Heart beating in her throat, she moved faster, then stumbled into an unseen hole a few feet from the car, twisting her ankle painfully. She bit her lip to stifle her cry. Cursing quietly under her breath, she headed back to the Subaru for a flashlight.
The solid, artificial yellow beam at least allowed her to miss the mole holes. She started off again, slower this time, training the light downward so the boy, if he was here, couldn’t see her coming. The trees loomed ahead, black trunks reaching for the sky, limbs raised in supplication.
She was no stranger to the emptiness of the night, the darkened earth breathing around her, summoning, questioning. Alive. All the tiny sighs of brush and grass were heightened in the gloom, and a small bank of fog had gathered in the brush. She could smell rain on the horizon, saw the shadow of a cloud cross under the tip of the moon.
The night was her world, and she its concubine.
Step by step, she inched closer. Forty yards, twenty, ten. She smelled a fire burning, oak and poplar and leaves and twigs being licked by the flames, and slowed to a creep, edging her way closer still. She drew energy from the earth and shielded herself, protecting her fragility with an invisible psychic barrier.
She could see him clearly, lying on his side, a lump under a blanket. His back was to her, she didn’t think he could see her. The flickering fire crackled, covering her small sounds. She eased the flashlight off, just in case. The fog curled around him like a lover, keeping him hidden in its dense embrace.
He was asleep. She couldn’t read him. Deep breaths mingled with the shurring rush of the wind.
She debated for a few moments, dithering, then moved away from the glade, back toward the car. She shouldn’t be afraid of this boy, but she was. Her hands were shaking. She would call the lieutenant, let her come and take him.
She stepped on a twig, the crack of the dry wood a loud retort in the quiet air. She froze.
By the fire, Raven opened his eyes.
Fifty-Four
Nashville
10:05 p.m.
Taylor tossed her cell phone down into her lap in disgust. “Where is that bloody woman?” she asked for the fifth time.
“I don’t know,” McKenzie answered, soothing her with his voice. She was damn tired, and wired, and frustrated. How a boy of seventeen could elude them at each step was beyond her. They knew who he was, where he lived, what he drove, yet he was as transparent as a ghost.
“Why don’t we go by her house, see if she’s just got her phone off?” McKenzie suggested.
Taylor tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, the drumming helping her think. Rush off half-cocked after a woman who claimed to be a witch, or join the search for the teenage killer? Though if she were honest with herself, she had to admit that Ariadne had helped, had cut their investigation time down by days with her prescient perceptions and drawings. That didn’t make her a witch, just observant.
“Okay. You have the address?”
“Yes. She’s off Music Row.”
“Close, at least.” Taylor put the car in gear and drove.
It only took five minutes to slip into the quiet streets of Music Row. Taylor pulled the Lumina to the curb in front of a three-story Victorian—eerily reminiscent of the home of the vampire king, Keith Barent Johnson. This house was fully restored, gaily painted a soft sage-green with sparkling white trim. The walk was cement, two steps up in the middle, then five to the wraparound porch. The porch lights were on, but it was easy to see that the lights inside were off; the front door was stained glass with strong steel bars embedded in the pattern. The soft, glowing red eye of a motion detector alarm system peeked out from behind a coat rack. Smart—an alarm system. This was a safe area, but any intelligent woman living alone would have herself reinforced. Though if Ariadne was a witch, Taylor bet she’d cast all sorts of protective spells around her home.
Not that she believed anything like that could possibly work to prevent a crime.
A white wicker swing with green, yellow and white pin-stripe cushions hung from the ceiling of the porch. Taylor could imagine Ariadne sitting in it on warm nights, feet tucked under her like a cat, that glossy black hair streaming in contrast over the white wood.
“She’s not here,” Taylor said, but rang the bell anyway. A deep chime rang out, no one answered the door.
Taylor turned to McKenzie. “Now what?”
He was staring at the front door, distracted, and didn’t answer.
Taylor paced along the porch, glanced around the side of the house. More padded white wicker, a conversational grouping around a large, ceramic chiminea. Exactly squat that would help find Ariadne.
“We have to try something else. We can—”
She stopped, her cell was ringing. The caller ID read unknown name, unknown number. She felt her heart leap into her throat. The last time she’d seen that particular combination on her cell, it was the Pretender, calling to warn her he was coming for her. She signaled to McKenzie, then slowly brought the phone to her ear.
“Jackson.”
The scared voice of the witch rang out into the quiet night.
“Oh, thank the Goddess you answered, Lieutenant. This is Ariadne. I found him. I found the warlock.”
Taylor was already striding to the car, her keys in her left hand. “We’ve been calling you all night. Where are you?” she asked.
Ariadne was whispering, the harshness of her voice amplified by the phone’s speaker.
“I’m out in western Davidson County. Do you know McCrory Lane?”
“Yes.” Understatement, she and Baldwin lived not far from there.
“There’s an old deserted graveyard out here—dates back over two hundred years. It’s a holy place. I saw him, in a dream.”
Taylor stopped short, leaned against the hood of her car. Son of a bitch.
“So you mean you saw him in a dream, is that it, Ariadne? For God’s sake—”
“No, no, listen. Don’t hang up. I dreamed about it, yes, but I came out here to see, and he’s there. He was asleep by the fire. But I think he heard me. I need to get out of here.”
Taylor butted the phone against her forehead. God save me from people who think they can investigate crimes.
“Yes, you do. Leave immediately. Drive to the Shell station at the intersection of Highway 100 and McCrory Lane, go inside, tell them to lock the doors. I’ll get a patrol there as soon as possible. The boy is armed, and he’s dangerous. We’ll meet you there. It’s going to take a little bit—we’re at your place now.”
“Lieutenant?”
Taylor turned the car over and pulled out onto the street.
“Yes?”
“Hurry.”
“Don’t hang up!” Taylor yelled, but Ariadne was already gone. She cursed, then pulled the flasher out and attached it to the roof. They couldn’t waste any time. The revolving light gave her a headache, but she wanted people out of her way.
“Where is she?” McKenzie asked.
“McCrory Lane.” She keyed her radio, called Dispatch. “Lieutenant Jackson, E, 10-82, 10-13, 10-54. Suspect located, I need backup, 8 to the Shell station at McCrory Lane and Highway 100.”
She heard the affirmatives—she’d called for backup for their suspect, let the troops know he had a weapon and coded him very dangerous—the patrol officers in the area would scramble.
The trick would be to get all the personnel in place and take Schuyler Merritt Junior into custody before the press arrived. The media, local and national, had a vested interest in this case now.
The radio crackled. A patrol was rolling from Highway 70 South, ETA three minutes. Taylor breathed a sigh of relief. Ariadne would be fine.
“What in the name of hell does that woman think she’s doing?”
“She thinks she’s helping, LT.”
“I never asked for help. Like I need Miss Marple for the occult set to solve my case?”
“Well, I never did see Miss Marple in a corset and cloak, but I get your drift.�
�
She smiled at him. “She could give Morticia lessons, that’s for sure. Damn stupid, silly woman, running off after a killer like that. I have half a mind to charge her with obstruction. She should have called me. If this goes south…”
He was white-faced beside her, but said, “It’s not going to go south.”
They were on Old Hickory now, the red light strobing off the fine brick homes, the woods taking on a momentary bloody glow as they flew past. They disturbed a gang of turkeys, feeding too close to the road in the rough off the eighth hole of Harpeth Hills. They fled away from the lights, disappearing off into the brush, tail feathers gleaming white in her peripheral vision.
The radio was crackling—the first patrols had arrived at the Shell station.
Dispatch popped into the fray. “Please advise, Lieutenant Jackson.”
“You’re looking for a pale woman with black hair named Ariadne. She should be locked inside.”
“Negative, LT. No one here like that.”
She heard the words, negative, from three different voices. Beads of sweat popped out on her brow, she put her foot to the floor. The Lumina launched itself down Highway 100. She wrestled her gaze from the blacktop just long enough to shoot a searing I-told-you-so look at McKenzie.
Fifty-Five
Nashville
11:00 p.m.
Raven had felt her, the weight of her presence, long before she stepped on the twig. He didn’t know who she was, other than she wasn’t a friend. She was strong, this one, but still no match for him. There was strength, and then there was the immutable power of steel and brass, a reality that couldn’t be argued with.
She’d fled quickly once she’d known he was awake. He stood, stretched, slipped the pistol from his waistband. A friend at reform school had taught him the right way to handle the weapon; he’d been an eager student. The cold steel warmed to his palm. He held it lightly in his grasp, finger alongside the trigger, gun pointing down the length of his thigh. He wouldn’t raise it until he was ready to use it. It was a small caliber weapon, so in order for it to be effective, he’d need to be close.
Like his parents.
Blood flooded his groin at the thought of the two of them, cowering in the living room like rats being sold to a lab. That day, the longest of his life, would never retreat from the recesses of his mind.
His bitch of a mother had walked in on him and Fane and freaked out. They’d known, of course—that’s why they’d split them up, sent him away.
“It’s not natural,” his father had spit at him, the disgust ripe in his throat.
“Natural enough for you,” he’d shouted. “You’ve been fucking Fane since she was four.”
“I have never laid a hand on that girl, and you damn well know it.”
“Sky, how could you say such a thing?” His mother, her eyes pleading, lost in a world they didn’t want to understand.
“Ask, Mom. Ask Fane. She’ll tell you. I had to sleep in her room, blocking the door some nights, to keep him off of her. But what we have is different. We were made for each other. We’re in love. You can’t stop us.”
The arguments had gone on and on and on, but in the end, his parents shipped him away. They divorced, his mother silently applying for a dissolution of the marriage for irreconcilable differences; his father signing the paperwork, face pinched white. They’d never spoken after that night, using e-mail to correspond about their family. His mother had always known, he was sure about that. Faced with the undeniable truth, the reality of letting her baby daughter be violated by her loving father for all those years, she just wanted to get away.
It had worked for Jackie Merritt. She quickly found a new man, a good man in her eyes, a soldier, one bred for violence and mayhem who was as gentle as a lamb with her. She remarried. Fane acted out, but Jackie could turn the other cheek, knowing that she was safe from both her Schuylers. Seeing what she wanted to see was Jackie’s greatest asset.
Until the night three weeks ago, when Raven had come home. Jackie had entered Fane’s room without knocking, the smile fading to horror as she watched her two children bucking together on the bed. Raven, fed up with the constant haranguing about a love that was as natural as it was fulfilling, called a family meeting, insisted that they come. Sat them down in the living room of his father’s house, took Fane in his arms and explained that they’d been married. It was handfasting, yes, but that was as legal as a priest and a church in the eyes of their religion.
Their parents hadn’t taken it well.
Raven had been standing a few feet away, the gun in his waistband, watching them fight with bemusement. Like it mattered? He caught Fane’s eyes and rolled his own. She nodded, it was time. It was amazingly simple—his father first, so he couldn’t fight, from behind and to the left, then his mother. They collapsed together, mouths open in remonstration.
The sudden silence was breathtaking.
It only took thirty minutes to dig the pit; the basement was old, the concrete cracked and worn. Dump the bodies, snip off the fingers they needed for their spells, mix up some quick-set, and they were free.
Sweating, tired and jubilant, they had sex in the living room, on the couch, mingling their fluids with the blood of their parents. No one could keep them apart anymore.
That first taste was enough to convince him that it was time to deal with all the rest of the people who’d shunned and abused him. The Immortals would not be stopped.
He came back to himself, realized he was standing in the open, the moonlight glistening on the dew-wet grass. The fog was heavier now; the wisps and tendrils flowed around his feet as he started to move. The woman was in her car, back to him, talking on the phone. He needed to make sure she didn’t see him slinking up behind her. He crouched low, below her line of sight in the rearview mirror. He inched forward, closer, closer. She finished her call, dropped the phone in her lap, laid her head back against the headrest.
Now.
He burst around the driver’s side of the car. The door was locked—he’d figured it would be. Using the butt of the gun, he shattered the glass, grabbed the woman by her hair, dragged her out the window. She was small, light, fine-boned. The long hair was a perfect handle, he was able to maneuver her entire body out and onto the ground. He perched over her, pinning her down, legs on either side of her. She struggled and bucked, tried to scream, but he punched her with his free hand.
She was pretty. Her skin was very pale, he could see the flush of color the imprint of his knuckles made across her cheek. Encouraged, he punched her a few more times, and she stopped screaming. Blood rushed from her nose, and her lip was split. He reached down on impulse and licked her face, savoring the salty essence of her heart.
He realized he had a throbbing erection. Well, why not? This slut was out here spying on him, she deserved everything she got. He held the gun to her temple, and she stopped fighting. Carefully, he reached back and slid her dress up, over her thighs. His questing fingers found her panties. There was a rending tear and they were off. She started to struggle again, so he hit her with the butt of the gun, slicing open a slit in the soft skin of her forehead. Her head snapped back into the dirt with a dull thud.
He undid his jeans—it was hard to handle the buttons over his erection with one hand, but he managed. He shifted back and down, pushed his body between her legs, using his knee to force hers apart, and thrust, hard, landing home with one shove. She screamed, high in her throat, legs flailing against him, and he jabbed her head with the gun again to shut her up. She was fighting him now, each stroke shifting him back and forth so he didn’t have to do any work at all. He leaned over her, took both arms and trapped them against the ground over her head with his left hand while he finished, a blinding white orgasm making him forget who and where he was.
The breath came hard in his throat, his eyes came back into focus. The woman was keening, crying, trying to wriggle away from him. He was heavy enough that she couldn’t shift him without work, b
ut she finally managed, pushing him off her, slipping into a ball a few feet away.
It was taking him a minute to catch his breath. He didn’t know who she’d called—he needed to leave. Should he kill her? He’d never raped anyone before; he hadn’t used a condom, there would be evidence. It wouldn’t matter in the long run, he’d seen the hourglass in Fane’s room, the small grains of sand slipping inexorably toward their finish, had known it to be a sign. No, he’d leave her here. But he was going to make damn sure she’d never tell anyone.
He fumbled his fly closed and stood, brushing the leaves and grass off the knees of his jeans. She saw him moving, got to all fours and started trying to crawl away. He walked to her—she wasn’t going quickly, more like a snail than a crab—and kicked her in the ribs. She landed on her side, the breath going out of her in an audible whoosh.
“Tell anyone, and I’ll kill you. Do you understand me, bitch?”
The woman was saying something he couldn’t understand. It sounded like an incantation of sorts. He listened closer. She was whispering, hands on her stomach.
“Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Inana.”
The Goddess chant? What the fuck? Who was this person?
He asked her name, she just shook her head, continued the incantation.
Raven felt dread begin to build in his stomach. Fear. He’d never felt such fear. He needed to get away. He needed to get away now. He stumbled backward, falling onto his ass, scraping his hands and elbows. The gun dropped a foot from him; he turned over onto all fours, grabbed it and ran. The Rat was parked on the other side of the road, back in the brush, off the path so no one from the road would see it. He hurried to the vehicle, fumbling the keys and the gun. He had a bad feeling about this. A very bad feeling.
Rattything acquiesced when he put the key in the ignition, the engine roaring to life. He pulled away from the grove, bumping over the shoulder and onto the road.
The Immortals Page 31
