Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Penn made lunch while I opened the Dates Before Mates app.
“I can’t believe you’re asking me to do this,” I said.
“Consider it research,” Dante said. “So, what’s the form like?”
“Biased toward older women, which would be a good thing if I didn’t suspect the entire app of being a complete scam,” I said.
Far too many organizations and meet-ups were geared toward young women. While I was forty, my demon heritage kept me looking young. But the app seemed to be aimed toward humans and shifters. There were three boxes to check for ethnicity: Humans. Shifters. Other. I checked as human, deciding to make myself as much of a target as possible.
Penn leaned over my shoulder, watching. The frozen pizza was in the oven, and Dante had set the table. “What other questions do you have to answer?” she asked.
“Age, though they don’t have weight or body type, another odd lapse. There are a lot of questions about income, whether I own my house or rent, employment…a few about hobbies and interests. Yet, the app has a number of good reviews.” I frowned.
“Reviews can be faked. Especially with bots.” Dante leaned forward on my other side, also watching me enter information.
I didn’t use my real name, of course. Instead, I decided to use a name that sounded old-fashioned. “I’m going to be Estelle Weatherford. I need a photo…hold on.”
I jumped on the computer instead of my phone and went to an image depository, where you could buy stock photos to use for advertisements, and other such uses. I found a picture of a nice-looking older woman. She had white hair, and was wearing a fur coat and pearls. I bought the picture, cropped it, and put it up with my profile.
“Let’s see…Estelle is a widow, comfortably well off. She’s childless, loves to read, is lonely since her husband died, misses having someone to talk to, loves to cook. What else? Oh, Estelle likes men who are younger than she is. So, what do you think Tilly wrote about herself?”
Dante thought for a moment. “I think she probably said nearly the same thing.”
“Let’s see…maybe I can find her on here.” I searched through the app and finally found Tilly’s profile. It read uncannily close to “Estelle’s” except Tilly had changed her status to “Engaged—Not Currently Looking.”
“Well, we’ll see if this works. I’m marking that I am upper income, and that I haven’t ever been out of the States.” I skimmed over the profile again, and then pressed Publish . “Okay, now I want to see if I can find Jet’s profile.”
I typed in his name, and—sure enough—he was still on the app, still looking. He had listed ‘financial analyst’ under his occupation, and that he was living in Seattle. His profile listed him as single. “How does Tilly feel about him still having a profile up on Dates Before Mates when they’re supposed to be engaged? He’s still listing himself as single.”
“I don’t know. I doubt if she realizes he hasn’t changed his status.”
“She probably doesn’t know,” I said. “If she trusts him enough to turn a blind eye toward the red flags, then she’d probably believe him if he says he forgot to delete his profile or something like that. I’ll swipe right on him and see if he answers.” I hit the ‘interested’ button and then closed the app. “Well, now we wait and see.”
Penn peeked around the corner, into the living room. “Lunch is ready.”
Dante and I joined her in the kitchen. The pizza filled the kitchen with that yeasty, savory scent. As we settled around the table, I realized that I was sliding into a depression. I wasn’t sure what was wrong, but I hadn’t noticed it earlier.
“I can’t figure out what’s wrong, but I’m depressed,” I said.
“What do you think it is?” Penn asked.
“I don’t know, but it started…” I thought for a moment. “It started when I made the profile. I think I’m just disheartened by the cruelty of people. I did a little research. Did you know that online romance scams are a billion-dollar industry ? Thousands of women and men are being swindled when all they’re looking for is love. Some of them are delusional—the ones who think they’re dating Johnny Depp or Jennifer Aniston—but a lot of them aren’t tech savvy, and they’re lonely. They want a partner, not just their kids or grandkids.”
“I hate these scum,” Dante said.
I played with my pizza. “I know. I do too.”
“It makes me sick to think of this guy breaking Tilly’s heart…and her bank account. I tried to call my father about it, but he won’t accept my calls.” Dante ducked his head. “I don’t know what else to do. Tilly’s the only one in the family who will talk to me.”
“What about a friend in the Pack? Do you have anybody you still know who you can ask to talk to the Alpha about this?”
Dante hung his head. “No, that might make things worse. He might blame her. Our Pack is stern. I thought about trying to get in touch with one of her friends, though.”
“That might work.” I paused, then thought for a moment. “She must belong to several organizations, right? Rich older women always seem to belong to some charity organization.”
“Well,” Dante said, thinking for a moment. “Actually, yes, she belongs to a foundation called Elda-Care. They provide help for elderly people who are poor and have no resources.”
“They might be perfect to help her out, once we take care of this guy. They might have resources who might be able to deal with these situations. Can you get in touch with them?” I asked.
“I’ll look them up after lunch and give them a call.” Dante looked relieved. “My great-uncle did assign a financial advisor to his estate, but I think she fired the guy.”
“Do you have his name?” I asked.
Dante squinted. “I’ll try to remember. I never talked to him…Wait, I did talk to him. A few years back, when I told my aunt I wanted to buy a new car and asked her to cosign the loan. I didn’t have the best credit back then, so she instructed him to help me out. I paid back every penny, and the guy reported the loan to the credit agencies, and it helped my score.”
“I guess the Fae part of me doesn’t understand that need for a long-term partner,” Penn said.
“No, but your human side might understand…someday.” I paused to take another slice of pizza, then added, “What you don’t know, Penn, is that Tilly and her husband didn’t love each other. They had an arranged marriage, and they respected and liked each other, but she’s never had that deep, core connection with another person.”
“That seems like it would harder than being alone,” Penn said.
“I think so,” Dante said. “Especially when she really hoped for true love.”
We turned the discussion to Michael’s house.
“I’ll look at the footage you emailed me as soon as we finish eating,” Penn said.
“I’ll do the dishes,” Dante offered. Penn protested but he insisted. “I want to hear what you have to say about the shadow being we saw.”
“Oh, I’m certain that there’s a shadow person there, as well as a revenant. Which means you’re in trouble. Luckily, I’ve got a lot of resources at hand,” Penn said. “Also, my connection to Hecate gives me more power when dealing with the dead.”
I nodded, though I only half heard her. I was thinking about the fact that I was headed for a life where I could see ghosts clearly, at least, according to Seton. What must it be like, walking in the world of the dead, like Penn did?
I must have looked lost in thought, because she added, “Yoo-hoo, Kyann…where are you?”
I brought my attention back to the present. “I’m sorry, I was drifting. I was thinking about my emerging Arosien powers and what that means for me in the future.”
“It means more understanding of your basic nature,” she said. “Now, how about you help Dante clear the table and I’ll get my laptop set up. You guys want to sit here? It’s the easiest place for us to gather around the computer together.”
“Sure,” I said, picking up my dishes and carrying them to the sink.
Ten minutes later, Dante and I had rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher, and Penn had set up her laptop, and we took our places to either side of her. She opened her email and found the link that Dante had sent her.
“Here goes nothing,” she said. She clicked on it and waited a moment while it connected to the video library on our servers, back at the office.
As that clip came up, she watched as the shadow figure appeared.
“Not good. This is not good. Yes, that’s a shadow person, and yes, he’s far too powerful. But, even more troubling—the revenant was able to slam him back. That means the revenant is even more powerful. I think we have a turf war going on.” Penn replayed the footage. “Neither one likes humans, which means the real danger is if they decided to set aside their differences and team up.”
“Could that happen?” Dante asked. “Is there a chance they might declare a truce and focus on keeping out the living?”
“They don’t want to keep them out, necessarily,” Penn said. “They feed off the living. But some creatures don’t have the concept of subtly. Both revenants and shadow people are so alien s that they may not understand how to lure us in, unlike some other astral entities.”
“I’m curious,” I asked. “Can they feed off a vampire?”
“A vampire—why…” Penn stopped. “Are you thinking of sending in Lazenti?”
“He’s hard to kill. If they can’t affect him, then he might be able to go in and set up whatever we need to set up in order to clear them,” I said.
“They could stick a knife in his heart,” Dante said. “Remember, they can move things. Your stitches on your arm are proof of that.”
“He can wear some sort of armor over his chest. And a fireproof suit,” I said. “Let’s at least ask him.”
“Penn, what can you do about these entities?” Dante asked.
Penn sat back in her chair, staring at the screen. “There are three different levels to clearing the house—I know I can do at least one of them. The other two, that depends. First, we need to clear out the spirits who are trapped because they don’t know they’re dead, or they got trapped through a trauma loop because they were murdered.”
“All right, is that the easier task?” I asked.
“Yes, it is,” Penn said. “The second task is to remove the shadow man. Not as easy, but possible. I doubt if I can destroy him, but I might be able to send him through a portal back to his world. The third—the hardest target—is the revenant. The revenant is a combination of entities, and I’m making a guess, but I think it has also been strengthened by the worship given to Xetanbu. We don’t know how long the shifter clan lived there, how many sacrifices were made, and we don’t know if they boosted the energy through other magical means. The revenant’s going to be a major project, but if we can clear the spirits and the shadow man first, we’ll have a better chance.”
“So, what do we do?” I asked.
“First, I create a portal to the Veil. Then I create a bright light to draw the lost spirits to the crossroads. Once they see the light, they’ll be pulled to it, and they’ll pass through and vanish into the Veil. That’s easy enough, though the revenant isn’t going to like it. Both the shadow man and the revenant will need to be distracted while I work.”
“So, to set up the portal…”
“We have to fend off the revenant,” she said. “And before you ask, Lazenti can’t set up the portal. I can, but it’s not something any average witch can do.”
I sighed. I couldn’t ask Penn to put herself in danger. “Is there any other way?” I asked, hoping she would have an idea.
But she dashed that hope. “No. I’ll have to go in and take care of it. But I’ll need backup because I can’t set up a portal to the Veil if there are too many distractions. And definitely not if I’m being attacked.”
“So, how do we keep the Shadow Man from running interference?” Dante asked.
“Lazenti might be able to,” Penn said, thinking for a moment. “He’s strong enough to butt heads with shadow people, and they can’t jump him or feed on his energy. There’s a dynamic about being undead that makes most of them immune to astral attack. Shadow People aren’t part of the undead, but they live between worlds. They’re not fully corporeal, and yet they can affect the living. Vampires live in that in-between space, as well, though it’s not the same juncture.”
“What about the revenant?” I asked. “How do we keep it distracted?”
“That’s the sticky wicket. Give me some time to do more research.” She motioned for us to leave her alone, so Dante and I retreated to the living room, where we kept an eye on the app, waiting for Jet to take the bait.
I decided to call Lazenti. He answered right away. “Do you ever sleep?”
“When I’m bored. I may not be able to walk out in the sunlight, but that doesn’t mean I can’t use my time when I’m stuck inside,” he asked. “So, what do you want?”
“Would you be willing to join us when we try to clear Michael’s house? We’ve discovered that, besides the revenant, there’s also a shadow man. We have to distract them while we clear out the other spirits first. There will be danger for you, but we would welcome your help.”
My guess was that Lazenti, even though he’d been a vampire for decades, still had some of his human nature left. Not all vampires lost their humanity, though some chose the darker path. That he wanted to work with us told me that he still wanted to add some good in the world.
Lazenti didn’t even pause. “My time is yours, Kyann. Whatever you need, tell me. But can we do this at night? I don’t want to chance being thrown out of a window into the light.”
“Of course. Thank you. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel.”
Lazenti cleared his throat. “My sister was driven out of her home when I was young. She was older than I was—by about fourteen years—and her husband abandoned her and her kids. Our parents told her she brought it on herself and refused to help her out. I was ten. There wasn’t anything I could do, so I begged my parents to help her. But our father refused, and he ordered my mother to turn her back on her own daughter.”
I sighed. Even now that he was a vampire, I could hear the pain in his voice. “What happened?”
“I stole my mother’s credit card and bought a bunch of groceries. I took them to my sister, but I couldn’t chance it a second time. My mother knew—I know she knew—but she never said anything. But groceries only last so long. My sister tried to manage, but her ex had beat her down—both mentally and physically—and she ended up on the streets. CPS took the kids away, and my father refused to let us speak of her—or my nieces and nephews—again. My sister vanished and we never heard from her again.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Lazenti sounded tired. “Later, when I was turned into a vampire, I went back and tried to trace her. I finally found her. She was working as a clerk at a small second-hand store. But she wasn’t really my sister anymore. She was worn out, an alcoholic, and she might as well have been dead.”
After a moment, where I wasn’t sure what to say, he added, “So, you see. When good people lose their homes, I remember my sister. Some bounce back, but some can’t. I don’t want to see this family torn apart by some fucking ghosts. I’ll do what I can.”
I’d been on the fence about Lazenti, but now I decided to set aside my skepticism. He might be a vampire, but a little voice inside said that—if he was your friend—you could count on him for anything you needed.
“Thank you,” I said. Then, without realizing what I was saying, I added, “Some time, why don’t we get coffee together? If you’re going to be working with us, we should have a nice chat.”
“I’d like that,” Lazenti said.
As I hung up, I wondered what I was getting myself into. But Lazenti intrigued me, and given he was willing to chance his life for a family he didn’t know, I wanted to find out more about him. I hung up and turned to see Dante looking at me. But he said nothing—just went back to watching TV. Before I could say anything, my phone sounded. It was a notification from the dating app. Jet Shy had swiped right on me.