The Dead City Page 2

  “Are you okay?” Dean shouted anxiously.

  My heart was pounding. “I’m fine. I think.”

  Ms. Doyla opened her eyes and gazed at me. She appeared frazzled, her clothing askew. “That one almost did me in.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “You entered a past life of yours, long ago.” She straightened her clothing.

  “The woman in the woods preforming the exorcism was a past life of mine? I don’t buy that.” I always thought that past lives were something people wanted to believe in because they were afraid of the finality of death.

  “Ah, it doesn’t matter. It’s good news!” She focused her attention on Vovk. “Vovky, we don’t have to go.”

  Dean and I looked at each other.

  “I appreciate that you come all this way, but we’re not selling now.” Mrs. Doyla stood up like she wanted us to leave.

  “Not selling?” I replied.

  “We don’t have to go back to our country,” she said. Vovk looked as if he was ready to escort us out.

  “Back to Russia?”

  “Ukraine, but who cares. We’re staying.” Ms. Doyla adjusted her bracelets and fixed her scarf. “We have a chance now. I could see it in you, young lady.”

  “A chance?”

  “As of late, my palm readings have been very, very bad. Inside all the peoples who come to me, I see New York growing dark and evil. Forces age-old and kept locked away are back.”

  I felt a chill as she spoke. The thought of the girl in woods, possessed, returned to my mind. “What kind of forces are you talking about, Ms. Doyla?”

  “I see it. The Orobas are coming.”

  “The Orobas?” I asked.

  “Yes! They are the worst of the worst in history. There is one main Orobas. He reigns over the bottom floors of hell, with many legions of demons at his command.” Her eyes were wide and crazed. “Vovky and I were ready to run from here before all of this terror is bestowed upon us. But now we don’t have to go. I see we have a protector.”

  “Protector?” Dean asked.

  Ms. Doyla placed her eyes on me. “One Lila Stone.”

  Chapter 2

  THE TIMING COULDN’T have been any better. I had a therapy appointment scheduled with Dr. Devlin, and I had a lot to process with him.

  The offer for the brownstone was strange, but I took it. Apparently, Mrs. Doyla was cutting back on her palm-reading practice and therefore no longer needed such a large space. The deal would be for her and Vovk to live in the third-floor penthouse while we got the lower floors, including the secret chamber room.

  It wasn’t exactly blackmail (I paid her top dollar), but I told her it would help me protect the city. Dean drew up a lease for Ms. Doyla and Vovk, and they signed it.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Webber,” I said as Dr. Devlin’s housekeeper opened the door.

  She greeted me and let me into the apartment. I handed her a small bouquet of sunflowers that I had picked up at one of the markets up the street. Her face lit up like she’d never received flowers from anyone in her life.

  “How thoughtful of you, Detective Stone,” she replied, immediately placing them on the counter and opening the wrapping to prune them for the vase.

  I knocked on the office door and pushed it opened.

  “Hello, Lila,” Devlin said from behind his desk. He peeked up from his glasses. “You’re late.” He moved over toward the couch and sat down in his usual spot.

  “You’re a little testy.” I was only three minutes late, but some things never changed. Dr. Devlin was grumpy, plain and simple.

  I had actually grown to like therapy. I even liked the couch now. It helped me relax and free my mind. When I first started therapy with Dr. Devlin, it had been a sad attempt to trick him into giving me information about my father. Now it centered my life. It was a place where I could work out who I was in the face of a whirlwind of external influences and a city life that demanded so much of me. I slipped off my sneaks and fell back on the couch.

  “First things first, I’m starting to like Ms. Webber.”

  “She seems to be fond of you as well,” he replied.

  I popped up. “Really? Cool. What’s her story, anyway? I mean, why do you need a housekeeper? Seems a little weird in this day and age.”

  “She’s been with me many years and…” He stopped, seeming annoyed. “I don’t need to explain myself.” I knew Devlin well enough to know when he was done with chitchat. So I got to it.

  “So much has happened. Dean and I just scored an excellent place for the Society of Justice. It’s uptown, West Side brownstone, right off the park.”

  He nodded. “Very good.”

  “Only thing is, I had to make a weird deal with the current owner. She gets the upstairs penthouse. She decided not to sell at the last minute.”

  “I feel like there are giant holes in this story. Swiss-cheese size.”

  I told Devlin everything, including the trance-like state Ms. Doyla put me in during the palm reading. After I finished talking, the office was quiet. I leaned up to look at him. He had gotten up and gone to his desk.

  “I thought you fell asleep.”

  “Not exactly. Come over here and sit in the chair. It’s time that I tell you about your parents,” Devlin said, his voice sounding oddly nervous.

  I got off the couch and sat down. He took a small hanky out of his pocket and cleaned his half-framed glasses.

  I could barely contain my curiosity. He seemed as if he was searching for his pipe. He then huffed and fell back in his chair.

  “I knew eventually I’d have to tell you about your father and your mother. And, in turn, about yourself.”

  I gulped and felt lightheaded. My pulse ticked up. Finally, the details of my parent’s lives—the ones he’d refused to tell me.

  “When your father first came to see me, he was a young police officer. I’d seen a lot of cops back then because the department referred to me often. It was always the same. They struggled with anger, depression, brutality, and addictions. I thought your father would be the same, but he wasn’t. His troubles were with the department and the politics. I helped him become a detective.”

  “I knew it! You helped him with cases, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but that’s not my point. When I met your mother, he ended up helping me.” He cleared his throat. “There was a curse put on this city, probably for good reason at one time. The supernatural beings were controlled by this curse, limiting their power and ability to organize effectively. They had to do all of their business in the underground world, if at all. Our history was so suppressed by this curse that your mother didn’t even know she had druid ancestry. We made a connection as we are both druids, but from different bloodlines. It seemed like pure coincidence, but now I can see that it clearly wasn’t.

  A billion questions rushed to my mind, so many I was speechless. At first, Devlin was there to help my father; then my father helped him by re-introducing him to his druid connections, that of my mother.

  “My vision during the palm reading with Ms. Doyla, she called it a past life of mine,” I muttered.

  “You entered your druid ancestry, confirming your druid bloodline. It sometimes can skip generations, but it hasn’t with you.”

  “I have it?”

  He nodded. “You were performing an exorcism as a druid, using that power and that magic. That’s what you, as your ancestor, were doing in the woods with the girl.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me I had this history?” I didn’t need to ask it; I knew his answer. Devlin would never take my life journey from me, and I loved him for that, no matter how hard it was. He also respected the confidentiality of my parents.

  “I didn’t know for sure about you. But what happened with Ms. Doyla is proof that you carry the bloodline—and significantly so. Also, there is further evidence that the curse has been lifted from the city. What has been under the tip of the iceberg has now been released.”

  “Mrs. Doyla mentioned a name. She said the Orobas are coming. What do you know about that?”

  Devlin’s face turned ashen. He rubbed his forehead. “An ancient demon tribe. They are behind some of the worst atrocities in history.”

  A chill ran through me. “Wonderful.”

  All of this was a bit much. And I had little clue what it meant to have druid ancestry. Then another experience suddenly returned to my mind. I thought of Liam and my trip on the vampire drug. I’d returned to Boston in the 1930s. It was a similar time-travel experience to what happened with Mrs. Doyla.

  “When I took the vampire elixir, I thought I time-traveled to 1930 and met Liam, but maybe I had tapped into my ancestral bloodline without knowing it. Another druid incarnation?”

  “Likely so,” Devlin asserted.

  “So these embodied ancestries, the one from Mrs. Doyla’s palm reading and the one with Liam, they’ve got to be important.”

  “Yes, to who you are now and what you will have to do,” Devlin replied.

  “Who was this ancestor of mine that was with Liam? And who was she to Liam?” I asked, as more of a question to myself.

  “It seems that the only one who could answer that question definitively would be Liam.” Devlin gazed at me. I nodded.

  I could see that our session was over. I got ready to go, but then hesitated. This was so much to digest.

  “You should get going, Lila. Build that Society of Justice of yours as soon as you can.”

  I went to the door and opened it. I turned back to Devlin before I walked out. I studied his features. It wasn’t fear or even concern that I saw—it was sadness. It was as if he was experiencing some kind of loss.

  “I’ll see you later,” I said as I shut the door.

  Chapter 3

  A WEEK LATER, it was chaos at Central Park West. The Society of Justice was under major construction.

  Thank God Vovk and Dean took care of it all. We needed a front desk for the entrance, and we needed a waiting room, too. The client meeting room, which had been the living room, now consisted of a large table and comfortable chairs. I insisted on a bar in the corner of the room, including a kegerator with a couple of taps.

  I sat on one of the chairs at the bar and ran my hand over the soft wooden finish. Dean had it hand-made with a leg rest and hooks.

  Movers were bringing furniture into the waiting room, and it was loud with all the hammers and saws going. But it was music to my ears. The place was stellar.

  “Drinking so early, Stone,” Liam said as he ducked under a bunch of two-by-fours carried by a construction worker.

  “Actually, it’s just coffee, care for some?” It was Ethiopia bean made awesome by a totally ridiculous deluxe coffeemaker. I had Dean do the research and buy the best one he could find. It sat next to the bar.

  “No thanks. But I see you have your priorities straight. Craft beer selections on tap and fresh coffee.”

  He had his black aviators on, baseball hat, jeans, and a white V-neck T-shirt under a light black leather jacket. I hadn’t gotten used to his missing hand. People stared when we walked the city streets. But he didn’t seem to give a crap.

  “What do you think of the bar?” I asked. “Remind you of good old Dublin?”

  “Not exactly.” He smiled. “You mind if I shut these?” It was a bright morning and the sun came in through the windows. He closed the curtains.

  Liam’s hat and glasses fell on the bar. He slid his jacket off, revealing his long, muscular arms. His dirty blond hair stood up a little on his head. He pulled the chair up to the bar, closer to me. He smelled clean and fresh, and I felt my stupid face flush. He had some light stubble on his chin and his light green eyes flickered.

  Liam was hard to read. I mostly picked up terrible agony inside him—suffering and distraction, like he was living somewhere in the distant past. He definitely carried the weight of the vampire, decades of heavy existence on his shoulders. But then there would be moments of playfulness and flirtation. The thing that bugged me the most about him was his aloofness. While I was steeped in building the Society of Justice, he was often missing.

  He was such a private guy, so it was always a problem getting anything out of him. I had to see what he knew about the curse, however. Also, I needed to know who the girl was that I had embodied in my bloodline. I was her with Liam back in 1930’s Boston when he watched his family die at the hands of the vampire gang.

  I figured I’d ease him into the conversation. “Where have you been hiding?” I began. “Just waiting around for our first case?”

  “I’m not the social type. You know that.”

  “Nor am I, but we’re partners and we have the SOJ to run.” My words were crusty. I couldn’t help it. I was pissed at him.

  He sighed. “Looks like I’m going to need some coffee after all.” He jumped off the chair and hit the button on the coffeemaker. I watched him fumble with the stack of mugs. I could see that having only one hand was tricky at times. I went to help him, and he turned around and we almost bumped into each other.

  “Oops… sorry,” I said.

  “Are you?” he replied, looking into my eyes. We were close, so close I could feel his breath on me. My chest tightened. He then brushed against me slightly as he filled his cup. I felt dumb standing there with my body doing all kinds of crazy things inside, so I went and sat back down.

  This was my issue with Liam. I’d had enough therapy with Dr. Devlin to know. One minute I hated him, the next I lusted over him. This was exactly why flirting with Liam wasn’t going to work. I could list a million reasons why. We were detective partners and he was a tormented vampire—just to name a few. I’d covered all this with Dr. Devlin. It was clear. No Liam. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Liam was out.

  “What do you know about the curse?” I said, wanting to get straight to the point. I had learned that when you interrogate, always assume that the person knows the information you are seeking. Don’t ask, did you know the victim? Ask, how did you know the victim? It worked wonders in getting people to tell you the truth.

  Liam’s face dropped. His good spirits vanished. “How do you know about the curse?” he asked.

  “Ms. Doyla. Then Devlin confirmed it.” I left out the other stuff for now—my mind-blowing druid ancestry discovery for one. “The curse has been lifted.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I wasn’t until today, with Devlin. He said so, and I trust him.”

  Liam ran his hand through his hair and took a sip of coffee. “Malcolm must be behind this.”

  “Malcolm did say that bad things were coming.” I knew Liam had a history with Malcolm. He worked for Malcolm and the CIA. But Liam didn’t tell me everything. “Devlin said that Malcolm was an evil sorcerer. Is that true?”

  Liam was quiet for a moment. “Yeah,” he finally uttered. “Good coffee.”

  “You’re being evasive.” I could tell Liam was hiding something. His reaction when I mentioned the curse said it all. His face seemed to flush in shame; I didn’t think vampires capable of that emotion. I’d seen him get angry before, but never anything like shame.

  “A witch cursed the city,” he said curtly like that was the end of the conversation.

  “And—”

  “And that’s what happened.”

  I huffed in frustration. I went behind the bar and filled my coffee mug again. “You have to get over this mysterious bullshit thing you do if we’re going to be equal partners.”

  “Oh, and you’re giving me everything you’ve got, Stone?”

  He had a point. I hadn’t told him about my druid bloodline or what I knew about him from 1930—that I was with him as someone else. I thought I would naturally trust Liam once he agreed to partner with me, but I didn’t completely. Maybe moments like this were reason enough why. I figured I’d give him a little and he’d give me more. Quid-pro-quo.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you something I found out. My history. I have a druid bloodline in me. Apparently.”

  “Interesting. I’m not surprised,” he said casually. There was something else, however. I picked it up. It was a sight hesitation. A concern.

  “What’s interesting was that I was surprised and you’re not.” I sipped my coffee and studied his response.

  “Druids are beyond stubborn, unreasonably independent, and difficult to work with. Sound familiar?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “It does. It sounds like you. Your turn. Quid-pro-quo, Liam.”

  “Fine.” He seemed to search his mind for choice details he wished to share. “The witch used an amulet to curse the city, one that I believe has been lost since.”

  “So what? I tell you I have druid history and you tell me the witch used an amulet? Tell me something good.”

  “You really don’t know much about this, do you? An amulet is used to cast protective spells—like a good-luck charm, essentially—but she turned it bad, to cast a dark and evil curse.”

  She? I said to myself. Liam knew this witch; I sensed it. I was about to press him when Dean and Vovk walked into the room.

  “I hate to intrude,” Dean interrupted, “but there’s a woman here to see you. She’s requesting detective services. I told her we aren’t open for business yet and to go away, but she’s not taking no for an answer.”

  “Our first customer! Escort her in, Dean. Liam and I will do the interview.”

  “We don’t even have a waiting room yet,” Dean groaned. He’d been very impatient with the pace of the construction. “I can’t work under these conditions.”

  “Hi, Dean,” Liam said.

  “Oh, sorry. Vovk, this is Liam. He’ll be here often. He’s part of the Society of Justice, full access to everything, including the secret chamber.” Vovk hung behind Dean and just nodded his head uncomfortably, as did Liam in return. It was almost like they knew each other—and didn’t like each other.

  Dean flicked his glance back and forth between them, noting the oddity of their interaction. He then zipped away with Vovk right behind him.

  “This conversation isn’t finished,” I said to Liam as we walked toward the conference table. He raised his shoulders dismissively.