“Damn,” Teag replied, brushing his lank hair out of his eyes. “What happened? Did New Yorkers suddenly get peckish?”
Jack dusted off his hands. “Unfortunately not. Police found a dead guy behind the specialty food warehouse, and they closed down the whole place until they figure out what happened.”
I sipped my wine. “Was it a robbery?”
Jack shrugged. “Dunno. My guy at the warehouse says the police have been cagy about the details.
Made him wonder if it might be gang-related or something like that.” He shook his head. “I heard whoever did it made a real mess of things.”
“Was the dead man someone who worked at the warehouse?” Teag asked.
Jack shook his head. “No idea. The warehouse is over by the abandoned Navy yard. The whole area is a little down on its luck, gets a lot of vagrants. ”
Jack brought the pizza, and stood by like a proud papa as Teag and I praised his work. He went back to the kitchen while Teag and I dug into our meal.
I checked my phone for messages. There were none, but I glanced at the time. “Oops! We’d better get back to the shop.”
“Inventory?” Jack asked, bringing a small box for leftovers.
“Out of town supplier,” I replied. Sorren kept a low profile in Charleston out of necessity. It wouldn’t do for people to notice that he never seemed to age. His involvement with the store was something known to only a few trusted associates.
“Well, send your supplier this way and I’ll make sure he gets the royal treatment,” Jack promised. “Anything for a friend of yours.”
“He usually eats before he comes by the shop, but I’ll let him know you offered,” I said. That was true.
Sorren always made sure he had fed before visiting Trifles and Folly. How he fed, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
We got back to the store just as I heard the bells of St. Michael’s church toll nine times. Before the echo of the ninth ring had faded, a voice startled me.
“Nice to see you again, Cassidy.”
Even though I was expecting him, I jumped. “I swear I locked all the doors,” I said, one hand over my thudding heart.
Sorren grinned. “You did. And you’ve invited me inside in the past. Don’t forget, I was once the best jewel thief in all of Belgium, and I do have a key.”
Sorren looked to be in his twenties, but I knew for a fact he was turned in the late 1400s. His hair was an unremarkable shade of blond, with features that were pleasant enough without being noteworthy; something Sorren told me had been a good thing back in his days as a master thief. But his blue-gray eyes always captured my attention, eyes the color of the sea before a storm. And while most mortals would do well to avoid making eye contact with a vampire for risk of being compelled to do their will, apparently I had the immunity to compulsion that seemed to run in my family.
“Nice to see you, too,” I said, catching my breath. I double checked the lock on the door then led the way to the back room. Teag emerged from the stock room with a wave.
“I got your message,” I said, sitting down at the table. “And your warning. So I’m curious about your news, because, boy oh boy, do we have news for you.”
Tonight, Sorren was dressed in khaki slacks, a casual collared shirt and Sperry’s without socks. Nothing about his appearance would have drawn a second glance from anyone who met him on the street. A slight flush to his skin told me that he had fed before visiting.
On some visits, when there were no pressing problems, we had gotten Sorren to talk about the centuries he had survived. Talking to someone who had personally experienced most of the last six hundred years was a dream come true for history geeks. But with everything that was going on, I was sadly certain that tales of the old days would have to wait for another time.
“Something is very wrong,” Sorren said. “There have been some odd spikes in supernatural activity around the Charleston area. The last time we saw these kind of energy fluctuations –”
“It was a demon,” I finished for him. He looked at me, surprised.
“Yes,” he replied. “It was.”
Sorren had a network of informants that would put government or law enforcement intelligence to shame. Although his visits to Charleston were sporadic, he always arrived knowing more about what was going on in the dark corners of the city than we did.
“Could those surges – and a demon – cause slightly haunted objects to suddenly turn malicious, and set nasty things wandering… say, shadow creatures?” I asked.
Sorren looked worried. “Yes to both. I think you’d better tell me your news.”
We took turns filling Sorren in, first on the unfortunate incident at the Academy Theater, and then on the eventful night at Gardenia Landing.
“We traced the history of the items as best as we could,” I said. “The pieces all have some tragedy associated with them, but none of the former owners will admit to knowing that the items were haunted or even unsettling.” I turned my palms up in a gesture of resignation. “We haven’t found the common thread.”
Sorren had listened intently. Now, he began to pace. “My contacts believe the spikes in supernatural energy near Charleston have something to do with a series of murders. That would also be consistent with demonic activity. The question is, how did the demon get loose, and what does the person who summoned it want?”
I thought about the death near the warehouse that Jack had mentioned, and the ring that had arrived in the box. Teag brought the box out to show Sorren, and he handled the bloody ring gingerly.
“I think this was sent as a warning,” Sorren said. “Someone’s aware of your gift, Cassidy, and whoever it is, is trying to make sure you don’t get involved.”
I met his gaze. “Do you have any idea who’s behind this?”
Sorren hesitated. “Maybe. But if I’m right, he’s someone who should be dead.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Death isn’t permanent for everyone.”
He nodded. “For some more than others. And in this case, I was certain that we had been able to destroy him.”
“Destroy who?” Teag asked.
“He goes by the name of Corban Moran,” Sorren replied. “You might think of him as an arms dealer, only he deals in dangerous magical objects, not guns and bombs. He’s rogue, so he’s not really part of any group, but more often than not, his ventures align with whatever the Family is up to.”
The Alliance tried to get malicious supernatural objects off the market. The Family did their best to get their hands on dark magic artifacts and use them to further their own purposes. Both groups recruited immortals and mortals in a worldwide network that was off the grid of conventional security agencies. It was like a paranormal arms race, with the world up for grabs.
Teag had grabbed his laptop, and he was already delving deep into the Darke Web to see what he could find.
“You thought Moran was dead,” I said. “Why?”
Sorren leaned back in his chair. “Because I killed him, or at least I thought I did.”
He ran a hand back through his hair. “It’s probably easier to show you than to tell you,” he said, and withdrew an envelope from his pocket. Inside was a photograph of a man and a woman.
The man was tall and thin, with a build that could well be the man I’d glimpsed following us. If so, then time had not been kind to him. The picture looked to be about ten years old, but the man’s face was very different from the wrinkled, withered skin of our stalker. Moran had an intelligent look to him, though his features were not striking, except for the utter coldness of his dark eyes. I glanced at the woman who stood next to him. I didn’t think I’d want to meet her. She had the same cold look to her as Moran, but there was something in her expression that made me think she enjoyed her work a little too much.