The Curse Servant (The Dark Choir Book 2) (48 page)

“You wanted to learn from me? Well, that’s good because I’m now responsible for keeping your nose clean.”

Ches laughed, then cleared her throat. “Wait, you’re serious.”

“It was Gillette’s condition. I continue your training in the Craft. Hey, the way I see it, you have a little knowledge, and you know, dangerous thing and all that.”

“Yeah, that’s become painfully clear.”

“I had a good teacher. Well, he wasn’t a good man, but he was an excellent teacher. Strict. Hard-ass. Thorough. He didn’t let me cut corners. He never let me stumble into a dangerous working. I suppose I never really appreciated how important the basics were until recently.”

She released a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’m just as hard-nosed as Emil.”

“I can sniff out bullshit, remember?”

“Oh, right. I’ll be in touch. I have to get some kind of plan together, make a list of books you’re going to need. I probably have most of them here. And there’s a lot more we have to discuss if we do this. Expectations I’ll have. Tools you’ll need to acquire. And we’ll definitely have to get you working on your Banishing Cross.”

“Can’t wait!”

I hung up and walked up the street to Amity.

hat’s it?”

“What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know. Something less bullshitty.”

“The guy gave me paperwork.”

I crouched down and surveyed the skull in the glass case Edgar had set onto my work table. It looked for all purposes just like a human skull, but with an elongated jaw.

And of course, the fangs.

“How does someone certify a vampire skull?”

“The guy bought it from a Collector in Khartoum. It’s supposed to have been encased sometime around Napoleon. The identity is unknown, but he said it’s Egyptian.” He leaned in to me. “Showed me a slide of tissue from the cheekbone. The tissue was still living.”

“You do realize that’s a baboon skull or something?”

“Why do you have to ruin my moment?”

“I just hate to see someone pull one over on you, is all.”

“So you’re saying you don’t believe in vampires?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” I wandered back around the work table to inspect the masking tape holding a sheet of plastic over the hole knocked into my wall. In flusher times, I would have called Tatapoulis to come open it up and finish out the rest of the cellar, but that would have to wait until the bar turned an actual profit.

Edgar grumbled, “Well, I’m keeping it anyway. I don’t care what you say.”

“Go right ahead, Edgar. It’s your thing. If you want, I can mount it over the bar after we finish the lacquer.”

“You guys decide on a name yet?”

“Julian wants to go with Light Street Tavern. I said that was too generic, but he insists that generic is the way to go downtown if you want to draw the business set.”

“What did you want to go with?”

“I don’t know. I’m kind of leaning on Julian for the marketing side of things.”

“So what are you doing for this whole thing, exactly? I mean, I’m not trying to sound like a dick, but are you doing anything over there?”

“Yes, I’m doing stuff.”

“What?”

“Stuff.”

“Okay.”

“Hey, wood enchantments are draining enough. You try charging a bar full of paneling and see how much time you have for market analysis.”

He held up his hands and chuckled. “Sorry, man. Just asking.”

“Well, your daughter is about to get into the petit verdot, so maybe we ought to move this upstairs.”

Edgar craned his neck back to the stairs. “Elle? Don’t!”

Elle’s voice stammered from the open door at the top of the stairs. “Oh my God, Dad!”

Edgar smirked at me. “That’s creepy, by the way.”

“What can I tell you? I have a very close relationship with the hooch in my house.”

He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, smiling to himself. “I don’t know if I ever said thank you.”

“You did. Like, a dozen times already. But you’re welcome.”

“What’s the word on you and Ches?”

“Nothing new. Things are still kind of weird.”

“You two seemed to work. I hate to hear that.”

I waved him off. I wasn’t eager to discuss Ches with him at the moment.

“So,” he muttered as he shoved his hands into his pockets, “it’s too bad you couldn’t catch the guy who made that servitor thing.”

I looked up at Edgar. His eyes watched me over his spectacles. My blood chilled slightly. He was using his serious voice. He never used his serious voice.

“I suppose that’s true.”

“Yeah, man. Too bad. Because Wren probably would have wanted to know he wasn’t still out there.”

“I don’t think she has to worry about that.”

“You said it was woman who made this thing, though. Right? It had to be a woman that made it.”

I considered Edgar for a second. “How long have you known?”

“About as long as you. Came to check on you that day when you two were talking behind the house. Overheard you shouting at her. Kind of hard not to.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

He shrugged. “You tell me. I’m still trying to figure it out.”

“Maybe because she made an honest mistake?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, maybe not so honest. But she was under pressure.”

Edgar unfolded his arms, ran a hand over his hair, and moved to collect his case.

“I’m sorry,” I offered.

“Wren doesn’t know,” he muttered. “We should probably keep it that way.”

I watched as Edgar gathered his bogus vampire skull and hustled up the stairs. After a moment collecting myself, I followed. Elle and Eddie were in the kitchen trying to roll dough over the old pizza stone I forgot I owned.

“I don’t know guys,” I quipped. “Looks kind of under-done to me.”

Eddie stuck his tongue out at me.

The kids continued to wrestle with their pizza as I snatched the bottle of wine teetering precariously close to Elle’s grasp and brought it back into the front room to refresh Wren’s glass. She gave me a tired smile and returned her attention to the television.

“How’s it looking?” I asked, settling myself on the arm of the futon.

“Sullivan, so far. He’s kicking the shit out of Sooner.”

I watched the local coverage of the election for a minute, taking in cleansing breaths. McHenry had held to his agreement, and Sooner’s media presence dwindled to jack shit. By the last debate, Sullivan was skewering Sooner on every conceivable issue, especially since he no longer had McHenry’s money to hire debate coaches. It didn’t hurt that Sooner effectively admitted his campaign was bankrupt a week prior to the election.

“Feeling good?” Wren asked over her shoulder.

“I feel good for Baltimore.”

“But what about you?” she prodded, laying a hand on my knee.

I gave her hand a squeeze. “Trying to focus on something more permanent.”

Edgar shoulder-checked me as he dropped himself next to Wren. “Wuss.”

After an hour watching the midterms’ coverage, the Swains called it an early evening to get the kids home on a school night. I sent them off with a wave from my stoop and closed the door behind me.

And at last, I was alone in my home.

The television continued to flicker with election coverage, but I put it on mute. The silence in the house was deafening. For the first time in a month, I really sat down and thought about what nearly happened, how close we had come to disaster.

How close I had come to a real relationship.

I took a long, cleansing breath and paced in the room. Lingering on this wasn’t helpful. Instead, I focused on Sullivan’s face on the television. He was winning. The good guy was winning. And despite every effort from the powers that be, a cheeky, little bastard on Amity Street helped make that happen.

The thought coasted me through the wave of depression threatening to overtake my brain. I paused by my window to look out onto the street. The lights from downtown reflected off the low clouds hanging over the city. Soon, one of those lights would be my bar. I wasn’t just buying into the people of Baltimore anymore. I was buying into the very heart of the city. Finally, I was going to be a part of the city, and there was no getting rid of me, now.

Before I could close the blinds, a motion across the street caught my eye.

A blurry silhouette stepped to the side beneath a street light.

It was the shadow man.

I jerked myself away from the window, hiding behind the wall.

I had forgotten about him. When I last saw him, I had assumed he was McHenry’s hitman operating under some powerful glammer. But that wasn’t Ches standing across the street.

I fumbled for the darquelle on the wall beside me and peered back out the window. The shadow man was still there, and for the most fleeting of moments, I thought I caught a glimpse of his face through the glammer.

It was his eyes that I saw. Crystal blue and penetrating. There was no way I should have seen those eyes through that glammer.

He wanted me to see them.

With a marked casual disregard for my notice, the shadow man tipped his hat to me and walked down the street.

I stood frozen for a good while, still gripping my darquelle, staring out my window.

Well, shit. This was going to be interesting.