Of Life and Death

by A. L. Kessler

  Mario appeared within two minutes, and I narrowed my eyes. “You had no idea where I was.”

  “The tracker is still active on your phone.” He sniffed the air. “I smell fire, your work?”

  I shook my head. “Nope, the daughter of your fledgling. Which, I have some questions about.”

  “I already told you what I could.”

  I poked him in the chest. “No, you haven’t. You’ve given me vague answers. I have three dolls that were housing souls.”

  “Souls.” He repeated slowly.

  I nodded. “Souls. Living. Fucking. Dolls. So now I need to know a few things about Mr. Moll.”

  “Like?”

  “What was the reason you were told to change him.”

  For once Mario wouldn’t look at me. “I told you that we needed his set of skills.”

  “Which skills?”

  He didn’t answer me. “Who is we?” I asked, and he remained silent.

  “Mario, you told me that you wanted me to be able to trust you. This isn’t going to work if you withhold information that is important to a case.”

  “We needed his ability to do Life Magic,” he snapped at me. “What we wanted him for, it didn’t work, so it was all for nothing.”

  I tried to think through the massive amount of questions crashing through my head; I’d finally settled on one when Drake appeared and jumped at me.

  He grabbed my wrist before I could respond, but so did Mario. The world around me spun and disappeared.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When the world reappeared around me, and Drake had me pinned against a wall with a hand around my throat. I snarled and brought my knee up to my stomach, but he caught it with his hand and squeezed enough to let me know that he could break it without a thought.

  “You wouldn’t dare.” I lowered my voice. The room was dark, and I couldn’t see where Mario was if he’d even been able to follow us. I knew he had a hold of me when we transported.

  Drake laughed. “You don’t think so Abigail? Because you’re Levi’s daughter?”

  I didn’t think now was the right time to correct him that it was adopted daughter. Though I had been banking on that to help me get out of here unharmed. I met his gaze. “Because I’m a PIB agent, I’m Levi’s daughter, and Mario’s lover.”

  “You’re lying about Mario. You may be dating, but he’s not your lover.”

  I couldn’t argue the point. “Your daughter confessed to tying the souls to the dolls and told me that you were bringing her the victims.”

  “Which you’re about to join them,” he snarled in my ear. “But I plan on bleeding you dry first.”

  I tried to keep my panic in as he scrapped his fangs against my neck. My hand searched for my gun, and my fingers wrapped around its handle, pulling it from the holster. I couldn’t get a good shot at this angle, but I aimed at the knee. I squeezed the trigger and tried not to flinch as the recoil shoved me harder against the wall.

  I felt the blood splatter on my body, and Drake jerked away from me, but his fingers tightened around my throat. Where the fuck was Mario?

  The lights in the room came flooding on. I heard a high pitch laugh, and I knew it belonged to Loraine.

  “You don’t fit my current body hunt, but I have a client who would pay well for a living doll with your likeness.” She walked through the stainless steel room. “Daddy, if you want to drain her, you need to do it now so I can get her molded and dispose of the body before Mario realizes where she is.”

  What the fuck. I raised my gun, and Drake grabbed my wrist with his free hand, squeezing it until he forced me to drop my weapon. I tried to remain calm and look at my surroundings. There were no windows, no doors that I could see, and the harsh light did nothing for the stainless steel floor. There was some sort of contraption against the wall to my left with three big spikes stained with dry blood.

  Loraine followed my gaze. “Oh, that? That’s where I stick the bodies so I can start the molds and the castings. My clients want very particular features, so I want to make sure that every detail is correct.”

  Drake sealed his lips over the pulse in my neck. His breath was hot on my skin, and it hit my panic button. I rammed my elbow into the side of his head, and he stepped back. I ducked under him and swept up my gun off the floor as I ran toward Loraine.

  She’d managed to break my circle last time when I used my elemental abilities, and she’d managed to deflect my bullets without a physical circle. There wasn’t much I could do, but my main concern was to survive long enough for Mario to figure out where I was.

  I turned and shot at Drake. My bullet took him in the shoulder, and blood splattered against the wall behind him. He just laughed and moved forward. The only thing my two bullets did was slow him down a tiny bit.

  I glanced over my shoulder to see Loraine coming toward me. “Your daughter,” I said suddenly, and she paused. “She’s a very lost little girl sitting in a mental home with powers she doesn’t understand.”

  “My daughter?” She looked at Drake. “You told me Cynthia was dead.”

  Oh, well wasn’t that interesting? Clarissa had told me she learned about the little girl from an employee.

  Drake lunged at me. “She’s lying to you; she’s trying to turn you against me.”

  I shot him again, but it missed as he disappeared. I waited a moment to see where he would reappear, but he didn’t right away. “Loraine, that’s why you were choosing mothers who had children that were seven, because that’s old Cynthia was.”

  “They abandoned their children because they couldn’t make it work. None of those women fought for their children. They had no idea how precious a gift a healthy child was,” she snarled at me. “Cynthia died because she couldn’t handle the amount of power our bloodline carried.”

  I shook my head. “No, she’s in a magically protected mental home. She has fits of rage, but your dad gave her a doll to help with that.” I didn’t want to mention what I was told about the health issues; she could deal with that later. I lowered my gun. I couldn’t fight her with magic or fir power, but maybe I could get through to her.

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” There was a look in her eyes for a moment. A glimpse of sanity that wasn’t there a second ago.

  I swallowed. “Because I wouldn’t lie to a mother about a child. I lost my mother when I was four. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

  “My father…”

  “Has lost his mind because of the battle between the magic that wants to keep him alive and the curse that is being a vampire. I don’t know what his intentions were.”

  I thought about the doll that was in my bag. “The rag doll.” I held my hand up, so she knew I wasn’t going for another weapon. I reached into my bag and felt around for the doll. I pulled it out and showed it to her. “This was yours. It had the same spell on it that Cynthia’s had.”

  She gave me wide eyes. “I left that in the house to burn.”

  “I found it in the basement with a note on it.” I narrowed my eyes. “Your dad has the ability to show up in visions as other people. A way of communicating almost through a dream world.”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  I could see her becoming calmer which was reassuring for me. At least I knew she wasn’t going to put a knife through me at any moment or shove me into the points.

  “It wasn’t you that placed the rune in my office.”

  “It was. I swiped a key card from a SWAT team member when he took me to lunch. He’d come to the store to order a doll, when he came to pick it up, I asked him to lunch because I knew I could swipe the key card.”

  “Why?”

  She was silent for a moment. “Because my father wanted me to scare you away from the case.”

  “Loraine, you have to let me out of here. He knows I know about Cynthia now, for some reason. he wanted to keep her away from you.”

  “Oh my god, he’s going to kill her,” she shrieked.

  I nodded
. “Let me out of here, and I can help her.”

  She nodded and opened a hidden door on the far end of the room. I thanked the Goddess that I managed to defuse the situation. The moment I got up the stairwell, I grabbed my phone and dialed the mental home.

  “This is Agent Collins. You need to go on lockdown. Please tell me you have provisions in place for vampires popping in?”

  “We don’t. Tell me what I need to do,” the nurse said.

  “You need to move Cynthia Moll. I’ll be sending a vampire name Mario out to help you. He’s familiar with the case, and you can trust him.” Assuming I could get a hold of Mario. “And I’ll be sending a PIB containment team. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I hung up and looked at Loraine. “You never bothered to check if she was still there?”

  She shook her head. “I buried my child.”

  “I have a feeling that you buried a doll.” I dialed Mario, and it didn’t even ring once before he answered.

  “Where are you?”

  “No idea, check the tracker on my phone and send Levi to me. You go to the Tree Leaf Grove Mental Hospital and protect Cynthia Moll. Now.” I hung up not giving him an option.

  Loraine was just staring at me, watching as I went through my motions. “I want to see my child.”

  “I can’t take you there right now.”

  “They’ll lock me up and won’t let me see her. She deserves to know why I wasn’t there.”

  The child deserved that at the very least. “I have to make sure she’s safe first, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  Levi suddenly appeared and looked from me to Loraine back to me.

  “I’m fine, promise. I need you to take me back to the crime scene with Loraine.”

  “You sent Mario to handle Moll?” Levi held his hands out, one toward me and one toward Loraine who was holding the doll. I realized that Drake had used the doll and the image of a child to make me think that Loraine was truly behind everything. He had been trying to scare me away from looking into his family because he knew I’d discover Cynthia.

  “I did. I’m hoping to get there before Mario does something he may regret.” I took Levi’s hand, and so did Loraine.

  The world faded away, and then we found ourselves standing back at the burnt house. I took my cuffs off my belt and put them on Loraine.

  “You’re under arrest for the murders of Lark Creets, Carmen Jones, and Karen Lowe. You’re also under arrest on suspicion of using magic to aid in murder.”

  I heard her sob a little bit when an officer approached us. “This officer will read you the rest of your rights.”

  I stepped away and Levi put a hand on my shoulder. “How did you manage not to be killed?”

  “Believe it or not, I talked my way out. Drake is sporting two bullet holes though, and I have a feeling a lot more damage if we don’t get to Mario.” I shook my head. “This case…it’s not like the others.”

  Levi laughed. “No long list of suspects. No interrogations. No thrill of the hunt?”

  “Something like that.” I nodded. “I need to check in with Liz real quick and let her know that I’m going after Drake.”

  “Are you going to take the Hummer or do you want me to take you there?”

  Liz had been the one who drove. “Let me check in with Liz, and I’ll have you take me.”

  He nodded and motioned to the mess of forensics and cops. Liz stood talking to Mason, her arms crossed and brow creased.

  “Agent Collins.” She nodded as I stepped up. “I was just telling Detective Mason that I wasn’t sure how this was all connecting.”

  I sighed. “I’ve got the connection; it boils down to the fact that the Moll bloodline is very powerful and known for coming into their magic early. This can drive someone insane. Drake Moll was changed by a vampire for his ability to work with Life Magic, that drove him more insane than his magic already had. He manipulated his daughter into helping him create living dolls for people who wanted them. Recently, she started killing mothers she felt abandoned their children because she thought her daughter was dead.”

  Liz raised a brow. “Interesting, where’s Loraine now?”

  “In custody. I’m going after Drake now with the help of the local vampires. I wasn’t able to match magic to magic with Loraine, but I was able to talk her down. Drake, he’s insane. I put two bullets in him already, and he was still coming after me.”

  “Vampire back up, smart. I’ll see you back at the office?”

  I snorted. “I’ll have paperwork to file so of course.”

  Mason shook his head. “Life Magic, Black Magic, explosions, Abby why aren’t your cases ever normal.”

  “Because I’m PIB, duh.” I grinned and started walking back to Levi. I gave Mason and Liz a little wave as I walked off.

  Levi put his hand on my shoulder. “Ready?”

  “No, because I have no idea what we’re walking into, and honestly, I’m really tired of traveling vampire style.”

  “You’re going to have to get used it.” And once again, the world around us disappeared.

  Levi and I appeared in front of Tree Leaf Grove to see a few cops and Mario standing there. Mario bowed his head to me. “The girl is safe; there’s no sign of Drake yet.”

  “Where the hell have you been? You had hold of my wrist when we disappeared.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did you leave me there on purpose?”

  He shook his head. “My intended destination was Levi’s mansion, but Drake was just a bit faster than I was, and his destination for you won out, leaving me at the mansion without you. Wherever you were, it blocked your location from the cell phone tracking.”

  “Creepy steel basement, found our murder weapon. Great fun. Now, while we’re waiting for Drake to turn up, I need to know who the hell gave you the order to make him.”

  Mario looked at Levi, and I think it was the first time I’d actually seen him look to Levi for permission instead of the other way around. “Go ahead.”

  “Keira and her…our maker.”

  The creepy dolls for her suddenly made sense. “You didn’t think I should have known this earlier? That both cases were connected?”

  “There haven’t been any other victims from her since she disappeared, there’s hardly a case there.”

  I shook my head and marched toward the building. I was tired of the vampires hiding information from me that could have changed the cases. I could have turned Drake on Keira if I had had the chance. Just like I turned Loraine against Drake. Sometimes it was just better to outsmart than overpower your enemy.

  I showed the officer at the door my badge, and he let me in without an issue. The nurse from before was standing there with Cynthia. “I thought I told you to move her.”

  “There’s no place that she can go without her magic going haywire. I thought it best that she stay here and make sure that everyone was safe.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. “Okay, I’m sorry, it’s been a long night. Cynthia, can we talk?”

  She nodded. “Something is going on, and they won’t tell me what.”

  I sat down so that I was at her eye level. “Someone told your mother that you were dead, that’s why she hasn’t come to visit.”

  She squeezed the doll a little tighter. “Who told her that I was dead?”

  “Your grandfather. They buried a doll version of you, and your mother, blinded by her grief, didn’t notice.” I touched her shoulder gently. “She loves you very much.”

  Cynthia looked down. “And you told her I was still alive?”

  “I did. Your grandfather disappeared, and I was worried he was going to come here to hurt you. That’s why I had them put the place on lockdown and why all those scary people with guns are outside.”

  She hugged the doll until she shook. “Grandpa would never hurt me.”

  That’s what I wanted to believe as well, but I couldn’t because he’d lost his fucking mind. I couldn’t tell her that though. “I really hope not, but a little bit of extra ca
ution never hurts.”

  “You’re lying to me, Agent Collins.” There was that tone again that made me feel like she was older than she should have been.”

  I slowly shook my head. “Cynthia, I have nothing to gain from lying to you.”

  “My mother couldn’t handle me; she tried to kill me.” Something flashed in her eyes. “My grandfather saved my life at the last minute. Tying my soul to my body, using life magic to keep my magic within me so that I could live.”

  I looked at the nurse who was backing away slowly. My mind went through the details I had.

  I buried my baby.

  Cynthia’s body refusing to age.

  A bloodline of insane witches and warlocks.

  I assumed that the body had been a doll. I needed to know if Loraine actually saw them bury the body.

  “You’re starting to see your mistakes, Agent Collins. My mother, she’s like me. That’s why we’re crazy. It’s not the bloodline. Grandpa…he was supposed to be like that too, but my father trapped him in a burning house trying to kill him, but he escaped and was saved by a vampire named Mario.”

  Magic started to build around me, and I was wondering if I could bring myself to fight a seven-year-old child.

  I threw up a circle around myself before her magic exploded around us. It hit my circle with an audible thunk, and the blow vibrated through me as it hit my magic. Luckily it didn’t seem like she could break through my circle.

  “Cynthia, I’m trying to help you here. So far everyone has just lied to me.”

  She laughed. “Of course we have, we’re trying to protect ourselves.”

  “I have your mother in custody.” I met her gaze. “Magical cuffs, containment van, special cell, so she can’t work magic or escape. You want to see her again?”

  “No, the bitch tried to kill me,” she snarled. “Because she thought I was going to be a monster like her. My magic was too much for her to handle.”

  I couldn’t imagine what went through a mother’s mind when they thought death for their child would be better than anything else, but looking at the terrifying child in front of me, I was starting to understand why Loraine would think she was a monster.