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  Midnight Blood

  Harbinger P.I. Book 6

  Adam J Wright

  Contents

  THE HARBINGER P.I. SERIES

  Also by Adam J Wright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  THE HARBINGER P.I. SERIES

  LOST SOUL

  BURIED MEMORY

  DARK MAGIC

  DEAD GROUND

  SHADOW LAND

  MIDNIGHT BLOOD

  TWILIGHT HEART

  Also by Adam J Wright

  DARK PEAK

  THE FLAT

  THE HAUNTING OF CROW HOUSE

  (writing as A.W. James)

  1

  It was about nine o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun glaring off the wet highway and into my eyes as I drove the Land Rover east out of Dearmont toward the Hawthorne estate.

  I’d never heard of the Hawthornes—one of the richest families in Maine—but Felicity had recognized the name straightaway when we’d gotten a call from one of their staff this morning, requesting my presence at the estate at my earliest convenience.

  Since we didn’t have any ongoing cases at the moment, my earliest convenience was right now. So here I was, driving out to the estate while Felicity stayed in the office in case any more work came in.

  The phone wouldn’t exactly be ringing off the hook so she was using the spare time to research Arthurian legends, trying to figure out why Sheriff Cantrell had been put into some sort of magical sleep after touching Excalibur in my basement.

  As I turned off the highway and followed a long, neat driveway up to a set of wrought-iron gates, I hoped that this job would be simple and would pay well.

  We’d put away the Sammy Martin file yesterday, after receiving a letter from his mother that left us in no doubt that the case was closed forever. Both Felicity and I were nursing wounds we’d received while investigating Sammy’s disappearance and I wasn’t in a hurry to collect any more scars.

  A red brick security booth sat by the gate. A guard wearing sunglasses emerged from the door and strode over to the Land Rover. He was dressed in a tight-fitting dark blue uniform and a cap that bore the name Hawthorne in white stitched lettering on the front. His bulging biceps and over-developed neck muscles spoke of long hours in the gym. As I wound down the window, he stood with his hands on his hips and shot me a look that was probably unfriendly but was lost behind the shades. “Help you, pal?”

  “I’m here to see Charles Hawthorne,” I told him. “I’m expected.”

  “Name?”

  “Alec Harbinger.”

  His steely gaze took in my black jacket, white tee and red flannel shirt and I noticed one eyebrow rise slightly in amusement. I probably wasn’t everything the well-dressed preternatural investigator ought to be, at least not in the eyes of this guard or the people who lived in the mansion beyond the gate but he was just going to have to deal with that.

  “Yeah, I was told about you.” He turned on his heels and went back into the booth. A low buzz sounded from somewhere and the gates swung inward.

  I drove forward along a road that curved gently to a gravel parking area in front of the house. There were half a dozen cars sitting there: Ferraris, Bentleys, and Maseratis gleaming in the morning light. I parked the Land Rover some distance away and killed the engine.

  As I got out, the house’s big double doors opened. A middle-aged man in a butler’s uniform came out to greet me. “Mr Harbinger, thank you for arriving promptly. Mr Hawthorne is waiting in the folly.”

  As I looked at the butler’s black morning coat, gray vest, white dress shirt, and black tie, I got the feeling I was underdressed for the impending interview with Mr Hawthorne. As least he wasn’t hiring me for my dress sense. I knew as much about Armani as Hawthorne probably knew about killing monsters.

  “The folly,” I said, trying to remember if I’d been inside a folly ever in my life and deciding quickly that I hadn’t. “Lead the way.”

  He led me to the side of the building where a golf cart waited. I climbed into the passenger side while he got behind the wheel and turned on the engine. The cart purred into life and the butler gently pressed the gas pedal, taking us along a path that cut through a stand of pine trees and then led to a small lake, on the edge of which stood a building that looked like a small Greek temple.

  “Does Mr Hawthorne usually conduct business out here?” I asked.

  “Not usually, no. But the matter at hand is quite delicate so he would rather speak with you in the folly than in the house.”

  I turned in my seat to look at the house behind us. Either there was someone in there that Hawthorne didn’t want to overhear our conversation or he was embarrassed about hiring a preternatural investigator. This wasn’t the first time I’d been hired in a clandestine manner and it probably wouldn’t be the last.

  The golf cart came to a stop by the faux temple and I got out. Without a word, the butler turned the cart around and drove back toward the house.

  I inspected the folly. It had obviously been built by someone with a love of classical Greek architecture, fashioned of white marble with fluted pillars supporting a high, ridged roof. A frieze showed Perseus fighting Medusa, sword raised above his head, ready to strike a blow that would never land because he was nothing more than a piece of sculpted decoration, as was his snake-haired opponent.

  “Mr Harbinger.” The low voice came from within the structure. I stepped between the pillars, into the folly, where a white marble table sat at the center of a room and similarly carved benches ran along the walls. There was one seat in here that wasn’t fashioned of white marble and that was a wheelchair, in which sat a man I guessed to be in his sixties. He wore a tan jacket and trousers and an open-collared, cream-colored shirt. His close-cropped hair and beard were as white as the marble that surrounded us.

  “Mr Hawthorne, I presume.”

  He gave me a curt nod. “You presume correctly. I am Charles Hawthorne. Forgive me for not receiving you at the house but the matter I wish to discuss is rather delicate.”

  “Understood.” As I’d told Felicity recently, everybody hates P.I.s. Even the people who hire us are usually embarrassed about it. “What can I do for you, Mr Hawthorne?”

  He pushed a lever on the arm of the wheelchair and it rolled closer to the table. “I need your protection. Someone is trying to kill me with magic.”

  I indicated one of the stone benches. “May I?”

  He nodded. “Of course.”

  I sat on the hard, smooth surface and said, “Are you sure someone is trying to kill you?”

  “Very sure. And don’t tell me to go to the police. When you hear what I have to say, you’ll see that my situation requires someone in your line of work and not someone who works for the local sheriff’s department.”

  “Okay, I’m listening.”

  He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a small leather pouch, which he tossed over to me. I caught it and turned it over in my hands, inspecting it. Symbols were painted in red on the dark leather; a circle, a star, and a cross. I opened the pouch and looked inside. There was some white hair in there and a tiny piece of parchment. I took the parchment out and examined it. More symbols, these written in black ink. A combination of curving lines, geometric shapes, and dots.

>   “Do you know what those symbols mean?” Hawthorne asked.

  “Not exactly but this is a hex bag so they’re probably part of some spell or other. I assume the hair in the bag is yours, binding the spell to you. Where did you find this?”

  “I discovered it two weeks ago, beneath my bed. I have no idea how long it had been there before that. I only found it because I was looking for my reading glasses, which were missing from the nightstand.”

  “Were they under the bed too?”

  “No, I didn’t find them.”

  “Well, it looks like someone has either hexed you or is trying to scare you.” I held the bag up. “Is this why you think someone is trying to kill you?”

  “Of course not, do you think I’m a fool? There’s more to this than a bag beneath my bed.” His gaze moved from me to the quiet lake beyond the pillars. “I used to take great pleasure in walking the grounds of the estate. I’d stroll down to the lake most evenings and sit on the steps of the folly while the sun went down. One evening last week, I sat on the steps over there,” he pointed to a set of marble steps that led down to the lake, “and couldn’t get up again. All feeling fled from my legs. The doctors have no idea what is wrong with me and I’ve been confined to this damned wheelchair ever since that day.”

  “And you think this is connected to the hex bag?”

  “The bag,” he said, reaching into his pocket, “and this.” He placed an object on the marble table. “While I was in the hospital, Wesley, my butler, found this, right here on the table. It must have been there while I was sitting on the steps, just a few feet away, losing the feeling in my legs.

  I leaned forward and examined the object. It was a figure made from sticks and white hair that had been twisted and shaped to form a crude likeness of Hawthorne. The legs of the figure had been broken off from the torso and then tied loosely with green string so that they hung uselessly from the figure’s body.

  “It’s voodoo, isn’t it?” Hawthorne asked. “A voodoo doll.”

  “Not necessarily,” I told him. “This type of sympathetic magic is practiced in many magical traditions.”

  “But that’s why my legs don’t work; because of that…that thing.”

  “We can’t say that for sure. It’s a possibility, though. Do you have many enemies?”

  He scoffed. “I’m a successful businessman, Mr Harbinger. You don’t reach the heights I have and not make some enemies. I have rivals, of course. And disgruntled ex-employees. Not to mention colleagues who would like to see me gone.”

  “But you don’t think any of them is doing this,” I said. “You think it’s someone closer than that. Your staff, perhaps, or even someone in your own family.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because we’re having this conversation in the folly and not in the house. You don’t want anyone to overhear us.”

  Hawthorne seemed to deflate slightly, his body sinking into the wheelchair. A sadness came into his eyes. “I can’t rule out anyone in my family as a suspect. There is bad blood between almost all of them. Squabbles, disloyalty, and schemes to outdo each other are commonplace. It’s been like that for as long as I can remember. Money and power, Mr Harbinger. They corrupt everyone in the end.”

  “Then I’m glad I have neither.”

  He laughed. “I like you. I’m sure you’re the right man for this job. And you come highly recommended by Amelia Robinson of Robinson-Lubecki Lumber. I believe you sorted out some trouble for her a few months ago.”

  The trouble he was referring to was my first case in Dearmont. Amelia Robinson’s son had been replaced with a changeling that had tried to steal the family fortune. The creature had killed Amelia’s husband in the process. On the way over here, I’d wondered how Charles Hawthorne had gotten my name and number but now that I knew he was a friend of Amelia Robinson, it made sense.

  “You said someone is trying to kill you,” I said, picking up the stick figure. “That implies that something else has happened, something more than the loss of your legs. Something that made you finally call me.”

  “Yes, I was getting to that. Last night, an attempt was made on my life.” He spoke calmly, as if he were telling me about the weather. “I was returning home from a meeting in Boston. It was late and my driver, Jonas, was being particularly careful because of the rain. I was tired and decided to take a nap. I had barely closed my eyes when I was woken by Jonas yelling out in surprise. I woke up just as he spun the steering wheel and sent us careening into the woods at the side of the road.”

  Hawthorne looked shaken for the first time since I’d met him. He stared out at the lake again as if to calm himself and took a deep breath before continuing. “I asked Jonas why he’d done such a damn fool thing and in answer, he pointed back at the road with a trembling hand. There was something standing there, something that wasn’t human.” He shook his head slightly, as if in disbelief of what he was about to say. “It was a demon. It had wings like a bat and a glowing, hateful stare. I never believed such things existed but I can’t dispute what I have seen with my own eyes.”

  He pointed at the hex bag and the stick figure. “Whoever used those things against me also sent that monster to kill me, I’m certain of it.”

  “What happened after you drove off the road and saw the creature?” I asked.

  “Another car came along the highway and stopped when the driver saw our predicament. He was an off-duty police officer. He made sure Jonas and I were okay and then he called a tow truck.”

  “And the creature?”

  “Gone. The other driver never saw it. I shudder to think what might have happened if he hadn’t come along when he did. I’m quite certain Jonas and I would be dead.”

  I mulled over everything he’d told me. It sounded as if someone was gunning for him and shooting magic bullets. But if someone wanted him dead, why not just use real bullets? They tended to be much more reliable than demons.

  Sure, summoning a demon to do your dirty work meant that you could be far away from the murder when it happened, and have an airtight alibi, but if the summoner was someone in the Hawthorne family, why were they going to all that trouble? Surely they had enough money to simply hire a hitman and get the same airtight alibi without having to summon a creature from Hell.

  “Is anyone in your family interested in the occult?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t believe so. I’m sure they’re all healthily skeptical of such things, as was I until last night.”

  “Yet you believe one of them could be using magic against you.”

  “Obviously one of them isn’t as skeptical as I thought.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “There’s my wife Jane, of course. I’d like to say I trust her implicitly but I can’t. That’s why she isn’t privy to this conversation.”

  I took a notepad and pencil from my pocket and began taking notes. “Can I ask why you don’t trust her?”

  “There was… an indiscretion. Jane doesn’t know I’m aware of it but I know most things that happen where my family is concerned. You may be the first preternatural investigator in my employ, Mr Harbinger, but I’ve hired private investigators in the past.”

  “To follow your wife?”

  “Among other things.”

  “Who did your wife have this indiscretion with? Surely that person is a suspect. They might want you out of the way so the indiscretion can become something more.”

  He sighed heavily. “No, you’re going down the wrong path. My wife and her lover don’t seen each other anymore.”

  I looked up from my notepad. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Positive.”

  I wrote the word Affair next to Jane Hawthorne’s name and underlined it. I wasn’t going to press her husband for the details right now but I’d return to the subject later if I thought it warranted further investigation.

  “Does she know about the accident last night?”

  “Sh
e knows only the lie that I told her: that a drunk driver was heading straight for us and Jonas had to swerve to avoid a head-on collision.”

  “Okay,” I said, “What about your children?”

  “Brad is the oldest. He’s thirty-two but acts like an eighteen-year-old. Jane and I spoiled him from the moment he was born and now he’s only interested in partying and fast cars. He has no sense of responsibility, no ambition.”

  “Would he be ambitious enough to try and kill you?”

  Hawthorne shrugged. “Who knows? At one time, I would have said no but the thought of me being dead could perhaps give him a goal he feels worth pursuing.”

  “Does he live in the house?”

  “Yes. Unlike Elise and Lucy, Brad has never flown the nest.”

  “Elise and Lucy are your daughters?”

  He nodded. “Thankfully, they didn’t turn out anything like their brother. Elise is the middle child. She runs a company that promotes businesses on social media. She’s good at it, too. Some of her clients are big names in the fashion and food industries. She lives in Portland, where the company is based.”

  I scribbled all of that into the notepad and then said, “Is there any reason why Elise might want you dead?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “How about Lucy?”

  He stroked his beard for a moment while he considered his answer. When he finally spoke, he said, “Lucy was a strange child. From an early age, she had a fascination with death and dark things. I honestly couldn’t say if she’s trying to kill me because I don’t really know her. I’m not sure anyone does. She’s introverted and anti-social, despite her mother’s repeated attempts to make her more outgoing.”