by T. G. Ayer
I sat back heavily, and it was my turn to study Storm’s face. “You knew.”
He was silent.
“You knew and you didn’t say a word?” I got to my feet, furious. “You let me mourn him, thinking it was my fault all these months, that I was the reason he was nothing more than just a vegetable?”
Storm still said nothing. Of course, he couldn’t deny it, nor would he apologize for it.
My hands were shaking and I tried to still them. I had to get away from him before I said something I would regret. “I’m sorry,” I said, wondering why I was the one apologizing. “Is Chloe here?”
“In her office,” was all he said, but I barely heard him as I turned and left. I didn’t storm out of the room either. No point in being disrespectful. He’d done what he had to do. I just had to suck it up.
How does that feel, Morgan? You can dish it out, can you take it too? I laughed silently. I’d said much the same thing to Cassia not too long ago. Irony sure tasted bitter to me.
I stalked to Chloe Murdoch’s office two doors down, knocked lightly on the clear glass of the open door and entered as she glanced up from her laptop. She grinned at me over the top of the black frames of her glasses.
“Hey, Mel. You need me urgently for something?” she asked, a worried frown marring her high forehead. She’d grabbed her auburn curls and twisted them into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. You’d think a bun would make her look her age, but she didn’t look anywhere near fifty.
I shook my head and sat on one of the chairs before her desk, my hands still shaking. She’d always been my rock, ever since she’d saved me from Fulbright. And still I felt bad to burden her with my problems.
“No. I came to see Storm.”
“But you’re upset,” she said as she rose and came around the desk to take the chair beside me. “You’re shaking. What’s the matter?” She asked the question, but I knew she didn’t need an answer.
She scooted the chair forward and took my hands in hers, holding them within her soft fingers. Almost immediately, they stopped their quivering, the tension fading from my body as Chloe drew it away. What was wrong with me? I really needed to be stronger than this. Stronger than to allow Storm’s deception to upset me.
But I had to be honest with myself. It wasn’t that. It was the fact the Samuel was projecting his mind somewhere. Someplace where he remained to protect an unknown girl? Damn Samuel. What was he doing and why had he not told me?
Chloe’s warmth and energy calmed me down enough for me to talk to her awhile. I told her about the Cross kid, making her aware she would probably be needed sometime soon. Chloe and I had remained close since she’d saved my ass from Juvie. She’d made sure Storm found me a place at Crawdon High and kept me on the straight and narrow so whenever the cops checked in all they found was a good girl who went to school and never put a foot wrong.
What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, of course.
Outside of school, Storm had me trained—weapons, martial arts, anything to help me protect myself. And while he tried to help me be physically safe, I went ahead and practiced with the powers of my mind without him knowing.
I practiced projecting, wandering around the apartments in our building and classrooms at school. Soon I ventured further, out of the city. Then one day I found myself projecting to the Tower of London after looking at a photograph in the newspaper. Scary but interesting.
And decidedly addictive.
I soon grew bored with just astral-projection and decided to try physical jumps again. It terrified me. Which is why I’d been determined to master it.
I never told anyone that every time I teleported I tasted blood when I arrived—the memory of my jump the night my parents were killed still fresh in my mind.
I’d teleported the instant their blood spatter touched my flesh; I still remember the demon’s face as he watched me disappear. Red skin, muscle-bound arms, as if he lifted weights. And the most terrifying red eyes I’d ever seen. It took hundreds of jumps before the copper taste stopped making me want to puke out my guts.
“Are you feeling better, honey?” Chloe asked, rising to her feet and giving her knees a little bounce to stretch them out.
I nodded, but I wasn’t. Maybe my body felt better, but my mind still felt like crap. But I smiled gratefully at Chloe. “Thank you. I’m not sure what I would have done without you.”
Chloe frowned. “Well, Storm shouldn’t have upset you like that.” She looked back at the doorway as if she meant to go charging and tell Storm off for me.
I touched her hand. “No. It wasn’t him.”
She studied my face, her eyes narrowed, the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes deepening. She was astute enough to know when someone was lying but I’d learned a few things in my time. I hated to lie to her, but I didn’t want her standing up for me to Storm—especially when she had no idea what was going on. What I needed to do now was to get going. To get on with my next case.
At last, she nodded, seeming satisfied.
I pushed to my feet, shoving away my self-pity. “I’m sorry. I really should be going. I just needed to let you know about Samantha. That I might be bringing her in, and it probably won’t be through the front door.”
“So nothing unusual, right?” She winked, her blue eyes filled with amusement.
“Nope.” I shook my head and laughed. “Nothing unusual.”
Chapter 5
Mel
I left Chloe feeling a little better as I turned onto my street. Smiling to myself, I grabbed Samantha’s file from the seat beside me. I hurried from the car, headed to the porch and the door to my parents’ two-story Victorian. Through the glass paneling on the door, I could see Drake halfway to the threshold as I opened it. The sight of him made me grin wider.
Broad shoulders, dark skin, chiseled jawline and midnight hair. With those looks, along with all his powers, he’d be just fine on his own, romancing the ladies and slaying bad guys, but he chose to stay with me. Something for which I’d forever be grateful.
Storm had partnered Drake with me when he’d taught me self-defense and the art of sword-fighting. Learning the sword from an Immortal is a unique experience. Sparring with a century-old gargoyle is totally another.
“How did it go?” He meant the meeting with Martin Cross but I knew he could read me well enough to know that more than just the meeting had happened today. His obsidian eyes hardened and he said, “Spill.” Then he turned and walked off to the kitchen.
I followed, submitting to his bossiness only because I was starving and I was so drained I needed to recharge. I slapped the Cross file onto the table as Drake spooned steaming chicken fettuccine into my bowl and I began to eat. It wasn’t any particular mealtime right now, being somewhere between lunch and dinner, but I needed food and I’d be gone soon, so now was as good a time as any for a meal.
Drake didn’t poke or prod, just waited in silence. Sunlight bathed the kitchen, brightening the already white French country decor. My mother had loved her kitchen and I hadn’t changed a thing. Hadn’t wanted to.
“This is good,” I mumbled around a mouthful creamy pasta goodness. Drake smiled. “Stefano’s?” I asked.
“Of course,” Drake snapped. “What do I look like? Your fucking personal chef?”
I grinned and he relaxed, folding his great muscle-bound arms at his chest as he leaned against the counter behind him. I reached out with my mind, checking on the magic that protected the house. The magic was strong, the protective bubble solid and impenetrable.
Early on I’d known I could feel magic while in the ether, but thanks to Samuel I’d learned how to test magical wards in the solid world, regardless of what plane I was in. It had saved my life a few times.
Only after I was sure did I begin to speak. “So the Cross case is a go. I leave ASAP.” He nodded as if he had expected just that.
“Tell me more.”
I cleared my throat. “Samantha Cross, six, missin
g for almost a year. Father is a single parent. CPD closed the case a long time ago.”
“Right. You know what I’m going to say.” Even as I nodded, he continued, “You have to be careful, more careful than ever.”
“So? What is the underground saying?”
He shrugged. “Nothing definite. Nobody can say for certain if the abductions are linked, but you never know. And your success rate can bring too much attention to you.” I knew, but it wasn’t as if I was about to give up my job.
The silence went on for a bit too long as I deliberated telling Drake. Then I sighed. “And I visited Samuel on my way back,” I said, watching his face tighten. I often wondered if he’d been jealous of my closeness to Samuel all those years ago. It might have explained why he was so uptight about my visits. I sat back and told him what happened. And watched his high cheekbones stand out, more pronounced as the skin on his face went taut with shock.
He took a moment to process it, then asked, “So you think he’s somewhere else doing something else right now?”
I nodded, swallowing my frustration and anger even as it came boiling up again. “I have no idea what the hell he’s doing, but as soon as this case is over I plan to find out.” I let my fork fall into my bowl, staring off into space as Drake took it away. He didn’t normally clean up after me, and I suspected he just needed something to do. Samuel had succeeded in shocking him too.
Yeah, Drake, I know the feeling.
“So it’s business as usual now?” he asked from the sink.
“Yeah, I even gave Chloe the heads up.”
“You need to see Steph?” he asked, coming back to me, wiping his hands on a towel. I shook my head. Martin Cross had said he’d given me all the police files so I wanted to check those first before I bothered my BFF. Stephanie Maxwell wasn’t paranormal but she’d grown up on the edge of life like I did. And if Storm had limited his help to only paranormals I would never have met her. Now I relied on her and Drake to be my eyes and ears on all things investigative.
Both Steph and Drake had moved in with me when I finished school and Storm gave me the okay to live on my own. By that time, I’d begun tracking. Small jobs—missing pets, lost keys, stolen cars. Nothing dangerous. Just to make a little money off it for the last two years of school—I was never one to sit on my ass for too long. That was two years ago now, although it seemed more like ten. I felt each year, each month, each day pass by—each day since Ari went missing.
Now my eyes fell on the file at my elbow and I pulled it toward me, setting the Kleenex on the table. I sensed Drake head out of the kitchen to the office. He was back at my elbow seconds later, tipping the contents of the tissue into a clear plastic Ziplock bag. I flipped through the file quickly to get the gist of the case. Time, crime scene, evidence, witnesses. Of the latter two, there were none. Drake worked efficiently too, setting crime scene pictures out on the large square wooden table.
The girl had simply vanished from her bedroom. No sign of entry, forced or otherwise. No sign of struggle, which to me meant she either went willingly or she was drugged, and my money was on the drugs. So we had a smart perp. Most likely a demon, because from my experience most kid abductions were perpetrated by demons—unless it was the parents. Third option, of course, was a serial killer/pedophile perp.
Right now, I needed the rest of the evidence from the crime scene—hair and fiber, none of which Martin Cross had access to. Even if I could request them, it would take far too much time. But a message to Chloe would be sufficient to get it moving along.
I looked up at Drake. “I’ve got to go back and see Chloe, gimme a sec all right?” He nodded, remaining where he was, studying the photos as if something was about to pop out at him with an answer at any moment.
I closed my eyes and centered myself. The first time I’d astral-projected, it had been a complete accident. Part of me was safe in my bedroom, the other part terrified in Alice’s Toyland, where I had meant to get my sister a teddy bear. I’d been scared I was going crazy.
I would have been stuck there, if Ari hadn’t come to me and held me tight around the waist.
I don’t remember what she said but her words had calmed me enough to get my breathing under control. I found the bear, grabbed hold of it and returned to my room.
Empty-handed.
That day I learned astral-projection involved only the mind, and I couldn’t move physical things through the planes. I promised myself then I would learn how to move my body through the planes the way I did my mind.
I was seven.
Now, I projected to Chloe’s office, glad she was still there. Then I teleported in and knocked on the open door. Chloe looked up. “Mel?”
I lifted my finger to my lips. I didn’t want there to be any connection between Chloe and me where the hair and fiber evidence was concerned. She nodded, and I closed the door as quietly as I could and hurried to her desk. She moved paper and pencil aside for me and I wrote her a note.
Samantha Cross disappearance—hair & fiber results plus any hair samples.
Chloe nodded already picking up the phone and dialing. I waited as she spoke. “Hi, honey. How’s it going? You want to meet me for a mocha?”
“Mocha” was code for me wanting some kind of evidence from the Chief’s department. They had to meet outside the precinct and Chloe would show him my note. Then he’d get the evidence out, and bring it home, making sure to bring out two other similar files to make it look like he was also doing his own investigations.
She rang off and wrote 8pm on the piece of paper. Chief Murdoch knew the risks and still stuck his neck out to help me. And the only reason was because I usually found the missing people when the incident was supernaturally related. If I sensed the perp was human, I’d just tell the parents and they’d take the info to the police. I’d also tell the Chief. The parents or spouse think they did something to move the case along, the case gets solved, the missing person is found, and everyone is happy.
The supernatural cases usually don’t follow such a publicly successful pattern. The person is returned and Chloe helps to do what she can to transition them from normal and ignorant to paranormally-aware. Aware is one thing; accepting something is entirely different. We usually decide whether we think they can handle the truth or not. Often, the victim is pretty traumatized. Demons and other supernatural beings aren’t always nice to their victims. Our easiest way out is hallucinogenic drugs injected by the captors—a story Chloe maintains. They go home to their families with Chloe checking in on them once in a while.
I returned to my body, with Drake still flipping through the file. He glanced over at me. “Done?”
I slumped back into my chair. “Yeah,” I said, and it was more a sigh than a word. “I’m going over at eight to pick up the evidence.”
“Good.” He nodded, then beckoned me. “Look, I found something.” He pointed at two of the photos.
I looked really hard but all I saw was a neat child’s room, not a toy or piece of clothing out of place, with just an unmade bed to say someone had slept in it. “Sorry, I got nothing.”
“That’s just it. Everybody but me woulda got nothing.” His expression was pleased, as if he was proud of himself but blowing it out of proportion. I looked up at him, frowning and he pointed out two images. “These two. The ones of the window. There’s a sigil on the sill but you won’t see it. I used my dark sight to check if we missed anything. And there it was.”
Gargoyles have a form of magical sight that can detect wards and spells. I possessed something similar but Drake’s ability was often more accurate than mine. He’d encouraged me to train the skill but given that I barely had time to wash my hair or go shopping for new clothes, I ended up putting it on my to-do list.
Right at the bottom.
“The sigil again?” I asked, my heart racing. “The same as the last one?” He nodded. “Fuck. This is not what I need to hear.”
The last time we’d seen a sigil at a scene was a few we
eks ago, on a case involving a young missing boy. We’d never found him.
“So, the perp belongs to the same clan that took your last victim. That’s about all we know, Mel.” Drake was trying to get me to calm down and he was right. It was just a sigil. A demon’s mark. It didn’t mean anything more than the abductions could be pointed at a particular demon clan. Or that the demon could be trying to fuck with us, send us on a tangent.
“Right, so if we assume they are collecting, then we need to figure out why. In the meantime, you need to get some rest.”
“How much sleep can a girl get with abductions on her mind?”
“Stop making excuses and go get some sleep. You have a few hours before eight so go crash. I’ll stop ‘em if they try to get in.”
“I’m sure you will. Just don’t destroy the house while you’re at it.” I waved at him as I climbed the stairs. Fulbright and his team had barged in on us unannounced once already.
Once had been enough and had put us all on high alert.
Chapter 6
Mel
I’d learned long ago the art of falling asleep when I needed to. Sometimes a nap here and a snooze there was all I got while on a case, and if I hadn’t trained myself to get those much-needed z’s I’d be a walking zombie and of no use to anyone, least of all the people I was searching for.
My alarm buzzed at seven and I hopped out of bed, heading for the shower. The blast of hot water on my skin did little to soothe me. It was always like this before a search. Ten minutes later I’d donned jeans and a red peasant top and was at the kitchen table again, staring at the Cross file.
“You going to check for the kid before you go to the Murdochs’?” Drake’s voice sounded behind me. He knew me well.