Carol Shenold - Tali Cates 02 - Bloody Murder

by Carol Shenold

  The car screeched to a halt in front of the house. It felt like my door had opened before the car stopped.

  “You go care for your family. I’ll continue looking for Cass and see if I can determine what’s in the woods for certain.”

  He was gone. I stared after him, as if I too had night vision and could see where he was going, see what he saw.

  Nothing that happened made any sense, not wolves, certainly not flying. No one would believe me if I told them because I didn’t believe it.

  Mumsie must have heard the car. She met me at the front door. “I’m glad you’re back so soon. Sean was all right until you left but then he panicked. What if you didn’t come back or something happened to you too? You’d better go to him. I tried to do a reading but nothing is coming or something is blocking me. What on earth have you been doing? If I didn’t know better I’d say… Never mind. Check on Sean. I’m going to talk to the boys and see if they can see anything.”

  Great. If things weren’t complicated enough, she was bringing in Amen Ka and Chung Po. Just what we need, advice from the beyond. Messages from Mumsie’s spirit guides sometimes complicated things more than they helped.

  Sean came down the hall, sniffing. Gone was the little boy trying to be old beyond his years. He was a scared kid who wanted his mom and he ran to hug me around the waist.

  “Hey, honey. How are you doing?”

  “Not good.”

  “Let’s go into the kitchen. We can cure anything with ice cream.”

  “We can’t bring back Cass,” he said forlornly.

  “No. But we can feel better for a minute since there isn’t anything else we can do right this minute. Did JT say anything before he left?”

  “He just said bye and he’d call if he heard anything.”

  “Aiden is out looking and he’s pretty good at finding people, I bet.”

  “Yeah, vampires can smell people.” The thought didn’t cheer him up.

  I dished up our favorite mint chocolate chip and we both sat at the table. I closed the blinds and turned on the light so we had a cozy island. Thunder rumbled again, closer this time. More storms. I hoped Cass was somewhere inside, warm and dry.

  Maybe Aiden would find something. If anyone could, it might be Aiden, with his superpowers or whatever it was.

  * * * *

  After ice cream and talking about everything except what had happened, I finally got Sean asleep in his room by staying by the bed until he zonked out.

  There was no way I was going to sleep any time soon. I made myself a triple shot latte and spent the rest of the night at the dining room table, pen and tablet in front of me, drinking caffeine, trying to figure out where to go next.

  What I knew was:

  Cass was missing

  Something/someone lethal smashed through the window and grabbed her.

  It got away on foot as far as we knew, faster than anyone could by car.

  Carrying Cass, it disappeared into thin air making it fast and strong.

  Aiden could fly and move too quickly for any normal person. Did he have something to do with Cass disappearing? What motive would he have? Was he a super person, an alien, a vampire?

  Chase had a motive, maybe the fight with Cass. Could he be that strong and fast? If so, what did that make him?

  Did the abandoned house have anything to do with anything, or the wolves Aiden and I heard?

  Was any of this connected to the murders? There was no reason to think so but so many things had happened lately.

  What about the library?

  My heart raced, partly from the effect of the second triple latte and partly because my mind insisted on picturing things that could be happening, might happen to Cass.

  By daybreak I was so wired my hands shook. Mumsie came in and fixed me hot cocoa and cinnamon toast. We solved a lot of problems with food. She scolded me like I was a teen staying up too long to study and insisted I go to bed.

  “I’ll be here if anyone calls. I’ll come get you the instant something happens. If you keep on like this, you’ll be no help at all when we need you.

  I gave in and threw myself, fully dressed, on top of the bed in Mumsie’s room, convinced there was no way in hell I’d ever sleep again.

  When my kitten, Chaos, grew as tall as I was, I realized on some level that I was asleep. With dream detachment, I watched her fly through the broken front window and disappear. As Chaos flew out, Aiden flew in wearing a flapping black cape. I wanted to laugh but didn’t want to hurt his feelings. He grabbed me and we flew up, up and away, like Superman and Lois.

  I wondered where the boards had gone. It was easier to hang on this time, not as scary at first.

  The dream changed, grew ominous. Detachment gave way to unreasonable fear as the abandoned house came into view, candles flickering in every window, words crawling all over the outside. We headed straight for it, moving faster and faster. We’d smash into it.

  If you die in a dream, do you die in real life?

  I struggled against Aiden’s strong cold arms, screamed at him to stop before we were killed. His eyes stayed straight ahead. I willed myself to wake up.

  I’d have tried to pinch myself but I couldn’t figure out how to do that and not let go. Abruptly, Aiden was gone and I plummeted toward the house by myself, no safe arms around me. I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to watch myself die, and waited for the impact.

  When it came, my eyes flew open and I was still in the bedroom, on the bed, in one piece. Chaos was curled up serenely next to me.

  “Well. That was fun,” I told the cat. “Now I’m afraid to go back to sleep.” Chaos lifted up her head, stared at me, yawned—obviously not impressed—and closed her eyes again.

  “Thanks for the input, cat.” An hour had passed so I closed my eyes again, focusing my mind on sitting by the lake, watching water lap against the shore, hoping to fend off any more senseless dreams and nightmares.

  I woke up at noon after a few hours’ dreamless sleep, at least as far as I could remember. I felt like death—cold death, not warmed over. The sleep hadn’t refreshed me, just made me feel fuzzy, less sure of what I knew, needed to do.

  The ball hadn’t crossed my mind until I received a call from Lyn.

  “Hey, Tali. Are you ready to finalize the plans for the ball? I’m excited, it’s going to be so much fun I can’t believe it. I love dressing up, don’t you?”

  I explained why I wasn’t too excited at the moment.

  “That’s awful, Tali. I’m so sorry. But they’ll find her, you know. JT is good. Is there something I can do to get things rolling? Sorry I was bitchy at the Queen Contest. I was upset because SueAnn was runner-up instead of Queen, and she was so disappointed. I’m better now.”

  I was right, the woman had multiple personalities, but I had no choice. I needed her so I pulled my mind together and gave her a list that included calling my friend Renée the caterer, the florist, and several other things. I planned to put both Mumsie and Sean to work spraying grasses with white paint as soon as he got back from school.

  Once I cleaned up, I called JT to see what was on the agenda. If there was a search going on, I wanted to be in on it. I jumped when the doorbell rang and raced to answer. Maybe it was Cass.

  Cherilyn breezed into the house, bringing fresh air and optimism with her. She gave me a long hug. “Okay. What’s on the agenda? Where are we searching? Have you talked to JT? Let’s go.”

  I called JT and found out he had several search parties going and was out with them.

  Mumsie joined us. “I did a reading. It looks as if she’s close but I couldn’t tell how close. Something or someone is still blocking me and I don’t know how.”

  “What about your guides?” Never thought I’d be asking that, asking what her imaginary spirit guides thought, or at least I always felt they were imaginary. Now I grabbed for straws, anything to help us find Cass, even if it had something to do with the spirit world.

  “I couldn’t re
ach either one, maybe the block extends to them.”

  “Can that happen? That can’t be right. I don’t see how you can block a spirit.”

  “Sure you can. How do you think you exorcise evil spirits? You could potentially do the same thing to the good guys. Most people wouldn’t, even if they knew how. They are good, after all. Since we are obviously dealing with dark magic here, anything can happen.”

  I shook my head. “Look, Cherilyn and I want to go search also and Sean is safe at school. Can you stay by the phone, just in case? Although, if it were a matter of ransom, I think we’d have heard something by now.”

  * * * *

  We took Cherilyn’s Lexus. She didn’t trust my driving. “Where to?”

  “Let’s try over past the lake in that stand of trees Aiden and I began to search last night. I never heard back from him so he must not have found anything, but that area feels right to me.” I filled her in on everything except the flight with Aiden. That was difficult for even me to believe, and I’d been there.

  “Wolves are dangerous, even in the sunlight, and we don’t have weapons,” Cherilyn said.

  “It’s not as if we’re in the middle of a Siberian winter, surrounded by starving, slavering wolves ready to eat anything that moves.”

  “There’s a great image to plant in my brain before we go search.”

  “What I mean is, I didn’t see any wolves, anything could have been growling. Aiden and I didn’t stay long enough to spot critters of any kind.”

  “So what do you think was growling, grizzlies?”

  “Don’t have those in North Texas either.” At least, I didn’t think so, but I wasn’t about to share any doubts right that second.

  “Turn here,” I shouted.

  Cherilyn stomped on the brakes and whipped the car to the left. Tires squealed about the sharp turn, skidding on the wet leaves on the road before shuddering to a stop.

  “Damn it, Tali. Give me a heart attack next time. Tense, much?”

  “You’re right, sorry. A bit high strung here. I wonder why?”

  “Yeah, well, killing us both won’t help.”

  “I said I’m sorry,” I snapped, regretting the tone as it came out of my mouth. “I think this is as far as we ought to take the car. I don’t want to see your transmission torn out, or my heart if your baby is messed up and it’s my fault.”

  “Good thought.” She assessed what we both wore. “Okay, I think we’re protected with boots, jeans, leather jackets. Did you bring a flashlight?”

  “Didn’t think of it since it’s daylight but it could be darker under the trees.”

  “Grab the ones out of the glove compartment. I’m going to look in the trunk, see if I stashed anything really helpful.”

  I searched the glove compartment as I heard Cherilyn clanking through things in the back. Discarding a penlight and container of mace, I grabbed a large flashlight, a second one, then re-snagged the mace. Who knew what—or who—we might run into?

  Cherilyn came up with a small axe. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know why she had that in her trunk.

  “Hey, don’t look at me like that. I want to be prepared and I didn’t have my machete in there.”

  I knew I looked horrified. “You have a machete?”

  “Well. You never know when you might have to hack at some vines, like Kudzu or something.” Innocence dripped off her.

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, you and Indiana Jones. Kudzu grows in Georgia.”

  “You’ll thank me when I have to chop your hair loose from the root of a tree.”

  “You better not be chopping anywhere near my head. And why would my hair be near the bottom of a tree, anyway?”

  “I’m just saying.” She stomped toward the woods, trying to tie back her hair with a scarf and not bean herself in the head with her axe.

  “Whatever,” I said cleverly, amazed at my own use of the English language. But all the same, I reached into my jeans pocket for a ponytail holder to fasten back my unruly mop. “Wait, don’t leave me behind.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Cool air hit my face as we went out of the sun into the trees. Branches blocked the light breeze and traffic sounds faded. A different world took over. The area was so far removed, I could have believed we made our way through a primeval wood full of fairies, pixies, and other less beneficent creatures. If I had to name something making me feel that way, I couldn’t. It was more a lack of things. The waiting silence, a presence in the earth, from the earth.

  But this time I didn’t feel afraid—more of a coming home, as if I belonged. I walked more sure, led the way as if I were guided by a guardian. Never had I felt so calm, peaceful, connected to the universe.

  Cherilyn broke the silence and the mood. “Tali. Where are you going? You have this spacey look on your face and we’re going deeper and deeper into the dark.”

  “It’s a little after one in the afternoon. It can’t be getting darker now, can it? I can’t explain but I feel we’re going in the right direction. It’s where we’re supposed to be, I know it.”

  Cherilyn shook her head. “Now I’m sure we’re in trouble. You’re never this certain when you’re doing anything out of doors unless it’s in your own yard. You’re not the outdoorsy type, you know.”

  I stopped walking. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s like a vision—less intense, more of a right feeling.”

  Cherilyn shrugged. “I trust you, I think. Lead on and I’ll follow with my trusty little axe.”

  We kept going until I saw a flash of color hanging from a branch. We got close and my breath caught. It was a piece of the red shirt Cass had been wearing yesterday. Blood stained it. I grabbed hold, and I was in a vision of speed and fear, racing over the ground, steely arms around me, pinning me to a chest as hard as Aiden’s, overwhelmed by a musky scent. An abrupt stop and I was thrown down. It knocked the breath out of me. I/she closed her eyes to gain the ability to breathe and then opened her eyes to see Pampas grass.

  “What is it, Tali? What do you see?”

  “It’s that damned house again.”

  “Are you serious? We hacked our way through the jungle—well, not really hacked, but you know what I mean. We came this far to go in circles and find out we have to go back there? I’m not sure I can do that.”

  I squinted through the trees. “Look, it’s a little lighter there. Let’s see if we can tell where we are. Maybe we haven’t come too far from the car and can drive over to the house. We don’t really have much choice.”

  As we moved forward, I caught a whiff of the same musky scent from the vision and knew we were on the right trail. But, on the trail of what? Who or what had taken Cass, and when had they brought her to the house? Would we be on time or too late? No, I wouldn’t tempt fate by forming that thought in my brain.

  I ran, burst through the trees, tripped over a root, and crashed flat on my face. Cherilyn tripped over me and fell, twisting to avoid falling on me. The back of the very house we feared, but knew we had to enter again, loomed in front of us.

  I gingerly moved my left foot, praying I hadn’t screwed it up again. It moved okay. I pulled myself up by inches until I could use a tree for leverage and reached down for Cherilyn. She bounded up more quickly than I had, but then she was one of those people who actually took care of themselves, worked out, ran.

  We had gone in the front door last time so that’s where I headed. I felt as if the trees watched, the house watched, everything had eyes, not friendly. The door was locked, of course. It wouldn’t be as easy as walking in. I didn’t know for sure that she was in there, but I heard pounding from inside the house and what sounded like a voice.

  I shook the door, hoping the old wood might give way and let us in. Nope. Not happening.

  “There’s a window in the back door. We can open that easy.” We went around the house.

  “Stand back.”

  I jumped back when Cherilyn raised her axe and swung it at the door. Glass and wood cr
ashed into the kitchen. I reached through and down for the lock and found a latch to turn, turned it but the door didn’t budge. It was a deadbolt, locked from the outside.

  “Well shit. What now?”

  “I guess you crawl through.”

  “You’re skinnier. Can’t you do it?”

  Cherilyn’s fair skin blanched more. Damn, she was going to faint.

  “But Tali. I don’t want to go in there again. I can’t, not for anyone.”

  At that moment a scream shot through the room. “Help! Get me out of here! Mom, is that you? Is someone out there?” It came the direction of the pantry. “Please, please get me out of this! It’s dark and something’s in here with me.” Her voice went from pleading to whimpering.

  “Hang on, Cass! It’s Mom. I’m coming.”

  I grabbed Cherilyn’s axe from her limp hand as she stared into the house, her face lax with fear. The handle swung in a circle, knocking all the glass from the door. I was desperate for something to step on so I could try to heave myself through. I didn’t let myself think about getting stuck, wedged in the door for the rest of forever, listening to Cass pleading for help. I threw the axe down.

  A large rock put me high enough. I launched myself into the air and through the window, praying to the universe that I’d miss the worst of the glass. My hips grazed but didn’t stick. Both shins scraped in spite of the jeans but my boots stayed on.

  I yelped and would have cussed loudly if I hadn’t knocked the air out of my lungs. I lay gasping until I could get up. I’d only cut myself in a couple of places.

  “Someone please, is someone out there? Help me.” Cass’s voice scratched against the ear like nails, as if she’d been yelling for a long time.

  I pulled myself up from a prone position for the second time and stumbled for the wooden door opposite me. “I’m coming Cass. I’m here, baby. It’s all right.”

  “Mom. I knew you’d come. Hurry, they’ll be back, I know it.”

  I grabbed for the door, jerking on it. It refused to open. “The door’s stuck. Can you open it from the inside?”

  “Well no. If I could, I’d be out. They locked me in here so I wouldn’t get away.”