Demon's Dance

by Keri Arthur

  “Yes.” I didn’t offer anything else. Didn’t say it would be all right. It wouldn’t be. Not if the shadows on the necklace were anything to go by.

  “Thank you.” She accepted the coffee Belle handed her with a wan smile. “I’ll head home and wait.”

  “Do,” I said. “And try not to worry.”

  She nodded and left. Belle’s gaze met mine. “You don’t think her mom’s alive, do you?”

  “No. But I could be wrong.”

  “Given your psychometry skills are more reliable than your prophetic ones—and even your prophetic ones have been pretty damn accurate of late—I'd say the chances of that are between zero and none.” She slid my purse and a coffee cup across the counter. “I added some herbs to the coffee to help keep you awake. I don’t think Aiden would appreciate finding you asleep in the mangled wreck of our car.”

  I snorted softly. “I slept until ten so I’m not really sleep deprived. Besides, you’re coming with me.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Meaning the sensations rolling from the necklace have a distant feel?”

  “Yeah, and they’re also fading. I don’t really want to drive while trying to keep a strong enough grip on them to find her.”

  “Give me five, then.”

  As Belle dashed upstairs to grab some shoes, I walked through the café to lock the front door. Once she was back down, I tossed her the car keys and then headed down the rear hall to the back door.

  “Where to?” she said, as we pulled out onto the main street.

  I tucked my coffee mug into the center holder and then tugged the blue box from my pocket. The necklace felt cold and dark in my palm. I wrapped my fingers around it and, after a moment, said, “Right at Barker Street.”

  We headed out of Castle Rock. I sipped my coffee but, even with the herbs, felt no more awake for it. Tiredness was a pulse that beat through me with gathering speed; I might have slept until ten, but it definitely wasn’t enough. It was probably just as well Monty was coming around tonight, as it basically stopped me from going back to Aiden’s where I’d risk worsening the sleep deprivation.

  Because there was no doubt that I would. Sleep wasn’t really a priority when it came to that man.

  “Are we heading onto the freeway?” Belle asked as we approached the ramp. “Or onto the overpass?”

  I hesitated, briefly tightening my grip on the necklace. The silver wedding ring remained cold and inert against my palm, and the shadows and grief pulsing from the chain were fading at a faster rate. We only had a few minutes before I lost the trail. “Over.”

  I guided Belle through a maze of tree-lined streets until we were on a single-lane road on the outskirts of a small town known as Hank’s Mill.

  “We’re close,” I said. “You’d better slow down.”

  “There’s nothing around here but farmlets—why would she be meeting someone for dinner here?”

  “Maybe the friend owns one of the farmlets.”

  She glanced at me. “You don’t believe that.”

  The smile that twisted my lips held little in the way of amusement. “No, but mainly because Alice said she only took the necklace off when she was going somewhere fancy.”

  And there was nothing fancy about any of these old places.

  As we started up a long incline, a number of large farm sheds came into sight at the top. Just for an instant, the remaining shadows within the necklace pulsed strongly, a signal that suggested those buildings were our destination. Then the emotions faded, and the chain became as inert as the wedding ring.

  “We need to stop at the cluster of buildings ahead.” I tucked the necklace back into the box and secured it in the backpack’s pocket.

  Belle pulled off the road and into the stone driveway. There were three buildings in the immediate area; the one farthest away looked like a storage unit while the closer one had “office” emblazoned on its side. The largest was—according to the sign above the double-width doorway—a cold store.

  “You know,” Belle said. “It might be wise to call the rangers. We both know this search will probably lead to a body, which means we’ll end up calling them anyway.”

  I hesitated, torn between the need to do the sensible thing and the desire not to call them out until we had something more concrete than the tenuous feeling of death that had been radiating from the chain. But of all my abilities, psychometry was my strongest; if it said death was waiting, then it certainly was.

  Belle stopped the car and then reached around to grab the backpack. As we both climbed out, I made a quick call, catching Maggie, the station’s receptionist and a ranger in training. “It’s Lizzie Grace, Maggie, and I’m afraid—”

  “That you’ve found a body,” she finished heavily. “It’s the only reason you ever ring when you know Aiden isn’t here.”

  “We haven’t actually found it yet, but all the vibes I’m getting are saying the woman I’m tracking is dead. I just thought I’d make the call early for a change. Sorry.”

  “It’s hardly your fault this place seems to have become a haven for murderers of late. Where are you?” Once I’d given her the address, she added, “I’ll inform Tala straight away, but Jaz is on her way back from Readsdale, so she’ll probably be sent straight across. Ciara will take longer to get there.”

  “Thanks, Maggie.”

  “No worries.”

  She hung up.

  I shoved the phone away and then looked around. The wind stirred, caressing my skin with heat but bringing little in the way of sound beyond the nearby gentle rattle of loose roofing tin. There were no lights on in any of the buildings and the cold store’s doors were padlocked.

  “The cold store looks far newer than either of the other buildings,” Belle said. “The office has definitely seen better days.”

  “Maybe they’ve moved all their operations into the newer building,” I said. “You’ve got longer legs, so I’ll check the office and you can check the other one.”

  She snorted softly but nevertheless walked away. I went to the front of the old office building and strode up the ramp. The wood bounced and cracked under my feet, more evidence of just how bad a state the building was in. The door was locked but a faded “hours of business” sign said the place was closed Sunday to Tuesday. The nearby window was caked with grime, but I created a clean spot and peered inside. There were multiple stacks of unmade boxes, a number of old filing cabinets, several desks that had seen better days, and some chair remnants. The thick layer of dust that lay on both the boxes and the desks suggested no one had entered the room in some time.

  I walked back down the ramp and waited for Belle.

  “There’s nothing more than junk in the other one,” she said.

  “Same with the office.” I studied the cold store for a second. “And we’re not going to get through that chain in any sort of hurry.”

  “It’s likely the rest of the place is locked down as tightly.”

  “Probably, but we still have to look.” If only because a cold store was the perfect place to hide a body, especially given it had been closed the day Alice’s mom had gone missing. “I’ll go left, you go right.”

  There were a number of allocated parking spaces out the front of the cold store and, on the building itself, two more signs—one saying “office” with an arrow pointing to the left, and the other saying “pick-up and deliveries” with an arrow pointing right.

  The office was one of those freestanding portable buildings. I walked up the steps and peered into the nearest window. There were newish-looking desks, filing cabinets, and chairs in the main room, with two doors leading off it—one was a kitchen, the other a bathroom. The front door was locked and showed no signs of being tampered with.

  I continued on. There were no windows on this side of the building, which I guessed was no surprise given it was a cold storage facility. I walked to the end and turned the corner. About halfway down there was what looked to be a large loading bay. To my left were four l
arge dumpsters, and to my right a door. I tested the handle; like the rest of them, it was locked.

  Belle appeared at the far end of the building as I headed over to the first dumpster. Anything?

  Two locked doors but little else. Any luck on your side?

  Not a goddamn thing.

  We might have to just call it quits and handball it back to the rangers.

  Let me check these dumpsters first.

  If there was a body in any of them, you’d have smelled it by now, given the heat of the last couple of days.

  I still want to check—I owe Alice that much. I grabbed the first lid, but it was heavier than it looked. I used both hands to shove it up and then peered inside. It was empty.

  I let the lid go and, as the clang of metal rang out, moved over to the next one. This one had a few boxes down the bottom but little else. The third was jammed full with both boxes and plastics.

  There’s no way of getting inside from the loading bay, Belle said. All the doors and roller shutters are locked down tight.

  Without the damn necklace to give us directions, we’re basically looking for a needle in a haystack. I walked toward the final bin. No matter how much Aiden might trust my instincts, I doubt any judge is going to issue a warrant to search this place on something as vague as a witch’s say so.

  Werewolves have an advantage over us—they can check a person’s location via scent. And do they actually need a warrant? It’s not like he’s actually gotten one for any of the other crimes we’ve gotten involved in.

  Good point. I grabbed the lid and thrust it up.

  And was hit by a smell so bad that I gagged, dropped the lid, and jumped backward. For several seconds, I did nothing more than suck in air and stare at the last bin with trepidation.

  I had to open it again. Had to find out whether or not we’d just found our needle.

  “You could just call the rangers,” Belle said, as she stopped beside me.

  “And what if it’s a dead cat or something?”

  “You don’t think it is.” She tugged a couple of tissues from her handbag and handed them to me. “Shove them up your nose. They’re lavender scented, so it should counter at least a little of the smell.”

  I folded the tissues, shoved the end of each one into a nostril then took a final breath of clean air and quickly stepped forward. The smell was just as gut-wrenching but at least this time I was prepared for it.

  I reached inside and shifted a couple of the torn-down boxes sitting on top, and found the source of the smell.

  It wasn’t a cat. It was a human.

  A woman.

  And she’d been completely and utterly skinned.

  Three

  I let the lid drop again and bolted for the grassy area behind the bin, where I violently lost everything I’d eaten.

  Belle silently handed me a bottle of water once I was done. I rinsed the bitter taste of bile from my mouth and wished I could so easily wash the images from my mind.

  “God,” I muttered, my gaze on the rusty blue dumpster. “I really hope that’s not Alice’s mom.”

  “Yeah.” Belle rubbed her arms, her usually bright aura shadowed and swirling with horror. She might not have physically seen the body, but she’d caught a glimpse of it through our connection before she’d shut it down. “At least we saved some time by calling the rangers early.”

  “Yes.” I hesitated. “It’s making the call to Alice that worries me.”

  “You can’t contact her—not until we know for sure who it is in there.”

  “She’s going to think the worst has happened if I don’t.”

  “True.” Belle scrubbed a hand across her eyes and swore softly. “I wonder if this is the work of another group of hunters after wolf pelts? It would certainly explain her skinned state.”

  A shudder went through me and my stomach heaved again. “Except if it is Alice’s mom in there, she’s human rather than wolf, and I doubt there’s a black market for human pelts.”

  “Also true.” She hesitated. “I don’t know if there’re many demons who go to the trouble of skinning their victims, though.”

  “It’s not like either of us are experts on the matter, although I daresay your grandmother has it noted somewhere in one of her books if there is.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “And why would we even be looking for them? Monty’s here now, remember?”

  “I don’t think our participation in these matters will end just because he’s here.”

  I motioned toward the building. “We’d better wait out the front.”

  “It’s certainly better than waiting here.” Belle fell in step beside me. “I’m sure it won’t comfort Alice at all, but her mom’s ghost doesn’t linger. She’s moved on, which means this death was ordained.”

  “I can’t help but wonder what the fuck she did to deserve such a horrible death.”

  “It’s an unfortunate fact of life that not all deaths can be pleasant.”

  “I know, but being skinned—” Horror once again shuddered through me. “I just hope she was dead when it happened.”

  “Surely someone would have heard her screams if she wasn’t. There are houses close enough to have done so.”

  “That’s if she was killed here rather than just dumped after the fact. Were there any vehicles around your side of the building?”

  “No.”

  “So either her car has been dumped elsewhere, or the killer now has it.” Although if we were dealing with a dark spirit of any kind, I couldn’t imagine the latter would apply. After all, why would a demon or spirit bother driving his victim’s car away from the scene of his crime?

  “There are some capable of taking human shape,” Belle said. “So it is theoretically possible for at least some of them to be capable of driving.”

  “Except most demons don’t like the feel of metal.”

  “And most cars these days are more plastic than metal.”

  “True.” I threw the pack onto the wagon’s back seat, then grabbed my coffee and leaned back against the door to drink it. And wondered just how well it would sit with my still churning stomach. “Do you think it’s a coincidence that we’ve two dark entities on the reservation? Or could they actually be connected?”

  “A question we could pose to Monty once he’s finished ranting at us tonight.”

  I smiled. “I still think rants could be avoided if you threw a little charm his way.”

  She snorted. “Don’t take this personally, but I’d rather avoid getting involved in any way with someone who has any connection to your family tree—even one that’s an Ashworth sub-branch.”

  A sentiment I agreed with, but not one we could do much about. Monty had been appointed here, and that meant we were stuck with him—unless, of course, he decided the job wasn’t for him, and given what he’d said about Canberra and his dad, that seemed very unlikely.

  Jaz arrived ten minutes later. She was a brown-haired, brown-skinned wolf who’d come here from a New South Wales reservation and married into the Marin pack.

  “I’d say it’s nice to see you both again, but considering the circumstances, it doesn’t seem appropriate. What have we got?”

  “A body. A skinned body.”

  “Fuck.” She thrust her hand through her hair. “Any idea if it's a wolf?”

  “Human.” I hesitated. “We think it might be Alice Dale’s mom. Alice came into the café today convinced something had happened to her, and asked me to find her. She said the rangers had suggested it.”

  “We did. Or rather, I did. We put out an alert, but there wasn’t much more we could do given there was no sign of trouble at her house.” She studied the buildings for a moment. “Where is the body?”

  “In the blue dumpster at the rear of the cold store. The heat of the last few days has made it... unpleasant.”

  “I can imagine.” She grimaced and got out her phone. “I’ll take your statements now while we’re waiting for Ciara and Tala to turn up. That way
, you can leave.”

  She started with me and then moved on to Belle. Once both recordings had been done, she put her phone away and glanced around at the sound of approaching sirens. “Have you made any further contact with Alice?”

  “No, but I said I’d call her if I found anything, and I feel obliged to at least tell her something.”

  “Don’t tell her you found a body—not until we’ve confirmed ID.”

  I nodded, even as relief stirred. It might mean lying, but it also meant I didn’t have to be the one to give her the bad news.

  Another SUV pulled up beside Jaz’s. Tala Sinclair—Aiden’s second-in-command and a straight-talking, no-nonsense wolf—climbed out. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m really not happy to see you both right now.”

  A smile tugged my lips. “Trust me when I say we’d rather not be here right now.”

  Something close to amusement briefly touched her otherwise stern expression. “How nasty is it?”

  “Breathing mask nasty.”

  “Ah.” She glanced at Jaz. “Have you taken their statements?”

  “Yes, but I haven’t checked the crime scene yet.”

  Tala grunted. “I’ll do that while you wait for Ciara. She should be only five or so minutes away now.” Her gaze returned to us. “You two can go, if you’d like.”

  “Thanks.” I hesitated. “If the body does belong to Alice Dale’s mom, could you not tell her we were the ones who found it?”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem, but why not?”

  “Because I promised her I’d call if I found her—”

  “And none of us have any idea if you have,” she cut in sharply.

  “I know, but she’ll be looking for someone to blame for her mother’s death, and her anger will fall on me if she learns I’ve withheld information, even if under orders. I’d rather avoid that situation.”

  “That I can understand.”

  She moved around to the back of her truck and started getting her kit out. We climbed into our wagon and got the hell out of there. It wasn’t until we got back to the café that I finally called Alice.

  “Hello? Is that you, Lizzie?” she immediately said, with far too much hope in her voice.