Blood Craft: The Shadow Sorceress Book Two (2 page)

“
G
raham
, why are we out here? I thought this was ruled a human homicide,” I said, watching the cops move around the taped-off crime scene. They’d been forced to close off the entire river gardens in an attempt to prevent the reporters from snapping pictures of the bodies.

The last things the families of the victims needed to see was their loved one’s remains splashed across the front page of all the major news outlets in King City.

“It was; I looked the case files over myself, but I wanted to get you down here to take a look in person.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“You will,” he said cryptically.

Glancing over at him, I studied his face carefully, but his expression was guarded. There was obviously something he wasn’t telling me about the case, and Graham was the type of man to hold onto his secrets until he was ready to spill them. I on the other hand wasn’t exactly the patient type.

He grabbed the edge of the crime scene tape and lifted it into the air, holding it in place so I could duck beneath it.

He’d been completely silent on the ride over and every time I’d asked him about the case, he’d batted it aside with some sort of wishy-washy vague answer that didn’t tell me anything at all.

“How’s Jessica?” I asked, doing my best to change the subject. The more nonchalant I could be about the case we were stumbling into the middle of, the faster Graham would spill his true reasons for us being out here.

The wind rippled the grass at my feet and I wrapped my leather jacket a little tighter around my body. It shouldn’t have been so cold, at least not in the middle of August, but one look at the pristine white forensic tent sent an icy shiver racing down my spine.

The thought of what lay inside … well, it wasn’t something I wanted to think about—but then, I was going to have to do a lot more than just think about it.

“She’s doing as well as she can,” Graham said, his voice curt and clipped.

I shot him a look back over my shoulder; his expression was as closed as before, but there was a slight flinching around his eyes. Clearly even thinking of his daughter caused him pain and I couldn’t blame him.

She faced the executioner if the jury found her guilty of the crimes she’d committed. Both I and her father knew for certain she had committed them, but he loved her, and I wasn’t going to hold that against him.

“Have they set a date for the trial?”

He shook his head and I could see the first real flicker of emotion in his eyes.

“Not yet, but I know they don’t want to wait; they want it all over and done with as quickly as possible. It’s an election year and they can’t afford to have a blot like this on their copy books—the public needs to know they can trust the Mayor, that he’ll do what needs to be done to keep them safe.”

There was a bitterness laced though Graham’s words that had me taking a second glance in his direction. I’d never heard him speak with such condemnation for the ones in charge; he’d always struck me as someone with great respect for the established institutions.

But that wasn’t entirely true either. If he was that kind of man, then he would have turned me into the authorities the second he knew what I was. Instead, he’d chosen to work alongside me; that wasn’t exactly the sign of a man enamoured with the run of things.

“Graham, I’m sorry….” It was such an inadequate thing to say, but I honestly couldn’t think of anything better.

He nodded and dropped his gaze to the ground. He blamed me for what was going on; as far as Graham was concerned I held some sway within the Elite and I could put a stop to the trial and spare Jessica’s life.

And perhaps I could, although Jon was certainly no fonder of me than he had been before. His hatred for me knew no bounds; given the first opportunity, he would see me out of a job, but he couldn’t deny the fact that I’d saved his and the Elite’s ass. The glowing report I’d received from Anthony Barbossa, or The Machine as everyone liked to call him, had cemented my position within the organisation. Whether Jon liked it or not, I was the media darling of the Elite now. And I sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere.

Of course, if everyone found out what actually happened in that graveyard with my half-sister and the demon I’d summoned, I’d be on the slab right next to Jessica awaiting execution. That thought alone was enough to sour my stomach.

“Wasn’t expecting to see you lot down here,” a male voice called out, drawing me out of my reverie and back to reality.

My thoughts hadn’t been pleasant ones, but they sure as hell beat the reality of tramping across the grass towards the forensic tent. The Sidwell case had been hard enough to deal with; the crime scene was something I hadn’t been prepared to deal with. And after everything that had happened, I knew for a fact that whatever awaited me wasn’t something I could be prepared for.

Death was a reality of the job, but knowing and doing were two very different things.

A young detective jogged up from the riverbank towards us, the confusion on his face almost comical. He raked his hand back through his wavy blond hair, causing it to stand on end. I fought to hide my smile. His blue eyes sparked with curiosity as he came to a standstill before us.

“Just thought it was better to be thorough,” Graham answered with a smile on his face as he held his hand out to the young detective.

There was a flicker of admiration in the young man’s face as he gripped Graham’s outstretched hand.

“Graham, I didn’t think I’d ever get to see you out in the field again after everything that happened, and especially not with the Elite. You never believed in any of that crap,” the young detective said.

“Life has a horrible way of proving you wrong, Dex,” Graham said with a sad smile before turning back to me. “Morgan, this is Dexter Grey, one of the smartest and youngest men I’ve ever seen rise through the ranks to become detective.”

Graham spoke like a proud father as he presented the smiling Dexter to me.

“My friends call me Dex, and any friend of Graham is a friend of mine, Morgan.” He held his hand out to me.

His fingers wrapped around mine, a warm firm grip as he pumped my hand vigorously. Sucking in a deep breath, I fought to control my expression as pain spread up though my forearm and into my shoulder. As far as the doctors were concerned, the break wasn’t fully healed. The doctor had mentioned something about me removing the cast too soon….

I shook my head. “You can call me, Amber. Morgan is my last name and only Graham calls me that,” I said, my smile turning to a grin as I cast a quick look in my partner’s direction.

Graham shrugged and stared at us both, utterly unapologetic. “Morgan sounds tougher,” he said, the hint of a smile lighting his face.

Dex’s eyes lit up with amusement. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you Amber. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

I stared at him in surprise. I was so used to nobody knowing me that to hear someone say they’d heard about me was more than a shock. How could he possibly know me? I certainly didn’t know him, and the greeting he’d shared with Graham told me they hadn’t been in contact in quite some time.

“In the paper, I mean; you’re all over it, with the upcoming court case and everything.” He trailed off and shot an apologetic look in Graham’s direction. “I’m sorry about Jessica. I can’t imagine how that feels.”

“Well, we’re not here to discuss that. Take us down to the tent, Dex,” Graham said, the strain of his emotion evident in his voice.

Dex threw me a helpless look and I shook my head. There was nothing he could do, and certainly nothing he could say, to make Graham feel better.

Reading the look in my eyes, he nodded almost imperceptibly and his expression shifted. His full lips curled down in displeasure and his bright eyes dimmed as he turned towards the tent.

“It’s a weird one; it’s the reason they sent it over to you lot first. And while the preliminary file had some oddities, ultimately, it appears to be all too human.”

I followed the two men as they started down towards the riverbank, their conversation fading into the background as I took in my surroundings. It was so open, so exposed, but even with the small amount of detail I’d managed to glean about the case from my sneak peek at Graham’s file, it was far too public to commit such a crime; they’d obviously been killed elsewhere and moved here….

The grass shivered around me as though the earth itself felt the chill of death on the air. My skin started to crawl, thousands of skeleton fingers beating a tattoo out on my back, and it took all of my effort just to snap free of the feeling.

I couldn’t feel any magic on the air; nothing that suggested that what had happened here was anything but some sick creep’s perverse fantasies. And yet, I could feel the ground itself calling out to me, warning me….

“Morgan!” Graham’s voice snapped me free of my thoughts and I jerked my attention in his direction. “What the hell are you doing?” he said, grabbing my arm and tugging me backwards.

“Graham, what the….” I trailed off, suddenly realising what exactly he was dragging me back from.

The river raged just inches from where I’d stood, the current unusually strong for August. Two black scorch marks had been burned into the earth where my booted feet had stood just moments before.

“I was doing magic?” I said, my whisper filled with shock, my hand automatically reaching up to brush against the demon mark seared into my skin. It tingled against my skin, reminding me of how it felt when the demon had marked me. The pain had been excruciating. Glancing down at my hand, my gaze was drawn to the flickering blue spark of my magic as it danced across the tips of my fingers.

I’d gone from a witch without any true magic to one with far too much—so much it seemed to leak from my pores and cause mayhem wherever I went. It was utterly out of control and I had a sinking suspicion that my inability to harness it was connected to the demon mark.

“You could say that. I sent Dexter into the tent ahead of us when I noticed you wandering off. There is no way I could explain what was going on with you without raising suspicion. He’s no fool, Morgan; he’s one smart cookie, and if he thinks for one second that there’s some sort of skeleton in your closet, he’ll dig it out.” Graham said, giving me a small, fatherly shake.

Closing my eyes, I sucked in a deep breath and fought to clear my mind. The earth screamed in my head. Whatever had happened here had offended it deeply, but I couldn’t be sure if that had been caused by my out-of-control use of magic or if whatever had happened inside the forensic tent had scarred the area.

“Christ on a cracker,” Graham said, his words making me smile as I opened my eyes and peered down at where my magic had scorched the earth. The marks were fading. “Swallowed by the earth itself” would have been a far more accurate description of what was happening. The ground rolled, shuddering the way a cat might if you ran your hand across its fur in the wrong direction.

“You need to get a grip on it, Morgan. If any of the cops here had seen what you were up to, well, they’re not going to be as understanding as I am about the situation.”

“It’s not exactly a science,” I said. I couldn’t keep the irritation from my voice. It wasn’t his fault, but he, above all people, had to know that what I was dealing with wasn’t exactly normal—for me anyway.

I’d spent my life being a witch void of any real power; most witches my age were trained in their craft, deeply disciplined by years of honing and harnessing their abilities. I’d come to a grudging understanding that I would never be like them—that was, until Lily had removed the barriers my mother had placed within me, tearing them all away and leaving me utterly at the mercy of my own power.

“Evidently,” he said with a small smile. “At least, for now, you’re safe; no one saw you.”

“So, let’s just get this over with, in case my magic flips out again.”

He nodded, smile disappearing, his face taking on a grim seriousness that had me swallowing hard. I didn’t want to follow him away from the water’s edge. I could turn tail and run, race back to the car, lock the doors, and refuse to come out. But what would that achieve?

Absolutely freaking nothing.

Trudging over the grass, I followed him to the tent, my heart beginning to race in my chest as I broke out in a clammy sweat.

With one final glance back up at the road and Graham’s car parked in the parking lot, I swallowed back the fear that was doing its damnedest to crawl up the back of my throat and ducked in through the white tent flap, the sound of it slapping back into place echoing in my ears.

“
E
verything
all right with you two?” Dex asked. There was no mistaking the curiosity in his voice as his gaze flipped between the two of us.

“Yeah, Morgan just wanted to get a lay of the land is all,” Graham said. Once again, his mastery at batting the question aside amazed me. It had to be a skill he’d learned on the force, because he sure as heck hadn’t picked it up in the Elite. Most of the other Elite officers had all the subtlety of a brick through a window.

My stomach rolled and I crinkled up my nose. There was a strange smell hanging in the air inside the tent and as soon as the waft of fresh air cleared, my senses were quickly overwhelmed. It wasn’t particularly unpleasant, but there was just no getting away from the scent. It filled my nose, the tang of it coating my tongue, and I knew that no matter how hard I washed my clothes, it would stay with me.

“What is that?” Graham asked, voicing the question swirling in my head.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Dex said, standing to one side of the tent, his nose wrinkled in disgust.

My eyes fell on the covered bodies lying slap bang in the centre of the space. They’d been covered over with two large white sheets and relief washed through me. At least the cops were trying to preserve some semblance of dignity for the victims.

Graham held out a pair of gloves and I took them grudgingly. I was going to have to touch things, examine things, dead things, and my stomach rolled again at the thought of it all.

It wasn’t really the thought of blood and viscera that bothered me—well, it didn’t please me either, but I could handle it. What really got to me was the fact that I couldn’t separate myself from the fact that these had been people with hopes and dreams just like me. The pain and the fear they’d felt in their final moments wasn’t something I would wish on anyone, and despite knowing that people were murdered every day of the week … well, I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. It was just all so pointless, so cruel.

Monsters I could understand—well, to an extent, anyway. The soulless couldn’t exactly be expected to show restraint over the things they wanted; they simply took the things they desired, whether that was material items or the life of a living being. But the thought that another human, that someone like Graham or Dex, or any number of others I knew, could do something so heinous….

I couldn’t exactly include myself in that list. As it was, I wasn’t even sure what side of the scale I actually fell on. I was a monster; the things I’d done ensured my belief in that, but I also didn’t go around taking whatever in hell I wanted. But I’d still done things I could never erase from my memory, things I never deserved to shake free from my mind. They were the kind of crimes I would carry with me forever….

Closing my eyes, I tried to suck in a deep breath, but the strange air invaded my nose and coated the back of my throat with its thick, cloying scent. I snapped the gloves on and opened my eyes once more to find Graham and Dex studying me carefully.

“What?” I asked, the sharpness of my tone causing colour to flood Dex’s cheeks.

“Are you feeling all right?” Graham said, concern lurking in his gaze. I knew that look; it was the same one he’d given me outside after I’d had my little magical accident.

“As all right as I can be, considering we’re about to look at more dead bodies.” Steeling myself, I strode forward and daintily gripped the edge of the first sheet before flipping it back to reveal what lay beneath.

It took a few moments for my brain to catch up with what my eyes were actually looking at. Two bodies lay on the ground, a man and woman, their naked skin discoloured in the artificial glow of the lights set up inside the tent.

“Jesus Christ,” Graham said, stealing the words straight from my own mouth.

Their eyes were stitched shut, thick, black cord stark against the mottled pallor of their skin; their mouths were stitched up with the same precision and black cord. The bruising around their eyes and mouth told a story I didn’t really want to know.

They’d obviously been alive when the psycho had gone to work on them as though they were some sort of bizarre set of rag dolls. Leaning in over the bodies, my eyes picked out the same cord that had been used to stitch their hands together. Their fingers were entwined and the bruising and half-moon fingernail shapes across both of their hands told me they’d clung to each other as their flesh had been painstakingly stitched together.

“So you see why it was sent over to you first…” Dex said, his voice cutting across my own thoughts.

“Graham, what makes you so sure this wasn’t preternatural?” I asked, glancing up at the other man standing over the two bodies.

“What makes you think it
was
preternatural?” he said, turning the tables and throwing my question right back at me.

And he was right, why was there a niggling doubt in the back of my mind? I couldn’t feel any magic, there was no lingering trace of the preternatural—or at least not in the way there normally was—but at the same time, this was weird, far too weird to be just a run-of-the-mill psycho.

“For one thing, how did he get them to lie still while he stitched them together? Or stitched their eyes and mouths shut?”

“He could have drugged them,” Dex suggested.

With a shake of my head, I pointed out the marks on their hands. “Drugs strong enough to paralyse would mean they couldn’t grip each other hard enough to leave contusions on each other’s hands. You can see where she dug her fingernails into his hand.”

“Tied them down while he worked?” Graham said, crouching down over the bodies. I could tell from the expression he wore that, despite the fact that he’d ruled it a human kill, there was something he wasn’t happy about. But I couldn’t very well ask him what his problem was with Dex standing next to us.

“There isn’t any rope burn on their wrists or ankles or really any of the usual places you’d expect to find it,” I pointed out. “What has the coroner said about this?” I asked, addressing Dex, who looked as perplexed as I felt.

“It’s Tyrell, so he’s keeping all of his cards close to his chest. Wouldn’t give us anything at all to go on, just wanted the bodies moved and brought to him downtown. Well, the bodies and the ground they’re resting on.”

“The ground?” I leaned down a little lower and peered at the grass that disappeared beneath the body of the woman next to me.

It was then I saw it, and my throat closed over, making breathing almost impossible.

“Shit,” I said, jerking back away from the body, the sudden movement landing me on my ass.

“What is it?” Graham said, his eyes studying my face carefully. There was a warning in his gaze and I could practically hear his voice in my head telling me to quell my magic.

It was good advice; what I’d just seen had sent a shiver of magic racing across my skin. Not my own. I wasn’t even sure if it was human, but it was definitely connected to the feeling of offence the earth itself expressed.

“So, you saw it,” Dex said, the look on his face sending a worm of fear deep in my gut. It was as though he knew what I’d seen, that he had an understanding of the kind of magic needed to pull off something like this.

“He stitched them into the earth,” I said, my words a little strained as I fought to find my equilibrium once more.

“How is that even possible?” Graham said, sinking lower onto the grass.

How he could he even get that close to the bodies was beyond me. Their fear and pain practically rolled off their skin; I could still feel them as though they were trapped within their own bodies, their souls sealed within, their tombs made of flesh and bone.

Was that why I couldn’t feel any magic?

The thought almost staggered me as I stared at the corpses of the two dead victims. Whatever had been done to them, was it sealed inside them? Sealed into the earth?

“Graham, we have to take this case back from the cops, this isn’t a human kill…” I said, doing my damnedest to keep the quiver of fear out of my voice.

“I know,” he said, his face practically glued to the ground as he examined the black cord that held them pinned to the earth.

“The area needs to be sealed, quarantined even, until we can diffuse it.”

“Uh, that might be a problem. You guys handed the case over to us, we have jurisdiction now, and I’m pretty sure you can’t just walk in here and declare something is preternatural without proof, especially as you signed off on it as human in the first place,” Dex piped up, his voice authoritarian.

“Dexter, we’re the Elite. If we say it’s preternatural, then that is exactly what it is. We don’t need proof the way you might. I don’t have to make a case to you or anyone else for that matter,” Graham said, his voice icy, all traces of the friendliness he’d shown towards Dex earlier now gone.

Dex straightened up, drawing himself up to his full height, his fists tightening at his sides as he attempted to stare Graham down.

“I’d heard you’d changed, but I didn’t realise just how much until now. There was a time when you’d have agreed with me, Graham, stood with me as a brother in blue. What the hell happened to you?” The tone in Dex’s voice betrayed his disgust and I felt my own hostilities rise.

“I grew up, something you have yet to do. Now, if you’ve got a problem with the Elite stepping in and taking your case out from underneath you, then I suggest you take it up with your Captain.”

“This isn’t how we do it and you know that,” Dex warned, shooting me a sideways glance before he strode for the exit.

The moment he was out of earshot I turned my attention back to Graham. “We can’t really just walk in and take the case, can we?”

Graham shook his head and dropped his gaze to the bodies on the grass in front of us. “No, but we needed something to buy us sometime. Dex is smart, he’ll go to his Captain and come back here with all of his facts straight. That gives us about ten minutes to figure out what the hell is going on here.”

“Graham, we need to claim the scene back. They can’t be allowed to touch anything else. I can’t explain it, but there’s something really wrong here, don’t you feel it?”

He shook his head and peered into my face. “Are you sure it’s not just the after effects of you trying to swallow back your own powers earlier?”

Shaking my head, I studied the bodies. “Whoever did this sealed something inside the bodies.”

Graham took a step back from the corpses. The change in his expression told me everything I needed to know.

“What sort of something are we talking about here?” he asked.

I shrugged and continued my study of the bodies. “Without being able to walk the scene, I can’t tell you anything else; your guess is really as good as mine.”

“So where do we get the proof from that this is preternatural when it was already declared human?”

“Why did you declare it human?” I asked, glancing back up at Graham.

It wasn’t like him to make a mistake like that; he was one of the best at his job and normally he erred on the side of caution, not handing a case over to the cops until he was completely certain it was human and nothing else.

“Jon sent me half the file…. It’s not an excuse; the part he did send me contained abnormalities, but nothing so weird I would rule it preternatural. When I got out from my visit with Jess, he’d sent me the other half and I just knew….”

“But by then it was already too late…. That bastard,” I said, not bothering to keep the anger I felt from my voice.

“Look, I’m certainly no fan of Jon, but he wouldn’t do something like this deliberately. If this blows up, it’s going to be the Elite’s ass on the line.”

“If this blows up, Graham, it’s going to be our asses on the line. You know Jon will pass the book the first opportunity he gets. You work with me and, well, he’s not my greatest fan—if this goes wrong, this is his chance to get rid of us once and for all….”

Graham nodded thoughtfully before dropping back onto his knees next to the bodies. “Fine, then I say we get on with finding ourselves some proof that this is preternatural.”

“Not you, I need you to keep watch. Let me know the minute Dex is on his way back.”

“Why, what are you going to do?” Graham shot me a curious look.

“I’m going to walk the scene. It’s the only thing I can do to get us the proof we need,” I said, tearing off the gloves I’d been wearing. As much as I hated the thought of it, this was going to require skin on skin contact, especially if I was going to get the information I needed before Dex kicked us out.

“We don’t have a warrant,” Graham said.

“And we won’t have one if I don’t get us something we can work with. Now please go and stand guard,” I said, sucking a breath in through my gritted teeth.

He didn’t continue arguing with me and for that I was grateful. My magic was already unstable; the last thing I needed to add to the explosive mix was anger. If I did that, then….

Well, it just wouldn’t be a good idea to lose control of the scene.

Forcing my mind to quieten, I took a large breath in through my nose and let it out, slowly, before dropping my hands to the nearest body.