“Do you think the salvage team that disappeared has something to do with Moran?” I asked. “And with the sunken pirate ship?’ Sorren nodded. “Almost certainly there’s a connection, and we need to find it soon.”
“Did you find out anything else?”
“Moran’s not the first to raise a demon in Charleston. There have been several, including Jeremiah Abernathy.”
“Who?” I asked, searching my memory. The name sounded familiar, in a very bad sort of way.
“It was one of the cases the Alliance handled many years ago. Abernathy was a corrupt judge who profited from the pirates he hanged, whose loot he seized for his own,” Sorren replied. “Abernathy was rumored to have made a deal with the Devil, though I doubt it was with more than a minor demon. He had gone to the rum islands, and made a pact with the dark magic there for wealth and power. But something went wrong.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“No one knows for certain, but Abernathy’s luck had a sudden turn for the worse,” Sorren replied.
“Can’t say I minded. He was a foul creature, and deserved the end he got. We had to do some serious clean up after his dealings soured.” He paused. “But now, after Mrs. Morrissey’s comment about Abernathy doing business with the unlucky Captain Harrison, I’m beginning to wonder if he has something to do with what’s going on now.”
“Harrison’s return from Barbados and the loss of the Lady Jane coincide rather neatly with Abernathy’s run of bad luck,” Sorren added. “We thought we had removed any tainted objects… perhaps there was something we didn’t know about.”
I frowned. “You think Harrison’s pirate loot ended up with Abernathy, and that it was intended for him all along?”
Sorren nodded. “That’s exactly what I think. And now, all these years later, a salvage team has disappeared diving for an old wreck. Right before Corban Moran shows up and men start dying.”
“Abernathy’s demon,” I murmured. I looked up and met Sorren’s gaze. “If something aboard the pirate ship would have given Abernathy control of a demon, and that item was lost in the shipwreck, then why didn’t the demon get loose and destroy the city?”
Sorren gave me a look. “Check your dates. You’ll find that right after Abernathy died, Charleston was struck with one of its worst Yellow Fever outbreaks. At least, that’s what they called it at the time.”
His answer chilled me. “Why didn’t the demon keep on killing?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Different demons function under different rules,” Sorren said. “Abernathy’s demon could not remain here unbound, and he withdrew to the place between worlds where spirits dwell, waiting.”
“Waiting for someone to find the item that was lost in pirates’ shipwreck,” I replied. “Something the salvage team found.”
“Or was about to find,” Sorren said. “We don’t know – yet – how the item came to Moran. If the demon has been called back and is under Moran’s control, for now, then somehow, Abernathy’s artifact has been recovered. That makes it our business.”
We were silent for a moment, then I found the courage to ask the question that had bothered me since the previous night.
“Why did you choose Alard’s walking stick to give to me?” I asked.
Sorren was quiet long enough I didn’t think he would answer. Finally, he looked down and shifted in his chair. “I gambled that the stick would work for you, as it worked for Carel,” he said. “Carel had your touch magic. Alard received his walking stick from a powerful wizard, a good man who died in the service of the Alliance.”
“But I’m not a wizard. I shouldn’t have been able to call fire.”
Soren gave a sad smile. “You didn’t have to. The walking stick worked as an athame, a focusing tool.
All you had to do was open yourself to the memories of those who used it before you. Their power, their magic, has become part of the cane. When you touched it, and let the memories flow through you, the walking stick did the rest.”
I was going to need to spend some time thinking about that. “What now?” I asked.
“We’ll need to find more weapons if we’re going to keep investigating the hot spots you found in the Navy yard. The key we need to connect the pieces is out there; we just haven’t found it yet.” He gave me a resolute smile, and I saw the tips of his long eye teeth. “But we will.”
I shut and locked the door after Sorren. Just then, my cell phone began to ring.
“Hello, Sweetheart!” My mom seems to have a sixth sense about when I could use a call. That was probably true, given the magic that runs in her side of the family.
“Hi, Mom. What’s up?” Baxter was hopping around my feet. He always seems to get extra affectionate whenever I’m on the phone.
“Just got back from speaking in Denver and thought I’d give you a buzz,” she said.
“Home for awhile?” I asked.
“Two weeks, then we’re heading to Manitoba, then on to Toronto,” she said. “It should be a nice break from the heat.” My parents moved from Charleston up to Charlotte when I was in college. At the time, my father worked for one of the mega-banks, and the move was part of a corporate relocation.
Then my mom got her big break and launched her speaking career based on 30 years as a psychologist, and once the money started rolling in from her seminars and events, dad was more than happy to retire from the corporate world and become her agent and event manager.
“How’s the store?”
“Busy,” I said. “You know – every day is a new adventure.” Boy, and how.
“How about you? Are you okay? I’ve had the strangest feeling and I just had to call.” Mom’s voice had gone into her ‘you can trust me, I’m a therapist’ tone.
“I’m fine,” I said, ignoring a flash of guilt. “Just a little tired.” True enough.
“I had the oddest dream,” Mom said. “I dreamed about Grandma Sarah baking in the kitchen at her house. Do you remember?”
I smiled. Grandma Sarah had her own type of powerful magic, an ability to heal people with her cooking.
“I dreamed that Grandma Sarah was baking a cake, and she was stirring the batter with her favorite wooden spoon. Then she stopped and looked right at me and said, ‘Elizabeth, you need to remind Cassidy to use my spoon. I’m done with it and she needs it’.” Mom laughed. “Isn’t that odd?”
I swallowed hard, taking a meaning from Mom’s dream that she couldn’t have known. Sorren and I had just talked about helping me collect items that would help me channel white magic like Alard’s walking stick – things that could serve as an athame or wand and connect me with the power of the previous owner. I went to my kitchen drawer and pulled out the worn, stained spoon and felt the essence of my grandmother’s very strong, very pure white magic.
“I’ve got to go. But honey,” Mom said, pausing. “Please be careful. I worry about you.”
“I will be,” I said, wishing I could figure out how to keep that promise. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.” The call ended, and I let out a sigh and reached down to pick up Baxter and cuddle him for a moment.
I looked around my house and smiled. It’s not one of the biggest or most historic homes in Charleston, but it’s perfect for me. In a relatively short period of time, I had made this place my own. On all the shelves and walls, there were photos, recent pictures, and snapshots from family vacations as I was growing up. Photos of my brother, aunts and uncles, cousins, and grandparents were tucked everywhere. And there were pictures of every dog I had ever loved, from the cocker spaniel I had as a kid right up to Baxter.