She didn’t doubt that.
“Just help him.”
That was her plan.
Immediately, her body changed. It actually morphed and she sat straighter and appeared to be more focused.
It was more Oracle than the other woman.
“Give me time. I’ll help him.”
Bishop leaned over Lucian’s body and gave him a kiss. When she pulled away, she ran her finger across the scar on his face.
“I love you, Lucian. Come back to me.”
Then she headed off to dress, leaving Avalon alone with her ‘partner’.
“Okay, Lucian, let’s get you out.”
And then, she went in.
Downstairs, Luke was searching, Maura was helping, and they were finding copious amounts of stuff to make their skin crawl.
This house, or the one that had been here before and burned down, had been…bad.
Really bad.
“It was a whore house, of sorts,” Luke offered. “Women and men came together, and lots of funk went down.”
Oh, they could only imagine.
Maura picked up where her husband left off.
“It was run by a woman named Maribel,” stated Maura, as Bishop entered the room. “And there’s the magic name that Bishop heard while getting her groove on with the hubby.”
Well, that didn’t sound good.
“What about her?” Bishop asked, as she entered the room. “I’m going to bet it’s not a coincidence that it was the name he called out during sex. I’ll try not to be offended that some dead slut is trying to jump my husband.”
Yeah, Maura got that.
She’d be pissed too.
Luke kept scrolling. “It’s probably not a coincidence, since she was the woman who was burned alive. I have more information, if you’re up for it?”
What choice did they have?
Their home base in Ireland was hiding some secrets.
“Sure,” Bishop said, praying it wouldn’t get weirder than it already was.
Luke continued, “The story goes that she was involved with a man who was a worshiper of Carman.”
Nate didn’t know what to think. “What the hell is a Carman? And why do I feel like you’re setting us up to drop some big bomb?”
Because he was.
Luke read him the information, right from the website. “She was a Celtic witch who practiced dark magick. She tried to invade Ireland and make it her bitch. She was bad news according to ancient Irish lore.”
Great.
They had a killer who was cuckoo, and believed that witchcraft existed, and now this.
Nate was sure he was going to get an ulcer.
“I don’t know if I believe this BS or not,” Maura stated. “We’re talking ghosts and witches. They don’t exist, so let me be the one who calls BS on all of this.”
It was no sooner out of her mouth when the lights flickered.
They all looked over at her.
“Bad wiring?”
They flickered again.
“Rodents?” Maura offered, even though she was weirded out by it.
Roxy was a scientist, but she was also a realist, so she opted to add her two cents.
“Jagger and I have been sightseeing a lot lately, and I’ll just say that Ireland is known for its stuff like this. There are a lot of sacred sites in this country. People long ago practiced their beliefs, and that had to leave something behind.”
Thus Carman.
“Like what?” Nate asked. “I need a point of reference.”
“What about that one place we were going to see?” she asked her husband.
Jagger spoke up, “Lough Gur.”
“What is that?” Maura asked.
“It’s a site where people have lived for over three thousand years. It had the Grange Stone Circle. Where there are stone circles, there are energy vortexes. Oracle deals in energy, right?” Jagger asked. “The dead are nothing more than traces of energy. So, maybe all of this is probable.”
They all stared at him.
“Sue me. I’m Irish. I buy into the lore. It’s an ancestry thing. Maybe Avalon is tapped into it.”
No one was quite sure what she dealt with. Oracle was Oracle, and she, herself, was a mystery.
“With all that energy, history, and unknown, there has to be some woo-woo things here,” Roxy admitted. “This is a very OLD country.”
Nate needed more on Maribel, this Carman, and how it all connected to the killer—if it did.
Then he’d make up his mind.
“What more do you have on her?”
“Carman would do spells, and guess what her favorite one was?” Luke asked.
Maura read over his shoulder. “That’s nasty. That there…that makes her a crazy bitch.”
“What?” Nate asked.
“She would summon evil by cutting out the heart of her enemy, roasting it over a fire, and then consuming it.”
“Okay, that’s going too far,” Roxy offered. “Cannibalism is never cool, even if you do it here.”
Maura would have made a joke, but Bishop didn’t look right. She looked freaked out.
“So, what does this have to do with Lucian, and what does it have to do with him calling me Maribel?”
They didn’t know.
“It looks like we have to figure that out, too, since we seem to be in danger here,” Nate offered.
“Maybe Ireland was a bad idea,” Luke said.
Maura pointed at Jagger. “Hey! He picked this country to hide, and we chased him.”
“I’m Irish! Where was I going?” he asked. “Bolivia?”
She snorted.
As they sat there, the gate bell rang. They looked around at each other.
“Takeout?” Jagger asked.
Yeah, they weren’t going to get that lucky.
“It’s going to be the detective and Brianna,” offered Bishop. “Avalon said he’d show up.”
Well, she’d been right again.
Nate knew what he needed to do. “Maura, let them in. I’m going to go get Avalon. If she’s not done with Lucian, I’ll make up an excuse. We need to get the detective to talk about this killer. Since Avi can’t track the killer, we have NOTHING on this case. It’s time to chase the evidence like normal investigators.”
They were good with that.
Running up the massive stairs, he headed for the master suite. He could hear talking—most importantly, his woman.
Moving closer to the door, he rested his ear beside it.
“Lucian, I can’t lose you. You have to wake up,” Avalon said. “I need you in order to do my job.”
He didn’t reply.
The door was cracked open, so Nate looked inside. The woman he loved was leaning over Lucian’s naked body, her hands on his chest. Her hair cascaded down, covering his face and hers.
That intimacy pissed him off.
No matter how many times he saw it, the way she connected with the other man was an arrow right to his heart.
Jealousy sucked, and he was trapped in it.
“Come back to me. I need you.”
The man began stirring.
“Lucian?” she asked, touching his face with her palms.
He sat up, facing her.
“Avalon!”
He grabbed her in his arms and hugged her to his body.
That one motion fueled the storm.
Nate could feel the rage.
He could feel the anger.
The woman he loved was in an embrace with someone else. Lucian was naked, except for a blanket over his hips, and Avalon, his fiancée, was practically sitting on him.
The anger exploded.
Nate wanted to put his fist through the wall. That sight, it ate away at him.
“What would I do without you?” he asked. “God, Avi! What would I do?”
Nate seethed.
He had plenty of ideas what the man could do—like dote on his own woman, and not his.
Nate stru
ggled to keep his mouth shut.
“It’s okay, Lucian. We’re okay. We have a mess on our hands,” she said. “You’re back now, and I won’t leave your mind. If we stay together, we’ll be okay.”
He hugged her again.
“Thank you, Avi. I was so lost. I didn’t like that feeling at all. It was like this maze. I couldn’t figure it out.”
“It was your mind, Lucian. It made it to protect you from whatever it was that took a shot at you.”
He kissed her on the forehead.
Nate wanted to barge in there, punch the man in the face, and scream at Avalon.
“Get dressed. I’ll close my eyes,” she said, moving off his body.
Nate couldn’t handle anymore.
This lovey-dovey crap was making him want to hurt someone. Slowly, he backed away from the door.
He couldn’t do this now.
They had company.
Later, he’d handle it.
And enough was enough.
He had to lay down the law. If not, it was going to consume him alive.
Chapter Six
Ravenswood
USA
D amn, but he was furious about what was going on in Ireland. Silas Reed was beyond pissed off that there seemed to be no end in sight. Was there no one who could do the job, and do it right? It was as if he were asking for someone to break into the Louvre and steal a painting.
No, he just wanted his granddaughter brought home. It was as simple as that.
She shouldn’t be running around the world, chasing some bad boy Marine. It wasn’t right. She should have stability, vitamins, and someone to protect her.
This was beyond comprehension for him.
Yes, she’d always had questionable taste in men, but this was ridiculous! Roxanne, his precious girl, was shacked up with Michael O’Banion’s kid.
That was insanity.
What the bloody hell was she thinking?
She dated some losers before, but this…this was taking the cake.
When he’d gotten the call as to where she was, he immediately dispatched some ‘help’ to bring her back. Of course that Irish bastard would take her to his homeland.
It made it harder to find her.
And it made it easier.
They were two Americans, and he could find her.
Oh, and he would.
Well, he’d taken two shots at her, and it wasn’t enough. It looked like he was going to have to do this on his own. Silas had given people the opportunity to handle it, and they failed.
That was on him.
Good help was hard to find.
He was going to have to take a little trip to Ireland to get her back.
And when he did…
Oh, Roxanne was going to be in so much trouble. This marriage was a sham, and he’d forced her hand. In hindsight, that had been a huge mistake.
Well, he was going to rectify that.
He was going to fix his error, and she was going to get an annulment, or he was going to lock her ass in a room until she signed the papers.
Enough was enough.
If he had to, he’d take her child and raise it right. His gene pool had been known to screw up, and he’d hoped it would skip her.
Clearly, it had not.
The plan was in action.
Silas Reed was going to go there, get Roxanne, and bring her home.
God help his granddaughter.
Hopefully, he could talk some sense into her.
* * * O R A C L E * * *
Adare
Ireland
Downstairs, after they were allowed on the property, Maura had offered them a seat. As Detective Maguire sat, he made sure not to touch Brianna. Being next to her was hard enough. He could feel the energy, and it was leaping from her to him, and back again. A part of him wanted to take her hand in his just to feel the calm.
Only, that was beyond pretentious. He’d already scared her once, been part of tossing her life upside down, and now this?
No.
He had to play it cool.
“Where’s Oracle?” Brianna asked.
“She’s busy,” Nate said, coming down the stairs. “Lucian is up,” he said, warning Bishop. “You’re going to want to get up there.”
That was all she had to hear.
She raced up the stairs to get to her husband.
“We want to help,” Brianna said, breaking the ice. “We want to do what’s right.”
Laird agreed. “If we can solve this, I shouldn’t be fighting it. I’m in.”
Well, that was the first thing that was going right for them all day. It had been one giant mess, and now it looked like it was getting better.
“What do you need us to do?” Laird asked. “What is our part in all of this?”
They couldn’t answer that.
Only one person could.
“Here I am,” Avalon said from the stairs. She stumbled her way toward them, and Maura met her at the wall to help her.
Nate didn’t even look toward her.
The Marine found that odd. Normally, wherever she was, he was right behind.
As Maura took her hand, she needed to know. “Is it okay up there?” Maura whispered. “Is Lucian okay?”
“For now. I’ll explain later.”
Now it was about this business.
“Thank you for coming,” she offered their two guests. “I’m so glad you worked this out.”
“You knew we would, didn’t you?” Laird asked.
“You can’t change fate. You can bend it, you can rearrange it, but most of the time, it tends to do its own thing.”
Maura helped her sit.
Laird noticed she didn’t look as defiant, strong, or self-assured as she had earlier. In fact, she was looking a little pale—as if she’d done battle.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I will be,” Avalon offered. “Please, start,” she said, giving him the floor.
He could do that.
“I have two victims,” he said, pulling the two folders from his messenger bag. “I’m willing to share with you, if you’re willing to share with me.”
She pointed at her fiancé. “Nate and Luke handle the actual case. That’s not my area. So, you can direct it to them. I’ll let them handle this part.”
He was okay with that.
But first…
“I need the truth.”
“About?” she asked.
“Who you all really are?”
Avalon shrugged. “I am Oracle. I was once just Avalon Miller, the child of a vile man and horrible mother. Out of that, I was born. The government used me to ‘handle’ situations until I got free.”
“Really?”
“Really,” she said.
“How does one get ‘free’ of the government?” he asked.
“You die.”
He stared at her. “You’re not dead.”
“Yes, but they don’t know that. This is my family, Detective. You understand family, right?” she asked. “Your father was a family man until he ate his gun.”
He stared at her.
There was that ice in his eyes.
“My father wasn’t a bad man.”
“You’re right. He wasn’t. He didn’t do what he was accused of doing. You’ve always wondered. It’s what put the Maguires on the map. He didn’t work with the Irish mob, and he didn’t take bribes.”
His face hardened as she dumped his family’s dirty laundry out for all to see. It had been what killed his mother.
Brianna reached toward him and took his hand in hers the second she felt the tension in him.
He immediately calmed.
“Your father did his duty, and your mother, she tried after it all. You had a good life until it all unraveled. Then you came to Adare to escape Dublin. Here, you have anonymity. There you had pain.”
“You’ve proved your gift.”
“I’ve proved nothing. In order for you to help us, you have to stop
running. You have to look at the woman beside you and really see what’s about to happen.”
“Oracle, please stop. You’re hurting him,” Brianna stated. “He’s good. I can feel it.”
Avalon focused on her. “You know that because your life was filled with unpleasantries. Your mother and father were control freaks. You had no freedom. You left to find you. Well, here you are. You’ve found your perfect half, and it’s beside you.”
She didn’t argue that.
“That’s all true.”
“Tell them about the case,” she said. “They need to know what they are up against.”
He handed Nate the files.
“The first victim is Michael O’Rourke. He was some thug who had a past of strong arming people for money. He was nothing more than muscle. He’d been arrested many times over his life.”
“Where was he found?” asked Luke.
“We found him in an alley with a hole in his chest. Someone carved out his heart.”
The whole team looked at each other.
A missing heart?
A witch who ate them?
A house full of spookiness?
Yeah, this was seeming less and less like a coincidence. Maybe the dead were trying to tell them something.
“What else?” Nate asked, still not looking at Avalon. He was furious with her. She didn’t get how much this was wounding him.
“He was stabbed repeatedly, and left in the alley.”
“Do you have an autopsy?” Roxy asked, sitting in Jagger’s lap on the couch.
“Why?”
“I’m a coroner. I can see what I can dig up on it,” she offered.
“You travel with a corner?”
“Yes, and Marines, Feds, and Lucian Monroe. We’re a mixed bag of fun,” Avalon stated. “We like to cover all of our bases.”
Laird passed it to Roxy.
Then he started with the second victim.
“The next person to turn up was Kyra Hogan. She was a local woman of the night. She was found in another alley, her throat slashed, and her heart was also missing. We’ve yet to find them.”
Well, from what they knew, they didn’t think that would be happening.
“All I know is that they are dead, the town is going to get freaked out shortly, and that I have to stop this.”
Oracle Haunting (The Phoenix Files Book 4) Page 13
