The City of a Thousand Ghosts by David Leadbeater

Author:David Leadbeater [Leadbeater, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-01-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

Bodie had never been so glad to leave a house in his rear view before.

He wasn’t superstitious, and he certainly didn’t believe in the supernatural, but there was something about old haunts where bad things had happened, and where grisly memories still lingered. There was something…unaccountable about them. Places like that were best left alone.

They drove away from the house, having left the merc partly restrained in the basement. Bodie figured he could fight his way free in an hour or so. The guy should think himself lucky. He’d been afforded more mercy that he’d shown his would-be victims. And anyway, for now, he had the house for company.

They drove through the dark, trying to shed the aura of the old house from deep in their bones. The heat cheered them, and then they started up a conversation, which helped chase the shadows away.

‘What’s the new clue, Luce?’ Cassidy asked.

‘Where betrayal extracted the highest price.’

Bodie, driving, snorted. ‘Is that it?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Whoever left these clues behind needs a slap,’ Cassidy said. ‘They’re not clear enough.’

‘Oh, on this occasion I have a few ideas,’ Lucie said.

Bodie looked at her in the rear-view mirror. ‘Go on.’

‘We have to assume we’re still talking about the old Order. This guy, Baron Edouard Barbeau, and all his cronies. Someone betrayed them, right? Someone on the inside, I’m guessing. It had to be. The authorities were told where to find them. They swooped down on the house, crashed the party, and scooped everyone up. Or killed them, who knows? Anyway, that doesn’t mean the house was the only place they were hit.’

Bodie remembered the similarities between the attack on the Order and the attack on the Knights Templar. ‘You think they attacked several of the Order’s places simultaneously?’

‘I do. And one of them must have been a bloodbath.’

Bodie saw where she was going. ‘Where the authorities of the time extracted the highest price.’

‘Exactly.’

Lucie had her laptop out, the lid open. She was tapping away, already researching. ‘I’ve already gone over this history extensively,’ he said. ‘As you know. Give me a few minutes to find what I’m looking for.’

Bodie drove through the night, thinking about how much he needed to rest. The old mansion was in the middle of nowhere, so it’d take them a while to find real civilisation and, maybe, a hotel and a hot shower. The thought cheered him up, at least. He turned briefly to Cassidy in the back seat.

‘You recovered from that experience yet?’

‘It felt like there were eyes all over me.’

Bodie shivered despite himself. He knew what she meant, and it was taking some time for the feeling to slough away, like a dead skin.

‘Here we go,’ Lucie said. ‘I knew I’d read something pertaining to this already. Okay, well, the clue is “Where betrayal extracted the highest price.” And I think this fits the bill,’ she recited a passage from the laptop: ‘It’s from a national newspaper report. “On the night in question, the so-called Order was found to be wilfully flouting the law in more places than one.

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