Don't Slay the Dragon (The Chronicles of Elizabeth Marshall Book 1)

by Rachel Lucas

  “And so you think she became possessed because of a séance? What kind of a demon was it? Was he some fanged monster with horns, red skin and a tail?” He was enjoying himself now.

  “She.” I corrected him.

  “Excuse me?” He asked.

  “Atrus Dracona seems to be a female. The name may mean Black Dragon in Latin. The dragon,” I again spoke to the room at large, “was a favorite of Barbara’s. She was an artist. There are several paintings in her home of dragons. According to her journal, this Atrus Dracona may have influenced some of her artwork.”

  “A female demon?” Dr. Ross gave a bark of a laugh, already dismissing my theory. “If anything, Barbara Marshall may have been afflicted with the same mental disorders as her daughter. There may be a small hereditary factor here. It bears further observation and examination. I think it would be more beneficial to concentrate instead on the various personalities present during the session. Was it Elizabeth, or Lisbeth as you call her, that was present towards the end of your visit?”

  No sense in telling him more than he needed to know, I thought to myself. Sophie was still a puzzle I was trying to solve anyway.

  “Yes,” I agreed distractedly just as my cell phone rang. Right on time. I looked at the caller ID with an inward smile and fought for a contrite look. “I’m sorry, this is a very important call and I need to take it. Dr. Ross, I’ll be sure to let you know when I can come down for my next visit.”

  I stood up, pulled my purse strap up on my shoulder, and hurried out the door before he could say another word. I could hear him huffing and puffing in frustration in the room behind me as walked out into the hallway and headed for the elevator.

  “Perfect timing, Logan,” I smiled as I pushed the button for the ground floor and watched the elevator doors shut before me. “Two more minutes and I would have been ready for a padded room myself.”

  His masculine laugh greeted me on the other end of the line. We had timed it about right. I knew I’d only be able to stand just so much of an interrogation today. His call was the perfect excuse to cut things short.

  “I wouldn’t want that. I have more good news for you too.”

  “Really?” I asked as I left the elevator and headed for the main door. “Tell me.”

  “I just got off the phone with forensics. They’ve found something underneath the Black Dragon. I want to go back and get the other two paintings in the trailer, maybe search for more. Do you want to meet me there in about an hour?”

  “I’ll be there. I have some things to tell you too. See you soon.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Despite the recent stress, I could feel my adrenalin pumping as I drove back north. As I usually did when I left the mental hospital and headed towards home, I processed through my visit with Lisbeth as I drove.

  There was the memory of the Halloween night Dr. Ross chose to dwell on, that was significant, of course. But I tried to look deeper. Something else Bethany said struck me. They had made her the Memory Keeper. Dr. Ross hadn’t picked up on that yet. Did that mean she would need to be the one I spoke to whenever I wanted to discuss a memory? It was an interesting way to do it. Charge Bethany with keeping the memories then surround her with protectors like Slayer, or maybe even Vesper. It was something to consider.

  Sophie also said something that nagged at me. She seemed upset that I had found out as much as I had. Too much, in her words. What was she hiding? What information was I learning from the others that Sophie didn’t want me to know? Did she not want me to look too closely into Barbara and her past? What did she know?

  Before I knew it I was pulling in front of the single-wide white and silver trailer with the turquoise trim. Logan’s car was already there as well as a black dodge Ram truck. He met me at the door with the latex gloves and foot covers. He was wearing jeans, a navy pullover and a comfortable black leather jacket. I hadn’t seen him for a few days. I was surprised how much I missed him.

  “Hope you don’t mind, I called in some help,” I looked around him to see Detective Hammond in the living room area, moving furniture around. He gave a bit of an embarrassed wave, probably expecting to have to eat a little crow to find out there was more to this case than he had first thought. I decided to go easy on him.

  “Thanks for your help, Detective Hammond,” I gave a slight smile and he nodded in acknowledgement. I turned back to Logan. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  “Forensics just emailed these to me before I left the office. I printed them out. The office printer isn’t the best, but I think you’ll be able to see them clear enough.”

  He pulled out a large yellow envelope and slid two pieces of paper from it. The first print out seemed to be a photograph of the black dragon picture we had discovered when we were here before. It was in black and white which should have lessened the intensity of the picture, but instead it brought out the shapes and definitions in sharper relief. The dragon was even fiercer than I remembered. It’s sleek ebony wings were folded out as if ready to take flight. Those haunting eyes were vivid with danger. The front talons were gripping the shale as it rose out of the fiery liquid. I had to pry my eyes away from the picture to see what was on the next paper.

  At first I thought it was just a copy of the first picture. Confused, I was about to ask Logan what the duplicate was for when a subtle difference caught my eye. Along the bones and veins of the left wing I could make out odd lines. At first they just looked like scratches, but they didn’t quite follow the lines of the wings. Looking closer, it seemed as though the lines were letters. They were grouped together in what might be words. I looked at Logan in question.

  “I have a friend down at county that works in forensics named Jessica. She took an interest in the dragon. She’s actually a pretty decent artist herself. She was examining the piece when she noticed a slight abnormality in this area.” He pointed to the same place on the wings I had noticed. “She has this special turpentine mixture she uses that removes paint by small layers. It looks as though there may be words hidden in the picture.”

  Fascinated, I looked closer, trying to see the words. He took a pen out of his jacket pocket and traced over a few of the lines in the picture. I could make out three words. Look….under…answers.

  “She’s almost certain there’s more. She just has a big workload right now and hasn’t been able to work on it for long.” Logan explained. “She said she’d keep working on it and let me know if she finds anything else out.”

  Interesting. What did it mean? Look under what? What answers? I could spend the next few years looking under everything in this small cluttered trailer. Where to begin?

  “We already have the other two canvasses secure,” he pointed at the two canvasses on the floor next to the door, rolled into tubes and wrapped in plastic. I guessed it was the paintings of the red and green dragons. There was no telling what could be beneath the paint on those canvasses.

  “What else are we looking for tonight?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Logan wasn’t usually this vague. “Call it a hunch. After all the things we found on the computer, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to get a better look around here, see if there is anything we missed the first time.”

  Detective Hammond didn’t seem to like the idea that they had been less than thorough during the initial investigation. He gave an unhappy huff then moved past the area Barbara had died and headed towards the back of the trailer. His big, solid steps causing the old trailer to creak as he walked down the hall.

  Logan was looking in the small kitchen area, carefully moving around the blood splatter area, checking cabinets and walls. I realized he was going out on a limb for me here. Most law enforcement officers dealt with facts and evidence. I doubted he would be here with me tonight, going over the trailer again, if he hadn’t listened to my concerns and acted on instinct.

  I put the photos that were still in my hands back into the envelope, placed it on the metal kitchen table and looked around.
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  I stood in the cluttered front room, trying to compare what it had looked like in my memories to what it looked like now. I wanted to see if there were any noticeable differences.

  Much of it seemed frozen in time. Only a few small things had changed, a new pillow, a bit more updated TV. There was a newer coverlet draped across the tattered couch. I swept it aside to look beneath it. Nothing. Much of this room was the same as I remembered it as a girl.

  It was starting to get darker, the days were getting shorter. I reached over to turn on the light in the front room but nothing happened.

  Logan saw what I did and tried the kitchen light. Still nothing.

  “I guess the landlord quit paying he electricity bill,” Logan guessed.

  “That’s what it looks like,” I agreed. “At least we still have some daylight left.”

  I continued looking around. The setting sun through the open door and cracks in the boarded windows gave the room an eerily orange-reddish glow. Dust motes that we stirred up during our search floated around the musty evening air.

  “I think there’s something back here,” Hammond called from down the hallway towards the bathroom and Barbara’s bedroom. I shot Logan a look then followed him down the tight hall, towards Hammond’s voice. He was in the tiny, cramped bathroom.

  Hammond was a big man anyway, so in the claustrophobic space it was hard to see around him. He was pointing to the small, homemade bookshelf with a few science-fiction paperbacks on the shelf. He was removing the books from shelf then removing the shelf itself, placing it in a narrow space on the floor beside the toilet.

  “I noticed the wood paneling didn’t really match up right here,” he pointed to wall behind the bookshelf. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a Gerber knife. He carefully slid the blade along the edge on the paneling and we all jumped when it popped off and fell onto the floor, revealing a hidden niche.

  It wasn’t very big, maybe only a foot wide, five inches high and a foot deep. There was a small plastic container inside with a lid sealed in place, the kind of compact storage container you might find in any medicine cabinet.

  Who knew if this was anything significant or not? Hammond’s big, latex-covered hands carefully lifted it down to sit it on the narrow countertop surrounding the sink. We all crouched down for a closer look. The plastic lid cracked slightly as he opened the container. Inside the container were five syringes, two looked used and the other three were still in their plastic packaging. There were three small vials, two of which still seemed to have a small about of clear liquid in them. The labeling on the vials had been removed so there was no way of telling immediately what they contained.

  There were also several prescription bottles in the container. Each one had Barbara’s name on them and they were each for different prescriptions. Loratab, Percodan, Oxycontin, Dilaudid, Duloxetine, Pregabalin and Milnacipran. I recognized some as strong painkillers, the others were new to me.

  What had Barbara been hiding?

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Hammond whistled under his breath. “These are some serious meds. Dilaudid is really hard core. The dates range over more than a year and each was prescribed by a different doctor.”

  “Did any of these come up in the toxicology screen of her autopsy?” I asked, remembering the internet searches we had found on her computer.

  “I don’t remember,” Logan straightened and walked back down the hall, retrieving evidence bags to put the syringes, vials and prescription bottles in. They would need to be taken back to the county forensic labs for further analysis. “Honestly, I don’t think we did a very thorough toxicology screen, come to think of it. We were more focused on the perpetrator. We’ll definitely have these examined and checked against the blood and tissue samples we have from the autopsy.”

  I watched as they sealed and labeled the clear plastic bags. What other things might have been missed? I asked myself as I left them and headed back down the hall towards the front of the trailer. What other secrets were there that Barbara was keeping?

  As Hammond took the bags out to his Chevy truck, I wandered back into the kitchen/living room. Logan was right behind me. It was getting darker and darker by the moment.

  “Just walk around and keep looking,” Logan encouraged me as he tossed me a flashlight. “Look for anything out of the ordinary, anything that may have changed from what you remembered.”

  I switched on the flashlight and looked around the room. Hammond had returned and was continuing his search of the bathroom. Again, I noticed that there were a few changes here and there, but that was to be expected. I tried to jog my memory to recall the details of that this room had once looked like. It had been many years ago that I had been here as a young girl. I looked around a small coffee table, lifted an old lamp, finding nothing, then glanced under the table. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to find. All I could really see was old, dusty furniture crammed into a too small space.

  “What did you find out from your visit with Lisbeth today?” Logan asked as I looked around a small rocking chair in the corner. I was so engrossed in the recent revelations and discoveries that I had almost forgotten my hospital visit earlier. I continued searching under the wooden legs of the couch I was standing next to. Nothing hiding under here.

  “Bethany, one of her younger personalities talked to me,” I explained as I slowly moved about the room. A TV sat on a wooden stand. There was nothing around or behind it out of the ordinary. “She’s a young girl, about twelve or so. She says she’s the Memory Keeper. It might be something significant, I’m not sure. She told me the memory about the night I think Barbara became possessed.”

  “Really?” It was Hammond’s surprised voice from down the hallway. I had to smile to myself to see his sudden interest now. I was glad he was on board now, that he had having more of an open mind about the investigation.

  “Yes, according to her, it was a séance on Halloween night. A party at an old house in Salt Lake. She said there was talk about the house being haunted. Bethany said that Barbara challenged one of the spirits. I’m not sure what that means. I suspect she may have disturbed something better left alone.” I had wandered into the office area by now, Lisbeth’s old bedroom. I glanced around again at the small room, the desk, and the remnants of the computer as I spoke. “Bethany was too scared to go into a lot of detail. She’s usually very timid. I have to be very careful with her. It was actually Slayer that wanted her to speak to me.”

  “Who’s Slayer?” Hammond’s gravelly voice asked.

  “Isn’t he the one you were afraid of from one of your other visits?” Logan asked from the other room.

  “Yes, but he seemed different this time.” I shone the flashlight around the room, still seeing the same bookshelf, trophies and books as before. I looked through the books again, moved the trophies aside and searched behind them. “He seemed protective of Bethany. And he was trying to get her to tell me something. He wanted me to know about the séance incident. He said I needed to keep looking, that there was more about Barbara I needed to know.”

  I shone the light on one of the small framed pictures on the wall. It was one of Lisbeth’s delicate fairies. She had rainbow wings, a shimmering green dress, pointed pixy face and spiky red hair. She had a mischievous look in her eyes that reminded me vaguely of Sophie. I leaned closer for a better look, admiring the minute details. It was done in colored pen and ink and done quite well. It could have been an illustration for a children’s book.

  Having the trailer unoccupied for this long was starting to take its toll, I noticed. The spackled ceiling was yellowing and peeling in places. The carpeted floor was matted with dust and dirt. The wallpaper with the overlarge pink flowers was starting to peel back from the wall in the corner.

  “I also had an interesting visit with Sophie,” I went on to explain as I tried to smooth back the corner of the wallpaper. It curled back as fast as I tried to smooth it. “She’s still playing mind games with me. I t
hink I’m finding out more than she wants me to.” As the wallpaper curled back I noticed a dark smudge on the wall beneath the wallpaper. With hardly a conscious thought, I grabbed the corner of the wallpaper and slowly pulled back.

  The flashlight fell from my suddenly lifeless fingers. It rolled across the floor a few feet away, its beam still lighting the wall before me. Fire. Long, deadly fingers of flame. Bright yellow, searing orange and red. Deep sizzling blue. So realistic I expected my hand to burn if I touched it. I peeled back more of the wallpaper quickly, expecting it to be scorching beneath my touch. It was actually icy cold from the lowering temperatures in the room. The chill went down my spine as I watched the path of the fire beneath the paper.

  Blood-red, serpentine eyes stared back at me. They drew me in as much as they repelled me. They were so fierce, so evil. As though they came from the bowels of hell.

  “Logan,” I choked out in a shaky voice, “I think I’ve found something.”

  Chapter Forty

  Before I knew it, several other officers had been called in as well as members of the on-call C.S.I. team. Every shred of wallpaper in the trailer was being carefully removed and the walls examined underneath. It was claustrophobic, ordered chaos.

  I opted to stay in the office area and watch as a forensic officer used a special chemical agent to carefully peel back the wallpaper without ripping it or destroying what lay underneath. Bright lights had been brought in, the kind you might find in a photography studio, bringing the wall into bold, sharp relief. Plastic tarps covered every surface as well as the floor. Another forensic officer had a Cannon camera around his neck, capturing each stage of the portrait as it was being revealed.

  A large, frightening mural began to take shape, stretching across the entire length of the wall.