Chapter 16 #3
“Jesus.” I swallow convulsively, a wave of nausea washing over me, a feeling obviously shared by Harrison, judging from his expression.
“The boy Cordelia found was so little, barely five years old. His name was Tobias…” His voice trails off and he looks over to me.
“I know Cordelia did some really terrible things, no matter how justified they may or may not have been, but she wasn’t a bad person.
Tobias was so broken, and she was so gentle with him. ”
“What happened?” I ask gently, still stroking soothing circles on his back.
His eyes grow distant, and he slowly lifts his hands to his chest as if cradling a baby. “I held him, the way I never got to hold my own children before they were taken from me.”
“I?” I repeat sharply.
“What?” He turns to look at me, dropping his hands and staring at me in confusion.
“You said I,” I reply. “You said, ‘I held him, the way I never got to hold my children.’”
He shakes his head, his brow furrowed, then, taking a deep breath, pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes.
“When I’m trapped inside the dreams, I see everything through her eyes, feel everything she felt, and it’s happened so many times now.
Sometimes it’s hard to separate out which are my thoughts and which are hers. ”
I scowl as I watch him. I don’t like the sound of that. “Are you still having the dreams?”
He shakes his head. “Not for a while. It’s like they’re waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” Even more alarms go off in my mind, but I’m careful not let my worries show on my face.
“I don’t know,” Harrison murmurs, glancing back at the pictures.
“What happened to the boy?”
“She healed him, all of his injuries, but more than that, she took his memories.”
“His memories?”
“Not all of them,” he explains. “Just the bad ones. I can’t even begin to describe what it was like for her, the pain and rage she felt from having to relive the awful things that had been done to him, but she did it anyway.
She took his horrors, knowing she’d have to carry them with her for the rest of her life.
She took them so he wouldn’t have to. So he could have a chance at a normal life. ”
I rub my hand over my face. The more I find out about this complex woman, the more I genuinely don’t know what to feel.
“What happened after that?”
“She took him to the one place she knew he’d be safe. To her brother.”
“Cornelius?”
He nods. “I don’t know what happened to him after that.”
“Jesus, Prickles.” I breathe heavily.
“I know.” He lifts his chin in the direction of the file I’m still holding. “What exactly is this case Hadley passed to you?”
I flip open the file and quickly skim through the notes. “It looks like it started out as a simple case of probate. The client, a”—my eyes narrow as I try to make out the handwritten name—“Riley Tyldesley inherited the property six months ago. Oh, there’s a family tree included.”
I set it down on top of one of the photos and point. “Look, Judge Maycliffe. You were right. It was his house.”
Harrison skims over the chart. “He didn’t have a wife or any children.”
“And from what you’ve told me, that’s a good thing.”
“But according to this, he had a brother who must’ve inherited the house after the judge’s death.”
“The brother had two daughters. One didn’t survive infancy, but the other inherited.
The house passed down her line until it got to this Riley woman.
” I read through some more of the notes.
“Here, listen to this. After she inherited the house last year, she began renovating it. When they knocked down part of the chimney breast, she found a journal of sorts, indicating its owner had belonged to some sort of underground society.”
“Bloody Victorians.” Harrison sighs. “And their bloody secret clubs.”
“According to the file, shortly after she found the book, she started having strange dreams about secret meetings held in the house, and get this. She claims a demon had actually been inside the house.”
Harrison bites his lip. “What should we do?”
“I’m going to get dressed and head over there to talk to her,” I say. “See if I can get her side of it. And also check if she still has that book in her possession.”
“You think it might be Cordelia’s book?” He stares at me. “The Book of Lala Khal?”
“It’s worth checking out.”
“Sam, I don’t think it can be. There’s no way Cordelia would have let that book out of her sight, and there’s no way she would have hidden it in that house.”
“You can’t know that. We still don’t know what happened to her or the book. We’re also only working on the supposition that the demon trap in the bookshop contains Ishaan. It could be a completely different demon for all we know.”
“Unlikely.”
“I’m inclined to agree, but until we have evidence to the contrary, we need to follow all leads, starting with the book Riley Tyldesley discovered in the judge’s house. If it turns out that it’s not Cordelia’s book, I should at least be able to use my ability to get a read on it.”
Harrison straightens up, his expression determined. “Then I’m going with you.”