The Truth About Night

by Amanda Arista

  When I put the first photo down, Emily flinched. The second one made her turn away.

  “Mitchell, another journalist, was found on the doorstep of the home he grew up in. Hadn’t lived there in years. Cops assumed he was homeless due to the state of the body and moved on.”

  Levi interrupted. “Could it have been dried out and then moved there?”

  I spread the rest of the photos out on the table. “Mitchell was gone for less than a week.” I pointed at Tay-Tay. “Tiara Henderson, less than three days. She was the girlfriend of the informant that Ethan and I met with.” I put the last picture on the table. “My contact at the M.E. says this type of weathering would have taken months to get that level of decay without any help.”

  The group stared at the two bodies before them.

  “So what is the story that we aren’t seeing?” Piper asked. She’d curled her arm through Kye’s. It struck me that these were everyday images for me. Hell, I saw more pictures of dead people than live ones. But, even for the most powerful person in this room, gore was still gore and a corpse was an innocent lost.

  “Notice the position of each body, arms out, neck stiff, legs bent in this sort of diamond shape? Same in both cases. Rafe’s recognized the symbolic meaning behind it.”

  His blue eyes flicked up to me, slightly startled at being called on. I raised an eyebrow and nodded that he needed to take over.

  “The shape their bodies are making is the Old Speak symbol for sacrifice.”

  One of young wolves gasped. Cleo hid behind Levi’s shoulder. The bear at the end of the table flexed his muscles so hard that I thought he would rip his shirt. I watched as the others looked at Piper, who nodded for Rafe to continue.

  “Now if we observe the state of the bodies, they appeared dry, completely desiccated. As if the life had been sucked out of them,” Rafe finally said.

  I listened to him carefully as he explained. “Two isn’t enough to determine a pattern. But with the magical significance of the body, it could be a very intricate spell or an ancient ritual. One had a piece of magic still lingering on the body, and I’ve been reading the grimoires and, in theory, it could have been put on her arm while alive to be the catalyst for a spell that did this.”

  “What kind of spell?” I asked.

  Rafe could only shake his head. “I don’t know, but more than likely, we are looking at another one, and probably soon, within a week? My biggest concern is that they’re being patient, which is something we haven’t seen before.”

  Apparently, I was the only one able to articulate any questions, so I kept my eyes on the table, on the pictures, careful there was no chance my questions could expose me. “What was it like before, the last time you dealt with Warlocks?”

  Levi actually answered the question. “Impulsive. Warlocks attacked a few of us. Got their asses handed back to them.”

  “Was this before or after your office was broken into?” The question slipped out completely under my radar. Against all the mental barricades I’d put up.

  I could hear the familiar sound of teeth grinding. “I only ask so I can get a timeline of their activity.”

  “Before. We had no proof the break-in was them,” he continued, “We thought they’d left town.”

  Rafe shook his head. “The magic on the Henderson body. It was fresh.”

  The others around the table started to shift uncomfortably. I wasn’t sure if it was the magic or the dead bodies that were making them squirm, but neither one seemed to be setting right with this crowd. I felt bad about showing them this violence, especially Emily.

  “Mitchell was found at his childhood home and Tay-Tay was found in in her apartment.” I gestured toward the pictures for the rest of the group. “Could that be important to a spell? Something about home turf?”

  Rafe shook his head. “Maybe. I’m not an expert in spells.”

  “I thought you were the resident scholar,” I said.

  A small smile crept across Rafe’s mouth.

  Levi didn’t find it as funny and a small growl echoed across the space.

  Piper rapped her knuckles against the table and pointed at Levi like a true Mother with the universal “No.” She took control of the conversation by simply clearing her throat. “I’ll see if I can get more books sent out here, but I don’t want too many red flags raised. Last thing we need is the Cause coming in here and trying to get their claws in. Those do-gooders always seem to mess everything up.”

  There was a general consensus around the room. I was feeling like the new kid in class and almost raised my hand. “Who—or what—is the Cause?”

  Piper flashed me a sweet smile. “They are a fraternity of a sorts, of different breeds of Wanderers who have pledged to protect the balance between humans and magic.”

  It sort of made sense, but Levi cut off my next question about them.

  “I want us out in greater numbers,” the Primo said as a hot wave of his puppy-scented power spread throughout the room, making my stomach flip-flop. “Keep in groups, but make your presence known.”

  “Are you trying to draw them out?” Emily’s voice was high and tight as she spoke for the first time. Her dark eyes were wide and tear-filled. “Get another one of us killed?”

  “No. I want these Warlocks to know this is our city.”

  Piper made a tsking noise. “I’m not entirely sure this is Warlocks, Levi. Something new might be trying to get into the cracks of the city. Just because it quacks doesn’t make it a duck.”

  Emily shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. It wasn’t two seconds later that she left the table entirely, her footsteps echoing up the stairs.

  Piper sighed as her eyes followed Emily out of the room. But she recovered and smiled warmly to the group. “Stay together. Try not to go anywhere alone until we know for sure what’s going on. Thank you, all, for coming.”

  Piper and Kye left. A few others drifted away, muttering under their breath as they glanced at me or Rafe. Only Levi and Xenom remained.

  I craned my neck to look up at the massive man and remembered the black bear that lumbered over the hill the night of the full moon. The spirit animal hadn’t really been super creative with its form for this guy.

  “So I guess you’re running with the research?” Levi asked Rafe.

  Rafe’s eyes twinkled with a moment of amusement. These puns were getting out of hand. “I guess I am.”

  “I want to know everything you find.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You report to me and I report it to Piper. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Levi glared at me, then at Rafe, before nodding to Xenom. The two men walked upstairs.

  As their footsteps sounded above us, I let out a deep breath. “That wasn’t fun.”

  “Welcome to pack politics.” Rafe leaned forward on the table, his hands braced wide and his head lowered.

  I slowly moved to his side of the table to survey the pictures from his vantage point, trying not to enjoy the warmth that ebbed from him. I didn’t want to admit that it calmed me, made it seem like not all hope was lost.

  “Whatever happened upstairs, it sounds like she trusts you, believes in you.”

  “She does,” was all I could say. The question was, could I trust myself, my instincts, anymore without knowing where the magic came from and where it would mostly likely end up?

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “I’ll be fine,” I assured. “I just need some quiet time.” It wasn’t technically a lie. I knew that in about five years and gallons of whiskey later, I would eventually be fine with all this.

  “And you quiet time is working a murder story?”

  “If you are going through hell, keep going.”

  “Really? Churchill.”

  I just shrugged.

  He started to stack the photos into a neat pile before him, using a reverence that surprised me.

  “Looks like we’ll keep on working together,” I ventured, �
��sanctioned by the Den Mother herself. Execution is officially off the table.”

  “Seems to be getting the job done.” Rafe slid the photos back in their folder. “Well, it’s coming up on Thanksgiving break, and then I’ve got three more weeks of school, but, frankly, it’s all autopilot until their final presentations.”

  I chuckled as I took the file folder from him.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t even realize it was Thanksgiving.”

  “So that’s a ‘no’ to you having family?”

  I turned to face the living room again. “Oh, I’ve got family, but they really don’t like me all that much. Mom is still around, but would rather I keep my big city lifestyle to the big city.”

  “Last Wolf standing. It’s only me for this holiday too.”

  “I’d imagine that the pack would put together a spread. This seems like a potluck friendly place.”

  He sighed. “Oh, they do.”

  I wanted to ask what had happened to warrant this shunning, but the words weighed heavy on my tongue. Something deep down almost didn’t want to know and certainly didn’t want to pull it out of him. It was the first time in my life I was okay with not knowing everything about everything.

  My skin prickled with the realization, and I shivered.

  But I pushed it aside. I had murders to solve and a sidekick to help. Like old times.

  My cell phone rang and I had to dig through my bag to find it. “Lanard.”

  “It’s Rutherford.”

  “Hey, Julie. What you got?”

  “You know how you were hounding me the other day about weird dead bodies. Well, we got another one.”

  It was like he’d struck a tuning fork against my head; everything hummed with a gathering storm. “Please tell me I’m the first one you called.”

  “Haven’t even called it in to dispatch. Wanted to give you a heads-up, because I heard you the other day, Lanard. I really heard you.”

  Shocked wasn’t the right word to explain what I felt. It wasn’t often that my rants changed people’s minds.

  “I wanted to let you know.”

  “Where are you?” I turned back around and started collected everything from the table. I needed to go. I needed to get there now.

  When he gave me the address, my body froze with my arm stuck in my bag. “Repeat that?”

  “I know. Where you and Rhoades were attacked. Reason number two I’m calling you in. Might lose my head for it, but I don’t want this one to go unsolved.”

  My skin tightened and crackled as I tried to put together a plan. “I’m an hour out, Julie.”

  “I got you.”

  Tears nearly formed in my eyes at that. I hung up and gulped as I turned to Rafe. Even in the sizzle, his blue eyes seem to calm me, focus me. “There is another body.”

  Rafe paled and his lips parted.

  “We might have a pattern.”

  I heard footsteps on the stairs and saw Emily hovering between this floor and the next.

  I didn’t know what to say. I was just about to go back to the place where her husband had died and it might be the proof we needed of a pattern. It was one of the few times in my life where I could actually believe the more the merrier. If everyone was looking, something would be found, right? Especially with their preternatural senses?

  “There’s another body,” Rafe said

  She hurried down the stairs. “What?” she whispered, when she reached us.

  “Merci’s just been called about another body. It makes a pattern,” Rafe repeated.

  “Just like you said.”

  I still had a million things to tell her. A million stories I wanted to share with her, to help her know that Ethan loved her with every breath he took. That I missed her secretly checking in with me when she didn’t want to be ‘that wife.’ That I already had her Christmas present tucked away on my bookshelf. To make sure that I didn’t lose her too.

  But one truth finally marched to the front of the storm and planted its words on my lips. “We are going to find out who killed Ethan.”

  She put her hands over her mouth as tears welled up in her eyes. She nodded. “Take my car. There’s a bag in the backseat. Take that too.”

  I looked into Emily’s eyes, the Charm crackling to life at the new lead, the new trigger, the place to work my magic. Energized like this, I could almost believe that I would keep my word to Ethan. That I would find who was responsible.

  “Stay out of trouble, Merci,” Emily said.

  “You know I can’t promise that.”

  She almost smiled.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Emily had left Ethan’s camera bag in the backseat of the car. I recognized it the moment I saw it, that old red woven strap he always had slung across his chest. I pulled out the camera, amazed that it had survived that night without a scratch. I ran my fingers up the neck strap and didn’t see any blood. Emily cleaned it. I can’t even imagine what that would have been like for her, and then she gave it to me. Why spend so much time on something and then give it away?

  Maybe because I knew what to do with it. Without thinking, I prepped the data card and replaced the battery as I’d seen him do a million times before; the green “ready” light glowed. I hung the old camera around Rafe’s neck, smoothing the woven band against the wool of his coat, remembering the battles already fought with it.

  “Wait. This is..?”

  I nodded. “Are you ready?”

  There was a swirl of fur around me that ebbed into a steady warmth between us.

  Magic or not, I was more Merci Lanard now than I had been in three weeks. Though Rafe could never replace Ethan, he had brought balance back to my life. I was ready to walk once again into the breach.

  Covered in the dusk of a recently set sun, we crept down the street and stopped just around the corner from the address. The night was calm, and Atlanta’s words about the quiet before a storm floated through my head.

  I prepped Rafe for the plan of action. “Now don’t say anything. Take as many pictures as you can. I can go through them later. Got it, Professor?”

  “Perfectly, Miss Lanard,” he said with the flash of a smile.

  I steadied my nerves, and we headed for the convenience store. It wasn’t until I reached the corner and saw Rutherford’s squad car parked outside that it even crossed my mind I might not be able to do this, couldn’t be in that place again. I stopped dead in my tracks and Rafe bounced against me.

  He walked around, glancing between me and the dilapidated storefront, highlighted by the few streetlights along the dark street. His voice was low and soft. “This is it, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. I couldn’t seem to pull my eyes away from that spot just inside the front door.

  “You can stay outside, talk to your officer friend. I’ll get inside and take the photos.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t be stupid. I can do this.”

  “But you don’t have to.”

  I took in a deep breath and focused on the story. “It’s not what he would do.”

  “What would he do?” he asked over my shoulder.

  I sniffed. I didn’t even know that my eyes had been watering. The words poured out of me. “He’d say, ‘Well, are you gonna take a knee, Lanard?’”

  Rafe chuckled softly at my side.

  I sniffed again. “He was big on the sport references.”

  “Actually,” he said, “it’s an old Wanderer saying. You either take a knee or take a knife. You succumb to the dark or you fight against it.”

  I sucked in a deep breath and couldn’t admit that his smell, his heat enveloping me, helped steel my nerves against what was ahead. “I think you know which one I chose.”

  “I’m right there with you.”

  We headed toward the store. I caught a glimpse of Officer Rutherford nervously fiddling with his silver coin, the circle catching the light from the streetlamps. Slipping it back into his pocket, he immediately intercepted us in the middle of the str
eet and quickly guided us to a sheltered corner. He shot Rafe an appraising look. “Didn’t think they’d have you partnered up so fast.”

  “Trial by fire.” I squinted into the darkened store. “So what do we have?”

  Rutherford lowered his voice even more, searching the night around us. “I don’t know how on-the-record we can go with this yet.”

  I looked him square in the eyes. “I’m good, Julie. I won’t get you in trouble. Now tell me what happened.”

  The description spilled out of him like a confession, and I hadn’t even turned on the Charm. There was no sizzle; there was only the two of us. He needed to tell me the truth. “Someone called in the smell, then went to go see what it was. The body is pretty mangled up, like the ones that you were talking about. But the smell is terrible.”

  As I started writing down the timeline on a fresh page in my notebook, I grew relieved that my reporting wasn’t all based on some magical charm. I’d done good work before—Ethan and I had done good work before—and not everything hinged on magic. The storm had never won me any friends, but what I had with Rutherford was trust built around saving this city from itself sometimes.

  “Any ID?”

  “None that I can’t find.”

  The only reason I knew that Rafe wasn’t by my side anymore was that I began to rub my arms for warmth. “Is the M.E. on their way?”

  “You took your sweet ass time, so you’ve got about three seconds with the scene before it rains police.”

  I saw Rafe already moving through the store. The pit of my stomach roiled as I thought about being in that place again. I couldn’t go in there, but there was one thing that I could do. “Could you point me in the direction of the person who called it in?”

  Rutherford gestured with his eyes to the stoop next door. “Not the friendliest.”

  “You would be amazed at how people talk to me and my friend Andrew Jackson.” I winked at him before walking away from the store.

  There were three of them out on the front steps watching the dancing blue lights of the police car. I sized them up. Nothing I hadn’t worked with before.