Something In The Water (Cast In Shadow Book 2)

by A J Brahms

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  SUMMARY

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Smoke And Mirrors

  Glossary

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Something In The Water

  Cast In Shadow

  A J Brahms

  Caldwell Press

  For my father

  SUMMARY

  My black market blood dealer, Emmet Carson, is dead. So are three other people, all found in Lake Lanier. No one had to hire me to unravel this mystery. This was personal.

  Or it was, before the Head of the Talmadge Family, Jedediah, requested my presence once again. This time a magic cup is missing, stolen out of the New York safe house, a place that holds Night Walker artifacts. It was stolen by another Ghoul, and Jedediah wants me to find it. After all, she and I were in the same club of previously owned humans.

  Throw in a Vampiric Countess, a sleeping Ancient and a myth even I didn't believe existed, not to mention, there is something in the water...

  One

  "I have no idea who she is," I said for the hundredth time and crossed my arms over my chest. "We're in a morgue…I wouldn't be surprised if she's some ghost wandering around."

  But she wasn't. That much I knew. I just didn't know how to explain it to my colleagues.

  Detectives Julie Wallace and Luke Meehan stood in the new M.E.'S office with me, looking at the Polaroids I'd just taken of Emmet Carson's body. Yes. Polaroids. The kind you have to peel the back off of. Why old style?

  Cause that's just how I roll.

  My name's Renwick Grainger. I'm a Photographer, among other things. I tentatively take pictures for a little known part of the local police department called SIS, Special Investigations Service. And when I say little known, I really mean, little known. As in I think about five of us know it exists. Me, Julie, Luke, the captain who runs the show and my best friend, Aberdeen Windersham.

  No joke. And you might have thought my name was odd.

  Now, to catch everyone up: I'm a Ghoul, this means I was created by a Vampire, or a Night Walker as they prefer to be called, in 1964. It was at that moment I stopped aging. So I look like I'm in my twenties even though I'm really not. I am also a Chevalier, which was a type of particularly trained Ghoul—picture Special Forces for Night Walkers—who served and catered to the vampire community at large. I protected my Maker with my life when I was alive as I was compelled by her blood to do everything she ever told me to do.

  And I mean…everything.

  My Maker is long dead, and with no Childers still living, I am a free Ghoul. No master. This fascinates and irritates the Night Walkers to no end because by their own law, of which I know very little about, Ghouls are no longer permitted. Especially Chevaliers. There's a story there. I just wish someone would tell me what it was.

  My existence and this law places several stresses on me to survive. One of those stresses is to continue living as a Ghoul.

  One of the perks, as I mentioned, was I no longer aged. But as a Ghoul I'm not permanently immortal. I can be killed if I bleed out. I can be decapitated just like any other blood sucker. And I can break things although I do heal pretty fast. The thing that makes this possible is the Night Walker blood inside of me. If I had to get down to technicalities, I'm dead. But not dead. I have to drink a Night Walker's blood every 30 days to keep myself alive. If I miss even one month then all the years of my life will catch up to me in an instant. So imagine me abruptly becoming a man in his mid- seventies. The body can't handle that kind of trauma. Death is the usual outcome for Ghouls who miss a feeding. And I've been told it's a very painful death.

  Imagine how ugly that death would be in a hundred years?

  Insta-dust.

  Julie, Luke and the Captain know I'm different, and that I'm somehow tied to Night Walkers. They don't know I'm a Ghoul. I'm not even sure that term is known these days. But the fewer who do know the more comfortable I feel.

  Now, my BF Aberdeen isn't human either. He was human at one point, like myself, but not anymore. He's a Gargoyle. And before anyone thinks they know what a Gargoyle is, let me correct you now.

  You don't.

  Yes; Gargoyles are made of stone.

  Yes; Gargoyles protect buildings most notably churches.

  No; Gargoyles are not captured demons made to serve God. They were humans, blessed and cursed to serve God on Earth. Aberdeen had been a Priest. A Cardinal…I think. I really need to clarify that with him one day. His Order was one formed to eradicate the scourge of Vampires and demons in the world. Until one day the leader of the order betrayed them, especially Aberdeen, and cursed him as a Gargoyle. He'd become stone then, a figure atop one of the most famous churches in the world unable to move.

  Until I came along and freed him. He's been my companion ever since. Companion, not lover. I'm into girls. Not guys.

  No shipping please.

  Time to get back to the present.

  The man I was taking pictures of was the former Coroner. A man not quite human, though I'd never been able to figure out what he was. And he was my supplier of black market Night Walker blood. Remember my addiction, so to speak? It wasn't like the stuff was in the local convenience store. I had to get it somewhere. And Emmet was it. Till a few weeks ago when he went missing. I'd ordered from him before he went MIA, and I found the order and took it at a moment of need. IE — bad shape.

  That was nearly three weeks ago. And now his body had turned up in Lake Lanier, one of the now four bodies dredged out of the water in a month. The media was having a field day with this story. The police believed they had caught the actual strangler a week earlier, a man named Mitchell Graybeard. I'd half expected him to look like Gandalf when he showed up on the news with a name like that. But he was young, maybe my age when I was made. And he was a land owner in the area. Owned several of the houses on the shore near where all the bodies were found.

  Sheila Elliston, the former day-time M.E., had judged time of death after Graybeard was arrested. This had caused a firestorm with the media. Luke and Julie called me in minutes after they knew the findings, before it was announced. I was more worried that Sheila would find out the guy was not human, and if she went public with her findings she'd end up a target of every unconventional conventional out there who wanted to keep their existence a secret.

  But so far, nothing had flagged.

  I took pictures for them since the suspect wasn't the suspect anymore and I had yielded results in the past.

  That's when the girl kept showing up in my Polaroids. I took these when I spoke to the victim, hoping the spirit would give me a clue to what happened to them. And Polaroids worked best at this.

  Except when I peeled them all apart and She Who Is Not Known showed up. In all of them. Which was a rarity.

  It was also a rarity that I let others see these initial pictures. I liked doing this by myself because sometimes what they show me…isn't for the living. But given we all knew Emmet, letting Julie and Luke see them didn't seem to be a problem.

  Until the girl.

  She was exotic looking. Dark hair. Tanned skin. Dark eyes. It was hard to see the details in her face because the images sort of blurred. The
y usually didn't do that. And we couldn't really see what she was wearing. It was more of an impression of her.

  Regardless of who or why she was there, my experience said the ghostly images were either that of the dead person, or the one that killed them. Since they didn't look anything like Emmet—we all assumed this was the killer.

  The door opened and Aberdeen stepped in. Julie smiled at him, Luke nodded and I gave him a look of HELP ME!

  He was dressed in his usual Professor Clothing, as I called them. Khaki pants, loafers (Italian, of course), shirt, suit jacket with patches on the elbows and a soft blue scarf. He really looked the part when he dressed like this, and the fact his cover (and his real job) was that he was a Professor of Ancient Studies or something at a local college, helped immensely. They knew I was strange but none of them knew what Aberdeen was.

  Other than a dead ringer for Jeremy Irons.

  "Hey Aberdeen," Luke said as he stepped back so the taller, thinner man could take a look at the pictures spread out on the desk. "You see her?"

  "Indeed I do." He looked at me. "Who is she?"

  I threw up my hands. "Why does everyone think I know who that is?"

  "You took the picture."

  I glared at him as I put my hands on my hips.

  "Eh, just calm down, Ren," Julie said as she leaned over the photos. "I've seen some of your Polaroids and they're usually not this vague."

  "No…" Aberdeen said. "They're not. It's almost as if she doesn't exist from the waist down."

  "Like a ghost?" Luke piped up.

  "No." The Gargoyle moved around the desk as he tilted his head this way and that. "Is she supposed to be his killer?"

  "We don't know," I said.

  "That's odd. Wait," he stepped back and put his hand on my shoulder. "You don't think this was Emmet's secret, do you? What made him a little off? He was really a woman and this is the true look of his spirit?"

  I rolled my eyes and pushed his hand away. "Get serious, please. Emmet wasn't a woman. I'm not seeing Emmet's spirit at all. Just hers. And I just don't sense that she's his killer either."

  "Then why would she be in the pictures?" Julie asked.

  I scratched at my beard. "No idea. Unless it's a message? Funny thing is—she never answered any of my questions either."

  When I take these pictures, I go through a litany of questions. The same ones every time and then snap a picture after each question and make a note what the question was. Things like, who killed you? Did you see them? Can you tell me anything? The spirits don't really answer but sometimes they point or make gestures.

  Not this spirit. She was standing right beside Emmet's body the whole time just…staring down at him. And given he'd been in the lake for a while, Emmet's earthly remains weren't in good shape.

  Aberdeen crossed his arms over his chest. "Is there a report on Mr. Carson?"

  "Yeah," Luke said as he offered a folder to Aberdeen. "His death matches the same evidence left behind with the other three bodies."

  "Such as?"

  Julie answered. "Drowning." She smirked. "But they all have this," and she moved one of my shots closer, the one that had a good profile of Emmet's face and shoulders. With her pinkie, she gestured around the neck. "All of them have this strange looking banding around their necks. Sheila thought it was some kind of restraint."

  "Not some kind of garrote?" Aberdeen said.

  "No." Luke sighed. "It's marked more like something stiff. Like a collar. See how there are defining lines with about two inches apart?"

  I bent down and looked at the photo and absently put my own hand to my neck. I recognized the markings immediately because I'd had them for a while early on in my Chevalier training. "It is a collar. Like an old slave collar." I pointed out the marks. "Those marks, the ones above and below, are where the edges of the metal cut into the flesh."

  "You seem pretty sure," Julie said and I felt her eyes on me.

  "I am." I straightened and held out my hand for the report in Aberdeen's hand. I scanned the report, and noticed something very…odd. Gross, and odd. "It says…" I looked at Aberdeen. "You see this?"

  "Yes I did."

  "What?" Luke walked to where I was standing and looked over my shoulder.

  It was Aberdeen who answered. "Mr. Carson was partially drained of fluids, from two punctures at the back of his tongue."

  Luke had the same reaction I did and put his hand at his throat and stuck out his tongue. "What some kind of lake vampire?"

  "Not blood, detective," Aberdeen said. "Fluids."

  I looked at him. "Mermaids?"

  Aberdeen nodded. "Possible."

  Julie held out her hands as if to stop a car. "Whoa…wait a second. Mermaids? I didn't know mermaids sucked body fluid. I thought they just lured men to their deaths."

  "The fluid they feast on is known as CSF, as in the report of what's missing in all the victims. Cerebrospinal Fluid." He tapped the back of his neck. "Your spinal fluid."

  "You can't live without that," I said. "So yes they lure men and women to their deaths to drown, but it doesn't stop there. The drowning is a way to keep the prey still so they can tap that vein and enjoy." I shivered. "I just…mermaids…in Lake Lanier?"

  "We don't know that for sure," Luke said then looked at me and then at Aberdeen. "Is there a way to confirm this?"

  Aberdeen smirked. "Take a swim?"

  I put a hand on Aberdeen's arm. "Why don't you go dig up all you can on mermaids? Find out their history? Like…how mermaids would be in Lake Lanier?"

  "I live to serve," Aberdeen gave me a sarcastic bow and headed out of the room. To anyone else, his actions would seem salty or a bit asinine. But I knew Aberdeen. Research and documentation were life to him. He'd have all the information we'd need on mermaids in half a day.

  "I seriously don't understand how you put up with him," Julie looked at me. "Or your relationship."

  I smiled as I gathered up my photos. "It's complicated."

  Luke had moved to the door of the office and was texting. "Sorry guys, I need to run. It's going on midnight and the misses is wanting ice-cream."

  "At least she doesn't want pickles with it," Julie said.

  Luke snorted. "No. She just wants the juice. She pours it over the ice-cream." He paused at the door. "Gonna take a look at the lake in the morning, Ren. Wanna go?"

  "Sure." I could take more pictures.

  "I'll pick you up at eight. Night all," and he was gone.

  "How far along is Laura?" I asked.

  "On the precipice of nine months." Julie picked up her own jacket from a nearby couch and slipped it on. "She looks like she's about fourteen months. All I know is she's uncomfortable and about to pop. Her ankles are as big around as my waist." She smiled as I slipped my bag over my shoulder. "Wanna…go grab a drink?"

  I wanted to say yes. Julie and I had been spending time together. Nothing serious. Fishing, a few shows I was able to get tickets for. We'd kissed…once. And I wanted more. So much more. But I'd never told her exactly what I was. What I could do.

  I was too afraid, not wanting to destroy our friendship. Once a human saw me…well, once they knew my eating habits, the civility usually took a hike.

  For a very long time.

  I started to reach out to her, to move a stray strand of her hair from her face when I sensed them. It was a rise in tension for me. A whisper in my ear. Something no one else could hear or see. But me.

  They were outside. And they were waiting on me. It'd been weeks since I spoke to any of the Talmadge Family. No contact after Jedediah Talmadge, the Family's Patriarch, drank my blood and saw…something in my past.

  Were they outside because Jedediah couldn't stand the silence any longer? Or maybe they were there because he'd broke his promise and told them exactly what he witnessed?

  No matter the reason, there were Talmadge Night Walkers outside. The last thing I wanted them to notice was Julie Wallace, or my interest in her. I knew how Night Walkers worked. If the
y couldn't get to their victim, they would destroy what their target loved.

  "Ren? You okay? You look a little…I don't know…panicked?"

  I put my hand on hers. "Go out the back door. I'll take a raincheck on the drink, okay? We should be rested before we head out to Lanier in the morning."

  But she wasn't budging. "What is it? Why are you so pale?"

  What was I going to tell her? Yeah, she and Luke knew about the Talmadge Family, but because the Family never broken the law, or at least human law, their existence remained untouched. That and part of the SIS's doctrine was to watch and then act, only when laws were broken. She didn't know what I was, so she didn't know why I couldn't refuse them. And now wasn't the time to go into Ghouls and Vampires and their pretty messed up relationships.

  And like I said…I didn't want them to notice her.

  "Look," I made sure she was looking at me. "Just go out the back, okay? I'm pretty sure there are photographers and reporters at the front. Remember, Sheila's report is going to piss some people off, not to mention it makes the guy they have in custody look innocent."

  She searched my face. I don't think she believed me, but she nodded. "Okay. We'll call before we pick you up in the morning." She kissed my cheek and left the office.

  I stood there for a few seconds just enjoying the High School afterglow of the cheek kiss. I touched my cheek before I called Occam.

  I heard her distant caw before she appeared in the air before me. A large raven, Occam was the representation of the animalistic nature of what I am. I told her to watch over me, and in case things went south I muttered to her on the way out the door, "Find Aberdeen and tell him the apartment's his."

  Two

  My Prius was in the parking lot. Silver. One of my better investments.

  Standing around it were three of them. Aubrey I recognized with his white topknot. The other two had darker hair, which meant they weren't as old. Probably the new flunkies taking over Beau Woodard's position as one of Jedediah Talmadge's henchmen.