Sons of Angels (21 page)

“Shit,” she said, expecting the water to be all over the duvet, but when she looked the water was a solid lump of ice.

“You froze it. That could be useful.”

“It reduces the temperature in a specific point to thirty degrees below freezing, according to Wrack.”

“Where is Wrack? I just caught him watching me while I took a shower.”

“He’s over there.” Julie pointed. There was a swift movement as her imp flinched. “He hasn’t forgiven me for freezing his tail yet.”

“Nor will I.” The imp peered out from under the pillows. “Not while you keep waving your arms about. I want hazard pay.”

Julie snorted. “I’ve changed pages since then. Now I’m learning to summon ghosts, though I don’t see why I’d want any more around than I have already.”

“Are there any here?” Felicia glanced about. “I can only see them if I concentrate.”

“Not in this room, no.” Julie looked up, fixing blank eyes on her sister. “There are a couple in the house, though. An old man and a young girl, both fully aware of what they are.”

“Oh, dear. Poor souls.”

“Actually, they seem to be quite happy. The old man writes poetry and paints watercolors and the girl seems to be some sort of cleaner.”

“I hope I don’t have to spend my afterlife cleaning. I don’t even like having to clean my flat.”

“I know.” Julie wrinkled her nose. “I could smell the laundry basket.”

“Are any of the old man’s watercolors in the house? I wonder if I could make a show of them.”

Julie laughed. “He’s a ghost, remember? You’d only be able to show them to people with the Sight.”

“I suppose.” Felicia blushed. “Listen. I’ve got to phone the solicitor about Mum. Is there anything you want me to ask him?”

“What happened to my trust fund?”

“I don’t know. I’ll ask him. Anything about Mum?”

“Nah. Just check the insurance.”

“Of course. Is there anything you need?”

“No, I’m good.” Julie stretched, interlocking her fingers and pushing her arms forward. It made her breasts even more pert, and Felicia wondered if she was still a virgin. Not that it was any of her business. “I can always send Wrack for food.”

Felicia nodded. “I’ll see you later then.” She regretted the turn of phrase as soon as it was out of her mouth.

“A lot quicker than I’ll see you.” Julie flashed a smile. “Later, taters.”

Felicia went downstairs, pulled a card from her purse and dialed the solicitor. “Hello? Is that Mr. Isaacs?”

“Quite.” The voice on the other end of the line was dry and rasping, as if the speaker were short of breath. “To whom am I speaking?”

“This is Felicia Turling. You handle my mother’s affairs? Patricia Turling?”

“Indeed I do.” There was the sound of shuffling paperwork. “What can I do for you, Ms. Turling?”

“My mother died.” At least she could remain calm over the telephone. “The house burned down. I’d like you to chase up the insurance on the house and on Mother and then sell the plot.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Felicia could hear the scratching of a pen. “My rates are seventy pounds for the first hour and forty thereafter. If I spend more than twelve hours on your case in a single week, I’ll drop my rates to half time. Is that acceptable?”

“Yes. That seems reasonable, I suppose.”

“I shall begin at once, though I shall need the certificate of death to proceed.”

“I collected it today. I’ll drop it off, shall I?”

“You do that, Ms. Turling.” She could hear him rooting through a file. “There are also personal effects you might wish to examine.”

“There are?” Felicia was surprised. “I’ll be right over, then, if that’s all right with you.”

“By all means.” Isaacs gave a wheezing chuckle. “I’d love to have you. Perhaps I could tempt you to a bite afterward.”

Felicia laughed. “Twelve pounds of raw steak would sound pretty good.”

Another wheezing chuckle followed. “Not quite what I had in mind, m’dear. I’ll see you shortly.”

Felicia put the phone down, shaking her head. She’d met Isaacs several times during the course of Julie’s psychiatric care and he’d always come across as a rather dotty old man. If only she’d known then he was
special
.

She poked her head through the kitchen door. “I’m going out. I might be a while.”

Harold looked up from the television, where he was engrossed in the static of an untuned station. “Where? It’s not safe for you to be alone.”

“I’m going to see my solicitor.”

Harold looked at the clock. “Now? Gillian will be up shortly.”

Jasfoup chimed in from the sink, where he was washing dishes, a flowery pinny around his waist. “It’s Isaacs.”

Harold made a silent
O
. “You’ll be all right with him. Just be careful. He’s a lecherous old bugger.”

“I’ve met him before,” Felicia smiled. “He’s harmless.”

Harold turned back to the television. “Is he? My mum will be disappointed then. They’ve been stepping out for months.”

* * * *

Felicia knocked and went straight into the dingy solicitor’s office. A woman old enough have retired decades ago looked up from a desk piled several feet high with manila-encased bundles of papers. “Can I help you? Do you have an appointment?”

“Mr. Isaacs is expecting me. I’ve got the death certificate for my mother.”

“Ah.” The woman looked down at a diary. “Ms. Turling. You can go right in.” She indicated a door to Felicia’s right.

“Thanks.” Felicia went into the inner sanctum of the office. It was almost the same as the last time she’d been in here, with the exception that the old solicitor smelled of dry soil and river mud, something she hadn’t noticed before. He resembled a squat toad roused too soon from his slumbers, his black suit more in keeping with a Victorian funeral than the courts of justice. “Your mother left this box with me a long time ago.” He indicated a paper-wrapped package as she sat.

She opened it to find a series of photographs of her mother and father, Julie and herself, taken before Julie had lost her sight. They seemed happy, smiling at the camera, and Felicia wondered when they’d all changed. There was a letter addressed to Julie, which Felicia pocketed.

“Is that all?”

“Isn’t it enough?” Isaacs smiled, startling Felicia with the sight of his pointed eye teeth and prompting the memory of Jasfoup saying
He’s one of us.

“I suppose.” Felicia smiled back. “Here’s the death certificate.”

“Good.” Isaacs looked it over. “That seems to be in order. I can apply for the payment of life assurance now. I’ve already applied for the insurance on the house fire. I presume you’ll not be wishing to rebuild, hmm?”

He looked up at her over his glasses, the whites of his eyes beneath his pupils magnified by the lenses.

Felicia stared at them, lost in their depth for a moment. “No.” She brought herself back into focus. “I won’t be rebuilding. Was there a trust fund for Julie? She mentioned it to me but I can’t say I’d ever heard of it.”

“There was, as a matter of fact.” Isaacs opened the file and passed her another sheet of paper. “Your mother put in a hundred pounds a month since Julie was born.”

Felicia looked at the accrued sum and whistled. “I wish she’d done the same for me.”

Isaacs smiled. “I think you’ll be taken care of.”

* * * *

After leaving Isaacs, Felicia took the enchanted pendulum from her pocket. The deviation from the vertical was more pronounced, indicating the butch was much closer than when Julie had cast the spell. Felicia walked in the direction the pendulum indicated.

The clock on St. Marple’s chimed nine as she passed, the angle of the pendulum increasing. The woman must be close to provoke such a marked reaction. The device twisted as she approached the nightclub and Felicia looked up to the blacked-out windows.

“It’s time to pay the piper, sweetie.” She trotted up the six steps to the door. “And the piper’s wanting blood.”

Chapter 23

Felicia paid her entrance fee and moved into the loud beat of the music, tapping her hand against her thigh as she scanned the dancers and onlookers for her quarry.

There was no trace of the butch in the downstairs area. Felicia bought water from the bar and took a long pull from the plastic bottle, letting it hang off her first two fingers, her thumb over the open neck to prevent anyone slipping in a roofie.

She trod lightly upstairs, weaving past the men using them as a vantage point to watch the dancers, picking out women with whom they hoped to spend the night. Felicia suspected they’d all be going home alone, despite the admiring glances sent her way. Her figure had filled out and toned up considerably since she’d last frequented this club. Was it only last week? By the time she entered the Goth floor, she had turned down several offers of drinks and dances.

Hidden in the lee of a fruit machine, she looked for the butch who’d changed her life so radically during sex. The whirrs and bleeps of the machine kept interrupting her concentration and her eyesight shifted focus, the flashing lights around her losing color as her anger roused her inner wolf.

Her perception of color was replaced by the scent of body chemicals that made a Jackson Pollock in three dimensions. Her brain compensated by assigning colors to each pheromone trail. Here was the deep crimson of desire, the orange of thirst, the black of disgust and its companion anger and there, in a trail leading upward, the white line of wolf pheromones.

Felicia kicked off the wall, the heel of her shoe finding the switch for the fruit machine. Its bright jackpot lights died but she didn’t look back.

She pushed through velvet bodies, the scent of patchouli and musk momentarily blinding her to the wolf trail but she picked it up as soon as her sinuses cleared. Up to the balcony. She snarled at a pair of neo-goth vampire wannabes wearing false eye teeth and white zinc face powder. They stared as she passed, pulling velvet-lined cloaks out of the way. Felicia wondered what they would really think if they came face to face with Gillian or Isaacs in a cold, dark alley.

She didn’t slow at the top of the steps, the scent now so strong she wondered why normal people weren’t reacting to it. Couldn’t they sense the danger they were in when a werewolf walked among them?

She allowed herself a smile. Scratch that. Two werewolves.

The trail led to a cloud of pheromones and Felicia’s anger faded, leaving her night blind as she readjusted to mundane sight. She stared at her progenitor, who laughed with two of her friends. Felicia stopped, her stance and demeanor causing those around her to back away. The decrease in chatter alerted the butch and she turned, saw Felicia and pushed away the two friends.

“Little mistress.” She held out a hand. “You’re looking well.”

“Jenna.” Felicia remembered the name.

“Jennifer Keller.” She smiled.

“Do you know what you did to me?”

“All too well.” She glanced at the people around them straining to overhear their conversation. “What was I to do? I recognized you as a sleeper the moment I saw you. I couldn’t resist recruiting you.”

“A sleeper?” Felicia frowned. “You mean a blank? Lucky for me I fell in with people who knew what was happening to me. Without them, I’d have gone insane by now.”

“So what’s the problem?” Jenna steered her to a corner where they could talk undisturbed. Below them dancers gyrated to eighties-style music, oblivious to everything but attracting a partner.

“I could have been killed. My mother’s dead and my sister and I are being hunted. Our kind are being destroyed all over town.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” She hissed, her face so close Felicia could smell the orange on her breath. “What do you think would have happened if I hadn’t recruited you?”

“Infected me, you mean.”

“Whatever. Your mother would still be dead and you’d have no idea why. Your sister would be dead and you’d have no idea why. You’d be dead as well, unable to save even yourself from those out to destroy us. This way, you’re still alive to tell the tale, and if you’re pissed at me, so be it. I’d rather you were angry than dead.”