Chills (19 page)

A sunburst of pain in his head made him stagger forward just as the elevator doors opened. He slapped a hand clumsily on the open door frame but was yanked backward into the hall. His vision swam, and for just a moment before everything went black, he saw Cordwell standing in his doorway, behind three figures in blue-white robes.

* * *

The text from Morris came through to Jack's cell with a little ding as he was driving back from Katie's house. When Jack read it, his heart sank.

Cordwell? Fucking Terrence Cordwell, a cultist? It made him sick to think that the very man who had examined and handled the bodies of the deceased—Oxer, Casper, poor little Gracie Anderson—was the same man who had had a hand in cutting and gouging and slicing them, and who had participated in unleashing this terrible never-ending winter and its horrors out there in the drifts. A sick welt of betrayal swelled inside him, enmeshed with anger.

It made sense. Cordwell would know exactly how much information to keep from him and his task force to keep them a step behind the HBS. He could lie about forensic evidence, could hide or destroy it if any were present. He could report back to the cult about who was involved in the case and how far the task force had gotten in the investigation. He could—

A terrible realization occurred to him, and that sick feeling intensified all through him. The handwriting on the note—he had recognized it, but hadn't been able to place it. He knew it now, though. He remembered seeing it in reports, mostly in the signature at the bottom.

Cordwell had written the note. Which meant Cordwell either had his family, or knew who did.

“I'm going to kill him,” Jack said to himself, and pressed harder on the gas.

The faces in the snow raced alongside his car, twisted into savage snarls and distorted screams.

“I'm going to kill him,” he repeated, as much to those faces as himself.

The wind howled at him in reply.

“W
ell, no word from Morris or Jack yet,” Teagan said, returning from the kitchen with two fresh glasses of vodka. “Just checked my phone.” It was possible the other detectives were out of range. It was equally possible, he supposed, that whatever forces were at work in Colby were deliberately blocking messages, particularly calls for help. It was an idea he didn't especially want to dwell on. He set Kathy's glass on the desk and moved to the couch, sipping his own. Like Kathy, he was on his third. He was starting to feel the soft, warm haze of a mild buzz. That they were technically still on duty hardly seemed relevant anymore. Both of them functioned just fine on the stuff. In fact, Teagan always thought he worked better that way, with distractions and old ghosts dampened down and his spirits lifted up. It came back to the job, both here and across the pond. It wasn't just the brutality, the blood, the butchery of it. It wasn't the body parts and the body fluids. It was the crying of the family members, the sad, lost look of orphaned kids. It was knowing secrets that kept a man and the ghosts of his sins up at night. It was sometimes not knowing and not caring where exactly the line between cop and criminal really lay. And it was the waiting, the not knowing, like his current position with Jack and Morris.

“That doesn't surprise me, coming from Jack, but Morris? He's usually like clockwork. Did you try calling either of them?”

“Aye. Both are going straight to voicemail.”

Kathy frowned, then turned back to the computer. She took a gulp of vodka and said, “Well, the sooner we can reverse the summoning spell, the sooner we can confirm they're okay.” Her voice dropped to an excited almost-whisper. “I found it, Reece. I found the spell.”

“Oh, damn. Okay, so what do we have to do?”

“I'll show you.” She got out of the chair, a little unsteadily, and motioned for Teagan to sit.

Teagan stared at the screen. The file name for the PDF he was looking at was simple enough—
Book9Worlds—
but the contents laid out in lines of black print made no sense to him whatsoever. It looked like a language, given the frequency of certain characters and breaks in the lines, but the characters themselves were odd arabesque curves and squiggles, occasionally speared with a straight line, dotted, or swept with a tilde. Each character had a certain beveled, three-dimensional quality that Teagan couldn't help feeling gave them a kind of sinister import, a life and power of their own separate from their meaning.

“What is this? The secret code?”

“No,” Kathy said, and her voice trembled with barely controlled excitement. “This particular language isn't coded, because it is, itself, almost impossible to use. The percentage of people who even recognize this as a language is so small that for all intents and purposes, it's a legend and nothing more. Even most occult experts don't know about it. This is the original language of the spell the cultists used to open the door—and the same language of the spell that we can use to close it.”

He looked at her. Her excitement shone in her eyes.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I didn't know what it was at first, either. I suspected, but I didn't know for sure. So I ran it through the usual decoding software I mentioned, and it gave me nothing. Knowing what I know now, I can see why. We're a small, watchful group, but we can't vet everybody in as timely a fashion as we would like, and the possibility for absolute chaos should translations fall into the wrong hands is too great. So my guess is that the Decoders, the creators of the software, whoever they are out there, deliberately let the means of translating this language fall into obscurity.”

“Why would they do that? What's so different about this language?”

She grinned at him. “Well, because supposedly, Reece, this here is the language of creation and destruction itself, the language that echoes the sound of the Convergence, the substance between dimensions and the space between the stars.”

“Jaysus Christ,” he said. “You're kidding.”

“I'm not. So I ran it through an NSA-pirated translator program I obtained through the usual means—”

“Of course.” Teagan winked at her.

“Of course,” she repeated with a smile. “And I have to say, I'm surprised the NSA didn't include an anti-pirating failsafe for this particular language. I mean, would you put it past the American government—or the small group of corporations and individuals who run it—to have discovered the language of creation and not do everything in their power to guard the translation of it?”

“I wouldn't put anything past your government, love. Or any government, at that.”

“Me neither. Anyway, I guess it's a moot point, because the NSA program returned all kinds of errors, giving me words from various Native American tribes, Aramaic, Latin, Sumerian, Egyptian. So then I got the two programs to run it together—a little trick of the trade—and all of a sudden, it just kind of came together. The programs started translating it all into one language—the only language, aside from the original language of the stars, so to speak, that the human tongue can evoke the same power with. It's the only language, evidently, that the portal-closing spells can be performed in. Want to take a guess what language that is?”

“Astound me, love.”

“It's Gaelic. Irish Gaelic, to be specific. Please tell me you know it.”

Teagan whistled. Finally, a language he understood, and a part of this whole process that he felt he could contribute to. “You're serious? Gaelic.”

She nodded. Her expression was hopeful, excited. “We've nailed this, Reece, but it comes down to one thing—you pronouncing and understanding Gaelic. It has to be exact, and not parroted. You have to truly understand what you're saying and how to say it.”

“Well, then consider it nailed. I grew up with the language. Me grandparents made sure I could speak it as fluently as English.”

She smiled, the warmth of her relief almost palpable. It made him happy to please her.

“Great! Okay, we'll have to make some preparations.... It'll take a little time, but . . .” She was already pacing with her cell phone, ostensibly texting the good news to Jack and Morris. “But then we can close the door and end this.”

“Close it forever?”

Kathy gave him a pained quarter-smile. “Well, probably not . . . Nothing's forever, is it?”

Reece looked into her eyes and in that moment, when they were held by each other's gaze, he saw that she both believed that and hated that she believed it.

“Some few things are,” he said, and he meant it.

“Maybe that's true,” she said softly, then turned back to the computer. She minimized the document she'd shown him and waiting in its place was another document, this time in Gaelic:

Teagan understood it, all right, if not the references made. Roughly translated, it meant:

“First, we should sleep. We have to wait for the day–experiences, thoughts, alcohol, food, everything—to work its way out of our systems. You know, clear minds and bodies and all that. Then there are a few things we'll need to gather, a few things to set up. . . . I'll set the alarm for, say”—she checked the clock in the bottom corner of her computer—”eleven p.m.? That'll give us six hours. Then we can get to work.”

“Sounds good to me. I'm beat.”

“Okay. I'm going to use the bathroom. Be right back.” She padded off with a little wobble toward the bathroom. Teagan made his way to the bedroom but hesitated by the bed, hovering over his coat. Should he leave? Drive back home for those six hours and meet up with her again? He looked out her bedroom window. He'd been drinking, too, and the snow had blown up in a thick drift against the doors of his car. He turned his gaze to her front door, thinking about the break-in, thinking about little Gracie carved up and bagged on a picnic table in a nightmare snowfall of early June. Maybe Kathy wasn't afraid and maybe she didn't need him there, but the kind of man he wanted her to see, the kind of man he wanted to be, wouldn't leave her alone in that apartment on a night like that.

“Stay,” she said from behind him as if in answer to his thoughts. He turned and let out a low whistle of appreciation. She had stripped down to a white tank top and panties and made her way across the room to sit next to his coat on the bed. Her eyes shone, and he could tell by her expression that she knew he wanted her. She smelled lightly like flowers and summer breezes and vodka. She was so beautiful.

He smiled, just taking her in for a moment, then sat down beside her. “Kathy, I—”

“In fact, stay here, in bed. With me. Sex, sleep, the whole deal.” Her voice was soft with booze and a tenuous, vulnerable honesty that made Teagan's love for her well up inside him. It also made him noticeably hard, and he shifted uncomfortably next to her on the bed.

“There is nothing I would rather do more, love,” he said huskily, touching her cheek, “than spend the next six hours making love to you. Believe that. But . . . you're a bit in the numbs, love, and you don't need some horny, lovesick Brit, also scuttered himself, giving you any reason not to trust him. I'd like your respect, if nothing else.”

“Lovesick?” It was almost a whisper.

“Aye,” he replied, just as softly. “Good night, Katherine. I'll lock up the flat.” He kissed the top of her head before getting up, then turned out the light on her night table, which left her in the soft glow of moonlight from the window. She snuggled under the covers, her eyelids already closing. A small, uncharacteristically content smile hung on her lips.

At the door to her bedroom, he paused, looking back at her. She was watching him sleepily, that smile still there.

He smiled back. “I'll take you up on that acid death swill you try to pass off as coffee later tonight, though, if you're keen. I'll see you at eleven, will I?”

“I'll see you then,” she murmured.

Teagan turned to go when he heard his name. He looked back, and when he met her gaze, there was a surprisingly serious and sober look in her eyes, as if in that moment, her will had sublimated the vodka inside her. She might have been drunk, but a part of her was all there, meaning everything she'd said, remembering it all, taking in everything between them.

“Thank you.”

He winked at her. “Any time, love. Any time.”

Teagan made his way to the front door, which he promptly locked, before looking back at the bedroom. She was in there, beyond the small, dark door. So much of his body wanted to be back in that room with her, lying next to her in the cool darkness. Any other bird in his past he would have shagged without thinking too heavily about it, but none of them had ever come close to stirring him like Kathy. The thing was, it wasn't just the sex with her that he wanted in that bedroom, even though that was a part of it. That was a big part of it, the ache in his crotch reminded him. It was also the intimacy with her, a kindred soul.
Lovesick? Oh fuck yes, Kathy m 'girl
. That had been the truest thing he'd said to anyone in a long time; he loved her.

He really loved her.

There were so many inexplicably cruel, dirty, ugly things about the world, and a part of his mind argued that he had nothing to feel bad about in enjoying beauty and solace when it was offered to him.

What happened between them was the right thing, all the right words, but the wrong time. He wasn't worried about awkwardness or regret, and didn't believe this one chance to be close to her would be the only one. They had been honest with each other with no avoidance and no walls, and neither of them were the types to deny the significance of that. Kathy had her demons, but dishonesty, to herself or anyone else, was not a part of her survival mode. And, Teagan flattered himself to think, neither was it a part of his.

He supposed he'd left that bedroom because it meant something to him that she continue to think him a decent, honorable man, a man who took his moments with her seriously. There weren't many women he'd known, his own mum included, who held the simple, frank, unconditional belief that Teagan was a good man, not the way Kathy did. It was one of the reasons he loved her, and it was one of those things he wasn't willing to risk damaging or losing altogether. He needed that from her as much as he wanted sex with her. Kathy didn't trust people in general, and men in particular. Whatever had happened to her in the past, it had hollowed out a part of her that had never quite grown back. Until he knew what that missing part was, he didn't want to take the chance of ripping it open further. He didn't think he could abide her disappointment in him.

When he checked in on her, she was asleep, her hair streaming across the pillow, her fists clenched as she dreamed. She mumbled something about finger bones and turned over, fists still clenched. He went back out into the den, made sure he'd relocked the front door, tucked his gun under one of the couch's throw pillows, picked up a blanket from a folded pile in a basket by an armchair, and lay down on the couch. Teagan wanted to get to sleep before his resolve crumbled altogether. And for the first time in a long time, he fell peacefully asleep. His dreams, though, took a decidedly sharp downturn pretty quickly after.