my spine. Sorren is certain the attacks are personal. Revenge is a very compelling prize for someone with a big grudge. And if the goal is a vendetta against Sorren, then if the sorcerer isn’t Sariel, maybe it’s someone picking up where he left off, someone who has a dog in this hunt.
Father Anne left after she made sure I had her personal cell phone number on speed-dial. “Call me if you need me – and I mean that!” she warned as she left the shop. I had no doubt that we were going to need her help, and probably sooner rather than later.
DINNER WITH ANTHONY was a little later than we had expected.
By the time Teag and I finally arrived, Anthony had already picked up everyone’s favorites from Forbidden City and had the table prepped. I had been over to Anthony’s house before he and Teag formally moved in together, but I hadn’t seen how they had blended their furnishings. The mix was just like the two of them: really different, but it somehow worked.
Teag used to have a studio apartment in a remodeled old house that had a lot of charm but no ghosts. It was full of books, one-of-a-kind art purchased from street sales of artists no one had heard of yet, a loom that took up one corner of the space, and his martial arts equipment.
Anthony’s single-house wasn’t on Battery Row, but it was South of Broad. The homes there are historic, well-kept and expensive. If I had any question as to whether Anthony was doing well in the family law firm, the house and its furnishings removed all doubt. Like Anthony, nothing was fussy or ostentatious. Instead, the quality was understated, in a way folks tend to do things if they’ve had money for a while and don’t have to show it off or prove anything. Together, their place had an IKEA meets Hepplewhite vibe that worked, in a quirky sort of way.
“I was beginning to worry.” Anthony lit a pillar candle in the middle of the table and poured us each a glass of wine. I caught a glimpse of the bottle, and it wasn’t a brand with a twist-off top. In the kitchen, a small flat-screen TV was still on, but muted, turned to a local news channel. One glance told me the broadcast was depressingly full of the week’s big stories: a serial killer loose in New England, a couple of gruesome murders with unlikely killers, and a workplace shooting. I resolved to block out the bad news and enjoy the evening.
We were starved, so for a few minutes, we dug into the food, passing the entrees family-style and filling our plates.
“So I’d say that we’re all in agreement that Valerie’s concern about juiced up ghosts wasn’t just her imagination,” Anthony said finally, when we had nearly finished eating.
I shook my head. “No. It’s not.”
“Do you know what’s causing it?”
“Maybe,” Teag replied.
“Something human?”
I sighed. “Not anymore.”
Anthony looked as if he were debating what to ask next. Teag and I don’t want to cause him any problems with the law firm, so there are some things we don’t tell him about, like breaking and entering for a good cause, and he doesn’t usually ask too many questions.
“Is the situation that has the ghosts riled up dangerous to you?” Anthony asked finally.
Teag hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Probably. But we’ve got back-up, and some tricks of our own.”
“Can you stop whatever’s doing this?”
“We plan to,” I answered. “One way or another.”
Anthony thought about that for a moment, then nodded his head. “All right. The less I know, the more plausible my deniability. So let me tell you what I heard today.”
He leaned back in his chair and took a sip of his wine. “There’s been another missing person. Utility worker went down a flight of steps to the mechanical room beneath an office building, never arrived. One of the other workers said he’d used those stairs earlier without a problem.”
“What are people saying?” Teag asked.
“Publicly, they’re attributing them to people walking off the job. There’s no blood, no evidence of a struggle, and no witnesses. Privately, people are a little weirded out about the whole thing.”
I could totally understand that reaction, which seemed pretty rational to me.
“There’ve also been a number of ‘malicious pranks’ played around town,” Anthony continued. “Previously locked doors standing open. Shutters pulled loose. Garbage cans turned over. That kind of thing. The cops are looking for teenagers.” He took