by Jamie Magee
“Hello,” she said again.
“Um,” a girl’s voice said. “Is Talon there?”
The girl’s voice was shaking so hard that it took Reveca a second to focus on it.
“Amber?” Reveca question.
“Oh, Reveca, hey.”
“What’s going on?” Reveca asked as she looked to the bathroom door, as she heard the water still running.
“Nothing.”
“You sound terrified.”
“I’m fine. Just working a lot.”
“Okay. Talon is in the shower.”
“Um…”
“Amber, tell me right now what’s wrong,” Reveca demanded.
“Nothing, I swear. He asked me to look into something. Just tell him I know the ingredients. That’s all.”
Right then the water in the shower cut off. “I’ll tell him.”
“Okay,” the girl said weakly, then hung up.
Reveca looked at the time; it was just barely six in the morning. She couldn’t figure out why that girl was so scared, like she had something to hide. Right as Talon opened the door wearing only a towel it hit her.
“I told you that Amber should not or rather could not work for us. That the income we gave her linked us to her.”
Talon hesitated, looked to his phone on the dresser, then moved past Reveca to the closet. “When I told you I wanted to help her you said that. I agreed, then I figured out that if we paid for school in cash there would be no link to us.”
“And how was she supposed to justify the cash she was spending?” Reveca shot back. She was all for charity, good karma, but not when it could threaten her Club. And the fact that Talon knew that and kept this from her was causing her skin to flush with anger.
“Knight set up an online business, faked out customers and such, enough that if anyone looked it seemed legit,” Talon said as he came out of the closet, now wearing a new set of jeans and a black wife beater.
“You hired her,” Reveca said with a cold glint in her stare. “You hired her and kept that from me? Put her in the one thing I told you we had to protect, keep clean, to not fuck with.”
“I did,” Talon said holding her stare. “She is in debt to us and terrified. She would not fuck us over and we need someone we can trust.”
“We can’t trust anyone. Especially some gothed out wannabe biker ol lady.”
“She came here on a bad date, Reveca. You were there, you were the one that said we should help.”
“Put a roof over her head, help her with school. It was my good deed for that month. Now I find out she’s been working for us—or should I say you, because the details of the whole deal is kept on the down low.”
“I’m not going to argue this with you, Vec. We need a chemist to dissect this drug. I have one.”
“One that is terrified. Her was voice was shaking. Are you threating her?”
“Me? Do such a thing?” Talon said as he leaned his head back slightly, even daring to grin.
Before Reveca could respond, figure out if she had the energy to be pissed about this, if Talon was hiding more from her, both their phones went off. “Breakfast.”
“You got to be fucking kidding me,” Talon said, grabbing his kut and sliding it on.
“Blackwater see you last night?” Reveca asked.
“If he did he wouldn’t remember it. The boys said before he even made it in the lounge he had six beers. When I got here I told them to carry him home. That was only a few hours ago. He’s surely still sleeping it off.”
Reveca cussed under her breath as she went down the stairs. Talon wasn’t far behind her. The rest of the house came out of their rooms but stayed in the shadows of the hall. The house looked like it was still asleep even though it had barely wound down from the night before.
Reveca opened the door to see the commanding officer from the other night standing there, as well as two uniformed cops.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” Reveca said, squinting her eyes in the early morning sun glaring down.
“Miss Beauregard, I’d like to have a word with you.”
Simply to get the sun out of her face she stepped out of her doorway. As she did, the commanding officer clasped her arm. “Reveca Beauregard, we need you to come to the station. You’re wanted for questioning.”
“Questing about what? What can you not question me about here?” Reveca said, looking at his grip as if he had lost his mind.
“Murder, one that was committed last night, and the ones prior to that. We can discuss how you basically lived with a man that confessed to killing Newberry in the same fashion.”
“This is not legal.”
“You’re welcome to call your lawyer to be present. These officers will read you your rights, if do not clearly know them by heart at this time.”
“You fuck, I’ve never been arrested,” Reveca said to him as Talon argued from the doorway. Reveca gave him a hard glare that told him not to step out. She was feeling like an idiot for doing so. If Talon stepped one foot out they would bring him in, too, for something.
Right as the officers were reading her Miranda rights and explaining what was going to happen, Blackwater peeled into the front lot and charged his car all the way to the front porch. He nearly face-planted getting out of his car. “Stop. I was with her last night.”
The commanding officer looked over Blackwater nice and slow. His suit was wrinkled and the faint smell of beer and mouthwash was coming off of him in subtle waves.
“You were off duty last night, and you have not answered any of our calls this morning.”
“I logged off and told them I was here. They needed eyes. You checked with the wrong department. I’m her alibi,” Blackwater said as he looked to Reveca then Talon, clearly wanting to make sure they heard that, saw him fighting for her.
“We’re sorting this out at the station,” the commanding officer said as he nodded for officers to guide Reveca to their cruisers.
Reveca didn’t resist, and in fact, looked calm as ever. This was some lawman’s game, payback for their botched raid. She didn’t know what new murders she was being questioned about, but she knew that whoever even dared to think to set her up for this ride to the station was going to regret the day they were born.
She didn’t have the time or patience to deal with this. But she sure as hell was going to figure how or why they were linking these murders to her.
They thought they were about to question her.
They were so wrong.
EPISODE SIX
Chapter One
Thirty-four hours. That was how long Reveca Beauregard had been sitting in that one, small room. Mostly alone.
Not always, though. At least once an hour someone would come in and ask if she wanted a drink or something to eat. Her lawyer had arrived no more than two hours after Reveca had. The reason for his delay was that, by mistake, surely, he was told Reveca was at a different station. The pair of them waited for another four hours side by side for the ‘questioning’ to begin. When it didn’t, Reveca sent her lawyer on his way, told him to wake every judge he could find, get her out of that box.
Easier said than done, apparently. The lawmen were clinging to their law—drawing out the window of time they could hold and question Reveca.
They thought they were intimidating her, but all they were doing was filling in the missing pieces to these mysterious murders that could not be explained, beyond a forced overdose.
With her enhanced hearing, if she focused, she could hear the mumble of conversation on the other side of the mirror which was before her, and if she was lucky, if she could sort through all the ramblings in the station, she could hear lawmen down the hall in other rooms speaking about this case that made no sense at all.
They had nothing that connected. Their witness for the murder, which happened the night before, claimed Reveca was somewhere at the exact same time that Blackwater did, and if the timeline was disputed, before that she was with Mathis Tubbs.
Still, because those victims had shattered bones, and they had two other murder cases which were done the same way, they jumped the gun. Someone did at least. It didn’t sound like they were all on board with bringing in Reveca.
She could hear them arguing about her alibis for every time of death. She had no idea what her lawyer had told them about the night Newberry died or the night the other victim did. For Newberry’s she was dealing with Holden, then a face to face with Blackwater. The other, she was making her way back from taking Cashton to the Veil. And last night Blackwater claimed she was home.
Reveca heard the name of the witness and the victim and honestly had no idea who they were. That wasn’t all that shocking. More people were aware of her than she was of them in the public eye. People loved a good story, and the witch that ran with the Pentacle Sons was just that.
Where the murders were committed, a graveyard, told Reveca it was just that, a story. The only witches that concocted spells or lurk near graves are the dime store ones. She was nearly insulted that she would be associated with something like that. That information, where the deaths occurred, did give Reveca just enough information to do her own investigation, though.
She’d yet to touch the table or anything in that room and didn’t plan to any time soon. Carefully she pulled her legs up, crossed them so that all of her was balanced on that one chair, then she folded her hands and let them rest on her lap. She bowed her head, and her long hair almost completely curtained her face.
Those watching would assume she was simply resting—that their exhaustion techniques were paying off—but Reveca was slipping into a deep meditation.
Reveca could always see her Edge if she wanted to, close her eyes and breathe in and there it was, a vision of it. If she needed to reach her people who resided there, that is exactly how she did it. She saw it in her mind, thought what she needed to say, and then she would watch understanding come over their visage.
To go there, to speak and interact, was an entirely different story.
The more time she spent in the mortal world the harder it was for her to reach her Edge in a tangible form. She had to use the passageways on and around the waterways of GranDee’s property, or pull together enough energy to cast a spell that pushed her deep enough into her mind that she could project her soul there.
The whole idea of her being the queen of death, or the Edge, was insane to her. Most monarchs would prefer their land; it would be where they thrived. The Edge wasn’t that to Reveca. It was a prison she escaped, a place she didn’t care to acknowledge or spend time within unless she had to.
Reveca had nothing she needed to reach the Edge. So this idea should have been a long shot, but her body, even after a day’s time, was still humming from King’s touch. Her soul was. It was like she could feel him coursing through her, at times, in that cold gray room. She was sure she had felt him, his presence watching over her. Each time she would glance up when she felt the sensation she’d find nothing, and owned that disappointment. He was haunting her, and she didn’t want him to stop—she wanted him to get better at it.
He may be destroying her, breaking her all over again, making her feel like a young girl, but at the same time he was empowering her. Revitalizing her energy. And right now she was going to use that power, draw from it.
One long, deep breath and she felt her body relax. She held her Edge in her mind and let her soul soar. When her eyes fluttered open she was within the break between death and life.
It is said that in the Veil all souls can manifest their world around them. They could make entire towns that are symbolic to the homes they lived in at one time, much like what Cashton had done.
It’s different with the Edge. The Edge is all nature—vast fields, forests, oceans, rivers and mountains. It’s meant to be full of serenity, but the moods of the recently dead have the power to change the expression of the atmosphere. It could be dark and terrifying, bright and sweet, or somewhere in the middle.
It was somewhere in the middle just then.
It wasn’t long after Reveca arrived that her most loyal guardian of the Edge, Erio, appeared at her side. He was the first of the dead she ever spoke to after the Edge was created. Over time they became friends. When Reveca found her way out she asked him to come, but he told her that was his home, and he’d been there ever since.
Erio looked no more than thirty, but his solid white hair would throw anyone. And if that didn’t, then his violet eyes surely would. Overall, he calmed those that came by him, but when a heavy hand was needed, when he had to be fierce, he was just that.
“You look well,” Erio determined as he watched Reveca search the horizon.
“You were always a horrible liar,” Reveca said with a weak smile.
“Which is why I don’t. I’ve never seen you this corporeal out of your body, not since we first met.”
When Reveca didn’t bother to remark on his compliment, he went on. “The souls you sent to us last night are ready, compressed to be carried, if you are here to take them to Crass.”
“Not today. I may add a few more to that gift package before it’s passed along.”
Erio grinned darkly. “As you wish. I highly doubt the living world is missing those you sent us last night.”
If anyone knew how ominous those men were that the Son’s took out last night it would be Erio. When they are seized by him, then compressed, the way Newberry was, the soul is revealed—he witnessed all their dark deeds and thoughts. If any purity is to be found within, if the evil done was for the greater good, there would be no way for Erio or any other which resided with him to harness a soul in such a small package.
“I’m hunting for a recently dead,” Reveca said, still staring in the distance.
Her gaze was stuck on the section of the Edge called the Unclaimed. It was near black, or at least the skies above the mountains and valley always stayed that way. The name was confusing because the souls there were claimed. Not by the Veil or the bright light, but by the darkness. Somewhere in life those souls had traversed a regrettable path. They were in debt to darkness and would have to pay that debt in some fashion before they moved onward.
The dark Gods or Lords of death could not come for the souls there, and the souls could not escape that range of land. They had to choose to pay their debt, and when. Some decided to be cowards and never leave. If that notion kept up, Reveca was going to have to do something about it. From where she stood it looked as if the dark cloud above it was starting to expand ever so slightly. She wasn’t going to give those vile souls any more real estate than she had to.
“You want to be more specific?” Erio said with a hint of humor.
“They died near where I lurk with the mortals.” Before Erio could respond, she asked, “Are none of the Unclaimed moving on?”
“Not willingly. The skies will thunder and torment them then a few will pay their debts. The issue is that several of the newly dead are passing to there. More are arriving, less are leaving.”
Reveca narrowed her stare on the distance. She wasn’t fond of walking souls to Crass; over time the karma would be hard to balance. But if she could give him those souls, souls that had already passed a judgment, were already due a hell to endure—it would take Reveca out of the equation, and cleanse her Edge all at once.
She couldn’t though, not as far as she knew. There was an energy barrier around that land that would weaken Reveca when she approached it. She didn’t fear much, but the idea of being trapped there was not something she cared to toy with.
“The dead that crossed last night, days before, they would have the same death marks as Newberry, the soul I gave to Crass. Shattered bones.”
Erio looked down then up. “Then they walked his same path.”
“The Unclaimed?”
Reveca cursed under her breath. The only reason Erio was able to suspend Newberry along with the souls Reveca sent here the night before was because they were spelled, protected from being pulled into the
Unclaimed. Reveca wasn’t exactly sure how Saige had protected Newberry since according to her she was not there at his death, but Reveca had ensured all those the Sons took down were locked in her domain by casting a spell over the ammo the Sons used. She laid the claim on them at death, and that would hold long enough for her to move them on to Crass. If she never did move them, the Unclaimed land would eventually pull them there.
“There weren’t many deaths in the land you walk last night. There were the ones you sent, a few that the light took, others are on the path to the Veil, but the mortal wounds you speak of, none of them had those. So if you are certain they did die, then the Unclaimed is the only place they can be.”
Reveca’s grand plan for using her pointless reign over this Edge to ask the victim who indeed killed them was now null and void.
“I want you to watch the land where I lurk. If any one crosses with those marks, you hold them. You summon me. Even if you have to push them back, do so.”
Pushing the souls back, having them linger closer to life than death was not something that was done often, never really, unless Reveca was trying to bring back an immortal. But it could be done. Reveca had seen souls do it on their own, fall into death only to push their way back, and if they got close enough to life, they made it.
“Consider it done,” Erio said.
Right as Reveca dared to lurk closer to the Unclaimed, to see if she could find this victim at a distance, she felt her soul being pulled back, a defense mechanism of her vessel.
She glanced to Erio and grinned before she vanished from his sight.
Reveca listened for a second before she opened her eyes, gauged her surroundings. When she was clearly aware that someone was jabbing her shoulder, her eyes snapped open.
“Nice nap?” Officer O’Brian asked. That was his name, the commanding officer who’d found far too much pleasure in hauling Reveca off the day before.
Reveca had learned his name—and that he was a liar—from her lawyer. He was a commanding officer, but the raid, that was all Blackwater. It was his case. O’Brian was asked to assist, ensure that Blackwater kept to the book with the raid. Which is why he was calling the shots that night.
