Storm (The Storm Chronicles Book 6) (16 page)

Raven looked down at the body. The white-eyed stare was making her feel anxious. “What about it?”

“She doesn’t have one. At least, I don’t think so. It’s the only thing I know that leaves the eyes white like that. Even most naturally blind people don’t have eyes like that.”

“So…something took her soul out of her eyes?”

Kane closed Lila’s eyes and muttered a prayer, then looked back at Raven. “The eyes are the windows to the soul. It is not just a saying, Raven Storm. It is a fact.”

“Marvelous. A soul-sucking thing that knows my name. I’m sure that’s a good sign.”

Kane opened his mouth to say something and Aspen shook her head.

“Ah. More sarcasm,” Kane said.

Aspen nodded once and went back to her examination. “I can’t tell you much else, Ray. There is no lividity, none of the stages of Rigor…”

She trailed off when she looked at the back of Lila’s neck. Raven bent to look at what she was distracted by. It was a burn, or brand, in a strange shape that made her eyes water, and it was fresh enough that she could still detect the sickening aroma of scorched flesh.

“That was done when she was still alive,” she said.

“Yes. She would have had to be for it to work. It’s a glyph of transposession.”

“Asp, try to remember I know almost nothing about magik and need that translated into English, okay?” Raven asked.

Aspen smiled and kissed her cheek. “You need to study up, lover. It’s a symbol that allows someone else to control a body whose soul has been removed.”

“The empty shells, the bodies, are called
carrionettes
, though the last I’d heard about must have been almost three hundred years ago,” Kane said.

Aspen gently lowered Lila’s head back to the floor. “Yeah, it’s very old, very evil magik. Taking a soul is bad enough, riding around in a corpse? Eww. Where does that get fun?”

Raven helped Aspen to stand. “It probably doesn’t unless you’re some kind of psychopath, Asp. But how is a soul stolen? I mean, according to vampire lore the soul flees the body within hours of death. It’s why it is so important to finish the Embrace before the next dawn, otherwise a soulless vampire is raised and they make Strohm look like a summer picnic.”

It was Kane who answered. “The soul is taken at the precise moment of death and contained in a vessel, like a cup of holy water or a crystal…”

He trailed off and looked at the floor.

Raven followed his gaze and realization dawned. “The floor. That’s what the flickering light is. The souls of the people that were on this ship.”

Aspen nodded miserably. “I had a feeling. Whoever, whatever, did this, it trapped their souls and is using them for something. Something unspeakable.”

“Fine. How do we stop it?”

“I don’t know,” Aspen said. “I’ve never even heard of anything like this.”

“Then we figure it out. What happens if we let King blow the ship? Will it free the souls?” Raven asked.

Kane’s expression didn’t change. He looked like a thin, sad Buddha. “I fear not. If the vessel is destroyed, the souls may be, as well.”

“Not necessarily. I might be able to work a spell that reverses this one when the time comes. Then the souls would go wherever they were going to begin with,” Aspen said.

“Aspen, I know that look. There is a down side,” Raven said.

Aspen paced to the far side of the room, where another tunnel led deeper into the bowels of the ship. “It would mean dropping my shield and letting that thing in. And it wants you, Raven.”

Kane folded his arms. “It is too risky. This ship is a—” He waved his arms vaguely. “A preternatural bomb. This much evil, this many souls, if this magik is unleashed on the city, it will be devastating. The ship must be stopped, no matter the cost.”

Raven crossed the room and looked up at Kane. “I’m all for doing the job, Kane. It’s what I do. But there are close to a thousand souls trapped here. Those are people, innocent people, and if we can get them out, then we have a duty to do it. We took an oath to serve and protect.”

“The greater good—”

“Stuff it, Kane.”

Raven walked away from him. “Aspen, what do you need?”

Aspen chewed her thumb nail in thought. “I think I have most of the components in my pack. So just some fresh air and a place to work.”

“Kane can take you to the upper decks, then. I’ll keep going to the engine room and stop this thing,” Raven said.

“I cannot allow that. You cannot do it alone, even you are not strong enough,” Kane said.

Raven turned on him. “I didn’t ask your opinion, Kane. I found you and the rest of the team unprotected, I’ll make it.”

He hefted his sword and looked as if he wanted to argue. Raven rested her hands on her hips, within easy reach of her pistol.

“What are you going to do, Kane? Kill me? Because that makes sense. One of us can’t go it alone so let’s eliminate one of our number,” Raven said.

Kane lowered his blade and looked away. “Raven Storm, see reason. If you fail, millions could die.”

“You’re forgetting something,” Aspen said.

Kane cocked his head so that his grey hair fell over his eyes. “And that is?”

“If we fail, King blows the ship in a matter of hours.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Chicago, Illinois, 1501 57th Street, 1:00 a.m.

The lights were out in Nevermore Books, but a glow in the upstairs window let Levac know that someone, at least, was still awake. Not that it mattered, he would have happily kicked the entire city out of the bed if it would help. Sable opened the door to the stairs and Levac followed her into the narrow foyer. A corridor stretched ahead, crossing the full length of the building to a door and staircase on the opposite side. Another door presumably opened into the bookstore, providing entrance and exit for employees.

Levac followed Sable up the steps, taking them two at a time and checking the landing on the second floor before proceeding to the top. The stairs emptied into a corridor similar to the one below, with beige carpet stained with salt and snow, bone-white wallpaper and antique gas lamps. A single door set in the middle of the corridor bore the name Sebastian Pace in gold letters. Sable stood beside it with her revolver held ready. She gave him the go ahead and Levac knocked as politely as he could.

“Sebastian Pace, its Agent Levac, I have a few more questions for you, sir!”

There was no answer. Levac listened for a moment then leaned back and kicked the door just beside the knob. The door didn’t budge and it felt as if his ankle was twisted by the impact. He limped in a small circle and looked sheepishly at Sable.

“Ray always makes it look so easy.”

“Being a dhampyr has its advantages,” Sable said with a grin. “Are you going to live?”

“Yeah, sure, just a twisted ankle. Could you, um?”

Sable turned and kicked the door. It crashed open and she jumped through, automatically checking the room for anyone hostile.

They were in another Chicago apartment, though this was a custom penthouse. The foyer led to a much larger living area decorated with furniture that would have looked more at home in a 40s mansion. Two tweed sofas framed a cocktail table made of dark wood in front of a window that overlooked the city, or would have if it hadn’t been covered by green velour drapes.

On the opposite side of the room was an overstuffed leather chair next to a side-table laden with papers. The rest of the apartment was hidden from view.

“Sebastian Pace, FBI, please make yourself known!” Levac said.

Sable entered the living room. “Clear!”

An eat-in kitchen that smelled of pine-cleaner and bleach was located through an archway to the right. Where the living room almost smelled of post-war boom, the kitchen was more June Cleaver. Levac marveled at the lime green cabinets with chrome handles and pink checkerboard counters, polished white pushbutton range and an antique refrigerator, completed by a red four-person table. Levac wondered if he could talk Sloan into going retro.

“Clear!” Sable said from a nearby open doorway.

“What? Oh, right, kitchen’s clear,” Levac said.

He turned away and joined Sable at the remaining door. Unlike the others, which had been made of wood, this one looked more like it belonged in a bank. It was made of black-painted steel, with reinforced hinges. Levac tested the knob and found it locked.

“Want me to try kicking it?” Sable asked.

Levac shook his head no. “Not unless you have another bottle of blood around, I think you’d have to go full vamp on this thing.”

He pulled a slim pouch of lock picks from his pocket and set to the lock. It was a high-grade system, but he’d learned from one of the best. He picked it in under a minute and grinned at Sable.

“You aren’t the only one with skills.”

Sable rolled her eyes. “Just open the door, Levac.”

He set his picks aside, drew his pistol and gently turned the knob. The door opened into a large room that was even more out of place than the 40s living area and kitschy kitchen. The first part was a normal-looking work area of sorts. One counter held a variety of damaged books and the various glues, needles and boards needed to repair them. Another held antique electronics such as a television tube and battered Philco radio with the back open showing assorted vacuum tubes and wires and still another was covered in what looked like ship blueprints.

It was what was in the rest of the room that gave Levac pause. The rest of the room was painted such a deep black it was hard to tell where the walls and floor met. The part of the floor that wasn’t black was a red double circle with runes of some type painted in the rim between them and in the middle was a devil’s pentagram complete with goat horns. Pace knelt in the heart of the pentagram with a book across his knees.

“Freeze, Mr. Pace,” Levac said. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Rosalie Evans and Brian Sandoval!”

Pace opened his eyes and they were as black as space. “Really, Agent Levac? On what grounds?”

Levac took another step. “Your hand print at the scene.”

“And I can smell her blood on you,” Sable added.

“Stand and put your hands on your head,” Levac ordered.

Pace shook his head in mock sadness. “I think not, Agents.”

He raised his hand and Levac felt himself yanked off his feet. He crashed into the counter behind him and was half-buried in old books. He heard the boom of Sable’s hand-cannon and fought to extricate himself from the pile. Sable fired again, then again and he stood, still shedding wet, sticky paper.

Sable’s shots had made a perfect grouping in Pace’s chest. By all rights, he should have been dead twice over, but instead he stood, book in hand and smile in place.

“Let me guess, you’re using monster-slaying rounds, right? Sorry, dhampyr, they don’t work on me,” he said.

He closed his hand and Sable jerked as if she was held in the grip of some invisible giant. Her revolver clattered to the floor and she struggled for breath.

“Release her, Mr. Pace!” Levac ordered.

Pace smirked and turned his attention back to Levac. Levac didn’t give him a chance to do anything else. He squeezed the Sig’s trigger and walked toward Pace as he did so. The pistol bucked and thundered in his hands, punching holes in Pace’s face and spinning away into the black room. When Levac paused to reload, Pace’s body fell to the ground and his eyes shifted slowly from black pits to the soft brown they’d always been. Sable dropped to the ground and took a deep, ragged breath.

“What did you use?” she gasped.

“Nickel over steel and nylon. King gave them to me about a month ago and I never emptied them from the weapon,” Levac responded.

He kicked the book away from Pace and checked for a pulse, but there was nothing. Pace was dead. Levac bent and picked up the book, not surprised to find it was Pace’s copy of The Book of Nine Gates, dog-eared and worn. From the look of things he’d been studying the ritual to open a hellgate. Levac closed the book and slipped it into a pocket, exchanging it for his phone. King picked up on the second ring.

“Levac, do you have Pace in custody?”

“No sir,” Levac said with a sigh. “Not surprisingly, he chose to resist. He’s dead. He was studying the hellgate ritual from the
Book of Nine Gates
when we found him.”

“Did you find anything connecting him to the
Crescent Star
?” King asked.

Sable was rifling through the deck plans on the worktable. “Do the original plans from Saylor count?”

“They do. See what you can find, I’ll dispatch a team to clean up the mess. King out.”

Levac put his phone away and joined Sable, who was examining the plans of the lower deck.

“Look at this. Tourmaline, onyx and moonstone tiles, floor grooves in the shape of a pentagram, what the hell is this?” Sable asked.

Levac shrugged and picked up another piece of antique paper. “Not good. Is there anything describing what it is or what it is supposed to do?”

Sable shook her head. “It’s labeled as an emergency antenna, intended to be built into the floor. If it is an emergency antenna, I’ll eat one of your burgers.”

Levac raised the section he was holding and frowned at it. Some of the writing was seventy years old and nearly as faded as the lines of the plans themselves. But some of it was newer and written in what was clearly ballpoint pen. And ballpoints hadn’t replaced the fountain pen as anything more than a novelty until after the war.

“I got something,” he said.

Sable looked away from the plans. “What?”

He pointed at the handwriting. It was exactly the same. “Saylor and Pace were the same person.”

“Is that even possible?”

Levac shrugged and began rolling up the plans. “In the last year, I have learned that almost anything is possible. My best friend is a half-vampire, my fiancé is a cuāuhtli and I’m a familiar. Some kind of body hopping sounds not only possible, but plausible.”

He shoved the plans into his pocket and started for the exit.

“Now what?” Sable asked, hurrying to catch up.

“Library. We stopped Pace, but we still don’t know what he was up to or why. It’s only a few more hours till dawn and if I can do anything to help Raven not get dead, I’m going to,” Levac replied.

He reached the stairs and looked back at Sable. “You don’t have to come, you can head home and get forty winks.”

Sable looked at her shoes, then back at Levac. “She’s my sister, Rupe. I’ve barely had the chance to get to know her, but I know, now, that I want to. And she has to live through the night to give me that chance.”

Levac couldn’t help but smile. “Good. I hate reading by myself, I need someone to help with the longer words.”

He could tell by Sable’s face she wasn’t buying it.

“Your sense of humor sucks,” she said.

He turned and started down the stairs. “It’s an acquired taste. Kind of like oysters. Have you ever had oysters? My fiancé swears by them, I generally swear
at
them…”

II

The North Atlantic, Crescent Star, Three Hours Before Dawn

Raven had kissed Aspen goodbye and watched her walk off with Kane. They were going to take the midship loading elevator to the upper decks and assemble Aspen’s spell on the promenade, where there was fresher air and plenty of room to work. Once they were gone, Raven had continued into the bowels of the ship. Somewhere at the end of the maintenance corridor was the engine room and the means to bring the ship to a slow but definite halt.

She moved more quickly now, without Aspen and Kane in tow. The corridor wound in seemingly random directions and she encountered more places where the deck-plating had been pulled up to reveal strange crystals, odd symbols and human remains. The remains were far different than what they had seen so far and Raven paused to examine some of them. Where the ones they’d encountered before were the remnants of passengers and crew, these were clad in coveralls and dungarees. They’d been mummified by the heat and pressure of the deck plates, making their skin rustle like old paper when Raven touched them. The two she examined had their throats slashed so deeply she could see serrated cuts in their spines.

The construction crew. They were killed and left here. How did the police not notice this many of the ship-builders missing?

Raven left them there and continued down the tunnel, which had become more cramped with exposed pipes, valves and wiring. She ducked beneath a large pressure relief valve and walked into another chamber that smelled strongly of diesel and blood. It looked like some sort of machine shop and Raven recognized some of the equipment, such as the drill press in the corner and the industrial-grade sewing machine. Other equipment, however, was outside her experience and made her shudder. A saw, whose original purpose she was uncertain of, had what could only be human flesh stuck to its circular blade; a chisel-like device was coated in blood and a belt sander still had the remains of a human skull stuck to it, face down.

“Do you like it?”

Raven spun to see Mason Storm standing behind her. He lit a cigar and blew a ring of smoke into the air. When Raven didn’t say anything, he cocked his head and smiled. “I asked if you liked my little playroom. This is one of the rooms where it all started.”

“It’s disgusting.”

Raven turned away and started across the room. She could hear Mason walking behind her.

“I admit, it is an acquired taste, like any other form of bloodletting. But once it is acquired, you just can’t let it go,” he said.

Raven tried to ignore him. He wasn’t real, and seeing him meant that Aspen had made it to the upper decks and started her spell.

“Of course I’m real, kid,” Mason said. “Is this any way to treat your dear old dad?”

Raven half-turned toward him. “My dad is in a hospital bed in a coma. Whatever you are, you aren’t him.”

Mason took the cigar out of his mouth. “Really? Haven’t you ever heard that people in a coma are in a dream? They reside in a dream-state where they can pass into other realms, other places. Is it so hard to believe I’m him and really here.”

“You’re not. My father is a great man—”

Mason shook his head. “Kid, I’m a killer. Have been for longer than you can imagine. Greatest of the Goths, though that was about a thousand years before your time. I’ve tried to make up for it by being a cop, but at the bottom of my heart, I’m a butcher of men.”