Chapter 4 #2
I glanced at the time. It was closing in on nine. “You’re right. Okay, Lazenti, if you run into the demon again, see if you can find out anything else,” I said.
“Will do. Meanwhile, I’ll also nose around for info on Swift, and Give A Hand Up.” He signed off, after apologizing again for startling me. I told him not to worry about it, and we ended the meeting.
* * *
We gathered together the equipment we’d need and, leaving Sophia to manage the office while we were out, headed for the parking lot. Shadow Blade, as a company, owned several vehicles including the van, and we used the van when we were out on investigations, like haunted houses.
Once across the 520 Floating bridge, we wove our way through Redmond on Avondale Road, turning onto Bear Creek Road and then onto Northeast 133 rd Street.
Right before the Redmond Watershed’s north entrance, we turned right onto 211 th Way NE.
We drove along until we reached the turning point into the Eleena District—Rosewood Street.
The neighborhood wasn’t large, but it ran for several blocks in each direction.
A faded sign decorated with moss roses stood at the entrance to welcome strangers in.
On the other side of 211 th were several urban farmsteads.
Rosewood was square center, in terms of the length of the district.
From here, the Eleena District stretched at leave ten blocks east, and five blocks both north and south.
One of the oldest neighborhoods on the Eastside, The Eleena District was fading, a part of the past. The houses were weathered, but they still stood, old but still livable.
They weren’t in squalor, but the area felt abandoned, as though time had forgotten the people who lived here, leaving them and their homes in the past. A perpetual autumn permeated the area, where the cobwebs were thick and the shadows deep even on the sunniest of days.
“What’s his address again?” I asked, as we drove along Rosewood Street.
“21320 Bracken Lane,” Carson said, consulting his notes. “You’ll turn left when we come to it, and then we’ll have about three blocks until we reach his house.”
I kept my eyes open, and sure enough—it was only a moment before I saw the street sign signaling Bracken Lane.
I turned onto the street. Sure enough, within three blocks we came to Konstantine’s house.
As we turned into the lot, I eased the van next to a Toyota Corolla that was sitting in the driveway.
I turned off the engine and stared up at the house.
The three story Victorian looked gloomy.
The paint was peeling off some of the siding, and ivy twined up one side, onto the roof, which was the surest way to insure roof rot.
Hydrangeas and roses lined the sides of the house, and while their leaves were still young, they looked ready to would bloom out into a massive swath of flowers come June or July.
The lawn itself was mostly moss, and stepping stone paths lead around to either side of the house.
An oak, taller than the house, sheltered the front yard, and the leaves were on their way to full size.
Oak moss dripped off the boughs of the tree, hanging down like some shaggy beard on an old man.
The oak felt alive to me in the way that portal-trees did, but I couldn’t sense an actual portal around.
Toward the back of the lot, it looked like a weeping willow guarded the back yard, as well as several firs and a giant cedar tree.
“What a beautiful yard,” Penn said.
“Yeah, but creepy,” Dante answered. “Do either you or Kyann sense anything?”
I paused before we reached the front porch and closed my eyes. A tingle raced up my back, branching out to fire off warning bells. There were spirits on the prowl—a lot of them. And they didn’t feel welcoming.
“We’re being watched, that much I can tell.
The ghosts are rampant here, and they’re uneasy.
I don’t know what happened here, but it feels more like a graveyard than a home to me.
” I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts.
While the house was beautiful, in a macabre way, I didn’t like being here.
I wanted to turn around and leave, but we had a job to do. “What about you, Penn?”
She took a deep breath, then closed her eyes. “Pain. So much pain and death. Whatever happened was gruesome. Great Mother Hecate, what the fuck went on here?”
“Wonderful. Are the ghosts inside the house, or out here?” Carson asked.
“Both,” I said, suddenly catching a glimpse of a swing hanging from an oak bough. There was a young girl on it, swinging, ignoring me. But as I began to move toward her direction, she vanished, along with the swing. “Did you see that?” I asked.
Penn nodded. “Yeah, but she’s not just some little girl. She’s dangerous.”
“What? What little girl?” Carson asked.
“Just a spirit,” I said. “Come on, let’s ring the bell.”
I led them up the stairs, toward the door. The porch itself looked like it had been recently repaired. There was a large patch on the floor—fresh wood alongside the old. The wood had probably rotted through in that area.
The porch was wide and extended the full width of the house.
A porch swing was fastened to the left side of the door—our left—and it was swinging gently without any breeze to make it sway.
The chains creaked softly. I tried to catch a glimpse of whoever might be on it, but they were keeping themselves from my sight.
I turned back to the door and reached out, ringing the bell.
After a few moments, a man answered. He was tall and stocky, and looked to be somewhere near sixty.
He stared at us, unsmiling, with bags lurking beneath his eyes.
He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and he was wearing a sage green cardigan over an old Black Sabbath t-shirt and a pair of worn jeans.
He looked comfortable and tidy, if exhausted.
“Konstantine Crow?” I asked.
He nodded. “And you’re Shadow Blade Investigations?”
“Yes. I’m Kyann Sarasan, and this is my partner Dante Franco, co-owner of the agency. And this is our head of IT—Carson Dreyfus, and Penelope—she’s a witch. May we come in?”
Konstantine started. “I’m sorry, I totally spaced out there. I don’t mean to be churlish. Yes, please, come in.” He opened the door and stood back, allowing us to enter.
As we entered the house, I quickly realized that the house had to be close to its original state.
We stood in the foyer, and there was a pocket door that was half-open, leading to a powder room.
To the right of the powder room was a narrow hall, leading through to more of the house.
To our direct right was a large arched opening into the living room.
Konstantine ushered us into the living room, staring intently at me. “Excuse me, but have we met? You look so familiar.”
He wasn’t coming on to me, that much I could tell. But I’d never met him. I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I don’t think so.”
“You’re sure?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I’m sorry, I must be mixing you up with someone else. Please, have a seat,” Konstantine said. He led us into the living room and bade us to sit down.
The living room was as faded as the rest of the house.
The red velveteen sofa had lost its luster, the matching chairs were threadbare, the end tables and coffee table hadn’t been polished in a long time, and the books on the built in shelves were covered with dust. The room felt like it was suspended in time.
There were no signs of clutter, everything was in its place, but I suspected that Konstantine kept clear of the space.
As we sat down, something zapped me on the arm.
I jumped a little, expecting to see a mosquito or some other bug, but there was nothing there.
As I frowned, trying to focus, I caught a shimmer over by the fireplace, right next to it.
Immediately, a feeling of despair washed over me, and I felt weighted down, almost unable to move.
“Kyann, there’s something very odd going on here. Something about Konstantine feels familiar, but I can’t tell you what,” Penn leaned over to whisper in my ear.
I glanced at her, nodding, but said nothing. Turning back to Konstantine, I said, “Tell us about your problem, please.”
“The house is haunted. It’s been that way since my mother bought it, but the past couple of years, since she died, it’s been getting worse.
My family has always had a string of bad luck—maybe it’s because of that.
But I can tell you, if I wanted to live my life in sorrow, this is the place to do it. ” He shrugged, frowning.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
“Since I was a child. My mother brought us up here— us being my sister and me. Our father ran off when I was born. My sister was seven years older than me. She vanished when she was twenty-two. We never heard from her again.” He sighed, staring at his hands.
There was something about him, something that made me want to scurry over and give him a hug. Now, he felt familiar to me , but I couldn’t place why.
“Do you think she’s alive?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I used to. In fact, I’d have talks with her, even though she was nowhere to be found. I always thought that maybe she could hear me. We were close, Erin and me.”
“Erin? What a coincidence,” I said. “Erin was my mother’s name.”
“Yes, well…I suppose it was popular. Anyway, I always thought she would come home, but then…one day…I just knew she never would.”
“You said the house has always been haunted?” Carson asked.
Konstantine gave him a nod. “Yes, even back when we were little. My mother knew it was haunted, but she engaged a witch to protect us. The spirits were always around, but they never bothered us. At least, most of them.”
“Did the spirits ever try to hurt you?” Penn asked.
“Not when I was young. I remember one night when I had to go to the bathroom, and I walked past the spare bedroom upstairs and glanced in. There was a woman in the room, staring into the mirror, primping like she was going out for a date. I yelled and she turned around and raced at me, like wind blowing through a piece of cloth. There was blood flowing down from her throat, but I don’t know if she realized it. ”
“You said your mother engaged a witch to protect you?” Dante asked, then pointed toward the desk. “What the?—”
A letter opener had risen off a desk resting against one wall. It began to spin in mid-air.
“Watch out!” I leapt out of my chair and jumped forward, knocking Konstantine off of the sofa to the floor.
He yelped as the letter opener sailed past, above us at head-height.
It sailed past, hitting the marble around the fireplace.
It careened off the marble, spinning until it abruptly fell out of the air and landed on the carpet.
“Are you okay?” I asked, jumping to my feet. I extended a hand to Konstantine. He accepted my help and I pulled him to his feet.
“Good gods, you’re strong. And thank you. Yes, I think I’m okay,” he said, patting his chest and thighs. “Nothing broken.”
“Do things like that happen often?” Penn glanced at the desk.
“Things like that happen all the time ,” he said. “I’m used to it, but they’re ramping up in frequency and now, the energy is changing. It always felt melancholy, but now I sense an antipathy—a lot of anger.”
I walked over to the mantel and bent to pick up the blade.
It seemed a standard letter opener, and didn’t feel magical.
And then, I glanced at the photographs on the mantel.
There were several pictures of Konstantine when he was younger.
In one, he—I guessed it was him—was about nine, standing with a girl who looked to be sixteen or seventeen.
They were on the shore of Puget Sound, by the docks, and her hair was blowing long in the wind.
But the location wasn’t what threw me. There, staring back at me from the picture, was my mother.