shadows of salem 01 - shadow born

by hamilton, rebecca

  “Right.” I took a deep breath, then flipped down the visor and used the mirror to check my reflection one more time. “Okay, so you’re going to use your fae mojo to distract the nuns while I snoop around, right? Because otherwise they’re going to think it’s weird that you’re touring the place without me.”

  “That is the plan.” Maddock reached over and snapped the visor back into place. “Stop worrying about yer appearance, Detective. It’s more than fine.”

  The butterflies in my stomach momentarily broke free at the unintentional compliment. “All right.”

  We got out of the car, and I looped my arm through Maddock’s, allowing him to pull my body against his.

  He was very polished today, in a black woolen overcoat and a suit that drew the eye to his powerful shoulders and impressively large form. That large form felt very solid against mine, and absurdly, the sensation of being pressed against his side made me feel safe. That must have been some kind of primitive reaction from me, because there was nothing safe about him.

  “Are you ready, darling?” he asked, turning to face me, and the smile on his face and the warmth in his eyes took me aback. Jesus, but was this the same man who’d been bitching at me about wasting his time not ten minutes ago?

  It was then I realized there were two children at the top of the steps, clean and dressed in uniforms, watching us. We were on display right now, and this was show time.

  He’s just acting, I told myself. Now get your head in the game.

  “Of course.” I smiled sweetly at him, snuggled in a little closer. “I can’t wait to meet our future daughter.”

  I felt a little bad as I watched the faces of the two boys fall—they must have heard my comment. But I pushed the feeling aside as Maddock and I headed up the steps; we weren’t actually here to adopt any of the children, after all. It was kinder to not get their hopes up.

  “Good afternoon, and welcome to the New Advent Home for Children.” A nun seated behind a honey-walnut reception desk greeted us as we stepped into a long hall with vaulted ceilings. The number of lines in her round face told me she was in her sixties, and she had kind grey eyes and a nice smile. “How can I help you today?”

  “Good afternoon.” Maddock smiled, and it was as if the clouds had parted to reveal the sun in all of its glory. The woman’s face lit up, and she sat up a little straighter in her chair. “I’m Max Graves, and this is my wife, Brandy. We have an appointment with Sister Walsh.”

  “Oh! Yes, I see you’re here on the appointment list.” The nun tittered a little, and damn if she wasn’t blushing. It would have been adorable if the object of her affection wasn’t a millennia-old fae. “Why don’t you have a seat, and I’ll let her know you’re here.”

  It didn’t take very long for Sister Walsh to come to us. Her heels clicked down the hall, and we turned to see a middle-aged woman with sharp blue eyes approaching.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Graves. I’m Sister Catherine Walsh.” She smiled briskly, shook our hands with a firm grip. “Why don’t you come this way to my office.”

  We followed her down the hall, past rows of classroom doors where I could see children studying or working on various activities. They were all nicely groomed, anywhere from six years old to sixteen, and the classrooms seemed to be clean and neat. But the younger faces were subdued, the older ones hard, and there was none of the mischief or carefree attitude that I normally associated with children.

  We were led into the sister’s office—a grand space with religious paintings hanging from the walls, shelves lined with gold-leaf, leather-bound books, and ornately carved mango-wood furniture. The visitors’ chairs she guided us to were the color of brown sugar and butter-soft, and the computer system she had at her desk was state of the art.

  Yeah, this definitely wasn’t a struggling orphanage. In fact, it was more like a private school.

  “So, tell me about yourselves,” the nun said as she settled into her own chair. “Why are you looking to adopt?”

  Maddock and I launched into our rehearsed script, explaining that we’d been married for three years and worked at the universities in Cambridge—he was a professor at MIT and I worked in one of the administrative departments at Harvard. We’d been trying to conceive for nearly two years now, but with no success, and the fertility specialist had said my egg count was unusually low and there was little hope for me conceiving naturally. We were just a wealthy, responsible, loving couple who dearly wanted a child to call our own.

  As if.

  While the nun droned on about options, I allowed my gaze to surreptitiously wander around the room. Various certificates of achievement and photographs on the wall told me that she’d been around for a long time. Long enough to have known Tom, perhaps?

  My heart skipped a beat as I caught sight of a group photo of several nuns with the orphans all gathered outside the original building—it was nearly twenty years old, and one of the gangly youths looked a lot like Tom. A younger version of Sister Walsh stood to the left of the children. She was here at the same time he was, which meant the two of them knew each other.

  Damn! If I were here as a cop, I could just come out and ask her about it. But my instincts told me that she wouldn’t tell me anything useful. No, going undercover like this was the best way.

  I snatched my phone out of my pocket and texted Maddock from under the edge of the desk. The nun was mid long diatribe about how the children here were being raised with strong Catholic roots to give them excellent moral fiber, and she was so wrapped up in her monologue that she didn’t even notice.

  WORK YOUR MAGIC ON HER. GET HER TO LEAVE THE ROOM. I WANT TO SEARCH THE OFFICE.

  “Excuse me, Sister Walsh.” Maddock’s sexy Scottish burr brought the nun’s speech to a startled halt. “Would ye mind showing me to the restroom?”

  “Oh, certainly, it’s down the hall and to your—”

  “Your institution is so magnificent that a person could get lost without your assistance.” Maddock rose, then extended a hand toward the nun. “Please, sister, I would greatly appreciate it if ye could show me the way.”

  The nun initially looked like she was going to balk—she was a stern-looking woman who I imagined wasn’t easily seduced—but she went starry-eyed, softening up just like the receptionist had.

  She nodded. “Of course, Mr. Graves. Follow me.”

  I let out a little sigh of relief as Maddock led the nun away. As soon as their footfalls receded down the hall, I was out of my chair and searching the room. I didn’t find anything suspicious at first—just the usual odds and ends one found in an office space and lots of folders filled with forms and paperwork.

  But in the back of one of the drawers, I found a small wooden box with a gold clasp. I opened it carefully, and surprise jolted me as I found a note resting on top of a gold and blue object that looked suspiciously like a badge.

  No. Not like a badge. It was a badge.

  When I lifted the note, a Salem PD badge peeked up at me. My first instinct was to pick it up first, but I ignored it in favor of the piece of paper, which seemed more important. Unfolding it, my fingers trembled a little as I recognized Tom’s bold handwriting.

  Dear Sister Walsh,

  I just wanted to thank you and Father James again. Without your guidance and training, I never would have made it this far, and definitely wouldn’t have this opportunity here in Chicago right now to help make a difference and further the cause. Since I won’t be using this badge anymore, please take it as a show of my appreciation, and think of me.

  Until we meet again,

  Thomas

  My heart swelled with pride, and tears pricked at the corners of my eyes as I stroked my fingers over the sweet words. They hadn’t been for me, but I felt the affection in them anyway, and it only made me miss Tom even more, which I hadn’t thought was possible.

  I put the note aside and lifted the badge from the box, tempted to take it even though I knew I shouldn’t. As my fingers
curled around the cold metal, another vision hit me.

  Tom was standing in our bedroom, the Chicago skyline backlight glittering in the darkness outside our window as he paced on the side of the room opposite the bed. A bed that I was lying in, my body turned toward the wall, my silver hair a wild mess that gleamed in the moonlight that filtered in through the window.

  He held a phone to his ear, nodding silently at whatever the speaker on the other end was saying, a grave expression on his face. His replies were whispered, and I strained my ears, trying to catch what he was saying.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “…haven’t seen anything yet.”

  “Maybe we’re wrong. I’ve tried everything.”

  “No, she doesn’t know. Yes, I’ve been careful. Yes, I’m sure.”

  Frustration blanketed Tom’s face, and he tossed the phone onto the nightstand. Raking a hand through his sandy hair, he turned to look at my sleeping form.

  “What are you, Brooke Chandler?” he whispered into the darkness. “Just what the hell are you?”

  CHAPTER 18

  The badge slipped from my fingers, clattering onto the desk. as the vision broke. I stared down at it in confusion, eyebrows pulling together as I tried to figure out what I’d just seen.

  Who the hell had Tom been talking to on the phone? The way he’d been talking, and what he’d said after he’d gotten off the phone, made me think he’d been talking about me.

  But that couldn’t be right. Could it?

  Needing some air, I quickly put everything back where I found it, then left the room. I needed more information. The thing about visions was that they could easily be taken out of context and slanted to mean a variety of things. The vision I’d seen of the orphanage when I’d touched Tom’s cross was proof of that; I thought I’d watched his murder, but it turned out to be an event that happened years ago. An event that I still had no clarity on.

  I moved briskly down the hall and out the back door, then headed into the gardens. I couldn’t go snooping into the other rooms—that was frowned upon in places like this, where the privacy of the children was paramount. But I could wait out in the gardens for a little bit, catch my breath, and regroup before I went back inside. If any of the nuns found me outside, it would be easy enough to tell them I just wanted some fresh air.

  The garden behind the building was a small but elegant arbor full of rose bushes and vines crawling up lattices and small, neatly organized rows of herbs that the kitchen probably used. I sat on a stone bench, then looked up to see Maddock and the nun in one of the rooms upstairs, having a conversation of some kind that involved the nun “talking with her hands” a lot. Was he getting any useful information out of her? Ugh. Why couldn’t I have his ability? If I could spell people into being open, honest, and transparent, it would be easy enough to interrogate them and get all the information I needed.

  I rose, intending to go back into the building, but an inexplicable urge tugged me farther into the garden, to the edge of the property. We were at the outskirts of the city, and beyond the garden fence was a thickly wooded area.

  I walked through the trees, not sure where I was going, letting my feet guide me along the leaf-strewn path. The sun was dipping closer to the horizon, tinging the sky with red and gold and purple, and it lit up the trees around me, making it appear as if the turning fall leaves were catching fire.

  The quiet tinkle of a small stream caught my attention; before long, it came into view. A large maple tree stood just on the other side, and a chill shot down my spine as I noticed the Onyx Order symbol carved into the trunk, the shape larger than my face. Maddock’s warning not to touch it echoed in my head, but the pull was too strong, and my feet took me across the stream and to the tree before I could will myself to resist.

  With a pull like this, I was certain I was being led by magic. If I tried, I was sure I could resist it, but I was a detective because I was willing to do whatever it took to find answers. I couldn’t just walk away from this.

  Slowly, I lifted my hand, then ran my fingers across the rough bark, dipping them into the wickedly carved grooves some unseen hand had left.

  Suddenly, I was no longer in the woods, or at least not the woods as I knew them. Instead, I was inside a house—a huge, lodge-style cabin.

  It was the strangest house I’d ever been in.

  Live birds flitted from potted trees that grew upside down from the ceiling, and the air was thick and sultry, as if I was in a tropical forest. The furniture was exquisitely carved into the shapes of animals, with gem-like eyes that glowed so brightly they seemed real. A fireplace roared in a lapis lazuli hearth. Gold covered every inch of the floor I stood on, except for an impossibly blue, bubbling creek that ran through the space, disappearing down a hall and off to who knew where.

  A hand touched my arm, and I turned to see who it was. Shock rippled through me at the sight of Maddock wearing a deep green frock coat with a tan contrast, replete with matching vest, breeches, and frothy lace jabot. The garb of a wealthy colonial man.

  Looking down, I realized I was dressed in a long, ice-blue velvet dress with side panels and bell-sleeves, a brocade insert highlighting my otherwise well-covered cleavage.

  “W-what?” I gasped, pulling away, but Maddock drew closer, whispering some numbers in my ear.

  And then the vision vanished.

  Gasping, I clutched at the tree, using it to steady myself as I tried to return my world to its axis. That wasn’t a vision. It was some kind of message…something that never happened to me before. But who was it from? And what had it meant? Had someone from the Onyx Order left it here for me? But how could they possibly know I would have come?

  I ground my teeth together, realizing the answer to my question the moment I’d thought it. Magic. Of course. They didn’t just leave me a message; they’d led me to it. But if they wanted to kidnap me, why not wait for me here?

  Coordinates, I thought, running the numbers Maddock had given me in my head. Those numbers had been coordinates—I was certain of it. I plugged them into the Maps app on my phone and found that they were a short distance from here, just half a mile. I could make it there in no time, before it got dark out.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I wondered if I should rush back and get Maddock, but knowing him, he would have suggested I go home and to let him handle it. I shook my head. No way. It was probably safer for me than for him at his point, considering every time the Onyx Order came around his kind, they ended up dead. On the other hand, they could have snatched me at any time and hadn’t. That had to mean something, and I wasn’t going to find out unless I followed the trail.

  Besides, this was my job. I wasn’t some damsel in distress heading into a trap, even if that’s what the Onyx Order might think. I was armed and dangerous, and I was tired of running from these unseen forces. It was time these witches learned who they were dealing with.

  I made my way to the forest, following the directions my phone provided me. It was tough going, as there wasn’t any discernible path through the woods in the direction I was trying to go. Branches from bushes scratched my legs, and dirt and tree sap smudged my coat. I definitely didn’t know how I would explain that to the nuns when I got back to the orphanage, but I decided not to worry about that right now.

  Seriously though, next time I did something like this, I would be sure not to wear white again.

  It didn’t take long for the terrain to become a steep slope—something these white pumps were definitely not made for navigating. I fell and scraped my palms on rocks so many times that I considered ditching the shoes, but I didn’t want to add bloody feet to my list of ailments, so I continued on. Eventually the landscape leveled out again, and the trees thinned, revealing a huge lodge-style cabin with a river running through it.

  No fucking way.

  I braced myself against a tree, then jumped as I realized the bark beneath my arm belonged to a palm tree. In fact, all the trees up here were of a tropical v
ariety, and the air was thick and sultry, just like in the Not-A-Vision I’d experienced.

  The call of a parakeet drew my attention upward, and my eyes widened as I stared up at a cloudless blue sky peeking through the trees that was very much not the red and gold sunset streaked sky I’d been looking at earlier.

  What the hell was this place? Was I even still in Boston? It seemed impossible that something like this could exist here. And yet, here I was.

  Hesitantly, I took one step forward, then another. The ground here was softer, not quite boggy but definitely not the cold, hard-packed earth I’d been stumbling across earlier. And there were tiny grass shoots peeking out here and there.

  I made my way across a small bridge that led over the stream and to the front entrance of the house, then tugged carefully on the golden door handle that had been cast into the shape of a curved branch.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised to step into the exact same room as the one I’d seen in my vision. Half of me expected it, of course, but the other half was still stunned to find the tropical birds flitting around the trees hanging from the ceiling—how the fuck did they stay there?—and the golden floor with the river running through it.

  I looked down at myself, checking to make sure that I wasn’t dressed in Colonial garb, but fortunately I was still in my now-stained and scratched up outfit.

  “Well, hello there.”

  I jumped at the sound of a female voice—my own voice—greeting me. Twisting in the direction of the voice, I watched as a red armchair situated near the fireplace slowly turned, revealing an exact copy of myself, wearing the exact clothes I’d had on in the not-vision.

  Her eyes were wide with the same shock and surprise I felt, but she recovered much more quickly than I did.

  “Fancy seeing you here,” the Not-Me smiled, and I reached for my gun.

  CHAPTER 19

  Just as I was drawing my weapon, the front door flew open behind me. Maddock barreled in, a combination of fear and stark rage on his face. He flung out a glowing hand, and I jumped out of the way, irrationally thinking he was about to attack me. But instead he blasted the Not-Me who was still sitting in front of the fire.