Witches of Ash and Ruin

by E. Latimer

  “You don’t sound impressed with your dad.”

  “I think he’s going to bungle this really badly.” It came out before he could stop it. But…it was true. He was a true-crime fanatic. He’d seen every serial-killer doc in existence, and his father was doing everything wrong.

  “That makes me like you so much more.” Dayna grinned, and her expression set something on fire inside him. He thought about reaching out, putting his hand on her leg. But she stood abruptly, turning toward the sheet on the wall.

  “And this?”

  Sam shut his laptop and got to his feet. When he followed Dayna to the far wall he reached up and pulled the pin out, letting the sheet drop back. Dayna’s eyes went wide.

  “We’re broken up for three months and you go totally Beautiful Mind on me?”

  He laughed. “It was like this before.”

  “You have string, Samuel.” She reached out to touch one of the thin black cords crisscrossing the landscape of paper. Strings connecting events and victims, dates and times. She took a step back and looked up. “I knew you were interested in this guy, but…this is a lot.”

  He frowned. “Okay, but I’m not like one of those weirdos that buys John Wayne Gacy’s artwork or anything. I’m not a fan. This case has just bugged me for ages.”

  Dayna held up her hands. “Whoa, I know that. That’s not what I was saying.”

  Sam shook his head, already regretting his outburst. “Sorry, it’s just, I know what some people would think.” More specifically, he knew exactly what his parents would say. That his curiosity made him sick. Sinful, even. When Dayna only nodded he continued. “Um, once I knew he was in town I started on a few new theories. But look”—he hesitated, turning sober—“I’m serious. At first this seemed kind of exciting, you know, like living history. But…if it really is him, this is bad. Really bad. He’s got five more victims to go.”

  Dayna looked back up at the wall, letting out a breath. “Yeah, I know.”

  Sam took a tentative step forward and touched her arm. “Hey, you okay?” When she turned, he took her other arm, feeling another surge of guilt. Her face was pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

  “I’m fine.” She didn’t shake him off; in fact, his stomach swooped as she wrapped her fingers around his briefly before drawing away.

  This was it; this was his chance. “I miss you, you know. A lot. I know you said you needed to think about it, but…it’s been a little while…” He trailed off, heart sinking. Dayna was shaking her head.

  “Please don’t, Sam. I can’t think about this right now. With Fiona and then this and…It’s too much.”

  He forced himself to simply nod, to push down the disappointment.

  Dayna turned back to the charts, clearing her throat. “Walk me through this. You’ve been obsessed with this guy forever. Tell me everything.”

  He brought her up to speed. On his theory that the Butcher was obsessed with the women he killed, stalking them for days beforehand. That each victim was special to him in some way. Even with the disappointment squeezing his chest, it was easy to talk about this; he knew the timeline inside and out, knew every theory. Every suspect.

  This was his expertise.

  “I’m just not sure how,” he finished. “Most serial killers have a type. They’re murdering for bloodlust, or sexual gratification, or the feeling of power. But the Butcher seems…random. But he’s not—not with the way he stalks them. It’s frustratingly elusive, his motive. Of course, these are only things I’ve pieced together from blogs and articles.” He stood on his tiptoes, reaching up to touch one of the articles he’d pinned to the top. “But…I’m working on a theory. I’ve found other murders way back. As far back as the sixties.” He searched Dayna’s face, looking for some kind of sign she was taking this seriously. That she wasn’t about to tell him he was a lunatic.

  “The pattern matches. No discernible victim type except that they were women, and six murders each time, then a period of ten years between the next six.”

  Dayna was staring at him wide-eyed, and he continued hurriedly before she could interrupt.

  “All in England, northern England to be precise. Closer and closer to the northern shore each time.” He took a breath. “It’s like…he kills in cycles.”

  The cycles. The pattern that had drawn him to this case more than any other. The reason he couldn’t seem to let it go.

  Dayna’s brows were knitted together, but to his relief she looked thoughtful rather than incredulous. “Killing in cycles, and…you think his cycle in Manchester was when they started calling him the Butcher, and he started drawing the symbol.”

  “Right.”

  She looked back up at the charts again. “But there were only five victims on the Isle of Man.”

  Sam nodded, tracing a finger over the dates. “His last cycle. The sixth murder scene was in an old barn, where they found his symbol on the wall. There were also two different types of blood, and several long strands of gray hair. They couldn’t find him or the victim, but they think she may have wounded or killed him, because he stopped after that.”

  “Until now,” Dayna said grimly.

  “Until now.” Sam stepped back, examining the map just below the timeline. He’d marked each cycle with a red pin, which laid out the trail of death along England’s northern shoreline, leading up to the Isle of Man between Ireland and England. Dayna followed his gaze, frowning.

  “It’s like…”

  “Like he’s been making his way here, to Ireland?”

  “Yeah, but…why here?” Dayna said.

  His chest swelled. The fact that she hadn’t brushed his theory off, the fact she had seen it, too. He had to work to keep his voice even. “Exactly. Why Carman? This town is small enough that there’s a chance of getting caught, and it doesn’t have a good victim pool. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Victim pool?” Dayna made a face at him.

  “You know what I mean. He has to be here for something specific.” Like unfinished business. Sam frowned up at the charts.

  Dayna hesitated. “Um, when…when do you think he’ll kill next?”

  “He’ll have a cool-off period, they all do. There were three weeks between each murder last time.”

  “And this time?”

  Sam folded his arms over his chest and blew out a heavy breath. “That’s the question.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  DAYNA

  The witches were getting ready for the ascension when Dayna arrived. Yemi had put Cora and Meiner to work pouring great quantities of steaming tea into metal thermoses and shoved several bundles of bay leaves into Reagan’s arms. “Brenna, if you’d get the basin, I’ll bring the rest. I can’t believe my baby witchlings are finally ascending!”

  Cora grimaced horribly at this, chin in her hands as she slumped at the table, and Reagan shot her a narrow look and turned to Dayna. “Oya, set your bag there and help me with the bay leaves, will you?”

  Dayna followed her out onto the back porch. In spite of the coolness of the night, Reagan had set up her workspace outside. She’d laid newspapers and mixing bowls out to shred the bay leaves into. This would later be mixed into a carrier oil and sprinkled around the ascension circle for protection.

  “Okay, what’s going on?” Reagan sat on the edge of the newspapers. Folding her legs, she leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “You have that look on your face. Was she there when you got home?”

  Dayna sighed, sinking down across from her. She picked up a bundle of sage and began shredding it into the bowl, keeping her gaze on her hands as she worked. Reagan knew about Fiona coming home, but to be honest, Dayna had sort of hoped she had forgotten, because a part of her really didn’t want to talk about it now that she was here.

  She wanted to focus on something good. On the ascension. But when she glanced up at Reagan it was to see her waiting expectantly, her face grave. “I wasn’t going to tell the others until after, but…” Dayna hesitated
, then blurted out, “She’s back. And she looks bad, like…really bad. I hate to think what camp was like.”

  She wasn’t exaggerating; just thinking about camp made her stomach churn.

  “God, I still can’t believe he just sprang this on you.” Reagan’s eyes were wide. For a moment she watched Dayna shred leaves in silence. Then she said slowly, “How are you dealing with seeing her again? Emotionally, I mean.”

  Dayna shrugged, watching flecks of pale green dot the white insides of the bowl. She really didn’t want to talk about that part. All right, yes, maybe she’d felt betrayed when she was younger, not understanding why her mother had abandoned her. Maybe she’d even felt bitter at being left with the reverend. But those feelings had dulled with age, and she had no desire to revisit them. It was the same with her OCD; if she could push the thoughts away, at least temporarily, then she didn’t have to deal with them.

  Again, it was quiet for a moment, and then Reagan leaned over, poking Dayna gently in the ribs. “Have you thought about looking into meds again lately? You’re going through a lot; it’s allowed, you know.”

  “Yeah, I’ve thought about it.” She had thought about meds, many times, and the idea was terrifying. The thought of altering her brain chemistry, of potentially changing who she was. “I’m still not ready for that.”

  “Okay, but you know you can talk about it, right? It’s all right to…I dunno, let it out.”

  “I know.” Dayna forced a faint smile. That was the one problem with being so close to someone: Reagan read her a little too well. “But sometimes it’s better not to. Tonight I just want to enjoy our ascension and not think about any of it.” She could tell by the wry look she got that Reagan wanted to keep pushing the subject, but thankfully she didn’t.

  Instead she straightened up, clapping her hands. “Hey! We’re ascending tonight, abi?”

  Dayna grinned, her mood instantly lifted. “Hell yeah we are!”

  And there was the flip side of having a best friend. They knew exactly when to change the subject.

  When they went back inside, Yemi put Dayna to work at the kitchen counter while Reagan mixed the bay leaves into a shallow glass basin of grapeseed oil.

  Cora, who’d just finished putting a series of waxy black candles onto a silver tray, flopped into a chair at the kitchen table and sighed heavily. Unsurprisingly, she seemed to be seeking every opportunity to avoid doing any work.

  Dayna turned away to hide her grin. Nothing was going to kill her excitement right now, not Cora and Meiner’s blatant jealousy, and not thoughts of Fiona. She was about to be a full witch and nothing else mattered.

  Reagan paused on her way past, hands cupped around the basin of oil. She bumped her hip into Dayna’s. “Hey, D, guess what?”

  Dayna grinned, knowing full well what was coming. “What?”

  “We’re ascendiiiiing!” She stretched out the last syllable and danced out the sliding glass door, blue locs swinging behind her, and Dayna laughed.

  Yemi watched her daughter go, clucking her tongue. Then she turned to hand Brenna a flat silver tin. “Here, Bren, you’ve got to try one. I used that wonderful tart recipe you found me last week, only I added a pinch of nutmeg. It turned out—”

  Abruptly Grandma King thumped her cane on the floor. “Will someone get the damn phone?”

  When the other witches simply stared, she grumbled and climbed slowly to her feet, hobbling toward the living room.

  Meiner’s face was flushed, and she paused in the middle of loading the picnic basket. “I’m hoping she’ll be better by the time we do the ceremony. She’s been in a mood all morning.”

  “One can hardly blame her,” Brenna said. While the rest of the witches were preparing for the ceremony, she’d set her tarot cards in a neat fan on the kitchen table. Every time she didn’t like the result, she’d reshuffle and lay them out again. The death and tower cards kept turning up, and she whacked a new card down with each word.

  Can—slam—hardly—slam—blame her—slam.

  Dayna flinched, wishing Brenna would take a break from her tarot. It was unnerving to see her so flustered.

  She turned instead to watch Yemi as she went around decorating the doors and window frames with thick lines of salt. “What’s that for?”

  “Spirits. In case anything happens during the ceremony, they can’t get in the house.”

  Dayna shifted from one foot to the other, feeling nerves flutter in her stomach for the first time. That was hardly reassuring. She knew powerful magic often sent up a kind of beacon to those who could see it, but she hadn’t thought about what sort of signal the ascension might send up.

  Bronagh, who’d been drifting around the kitchen, paused beside Dayna and draped an arm around her, pulling her into a hug. For a second Dayna felt the tension melt out of her as she inhaled the scent of rosemary and butterscotch. It was both strange and comforting, like being hugged by your grandmother, if your grandmother happened to be one of the most powerful witches in Ireland.

  Bronagh patted her arm as she pulled away, and Dayna grinned down at the Werther’s candy that was now in her hand. “There you go, love. It’s all going to go well tonight.”

  Dayna smiled, retreating to the living room for another quilt. She pulled the purple-and-blue knitted blanket from the rocking chair by the fire and slung it over her shoulder, inhaling the scent of woodsmoke. When she turned, Faye was standing there, hands on her hips. “Do you need someone to take care of your mother?”

  “Uh, what?” She blinked slowly at her, and then when Faye continued to stare pointedly, her mouth dropped open. “Wait, are you offering to—to off Fiona?”

  Faye waved her off impatiently. “Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. But the right spell could send her straight back to camp. I could make sure she never comes back.”

  Dayna’s brows shot up. “Sometimes you’re a bit scary, you know that?”

  “Is that a no?” Faye scowled, folding her arms across her chest.

  “Do Brenna and Bronagh know you’re offering this solution?” Dayna grinned at the affronted look Faye gave her. “Wouldn’t they say you’d get it back threefold?”

  Faye shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t offer.”

  Dayna snorted and started to turn away, and Faye cleared her throat. “You’ll have to take care of the white-haired giant, by the way.”

  “Excuse me?” She spun and stared at Faye.

  “She keeps challenging you. You’re going to have to put her in her place.” Faye straightened her shoulders, as if she were the one squaring off against some invisible foe. When she smiled, it looked more like a snarl. “Unless you release the tension between you two in some other way, of course.”

  “Oh my god, Faye.” Dayna whirled around, grasping the blanket to her chest, her face bright red as she fled the room.

  Faye’s laughter echoed off the bricks of the fireplace behind her.

  Yemi flapped a hand at her as soon as she made her way back in. “Dayna, love, will you and Meiner load the rest of the tarts and cookies into the basket before you go out?”

  Thankfully no one seemed to notice her face was glowing. “No problem.”

  She fetched an armful of Tupperware from the fridge, returning to the counter where Meiner was leaning, staring fixedly out the window. Dayna couldn’t help wondering what she was thinking. Meiner rarely seemed to give away what was going on beneath the surface. She wasn’t like Cora, whose strongest emotions were always written on her face for the world to see.

  “Pass the basket, please.”

  Meiner started, looking at her for the first time, and then she glared down at the wicker picnic basket.

  “Oh. Here.” Her voice was curt as she shoved it across the counter.

  Dayna rolled her eyes. Meiner was pouting just as much as Cora; she was just quieter about it. “Gee, thanks.”

  Meiner grabbed one of the containers and reached across her to shove it into the basket. Judging by her smirk, she was ve
ry deliberately in Dayna’s personal space again.

  She smelled like laundry soap and peppermint, and Dayna leaned back and smiled up at her.

  Meiner paused, brows raised. “What are you grinning at?”

  “I just didn’t expect you to be so sulky.”

  Meiner’s scowl was back in an instant. “I’m not sulking.”

  “Oh please, you absolutely are.”

  From the sliding glass door, Cora leaned in, snickering. “Yeah, that’s definitely her sulking face.”

  “Shut up, Cora,” Meiner snapped. She turned back to Dayna, shoving the tray of candles at her. “Bring this out, I’ve got the basket.”

  Meiner hooked an arm through the basket and moved out through the sliding door, toward the apple orchard. She elbowed past Cora, and the shorter girl staggered a step back before regaining her balance. Dayna caught her eye and Cora shrugged, turning to follow Meiner outside.

  Dayna hurried after her, falling into stride. “Is she always like this?”

  “Like what?” Cora didn’t look at her, keeping her eyes fixed on Meiner’s back.

  “So bad-tempered.”

  Cora gave a short laugh. “You think that was bad? That was nothing. A little hissy fit, that’s all.”

  Dayna’s phone vibrated in the pocket of her sweater, but she ignored it, concentrating on balancing the tray of candles. It was probably the reverend, and she wasn’t interested in talking to him.

  She tried to push her irritation down while she followed Meiner into the apple orchard. She shouldn’t let it get to her right now, not Meiner’s little hissy fit, as Cora so succinctly put it, or her father’s insistence on checking in. She wasn’t even going to be annoyed at the memory of Sam asking her to take him back, or the surge of guilt and indecision she’d felt in response.

  No, tonight was about the ascension. Nobody was going to ruin it.

  Reagan was spreading a checkered blanket in the center of the orchard. The trees on either side were bent forward and gnarled, forming a crooked wooden archway framed in orange by the setting sun.

  Dayna watched as Reagan handed Cora and Meiner bundles of sage and clematis to distribute in a wide circle around the blanket. She knew some of it. The circle was to keep out negative spirits and energy, and the candles were to light the way for the gods. She set down the tray and began to collect the wax pillars, placing them around the outside.