Forged in Fire (29 page)

When we had run out of things to speak about, the scullery maid returned to her duties and Zi Xiu showed me back to the library. I needed to wrap up soon. Katie would start to worry.

I spent another hour looking through the grimoire I’d found. I copied down several sets of runes to discuss with Jimmy and Rolph. There was so much here. We could’ve studied this book for a long while and not figured out everything it had to offer.

My eyes had begun to burn, and I really needed to go to the bathroom. I got up and flipped through the rest of the book just to get a glimpse of the rest. Near the back I found a little song. The words didn’t make any sense, but the notes were clear enough. I copied down the stanzas, totally oblivious to their meaning. I was sure Katie could figure it out. A note scribbled in the margin stated the song would show the truth of things. That sounded like a cool thing to know.

I put the book back where I’d found it and headed to the bathroom. It had been a good day, in many ways.

Minutes later, as I made my way through the winding halls toward the entranceway, Nidhogg stepped from her grand hall. She did not say a word, just held her hand out to me. I stepped to her, fished the second key from my pocket, and handed it over. She slipped the braided cord over her neck, tucked the key inside her blouse, and turned, dismissing me with a wave of her ancient hand.

I didn’t look back, just turned on my heel and walked across the foyer. I paused once to look over at the gate that blocked the rest of the world from Qindra’s rooms.

Soon, I promised, I’d be handing the key to her. She belonged here. This was her domain, not mine. The people in this house needed her too much.

Forty-eight

T
he whelp,
C
harlie
H
ague, sat in the stuffy house sipping the too-sweet tea the old woman had insisted he drink. Madame Gottschalk sat buried in cats and nattered on about the weather. The formalities were irrelevant; it was the ritual that mattered. Best to cleanse the traveler before engaging in clandestine conversation in case someone had discovered their meet.

When the tea was drunk, Madame Gottschalk waved at the boy. “Begin,” she ordered.

“We bugged the main house out at Black Briar just after the ritual murders. If their planning anything specific, it’s not obvious to our agents.”

She listened intently, stroking her favorite tabby.

“While they have stumbled around in the last half a year or more, they have uncovered a new artifact of some ilk. We do not fully know the nature of this item, but it is tied to Paul Cornett in some fashion. There is a safety deposit box we are aware of. James Cornett, the son and current leader of the Black Briar clan, visited that box recently and retrieved an item. If they are utilizing it, we have no indications.”

“And the girl?”

“She remains a mystery. We know the necromancer is targeting those around her, whether to elicit fear or to reduce her support base. We have not been able to determine the connection between all those murdered in similar fashion.” He paused, considering. “There is other news. We have word that Frederick Sawyer is in the city.”

“Well, well,” Madame Gottschalk said, tapping the arm of her chair. “A king moves onto the board. Shall we see a response from the queen?”

Charlie shrugged. “We do know there is a connection between the girl and Nidhogg. I do not get the impression she loves the great beasts, especially if the rumors of her hand in Jean-Paul’s demise prove to be true.”

Madame Gottschalk cackled. “Easier to believe Nidhogg or Sawyer killed him than believe a simple girl had the power to take down one of their kind.”

“I beg to differ,” Charlie said, obviously agitated. “We have underestimated things in the past. What if it’s true?” He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Can you imagine?”

“Blasphemy,” she bellowed, sending cats scrambling off her lap. “Speak no foolishness in this home, silly boy.”

This was not a new argument. Charlie lowered his gaze, grimacing.

“You are young and eager,” she went on, settling back in her chair. “Revolution appeals to your generation, as it did mine, when I was as wet behind the ears as you are.” She paused, considering other revolutions, other powers vying for control in a world of chaos. “Trust me. They killed Rasputin, the fools, and we see what happened to the Romanovs in the end.”

“Shall I contact the blacksmith again, or do you have other orders?”

“I want you to contact young James Cornett. Perhaps it is time to bring him into the fold. They are a menace where they are. Either we bring them in and allow him to replace his father in the order or we need to eliminate them as a threat to Bestellen von Mordred.”

He stood and knelt at her feet, taking her hand and kissing her knuckles. “It shall be as you say, Seiðr.”

Once the door shut behind him and the room no longer reverberated with his energy, the grey tabby jumped atop the table and spoke.

“This haven is at risk, grandmother. I fear all our plans may be destroyed by this foolish clan of ruffians.”

“Perhaps you are correct,” Madame Gottschalk offered. “I will consult with my sister, Jaga.”

The cat yawned, stretching her entire body. “Does she still live in that ridiculous hut outside Minsk?”

Madame Gottschalk shooed the cats away. “Mind yourself.”

She sat back and sipped her tea. Things were amiss in the realms. There were echoes of energy she had never felt before. First in the spring, just before Jean-Paul was killed, and twice more in the last several months. She needed to perform a scrying, throw the runes, maybe even read some entrails. She looked at the cat a moment and dismissed the idea. Chickens told better futures, in any case.

Forty-nine

I
convinced
K
atie to join me for dinner out at
B
lack Briar so we could discuss all the notes I’d taken at Nidhogg’s place. She had mostly forgiven Jimmy, but there was still something niggling there, something she wouldn’t open up to me about. I figured she was due some privacy. It just wasn’t like her.

We had a full crew for grub: Anezka, Gunther, Stuart, Deidre, Jimmy, Katie, and me. Oh, and Bub. Gunther thought he’d make a good addition to the conversation, even though Deidre was not sure their dishes could afford his indiscriminate definition of food and foodlike substances.

I was pleasantly surprised when Gunther and Anezka cooked for us. They made tacos, which went over well with Bub. I’m not sure it wasn’t his idea originally. He loved Mexican.

The meal went by quickly. I cleared the table while they passed my notes around. I’d made a couple of copies, so we didn’t have to share all the way around.

The first thing I wanted to know about was the symbol I’d seen on Charlie Hague. Visions were something I would’ve laughed about a year ago. But no more.

“Definitely the symbol of an order,” Gunther said. “I’ll run it by some of my friends in the monastery, but I believe I know this group.”

“Aye,” Jimmy said. “I’ve seen this mentioned in one of Mom’s journals. It was pretty sparse, mostly short, cryptic notes about meetings. But I thought it funny that a group would use something so obviously linked with the Illuminati.”

Neither Bub nor Anezka had a clue, and neither Katie nor I could add anything. Deidre just went into the other room, declaring a hoodoo-free evening for herself. “I’ve got better stuff stacked on my DVR,” she said and showed us the back of her.

The song I found caught their attention, though. Katie got out one of her guitars and plucked out the tune. It was a bit discordant, low tones, with a steady rhythm that felt like drums in the deep. That’s how she described it. Conjuring up something best left unsummoned. Once she thought she had the basic through line down, she added the words.

For a moment, things got really creepy. My vision shifted, like the other morning. Everything in the room had a different level of energy, a different color palette and hue. Bub glowed, as did Katie.

“Can you see that?” Katie asked the room. Everyone shook their head. Everyone but me. Katie smiled at me and motioned with her head. Katie walked down the hall, and the door to the basement was outlined in sparkling squiggles. She laughed. “It’s like in Dungeons and Dragons,” she said, pausing in her singing. “It reveals hidden things.”

We compared notes. She saw the highlight around the hidden door, but not the glow around her or Bub. That was interesting. The song had triggered my walkabout vision, but she could see some of it while she was singing. She wanted to continue down the hall to the bedrooms, but Jimmy put a stop to that. “Some things are personal,” he groused. I didn’t want to know what he and Deidre had hidden in their bedroom, and after a second it dawned on Katie that she didn’t either. Stuart just sniggered at us.

The music was haunting, not unlike that song by Objekt 775 I loved so much. They were an obscure band but had a wide range of punk and rock in their repertoire.

We had a big time with it, laughing and kidding around about what folks wanted to keep hidden, when Katie noticed something else. There were three points in the house that glowed faintly when exposed to the song. It wasn’t a long song, so Katie had to sing it over and over.

The three spots were surprising: the smoke alarm in the hallway, a spot over the back door, and one in the living room, over the fireplace.

Stuart pulled down the smoke alarm and found a tiny camera installed. The spot in the kitchen held a listening device, and the living room had both.

Someone had bugged the damn house. Katie stopped singing after twenty-seven times through, saying her throat was hurting.

“Unbelievable,” Jimmy said, taking a pocket knife to the drywall above the fireplace. “When could someone have bugged this place? We’re always here, or at least someone is.”

He looked to Gunther and Stuart. “Pretty sophisticated stuff,” Stuart said. “Not government issue, but damn close. Private market, but high-end.”

He dropped them on the tile floor in the kitchen and ground his boot down on top of them. “Somebody’s in for a surprise,” he said.

We grabbed Deidre and filled her in. She agreed to go around with Katie and me to search the house, but shooed everyone else out. “Too crowded in some of the rooms,” she said.

We worked our way through the top of the house. Deidre’s nightstand glowed, but she opened the drawer before we could stop her. We didn’t need to see whatever sex toys she kept.

There were no other bugs in the upstairs, but there was a book in the den that glowed. Deidre flipped through it and found three loose pages tucked in between the pages of the book. They were written in a small, tight script that Katie recognized as her mother’s.

They were lists of Christmas presents from when Katie was two. She sat down in the living room and cried over them.

I sat with her, taking the guitar and letting her cry. This was something even Jimmy didn’t know existed. “Keep them,” Deidre said. “They can be your secret.”

In the margins were little notes and measurements. Dresses for Katie, books for Jim. And some things for her father that made her smile. A new flashlight, underwear, and silk pajamas. She folded the pages carefully and put them in her shirt pocket.

I let her cry on my shoulder, but when she pulled away she was covered in blood.

“Jim?” Deidre called, rolling her chair to the kitchen. “Get in here!”

The others piled back into the house and went into crisis mode. Katie had a pretty serious bloody nose, and she and I were both covered in it. Luckily, we got it stopped with pressure and an ice pack.

Katie kept clothes in her old room, and I borrowed a T-shirt from Jimmy. We got cleaned up in the bathroom, and I decided to keep my bra on even though the blood had gotten that far. “No way I’m going out in that crowd without a bra.”

Katie snickered but didn’t protest. I was a bit horrified to be wearing a John Deere T-shirt. At least it fit.

“It was the song,” Katie said. “I could feel it working on me but didn’t really make the connection until the end there.”

“Well, it’s not something I want you singing again anytime soon.”

She looked at me, one eyebrow raised, but I stood my ground. “Unknown magic, Katie. Who knows what kind of damage that can cause.”

She leaned in and kissed me. “Yes, ma’am. Whatever you say.”

We walked back out into the kitchen and joined the others again.

“Well, we can sweep the rest of the farm another time,” Jimmy said. “Stuart knows of some gear we can get to sweep for bugs.” He looked at Katie, his face taut with fear. “I can’t let you do that again. That song is dangerous.”

For an awkward minute they stood there. Katie’s face was flushed. She was getting pissed at him again. I started to say something, but she relented and hugged him. Everyone in the room breathed a sigh of relief, including Bub. The tension had even gotten to him.

We called it a night. Katie promised to leave the song for now. At least until we could research it more. I could always get more contextual information from the grimoire out at Nidhogg’s.

No magic is without cost. I had to remember that.