Once Broken (Dove Creek Chronicles) (10 page)

“I take it this isn’t the lawyer?” He asked with a small smile as he took the papers from me.

I laughed. “No, it’s my younger brother. The musician.
Diana said she needs help on the night shift and Dylan’s looking for work.”

Hugo nodded and glanced over the application. “You don’t have to ask, Remi. He’s hired.”

I reserved any excitement I might’ve felt at landing my brother a job. “Do you think it’s wise?” I asked. “He doesn’t know about the Amasai.”

“Neither do
es Diana.”

I pursed my lips. “True.”

“If you will accept a piece of advice . . . I think you should come clean with him.”

“Our mom has tried our entire lives to protect us from our father’s legacy. It would devastate her if Dylan found out, too,” I said.

Worried though I was about Dylan getting even more curious now that he was back in town, I wasn’t sure my worries were justified. I hated keeping the truth from him. More than likely, I was suffering more from a guilty conscience than a curious brother.

“I understand. But think it over.” Hugo stood. “Dylan can start right away. Be sure to let Diana know.”

I nodded. “I will. Thanks, Hugo. For checking on me, too.”

I finished off the last half hour of my shift by calling my brother to give him the news
and writing Diana a note. The late shift took over, and I went home to shower and get ready before I was due at headquarters.

When I got
to the farm house, it didn’t smell like a place where people rallied before going out to protect people from vampires every night. It smelled like a home.

“Hey, Remi. Come help yourself. There’s enough here for an army,” Meredith invited. I went through the living room and made a beeline for the kitchen. She
had made dinner – spaghetti with homemade meatballs. I was glad I’d arrived early.

“Is Gabe here yet?” I asked before plucking a ripe cherry tomato from the salad bowl and popping it into my mouth.

“No. Just Aric and Garrett so far,” she said. Meredith reached into the oven for the garlic bread, and my mouth watered when the scent wafted toward me. “Speaking of those two . . .”

“Probably in the armory,” I guessed. “I’ll call over.”

I got Aric on the comm system and relayed the call to dinner. He and Garrett appeared as fast as their feet would allow them to, and even then they all but ran over each other to get to the kitchen. Their adolescent display evoked a round of laugher from Meredith and me.

The four of us sat around the table and began to fill our plates. We made an odd sort of fa
mily, but that’s what we were: A family that went beyond blood. We paused long enough with our chit-chat to say grace, then we each dug into our steaming plates of spaghetti.

“So, Remi,” Meredith said between bites. “I hear that your brother is going to be working here at the Dove Creek shop.”

I nodded and finished chewing. “Word travels fast.”

“Is he going to be joining us?” Garrett asked.

“No,” I answered a little too sharply. The question scratched the surface of what was weighing on my mind. I gave Garrett an apologetic look across the table. “No,” I tried again, my tone more even. “He doesn’t know about the Amasai.”

Garrett and Aric both looked as though they had a spate of questions to ask about what would or wouldn’t happen with Dylan, but they were interrupted by Gabriel’s arrival.

“Smells good. Started without me, I see,” he said as he strolled into the kitchen. He tugged on the end of my ponytail as he passed.

The taught thread of tension snapped as Gabe settled in next to me, and the twins didn’t push their luck.

“Ready for tonight?” He asked me as he twirled spaghetti onto his fork.

“As always.” After pausing for a drink, I added, “Rearing to go after a couple nights off.”

“Good. We could have our work cut out for us.”

“Aric and I will both be here if you two run into trouble,” Meredith said.

The lengthy summer evening allowed us to linger over dinner before dusk settled in and called us to our duty. Gabriel and I bid each other Godspeed and parted ways. He would stay
on the outskirts of town and I was to stick to the center of town. Garrett was monitoring the scanners for any rural activity that needed our attention.

I hoped that Gabe was wrong, that the night wouldn’t deal us a new round of blood and death. It was a hope that I didn’t entertain for long, though.

My attention turned instead to watching and listening as I cruised slowly though the streets of a residential neighborhood. It was an innocuous looking area, the kind of place with wide streets and older but neat little houses. I pictured grandparents out in their yards playing with grandchildren, the kind of people who waved at passersby and knew the mailman by name.

The streets were well lit, and I could see that nothing appeared threatening or out of place. I moved on, passing out of the neighborhood and into a strip that catered to travelers. A line of gas stations and
a couple of fast food restaurants pointed the way to the interstate, and I followed it to the entrance ramp.

By the time I could get up to speed, my phone began to ring. I glanced at it and saw that Solomon was the caller. Keeping an eye on the highway, I picked it up and answered.

“Hello?”

“Remi, it’s Solomon. There’s something that I need you to see. Meredith said you can help,” he told me.

It wasn’t uncommon for Sol to call us when he encountered a questionable death, and we often called him when there was a victim we couldn’t save. But he rarely asked explicitly for our help and he damn sure never asked for mine. I wasn’t sure what to think.

“What is it?” I asked, caution evident in the question.

“It’d be easier just to show you,” he said.

“Alright. Where are you?”

“Twenty-seven hundred Cotton. Do you know the area?”

“Yeah, the neighborhood with the huge houses on acre lots?” I asked.

“That’s it,” Sol confirmed.

“I’m not far from there. I can be there in a few minutes.”

We hung up and I exited the interstate onto the service road. It took a few twists and turns from where I was, but I arrived on swanky Cotton Terrace in mere moments as promised. I spotted the detective’s sedan in the driveway of a sprawling house on a corner property, telling me that I was in the right place.

Slowing my jeep to a halt behind Sol’s car, I parked and went to the front door. Yellow crime scene tape was strung between the columns on the front porch and I ducked under it to get to the oaken entry door. No sooner than I reached for the doorknob, Solomon beat me to the punch. I barely stopped myself from stumbling forward as the door swung inward.

“About time.” He greeted me gruffly as he stood aside to let me in.

“Yeah, well. Speeding isn’t an option thanks to your brothers in arms,” I retorted.

Solomon turned and strode through the grand foyer, and I guessed that he meant for me to follow. Everything I could see from the chandelier down to the marble floor looked pricy. I was almost afraid to touch anything.

“We have to work quickly. Westview is loaning us their Crime Scene Unit . . . They’ll be here in about fifteen minutes,” he said as we went.

I wasn’t surprised to learn that he had called me because there was a death in that house, but I was still wondering why the detective needed my help. He was well-versed in the signs of a vampire killing.

We wound our way from the living room through a smaller sitting room. The furnishings in these rooms were even more opulent than in the entry. A man’s touch was apparent in many ways, but this was a man with taste. The marble floor continued from the front room, with plush rugs to break up the hard surface. Dark, rich shades of brown and gray were brushed onto the walls, the fixtures were modern but bold, and the furniture was heavy. Art was placed in the rooms in appealing places, though I got the impression that its owner had selected the pieces because they fit in with the home’s color scheme rather than any affinity he might’ve felt for it. There weren’t as many small pieces like vases and sculptures in these rooms, and I became more at ease.

Sol came to a halt and that little bit of ease vanished.

“The victim is Jude Abram, forty-six year old male who lives alone. This poor fella got ripe before the cleaning lady found him tonight. Watch out you don’t take deep breaths,” he warned me.

The detective pushed open the door, which admitted us to a formal dining room. The smell was no exaggeration. I rubbed a finger under my nose and switched to breathing through my mouth.

Poor fella
was right. The man was nude and had been bound to the dining table, which looked to have been transformed into an altar of sorts. From where I stood, I could see that his flesh was covered in cuts. Blood was crusted on the table, but not enough to be all of what would have bled from a body with that many wounds. I tried to force my feet to move so that I could look closer, but I might as well have been stuck in three feet of cement.

“What happened here, Sol?”

“That’s what I need you to help me figure out,” he said. “This obviously isn’t a run of the mill homicide, but there are no bite marks.”

If Solomon needed my help solving this murder, then I would just have to suck it up. This man, whoever he was, didn’t deserve to die like he had. No one
deserved to die like that. I took a few steps closer, testing my ability to handle the scene before me. Death wasn’t an unusual thing for me, but this was different. This man had been brutalized in a manner I’d never seen before and it set my skin prickling from my toes all the way up to my scalp.

As I approached, I saw that the cuts in his skin weren’t random. They were sl
iced in a repeating pattern – one symbol over and over, everywhere I could see. I didn’t recognize it, but it closely resembled demonic symbols I was familiar with.

Apparently, my trepidation was well founded.

“This was some sort of ritual. It looks like we’re dealing with someone trying to summon a demon, though Hugo and I will have to do some research to confirm that.”

“I was afraid you’d tell me something like that, but I hoped not. Thought this could be some bogus crap, made to look like the occult. Maybe wannabes,” Solomon said.

I shook my head. “No, this is for real.”

It occurred to me that this murder could somehow be connected to our new supercharged foes. If this man’s murder had been days before, it happened right around the time they showed up. I told Solomon as much.

He nodded and he appeared to think it over. “The timeline seems right. We’ll know the time of death after the autopsy.”

I drew closer to the table and focused on taking steady breaths in and out of my mouth. Examining the symbol as closely as I could, I glanced up at the detective.

“Do you have a pen and paper I can use?” I asked.

Sol produced a notepad and pen from his jacket pocket, and I used them to sketch the symbol so that I wouldn’t forget the details later. I tore the sheet from the pad, and handed it and the pen back to Solomon.

I took one last good look as I tucked the sketch into my back pocket. Next to the man’s left shoulder, were the words “Triple Six” carved into the surface of the dining table. I hadn’t seen it before because of the amount of blood, but I noticed that the channels etched into the wood appeared to be made so that the blood would have run into them to give the words a macabre effect.

“Solomon, look there. Have you seen this?” I pointed toward the words.

The detective turned his head to get a better look. “Could be the name of that group.”

I nodded. “How much longer do we have?”

“Not long,” he answered. “In fact, we need to get you out of here.”

“Gladly
.”

Making our way from the dining room back to the entry went much quicker than my initial trip through the house had been. I was relieved to be getting out of there.

“Sol, if you find any other clues or DNA matches or anything, I know I don’t need to tell you how important it would be. These people are gunning for us,” I said as we paused at the door.

“I’ll keep you in the loop,” he assured. “The same goes for you. Let me know what you figure out about that symbol.”

“You got it,” I said. I pulled open the heavy door and went to get into my jeep.

I saw the scene investigators’ van and an ambulance round the corner just as I was leaving Cotton Terrace. Perfect timing.

I drove for a few blocks until I reached a secluded street, then pulled over to call Gabe. After telling him about what I’d seen, I asked what he thought.

“You might be onto something,” he agreed. “And we don’t have any other explanations to pursue.”

“We should tell Hugo soon,” I said.

“Text Meredith and she can call him right at dawn. We shouldn’t wake him at this hour for a theory.”

“Sure thing. How’s everything with you tonight?” I asked.

“Quiet,” Gabriel said. “Either the vamps are busy elsewhere, or they’re laying low tonight.”