Kitty Steals the Show (Kitty Norville) (13 page)

“That’s all I need,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. He gave me the address and a time, and I promised to be there before hanging up.

I grinned at Cormac. “What do you know? Diplomacy beats breaking and entering.”

He sighed, relief softening his features. “Thank you.”

Chapter 9

T
HE THREE
of us took a cab to Nicholas Parker’s office, which was a couple of neighborhoods over in Bloomsbury. The address was in a row of picturesque town houses, painted white with geraniums in flower boxes and with wrought-iron fencing in front. A short set of steps led to a red front door. Next to it, a brass plate announced
PARKER, ALDRITCH, SOLICITORS.

“You ready for this?” I asked Cormac. He was searching the windows, as if he could see past the gauzy curtains to the shadows within. As for Amelia, I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking. You leave the world for a hundred years, then return, incorporeal, in search of an object you lost, or descendants, or some scrap of connection. Filtered through Cormac, a century dead, I didn’t know her well enough to be able to guess. I hoped this was worth it.

I opened the door; Cormac followed me inside, and Ben followed him, hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket.

Ahead of us a set of stairs was blocked by a gate that said
NO ADMITTANCE.
To the right was a doorway that led to what was probably a parlor or sitting room in the house’s earlier days. It had been converted to a reception area, with several nicely upholstered chairs and a small coffee table of antique mahogany holding copies of high-end architectural and travel magazines. Decoration included bookshelves, tasteful knickknacks, and copies of Impressionist paintings that might have been hanging here for a century. A desk and a young, polished receptionist sat as guardians to a far doorway.

All three of us were out of place here.

“Hi,” I said, moving forward to the desk, letting momentum carry me. “I’m Kitty Norville, I have an appointment with Mr. Parker.”

The prim woman flashed a brief glance at us before looking over her shoulder at the door. “Yes, he’s expecting you.”

“Thanks.” We went to the second door, and I wondered if I should have come alone. We looked like a pack moving in, intimidating. But Cormac needed to be here, to plead our case, and we weren’t going to leave Ben behind.

Nicholas Parker might have been pacing, waiting for us. We caught him stopped by the window, looking out at the street, hands clasped behind his back, fingers twined anxiously. He glanced over his shoulder and sighed. He was in his thirties, clean-cut with upper-class polish, perfect shirt and tie, and neat hair. The jacket to the suit, charcoal gray, hung over the back of the chair. He had meat on his bones and probably spent time at a gym. A gold wedding band glinted on his finger.

“I’ll try to make this painless,” I said, with what I hoped was a friendly smile. “I’m Kitty.” I approached with an offered hand, and he took the cue automatically and shook it. “This is Ben O’Farrell, and this is Cormac Bennett. He’s the one who actually discovered the information about Amelia.” Parker shook their hands, too. Both Parker and Cormac fidgeted, and I had a feeling Parker wasn’t any more used to feeling this uncomfortable than Cormac was. Ben, bless him, stayed quiet and watched.

“I’m afraid I still don’t understand what this is about,” Parker said. “Shall we sit? Would you like tea, coffee?” He gestured us to chairs across from the wide antique desk occupying the center of the room, off center from the window. We took the chairs; Parker remained standing, which was okay. He needed to feel safe.

“How much do you know about what happened to Amelia Parker?” I asked.

Parker shrugged. “She was a bit of an eccentric and died rather violently in America. I can’t say I know much else about her. The family gets requests every now and then from scholars wanting to look at her papers, but she didn’t leave much behind. I thought everything that was possible to know about her had already come to light. We have a few photographs, a painting, a childhood diary, the few letters she wrote home. That’s all.”

“Did you know she was researching the occult?”

He chuckled nervously. “She caused quite a scandal with her interests. I can show you the letter her brother—my great-great-grandfather—wrote to their parents, lamenting her fallen state. Too many gothic stories as a child, he said.”

“Actually, all her research had a purpose. She became a fairly accomplished magician.”

His polite smile turned stricken. “You don’t mean the kind that pulls rabbits out of hats, do you?”

“No,” I said. “I can’t claim to understand exactly what happened or how, but she cast a spell. Part of her survived her execution in Colorado. She’s here, right now.”

The smile fell, and he stared. “If you want money, if you think you can claim some sort of inheritance, I’m afraid you’re sorely misguided and I will call the police—”

“Not money,” Cormac said. His voice stabbed, sudden and out of place in the antique office. “A box. She just wants some of her things back. She hid them in the house in Sevenoaks.”

“You’ve done your research,” Parker said.

“I didn’t have to. Amelia told me.”

“I don’t know what kind of charlatans—”

“There’s a second stairway into the attic, a servant’s passage from the kitchen up the back of the house. In the attic, she rigged up a secret compartment under the floor. The box should still be there.”

“That stairway was boarded up years ago—”

“You don’t have to believe me. Go and look for yourself, see if it’s there. If it is, Amelia wants it back. That’s all. We’ll leave you alone after that.”

Parker maintained a rigid dignity, despite the anger in his gaze. “If this is a publicity stunt—”

“It’s not,” I said. “I’d have brought cameras if it were.”

Cormac said, “The house has three stories, a cellar under the pantry, and the attic. The nursery has always been on the second floor on the south side of the house, and has two sashed windows and a fireplace. The kitchen is on the north side of the house, on the ground floor, and Mother always complained that it was too small for the entertaining she wanted to do. There are five bedrooms, two sitting rooms, a music room, and a dining room. I doubt the bust of Admiral Nelson still sits on the mantel in the larger sitting room, but perhaps the painting of Sir Richard Parker, my own great-grandfather, who knew him, still hangs over the fireplace.”

Parker stared. “No, that painting was taken down in the forties, replaced by one of my grandparents. But the bust is still there. Mostly as a conversation piece.”

“Ah,” sighed Amelia, using Cormac’s voice.

“How could you possibly know—”

“It’s Amelia,” I said. “She’s here, and she knows.”

The anger fell away, his expression falling slack—as if he’d seen a ghost. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

Cormac regarded him with a flat expression—Parker had stated the obvious.

“We need a favor, Mr. Parker,” I said. “Let us look for the hidden door in the attic of the house. If it’s not there, if we don’t find the box, we’ll leave you alone and you’ll never hear from us again. If it is—then you know we’re right.”

Ben leaned forward. “I’m an attorney in the U.S., and while I’m not at all qualified to discuss British law, I’d be happy to look over any kind of waiver or document you’d want us to sign, protecting your rights.”

“Except Amelia’s box,” Cormac said.

Parker said, “Assuming you are right—what am I supposed to do with this information? You tell me a long-dead ancestor isn’t really dead—am I expected to welcome her back to the family? What do I tell my wife? My father?”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Cormac said, brusque, steady. “She’s the one who left the family, she doesn’t expect anything now.”

“But—but what if I
want
 … Mr. Bennett, not many people have the opportunity to speak to an ancestor. Perhaps she knows about some other treasures buried about the estate.”

Cormac paused, the sign of an internal conversation. “If there are, she doesn’t know about them.”

“All right, then,” he said. “You’ve got me. It may be a joke, but I’m willing to see it through. A contract won’t be necessary, Mr. O’Farrell, but you’ll understand if I leave a detailed account of this meeting behind with my associate. I assume you want to search for this hidden treasure as soon as possible?”

“As soon as it’s convenient for you,” I said, trying to be reassuring.

Parker said that the village was about a half hour by train from Charing Cross Station, and that he could meet us there in the morning to drive us to the house. We’d have an hour or so to look.

“There’s always a chance someone found it and got rid of it,” Cormac said.

“Got rid of something? From that house?” Parker said. “I don’t know what it was like a hundred years ago, but since then everything’s just gone into the attic. You may have to dig to find your compartment.”

“That’s fine.”

We finalized our plans, and the receptionist on the intercom announced that Parker’s next appointment had arrived, so we made our way to the door.

“Thank you for your time,” I said, shaking his hand again. “It really does mean a lot.”

Parker remained thoughtful. “You hear about things like this in the news, but you don’t think of it because it doesn’t impact you. Then something like this happens. I have to confess, Ms. Norville, I’m not sure I know what to believe.”

“It’s like that for a lot of us,” I said.

Then we were back on the street, in the middle of the afternoon, among the streets and town houses that were simultaneously familiar and otherworldly.

“That went a hell of a lot better than I was expecting,” Cormac said.

“What were you expecting?” Ben asked.

“That he’d say we were crazy and call the police.”

“It’s a brave new world,” I said. “Werewolves are real. So are ghost whisperers, apparently.”

*   *   *

T
HAT EVENING
, Emma and I sat in the lobby of the hotel’s convention center and people-watched.

“There, that one.” She nodded at one of the few vampires who’d finally shown up at the conference. He was male, wearing a conservative suit and tie, and had a suave demeanor. “He’s one of Njal’s lieutenants. Njal was the one with the wolves in chains.”

“So they’re bad guys.”

“Not necessarily. Njal has a reputation for taking very good care of his people, including the werewolves. Not all vampires are like that.”

“It just never occurs to him
not
to keep werewolves as pets on chains?” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, wincing. “They do because they can.”

“Doesn’t make it right,” I said.

“Ned says Njal’s been playing both sides. There’s no telling where he stands—or if he’ll even stick with a side once he finally decides.”

Cormac said he had more exploring in London to do. No doubt Amelia was fascinated with the changes the city had undergone in the last century. Ben and I returned to the conference and another round of lectures and presentations. Emma had arrived after dark to take a look around—to scout on Ned’s orders, I was pretty sure.

I debated telling her about meeting Caleb. Her, and by extension Ned. The two camps in London, vampire and werewolf, seemed autonomous and separate. Which shouldn’t have surprised me—that was how it seemed to work most places the werewolves weren’t overtly under the vampire Master’s control. Maybe I had hoped that the situation Rick and I had in Denver—independent but allied—was more common. If other places worked that way, we wouldn’t be such an anomaly.

A few minutes later Emma pointed out another one—a thirtysomething woman whom I recognized as one of the underlings from the convocation last night arriving to talk to Njal’s lieutenant. They left together a moment later.

“She’s with Petra, the dark-haired woman with the flashy gown,” Emma said.

“So Njal and Petra are on the same side, whichever side they’re on.”

“Again, not necessarily. They could be feeling each other out, trying to cut a deal, or trying to spy on each other.”

“Can’t we make any assumptions with you people?” I said.

She shrugged. “Not beyond the obvious. We drink blood and sleep at dawn.”

“I can point out a dozen lycanthropes here, and they may or may not have a pack back home. Some species don’t even have packs, and even if they do most of them probably haven’t checked in with the local pack alpha. Are there any unallied vampires? Any of them here on their own and not affiliated with a Master?”

“You do occasionally get lone vampires, but it’s rare,” she said. “Being part of a Family makes things so much easier.”

“I’ve had people call into the show—new vampires who say they’d never even heard of Families. They were victims of random attacks, and they have no choice but to take care of themselves. What about them?”

“They usually don’t last very long,” she said, frowning. “Denver’s Master, Rick—Alette says he was unaffiliated for centuries.”