Hell Fire (33 page)

“Easy, easy.” Dale Graham, still wearing the clothes he’d had on when we bought him coffee, came out into the overhead light, his palms spread. “I don’t want anybody else to know I survived the fire, so why don’t we get in the car and drive?”

With a quick, furtive look around the parking lot, we did. Jesse got in front with Dale; Chance, Shannon, and I crammed in back. But Jesus, Dale smelled evil. Whatever he’d been doing to lie low hadn’t involved personal hygiene. Eyes watering, I cracked the back window and wished I could crawl all the way back to the cargo area.

“You’ve fingered Sandra and August, am I right?” He rubbed his hands together like a gleeful child. “I have
proof
. And I have the book with me, thank God.”

“More important, do you know the way to his place?” Jesse asked.

He’d taken the wheel because Shannon wasn’t trained in tailing, but it looked like we’d missed Sandra Cheney. I hadn’t seen her leave the parking lot. Dammit. We’d spent too long saying our good-byes to friendly parishioners. At Dale’s gesture, Saldana pulled out from the parking lot and onto the road.

“Absolutely,” Graham assured us. “I’ve been following them for weeks, and it’s even worse than I thought. In fact, they haven’t been conspiring with an alien race to subjugate all humankind.”

I blinked and slid a look at Chance, who asked, “What could be worse than that?”

The reporter shifted on the seat, peering at us over his shoulder. “Demons,” he whispered. “I think they’re summoning demons.”

“At least one,” I agreed. “And I don’t know what we’re going to do about it.”

“Do you think they’re going to summon more? When?” Shannon asked.

Dale sighed. “I wish I knew.”

He turned back around then and focused on giving directions to Saldana. The night was black as ink, starless, cloudless. The farther we got from Kilmer, the more my flesh crawled. Shouldn’t there be a moon somewhere up there? I thought about what Booke had said concerning the stain upon the astral. Could it be spreading? I wondered if there would come a time when there was no longer any blue in the sky at all; if the town was being slowly sucked elsewhere, so when the odd stranger came by here, there would one day be nothing but a stretch of weirdly empty road.

I shivered, and Chance wound an arm around my shoulders. “Do we trust this guy?” he whispered.

“They burnt down his house,” I answered quietly. “They must think he knows
something
incriminating.”

“Or they’re just crazy,” Shannon put in. “I know my mom is.”

I couldn’t argue that, and there was no point in speculating. We’d be there soon enough—and I’d rather not breathe any more than I absolutely had to.

“We’ll have to park here,” Dale said abruptly. “We’re going in the back. I know a way around the fences.”

“Are they electric?” Jesse asked.

The reporter shook his head. “No, but he has dogs.”

“Of course he does,” Chance muttered.

I glanced down at my skirt. Well, at least I was wearing black, but if I’d known ahead of time, I probably would have dressed down a little. We pulled off the road just inside a stand of trees. It offered basic cover for the SUV, but it wouldn’t stand up to prolonged scrutiny. The good news was, most of Kilmer was at the Methodist church.

We hiked a short way past the road and into the field. To get through Dale’s gap in the fence, we had to crawl. My sweater caught, but Jesse unhooked me before it could tear. I flashed him a smile as the others came past.

“Which way to the house?” Jesse whispered.

At first I wasn’t sure why the hushed voices, and then I realized our words would carry twice as far in the still night air. It was so dark I had a hard time seeing anything, let alone minute gradations on the ground. Dale led the way with surety, which I hoped came from frequent reconnaissance, not from being England’s secret minion. Burning down his house seemed extreme for a cover story, though.

As we crossed the hilly field, we didn’t talk. A somber mood had fallen upon us, driving home the idea that we were trespassing. Anything could happen to us out there. Death didn’t have to come from some exotic source. A knife or stray bullet would do the job more permanently than any of us liked. Butch whined a little in my bag, and I gave him a reassuring stroke.

As we crested what Dale said was the final hill, a mansion worthy of a Gothic novel sprawled before us. I took in the mullioned windows, graven arches, and the crumbling, ornate stonework. We stood closest to the back door, or the servants’ entrance.

Maybe that would be our ticket in; I just didn’t know how yet. Not for the first time, I wished I had my mother’s affinity for real magick, not just a touch that crippled me whenever I used it. Wouldn’t it be awesome if I had a bag of tricks full of prepared spells? Chance could pick the lock, but what would we say to the cook? A concealment or disguising charm would have come in handy right about now.

Too bad I wasn’t a witch.

“We can’t just stand here. Anybody looking out those windows”—Jesse gestured at the upper stories—“could see us. Let’s take cover.” He led the way toward the hedges.

Because I couldn’t think of a better plan, I followed.

Once we were hidden, I noticed Chance craning his neck to get a better look at the symbols etched into each stone that composed the arches. I looked too, figuring it might be important. And then it clicked.

“They match the ones on the library,” I whispered.

Shannon added, “Which used to be a church.”

“They’re Rosicrucian,” Dale put in.

Hey, I could show off my Booke learning. “But they also draw from the Emerald Tablet of Hermes.”

The conspiracy theorist looked suitably impressed. “Oh, excellent.” He took a notebook out of his man purse and scrawled something.

Saldana’s leashed aggravation added a lovely edge to his Texas drawl. “I don’t mean to interrupt the ramblin’ about architecture, but unless you have a point to make, I think we need to focus elsewhere. Otherwise, the butler’s gonna come out this back door and find us squattin’ in the bushes.”

“I do have a point to make,” Chance said, unexpectedly, and with a hint of steel in his tone. “Our technology worked at the library. My
luck
worked at the library—”

“Which means it might work here,” I breathed. “We’re right under the sigils.”

Chance favored me with a smile. “Exactly. So how about I concentrate on finding us a way in there?”

Sounded good to me.

Shannon didn’t really know what we were talking about. Chance had been mundane for all the time she’d known him, and Dale squinted at us like he thought we were crazier than him. That took some doing.

As Chance focused, the air seemed to thicken around us, as if charged with electricity. I could feel the hairs on my arms prickling. Yep, his gift was definitely working here, and it seemed stronger than ever. Could it have built up power from not being used? An interesting question, but I needed to take a few steps away from him. I didn’t want to see what would happen if the bad-luck polarity had ramped up too.

It occurred to me I ought to put Butch down and see if he could find anything useful as we walked. I slipped him out of my purse, set him on the ground, and said, “Sniff the place out, but don’t rush off.”

He gazed up at me with big bulging eyes. Though he didn’t bark, he gave the impression of understanding me. How had the not-so-bright security guard wound up with a genius dog anyhow? The Chihuahua trotted along beside me, snuffling in the flowerbeds.

“This way.” Chance followed his luck as if it were a lodestone.

We circled the house, staying low and close to the walls. I didn’t want to risk getting too far from the protective runes and having his talent kick off like cheap cable TV. Midway around, Butch stopped, sneezed, and pawed at the ground.

I knelt to see what he had. Jesse dropped to his knees beside me. Dale shone a key chain penlight over the area, and with sure hands, Jesse raked the topsoil, examining the herbs. “Looks like the remnants of ward preparations, but not the general kind, like we learned from Chuch.”

My brows went up. “Maris?” That was his now-deceased ex-girlfriend, who had been a talented and powerful witch before a warlock murdered her to prevent her from telling us what she knew. “So, what’s this used for?”

He nodded. “To prevent demons from crossing your threshold.”

That served as confirmation that England was in this mess up to his neck, not that I’d needed it. I trusted my mother’s memories, but others probably appreciated concrete evidence since we were going after the most powerful man in town.

I gave the dog a pat. “Good work.”

We moved on then. With deliberate malice, Shannon scuffed her feet all the way around the house, tearing up the protective measures at every possible opportunity. Eventually Chance stopped outside a darkened window.

“This is it?” Dale asked. Without waiting for an answer, he pushed on the window and it slid up.

“Incredible,” Jesse muttered. “A place like this, and he leaves a ground-floor window unlocked.”

It might be the only one too. Jesse made quick work of the screen; given his profession, he showed an unexpected talent for B&E. Then we climbed inside, trying to be quiet. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw we’d come into a formal study. The hulking desk by the window hunched before us like a monster, and two wing chairs sat nearby as its minions. For a moment, I heard nothing but our rustling movements, and then our breathing. Then I picked out the distant murmur of voices. We’d found them.

“We need to find out what they’re up to,” Shannon whispered.

But it didn’t make sense for all five of us to go banging around in the dark. In the end, it came down to Jesse and Chance. The cop had the skill set for sneaking, but Chance’s luck might guarantee he wouldn’t get caught. They eyed each other for a few seconds before agreeing to a coin toss.

“Not you,” Saldana muttered. “I get heads.”

Chance just grinned and put away the silver coin he liked to roll along his knuckles. He kept it in his pocket for when he needed to think. Back when we were together, he’d often spin it on his hands while working out the solution to a knotty problem. I’d always liked watching him.

Our girl dug out a quarter and flipped it. The coin gleamed in the dark and she caught it cleanly, then peered at it. “Tails,” she said unnecessarily.

Luck always favored Chance. With a quick smile, he set off to spy on the twelve.

 

 

 

 

Fifteen minutes passed.

Dale slipped back outside and sat, just beneath the window, drinking from a flask. In a way, I envied his alcoholic purple haze. The rest of us might as well see what we could learn in here.

Time to loot the desk.
Quietly, I rummaged through the drawers, looking for anything of interest. In the bottom-right one, I found an interesting manila dossier full of pictures, old-fashioned black and whites that would’ve required a dark room. Among them, I found shots of us. So I hadn’t imagined that “being watched” sensation.

More telling, I found shots of Curtis Farrell half naked with a girl who probably wasn’t even eighteen. That would’ve been why England fingered him for a dirty job, but when blackmail didn’t work, he moved to brute force. What the hell had England wanted him to do to Miss Minnie?

Rob her? Frighten her into a heart attack?
Silence
her?

Or maybe I’d been right the first time. If England had been monitoring our movements and he’d known we would be there that night, maybe Farrell wasn’t supposed to do anything but die. Did Farrell know something about England, then?

Shannon came over, peering across my shoulder. “Holy crap,” she whispered. “I didn’t know Missy was sleeping with Curtis Farrell.”

Aha. “That would be—”

“England’s daughter,” she finished.

So England used his leverage with Farrell to get him where he wanted him. What then? Well, let’s see. If you had all the money and power in town and you caught a dirty, weed-smoking gas station clerk messing around with your daughter, what would you do? Find some schmucks to kill him for you, of course.
The perfect crime.

Mr. McGee must’ve found out that Farrell was running around with Melissa England; hence the argument. He’d wanted Farrell to stay away from the girl, hoping he could get out of Kilmer. Neither one of them would be going anywhere now.

We can ask the sheriff to look at the scratches on England’s hands before they heal and at the bruises on Farrell’s neck.
If only they had DNA testing there . . . but I might as well have been wishing for the moon. I thought about that for a moment; I could accuse him falsely and blame England for the bruises on my neck too, if I believed the end justified the means. Of course, we couldn’t be caught poking around his property for that to hold. He could say he’d acted in self-defense since we’d broken into his home.

Dammit.
Where the hell was Chance?

As if in answer, he slipped silently around the corner and back into the study. Relief surged through me. He held his finger to his lips and motioned that we should go. I didn’t need a second invitation.

I slipped over the windowsill, and the others followed me. Jesse went last and secured the screen behind him and then slid the window back down soundlessly. It took a kick in the side to rouse Dale. He’d been drinking steadily since we arrived, but somehow he managed to stagger back to the SUV along with the rest of us.

My heart didn’t stop its wild hammering until we were well away from there. Chance kept looking over his shoulder like he couldn’t believe we’d gotten away clean, but his luck held until we were a good distance along the highway. I sensed it cutting out that time, similar to leaving the range of a radio station. I wondered if anyone else had heard it.