Simply waking up in close proximity to Parker was profoundly affecting. It was comfort and familiarity, being in his home, knowing that she had been able to completely relax and sleep because deep down she knew that she would be safe with him. He had watched over her, cared for her and did it in a way that nobody else ever had or likely ever could. It felt undeniably good to simply be there, in that moment, gazing upon him. Well rested and alive.
As if he felt her gaze upon him, Parker lifted his eyes and smiled. ‘Good evening.’
‘Hi,’ she said, almost shyly. ‘I fell asleep.’
‘Yeah, I noticed that.’
‘I must have been more tired than I thought.’ Sitting up, she stretched, waiting for her body to protest but, as expected, the pull at her midsection was almost non-existent. Sleep was a wonderful booster for healing and she had gotten plenty of that. ‘What time is it?’
‘Just after nine.’
‘Thank-you,’ she smiled genuinely, yawning again. ‘For letting me sleep.’
‘That’s okay,’ he replied. He dropped the pencil that he had been holding onto the table, sinking back against the cushions of his chair. ‘I’ve been going over a few things. Fact checking the stuff that that antiques dealer told me because it was all so unbelievable. I tend to lean on the side of caution whenever talking to witnesses. Trust but verify, you know?’
‘That makes sense,’ she agreed. ‘I completely forgot to ask you about that earlier.’
‘That’s alright,’ he said. ‘I’m kind of glad that I was able to distract you. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned working at MPIA is that sometimes you need to take a step back when an investigation starts to get too rough. I know this isn’t a normal investigation but still I’m glad that we’ve taken time out. We both needed it.’
‘You don’t look like you’ve taken time out,’ she pointed out, indicating his pile of work.
‘Yeah, I may not always practice what I preach. It’s a known flaw.’
Rolling her neck, she pulled back the blanket and sat forward with her bare feet on the carpeted floor. Even though she really didn’t want to, she asked, ‘Want to run me through it?’
‘Not really,’ he stated emphatically. ‘It’s… It’s not great, Martha.’
‘Tell me what exactly about any of this has been great.’
‘I’m fairly certain that he killed somebody. A woman who was a magic practitioner.’
‘Okay,’ Martha took a deep, deep breath. ‘That’s not what I was expecting. Again.’
Apologising, he proceeded to fill her in about his meeting with the cavalier Russell Beck and his alleged dealings with the dead man, which he had been able to verify through a detailed inventory of Mr Ford’s recent deliveries, which Olivia had discovered earlier that day with her indiscriminate rummaging through this study and by calling in a request for information about a recently killed female magic practitioner from his contact within the police.
As Mr. Beck had suggested, the death had been treated with an amount of disdain that implied that the dead woman had been known to the police and that they thought she likely had it coming. No suspects were apprehended. And reports that she may allegedly have been stalked were not considered accurate. So far, he hadn’t been able to prove that the information he had been given was untrue. Taking into account that his pagan co-worker had also found evidence that William Ford was trying to obtain similar artefacts, it seemed like Russell Beck had been telling him the truth. He believed that the dead man had killed his old friend.
‘I don’t know if Beck’s involvement ends there,’ he concluded. ‘But I think that if he had anything to do with Mr. Ford’s death then he wouldn’t still be so bitter about their dealings or so inclined to give up information so readily about what, to him, was a personal and professional embarrassment. He seemed to care a lot about appearances and this made him look bad.’
‘I really wish I could have talked to him,’ she said, clearly still disgruntled.
‘Don’t be,’ he assured her. ‘He probably would have only upset you and then I would have had to punch him in his smug face and would no longer be on his guest list.’
‘Lucky you,’ she retorted.
‘Yeah, I’m thrilled. What I think matters most right now is that Mr. Ford clearly knew that the artefact he got from Beck was capable of siphoning magical energy. I think it’s safe to assume that he tried to get the practitioner that Beck recommended to help him by blessing the talisman with her power and when she refused, he went ahead and took it for himself.’
Martha really wanted to say that such a thing was impossible but she knew in her gut that it was entirely possible. William Ford was not the man that most people thought he was. He had a darker side and that side of him did not like to be challenged. She had carried the physical and emotional scars that proved it for most of her life and now somebody had finally paid for it with their own life. It was hard to think of that as anything other than inevitable.
‘What was her name?’ Martha asked, not sure she wanted to know. ‘How did she die?’
‘The police report lists her name as Rebecca Patterson, also known in magical circles as Madame Bex. She was stabbed to death. I’ve seen the crime scene photos. It was… bad.’
Martha cursed under her breath. Several times.
Sensing that she needed to focus less upon the horrific thing that her estranged father had allegedly done and more upon what could be done to get some sense of justice for his many and varied crimes, Parker said, ‘We now know, or have a good understanding of how he may have able to draw and power up the summoning circle. What we still don’t know is what he exactly summoned and then what happened after, causing his death.’
At this point, Martha was not even particularly convinced that she cared. The universe, while often a malicious son of a bitch, tended to have a way of bringing events into balance. If Mr. William Ford had taken a life in order to get something that he had no entitlement to, it had then ultimately got him killed. It was hard not to think that there was some justice in that but her sister still wanted answers and Martha needed to give her something more than what they had because whatever they uncovered next, she was ultimately going to be breaking her sister’s heart. They needed the full story and that meant uncovering the things that they still did not know.
‘What do we do now?’ she asked, prepared to take the actual investigator’s lead.
‘Olivia wants us to locate the talisman. We know that it was on his body when the police were called and I know that all of his belongings were returned to the family. I called Walsh and asked Amanda about it but she never saw it. Nor does it seem to be anywhere in the house.’
‘How do you know that?’ Martha asked. ‘The place is kind of enormous.’
‘I had Olivia do a full sweep of the place. She’s scarily good at finding things.’
‘Esther.’ Martha declared. ‘We should try her. She was… She was in love with him.’
Parker looked genuinely taken aback, scrunching up his face in distaste. ‘Seriously?’
‘I confronted her about it. She packed up her things and moved out this morning. If she had it in her possession already, then she probably took it with her. I imagine that she simply assumed that it was an antique and it was his, so she thought it a keepsake.’
‘We can go and pay her a visit, if you want.’
Martha nodded with an unhappy sigh. ‘Yeah, we should do that.’
‘You don’t want to see her,’ Parker inferred. ‘Don’t worry, I can go on my own.’
‘No, it isn’t that. I’ll come with you. I’m just…’ She sighed. ‘I’m fed up of all of this.’
After a brief, tension filled moment, Parker said, ‘Look, I felt really awful when I first saw you this morning. It was clear that you hadn’t rested and I wasn’t as sympathetic as I could have been when you said you hate being in that house… I guess that what I am trying to say is that, if you want to, you can stay here. No pres
sure. No strings. Your own room. Whatever.’
‘I think that I’d like that.’
‘Good,’ he smiled, seeming genuinely happy. ‘We’ll go and see Esther. Hopefully get the talisman and then talk to Olivia about what she wants to do once we have it. Whatever she’s got planned, I think she wants to do it tonight. She’s not happy about the circle still being there.’
‘She’s not the only one,’ Martha said and while she wasn’t sure that she wanted to spend much time with the beautiful blonde pagan, she agreed that the sooner they got that thing out of her family home, the better. This had to come to an end and Olivia had the knowledge and skills to make that happen. Anything else had to not matter. There were, as there had always been, more important things. And it was time to get back to it.
The wicked, it seemed, did not get to rest forever.
Chapter 26
Esther Adamson’s bungalow was on the outskirts of Blackthorn, the town that was the next residential area over from Marytown and in many ways it’s distant relative, founded by the grandfather of the man who founded the place in which all of the horrific drama had unfolded.
Martha had not been particularly looking forward to seeing her aunt again after their earlier debate, firmly believing that they had said all they needed to each other. But it was either that or be dropped off at her family’s house where Olivia and Walsh were still working and she wasn’t ready to spend any significant amount of time alone with either one of them, so she went.
The meeting went as smooth as it could have. Up until that point, Esther had not known that her niece had hired the assistance of private investigators to look deeper into her father’s death and was shocked to be filled in on everything that they had uncovered. Martha might have felt guilty, yanking the rose-tinted glass away from her eyes but she suspected that Esther had buried a lot of nasty truths about the man she apparently loved so that she could keep telling herself that he was a good man. It was funny how many people claim to have known the worst when a person’s darkness becomes available for public consumption.
If only they’d all spoken up sooner. How much heartache could have been spared.
Thankfully, the woman did have what they had been looking for, claiming that she had seen it before and that William had promised it to her. Martha did not believe that for a moment but she did not outright accuse her aunt of lying. In the grand scheme of things, it did not matter. She was just relieved that it had been located so that they could finally put the horrific mess that was William Ford’s dark legacy to rest.
Wary that it had been allegedly used to siphon magical energy from a woman who had brutally been murdered, Martha refused to touch it until Parker had placed it inside of a clear plastic evidence bag. She knew very little about the occult but as far as she was concerned, it was as dangerous as a live grenade and the only person she trusted that had the necessary protection against it was somebody who it could not hurt. Like Parker.
As they were driving back towards Marytown, Martha couldn’t help but think how simple the thing looked. The chain that held it was strong and gold, the large pendant circular with an engraving that looked like a simplified version of what she had seen on the study floor. Olivia had seemed to think that the original circle had been manipulated by something much more powerful than its creator. This talisman led a lot of credence to that theory and made Martha finally feel positive about the progress that they had made.
It was a shame that that feeling was not destined to last, for as they drove around a corner towards where Martha had met up with Stefan the night before, something stepped into the road, moving so fast that Parker was forced to slam on the breaks. The car skid, spun. The last thing that Martha remembered before she blacked out was the rushing blur of the road, dirt and tree branches attacking the windscreen and the explosion of pain behind her eyes as her head snapped sideways, striking the window next to her. Oh, and the laughter. The loud, certain sounds of something being mightily amused that she was in a car, plummeting down a hillside.
When she next opened her eyes, Martha found that was being dragged from the wreckage by a pair of strong arms. She fought them because instinct kicked in and she did not know what else to do. There was no way that she was going to let them take her again. Absolutely no way.
She bucked against the aggressor’s grip, lashed out with her elbows and her legs as they came free of the vehicle. It wasn’t until the sound of her name, spoken in a familiar voice, broke through her panic that she stopped struggling and allowed herself to lifted away from the crashed car, ultimately finding herself being enveloped in the arms that had pulled her free.
‘You’re okay. You’re okay,’ the voice was saying over and over. ‘Can you stand?’
‘Yeah, I think so,’ she said, shakily.
Her feet found the ground and she was somewhat relieved to discover that her body still worked in the way that it was supposed to. She looked up, into a pair of eyes that she knew oh, so well. They were dilated, filled with fear, adrenaline clearly still pounding through his body as a result of the accident. His breath came out in ragged gasps. His hands moved from her waist to her shoulders, then her neck to her face as if he were feeling for himself that she was alright and she just stood there and let him do it, not knowing how to react to it and still unsure of what had just actually happened.
Rustling from the trees around them gave her the answers. Every inch of her body went on alert, readying itself for the ambush. She pushed herself away from Parker who looked about in confusion, not understanding what was happening, what was coming for them.
Martha’s hand instinctively went to her lower back but found nothing because, of course, she had not dressed for a fight and had left her dagger at the house they had been heading back to. That was foolish. She should have been prepared for the possibility of retribution for what she had done the night before. She should never have let her own pride once again blind her into thinking that her plan had not been flawed. Damn it. Damn it all to Marytown and back.
‘Martha…’ her companion spoke, reaching out to clasp her wrist which she wrenched free, glaring at him and hushing him while she tried to focus on what was out in the woods.
There were many of them and they were closing in. She could sense them as clearly as she could her own heartbeat, pounding away erratically in her chest. If she were there alone, she would probably make a break for it, head into the hills and hope for the best. But she was not alone and as certain as she was that Parker could likely keep up with her, she did not want to risk them getting separated and him being targeted. This did not leave her many options.
‘Okay, we don’t have much time. They’re coming.’ She asked him, ‘I don’t suppose you have any sort of weapons close to hand?’
‘There’s a shotgun in the back of the car.’
Martha was impressed. Glancing over her shoulder, she said, ‘Get it.’ Meeting her gaze with a lot of suspicion, he spoke her name but she did not have time to explain and said, ‘Please just trust me. Get the gun. And do you have anything else, like a knife..? I kind of prefer those.’
‘Yeah,’ he conceded warily, heading for the back of the crashed car. As he did what she asked, without arguing further, Martha watched the tree line for movement, but so far nothing seemed to be inclined to break through and engage them. When Parker reappeared at her side, he had the shotgun in one hand and what appeared to be a sheathed military issue combat knife in the other. She instinctively took the sheath, opening it out to find a sharp, deadly looking blade that she knew would more than do the trick. Also very impressive.
‘This is what’s going to happen,’ she said, trying to remain as composed as possible. ‘Do not move and keep that gun aimed at the trees. If anything comes through and I mean anything at all, especially if it looks big, male and like it wants to kill you, you shoot first and don’t ask.’
‘Martha, what the hell is going on?’ he pressed. ‘What’s out there?’
&
nbsp; How to answer that, Martha did not know. At least not in a way that wouldn’t invite more questions that she did not have the luxury of time to answer. There was a high likelihood that he was going to get to see the answers for himself soon enough so it felt a little bit like a copout to simply reply, ‘Very bad people,’ as she turned her back on him to watch the treeline.
After a tense moment, he unhappily conceded, ‘Fine’ and she felt him move into position at her side, staying close enough to shadow and yet still give her space - even more impressive – but then Martha recalled what Amanda had said about him going off and joining the army at one point. Clearly his experience was coming to the fore and she felt somewhat relieved to at least have somebody who knew how to defend themselves at her side in the thick of it.
A vanguard broke through the treeline, off to her left hand side. Parker did not hesitate, pausing for only long enough to check his target before hitting it directly in the chest, causing it to stumble back in shock but then keep on coming. Martha was prepared to move in to assist but another assailant came in from the right, so she instead rushed to meet it, expertly ducking the first intended blow and plunging the blade she carried up into the soft flesh below the ribcage.
She dragged the combat knife across the fiend’s stomach, seriously wounding her target and then shoving it away, so that it fell to the ground, clutching at it’s guts in an attempt to keep its rather vital organs on the inside. This time, Martha did not stop to watch it die.
She moved on. She had to.
A second line of attackers broke through the trees. Even though she was not alone, they went for her rather than her companion because even though he personally meant a lot to her, ultimately Parker was insignificant to her enemies. She was the one they wanted because she was their enemy and he was merely human. That would keep him alive, if not necessarily safe. Martha wished that she could protect him better but there was no time for sentimentality.
She was being attacked. She needed to fight.
Sins of the Father (Bloody Marytown Book 1) Page 17
