Chain of Souls (Salem VI) (17 page)

"As I said before," Faust said quickly, "I'm quite certain she is alive. The Coven needs her alive so they have a source of control over you. It makes no strategic sense to kill her."

"You said she may be in England."

Faust nodded. "We think Jessica Lodge flew her there."

"Where in England?"

"Almost certainly in Cornwall."

"Why Cornwall?"

"Because it's as important to the Coven as Salem."

"Why is Salem so important? History?"

"The House of the Seven Gables is here."

John actually laughed. "So what? It's a house Nathaniel Hawthorne used in a novel. That's the only reason anybody cares about it."

Faust shook his head. "That's what the Coven would like you to think. The House of the Seven Gables has a fundamental importance to them."

Amy had been very quiet almost the entire time, but now she sat forward. "Why?"

Faust grimaced helplessly. "We're not certain. It could simply be symbolic value, but we believe it's more than that." He shook his head. "We believe the presence of the house has some meaning. Maybe it's the shape of the house. Maybe there's something inside the house we don't know about."

Amy nodded. "Recently there were a bunch of letters and other documents found in the House of the Seven Gables. They're at the Phillips Library, and John has seen them."

John shrugged. "I've been over there going through them twice in the past two weeks. The first time I saw some of Nathaniel Hawthorne's writing he'd wanted kept secret until after his death." He looked at Faust. "Hawthorne knew about the Coven. Some of his ancestors had been members. He wanted the world to know about the Coven but he feared retaliation against himself or his family, so he wanted the papers hidden until after his death.

"Then just yesterday I was at the Phillips Museum again, and I saw some letters written from someone in England to a woman named Elizabeth Turner. I'm pretty sure she was the wife of Captain John Turner, who originally built the first part of what later became known as the House of the Seven Gables. After I read the letter I found another page I think may have been sent in the same envelope. That page didn't have any writing, but instead it had a drawing of a house very similar to the House of the Seven Gables. It wasn't the same house, but it was similar in some ways, and it had lines drawn from the gables. A second drawing showed the house as a point in the world with the lines radiating out and going everywhere."

Faust's eyes narrowed, and John saw an eager gleam. "Can you show me that document?" Faust asked.

"I'll take you first thing in the morning."

Faust glanced at his watch. "Then I need to get some sleep."

He stood and took his plate to the kitchen, where he helped Amy and John load the dishwasher. Afterward, they walked him to the front door. "Where are you staying?" Amy asked.

"The Hawthorne Hotel."

"I'll pick you up at nine," John said.

He walked Faust out onto the sidewalk, shivering in the cold air. Glancing overhead, he saw a thick layer of low clouds covering the sky, and he felt a penetrating dampness that seemed to threaten rain or maybe an early snow. He started down the street with Faust, intending to accompany the priest to Derby Street to flag a taxi, and that was when he spotted the movement. It was subtle, hardly anything more than a shadow moving a little more than it should have.

John said nothing, but he turned his head slightly so he could keep watching through his peripheral vision. The movement had come from a car parked just down the street, and when he looked more carefully, two heads were barely visible through the tinted glass. Even as his now-familiar sense of paranoia flashed, the rational part of his brain tried to squelch it. Salem was a big tourist spot, he told himself. Even though Halloween had just passed, there would still be plenty of visitors in town. The two people could very possibly be a man and a woman who had just met that evening in one of the nearby bars. They could be two old friends who hadn't seen each other in a long time, or maybe a young couple having an argument.

But they could also be two killers sent by the Coven.

Operating purely on instinct, but realizing that at this point paranoia could save his life, John grabbed Faust's arm. "On second thought, why don't you stay at my house tonight?" he said.

Faust looked at him, and seeming to recognize the intensity in John's expression, nodded and didn't try to fight or argue as John turned him around and they started walking quickly back the way they'd come. John saw Faust's hand snake into his coat pocket where he knew the priest kept his pistol.

"What was that about?" Faust asked as John unlocked the front door and ushered him back inside.

"I saw two people in a car outside." He shook his head. "I just didn't like it."

"A gut feeling?" Faust asked without any trace of mockery or humor.

John nodded.

"Listen to your gut."

"I try to." John went upstairs into his office and a second later came down with his Browning .45. He checked to make sure the clip was full then jacked a shell into the chamber.

"I don't think you're going to need that," Faust said.

"What makes you so sure?"

"The Coven would have attacked this house long ago if they thought they could get away with it. Whether the spirit of Rebecca Nurse is gone, as you suspect, or whether it is still invested here, they believe the house is protected. That, plus what you did to their leaders means they almost certainly will not confront you directly, especially in a place where you can draw strength. The Coven is small in numbers, and they operate in secrecy and darkness. They are not risk takers."

Faust's words reminded John of what he had done to the leaders of the Coven, and he unconsciously flexed his fists. Would that power be there again if he needed it? He wondered because he certainly couldn't feel it now, nor had he felt even a hint of it again since the one time he used it in the Coven's catacombs. Since he hadn't understood what happened at the time, and since he really didn't understand it any better now, all he knew for sure was that he couldn't control it, and he had no reason to believe he would ever be able to call on those powers again.

He clicked the safety on and shoved the big automatic pistol into his belt. "Better safe than sorry," he said.

SRAH SHIVERED IN THE COLD MORNING, THEN
buried her hands in the big pockets of the old Barbour coat and pulled her arms in tight to her body for warmth. The clouds were low overhead and heavy with moisture. The air was full of fog and dampness that rolled in off the ocean. Sarah couldn't see the water from here, but she knew it was near because she felt its humid presence and smelled brine in the air, just the way she had all her life in Salem.

Jessica Lodge seemed to know what Sarah was thinking because she turned her head toward the sky and sniffed. "You can smell the salt, can't you?"

Sarah nodded. "I can tell we're near the ocean."

Jessica pointed to their left, then straight ahead and then again to their right. "Just a few miles in almost all directions," she said.

Sarah stopped walking. They had come out a door at the rear of the large house, walked through the formal gardens that Sarah could see from her bedroom window, and then gone out a garden gate and headed through a path that led to a dirt lane. It was the second day she and Jessica had taken a walk after breakfast.

They went along the lane for perhaps twenty minutes, most of it in companionable silence, when Sarah turned to Jessica again. "This is a bit embarrassing, but how long have I been here? I know that's a crazy question, but I feel like I've lost track of time. Just this morning I was thinking about my job, and I realized I haven't thought about it for days."

Jessica gave her a gentle smile. "Do you want to leave?"

"No!" Sarah said quickly, trying to understand the confusion she was feeling. "I've loved being here, but I'm feeling like a little bit like Alice in Wonderland, as if I've tumbled into a hole and fallen out of the world."

Jessica laughed and linked her arm through Sarah's. "I think you needed a vacation far more than you realized. I've spoken to some people at your television network and explained that you are with me here in England and that you are making some very important contacts that will give you invaluable access to some very significant stories. And that, my dear, is absolutely true. The people you met last night at dinner are going to be of great importance in many aspects of our world going forward. And you are going to have personal access to all of them."

Jessica laughed gently. "Trust me when I tell you, the world of the future is going to look a great deal different than the world you have known growing up. The people I know, the movers and shakers who operate outside the eye of public scrutiny, have been putting things in place for a number of years now. The world is preparing to change radically, and you, my dear, are going to have the inside track on reporting and interpreting these changes to the rest of humanity. It's going to be a
very
exciting time."

Sarah nodded, flushing with pleasure at the idea that she had been chosen for such an honor and wondering why she had felt even the slightest misgiving about being away from work for so long. After all she was learning and meeting people, and just as importantly, someone as important as Jessica Lodge was taking her under her wing and telling her that
this
was where she
needed
to be. That should have been good enough to overcome any anxiety she was feeling. "Thank you for giving me the opportunity."

"You are more qualified for this than you know."

THE NEXT MORNING JOHN, AMY, AND FAUST
ate an early breakfast and left the house together right afterwards. As he exited his front door, John looked around the street, relieved to see the world bathed in early morning light that somehow removed much of the threat he'd felt the night before. Off to his left at the end of his street, he could see the harbor glittering cold and unyielding. Overhead gulls cried, and to his right the city of Salem was waking up, as early delivery trucks rumbled through the intersection.

Glancing around at his immediate block, John saw only a few parked cars, none of which were the one he had seen the night before with the two people sitting inside, and no one else on the street other than one of his neighbors walking a basset hound. Trying to silence the question that rose up in his brain as to whether his long-time neighbor was secretly a member of the Coven, he waved to the man as he led Amy and Father Faust to his Audi, which was parked a few feet down from his house.

John clicked the locks and was about the climb into the car when Faust said, "Just a second."

John turned to see Faust squatting at the trunk, looking underneath the car, and then running his hands along the inside of the bumper.

"Would you please open the hood? But don't start the engine," Faust said.

John climbed into the car, pulled the hood release, and watched as Faust gave the engine a quick check. After a second he closed the hood, came around, and climbed into the rear. "Okay," he said.

John glanced at Faust in the rearview mirror. "Were you looking for bombs?"

"Yes," Faust replied. "Just like you said last night, better safe than sorry."

John felt his stomach tighten as he clicked his seatbelt, started the engine, and pulled away from the curb, and he was thinking that he had never appreciated what it was like to live every day without feeling like a hunted man. Every afternoon, an anxious dread now began to grip him as evening darkness approached, and he had started looking at every single person on the street with suspicion, as if they might be a potential enemy. He realized that the easy feeling of wellbeing he'd enjoyed for so many years might be something he would never experience again.

John gripped the wheel tightly and felt the reassuring lump of the .45 he had jammed into his belt before he walked out of the house. He shook his head as he drove the short distance to the Peabody Essex Institute where the Phillips Library was located, thinking that Massachusetts was one of the strictest states in the union where gun laws were concerned, and here he was with a concealed handgun and no permit. He felt like an accident looking for a place to happen.