Grim Rites (5 page)

T
he street was eerily
silent as Nic killed the engine on his bike. Either everyone was still in bed or … well, I wasn’t really sure what the alternative was.

Tugging the helmet off, I shook my hair free and stared around at the empty houses. Everything looked run-down and more than a little dilapidated. Mia’s yard had a look of neglect, far more than any of the other houses in the area, and as I peered up at the front door and the windows, I swallowed back the pity that threatened to squeeze my throat shut. Every one of the windows were covered in a thick layer of newspaper and cardboard.

I could already imagine what the inside of her house looked like.

The last time I’d seen her, she was struggling to control her empathetic nature. Going out in public was getting harder and harder, and by the looks of the house, it had come to a climax.

Guilt gnawed at my insides. I shouldn’t have left her alone; I should have done more to help her. Of course, wishing I could change things now wasn’t going to do her any favours. If I could help her with whatever problem she’d called me about, then maybe it would go a little of the way towards easing my own conscience.

“What did you say your friend was?” Nic asked, his gaze taking in the abandoned street with all the training of someone who’d spent time in the military running drills in preparation for covert operations.

“I didn’t,” I said, my attention consumed by the house in front of me.

“And she’s a friend, right?” Nic said, his hand sliding to the gun I knew he had clipped on his back beneath his jacket. I’d felt it pressing into me for the entire ride over.

“Mia? Yeah, why? What’s wrong?” I asked, dragging my gaze away from the house.

“You don’t feel it?” he asked, casting a sideways glance in my direction.

“Nope, what am I supposed to feel?” I asked, pushing my emotions away as I fought to control my senses. If Nic was feeling something, then I should have been able to feel it, too. I wasn’t used to being so sensory blind; my magic usually gave me a pretty good read on everything going on around me, but this….

“There’s nothing,” he said, and I placed my hands on my hips, confusion causing my headache to intensify.

“Nothing? I thought you said there was something to feel?”

“That’s what I mean, there’s nothing. Nowhere in the city is there such a feeling of emptiness. Come on, Amber, tell me you feel it, too.”

I closed my eyes and reached out with my magic. I expected to feel the usual heartbeats of those around me; humans had a particular hum to them, and part of me had always wondered if perhaps it was their soul I could feel, but I’d never bothered to examine it too closely.

But this … Nic was right, there was nothing. Even if everyone was asleep, I should have been able to feel them.

“Shit,” I said, panic curling in my gut. Without waiting for Nic, I strode forward up the path that led to Mia’s porch. There were only four steps and I took them two at a time, allowing me to reach the door swiftly.

A symbol etched on the door caught the corner of my eye, but when I tried to focus in on it, it simply disappeared, shimmering just out of view. I pounded on the wood, the sound echoing through the empty air. If Mia was home, she’d know who it was long before she opened the door.

Silence slipped back in around me and panic gripped my stomach. Taking a step back, I eyed the door before lifting my leg and kicking it with every ounce of force I had.

You could have just magically popped the lock…
the voice in the back of my mind reminded me, and I groaned as pain ricocheted back up through my hip into my back.

I didn’t wait; moving into the house, I crept through the downstairs rooms. The place was a mess, exactly how I’d imagined it would be, but there was something about the living room that sent my senses into overdrive. Something had happened—the mess wasn’t just because Mia didn’t have a maid.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I peered up into the gloom and started forward.

A hand on my shoulder sent a thrill of fear through my body and I spun around. Magic spread inside me like a wildfire as I rammed my would-be attacker back against the wall.

Sparks danced along the tips of my fingers as I stared into Nic’s amused eyes, one arm pinned across his throat holding him in place.

“I don’t think you realise just how hot a woman who can protect herself really is,” he said with a smirk.

Heat flooded into my face and I released him just as suddenly as I’d grabbed him, forcing my magic back down into the place it belonged inside me. I’d been so on edge, I hadn’t even realised just how close to the surface my power had been. One false move and I’d have fried Nic….

That thought alone was enough douse the spark of my power completely.

What was wrong with me? If it kept on behaving so erratically, I was going to kill someone, and as far as the law was concerned, when it came to death by magic, there was no such thing as an accident.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his smirk disappearing.

How was I supposed to explain it to him?
Sorry, I almost fried you and I’m concerned I might actually kill someone with my out-of-control magic,
didn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

“You shouldn’t sneak up on me. I could have hurt you,” I said, choosing to go on the defensive.

“I didn’t, you just didn’t hear me calling you,” he said sharply.

Great, so not only was my magic growing at such a pace that it was spiralling out of control but I was also losing touch with my surroundings. How was I going to do my job if I was so consumed by my own thoughts that I couldn’t tell the difference between the good and the bad guys?

“There doesn’t seem to be anyone here, anyway,” Nic said, softening his voice as he gestured to the downstairs.

“I haven’t looked upstairs yet,” I said.

“Don’t you think if your friend was here she’d have come down to investigate the sound of someone kicking in her front door?”

He had a point, but that didn’t exactly make me feel better. What if she was here but was hurt or…. I let my own thoughts trail off, unfinished. I couldn’t keep thinking like that.

Letting a small tendril of my magic creep forth, I stepped onto the stairs, the timber beneath my feet creaking noisily. If she was upstairs and hurt, then I would know it….

My magic found something and my steps faltered. Whatever it was, it was dead; there was no mistaking the soul-sucking emptiness of it.

“There’s something dead upstairs,” I said aloud to Nic as I continued up the steps.

He caught my hand, causing me to pause near the top of the stairs. “Are you sure this is a good idea? She was your friend, Amber, maybe I should go first….”

I shook my head and plastered my best soldiering-on smile on my face. He was right, she was my friend, and I had already let her down once; I wouldn’t do it again. If it was her body upstairs, then I would do the decent thing and find out what had happened; she deserved that, at least.

He let his hand fall away and I took the last couple of steps with legs that trembled. Every cell in my body urged me to turn tail and run but I moved down the hall towards the place where my magic had found the emptiness of death.

Pushing open the bedroom door, I prepared myself for the sight awaiting me. My eyes scanned the room quickly until they fell on the edge of a boot poking out from behind the bed. Crossing the room, a long breath whooshed out of me as my gaze fell on the body of a woman. The terrified look in her wide death-greyed eyes churned my stomach.

“It’s not her,” I said, as I felt more than heard Nic catch up to me.

“Then who is it?” he asked, his voice laden with the confusion I felt.

“I have no idea,” I said, crouching down next to the body. The woman held something in her hands, clutching it as if for dear life.

Slipping a pair of gloves from my pocket, I tugged them on and folded back her stiff fingers. The woman’s grip was unrelenting, similar to the hold death had on her body and soul.

“Do you always carry forensic gloves?” Nic asked.

“My job usually involves some kind of dead body; it makes sense to carry them. The day you don’t is the day you’ll find yourself wrist-deep fishing a vital piece of evidence from some sort of cavity in a corpse,” I said with a grunt of triumph as I ripped the flyer free.

“What’s it say?” Nic asked, and I could feel his body heat through my jacket as he leaned over my shoulder.

“It says, ‘maybe you should give me a chance to unfold it,’” I said irritably. There was something about having him so close to me that sent my brain into meltdown. Concentration went straight out the window and even the simply task of unfolding the sheet of paper without ripping it took a monumental effort.

Nic smiled at me as he gestured the act of sealing his lips. Sighing, I returned my attention to the pale yellow flyer and carefully opened it up. The woman’s grip had crushed the paper almost completely, but I smoothed it out against the floor and the words were still readable.

“A bake sale?” Nic said, but it wasn’t the promise of cakes and pastries that interested me.

“It’s the same church Mia said she saw something at. See the address,” I said, pointing to St Anne’s church name and the small symbol across the top of the leaflet.

“Would your friend have gone back there?” Nic said, moving over to the body on the floor to take a closer look.

“I wouldn’t have thought so, but it’s been a while since I saw Mia, so maybe she’s changed….”

“Enough to have murdered a woman?” Nic asked pointedly.

I shook my head, although, if I was honest, I wasn’t sure anymore. I didn’t know Mia now. I wouldn’t have imagined her house looking like a complete dive, so she’d clearly deteriorated.

It was my fault.

“I really don’t know. I don’t think so, but,” I gestured to our surroundings, the piles of boxes, stacks of newspapers, rubbish, and the thick coat of dust that had settled across every stick of furniture in the room; “clearly I don’t know her as well as I once did,” I said, with a sigh.

“Why do I get the impression you’re not telling me something?” Nic asked.

“Because you’re a know-it-all,” I said, pushing up onto my feet.

“Ouch.” He feigned hurt, clutching his hands to his chest as though my words had physically wounded him. His expression made me smile despite the turmoil going on in my head. “There’s a smile,” he said, his voice softening as he climbed to his feet.

His voice sent a frisson of longing through me. What was it about him that made me want to throw caution to the wind and forget everything I was, if only I could get another taste of his lips?

Coughing awkwardly, I glanced down at my watch. “We need to get going,” I said. The moment was broken and yet Nic continued to watch me for a few seconds more, his gaze searching mine.

“Where to?” he asked, an almost imperceptible sigh escaping him. If we hadn’t been standing so close, I would have missed it.

Was he honestly disappointed? The idea certainly wasn’t impossible, but why would he be? Pushing the rogue thoughts aside, I focussed on the flyer I still held in my hands.

“We’re going to church,” I said, with a shudder. The last time I’d been to church had been when I was still living in Ireland. Organised religion didn’t exactly look favourably upon witches and truly devout priests seemed to have a sixth sense for my kind. Meeting with them tended not to end with them inviting me back for tea and biscuits.

“And what are we going to do with her?” Nic said, gesturing to the stiff body of the woman in front of us.

“I want to find Mia first, make sure she’s safe, and then I’ll call the Elite. However this went down, there isn’t a mark on the woman; it had to be a preternatural kill…. If Mia’s safe, then I’ll come back here and walk the scene,” I said, pity flipping my stomach as I stared at the woman’s unseeing stare.

Whatever had happened to put the look in her eyes had terrified her, and no one deserved to die like that. Death was bad enough without your last moments on Earth being filled with terror and pain.

“Victoria is going to be pissed,” Nic said with a smile. “Are you sure you want a Changeling being that angry with you?”

“I’m a big girl now; I can take her if I need to….” I spoke with confidence, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. I’d seen what Victoria had done to Zeck—the last thing I wanted to ever do was fall on her bad side. I had a feeling it would end with me cold and stiff like the body on the floor.

“Let’s go,” I said, striding out of the room. The less I thought about that, the better I would sleep at night. And, for now at least, I had bigger fish to fry.

My plan was simple: find Mia and make my mistake right … no matter the cost.

S
tanding outside the church
, I stared up at its stained glass windows and shuddered. So much could go wrong with this plan. I’d heard tales of Shadow Sorcerers of old entering churches, the gargoyles screaming out their warning right before the witch was reduced to little more than a heap of ash.

Not that I really believed that story … or at least, I’d spent a lot of time telling myself that. And of course I’d attended church when I lived in Ireland. It was simply a part of the curriculum and everyone was expected to toe the religious line. That had been fine until I’d come face to face with a priest who was truly devout.

He’d known what I was—maybe he’d even know what I truly was, what my potential was. If he had, he hadn’t mentioned it, but I wasn’t ruling anything out. That particular priest had only been too happy to make an example out of me, drawing me up in front of the class to inform my classmates that an abomination walked among them.

That had been the first time in my life that I’d wished my mother had taught me black magic instead of white. If I could have turned that man into a toad—or worse—I would have….

“Are we going in?” Nic asked, breaking into my thoughts.

I jumped. I’d been so lost in my own mind I hadn’t even remembered he was with me. I really needed to stop doing that; it made me far more vulnerable than I was honestly comfortable with.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, crossing the busy street.

Hesitating, I paused with my hand on the wrought iron gate that stood closed against the street. The trickle of whatever power religion itself had hummed against my skin. Tightening my grip, I shoved the gate open and the hum disappeared. Stepping onto the hallowed ground, I waited for the gargoyles to start up their screaming, but there was nothing but the warm autumn breeze that brushed my face.

“Are you all right, Amber?” Nic asked, pausing next to me.

Nodding, I smiled. “I’m fine, it’s just considering what I am, part of me still expects to get struck by lightning when I set foot inside the gates of a church.”

“Nah, that only happens when you step inside and show yourself for the heretic you are to the face of God.”

Faltering I stared at Nic, my mouth dropping open. “That doesn’t happen,” I said.

“No, of course it doesn’t—jeez, Amber, sometimes you’ll believe anything,” he said with a wide grin, before he ducked out of my reach and jogged towards the steps in front of the church.

“Funny, ha-ha,” I called after him. My heart rate had picked up and I hated that I was so gullible. Following him at a much slower pace, I climbed the steps and waited as he pulled open the heavy wooden doors.

The inside of the church was gloomy, but there was a type of peace that couldn’t be found anywhere else on earth. It was one of the things that had amazed me about the Church; how could something that so often passed judgement on its congregation possess a place that was so utterly calming?

The smell of incense and candle wax assailed my senses and I moved into the aisle, my gaze drawn down the centre to where the large, ornate altar stood.

It was beautiful, everything about it setting my mind at ease. I let my gaze wander across the wide space filled with pews until I caught sight of something to one side near the front of the room. Several people stood, their backs to me as I watched them.

Power prickled down the back of my neck and I fought the urge to shudder.

“Can I help you, my child—are you lost?” A warm gentle voice spoke directly behind my shoulder and I jumped as though something had slithered across my skin.

Spinning around, I came face-to-face with who I could only assume was the priest running the church. His eyes were filled with kindness, the lines in his face telling me he had lived a long life that wasn’t free of hardship. He looked like the type you’d find down at the soup kitchen, feeding the sick and starving.

The moment my eyes met his, I cringed. I could feel him; his purity rang through my head and the urge to cower before him rushed in my veins. I’d never met anyone like him before. I’d known devout priests and I’d avoided them at all costs, but their power had never made me feel like this. Either I was truly evil, or he was so good he was as close to angelic as any human was going to get.

Magic flared in my veins and I watched the expression in his eyes change. Any second now, he would recognise me for what I was, and then the real fun would start.

The demon mark on my shoulder tingled the darkness washing over my own power and quenching. A flicker of confusion filled the priest’s eyes for a moment and then passed as though it had never been there. His smile returned and he held his hand out to me in greeting.

“My name is Father Bailey. Come in and make yourself comfortable.”

It was my turn to feel confused and from the look Nic shot me, it must have shown in my face. This wasn’t what usually happened when I was recognised. Witches get a bad rap; everyone assumes we worship the Devil when it really couldn’t be further from the truth. Naturally, there are those who worship the dark but it’s not really the Devil, more the dark side of nature.

The world exists as a duality—light and dark—and witches practice using that duality and balance. Magic itself isn’t evil, only ever the person wielding it. Some gifts naturally lend themselves to the dark or the light, but there is always a choice in how it can be used. Humans didn’t really take any of that onboard; they preferred to believe the fairy stories of witches who lured little children back to their lairs to cook them into a stew.

And the Church had always been our biggest problem. They wanted to be the biggest players in the game, and anyone with more power than then was a problem. It didn’t help that the majority of the Shadow Sorcerers had been female. It was a long, bloody history of female suppression that had now become wrapped up in superstition.

“Father, I’m actually looking for a friend of mine. Her name is Mia Harris. I know she frequents the church sometimes. She’s very timid and shy, so maybe she didn’t introduce herself….”

“Mia, of course I know her. She’s our newest flock member. Father Matthew is introducing her to some of our more devout following right now.”

I felt my mouth drop wide, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. Clearly, he’d made a mistake. Mia wouldn’t get involved with the daily activities in the church; it couldn’t have been further from who she was as a person.

Tucking my arm into his, Father Bailey led me down the centre of the church towards the group I’d spotted the moment I’d entered. We veered towards them, through the pews, and the closer I got, I realised they were circled around something or someone.

“Father Matthew, is Mia there with you?” Father Bailey asked, his voice crystal clear as it rang out through the church. It was the type of voice I could imagine sitting and listening to for hours, soothing and calm. There would be no censure in his words, no talk of eternal damnation.

The crowd parted and for the second time that day, my mouth hung wide open. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to start catching flies as my father would have said.

Mia stood in the centre; a tall thin man dressed in a black shirt and trousers stood next to her, his white collar indicating he had to be the Father Matthew I’d been told about.

But it was Mia’s face that shocked me the most. She stared up at the man next to her as though it was God Himself who spoke. The look of peaceful serenity in her eyes was honestly something I’d never expected to see from her, ever.

We reached the edge of the circle and a feeling I couldn’t quite pinpoint slid down my spine. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, but I rolled my shoulders anyway in an attempt to shake it off.

“Mia, I went to your house….” I trailed off as the man next to me stiffened slightly and I shot him a sideways glance.

His expression was neutral, but there was something about him that just sat wrong with me. Was I getting paranoid? The demon mark on my shoulder tingled as though in agreement, and I returned my attention back to Mia once more.

She barely managed to tear her gaze away from the priest next to her, and when she looked at me, her eyes were unfocussed. Had she started doing drugs? Was her gift really that bad, that the only way out was to get so high she barely recognised anyone around her?

It wasn’t impossible; when we’d been younger, she’d certainly attempted substance abuse. The night I’d walked in on her lying prone on the bed, the needle still stuck in her arm, would haunt me for the rest of my life.

Was that why she’d called me? Was it a cry for help?

“Why?” she said, her voice soft and relaxed.

I fought the urge to cross the space between us so I could shake some sense into her. She had to be using again—being this spaced-out wasn’t normal.

“You called me, remember? Said you needed my help….” I trailed off. The hairs on the back of my neck were beginning to lift, and I had the feeling that the less I shared with the group, the better.

Mia shook her head slowly and smiled at me before turning her head to beam up at the silent man next to her. “I don’t need your help, Amber, I was wrong … Father Matthew is the only one who can help me now,” she said, her voice dreamy.

I couldn’t help myself—crossing the space between us, I reached Mia and grabbed her hand before I started to drag her away from the group surrounding us.

“Amber, what are you doing?” she said, but her voice was still sluggish and her attempt to pry my fingers off her wrist was pathetic at best.

I dragged her towards the main doors that led out of the church and the grumblings of the gathered group behind us sent a shiver down my spine. I’d heard of organised religion, but not like this. The way everyone was staring up the priest reminded me more a cult than anything else.

“Amber, no,” Mia dug her heels in, but I’d been working out and I was stronger than she was.

Pulling her out into the morning sunshine, I spun her around on the top step to face me as Nic followed us outside.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Amber? Everyone seems pretty pissed off in there and….” he trailed off as he cast a quick glance over his shoulder. “I don’t know, there’s just something not right,” he added.

“Mia, look at me,” I said, grabbing her face with my hands and forcing her to focus on me.

She stared at me with a look akin to horror as she fought my hold. “Get away from me, you’re nothing more than a monster!” she screamed, her voice rising in hysteria.

I released her, my hands falling back to my sides. She couldn’t have hurt me worse even if she’d slapped me. I’d been wondering the same thing about myself lately; my actions certainly weren’t those of a good person and I’d contemplated whether or not I was actually a true monster. But despite everything that had happened between us, despite how I’d wronged her, Mia had never called me a monster….

Until now.

She sucked in a deep breath and lifted her chin defiantly. “You were always a monster, I was just too pathetic to tell you,” she said, her words like ice picks against my skin.

“If that’s true, then why did you call me? Why did you beg for my help?”

She shrugged. “I was feeling desperate, lost … I don’t know. A person is allowed to have a lapse in judgement.”

“Mia, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, but if you need my help now … I promise I’ll do everything in my power to—” she cut me off with a short, abrupt burst of laughter.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. A promise from you isn’t worth jack shit and we both know it. All I want from you, Amber, is for you to leave and never come back.”

Swallowing down my hurt, I tensed my shoulders and clenched my fists. If she was going to behave like that, then there was really only one other card I could play.

“If you don’t need my help, then why was there a dead body of a woman upstairs in your house?”

Mia stared at me and I could tell how uncomfortable she suddenly was. “It’s none of your business, actually, but if you must know, she attacked me.”

She was lying. I might not have known this new Mia, the one who didn’t seem to be bothered by her gift anymore, the one who didn’t feel the strain of the world the way she always had before, but I could still tell when she was lying. That hadn’t changed, at least, and the moment the words left her mouth, I felt a small sliver of relief pierce my chest. If that hadn’t changed about her, if she was still the godawful liar she’d always been, then maybe everything else wasn’t really her.

After all, “a leopard doesn’t change its spots” was a saying for a reason.

“And, what, you thought coming here was a better idea than calling it in?” I said.

“I needed to atone for my sins. Father Matthew said he would help, that he knew what needed to be done….”

She spoke with all the zeal of someone utterly brainwashed. If I hadn’t heard the panic and fear in her voice this morning, then maybe I could have ignored it. But she’d called me for help and I still couldn’t forget the way she’d pleaded with me.

“You need to call the police, and if this was anything other than a human kill, then you need to call in the Elite,” I said, fighting to keep my voice as level as possible.

“Father Matthew is going to help me,” she said again, and I suddenly wasn’t sure if she meant he would help her with the small issue of the dead body in her house or if he would help her with something else.

“Is everything all right out here?” Father Matthew said, poking his head out through the door.

“Speak of the Devil,” I muttered beneath my breath.

He looked like a gentle man, one you could trust your darkest secrets to without fear of recriminations. But there was still something that didn’t ring right about him. And whether or not that was just my own paranoia speaking over my past experiences with the Church, I just couldn’t tell anymore.

“What was that?” he said, the full weight of his gaze falling on me.

The urge to scurry away and hide beneath the nearest rock I could find washed over me. Father Bailey, it seemed, might have been willing to overlook what I was, but I could tell from the look in Father Matthew’s eyes that he wouldn’t be extending me the same curtesy.