Lieutenant Taylor Jackson Collection, Volume 2

by J. T. Ellison

  “Turn around! Get on the ground. Put your hands on the top of your head and get down on the fucking ground now!”

  He put his hands up and turned, slowly, pirouetting on his right foot. Face to face with him, Taylor was shocked at just how young he really was. She could hear noises in the distance, weapons being readied, knew they were in fact right beside her, but she felt captivated, drawn in by the boy’s stare, a mongoose faced with a cobra.

  “It’s finished, Schuyler,” she said. “Drop the weapon and get on the ground.”

  He continued to look at her, his coal-black eyes flashing. Their eyes locked together in a battle of wills. He finally blinked.

  “My name is Raven!” he screamed at her.

  She felt the movement before she saw it. His hand was coming up, the glint of steel, the sunlight flashing off the gun. She didn’t think, didn’t hesitate, pulled the trigger three times in quick succession. Blood bloomed on the boy’s chest and forehead—three kill shots, clean, perfect. Time stopped.

  He looked vaguely surprised for a moment, then crumpled in a bloody heap.

  “Get the paramedics,” she screamed, advancing on him. She kicked the guns out of the way, quickly ran her hands over the rest of his body. He was clean. He looked her right in the eye and she felt a cold slithering down her spine. Blood bubbled over his lip as he died.

  Hands were pulling her away now. Her gun was taken from her, standard operating procedure. The blood was roaring in her ears, she felt like she might faint. Cold water was pressed to her lips, Lincoln, rubbing her on the back. She started to come back to herself, realized that the deafening roar of the shots was making everything sound tinny. No ear defenders, she thought to herself, fighting down hysterical laughter.

  The boy was lying on the hard ground, eyes vacant, waiting for the ME to declare him. Officer-involved shootings were a nightmare for everyone.

  Taylor was segregated, talked to, debriefed, but didn’t hear the words leaving her mouth. The roar of the gun, the startled look on the boy’s face, the blood blooming in a spurt from the headshot, replayed itself over and over and over.

  Her day was only just beginning. She’d be investigated, cleared of wrongdoing, but saddled with yet another mark on her record.

  Dear God, what have I done? He was just a boy. Just a boy. What have I done?

  She managed to tear herself away, fumbled open her cell phone. She needed to talk to Baldwin. He would understand. He would forgive her.

  Baldwin answered on the first ring. Her voice sounded foreign, not her own, echoing in her mind as she told him what had happened.

  “Taylor, are you all right?”

  She wasn’t all right. She’d never be all right again. She’d just killed a boy. Not a man, not a leering criminal, but a boy.

  It was justified, she knew that. It was what had happened in the brief moment of clarity that she’d experienced before she shot him that was upsetting her.

  She’d seen the boy’s soul, a dark mass of hatred and fire, at the very moment her finger squeezed the trigger. She’d seen a man before, in her dreams, who glowed with the same sense of righteous hatred, directed exactly at her. She might not have let her finger move otherwise.

  When she shot Raven, she’d seen the ghost of the Pretender staring from the boy’s black eyes.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Taylor sat in the Adirondack chair on the back deck. She felt the chill of the breeze, but ignored it, let it bite and chap her. She was beyond feeling at this point, or so she thought. When the phone rang, she saw it was Baldwin, but made no move to answer.

  After a few moments it stopped, leaving her in peace. She didn’t want to talk to anyone just now.

  As instructed, she’d seen the department shrink, and that had helped a bit, but it wasn’t enough, not yet. She was on an enforced leave of absence, some vacation time, while they sorted through the mess at Hillsboro High School. She needed to get her head back in the game, figure out what she wanted to do.

  Nothing. She just wanted to be.

  Erasing the mental image from the shooting was proving to be harder than she’d ever imagined. The memory of those eyes burned into her. The gun snapping again and again. The small splat of blood that flashed from the wounds. The look of sheer surprise on his face as he dropped to the ground. The sunlight glittering off the silver ankh around the boy’s neck. No, those images weren’t going away anytime soon.

  She took a long pull on her beer, eyes closed, basking in the meager sunlight. When she tilted her chin down, she thought she saw a flash of black. A raven? That would be fitting.

  “Lieutenant?” a garbled voice asked. The black thing moved closer. Taylor opened one eye fully and saw a face attached.

  “Ariadne,” she said, shuffling herself a little more upright. “You look like hell, if you’ll forgive me saying so.”

  Ariadne mounted the steps to the deck, sat in the empty chair with a shrug. Her jaw was still wired shut, the bruises still livid, but beginning to fade. A quick healer. Taylor wondered idly how healed she could be, then let it go. Her head drifted back again. She was just so tired.

  “I rang the doorbell. You didn’t answer.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Detective McKenzie.”

  Damn that man.

  “I expected…” Ariadne started, her dainty hands shifting in her lap. “I thought you’d be happy. You solved the case.”

  Taylor looked away, over the woods that backed to their yard. If there was one thing she’d learned in her years in Homicide, there was never such a thing as a closed case. Faces, wounds, last words, the screams of those left behind, images of caskets dropping into cold, hard dirt—these were the things that stayed long after the legal battles ended, the case files sent to storage. She could usually find it in her to celebrate a good solve, but this case didn’t fall into that category.

  “Oh,” Ariadne said. “I had no idea.”

  Anger flared, giving Taylor a spark of clarity. “You’re reading my mind again?”

  “It doesn’t take a psychic to see you’re in pain. Maybe you should put the beer down. Why don’t I make you some tea?”

  Taylor narrowed her eyes at the witch and polished off the rest of the beer. She tossed the bottle behind her, heard the clink of glass as it met one of its brothers.

  “Like that, is it? You’re over here feeling sorry for yourself?”

  With great effort, Taylor kept her tone civil. “Ariadne, why are you here?”

  “I was worried about you. Detective McKenzie told me your man is out of town. You shouldn’t be alone right now.” There was an admonishment in her tone that fired Taylor up.

  “Baldwin didn’t have a choice. He would be here if he could.”

  As she said the words, she realized how upset she was that Baldwin wasn’t the one cajoling and nursing her back to an optimum mental level. She felt foolish. She’d been avoiding his calls because she’d resented the fact that he wasn’t guiding her through this mess. Since when had she become so dependent on him? Was it dependence, or something more?

  “Your love for him is your saving grace, you know.”

  “Damn it, Ariadne. Quit it. That’s not fair.”

  “Oh, Lieutenant. Don’t you see? Love is humanity. If you can’t feel, you become as empty and drawn as the boy. He had no love, not the right kind, anyway. His path was chosen long before you came across him. But yours? Yours is still being written. You have a choice. Love will save you. If you let it.”

  “Has love saved you, Ariadne?” The words were cutting, and Taylor felt a moment of sheer remorse when she saw Ariadne flinch.

  “I’m sorry. I’m…upset. This has been very difficult for me. I hate taking life, hate it worse than anything. And he was just a child.”

  “Raven would have killed you and never given it a second thought, Lieutenant. And then he would have turned the gun on the crowd. He’d decided. Couldn’t you see that? Couldn’t you see he’d given
up? His life was forfeit the moment he spilled blood the first time. He knew that. He accepted that. You must, as well.”

  “My life is forfeit as well, is that what you’re saying?”

  “No,” Ariadne said softly. “You were called upon to be a savior. That is your role, whether you’re comfortable with it or not. And saviors have to make sacrifices.”

  Taylor reached for another beer. “Ariadne, why are you here? Why are you telling me all of this?”

  “Because you and I are linked, whether you like it or not.” Eyes downcast, she folded her hands gently over her belly.

  Taylor caught the gesture, heart in her throat. She set the beer down on the railing untasted, her mind whirling.

  “No. It’s too soon to tell. Didn’t they give you Plan B at the hospital?”

  Ariadne smiled, lips thin against her teeth. “I refused. Life is a gift, regardless of its origins.”

  Taylor put both feet on the deck. “That’s a lovely sentiment, but for God’s sake, he raped you.”

  “And you killed him.” The words weren’t accusatory, but Taylor felt like she’d been struck in the face.

  Ariadne scootched closer, took Taylor’s hand. She spoke softly. “You had no choice, Taylor. Who knows how many lives you saved? You made a split-second decision. That’s what you’re trained to do. And it was the right one. That’s why I refused the pills. I could feel the stirrings inside me, knew that enough blood had been shed. I made a choice, too.”

  How simply a life could be ended. A bullet, a flick of a knife. A heart turned to stone in despair.

  The phone rang again, long and loud, the pealing bells grating on her nerves. She looked at the caller ID. Baldwin again.

  Ariadne smiled. “He won’t stop trying, you know. He’s bound to you. He will protect you, whether you want it or not. Go to him, Lieutenant. Let him comfort you.”

  Taylor stared into the witch’s blue eyes. Such calm, such purity. So sure of her path, her convictions. Taylor wished she was that certain.

  Resistance was futile. She answered the phone.

  Baldwin’s deep voice came through the line, relief bleeding through each word.

  “I didn’t think you’d ever answer. Honey, are you okay?”

  “Yes,” she said, surprised to hear how hollow her voice sounded. That wouldn’t do. There was no need to punish Baldwin. She tried again.

  “The woman who worked the case with us, Ariadne? She’s here. We’ve been…chatting.”

  She could hear the smile in his voice. “Good, you need cheering up. And I’m going to help you with that. I have some good news.”

  “Really?” she asked. “You’re coming home?”

  “Taylor, better than that. Much better. Honey, we have Fitz. We found Fitz. He’s alive. He’s hurt pretty bad, but he’s alive.”

  She felt the thaw of disbelief begin.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “We’ve got him. He wants to say hello. I’m putting him on the phone right now.” She could hear the buoyant joy in Baldwin’s voice, and she stood up, focusing on the rustling sounds in the phone’s background. A moment later a gruff, familiar voice came through the phone.

  “Hey, little girl. How’ve you been?”

  “Fitz? Is that really you?”

  The crusty laugh she’d been dying to hear sounded like gold. “It’s really me. Who else would it be?”

  Goose bumps rippled across her flesh, so intense that Ariadne turned to stare.

  “Thank God,” Taylor whispered.

  For the first time since she’d killed Schuyler Merritt, she started to cry.

  *

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There was, as always, a village to help along the way:

  Scott Miller—my fabulous agent, without whom I’d be lost.

  Linda McFall—my brilliant editor, who has the vision to make these stories sing.

  MacKenzie Fraser-Bub—the cheer in every day, and the rest of the Trident Media crew, for all their hard work on my behalf.

  Adam Wilson—the rock to our paper.

  Megan Lorius—my sister in OCD publicity crime. Thanks for the details!

  Deborah Kohan and Christine Khoury of Planned Television Arts, who are just plain wonderful.

  Kim Dettwiller of Team Strategies—my Nashville insider and quip manager.

  The rest of the MIRA Books team: Donna Hayes, Alex Osuszek, Loriana Sacilotto, Margaret Marbury, Diane Moggy, Heather Foy, Don Lucey, Michelle Renaud, Adrienne Macintosh, Nick Ursino, Tracey Langmuir, Kathy Lodge, Emily Ohanjanians, Karen Queme, Alana Burke, Tara Kelly and Gigi Lau—a girl couldn’t ask for a better group to work with. You’re the best!

  The BMWs (Del Tinsley, JB Thompson, Janet McKeown, Cecelia Tichi, Peggy Pegen, Mary Richards, Rai Lynn Wood) for listening, critiquing and overall encouraging me.

  Fellow writers Laura Benedict, Jeff Abbott, Erica Spindler, Allison Brennan, Toni McGee Causey, Zoë Sharp and Alex Kava, for the daily inspirations and sanity breaks.

  My buds at Murderati—the very best blog on earth, hands down.

  Evanescence, for getting me in the mood.

  Keith Barent Johnson, for bidding on a character name and allowing me to morph him into the Vampyre King. You’re a good sport, Keith.

  David Achord, who always has an answer.

  Andromeda DeArmande, for her blog Spell Works, which helped set me on the path.

  Angie and Traci, for tons of great advice on pathwork. No, I won’t read the spells aloud anymore. Bad me.

  Last, but not least, my darling parents, for loving me through thick and thin, and the rest of my great family, for always being there.

  And Randy, my love-struck Romeo. Thank God you fell in love with me. What would I do without you?

  This novel was a joy to write—surprisingly, no nightmares! I read a number of blogs and books getting myself into the Goth, Wiccan and Pagan worlds, research I found utterly fascinating. The blogs are easily found through Google searches, but here are a few of the books that kept me on the path during the writing of this novel:

  Allen, Sarah Addison. Garden Spells. New York: Bantam Dell, 2007.

  Belanger, Michelle. The Psychic Vampire Codex: A Manual of Magick and Energy Work. Newburyport, MA: Red Wheel/Weiser, 2004.

  Buckland, Raymond. Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft. 2nd ed. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2007.

  Cunningham, Scott. Earth, Air, Fire & Water: More Techniques of Natural Magic, rev. ed. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2006.

  Digitalis, Raven. Goth Craft: The Magical Side of Dark Culture. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2007.

  Grimassi, Raven. Italian Witchcraft: The Old Religion of Southern Europe (Previously titles Ways of the Strega). 2nd ed. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2006.

  Hesiod. Theogony (Translated by M. L. West). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

  Hesiod. Works and Days (Translated by M. L. West). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

  Illes, Judicka. The Element Encyclopedia of 1,000 Spells: A Concise Reference Book for the Magical Arts. London: HarperCollins, 2008.

  Konstantinos. Vampires: The Occult Truth. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2006.

  Konstantinos. Gothic Grimoire. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2007.

  Sabin, Thea. Wicca for Beginners: Fundamentals of Philosophy and Practice. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2006.

  Theitic, ed. The Witches’ Almanac: Spring 2008 to Spring 2009 (Issue 27). Newport, RI: The Witches’ Almanac.

  Winkowski, Mary Ann. When Ghosts Speak: Understanding the World of Earthbound Spirits. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2007.

  ISBN-13: 9781488030352

  The Immortals

  Copyright © 2010 by J.T. Ellison

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nloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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  www.MIRABooks.com

  Rediscover the incomparable, unstoppable Lieutenant Taylor Jackson in this chilling suspense novel from New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison.

  It’s a hideous echo of a violent past. Across America, murders are being committed with all the twisted hallmarks of the Boston Strangler, the Zodiac Killer and Son of Sam. The media frenzy explodes and Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson knows instantly that The Pretender is back…and he’s got helpers.

  As The Pretender’s disciples perpetrate their sick homages—stretching police and the FBI dangerously thin—Taylor tries desperately to prepare for their inevitable showdown. And she must do it alone. To be close to her is to be in mortal danger, and she won’t risk losing anyone she loves. But the isolation, the self-doubt and the rising body count are taking their toll—she’s beside herself and ready to snap.

  The brilliant psychopath who both adores and despises her is drawing close. Close enough to touch…

  Originally published in 2011

  SO CLOSE THE HAND OF DEATH

  J.T. ELLISON

  CONTENTS

  November 5

  Chapter One

  November 6