Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Regge’s necromancer’s ritual list gets weird
Hunter had a gig that afternoon, so I met Ziggy and Cobb at the side door of the hotel. It was still light outside, but barely, and the emergency lighting did nothing for the lobby’s ambience. I introduced them to Nigel, who basically evaporated every time Cobb looked at him.
On the third floor, Ziggy checked out the old man as I waited with Cobb in the hall. It wasn’t long before she joined us, closing the room door behind her.
“You were right. He definitely needs a hospital. He’s severely dehydrated, his heart is irregular, pulse is weak and thready. I’m going to set up an IV. Normal saline, but I’ll need a translator.” She glanced up at Cobb with a smile. “You could check upstairs or walk the perimeter or something?”
This suggestion was met with a frown.
I hid a grin as I spoke to the scowler. “Detective, Nigel blips out when you scowl at him. We need him to translate. I’ll stay to make sure the doctor is perfectly safe.”
Cobb muttered, “I’m not freakin’ scowling.” His frown deepened, but with a nod at Ziggy, he walked toward the elevator. “This is my normal face.”
Ziggy’s smile ignited my own. “He’s really happy to help.”
“I can tell.” We entered the room again, and I called out for Nigel. The ghostly figured popped in looking tired, frightened, and wispy. I understood now what Abraham meant by the word.
Ziggy had Nigel explain her actions as she inserted a wicked-looking needle in Anu’s frail arm. He sat through the procedure calmly, though I thought he looked even weaker than he had this morning.
“So.” Ziggy spoke in her lowered tone when we were in the hall again. “There’s only so much I can do here. Like you said, he’s old. Supernaturally old is my guess. I don’t know if he’s an other or has enough magic for longevity.”
I sighed. “From what I gather, he doesn’t seem concerned about dying.
I guess when you get that old, it’s inevitable, right?
My best guess is that Anu either brought Nigel’s spirit here or found him here, did some sort of spell to give him a flesh-and-blood body.
But when Master Anu dies, Nigel’s body also goes, and he’s…
well, I’m not sure about that part. But what we’re doing is keeping Nigel’s spirit alive and here.
Even if it’s housed in an object not a body. ”
“What’s the plan?”
“We have this list of ingredients to get. The necromancer will perform some kind of ritual to sever his connection with Nigel and—” I hesitated. “Nigel says he’s perfectly happy staying in the hotel, but without a body, he’ll be a—”
“Ghost?” Ziggy’s lips curved up. Jane Zigfield’s expertise had saved my life last year.
I’d long since adjusted my skepticism over women’s capabilities.
From Izzy’s brilliance to Ziggy’s medical skill, I recognized just how skewed my old society’s viewpoints had been. Score another one for the modern world.
I nodded. “Ghosts need anchors to stay in this plane of existence. An anchor can be anything. A vase, a book, a body.”
“Sounds like you’ve done your homework.”
Cobb joined us then, saying he’d found nothing except two of the pack drinking coffee in the bar. As we headed downstairs, he relayed what he’d learned in the police reports.
The men in the accident near the hotel had fled the scene, but the car was reported stolen from the River Lights Casino. The casino was owned by one of the Native nations in Pennsylvania but had shown up on watchlists for racketeering.
“Racketeering?” I asked, unfamiliar with the term.
“Organized crime—drugs, money laundering, etc.” Cobb said.
I nodded. “Hunter thought they looked like Tony Soprano. The two guys.”
“I got Hunter’s text. Julian Eskridge and Ramon Castenada.” Cobb pulled out his phone, and with a few swipes, he showed me a picture. “Ramon Castenada, is he your diner guy?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’ve never seen him.”
Another mug shot came into view. A younger man with an innocent look in his dark eyes. His hair was dark too and cut short. “This is several years old, but the only mug shot we got of Julian Eskridge.”
“Yeah, that could be him. He’s older, bulkier too. Fiercer, you know?”
Cobb put his phone away. “Be careful, kid. These guys don’t mess around. I don’t know what their interest is in this dump, but you will stay clear.”
“We will. As soon as this severance ritual is done, we will be too.”
Cobb and Ziggy were kind enough to drop me at a market near my flat, and I pulled out the ritual list. Reading through it for the first time, my breath caught at one item.
?±?
I came home to find Hunter sitting on the floor with Archie. The cat was sprawled face up, stretching languidly as Hunter scratched his belly. He was purring for God’s sake.
“He missed you. You give much better scritches than I do.” I set the shopping bags on my tiny counter space.
“Oh really? He’s told you this, has he?” Hunter leaned down to Archie and whispered, “It’s kind of nice to be missed, Archimedes, thank you.”
I bit back a reply. I couldn’t well say I’d missed Hunter too. “I found about three-quarters of the ingredients needed for Anu’s ritual.”
He rose from the floor to peer into the bags.
“Oh, you bought Cinnamon Crunchies cereal? You know that’s my favorite.
Ooh and pie. Mrs. Smith is the queen of pies.
” He opened the box and turned on the oven.
“We’re making this now.” He smiled, stepping beside me to look in the bags again.
“So what’s left on Nigel’s list that we need to get? ”
I pulled the folded paper from my back pocket and flipped it open. “Pure silver—not sure how to get that as most silver these days is an alloy or plated. And then we need…” I breathed in. The scent of my mint and bergamot shampoo wafted up from his hair, derailing my thoughts.
“We need what?” Hunter glanced up. “What’s up?”
“Nothing, sorry. We need Blackthorn, campfire ash, and, er…” I handed the list to Hunter.
“Okay, let’s see, silver, campfire ash, quartz crystals, oleander, blackthorn root, and—ha, human seed.” His gaze flicked up to meet mine, his mouth quirking. “Well, that’s easy enough to get, I suppose. Do you want to do the honors, or—”
“Read the fine print underneath.”
Hunter looked at the list again, squinting at the page.
“Gathered from a new lover under a waning gibbous moon.” He sucked air through his teeth.
“Well, damn. When the hell is a waning gibbous moon? Hold on.” He handed me the paper and grabbed his phone.
“Okay, that’s not terrible, tomorrow night. We can go raid a campground and…”
My eyebrows crept up on my forehead. “And?”
“Oh. This isn’t a rubbing one out kind of situation, is it?”
“No. It isn’t. And I do not want to be the one to ask Detective Cobb if he could make such a deposit.”
“It wouldn’t work anyway. As they’ve been together for a while now. It has to be new lovers.” The oven beeped and Hunter hummed as he unwrapped the pie and added cinnamon and sugar to the top. “Let’s work on the other things for now. Izzy should have blackthorn root and maybe silver.”
I crammed the list into my pocket as I gathered up dirty clothes. In the basement laundry room, I paced the floor, trying not to think of our upcoming foray into the woods.
The next day we set about getting the rest of the ingredients. After reading through the list again, Hunter proclaimed we were going camping. It says campfire ash, not trash barrel ash or fireplace ash, but campfire. We need to camp.
So while I shopped for camp food, Hunter had borrowed some equipment from Abraham.
I refused to make a big deal of the special ingredient, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Simply have a wank, spew into a cup, and take it to the hotel.
But that wouldn’t do, would it? We were not lovers, new or otherwise.
I was being childish. I had never been shy, but this was going to be an absolute cock-up—pun intended.
Hunter drove to Izzy’s house and parked in the driveway. As we got out, a man came from Hunter’s basement flat, directing a brilliant smile at us. I instantly disliked him, but he looked too pretty to be dangerous.
Hunter nodded at the man. “Oh, hey Derek. How’s my house? You guys settle in okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine. Barry has a bit of a problem with your bathroom.” His eyes shifted to me.
As Hunter introduced us, Derek turned, his dark hair flowing thickly around his shoulders. He took his shades off and smiled at me. “Nice to meet you,” he said. It was casual, polite, nothing abnormal about it, but the hair on my neck itched.
“Nice to meet you,” I replied, catching a metallic glint in Derek’s eyes. His eyes were blue, a dark denim shade with a slim ring of silver surrounding the iris. My pulse ramped up. But it wasn’t attraction.
This man had fae blood. Theo’s warnings of how dangerous they could be vibrated through me. I edged closer to Hunter. He obviously trusted this Derek, but I couldn’t shake off this unease.
The fae’s gaze swept over both of us, and suddenly I dropped into a myriad of memories.
We were in the club. Music thrummed through me, lights strobing across Hunter’s face as we moved together.
His laughter wrapped around me, warm and steady, and for a moment I let myself believe it was enough.
His hand brushed my shoulder, our bodies swaying in time, and I felt his thoughts pressed so close to mine I could almost breathe them in.
Then the memory twisted. The warmth slipped.
Another man’s hand replaced his—Jason, his cologne sharp as smoke.
I twitched with the memory. We were in a dark hallway, his arm braced above me, his body blocking escape.
Every muscle in me clenched, music pounding through my veins.
Panic hit me, followed by the sour rush of shame.
My chest tightened. I had chosen wrong. Jason’s grin, the heat of his body—none of it felt right.
I shoved at him but not before I caught the moment that ruined me.
Hunter’s face. His stunned look as he turned away haunted me. I reached for him, but Jason grabbed at me again, holding me back. A quick twist and a push and he was on the floor.
I blinked out of the memory. Hunter was at my side and squinting into the sunshine. Derek strode down the street, already several feet away. I clenched my fists. The fae had spelled us somehow.
“What the hell was that? You okay, buddy?” Hunter asked.
I glanced at him before I nodded. We walked up to Izzy’s house and knocked. When no one answered, he punched a code into the lock and opened the door. “I hope they’re watering the plants.”
“I know you said the people in your house were fae descendants, but he’s powerful.” I was still reeling from both of our memories.
“He’s always nice, but I had no idea he could do that.”
“So you felt it too?” I asked. I couldn’t look away from him. What I’d felt initially were my emotions in the club, but they changed to Hunter’s. When he’d found me and Jason in the hallway, I’d known the incident had hurt Hunter’s feelings, but I hadn’t known how much until now.
He stopped his casual stride and turned back, his brown eyes soft. “Yeah. I felt it too.”
The inside of Izzy’s house was surprisingly neat for someone else living there. “They promised to feed Fermi, but if you could check on him, I’ll head upstairs.” He gestured toward the kitchen.
I found cat food in the dish and the water bowl refreshed. Fermi mewled at me and stretched on the window seat. I scratched his ears. “Hey bud, Archie been to visit lately?”
As if on cue, Archie in crow form flew up and landed on the sill. I opened the back door and let him in. “Come say hi. We’re not staying long.” Archie flew in, transforming on the fly and landing on cat feet in the middle of the kitchen. He jumped on the window seat and nuzzled with Fermi.
I headed upstairs. On the second floor, the attic stairs had been pulled down, and I climbed up to find Hunter hunched over in front of an old armoire.
Izzy had repurposed the huge chest into an alchemy cabinet.
He held out a bag. “Found the blackthorne, but you’d think she’d have silver in here as much as it’s used. ” His phone buzzed.
“Hey Iz.”
Isabelle’s pleasant lilt came over the speaker. “Hi ya. How’s things? How’s Fermi? Are you at the house? Can you give my roses some water?”
“We’re here. I’ll go take care of them,” I said.
“Izzy, we need some pure silver, you got any?”
I descended the ladder to the second floor, listening as Izzy gave Hunter instructions. Even on the second floor, their voices carried.
“We needed some supplies. And I need advice,” Hunter said.
“Please be yourself and maybe take things slow. You’re staying at Regge’s, right?”
Hearing my name, I hesitated in the hallway, but Hunter had turned off the speaker as he said, “Not that kind of advice, Iz.”