The Day of First Sun (Annie Loves Cham Book 1)

by Sheryl Steines

  “By the way, do you know how long a vampire can go without fresh blood?”

  He raised his eyes for a moment, wondering if the wizard guard was serious or bluffing.

  “I’m awfully curious to find out,” she finished.

  “When will I have the pleasure of your company again, Annie?” His fangs still extended.

  “Put those away. You’re not scaring anyone. You know what I want, and I know what you need.”

  *

  “Jordan’s safer in prison than out. At least he’s not with Sturtagaard anymore,” Annie said to Cham as they reached the interrogation room at the end of the cell block. Beyond the door was Turret One, a minimum security wing at Tartarus Prison. Unlike the vampire wing or the maximum security wings, this one wasn’t imbued with black magic spells and only held those waiting for trial or prisoners who committed lesser crimes. As of yet, the Wizard Guards weren’t sure if Jordan killed Amelie or knew who did, so they left him alone on this floor to stew about it.

  “I guess we can threaten him with obstruction of justice if he doesn’t talk. We really have no evidence to hold him.”

  Annie frowned. “I don’t like that Jordan and Sturtagaard are somehow connected.”

  Cham leaned back against the wall. In this intersection between hallways and the cell block, the walls, covered over in drywall, felt like anything other than a wizard prison. It could have been a hallway in someone’s home. He glanced down the cell block.

  “No coincidences. So yeah, I’m not liking this either. Listen, I knocked him around a bit, so why don’t you go get him? He’ll like you better anyway.”

  “Fine. I’ll go get him.”

  The block of cells contained a total of five cells, four of which currently sat empty. Each contained three walls of stone and one strong, metal wall of bars. The window opposite hung at eye level for someone five-foot-five taller. It let in light and revealed only the desolate bird sanctuary beyond the walls of the prison. The grass, even in July, was dry and sharp, nearly dead after months of rain avoiding this area.

  Annie’s heavy boots clunked against the stone floors, the sound echoing off the stone walls of each cell. If she were trying to be stealthy, she’d give up; anyone down the corridor would hear her coming. Jordan, lying on the cot in the cell, ignored the sound and wrapped himself in the paper-thin blanket left for him, his back turned away from the cell doors. Even lying there, his shoulders slumped.

  Annie rapped her knuckles against the metal bars, rousing him. A forlorn Jordan turned to face his visitor with a tear-streaked face and a snot bubble hanging from his nose. She refrained from grimacing, though the sight of him made her stomach churn. The missing boyfriend seemed so helpless and a little pathetic in his cell.

  The door slid open with a wave of her palm; she motioned for him to join her. Apprehensive at first, Jordan finally slid off the cot still wrapped in the blanket. Closer up, his appearance looked worse. Bloodshot eyes barely stayed open in the artificial light of the hallway. His unwashed, oily face was covered in pimples. An indeterminate smell emanated from him. He shook uncontrollably.

  “I can get you another blanket if you’d like.”

  He shook his head and silently followed her down the hallway. Exiting the corridor, they entered into the intersection between hallways to a door made of real, solid wood. Inside, the room was warmer than his small cell, and the blanket fell from his shoulders into a pile on the floor. Though not much larger than his cell, it contained a table and two chairs at the center. The metal chair held an old thin pad. Jordan sat with limp hands in his lap.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  Unable to meet Annie’s eyes, Jordan fixed his gaze on the two-way mirror, though he didn’t really look at it. The empty, cold, emotionless stare unnerved Annie. The once-fugitive was nothing more than a shell of his former self; maybe that showed the guilt he felt.

  When Annie sat, Jordan focused on her for a brief moment while she offered him a warm smile that Jordan, unable to formulate thoughts, didn’t reciprocate. His stare returned to the mirror as if he saw to the other side. Even in the viewing room, his demeanor unnerved Cham.

  With patience and restraint, Annie laid out the crime scene photos across the table. After setting each picture down, her hand smacked against the table top. The suspect jumped with each hit, and yet his stare remained on a fixed point behind her.

  “What happened when Amelie died?” Her gentle tone revealed nothing accusatory. Still unable to bear the weight of grief, Jordan refused to look at the pictures. Tears welled up in his eyes and rolled down his face, leaving behind streak marks. Rather than wiping them away, he left the tears hanging from his chin as if a bizarre form of punishment.

  Minutes passed on the clock. It ticked them down with a hollow ping that rang in her ears and tried her patience. What Annie wanted to do and what was appropriate were two separate things. She refrained from rolling her eyes, jumping up and down, and yelling in his face. Although these were all viable options for some suspects, she guessed those tactics would push Jordan deeper into himself.

  Five minutes passed since Annie first asked the question. She neared her tolerance limit.

  “We’ve been to the crime scene.” Breaking the silence did nothing to change his conduct. Jordan preferred examining his hands or looking into the mirror behind her. She pressed on. “There’s a lot of magical energy. We have many theories, but my gut tells me you weren’t responsible. Unfortunately, my gut’s not gonna get you off. Now is the time to tell us what happened.”

  She searched through the pictures, pulled out one of Amelie lying across the bed with her eyes frozen in fear, and placed it beside him. His shaking hands passed over it and found a picture of Amelie sparkling, vivacious, and fun. Her beautiful face smiled at him.

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “We figured that. Do you know who did?”

  His body shuddered and shook. Annie sighed, handed him a tissue, and waited for him to control himself. One tissue wouldn’t be enough given all the snot and tears he was wiping from his face.

  “Is the orb safe?” he asked.

  “Orb?”

  “Round glass ball. Holds souls.”

  His lips curled to an angry pout, and his body slunk into the chair like an insolent teenager. Creating distance between himself and Annie, he crossed his arms against his chest.

  And hold your breath, too, if you’d like.

  “Don’t be a smartass. If it’s important just tell me what it has to do with Amelie.”

  “It has everything to do with the orb!” He banged his hands on the table. His voice reverberated around the tiny room, rattling the mirrored window, and Annie jumped from her chair. Across from her sat an emotional suspect whom she liked better than the downtrodden man.

  Passion means hope, and hope meant fight.

  “Okay, Jordan. I realize your girlfriend is dead and it has to do with this orb, but I need you to calm down and start from the beginning.”

  Annie glanced in the mirror and blew out a deep breath. When she turned back to Jordan, he composed himself, sitting straighter in his chair, his hands folded on the table, several used tissue on a pile by his left hand.

  “We went to a party of this guy my dad knows. We toured his mansion, and in one of the room, he showed us this orb. I think it’s the Orb of Eridu.”

  Though surprised by this information, Annie made no comment or accusation.

  A black magic object in Amelie’s murder. That’s bad.

  “Amelie wanted it. She didn’t like Rathbone. She thought the dude was obnoxious, and she said we should steal it from him.”

  Annie blew out air to keep her eyes from widening in surprise. Wolfgange Rathbone was a well-known wizard with leanings toward black magic. The man once sat on the Wizard Council, the governing body for the wizard community in America, and had also been a prime suspect in her father’s murder. Applying all these known things to Amelie’s murder wasn’t quite
the explanation she expected.

  “Wolfgange Rathbone?”

  “I just said that.”

  “Just clarifying. I saw a picture online of you with him. So she wanted the orb and you took it. Where is it now?”

  “My bag.”

  After bringing Sturtagaard and Jordan into the prison, the Wizard Guard had sent all of Jordan’s belongings to the lab at Wizard Hall, where Gibbs and Spencer currently examined the evidence.

  “Gibbs and Spencer will find it, then. That explains your spell on it.” Annie rubbed the inside of her hand, where the remains of a light burn mark skid across her palm. Her new injury stung, and she grimaced. “So tell me then what happened. I have a killer to find, and I’m not liking my list of suspects.”

  “Whatever. I’m still responsible. That damn, stupid party. I knew going was a bad idea. It was a week before she… she died. I don’t know how they knew we took the stupid thing or how they found our hotel room. Tt was supposed to be a secret, with her being a princess and all. But they found us. It’s them, I know it.”

  “Who was in the room, Jordan?”

  “I can’t name them, and I don’t know who killed her. One of them… I think I saw one of them at the party. I just don’t… ” He held his head in his hands. Long bangs slipped from their spot and covered his face. As he cried softly, his shoulders rose and fell in quick little movements. Annie struggled to remain sympathetic, knowing that Jordan had taken from a black magic practitioner.

  “You know who Rathbone is, right?” Annie asked when Jordan stopped crying. His shoulders slumped forward, but they no longer rose with each difficult intake of air.

  “Yeah. I’m not that stupid.” Jordan replied with some defensiveness.

  Wolfgange Rathbone once imprisoned his own father in a private dungeon in order to take over the family business, a business that grew from one that imported and exported legal items to one consumed by illegal black magic trades. It didn’t surprise Annie that Rathbone had an orb, especially one with such dark power.

  “Did you know it’s a black magic object?”

  “No. I don’t know Rathbone. Dad insisted we go. Maybe my dad practices too. That explains so much.”

  Like a massive and dangerous spring storm that starts up instantly, Jordan flew out of his chair, picked it up and flung the metal chair at the mirror. It bounced off the glass and clattered to the floor. Annie cast a small hex, grazing his shoulder.

  “What the hell was that for?” Jordan rubbed the small burn and glared at her.

  “I need you to calm down.” Angry, Annie waved a palm, and floated the chair across the table. With another wave, the metal chair unfolded and slid under Jordan’s legs, pushing him back to the table. “Don’t make this any more difficult for yourself ,Jordan.”

  Annie looked at the mirror, pointed to the door, and headed out, leaving Jordan alone with his anger. Cham waited outside the door, his arms crossed against his chest, his stance wide and his expression stern. Annie’s hands trembled.

  “Uh, you okay in there?”

  “Rathbone!”

  “So he’s really stupid and probably didn’t know what his dad’s into.”

  “Ryan said Father Wellington knew Stonewell, who ‘politely’ does business with Rathbone. They run in the same damn circles. That brat knows who Rathbone is and what he does.”

  “Okay. Like I said, he’s stupid. You need to calm down. Are you going to be able to lead this case?”

  A good question.

  Memories of Dad inside his casket, the iridescent glamours hiding what really happened to him, flooded back to Annie. She saw through the glamours to all of the bruises, the broken nose, the gash above his brow. Someone beat him to death, and yet no one discussed it with her. She was only fifteen when Jason Pearce died.

  People wept at the funeral, and someone cried loudly. Annie sat in the front row, unable to express her feelings, barely remembering who she thanked for coming. Hands and arms embraced her and voices cooed in her ear, but none dispelled the feeling of dread and unease. It overpowered her whenever she thought of Rathbone offering his condolences through an obvious smirk. But without proof linking Rathbone to her father’s murder, the black magical wizard walked free. It didn’t matter that others in the Wizard Guard knew the man killed him. If Rathbone had Amelie murdered, Annie was too close to the case.

  “I’m fine for now at least. It’s a little more complex, though. Rathbone.” She let out a long sigh, the knots in her stomach twisting tighter.

  “We need serious evidence to prove Rathbone had anything to do with her murder,” Cham said.

  “I need to find out who was in that hotel room. At least there’s a direction. We’re getting closer to getting him,” she said, placing a hand on Cham’s arm. “Can you let Milo know? I’ll be okay with Jordan.”

  No one, especially Milo and Ryan, would like to know of Rathbone’s possible connection—particularly in a case involving a nonmagical princess killed by black magic.

  “I’ll meet you later,” Cham said.

  Before turning, he placed a stray hair behind her ear. His fingers grazed her cheek, and Annie touched his hand. She watched him leave before returning to Jordan.

  “Come back to hex me?”

  “No. Sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. Even though I thought you might throw the table.”

  “Yeah, well, that doesn’t make it stop hurting.”

  “Oh, please. It was a low-power hex.”

  The wizard guard examined Jordan’s T-shirt, which retained no marks where the hex struck. Annie lifted the short sleeve, probing the mark left on his triceps. It was barely visible. She summoned a bottle of water, poured a small puddle above her hand, and warmed it. After twirling the liquid around, she placed it over the burn mark. In seconds, his skin healed, leaving nothing but a few droplets of water.

  “So what were you planning on doing with the orb?” She sat beside him, leaned forward, and stared at him.

  “Return it. Maybe they’d let me go.”

  “You obviously don’t know what kind of wizard Rathbone is. Do you even know what the orb does?”

  “The orb captures and traps souls. At least, that’s what Rathbone claimed. I didn’t use it, if that’s what you want to know.”

  Cocky bastard.

  Annie knew of the orb in passing and mostly had thought it was a rumor. Supposedly, it was created with good magic because the ancient covens believed their dead needed assistance moving on to the afterlife. They forged glass spheres by hand, infusing them with magic to capture spirits and help them move to the next phase.

  A millennium later, the orbs were rumored to dispense black magic—used as a tool to capture the souls of one’s enemies and use those souls for their own personal wishes and needs. Maybe Rathbone collected the object because he wished to bring someone back. Or maybe he planned to create an army of servants—zombies, essentially.

  Sturtagaard! The rumors of a zombie army had been spreading all summer. Tips and evidence led the Wizard Guard and Wizard Council to the vampire—in the same location as Jordan. Ugh, that damn vampire!

  “I get it. It’s my fault Amelie’s dead. What else do you want me to say?” Jordan stood and began pacing.

  “If what you tell me checks out, we’ll figure out how to protect you and send you on your way. Okay?”

  But did Jordan steal the orb and send a madman after Wizard Guards? Is he culpable?

  In reality, Annie knew Rathbone wouldn’t press charges or admit the orb belonged to him, and Jordan probably didn’t cast the spell that killed Amelie. Maybe the guilt seeping through his every fiber would be enough punishment. “We figure there were four wizards total at the site of the attack, you being one of them. Is that correct?” Annie’s mind split between his innocence and his stupidity, choosing to concentrate on his innocence.

  He nodded and added, “I recognized them from the party, but I don’t know what their names are. I think Rathbone was there, too, if that
helps any.”

  Why put himself at that risk?

  “You sure Rathbone was in the hotel room? That doesn’t make sense.”

  But if he was there, he’d have to teleport in and out, and we’d have a sample of his magical signature.

  “Not in the hotel room. I think I heard his voice when I teleported out. Like outside on the patio.”

  “Unfortunately we have nothing to compare signatures to him, though this is the closest we’ve gotten to capturing it. So what exactly happened in the room that night?”

  Jordan paced again with long and quick strides, making the rounds of the room three times before leaning against the wall. The magical prison hummed in a low, difficult-to-hear spectrum. Jordan turned, glanced at the wall, touched it, and leaned in again, his eyes crinkling in confusion.

  “We got back late from a party at the bar. I don’t remember when. Amelie got ready for some… some extra fun, and I went to get some champagne in the kitchen. Before I grabbed the bottle, I heard something in the bedroom and ran. She… ” He swallowed hard as tears fell. “She was… was lying on the bed. I knew she was dead, and they started attacking. After fighting for a bit, I finally got out. The guards at the patio had been knocked out. I teleported from there.” Jordan wiped his face with a tissue.

  “And you went back later to get the orb?”

  “Yeah. I needed to make sure it was safe. I got the orb and teleported the hell out of there. I kept moving until I was safe.” He glanced around the interrogation room. The stone crumbled in the corner; cobwebs hung from the ceiling as a large spider crawled through the webs; the chairs and table were either rotted or rusted. “This is the safest I’ve been since.”

  Annie understood the irony in that. “Your story matches the magical trace we found.” She summoned a crystal and placed it in front of Jordan. “Cast a spell into the crystal. Just to rule you out. If it jives, we’ll find a way to get you out of here and away from them.”

  The small, dark-green, opaque crystal fit in the palm of his hand. He stared at the rock for some time, thinking of a spell to cast. His brain was tired, his magic weak. He could only think of casting a hovering spell. The stone lit up and floated two inches above his hand. When he finished, Annie pocketed the crystal.