by Marcus Brown
He explored most of the downstairs rooms, seeing no sign of the four women he knew resided in the household. Eventually making his way into the kitchen, he spied the body of Abigail Crockworthy.
Approaching cautiously, he could see the pool of blood and knew she was dead. He used his foot to turn her over and staggered back slightly at the sight of her throat, cut wide open.
“Savages,” he declared, disgustedly. “You murdered your own mother to save yourselves.”
Kneeling, he made the sign of the cross. He wasn’t comfortable with the closeness to such evil.
“I’ll find the three of you,” he vowed. “No matter how long it takes me. You can’t escape me forever.”
He left the body behind and stood outside the main door. His companion waited patiently for him, but was seemingly too scared to enter the house.
He held his hand out. “Pass me the torch.”
Jeremiah Blackwell passed him the flaming torch and seconds later, Cotton had re-entered the house, setting fire to anything that would burn.
He exited the house, moving to a safe distance, watching it burn.
Cotton turned and approached the trembling Jeremiah and slapped him hard across the face.
Jeremiah staggered backwards, holding his face. “What was that for?”
“If you and those other cowards hadn’t run away with your tails between your legs, we’d have them all in custody.”
“But,” Jeremiah protested, “they set their demon upon us. We had no choice.”
“You could have chosen to die, as I would have. Our Lord would have taken you into his arms and honoured you for your sacrifice, but you chose to flee.”
“But…” Jeremiah tried to say.
“Curb your tongue, boy. You will spend time in the stocks, mark my words. And so the whole village will know of your cowardice.”
Jeremiah remained silent and climbed upon his horse as Cotton turned to face the burning house. He stood for what seemed like an age, watching it burn to the ground.
“May God have mercy upon your soul, Abigail Crockworthy,” he spat, rising onto his horse and riding off.
*
The portal opened, lighting up the gloomy, eerie woods brilliantly.
All three sisters were catapulted from within the vortex, hitting the cold ground with a thud.
Shocked, they lay on their backs, staring up at the huge oak trees towering above them.
Nothing looked familiar to them.
“Where are we?” Tamara asked, pushing herself upright.
“England,” Talia reminded her sister, gripping hold of the book. “Remember.”
Tabitha forced herself to her feet.
“Come, sisters, we cannot stay here. We must find somewhere to hide for the night, then find our new dwelling.” She pulled her sisters to their feet, collected their luggage, and led the way.
This was a new world and none of them knew what the future would bring.
Chapter One
Chester.
England.
Present Day.
Lucinda Deveraux took one last look around the rustically decorated eatery, making certain it was spotlessly clean for the following morning.
Her boss was obsessively clean, and one single spoon out of place, or a streak along one of the highly polished wooden tables would send her apoplectic.
It had been a nightmare shift, the worst in a long time. Her co-worker, Melissa, was ill and had to go home ahead of time, meaning she had to work twice as hard. Still, she needed the job to top up her student loan, and working there afforded her the luxury of choosing her own shifts.
Nevertheless, she’d only gotten through the shift knowing she had three days off – a rarity indeed.
Scaffolders from the building site over the road had frittered in and out all day, and if she never looked at another plate of greasy, disgusting Egg and Chips, it wouldn’t be too soon.
She’d waved goodbye to the comfort of her childhood home in Toulouse a year before, determined to make her own way in the world. Still, there were days when she longed to be running through the fields close to the village she loved so much, but she’d left and knew one day, she would return and purchase her own home there.
Lucinda had grown fond of England, but she found it hard getting used to a lot of things, the food, the lack of finesse and the strange sense of humour. The cold and rainy weather, plus a distinct lack of seasons was another matter entirely.
“Luci,” her mother would say every time she called home. “Why do you want to live there? Ze English are pigs.”
Whilst she wouldn’t entirely agree with her mother’s opinion, some of the men from the building site were too near the knuckle as far as she was concerned, but she was wise enough and could handle them if need be.
She was quite smitten with one of the guys that came in regularly. He’d introduced himself as Damian Garratt, and seemed different to the rest of his colleagues. He was tall, blond and tanned with an athletic build. A killer smile with the cutest dimples she’d ever seen made him all the more attractive.
From what she’d managed to find out, he was also a student and laboured to earn extra cash whilst working through his law degree.
He’d asked her out for a drink the day before, and to her own surprise, she agreed and arranged to meet him at seven-thirty, near the castle walls by Chester City Centre.
It was only a few minutes walking distance from the halls of residence, and she figured, if she didn’t like him, she could make a quick getaway and vanish before he realised she’d gone.
She glanced at her watch. It had gone six pm.
“Merde,” she murmured. “I won’t even have time to wash the smell of grease out of my hair.”
She quickly closed and locked the doors. Yanking the shutters down, she hurried home to change.
*
Lucinda rushed along the road, worried as she was currently ten minutes late.
She looked as good as she could in the small amount of time she had to get ready. Deciding on a pair of light blue skinny jeans, a white off the shoulder gypsy top and nude open toed shoes with four-inch heels, she hoped her date would be impressed. Her blonde choppy bob looked good, even if she did say so herself and her natural make-up and pale pink lipstick made her look fresh faced.
Damian was already there, leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette. He looked sexy in his dark blue denims and a fitted white shirt. Her heart literally skipped a beat. Could he be any more perfect? she thought.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said, flustered, leaning in and kissing him on both cheeks.
“I thought you were gonna stand me up,” he replied, flicking the cigarette into the road.
“No, never. I was late finishing work and rushed back to the ‘alls to change. I usually look much better than this.”
“Don’t be daft, you look bloody gorgeous.”
Her face flushed red. “Merci beaucoup, Damian.”
“So, what do you wanna do? Cinema, a meal, a drink… anything you want.”
“I’d love to find a nice bar somewhere so we can relax and have a, what you say here, proper chat. I’ve had an ‘orrible day and you don’t get much opportunity to speak when your friends are around.”
“I try and keep myself to myself where they’re concerned. Most of them aren’t my type of person if I’m honest, but right now, beggars can’t be choosers and labouring pays the bills.”
She was liking him more by the minute. He was good-looking, smart and best of all, he appeared to be kind.
“Shall we ‘ead down to the River Dee? It's a nice, warm evening and we could find somewhere outside to sit and relax with a nice bottle of wine.”
“Sounds good to me, Lucinda”
“Call me Luci, all my friends do.”
“Well, Luci,” he said, offering his hand. “Let’s go.”
She took hold of his hand, excited to be spending time with him.
Chapter Two
>
Two weeks later.
Three am.
Trey Dembélé mumbled a goodbye and dropped his phone onto the sanded wood floor.
It was past midnight when he finally drifted off to sleep, but now he was awake, being requested to attend a crime scene.
He was the Forensic Pathologist assigned to the recent murder cases. It had been over a year and neither him nor the police were any closer to catching the killer.
Two bodies had been found on a circular stone altar located off the beaten track and deep within Brackenwood Hill.
The area was well known to the police. Every Hallowe’en they’d find dead animals, usually of the rodent variety, and the odd cat tied up, obviously victims to youths with nothing better to do with their time.
That was child’s play as far as the police were concerned, but the recent murders had shaken the community to its core.
The roads were mostly deserted after sundown, children dragged indoors by their distressed parents, doors bolted shut and alarms set.
Three bodies had been found in nearby locations over the last fourteen months and the police were baffled. The previous murders were different in that only one body was discovered at each crime scene.
Time and location were far from ideal, but he had to work with what he was given.
The moon was bright in the sky, but any light was blocked by the enormous trees that surrounded the altar.
It was a problem knowing he had to make certain the crime scene wasn’t contaminated, or even worse, any evidence destroyed unwittingly.
Spotlights would be carefully brought to the scene so he could get started.
The only saving grace was it hadn’t rained, so the tents weren’t needed.
Everything had to be done by the book or the evidence gathered would be inadmissible should the case ever come to court.
Once daylight approached, he ordered the core area to be cordoned off whilst he examined the crime scene.
A quick glance about the scene told him they were dealing with the same killer. The similarities were striking, and from what he was seeing, there was no way these were copycat killings as some of the more intricate details of the murders had been withheld from the press.
He sighed as he noted the position of the bodies -- once again they’d been staged for maximum impact.
He pulled the Dictaphone from his pocket. “We’ve got a very sick individual on our hands,” he said, speaking into the now antiquated machine. “Both male and female victims have an upside down cross carved into their chest. We could be dealing with the same killer. Suspected trauma to the ocular cavities, but a large amount of dried blood over the victims' faces make it hard to tell; removal of eyes highly possible, but I will confirm once I can look under the eyelids.”
He paused and twisted around as the WPC in attendance bent double and emptied the contents of her stomach onto the grass in front of her.
He clicked off the Dictaphone.
“Get her away from my crime scene before she contaminates it. Now,” he yelled.
He’d lost a lot of his Afrikaan accent in the last ten years, but it was always more pronounced when he was annoyed.
“Sorry. Right away,” one of the attending officers, Inspector Nathan Rigby replied, ushering the clearly distressed and still vomiting WPC away.
Clicking his Dictaphone back on, he spoke into it. “Both heads once again twisted at an unnatural angle, I surmise this was done post mortem, but will confirm once the body is transferred to the mortuary. Lips are sewn crudely together with some form of darn. All fingernails and thumbnails removed from both victims’ hands – fairly positive they were removed with bog standard pliers. Toe nails gone too.” He sighed, sickened by the cruelty of humanity.
Inspector Rigby returned to the scene. “I’m sorry about that, Trey. I’ve always said newbies should be eased in gently, and this shit is enough to turn the strongest of stomachs. You got any ideas why somebody would do this?”
Ignoring the Inspector’s questions, he turned and said, “Get Chief Inspector Worthy down here as soon as possible. She’ll want to see this, trust me.”
“Oh fuck, not the dragon lady,” Rigby replied, rolling his eyes.
“She’s the best we’ve got, and it’s her case,” he said impatiently. “Now, grow yourself a big set of balls and get Worthy on the phone, or do I have to do it myself?”
Rigby pulled his mobile from his coat pocket and scrolled for his boss’ number.
“Ma’am, we’ve got another one,” he said. “Brackenwood Hill… Yes, I’ve got officers stationed at the entrance. They’ll get you to the scene.”
Rigby pulled a face as he put his phone away.
“Well?” Dembélé asked. “How long until she gets here?”
“She’ll be approximately fifteen minutes,” he replied. “Just my luck she isn’t far away.”
“Then you better tuck your shirt in before she gets here – you know she’s a stickler for appearance.”
Chapter Three
“What have we got this time, Trey?”
Chief Inspector Tabitha Worthy stepped carefully around the crime scene.
Dressed in a dark green tailored pant suit, she looked every inch the movie star. She wore a cyan slim-fitting blouse under the suit jacket. It highlighted her curves nicely. Her glossy dark brown hair was immaculately twisted at the back of her head into a chignon. Minimal makeup dusted her exquisite pale features – just a touch of eye shadow to frame her brilliant green eyes and pale pink lip gloss accentuated her pout.
She was at the top of her game and had worked tirelessly to get there.
The highest-ranking female on the force in the North West of England, she’d worked hard to climb her way to the top.
She looked at the scene before her and shuddered.
In the last fifteen years, she’d experienced more than her fair share of gruesome crime scenes, but this was something else altogether.
“Lucinda Deveraux, nineteen, and Damian Garratt, twenty-one. Discovered early hours of this morning by a local dog walker. Both victims reported missing two weeks ago by their respective parents. The girl is French, the guy from Liverpool, both studying at the university.”
“Any connection apart from the university?” Tabitha asked.
“None that I’ve been told about. They both had credit cards with them so the motive definitely wasn’t theft. The killer enjoys what he’s doing and has the time to do it his way. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s certainly nothing glaringly obvious that connects them.”
“How long do you think they’ve been out here for?” Tabitha asked.
“They didn’t die here,” Trey answered. “I’m one hundred percent convinced of that, simply judging by the stage of putrefaction, they were killed roughly two weeks ago.”
“Then, you’re telling me not long after they were reported missing, they were killed.”
“If not, the night they vanished is more than likely, but I’ll know more once I get them back to the morgue.”
“And how long do you surmise they’ve been out in the elements for?”
“I’d hazard a best guess, and say they were moved here overnight. This place is far too busy with dog walkers and kids for them not to have been noticed sooner.”
“You’re certain of this?”
“Ninety-nine-point nine percent yeah. You’ll also notice, there’s no blood -- the expanse around the bodies too clean for such a vicious style of murder to have been committed here.”
“What kind of sick bastard are we dealing with, Trey?”
“That’s your remit, Tabitha. I take care of the dead, you deal with the freaks who send them my way.”
“Thanks for nothing,” she replied.
Tabitha walked around the altar, taking in every detail of the naked and butchered bodies before her. She shook her head sadly. “Oh, my Goddess,” she said before offering a silent prayer, hoping neither su
ffered before they were massacred. “We’ve got a serial killer on our hands, haven’t we?” Tabitha surmised.
“And your reasons for that assumption is?” Trey asked, evidently attempting to test her theories again.
“For one, you wouldn’t have asked for me to attend if you thought otherwise. Two. We’ve got the same MO -- the bodies are posed in exactly the same way as the others, and three, the injures look similar, if not identical. Plus, we have five bodies now and you know as well as I do that anything exceeding three murders, and over an extended period of time are generally considered serial murders. We might as well face it -- we’ve got a serial killer on our hands.”
“Appears so.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” she stated.
Tabitha had planned a trip to India, but there was no way the chief would authorise long service leave at present. Not with a serial killer on the loose.
“My thoughts exactly,” Trey agreed.
“The press will have a field day when they get wind of this.”
“They already know about it. Marshall, the slimy bastard, held off printing and ran a late edition. He knows the victims are the missing couple from a few weeks ago. Rigby sent a car round to the guy’s parent’s before they read about it over breakfast and we got in touch with the French police and told them it was urgent her parents were informed before it hit the wire. There’s a quote from the girl’s employer saying how hard she worked and how much she’ll be missed.”
“Tell me you’re joking, Trey?”
“Nope. Haven’t you seen this morning’s paper? They’re calling our killer, The Dark Magic Murderer. Sorry to tell you this, but I think one of your guys is leaking information to the press.”
This was news Tabitha didn’t want or need to hear right now. The press was baying for blood, and she had no information to give them to keep them off her back, no clues, no suspects, nothing.
“A leak -- that’s not good. What makes you think one of my guys is feeding information to the press?”
“Tony Marshall called the chief about an hour ago,” Trey said. “Seems he’s being kept in the loop by an unknown source. The chief called and read me the riot act. Told me the leak better not be coming from my team.”
