Chapter 8

James opened a portal and stepped out into his childhood home. The boards creaked beneath his paws, but a quick glance around revealed no other souls in the building with him.

He trotted down the hall to his old room, shifting form once he crossed the threshold. Everything was as he had left it the day Rowan had taken Addie and him to Cincinnati. His life had changed so much since then that his days living in this house felt like a lifetime ago.

Shaking his head, he crossed to his closet to pull on some clothes. He would search the house, then the remains of the gun shop across the street. He hoped the family history hadn’t been lost to the fire.

The house was a wreck—more than it usually was. Of course, his brothers hadn’t left when he did. And since James had always been the one to clean up, there had been no one here to keep things in order. Fortunately, his brothers hadn’t lived here in a while so the odors had died.

James soon found himself in the master bedroom. The room had become George’s after their parents were gone. Like everywhere else, the room was a pigsty—though thankfully, an odor-free sty. Dust was the biggest threat now.

Pulling open a dresser drawer, James began to dig through the contents, tossing aside haphazardly folded socks as he searched. When he got to the second drawer, he pulled it out and upended it on the bed. A few magazines with naked women on the covers tumbled out along with George’s boxer shorts. These must have been some of his favorites. His brothers never bothered to hide their reading material. It wasn’t like they had to worry about their mother finding it.

The third drawer in the dresser yielded nothing, nor did the drawers in the nightstand. James even pulled all the old DVDs off the shelf in the corner and checked under the mattress. Nothing.

Where would George have hidden it? Somewhere safe from fire, burglary, and most importantly, his baby brother. George had flatly refused to even let James see the container that held the journal, though he had once heard Henry call it a box. Where would George put—

“The vault.” That was the one place he would never venture into for fear of his brothers locking him in. The small, steel room had always been held over his head as the ultimate punishment.

The building that had once housed the family gun shop had been a bank at some point in the past. In the basement stood a large steel vault. If locked inside, James would be in the same predicament he’d been in when collared. Well-made walk-in freezers and mortuary drawers worked the same way. James had the misfortune of experiencing both firsthand.

Clouds had rolled in, obscuring the moonlight, but with his night vision, James didn’t even need a flashlight to comb through the remains of the gun shop. An attack by some liches working for Neil had almost leveled the place. The upper story was gone, but part of the lower level still stood.

James picked his way through the rubble until he found the opening to the basement. The wooden stairs were burned away, but that didn’t stop him from jumping into the dark hole. The experience reminded him of the time he and Addie had explored the ruins of the Alchemica.

Calling the hound so he could see better in the dark, James crossed the space without incident, detouring around caved-in sections until he reached the steel door set in the back wall.

Scrapes and gouges marked the edges where someone had tried to get in with a crowbar. Probably some scavenger picking through the rubble after the fire. It also looked like they had taken a sledgehammer to the dial on the combination lock, knocking it nearly off. Even if James knew the combination, he wasn’t opening that door—the traditional way.

Fortunately, he knew someone who had a nontraditional way of opening stubborn doors.

 

James stepped out into the lab and was surprised to find the lights off. A glimpse at the clock on the far wall gave the reason. It was 2:30 in the morning.

A shadow fell across the light in the hall, and a moment later, Ian stepped into the room. He flipped the switch and the florescent bulbs flickered to life overhead. Dressed in a sleeveless undershirt and his usual trousers, Ian must have been lounging in his room, probably reading.

“Is something wrong?” Ian asked.

James shifted human and rose to his feet. “I came to see Addie, but I didn’t realize the time.”

“Where have you been?”

“Visiting my childhood home. I need help opening a door.”

Ian’s brows lifted. “And how does a mere door pose a problem to you?”

“It’s a foot thick and made of steel.”

“That sounds suspiciously like a bank vault.”

“It is. Or it was. It’s in the basement of what was my family’s gun shop.”

“Ah. For a moment there, I feared you had decided on a life of crime.”

“Rowan pays well. I don’t need to turn to that.”

Ian smiled. “And what is in this vault?”

“I think it’s where an old family journal is stored—if it exists at all.”

“A journal about your family’s history?” Ian’s expression turned serious as he moved closer. “That’s what you referred to when you left earlier?”

“Yes. But I’ve never seen it—I wasn’t allowed to see it—but if it exists, I think George would keep it in the vault. He knows I would never willingly go in that room.”

“Why keep it secret from you?”

“Probably just my brothers being assholes, but I won’t know until I read it.”

Ian nodded. “Fair enough.” He turned toward the hall and his room. “Let me dress, and I’ll see if your journal is in that vault.”

James hurried after him. “You have a way to open the door?” Ian had been dead longer. He was stronger than James, but not that much stronger. “Something alchemical?”

“I don’t need to open the door,” he said over his shoulder. “Unlike you, steel does not stop me from traveling.”

“Oh right.” James hadn’t even considered that approach. Of course, he never would have thought to ask Ian for help.

He followed Ian to his room and watched him open his wardrobe and consider the clothing inside.

“It’ll be just me and you in a burned out basement in the middle of the night. It’s not a black-tie occasion.”

Ian selected one of his white linen shirts and pulled it on over the undershirt he wore. “I know this world is less formal than mine, but I must meet expectations.”

James watched him select a coat. At least it didn’t have tails.

“Do you really think Isabelle would be disappointed in you if you explored an old basement in your shirt sleeves?” James asked.

Ian turned to face him, pulling on the coat. James expected anger, but Ian was smiling.

“Yes, I do think she would be disappointed, though I hope she isn’t watching at the moment. You do take informality to its ultimate end.”

James rolled his eyes. “I can’t help it that my clothes don’t survive my shapeshifting.”

“But you can help your state of undress once you arrive.”

“You’re a man and you’re dead. If I make you uncomfortable, don’t look.”

“Your nudity doesn’t bother me, but I do fear Addie joining us unexpectedly.”

“I would hear her the moment she rose from her bed.”

“It still shows a certain lack of respect.”

James shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m standing here arguing about my clothing choices with a dead man.”

“Now you know how I feel.”

James met his gaze, then shifted into the hound. Hopefully, Ian didn’t find naked animals as offensive.

 

James held the portal open until Ian stepped out, then jumped out after him. He landed on the soot-covered cement, his paws kicking up a small black cloud.

“It appears you weren’t the only one unable to open this door.” Ian moved closer to the vault door so the light from his lantern could illuminate the battered steel surface.

James shifted human and rose to his feet. “Good thing it held. If that journal’s in there, I’d hate to lose it.”

“That isn’t all this vault contains.” Ian frowned at the door. “There’s a body inside.”

“What?” Had his brothers killed someone and stored them inside? James took a deep breath. The vault wasn’t airtight. “I don’t smell anything.”

“You wouldn’t. This person has been dead at least a few decades.”

The hair on the back of James’s neck rose. “Are you sure?”

Ian lifted a brow, his expression insulted. “Shall we take a look?”

“I…”

“I won’t leave you in there.”

“That wasn’t what—” James didn’t want to admit that was exactly what he was thinking.

“I like you, James. I always have. I just don’t think you’re a healthy choice for Elysia. If she wasn’t a soul reaper, I wouldn’t have a problem with you courting my granddaughter.”

James wanted to scoff at the old-world attitude. As if Ian’s approval would have made a difference. And yet, James felt a strong sense of relief that Ian thought well of him.

“Thank you,” was all he could think to say.

Ian nodded and turned to the door. “Now that you know I’m not going to lock you inside, shall we?”

“At least it’s roomier than a mortuary drawer. It was an especially tight fit the time I was locked in one with Elysia.”

Ian pulled open a portal. “So that necromancer right of passage is still around?”

“Are you saying you and—”

“Refrigeration and mortuary drawers were after my time.”

“Oh. Right.”

“But we had coffins.” He gave James a wink and stepped into the land of the dead.

James was a little slow following. It was hard to change form when laughing.

 

James stepped out into the vault, pulling in a lungful of musty air the moment he left the land of the dead. He shifted human instantly and involuntarily. That had never happened, but he had never traveled directly into a box of steel. He hoped he wouldn’t have any trouble going out.

“Are you okay?” Ian asked, his voice echoing in the small, steel-lined space.

“This makes my skin crawl,” James admitted. “I can’t even remain the hound here.”

“I suspect a lot of people would be uncomfortable trapped in a small space.” Ian lifted his lantern to examine the room.

Where James had expected shelves or those little bank boxes, he found none. The walls were surprisingly bare. The only object in the room was an oblong wooden box resting on a couple of old crates stamped with a now-defunct gun manufacturer’s label.

“If there’s a book in here, it must be inside.” Ian nodded at the homemade coffin. “Shall I look?”

James swallowed. “It would be silly if I came all this way only to chicken out now.”

Ian eyed him. “The dead do not frighten you. I suspect you know who this is.”

James took another breath of musty dead air. “I have my suspicions.”

Ian studied him a moment longer, then handed him the lantern. He turned to the coffin and slid his fingers beneath the lid.

“Do you need a crowbar?” James asked.

“No. It’s not nailed shut.”

James nodded, though Ian was no longer looking at him.

Ian lifted the lid and set it aside. “The light,” he reminded James.

Steeling his courage, James stepped up beside him. The body in the box had indeed been dead a good while, but the conditions in the vault had slowed the decay process. The skin was mostly intact, though shriveled and sunken in where the muscle had rotted away beneath. The nightgown the corpse wore was stained with decay and what had killed her.

James looked away.

“She’s your mother, isn’t she?” Ian asked, his voice soft.

“I think so. Yes.” James swallowed. “How did you know?”

“Your reaction.”

James pressed his lips together, maintaining his silence. It bothered him that Ian could read him so easily.

Ian studied him a moment, as if considering saying more, then turned back to the coffin.

“There’s a box here.” Ian reached into the coffin and lifted out a wooden box. “Curious.” He ran his hand over the lid. Burned into the unfinished surface was a crude representation of the ouroboros: the twin dragons biting each other’s tails. The alchemical symbol for life and death.

“Henry said it was a box,” James whispered, accepting the worn box when Ian handed it to him.

Ian bent to retrieve the coffin lid. He replaced it with care, tapping it gently in place.

James found himself oddly touched by the reverence Ian displayed. Of course, Ian had worked in the funeral industry, so he knew what it meant to the surviving family to see the dead treated with respect. James just wasn’t certain if he qualified as surviving.

With the lid now in place, Ian faced him. “Shall I speak to Doug? With his resources, he could arrange a proper burial.”

“What does that even mean? She’s no less dead lying here than buried in the ground. And wherever our souls go when we ultimately leave the mortal plane is not the result of where we left our bodies.”

“True, but a burial has never been for the dead; it’s for the living. So by proper, I meant respectful. Laid to rest in love and remembrance by the living—or the almost living in our case.” He gave James a small smile. “I think it will make you feel better to see her treated in such a manner.”

“Instead of hidden away like a dirty secret?”

“Exactly.” Ian didn’t pull any punches. “Let’s take that”—he nodded at the box James held—“back to the lab, and I’ll give Doug a call when the hour is more appropriate.”

“Thanks.” He wanted to say more, but this was Ian. James still wasn’t completely comfortable expressing gratitude to the man.

 

James lifted the lid on the wooden box and glanced inside. Built-in dividers created smaller sections within the box, the largest holding a very worn leather-bound journal. A rusted iron collar lay in another compartment, its design shockingly similar to the collar James had recently worn—except this one was lined with spikes on the inside. Several of the joints within the chain held tufts of black fur. A smaller partitioned area held a cloth-wrapped bundle. Within the dry-rotted fabric, James found an old-fashioned glass vial containing a smudge of something brown.

“If I had to guess,” Ian said, “I’d say that’s blood.”

“Possibly.” James scrutinized the vial a moment longer before setting it on the counter.

The final item was a small oval frame containing a full-length portrait of an unknown man. A frayed ribbon that might have once been red was tied to the loop at the top.

“The clothing style suggests fifteenth century,” Ian said.

“If so, it’s in really good condition.” James turned the frame over, but found no identifying marks. “I wonder who he was?” He carefully returned the portrait to the box. It was surprising that these old items were so well preserved. George wasn’t the type to take care of anything. Certainly not archaic family heirlooms of no monetary value. They must have some meaning. Perhaps the book would tell him more.

James gently opened the cover to the first page. The ink was faded almost to the point of making it illegible, but he could make out enough to read the owner’s name. Richard Huntsman.

“The devil himself,” James whispered.

“Who’s that?”

“Richard Huntsman. The man who traded his brother’s soul to make himself the first Hunter.”

“Interesting. You know he visited an alchemist. Some say that alchemist was Paracelsus.”

James frowned at the words on the page. That would certainly make him think less of Paracelsus. “Wait. Richard Huntsman was supposed to have lived in the 1600s. Paracelsus died in the mid 1500s, right?”

“Did he?” Ian arched a brow, his expression smug.

“You’re not suggesting he was a necromancer.”

“No, but I strongly suspect he knew one. I find it hard to believe that the man who supposedly found the azoth—who might have been the azoth—died in his late forties.”

“I wonder if the answer is here.” James slid a finger beneath the page to turn it, but the corner of the brittle paper flaked away.

“Careful.” Ian clasped his wrist in his cold hand. “This is very old.” He released James’s wrist.

“I know.” James studied the open book. How had George read this? Maybe he was only repeating what their father had told him, passed down through the generations.

“What are you two up to?” Addie walked into the room.

James looked up in surprise. He’d been so intent on the book, he hadn’t heard her.

“And you’d hear her the moment she rose from her bed,” Ian said to him.

James was glad he’d taken a moment to pull on some sweatpants or he’d get a bigger lecture. “I was distracted.” He waved a hand at the box.

“Are you trying to hide something from me?” Addie asked, moving closer.

“No. He’s referring to an earlier discussion about my typical indecency,” James explained.

“He’s decent,” she said absently to Ian, leaning forward to look in the box. “Wow, that looks old. What’s all this?”

“My family history. It was hidden in the vault beneath the gun shop. Ian helped me retrieve it.”

“Oh my God.” Addie picked up the lid and stared at the ouroboros burned into the surface.

“There’s a journal.” James said.

“Seriously?” She laid the lid aside and leaned closer to read the flyleaf in the open journal. “Richard Huntsman?” She looked up at James, her eyes wide. “He’s the one who commissioned the creation of the first grim.”

“At the cost of his brother’s soul.”

“And he was a horrible, evil man to do it,” Addie agreed. “But how it was done might be in here.” She reached out to turn the page.

James captured her wrist as Ian had caught his earlier. “The pages are too brittle to turn.”

“That’s just cruel.”

“I very much doubt there’s an alchemical formula written inside,” James said, caught somewhere between amusement and annoyance with her interest. “Richard Huntsman wouldn’t record any information on that.”

Addie tapped a finger to her chin, then without comment, walked to her laboratory workbench and pulled out a drawer.

James glanced at Ian, but he just shrugged, his expression amused as he watched Addie root through the drawer. “Ad?” James prompted.

“Here it is,” she announced, pulling a long, slender—was that a spatula?—from the drawer.

“What is that?” James asked as she returned to them. The only lab spatulas he’d seen were small tools, the flattened section only two inches long.

“I found it in a drawer when we moved in. The building was once used as a bakery.”

“Okay.” He frowned as she stopped in front of the journal. He began to understand what she was up to when she carefully slipped the spatula beneath the first page. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.

“No.” She gripped her lower lip between her teeth as she moved the spatula further beneath the yellowed paper. The body of the page seemed sturdier, withstanding her administrations better than the brittle edges. Gradually, she began to lift the page.

Another brittle corner flaked away.

“Addie?” James asked, still not certain this was wise.

“Just one page,” she said. “Later, I can give Donovan a call. I bet he can turn the pages. Maybe he can bring Era over to photograph them.”

“That sounds like a better idea. Why don’t—” James sucked in a breath as the page fell open. It separated from the binding near the top of the page, but otherwise held.

“Ha!” Addie’s tone was triumphant. She laid the spatula aside, then leaned forward to read the faded words on the page.

“Well?” James asked after she had frowned at it for a bit.

“The language is archaic,” she said. “This will take some study.”

“No formula,” Ian said, his eyes skimming over the page, “but I think you’re right about the grim being a product of ash alchemy.”

“You can read that?” she asked.

“It’s easier to decipher than some of the fifteenth century texts my mentor had me translate.”

She arched a brow.

“What does it say?” James asked.

“A loose translation”—Ian stopped to give Addie a smug smile—“is that the author watched the alchemist he had employed add a gray powder to the cooking pot. When he asked, he was told they were the ashes of a soul eater.”

“A hellhound?” Addie asked.

“Hellhounds don’t burn,” James said. “They can’t be ashed.”

“A soul reaper would be my guess,” Ian said. “The ashes of a soul reaper.”

Addie stumbled to the side, gripping the counter to maintain her balance.

James clutched her elbow.

“Déjà vu?” Ian asked, using the expression she always used for her memory surges.

“Yes,” Addie whispered. She continued to grip the counter, but seemed to recover her balance.

“Do you need to sit down?” James asked.

“No, I’m good. It was one of the wimpy ones.” She rubbed a finger under her nose, checking for blood. Sometimes memory surges gave her nosebleeds.

“You didn’t remember anything?” Ian asked.

“Nothing aside from the fact that I definitely studied grim creation.” She gave James a sheepish look.

“What?” James asked. “So you once studied an alchemical puzzle. That’s a shocker.”

She didn’t argue, but her forehead remained wrinkled with concern. She just couldn’t seem to move beyond the fact that her past was a dark one.

“Did you read anything else?” she asked Ian.

James gripped her arm as Ian cleared his throat. If she had another memory surge, he didn’t want her to fall.

“It seems this potion was prepared for the man’s brother.”

“The one whose soul he sacrificed,” James said. “The one who became the first grim.”

“The author has no interest in what the potion does, all it says is that it will enable his brother to take the power of a hellhound.”

“How?” Addie asked.

“I think we’ll have to read on to learn that—if it’s mentioned at all,” Ian said.

Addie groaned.

James was no longer listening to argument. He frowned at the words on the page. A soul reaper’s ashes had been used to create his ancestor. That might explain why he and Elysia were so compatible, magically. He remembered how he reacted when she fed him her soul. No other necromancer had ever made him feel like that. Then there was her blood…

“James?” Ian’s voice cut into his thoughts, and James wondered if that was the first time he’d spoken.

Addie leaned over and gripped James’s wrist. “What is it?”

“I was wondering if this might be why my magic reacts so strongly to Elysia’s,” James said.

“I suspect you’re onto something.” Addie glanced up at Ian. “What do you think?”

“It’s possible, I guess.” His tone was begrudging.

“It might explain why you can heal her,” Addie said to James. She suddenly smiled. “Maybe you’re her guardian, like your brothers were supposed to be yours—just a little less psychotic.”

“Thanks,” James said.

She gave him a wink, then turned to Ian. “Speaking of healing Elysia, shall we get started?”

“You should be sleeping,” Ian said.

“I should do a lot of things.”

“What do you need me to do?” James cut in.

Addie gave him a big smile. “Welcome back to the lab, Fido.”