by T K Eldridge
I pulled fresh gloves on and did a swab inside Karen’s mouth, then David’s. I had taken Daren’s toothbrush out of his bath and his hairbrush, bagging it all up.
“He stabbed her, then she shot him,” Sin said. “Looks like the gun was kept in the drawer next to the stove, but only recently. You can see the marks where a tray used to sit, but now it holds a box of bullets and the gun under an old towel. Probably moved here once Daren was taken, to make Karen feel more secure.”
“She probably told him Daren wasn’t his son,” I said. I kept my voice quiet. No, I’m not sure why. It just seemed rude to be talking about their secrets in front of them, even if they were dead.
“Go put the samples in our kit and get the perimeter taped off. Even if it is a murder-suicide, we don’t need any potential evidence stomped all over by lookie-loos,” Sin said.
“Yeah, good idea. I’ll set up a glove and bootie box by the door, too.”
A few minutes later and I had the scene marked off and the protective gear ready for entry. I took my time as I ran the tape outside. The scent of blood in a home like that still gave me flashes back to when Sin and I walked in to our old house after our folks were taken. There had been blood all over the kitchen and a trail of it out through the front door. It looked like a massacre had hit our home and we had had no idea if our parents were even still alive.
Now, Daren was going to be dealing with the same thing, only his parents weren’t alive. Hell, we didn’t even know if he was. This case had gone from bad to worse on the first day.
Sin came out and handed me a small digital camera. “I had this in my coat and used it to take crime scene shots before the place got overrun. Think they’re okay?”
I flipped through the images, then handed it back. “They look good. I know I should have left his brushes until the scene could be secured, but I wanted to make sure they were just his and not messed up by crime scene powder or something.”
“Naw, you did right. We need the DNA more than the crime scene techs need to catalog a hair brush or toothbrush.”
“There’s the van now,” I said as a black van with the SPD logo pulled up in front of the house. We signed off the scene to the officers and techs and gave them our statements. About an hour later, Sin and I headed back to the lab. When Sin went in to drop off the case full of samples, I called Sett.
“Hey Auntie, Sin and I will be there soon. Sorry for the delay.”
“I heard,” Sett said. “You okay?”
“Yeah, right now I am. I just hope we can find Daren before he tries to go home.”
“Tino is looking for relatives in the event we do find Daren. That way, he has someone to go to,” Sett said.
“Good idea. Sin’s got all the DNA samples and is inside getting stuff logged in to be processed. Please have the coffee on when we get to Grandma’s?”
“She’s been cooking all day. I’ll make sure the coffee is fresh. See you both soon,” Sett said and disconnected the call.
We both needed food and fuel before we did any kind of spell work. Sin came out, handed me the log slips to put in the folder and got us on the road.
It was a silent ride back to the farm.
Chapter Three
Sin
After two helpings of casserole and salad and about half a pot of coffee, I started to feel better. Sure, Sid and I had handled the scene at the Simmons house with every professional act we’d trained in, but the realization that we had found two bodies had hit about the time we pulled away from the lab. It’s not something you can just brush off.
So, food and caffeine, a shower and a change of clothes, and we were both ready to sit with Grandma and Sett and work on this spell.
I should probably start by explaining a little bit about my grandmother. Alicia Meline Fortin had married her distant cousin, Pierre Fortin, when she was twenty-four. That was nearly spinster age back then, but as they were both supernaturals, they didn’t mind waiting. They had four daughters over the space of about fifty or sixty years. My aunts Bernadette and Marie-Sidonie were already adults and mothers by the time my mom, Amelia, and the youngest, Cosette, were born. Pierre died just after Cosette was born, while Bernadette and Marie were killed during the Species War. I never heard what happened to Pierre. No one really spoke about him, but I assumed it had something to do with the Species War. Grandma never remarried and raised her daughters and the two grandchildren on the herb farm that had been in the Fortin family since around 1695 when our however many greats grandmother, Aimee de Rohan, came to Belle Cove from Salem, Massachusetts to marry Jacques Fortin, a fur trader.
Jolie Fortin, Bernadette’s daughter, was currently training under an alchemist and being taught how to not be a murderous douche-nozzle. Micah Harpur, Marie-Sidonie’s son, was down in New Orleans or Georgia or something. Only Grandma got a card from him during the holidays and no one else has heard from him or seen him since just before Sid and I were born. So, yeah, grandma was tough and had been through a lot. You’d think that someone who had lost so much would be bitter and cold. Nope, not our Grandma. She was about five feet tall with her silver-streaked hair braided and wound around her head like a crown. I’ve seen her dressed up a few times, but mostly she went around in cargo pants, work boots, a t-shirt, and a button-up shirt over that, left open. Today’s t-shirt had a picture of three women with pointy hats around a cauldron under a crescent moon and the words “Squad Goals” on it. Instead of her usual open shirt, she was wearing a dark purple hoodie with the sleeves pushed up.
“A hoodie, Grandma? You okay?” Sid teased.
“Have you ever worn one of these, Siddie?” Grandma asked. “They’re all fleecy inside, with a zipper, a hood, and pockets. I love these pockets.”
“Yes, Grandma, I have a couple. They’re very comfortable,” Sid said.
“Why on earth didn’t you tell me how comfortable they were?” Grandma said.
“Because then all of mine would have disappeared a lot sooner. Is that the one that was hanging in the back hall?” Sett asked.
“Yes, it’s my favorite color. I hope you don’t mind me wearing it,” Grandma said to Sett.
Sett grinned smugly. “I don’t mind at all. You see, after I saw you wearing my good gray one and my favorite black one, I went out and bought three in your favorite colors and in your size and hung them where you’d be sure to find them. You’re welcome, Mother.”
Sid burst out laughing and I hid a snort of laughter as I reached out to hug Grandma.
“It looks great on you, Grams. So, what can you tell us about this spell? I’ve done location spells to find my keys or a book or something, but not to find a person.”
“It’s the same general idea, but for a person, you need to be more specific. More detailed. There’s no real issue if you do a spell for ‘keys’ and find three or four that aren’t the exact key you lost – but it would be problematic if that happened with a person. It could send you chasing all over the globe when the one you really need is right down the road,” Grandma explained. “That’s why you need something that was cherished or important to, or often worn by, that person. The toy you had Sett bring me from the boy, Ethan. It is one of his favorites?”
“His mother, Mira, said he slept with it every night and played with it often during the day,” I said.
Grandma’s eyes widened when I said Mira’s name, so I worked hard to keep my expression neutral. I knew she’d be asking me about Mira later. Dammit.
Grandma took us out behind her cottage, into her personal garden – as opposed to the rest of the farm that was also hers, but for the business. We walked down a crushed shell path that gleamed in the moonlight to a small cleared area surrounded by herbs, flowers, and trees. In the clearing, a circle had been made with more of the crushed shells with flat stones at the cardinal points and a larger chunk of mossy granite with a flat top in the middle. Weathered metal holders on the flat stones were soon filled with lit candles and the center stone held candles, a s
ilver bowl and a few plastic bags of stuff.
Grandma crept up next to me and whispered, “What did she smell like?”
I didn’t pretend to not know what she meant. “Lavender and vanilla with a hint of sweet sage.”
Grams left the circle to wander here and there, then returned and lay a sprig each of lavender and sage on the stone. She handed me a baggie that held a piece of vanilla bean. “Put the three into the bowl while visualizing her with everything you’ve got. Then lay the toy on top. Add three drops of water and keep your focus on the mother the whole time. We’ll handle the chant, you just feed that connection of yours into the spell. Got it?”
I pulled the bit of bean out of the bag and stuffed the bag in my pocket. Sett swept the extra out of the way and lay her hands on the stone. Sid stood across from me and lay her hands on the stone, then Grandma joined them. I put the vanilla bean in the bowl, and pictured Mira’s face. The lavender went in and I remembered the feel of her skin when I held her hand. The sage joined the bowl as I thought of how my whole body lit up when I was near her. I lay the toy on top and thought of the strength and determination in her voice when she told us the story of Ethan’s conception. The water from the flask was dripped onto the toy and I remembered the tears she shed out of fear and worry for her son. I could hear the chanting of the spell but the words didn’t register with me. My eyes closed and I kept my focus, my hands pressed to the stone. The cool granite warmed and pulsed, and a bright light grew against my eyelids. Pressure built, then suddenly released, and I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. Grams wrapped the little policeman figure in a soft white cloth and handed it to me. “We’ll do the rest inside.”
I felt energized and yet a little disconnected still as we went back into the house. Sid pushed me into a chair at the table and Sett spread a map of the state out in front of me. Grams came back with a cup of warm tea and handed it to me.
“Take a few sips, it will help you focus,” she said.
I swallowed about half of the cup that had been heavily sugared and felt my head clear. “Better, thanks, Grams.”
Grandma handed me a pendulum – basically a long chain with a pointed crystal at the end. I stood up and shook the wrap from the toy in my left hand and gripped the chain with my right, then held my hand out over the map, the pendulum just barely lifted from the paper.
“By the powers, find the boy. Find Ethan.” The pendulum started to move back and forth, swaying forward and back in a circular pattern. “Find Ethan,” I said. And again, “Find Ethan.” The pendulum swayed out to the edges of the map and then suddenly stopped, the tip hovered over a spot on the map. Sett took a pen and marked the spot and I let my arm drop, the pendulum chain coiling around the stone as I sat back down. The toy wrapped in the cloth once more, I tucked it into a shirt pocket and looked at the spot. “Where is it?”
Sett turned the map and leaned in close. “Sapling Road, on the western edge of Sorsyville.”
Sid had her phone out and pulled up the map program, then showed Sett. “There are only three houses on that road, pretty spaced out. Which do you think it is?”
Sett looked from the phone to the table map and then slid the image on the phone. “I’d start with this one. It’s at the end of the paved road, but there’s a house beyond that along a gravel road. It’s hard to tell whether it’s this one or that, as the table map doesn’t get that granular in detail.”
“How do we handle this, Sett?” I asked. “Because I want to go there right now.”
“We’ll need a team, Sin,” Sett said. “Go get some sleep, if you can. I’ll call up a team and get some rest myself, then we’re going to head out about three in the morning. You need some rest before we can go out again.”
Sid and I nodded, then said our goodnights to Grams before we went back to our cottage for a few hours of sleep.
* * *
I managed at least three hours of sleep, enough to give me energy and clarity for the morning’s activities. A shower, shave, and clean set of clothes and I met Sid in the kitchen, fixing travel mugs with coffee for us.
“You ready for this?” she asked. “For what we might find?”
I took the mug from her hand and got a good swallow of coffee in me before I answered. “I’m ready to find Ethan, scared but otherwise healthy and unharmed. If he’s injured, Mira is going to want to hunt down and decapitate whoever hurt him.”
“And we’ll be there to make sure she doesn’t destroy her life. You don’t want to be visiting your Chosen in Galliol now, do you?”
“Not really, no. Let’s go. Sett will hunt us down if we’re late,” I said and we locked up and headed over to Sett’s cottage, about two hundred yards up the road from ours.
Sett was already outside, checking gear in the back of her SUV. “Good, you’re here. Load up, we’re meeting Tasha, Ian, and the HRT, or hostage rescue team, about two miles from Sapling Road.”
“Hostage rescue?” Sid asked.
“Yeah, they have some skilled shifters and witches on that team. They’re excellent backup even if we don’t need negotiations or anything,” Sett said as we buckled in and got on the road.
“Have you worked with them before?” I said.
“Several times,” Sett said. “Don’t worry, Sin. If there’s a way to get him safely home, this team, and ours, will do it.”
“I hope so,” I said.
We drank our coffee on the ride, and were mostly silent until we pulled into the mini-mart parking lot where the team waited.
Sett got out and shook hands with a couple of the people standing there. A moment later, Sid and I got out and moved to stand near Ian and Tasha. Sett introduced us to Captain Aubrey Stanton and his lieutenant, Yara Jones.
Stanton turned to the group. “Okay, I sent two ahead with thermo cameras to see how many bodies and where they were located. The house closest to the gravel road has three people and a cat. The one further down the gravel drive has one person and two dogs. I’m going to guess that the house we need is the one with more people than pets.”
“That makes sense. We’re looking for children between the ages of three and thirteen. We don’t know if they’re being held together or spread out. The two from Sorsyville are three and ten,” Sett said.
“That would fit with what the camera showed. A smaller and middle sized human and an adult,” Jones said. She tapped her earpiece and quietly told the two scouts that they were to find a place to watch the house and let them know if anything changed.
Sett turned to our team. “We’ll be backup if they need it. We’ll also take custody of everyone they bring out. Unless you’re ordered, you stay back with the medic van. Got it?”
We all answered in the affirmative.
Both teams got into their vehicles and the HRT group led us towards Sapling Road. They slowly rolled down the narrow road to where it changed into gravel, headlights off and engine a muted rumble. We stopped a couple of houses away from the target property and shut everything down. Doors were shut with muted clicks as the team gathered behind the medic van, keeping our coms open to hear if we were needed.
Four went around behind the house, to keep watch on the sides and rear, while three took the front. A loud pounding on the door, with a shouted, “This is the police, we’re coming in.” before the door was kicked open and the officers rushed in. The truck in front splashed the front of the house with spotlights while we listened to voices call out as they cleared rooms on their way to the back room where the thermal signatures had been seen. A shout and we heard two officers say they’d apprehended a woman as she’d tried to climb out a side window. A few more rushed words and someone called out over coms. “Two boys, fitting the descriptions of Ethan and Daren, are in the back bedroom. Daren is cuffed to the wall, but Ethan is in a bed inside a dog kennel. We need bolt cutters in here, people.”
Two medics grabbed their gear and jogged towards the house, while another grabbed bolt cutters and followed. Sid and I fidgeted a lot
while we waited. Staying where we were told to wait was decidedly one of the hardest things I’d done.
About ten minutes had passed when one of the medics carried Ethan out to the van to check him over. The boy was silent and pale, not crying or fussy. Wide blue eyes and dark curly hair, lighter skin and a sturdy little body. Ethan looked only slightly like his mother – but he looked enough like Daren to be a sibling. Daren walked out beside the other medic and sat on the edge of the open doorway while the medic checked him over. Once both boys were given the all-clear, I stepped up with Sett. “Hey guys, I’m Sin and this is Sett.” Daren nodded, but Ethan just sat there. “Ethan, I have something of yours.” I took the policeman doll out of my shirt pocket and handed it to Ethan. His face lit up in a smile and he hugged the doll to him.
Daren put an arm around the younger boy in a protective gesture. “Are we going to be able to go home now?” Daren asked.
Sett crouched down to be more level with Daren’s line of sight. “Daren, you’re going to need to come with me and give us some information, but Ethan will be going home tonight. Once we’re done talking, we’ll get you to your family.”
Only it wouldn’t be the family Daren expected. I was just glad I wouldn’t have to tell the kid his parents were dead.
Daren looked up at me and gave me the strangest smile. The smile was sad, sympathetic, and much too mature for a ten year old’s face. “You don’t have to tell me,” Daren said. “I know my parents are dead. Mom’s spirit visited me on her way back across. I guess I’ll be going to my aunt’s place until they find my real father?”
Sett’s mouth dropped open and she looked up at me, then at Daren. “Uh, yeah. Your Aunt Katy is at your parent’s house. She’ll be taking care of you there for now.”
“That works,” Daren said. “Ethan’s my brother, you know. His father and mine are the same.”
