Drop Dead (Tess Skye Book 1)

by D. N. Erikson

  I release the chokehold.

  He bursts free like he’s been shot out of a cannon and starts swimming for the surface. But we’re already nine, ten feet deep. My own vision darkening, I grab hold of his legs, wrapping both of them up like a boa constrictor.

  They jerk, but he can’t get any momentum without kicking. My weight prevents him from getting further with just his arms. His head is only feet from the surface.

  But he can’t make the final push.

  I watch his arms beat against the water as I cling to his legs. The strokes start frantic, but they get slower.

  Slower.

  And finally, they stop.

  We start to sink again.

  He gives one last half-hearted kick.

  It catches me in the chin.

  My grip slackens slightly.

  But it’s already too late.

  He’s done.

  I hear Tess, come back, bouncing around in my head.

  And then the world goes black.

  Thirty

  I awaken with a gasp, choking from the water filling my lungs.

  I flail and slam my arm against the headrest. Pain shoots through my wounded shoulder.

  “It’s okay, Tess.” Finn’s voice floats through the ether, seemingly from a different universe. “You’re back.”

  Light pinpricks my eyes as I regain my senses. The car’s leather interior fades into view.

  Finn sweeps his hair as he gazes at me. “I’m here.”

  “All right, stop staring at me, Casanova.” I cough again, which makes the gunshot wound in my shoulder hurt even worse.

  “It’s good to hear that from your mouth.” Finn grins, but it’s more from relief than joy.

  We might’ve won, but it’s an empty victory without Javy.

  Even with Javy, the cost has been high over the past year.

  After a moment, he says, “Ready to go?”

  “I need to make sure that bastard is really dead,” I say.

  Finn gives me a look like come on, Tess, but knows better than to protest at this point. “You walking up there?”

  “We can drive if you want to tag along.”

  “Happy to have your back.”

  The car pulls onto the road, and we glide past the open gate and up the driveway without interference. Near the riverbank, I spot two guys.

  “Give me the revolver,” I say. “Kill the engine.”

  Finn hands it to me and shuts the car off.

  I slip out of the back seat and keep low.

  The two guys are near a pair of bodies. One is performing CPR.

  I slink forward. Up close, I can see the guy performing CPR is actually Carl.

  I fire two shots.

  They both drop.

  Then I rush over to check on the corpses. My boots squish in the soft soil on the bank.

  They’re both dead, so I turn my attention to the other two bodies.

  Sure enough, Rillo is on the ground. The other body belongs to Thurmond.

  I examine Rillo. His lips are blue, eyes staring blankly at the sky.

  I reach down to his neck. Make sure that Carl’s revival efforts weren’t successful.

  No pulse.

  Memories begin flowing through.

  The struggle against me. The fear surging through his body as death wrapped around him.

  Then, earlier, going down and supervising Javy’s death himself. A bullet to the head, without fanfare. Then returning to his office on the house’s top floor like nothing happened, to prepare tonight’s announcement. The first production package of Vitalysm on his desk.

  He was preparing a hell of a demonstration.

  Was going to have someone shoot him in the leg, then take the serum live. Demonstrate the healing effects in real-time.

  Props for showmanship. Might’ve made him the world’s first trillionaire.

  I shudder. That might’ve been a monster that proved impossible to contain.

  I withdraw my hand. The memories fade.

  I level the revolver at his head. “This one’s for Javy.”

  And I put my final bullet in his brain just to make sure he’s definitely gone.

  I look up at the lake house. Doesn’t look like there’s anyone else coming. But I grab Carl’s sidearm just to be safe. With a long sigh, I trek back up the bank. No goons arrive to confront me.

  It dawns on me that the Vitalysm might be useful. After this mess, it’ll probably never see the light of day.

  And I can say a last goodbye to Javy. Could wait until he’s on a slab in the morgue, but this just feels right.

  I cross the bridge. Blood smears the tan wood from my earlier struggle—in Thurmond’s body—with Rillo. The glass front doors are still open.

  I walk inside and take in the open floor plan. The visual effect is such that it feels like you’re floating on the lake itself, almost in suspended animation. An impression architectural illusion—impressive enough that I wonder if there isn’t some actual magic involved.

  It doesn’t matter one way or the other. I’m not here to find out who designed the place. I take the stairs up to Dom’s office, sun shining through the clear ceiling above.

  The Vitalysm is right where he left it on his perfectly organized desk. The space, like his study back at the mansion, has rows of obscure books and magical oddities on the shelves. A skull stares at me as I grab the serum’s package.

  It’s slick: modern, all jet black, with the word Vitalysm in bold green font that suggests this is life force itself.

  “Was it worth it?” I ask aloud to the office.

  There’s no answer, of course.

  But I have my own already. No.

  I drag myself down the stairs, the day’s never-ending cascade of events starting to catch up with me.

  I will myself down the stairs into the basement.

  The stairwell becomes darker as I head underwater. It’s like being at an aquarium. Even my footsteps seem to echo with a water-warped, warbly effect.

  There are multiple doors when I reach the bottom. I know which one it is from Dom’s memories: at the very end.

  I steel myself in preparation.

  Head forward.

  “Rip off the band-aid, Tess,” I mutter to psyche myself up.

  I fling the door open.

  The room is empty.

  There’s a blood pool.

  A chair.

  A fish swims by outside in the lake.

  But there’s no body.

  I glance back at the hallway. No drag marks or smears. Some droplets, but that’s it.

  I check the other rooms. Supply closet, a basement office, a bedroom.

  No sign of Javy.

  “What the fuck?” There was nothing in Rillo’s memories to suggest that he’d ordered the body disposed of. Granted, with the announcement coming in a few hours, it was possible they dumped it immediately.

  But still.

  Odd.

  My time to inspect further is cut short, however.

  In the distance, I can hear sirens—presumably Carl and his associate called Carter and Reynolds. Told them about the little issue at the lake house.

  I dash out of the house and race toward the car.

  I pat my pockets for my phone as I approach. Then I remember that Finn answered Rillo’s fateful call. I rap my knuckles on the windshield. “Give me the phone.”

  Finn hands it to me through the driver’s side window. I thumb over the cracked screen and dial the operator as I climb into the passenger seat.

  A friendly woman answers with, “How may I direct your call?”

  “The nearest FBI Field Office,” I say. “I have a few crimes to report.”

  “One moment please.” There’s a ring, then a voice answers with, “Federal Bureau of Investigation, Los Angeles Field Office. What’s this matter regarding?”

  “You’re gonna need a pen,” I say.

  We pull out of the gate and drive around the corner.

  About
a quarter mile down the road, the cruisers roar past us.

  They don’t turn around as I start telling the FBI everything I know.

  Thirty-One

  The call goes well.

  At first, of course, they think I’m a crackpot. But turns out the FBI has heard rumors about Rillo. There’s no official file, but they have poked into him a little before. So I’m not covering entirely new territory.

  My former badge number buys some credibility.

  And by the end, they’re fully on board. Agents dispatched, arriving in two hours.

  I still need the blood sample for them. I’m not sure what the half-life is for Vitalysm, but the sooner I draw my blood, the better. Otherwise, the ledger is gone forever.

  My friend Catalina is going to meet me at my house to draw my blood. She’s a surgeon, so figure that should be in her wheelhouse.

  Finn slows down as we approach Great Reveal Memorial Park. As quick as the FBI is coming, it seems that the media has gotten here faster.

  I flick on the radio, finding a news station.

  “Reports out of Ragnarok indicate that the murder of Gene Suthers may be linked to the demise of Dominic Rillo, who was found drowned at his lake house estate earlier today.”

  I turn it off. I already know the story.

  Finn says, “Media sure moves fast.”

  “Someone at the police station must have leaked that as soon as the call came in,” I say. “Anything for a few dollars.”

  The circle of Ragnarok police life continues. Hopefully getting Stella Reynolds and Carter Price the hell out of there will be a start.

  I’m not holding my breath. This town has a history. And it has secrets.

  And it won’t let either of those go without a gasping, clawing fight. Stella and Carter might get hauled off, but weeds abhor a vacuum. Someone will be there, eager to grow in their place.

  “Right here’s good.” I point at a crosswalk. Across the intersection, the traffic is so dense you can barely see sunlight between the cars.

  “You sure?”

  “It’s a quick walk,” I say. “You know what to do with the bombs and neveria extract.”

  Finn looks slightly nervous, like he’d forgotten that he’d been riding around with fifty pounds of explosives and a deadly poison in the trunk. “Uh, right. Meet the FBI out at the Groves.”

  It’s a nice way to bring things full circle, I think: ending it where it all began. Plus, if there’s some sort of problem, having them blow up some marshland is better than an entire row of homes.

  I get out of the car and say, “Any update on Miranda?”

  He rolls down his window. “Robert texted me while you were wrapping things up at the lake house.”

  “Wrapping things up is a nice euphemism,” I say.

  “Checking to make sure Rillo was dead,” he says. “Happy?”

  “Clarity’s never a bad thing.” I give him a tired smile. “What’d the apothecarial healer say?”

  “She’s pulling through. For now. A little touch and go for a bit. Might need a cane.”

  “Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it.” I tap the door. “Call me when you’re done.”

  “Will do.”

  I take a look at the back seat as he pulls away. The leather is smeared with blood. Man, Carrie Zane is going to be on our ass.

  But that’s a problem for another day.

  Finn waves and, with that, he turns right.

  I walk straight ahead, into the milling throng of reporters, cars, and rubberneckers.

  Great Reveal Memorial Park is at almost the exact center of Ragnarok. If we have a tourist attraction, then this is it: the origin point of a brand new world. It’s a wide expanse of well-cropped grass as green as an untouched jungle.

  In Norse mythology, of course, Ragnarok was when many of the gods died and the world was reborn in a flood. In real life, there was no great battle. But the Great Reveal—the moment the supernatural came to light to the human world—gave Ragnarok’s name further weight.

  It was just one of the many times Ragnarok has been reborn.

  Today was another. Because nothing hereafter will ever be quite the same. Even if the media humming around outside the police tape never knows how close things came to total disaster.

  Hopefully the world is a better one because of what we did today.

  But you never quite know until long after the fact. That’s the way history works. Victors are defeated and heroes become villains. Cause and effect has a habit of spiraling out of control in a way that you can never anticipate.

  I can’t worry about that, though. It’s easy to judge the outcomes when it’s not your ass on the line. You can play armchair quarterback and debate morals. Find six philosophers who agree, and ten pundits who don’t, then hand down the sentence: condemning someone’s decision-making as morally bankrupt. Or ill-advised. Or stupid.

  Or whatever the charge of the day is.

  But the truth is, in the heat of the moment, you gotta make a choice.

  Most people won’t do that. And the thing most people get wrong is thinking that making the choice is the easy part.

  But living with it—that’s when you find out who you really are.

  After a year of Soulwalks spent in the blackmailed employ of Rillo, I’m honestly not sure where to go from here.

  As I approach the park, I see the commemorative fountain—towering, three stories of chiseled marble. It’s off. Which is strange, because the whole point is that it’s always on—symbolic of the trust and cooperation between humans and supernaturals. From now until the end of time.

  Or until there’s a murder and the fountain has to be closed.

  The side panels of the news vans are bathed in swimming red and blue lights. Billowing yellow tape and a phalanx of cop cars separate the horde of reporters from the actual scene.

  I shove my hands in my pockets and hunker into a moody kind of slouch as I skirt along the crowd’s edge.

  I know what the circus is for.

  I lived it.

  The culprits are all dead or locked up—or about to be.

  And there’s nothing I can learn by hanging around.

  I turn away from the park and head down the quaint old-city streets. I’m climbing the stairs up to the third floor some three minutes later. The familiar smell of pine from the bannisters greets my nose—the same scent that’s greeted me since I was ten years old.

  I squint at the cracking drywall next to my front door. Old-city charm could be mistaken for disrepair if you look too closely.

  I have to grab the key from the fake light switch next to my door, since I don’t have mine on me.

  My neighbor, Toby, comes out as I’m unlocking the door. He’s known me since I was a little girl.

  “Hey, Tessie.” His brow furrows in concern. He’s an older guy. His wife died a few years ago, so he lives alone. “You okay? You look pale.”

  “Just a long day at work.”

  “You sounded really angry thirty minutes ago.” He holds up his hands. “None of my business, but Ella was barking up a storm…”

  I suck in a deep breath, trying to focus on what he’s saying.

  But the words don’t register.

  “Tessie?”

  Then it hits me. “What’d you say?”

  “Forget I mentioned anything.”

  “No—it’s okay.”

  “You were banging around in there. Loud as anything. Ella was really worked up.”

  My blood runs cold. “When was this?”

  “About half an hour ago.”

  Catalina. Fuck.

  Ella pokes her snout out the door. She’s a husky, but her markings are unusual: her face is all gray, then the rest of her is jet black.

  I pat her on the head.

  There is someone in there, Tessie.

  I withdraw my hand like I touched a live electrical outlet. The dog looks up expectantly, then barks.

  “What is it?” Toby asks.
r />   “Nothing—I, uh, sorry about that, Toby,” I say. “My final appeal for the force was denied, so I’m just a little distracted, you know.”

  “Oh.” Toby looks genuinely deflated. He’s a good man. “I was really rooting for you.”

  “Yeah, just wasn’t meant to be, I guess.” I’m still eying Ella, who’s staring intently back at me with her emerald green eyes.

  “Dinner later? You look like you could use a beer and a good meal.”

  “That sounds great,” I say. “Eight?”

  “I’ll be ready with the lasagna. You still a Landshark gal?”

  “Won’t drink anything else,” I say. Which isn’t true. But it is a good beer.

  “Perfect.” He begins to close the door, but Ella cranes her neck out to nuzzle my leg, so I give her a pat on the head goodbye.

  I could smell him. He is some sort of vampire.

  I jerk my hand away again. She barks.

  “It’s okay, El, Tessie will be back in a couple hours.” Toby smiles at me. “She’s a big fan.”

  “Feeling is mutual.” I stare at the husky as the door shuts, wondering if I’m going insane.

  Talking to animals might qualify.

  Nonetheless, insanity or not, I draw the gun I took from Carl before I enter.

  I open the door as quietly as possible, but the old hinges groan anyway.

  The light is off. Daylight filters through the dirt-streaked windows, casting shadows over the living room.

  There’s some blood on the carpet. The coffee table is in splinters.

  I can hear the kitchen faucet running.

  I slip inside and slide along the wall toward the sound.

  Then I hear a girlish giggle. “Javy, you’re going to get me wet.”

  It’s Catalina. Flirting away, as per usual.

  I keep the gun drawn as I walk into the small space.

  Catalina and Javy are doing the dishes. He splashes her again and she shrieks.

  Then I clear my throat.

  They both turn around, looking somewhat sheepish.

  When they see the gun, Catalina’s expression turns quizzical.

  Javy, however, doesn’t seem all that surprised.

  “Jesus Christ, Tess, if you want to do your own dishes that badly, you could just ask.” She beams at me.

  I don’t return the smile.

  I just stare at Javy Diaz like I’m seeing a ghost.