Crushed (City of Eldrich Book 2) (2 page)

CHAPTER THREE

M
eaghan lunged for
the fire extinguisher hanging near the door and put out the fire before it set off the overhead sprinklers. Natalie stared at the singed paper and chemical foam covering her desk and burst into tears. Annie guided her to a chair, sat her down, and rubbed her shoulders.

“Can poltergeists set fires?” Meaghan asked, holding the spent extinguisher and surveying the damage.

Annie nodded. “Yeah. Although I’ve never seen fire this early in a manifestation.”

“You’ve seen a lot of poltergeists?”

Annie shrugged. “Some. There’s some paranormal research guys I help out sometimes. Telling them if it’s an actual haunting or psychokinesis.” Seeing Meaghan’s blank look, she added, “You ever read
Carrie
?”

Meaghan nodded. “I saw the movie. So he’s throwing stuff around with his mind? But he’s not doing it on purpose, is he?”

“No,” Annie said. “Not yet.”

Natalie blew her nose loudly. “Not ever. He would never do anything on purpose to hurt us.”

Meaghan and Annie exchanged a glance. Meaghan didn’t need to be psychic to know what Annie was thinking. They had no idea what Jamie would or wouldn’t do. The Jamie they’d all known—happy, generous, kind, a loving husband and doting father—had died in Fahraya. He might get past what had happened to him with time and care, but would never again be the man they had known.

“Okay. Maybe not,” Annie said. “But even if he’d never intentionally hurt us, he’s still dangerous. We gotta get this sorted out fast. Has anything weird been going on at home?”

“Well . . .” Natalie fell silent.

Natalie had assumed the role of Jamie’s big sister since his exile from Fahraya at age twelve. She had followed him to college and law school, never living more than a mile away from him, so she could maintain the amulet he had worn to suppress his Fahrayan DNA and appear human. He no longer needed the amulet, not since a magical explosion had transformed all the surviving Fahrayans into actual humans, but Natalie and Jamie were still a daily presence in each other’s lives. They lived two doors apart, Jamie’s kids knew her as Aunt Natalie, and his wife was one of her closest friends.

“Natalie,” Meaghan said. “I know you want to protect him, but you have to tell us what’s going on so we can help him.”

“Nothing major. Some doors that won’t stay shut, banging noises, some broken dishes.” Natalie glared at them, her face red. “He went through hell, okay? He’s doing the best he can.”

Annie gave Meaghan another meaningful glance.

Meaghan decided it was time to back off, at least for now. To Natalie she said, “Let’s just keep an eye on things for now, okay?”

Annie nudged Meaghan and held her index finger to her lips.

A moment later Jamie appeared in the doorway. He glanced at the mess on Natalie’s desk a moment, his face expressionless. He walked around them, not making eye contact, on his way out of the office suite. “Running an errand,” he mumbled. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

Meaghan looked at Natalie, who shrugged and said, “I don’t know where he’s going.”

Meaghan turned her gaze to Annie. “City hall’s making it worse, isn’t it?”

Annie nodded. “This stupid place makes everything worse. It’s not only supernatural energy it magnifies. It’s psychic energy too.”

“And his office is ground zero.”

“Right,” Annie said. “The center of the vortex. And he’s totally human now which means he’s vulnerable. Only instead of getting dizzy in there, like everybody else does, he’s channeling it.”

“Like a magnifying glass focusing sunlight,” Meaghan said. “And we’re the ants.”

“Exactly,” Annie said.

Natalie slammed a desk drawer shut with a bang. “I can’t listen to this. You don’t know him like I do. He won’t hurt us.”

Glaring at Meaghan, Natalie stomped out of the office and down the stairs.

Annie squeezed Meaghan’s arm. “She’s having a hard time too. He doesn’t need her like he used to now that he doesn’t wear the amulet. I’ll track her down and talk to her.”

“Do I need to get him out of that office?”

“Maybe. I’ll talk to Natalie about magical interventions. I assume you know about city hall?

Meaghan nodded. “Yeah. Even I can’t be in his office for more than a minute or two without getting dizzy and I’m impervious to magic. I can’t believe we didn’t think about how it would affect him.”

“It doesn’t affect everybody the same way. Some people are fine in there. Don’t worry. We’ll sort it out.”

“If he doesn’t burn down the place first,” Meaghan said.

Annie shrugged. “I’d get some more fire extinguishers if I were you. I’ll mention it to Meb. He’s got a few stored away downstairs.”

Meb was the elderly security guard who sat watch in the main lobby for the occasional visitor. He’d worked in city hall for decades and knew all about its unique features, including ghosts, witches, and the energy vortex on the third floor. He’d lived in the area all his life and was clued in—Eldrich code for being aware of the paranormal—to the supernatural aspects of living in Eldrich and working in city hall.

Meaghan had found out about Eldrich on her first day at work when the city council director, during a heated meeting, started throwing around hexes before tearing off Jamie’s amulet. Seeing her deputy city solicitor, the nice young lawyer sitting across the table from her, disappear in a flash of light and reappear eight inches tall with wings had clued Meaghan in fast.

Eldrich had been described to Meaghan as a hole in the fence of reality. Gateways to other worlds, most of them magical in some way, riddled the dark forests, and city hall had been designed to amplify the mystical energy leaking from these worlds.

Staring at the charred contents of Natalie’s in-box, Meaghan shuddered. City hall could make whatever was happening to Jamie much, much worse. “Downplay it with Meb if you can, okay? Let’s keep this quiet for now. I don’t want people being any weirder around Jamie than they already are.”

Annie nodded. “If he thinks people are scared of him, that’ll ratchet up his stress and make it worse. So far, at least according to the ghosts, he’s only affecting the third floor.”

“I want to keep it that way if we can,” Meaghan said.

Annie tilted her head like she was listening to something. “The mayor’s arrived. I have to get downstairs.” She headed for the door, then stopped a moment. “Natalie’s down in the break room. I’ll see if I can catch her on her way back up the stairs. Call me if anything new happens.”

“By phone or by ghost?” Meaghan asked as Annie, laughing, walked out the door.

CHAPTER FOUR

E
ldrich’s historic city
hall was a fairy-tale castle masquerading as a public building. Built of heavy gray stone, with its high clock tower, four round turrets, and ornate carvings, city hall was lavishly excessive for a town as tiny as Eldrich, which had just over five thousand residents as of the last census.

City hall had been built in the middle of the nineteenth century by Welland Eldrich, the founder and namesake of the town, who had made his fortune in timber and mining. After the untimely death of his much younger wife and stillborn child, he sought comfort through the spiritualist movement sweeping upstate New York.

Soon tired of the charlatans and tricksters he’d encountered trying to contact his wife’s spirit through séances, Welland Eldrich began to look for another way to reach her. One day, the story went, he sent a telegram to a business associate and inspiration struck.

Unlike mediums who claimed to have a unique gift, anyone could learn to use the telegraph. Why take the word of a stranger that the spirits had spoken? Why not speak to them directly?

Only thirty years earlier, he reasoned, the notion of sending a nearly instantaneous message across a distance via electricity and copper wire had seemed a fantasy. To ancient man, it would have seemed like magic, like a message from the gods.

So Welland Eldrich set out to build a telegraph to the Other Side.

He abruptly sold his business interests and settled down to build a town in a secluded valley, surrounded by dense forests, in north central Pennsylvania. Long avoided by Indians and European settlers alike, the area was reputed to be haunted. Strange creatures were said to roam through the thick trees, snaring unwary travelers, most of whom were never heard from again.

Unlike most such tales, these were true.

After founding his little town in the middle of a supernatural minefield, Welland Eldrich commenced construction of a lavish city hall that would also serve as his spiritual telegraph.

Meaghan was more than a little fuzzy on the mechanics of it. She’d heard the story from Natalie and Russ, Meaghan’s brother, sitting in the Keeles’ kitchen one evening about six weeks earlier after one of Russ’s routinely excellent dinners and a little too much wine.

Natalie had tried to explain Welland Eldrich’s vision using technical terms like
whosit
and
thingy.

Russ, seeing the look on Meaghan’s face, finally interrupted and said, “City hall’s like that building in
Ghostbusters
. Some powerful energy doohickies converge on the site, and they did some weird architecture and weird engineering to amplify it, the end result being a big radio tower to the Great Beyond. And some people think it opened up the gateways to Fahraya.”

Meaghan said, “But—”

“Take our word for it,” Russ said in an exasperated tone. “We don’t know how it works either. Something to do with electricity and magnets. I’m a chef, not a physicist. Once you get past the physics of roasting versus steaming, I’m pretty much lost.”

“Okay,” Meaghan said with a frown. Her understanding of physics wasn’t much better. She’d tried reading a Stephen Hawking book once and gave up after she’d read the first few pages several times, once out loud, and still had no idea what it said. “So, what’s the deal with the third floor?”

“The clock tower’s like a big antenna,” Natalie said. “It focuses the power right into Jamie’s office. Huge energy vortex in there. It’s why people get dizzy and his computer crashes all the time. There’s a corresponding spot, not quite as bad, back in the storage room. Great for amplifying spells, but the cell phone reception sucks.”

“Why Jamie’s office?” Meaghan asked.

“Third floor used to be the attic, right? Welland Eldrich wasn’t trying to build a public phone. He wanted to talk to his wife in private, so the building was engineered to funnel everything up there,” Natalie said. “We think. What we know comes from his personal papers and he went bat-shit crazy and was shipped to an asylum right after construction began.”

“There’s a lot more we don’t know,” Russ added. “A German guy, Bottner, I think his name was. Something like that. He designed the building and supervised construction, but blew town as soon as it was done and took all the notes and plans with him. And the third floor was a big open space back then. Jamie’s office was added later.”

“But knowing about the vortex, why didn’t they put our offices on the other side of the building?”

Natalie shrugged. “No idea. They remodeled the attic in the thirties and it may be whoever made the decision didn’t know about city hall. Standard Eldrich denial, you know?”

Denial was a common way of dealing with Eldrich for those not willing to accept its true nature.

“The city solicitor’s office was kind of a one-man show back then, right?” Meaghan asked.

Natalie nodded. “Jamie’s the first deputy city solicitor we’ve ever had and Matthew created the position. Partly to give Jamie a job, but also to give Matthew more time to deal with his other obligations. You know.”

Meaghan nodded. Having Jamie gone forced Meaghan to do a lot more actual lawyering. She’d even had to go to court a couple of times when Hallam and Associates, the city’s outside counsel, couldn’t cover something. Meaghan was no litigator and, except for a brief stint as a criminal prosecutor, had spent most of her career trying to avoid the courtroom.

“So, what did they use the office for before Jamie?” Meaghan asked.

“Conference room, I think. I didn’t really pay attention. I was a kid when Mom worked for the city. I didn’t start working here until we both came back from Philly.”

Vivian, Natalie’s mother, had worked for Matthew Keele from the beginning. She had died right after Jamie and Natalie both moved to Philadelphia so Jamie could attend law school. When Natalie and Jamie returned to Eldrich, Natalie took over her mother’s role at Matthew’s side. It was Natalie who noticed the first subtle signs of Alzheimer’s disease in Matthew.

Natalie had been as close to Matthew as she was to Jamie.

And to Russ.

Meaghan had no proof they were romantically involved beyond witnessing Russ and Natalie share meaningful glances and seeing Natalie blush a few times when Meaghan had mentioned his name. And considering the nature of Eldrich, there could be explanations other than sex.

But why the secret? They were hiding something. Meaghan already knew about magic and witches and ghosts and wizards and weird creatures from other worlds. She didn’t know why they’d keep a paranormal secret from her, but they had plenty of reasons not to tell her if they were sleeping together.

Meaghan had managed to miss the breakups of Russ’s second and third marriages, but she’d witnessed every horrible step of Russ’s first divorce. She never wanted to do that again.

She wanted Russ to find a good woman and finally get it right. But history was not on his side. And Natalie . . . Natalie was a witch. An actual spell-casting witch. Working with her every day after a breakup with Russ would be bad enough, but what would Natalie do if scorned? Turn Russ into a toad? Talk about an awkward work environment.

Feeling the weight at the end of her arm, Meaghan realized she still held the empty fire extinguisher. She set it on the floor next to Natalie’s desk. It wasn’t even nine yet and she’d already experienced her first poltergeist, fought a fire, and pissed off the person she depended on most.

Hearing the door creak behind her, Meaghan spun around. Kady Cressley, the fourth and final member of the solicitor’s office, walked in. Funny, irreverent, and one of the best legal secretaries Meaghan had ever worked with, Kady was a small slender woman in her early twenties. The youngest child and only daughter of a single father, Kady was also a witch-in-training under Natalie’s tutelage. A bit of a late bloomer, she made up for it with raw ability and a can-do attitude.

Kady had become the office’s safety valve over the last few weeks. She laughed first when tension needed to be broken, in turns snarky or sympathetic as the situation required. She’d even managed to wring a couple of wan smiles out of Jamie.

“Hey, boss,” she said. When she saw Natalie’s desk and the fire extinguisher, her smile shifted into a worried scowl. “What happened? Was it Jamie?”

Meaghan nodded. “Yeah, looks like it. I suppose you know about the poltergeist thing?”

Kady dropped her bag on her desk on the other side of the room. “Yeah, and I guess now you do, too.” Anticipating Meaghan’s complaint, she said, “I know we should have warned you, but you’ve kinda been dumped with a lot of stuff since you got here, so we figured we’d wait and see if there was a problem and then talk to you. Looks like Jamie beat us to it.”

“The files on his desk were levitating along with his stapler. Then he ignited Natalie’s in-box and went for a walk.” Part of Meaghan’s mind rebelled at the words coming out of her mouth. Even after all she’d seen and done since she’d moved to Eldrich, sometimes a small pocket of rationality recoiled in horror and flooded her mind with denial. She tried to ignore it. “There was also a sort of sculpture of stacked legal pads and pens in the hallway in front of my office.”

Kady appraised Meaghan with narrowed eyes. “I need to talk to you about something. How about I meet you back in your office in a minute? I’ll bring you some coffee, okay?”

Uh oh, Meaghan thought.
Now what?
“Who’ll answer the phones?”

“I’ll send them to voice mail.” Kady’s face broke into a beaming smile. It was like the sun breaking through a storm. “Go. Sit. Don’t worry. It’s good news for once.”