Hell Fire

White King

Shannon stilled beside me. Obviously she registered the significance, but she said only, “We need to find Jesse and Chance.”

I agreed wholeheartedly; it was time to rescue them from the clutches of a few hopeful Southern belles. We needed to keep an eye on England because I had a feeling he was the key to the whole mess. After thanking Mrs. Buckner for her time in introducing us around, I wove my way through the crowd.

Before we found the guys, I spotted another horseshoe tie tack. I didn’t recognize the man who wore it, but I knew his type. He stood just under six feet, but broad and solid, shoulders straining his navy blue suit jacket. His hair had been shorn close to his skull, leaving a salt-and-pepper buzz. I put his age around forty-five, but he had the fit, powerful body of someone who took physical fitness seriously.

When his gaze met mine, I felt a sudden shock of cold. He had a predator’s eyes, cool and watchful. I absolutely didn’t like the way he smiled at me and took a sip of his coffee, as if he knew something I didn’t.

I turned to Shannon. “Do you know who that is?”

She followed the cant of my head and made a face. “Mr. Cooper. He’s the high school principal, a real tight-ass. I don’t know how many times I was in his office last year, just for violations of the dress code. They were always looking in my locker too, as if I’d be dumb enough to take anything to school with me.” Then she noticed why I was looking at him. “Shit. He’s wearing a horseshoe, just like England.”

“So Phipps retired. Where did this guy come from?”

“I dunno.” She shrugged. “I never had a reason to give a shit about the high school principal before. Lemme ask around.”

I followed her while she made some quiet inquiries, and I noticed that Cooper never stopped watching us. His interest registered like that of a hunter, checking out his prey’s behavior patterns, scanning for weaknesses. A shiver ran through me.

Folks were able to tell us the following: Harlan Cooper had grown up here, but unlike most, he’d gotten out of Kilmer for a little while. Again, unlike most who escaped, Cooper returned. He’d apparently spent some time in the military, though nobody knew which branch. When Phipps was near retirement, England had applied pressure to get Cooper hired as school principal, and Cooper had been his man ever since.

“Oh, and he likes to hunt,” one matron added. “My husband is always turning down his invitations to go prowling around. Harlan just loves those woods.”

Oh, really? Now we had something truly interesting to tell the guys. Chance seemed improbably happy to see us.

He removed a girl’s hand from his arm with a polite smile and turned to me. “Are we leaving?”

“We might be,” I answered.

As we went to get Jesse, I whispered to him what we’d learned. Chance tilted to get a look at the tall, angular man filling his plate at the buffet table. Augustus England had a subtle air of superiority about him; I noticed as he moved away that he made sure not to brush up against other people.

I also noticed the way Cooper watched England from a distance. To the best of my recollection, I’d seen such vigilance only in those paid for protection. Chance took a look at him too, and then scowled.

“He’s a bad one,” he muttered. “And he won’t go down easy.”

Frankly, I was surprised to find the town moneyman at such a function, but when he made for Sandra Cheney, I understood the draw. Her manicured fingers lit briefly on his sleeve, an intimacy he welcomed with a quick, cool pat of his long fingers. Aha. I wondered if Shannon’s dad knew; his overall misery seemed to indicate he did.

We found Saldana standing in a ring of females, none of whom could’ve been more than twenty-five years old. They all looked as if they’d like to hit him on the head and take him home to a shotgun wedding. Jesse excused himself as we walked up, but he managed to look reluctant when he did so. His good manners went all the way down to the bone.

Shannon relayed our news, and then he too looked for England. “We’re tailing him from here?” he guessed.

I hesitated. I wanted to, but I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. Kilmer wasn’t a big city, and he’d notice a vehicle departing directly after his and making all the same turns.

“Options?” Chance asked.

“Any possibility you know where he lives?” I asked Shannon.

“Sorry,” she said with a touch of bitterness. “My mom never took me along to her monthly meetings at his place.”

Jesse asked, “What meetings?”

We all favored him with a “Come on, really?” look.

Shannon said, “The Rotary club.”

I saw where she was going with that. “Yeah, her rotating her heels behind his head.”

She smirked a little. “Again, I’d rather not imagine that. I’ve known for a while now. My dad’s really bummed about it.”

Saldana nudged me. “They’re on the move.”

I turned to see England heading for the door. Cooper immediately put down his paper cup and headed for the exit; he took his bodyguarding seriously. Sandra must have intended to count to a hundred before following or whatever chicanery they practiced to fool the good church-going souls in Kilmer. Instead, she gave him a full five-minute head start before she began making her excuses. When she pulled her keys out of her handbag, another piece fell into place; she had a horseshoe on her keychain.

“I don’t know what we should do,” I muttered. “But we can’t go home, and—”

“We can’t stay here,” Chance finished with a half smile.

“Maybe we can tail them to the turnoff,” Jesse offered, “but keep going straight and then double back.”

“We’ll get lost,” Shannon predicted. “It’s fuckin’ dark out there.” She looked at us as if she expected us to chide her for her language, but that wasn’t a priority for me. Besides, with all the ambient conversation, nobody seemed to have noticed.

That did it. “Let’s go, then.”

A few people stopped us on the way out, wanting to shake our hands and thank us for finding Rob Walker. I wasn’t used to townsfolk reacting to me that way. They weren’t even giving the witchy outfit a second glance anymore. I felt oddly out of sorts; I had hated this whole town for so many years, and now I was finding that some of them were genuinely nice people, just making the best of their crappy lives in a terrible town. I didn’t like realizing I’d been just as judgmental and intolerant as folks had been to me so often.

As soon as we could, we hurried out to the Forester. While Jesse unlocked the doors, I bounced with impatience. Each second that passed increased our chances of losing Sandra Cheney, who was our only hope of finding England’s estate.

My heart nearly stopped when somebody stepped out of the shadows near me. I stumbled back a few steps. Chance slid in front of me in a smooth motion, ready to fight. But then, he’d been looking for a fight ever since we hadn’t had sex up against the bathroom door.

“Easy, easy.” Dale Graham, still wearing the clothes he’d had on when we bought him coffee, came out into the overhead light, his palms spread. “I don’t want anybody else to know I survived the fire, so why don’t we get in the car and drive?”

With a quick, furtive look around the parking lot, we did. Jesse got in front with Dale; Chance, Shannon, and I crammed in back. But Jesus, Dale smelled evil. Whatever he’d been doing to lie low hadn’t involved personal hygiene. Eyes watering, I cracked the back window and wished I could crawl all the way back to the cargo area.

“You’ve fingered Sandra and August, am I right?” He rubbed his hands together like a gleeful child. “I have proof. And I have the book with me, thank God.”

“More important, do you know the way to his place?” Jesse asked.

He’d taken the wheel because Shannon wasn’t trained in tailing, but it looked like we’d missed Sandra Cheney. I hadn’t seen her leave the parking lot. Dammit. We’d spent too long saying our good-byes to friendly parishioners. At Dale’s gesture, Saldana pulled out from the parking lot and onto the road.

“Absolutely,” Graham assured us. “I’ve been following them for weeks, and it’s even worse than I thought. In fact, they haven’t been conspiring with an alien race to subjugate all humankind.”

I blinked and slid a look at Chance, who asked, “What could be worse than that?”

The reporter shifted on the seat, peering at us over his shoulder. “Demons,” he whispered. “I think they’re summoning demons.”

“At least one,” I agreed. “And I don’t know what we’re going to do about it.”

“Do you think they’re going to summon more? When?” Shannon asked.

Dale sighed. “I wish I knew.”

He turned back around then and focused on giving directions to Saldana. The night was black as ink, starless, cloudless. The farther we got from Kilmer, the more my flesh crawled. Shouldn’t there be a moon somewhere up there? I thought about what Booke had said concerning the stain upon the astral. Could it be spreading? I wondered if there would come a time when there was no longer any blue in the sky at all; if the town was being slowly sucked elsewhere, so when the odd stranger came by here, there would one day be nothing but a stretch of weirdly empty road.

I shivered, and Chance wound an arm around my shoulders. “Do we trust this guy?” he whispered.

“They burnt down his house,” I answered quietly. “They must think he knows something incriminating.”

“Or they’re just crazy,” Shannon put in. “I know my mom is.”

I couldn’t argue that, and there was no point in speculating. We’d be there soon enough—and I’d rather not breathe any more than I absolutely had to.

“We’ll have to park here,” Dale said abruptly. “We’re going in the back. I know a way around the fences.”

“Are they electric?” Jesse asked.

The reporter shook his head. “No, but he has dogs.”

“Of course he does,” Chance muttered.

I glanced down at my skirt. Well, at least I was wearing black, but if I’d known ahead of time, I probably would have dressed down a little. We pulled off the road just inside a stand of trees. It offered basic cover for the SUV, but it wouldn’t stand up to prolonged scrutiny. The good news was, most of Kilmer was at the Methodist church.

We hiked a short way past the road and into the field. To get through Dale’s gap in the fence, we had to crawl. My sweater caught, but Jesse unhooked me before it could tear. I flashed him a smile as the others came past.

“Which way to the house?” Jesse whispered.

At first I wasn’t sure why the hushed voices, and then I realized our words would carry twice as far in the still night air. It was so dark I had a hard time seeing anything, let alone minute gradations on the ground. Dale led the way with surety, which I hoped came from frequent reconnaissance, not from being England’s secret minion. Burning down his house seemed extreme for a cover story, though.

As we crossed the hilly field, we didn’t talk. A somber mood had fallen upon us, driving home the idea that we were trespassing. Anything could happen to us out there. Death didn’t have to come from some exotic source. A knife or stray bullet would do the job more permanently than any of us liked. Butch whined a little in my bag, and I gave him a reassuring stroke.

As we crested what Dale said was the final hill, a mansion worthy of a Gothic novel sprawled before us. I took in the mullioned windows, graven arches, and the crumbling, ornate stonework. We stood closest to the back door, or the servants’ entrance.

Maybe that would be our ticket in; I just didn’t know how yet. Not for the first time, I wished I had my mother’s affinity for real magick, not just a touch that crippled me whenever I used it. Wouldn’t it be awesome if I had a bag of tricks full of prepared spells? Chance could pick the lock, but what would we say to the cook? A concealment or disguising charm would have come in handy right about now.

Too bad I wasn’t a witch.

“We can’t just stand here. Anybody looking out those windows”—Jesse gestured at the upper stories—“could see us. Let’s take cover.” He led the way toward the hedges.

Because I couldn’t think of a better plan, I followed.

Once we were hidden, I noticed Chance craning his neck to get a better look at the symbols etched into each stone that composed the arches. I looked too, figuring it might be important. And then it clicked.

“They match the ones on the library,” I whispered.

Shannon added, “Which used to be a church.”

“They’re Rosicrucian,” Dale put in.

Hey, I could show off my Booke learning. “But they also draw from the Emerald Tablet of Hermes.”

The conspiracy theorist looked suitably impressed. “Oh, excellent.” He took a notebook out of his man purse and scrawled something.

Saldana’s leashed aggravation added a lovely edge to his Texas drawl. “I don’t mean to interrupt the ramblin’ about architecture, but unless you have a point to make, I think we need to focus elsewhere. Otherwise, the butler’s gonna come out this back door and find us squattin’ in the bushes.”

“I do have a point to make,” Chance said, unexpectedly, and with a hint of steel in his tone. “Our technology worked at the library. My luck worked at the library—”

“Which means it might work here,” I breathed. “We’re right under the sigils.”

Chance favored me with a smile. “Exactly. So how about I concentrate on finding us a way in there?”

Sounded good to me.

Shannon didn’t really know what we were talking about. Chance had been mundane for all the time she’d known him, and Dale squinted at us like he thought we were crazier than him. That took some doing.

As Chance focused, the air seemed to thicken around us, as if charged with electricity. I could feel the hairs on my arms prickling. Yep, his gift was definitely working here, and it seemed stronger than ever. Could it have built up power from not being used? An interesting question, but I needed to take a few steps away from him. I didn’t want to see what would happen if the bad-luck polarity had ramped up too.

It occurred to me I ought to put Butch down and see if he could find anything useful as we walked. I slipped him out of my purse, set him on the ground, and said, “Sniff the place out, but don’t rush off.”

He gazed up at me with big bulging eyes. Though he didn’t bark, he gave the impression of understanding me. How had the not-so-bright security guard wound up with a genius dog anyhow? The Chihuahua trotted along beside me, snuffling in the flowerbeds.

“This way.” Chance followed his luck as if it were a lodestone.

We circled the house, staying low and close to the walls. I didn’t want to risk getting too far from the protective runes and having his talent kick off like cheap cable TV. Midway around, Butch stopped, sneezed, and pawed at the ground.

I knelt to see what he had. Jesse dropped to his knees beside me. Dale shone a key chain penlight over the area, and with sure hands, Jesse raked the topsoil, examining the herbs. “Looks like the remnants of ward preparations, but not the general kind, like we learned from Chuch.”

My brows went up. “Maris?” That was his now-deceased ex-girlfriend, who had been a talented and powerful witch before a warlock murdered her to prevent her from telling us what she knew. “So, what’s this used for?”

He nodded. “To prevent demons from crossing your threshold.”

That served as confirmation that England was in this mess up to his neck, not that I’d needed it. I trusted my mother’s memories, but others probably appreciated concrete evidence since we were going after the most powerful man in town.

I gave the dog a pat. “Good work.”

We moved on then. With deliberate malice, Shannon scuffed her feet all the way around the house, tearing up the protective measures at every possible opportunity. Eventually Chance stopped outside a darkened window.

“This is it?” Dale asked. Without waiting for an answer, he pushed on the window and it slid up.

“Incredible,” Jesse muttered. “A place like this, and he leaves a ground-floor window unlocked.”

It might be the only one too. Jesse made quick work of the screen; given his profession, he showed an unexpected talent for B&E. Then we climbed inside, trying to be quiet. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw we’d come into a formal study. The hulking desk by the window hunched before us like a monster, and two wing chairs sat nearby as its minions. For a moment, I heard nothing but our rustling movements, and then our breathing. Then I picked out the distant murmur of voices. We’d found them.

“We need to find out what they’re up to,” Shannon whispered.

But it didn’t make sense for all five of us to go banging around in the dark. In the end, it came down to Jesse and Chance. The cop had the skill set for sneaking, but Chance’s luck might guarantee he wouldn’t get caught. They eyed each other for a few seconds before agreeing to a coin toss.

“Not you,” Saldana muttered. “I get heads.”

Chance just grinned and put away the silver coin he liked to roll along his knuckles. He kept it in his pocket for when he needed to think. Back when we were together, he’d often spin it on his hands while working out the solution to a knotty problem. I’d always liked watching him.

Our girl dug out a quarter and flipped it. The coin gleamed in the dark and she caught it cleanly, then peered at it. “Tails,” she said unnecessarily.

Luck always favored Chance. With a quick smile, he set off to spy on the twelve.