Grim Rites

by Bilinda Sheehan

  “Father Matthew, is Mia there with you?” Father Bailey asked, his voice crystal clear as it rang out through the church. It was the type of voice I could imagine sitting and listening to for hours, soothing and calm. There would be no censure in his words, no talk of eternal damnation.

  The crowd parted and for the second time that day, my mouth hung wide open. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to start catching flies as my father would have said.

  Mia stood in the centre; a tall thin man dressed in a black shirt and trousers stood next to her, his white collar indicating he had to be the Father Matthew I’d been told about.

  But it was Mia’s face that shocked me the most. She stared up at the man next to her as though it was God Himself who spoke. The look of peaceful serenity in her eyes was honestly something I’d never expected to see from her, ever.

  We reached the edge of the circle and a feeling I couldn’t quite pinpoint slid down my spine. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, but I rolled my shoulders anyway in an attempt to shake it off.

  “Mia, I went to your house….” I trailed off as the man next to me stiffened slightly and I shot him a sideways glance.

  His expression was neutral, but there was something about him that just sat wrong with me. Was I getting paranoid? The demon mark on my shoulder tingled as though in agreement, and I returned my attention back to Mia once more.

  She barely managed to tear her gaze away from the priest next to her, and when she looked at me, her eyes were unfocussed. Had she started doing drugs? Was her gift really that bad, that the only way out was to get so high she barely recognised anyone around her?

  It wasn’t impossible; when we’d been younger, she’d certainly attempted substance abuse. The night I’d walked in on her lying prone on the bed, the needle still stuck in her arm, would haunt me for the rest of my life.

  Was that why she’d called me? Was it a cry for help?

  “Why?” she said, her voice soft and relaxed.

  I fought the urge to cross the space between us so I could shake some sense into her. She had to be using again—being this spaced-out wasn’t normal.

  “You called me, remember? Said you needed my help….” I trailed off. The hairs on the back of my neck were beginning to lift, and I had the feeling that the less I shared with the group, the better.

  Mia shook her head slowly and smiled at me before turning her head to beam up at the silent man next to her. “I don’t need your help, Amber, I was wrong … Father Matthew is the only one who can help me now,” she said, her voice dreamy.

  I couldn’t help myself—crossing the space between us, I reached Mia and grabbed her hand before I started to drag her away from the group surrounding us.

  “Amber, what are you doing?” she said, but her voice was still sluggish and her attempt to pry my fingers off her wrist was pathetic at best.

  I dragged her towards the main doors that led out of the church and the grumblings of the gathered group behind us sent a shiver down my spine. I’d heard of organised religion, but not like this. The way everyone was staring up the priest reminded me more a cult than anything else.

  “Amber, no,” Mia dug her heels in, but I’d been working out and I was stronger than she was.

  Pulling her out into the morning sunshine, I spun her around on the top step to face me as Nic followed us outside.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea, Amber? Everyone seems pretty pissed off in there and….” he trailed off as he cast a quick glance over his shoulder. “I don’t know, there’s just something not right,” he added.

  “Mia, look at me,” I said, grabbing her face with my hands and forcing her to focus on me.

  She stared at me with a look akin to horror as she fought my hold. “Get away from me, you’re nothing more than a monster!” she screamed, her voice rising in hysteria.

  I released her, my hands falling back to my sides. She couldn’t have hurt me worse even if she’d slapped me. I’d been wondering the same thing about myself lately; my actions certainly weren’t those of a good person and I’d contemplated whether or not I was actually a true monster. But despite everything that had happened between us, despite how I’d wronged her, Mia had never called me a monster….

  Until now.

  She sucked in a deep breath and lifted her chin defiantly. “You were always a monster, I was just too pathetic to tell you,” she said, her words like ice picks against my skin.

  “If that’s true, then why did you call me? Why did you beg for my help?”

  She shrugged. “I was feeling desperate, lost … I don’t know. A person is allowed to have a lapse in judgement.”

  “Mia, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, but if you need my help now … I promise I’ll do everything in my power to—” she cut me off with a short, abrupt burst of laughter.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. A promise from you isn’t worth jack shit and we both know it. All I want from you, Amber, is for you to leave and never come back.”

  Swallowing down my hurt, I tensed my shoulders and clenched my fists. If she was going to behave like that, then there was really only one other card I could play.

  “If you don’t need my help, then why was there a dead body of a woman upstairs in your house?”

  Mia stared at me and I could tell how uncomfortable she suddenly was. “It’s none of your business, actually, but if you must know, she attacked me.”

  She was lying. I might not have known this new Mia, the one who didn’t seem to be bothered by her gift anymore, the one who didn’t feel the strain of the world the way she always had before, but I could still tell when she was lying. That hadn’t changed, at least, and the moment the words left her mouth, I felt a small sliver of relief pierce my chest. If that hadn’t changed about her, if she was still the godawful liar she’d always been, then maybe everything else wasn’t really her.

  After all, “a leopard doesn’t change its spots” was a saying for a reason.

  “And, what, you thought coming here was a better idea than calling it in?” I said.

  “I needed to atone for my sins. Father Matthew said he would help, that he knew what needed to be done….”

  She spoke with all the zeal of someone utterly brainwashed. If I hadn’t heard the panic and fear in her voice this morning, then maybe I could have ignored it. But she’d called me for help and I still couldn’t forget the way she’d pleaded with me.

  “You need to call the police, and if this was anything other than a human kill, then you need to call in the Elite,” I said, fighting to keep my voice as level as possible.

  “Father Matthew is going to help me,” she said again, and I suddenly wasn’t sure if she meant he would help her with the small issue of the dead body in her house or if he would help her with something else.

  “Is everything all right out here?” Father Matthew said, poking his head out through the door.

  “Speak of the Devil,” I muttered beneath my breath.

  He looked like a gentle man, one you could trust your darkest secrets to without fear of recriminations. But there was still something that didn’t ring right about him. And whether or not that was just my own paranoia speaking over my past experiences with the Church, I just couldn’t tell anymore.

  “What was that?” he said, the full weight of his gaze falling on me.

  The urge to scurry away and hide beneath the nearest rock I could find washed over me. Father Bailey, it seemed, might have been willing to overlook what I was, but I could tell from the look in Father Matthew’s eyes that he wouldn’t be extending me the same curtesy.

  “Nothing,” I mumbled, ducking my gaze in the hopes my not staring him in the eye would cause the feeling to abate.

  It didn’t.

  “Mia, look—if you change your mind, you can call me at any time, but you really need to call in that issue we were discussing. It can’t be left any longer….”

  She nodded and stepped into the church after Father Matthew
. Reaching out to her, I caught her arm, halting her movement.

  “I really am sorry for everything,” I said, my words woefully inadequate in the face of everything that had happened in the past. Asking for her forgiveness was definitely asking for too much and I knew I wouldn’t be getting it, but I still needed to apologise.

  Mia’s gaze fell to her shoes as she shook her head and when she lifted her face once more, her eyes were filled with tears. Terror lurked in her gaze and I tightened my grip on her arm.

  “Mia, what is it?” I said, stepping closer.

  She closed her eyes and when she opened them once more the tears were gone, her expression closed and cold as she stared at the place where my hand touched her skin in disgust.

  “I know what you are, Amber; I can see it. You’re a monster, pure and simple, and I want you gone from my life.”

  She turned on her heel and jerked her arm free of my grip before disappearing back into the gloom of the church. I let her go, my hand falling back to my side as I stared after her.

  “Amber, are you all right?” Nic asked, moving up beside me, his hand on my shoulder, feather-light.

  “There’s something going on here,” I said, without taking my gaze off the disappearing view of the inside of the church through the closing gap in the door.

  “I think she was pretty clear. She doesn’t want your help….”

  “Oh, come on—she clearly doesn’t know what she wants. You and I both know there’s something freaky at play here. Mia’s an empath and she has the dead body of a woman in her house. Are you really going to buy the story that that poor woman attacked Mia?”

  Nic shook his head and I turned away from the door, starting down the steps that led towards the street. “No, I suppose you’re right. There’s something weird, but I have no idea what it is.”

  “I might not know, but I’m going to find out. I owe her that, at least.”

  “What really happened between you two? Are you sure that this need to figure out the truth isn’t some sort of guilt from whatever went on in the past?”

  I flinched, Nic’s words hitting home. There was every chance that my desire to get to the bottom of what was going on stemmed from guilt, but it didn’t change the fact that there was something going on. Digging a little deeper was the right thing to do, and did it really matter if I was doing that out of guilt or a moral sense of right and wrong?

  “What does it matter?”

  “Well, what if this is what she really wants?”

  “It’s not,” I said, but I couldn’t be sure anymore.

  My cellphone buzzed and I scooped it out and stared down at the screen. Victoria’s message was filled with lots of angry emoticons and exclamation marks.

  “If we don’t get over to the crime scene soon, I think Victoria is going to have kittens…” I said with a sigh as I slipped the phone back into my pocket.

  Nic nodded and he didn’t push the Mia conversation; I was grateful. I didn’t need anyone to make me feel any worse. There was something wrong, something that Mia either couldn’t or wouldn’t share with me now, but I would get to the bottom of it all.

  I’d deserted her once; I wouldn’t do it a second time.

  Chapter 9

  Dark rivulets ran down between the cobbles in the alley and I moved to avoid them instinctively. The light was too poor to tell if it was blood, but the taste of old pennies, which coated the back of my tongue with each breath I took, told me everything I needed to know.

  Pausing at the edge of the crime scene tape, I peered into the alley. The forensic guys had set up a decent perimeter, which at least meant the reporters wouldn’t be getting any sickening photos for the front page news with this case.

  “Victoria,” I called to her as I watched her stalk around the side of a van parked in the mouth of the alley itself.

  Lifting her head, she scanned the area and for a second I could have sworn her eyes flickered, the colour swallowed by the darkness I knew dwelled within. She caught my eye and smiled, crossing the distance between us. I shook my head in disgust. I’d never noticed her eyes to change until I saw her transform; I was probably just imagining it. Either that or seeing her without the glamour of her human form made it easier to see through the facade. It was something I would have to ask her when I had time.

  “You took your time,” she said, lifting the tape for me to duck beneath.

  “I told you, I had things to do. Lucky for you, Nic gave me a ride,” I said, jerking my thumb in his general direction. I’d left him securing his motorbike.

  “You brought him to a crime scene. Is that such a good idea?” The disdain in her voice couldn’t be ignored.

  “He’s a registered hunter. He has more right to be here than I do, at the moment.”

  Victoria studied me for a second longer before shrugging, her dark hair falling back over her shoulder to drape down her back. “Fine, but if he gets in the way, he’s your responsibility,” she said.

  “I’m not deaf, you know,” Nic said, slipping beneath the tape and closing the gap between us.

  “Good to know,” Victoria said curtly. She paused, her lips stripping back from her teeth as she stared into his eyes. “He knows…” she said, anger causing her eyes to flip black.

  “I’m not going to tell anyone. Amber told me in confidence….”

  “It was not her secret to share,” Victoria said, taking a threatening step forward.

  Moving between them, I grabbed Victoria’s arm, forcing her to stare down at me. “He knows my secret, too. He won’t tell anyone; you can trust him.”

  “You tell everyone your secret, Amber? Your recklessness will get you killed. I haven’t survived two centuries by telling every handsome man that catches my eye what I truly am.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. But she had a point, everyone close to me knew what I was. Graham had guessed, Nic had seen it, and, well, Victoria herself seemed to just know. It was probably a Changeling thing—maybe it was a gift they all had.

  “If my secret gets out, I will know who to look to for retribution.” Her threat wasn’t veiled; it couldn’t have been clearer, and the look she gave Nic as she said it sent a shiver down my spine.

  I’d seen what she’d done to Zeck. Part of me was beginning to wonder if she’d allowed Zeck to capture her, just so she could get close to him. But if that were true, why wait until I got there to strike? It just didn’t make sense. Just something else to add to my list of questions for her.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to share your secret, but I really do trust him, Victoria; you can too.”

  She glared down at me, her lips thinned down until they were barely visible. Finally, she nodded, the anger slowly ebbing from her eyes, and her shoulders dropped as she began to relax.

  “Fine, let’s get this over with. I don’t know about you but the smell is really beginning to bother me,” she said, the weariness in her voice surprising me.

  I didn’t disagree with her. It wasn’t particularly unpleasant, but knowing what caused it made the smell denser, more cloying. Following her up into the alley, we moved around the van and the scene became instantly apparent.

  The body lay on the ground at the end of the alley—well, what was left of the body. It looked more like a mangled heap of raw meat. The last time I’d seen something even close to it had been during my Elite training, and we’d been on assignment with one of the trainers. He’d taken us to a fake scene, one where the victim had been pushed from the 40th floor of a skyscraper. It wasn’t something I would ever forget, and staring at the human remains at the end of the alley, I knew this would go with all the other carnage I’d witnessed.

  “This is going to give me nightmares for weeks…” I said, locking my shoulders to prevent the inevitable shudder that threatened to roll through me.

  Victoria shot me a curious glance. “Considering the things you can do, why would this give you nightmares?”

  Her question caught me off guard
and I stared at her, my mouth simply opening and closing as I struggled for an answer. It was a fair question. I’d raised demons; one of them had even murdered my father, ripped him limb from limb. I was still new to the job, but the cases I’d worked had been some of the most gruesome King City had to offer.

  “Because only a few hours ago, this was a living breathing human being and now he is so much raw meat,” Nic said. And he was right. Whatever had done this to him was still out there. He’d been a person with hopes and dreams, and now all of that was gone, simply wasted as his blood continued to run in little trails down the alley.

  She turned and gave the scene laid out before us a contemplative look before nodding. “I suppose I see your point.”

  “Do things like this not bother you?” I asked, unable to keep my curiosity under wraps.

  “Physically, yes, the smell and—well, visually, it’s disturbing, but ultimately, it’s a life lost like so many others. I’m more concerned with what happened and catching the one responsible.”

  There was something clinical in her statement that made me uncomfortable. She wasn’t wrong; it was another life lost like so many others and really I needed to get my head in the game and focus on catching the guilty party. But it didn’t change the fact that I couldn’t separate the body with the person who, up to a few hours ago, had a future until it was violently ripped away.

  “So why did you think this was in my wheelhouse anyway?” I asked, moving carefully across the blood-soaked ground. The closer I got to the body, the more apparent it became that the dark trails were in fact blood tracks.

  “A few things,” she said, walking up to the body and crouching down next to it.

  I followed suit, and watched as she used one gloved hand to lift the victim’s arm. It flopped awkwardly and I knew without needing to read a forensic report that the bones were broken. The skin shifted as though it wasn’t connected to anything within and I felt my stomach roll.

  Victoria turned the arm over and I caught sight of the mark through the bruising around the wrist. The body had clearly belonged to a man, and despite the blood and viscera surrounding him, he’d obviously been tall and well-built but that wasn’t what interested me.