The Curse Servant (The Dark Choir Book 2) (17 page)

Still, I had a new resource working for me. I didn’t trust him, but he was naïve enough to think he could dupe me into thinking that blood was his. That meant for all of his snooping skill, he was a novice at the actual Craft. If I couldn’t trust him, at least I could trust his ignorance.

It had been a dizzying weekend. With any luck at all, the coming week would bring me good news.

onday morning was gray and blustery. It was likely to be a stormy afternoon. At least I would get my morning coffee fix before the rain hit. I bustled down the block for the café and stepped under the outside awning, choosing a table closer to the building wall in case the rain decided to get an early start. Ches spotted me from inside and popped out with my usual, a nervous grin on her face.

“Good morning, Mister Lake,” she declared as she set the mug in front of me.

“Miss Baker.”

She leaned against the brick, crossing her arms. “Do anything interesting this weekend?”

“Nah,” I retorted after sipping the coffee. “Stayed inside, polished my silver. Oh, I did go on a date.”

“And how did it go?”

I gave her a grin. “Outstanding.”

Her lips pulled into a tight grin as her eyes dropped a little. Her mind seemed elsewhere. I was about to ask her what was up, when she stepped back inside. The owner haunted the window, staring a hole through me. He had noticed how chatty I had become with Ches, and I suspected my continued presence at this café would become difficult for her. I had only met him once or twice before, and only in passing. I didn’t even know his name.

I let him stare as I nosed over the morning’s Sun. There was considerably less campaign coverage than usual, thanks to a barge leak on the Mississippi. A good gust of wind blew the corner of my paper, folding it over in my view. Just beyond the paper, standing across the street, I spotted a man lingering as if waiting for a bus. But there was no bus stop there. The stop was halfway up the block, just around the corner from my house. He wasn’t holding a bag or a briefcase. He was just standing there.

Looking at me.

He wore a dark coat and a short-brimmed hat. A bit warm for the season. I lowered the paper and returned his glare. He seemed normal enough, but his features were difficult to commit to memory. I was fairly certain he wasn’t an acquaintance or client of mine.

We continued our eye lock for about a minute before he finally turned and stepped back up the street. He was certainly no shadow, no scampering imp hungry for the remains of my soul. He was real, at least real-seeming. It was the way he stared at me that truly put me off my feed. He was studious, full of gravity, and completely unimpressed that I had spotted him. And in a second, he was gone.

I wondered if I hadn’t found McHenry’s charm crafter? Or, more accurately, I wondered if he hadn’t found me? As I ruminated on the matter, a sense of dread crept up my sleeves. I couldn’t remember his face at all. I had no idea which direction he had gone. It had to be the effect of a glammer, a charm that altered appearance. Obfuscation glammers were very basic charms. A decent one could even make a person impossible to spot in a crowd.

Or at night.

“You okay?” Ches asked from behind my shoulder, nearly causing me to jump out of my skin.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Fine.”

“Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“What does that look like, exactly? People always say that. If I saw a ghost, would I suddenly have white hair, bloodshot eyes?”

Ches’s face fell, and she withdrew a step. “You just look freaked out, is all I meant.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.”

She cocked her head at me. “You didn’t snap.”

“Yeah, I did. I’m just a little weirded out. There was a guy…” I paused as Ches took a slow blink, her face growing pale. “Forget me, are you okay?”

Ches covered her forehead with her hand and leaned against the wall. “Uh, yeah. I mean no. Just feel off, all of a sudden.”

I stood up and guided her to a chair. “Here. Sit. Need some water?”

“No, I’m really fine.”

She really wasn’t.

I looked up for the owner, but he was finally tending to some other business inside the café.

“Think you’re coming down with something?” I offered, taking a seat beside her.

She shook her head slowly, her hair falling down the sides of her face.

A low chuckle bubbled up from her throat.

“Down? Down we go, Dorian Lake.”

The hair on my neck stood on end. Ches’s voice had adopted a hard, shaky tone.

She pulled her head up slowly. Her eyes were twisted into a menacing sneer. “Down the rabbit hole.”

“No!”

She burst into a wicked cackle, her fingers snarling into claws on her chair’s armrests. “Down, down falls Dorian Lake. Into the pit where all souls wait. Watch it boil and watch it bake.”

I thrust a finger into her face. “You get out of her!”

“Watch him cheat you out of your fate!”

I slammed my hand onto the table. “You get out of her NOW!”

Ches lunged at me, knocking me over in my chair. Coffee splashed across both of us as we tumbled backward, rolling on the tile as the mug smashed into pieces. She leveraged herself on top of me, wrapping her fingers around my throat. Her mouth had contorted back into an animalistic grimace.

I gasped against her grip, kicking my legs against the nearby furniture to get the owner’s attention.

Ches’s chuckles turned into growls, and her grip redoubled. I coughed and gagged, blood pooling up in my head.

I managed to get a hand under her throat and pressed up against her windpipe. My thumb slipped into the notch between her clavicles, and she gagged. Her gripped loosened enough for me to twist my head. I sucked in a breath and brought my knee up against her ribs hard. She pitched off to the side, tumbling into more chairs.

I pulled myself to my side, gasping for air as she flailed her arms and legs. Her body skittered across the tiles until she hit the back iron banister separating the café seating from the alley behind the building. Her head struck the iron with a loud clang, and her eyes fluttered for a second. Her growls turned into gasps.

I managed to pull myself to my feet and cautiously approached her. With one last spasm, her arms fell still. Too still. I crouched down in front of her to check for breathing when I heard a loud booming voice behind me.

“Hey! Get away from her!”

I turned to find the owner stepping out of the café. He was holding an umbrella like a club.

I held up my hands. “Easy. I’m checking if she’s breathing.”

“Step away,” he grunted, barreling toward me. I hopped to the side as he dropped down beside her. Ches was already moving her arm, lifting her hand to rub her head.

“What?” she whispered.

The owner moved to help her, but managed only to grab her shoulders.

“Are you hurt? What did he do?”

Her eyes moved lazily from side to side until she managed to open them fully. When they centered on me, she pursed her lips.

“Oh,” she gasped. “What did… what happened?”

I tried to step closer, but he jabbed the point of his umbrella at me. “You stay back!”

“I didn’t attack her.”

She shook her head. “No. I didn’t mean to.”

The owner moved his head slowly to her. “Baker? What’s going on?”

She looked over miserably to her boss. I realized this was about to be a bad conversation for her.

“I didn’t―”

I interrupted, “She didn’t attack me. She spilled the coffee, and I over-reacted. I’m sorry.”

“You over-reacted?” he sputtered. “What, did you hit her?”

“I didn’t hit her.”

“Dorian,” she mumbled with panicked eyes.

I held up a hand to her. “Sorry. Things haven’t been the same since I got back from Afghanistan.”

The owner was on his feet, moving step-by-step into my space. “You expect me to believe you were in the service? What branch?”

I spotted a tattoo of an eagle and an anchor peeking out from under his sleeve. Fuck.

“No, I was visiting an uncle.”

“Ches, did this man hit you?”

She huddled her knees up to her chest, tears falling.

I braced myself. I would have to sell this if Ches was going to keep her job. “It was an accident. I just get a little keyed up.”

Two hands grabbed my shirt before I saw them move. He didn’t hit me, or really shove me. It was more like he lifted me by my shirt and physically carried me to the street. With a sharp toss, he hurled me out from underneath the awning. I barely landed on the sidewalk without rolling into the street.

He glared down at me with bloodshot eyes and pointed a meaty finger at me. “You get out of here, and you don’t ever come back. You read me? I’ll call the cops on you the next time I see you.”

I looked up at him, then over to Ches, who was still balled up behind the tables. I nodded and pulled myself to my feet, turning my back to the café for the last time.

It was only a block and a half to my house, but the walk took forever.

The Dark Choir had just crossed a line. This wasn’t simple goading. This was intensely personal. It was an attack.

And they had violated Ches to do it.

I needed my soul back, and soon. Until then, it was going to be total war.