Part 24 (1/2)
”No one is accusing you of doing it,” I said smoothly, leaning in to Meredith to get a closer look at the wards. Like most of the others of their kind, these two looked like intricate Celtic knots, doubling over in a complicated confusion of twisted lines. ”I'm no expert on wards, but these two appear to be very efficient. I don't suppose anyone admits to having drawn them?”
Five pairs of eyes looked at me. No one spoke.
I sighed and turned back to Adam. ”I guess we're going to have to do this the hard way.”
”Looks like it. Tony and Jules are out. They can't draw wards.”
I nodded.
”Why is that?” Savannah asked.
”They're spirits. Spirits can't draw wards. Nor can demons or anyone bound to a demon lord, but since we're a.s.suming no one here is the servant of a demon lord, a Follower, or a demon, those points are moot.” I rubbed the back of my neck and glanced at Pixie. ”You want to tell us why you decided to peek in on Meredith?”
Her shoulders twitched. ”I was going up to the room you kept me in earlier to get my bag, and I heard some thumping noises. I thought maybe he might have found a way out of the house, or was having a fit, or maybe was hanging himself, so I opened the door to see.”
I looked around the room. There were a bureau, the bed, a small bench at the foot of the bed, a nightstand, and nothing else other than the door leading to the bathroom.
”Bathroom,” Adam said.
We all crammed into the doorway to peer inside the bathroom. The door to the hallway was slightly ajar, but the bathroom was empty. Which came as no surprise, since everyone in the house was in Meredith's room.
Adam closed the door, turning to Pixie. ”Was that the sound you heard?”
She scrunched up her face. ”Maybe. I don't really remember what it sounded like. Just that there was an odd noise.”
Adam's frosty blue gaze touched me for a moment. ”Someone here is lying.”
I stood up a bit straighter and lifted my chin at him.
”Oooh, this is so exciting.” Jules' whisper came from directly behind me.
”Just like one of those murder mysteries on BBC America. Who killed the evil Realtor? Who poisoned the chief suspect? Who warded the same suspect so he couldn't move...or talk?”
Who indeed? So many secrets had been uncovered that evening: my past, which wasn't really a secret, at least not to people in the Akas.h.i.+c League; the plans Spider had had for the house, which he'd kept from all but Meredith; Pixie's origins, which left her especially vulnerable; Meredith's ”poisoning” by my father; the truth of how Adam had acquired the house; and whatever it was Savannah was hiding.
”That's it,” Adam said, giving everyone a piercing look. ”I've had it. It's slightly less than two hours before the seal expires. We're going to get to the bottom of this before then if it kills me. And I'm a very hard man to kill.
Everyone downstairs to the living room.”
I nibbled my lower lip, indulging in a bit of speculation about Adam.
Were my instincts about him wrong?
”What do we do about him?” I asked, nodding at Meredith as Amanita and Pixie headed out the door.
Adam marched over to the still man. ”We'll take him with us. Matthew, get his feet.”
”This is so Agatha Christie,” Tony said as Adam and my father carried Meredith out of the room. ”Gathering all the suspects together for the final denouement. Throwing suspicion on everyone present until, finally, the real murderer is unmasked. Followed by a brief, but in the end futile, attempt at escape by the same. So thrilling. It's giving me goose b.u.mps!”
”Should we serve coffee, do you think?” Jules asked as the two of them wisped past me. ”Or tea? What's appropriate at a denouement? WWHPD?”
”WWHPD?”.
”What would Hercule Poirot do?”
Their voices drifted out of the room. I stood for a minute by myself, trying to put the last few pieces of the puzzle together. One thing stood out: someone here was a whole lot more powerful than they were letting on.
20.
”Oh dear, Meredith's tipped over again. Can someone...Thank you.”
When I entered the living room, my father and Adam were propping Meredith up against the wall. The only things on him that moved were his eyes, which resembled those of an indignant elderly pug as they glared in turn at everyone in the room.
The imps, which had followed me when I had released them from their confinement in the downstairs bathroom, were a bit pruny from playing in the tub so long, but fortunately also sleepy. I herded them to their box, where they settled down for a nap on Pixie's scarf.
”I don't want that back, you know,” she told me, peering over my shoulder as I closed the lid of the box. ”It'll have imp juice all over it.”
”Imps don't make juice unless you use a blender,” my father said.
”Ew!” Pixie squealed, making a face. I made one at my father-one that told him to knock off the smart-a.s.s comments. He rolled his eyes in response, wandering around behind the couch where Savannah sat.
”Everyone sit down, please,” Adam ordered, picking up the small round table we'd used during our interviews, and placing it in the center of the room.
Tony and Jules were just barely visible as Tony sat in an overstuffed chair with Jules seated on the arm. Pixie claimed the window seat, wrapping all four arms around her knees. Amanita pulled a footstool over to a corner and perched unhappily on it. I sat next to Savannah.
Adam placed on the table the gla.s.ses case containing the apports Savannah had picked up, the mangled remains of the box Spider had used to destroy Sergei, and the ipecac bottle.
”What's all that stuff?” Pixie asked.
”Exhibits.”
Tony gave a happy little sigh. ”Exhibits! This is so Perry Mason!”
”I thought it was all very Agatha Christie,” Jules said to him.
”That too. Although Perry Mason was so very...mmm...rugged and manly!”
”Hercule Poirot didn't need to be rugged or manly. He was sophisticated.
He had the little gray cells.”
”I'll take Perry's savvy legal sense over Hercule's sophisticated gray cells any day of the week.”
”Shhh, he's starting.”
”Matthew?” Adam c.o.c.ked an inquisitive eyebrow at my father.