by Ruby Loren
“Has Emma said anything?” I asked, knowing full well that the timing of this break-in must surely provide her with a pretty watertight alibi for not being the person who murdered Sarah May and had knowledge of where the body was left.
“She’s confessed to delivering the letter we caught her with, but denies having anything to do with the other letters and the disappearances. Her lawyer’s decided that it wouldn’t benefit her to speak more until further developments in the case have been made.” The twist of the detective’s mouth clued me in that the lawyer was right about that. There was little compelling evidence and this latest revelation would almost certainly see Emma released on bail and her murder suspect status lifted.
“We had the letter analysed. The envelope was the same kind, bought in a local stationary store, and even the printing ink came from the same printer used in the other letters. She claims that she used the printer in the library to do it, and we’ve confirmed that it was the printer used for all the names on the letters. We searched the library bins and found a lot of old copies of Tales From Wormwood, chopped into pieces.” Here, the detective shot me an apologetic look.
I nodded in appreciation. I knew that I personally had nothing to do with these recent poison pen letters, but it did feel like someone was punching me in the stomach by using the magazine I’d worked so hard to produce and promote for their own evil ends.
“I don’t know why she won’t confess to being behind all of the letters, even if they don’t relate to the disappearances. I suppose she’s afraid of the connection,” Sean said, thinking out loud. “Perhaps this new development will persuade her it’s safe to come clean. But it’s more likely her lawyer will get her out of there,” he confessed, before shaking his head. “Since when can librarians afford lawyers that good?”
“Who did she go with?” I asked, curious about what the local area had to offer by way of legal aid. You never knew when you might need it…
“I have no idea where she found this woman, but going up against her is like trying to demolish a brick wall using a toy hammer. She thinks of everything and cuts you off at every step. I honestly think we could have all the evidence in the world pointing towards Ms Kirkus being guilty, but she’d somehow be able to find a loophole. I just hope the person who is responsible for these crimes doesn’t get wind of her…”
“At least now it seems like it probably is a person behind the disappearances,” I said, searching for the bright side.
The only reply I got was a grunt, but I knew Sean agreed with me. Given the difficult position he found himself in, straddled between two worlds with knowledge of all things supernatural, it was almost a blessing that this terrible crime had been conceived by a human mind. At least it meant there was a chance of solving it in the official fashion.
We stood in silence for a few moments longer, both looking at the cupboard and wondering what had befallen poor Sarah May, and why. This new evidence meant that everything was back on the table. These disappearances were clearly not random at all, and someone must have had a motive for murder.
“I need to get a team down here,” Sean said, probably thinking along the same lines as I was. This was a new scene to investigate and it might hold the answers we so badly needed to solve the mystery.
“I should, uh, be getting back to my deliveries,” I said, trying my luck.
“Statement first,” Sean replied, taking out an old-school notepad and paper.
I gave it to him, pleased that he’d decided to do it himself rather than making me wait for one of the lower ranking officers to take it. I was especially grateful considering that I’d just put a major spanner in the works of his investigation… and technically broken-in to a crime scene. I had a feeling that if I put even a single toe out of line, it was something that would resurface. From now on, it might be better if I walked around town wearing a blindfold.
“Okay, all done,” Sean said when he’d finished asking me a few basic questions and had written down my responses. “Hazel…” he said, making me hesitate as I turned to leave.
I looked back at him and discovered he was frowning down at the ground.
“I don’t know why I’m saying this, but…” He took a deep breath. “…Emma Kirkus’ lawyer has the same colour eyes as you and Jesse Heathen. Is there something I should know about your particular eye colour?”
I thought about it for a few seconds and then shook my head without saying anything more. My insides screwed themselves up as I lied to Sean Admiral, but I just couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth. I told myself it was because eye colour alone was not confirmation of who, or what, this lawyer might really be, but inside I knew it was because telling the detective the truth about what I suspected would spark all kinds of questions about me. And I didn’t yet know the answer to those questions myself. It was selfish, but I’d just started to feel like Sean and I were becoming allies rather than enemies. I didn’t want him to think I was a devil.
“I spoke with my coven yesterday. They think that all of this is the work of hellhounds,” I threw in, hoping to distract the detective from drawing any more parallels between me, Jesse, and this mystery lawyer.
“Hellhounds?” He arched his dark eyebrows.
I managed a smile. “Isn’t that ridiculous? They claim to have heard howling, but it’s probably just someone’s dog. I don’t even think they’re a real…” I trailed off. I’d been about to tell the detective that I didn’t think hellhounds were a real thing, but with a devilish sense of timing, I’d spotted movement out of the kitchen window visible from my place in the hallway.
There was a big black dog sitting in Sarah May’s garden, staring into the house. Unless I was much mistaken, its eyes were glowing red.
9
Hecate
Sean turned around, following my gaze. “What is it? What are you looking at?”
“You don’t see it?” I asked, not taking my eyes off the black dog.
“There’s nothing there.”
I gulped. “That’s not good,” I said, more to myself than to Sean. Even after everything my coven had said, I’d hoped that the dog I’d once seen communicating with my cat, Hedge, was no more than a stray dog with unusual eyes. But a big black dog that was invisible to normal people did not bode well for my theory, or my state of denial.
“Are you seriously telling me you can see something?” Sean said, craning his neck in that direction.
The dog blinked once and then got up and trotted out of view.
“No you don’t!” I muttered before glancing at Sean. “I have to go,” I told him, dodging the crime scene as best as I could as I made my way into the kitchen and let myself out of the back door. I’d made a promise to my coven to protect them from the hellhounds they believed the Witch Council was sending after them. It was a promise I intended to keep.
I saw the black dog disappear into the woods when I made it outside. Without a thought for what Sean must think of me, or my own personal safety, I charged across the lawn after it. The hellhound, if that was what it indeed was, seemed in no particular hurry to go anywhere. It trotted along and I, for want of a better plan, followed along behind it.
I assumed that the supernatural creature knew I was tailing it. I’d snapped at least five twigs since we’d been walking through the woods, but it didn’t seem to care. Or perhaps it was biding its time before it attacked and was luring me out into the middle of nowhere.
We took a turn back towards town and I scrapped that theory.
Now my creepy feelings about following an alleged hellhound into the woods were replaced by curiosity. Why were we going back to town? Was the cupboard another false lead and the hounds really were to blame for the recent disappearances? My brain was alive with questions that seemed to have no answers to them. All I could do was follow the dog and see where it led me.
I started to become suspicious when it trotted down a narrow street at the less salubrious end of town. Then when it took a sha
rp left, my suspicions turned into near certainty. When I turned the corner and saw it trot up to the door of the dark little shop at the end of the street… and then slide straight through it, like the solid glass wasn’t even there… I knew we’d reached the hound’s final destination.
Abandoning stealth, I ran up to what had once been Hellion Grey’s little shop of horrors and flung open the door, hoping that I wasn’t too late. Jesse Heathen may be a pain in the butt, but he didn’t deserve to be ripped to shreds by some terrible hound of hell.
“So! You finally decided to come by and check out the Heathen Detective Agency,” Jesse said, strolling out of the storeroom at the back of the shop and seeing me standing in the doorway with a stricken look on my face.
“Jesse… you need to know…” I started to warn him about the hellhound, but before I could, there was the clinking sound of claws on wood. The big black dog trotted out of the storeroom behind him. It plonked itself down on the floor next to him and looked up with adoring glowing red eyes.
“It’s your hound,” I said, scarcely able to believe that I hadn’t realised the truth before now. I’d seen Hedge communicating with it, for goodness’ sake!
Jesse tilted his head and frowned at me. “Hound?” he said, as if there wasn’t a giant black dog in the room with us.
“The one with glowing red eyes that’s sitting by your side.”
Jesse glanced down and I knew he was looking right at the dog. “Oh. That one,” he said, limply. “You can see her then?”
I felt like tearing my hair out. “Yes. It’s a giant black dog! It’s hard to miss. Hemlock and I saw it before out in the garden talking to Hedge.”
Jesse rubbed his chin thoughtfully, still looking at the dog. “Interesting. Most members of the supernatural community can’t see hellhounds. It’s actually a big part of their appeal. You can set them on someone and they’ll never see it coming - not until they’re ripped to shreds and dragged down to the dark dimension.”
“So I’ve been told,” I said, remembering Aurelia’s scathing comments about my lack of knowledge on the topic. “I notice that you can see them… and are friendly with one,” I said, folding my arms. I couldn’t believe I’d rushed in here to save Jesse, only to find that he was buddies with the thing.
“This is Hecate. She’s mine.” He shrugged at me. “Every devil gets one. The more enterprising among us have packs of them, but Hecate is enough for me. She’s never failed to take down a dealbreaker.” He patted the horrible hound on the top of her fuzzy head. Her tongue lolled out, ruining the alarming exterior for a moment.
“Dealbreaker?”
“Have a seat and I’ll put on a pot of tea so that this doesn’t feel quite so much like an interrogation,” Jesse quipped. He motioned to a sleek looking pair of chairs by a low stylish coffee table, where he presumably met with his clients.
I walked over there, being sure to skirt around the large dog. Jesse slipped back into the store room, humming Man! I Feel Like a Woman by Shania Twain under his breath. I was left alone with the hellhound and no real answers about what this thing was.
The thing stood up and plodded over to me. She sat down uncomfortably close and looked up at me with her head cocked to one side. I wasn’t good at translating hellhound, if there was such a language, but her expression definitely seemed to be asking ‘What are you?’
“I wish I knew,” I muttered, before wondering if I’d made a mistake by addressing her directly. Were hellhounds sensitive to whether or not you could actually see them?
I was still worrying when Hecate the hellhound sighed and lay down, placing her head on my rather muddy shoe. She didn’t seem to mind the mess, and I felt the warm comforting weight of her head, the same way you would if she were a normal flesh and blood dog.
“Hngggh!” I said, still unsure about the animal that was now touching me.
“You’re such a cat person,” Jesse said, returning with a pot of tea that smelled very much like my bestselling Fruitful Focus blend.
“Is that my tea?” I asked. Some things were more important than finding out the truth about hellhounds and everything else.
“It is! I’m doing some market research before launching my own brand…” He cleared his throat. “Kidding! It’s good, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “I don’t remember you buying any.”
“We’re friends!”
I shot him a disbelieving look.
He grinned. “I can’t help my devilish ways, okay?”
I sighed and crossed my arms again. I couldn’t believe he had the nerve to steal from me and then serve me my own stolen tea! “If it turns out I’ve got something devilish in me, too, I can’t wait to start using your own excuses against you.”
“Would you like something devilish in you?” Jesse raised his dark eyebrows and kept that stupid grin on his face.
“No! That’s just gross,” I said, shocked that he’d even gone there.
“Ouch, my sensitive male ego,” Jesse joked, pretending to clutch his chest. The smile never even slipped. “My hellhound likes you, by the way.”
“Should I take it as a compliment?” I asked, dryly, already knowing the answer.
Jesse’s hesitation was just more confirmation.
“As usual, I think you have some explaining to do,” I said, looking down at the snoozing hellhound.
“Well, I’m an open book,” Jesse said, his smile growing wider.
I glared at him.
“If you’re mean to me, I won’t tell you anything,” he said, deciding to treat me like a five-year-old.
I very nearly threw the table across the room.
Huh. Maybe there was an argument for why he was treating me like a kid.
“It’s simple. When you’re a devil, you are responsible for making deals. The powers that be who gift us, or curse us, with our abilities also assign us an enforcer to make sure that dealbreakers are dealt with. I was given Hecate.” He spread his hands out wide. “See? It’s just a normal devil thing!”
“No one can see them apart from devils?” I wanted that clarified.
“And cats. Nothing gets past cats.”
“Why me?” I muttered, before regretting speaking my doubts out loud to Jesse.
“On the plus side, you’ll be able to see a hellhound coming if anyone sends one after you,” Jesse said, not really selling the positive.
I wanted to know more, but questioning the devil in front of me was a difficult task. He usually liked to disappear in a puff of smoke when I tried. But I wasn’t a quitter, and I’d thought of a new question to ask.
“Why did you really come to Wormwood? I know the mayor double-crossed you and is getting away with it, but… what about before then?” When he’d arrived in town he’d heavily hinted that the mayor was doing him a favour he’d owed him - although it was clear that the entirety of that favour had not been carried out. Otherwise Jesse wouldn’t be going after him.
But why had Jesse come to town in the first place?
He’d claimed it had been to solve the mystery of the body in Wormwood Forest, but I knew it had to be something else.
He looked thoughtful for a moment and then - to my amazement - he answered the question.
“I suppose I did promise…” he muttered, looking a little pained - as though it were something he was now forced to do. “I was pushed here by the powers that be. Don’t ask me about them - I don’t know who or what they are. We’re just contacted from time to time. I used my deal with the mayor in order to get a foothold in the town, but he stopped giving me the support I asked for, before his side of our deal was completed. I know you want to know what the deal was, but I can’t tell you the details because of… rules.”
I frowned. I wasn’t sure if I believed that excuse. Things like ‘rules’ had never seemed to stop Jesse in the past.
“Anyway, the truth is I’m not entirely sure why I’m here, but… if I were to guess, I’d say it has something to do with you and somethin
g that happened in my past.” He looked at me with eyes that matched my own. “I think you’re caught between worlds the way devils are. You can see an inter-dimensional being like a hellhound - the same way we can. Your magic is different from a normal witch’s, but it’s not the same as what we’re given. Plus, I have come across someone just like you before…” He let his words trail off.
My hands gripped the arms of the chair I was sitting in. “What? Someone like me?”
His face clouded for a moment and he nodded. “She wanted to make a deal, but for reasons, I couldn’t do it. She had the same eyes that you have, and she was afraid of something. She claimed that she was the result of a deal made with a different devil…” He took a breath. “…which was a weird thing to say. When I came here and saw the similarities in you, I went back to find her and ask her more about it, but she’d disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” I was not liking the way this story was going. Or the fact that Jesse had kept all of this from me for so long! He might keep his promises, but he was still a liar.
“Wiped from the surface of the planet. Disappeared without a trace. Ah… that was actually what she was afraid of when she came to me to make the deal.” He pulled a guilty face.
“Great. That’s just great,” I muttered, drawing the parallels in my mind between this mysterious woman and what Constantine Salem had hinted about knowing. “Why are you only telling me this now?”
“I told you. I made a promise. Even though I’ve tried to put it off, bad things happen if I break a promise I made sincerely. Plus, I’m just a nice guy! I want to help.”
I threw him an extremely skeptical look. “So, let me get this straight… the mayor’s up to something, there are hellhounds in town, and I’m probably about to be the next name added to the local missing persons list.”
“But just so you know, I do only have one hellhound,” he said, confirming something I was sure he’d already mentioned - so why say it again?
“Is there something else you want to tell me?”
