“Slays. Yes.”
That was one of the marks on Roan’s back. I felt sick. “That… fits,” I said.
“It fits with your profile of a magical serial killer?” Gabriel asked, his face dead serious.
I shrugged. “Sure. It also fits a ritual murder of a human killer.”
“This stuff about magic, and fae, and people with wings and horns… You can’t say a word about this once we enter the station. We can tell them we’re pursuing a suspect, that he was seen around the crime scene with markings on his body that match the victim, but nothing about the magic.”
“I know. And I wasn’t planning on mentioning it to the FBI today, either.” I stared at him “You believe me?”
“You look surprised.”
“Of course I’m surprised.” I drummed my fingertips on the table. “I’m talking about magic. I sound demented.”
“I… I’ve seen some things,” Gabriel said. “I don’t know about fae. But I think spirits are real.”
“Spirits,” I repeated. I don’t know why I said it in a tone that implied he was crazy—I’d just been talking about fairies.
“I’ve seen things in the past few years. Things that sent me searching. Things that…” He shook his head, staring at the table as if in a daze. “Do you know what a dybbuk is?”
I shook my head.
“According to Jewish mythology, the dybbuk is a possessing spirit. An evil possessing spirit. It’s all supposedly nonsense, of course, but…” He shrugged. “Not everything can be explained. Maybe spirits and demons roam this world.”
I swallowed hard, my throat dry. “I saw horns on Roan.” Holy shit. What was he—fae, or demon? I clutched my coffee cup tighter to keep my hands from shaking.
Both of us were silent, the air between us tense and heavy.
“So what now?” I finally asked.
“Well, magical or not, you’ve told me enough about Roan to make him a valid suspect,” Gabriel said. “According to our killer’s nursery rhyme, he intends to kill again tonight. We need to find Roan as soon as possible. If he is the killer, we need to stop him before another innocent woman dies.”
“He’s staying at the Andaz Hotel. But I think if he doesn’t want to be found, we’re going to have a hell of a time finding him.”
* * *
No one at the Andaz Hotel had a record of a Roan Taranis staying at the hotel. We asked to see their CCTV footage, and were told that we’d have to wait for the head of security, who was taking the morning off. We returned to the police station, intending to come back later.
And that’s when things got really weird.
The moment we entered the squad room, half a dozen eyes focused on me. DCI Wood stood beside my desk, alongside two constables I didn’t recognize. The rest of the detectives in the room were all standing as well, their posture tense. My stuff was scattered everywhere, as if someone had been searching through it. Something was wrong.
“Agent Liddell,” Wood said. “I need you to come with me.”
“What’s this about?” I tried to steady my voice.
Wood stared at me, his large body tense with rage. “I think you already know.”
“Sir.” Gabriel lifted a hand. “Agent Liddell has some fresh intel that—”
“Whatever the agent has told you is a lie,” Wood said. “I don’t know what her game is, but earlier this morning, she walked into the morgue, and took… evidence.” His lip curled in disgust.
Something was very wrong. “What?” My knees felt weak. “This must be some mistake.”
“Sir,” Gabriel said. “Whatever this is, I can guarantee that—”
“Can you?” Wood asked. He glanced at the constables. “Get her over here.”
Both constables marched toward me. I tensed, thinking of running, but one of them caught my arm, his fingers tightening around me like a steel clamp. I couldn’t have shaken his grip even if I’d tried. He pulled me over to Wood, who nodded at Gabriel’s desk. One of the constables pulled me to the desk.
“Sit down.” Wood’s voice was cold.
I sat in the chair, the constable never letting go.
“You’re making a huge mistake.” My voice shook. “Manhandling a US Federal Agent? Do you have any idea—”
“I doubt the Bureau will have much to say after I show them this.” Wood took something from his pocket—a USB key—and stuck it in Gabriel’s computer.
The USB folder popped up on the monitor, and Wood leaned over to click on it. It contained a single video file. Wood double-clicked on it.
I stared at the screen, disbelief and horror sinking in my gut.
It was a CCTV footage from the security camera in the morgue. It was empty. Then, a woman marched in through the door.
That woman was me.
The Cassandra on the screen walked over to the metal containers and scanned the labels. I couldn’t pull my eyes away. She didn’t just look like me—same blond hair, blue eyes, and petite figure; she also had the same posture, and the way her eyes shifted as she read the labels, her facial expressions—all were identical to mine. She froze, biting her lip—another habit of mine—and pulled one of the containers open.
Several jars lay inside. She picked up one, examining it closely.
Adrenaline surged through my veins. What the fuck was happening?
Wood pointed at the screen. “That’s Catherine’s spleen. It was discarded next to the body at the crime scene.”
My doppelgänger nodded to herself—again, something I often did when I was alone. She turned away, still holding the jar, and left the room.
“The constable at the station’s entrance verified that he saw her leave with the jar in her hand,” Wood declared.
I suddenly remembered how strangely the constable had looked at me when I’d walked inside with Gabriel.
Gabriel interjected, “Sir, she was with me for the past hour—”
“Look at the time of the footage, detective,” Wood barked.
I looked at the corner of the video. Six fifty-two a.m. How long was the video? Five minutes. That meant it had started at six forty-seven. I had still been on my way to the station at that time. Over an hour ago, when I’d been walking around the city, marveling at the stupid street names.
And then I remembered what the constable had told me when I’d arrived earlier. You had it before, didn’t you?
Not today I hadn’t, but the Cassandra on the screen had a badge pinned to her shirt.
“That… that wasn’t me,” I whispered.
“It is our belief that this woman has interfered with the investigation from the moment she got here,” Wood said to Gabriel. “This is not the first thing she has taken. We believe she’s the one who took the heart from the crime scene, and later used it to send us that package with the note.”
Gabriel stared at me, horror etched into his face.
“That’s not true.” My heart threatened to gallop out of my chest. Maybe I had lost my mind. “I never—”
“We don’t know why, yet,” Wood said. “I doubt the Bureau was aware of her actions. We’re looking into it. The extent of the damage to our investigation hasn’t been determined. But obviously, we’ve been chasing a fake trail. The killer is not likely to strike tonight.”
“Yes, he will.” I was still clinging to my theory. “You have to stake the Ripper’s crime scenes. This has been a terrible mistake, I’m sure that—”
“Take her,” Wood snapped.
With a growing sense of panic, I could see my future stretching ahead of me. The British police, believing I’d sent the note, would ignore the killer’s warning. I would be blamed for that as well, and held for obstructing justice. But the really horrifying part was—assuming that the note was a real threat—another innocent woman would die. I had to stop it.
But how could I make them listen? Even I half believed it was me in the video. Why would any of them believe me?
If I did nothing, they’d arrest me. I wouldn’t be able to sto
p the killer. I was quickly getting the feeling that I wouldn’t be making my appointment in the overseas offices today.
But what the hell was I supposed to do here? I was completely powerless. I was unarmed, surrounded by hostile policemen in the middle of the station, held by a man twice my weight. It was hopeless.
“Okay, listen,” I said from the chair. “I can explain everything. It’s really quite stupid. I have the spleen right here.”
I opened the top drawer below Gabriel’s desk, and there, as he had told me before, lay a dusty yellow Taser gun.
Praying it was charged, I whipped it out, sliding my finger into the trigger guard. I saw eyes widen around me as I spun the chair, aiming the Taser at the constable holding me. I pressed the trigger, watching the two electrical cables plunging into the man’s chest. His fingers went slack as the electrical current hit him, and I was already on my feet, my knee bent forward, plunging between the other man’s legs. A high pitched groan escaped him as he toppled forward.
Time slowed down to a crawl, my senses sharpening. I could feel the fear around me—the policemen’s fear for their friends’ safety, and fear for themselves. It pulsed through me like a narcotic rush. A wave of energy and power thrummed in my body.
You feed off fear.
My palm slapped the desk, and I propelled myself over it, landing on the floor, knees bent. Behind me, people were shouting orders, Wood’s voice louder than the rest, demanding backup. I rushed for the squad room’s exit, my body fast and strong, nourished on fear.
The station exit was a stairway away. As I ran down the stairs, I felt the air rushing over my body. I cleared two steps at a time, using the rail for balance. I whirled around the bend in the stairway, nearly colliding with a baton-wielding cop.
He raised his stick, and my right fist smashed into his face. My left hand twisted the baton in his hand, and he screamed in agony, letting go. The encounter hardly slowed me down, and I kept flying down the stairs, now armed with a baton.
Four constables stood in the reception area, all with guns. Authorized Firearms Officers, dispatched to prevent me from leaving the building.
“Stop!” one of them shouted.
A wall of fear hit me. They didn’t like having to draw their guns, and panic pulsed through the room. I could feel it. Their thumping heartbeats. Their short breaths. The sweat running down their foreheads. Power blazed through my body.
I swerved sideways, running for one of the hallways as they shouted at me to stop. I heard an explosion behind me, saw a burst of plaster to my right. One of the constables had taken a shot at me.
And that was all it took for them all to start firing.
My world shrunk to a long dark tunnel, an endless straight hall before me, a death squad behind. I felt as if I was running through a haze, the sounds of gunfire slowing down to a crawl. My heart thundered in my ears, louder than the guns behind me.
I dove left, plunging through an open doorway, a hail of bullets missing me by inches. Breathless, I shut the set of doors. I looked frantically for a way to lock them, but saw none. I could already hear the footsteps of pursuit getting nearer, shouts and orders louder by the second. I wedged the baton in my hand through the two door handles, pinning them shut. The doors shuddered as someone tried to pull them open and failed.
I looked around me.
I was in an interrogation room. No windows, no way out. I was trapped.
Chapter 13
I stood in the cramped, dark-walled interrogation room. A single metal table stood in the center of it, with three chairs crowding around it—one for the suspect, two for the interrogators.
A large two-way mirror reflected my frantic face back at me, pale in the harsh white light.
The doors shuddered, the baton still wedged inside the handles. Panic stole my breath.
A loud crash sounded as one of the men battered against the door, probably with his foot.
How long did I have before they opened the doors? A minute? Two?
I knew one thing for certain. I was in much deeper shit now than if I hadn’t attacked the police. What the fuck had I done?
I swallowed hard. Any minute, they could start shooting through the door. Mind blazing with fear, I tried to knock over the table to create a barricade, but it was bolted to the floor. The chairs were flimsy things of wood and plastic, completely useless for anything but sitting.
Another crash against the door sent a blaze of adrenaline through my blood. The baton shifted. A few more kicks, and it would dislodge.
The knowledge slowly sunk in. This was the end of the road. There was no way to run, and time was not my friend. I was only making things worse. Better to surrender now, before they managed to break down the door, probably shoot me.
I walked over to the door, raising my hand to pull the baton away, but then hesitated.
The invisibility potion.
Yesterday, it had seemed like a pointless transaction: a bottle of muddy water from a teenage scammer. But that was before I saw fae. I had been a different Cassandra then. Realistic, pragmatic, believing only in cold facts.
But what if this potion was the real thing? It was still stuffed in my little shoulder bag. I popped it open, rifling through all the old receipts and change until I found the small bottle. I uncorked it, then tilted it to my mouth, drinking half the bottle in one go. Grimacing, I nearly threw up the contents. It smelled like the bottom of a grave, and tasted of bitter wormwood and fetid mushrooms. The oily texture clung to my tongue. I gagged, breathing through my nose.
I wasn’t invisible. I could still see my hands. All I felt was ill. Did I just poison myself?
Maybe it had worked. After all, Alvin had said people wouldn’t be able to see me. He didn’t mention anything about me being able to see myself. I corked the bottle, shoving it back in my purse.
A third crash jolted me, and the baton fell to the floor in a loud clang. A second later the door swung open, four guns trained at me. And there was no doubt that the men holding them could see me.
“Hands on your head!” one of them barked. “Now!”
Slowly, I put my hands on my head.
“Up against the wall! Do it!”
I walked backward to the wall, keeping my eyes on them constantly.
“Face the wall!” Fear rolled off them in waves, filling me with energy. But I had nowhere else to run.
I turned around, my reflection staring back at me from the one-sided mirror, pale and resigned. Behind me, I could see the men getting closer.
But as they did, I could feel myself forming a sort of bond with the mirror, as if it were magnetically pulling me closer to it. The reflection shimmered, tugging me toward it. Something in me wanted to move toward that mirror, to feel it rippling over my skin.
My heart hammering, I inched closer, watching as the reflection shifted. I could still see the reflection of the room I was in, but I could also see a different place. It looked like a public bathroom—a line of empty bathroom stalls, and a beige tiled floor. It looked like an escape.
Someone grabbed me from behind and shoved me against the shimmering mirror, but I never felt it slam against my face. Instead, I felt as if my head had been shoved into a bucket of cold water, the coldness spreading down my neck, chest, and down to my legs in an exhilarating rush. And despite the cold, I felt at one with the mirror, as if it had always been a part of me. The cop’s hands seemed to fall away, and the mirror sucked me through it in a rush of cool, thick magic. Dizzy, I collapsed to the floor. I shut my eyes, then opened them hesitantly.
My knees nearly gave way. Somehow—the mirror had sucked me through its reflection. Into a public bathroom.
How had I gotten here? I was lying on the square-tiled floor. I stood up and looked behind me, to where I had supposedly come from. A large mirror reflected the bathroom stalls.
A wooden door creaked open and a police woman stood in the doorway, in uniform. She blinked in surprise, then screeched, “She’s here!”
Damn it! I looked around. There was a small window at the far end of the bathroom. Could I open it and climb out? Or should I push past the woman?
I looked back at the woman… and she was gone, but the door had been propped open, as if to allow me to leave.
Maybe this was my chance to get out of here. I hurried toward the door, when I heard footsteps echoing in the hall outside.
“Where is she?” a man’s voice boomed.
“She was right here! I swear!” the woman shouted back.
She sounded like she was right next to me, but I couldn’t see her. Where was she?
Something brushed against me. I whirled, but could see nothing. One of the stall doors suddenly shuddered violently, as if pushed by some force.
“Bloody hell!” the man’s voice boomed off the bathroom tiles. “She isn’t here!”
The realization hit me. Fucking Alvin and his invisibility potion. It had kicked in, three minutes too late. And it didn’t just make me invisible to them. It worked the other way around as well. I couldn’t see anyone else!
Something collided into me, and I stumbled back.
“Fucking hell.” The voice echoed off the walls.
I had a small advantage, knowing about the potion, but if enough of them ran into me, they were bound to figure the truth. I flattened myself against the row of sinks, holding my breath. If I could hear them, they’d be able to hear me. Slowly, I began to creep toward the doorway, listening to the disembodied voices. The window opened with a loud squeak.
“She didn’t go that way!” the woman said. “I would have seen her.”
“Dorothy, are you sure you didn’t imagine her?” a voice to my right asked. “Remember last year on Valentine’s Day—”
“For God’s sake, this isn’t like that, Alan! I am completely sober right now.”
I brushed against someone, and heard him gasp. “What was that?”
I shimmied faster, reaching the doorway, and tried to step through it. Instead, I collided with an invisible mass.
“Argh!” the woman shrieked. “What’s happening?”
Frantically, I shoved her out of the way, knocking her to the floor. I sprinted down the hallway.
Agent of Enchantment (Dark Fae FBI Book 1) Page 11
