Page 6 of The Devil You Know
“Close, but not quite,” Seth muttered.
“Derek’s won plenty of commendations for his work,” Teag noted. “Unofficially, I get the impression he’s a stubborn hard-ass with some anger management issues who took his dad’s death really hard. The first year afterward, he was written up for getting into some fights off-duty.”
“Dirty cop?” Seth asked.
“I haven’t found anything to suggest that,” Teag replied. “More the opposite—a little too ‘by the books.’ Married young and divorced—no kids. From the little I could find online, he’s not very social. Spends his time with a few close friends playing video games and hiking. That’s not much to go on, except to give you a head’s up for when you meet him,” Teag warned. “It’s not likely to go well.”
“Thank you. The research helps a lot,” Evan added. Having help lightened the burden because arcane lore was never easy to find or quick to search. Overlooking details, no matter how small, could be deadly.
“Any time. Take care—and be careful,” Teag warned.
Evan ended the call and looked at Seth. “Comments?”
Seth shrugged. “I won’t object to having one less witch disciple to fight. I’m honestly surprised that only two of them were working together. They could make more money by teaming up, but they’d have to be able to trust each other.”
“What did you make of Teag’s intel on Derek Nelson?” Evan asked.
“I think he sounds like a pain in the ass who is going to give us second thoughts about saving him,” Seth replied, grimacing. “The real question is—has he put the pieces together to realize someone is killing the oldest of each generation in his family, or do we have to start from scratch and explain it?”
“Aside from the hard time I gave you, the other intended victims had an inkling that something wasn’t right and that they were in the crosshairs,” Evan mused. “And I can tell you that the way my folks recounted family history, they must have seen the pattern but didn’t want to acknowledge it. No one ever sat me down to tell me that I was next in line to be horribly killed. I would definitely remember.” He sighed. “Then again, maybe they didn’t think that was a bad thing.”
“Hey,” Seth said gently. “Don’t go there. What’s past is past.”
Evan snorted. “This whole crazy quest to kill the witch disciples is all about how the past isn’t over. The witch disciples are killing people about a century-old grudge. And the victims’ families are deceiving themselves about the pattern because they don’t want to see what’s in plain sight. We’d have a much easier time if we didn’t have to start the discussion by convincing Derek that ghosts are real.”
“You’ve got a point.” Seth’s lips twitched with fond amusement.
Evan shifted in his chair, and Seth leaned against the wall. “Still want to go exploring tomorrow?”
Seth nodded. “That’s what we came here for. Do you feel up to a hike to the old observatory? Maybe we can get a sense of whether Osborn’s anchor is still there.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Evan confirmed.
* * *
After breakfast the next morning,Evan and Seth set out for the site of the old Warner and Swasey Observatory, a Cleveland landmark that had gained more notoriety as a beautiful ruin after its decline than it had achieved when it was in working order.
“This place is amazing. I can’t believe they’d shut down something like this and just let it rot.” Evan could hear the wonder in Seth’s voice as the remains of the observatory came into view.
“What good is an observatory if there’s so much light pollution that you can’t see the stars?” Evan replied. “That sealed its fate.”
“Still…” Seth eyed the old building, and wonder colored his tone. A low, rambling brick building stretched across the top of the knoll. In the middle atop a boxy center section sat the retractable dome that had once housed a large telescope that made several groundbreaking discoveries in its time.
Now, plates from the dome were missing, exposing the rib-like understructure. The telescope had long ago been relocated, as well as the astronomical library. The building sat abandoned, although investors had toyed with ideas for its re-purposing over the years.
“Why would Osborn leave his anchor hidden in a piece of land that he doesn’t own?” Evan voiced a question that had been bothering him since Seth had discovered the anchor’s possible resting place.
Every witch disciple had an anchor, a receptacle of stored power that both strengthened them and also bound them to a place. The anchor and the amulet—a spelled talisman the disciples usually wore around their necks—plus the ritual sacrifice of a direct descendant from one of the deputies’ families opened a rift that let the disciple draw power from the trapped spirit of their old master, Rhyfel Gremory—and kept Gremory trapped by blood magic.
Destroy the anchor and amulet and prevent the ritual murder, and Gremory could turn on his disciple and destroy him.
“Osborn’s been in Cleveland since the witch disciples scattered after Gremory’s death in 1900,” Seth replied, leading them closer to the ruin. “Plenty of time to establish a new identity and create a role with the observatory after it opened. If Osborn became one of the trustees of the observatory, he probably figured he could keep an eye on something hidden in plain sight.”
“There’s plenty of magical lore about the position of the stars,” Evan mused.
Seth nodded. “Exactly. Then Osborn had to drop out of sight for a while, so no one caught on that he never dies, and by the time he came back, the place was abandoned. But as long as it doesn’t get sold, there’s no hurry to move the anchor. Not a bad plan.”
They made a careful inspection around the outside of the building before picking a padlock to let themselves inside.
