Embrace of Darkness

by Bilinda Sheehan

  “I’ll have a chat to him,” I said with a smile, glancing back over my shoulder in the direction Victoria had taken off in. There was no point in following her, I would just say something to make the whole situation that much worse and I really didn’t want to do that.

  So with one last regretful look over my shoulder, I headed back into the garden where I’d last seen the coroner.

  The slight man crouched over the limb in the garden was nothing like any of the coroners I’d ever worked with back in King City. There was no white coveralls, no mask. As I reached his side, I was somewhat relieved to find him wearing gloves.

  “You the girl from the Elite?” he asked, eyeing me distrustfully.

  “Amber Morgan,” I said, “the Sheriff said you had something you wanted to tell me?”

  “You lot still only hiring humans or have the monsters infiltrated your ranks yet?”

  “The anomaly,” I said as patiently as I could, “what is it?”

  “The arm wasn’t ripped off by a troll,” he said, “something else did it.”

  I stared at him in surprise. “Excuse me?”

  “Are you deaf?” He quipped back fast as lightning. “I said the arm was ripped off by something other than a troll.” The last part he said loud enough to draw the attention of everyone milling around.

  “But, the troll in the cellar,” I said, glancing back toward the house. The paramedics were wheeling the woman I’d found away on a gurney but nobody looked particularly hopeful. “Why would he be here if he wasn’t the one responsible for doing this?”

  The coroner gave me an incredulous look. “That’s your job, missy,” he said, “I’ve done my part.”

  “How can you be certain it wasn’t the troll,” I said, turning my attention back to his face once more.

  He sighed, making me feel like I’d just said the most stupid thing he’d ever heard in his life.

  “See these marks here,” he said, twisting the arm around so I could see the severed end more clearly. The bone protruded from the top, the ragged flesh was discoloured and the there was definite clotting in places. He pointed to the discoloured skin that looked like someone had peeled it back from the muscular flesh. “These are claw marks.”

  “Trolls have claws,” I said, remembering the long curved nails at the tips of the troll’s fingers.

  “Not like this,” he said, “these are...” He trailed off and glanced up at me. “Best guess, and that’s all it is. These marks are consistent with something birdlike. Like an eagle but bigger... obviously.”

  “Great, so we have a troll problem and now you’re telling me big bird is running around and dismembering people too?”

  With a wry smile he set the arm back on the ground. “As I said, not my problem.”

  “Is that it then?”

  “That’s it,” he said, “now shoo fly and get hunting.”

  With one last look of disbelief I walked away. He was definitely odd but I couldn’t shake what he’d just told me. Trolls were bad enough.

  But what else was the little town of Fortune hiding?

  16

  “We should take a look down by the river in town,” Victoria said as soon as I made it back to the car.

  “Oh, so you’re talking to me now?”

  “I would have thought that was obvious, or did you hit your head a little too hard when the troll rang your bell back there?”

  “You told me you were going to look for a transfer and now you’re behaving like everything is just hunky dory, excuse me for not keeping up.”

  Victoria gave me an appraising look. “I intend to do the job we were sent here for,” she said, “and that involves interacting with you about things we need to do.”

  Ignoring her, I pushed my hands up over my face, hating the feel of dried troll blood on my hands. All I wanted to do was head back to the motel for a shower and something to eat.

  “Why are we going down by the river?”

  “The other troll was seen there in the early hours of the morning,” Victoria said, starting the engine as I hopped in the passenger side and pulled a packet of hand wipes from the glove compartment.

  “My god, does no one in this town obey the curfew?”

  She shot me a curious sidelong glance as we pulled away from the curb. “I thought you would understand human behaviour better than I do,” she said. “They dislike rules and constantly seek out ways to disrupt them.”

  “It just seems stupid with trolls running around taking people,” I said.

  “They don’t know it’s trolls though.”

  “There’s something else stalking the people,” I said, “something birdlike apparently.”

  Victoria said nothing, keeping her eyes focused on the road ahead.

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” I said, struggling to find the right words with which too apologise.

  “I don’t need more apologies, Amber,” Victoria said, turning the wheel so we swung onto the main street, which at this time of the morning was completely deserted. At the bottom of the road, a large church stood guard over the town. The spire a finger pointing directly to the heavens above as though in censure of the folks who sought forgiveness inside the belly of the building.

  “Then what do you need? Because I’m at a loss here.”

  “I need things you can’t give me,” she said with a sigh. “Turns out I don’t understand human motivations as well as I thought I did.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “You forgave Nic,” she said softly.

  “Is that what this is about? You’re unhappy because I’m giving it a go with Nic.”

  “Who you have sex with is your business,” she said. “But your power is tied to your emotions, Amber, and he’s no good for them.”

  I glanced out the window noting the numbers of houses with sold signs hanging outside them. The sheriff had been right about Rikerson buying up the property around this part of town.

  “You have no idea what’s good for my emotions.”

  “You need time to learn about your power, without complicating things with heartache.”

  “How do you know, Nic, is going to cause me heartache?”

  As she parked the car, she gave me a sympathetic glance. “Only a fool would think it would end another way.”

  “Way to go for a vote of confidence in our relationship,” I said bitterly. Regretting the words as soon as they left my mouth. I couldn’t blame Victoria for her distrust of Nic. Hell, I wasn’t entirely sure I could trust him or myself being around him yet. Everything was still far too new.

  “I know it seems strange,” I said, quietly, staring down into my lap. I knotted my fingers around the edge of my leather jacket, studying the way the material bunched up in my grip rather than meeting Victoria’s leaden gaze. I could practically feel her disapproval as it rolled off her in waves.

  “But I really do love him.”

  “I know,” she said kindly. “That’s what makes all this harder to watch.”

  “Have you ever been in love?”

  When she said nothing I found myself sneaking a quick look in her direction. Victoria was staring out the driver’s window, her mind clearly elsewhere, lost in her own thoughts.

  “Once,” she said, “I thought he loved me.”

  “What happened?”

  “He didn’t love me.” Her voice was devoid of all emotion, a pattern I was beginning to notice in the changeling whenever she wanted to avoid a topic of conversation.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She sighed and twisted in the seat to face me once more. “I’m tired of hearing you say that. It’s getting boring.”

  I opened my mouth and swallowed the apology back down before it could trip off my tongue.

  “You’re the first partner I’ve worked with,” she said, “that I haven’t wanted to murder.”

  “Could have fooled me,” I said with a grin.

  Victoria didn’t return my smile and I felt it wither
and die on my lips. “Would you work with someone you couldn’t trust?” Her question took me somewhat by surprise.

  “I don’t suppose I would want to,” I said. Even in the beginning with Graham, when he had tricked me into working with him, there had been a part of me that had always known I could trust him. That despite everything, he would have my back.

  “Trust is not lightly given by the fae,” she said. “We are naturally distrustful. It’s our nature. It’s the reason we have survived as long as we have.”

  “And you don’t trust me.”

  “I did.”

  “And now?”

  “And now,” she glanced out the window once more. “I don’t know.”

  It was a simple answer really but it definitely wasn’t the one I wanted to hear. There was a small petty part of me that felt like everyone I’d ever cared about, anyone I’d ever allowed to get close to me, was now deserting me. First Graham, now Victoria... Who was next?

  Not that I really thought Graham had deserted me. He’d been murdered. The rational part of my brain understood that but the irrational half—the part formed entirely of emotion—couldn’t understand why he hadn’t wanted to stay with me. It was unfair but then that was grief for you. If irrational thought was a car, then emotional turmoil was the highway it drove on and grief was the severed brakes.

  “We should go,” I said. “Better to get this done in daylight at least.”

  Victoria got out of the car without another word, leaving me behind. I had screwed up and I hadn’t even realised it. I knew what she was talking about. I could remember the moment I’d held her by the throat, the feel of her life in my hands and just how easy it would have been to snuff it out. Only Nic had stopped me. I hadn’t had enough control to stop myself. I’d tasted my power and given myself over to it all wholeheartedly.

  Was Alastor right? Perhaps he knew how I could control my powers, if I ever figured out how to get them back. It was a thought for another time. Right now, I had a troll to hunt and with the way I was feeling, I was more than up for a fight.

  Moving around to the back of the car, I watched Victoria choose the weapons she planned to bring with her. I clicked another flashlight onto my belt before I slipped into my bullet proof vest. Not that I really expected trolls to carry guns but the vest was still good protection when going up against creatures who had claws as long as my fingers.

  I pulled a machete from the bag and eyed the blade.

  “It was the best I could do,” Victoria said, noting my disapproving study of the notched blade.

  “It’s definitely seen better days,” I said. “Is it sharp?”

  “Yeah, but feel free to test it,” she said with a smirk.

  “I’ll take your word for it.” I grabbed a sheath from the bag and stepped myself in, sliding the machete into place on my waist. Its weight reassuring against my thigh.

  “I really wish I had a flame thrower right about now,” Victoria said longingly.

  “It’s one troll,” I said. “I don’t think we’ll need a flame thrower.”

  She rolled her shoulders and closed her eyes, letting her head fall back on her neck for a moment. Her breathing slowed and I watched as her body changed, her skin rippling as her changeling half emerged. Her obsidian skin glittering from within as though filled with glittering diamonds. I’d never seen her change out in the sun before and I found myself staring. Everywhere the light touched her, Victoria’s skin drank it down. Her power growing with every moment that ticked by, the air growing heavy as I stood next to her as she let her full power peek out.

  I had tasted it in the cemetery; she definitely wasn’t some one to screw with.

  And between one breath and the next, her changeling half was gone, sinking back into her body as though it hadn’t been there at all.

  “Good to go?” she asked.

  Sliding an elastic band off my wrist, I secured my hair into a high-ponytail before I nodded. “As good as it’s going to get. Let’s go hunting...”

  17

  The river was still swollen and flowed swiftly just beyond the grassy ledge that marked the banks. The birds swooped low overhead, darting in and out of the long grasses to eat the insects that buzzed around. It was the perfect summer’s day as we headed for the high bridge.

  Long logs drifted down the river in groups of three and four and I found myself pausing to stare out at the disappearing forest on the other side of the bank.

  The scent of something rotten hit my senses as I drank in a deep breath and I wrinkled my nose in disgust.

  “What is that?”

  Victoria was ahead of me, making a beeline for the shade provided by the bridge. I followed suit, the smell only growing stronger as we passed into he cover thrown by the large cement structure.

  Following the smell, my nose led me down to the bank of the river. A large pipe spilled into the river, the grate over the front had been peeled back by something strong enough to twist steel into a whole new shape. Worst of all, the smell was definitely emanating from the pipe and grew stronger the closer we got to it.

  “Please, don’t tell me that’s raw sewage,” I said, eyeing the run off disdainfully. The thought of wading through crap wasn’t exactly my idea of a fun time.

  “It looks more like a strain drain run-off,” Victoria said, crouching on the muddy river bank. She grabbed a stick from nearby and began to poke through the silt and mud gathered near the mouth of the drain.

  “What have you got?” I moved carefully through over the slippery ground, landing on my ass wouldn’t do me any favours right now.

  She dropped the stick and reached into the mud and pulled something free from the wet ground. Cleaning the worst of the mud free from the oddly shaped item, she held it up into the light so I could see it a little more clearly.

  “Is that a jawbone?”

  Victoria nodded. “Certainly looks that way,” she said, “it must have washed out of the drain and gotten stuck in the mud here on the riverbank.”

  “Well, at least we know we’re in the right place,” I said, with a sigh. There would be no rescue of those who had been taken. Not that I had really believed that this would be a rescue operation. Deep down, I’d always known that this was nothing more than an extermination. The part I couldn’t quite understand however, was why the trolls were behaving the way they were.

  They weren’t the brightest of creatures, preferring to stay in the shadows. They could use glamour as well as any other member of the fae but that was as far as their ability to blend in went. Two minutes in the company of a glamoured troll was a dead giveaway for their true nature.

  And while they were man-eaters, they were opportunistic killers. Waiting in the dark for their victims to stumble into their lair, rather than going out to hunt for food.

  Pulling my torch off my belt, I flicked it on and directed the beam into the mouth of the pipe. Something glistened on the steel bars but I had to step into the mouth of the tunnel to get a closer look. It was almost tall enough for me to stand straight inside it, if the trolls were using this as an entrance to their lair, then they would have to crawl through it at a squeeze.

  “I’m going in,” I said, without looking back over my shoulder to check on Victoria. She would follow at her own pace.

  Keeping my head down, I followed the pipe, the water gradually growing more sluggish as the ground grew muddy.

  “Are you sure this is the best use of our time?” Victoria’s voice was muffled somewhere behind me.

  Apparently changelings didn’t like trudging through dirt and mud either and the further into the tunnel we went, the more mud we encountered.

  Reaching a junction, I paused and met Victoria’s gaze in the torchlight. “Which way from here?”

  She studied the tunnels, before shining her light at the one we had been following. “Straight ahead,” she said, “the others have less waste running through them which makes me think this is the one to stick to.”

  I no
dded. I just hoped she was right and we weren’t just taking a pointless stroll through a metric-ton of troll crap for no reason.

  Each step I took resulted in my booted feet sinking almost up to my ankles in the thick dark sludge that covered the floor and it was only getting deeper. Trolls living in a lair built under a bridge. The irony of it. However, these definitely weren’t the kinds of trolls who lay in wait to eat smart ass goats that passed by. These were the kind who would eat my face if I made just the slightest mistake.

  “Do you have a better plan?” I called back to her with a grimace as my foot became particularly stuck in the soft ground underfoot.

  Please don’t let this be troll crap.

  Hoisting my foot up from the sucking mud I took another step, my foot coming down on something that hard and dome shaped the rocked unsteadily beneath my boot. Hopping sideways, I planted my hands firmly against the wall in an attempt to steady myself and stared down at the place where my foot had been just seconds before.

  “What is it?” Victoria asked, coming up level with me. Her shoulders brushed mine, the tunnel just wide enough to take us both. At least it had started to widen and I could now stand up tall without worrying about smashing my head off the solid cement ceiling.

  Good thing I wasn’t particularly claustrophobic or I might have been in real trouble. Handing my torch off to Victoria, I reached down into the mud. The closer I got to the ground, the more putrid the mud itself seemed to smell, like mouldering food and rotting meat. Wrapping my gloved hands around the object I’d stepped on, I hefted it free of the mud. The forensic gloves I wore weren’t as long as I would have liked but they covered enough and I lifted the skull into the light of Victoria’s torch.

  “It’s not a human skull,” she whispered and the urgency in her voice wasn’t lost on me.

  She was right about one thing, it was definitely too large to be a human skull but it didn’t paint a pretty picture.

  Examining the skull a little closer, I noticed the odd gouges that lined the bone, as though something with wickedly sharp teeth had cleaned the flesh from it.