CHAPTER 12

The smoke hadn’t reached the basement yet. Hopefully, I’d have a few minutes before the house was engulfed. And, if we were lucky, we’d save the building before too much damage was done. I darted over to the rooms Patrick and Alex were in and tried the doors. Nada. Locked from the inside. I knew Patrick wouldn’t go leaving the keys down here, and I also knew that the doors were reinforced steel, which I might be able to break down if I tried.

I tried the door handles again, but they weren’t budging. I could pick the locks, but that would take time that we didn’t have. These weren’t rusty and on a trunk that was going on eighty years old. The walls were stone, and that was harder to bust through than metal, especially since the doors were on hinges, which would give way faster. Standing back, I took aim and, just as Ralph came racing down the steps, charged into Patrick’s door, ramming it with the full brunt of my force. As I did so, it shook and creaked, and I felt something give.

Ralph took one look at me, then joined me.

I stopped. “Are you crazy? You’ll break your bones.”

“Werewolf, remember? We have our fair share of super-strength, too. Jeez, why does everybody keep thinking I’m human?” He grumbled as he got into position, but then we both rammed against the door, and this time it bent a little. “I think we need to apply the most force against the side with the hinges. You go start on the other one, and I’ll finish this off.”

As he smashed against it one more time, the sound of tearing metal grated through the air and I winced as the door slowly broke open on the top. I helped him twist it enough to allow me to slip through the opening. There, sleeping in the semi-sarcophagus, was Patrick. I quickly wrapped his body in the sheets and handed him through to Ralph.

As I did so, I noticed a set of keys on the dresser. I grabbed those, plus his wallet, and climbed back out into the main basement. Less than ten seconds later, I’d found the master key for the bedrooms in the basement, and we were heading upstairs with both Alex and Patrick, as shielded from the light as we could manage.

When we entered the kitchen, Tonya was there, at the back door, frantic. She was holding the plastic garden tarp that the police had put over the hole beneath the maple.

“They’ll both fit in this—come on. Hurry!” She spread it out and we laid the vampires down on it, then rolled them tightly. Even through the sheets, the light coming through the windows was having a bit of an effect. I could see little whiffs of smoke.

The blaring of sirens sounded outside as the fire department arrived. As we hustled Alex and Patrick into the back of the Range Rover, I saw that Tonya had, indeed, blacked out the windows with more tarps she’d found in the shed. They were taped across the glass with duct tape.

I left her and Ralph to manage the vamps and ran around front to meet the firemen. “It started in the living room—one of the curtains went up. There’s nobody else inside that I know of.”

They rushed inside, telling me to stand back. A lick of flames flickered against the bay window overlooking the front lawn. The entire living room was engulfed now, and who knew what other rooms were at risk? Unable to do anything else, I headed back toward the driveway, where Ralph had managed to pull the Range Rover out and into a parking spot on the street, farther away from the house. I knew why. Just in case the entire bed-and-breakfast went up, we didn’t want the cars catching fire, too.

He made sure the windshield was blacked out, too, then locked all the doors. “That should protect them, and they don’t need to breathe so even if it gets stuffy in there, it’s not going to matter.”

Tonya had parked on the street when she got there, so her car was out of danger. As for Patrick’s vehicle, I had his keys so I handed them to Ralph. He moved the sedan to a safer location.

“We’re going to have to stay somewhere else.” Ralph turned to me. “This house is no longer safe. If it had caught on fire a few hours earlier, while we were all asleep? We’d all be dead.”

That was a sobering thought. Though by now, I was beginning to think we weren’t going to solve this problem and maybe it was better to burn the whole house to the ground. But would that clear the spirits out? Considering there were ghosts here from before the house was built, highly unlikely.

“You can stay with me,” Tonya said. “I don’t have a very big house, but I’ve got a basement that Alex and Patrick can sleep in, and I’ve got one spare room. Shimmer, if you want, you can sleep in my room with me—I have a queen-sized bed. Ralph can take the guest room.” She paused and looked around. “Where’s Chai?”

“He’s back in Seattle, checking on my fish. I kind of wish he’d stuck around now, given all that’s happened. How are we going to get Patrick and Alex over to your place without letting some light into the car? Whoever drives has to see out the windshield.” I edged around, trying to see how the firefighters were faring, but it was hard to tell. The fire seemed to have spread to the kitchen, but even then, it was hard to know how much of the house it had gobbled up.

Ralph shrugged. “We could always stay here until they wake up this evening and then head over to Tonya’s.”

I glanced up at the sky. The clouds were heavy and it looked like we were in for a drenching soon. “We’re going to get soaked. Oh, what the hell. I don’t mind so much. I guess we could sit inside the car.” But the prospect didn’t thrill me. I didn’t really have claustrophobia, but truth was, I didn’t like being in small spaces. Ever since I’d been wing-strapped and locked up in the cell, I had developed a strong dislike to being shoved into tight, closed areas.

But we were saved from further debate by the arrival of Officers Roger and Paris. I wondered just how tired they were getting of seeing us. On the plus side, this meant we could hand over the trunk with the hammer in it, and nobody had to go down to the station. They stared at the house for a moment, where the firefighters were still fighting against the flames, and then joined us by the Range Rover.

“Tonya, can you get that trunk?” I leaned against the hood of the car. “Hey, officers.”

“You want to tell us what’s going on?” Paris glanced around. “And where’s Mr. Strand and Mr. Radcliffe?”

I motioned to the Range Rover. “Safely tucked out of the light. We got them out of the house and jury-rigged a nest for them.”

She nodded. “Good, good. So, what happened here?”

I told her about the ghostly activity, then about how we smelled smoke and ran in to see the curtains near the gas fireplace going up in flames. “We thought we might have put a stop to the haunting, but no such luck. And this morning, I found this in the attic. I haven’t touched the hammer, but I did touch the shawl.” I handed over the trunk.

Paris opened it and then wordlessly set it in the back of the police car. “Seems the Bucklands were busy beavers, doesn’t it? By the way, Toby Buckland has agreed to come in and give us a DNA sample to see if we can match it to the skeleton you found. We’ll test the dried blood on the shawl and hammer—if they match, that would cement the murder weapon. We still couldn’t say for sure if the remains belonged to Lacy Buckland, but we could narrow it down to a member of the family if the tests comes back like I think they will.”

The fire marshal came over at that point. “We think we have all the flames out, but my men will keep watch for a while to make certain. The living room is pretty much destroyed, as is part of the hallway and kitchen. But we managed to prevent the fire itself from going upstairs or into the basement. There will be smoke damage, though. I can’t let you stay here. There may be structural damage to the floor in the living room, and to the ceiling over the living room. An inspector has to clear it before the house can be used as a residence again. Are you the owner?” He looked at me.

I shook my head. “No, he’s . . . the owner is a vampire and can’t talk to you until sunset. We’re friends of his and are staying with him. We smelled the smoke and ran into the living room to find the curtains on fire. We got everybody out.”

“The inspector will take a look at the point of origin today and figure out what went wrong for the report he’ll need to send to the insurance company. I think you may be looking at a frayed wire in the switch that turns on the fireplace, but I can’t make that call.” He signed off on a form and gave it to Officer Paris. “My men will let you know when we’re ready to leave the scene.” He turned back to us. “I can’t really let you go back in for belongings—”

“We have what we need for now, thank you. Our bags were in the car.” Ralph smiled at him. It was a lie, of course, but it sounded better than us saying we’d brought our luggage with us because we were afraid of ghosts. That might just sound like people who wanted to set a house on fire.

Ralph looked over at Paris and gave her a strained smile. “You know, trouble doesn’t always follow us like this.” The joke was strained, but it gave us all something to laugh at, which helped relieve the tension just a little.

A thought occurred to me, and I quickly turned to Ralph. “If we had the car towed over to Tonya’s house, we wouldn’t have to stay here all day.”

“What are you talking about?” Paris asked.

“We have Alex and Patrick safely hidden away from the light in the car. We can’t very well drive it, because we’d need to uncover the windshield in order to see, and that would put them in danger from the light. So we need a way to get them over to Tonya’s safely. I wish we had a couple of caskets,” I jokingly added.

Officer Roger shrugged. “We can arrange that. We can bring the coroner’s hearse down here, along with a couple body bags. Then we can drive them over to Ms. Harris’s house.”

“You can do that for us?” It sounded absolutely macabre and the perfect solution to our problem.

“Glad to help. The ME happens to be my cousin.” He moved aside and pulled out his cell phone. When he returned, he was smiling. “Not a problem. He’s sending his assistant, Jack, with the car. As he put it, nice to be carting around bodies that aren’t going to stay dead for a change.”

I cocked my head. The people of Port Townsend were odd ducks, but I kind of liked them. “How does he feel about vampires, seeing he’s a medical examiner?”

Roger snorted. “He says it would make his job a lot easier if more people could get up and walk around after they’d been killed. Vinny’s always been peculiar, but he’s good at his job and he’s got a mind like a steel trap.”

Ralph was talking to Paris. I hoped he was asking her out, but then remembered that she was married. Ralph didn’t seem like the polyamorous sort of guy. But when they returned, it was obvious they weren’t talking dinner and a movie.

“So, Mr. Strand’s house is haunted.” Paris gazed up at it, a contemplative look on her face. “Ralph was telling me that whatever is in there, it’s big and dangerous. I have to tell you, I don’t normally go for ghost stories. So much around here is geared for tourism, but there are some odd happenings in the area. This house is right across from Fort Worden. And the fort? Has one hell of a lot of secrets.”

The firemen began trooping out of the house, where they set up barrier tape.

“The inspector will need to come in,” one of the men said, but it was almost a question and I sensed there was something he wanted to say. He paused, looking uncertain. Tall and hunky, he had gorgeous brown eyes and tousled wheat-colored hair. He kind of reminded me of a short-haired Alex.

“Is something wrong?” Paris frowned, and I realized she could hear the undercurrent in his voice, as well.

“I know it sounds crazy, but I could have sworn there was somebody else in that house. But we checked every room. There was nobody else in there. Yet three of us saw shadows moving around. I thought at first you had an arsonist who had stuck around, but I guess it had to be a trick of the flames. Watch fire long enough and it seems to take on a life of its own.” With that, he gave us a polite nod and headed back to the fire engine.

“The spirits are still there.” I turned to the house. “And whatever that . . . that . . . thing is . . . he’s holding the other spirits hostage. He’s not about to let go of his hold on the house.”

As the fire engine roared away, the ME’s hearse pulled in. The attendant emerged, looking rather bemused, and promptly pulled out two body bags from the back.

I turned to Ralph. “Help him, if you would. I’ll ride shotgun with him to make certain nothing happens to Alex and Patrick. Tonya can drive her car, and you can drive the Range Rover. Do you have a spare key?”

“No, but I found Alex’s keys when I was carrying him upstairs.”

“Okay, we’re set then.”

Tonya gave the police her address and phone number, and we gave them our cell numbers. “We’ll be there until further notice. When the fire marshal figures out what caused the fire, please let us know.”

Paris tipped her hat to us. “Will do. And good luck. Don’t come back here until we give you the go-ahead, even if you think you need to. Interfering with a fire investigation might invalidate Strand’s insurance policy. The ghosts will wait for a day. And hopefully, they won’t follow you where you’re headed.”

On that lovely thought, Roger and Paris returned to their cruiser and crept down the street. Ralph and Jack—the attendant—managed to safely get Patrick and Alex stowed inside the body bags and into the back of the hearse. I rode shotgun with Jack, while Tonya led the way, and Ralph followed the hearse in the Range Rover.

Jack didn’t say much, other than, “You’re not a vamp.”

I grinned at him. “Obviously; if I were, either I’d be back in a body bag with my friends, or I’d be dust by now.”

“What are you, then? Werewolf?” He grinned at me. “My girlfriend’s a werewolf. She likes life on the wild side, for sure.”

I really didn’t want to get into the “I’m a dragon” discussion, so I decided that I needed to establish a cover once and for all. I thought for a moment and decided I could probably best pass for Fae. That way, I wouldn’t be expected to shift under the full moon if somebody wanted to call my bluff, and there were so many types of Fae that what little water magic I could still do might be enough to pass.

“I’m Fae. A river . . .” Sprites were usually lithe and tiny. I frowned. “I’m a river nymph.”

As I expected, he chuckled. “Nymph, huh?” But he didn’t make the nymphomaniac joke I thought was coming next. “You’re not exactly what I’d call nymphlike.” He seemed to realize he might sound condescending and quickly hastened to add, “Not that you’re . . . what I meant was, nymphs—seems to me like they’d be all airy-fairy and fluttery. You look like you could pack one heck of a punch if somebody gave you trouble.”

I tried not to laugh. Truthfully, now that I thought about it, the idea of me passing as a nymph seemed outrageous. “Yeah, I’m a bit of a contradiction. And yes, I can pack a punch and I’m about as far from airy-fairy as you can get.”

Jack, who had to be in his midtwenties and had long bushy hair, with skin as pale as a beluga whale, let out a long sigh. “I hope I didn’t offend you. I’m used to dealing with the dead, not the living.” And that one simple statement summed up his life right there.

Giving him a soft smile, I shook my head. “You didn’t. It’s okay. I imagine this isn’t the easiest business to be in.”

“No, but somebody has to do it. Hell, I’d like to think that when my gran went, somebody like me picked her up and took care of her. There are some real freaks in this business. Me? I respect the dead—even like your buddies here, who have passed through and come back. I don’t think I’d ever want to be a vampire, but gotta respect the journey they’ve been on.”

At that point, we eased into the driveway beside Tonya’s house. It was a small cottage, pretty and tidy. Ralph parked behind us, and together, he and Jack quickly transported Alex and Patrick inside, after Tonya formally invited the sleeping vampires to enter. After Jack left, I helped Ralph carry them down to the basement, where Tonya opened the sofa bed so we could stretch them out. It was odd to think that now, within seconds, we could rid the world of two vampires and they wouldn’t be able to fight back or do a thing. They wouldn’t know what had happened till they crossed to the other side.

The realization of how vulnerable vamps could be scared me. At least when I was asleep, if someone attacked me, I’d have the chance to wake up, to defend myself, unless it was a sniper who was absolutely silent. But a vampire was absolutely vulnerable during his or her sleep. The thought made me want to protect Alex and Patrick, to shield them.

Once we got them settled, I carried my suitcase into Tonya’s room, and Ralph took his into the guest room. Then we set up all our equipment in the living room and Tonya brought out a bag of chips and some dip and made a big pot of coffee.

“There’s soda in the fridge if you want.”

Ralph shook his head. Like most geeks, he was a caffeine junkie and he practically mainlined the stuff. I could take it or leave it, and to be honest, I preferred tea and lemonade to coffee.

“Do you have any tea? I especially like anything with lemon or raspberry in it.” I poked around the tea caddy she had set up in one corner of the galley kitchen.

Tonya’s house was small but the space was laid out smartly, and every inch was utilized in an intelligent manner. It wasn’t cluttered, but cozy. Garlic braids and bundled herbs hung from the walls, and a wreath made of bay leaves was nestled on the wall above the kitchen table. However, nothing was dusty and there were no cobwebs in sight.

Tonya put on the teakettle and motioned to the cupboard. “Grab the tea bags out of there.” She started taking down the garlic braids. “I don’t think Patrick or Alex would appreciate having these around.” She glanced around. “Otherwise, I think they’ll be okay here.”

I glanced at the clock. Almost four P.M. Another ninety minutes and Alex and Patrick would rise.

A few minutes later, we gathered around the table with our drinks in hand: Tonya and Ralph with their coffee, me with my tea, and a plate of cookies in the center. I brought out the bag stuffed full of paper and journals.

“We can look through all of this while we wait. You don’t think the ghosts can follow us here, do you?” I glanced around, but nothing seemed out of place.

Tonya shook her head. “I have this place warded heavily. Not much can get in here, I think. Plus, that creature? I’m pretty sure it’s tied to the land.”

“You know . . . a thought occurs to me.” I had been mulling over possibilities about what might be going on. The realization that we had been treating this all like just one big haunting stuck out. “What if we’re on the wrong track? We’ve already decided this creature isn’t a ghost. What if he’s not even an astral entity? He can move things, throw things at us, cause fires. What if we are facing some sort of being that has the ability to displace itself on a spatiotemporal level?”

“What are you getting at?” Ralph cocked his head. “You have an idea, don’t you?

I nodded. “Consider this: We looked up the history of the house and found out about the soldiers and the family who vanished here. This thing has been around a long time. Suppose it’s physical? An actual physical being that can move itself through space . . . maybe through time?”

“You might be on to something.” Tonya stopped midbite and put her cookie back on her plate. “What if it can phase in and out of this realm at will? That might account for some of the shadows we saw. What if this creature exists here, in this same space, but in a slightly different realm or dimension, and crosses over now and then?”

Ralph paled. “I don’t think I like that idea very much.”

“I don’t think any of us do, but it’s a possibility we should consider.” I leaned back, taking a sip of my tea. The infusion of raspberry and lemon settled deep in my body, radiating out. I stared out the window. “I’m not sure why the thought didn’t come up before.”

“Because we were too focused on the ghosts. But you’re right, just because it has trapped ghosts, doesn’t mean that it has to be a ghost.” Tonya frowned, pushing back her mug. She worried the cookie into crumbs on her plate. “I’m making a connection and I’m not entirely sure what it is. Hold on . . .”

Standing, she began to clear the counters, and I could tell she was thinking as she worked. “What you’re saying resonates, feels right, and it reminds me of something else, though I can’t quite remember what. Something very familiar. A couple years back, I ran into something that had the same feel . . .” She frowned, concentrating as she stopped by the window and stared out into the growing dusk.

“Is there anybody in town who might know the legends of creatures and spirits that lived here before the town was established?” I carried my cup back to the kettle to refill it with hot water.

Tonya whirled around. “That’s it! I know where I’ve felt this thing—or something very much like it! I ran into something similar at the abandoned battery.” She motioned for us to clear off the table. “Set up your laptop here, Ralph. I want to show you something.”

He obliged and once he was hooked to the Net, she took over and typed “Kinzie Battery” into the search engine. It brought up a string of results. She scanned through the links, then clicked on one. What came up was a picture of a brooding structure of concrete and steel.

It was obviously a military instillation of some sort, but it was equally obviously abandoned. The word KINZIE was emblazoned across the top, with the date 1909 on one side, and the date 1940 on the other. The building stretched wide, entirely in concrete, with double staircases on either end, and then staircases from the second story to the roof.

Two wide openings hid behind the center columns on the main floor, and either the doors had been removed or they were open so far I couldn’t see them. They led into the dark bowels of the building. On the floor above, a similar setup with three openings peered out from between the staircases leading to the top of the roof. The paint had weathered away, though it still looked like it had once been painted with camouflage, and the structure appeared to have been graffiti tagged. The concrete looked old and dirty, and the staircases rusty.

“That looks about as inviting as the cell they had me in back in the Dragon Reaches.” I grimaced. “What the hell was it used for?”

Ralph peered over Tonya’s shoulder. “It was a fortification in Fort Worden, which, apparently, added a couple guns to the defenses. The battery was able to defend below the level of the fog—which was extremely important when you think about how an enemy could sneak in silently from the water onto the shore.”

Tonya nodded. “Okay, so I went there a few years back when I returned to Port Townsend. I used to live over in Aberdeen on the far west coast of Washington. I moved there when I first left home, and only came back when my mother and I made up our differences. Anyway, I went out for a walk early one morning and ended up at the battery. Immediately, I began to get cold sweats. By the time I got there, I was scared out of my mind and afraid to go in.”

“Did you see anything?”

She shrugged. “Shadows moving. I kept hearing a deep laughter in my head, and had the feeling that something was trying to pressure me to go deep within the building. Luckily, I had my personal shields up and I was able to resist, but there was something there that I knew—I absolutely knew—could influence people’s actions. Some dark shadow creature.”

“Lacy said that something was making her family do what they did to her. Okay, let’s say this shadow creature can influence behavior. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, there’s more than one of them. I know the battery is in Fort Worden, which is across the street from Patrick’s house, but this spirit seems bound to the house and land here. Maybe they are territorial?”

“Or tied to their territory by some connection?” Tonya bit her lip and then let out a gasp. “Hold on. Let me look up something in my bestiary here.” She crossed to a bookcase with locked glass doors, turned the lock with an ornate key, and pulled out an old book with a leather cover. As she sat down again and gently cracked the spine, the pages crackled. “Kindly keep all edibles and beverages away from me while I look through this. I can’t afford to lose this.”

I put my tea on the counter, and Ralph did the same with his coffee. I had the feeling we were in the presence of what was probably a very old artifact. As she slowly paged through, cautiously turning each page, I sensed something else and, leaning forward, I put the tip of one finger on the leather binding.

“Dragon leather . . .” I stared at the book, both fascinated and horrified. “Tonya, that’s made out of dragon leather.” The skin of one of my kind had been used to bind this book.

“I know.” She didn’t look up. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it, and the leather is what keeps these pages intact. The magic from the hide slows the aging of the pages by an incredible amount. But even so, I’ll have to recopy every page within the next few years and put the new pages in the binding. That’s been done a couple of times.”

“Where did you get this book? It’s not something you can buy off eBay.” Ralph frowned.

Tonya glanced up, grinning. “I found it on a dead wolpertinger out in the Hoh rain forest.”

“A dead . . . what?” I’d never heard the word, but Ralph gave her a sharp look.

“Wolpertinger. A Bavarian chimera. When I found it, it had turned back into its natural form—a very large rabbit with antlers, wings, and nasty claws. But wolpertingers can shapeshift. And they are terribly nasty. When they shift into human form, they tend to be lowlifes and toadies for bigger, badder guys. I was out doing some wildcrafting—” She paused and gave Ralph a shake of the head. “Don’t even start . . .”

“Start what?” I had no clue what she was talking about.

Tonya gave me a sheepish shrug. “The park officials don’t appreciate those of us who might take it in our heads to do a little plant collecting. I never take anything even remotely endangered.”

Ralph laughed. “Okay, then. We won’t tell Paris and Roger.”

Tonya stuck out her tongue at him. “Anyway, I heard a noise. It can be dangerous out there if you’re alone. There are some freaks, yes, but the spirits of the forest are numerous and chaotic. So I hid. I saw this Fae—he was strong and lean and had pale blond hair—racing through the forest after another figure, a short, squat man who was barreling past like no rock or tree stump could stop him.”

I stared at her. “You really do get around, don’t you?”

“Don’t you mean to add, For a human? And yes, I do.” But she laughed. “I’m not sure what the ruckus was about, but the upshot was that the Fae caught the wolpertinger, killed him, and then something startled him, and he ran. I waited, but nothing showed up and so I meandered over to take a look at the body. The creature had shifted back into his natural form. I found his backpack, which he had tossed under a bush in their fight, and this book was in it. My guess is the Fae was after this book. But he left before he could find it, so I ended up with it.”

I gazed over her shoulder. The language it was written in was foreign to me, but as she ran her hands over the runic symbols, I could somehow read them. Ralph gasped and backed away. Of course. Magic made him nervous.

“That’s a wolpertinger. And next to it? The creature I think we’re facing.” She pointed to the page. There was a picture—hand drawn—of the wolpertinger, and as she said, next to it was a drawing of another creature. Its face was malicious, almost barklike in nature. A forest wight. Among the forest wight’s various and dubious talents was the ability to control humans through subliminal suggestion. Also, the ability to move in blurred form, so quick that mortal sight wouldn’t be able to see more than a dark shadow.

“They stake out territory and claim that land as theirs. They feed on fear, pain, humiliation, and anger, and tend to pick victims who are weak-willed by nature, using them to bring harm to others.” Tonya looked up at me. “Forest wights hive. They are solitary within their lairs, but you’ll always find them in groups within a given area. In other words, they won’t be pals, but you can be sure that where there’s one, there will be more.”

I arched my back, stretching. “Then, if we’re facing a forest wight, the question is: How do we kill it?”

“No, I think the question at hand is, what the hell is going on?” Alex opened the door leading to the basement and, carrying their body bags, both he and Patrick stepped into Tonya’s kitchen. “What the hell happened and where are we?”