Shattered Souls

by Delilah Devlin

  “Demon-sign?” Cait tapped the table. “I always thought it was a folktale. My mother described it but said its presence was rare. That demons could only be invoked with black magic. Jonas had magic?”

  “No, but he knew someone who did. He pressed the mage who owned the book, offered him the one thing he could not have as a bribe.” Morin closed his eyes. “A woman. Someone far above the mage’s social set. If he cast the spell to invoke the demon, he could have his heart’s desire. Worthen would arrange it.”

  When Morin’s lids opened, his eyes reflected a deep sorrow, shimmering in welling tears. “The mage knew he was doing wrong but couldn’t stop himself. The deal was made. The demon roused. He entered Jonas and melded with his soul. The blood of the three innocents freed him, but wasn’t enough to quiet his appetite. He took the woman the mage loved as well.”

  Cait’s breath caught, moved as much by the story as she was by the thickening texture of Morin’s voice. Had he read the book and felt a personal affinity for the foolish mage? Could he see himself in the other’s place?

  “The townsfolk came to the mage,” he continued, his voice sounding hollow. “They begged him for help. He told them how to stop him. They captured Jonas inside a cage. If anyone had touched him, the demon would have moved to another, so it had to be trapped while still inside Worthen’s body.”

  Morin shook his head. His lips curled into a snarl. “What Jonas didn’t understand, because neither the mage nor the demon had ever told him, was that his body would continue to age, to die. However, the demon would live on, able to move from one person to the next, because with the spell he was made a skin-walker.”

  “But he wasn’t found in a cage…” Cait said, encouraging him to finish.

  “The mage protected himself with a powerful spell and entered the cage with strips of linen doused in dragon oil for the burial shroud. They fought. The mage knocked him unconscious and placed a metal strap around his head to prevent the demon from escaping through his mouth.”

  The image of the strap around the emaciated jaw flitted across her mind, and she nodded. “Which is what happened when Donnelly tampered with the body.”

  Morin waved a hand. “Likely the demon called to him. He might not have heard him with his ears, but a weak soul would be easily led. As soon as the strap was removed—”

  “He skipped bodies,” Cait said, following the thread easily. “He traded Jonas’s desiccated one for something fresh. Making him mobile again.”

  “And if the demon feels challenged again, he will move to yet another.”

  “Which will make him damn hard to find,” Sam said, drawing both Cait’s and Morin’s startled gazes. Sam’s eyebrows lowered. “What? I was listening.”

  Cait hid a smile before glancing back at Morin. “How do we fight him?”

  “The only thing you have going for your side is that the demon is weak. It needs another infusion of power. Another three victims. You have to find them before he prepares them for the ritual.”

  “Prepares?” Her fingers clenched the table. She didn’t like the sound of that.

  “He chilled his daughters, using wraiths to do his bidding. They were kept at the edge of death for days while he gathered the things he needed—above all, someone with powerful magic to cast the spell.”

  “A witch? Are there many here who can do it?”

  “Only a few. Myself, whom he can’t touch because of the protection spell surrounding this shop. Your mother would have been a prime candidate.”

  “Celeste?” Cait stilled.

  “She sees, but her magic is weak.” Morin’s gaze locked with hers. “He’d need you, darling.”

  She sucked in a deep breath. “Well, I won’t help him.”

  “You are vulnerable. You have Celeste, your partner, Jason…and Sam. He could touch any one of them and find the way to bring you close.”

  “I still wouldn’t help him.”

  “Could you resist if he threatened your husband?”

  Sam? Her throat dried. “He’s not my—”

  “But you care for him. Could you sacrifice him?”

  She sank against the back of the chair, unwilling to look at Sam and have him read the answer in her eyes. “He’ll come for me?”

  Morin shook his head. “You can’t wait for that. While he’s still weak, you must find and capture him, but you won’t have a throng of people waiting to help you. People don’t believe in magic anymore. They’ll think he’s an ordinary killer.”

  “If I can get close…”

  “You could incapacitate him, but then you’d have to move fast. If you want to save those girls, you have to figure out where he’s been, where he’s hiding them. In his den, he will lay traps.”

  “The police are searching for him now,” Sam said, his voice tight.

  “If they find him first, he might skip bodies.” Morin’s hands leapfrogged on the tabletop. “Then he could be anyone.”

  Her blood chilled. “If we find him first, then what?”

  “Then come back to me, before you approach him. We will have to strengthen you for the fight. Prepare you.”

  She sucked in a deep breath. “Draw down the moon?”

  His lips curved. Humor glinted in his eyes again. “Among other things, love,” he drawled.

  Cait pursed her lips, not liking the thin, grim smile that stretched across Morin’s handsome face. She knew this wasn’t a ploy to get her back, but Sam still wasn’t going to like it one little bit.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “What was he talking about? ‘Drawing down the moon’?”

  They were outside the shop, heading back to Sam’s vehicle. Cait took a deep breath, trying to think of a way to stall the moment, and was never so happy to hear the chirp of Sam’s phone.

  Sam eyed her, telling her silently they weren’t finished with the conversation as he raised his phone. His gaze honed to a razor’s edge in an instant. “How long ago? Anyone gone near him?”

  Cait mouthed, Donnelly?

  Sam nodded grimly.

  Holy shit.

  They both hotfooted it to his sedan before he ended the call.

  At police headquarters they headed straight to the interrogation rooms, Cait stretching to keep up with Sam’s long, determined strides.

  In the hallway, Leland grinned and jammed a thumb at one of the doors. “Uniforms picked him up. We’ve got him for the bombing but can’t connect him to Henry’s murder without a confession.”

  “He say anything about the girls?” Sam asked.

  “Not a peep. We’ve been at him since officers booked him. He’s actin’ like a scared rabbit. Little turd swears he doesn’t remember a thing since he was at the dig site days ago.”

  Sam and Cait shared a glance. By the grim set of his square jaw, Sam had concluded, just as she had, that they were already too late.

  Her stomach dropped. The demon had jumped bodies. Back to square effing one.

  Cait thought hard. What next? “Can we question him?”

  “You aren’t one of my detectives,” Leland said, narrowing his eyes. He turned to Sam. “We’re just gettin’ started on the skinny runt, but she can go in with you. Remember, she’s your—”

  “Responsibility,” Sam cut in. “Yeah, I know.” He had one hand on the door.

  She touched his arm and waited until Leland went back into the room where he could watch Donnelly through the two-way mirror. “We need to figure out exactly when he awoke,” she whispered. “And we need a bead on where he’s been. Maybe the demon stashed the girls somewhere Donnelly knows.”

  Sam gave a curt nod, then opened the door.

  Inside, Cait’s nose wrinkled. Donnelly was in sore need of a bath. His hair was a wild, knotted mess. His eyes were sunken, as though he hadn’t slept or eaten in days. His entire body quivered like a junkie coming off a high.

  His head jerked up when they strode inside. “I want a lawyer,” he snarled.

  Sam nodded but took a seat opposi
te the scrawny, dirty man. “We’ll get you one. It’s your right, but do you understand you’re in deep shit? That they’re gonna try to pin a murder and three abductions on your ass?”

  “I told them I don’t know nothin’.” Donnelly’s eyes teared up, and he stared at the ceiling. “This ain’t happenin’, man.”

  “Oh, it’s real, but the thing is…” Sam sat forward, casting a gaze at the mirror, then angling a shoulder as though trying to keep the conversation private.

  Cait leaned against the wall next to the door, keeping both Sam’s and Donnelly’s profiles in full view. She loved the way Sam worked a suspect. Had missed seeing him in action, whether he played the hard-ass bad cop or the guy she saw now, the one who only wanted to help.

  “Michael…can I call you that?” Sam asked softly.

  Donnelly glanced down and nodded, wary tension in the fine lines beside his glassy yellow eyes. “Sure. But I still want a damn lawyer.”

  “How’s he gonna help you, Michael?” Sam flicked his fingers in an underhand wave. “He’s not gonna believe your story any more than the detectives you talked to before. He won’t know how to help you.”

  Donnelly’s mouth trembled, and then his whole body shook with a violent tremor. “I swear, I don’t know nothin’.”

  “And I believe you. Something happened to you. Something that scared the shit out of you, didn’t it? At the dig site…”

  Donnelly’s gaze sharpened and shot to Cait, who gave him a reassuring nod. In a quick move, he leaned over the table as far as the cuffs attaching him to the table allowed. “They told me I was makin’ up shit,” he whispered harshly.

  Sam hunched closer, keeping his voice low. “It happened when you messed with the body the students found?”

  An eager nod preceded a tear leaking from one eye. “Yeah, I wasn’t gonna hurt anything, but it was weird,” he said, his voice rising. “I thought I heard something. A voice, tellin’ me to come closer. Freaked the fuck out of me.”

  “But you didn’t run.”

  “Couldn’t, man. I got down close to hear, but its face was covered up. I thought for just a second it wasn’t dead, that maybe there was someone in there still alive. I pulled the strips from around its face.” He shook his head. “The thing was dead all right, but…” His body started shaking harder. “Something came out of its mouth,” he whispered. “Kinda like a snake, but not. It coiled up and came at me, but I tripped and fell back…and that was all.”

  Cait nodded again. “What’s the first thing you remember when you woke up?”

  “I was on the ground, cops coverin’ me. I started screamin’, but they held me down so hard I couldn’t breathe. Said I was under arrest for a fucking bombin’. They brought me straight here. I don’t know nothin’ about no bombin’.”

  “But you know where to get dynamite, don’t you?” Sam whispered, his tone smooth as silk.

  Donnelly’s face whitened. “They think I stole it?”

  “Where did you have access? And I know you did.”

  “Last job. Clayton Pools. We used dynamite sometimes to dig into rock. They think I stole it?” When Sam didn’t answer with a move or a word, Donnelly’s face crumpled. “Man, I’m so fuckin’ screwed.”

  “Michael, I won’t lie. It looks bad. But my partner and I know something happened to you.” Sam laid his hand flat on the table. “We know it wasn’t you doing those things. But we need your help. The thing that crawled out of that body into yours did some terrible things.”

  “It wasn’t me.” Donnelly sniffed and the corners of his mouth dragged down. “Swear.”

  “I know, buddy. But it would be good for you if you could help us piece together where the thing might have gone. While it walked around inside you, it went places. Maybe places you know. Can you help us figure out where it might have gone?”

  His face was pasty white. Sweat broke out on his forehead and upper lip.

  Cait resisted the urge to curl her lip, but his sour scent intensified. She breathed in shallow breaths, glad she wasn’t Sam and sitting so near.

  Sam tapped the table with his forefinger. “We’ve been looking for your place. Think he might have been there. Where have you been living?”

  Donnelly glanced away. “Don’t got no place.”

  “But you’ve been living somewhere. You won’t get into any trouble telling us. We just want to help. Get this all sorted out.”

  Donnelly’s shoulders slumped. “I’ve been workin’ a couple of places. Homes. Doin’ odd jobs. Sometimes the owners aren’t there…”

  “So you’ve been squatting?”

  He hung his head. “I haven’t been messin’ with nothin’. Haven’t stole a thing.”

  “I understand. You just wanted a place to sleep.”

  He nodded, his head drooping toward his chest, his breaths rattling.

  “Can you give us the addresses?”

  Donnelly glanced up. “Thirsty.”

  Cait straightened from the wall. “Want some water?” She noted his pallor turned from parchment white beneath the dirt to gray. She stiffened. “You OK?”

  He shook his head. His body convulsed. Vomit, yellow bile, oozed from his mouth.

  Sam lunged up and circled the table to go to Donnelly, who hunched, body slackening.

  Cait wrenched open the interrogation door and stuck her head out into the hall. “We need medical help in here. Donnelly’s goin’ down.”

  The door from the room beside interrogation slammed open, and Leland barreled out. “What the fuck just happened?”

  “Don’t know,” she said, moving aside as more officers entered the room.

  Leland’s face screwed up in a scowl. “I knew you’d be trouble.”

  Cait didn’t reply. What could she say?

  He shoved through the officers ringed around Donnelly as they unchained him and laid him flat on the floor. Through the spaces between the many bodies she saw Sam beginning chest compressions.

  “Dammit, Donnelly, hang in there,” he growled.

  But the voices she hadn’t been paying any attention to grew louder, clamoring as another joined their chorus.

  Cait shook her head and walked away, knowing Donnelly was dead. Her gaze went to every uniform she passed, looking at their eyes, wondering which of them might have been taken by the demon.

  She raked a hand through her hair and found it shaking. Damn, I need a drink.

  She sat in the straight-backed metal chair beside Sam’s desk, not looking up because she felt a half dozen gazes on her. Donnelly had died inside that interrogation room. No one could stick her with it; the ME was sure the cause was natural, a heart attack, due to malnourishment and dehydration he’d deduced given how parchment-thin Donnelly’s skin was. The stress of the arrest had killed him.

  Sure, it was a natural death, but still damn strange. Everyone whispered. She’d been there. Cait knew all the old stories about the strange things that happened every time she’d worked one of her full moon cases. She was a jinx. A loose cannon. Nothing was ever her fault, but like some damn black widow, Donnelly had dropped dead before he’d been made to confess where the girls were. Never mind the police didn’t have a bit of proof he was the guy. It was her fault they didn’t know where to look.

  “Got it.”

  Cait jumped as Sam dropped the plastic bin with Donnelly’s possessions on his desk.

  Then he eyed her, must have noted her posture, slumped and sullen, because he trained his gaze around the room at the other detectives, who suddenly glanced away and began to get busy.

  He took his seat. “You OK?”

  She shrugged. “Would have liked to trace his steps.”

  “Maybe we can find some clues in this,” he said, pointing at the bin. “I also have someone looking through his banking information to find any checks for handyman work. We can pull addresses from those.”

  Cait straightened in her seat. “Just feels strange. Being back here.” She realized her hands were balled into fi
sts on the chair arms and slowly unrolled her fingers, which still shook.

  Sam leaned toward her. “This isn’t your fault.”

  “Yeah, but they look at me like I put some kinda mojo spell on the dude.”

  “They were hyped about catching Donnelly.” He jerked his chin toward the cops sitting in desks. “Thought it was over. That they could pin Henry’s death on him, find the girls, and be heroes. Now they have to keep working. Sucks for them.”

  “Sucks worse for Donnelly.” She met his gaze and shrugged. “I just wish he’d died on someone else’s watch.”

  “I know. So do I. But you don’t see me blaming you, do you?”

  She cupped her hands and smoothed them over her hair, tucking it behind her ears before sitting forward, elbows on the padded arms of the chair. “I hate the way this feels. When Officer Rebozzo went down, I was the only cop around. When I followed his voice to his killer, then dropped him, they thought I might have had something to hide. Like I was involved.”

  “IA cleared you.”

  “Doesn’t mean everyone didn’t still have doubts.” Her stomach knotted.

  “Fuck them.”

  Her lips quirked upward. “No thanks. One cop’s all I can handle.”

  Sam’s gaze skimmed her one last time, but he must have been satisfied with what he saw, because he reached into the bin and chucked Donnelly’s wallet her way.

  Relieved at having something concrete to do, she emptied it, searching through paper scraps of his life. Receipts for takeout. For lumber and drywall tape. Two crumpled-up, grungy dollar bills. Pictures of him in a tux standing beside a girl in a fuchsia prom dress. Once, even a loser like Donnelly had been innocent. He’d died that way, but no one would ever know that sorry truth.

  Sam sighed and tossed a utility knife and a scarred-up flip phone into the bin. “Have anything there?”

  “Not sure. I’ll list the receipts, have Jason track down the businesses. See if they knew Donnelly or where he lived. Might be something.” She carefully replaced everything else in the wallet and put it into the bin. “Only other thing I can think we might need is to figure out who Worthen’s demon jumped into. We need to know every single person Donnelly came into contact with during his arrest and booking.”