“Henry Hubert is buried in the castle that belonged to Guillaume and we have one huge piece of luck in our favor. Ron now owns the castle. The widow bought the property from the son of the dead owner, who was apparently quite the hedonist. The son lived in England, just like Eloisa Hubert. Neither of them wanted anything to do with it, but Eloisa did want to own it. It—and Swiss citizenship—have stayed in the family ever since,” Quinn said.
“Very curious, and yet not really,” Father Ryan murmured. “The widow must have known—or sensed—something. She never rented it out?” he asked.
“Not according to Dr. Hubert,” Danni told him.
“So, you can find the painting—or dig up the bones and bury them. Or burn them. But while you’re gone, searching for the body, anything could happen here,” Father Ryan said.
“Look,” Quinn began impatiently. “We don’t know where the painting is, but we do know where to find Hubert’s body.”
“Well, I can only assume you’re going to get into trouble, no matter what you plan to do.” Father Ryan walked into the dining room. Danni and Quinn followed him.
He took what appeared to be large garish gold medals off a shelf and gave one to Danni and another to Quinn.
They were heavy and didn’t depict any saints. “These have holy water in them,” Father Ryan said. “Not enough to drown a host of whatever you find, but enough to cause a retreat, perhaps. I have more for you in small flasks. Yes, sorry, flasks—they’re easily sealed and easily carried. They’ll pass through airport security, like contact solution. Keep one in your pocket, Quinn, and, Danni, just make sure you have your bag, purse or whatever nearby.”
“And you believe the holy water will...take down whatever this is?” Quinn asked.
“What do you believe?” Father Ryan asked.
Quinn smiled slowly. “I believe it will.”
Danni hoped they were right.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Father Ryan said. “If you do decide to fly to Geneva, you’re taking Natasha and me with you. You understand that, don’t you? And fair warning would be nice, since I’m going to have to get a substitute for any time I’m gone. The Lord is never on vacation, you know.”
“I’d look for a substitute, then, Father,” Quinn said.
Father Ryan nodded. “Well, then, you’d best go home. Get some sleep. And call me about the arrangements as soon as you can.”
“We’ll do that, Father,” Danni promised.
Father Ryan shooed them out. On the way to the car, Danni remembered Billie—and Hattie Lamont.
“Oh! I’ve got to call Billie!” she said. “He’s probably ready to tear his hair out by now. It’s getting late, but I should probably call Bo Ray, too, and ask him to get over to your house so Billie can have a reprieve.”
She dialed Billie’s number.
“Eh, Danni?” he said, answering his cell on the third ring.
“Billie. I’m sorry. I should’ve gotten in touch earlier—”
“If I’d needed you, lass, I’d have called you.”
“Okay, well, I wanted to tell you I’m going to call Bo Ray right now—”
“No need. I’m settled in for the night. Hattie is in the guest room. I’m on the sofa in the parlor and Wolf is guarding the front door. We’re good for the evening.”
Danni almost dropped the phone, she was so surprised.
“Oh. All right, then. Call me in the morning and let me know how you want to proceed, okay?”
“Aye, lass. Have a good night.”
“Thanks. You, too.”
She hit the end button and looked at Quinn. “We don’t need to send Bo Ray over. Billie says he’s fine and they’re in for the night.”
Quinn smiled. “Circumstances make for strange bedfellows,” he said. “And speaking of bed, I’m all for it, Ms. Cafferty. It’s been a long couple of days.”
When they reached Danni’s place, they discovered that Bo Ray had waited up for them.
And it seemed that he’d kept his promise—every single light was on.
“So, you’re okay. Did the giclée get here?” Danni asked, shifting the box filled with Hubert’s papers in her arms. She’d insisted on carrying it herself.
“Yeah, it got here,” Bo Ray said.
“Niles brought it?”
“Actually, Mason Bradley brought it first and then Niles came over later to check that it got here okay. Mason is a nice guy. We talked for a while. He said he wants to do a show with you sometime in the future.”
“I know,” Danni said. “But I’m not sure when.”
“Actually, I don’t understand why he’s an artist. He could make a fortune as a model. He’s a good-looking guy. I think that—and I’m straight,” Bo Ray said with a shrug.
“Yes, he’s a very good-looking man,” Danni agreed. “What about the giclée?”
“It’s down in the basement, in the office, and I locked the door. It’s still wrapped up. Mason was pretty fussy about handling it just right, but you know I don’t let anyone into the basement. And I didn’t let Mason down—or Niles. I know the score. If you’re not here and it’s not Quinn or Natasha or Father Ryan, no one goes down. I handled that sucker all by myself and very carefully, too!” Bo Ray said proudly.
“But you stayed awake and waited for us,” Quinn teased.
“Hey. I just wanted to make sure you got home safe. And I was expecting to go out to your house, Quinn.”
“Billie’s in for the night,” Danni said. “I should’ve called. You don’t have to change places with him.”
“Wow!” Bo Ray whistled in amazement. “I guess he’s getting along with the old battle-ax. Hmm. And I was ready to face her, too!”
“Hattie Lamont can be incredibly nice,” Danni said.
Quinn made a sound that was something like a snort.
“Okay, well, you two are here, and I’m exhausted. Now I can sleep.” Bo Ray yawned. He headed up to the apartment in the attic.
“I’m going to have a look around,” Quinn said. “And turn off a few lights.”
“I’m going to see that the basement door’s locked.” Danni put the box of Hubert papers on the kitchen table.
“Good idea.”
The basement door was locked; Billie had been thorough. She could hear Quinn moving through the first floor, double-checking the doors and the alarm system. She waited for him at the foot of the stairs. As he approached her with a thumbs-up that meant they were all locked in, she heard his phone ring.
He answered it, didn’t say another word, then frowned and hurried to the courtyard door.
“Quinn?”
“Lock yourself in, Danni.”
He keyed the alarm again and opened the door. She ran behind him.
“What is it?”
“Trouble at Dr. Hubert’s house.”
“What trouble?”
“I don’t know. He just whispered into the phone that we needed to come back.” Quinn was already out the door. He was moving quickly, and she ran to keep up with him.
“Danni, I can take this alone. Stay here.”
“No! You said he whispered that we should come back.”
“I don’t know what we’ll find—”
“So let’s go see!” she said. “Quinn, I’m going with you.”
She locked the door carefully as they left; Bo Ray was still in the house.
Once they set off, she was glad it was late—and that most of the revelers had gone home or to their hotels for the night. At the speed Quinn was driving, she pitied any poor drunk who might wander into the street.
He jerked to a halt behind the patrol car parked in front of the Hubert house. They could both see that there was no officer in the car.
Quinn raced up the steps to the front door, with Danni on his heels.
The door was ajar, and they walked cautiously into the house.
The first thing she noticed was the fog.
Fog. Inside his house. There was none outside.
“Ron!” Quinn called.
No answer.
“Stay close behind me,” he told Danni, drawing his weapon. “Call 9-1-1. We need cops. Backup.”
She did, making an effort to speak slowly and clearly—and asked that Detective Jake Larue be notified, as well.
“Come on. Stay right behind me,” Quinn repeated.
She nodded, which, of course, he couldn’t see. She wanted to remind him that he’d taken her to the shooting range back when they’d first found themselves working together, and that he’d bought her a Smith & Wesson 642 and taught her how to use it. She’d put the revolver in her shoulder bag that morning, Father Ryan’s flask nestled beside it. Quinn moved forward, but even though they’d been there only a few hours earlier, everything seemed to have changed—not to mention that it was like walking into a thick haze. Quinn groped his way through the parlor, the dining room and into the back.
“We need to find the lights and turn them on,” he whispered.
“Quinn, I think the lights are on.”
He swore as he banged into a wall. “I’m going to try upstairs.”
“Should we split up?” she asked.
“Hell, no!”
“I...I have my gun.”
“No splitting up,” he said firmly.
She was glad.
But at the same time she wondered if their guns would do a damn thing. It was hard to shoot when you were aiming at...fog.
She nodded again, uselessly, and followed him.
As they came to the bottom step, she suddenly felt she was being watched. As if there was something behind her.
She could hear breathing...and feel breath, misty and hot and menacing, against the back of her neck.
An instinctive chill settled over her, threatening to paralyze her with fear, and she spun around.
There was something there.
Something within the fog, or part of the fog. It seemed to become darker and darker, a whirling mass of darkness that was trying to take shape.
And it was moving toward her.
And...
There was a face within the whirling mass.
A face taking form, becoming clearer in the mist.
Yes...
Evil had a face.
Chapter Ten
DANNI FELT MESMERIZED by it. She blinked; it was still there. She blinked again and found her voice.
“Quinn.” She spoke his name. It came out in a low whisper.
He swiveled around, and she knew he was taking aim with his Glock 22.
A gun wasn’t going to stop this, she thought.
With trembling fingers she grasped the medallion around her neck. She pulled out the tiny stopper, and as the darkness approached, she threw out the holy water.
A sound filled the room. It wasn’t a cry of distress; it was low, guttural, angry, and...
Not human.
The face was gone. She didn’t know if Quinn had seen it.
He thrust her behind him again. But even as he did, the fog began to dissipate. There was no face—and there was no fog.
She was incredibly grateful for Father Ryan.
“What the hell?” Quinn muttered.
Danni looked around. As she’d assumed, the lights were on in the house and she could see a fallen body in uniform on the parlor floor. “The cop!” Danni gasped, pointing at the edge of the sofa.
The man was on the ground so close to the sofa that they’d missed him before when they felt their way through the room.
Quinn and Danni rushed over, crouching beside him. Quinn touched the man’s throat, seeking a pulse. “He’s alive, just unconscious.”
“I don’t see any injuries,” Danni said.
Quinn nodded. “He’s not bleeding. He must have fallen and hit his head. I can hear sirens. The cops will be here any minute.”
Danni heard them, too, with more than a little relief.
“I’ve got to find Dr. Hubert,” Quinn said, and then shouted. “Ron? Where the hell are you?”
He rose. “Stay with him,” he told Danni, pointing at the cop, and strode toward the stairs.
Stay with him! In the parlor alone?
Quinn was already gone. She remained with the officer, looking around the room that had felt so welcoming not long before. She tried to fathom what could have happened.
The painting wasn’t here—so what was going on?
She blinked; it seemed that a mist was growing in the room again. She couldn’t tell if it was real or if her mind was playing tricks out of fear. She fumbled in her shoulder bag for the flask of holy water Father Ryan had given her. “I’m armed with the right stuff, you know,” she said inanely to nothing. “Come near me, and you’ll wish you hadn’t!”
Real or imagined? The mist receded again.
She stared at the spot where it had been, wondering how mist could just appear—and how it could be so insidious, so menacing.
Time seemed to stop as she continued to stare...and then everything happened at once.
Quinn came running back down the stairs—and to Danni’s gratitude, Ron Hubert was with him. The police arrived, an officer thrusting the door farther open and shouting, “It’s the police! Throw down your weapons.”
Quinn shouted out in return, identifying himself. The first two officers on the scene were followed by two others.
Danni could hear more sirens in the street. Within a few minutes, med techs were hurrying to the side of the downed officer, searching as Quinn and Danni had done, but finding nothing. And while they worked on him, she rose, trying to hear the officers as they questioned Dr. Hubert, anxious to learn what had happened at the house. He stood with Quinn and the senior officer who’d come while the others were going through the residence, searching from room to room, making sure that no intruders remained. Hubert had stopped and started his story several times when Larue reached the scene.
He started again.
“I’d gone up to my room to call it a night when I heard something. I don’t even know how to describe what I heard, but...I knew someone was in the house. Maybe more than one person. They entered through the back. I grabbed my baseball bat—we have a medical examiners’ team that plays at the park. I don’t have an alarm system. I never needed one. I know my closest neighbors, and this is a safe area. But I’d locked the door, I’m positive of that.”
“What did you see? Or who did you see?” Larue demanded.
Ron Hubert was quiet for a moment, looking at them with pursed lips.
“A magician?” Ron Hubert said, but it was more of a question than a statement. He shook his head. “All right, I seriously think it had to be a magician. Or someone who works with special effects. He—she, they?—filled the place with smog or fog or something. I couldn’t see a thing, but I knew it was too late to get out. I couldn’t make it to the bottom of the stairs and out the front door. I raced back up to my room and into my closet. I should keep a gun. Maybe I will keep a gun—”
“Wait,” Larue interrupted. “You didn’t actually see anyone? Or hear anything else?”
“Once I was in the closet, I heard the front door being broken open and assumed it was the cop from outside. I was about to go back downstairs but then...I heard him shout, and I heard a thump. And I knew he was down. I stayed where I was.” His gaze flashed nervously toward Quinn. “When I’d first thought something was wrong, I called Quinn. I should’ve called 9-1-1, too, except...at that point I heard that noise at the back of the house. And when I headed for the stairs in the dark, I dropped my phone, so I couldn’t make another call. I admit I was afraid to come out and try to find it.” He winced. “I’m a doctor. I’m sorry. I’m not a cop or an investigator.”
“No one expects you to be, Ron,” Quinn told him.
“No, I just wish...” Larue’s voice trailed off.
“Your officer’s alive,” Quinn said. “Maybe he’ll be able to tell us something.”
“He’s coming to,” one of the med techs announced.
/> They had the patrol officer sitting up, still on the floor, his back braced against the sofa.
Quinn and Larue made their way over. “What’s wrong with him?” Larue asked the EMT.
“Nothing. Nothing we can see, anyway,” the young woman replied.
The officer opened his eyes. He looked straight ahead and let out a scream. It was so loud and piercing that everyone around him started.
“Hey, Officer, it’s all right,” Quinn said. “You’re not hurt. We have cops here and medical help and you’re fine. Can you tell us what happened?”
The man’s eyes were wide, his pupils dilated as if he’d been out in bright sunlight. He didn’t speak for a moment. He glanced at the faces surrounding him and then lurched, looking over his shoulder as though he expected to be grabbed from behind.
Danni came forward, kneeling beside him. “You’re safe. The fog’s gone. Whatever was in the fog is gone,” she said gently.
He finally focused on her. He was a man in his mid-thirties, and the uniform he wore was crisp and well-tended. Danni estimated that he was about six-three. He had broad shoulders and appeared to be fit and muscular. Not the kind of man you’d expect to be easily intimidated.
“There’s something in this house,” he said hoarsely, staring at Danni.
“Officer Franklin,” Larue said, crouching next to him. “Whoever’s doing this is using a fog machine or some device like that. We seem to have a magician or special effects wizard on our hands. But the house is crawling with your fellow officers right now. If there’s anything in here, they’ll find it. Now, what exactly happened to you?”
“Happened?” The officer’s eyes were still focused on Danni.
“Officer Franklin,” Larue urged.
Franklin turned to face Larue. “I broke in. I’d heard a commotion. I...I called the doc’s name. But I was blinded when I got inside, couldn’t see. And then...I did.”
“What did you see?” Danni persisted softly.
He turned to look at her again. “Demon eyes,” he said in a solemn voice. “Red eyes. They were fire eyes—like portals to hell.”
Larue uttered a little sound of impatience. Danni was surprised to catch herself elbowing him in the ribs and glaring in disapproval.