Dark Secrets: A Paranormal Romance Anthology

by Colleen Gleason

  “We have some time. Maurin, let’s get you something to eat. You need to regain your strength.” Mahalia was already leaving.

  “What I need is a real cup of coffee,” I said, as I followed them out the door to the hallway.

  Chapter 3

  The three of us sat in Matthison’s office, each with a cup of sludge and a stale Danish. It was a far cry from my favorite chair and a perfectly-brewed cup of coffee at the Daily Grind, but it would have to do. This wasn’t a conversation we should be having anywhere besides his office.

  Matthison was drumming his fingers on the mug his kids had made for him a couple of Christmases ago. It had ‘Number One Dad’ on one side and a family photo on the other. The mug certainly didn’t match the man sitting across from me right now. “I feel confident in saying that this perpetrator targeted the Salem Coven. Unless something happens, or some other evidence comes to light, we’ll proceed as such. The other arms of the Council don’t appear to be under threat, so that narrows down our list of suspects.

  “Captain, surely you know the history of the Salem Coven? The witch hunts? The pointless persecution? The list of suspects is longer than you might think. There are too many to name off the top of my head actually, though we do keep a thorough database on the extremists. I’ll get a copy of our files for you immediately.” Mahalia got her cell phone out of a small velvet bag that hung from the rope belt around her waist.

  I sat there, still recuperating. I heard her give instructions to someone on the phone to copy everything they had in their database and get it over here immediately. Matthison thanked her as she hung up the phone. He said something about how it would save them a lot of time. Their time was better spent on evidence, rather than chasing witch hunters on the Internet.

  I gulped the rest of my coffee, fighting the shiver that made its way up my spine from the bitterness and got up for a refill. Remembering my manners, I asked if anyone else needed one, making my way to the coffee pot when neither raised a mug.

  The room outside Matthison’s office was pretty quiet, despite the brutal murder that had occurred. Salem didn’t have a high murder rate, and a case like this, involving any faction of the Council, didn’t usually hit a detective’s desk. I would have expected more of a commotion. Someone slammed a phone down. Looking around to see who it was, I saw Masarelli grab his coat off the back of his chair and sprint for the door. The only problem was that I was in his way. He could have gone to his right, around another desk, but chose instead to barrel straight into me. I tried to move out of his way, but he still managed to clip me with his shoulder. My hip hit the desk next to me, and my mug crashed to the floor.

  “You’re an asshole!”

  He gave me the finger and was out the door.

  Broken pieces of my coffee mug littered the floor. Half the witch on a broomstick that made up SPTF’s badge stared back at me from the shards of ceramic. And then it clicked. Masarelli was going to another crime scene. I looked up to find Matthison standing in his doorway.

  “You and Mahalia are coming with me.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket and walked out.

  Mahalia and I were right behind him. I was hoping she was going to speak up and say it wasn’t necessary for us to go to the crime scene. They weren’t really my thing. You’d think after the Triad and the whole demon army thing that a little crime scene wouldn’t bother me, but it still did. In the heat of battle, everyone feels invincible. Crime scenes have the opposite effect. It’s like they remind you of your mortality, even for those of us who are supposed to be immortal. Nothing is truly immortal; there is always a way to kill it. Even the immortals. Ironic.

  There were at least half a dozen police cars, all with their lights still flashing, by the time we pulled up to the Witch History Museum. I can’t recall the last time we had a serial killer in Salem. Matthison parked behind Masarelli’s unmarked Impala. Yellow police tape was everywhere. Barriers were already set up to keep the media and onlookers back. We got out and followed Matthison since he was the only one of us with the credentials to get behind the tape.

  The body was sprawled out across the front steps of the museum. Flashes from the crime scene photographer’s camera lit up the darkening evening sky. I rubbed my eyes to get the flash burn out. As the body came back into focus, its delicate curves and small frame told me the second victim was also a woman. Shit. A pattern was forming. My heart skipped a beat as I wondered if this time it would be a witch I knew. Please don’t let it be Amalie.

  Matthison bent over the body. He looked up and waved me over. I held my breath, not because of the smell, it was too soon and too cold for that, but because I was afraid of whom it would be. As I got closer, I saw the victim’s hair, and relief washed over me. Jet-black hair with red tips fanned out from the pale face. Examining her striking features, I tried to figure out if I 'd met her before. I fought the urge to look away when I realized her eyes had been sewn shut. Matthison drew my attention to her exposed chest and the carving across her stomach.

  ‘Witches deserve the heaviest punishments above all criminals of the world.' The letters were small and neat, as if the killer had used a scalpel or something similar.

  I was struggling with the killer’s logic. Witches deserved the harshest punishment? Really? I could think of several people, the killer included, who were capable of worse things than any witch I knew.

  Whatever the logic, the point of these messages was crystal clear. The person who was doing this hated witches. The choice in victims so far showed that the killer was attacking the coven from the bottom up. We were dealing with a fanatic, an extremist, and that worried me more than having a murderer running loose in Salem. This was like a terrifying mix of a suicide bomber and serial killer. You can’t rationalize with a fanatic. You can never explain away their belief systems. Hatred is ingrained in every fiber of their being.

  Matthison brought my attention back to the dead girl on the steps. There’d be time to profile the killer after we evaluated the latest crime scene.

  “Who is she, Mahalia?” he asked.

  “Julienne Blanc.” Mahalia’s stoic façade was starting to crack. “Julienne was a pure blood. She was stronger than Laura, but not as strong as any of the witches you know, Maurin.”

  “Okay, so that pretty much confirms what I was thinking. Whoever is doing this is eliminating the weakest members first,” Matthison said.

  “Well, of course they are. That’s what serial killers do, right? It’s about power for them—it’s about preying upon people. And predators go after the easiest prey. I can’t recall a case in history where the murder victims were all your size, for example.” I caught myself, stopping mid-ramble.

  If we weren’t standing over a dead girl then that kind of logic might have earned a smile from Matthison. Right now, it just had him staring at me like I was nuts.

  “What? You know it’s true,” On the defense, I crossed my arms over my chest with a little huff.

  He waved it off. “No, no. You said ‘they’. Why did you say ‘they’?”

  “I didn’t even realize that I had.”

  He was pacing. “These two murders were too close together for just one person to have committed them.”

  “Um, I hate to break it to you, Captain, but Jack the Ripper was one person, and two of his murders were very close together.” At least I thought I read somewhere that they were.

  “You’re missing my point. It’s not that there are two murders this close together, but it’s the way the murders were committed. If you consider the lack of blood around the body, then she obviously wasn’t killed here. The words are meticulously carved into her abdomen. Her eyes were sewn shut, and I’m willing to bet if we opened her mouth we’d find her tongue is missing just like the other victim. This wasn’t rushed, but rather relished.” He paused.

  There was something different about Julienne. “Why weren’t her hands cut off?” It was unusual for a ritualistic killer to change his m.o.

&nb
sp; Matthison turned Julienne’s hand over with as much care as if she could still feel him touching her.

  “Not cut off, but cut deep enough to be useless. See it all the time with attempted suicides.”

  “Why?”

  “They don’t mean to. They just cut too deep. So—”

  “No. Why did they take their time with her and not with the other victim?”

  “That’s a question for Mahalia, but if I had to guess, then I’d say that there’s a difference for the killer between half-blooded and full-blooded witches. It’s like they wanted it to last longer with her.” He turned to Mahalia.

  Mahalia went white as a ghost. Which isn’t really an accurate comparison. I’ve seen ghosts, and they’re a lot more lifelike than you’d think. Something had her scared, and I’ve never seen her scared. I reached out and touched her arm. She jumped. It was small, but I felt it.

  Matthison noticed too, except he mistook it for shock. “My apologies, Mahalia. I don’t mean to be inconsiderate. This must be disturbing for you—seeing two of your coven members like this in a matter of hours. I can have one of the officers take you home if you like.”

  “Don’t let the gray hair and wrinkled body fool you, Captain. I am not that frail, and I have seen far worse than this in all my years. Maurin simply caught me deep in thought.”

  I started to say it felt like more than deep thought to me, but decided not to interrupt her. What she said next made my jaw drop, however.

  “There is no difference in half-blood or full-blood to them, Captain. Any trace of witch blood is too much. I know who did this.”

  “What?” Matthison and I asked in unison.

  “I know who is attacking us,” she said louder.

  “Okay, would you like to share that bit of information with the rest of us?” Matthison pulled off a latex glove.

  I got the feeling she suspected someone before we even got here, and it pissed me off that she hadn’t said anything sooner.

  “Inquisitors.” She practically choked on the name.

  “Inquisitors? I’ve never heard of them before,” I said, still stunned that it had taken her this long to fill us in on her thoughts.

  “Well, you wouldn’t. You’re not a witch!”

  I shrank back from her. She’d never spoken to me like that before—like I was an outsider.

  “I’m sorry, Maurin. I didn’t mean to take my anger out on you.” She sighed.

  “Mahalia, how can you be so certain that it is this group, these Inquisitors?” Matthison asked. “We’re not even finished here. We need to compare all the evidence that we’re collecting from both crime scenes. There could be more than what we see on the surface.”

  “Well, of course I can’t be one-hundred percent certain, but we have been fighting groups like this, the Inquisitors specifically, for centuries. I’ll know more after I complete a recollection.” She stepped away from the body, looking more haggard than I’d ever seen her,

  “A what?” Matthison asked the question that was on the tip of my tongue.

  “Normally a recollection is a simple spell that is commonly used to draw out suppressed memories or to heal amnesiacs. This one will be more difficult since I won’t be using it on the living. Hopefully, we will have the same results, though I may need to consult with a necromancer.”

  Mahalia’s new found fascination with the dead creeped me out.

  “What?” I was saying that a lot more than usual around those two. “A necromancer, isn’t that a little on the darker side of things?”

  “Like all things mystical, necromancy has gotten a bad name. They don’t raise legions of the dead. Well, some have tried, but most help the dead find their way to the other side. It’s a lot more shamanic than demonic. I have a friend I can call if need be.” Exhaustion filled her voice.

  “Why didn’t you try this back at the morgue?” I asked, trying to hide the anger and confusion in my voice.

  “I can understand why my decision would bother you, but the outcome would be the same. Julienne and Laura would still be dead. I am certain the captain’s forensics will tell him the same thing.” She picked at the hem of her sleeve, uncertainty shown through despite the confidence in her voice

  “But why did you make me go through the whole failed reading if you could have just done a casting?” I didn’t bother hiding my irritation.

  “I believe I mentioned that this was a much stronger version of the recollection. And by stronger, I mean harder to accomplish with a much larger power drain. I had hoped that your reading would be a success, and I wouldn’t have to deplete the coven’s power base only to find out that my suspicions were wrong.”

  "But they aren’t wrong. We could be chasing these guys down already.” I was practically shouting.

  I was pissed off, and she knew why. There were people that mattered to me in her coven. If it had been Amalie on those steps, I would have completely lost it. The only thing keeping me from total panic about Oberon was that the Inquisitors seemed to be going after women. Which seemed to prove my earlier theory about serial killers.

  “I get it. Calculated risks. Why unnecessarily drain your power base? If it weren’t the Inquisitors, then you’d be left weak and possibly unable to defend yourselves against a different enemy. At least this way, now that we’re all on the same page, we can help protect you until you recharge,” Matthison piped in.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I almost laughed. “The Council still exists for a reason, Matthison. You can’t protect them anymore than you can protect yourself from them.”

  I didn’t say anything else. I just walked back to the car. It was pretty obvious to me that we were done.

  Chapter 4

  I was already sitting shotgun in Matthison’s car by the time they caught up to me. Mahalia was on the phone, hopefully with Roul or Agrona. The scowl on Matthison’s face said he didn’t like the half of the conversation he was listening to. He got in the car and slammed the door shut. Mahalia ended her call and got in the back seat.

  “If you could drop us off at Toil and Trouble, I would appreciate it,” she said, as her seat belt clicked into place.

  “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m dropping you off alone anywhere. I’m coming with you,” Matthison obviously wasn’t concerned about her emotional state anymore.

  “The meetings are private. There hasn’t been a Norm at a Council meeting in centuries. Our liaison will be happy to debrief you. Won’t you, Maurin?” Mahalia leaned forward, placing a hand the head rest of my seat.

  “That’s half your problem if you ask me. You think that just because we don’t go all furry or drink blood or whip shit up out of thin air, that humans are useless, right? Well, let me clue you into something. We know about you now. All of us. And we notice shit like this, dead bodies and all. And in case you didn’t notice, the media was here tonight. I have people to answer to, Mahalia. I. Am. Coming. With. You.”

  I knew that tone. This conversation was over, as far as he was concerned. He threw the car into reverse and sped off to Toil and Trouble.

  He parked on the street, right in front of the bar. After all, it wasn’t likely he would get a ticket. Everyone knew his car. The doorman eyed Matthison as we got out. The three of us walked over as a group, behaving as if everything was fine; as if Matthison hadn’t just handed the High Priestess of the Salem Coven her ass.

  “Good evening, Joe,” Mahalia said as he held the door open for us.

  Joe didn’t look like a typical bouncer, or a Joe for that matter. He was my height and probably weighed less than I did. I couldn’t tell what he was, but if I had to guess, I’d bet he was Fey. Not that it mattered. If he was watching the door, then he was obviously a bad ass.

  “Ladies.” Joe didn’t address Matthison; he just kept watching him. I guess he knew who he was and didn’t much like the fact the captain of SPTF was coming into this particular bar.

  Neutral ground, Toil and Trouble was one of the few places in t
own where Others and Norms hung out together. The food was good, and the alcohol wasn’t watered down. The place was always packed, and this proved to be no exception.

  Matthison took in the room, a look of surprise on his face. Guess he thought it would’ve been emptied out for the Council meeting. Mahalia on the other hand, looked like a cat drinking her cream, as he shivered slightly when the Council’s table came into view.

  “You may know about us, Captain, but you don’t understand us.” Mahalia glided across the floor, not even trying to hide the fact that she was gloating.

  Shedding her cloak, Mahalia took a seat next to Olwyn at the long rectangular table.

  “What I don’t understand is why you would have a meeting in the middle of a bar.”

  A chair short, Matthison dragged one of the wooden chairs over from an empty table next to us. He draped his coat over the back of it and sat down.

  “Sometimes it’s easier to hide in plain sight.” All eyes at the table turned to Agrona. “Now, why is the human here? Did you bring me a gift?”

  Mahalia cleared her throat. This was the first time I’d seen her nervous in front of the other Council members.

  “Don’t tease him, Agrona. The answer to that question has two parts. The coven is under attack. Two of my members have been brutally murdered.”

  “I’m still waiting for you to explain why you brought a human to a Council meeting,” Agrona snapped, giving her nails more attention than the human in question

  Matthison started to say something, like he was going to justify his presence. I clamped a hand down on his shoulder and squeezed hard, holding on while I pulled out the chair next to his and sat down.

  Apart from an occasional handshake, that was the most physical contact I’d had with him in all the years I’d known him. If it hadn’t been so necessary under the circumstances, then it would have been as awkward as hell. I wiggled out of my coat and hung it over the back of my chair as well.