The Blood of Ivy

by Jessica King

  THE BLOOD

  OF IVY

  ----------------------------------

  THE IVY HART MYSTERY SERIES BOOK 3

  JESSICA KING

  Copyright © 2020 Jessica King

  All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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  About This Book

  In her quest for the truth, blood will be spilled...

  With all her leads exhausted, Detective Ivy Hart of the LAPD has given up hope of ever catching the leader of the Kingsmen, a dangerous witch-hunting cult. But when a young woman is gruesomely murdered in Italy and a familiar calling card is left at the scene, Ivy realizes the Kingsmen’s reign of terror is far from over.

  Taking their investigation to Europe, Ivy and her partner, Detective Vince Benton, make a shocking discovery about the murderer that leads them into the dark underbelly of the church and connects back to the man suspected of killing Ivy’s mother over a decade ago.

  As the ghosts of Ivy’s past catch up to her present, she is determined to piece together the clues before another life is lost. Will Ivy finally put an end to the ruthless Kingsmen and finally found out exactly what happened to her mother once and for all?

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Posted: Tuesday, March 21, 2017, 3:42 p.m.

  In the aftermath of thirty-four simultaneous mass shootings across the country on Saturday, March 18, 2017, the nation grieves the lives of nearly one thousand victims. “Prophetess,” the so-called “Female Goddess,” Dahlia Aven, better known to her followers as Delilah Leigh, who had previously hosted a series of events calling for modern-day practitioners of witchcraft to assemble these “Gatherings” extended her reach across the country with the addition of thirty-three “disciples.” However, it is now known that all thirty-three “disciples” were members of the violent witch-hunting hate group called the “Kingsmen.”

  Multiple Kingsmen at each of the thirty-four Gatherings last Saturday opened fire on the innocent victims, causing mass panic among Gathering-goers. Of the one hundred and seventy-eight identified shooters, one hundred and twenty-two died by police counter-fire or suicide. Fifty-one of the shooters were taken into custody. The location of the other five shooters is still unknown. Dahlia Aven and her business partner, Ransom Highsmith, have admitted to selling information to the Kingsmen about the time and places of the Prophetess shootings.

  In response, the cities that experienced the violence are holding vigils for the young men and women lost in the shootings, as well as opportunities for family members to speak and share stories about their loved ones.

  Young stars have been speaking out against the violence. Aline Rousseau, whose own life Kingsmen nearly ended at the 2017 Academy Awards in late February, has offered her condolences to the families on social media. Up-and-coming artist Marigold Sanchez released her first album on Monday, adding in a last-minute additional track that she calls “a tribute to the witches and wizards who lost their lives for loving the hope magic brings.” Sanchez was attacked by a Kingsman earlier in the month after going on a date with a young man she believed was a Prophetess follower.

  The identity of the kingpin of the cult remains unknown, even to its members, as they reportedly receive information via cellphone communication only. Police have been trying to track the leader down for weeks. The LAPD believes this leader, the “King,” resides somewhere in their jurisdiction, as the original attacks of Kingsmen began in the downtown L.A. area. However, they ask that if anyone has any information that might lead to the identification of the “King,” they contact their local police station—no matter where in the country they are located.

  No recorded Kingsmen attacks have occurred since Saturday, and no new targets or WIPs (Works in Progress) have been added to the Kingsmen site. It appears as if the group claiming responsibility for such destruction has decided to lay low.

  +++

  Tuesday, March 21, 2017, 4:39 p.m.

  Cameron Webb did not want to go to the vigil. He was tired of seeing Trinity’s name next to all the other people murdered on Saturday. Well-meaning strangers were constantly tagging her social media accounts on posts with the nearly one thousand names, claiming their names would “never be forgotten,” as if her soul had nothing better to do than check her notifications. But he knew how this worked. People would spread the pictures of the kids killed in the shootings, and it would consume their lives for two or three days. It’d become personal to people who didn’t know her simply because it was popular to talk about. They’d be “advocates” for witches. People were already making art of the dead’s faces, gaining sympathetic followers by the minute.

  Their names would be forgotten by Friday.

  Cameron sat in his sister’s room. He’d gone to school for a distraction, to try to be normal. And all people had asked him was things about her. Things he didn’t know. Was she a witch? Did she practice spells at home? What was the last thing they talked about? How were his parents? How was he? Did they have her body? Had he seen her? Had she taught him any magic? At least when it came to this one, he had a definitive no.

  He’d walked into his sister’s room one time a few weeks ago, and she’d been sitting in front of a jar of water, flowers settled into each of her hands. She’d only opened her eyes, given him an angry glare, and closed them again. He figured she must have decided to start meditating or something. She’d already taken up yoga; meditation had to be the next step on the road to crazy. He didn’t try to figure it out. He’d stopped trying to figure out Trinity when she traded sports for makeup and videogames for reading the classics. He laid back on her bed and looked over at the towering bookshelf against the wall—her beloved classics.

  Cameron had been assigned several of them in school, but the print was too small and packed together, and the pages were a yellowish color, and they smelled strange to him. He’d drawn his literary line at comics long ago and had refused to pass it since.

  “Cameron, you’re never going to learn new things if you just keep rereading those cartoons.”

  He’d told her she should read something from this century, and their mother had snapped at both of them. His temples ached, and he reached to rub at the tension-tight space above h
is nose. He heard a crinkle under the sheets and pulled them back. A comic book was opened halfway, face down like a butterfly soaking in the sunlight.

  Ha, he thought, and for a second, he couldn’t wait to rub it in.

  Then he remembered.

  It had been like that all day. He’d feel ripped apart inside about the death of his only sibling; then he’d momentarily forget why he was so sad. He would just feel sad, no matter what he was thinking about or remembering. Then someone would ask him something about Trinity, and he’d remember why he felt so miserable.

  A lot of people had asked him if they were close.

  He didn’t know the answer to that question. He’d always wanted a brother, and Trinity had always wanted a sister, and they never shied away from telling the other so. They fought a lot. But that could make people close, too, right?

  He felt fake to all of a sudden tell people that his sister was his best friend and that they did everything together, but if he didn’t, if he told people that they hadn’t been all that close since they’d staggered into high school two years apart; it made him seem like he didn’t care.

  And he did care.

  “Dealing with mourning your way is important, Cameron. You can take this time to be internal. Don’t let the people around you craft the narrative of your grief.” That was what the school counselor had told him. He was still getting used to even having a school counselor. Two years ago, his school barely had textbooks.

  He felt sick from the amount of “champagne pink” and fluffy materials that were in his older sister’s room, so he retreated to the navy of his own. He shut the blackout curtains tight and didn’t cry. He tried to read one of her favorite classics, 1984. She’d even written in the margins and in between the lines, but he tried to ignore that for now so he could read what she had found interesting enough to comment on. But the book got heavy, and he thought it wasn’t very good, so he fell asleep.

  +++

  Tuesday, March 21, 2017, 4:50 p.m.

  Ivy’s wrists ached. She was tied to a chair, and the dark carpet beneath her squished with blood that refused to dry. A cool breeze blew through the house she was trapped in. A small, one-bedroom house with no furniture save the rickety chair she was shackled to.

  She wiggled her toes, and they slid against one another inside her boots, and she couldn’t tell if they were slick from her own sweat or the blood seeping through her shoes. Whatever it was, it was nothing compared to the slickness of her wrists, which she knew were warm with her blood. They’d been tied tight this time, ropes extending from her wrists to the partially opened doors. If she somehow managed to get close enough to one of the doors, the other would slam shut, and pull the trigger of one of the guns mounted on a tripod and pointed toward her.

  From each leg of the chair, a rope extended out and tied onto the wrist of a Kingsman. She recognized each of them. She’d killed them to protect the wizards and witches at the Prophetess meetups. ‘To weigh you down,” the woman had said as she’d dragged each body into the room and pulled them toward each corner. She gagged against the smell of dead bodies. She was awaiting her death in the center of a spiderweb.

  “You’ve killed more people than I have,” the woman had hissed behind her.

  Maybe she was the spider.

  If she could just manage to get the chair to tip out of the guns’ range without slamming either of the doors, she might be able to get her wrists out of the ties without risking one of the guns killing her because of a jerky movement. Her hands were so slick with blood that they might just slip out with a bit of maneuvering. It was optimistic, she knew. But it just might work.

  She worked the chair back and forth, rocking the chair until it fell over. One of the guns went off, and Ivy cringed against the noise. Her cheek and hair soaked through with the blood from the carpet, and footsteps pounded into the room.

  The woman aimed the gun at her, ready to pull the trigger. The sound amplified in Ivy’s ears as she felt the air of the bullet soar over her. An airplane taking flight. Another bullet was the sound of cannon fire in her skull. A third bullet was fireworks echoing around the room. A fourth bullet was a siren that wrapped her body in noise and fear. She trembled and opened her eyes. Each of the four bodies around her had a fresh bullet. They leaked dark liquid but didn’t gush. No heartbeat, no blood pressure, a whisper in the back of her mind. The part of her mind that looked for answers, whether she wanted them or not.

  The new blood mixed into the sloshy carpet, and Ivy coughed, the air caught in her throat against the thought of it. She was going to be sick. She tried to push up from the ground, her hands sinking into the carpet, redness flooding up between her fingers. The chair was suddenly too heavy to move at all. Taking deep breaths, she watched as blood filled the crevices and folds of her knuckles and nails. She dry heaved against the floor.

  “Would you prefer I leave you here?” the woman asked, pointing the gun at Ivy. Her clothes were dripping in blood like she’d dropped to the floor and rolled around in it. Ivy knew her own state wasn’t much better. She heard it dripping from her hair to the damp ground, the metallic smell of it cutting through the air.

  Help, she wanted to say, but her mouth wouldn’t let her form the word. Her jaw worked, but her lips were glued together, and she screamed behind her closed mouth.

  The woman stepped forward, her gun still pointed at Ivy’s forehead. Her boots left momentary impressions in the wet carpet. She squatted a few inches away from Ivy and looked into her eyes. Please. Please, help.

  The woman pulled the trigger, and Ivy’s skeleton shook with the ringing of it.

  Ivy sat straight in her bed, immediately groaning. She couldn’t believe she still had to be in the hospital. The bullet wound in her right shoulder was what the nurses called “fragile,” and the slices along her arms and legs left behind by her torturer were itchy and crusted with scabs. She waited for the nightmare to melt away, taking in the beige walls. The beige everything. One wall held a painting that looked too small for such a blank wall, making the whole place seem impossibly drearier.

  Her stomach grumbled. When had she last eaten? She longed for takeout. The hospital’s food ranked somewhere between “airplane” and her own cooking. The machine next to her beeped, and she winced at the unexpected noise. She chastised herself. You’re fine. The machine beeped again, this time at a different pitch. She glared at it.

  Surely, she could be allowed to go home. If the hospital was filled with too many beeps and noises that made her flinch, she could make a case for being released.

  She wouldn’t make an excuse. She’d never use that excuse.

  She couldn’t work like this. Even if she could pull it off physically, she couldn’t ride beneath the sirens of a cop car, let alone even think about going into a situation that posed the opportunity for gunfire. It wouldn’t only put her in danger but Vince too. She’d have to figure something out and soon. They still had a case to solve, taking down the “King” of the Kingsmen.

  Perhaps they could kill two birds with one stone.

  She reached for her cellphone on the side table, grunting against the pain in her shoulder and still-healing rib. She found the number in no time and dialed. A bright voice greeted her on the other end.

  “Hello? This is Ivy Hart. I’d like to schedule a consultation with Dr. Justice Andrew Wilkins.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Andrew J. Wilkins | SOAP Notes 3/22/17 | Ivy Hart

  Subjective: Ivy states she’s not sure if she has PTSD from what she calls her “short stint” with a torturer. However, she’s been “having nightmares about it” and “wants to make sure she’s okay to be in the field.”

  Objective: Ivy appears tense. She has not yet returned to work, as she has two more days here in the hospital, and then will be released. Appetite is consistent, and weight looks healthy. Sleep problems are reported (trouble falling asleep and waking from nightmares). Good relationships with family and work colleagues. Partner has
visited regularly. Stepmother has visited regularly. On several pain medications, but claims she wishes to be off of them soon.

  Assessment: Ivy presents clear thought patterns despite medications, and a willingness and eagerness to return to her work. Her main concerns stem from ensuring she doesn’t freeze up in the field, leading to harm to her partner and other officers. Judgment and insight into the problem are intact, though she seems uncomfortable with the idea that she might have a problem requiring long-term care. No indicators of suicidal intentions, homicidal intentions, or psychotic processes. Signs of anxiety: hand fidgeting, looking down, clear discomfort with the idea of being in a “therapy session,” and talking about her feelings. Facial expression and overall demeanor project a hit to her confidence; she appears annoyed with the new fear she feels. Subconsciously guarding injured shoulder as well as injured ribs. Ivy was cooperative, though a bit short with her answers.

  Plan: Continued “talk” therapy for the next few weeks. This will be later followed with: Prolonged Exposure Therapy (considering the chances of bullets, etc. in her line of work) and Stress Inoculation Training (enable Ivy to stop from her vision “pinpointing” as she calls it during moments of high stress in the field). Discussed medication; she has declined for the time being.

  Wednesday, March 22, 2017, 12:17 p.m.

  Ivy had taken her mother’s journals back to her apartment when she’d first found out about Bethany Hart’s involvement in the L.A. coven and her subsequent work in founding the Protection of the Female Goddess. She’d originally intended to read each of them, but it turned out her mother hardly ever wrote in full sentences, or even in ideas that would make sense to an outsider, and she’d all but given up on the stray lines fanning out in all directions despite the guides on the pages. Ivy had already read the limited number of full entries her mother had written and gave up the rest as pages her mother had thrown into oblivion.