Paranormal Realities Box Set (20 page)

“What? What?” I demanded, taking the book
from her. After reading the text, my body went numb.

“It can’t be that bad.” Zen chuckled. “I
mean he’s not going to turn into a ghoul is he?”

“No,” Rom said. “Yet that result might be
preferred.”

“What does he mean?” Zen asked me.

“It says here that an untreated bite of a
ghoul will render the victim a lunatic.”

“How long do we have to treat it?” Senji
asked.

“The book doesn’t say.” I couldn’t look
at Rom so I kept my gaze firmly on Senji.

“But we have treated it,” Zen said.

“The only effective treatment, according
to this book, is a poultice made from the leaves of plant called Downy
Woundwort." I slammed the text closed. “Okay then. Let’s get some of that
woundwort stuff and make this poultice thing and no problem. We can find it on
the internet I’m sure.”

I tried to keep my attitude upbeat and
certain, but Rom wasn’t buying it. He shook his head before I’d finished my
peppy little speech.

“There is no such plant.” Rom's gazed off
into the distance.

Senji thumbed in a search on his cell
phone. After a few seconds, his eyes rose slowly.

“He’s right,” Senji said. “Downy
Woundwort has been extinct since 1900.”

* * * * *

Rom insisted on driving me to my father’s
hearing as planned.

We left Senji, as our biggest brain, with
instructions to find some Downy Woundwort somewhere, somehow or else find
another cure. I wouldn’t consider the possibility of failure. We weren’t going
to let Rom go crazy. Petra, Chase and Zen went to work on Operation Find Ghoul.

The courthouse elevator pinged announcing
we’d arrived at our floor...The floor that would bring me face-to-face with my
father. The prospect terrified me. Given the many terrors of the past few days,
I was surprised I wasn't numb.

As Rom and I trod down the hall, the
impact of our footsteps echoed on the industrial linoleum floor. Too soon, I
stood outside the seemingly innocuous double doors of courtroom B.

“Prepared?” Rom asked.

Nodding, I pushed through the double
doors and went inside. My fear quickly turned to confusion at the sight of the
virtually empty room. Scanning, I took in the scene. The judge rose from his
seat at the bench before passing through a door in the panel on the back
wall—probably to his chambers. A news cameraman bent over a hard plastic
case packing away his video equipment.

The Assistant DA I’d met with to rehearse
my testimony, Karen Fowler, was near the jury box talking to a man I recognized
as my father’s attorney. What had happened? I glanced at the clock just to
confirm the time. We weren't late.

“No, no. Not possible,” Ms. Fowler said
to my father’s attorney.

“Ms. Fowler?” I tried drawing her
attention to me.

“Miss Taylor,” the ADA who didn’t seem
that much older than I walked toward me.

She pushed through the short wood-swinging
barrier leading from the business part of the courtroom to the gallery seats,
holding out her hand. I offered my own in return. We shook like any two good
business people. How civilized it all was.

“Is the hearing over?”

“Yes and no,” she said, darting a glare
at my father’s attorney. “Mr. Stimpson made a motion regarding your father’s
mental competency to stand trial.”

"He's arguing my father is insane?”

The ADA nodded. "I was expecting it,
but since your father's attorney brought the motion at such a late date—”
She darted another glare his way. “I didn’t know until today that our hearing
would be delayed.”

Stimpson, a bald and morbidly obese man,
toddled over to us.

“Kizzy,” he said as if he knew me.

The smarmy ass.

“Don’t call me Kizzy.”

Stimpson held up a hand for pardon and
then used it to wipe sweat off his generous forehead.

“Sorry, Miss Taylor. I need to ask you
something on behalf of your father.”

“There’s nothing you can ask that I would
do for him.”

“He says he wants to see you,” Stimpson
said.

“You can take what he wants and shove it
up the nearest orifice of your choice.”

“I know, I know. It’s natural you’d be
upset,” he tried to mollify me.

“Really? You think so?” I rolled my eyes.

“But your father says he has to talk to
you because—Now let me get this right. He said I have to repeat it as a
quote.” He checked some notes on the legal pad he held. “Because you have
tainted blood you inherited from your great grandmother. He says your tainted
blood will cause destruction.”

“Mr. Stimpson. This is highly improper,”
the ADA intervened. “Miss Taylor has suffered enough at her father’s hands. She
doesn’t need to hear this too.”

Stimpson responded. As they continued to
bicker, Rom placed a hand on my arm drawing me to the side, out of their
hearing.

“The necklace of your great grandmother
bears the symbol of an open vortex. May your father know of your talents as a
Clavis?”

If he did, perhaps he knew something that
would help me—us—rescue Juliette. I turned back to the attorneys.

“I’ll do it. I’ll meet with my father,
but it has to be today. Right now in fact.”

The ADA’s face fell into sympathetic
lines.

“You don’t have to do that. In fact, I
don’t think it’s even permissible.”

“Please,” I said. “It will give
me—“ I searched my memory for some psychobabble. “It will give me closure
for my grief.”

 
She made an awwwwwwwww face.

“I suppose you could meet with him at the
holding cell," the ADA said. "With you on the outside of the cell of
course. And the deputies would be there. And I could be there."

“Yes, that’s fine. But let’s do it now.”
Before I lost my nerve.

“Maybe I should ask your mother about
this,” the ADA murmured almost to herself.

“No, please,” I exclaimed. “The sooner we
get this over with, the sooner I can begin my—” I swallowed down the lump
threatening to choke me. “ My healing.”

“You’ll have to go without your friend.”
She inclined her head toward Rom.

Nodding, I followed as the ADA crossed to
a door at the side of the room next to the witness stand. She spoke to one of
the deputies and a few minutes later we proceeded down a narrow corridor to a
holding cell. With the attorney and two deputies at my side, I steeled myself
and peered inside.

My father seemed smaller, dressed in an
oversized orange jump suit, than he’d been the last time I’d seen him. His hair
was disheveled and there was a bizarre light twinkling in his eyes. The light
of insanity. But the eyes were sunken and ringed with a reddish brown, almost
bruised color.

"Kizzy." He rose and shuffled
toward me. Even in the cell his legs were shackled. He clutched the bars and
they rattled under his grip.

Refusing to show any emotion, I didn’t
move.

“I tried to save you,” he said. “I
wouldn’t let my little girl be taken by a demon.”

“Demon?”

“With her white hair, I thought she was
an angel.” He giggled. “At first. But when she captured me with her yellow
eyes, she put me into a trance. She pierced my soul with her teeth and sucked
it out of me.”

If anything my father was even more
deranged than when I'd seen him last. Now he couldn't even put together a
coherent sentence.

 
“Yellow eyes. Soul sucking teeth. I got it." With
deliberation I turned my gaze to the far wall. "Anything else?”

“I tried to save you.”

“You said that. Why did you need to save
me?”

“Even though she said you would cause
destruction, I tried to save you ‘cause I loved you. But it’s your fault I had
to save you because of your blood. It’s tainted.” He ran a hand through his hair
and tugged on the ends.

"What?" My attention snapped
back to his face.

"To save you, I knew you had to die.
But I couldn’t spill your blood. Grandma said that would be bad.”

“Grandma has been dead ten years," I
said.

"My grandmother!" He scowled
and shook the bars.

My great-grandmother had been dead even
longer. "Great-grandmother told you to make me jump off a bridge?”

Shaking his head, my father's face
scrunched in frustration. “No. I knew it was right. Couldn’t spill your blood.”
Tears leaked from his eyes. “But I panicked and the gun went off… and your
blood spilled…and Adam paid the price for your tainted blood.”

Swallowing hard, I forced myself to
continue standing upright even though I wanted to double over in pain from the
strike to the gut.

“Is that all?” I asked in a monotone.

He stopped crying. “I just wanted you to
know I saved you from the yellow eyed angel demon. I was brave. I didn’t give
you to her. She wanted your blood, but she didn’t get it.”

“What did you say?”

“The angel demon wanted your blood
because your blood brings destruction.”

I would have totally written his rantings
off as a symptom of insanity, except for what I’d seen in the last few days. My
father had spoken of an angel demon? Yellow eyes and sharp teeth seemed more
like a ghoul, but I hadn't seen any with white hair.

My mind raced with questions. Was it
possible my dad went insane from a ghoul bite? Could there be a second ghoul
running around in the city? But if so, how had it gotten here? Had someone
opened the portal to the vortex before me? Was there another Clavis in
Savannah?

However, maybe all this was just my
wishful thinking. Just me wishing that but for the interference of a ghoul, my
dad wouldn’t have wanted to kill me.

Although I was bursting to tell Rom what
my father had said, there was no chance when I got back to the courtroom.
Detective What’s-His-Name and his partner The-Other-Guy were there waiting for
me.

“Hello detectives.” I crossed to Rom,
took him by the hand and began to walk out.

“Miss Taylor!” Detective WHN called to me
and I stopped.

“Excuse me, detective,” I said. “I’ve
just had a traumatic meeting with my insane father. I’m sure you understand I
have to go somewhere and recover.”

“I need to ask you some questions about
Franky Abbott. Are you aware that his body was discovered this morning?”

“Yes I heard that. What happened to him?”

“The medical examiner has preliminarily
ruled it a death by natural causes—a heart attack. However, the way his
body was positioned on a park bench raises suspicions.”

“As I said, we gotta go.”

“This may have something to do with your
sister’s disappearance. Don’t you want to help?” The arch in the detective’s
eyebrows rose so high, he could have had a neon sign on his forehead saying,
“This girl is guilty of something.”

“Believe me, detective,” I said, walking
toward the exit. “Nothing I can tell you could possibly help you figure out
what happened to either Franky or Juliette.” Pushing open the door, I turned
back. “Goodbye detectives.”

“Miss Taylor wait.”

“Am I under arrest?” I asked.

Detective WHN glanced to Detective TOG
and they both registered confusion. “Well, no,” he finally said.

“Then we gotta go.”

Once outside in the hall, Rom and I
dashed toward the elevator. No use in giving the detective time to think. He
might change his mind about arresting me. Besides, I definitely didn’t want him
talking to Rom.

As we made our way to the car, my cell
phone rang and I dragged it out of my purse.

“Senji,” I said. “Tell me some good
news.”

“I wish I had some,” he responded. “This
Downy Woundwort, also known as stachys germanica, was widespread at one time in
England but died out in the 19th century. In medieval Britain it was popular as
an herbal medicine for treatment of wounds.”

“Hence the name. Anything else useful?”

“I found a small reference to another
side effect of Downy Woundwort. Apparently, it will put a vampire into a coma
if ingested in quote ‘sufficient quantities’. Whatever that means."

“Interesting but I don’t think we can get
Leopold to swallow it even if—er when—we find the stuff.” My glance
slid to Rom. I didn't want to disturb him with my doubts about finding the
woundwort. “What else?”

“It grows in stalks about two feet high
and blooms between late spring until early autumn," Senji said. "It’s
multi-stemmed and has—let’s see here. I’m quoting—whorls of mauve
or magenta flowers.”

“What's a whorl?”