AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Before the Civil War, slaves were kept in holding pens down there.”
She knelt on the sidewalk and placed her hands on the concrete. “Yes. Nehemoth. The groaning.” She stood and stared to the east. “They found something by Columbia Square. By the Kehoe Mansion?”
“Yes.”
Her face lit up. “The king of cast iron. Tubal Cain. The lord of sharp weapons.” She tugged on my arm. “Old Candler. It was an asylum for years, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” I knew it had been, but I didn’t want to dwell on issues of mental health with her.
“God only knows how many have died there,” she said.
Josef and Ryder had committed murder to free the demon my grandfather had trapped there. Ryder had sacrificed his own girlfriend, Birdy, and their unborn child without a single qualm to draw the demon and its power into himself. My mind flashed on the image of Birdy’s ravaged corpse. I pushed it quickly away.
“Belphegor,” she chirped. “Lord of the Dead who reigns over those who bellow grief and tears.” I would have never imagined I’d hear these words spoken so cheerfully. “You had a circle on the map over by Christ Church.”
I nodded.
“Take us there.”
In the blink of an eye, we stood on the red brick sidewalk before the Episcopal meetinghouse.
Maisie looked the building over as if it were the first time she had seen it in her life. She turned 180 degrees to face Johnson Square then turned back to face me. “This isn’t quite right. It wasn’t here.” She took quick steps to the corner, then turned on Congress and headed east. I struggled to catch up with her, waddling as fast as I could. Suddenly she stopped and pointed up at the parking structure. “It was here, wasn’t it?” She burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, I know it isn’t funny, not really, but this convinces me you are right. There is no doubt this is a spell connected to the sephirot, and whoever is behind it has a sense of humor. The demon Astaroth. His title is ‘One of the Flock.’?” I waited silently for further explanation, but she looked at me like I was hopeless. Finally she sighed in exasperation. “You have told me a thousand stories about what used to stand here.”
I felt so embarrassed by my thickness I blushed. “Bo Peep’s Pool Hall.” I no sooner said the words than a car horn caused me to turn.
I registered the trident symbol on the front of Oliver’s new Quattroporte; then he pulled up next to us and rolled down the window. “You two need to get home now. Your aunts are worried, and I’m on my way to the airport.”
“The airport?” I echoed.
“Yep. Going to pick up Rivkah and Emmet. Get on home now,” he said and pulled away before the window had even finished closing.
FIFTEEN
I still believed only Emmet could free my grandmother, but a very large part of me regretted telling Iris to contact Rivkah. I didn’t want to see Emmet; I didn’t want to be near him. I didn’t want to feel my pulse rising when I laid eyes on Emmet, but I told myself we had no other option. I hated the butterflies that danced in my stomach as I heard his voice in the hall. I didn’t greet him as he and Rivkah came through the door. I couldn’t risk his seeing just how happy I was to see him. Instead I remained seated at the table, nursing an already lukewarm cup of chamomile.
I was grateful to Uncle Oliver for “inviting” Peter
to spend the evening with his parents. I couldn’t have dealt with having him and Emmet under the same roof. I had alerted Claire to Peter’s suspicions about his parentage, but worked both sides of the equation by making Peter promise not to broach the subject until I could be there with him. I hoped that issue was diffused for now.
The swinging door flung wide. “Darling, it’s so good to see you up and about,” Rivkah said as she pulled Maisie into a tight embrace. Maisie looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes widening as she pulled a face. I’d grown used to Rivkah’s enthusiastic hellos and had already braced myself for my turn. I was warming up my smile when Rivkah released Maisie and turned to look down at me. “What is this nonsense about you wanting to kill my boy?”
“Rivkah,” Emmet said, “you promised you wouldn’t do this.” His face flushed, like a teenager who’d been embarrassed by his mother. Well, perhaps that really didn’t fall too short of the mark. The two had developed a familial bond.
He looked good, having struck a balance between his original overly manicured look and the feral appearance he’d perfected before he left Savannah. Before I sent him away from Savannah. The memory of Tillandsia, how it felt to be in his embrace before everything went so horribly wrong, washed over me.
“Do what? Find out why this girl thinks she has the right to order us to drop everything and attend to her desires? It would be bad enough if she only needed help moving, but she wants to kill you.”
“Not permanently,” I offered, realizing instantly how inept my attempt to diffuse her anger was.
“Not permanently. Not permanently.” She slammed her purse on the table so hard I jumped.
“Rivkah, enough,” Emmet said, putting his hand on her shoulder.
“No.” She turned to face him. “What she’s asking of you is too much.”
“Yes,” Iris concurred. “It is too much to ask, but it isn’t only Mercy who’s asking. It’s our entire family.” She stepped up behind me and gripped my shoulders.
“But he wouldn’t even consider this if it weren’t Mercy asking.”
