Obsidian Curse (A Stacy Justice Mystery Book Five) Read online

I ran to the cottage door, opened it, and reached around to press the bell.

  “Come in,” Blade said, still holding the hammer.

  I did.

  “So maybe they talk for a while. Dad insists he doesn’t have whatever the killer was looking for. The killer gets angry. Decides to try to find whatever it is, steal it, but in order to do that, my parents have to die.” He looked at the wall, feigned hammering a nail. “Now step behind me and try to grab the hammer.”

  I tried, but I couldn’t reach.

  “How tall are you?”

  “Five six.”

  “Do you have a stool?”

  I dug a step stool out of the utility closet. “It’s six inches,” I told him.

  I climbed on top and Blade did the hammering motion again. This time, I was able to grab it with inches to spare.

  He said, “So he, she, whoever, grabs the hammer and strikes him in the back of the head. Then my mom probably rushes to my dad, the killer goes after her, they struggle, she tries to fight back, tables get knocked over, lamps crash to the ground, but the killer was able to overpower her.”

  His jaw hardened for a moment and the darkness that I had felt from him when we first met mired around him in a cloud of anger, frustration, and grief.

  I gave him a moment to compose himself before I asked softly, “You okay?”

  Blade looked at me, his eyes full of pain. I knew that pain all too well. Knew how it pillaged your heart, crept around your soul, lurked in the corners of your mind until, eventually, you just accept that it’s eaten away the best parts of you. I ached to make it disappear for him, because no one deserved to live that way.

  He attempted a smile. “Yes. I keep trying to think of this as a plot for a book I’m writing. Trying to cut my emotions from it, but it’s not always easy.” He walked back over to the counter and placed the hammer on top of it.

  I joined him there. “I know.” I looked at Blade for a long time. Finally, I put my hand on his. “I’m not going to tell you that it gets easier once you know the truth, but I can say that it shifts. The loss is still there, but a quiet peace settles in right beside it and you feel a sense of relief. Not knowing is the hardest part.” I paused, then added, “We’ll get them justice, Blade. I promise you that.”

  He turned to me then and squeezed my shoulder. “Thank you for helping me. I’m not sure I could do it on my own. It feels good to talk about it with someone who understands.” Our eyes locked and my breath caught. He was standing so close, I could smell his aftershave. An ocean scent.

  I thought for a moment he was going to kiss me and I froze. Instead, he pulled me in for an embrace. His cheek brushed mine and I broke away.

  I cleared my throat, circled around to the refrigerator, putting the counter between us, and grabbed two waters. I slid one to Blade.

  “So we’re looking for someone at least five feet eight inches tall,” I said, unscrewing the cap on the water bottle.

  Blade adjusted his shirt and reached for his water. “Right.”

  I tapped the photos, trying to refocus on the task at hand, forcing myself to ignore the fact that a successful, wealthy, devastatingly handsome man just had his arms around me.

  We stood in silence for a few moments, looking at the photographs. I mulled over everything I’d learned about the murders. Something about our theory gnawed at me.

  I said, “But if your parents knew who it was, knew the person or persons were coming, then why go to such great lengths to hide you? Why not just stick you in your room?”

  Blade took a swig of water. “Maybe they thought an argument was inevitable. Maybe whatever the killer was after was something they didn’t want me to know about.”

  “What did your father do for a living?”

  “He was a teacher at the high school and a soccer coach.”

  That was why Chance felt Blade was familiar. His brother was a star soccer player and every picture of the boys’ sports teams hung proudly on the walls of the Stryker home. Blade must have looked like his father. I asked him if that was true and he said it was.

  I pondered that for a few moments.

  Blade said, “Or it could have been dangerous, could have been illegal.”

  I shook my head. That didn’t seem to fit their lifestyle, Breaking Bad aside.

  Then a lightbulb went off in my head like a giant flashing marquee.

  “Or it could have been you.”

  Chapter 23

  Blade appeared doubtful. “Me? I was just a kid. What would they want to do with me?”

  “I’m not sure, Blade, but none of this adds up.”

  I didn’t tell him what I was really thinking. That I had a feeling about him. Partly because I didn’t want to spook him and partly because I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.

  “What about the stuff that was taken? Are you sure it was only to make it look like a robbery? What about the artwork? I know you said it wasn’t valuable, but is there a possibility it could have been? Or the computer? Anything on it that someone would want to kill for?”

  Blade shook his head. “It was my computer that was taken. All that was on the hard drive were a bunch of stories I had written and a few games.” He chugged some more water. “As for the art, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t even know what the paintings looked like. I always had my head stuck in a book or in a notebook.”

  “And the books were just commercial fiction, you said?”

  “Yes. Those I remember. A few Stephen King novels, The Maltese Falcon, and—” He stopped short, met my eyes. His voice took on an air of excitement. “The Book of Skulls by Robert Silverberg.” He grabbed the report, flipped through it. “It just says books under items taken. I didn’t even remember that until just now.”

  “What’s the book about?”

  “It’s about four college students who discover an ancient manuscript called The Book of Skulls that promises immortality. The manuscript is guarded by an order of monks who agree to grant the young men immortality as long as they agree to a ritual.”

  “What’s the ritual?”

  “Two sacrifices for two everlasting lives.”

  I let that sink in for a moment. Obviously, the book itself couldn’t have been what they were after, because they could have just bought a copy. But what if the manuscript it talks about was real?

  I mentioned this to Blade.

  “I guess it’s possible, but I never heard my father talk about anything like that.”

  “What did your father teach?”

  Blade swallowed hard. “English lit.”

  Could it have been a student? A fellow teacher? An old college roommate of his father’s, perhaps? Or just a psycho who read this science fiction book and thought it was real? I voiced all of this to Blade. He didn’t have any answers, didn’t know his father’s curriculum, but at least we had a start. There were two very connected pieces to the puzzle now. We just had to do a little more digging to determine if either of them actually existed, in legend or otherwise.

  “Show me where you found the skull,” I said, nodding toward the photographs.

  He pointed out a spot in one of the pictures near where his father lay.

  I studied the spot, input it into my memory, closed my eyes, and grazed my hands over the photograph.

  When I was finished, after the heat of that spot he had pointed to sizzled my fingertips and the skull flashed bright, then dull, then exploded in my mind’s eye, I said, “Give me a few minutes. Let me do some research.”

  Blade was staring at me. “What was that? What did you just do?”

  “Rule number one, Blade, and since you already violated rule number two today, I suggest you don’t break another.” I said it playfully enough that he just rolled his eyes.

  I went into the Seeker’s Den and did some research on the laptop regard
ing The Book of Skulls. I discovered that the book was supposed to be made into a movie but never was, and that it had been nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo awards. Next, I Googled black skulls and skulls in general and discovered that the damn things were fairly popular, and came in a host of colors, none of which, I could discern, were worth killing for. There were clear crystal skulls that some believed to have special powers, but according to the database provided by the Council, this was pure fiction. That database also revealed that there was no ancient manuscript anywhere with the word skull in the title.

  So what did it mean? Why would someone take the time to not only destroy the fake one, but to track Blade’s movements until the opportunity to do so presented itself?

  And why did the note threaten him to stay away from me? Was the killer someone I knew?

  An hour had passed by the time I emerged, and I found Blade sitting on the couch, fiddling with a tablet.

  He looked up. “Did you find any information about the skull?”

  I shook my head. “But I might know someone who can shed some light on it.”

  Blade stood up. “Great. Listen, I’m having dinner with my agent before the signing, so I better get changed.” He gave me a bemused smile. “Your Aunt Lolly said she wanted to approve my dinner attire before I left, so who knows how long that could take.”

  “Yeah, I think you may need a few extra minutes. You can leave the reports here. Maybe I’ll get another chance to look them over.”

  He nodded, grabbed his coat, stuffed his tablet in his pocket. and headed toward the door.

  He had his hand on the handle, but he hesitated, turned around. “Thanks again, Stacy. You’re a remarkable woman. Chance is a lucky man.”

  My heart fluttered all the way up to my throat so all I could do was blink.

  Blade left and I blew out a huge sigh of relief, not because I wanted him gone, but because a small part of me wanted him to stay. And I didn’t know why. Nor was I particularly comfortable with the feeling.

  I went back into the Seeker’s Den and began the profile on Blade Knight that was due to run in tomorrow’s paper. I planned to finish it after the signing so it would be ready to print. By the time I was done, Cinnamon texted that she was on her way to Birdie’s house with Thor and to get my ass over there.

  It was four o’clock. The signing was in a couple of hours. Birdie might know something about the black skull, maybe even shed light on what was happening in Amethyst at the time Blade’s parents were killed—not to mention the fact that Cin might have brought me something from Uncle Deck’s files. I decided to quickly change and head over to the Geraghty Girls’ House for an intel exchange.

  What I didn’t expect, when I opened the door, was an unconscious fairy on my front porch.

  “Pickle!”

  I bent down and shook him gently at first, then much more aggressively. “Pickle, can you hear me?”

  He wasn’t moving. Was barely breathing.

  I tried hoisting the fairy to a seated position, but he just slumped over. “No, no, no. Come on, buddy.” After several shakes and a few slaps, none of which the fairy responded to, I decided I had to get him to the inn ASAP.

  Luckily the rain had stopped, although the grass was wet and slick. Pickle was a lot lighter than Monique, but I still couldn’t carry him. I had to drag the poor thing, my arms locked around his chest, all the way to the back door. It was open.

  I gently laid the fairy on the floor and set my bag on the apothecary table just as Birdie came through the kitchen doorway that led to the common rooms.

  She took one look at me, one at Pickle, and said, “Honestly, Stacy, you need to stop incapacitating people.”

  “No, Birdie, you don’t understand. This is, I mean he’s a…I mean…”

  “Spit it out, girl. Who is he?”

  The words spewed from my mouth like an erupted volcano. “This is Pickle. He’s a Fae guide sent by Danu to escort the Leanan Sidhe back to the Otherworld and I found him on my porch like this. He’s not breathing, Birdie. You have to do something.”

  She dropped the apples she was holding and knelt by Pickle, putting a hand to his head. “Lolly! Fiona! Come quick!”

  Birdie was the Mage, but she was also a gifted healer. However, I didn’t know if her gifts transferred to magical beings. I stood helplessly by, chewing my nail, staring at Pickle’s impossibly pale face. He looked to be…fading…right there on the floor.

  My great-aunts came rushing down the back stairs. “What’s all the fuss about, Birdie?” Fiona asked, then stopped short when she laid her eyes on Pickle. “Oh my.”

  Birdie was examining Pickle’s hands, which looked to be puffy. “Stacy, help me lift him.”

  I ran around toward the fairy’s shoulders and hoisted him up by his armpits.

  Birdie lifted his shirt and took a look at his back. There were several tiny welts spread across it.

  “Oh no,” Lolly whispered.

  Birdie asked me how long he’d been like that and I told her it could have been up to thirty minutes, from the time Blade had left to the time I opened the door. That was my best guess.

  “Then there’s no time to waste. Fiona, start a sugar bath. Lolly, grab my medicine bag,” my grandmother barked. “Stacy, help me carry him upstairs.”

  Lolly and Fiona rushed off to fulfill their duties. I grabbed Pickle’s arms and Birdie lifted his feet. Together, we carried the frail Fae up the back stairs to the private quarters.

  “Birdie, what’s happening? What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Not now, Stacy,” she snapped. “I need to think.”

  Fiona was pouring white sugar into a hot bath by the time we carried Pickle up the stairs and into the bathroom.

  Lolly followed shortly after with a thick brocade bag embroidered with clovers.

  “I’ll need the leaves of oak, ash, and thorn, as much as you can find,” Birdie said to her sister.

  Lolly scurried off to collect the supplies.

  Birdie held Pickle’s head, splashing the water over his body as fast as her hands could move. “Fiona, help me find it.”

  Fiona jumped in, searching Pickle’s clothing and body for something. His breathing became more shallow.

  “Damn,” Birdie said. “The bath isn’t working.”

  Pickle was growing even more pale and seemed to be shriveling, shrinking even. His clothes appeared smaller, his feet retreating into the yellow legs of his now baggy pants.

  “Stacy, fetch me the foxglove oil from my bag. Fiona, did you find it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, hurry. We’re losing him. There may be more than one.”

  There was a tiny vial of oil in Birdie’s bag. I snatched it and handed it to her, looking at the dying fairy, terrified that we might lose him and that it would be all my fault.

  Lolly returned with the leaves Birdie had asked for. She spread them all over Pickle’s still frame, gently pressing them to his skin.

  Birdie lifted one of Pickle’s eyelids. I gasped when I saw that his eye, once Caribbean blue, was now completely white. My grandmother put a few drops of the oil first in one eye, then the other. The rest she poured down his throat, before passing the empty vial back to me. Lolly stepped out of the way so Birdie and Fiona could better work.

  “Where is it?” Birdie was frantic, her voice angry.

  “I can’t find it,” Fiona said. She pulled off Pickle’s socks, lifted his pants legs, and flipped his hat off, her hands grazing his now translucent skin as if she were applying Reiki.

  “We’re losing him,” said Lolly.

  “Not on my watch,” growled Birdie. “Stacy, get me more foxglove.”

  “That was it. There was only one vial.”

  Birdie swore again, something she rarely did, and moved her hands even faster, chanting softly as she w
orked.

  “Honey and hyssop then, Stacy.”

  I searched the bag, found the potion she requested, and gave it to her. This she rubbed all over Pickle’s bare back.

  “I need material, something dark,” Birdie said.

  I removed my black leather jacket and handed it to Birdie. She pressed it to Pickle’s back and waited a few moments.

  We all stood there, the four of us, with bated breath.

  “I think something’s happening,” I said when I saw Pickle’s leg twitch. Birdie slid her hand along the back of the fairy and I saw something lumpy pierce through the coat. She yanked her hand away as several more similarly shaped lumps popped through.

  The fairy began to slowly plump back up, his legs lengthening, his color returning. After a while, he opened one weary eye and then the other. He smiled up at all of us.

  Birdie breathed a huge sigh of relief and stood up. She carefully removed the jacket from Pickle’s back, folded it, and handed it to Lolly, who whisked it away from the room.

  Fiona tilted her head to Pickle, said a few words, and rose as well.

  Birdie grabbed her bag and retreated into the hallway. I followed, with Fiona close behind. She shut the bathroom door.

  Lolly joined us a few seconds later.

  They all three looked at me gravely.

  “What? What was that?”

  “That,” Birdie said, glancing behind her at the closed door, “was a fairy blast.”

  “Okay. What’s a fairy blast?” I asked.

  Fiona said, “It’s like a gunshot or a bomb, small, but effective. The materials they use vary depending on the target. That was probably an acidic blast. Deadly to the Fae.”

  “Sometimes they use poison-tipped darts,” Lolly said.

  I looked from her to Fiona to Birdie.

  “So what does that mean?” I asked, because I had never heard of such a thing.

  Birdie sighed, crossed her arms, and pinched the bridge of her nose. When she didn’t answer, I looked at Fiona.

  “It means she has an army.”

  Chapter 24