by Melody Raven
“You think this is a magic thing?”
“I think it’s more than that. Your people, witches, have ignored the police for years. Tommy Collins was stopped by us, you and me. So who is the only witch who thinks they have something to fear from the cops?”
“The guy working with Tommy Collins.”
“We stopped Tommy from finishing what he started. Now someone is trying to finish it and we’ve had our backs turned the entire time. Come on.”
It was a quick drive to the nondescript building a few blocks away. Sam didn’t realize where they were until they entered the cold, windowless room with a wall of metal containers. The morgue.
Derek flashed his badge to the guy working at a computer to the right of them. “Hey Tim,” he said, indicating they’d probably met before. “I need a list of everyone who has been brought in during the last three months.”
“Three months? That’s a lot of people in a city this big.”
“These would be unusual,” said Sam. “Violent deaths. Probably younger people, under forty.”
The guy, Tim, pointed at him. “Now that rings a bell. I was wondering why I wasn’t getting more questions about them, but I figured you all knew what you were doing.”
Tim started toward the wall of drawers and Sam followed. “What’s unusual about them?”
“They were all killed the same way. A puncture to the heart.” And then he started to pull out drawers. One after another, after another, after another. Five of them. Five dead bodies. Five dead bodies no one was even looking into.
“Do you have reports on them?” asked Derek.
“All filed and everything. No one ever asked for them or told me where to send the reports to. When I called upstairs to ask, they said not to worry about it.”
“And you listened?” asked Sam, sounding a bit more accusatory than she wanted to.
Tim, for his part, didn’t seem too bothered. “Hun, I work with dead people. Trust me, I’m as laid-back as you can get.”
She tightened her lips but didn’t respond. She glanced over to Derek, who was studying the bodies with a pained look on his face. She knew what that look was without asking. Guilt. He was already blaming himself. “Derek—”
“Give me the cliff notes version of the report,” said Derek without letting her finish.
Tim didn’t seem to notice the tension between them. “All five are males. The youngest appears to be late teens, early twenties; the oldest appears mid-thirties. I don’t have ID on any of them and all tested positive for various drugs. All heavy narcotics, though. Judging from some of the sores along the back, I’d say they were all sleeping on hard surfaces on a regular basis.”
Sam wrapped her arms around herself. “You think they were held captive?”
“More likely they were homeless,” said Derek. “Sleeping on any hard surface where they wouldn’t be bothered.”
“Oh,” said Sam, not feeling any better about it.
“They don’t have ligature marks around the wrists or feet, so I don’t know how they were restrained, but the wounds aren’t clean. It appears they did struggle, but not much. The first two have multiple puncture wounds, but the second two only have one. My guess is that the killer wasn’t experienced. Maybe did an Internet search or read a textbook about where the heart was.”
“Restrained with no rope,” said Derek as he met Sam’s eyes. They both knew exactly what could do that. “Thanks for your help, Tim. Can you email me the detailed findings? This is my new number-one priority. Can you get me pictures of all the victims?”
Tim nodded. “I have some printed out in their files. Hold on.” Tim disappeared behind a door and Sam could hear filing cabinets opening and closing.
“What are you thinking?” asked Sam.
“I think we need to figure out who these guys were. The drug community is surprisingly small. Maybe we can find someone who knows something. Saw something.”
“That sounds like it could take a while.”
“You have a better idea?” he snapped.
Sam glanced away and sucked in a breath. She was mad at Derek for snapping but more upset that they were even in this situation. That there was a witch killing more people. That she was once again in the position of defending her kind to Derek. “We need to hurry,” she said, still not looking at him.
“You think I don’t know that?”
She turned back around. “I don’t think you truly know the stakes. There are five dead bodies here. All this crazy person needs is one more sacrifice and the ritual will be complete. And it probably won’t surprise you, but the prize at the end of a human sacrifice ceremony usually isn’t sunshine and rainbows.”
“Okay. We need to hurry.”
Just then Tim came out and handed Derek a few sheets of paper. “Here are the photos. I can email you the reports right now.”
“Thanks, Tim. I appreciate it.”
“Tim,” said Sam as she took the papers and glanced through them. “Could you do us a favor and don’t mention this to anyone?”
Tim glanced between the two of them but then shrugged. “Sure. Not that anyone bugs me down here.”
“You’d be surprised,” said Derek.
“All right. Mum’s the word.”
Derek led Sam out of the morgue and back to the street. As soon as they were in the cool, crisp air, he ran his hands through his hair until they rested at the back of his neck. “Fuck.”
Sam tried to summon up any hint of optimism she could. “We can do this. You said the drug community is small. We can probably get names on these guys by the end of the day, right?”
“Yeah, but what we need is to know if or when someone else goes missing. And people go missing from the drug community all the time and no one even notices. It’s considered normal.”
“Okay, then we can—” The ringing of Sam’s phone cut her off and she pulled it out of her pocket to look at the screen. Damn it, why was Jackson calling her? She silenced the call and put it back in her pocket. “If we can find out where they were taken, we can figure out who took them. So we don’t need to find the last victim if we can find the culprit, right?”
Derek’s mind seemed to be racing through the thousands of difference scenarios. “If we can get a location, we can maybe pull surveillance footage. If we can get an eyewitness, we can bring them in and you can show them pictures of people you know, right? That could still take days. I just—I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but I’m having a really hard time figuring out how this could have a good outcome.”
“Fine. Then we use unconventional means. We’ll go to Claudia and tell her what we found.”
Derek nodded. “That might be the only way. I can go ask around about our John Does and you can ask your grandmother about—”
“No. We are going to Claudia. Both of us.”
“Your grandmother is going to kill me.”
“Well, we’re together now. Trust me, you don’t want to keep a secret from that woman. She needs to find out sooner rather than later. Might as well be when we have bigger problems to deal with.” Because Lord help anyone who kept secrets from Claudia and she found out first.
Derek ran his hands over the bottom of his mouth. “Okay. We’ll face Claudia and she can magic our way out of this, right?”
“Something like that.” Sam had no idea what she’d do, but there had to be something more than Derek’s limited resources. Her phone started to ring again and she shook her head in annoyance before she pulled it out and answered it. “Jackson, I really don’t have time—”
“Claire is missing.”
“What?” she snapped.
Derek looked over at her shout and she waved him closer so they could both listen to the call.
“Claire is missing! I was supposed to meet her for a training session a few hours ago and she never showed. So I went to her apartment to give her shit and she wasn’t there.”
“How the hell did you get into the apartment?” asked Derek.
“Who the fuck is that?”
“It’s Derek,” said Sam. “I’m with him right now.”
“How the hell do you think I got into the apartment, Captain America? The point is she wasn’t there. I went back to where we were supposed to meet and I found her phone. I must’ve missed it when I was there earlier. It was on silent so I didn’t hear it when I was calling her.”
“Claire was supposed to be victim number six last time,” said Derek. “What if they’re keeping the pattern?”
“Everyone else was a guy,” pointed out Sam.
“I know it doesn’t fit, but it’s one hell of a coincidence that there are five dead people and Claire goes missing.”
“Last time she was kept at Tommy’s place for days.”
Derek didn’t seem comforted. “Tommy was a psychopath. He enjoyed the suffering. Those John Does weren’t tortured. They were killed for sacrifice only.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” asked Jackson from over the phone.
“Go to my grandmother’s,” said Sam. “This is going to need backup.”
Derek had been in a lot of uncomfortable meetings in his time, but this one was strange on a whole new level. Across from him was Jackson, the man who had slept with his girlfriend just weeks ago and who he’d beaten the crap out of while under the influence of some potion. Next to him was Bastian, the very dangerous witch he knew almost nothing about who had warned him to stay away from the family only a few hours ago. At the head of the table was Claudia, who hadn’t said one negative word to him since he walked in but continuously looked at him as if she were thinking of the best spell to turn him into a frog.
And then next to him, standing protectively between him and Claudia, was Sam, who was pretending as if everything was normal when everyone at the table knew just how messed up things had become.
Claudia held the printed out photos of the five dead men. “We don’t know where they were killed or where they were found?” she asked.
“No. Every sign of them has been erased,” he said.
“Why wasn’t your friend at the morgue affected?” asked Bastian.
“Probably because the physical bodies were there,” said Sam. “If he’d found some strange bodies he didn’t remember in his morgue, that might raise more questions than they wanted.”
“Fine,” said Jackson. “So there are five dead guys no one cares about. Claire is missing now. I say we do a locator spell and get her back. We can find out later whether it’s all connected or not.”
Derek studied Jackson. He was tense and jumpy. “So you were the only one who knew where Claire was going?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you were the only one who knew where Claire was going. Did you tell anyone your plans to meet her?”
“I didn’t even tell Claire until right beforehand.”
Derek narrowed his eyes. “That’s not an answer to my question.”
Jackson leaned forward on the table. “No. One. Else. Knew. Okay?”
“Jackson isn’t the one behind this.” Claudia dropped the papers to the table. “But he’s right. We need to get Claire back. Do you have all the supplies you would need to find her?”
“I know a few tricks, but I’d be happy to take a look at any of your books that might help.”
Claudia pursed her lips and Derek had a feeling that not just anyone got a look at her library. “Bastian,” she finally said, “get Jackson any books that might have locator spells in them.”
Bastian nodded and even gave a slight bow before he escorted Jackson out of the boardroom. As soon as they were gone, Claudia sat down and drummed her fingers along the table. “This isn’t supposed to happen.”
“So they keep telling me.” Derek took a seat too, followed by Sam. “I know you were suspicious of your men, the sentries. Can’t you force them to tell you more information?”
Claudia met his eyes. “If this were just another witch who was power hungry, yes. I’d have no trouble rooting out and tamping down any insurrection. However, this power is... different. Trying to stomp it out is like stomping out a puddle. It just evades and moves.”
Sam translated. “It’s a different kind of power. It’s how the protection charms don’t work against the darkness.”
“Do we know the reason they’re doing the sacrifices? What are they trying to achieve?”
“They’re trying to awaken the darkness.”
Derek scoffed. “The darkness that just took over one of my coworkers and caused Sam to beat my ass? I think it’s already pretty awake.”
“It has a foothold in our world. It’s trying to climb completely through. You’ve seen what the darkness can do with only the merest presence. What do you think will happen once it’s all the way inside?”
Derek had no clue what the difference was, but based off the social cues, he decided to keep his mouth shut.
“I’ve known the spell for decades,” said Claudia. “The blood of six but the last one must be special. Powerful. Claire was chosen as the last one. We have to get to her and stop the spell at any cost.”
“All right. We all agree we need to find and save Claire. Can we find where the darkness is hiding? Find out who it’s infecting?”
Claudia shook her head. “No. It doesn’t work with our powers, and we shouldn’t need a spell.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Whoever is doing this has five sacrifices in already. They would be showing signs of the darkness. Their hair would be muted to black. Their fingertips would appear dyed. Their eyes would turn black. Nothing subtle.”
“That doesn’t tell us anything,” said Derek. “You can dye hair. Wear contacts. Use makeup and nail polish for hands.”
Sam snorted and shook her head despairingly. “We don’t wear contacts. If our eyes need a touch up, we touch them up ourselves.”
“No. I’ve seen witches wearing contacts.”
Sam and Claudia turned to look at him with mirrored expressions of horror. “Who?” they asked at the same time.
Shit. He thought his answer would calm them, but he quickly realized this was going nowhere good. “When I brought Sam here last night. Heather was wearing them. The crying was irritating them otherwise I probably wouldn’t have noticed. She kept rubbing her eyes.”
Dead silence met him as both women just stared. “You’re wrong,” said Claudia finally as Jackson and Bastian came back into the boardroom. Jackson stayed toward the door while Bastian crossed to stand next to Claudia. “We have a lock on Claire. Who should we take on the retrieval party?”
Claudia blinked a few times until the shock of what Derek had said was completely hidden. “All of us. We’re all going.”
Derek was glad that he wasn’t being pushed out, but he also knew that there was something very wrong happening. Sam was looking down at the conference room table and staying utterly silent.
Bastian for the first time showed a hint of anger. “No. You stay here. I can handle this. I can take a team of sentries and—”
“I said I’m going. I’m not going to repeat myself. Where is Claire?”
“The ruins,” said Jackson.
“Our old house,” said Sam. “She’s going to kill Claire where we grew up.” She stood and backed away from the table.
Derek debated reaching out to her, but she didn’t look as though she wanted comforting.
“She?” asked Jackson.
“We don’t know anything for certain,” said Claudia as she met Derek’s eyes, clearly warning him to keep his mouth shut. “Let’s go.”
She started for the door, coming just short of pushing past Derek and he stared in shock as everyone just followed her. “That’s it?”
Sam held her hand out to him. “Come on, Derek.”
Claudia looked over her shoulder and glared at him. “We’re going to stop the witch killing your people. I thought you’d be happy.”
“I want to be happy and alive.
We need a plan. We need to confirm that’s where they really are.”
“Derek, will you just shut up,” bit out Sam.
Claudia held up a hand to silence Sam. “No. If he doesn’t like my methods, he can stay behind. I was only letting him tag along as a courtesy.” This time when Claudia left the room, Derek followed.
The elevator was technically big enough to more than comfortably fit all of them, but Derek could feel the tension in the air. Claudia was pissed at his implication about Heather, but he knew she was going to be even more upset if he turned out to be right.
He reached into his jacket and felt the two spare magazines in his shoulder holster. He had no idea what he was walking into and had forty-five bullets and an elevator full of crazy. He supposed he’d faced worse odds, but he didn’t feel comfortable.
When the elevator doors opened to the lobby of Claudia’s building, the sentries at ground level rushed to open the doors for them. Except for one. The flash of black hit the edge of Derek’s peripheral and he only got to action seconds before the shot rang out.
Derek dove for Sam, but he could tell the error immediately. The shot wasn’t meant for Sam. It was for Claudia.
Sam fell to the ground with Derek’s arms wrapped around her as Bastian’s shout filled her head. By the time she’d hit the ground and refocused her vision, Bastian was already across the room and had a knife right in the throat of the sentry who had shot Claudia.
Sam didn’t realize she wasn’t breathing until Derek pulled her up. “Come on,” he said as he pulled her toward the door.
“Grandmother—”
Bastian pulled his knife clear as the man Sam didn’t even know fell to the white marble tile. “Go,” ordered Bastian as he crossed back to Claudia’s side.
From her angle it was hard to tell much, but she could just see the faint rising and falling of Claudia’s chest. She was alive.
Jackson also crossed to her side. “I’ll help you get her upstairs.” He started to hook an arm behind her shoulders.
“Go!” repeated Bastian, his low bass shaking the walls and floors around them.
Jackson narrowed his eyes, more curious than scared as he slowly backed away from them.
