Witches of Ash and Ruin

by E. Latimer

  The next six minutes seemed like an eternity. An eternity in which Margery did not move, save for the patches of blood widening slowly on her sweater.

  Dayna and Reagan stayed together, clutching each other, the voice on the other end of the line like some fragile link to safety.

  Dayna kept desperately grasping for something, anything, to guard them. A spell, an incantation, even a prayer that might ward off a potential attack. Instead, her mind kept circling back to the same thing.

  Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in.

  Her chest kept getting tighter, and she pressed a hand to her throat, fingers splayed, struggling to drag in another breath, and another.

  Reagan had begun an incantation now, muttering a complicated spell under her breath, tracing one shaking hand in front of her. A faint shimmer appeared before them as Dayna gasped in another deep breath.

  Whatever was in the trees shouldn’t be able to get through Reagan’s spell. Unless, of course…it was more powerful than them.

  The wail of sirens in the distance made Dayna tense, and then the relief that shuddered through her came out in a sob. When the first officer began making his way down the steps, Reagan let out a strangled gasp and let her hand drop, and the spell flickered out.

  “They’re here. Oh, thank god, they’re finally here.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  SAMUEL

  Sam checked his phone for the hundredth time.

  It had been a full ten minutes since Dayna had hung up on him, and he kept trying to convince himself not to call her back. She was somewhere safe; she was with Reagan and not Harriet King.

  But where was she right now? Why wasn’t she calling him? She’d said to meet at the Coffee Bean, he was fairly sure of that. But he hadn’t really been able make out what Reagan had said in the background. It had sounded like she’d cursed. Had she sounded angry or afraid?

  Maybe Dayna wasn’t as safe as she thought she was.

  Sam glanced up and then back down at his phone, barely registering as someone sat down on one of the stools beside him. The Coffee Bean was usually quiet, but it was really packed today.

  He’d give her another five minutes, and then he’d call again.

  In an attempt to distract himself, he went to the counter to buy an iced latte, trying to ignore the barista’s bemused expression. He was fully aware he had sweat stains on his T-shirt. When Dayna hadn’t picked up the phone earlier, he’d begun frantically riding his bike across town to her house, hoping to catch her. Then he’d just as frantically ridden back as soon as she’d suggested the Coffee Bean.

  He sat back down at the bar in front of the window and pulled up the message boards.

  Sam had messaged a few of his forum mates less than five minutes ago, and CrimeBuff69 had somehow already managed to unearth old records for Harriet King—rent agreements, phone bills, old addresses. Sam didn’t ask how.

  He spent several long minutes trying to piece together the woman’s history. Of course, it didn’t help that his phone vibrated with a new notification every five seconds.

  When he’d first logged into the forums, his mouth had dropped open. Since news of the murders had leaked, his inbox had been filling, but reporters seemed to have found the forums now, and his inbox was at maximum capacity. He had hundreds of messages, both from forum regulars demanding information, and reporters requesting interviews and asking if he had inside information.

  The whir of the coffee grinder made him glance up from the screen, and he noticed the coffee shop was filling up faster than usual.

  A blond woman in a pantsuit moved past him, smiling. At the counter, a man in black slacks and a checkered dress shirt was speaking quietly with a gray-haired gentleman wearing an earpiece.

  None of them looked familiar.

  He remembered what the agents had said to his father, that there would be press flying in. Apparently they’d all just arrived and were cramming into the same coffee shop.

  He tried to ignore the pantsuited lady, who was talking loudly on her phone beside him. “Nothing, Reginald. I told you, the sergeant practically dragged me out by my hair.” She paused. “No, the forum chap hasn’t replied. Yes, I know. I’ll keep looking, keep your knickers on.”

  He froze. Exactly how many reporters in this coffee shop currently had messages in his inbox? The thought was bizarre. They seemed to think he was going to be some kind of source for them, having been the first one to know the Butcher was back. As if he had some kind of inside knowledge of what the killer’s next move was going to be.

  He wished…

  His inbox pinged again.

  CrimeBuff69: I just found it. File is attached. Do you realize what this means?

  Sam bit his lip, clicking on the file at the bottom of the message. It was a tenant agreement, drawn up ten years ago.

  CrimeBuff69 had managed to dig up proof that Harriet King had been in Manchester when the Butcher first started carving his symbol. And here Sam was looking at a rental agreement on the Isle of Man.

  If he’d learned anything from his obsession with true crime, it was that coincidences stopped being coincidental once they piled up like this.

  Three places. Manchester, the Isle of Man, and now…the city of Carman.

  Fingers trembling, he typed out, He’s following her.

  A second later the reply appeared in his inbox.

  CrimeBuff69: Mate, if you think your gf is hanging out with her, you got to get to this lady NOW.

  Sam stood up so fast his chair tipped back, crashing to the floor. He froze as everyone in the shop turned to stare at him. The reporter in the pantsuit blinked at him. Her brow creased, and she took a step toward him. “Are you—”

  She was cut off a second later by the whoop of a siren from outside. The walls of the coffee shop were suddenly flickering blue and red.

  Two police cars had rounded the corner, pulling into the lot so fast their tires kicked up plumes of dust. As Sam watched, a third pulled in behind, followed by an ambulance. The officers hit the ground running. The crowd inside the shop gravitated to the window.

  The gardai and the paramedics vanished into the tiny shop next to the farmers market.

  Margery.

  A second later, the pantsuited lady shot out the front door, nearly spilling her coffee in the process, and several of the other reporters did the same. Sam scooped up his bag, his heart hammering, and he followed.

  Across the road, a couple of uniformed officers had begun taping off the area. The reporters were already asking questions, and the pantsuited lady was holding a tape recorder. The nearest officer, a short, beefy man named Murphy, shook his head at her, annoyed.

  Sam skidded to a halt in front of him. “Murphy, what’s happened? Is Margery all right?”

  Officer Murphy’s expression softened. “Sorry, lad. You know I can’t say nothing. You’ll have to ask your old man.”

  Sam felt the reporters home in on him almost immediately and ignored their stares. The door at the front of the shop was opening. Someone leaned out to shout at one of the officers, but Sam barely heard them, shock rooting him to the spot.

  Through the crack in the door he could make out a pair of uniformed officers, faces grim. And beside them, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest, her face pale and drawn, was Dayna.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  DAYNA

  It was both comforting and extremely annoying to realize that she knew every police officer on the scene.

  Of course, she’d rather not have had Samuel’s dad drive her home, since the whole thing was a bit awkward. Thankfully he’d merely lectured her about being careful and hadn’t brought up anything to do with Sam.

  The hall light was on, and she kicked her shoes off and hurried into the kitchen, expecting her father to be at the table waiting for her. Instead, Fiona was there, leaning against the stove as she watched the kettle steam. She glanced up when Dayna came in, her face concerned. “Someone called and
left a message with me that you’d been in some trouble. Is everything okay?”

  She pressed her lips together, searching Fiona’s face. Yes, she was shaken. Dayna’s insides felt like Jell-O, but Fiona seemed so delicate. Maybe sharing with her wasn’t the best idea.

  “Uh, everything is fine. I just…found something and had to call the gardai.” She felt sick as soon as she said it. Margery wasn’t something. She was a human being.

  Well, she had been.

  Instantly the image of those hollow red sockets came back to her, and she braced one hand against the doorway, feeling like she might be sick.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Fiona crossed the room, reaching out for her arm, and Dayna let herself be steered to the table. “Sit, I can…How about I pour you some tea?”

  This was so much like Yemi that Dayna found herself relaxing in spite of herself. “Thanks,” she mumbled. “I think I need it.”

  “Will you tell me what happened? They say talking can help.” Fiona gave her a hesitant smile, and for a moment Dayna wondered why she’d ever been wary of her mother. Yes, she had her odd moments. She was mentally ill, but so was Dayna.

  And Dayna wasn’t her father—she didn’t shut people out or send them away because their brains didn’t work the way they should. And here was Fiona acting like a real mother. Dayna would have given anything for those moments growing up.

  It made her hate her father just a little more.

  Fiona set the tea down in front of Dayna, hands shaking slightly, which made the cup wobble a little on the saucer before Dayna reached out to steady it. “What, um, what happened? I saw the cruiser out the window. Is it…you know?” Her eyes went wide when Dayna nodded.

  Slowly she told her what had happened, going into the shop and finding Margery gone from behind the desk, following the blood trail out the back and down the stairs. And most horrifying of all, discovering Margery still half-alive at the bottom of the stairs and realizing her killer might still be in the forest.

  Fiona’s hands shook on the mug. “Her eyes were gone? He—the Butcher took them?”

  Dayna nodded, swallowing her tea, which was still too hot and scalded her throat. She didn’t care. “It was horrible.”

  Fiona’s chair scraped across the tiles, and Dayna watched as Fiona got up and paced over to the stove, her back to the table. Dayna’s stomach sank. She’d been right; Fiona wasn’t ready to hear something this gruesome. She wasn’t stable enough.

  “I shouldn’t have told you. I’m sorry.”

  “No.”

  When Fiona turned, her blue eyes were huge in her thin face, and Dayna blinked at her, feeling a trickle of alarm in her stomach. Fiona’s eyes were too wide, too glassy. Her cheeks were flushed.

  “No, it’s good you told me. It’s…good to know what’s going on out there.” She moved more quickly than Dayna had expected, and she leaned back in her chair as Fiona bent over her, patting one shoulder awkwardly. “Tell me more about it. How—um, how are you feeling?”

  Dayna slouched in her chair, staring down at her tea. She tried to take stock of her body and then immediately wished she hadn’t. Her chest was tight, which made her breaths feel shallow. “Okay, I guess. I think Reagan took it worse than me. I better call her tonight.”

  “What did the marks in the trees look like?”

  Dayna looked up, startled. Fiona was staring at her. “Oh, um. Well, they were the Butcher’s mark, I guess.” She stood slowly, pushing her cup away, unease growing in her chest. “Are you okay? I’m not sure we should be talking about this—”

  “Wait.” Fiona’s hand shot out, and this time her grip on Dayna’s arm was tight, pinching her skin. “S-sit down—” she stammered. “We’re talking like a family, that’s all. Family doesn’t have any secrets.”

  “Maybe you should lie down.” Dayna took Fiona’s wrist, gently prying her grip off. She kept a hand on her arm and tried to steer her into the hall. “Let’s go lie down, okay? Do you need water or anything?”

  Fiona seemed content to be steered down the hallway, but she was still staring eagerly at Dayna. “I want to know everything. Did you see the Butcher? Do you know what he looks like?”

  “No, no one does. Come on, easy does it.” She paused in front of the guest room door and eased it open, guiding Fiona inside. The room was done up as it usually was, in ugly pastel flower wallpaper. The reverend had placed a white porcelain water basin on the dresser and hung a dollar store blanket over the end of the bed. Dayna glanced around, startled to see Fiona hadn’t made any changes to the room at all. Even her suitcase was still sitting on the top of the dresser, full of clothing.

  “He didn’t help you move in at all, huh?” She stopped at the end of the bed, gently steering Fiona until she sat.

  “Were you scared?” Fiona’s voice was a whisper, and her eyes seemed to glitter in the soft lamp light. Dayna repressed a shiver. “When you saw the body, did it scare you?”

  “Yeah, it was scary.” Dayna turned back to the dresser. “Fiona—Mam, do you want me to unpack your suitcase for you?”

  Fiona didn’t answer, and when Dayna turned to look at her, she was lying back on the bed staring up at the ceiling fan. When she spoke, her voice was distant and dreamy. “I didn’t know you could be scared, since you’re not a real person.”

  Dayna stopped short, hand hovering above the suitcase on the dresser. There was a pang in her chest, a sick feeling spreading down into her stomach.

  Slowly she made herself move, unpacking the suitcase and tucking each piece of clothing away, mind racing.

  It was becoming painfully obvious that Fiona was losing touch with reality, and Dayna’s father was completely in denial that there was anything wrong.

  If someone was abusing a child, you could call child services, but who did you call if the victim was an adult? There had to be someone she could contact who could help Fiona, someone outside Carman.

  Tomorrow she’d look online and see if she could find a number to call.

  By the time she was done folding the rest of the clothing and had tucked the suitcase into the closet, Fiona seemed to have fallen asleep, or at least she had her eyes shut and didn’t stir when Dayna paused at the end of the bed.

  She started to make her way out as quietly as possible, but something about the portraits on the wall caught her eye. There were three of them. The one in the center was of Dayna and her parents when she was small. In it, Fiona looked healthy and happy, and even the reverend was wearing one of his rare smiles.

  What caught her eye, though, was that someone had drawn on the glass encasing the picture. Chaotic black scribbles now obscured both pictures of Dayna’s face. Openmouthed, Dayna pressed a fingertip to the glass. Her hand came away black.

  She glanced over her shoulder, and her heart seemed to stop in her chest.

  Fiona was sitting bolt upright on the bed. Her eyes, wide and glittering in the dark, were fixed on Dayna’s face. For one heartbeat, two, they only stared at each other, and then Fiona eased back down and turned to the wall, curling her knees up to her chest.

  Dayna turned and hurried out the door. The sooner she could find someone to call, the better.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  DAYNA

  The next morning, Reagan picked up Dayna as soon as the reverend was out the door and brought her back to the coven house.

  The Callighans had come over and set up camp. They only lived a half hour away, but Bronagh had declared it was too dangerous to be apart now, that it was safest in numbers. So it seemed every room in the old farmhouse would be occupied that night; even the pullout couch in the living room had been utilized.

  Bronagh and Grandma King had both demanded to hear about the discovery of the body more than once. She answered what felt like hundreds of questions. Yes, Margery was a hedge witch who hadn’t belonged to any coven. Yes, she had still been alive when they’d found her. No, they didn’t get a look at whoever was in the woods.

&
nbsp; Around lunchtime, Yemi put her foot down and insisted they all drink chamomile tea for their nerves while she and Brenna prepared sandwiches.

  Dayna felt a surge of guilt. The reverend had already phoned the house three times this morning when he couldn’t reach her on her cell. She knew Fiona must have told him what happened; he’d learned about the body. Plus she was supposed to be grounded….

  She didn’t want to talk to him, or anyone, which was ironic, since her phone had been vibrating all evening. Sam had already sent her several frantic texts. Apparently he’d caught a glimpse of her at the crime scene and was freaking out. Dayna eventually caved and texted him back. Just a sentence: I’m fine. Talk to you later.

  Reagan left the guest room without a word, and Dayna smiled weakly at Yemi before following her into the kitchen. Since Reagan merely collapsed into a chair, she wandered over to put the kettle on. Yemi had already cleansed the house, and the kitchen smelled vaguely smoky and herblike. There was a candle burning in the center of the table.

  While she waited for the kettle to boil she flicked her fingers in and out of a candle flame on the counter and tried not to fixate on her breathing. Yemi had put Meiner to work at the kitchen table chopping vegetables for a stew, and Dayna caught her looking, brows raised.

  “Trying to set yourself on fire?”

  Dayna drew her hand away with a sigh before joining Reagan at the table, sliding the mugs across.

  She wrapped her hands around her cup to stop them from shaking and stared down into the steaming surface of the tea, certain that Meiner was studying her face now. Hopefully she didn’t look the way she felt.

  “You think they’ll call?” Reagan’s voice was tight, like she was holding back tears.

  She was talking about the gardai, Dayna knew. The officers who’d arrived on the scene yesterday had separated and questioned them briefly—What time did you find her? When did you last see her?—and when they were done, they said they’d call if they had any follow-up questions.