Bury Their Bones (Wicked Fortunes Book 2)

by AJ Merlin

  “Her magic is gone already,” Nathanial answered flatly.

  I slowed, nearly stopping. “How long has she been dead?” The last woman hadn’t been dead long enough for her magic to be siphoned off, I’d figured. So perhaps this victim had been found late.

  “A few hours.”

  “A few hours?” My eyes narrowed. “How long after Yvenson’s death did your people check his body.”

  The voodoo shop owner considered it. “Maybe half a day or so,” he said finally. “I wasn’t quite in the loop for it.”

  “And his magic was still there?”

  He nodded, opening the door to the house. I opened my mouth to speak again, only to get bombarded with the scent of blood.

  I choked, caught off guard, and pressed my hand over my face. My eyes streamed because this was worse than just blood.

  Something in here smelled like burnt flesh.

  “What is that?” I demanded, barely taking breaths through my mouth and debating on whether it’d be better to just suffocate. Surely the burning of my lungs without oxygen would be far more pleasurable than whatever this was.

  “It’s burning,” a woman said behind me.

  I whirled, caught off guard, and Nathanial did as well. A talisman appeared in a raised hand, and I had to wonder at that, when he’d said his gift was good for healing people.

  Was he going to heal whoever was behind us until they left?

  When I saw who stood behind me, I was absolutely baffled.

  It was one of the white haired girls from the gala.

  Of course, I had no idea which one. All of them had the same face and white-blonde hair framing red eyes. This one looked past me, further into the house.

  “You’re…one of the triplets, right?” I asked slowly.

  She hummed in her throat, still not looking my way. Today she wore a long-sleeved grey shirt over a short black skirt, and socks that came up to her thighs. I couldn’t help thinking how young she looked, though I was sure she was older than me by the way she carried herself and spoke.

  “What are you doing here?” She inquired, completely ignoring my question as she finally met my gaze with those eerie eyes that flickered like a dying ember. Any darker and she’d be in vampire territory.

  “I’m…investigating,” I replied, unsure of what to say. With a glance at Nathanial, I went on. “Helping a friend.”

  “Which is it?” She tilted her head to the side.

  “It’s….both?” I offered. “Can’t I investigate for a friend–“

  “Quite a lot of death in there,” she cut in. “Blood and burning and…” she took a sniff. “Dark magic. Would you like some help investigating?”

  “No,” Nathanial answered, his voice tight. “We take care of our own.”

  Her eyes went directly to his. “Georgette is not one of your own,” she remarked.

  I cringed at the use of my full name. “I’m his friend.”

  “Well aren’t I your friend?” She didn’t look back at me, but I knew the words weren’t meant for Nathanial.

  And no. No, she was not. We’d only met once, after all, and whichever triplet this was, it didn’t matter. None of them had left a very good impression on me.

  “I don’t think we’ve known each other long enough to be friends,” I said slowly. “I don’t even remember–“

  “Tisiphone,” she said, her gaze snapping back to mine. “That’s my name. You’ve barely met Alecto, and Megaera is with Uriel.”

  Wonderful. As if I cared about their whereabouts. Actually–hadn't they been here for the gala? Why were they still here?

  “Why aren’t you gone?” I asked in a rush of words I should’ve organized into something more polite. “Sorry, let me try again. I thought you were here for the gala.”

  She blinked, scrutinizing my face long enough that I thought she might not answer. While I waited, I shuffled back onto the porch, leaving the worst of the smell behind.

  “It has been a long, long time since we got to see Cian and Indra,” she said finally, taking a few steps to stand at the top of the porch steps.

  Did she mean to leave out Akiva’s name in there?

  “Niall decided we should stay a little while longer. Who knows when we might see them again when we go back home.”

  We stared at each other, her eyes slightly wide and unwilling to break our staring contest. I didn’t have any idea what to say to get her to leave.

  Finally Nathanial cleared his throat. “That’s nice and all, but we really need to get this done. Perhaps George and you can catch up another time, Miss–“

  “Do you know why a body-or part of it-is burned in a murder, Georgette?” Tisiphone inquired, not looking away and speaking as if Nathanial had not been.

  I did not. But I was not a fan of her using my full name whatsoever, and swallowed the correction that rose to my lips.

  “Well, I’d have to look at this one to see what the reason might be,” I said, avoiding the answer entirely.

  “Do you? I suppose you don’t know, then. Isn’t your nose trying to tell you the answer?”

  My nose wasn’t telling me much past the smell of blood, but my anxiety wanted me to get the hell out of there as fast as possible. I clenched my hand around the strap of my thigh bag, wishing she’d leave.

  Then again, maybe Yuna would show up and warn this girl off. The cecaelia had said she was only a few minutes away, she was very good at making people leave.

  Too bad I hadn’t thought to take lessons in Sea Witch intimidation tactics.

  “Let me help you,” Tisiphone urged. “If I’m not helpful, then I shall leave. I won’t even ask why you’re helping this…” her nostrils flared as she sucked in a breath, facing Nathanial again. “Man.”

  Was that some kind of insult similar to how it was when Yuna said it?

  Nathanial answered for me. “Five minutes,” he said. “If you aren’t helpful, then you leave.”

  “Five minutes,” she agreed, stepping past both of us and striding down the dark hallway.

  Nathanial and I looked at each other. His expression was pained, like letting her in had caused him physical discomfort.

  “Why did you let her in?” I asked in a whisper.

  “Because I’m not sure we could keep her out,” he replied.

  Oh. Well then.

  That wasn’t very comforting. And I wasn’t sure just how she’d know anything about the crime scene.

  Unless she had experience in ritualistic murder before. It was…not a very comforting thought.

  “Are you two coming?” Tisiphone called imperiously, poking her head out of the door at the far end of the hallway. “It won’t be fair to start my timer until you’re here.”

  “What is she even doing here?” Nathanial added, voice still soft.

  I lifted my hands in confusion. “I have no idea.”

  He flicked his fingers at me and I followed him inside, taking shallow breaths through my mouth as the scent of violent death got more and more intense.

  A thought distracted me from the acrid scent, if only for a second.

  Was Merric here?

  I peeked into the rooms we passed, as if he might be rocking in an armchair or napping on a bed.

  But he wasn’t.

  My heart sank slightly. If he was here, I would’ve valued his opinion on the situation. And I had a feeling that, if he wanted to, he could get Tisiphone to go away.

  If he wanted to, of course.

  Distracted, I entered the victim’s room without realizing it, until my sneaker squished wetly into the carpet and my stomach informed me we were going to be very sick, very quickly.

  I locked my teeth together, saliva flooding my mouth, and turned away from the room with my hand over my mouth. Holy fuck, it smelled bad.

  When I stupidly looked down at my sneakers, I found the white lines around the bottom red with blood.

  “Are you all right?” Tisiphone was beside me, searching my face like it really was
a mystery why I was so physically ill.

  I shook my head pointedly.

  “Why?”

  How did she not know?

  How was it not supremely obvious?

  I pointed at the room.

  “This bothers you that much?” She walked back in, doing a good job of keeping her boots out of drying blood. “I would have thought you wouldn’t mind so much, being with Indra.”

  What the hell did Indra have to do with any of this?

  “Or perhaps…” Her eyes narrowed. “You only know him in a very selective light. Could it be that you’ve never seen what he and his lovers do in the dark?”

  I had seen plenty of what they did in the dark, but I figured a detailed account of our sex life wasn’t the answer she was looking for.

  “I know what they are,” I said levelly. “But no. If you’re implying they go around slashing up and burning people in their homes, that’s not a side of them I’ve encountered.”

  And Goddess, one I hoped never to encounter.

  “Hmmm.” She watched me. I hated it. I hated being looked at like one might observe a small animal doing something strange.

  Looking away from her, I glanced instead into the open room across from where the victim lay.

  This room appeared to be a bathroom, with the mirror facing the hallway and the both of us.

  Or rather, the three of us.

  It seemed that Merric was here after all.

  A white fox was draped over my shoulders in the mirror, though I was sure no such thing existed physically. His slender muzzle was very close to Tisiphone’s face, and as I watched, he snapped lightly near her nose, then looked to my eyes in the mirror. Was he grinning?

  I straightened, fighting back nausea, and turned to look at Tisiphone.

  “You’re not using your five minutes very well,” I said, fighting not to reach up and touch where the illusory fox seemed to exist on my shoulders in my reflection.

  Her eyes narrowed. “So I’m not,” she agreed. “But it’s very hard to offer my assumptions on what happened here when you’re busy trying not to vomit in the hallway.”

  When I glanced at the mirror again, so did she, only to look at me with confusion writ on her features.

  “What are you looking at?” The girl asked.

  She couldn’t see him, then.

  “How green I look,” I replied. I turned away, gesturing her back into the other room.

  Only then did I allow myself to reach up, knowing I’d find absolutely nothing on my shoulders.

  A soft, wet nose pushed into my palm, and I gasped softly, eyes wide as I glanced over.

  There he was.

  Merric, in his very cute and very friendly-looking fox form. His snow-white fur was soft against my jaw, and his tails wrapped very lightly around my shoulders.

  He seemed to grin-something I wasn’t sure a real fox could even do, and pressed his nose into my hand again.

  Even amidst the blood and burnt flesh, even though I knew he was only here to feed on the victim’s fear and death, I smiled.

  “Thank you,” I breathed.

  He flicked his ears and vanished.

  “Your victim was killed very….thoroughly,” Tisiphone announced, walking around the body on the floor that I had as yet refused to look at.

  But I had to do it, and better to rip off the bandaid now than suffer longer.

  I let out a sigh and lifted my gaze to the scene in front of me.

  Nathanial was right. This was different, but in more ways than just her magic being already gone.

  The last woman had simply been slashed up, from what I’d seen.

  This woman had been cut and burned.

  I found it impossible to look at any part of her for too long. She was missing a hand, I discovered, when I drew my gaze away from the burns on her thigh.

  The hand was at Tisiphone’s feet, and it had been burned as well. One finger was gone, and I wondered just why it had been necessary to cut it off her already severed hand.

  Swallowing rapidly, I focused on the triplet’s words again.

  “If she had one more injury, I would have said a threefold death,” Tisiphone remarked casually. “But look.” She reached down and pushed the woman’s head back to reveal a slit throat.

  “No strangulation marks. The burns and the cuts would’ve killed her on their own. A threefold death would’ve made me think sacrifice.”

  “Do you….have a lot of experience with threefold deaths and sacrificing?” I asked, trying to sound casual. All I knew about them was in the name. Threefold. Three killing wounds to the victim’s body.

  Her unimpressed gaze landed squarely on mine, and I cleared my throat.

  “I don’t think the hand was done for pleasure, either.” She picked it up and examined the burnt flesh. “Look at the marks.” She extended her palm, offering me the burned and dead hand. The singed flesh smelled even more grotesque this close. I hadn’t thought that was possible.

  I stared at it for all of two seconds before looking at the ceiling. “I am not touching that,” I said conversationally to the ceiling.

  “Right.” I could hear the derision in her tone. Whatever. I wasn’t trying to impress her, and wasn’t looking to win any medals for gross things I was willing to put my hands on.

  “How strange,” Nathanial murmured. I looked down and saw him running his fingers over the hand.

  They clearly both possessed a degree of professionalism I could never hope to accomplish.

  “A bit sloppy, too,” Tisiphone agreed.

  “Yes. But not quite enough to be adequately helpful.” He laid the hand on the floor.

  “Is the finger the same?” I asked.

  “Killer took it with him, I suspect. The easiest way to access all of someone’s magic is to ingest a part of them.”

  “You mean extract it magically,” I corrected, repeating what I’d learned during my training as a witch. Tisiphone was right about that part-having a piece of someone made it easier to get at their magic. But it was done through spells and rituals.

  “I mean ingest it,” Tisiphone replied. “I would assume your killer ate her finger to better absorb her magic. Extracting it magically is nice and all, but it won’t give you that person’s everything. Not like ingesting it will.”

  I wasn’t sure how many more of her dark bits of knowledge I could handle before I lost the battle with my rebelling stomach.

  “I need a bit of her gris-gris,” I announced, not wanting to walk off without it. “I can use it to track her magic, hopefully. I’ve been collecting them from the victims so I can hopefully find their magic.”

  When I looked up, I found that Tisiphone was staring at me again.

  “That’s very smart,” she admitted. “You learn the scent of their magic so that when it’s used, you can find it again.”

  “Tell me you did not steal something out of Yvenson’s coffin,” Nathanial sighed.

  “I, personally, did not,” I said, not lying.

  When he blinked, relief on his face, I added, “You-Know-Who did.”

  “The L-“ He cut himself off with a look at Tisiphone, who was very obviously watching and listening to our conversation. “Fine. I suppose as long as Johanna didn’t catch you, it’s nothing to lose sleep over now.”

  “Here.” Tisiphone stood, a small bone held between her fingers.

  “Of course you went for the bone,” I mumbled, taking it and sliding it gently into the small compartment of my bag.

  Her eyes watched me the entire time.

  “You didn’t say you had a preference,” she pointed out.

  “So I didn’t.” The bone would work fine.

  “We’ve been here long enough,” Nathanial’s voice was firm. “Much longer, and my people will start getting antsy. Especially with her here,” he threw the words at Tisiphone.

  The blonde’s grin was slow and not very friendly. “I don’t recall your people having a reason to hate what I am,” she pointe
d out.

  “Hellhounds are just as unwelcome as anyone else to stay where they weren’t invited,” Nathanial argued, confirming my suspicions about her race.

  It certainly made sense why the smell of burning things didn’t seem to bother her, and why her eyes pulsed like embers.

  “He’s right,” I said, before she could argue further. “I really appreciate this, Tisiphone. I won’t forget it.”

  I walked with her down the hallway, watching the look on her face go to pleased satisfaction. “It was no trouble,” she promised. “I like this idea of helping you. Why not come with my sisters and I for a little bit longer? You’re using those little pieces of magic to track your killer, aren’t you? We can help.”

  The two of us stepped out onto the porch, and I took a breath, relief flowing through me. Nathanial was still somewhere inside, though I had no idea what for.

  And not only because we were out of that house and the oppressive smell of death.

  Her sisters were outside, but they weren’t alone.

  Yuna stood in the yard, stance balanced and arms crossed over her chest. Better still, Merric lurked behind her, his two orange tails flowing at his back.

  “Unfortunately, she’s rather busy,” the cecaelia answered in response to Tisiphone’s offer.

  One of the other sister’s shifted, her eyes fixed on the two of them.

  Yuna went on, voice sharp. “But I’m sure we can work you in another time.”

  Chapter 19

  “Why is it….we?” One of the other hellhound triplets asked offhandedly. “Shouldn’t it just be you, Georgette?” Her eyes came to rest on me as I walked past Tisiphone and over to stand with Yuna and Merric. The latter wrapped one tail around my waist as if seeking comfort, though I knew that wasn’t really the case.

  “Why was the invitation from all of you?” I asked with a shrug. ”Tisiphone is one who helped me, and the one I talked to most the other night. Shouldn’t it just be her?” I wasn’t trying to be hostile, but they put me on edge. Tisiphone may have been helpful, but they still did not strike me as friendly.

  The hellhound looked to Tisiphone, a small frown on her lips as she lifted one shoulder, then let it drop.

  “Is that a triplet thing or a hellhound thing?” Merric asked, peeking his head over my shoulder. “Do you think you could teach me?”