paused with my hand outstretched. The bell was mounted in wood trim that was shaped like a rope. The detail was beautiful, but the bell was strange. It stuck out like a key, with no button to push.

“You twist it,” Zola said, with a slight edge of impatience.

I grabbed the cold metal and did just that. I could hear a bell clanging inside in time to the speed of my turns.

“That is so cool,” Sam said.

I nodded. “Yes it is.”

“You two are easily amused,” Mike said from behind us. He was standing back on the large, wooden porch with the rest of our group. Footsteps echoed inside the house.

The hinges creaked and one of the huge doors swung inward. A short woman with round glasses and frizzy brown hair peered around the edge. Her eyes swept over us and then shot up to the fairies hovering above my shoulder.

“Adannaya, I presume.” Her voice was throaty and gruff, but a hint of kindness bled through.

Zola nodded.

“You look the same as your pictures. Come in.” As she stepped to the side, I could see she was comfortably overweight and likely less than fifty years old.

“Hello, what’s your name?” I asked as I extended my hand.

She narrowed her eyes. “It’s nothing you need to know, and I don’t need to know yours. Too many people asking about folk we don’t know. I’d prefer to keep it that way.”

I let my hand fall as I pondered the logic of that rambling. Then my eyes tracked the rest of the group as they gawked at the mansion’s interior. A grand staircase flowed up to the second floor, carved from mahogany and walnut, and flanked by a wide banister on the left and only the wall on the right.

Past the staircase I could make out a hallway, hung with aged portraits. Beige Victorian chairs and an intricately detailed couch sat below the lighted paintings. A curio lay beyond those, lit from within to display a small ocean of treasures.

Foster and Aideen flitted from one room to the next. Mike leaned on the doorway to the left and let out a low whistle.

“That is quite a piano,” he said as he admired the ancient grand inside the room.

“It doesn’t work,” the innkeeper snapped.

Mike let out a low chuckle. “You and I both know that is not true. It may not play music, but I believe it ‘works’ just fine.”

Surprise flickered over the woman’s face and then her mask settled back in. “I will show you to your rooms.”

We followed her up to the second floor. I kept one hand on the old, wide banister as I slung some luggage over my back. I caught a glimpse of an old wheelchair and a riverboat captain’s uniform out on display before we started up the next staircase.

“Watch your step. These old stairs get a little narrow,” the innkeeper said. “Not made for big feet.” She eyed me and Mike. I gave her a dazzling smile, to which she rolled her eyes.

I jumped as something landed on my shoulder.

“You should see the kitchen!” Foster said.

“It’s truly a sight,” Aideen echoed from my other shoulder.

“A little warning next time, guys?” I said.

They ignored me and prattled on about the incredible fireplace and how they could have cooked for dozens of people, even back in the 1800s. I smiled as I balanced on the balls of my feet and navigated the narrow stairwell. The echo of our footsteps was deadened as we climbed higher and carpeted floors replaced the spread of hardwood outside the staircase.

The ceilings were just as imposing on the second floor and again on the third. The third floor felt homey despite the elevated ceilings. The far end of the hall had a short coffee table surrounded by a blue, wood-framed couch and chairs. The bay window sat behind those, though I wasn’t sure if it was really a bay now that I was standing on the other side. It was up off the floor a bit, but sunk into the wall like a bay window. Below the window, a few modest bookshelves were filled to bursting with old tomes. I stared at that plain hallway for moment, trying to figure out what was wrong.

One thing bothered me, and it made my skin crawl.

“There aren’t any ghosts here,” I said.

“Oh, I assure you there are,” the innkeeper said.

I closed my eyes and pushed my senses out. Nothing. No spirits, no impressions, only a vacant space of calm.

“Don’t bother.” I heard Edgar’s voice before I opened my eyes and saw the man standing before the window at the end of the hallway. He started walking towards us as he spoke. “This place has been shielded for over a century, as much to protect the old ghosts here as to keep hostile spirits out.”

“I always wondered why they wanted the piano here,” Mike said. “It would make sense.”

The innkeeper looked up at the demon, surprise obvious on her face once again. “How could you possibly know anything about that?”