Kel blinked at him. “You think I did that just for the hell of it? I wasn't in control when I blew the window.”
That stopped him dead.
“Who did have control, then?” Giles asked into the silence.
She couldn't stop rubbing her shoulder, and Nate remembered the way she'd screamed when that bastard had stepped on her wound. He clenched his fists. Then she lifted both hands to her head, rubbed her temples.
“That's the question, isn't it?” She laughed. “The big question.”
“Keep it together, Kel.” He spoke sharply, afraid if she lost it now, they would not like the result.
“I think Greenway implanted a verbal trigger in my head. Only it's gone wrong. It doesn't work the way they meant it to.” She watched him as she spoke, and he admired the control she was forcing on herself.
“Well, shit.” Giles changed gear as they turned onto a highway.
She lifted stricken eyes to his. “Those people back there, they all knew me by name. I knew them, too. They felt familiar.”
She flopped back against the seat and closed her eyes. “There are others like me, others the trigger doesn't work properly on. They're out there somewhere. Scattered because your commander wanted to close Greenway down. Those two who caught me...” She drew in a shaky breath, opened her eyes again. “The trigger worked on them. They work for Greenway. They spoke about ops.”
Giles whistled. “A paranormal black ops team under Greenway's control? That should have given him major ammo against the Colonel. Why didn't he use it? If he had a successful team, he'd have been untouchable. He'd have been allowed to keep anyone he wanted.”
“Unless the good doc hasn't told anyone. Maybe there's more money in private enterprise.” Nate felt a headache brewing. “More control.”
“And what did it matter giving the others up, anyway, when the trigger didn't work on them? They're broken.” Kel crossed her arms over her stomach, looked out the window. “Like me.”
Nate forced himself into her space and grabbed her hand. “You are not broken.”
She studied him, calm, dry-eyed. “I'm sure as hell not myself. I need to look at the files I stole from Greenway's office. See if there is any information on what he tried to do. And...” she bit her lip. “I'm going to see if I can track down the others he let go. Break them out of whatever cage he delivered them to.”
His reaction was gut-deep. “No.”
She lowered her eyes, then lifted them again. Drew her hand out of his. “I'm sorry, Nate. I don't answer to you. I will always be grateful for hooking up with you and Giles. You helped me get free, saved my life. But I'm not crawling into a hole and wondering when Greenway is going to come find me. Not when there are others like me out there. Stuck in the hell we were in, with no one to save them.”
He sighed. Turned in the seat. Watched the Merc eat up the road.
“Would certainly bring unwanted attention to the facility if we sprung some of the former inmates.” Giles pulled down the sun visor as the sun rose higher on the horizon.
“Giles, I don't expect you to get involved...” Nate sensed Kel's double-take as she looked at Giles properly. He was still way too thin, but otherwise, he was no longer at death's door.
“Seems you have a good effect on me.” Giles grinned at her in the rearview mirror.
“We're all sticking together.” Nate tried to keep his hands relaxed on his thighs.
“Why would you do that? Why would you help me?” Kel leaned between the seats, and he smelled the forest in her hair.
“Yeah, Nate. Why wouldya?” Giles drawled.
“We're a good team. And... I don't want you out of my sight.” He ignored Giles, spoke only to Kel.
“I'm not changing my mind about finding the others.”
He nodded. “All right. But we make a plan, and we stick to it. No flying to the ceiling or out of windows.”
She started. “You didn't like the ceiling thing?”
“Nate doesn't like anything he hasn't authorized in advance, unless it's him doing it.” Giles said.
“Well, guess we're in for a fun time, then.” Kel smiled, leaned in and brushed a kiss on his cheek.
And as the press of her lips on his skin burned him bone deep, the bastard of it was, he thought she might be right.
o0o
Note from the author:
When I was invited to contribute to this amazing anthology by Edie Ramer and Misty Evans, I hesitated. Not because I didn't want to be involved—I did—I simply hadn't written anything contemporary and paranormal before.
I write historical fiction, and my historical series, published through Simon & Schuster imprint Gallery Books, IN A TREACHEROUS COURT (out now) and KEEPER OF THE KING'S SECRETS (due out in February 2012), is set in the court of Henry VIII.
I wondered if I was up for the challenge of not only writing in a different genre, but in a different story-form as well, never having tackled a short story before.
As you can tell from the length of this one, I'm still working on getting the short-story form perfected, but I certainly enjoyed writing in this genre, and love even more that my first foray into it is for such a good cause.
One of my critique partners, Liz Kreger, who has also contributed to this anthology, is still fighting cancer, and her strength and courage are a constant inspiration to me. My grandfather, my mother-in-law and my aunt died of cancer, and any small part I can play in helping to find a cure for this disease is something I'm proud to do.
I hope you love reading this story as much as I loved writing it.
Michelle Diener
Visit me at www.michellediener.com or Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Ghostly Justice
A Seven Deadly Sins Novella
Allison Brennan
Chapter One
Detective Grant Nelson sat in his car outside the Los Angeles County morgue waiting for the two people he least wanted to see. He twisted the top off a bottle of generic aspirin, dumped a few in his hand, tossed them in his mouth, and chewed. He chased the familiar, bitter taste with lukewarm coffee, though he’d have preferred to follow the meds with a double shot of Jack Daniels.
It had been a month since Grace Harvest Church had been damn near destroyed in a supernatural battle that he helped cover up. Who would believe that a coven of witches had used a demon to kill men they didn’t like? Who would believe that a demon named Lust had possessed his girlfriend and nearly killed him? And who would believe that he’d seen Lust in its twisted, sick, and surprisingly huge snake-like form?
Grant had never given Heaven or Hell much thought until an insidious evil nearly killed him, clogging his lungs until he nearly suffocated. Lust’s burning touch had invisibly charred his skin and though he showered three, four, five times a day he couldn’t shake the cloak of darkness that surrounded him.
He’d seen a woman thrown across the church with a force so great she’d cracked the brick wall when her body hit. He’d seen the glowing light of souls, the burning pit of Hell, and profound bravery against overwhelming odds.
He accepted it all because he had no choice: he’d seen it. It was much harder to accept that Julie had sacrificed herself to save him, or that she’d set him up in the first place. He certainly hadn’t been worthy, and would have gladly changed places with her as she lay dying in his arms.
He’d screwed up his relationship with every woman he touched, but Julie was his worst failure. He didn’t want to look too closely at his personal life because he wouldn’t like what he saw.
He was supposed to go back to work two days ago, but had called in sick. His partner Jeff was still on desk duty recuperating from a couple cracked ribs. Jeff seemed to have been unaffected by the supernatural happenings at Grace Harvest last month, but he’d been unconscious for most of it. Grant was physically in better shape than his partner, but he couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and looked like a street bum. He glanced in the rearview mirror, rubbing his prickly chi
n. Damn, he’d forgotten to shave, his two-day growth coming in darker and redder than his dirty blonde hair.
But did he care? The only thing that stopped him from killing himself was his promise to Julie. She’d asked him for one thing, and dammit, he would fulfill her dying request before he decided whether to blow his brains out.
Grant was close to solving the mystery Julie had laid at his feet, and when he did then he’d think about the future. She’d asked him to find out what happened to Amy Carney, a sixteen-year-old murder victim. He couldn’t ask how Julie had known that the Jane Doe who’d been in the morgue for the past six months was Amy Carney, but he’d promised Julie that he would find Amy’s parents, have her body buried, and give both Amy’s ghost and her parents’ closure.
But when he found out the circumstances of Amy Carney’s death, he realized that he needed to bring in the experts.
He was a cop. A damn good cop. He’d made detective early in his career, he closed cases, he was the go-to guy for tough assignments. While his personal life was a mess, he’d never had problems on the job. But he wasn’t an expert about this shit—the woo-woo crap he never believed in before he saw it. He was a good cop because he relied on people who knew their job—the CSIs, the M.E., the prosecutors.
Now he had to rely on two people he’d sworn he’d never see again. Demon hunters.
He didn’t know if a human being or a demon from Hell or something else supernatural killed Amy Carney. All he knew from reading the files was she was murdered in a highly unusual way and he was stunned that he hadn’t heard about the death when it first happened. Why didn’t the press have a big write up? Why all the secrecy?
A truck pulled into the public parking lot and parked kitty corner to him. Cooper and O’Donnell. A wave of conflicted feelings had him grinding his teeth and regretting the call.
It looked like never again would have to start next week.
o0o
“I hate this place.” Moira O’Donnell stared at the entrance of the Los Angeles County morgue.
“You can stay in the car,” Rafe said, only half-joking.
She glanced across the parking lot to where Detective Grant Nelson leaned against the hood of his sports car, talking on his cell phone. “He looks like shit,” she said.
“He’s had a rough week.”
“I’m surprised he called us. We’re not his favorite people.” Understatement of the year. “I wish he’d given us more information, other than telling us to get our asses back to L.A. I don’t have a good feeling about this.” All Grant had told them on the phone last night was that he’d learned the identity of the ghost at the morgue and her death may have been supernatural. “I don’t even know why we agreed to come in the first place. We know it’s not one of the Seven. The poor girl has been dead for months.”
Rafe and Moira had been trying to track down the Seven Deadly Sins, incarnate demons that had been released from Hell less than two months ago. The demons Envy and Lust were safely ensconced in a vault in the middle of Nowhere, Montana, courtesy of Olivet, the secluded compound where all demon hunters from St. Michael’s Order went to train. But there were no signs as to where the other five demons were hanging out. It was as if they’d just disappeared from the planet. If only it were that easy.
What was really getting to Moira, more than being ordered by Detective Grant Nelson to come to L.A., was the silence. Complete silence, as if all spiritual chatter had stopped. They had no leads, no direction, nothing to do but wait. Waiting was not Moira’s strong suit. Another understatement. But knowing her weakness didn’t make the waiting any easier.
Rafe squeezed her hand. “Ready?”
She wanted to say no, but instead nodded and they got out of the truck. Moira caught Grant’s eye as they approached. His grief was evident, coated with a layer of protective anger.
Moira slowed her stride, giving her time to shut down her senses. Over the last few weeks she’d developed a powerful empathy, which her trainer at Olivet believed came from her growing ability to sense magic. The more she opened her senses to distinguishing magical signatures, the more she physically felt the strong emotions of others.
She feared this expanding capability was unnatural. Frankly, it scared her, but there was nothing she could do to stop it, short of running away. And she couldn’t completely disappear, anyway—somehow, she always got dragged back into the demon hunting business.
“Thanks for coming,” Grant mumbled in way of a greeting and led them through the entrance. He flashed his badge and, pointing at Rafe and Moira, said to the receptionist, “They’re with me.”
A young, petite black pathologist wearing scrubs and sporting a small diamond nose stud walked through the swinging doors. “You brought friends,” Fern Archer said as she passed out booties and gloves. “So I guess you already know this is a weird one.”
Moira and Rafe had met Fern when they first came down to L.A. last month. “He hasn’t told us anything,” Moira said.
Grant said, “Let’s talk inside.”
“Fine by me.” After putting on the gear, they followed Fern through the doors into the main facility. The pathologist said to Grant, “You look like shit.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Moira muttered.
Moira shivered not from the sudden cold, but from the high-creep factor as Fern led them through the main crypt lined with rows of bodies, covered with sheets so only their feet were visible. Another pathologist passed them, pushing a gurney toward the autopsy rooms.
Moira had faced demons in many forms, she’d killed and nearly been killed, but there was something about the morgue that freaked her out. The finality, maybe, or the sense of purgatory—that all these bodies were just waiting for judgment. She knew that wasn’t the case—they’d be cremated or buried or dissected—but she couldn’t stop her imagination from traveling down the horrific path toward the apocalypse.
She glanced at Rafe. His expression was off, as if he was listening to someone. Or maybe it was just her own uneasiness, and she was reading too much into his demeanor.
Moira steeled herself against her doubts and fears. What good was she to Rafe or St. Michael’s if she freaked out at a morgue? Even though there was a ghost here who’d spoken to Grant’s girlfriend, a witch. And there were probably more than one ghost hanging around. Moira seemed to be a lightning rod for paranormal activity lately.
Wouldn’t her many detractors from St. Michael’s monastery enjoy seeing her crumble.
“Are you coming or communing with the dead?” Grant stood impatiently in the doorway of a small room on the far side of the crypt.
Moira hadn’t realized she’d slowed her pace to a near crawl. “Just talking to my friends,” she snapped back.
Two technicians coming out of the cold storage unit looked at her as if she were crazy. She smiled brightly at them.
“Come.” Rafe steered her to the room where Amy Carney’s body lay under a sheet.
She felt uneasy when Rafe didn’t look at her. Were her nerves really embarrassing him? After all they’d been through, she sometimes forgot they’d only known each other for a couple months.
Straightening her spine and pushing back her uneasiness, Moira stepped into the small room. Fern said, “This is our viewing room. The victim’s parents will be here shortly to identify the body, but Detective Nelson wanted to inspect it first. It’s bizarre.”
She pulled out a file folder and handed it to Grant. “A copy of the detailed autopsy and lab reports, like you asked.”
“Thanks.” He flipped through it as Fern spoke.
“When you called me about a teenage Jane Doe I would have told you to give me a description—do you know how many Does we get in here? Dozens a week,” she responded to her own question. “Young more often than not. But I knew who it was, because it was the oddest damn case I’ve had. At least up until the bodies that came through here a couple weeks ago.” She looked from Grant to Moira, as if waiting for someone to explain what h
ad really happened. When no one said anything, she rolled her eyes.
“This Doe was an odd case because she was exsanguinated,” Fern said. “Not something I’d ever seen before, but that wasn’t the creepiest thing about her.”
“Creepier than having her blood drained?” Moira said.
“She was bitten by a vampire.”
Moira was not amused. “Is this a sick joke? Are you screwing with us?”
Rafe pulled down the sheet. On the victim’s neck were two holes as if punctured by canine teeth.
“We’re outta here,” Moira said, turning around. Her emotions were already running high because of her stalled hunt for the Seven Deadly Sins, but now this farce?
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