Disturbed Earth (Ritual Crime Unit Book 2)

by E. E. Richardson

“Right, who are you?” Pierce asked her.

  “Cynthia,” she said, somewhat sullenly. Might not be her real name, and it wasn’t a very useful one, but it wasn’t her identity Pierce cared about.

  “I sent one of my police officers off with your Archdruid this morning. She hasn’t come back, and she’s not answering calls. Where is she?” she demanded.

  Cynthia shrugged. “Maybe she’s got her phone turned off,” she said. “It’s not my job to keep track of your coppers.”

  “Well, it’s my job to make sure nothing happens to them while they’re under my command, and the fact is she was last seen following your leader to this sacred site of yours. How do I get in contact with Mr Greywolf?”

  “Archdruid Greywolf,” the woman corrected her, eyes narrowed in a scowl, but she pulled out a mobile phone from her robes and scrolled through the contacts. “We’re not doing anything wrong,” she said petulantly, as she put it to her ear.

  “Then I’m sure this little misunderstanding will be cleared up very quickly,” Pierce said. Returning the public’s rudeness was never a good idea, but sometimes you could be just as sharp with pointedly applied politeness.

  She tried not to betray the air of confidence and control by visibly jiggling on the spot. She could feel the tension gathering with every moment: call it gut instinct, some subconscious awareness of a magical build-up, or just plain pessimism, but she sensed disaster on the verge of breaking like a thunderstorm.

  Cynthia lowered the phone after a moment, for the first time showing a hint of concern rather than just obstructive indifference. “Phone’s switched off.” She turned to the other half-dozen druids from the bus, clustered around the door to listen in. “Who went with the Archdruid this morning?”

  “I think Rachel was driving,” a young lad with a straggly beard ventured.

  Cynthia tried another number on her phone; Pierce barely had to wait for the shift in her expression to guess the result. “She says they’re waiting at the camp site for the Archdruid to meet them—he went off with the copper earlier, and he was supposed to have come back, but he hasn’t showed up yet,” she said. “They haven’t been able to get him on the phone either.” She turned back, suddenly more cooperative now it seemed that they might need some police assistance after all. “I don’t know why he’s not answering,” she said.

  Pierce wished she had some assistance to offer; right now, all she had was a bad feeling in her gut. “This stone circle of yours,” she said grimly. “Where is it?” Deepan might have mentioned it earlier, but she’d dismissed the detail at the time.

  An oversight that might be coming back to haunt her, if there was something to the druids’ fears after all.

  “Bradup, north-east of Keighley,” Cynthia said. “It’s on Rombalds Moor, just off of Ilkley Road.”

  Ilkley Road. The moors. Her stomach dropped. “Shit.” She hurried back to her car, where Doctor Moss looked up from the passenger seat with concern. “Map,” Pierce said immediately, extending a hand. “Have you got the map with the possible locations for our third skull site?”

  Seeing her urgency, Moss didn’t query it, but rifled through the sheaf of papers in her hand. “Here.”

  Pierce took the map and turned it round, focusing on the region that she’d studied all morning. Bradup wasn’t even marked at this scale, but there was Keighley, Rombalds Moor... “Bradup stone circle,” she said, hovering a finger over the map. “Somewhere... here?” She twisted round to see that Cynthia had followed her, and showed her the map.

  “Round about,” she said, with a worried nod.

  “Right here.” Pierce spread the map across the steering wheel for Moss to see, and tapped the location—right in the middle, between Bingley, Silsden, and the northmost of the two projected sites up near Ilkley. At the heart of the triangle. She turned to look at Doctor Moss. “I think we’ve found the site of our demon summoning.”

  PIERCE CALLED HER suspicions in to the rest of her team, but they were scattered far and wide, and the local uniforms were already spread too thin to assist without more reason than her say-so.

  “I’m heading to the druids’ stone circle with Doctor Moss now,” she told Dawson over the phone. “She believes the ritual is due to go down at eleven tonight, at the winter solstice. If we can’t stop it by then, all bets are off. Get in touch with Deepan down in Oakworth—if we’re right, then the third point of the triangle is on the moor where you are and we can pull him and Taylor away, but let’s not go counting our chickens yet.”

  This could still be a coincidence, unlikely as it was, or they could be wrong about the triangular shape of the overall ritual design. “I’ll organise backup if I find anything in Bradup,” she said. “If it all goes tits up and you don’t hear from me again, consider yourself in charge of the case.”

  Another decision she just had to hope wouldn’t bite her in the backside later on. Deepan didn’t have the rank or the experience to organise the kind of large-scale operation they were going to need if this thing went south; Dawson she wasn’t sure would have the temperament. If he went charging in to tackle Red Key’s people without adequate preparation...

  Well, she was just going to have to do her damnedest to make sure nothing took her out of the action before that happened.

  She returned to the car, where Doctor Moss still sat waiting for her patiently. “Do you have everything you need to stop the ritual?” she asked, leaning in.

  “Insofar as I’m confident I can stop it at all, yes,” she said.

  Pierce nodded. “All right. Then we’re going to follow the druids up to their stone circle, and see what’s to be seen.”

  WITH THE DRUIDS driving ahead of them in their VW bus, it was impossible to approach the scene inconspicuously. On the other hand, that could work to their advantage. Whoever was there wasn’t likely to be too surprised to see more druids show up on their doorstep, and at least the bus would take the attention off the unmarked car that followed in its wake.

  Or perhaps it wouldn’t. The approach to the circle was a straight road surrounded by open fields, their only concealment in the rise and fall of the land. As they crested a hill, Pierce could see what looked incongruously like a construction site ahead, a large section of the fields to the right of the road closed off by tall hoardings with no obvious business name on display. A small Portakabin and a temporary barrier across the access road leading round to the side gave off the air of a makeshift guard post.

  Was this the place?

  The sight of Freeman’s car parked on the verge seemed to confirm it. Pierce signalled for the druid bus ahead of them to stop and pulled in behind it.

  “We need to get a look at what’s behind those boards,” she said to Moss. “And find out what the hell happened to Constable Freeman.” The idea of bringing a university lecturer into an unknown situation didn’t fill her with happiness, but she needed Moss’s expertise to be certain what they were dealing with.

  She got out of the car, moving round the side of the bus in an attempt to stay somewhat out of sight of anyone in the Portakabin. She jerked her chin at it as Cynthia stepped down from the bus. “Have you spoken to the people in there?”

  “Yeah, they’re dicks,” she said. “Little boys playing soldiers. Wouldn’t let us see anybody in charge—just told us to sod off and wouldn’t answer any questions.”

  “They’re used to you coming by, then?” Her conscience twinged at the thought of involving even more members of the public in this business, but they were up against the wall. “Can you drive your bus up and distract them while we take a look at what they’re doing inside of the fence?” she asked. “Do a protest demo or something.”

  “We can do that,” piped up one of the young druids clustered inside the bus.

  Cynthia frowned more suspiciously before she gave a grudging nod of assent. “Only because you need to see for yourself what these bastards are doing,” she said. “The Archdruid warned you himself, but you bloody coppers nev
er trust anything that you can’t photograph and write down in a book.”

  In this situation Pierce was glad of the cynicism. Reflexive distrust of the police was a pain in the arse most of the time, but if it meant the druids were more likely to cut and run than blindly follow instructions into trouble, she was all for it.

  “Don’t put yourselves in any danger,” she said. “If they get shirty, just get back in your vehicle and leave.”

  “Not without the Archdruid,” Cynthia said stubbornly.

  “If he’s here, and being held against his will or otherwise incapacitated, we’ll make sure that he’s taken care of,” she said. “But it won’t help anything if the rest of you are put in harm’s way trying to rescue him. He and Freeman may not even be here anymore, for all we know.”

  Or he could be beyond rescue already. Pierce wouldn’t let herself assume it unless she saw a body, but these people played for keeps. The possibility the Archdruid could have died due to her dismissal of his issues would weigh no less on her for the fact that he’d been so pompous and hard to take seriously—never mind that she might also have doomed the promising young officer that she’d sent with him.

  Right now, those were just fears and speculation. Focus on the situation as it was. And to do that, she needed more intelligence. “All right. Distract whoever’s keeping guard in that place,” she said. She beckoned Doctor Moss out of the car to join her. “We need to find some way to get a look into the site.”

  Easier said than done: the whole point of erecting hoardings was to keep the gawkers out, and somehow she doubted this lot would be sloppier about it than the average construction crew. As the druids moved in on the Portakabin with an eagerness that suggested they were only too happy to stage a genuine protest, she led Moss round the back side of the cars, hoping it would be enough to help them to stay unnoticed.

  She peered into Freeman’s car as they passed: nothing left on the seats, so unless it was stuffed in the glove compartment, she’d taken her radio with her as Pierce had ordered. Pierce fought the futile urge to try it or the mobile again; the odds of getting through hadn’t got any bigger, and trying might only alert the very people she was trying to evade.

  They headed further down the road towards the blocked off site. She could hear people moving on the other side of the hoardings, indistinct voices and sounds of unknown objects being shifted. She cautioned Doctor Moss to silence with a raised hand; Moss nodded, her lips pressed together in a bloodless line.

  Pierce eyed the wooden hoardings. Could she climb them? Not without a run-up and a heavy thump that was sure to draw attention even if she managed it first try. She turned to study the rest of the scene. There were dry stone walls running around the edges of the surrounding fields; much lower than the wooden hoardings, but consequently easier to climb, and if she took advantage of the rise and fall of the land...

  She found the highest vantage point that she could, and scrambled up on top of the wall, wishing that she had a younger, taller constable on hand. With a supporting hand from Doctor Moss she managed to balance precariously on top of the stones, but even straining up she couldn’t see over the top of the hoardings. Instead she raised her phone up high and blindly aimed the camera over the barrier, hoping the video recording would pick up more than sky and ill-placed fingers.

  After taking a few seconds of footage she dropped back down, and she and Moss craned over the small screen. At first it showed just sky and the top of the boards, but then the angle shifted, and she hastily thumbed the button to pause the video. Even on the small screen, it was obvious they were looking at an extensive setup, numerous figures in dark clothes, regions of the ground marked out with spray paint and rope lines.

  “Is that the circle?” she asked Moss, making out a central region surrounded by an embankment. It was no Stonehenge, just a ring of low flat stones that barely rose above the ground. “Will it work for the summoning? Looks like a few stones are missing.”

  Moss gave a grim nod. “It’s not the condition of the circle that matters, it’s the potential of the site,” she said. “The location will have ritual significance, and the ground here has been used for rites of all kinds for thousands of years. All of that will add power to the summoning, make it easier to breach the barrier between this world and the plane from which they’re hoping to pull the demon through.”

  “Can you tell how close they are to completion?” Maybe they could still hope that the summoning was doomed to failure.

  Moss pushed her glasses further up on her nose and squinted at the small screen, but she quickly shook her head. “Not at this scale. I would need to see their preparations up close.”

  Pierce restarted the video, hoping the shaky footage might show them something more, perhaps a glimpse of Freeman or Archdruid Greywolf.

  A dark shape prowled through the corner of the image and she jabbed pause again as her stomach lurched. “Shit.” It was unclear what the thing was, but it was moving on four legs and of a similar size to the people around it. “Looks like they’ve got another shapeshifter.” This setup was looking an awful lot like the research facility where they’d busted the skinbinder in October.

  That time, he’d been their only live prisoner. Maybe they could do better this time around.

  “Is that the evidence you need?” Moss asked, turning to look at her.

  “Good enough,” she said grimly. The ritual nature of what was going on around the stones could be argued as up for debate, but the presence of a shapeshifter, more than likely unlicensed, was good enough to justify the RCU going in. Time to call the cavalry. She quit the video and thumbed through her contacts to find Dawson, raising the phone to her ear.

  And looked up into the face of a man clad in black army surplus gear, a Taser in his hand pointed at her. He was flanked by two other large, muscular men in the same clothes, both of them also armed with Tasers.

  “Put the phone down, please,” he said.

  Manners or not, it wasn’t a request.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  PIERCE LOWERED HER phone, but only to draw her warrant card, taking a chance that an outfit as professional as this wouldn’t attack her on a public road without real provocation.

  “Police,” she said, showing the card, though she kept her fingers over the RCU badge. She nodded at the Taser. “That seems to be a prohibited weapon you have there. Care to tell me where you got it?”

  “Come with us,” the man said, ignoring the question. “Now, please.” He motioned her and Doctor Moss around the far side of the closed off site, away from the druids and the Portakabin.

  “You have no authority to order us anywhere,” she said, without moving. Getting it on the record, playing for time and a chance for their situation to be spotted, rather than any hope he would back down. This lot were clearly professionals—they wouldn’t panic at the first hint of passive resistance, and fighting or running would only make things worse. She was unarmed, lacking even the uniform standards of a police baton and stab vest, and she had a vulnerable member of the public with her. She couldn’t afford to antagonise their captors.

  It didn’t seem that she was going to get far with the delaying tactics, either. “Now,” the man repeated, with a motion of his head. With three Tasers on her, and the likelihood of being overpowered by three strapping lads even if they didn’t use them, Pierce didn’t push her luck. She nodded for Moss to follow, hoping the demonology lecturer was old enough and wise enough not to try anything stupid either.

  The road failed to oblige her with any passing traffic. She wasn’t sure their situation would draw enough attention to raise alarm anyway—actual guns might cause a panic, but at a glance the Tasers would have passed for power tools, and it wasn’t obvious that she was police. Their best bet now was to hope that Dawson, in his impatience, would move in as fast as possible.

  So, primary objective: keep herself and Moss and any other innocents involved alive until that backup arrived. Secondary: try to fi
nd some way of disrupting the ritual before it was too late. At least they still had time in the bag, with the main event not due to occur until an hour before midnight. A magical ritual this size wasn’t easy to reschedule.

  As they were led through a side gate into the enclosed region of the fields, she could see that the preparations were well underway already, teams of people measuring, marking, and digging. The surface turf had been stripped away, and circular ditches had been dug around the stone circle’s original embankment, more figures in military surplus filling one with rock salt poured out from big sacks. Wooden stakes carved with runes had been pounded into the ground around the circle, long taut lines of exposed copper wire strung between them.

  But even that great set of rings around the stone circle was only one small part of the ritual. The stone circle lay at one corner of an enormous triangle, marked out on the barren ground with what looked like lines of ashes; at the two other corners were more circles of equal size. Inside one knelt a figure that she was sure must be the warlock masterminding the ritual: he was shrouded in blood red robes, talismans hung round his neck, and on the ground before him lay several open tomes.

  The third corner of the triangle held a deep pit; as they were led past, Pierce looked down and saw that the bottom was piled with chopped wood, like a pyre. Somehow she doubted it was intended for an innocent bonfire.

  Across the field she spotted another shapeshifter, or perhaps the one glimpsed on the video: a burly bear-like figure, prowling the perimeter. The field was crawling with black-clad pseudo-military types, all of them armed with Tasers; she doubted that the lack of any actual firearms was due to difficulty getting hold of them. Live hostages they could feed to the sacrificial pyre were probably more use to them than bodies, and she doubted they would want to risk the chance of a stray bullet damaging the protections around the circles. Snap a copper wire, kick a furrow in the line of salt, and suddenly what had been a powerful magical barrier was no more than a line drawn in the dirt.