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“I think they were running it as a secret society. Rutger took over as president of the order shortly after he married a woman named Amanda. They had four children. Two daughters and two sons—Jackson and Orrin.”
“Let me guess. One of their boys is Harold’s father.”
“Right. Jackson. By the time Harold hit middle school, his grandmother died, and his grandfather—Rutger—followed shortly after. Rutger left the house to Harold’s uncle Orrin. Interestingly enough, the old man declined to leave Jackson and his sisters any inheritance.”
“I wonder why.”
“Don’t know, but Rutger left the bulk of his estate to Orrin, except for a large trust fund he’d set up for Harold. Jackson ended up inheriting his money from his maternal grandmother. Orrin lived in the house until Harold started college. Then he moved into a condo and signed the deed over to Harold, who turned the mansion into the frat house you see today.”
Delilah gave me a satisfied smirk.
“You were a busy bee today. So tell me, what else did you find out about Dante’s Hellions through the years?”
I glanced out the window. We were about ten minutes away from the Salish Ranch Park, which straddled the boundary line that divided the Belles-Faire District from the central Seattle urban area. The park was adjacent to the Wedgewood Cemetery where, apparently, our ghouls were having a rousing good time.
“I can’t find any mention of it after Orrin took over the house. Either it went underground or just fell off the radar until Harold decided to revive it.”
She sighed. “Harold has been a severe disappointment to his parents, failing not only to get into Yale, Princeton, or any other Ivy League college because of his personality, not his grades. He also managed to get himself in trouble a number of times.”
“And Chase—did he do the background checks on the boys living there?”
“Yeah, I was talking to him when dispatch interrupted with the news about the ghouls. He’ll fill us in on what he found after we take out the undead crew.”
She pointed to the parking lot that served for both the cemetery and the park. “There—there’s a spot near the gates.”
I swung in, my Jag smoothly rolling to a stop as Camille pulled in on my left in her Lexus. We headed across the lawn. The cemetery’s labyrinth of cobblestone paths was lit by a string of gas-lantern replicas, but in reality they were as up-to-date as Delilah’s laptop. The lamps added a serene, peaceful sense to the somber environment.
The cemetery was still open, but it looked like most of the patrons—those still with breath in their lungs—had fled. The dead inhabitants remained dead, or at least I hoped so. If there was a necromancer somewhere around dabbling in resurrection, then we were all in trouble.
Chase strode over to meet us. He’d brought backup, and most of the officers were Fae or elfin.
“What have you got for us?” I asked.
“Ghouls. Apparently one of the picnickers was a house sprite and recognized them. He’s the one who called in. He said there were quite a few.” Chase motioned to the officers. “What do they need? What kills ghouls? And what’s the difference between a wight and a ghoul? None of my men seem to know much about the undead.”
I frowned. We’d fought more wights than I cared to remember not long ago, but ghouls . . . ghouls were just nasty. “Wights eat both spirit and body. Ghouls devour flesh only, but they’re cunning, and until you torch them or tear them from limb to limb, they’ll continue to fight. Even a severed arm can attack until you chop it up.”
“Delightful,” Chase said, and his tone perfectly mimicked Camille’s. I started to laugh, and he frowned. “What?”
“Nothing. I think we’re rubbing off on you. Okay, to kill a ghoul, silver always works, but it has to be big silver. No silver dimes, if they even still make them, no silver spoons. Silver as in big whopping silver. The metal sucks out the magical energy they’ve been infused with. As for other weapons, you can smash them with a hammer. Maces work. But to thoroughly destroy them, you really need a blade to cut them into little pieces.”
“What about magic?” he asked, looking decidedly queasy.
“Fire works, magical or not. Ice, not so much, unless it freezes them solid so they can’t move. Most other spells won’t do any good. Oh, lightning works. They can’t drown, and they can live without air, so strangling really isn’t an option. But if you cut or twist off their head, they can’t see what they’re doing, so they make easy targets to pound on until they’re fully . . . dead. Again.”
Chase stared at me like I was a psycho.
“What? You asked.” Why did I always have the feeling he thought I was going to change into a three-headed people eater or something equally monstrous?
“I know, I know.” He shook his head. “I’m just amazed by the variety of ways you come up with to destroy people. Or things. Things that shouldn’t be walking around. What about you? Can you drain their blood?”
I grimaced. “What do you think I am, a syringe? First—just so unappetizing. Do you have any idea of what those things taste like?”
He grimaced. “No, and I don’t want to find out.”
“Fine, but their blood tastes like dirt and feces and worms, so no, thank you. Second: Whatever blood most of them had when they first died is long gone. Dried up. Think bag of walking bones with decaying flesh. I have no stomach for drinking the liquids that form when they decompose. How about you?”
That did the trick, because he abruptly shut up and returned to Delilah’s side.
