The second wafted forward, her image as translucent as the
first. Her hands stretched toward me, entreating me to understand. "Evil in
design."
"Um ..." I said, goose bumps rising on my back and arms. The
ghosts didn't have an evil feel about them, nothing that made me feel sick like
some demons did, but it was still very creepy to be sitting in the middle of a
haunted convent ruin, listening to ghostly howls. "OK. You want me to solve a
crime? Get in line. Oops. Sorry. Didn't mean to be flip. Did someone kill you?"
"Cord go round," nun number one said, her image flickering in
an ethereal breeze.
"Cord? You were strangled?"
"Soul be bound," the second one intoned, her voice soft, the
words spoken on a half moan.
"Right. Your souls are bound here. I understand. Were you
both strangled, or just one of you?"
"Call elements fourfold," the first one said, her image
fading until there was just barest faint impression of her.
"OK. I can do that. I think," I said in what I hoped was a
reassuring voice, totally at a loss. They were strangled nuns, but they wanted
me to call the elements? That was usually done only in conjunction with a being
of the dark powers—demons and the like. Maybe ghosts were part of the dark
world, and no one had bothered to tell me.
"By the fifth the spirit you hold," the second nun said, then
she, too, faded into near-nothingness.
"You want me to call a spirit?" I asked, hoping they would
clarify the situation without any further rhymes. "You want me to call a demon
to wreak vengeance on the person who strangled you?"
The nuns disappeared completely.
"Hey! Well, crap. What was that supposed to be? Jim, what do
yoeeeee!"
The first nun appeared suddenly, her white face pushed into
mine, her dark, tormented eyes enough to make my soul weep. "Cast your spell,
bind him well. Bright as fire glow, deep as water flow."
Before I could blink, she was gone.
"Now that was truly freaky," I said, rubbing my arms and
blinking as I opened my eyes up to the normal world. Despite the heat of the
day, I was chilled, little shivers of cold making my skin tighten. "What is it
about ghosts that they all have to speak in rhyme?"
Jim shrugged. "Revenge, mostly."
I got up, walked over to a beam of sunlight, and sat on a
broken bit of stone wall, still shivering even as I soaked up the heat of the
sun-warmed stone. "What are you talking about?"
"Revenge. The dead often get a bit testy about things, mostly
the fact that they're dead and you're not. If you had to hang around a place for
a couple of hundred years, trying to pass along a bit of information, or ask for
help, or offer advice, but no one listened to you, you'd get cranky, too. That's
why most spirits speak in rhyme. It's their revenge, to make you work in order
to understand them."
"Lovely. Like I don't have enough to do without trying to
decode ghostly messages to find some four-hundred-year-old strangler."
'I don't think they were asking for your help, Ash," Jim
said, snapping at a bee that buzzed past.
"No?" I leaned back against the wall to consider what the
nuns had said. "Thread of crime, evil in design. Cord go round, soul be bound.
Call elements fourfold, by the fifth the spirit you hold. You know, you may just
be on to something there, Jim. It almost sounds like a warning."
"Or a solution to a problem." Jim rolled onto its back,
kicking all four legs into the air in an attempt to scratch its back. "You're
forgetting the last part. Cast your spell, bind him well. Bright as fire glow,
deep as water flow."
"Cast your spell, bind him well. Damn, Jim, I knew there had
to be a reason I was saddled with you! You're right, you're absolutely right.
That first part is a spell. A binding spell. The nuns were giving me a spell...
to catch the murdering bastard incubus!"
I stood up, conviction flowing strong. The nuns had given me
a tool to catch the incubus—but why?
"Why would they help me find an incubus?"
Jim shrugged. "Why not?"
"
For starters, they don't have anything to do with incubi.
They're ghost nuns."
"So? Not everything is a big, dark secret, Aisling. Sometimes
things just are. If I were you, I'd stop questioning why and put my mind to work
on how to use the information."
"Hmm." I thought about what Jim said. "You have a point. All
right, now all I need to do is to arrange for the incubus to pay another call.
If I could catch him and bind him, I'd be able to turn him over to Monish and
the Oth-erworld watch, which not only would clear my name but also would prove
to any available Guardians who might happen to be lurking around that I would be
hot stuff, apprentice-wise. Come on, Jim-Dog."
"Where are we going now? Can I eat, wherever it is?" the
demon asked, watching as I marched off to the south end of the island.
"
We're going back to the conference, and if you're a good
demon, you can have lunch. Hurry up, lazybones. Lots to do. Things to plan.
Incubi to catch."
I was in such high spirits when we arrived back at the hotel,
it was a shame that my life pretty much took a turn for the sucky.
Again.
A glance at my appointment book showed a lamentable lack of
Guardian appointments (the three Guardians I'd scheduled with had canceled after
Nora's attack— falsely attributed to me—was made public), but there were still
interesting workshops to attend, a dragon's brain to pick, and Nora to talk to
about the plan that I'd mulled over on the walk back to the hotel.
Monish was waiting for me at the door to the conference area.
"Aisling Grey," he said as I came in.
I froze. Names have power, and when someone who knows how to
use that power invokes your full name, it leaves you vulnerable. One of the
first things I noticed with people in the Otherworld society was that many of
them did not tell you their full names. They used only first names. Only those
people who were very self-assured gave you their full name without knowing
whether or not you could use that against them.
"Hi, Monish," I said carefully.
He crooked his finger at me. I sighed and followed him to the
same room in which he'd first interviewed me. "Why do I have a horrible feeling
I'm being sent to the principal's office?"
Jim snickered. Monish shot it a look that shut the demon
right up. He didn't waste any time before lighting into me, either, barely
waiting for me to be seated. "Why did you not tell me that you had summoned an
incubus last night?"
I bit the inside of my cheek, figuring the answer everyone
else gave me might just work. "You didn't ask me?"
His eyes narrowed.
I took a deep breath and released it slowly, trying to cling
to my happy, hopeful feeling. "Sorry. The reason I didn't tell you about Jacob
is because I didn't think it was important."
"Jacob?" he asked, his fingers tightening on the chair he
stood behind.
"Jacob of the House of Balint, the incubus I summoned."
For a moment I thought Monish's lovely brown eyes were going
to pop right out ofhis head and roll across the table to me. "You know the
incubus you summoned?"
"Well, yeah. At least, I didn't know it was going to be him
who came when I summoned an incubus, but it turned out to be Jacob, which was
good because I don't think any of the others would have been nearly as gullible.
Er... helpful."
Monish turned into a statue, I swear. A statue that breathed
in and out, but still, a statue. "The others?"
"Yeah, the others. The ones that visited me before Jacob. He
was one of the last ones before Drake put an end to the STOP HERE AND RAVISH
AISLING sign that was evidently above my bed."
"How many incubi did you summon before thewyvern stopped
them?" Monish sounded like he was having a hard time speaking.
"I didn't summon them. They—" The second the words left my
mouth, I saw what I had done—reaffirmed my potential guilt in the eyes of the
committee. Here I had been disputing their claims that I had the power to summon
incubi without knowing it, and what did I do? I gave them my head on a platter.
"It's not like it sounds. I have this Venus amulet—"
That made things worse. His eyebrows shot up to the top of
his forehead as he eyed the chain visible against my throat. "The amulet you
wear is a Venus amulet."
"One inscribed with two pentacles of Venus," Jim said.
I turned on my demon, not that I hadn't done enough damage,
but Jim was supposed to be my servant. It wasn't supposed to suggest someone get
a nice rope since there was a tree so handy. "Oh, thank you very much. Do you
want them to kill me?"
"Don't exaggerate. They couldn't kill you. Well, the
committee probably could, but they'd have a war with Drake on their hands if
they did, so the most they'd do is maim you."
"You are not helping," I said through my teeth.
Monish released the chair, walking stiffly around the table
to face me. I rose from my chair, backing up a couple of steps. "Aisling Grey,"
he started to say.
"Wait!" I interrupted, holding my hands up. "Don't say it!
Look, I know you're about to say something bad, something I don't want you to
say, but you've got to listen to me. Yes, I have the Venus amulet. Yes, incubi
were summoned to me without my knowledge, but they were summoned to me, not to
anyone else. I don't know why the one that attacked Nora said my name, but I
wasn't even wearing the amulet last night, so I couldn't have summoned it.
Besides, I wasn't asleep, and the other times I summoned the incubi I'd been
asleep or deep in meditation. I think there's something going on, something I
don't quite understand, but I swear to you it's not me. I swear it, Monish. I
swear on my own soul that I am not doing this."
He just looked at me, clearly weighing my plea. Just as
clearly he dismissed it, his mouth opening to speak again.
"NO!" I shrieked, jumping forward to clamp my hand over his
mouth. His eyes got huge at that, but I didn't have time to regret such a bold
action.
"You have to give me time. I have a plan—at least, I'll have
one once I talk to Nora, but I have to have time to put the plan into action. I
promise you I'll find who killed the Guardians, but you have to give me just a
little more time. I know how to trap the incubus, Monish. I have a binding
spell. I know I can hold him once I draw him in, but I can't do it if you turn
me over to Dr. Koslich and his buddies. Please, Monish. I'm not bad. I'm not
killing Guardians. And I'm not summoning a murderous incubus. But I can end it,
if you'll just give me the room to do so."
He pried my hand off his mouth, giving me a good, long stare
before rubbing a hand over his face. "I must be mad to even consider allowing
you freedom in the face of such overwhelming evidence, but I have consulted the
high spirits about you. They counsel patience."
"Bless the high spirits! And thank you. You won't regret your
trust in me."
His eyes grew hard. "You had best make sure I will not. You
have until midnight tonight, Aisling."
I did some calculations in my head, sorting out what Vd need
to do, whom I needed to talk to, and said, "Two days. Forty-eight hours."
He shook his head. "Twenty-four. That is as much leniency as
I can give you, and for that, I will have to spend hours convincing the
committee I have not lost my reasoning."
I swallowed back my fear. "Tomorrow night. Give me until
tomorrow night. Midnight. Please, Monish. I won't fail you, I swear."
He opened his mouth, then closed it again, turning to open
the door, "It is your own destruction that you hold in the balance, Aisling. Be
sure that you remember that. You have until tomorrow evening."
"I won't let you down! And thank you!" I called after him as
he left the room, then collapsed on the chair behind me.
"You have a plan?" Jim said, coming around to face me. I used
its drool bib to wipe its slobbery lips.
"Yup. I have a plan. It hinges on me being able to pull a
rabbit out of a hat, so to speak, but all in all, I think it will work."
Jim shook its shaggy head. "We are so doomed."
Chapter 24
"
There are times when I think I just can't get a break."
"'And then there are times when we know you're cracked"
I pointed to the lawn at the end of the verandah. "Go. Now.
Sit. And don't give me that look. You've been fed, watered, walked, and if
you're feeling well enough to make smart-ass comments, you're well enough to lie
twenty feet away in the shade."
Jim, wise enough to know when it had pushed me beyond the
limits of sympathy and understanding for the night it spent in the doggie
hospital, lumbered off to lie in the grass. I gave Nora an apologetic smile.
"Sorry about that. Both the whining on my part and the demon's comments."