The Trail of Ruins

by Shannon Reber

  My heart pounded so hard, it felt like it might break its way free of my chest. “Do you know where?” I breathed, horrified by everything that was happening around us.

  Manny sniffed, his shoulders dropping in defeat. “He ain’t hurting her. He wants the guy to pay him. He wants outa Pittsburgh,” he said in a hollow voice.

  Daw stepped over and leaned back against the wall next to him. “We need to know where he took her. He crossed a line. You get that, don’t you?”

  Manny gave a slow nod. “Yeah,” he whispered and slowly, his posture straightened. “He took the chick to Sonny’s. Sonny don’t know she’s there. Him and his girl are out.” After a moment’s pause, Manny took a set of keys from his pocket and handed me one. “I dunno what’s going on but locking chicks up ain’t something I’m cool with.”

  I took the key and turned to leave. “Thank you so much, Manny. You are a good man,” I called, jogging out of the building and through the parking lot without the slightest pause.

  We had to get to Iris before Knox did. She was innocent. She needed to be able to get back to her family.

  Daw stayed by my side, his mouth set in a hard line. He didn’t speak as he got in. He just waited for me to give him the address.

  I rattled it off before again calling Erkens. There was still no response. Good grief. Where was the man?

  That was when I texted Ian. They needed to know what was going on. They needed to know the type of person they were watching.

  It frustrated me that I hadn’t seen anything to indicate that was the type of person he was. I had felt bad for him because of his addiction. My feeling of pity was gone.

  All I saw was a guy willing to do anything, hurt anyone, just to get some money. Granted, that money was probably going to his drug habit. But he had indeed crossed a line. I would make sure he didn’t get away with kidnapping Iris.

  There was a pounding in my ears and my mouth went dry as the desert as we pulled up in front of a split level on a quiet street. It was a charming little place that made me think of a grandma for some reason. I pushed that thought aside and looked around.

  There were no cars in the driveway. All the curtains were closed. There was mail in the mailbox. There were also neighbors who might have noticed something.

  I would put all that in the report later. Right then, we had to get to Iris. No one would be allowed to use her. No one.

  I pulled out the key as we jumped out of the car but my mind told me to slow down. We had to think it through, not run in without a plan.

  I laid my hand on Daw’s arm to hold him back and brought up my phone. After a few seconds, the satellite image came up and I was able to scan the house. I turned the heat sensor on first.

  There were several things in the house that gave off a heat signature but nothing resembling the shape of a human.

  That was when I remembered. Iris had been brought back to life. Her body wouldn’t be at normal temps, not yet, anyway.

  I reset the sensor and a shape showed up in one of the house’s two bedrooms. The shape wasn’t red like most of the things giving off heat or blue like the things that were cold. That shape was purple.

  Okay. Unless there was yet another revenant in the house, that was Iris. And no one else was with her, so that was that. All we had to do was get into the house without having the neighbors call the cops.

  The fact we had a key should be enough. But since life was rarely fair, I called Simms. With the FBI behind us, we could get Iris out and keep from being arrested. Or that was the hope, anyway.

  EIGHTEEN

  It only took about five minutes for a black SUV with FBI license plates to pull up behind us. Those five minutes felt more like five hours. I hated the idea of standing out there while Iris was trapped inside. I knew it was best to wait, though.

  The moment the SUV stopped behind Daw’s vehicle, I moved toward the house. The key was already in my hand, so I was in the house in three seconds flat.

  Because I knew right where she was, I rushed through the living room. The house was almost empty. The living room only held a couch and a TV that sat on the floor, while the kitchen’s only seating was barstools. There were no pictures or posters on the walls either, everything just barren.

  I wondered if Knox had robbed the place when he’d brought Iris in but I could figure that out later. She was my first priority. I had to get her back to her family.

  “Iris,” I called just so she’d know we were coming. I didn’t want to scare her, make her think Knox had come back.

  A noise came from the room I knew she was in and I took two running steps to get there. I came to a stop in the doorway, my eyes wide at the sight before me.

  Iris was a beautiful woman. She had wavy, light brown hair, a peaches-and-cream complexion, and a curvy, narrow-waisted figure. She lay on the floor with duct tape over her mouth and more duct tape holding her arms and legs to her body. Her wide eyes and shallow breaths told me she was terrified.

  I held my hands up and stepped closer. “It’s okay. I swear,” I said, crouching down next to her. “I’m going to take the tape off your mouth but it’s probably going to hurt.”

  She nodded, holding her breath as I started.

  When the tape was off her mouth, her skin was bright red and there were tears in her eyes. There were tears in my eyes too. How could anyone be so cruel? Why would Knox had done that?

  “How do you feel?” I asked, not too sure what else to say.

  She took in a shaky breath, letting it out on a sob. “What’s going on? How did I . . . come back? Where’s my husband?” she rattled off as I started unwinding the tape from around her.

  “We were hoping you could tell us how you came back,” I said, helping her into a seated position as her torso was freed of the tape.

  Iris let out a shiver of horror. “I don’t know for sure. I know I was dead. I was content there, waiting for the time when my husband and son could join me. Then, there was this voice in a language I didn’t recognize . . . and all of a sudden, I was in my body. It . . . was horrible.”

  I could imagine. “Do you know anything about the guy that called you back?” I asked, relieved to hear the click of nails on the wood floors of the house.

  I glanced at the door, delighted to see Roy’s furry face. He lolled his tongue out and walked over, sniffing at Iris like he wasn’t sure what to make of her. He didn’t growl or show any signs of distress. He simply sniffed.

  She shifted her arm in a hesitant way that showed how weird it was to be able to move. After a moment, she moved it a little more freely and ran her hand over Roy’s fur. She sniffled, then wrapped her arms around the dog-shifter’s neck and wailed.

  Roy leaned in, offering the only comfort he had.

  After her racking sobs had subsided, Iris gulped, wiping at her tears with a shaky hand. “My husband. My son. Where are they?” she asked, resting her hand over her stomach as it let out a monstrous roar.

  Roy stepped around her to be next to me and nudged my arm with his FBI harness pack.

  I opened one of the side pockets, finding an energy bar inside. I handed it over to Iris, my mind reeling at even the idea of someone who’d been dead for two months coming back to life. Her body would need so much both time and care. But so far as I could tell, she was whole.

  She wasn’t the type of revenant that would go around chewing on people. I didn’t think she qualified as a revenant, actually. She was simply a woman who had been given a second chance.

  She blinked after she had finished that bar, her eyes heavy. “Uh, who are you?” she asked, scooting back to rest against the wall.

  “I’m Madison. The K9 guy is Roy. And the two guys in the door who are staring so rudely are Agent Dio Simms of the FBI and my new sidekick, Daw Turner.”

  She smiled at the introductions, resting her hand on her stomach as it gurgled. “Nice to meet you all,” she said, looking back at me. “You asked me about the guy who did this.”

  I no
dded, waiting to see what she could tell us.

  Iris’s gaze bounced from place to place. “The voice that called me back, it wasn’t the guy who brought me here. The guy who brought me here was a couple of years younger and . . . sweaty. It was like he was having a bad reaction to a drug or something. His mood kept changing. He’d go from euphoric to furious in a blink.”

  I rubbed my hand over my chest and did my best not to worry about Spencer and Ian. “I really need to know anything you can tell me about the summoner,” I said in a weak voice.

  Iris thought about it for a few seconds. “He was sad. As soon as he stopped saying the weird words, he called me Michelle and . . . he kissed me.” Her face turned red. “I couldn’t move. I was just laying there with him kissing me and . . . I thought he was going to . . . do more.”

  My skin tingled and a feeling of lightheadedness passed over me. “Did he?” I asked, my hands clenched into tight fists.

  “He started crying,” she said, tears rising in her own eyes. “He had his hand on my cheek and he called me Michelle again.” She blinked back her tears and went on. “I was finally able to get some words out. I told him I was Iris and he looked like I’d just kicked him in the stomach.”

  I glanced back at Daw and nodded. “He thought he could call back his wife or girlfriend’s soul and place it in the body he’d chosen but what he did was call back Iris’s soul. Why didn’t he use her body?”

  Daw considered for a few seconds. “Maybe her body was too badly damaged. Maybe it was cremated.”

  “Okay,” I said, leaning back on my hands. “So a guy loses his wife and son. He’s grieving and desperate, and finds a book of spells.”

  Daw nodded, folding his arms as he thought about it. “He’s inexperienced. He knows nothing about magic or the rules.”

  “Okay, but if that’s the case, where did he get the book?”

  He raised his brows. “The shop we were just in had grimoires. They can be found anywhere. He might not have even been looking for it. Maybe all he did was stumble on the book.”

  I shook my head. “Too big a coincidence. He would have been looking for some way, any way to bring them back. So he finds a book but no one tells him how things work. The problem is, we don’t know who he is.”

  Iris let out a slow breath. “He was burly with dark hair and a beard and mustache. Blue eyes. Big hands. Kind of hard but gentle,” she said, her lips quivering up in a small smile as I gave her an arch eyebrowed look. “I read a lot,” she explained, her head tipped to the side. “Oh and I’d say he’s in his mid-thirties.”

  I did my best not to react to her description. What I did was to bring up the pictures of all the faces I’d taken since the case had begun. I didn’t say anything to indicate which one I thought it was. All I did was hand her the phone.

  She swiped through the pictures, her mouth falling open as she came to the picture of Frank Voca. “This is him,” she said, her hand shaking as she handed the phone back to me.

  I took in a shaky breath and entered his name into the search for mothers and sons who had died together. Immediately, a news story came up. “His wife and son were killed in a car accident. The car was practically crushed by a semi,” I told them, my heart aching for all the grief and loss of all the people in that case.

  Simms stepped into the room and took the phone I offered to him. “Our medic unit is here. I promise you, you will be safe with them,” he told Iris, his eyes scanning the news report as two other people stepped in with a gurney.

  Iris reached out to lay her hand on my arm before I could stand. “Madison, I can see that you feel bad for him and so do I but he’s not innocent. Stealing my body from the ground and trying to put his wife’s soul into me . . . that’s messed up. He’s messed up.”

  My heart ached for her. I understood what she meant. I also understood that she hadn’t really answered when I’d asked if he’d done anything to her. The things that went through my mind were hopefully a lot more graphic than anything that really happened. Hopefully.

  I nodded to tell her I understood and rose, allowing the medics to check her over.

  Roy leaned against me as Simms gave me a one-armed hug. I kept my eyes fixed on Iris. I didn’t understand what could have made Frank Voca think what he was doing was a good idea.

  Was it possible that he had a book of spells but was also getting really bad advice from someone else? Could there be a second witch or even a demon like the woman at the shop had mentioned? How had Frank Voca gotten the idea to do any of the things he had done?

  When the medics had helped Iris up onto the gurney and wheeled her out, Simms turned to look at me. “My boss wants you and me to head up the task force on the PSA. I told him you wouldn’t drop this case, so he’s letting us have the rest of the week before we get started.”

  I grimaced. That was the reason I had been hesitant to work for the FBI. Bureaucracies irritated me. More, having someone far less understanding than Erkens give me assignments made me uncomfortable. But I had agreed to do it. I had no other choice.

  I motioned to Daw with my thumb. “Simms, this is Daw Turner, my sister’s brother,” I told him, hoping to give myself time to adjust to the idea of the new boss I’d never seen.

  Simms nodded, holding out his hand between them. “Dio Simms,” he said, squishing his brows together.

  Daw smirked and shook his hand. “Let’s just go with, we’re family,” he said, looking down at Roy. “And your partner is a shifter,” he said without any doubt.

  Simms looked down at Roy, giving a slow nod. “He says you smell like you’ve been around a shifter, as well as that sandwich shop on 18th. Thanks for that, by the way. Now that he’s smelled it, he won’t shut up about it until I take him there.”

  Daw laughed. “Glad to help you out, man,” he said, turning back to look at me. “We forgot to ask Iris when she was brought here.”

  I brought up the satellite image and scanned back, checking the heat signatures every time. After a few seconds I raised my brows. “It was a couple of hours ago. That means he would have left right after we left the Hollow, gone to pick Iris up from wherever she was, and then gone home to get high. That’s . . . weird.”

  “This whole case is weird.”

  Simms motioned to the door. “You two can ride with me, fill me in on all this while we drive.”

  I inclined my head, my eyes still fixed on my phone. Knox made sense. He was an addict, doing irrational, selfish things to get money for more drugs.

  Frank Voca made sense as well. He was a grieving father, a grieving husband. He was looking for a way out.

  The thing that continued to bother me was the irrationality of the thought process. And the way Iris had spoken about him made me think Frank had specifically chosen Iris for how beautiful she was. Why? Was he just getting his rocks off by feeling up a revenant or was there a reason behind it.

  I needed to figure that out. As soon as I did, I would understand. I was certain of that. Hopefully, I could figure it out before it was too late.

  NINETEEN

  Deke Holtz groaned as he woke. He didn’t feel good at all. His body ached and he was so tired. He wanted to go back to sleep but he needed to do something.

  Oh. Right. He was in the mean man’s house. He needed to get out the back door and into the trees.

  He listened hard for any sign of where the mean man was. There was no sound. Huh. Maybe the mean man had gone away.

  He got to his feet slowly, careful not to bump anything as he took a shaky step toward the door. His body was so tired. He was also hungry again.

  He glanced around as he got to the kitchen, his heart pounding hard as he saw the mean man talking to someone else in the driveway. Neither one of them looked happy. They looked scary.

  He moved as quietly as he could, resting his hand on the backdoor to steady himself before he opened it. His sweaty hands shook as he opened the door, his breaths coming out in quick gasps. Quick. Quiet. He had to get away.


  Deke’s feverish face cooled a little as the evening air touched his skin. A shiver passed over him from the change in temperature. He wrapped his arms around himself and pulled the back door closed as quietly as possible.

  Deke had spent a lot of time in the woods with his dad, so he knew the trails. He also knew the best way to stay out of sight. He’d found that out when Skylar had decided to play hide and go seek with him one day.

  He had learned that you didn’t have to be quiet. All you had to do was sound like you belonged where you were.

  He didn’t go crashing into the trees like he wanted to. What he did instead was follow the edge of the trees out to a narrow trail. All he had to do was follow that trail and he’d be okay.

  His mind wandered as he trudged along. He kind of wanted to lay down and go back to sleep. He had to keep going, though. If he could get to the ruins trail, his dad could find him. He knew it.

  He blinked, startled to find that he was already there. He could smell the river and the musty, earthy scent of the industrial ruins mixed with the other smells of nature. It had always been his favorite place to go.

  Shivers passed over him as he fought to keep his eyes open. He could feel something, someone near him. It wasn’t a scary someone. It felt more like an angel was watching over him.

  Deke peered around, looking for the angel. His mom had always told him angels were there to keep him safe. He’d thought she was being silly but right then, he believed.

  He walked slowly to one of the half-broken walls that had words painted all over it. Deke reached out to lay his hand on it but his hand froze. Footsteps. And voices. He had to hide.

  A surge of adrenaline washed over him, giving him a burst of strength. He darted inside the ruins and crouched down in one of the corners where he was concealed from anyone on the trail. He wished he felt brave. All he felt was scared.

  “I’m so sorry,” a girl’s voice said and the sound of sniffles came next like she was crying.