J.L. Doty - Dead Among Us 01 - When Dead Ain’t Dead Enough (3 page)

The triple goddess had wanted Anogh to see this, the young man and the Old Wizard’s daughter. They were connected in some way, and since Anogh could easily find the young witch, he stayed close to this unknown young man as he left the shop, and he followed him all the way back to his apartment.

“Old man Strath was as good as his word,” Paul told Suzanna. He was sitting in the kitchen watching her prepare dinner, sipping on a glass of wine. “He called me on my cell before I got home. Carry is hiring, and he got me an interview. And he’s got calls into a couple of other firms, says he thinks he can get me interviews even if they’re not hiring right at the moment. You know, plant the seed for when they are.”

That’s wonderful, sweetheart,
Suzanna said, looking over her shoulder, giving him that big smile of hers. She wore one of those lightweight summer dresses, more like a sleeveless T-shirt that extended to just below her knees. But unlike a T-shirt it was cut to hug her gorgeous figure, to emphasize it, and that made Paul long to touch her again, to hold her in his arms once more. But that could never be.

“I saw you on the street today,” he said again, and again she ignored him. That was the third time he’d tried that, and the third time he’d gotten no response. Any mention of her on the street, and he might as well have been talking to a brick wall. Maybe it hadn’t been her and he’d just imagined the whole thing. Certainly there was no reason for his Suzanna to lead him to a shoe store where that pretty young woman was trying on some sort of fancy shoes. He recalled that she was quite attractive, auburn hair down to her shoulders, wearing a smart business suit with a skirt cut just above the knees. The suit was quite conservative, though it certainly didn’t hide her figure, a nice figure, with nice legs ending in the fancy shoes.

Guilt washed over him as he thought of Suzanna, and he said, “Smells like you’re making Suzanna’s famous pot roast.”

And it’s ready right now.
She popped open the over door, cringed back from the heat for a moment, pulled on big hot-pad mittens, lifted the steaming pan out of the oven, gave the oven door a quick tap with her heel to close it and laid the pan on the counter. She called out,
Cloe, dinner’s ready.

Coming, mom.

She looked at Paul and smiled contentedly.
It’s serve yourself, Paulie-boy, so grab a plate and dive in.

“Damn,” Paul said, “you make good pot roast.”

He had it, or at least close enough, direction and distance. Two blocks east, maybe one block south. The idiot had finished the conjuration so he wouldn’t find him tonight. But the fellow’s pattern was unwavering. He’d do it again around breakfast-time tomorrow morning, and the older man was reasonably confident that would be enough to narrow it down to a single building. If so, tomorrow night he’d have him, hopefully end this safely before the fellow hurt someone.

He considered that carefully for a moment. Best to bring in some backup, just in case.

“Stay hidden,” Karpov hissed as he watched the old fellow walk down the street.

“Yes, Mr. Karpov,” Alexei grumbled.

“And stay silent.”

“Yes, Mr. Kar  . . .”

“Idiot. Silence.”

Standing in the shadows one block west of the old fellow, Karpov considered the situation carefully. “The Old Wizard is hunting the same prey. But he’s too soft, probably find some excuse not to kill the fool. So we’ll take care of that for him. And we’ll let him do the work, let him find this rogue for us.”

Vladimir asked, “Do you want me to follow him?”

Vladimir and Alexei were pure muscle, couldn’t follow each other without being spotted. “No. We’ll bring in Mikhail for that.”

Paul used his fork to peel off a big slab of pot roast and shovel it onto his plate. He speared a couple of carrots and a big hunk of potato, its flesh having taken on that brownish cast that comes from simmering in the gravy for so long. Then he scooped gravy over everything, and it was a real balancing act to keep the gravy from drizzling onto the floor as he crossed the kitchen. He put the full plate down carefully on the dinner table and sat down. A moment later Suzanna and Cloe joined him, each carrying their own plate, though neither of them had been as piggish as Paul.

He speared a bite of potato, swirled it in the gravy and tossed it in his mouth, rolled it from cheek to cheek and sucked air to keep it from burning his tongue. “Great pot roast, honey.”

Both Suzanna and Cloe smiled at him. “Cloe,” he said. “Tell me what you did at school today.”

Anogh climbed the steps to the door at the front of Paul Conklin’s apartment building. The lock on the door meant nothing to a Sidhe mage; a few words and a gesture of power and the door popped open. Anogh stepped through it, closed it carefully and relocked it.

He’d waited patiently outside the building for the young man to leave, and when the fellow emerged in the early morning wearing a business suit and carrying a briefcase, Anogh knew he’d be gone for several hours.

He took the lift to the fourth floor, and the door to Conklin’s apartment was no more trouble than that at the front of the building. Anogh didn’t know what he was looking for exactly and had been careful to avoid forming any expectations. He just wanted to know more about this young man who was in some way connected to the Old Wizard’s daughter. Such connections were never coincidental, and as far as the triple goddess was concerned, they certainly weren’t accidental. So he had no expectations as he stepped into Conklin’s apartment, and was struck by six hundred years of grief. He could never mistake the arcane scent that permeated the place, and he cringed and staggered across the room as that scent lifted the fog the triple goddess had woven through his thoughts.

He’d known grief for centuries, but not this grief. This pain was new, and yet it was old. The triple goddess had let him grieve in ignorance, and had chosen this moment to let him understand the true depth of his loss.

With tears streaming down his cheeks he turned and left the apartment, for there was no more to be learned there.

It had been a busy day, starting with the interview with Carry, which was early, so Paul had rushed there right after breakfast. Then there were two phone interviews with other firms, all thanks to old man Strath, and Paul had wanted to do his homework beforehand, check out the firms carefully so he could sound knowledgeable.

As he walked into the kitchen he wanted to tell Suzanna about the interview, but as had been happening recently she wasn’t there at first, and there was something in the way, something that prevented him from seeing her. He wasn’t concerned, however, because he’d quickly learned how to break through it. Nothing was going to stop him from seeing his Suzanna. He just had to push against it a little; not too hard, just a little, and then it popped like a soap bubble and went away.

Suzanna was there, waiting for him.
It’s just sandwiches tonight, Paulie-boy.

Standing on the street outside the apartment building, the old man staggered and reached out to a streetlight, gripped it tightly for a moment until the vertigo passed. A nicely dressed, middle-aged woman passing by looked at him oddly, as if he was drunk, or something.

That had hurt. He should’ve known better than to try using the locator spell again. The idiot—no, he had to stop thinking of him as an idiot. He clearly wasn’t an idiot, just foolish, then. The fool had snapped his locator spell with no effort whatsoever, just casually shrugged it aside like someone brushing an annoying fly out of their face, and there were few, if any, who were capable of doing so with such little effort. But while the spell itself hadn’t located his quarry, the power the fellow had expended to break it had provided him with all he needed.

He let go of the streetlight, straightened and crossed the street. The front door of the building was locked, residents only. But a quick rune spell would take care of that. He looked up and down the street to insure he’d be unobserved, then bent down and used his index finger to trace the rune carefully on the surface of the door lock. It was an elder rune, used by ancient wizards to seal tombs and grimoires and their arcane workshops. But here he traced it backwards, did so seven times, each time invoking his own power and spilling a bit into it. After the seventh pass the rune glowed momentarily and the lock clicked open.

He was now close enough that the low background of the spirit interaction was enough to guide him. He didn’t take the elevator because he didn’t yet know what floor, but he’d learn that as he got closer. He started up the stairs moving slowly. If this fool were as dangerous as he suspected, he didn’t want to alert the fellow to his presence inadvertently.

It wasn’t the second floor, or the third, but on the fourth the source of the broadcast was no longer above him, so he walked carefully down the hall, stopping at each apartment door and extending his arcane senses carefully into the apartment, then moving on to the next. When he found it there was no question. But only then, with just the wood of a single door separating them, only then did he sense the fellow had not summoned some sort of spirit, only then did he understand the true danger the poor fool had called into this life. He’d summoned a demon from the Netherworld, a succubus, and it was that that prompted the impulse to knock.

The knock on the door startled Paul. He hadn’t had any visitors in more than a year, the last being a steady stream of friends coming to console him for Suzanna’s death, and then two months later again for Cloe’s death—

No. Don’t think about that.
That was the past, a past that didn’t exist anymore. They weren’t dead, not any more, not completely dead, not truly dead.

He looked up from his plate. Suzanna and Cloe had vanished and were no longer seated at the table. And gone too were their plates and utensils. In fact, the table in front of their seats was completely bare. Paul looked down at his own plate, stared for a moment at the half-finished ham and cheese sandwich Suzanna had made.

The doorbell rang, followed by a repeat of the knocking. He stood, hastily swallowing the bite of sandwich he’d taken before the first knock, dropped his napkin on the table and headed for the living room. At the front door he paused and peered through the peephole, was surprised to see an older man whom he didn’t recognize standing in the hall. He wasn’t a neighbor Paul had seen before, and he didn’t look like a salesman. But then perhaps he was a new neighbor who’d recently moved in.

At the first knock his sense of the demon vanished. He waited for several seconds, then rang the doorbell and knocked again. He could be patient now; his sense of urgency had fled with the demon. The lens of the peephole darkened as the occupant looked him over. Then the door opened slowly to reveal a young man looking at him inquisitively. “What can I do for you?” the young man asked politely.

The knock had been an impulse and the older man hesitated. The young man appeared to be in his mid-thirties, dressed in slacks and a nice shirt, handsome, well groomed with neatly trimmed brownish hair, broad shoulders and a trim waist—perhaps even a bit too trim, as if he’d lost weight recently. And he didn’t look like a fool, or an idiot, but he was a sorcerer—there was no doubt of that—and he was summoning demons without the proper protections. At a loss for words, the old man spoke haltingly. “I’m  . . . Walter McGowan.”

The young man’s eyes narrowed. “And again, what can I do for you, Mr. McGowan?”

Walter didn’t know the young man’s name. “I  . . . just wanted to  . . . talk to you about  . . .”

“Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.”

McGowan had to make this young fellow understand. “But what you were doing is dangerous, very dangerous.”

“What I was doing was having dinner with my family. And I don’t see how that’s dangerous, nor is it really any of your business. Now, forgive me, but I’m going to go back to that.” The young man closed the door carefully, almost softly.

On the way out, now that he knew the apartment number, McGowan stopped and checked the mailboxes: Conklin, something Conklin. At least he knew the young man’s name.

Paul returned to the dinner table and sat down. Suzanna and Cloe were gone. And they wouldn’t have just left, not vanished like that, not if they’d truly been there. It was a blatant reminder of what he already knew but sometimes forgot: he was nuts, bug-fuck nuts, and getting worse by the day.

He finished the ham and cheese sandwich alone and in silence.

Mikhail stood in the shadows and almost held his breath as the Old Wizard walked out of the apartment building and up the street. Like a small animal in the presence of a dangerous predator, he remained still and motionless long after the old man had strolled out of sight. Mikhail knew his own limitations, and following the powerful, old wizard was a dangerous undertaking. But the instructions he’d been given were quite specific, and it would be even more dangerous to fail to follow those orders.

After the street had been silent and empty for several minutes, he retrieved his cell phone and dialed a number he knew well. His boss answered the call. “Karpov here.”

Karpov had chosen to speak English, so Mikhail did the same in a thick Russian accent. “Mr. Karpov, it’s Mikhail. I followed the old man to an apartment building. He did exactly as you said, appeared to be tracking something.”

“Ah,” Karpov said. “He’s done our work for us, found the rogue and led us to him. That was much faster than trying to track him ourselves.”