The Curse Servant (The Dark Choir Book 2) (42 page)

The tar fully charged, I pulled the cauldron from its stand by its handle and tipped the iron bowl with the steel rod. A delicate trickle of black landed on top of my gold script. I walked a slow circle once again, covering the script in hate-charged tar. I struggled to keep the flow steady and even as footsteps from the guests above gnawed at my attention.

Focus. Focus was paramount.

Once the black spiral was complete, I set aside the cauldron and reached for the final, most vital reagent. Carmody’s blood. I dropped the tube from the blood test kit into the mason jar and gave it a gentle swish. In the space of a minute, the rainwater blurred into a light red. It wouldn’t take much of this diluted blood to charge the curse, but I wanted to rehydrate as much of the blood as I could just to be sure. I didn’t want to come back to this table for the same curse.

More footsteps clambered upstairs, and I heard a furniture leg screech against the hardwood floor. The Swains knew better than this. One stray alien thought crossed my mind, threatening to derail the entire working. What if Elle was causing trouble?

The panic center of my brain kicked around dire possibilities. Was she having a seizure? Was the servitor making a final attempt to escape? Two decades worth of rigorous training under a particularly surly Spaniard unraveled as I listened to the scuffling upstairs.

But it was the shriek that really pulled me out of the moment.

set the jar of blood-water down on the center of the shroud and took a step to the stairs.

“Everyone okay up there?”

The shuffling paused, and I was answered with a blurt I couldn’t make out through the door. It was likely to completely offset the intent I had already laced into the curse, but I couldn’t let this continue upstairs. I still had the blood, and if I had to, I could dig up more gold from my mother’s old jewelry chest.

I fished a hunk of hematite from my stone shelf and grounded out the remaining charge from my hands and turned for the door.

I froze, however, when I heard the latch engage and the door slide against its massive hinges.

“Hello?” I called around the corner of the stairs.

“Suppose you couldn’t hear me through this bleeding vault door of yours,” Carmody’s voice dribbled down the stairs.

Gillette’s wandering eyes centered on me for a brief moment.

“Carmody?” I responded.

“I require your attention presently. Best haul your bollocks up here before someone gets hurt.”

Gillette’s mouth drew back into a sneer.

I held up a finger to my lips, then gestured with wide palms for her to stay put.

“Lake? I am not taking the piss here. Upstairs, now.”

Edgar’s voice called down with a tremolo, “He has a gun.”

Fuck.

I held up my hands, took in a breath, and started up the stairs. When I crested the steel door’s threshold, I spotted Carmody standing in my front room, his back to the windows. He gripped Wren by the hair on the back of her head, arm straight out. His other hand had a revolver trained at the center of her back. Edgar stood by the futon, his hands up by his face, his body shielding Elle.

“And there he is,” Carmody proclaimed. “Had me worried. Thought he was going to let you bite a bullet, love.”

“Carmody, you can’t be serious with this,” I said.

“Can’t I?”

“A gun?”

“Oh, that offends you, does it? Here you are in your basement with a fully loaded curse cocked and ready to fire.”

“Don’t do this, Carmody. You’re asking for trouble here that even you can’t weasel out of.”

“Then let’s be brief, shall we? You salt my blood, and we’ll call it even.”

I bit my lip. He was dead serious about this. I didn’t have any leverage on Carmody. All I had was an arrangement with Gillette. Carmody had a gun. At that moment, the gun was more compelling. Still, if I salted his blood, I’d ruin its efficacy, and I wouldn’t be able to even start over with the curse.

“Listen to me. You drew me into this conflict between you and Gillette. You could have stayed out of the Life, left well enough alone. But you had to get greedy, didn’t you?”

“A man has certain material needs, mate.”

“You really thought you could start up Netherworking this close to D.C.?”

“It’s a gamble. Safer than Portland, at any rate. Unfortunately for me, Swain here doesn’t carry human skin in his shop, so fuck me sideways.”

“That’s a lot of lives you’re ruining over a gamble.”

“Oh, cry me to sleep. Now if you don’t mind dispensing with the chit chat, I’d very much like to see you salt my blood and be on my way.” He tightened his grip on Wren’s hair. “Or are you such a soulless piece of shit you don’t mind watching your friends get their skulls ventilated?”

Edgar flinched.

I held a hand out to Edgar, trying to interrupt his impulse to jump the man.

“Murder, Carmody. Actual hands-on murder isn’t like a curse, and you know it. A curse is coincidence in the eyes of the law. A gun? That’s something that’ll get the FBI crawling so far up your ass you’ll be shitting Quantico blue for the rest of your life in federal prison.”

“Then let’s not force me into that uncomfortable predicament, shall we? You’re not the one who wants me. I know it. You know it. It’s Gillette who wants me, and when I’m long gone, she’ll find some other poor bastard for you to dash to pieces in her name.”

“I don’t have time. She doesn’t have time,” I added pointing to Elle.

“Right. Very sorry about that, but that wasn’t my doing.”

“Perhaps not directly. But you’re the one who put the hermetic merc into McHenry’s hands.”

“And she’s the one you should be cursing, mate. Isn’t she the one who created this particular little nightmare scenario?”

“We all share a little blame on that account. But right this very second adding to the suffering isn’t going to―”

A shadow loomed in the leaded glass pane of my front door, and a heavy knock rang through the house.

Carmody’s eyes narrowed, and he pushed the gun into Wren’s back, causing her to yelp.

Edgar looked to me in panic.

“Who’s that, then?” Carmody growled.

“No idea.”

“Everyone shut your yap until it goes away.”

Another knock, and a low, thunderous voice called through the door, “Yo, Mister Lake! You home?”

I recognized the voice. Tyrel.

“It’s a tenant,” I whispered.

Carmody rolled his eyes and leaned back to look through the front window.

“Right. Get rid of him.” He added as I stepped toward the foyer, “I don’t have to warn you about kinky business, right?”

I nodded and cracked open the door to the chain.

Tyrel stood on the stoop in a snappy shirt and slacks, his head freshly shaven.

“Hey, Mister Lake.”

“Tyrel?”

He waved a stack of papers in front of me. “You said to come to you if we had questions. I’m on my way to the bank, and I have questions. You got a minute?”

I squinted and took a deep breath. “Actually, I have some friends over.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. Just old friends who stop by, you know. Like your neighbors across the street.”

Tyrel’s eyes narrowed, and he glanced over to my front windows.

I continued, “I’d be happy to chat later, though.”

Tyrel clenched his jaw and gave me a prodding look.

I moved my eyes deliberately to the side of the house.

“Thanks for understanding.”

Tyrel nodded. “Uh, oh. Yeah. Not a problem, Mister Lake.”

“I’ll see you soon?”

“Sure thing. Have a good time with your friends.”

Tyrel trotted back to the street, turning casually toward my alley.

I closed the door slowly and neatly, and turned to Carmody.

“Done.”

“And you’re stalling, mate. The blood. Now.”

I lifted my hands. “Alright, alright. You win, dammit. I’ll do it.”

“That’s a smart chap.”

I marched to the basement stairs and added over my shoulder, “I can trust you not to get gun-stupid while I’m downstairs?”

“Despite my course appearance, Lake, I am actually a perfect gentleman when you get to know me.”

“Right.”

I descended the stairs, and found Gillette hovering by the bottom step. I gestured for her to step aside, but she wouldn’t budge.

“He doesn’t know you’re here,” I whispered into her ear as I squeezed past her.

“You lose that blood, I won’t lift a finger for that girl,” she whispered back.

“Yeah, well right now I’m more worried about bullets than servitors.”

“Your call.”

I gripped the mason jar of rose liquid and turned back for the stairs. “I know.”

Gillette moved aside.

I climbed back upstairs slowly, trying not to spill a drop of the liquid. Carmody’s eyes lit up as I arrived in sight. His posture stiffened, however, as I turned to the hall.

“Where are you going, then?”

“Salt’s in the kitchen, Einstein.”

I gestured with my head, and Carmody tightened his grip on Wren’s hair even further. She released a sputtering exhale.

“You,” he barked at Edgar, “stay in front of me.”

Edgar looked over his shoulder at Elle, who was lying on the couch, eyes closed, seemingly oblivious. I hoped she was asleep. Finally he wilted and moved in front of Wren, his hands still held up to his ears.

I turned to the kitchen and paused. The door to the alley was ajar.

I let Edgar catch up with me. This was my gamble. Edgar had to keep it cool. There was no way to communicate with him, no time to warn him. I just had to leave up to the Cosmos.

Three steps into the kitchen, I spotted Tyrel in my periphery, but didn’t move my head. I set the jar on the table and moved to a cabinet across the kitchen from Tyrel.

Edgar stepped behind me, turning his shoulders to watch me, and doing so turning his back to Tyrel.

I fished a canister of kosher salt from the top shelf of my pantry cabinet and paused. Carmody wasn’t inside the kitchen. He and Wren were parked in the doorway. I moved back to the table and put my back to Carmody, blocking his line of sight with the blood water.

I chanced a peek to Edgar, who stared at me with panicked bewilderment. With as modest a shift of my eyes as I could manage, I looked behind him at Tyrel, then back to Edgar.

Edgar’s posture stiffened, and he shuffled several feet to the side.

I exhaled, and picked up the box of salt, being sure to keep it close in front of me. Carmody would have to enter the kitchen to watch.

Pausing for a moment, I listened for movement. Nothing.

I took a chance and poured a handful of salt onto the table, allowing some to spill to the side.

A shuffling of feet behind me let me know he was agitated.

“Here, Lake. What did I say about kinky business?”

“What?”

“I want to see it.”

“Then come see it. Christ.”

Wren grunted, and feet stepped forward.

I heard a thin yelp from Wren, and turned just in time to see Carmody’s gun hand slip into view of the kitchen. Wren’s eyes were planted on Tyrel, now just inches from the two of them.

I turned with a handful of salt, gripping Carmody’s blood with my other hand.

“Here, Carmody. You don’t trust me?” I dropped the salt into the jar. The weak energy signature in the diluted blood flickered into an electric saline death. “There. You win.”