by K.N. Lee
The panic she’d been trying so hard to ignore made her stomach flip-flop even more. Maybe attack wasn’t the right word. Face the world? Except there was a lot she’d needed to face in the morning: the looks from the coworkers, the humiliation of being completely stupid—
She shoved those thoughts aside and concentrated on the hall around her. The sixth floor was beige, like all the others: walls, ceiling, and a darker, dirtier shade of carpet, and all the doors were brown with gold numbers above the peepholes. She’d chosen the building because it was walking distance to the college and close to the subway, not for its sense of style.
See, she could ignore her thoughts. She could get through this. Ignorance might not be bliss, but at the moment it was a requirement.
A sweet, earthy aroma wafted down the hall, and her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Someone was cooking something wonderful. Too bad the smell wasn’t from her apartment.
She unlocked her door and dropped the keys in the dish on the stand beside her, but stopped, hand on the lapel of her jacket.
The light in the kitchen was on.
Her heart skipped a beat. Someone had been in her apartment. Of all the worst days to have an intruder. Couldn’t whoever it was have waited until tomorrow? She could have handled a break-in tomorrow.
The floor in the bedroom squeaked.
She froze.
That someone was still there.
4
She froze in the front hall of her apartment. Whoever lurked in her bedroom had likely heard the click of the door and the clatter when she’d dropped her keys in the dish. The logical part of her mind rushed through the odds that she could get to help in time. It was dinner, and from the aromas in the building’s hall, someone on her floor had to be home. She should have let Agent Brown escort her up. He’d been right. Even someone with competitive fighting experience, like her, had to have some common sense. And she was going to start now. A smart girl didn’t stick around for trouble.
She yanked open her front door to leave.
“Rowan?”
Ben?
She nearly sobbed with relief. Her fiancé had arrived early for his visit and stood in the hall on the edge of the living room. She threw herself into his arms, melting in his warmth. Her chest ached, and it wasn’t just from the gunshot and the scare of her life she’d had earlier that day. She’d managed to keep herself busy, too busy to think about how alone she was in Valleyfield, and too busy to make new friends.
She shivered and he squeezed tighter. God, she’d missed him, missed his soft blond curls that brushed her cheek and tickled her nose every time they embraced, and his eyes that revealed his soul and showed every emotion, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.
“I just got in and called your office—”
She didn’t need to ask which one. He wouldn’t be hugging her like his life depended on it if he’d called the college. The FBI must have told him she was in the hospital.
“I managed to get an extra few days off, so I booked an earlier flight. I wanted to surprise you. But—”
She nodded into his shoulder, inhaling his fresh, clean scent, thankful he didn’t press for details or reveal his own panic. She wasn’t sure if she could face what had happened, even in the safety of his arms.
“I missed you.” But his tone said: I’m so glad you’re safe.
“I missed you, too.” She couldn’t remember a time without Ben, and moving miles away to Massachusetts was a greater test of their relationship than she’d expected.
“They said you got shot,” he murmured into her cheek.
She focused on his embrace and not his words — she’d fall apart if she focused on his words. His arms around her felt so good. She wanted to stay this way forever and not remember—
But the memory of the eyes and the teeth and the darkness threatened to consume her. She couldn’t forget or pretend it hadn’t happened. A tiny sob escaped against her will. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
As soon as the words slipped out, she knew they were true. The thought that she could have died made her stomach churn and her skin cold. She was so far away from home, from him, from everything familiar.
Ben sucked in a slow breath. “This post-doctoral program is your dream.”
She sniffed and swallowed hard against the lump in her throat.
“Rowan.” He cupped her face in his strong hands. His soulful eyes searched her. “You know how much I want you to come home.”
She nodded. They’d talked about it almost every time they saw each other. He was firmly on the side of her going home and continuing her studies from there, and now all of his arguments felt logical and right. Taking the contract with the FBI was dangerous. She didn’t have enough experience. And now she’d proven she had terrible judgment.
“We’ve talked about this and you’ve always said this is your dream. To be an occult criminologist.” He brushed his lips against hers, drawing a tingle of desire through her. God, she could never get enough of his lips.
She deepened the kiss, savoring his familiar taste. He tightened his grip, sliding his hands up her back and crushing her against his chest, spiking pain through her. But heat also fluttered low in her gut, and she ignored the pain and let him kiss away her fear, melting it to the aching need of not having seen him in months.
He groaned, eased back, and pressed his forehead to hers. “I want you with me, but there’s only one program for this in the world and it’s here at St. Anne’s.”
Even after all their discussions on the topic and now getting shot, he still supported her. The incident hadn’t changed his mind about her and her career goals. She had no idea what she’d done to deserve such an amazing man.
“Besides, you’re almost a year into the program and we made a deal. You can’t stop now.” He set his hands on her hips, stepped back, and gave her a stern look. “But you have to promise you’ll never get shot again.”
“I didn’t get shot. The vest did.”
“Now you’re arguing semantics.” He planted a fast, hard kiss on her lips. “Take me out to dinner, Dr. Hill.”
Now that was the best thing she’d heard all day. “Sounds like a plan.” She turned to go but a new thought struck her. If this was the place for her and this was her perfect job, then what was she doing going to supper? Two girls were dead, and it was her job to help catch the killer.
As much as she desperately wanted to be with Ben, the life of the next victim took priority.
Crap.
Dinner would have to wait. “You know I really want to go to dinner with you…”
“But—”
She could hear the edge in his voice, the one from their previous discussions about her career when he’d wanted her to come home. Sure, he’d just said he supported her because she’d been scared and that was the right thing to say, but did he really?
“This case is important.” She strode to her desk. It would be easier to leave for the office without him if they weren’t facing each other. It wasn’t the career he didn’t support, it was working as a contractor for the FBI. “I need to check my office for a book and talk to Sister Josephine.”
She flipped through her notes, not paying attention to any of them.
“Still, you’ll need to eat sometime.” Now he sounded hurt. “And you just got out of the hospital. I’m sure your boss has told you to rest.”
Which Ben might have known if he’d called her office. She was the worst fiancée ever, but she couldn’t just go out and pretend there wasn’t a crazy man killing young women.
“There’s a murderer out there, and I can stop him.” The words just spilled out. Shit.
“Stop him?” His tone sharpened. “By reading books and examining photographs, right?”
“By doing whatever I can to find the truth behind his actions. The other agents don’t know the right questions. I have to be there to interview witnesses in person. I have to be at the crime sce
nes to look for clues they don’t even know to look for.”
“You can do all of that from behind a desk while you finish your postdoc. Then you can do all of that over the internet, safe, at home, in Toronto.”
“Ben—” She didn’t know what to say to that. Yes, that had been the original agreement, but now — in the middle of an investigation — she knew the plan was unrealistic. “We need to renegotiate this.”
“There’s nothing to renegotiate. You do your post-doc, and you come home. That was the deal.”
“Things have changed.”
“Yeah, you got shot today. Doesn’t that scare you?”
Her body trembled and she crossed her arms, fighting to hold herself together. It scared the hell out of her.
“You promised you wouldn’t knowingly put yourself in danger.”
“I didn’t do it knowingly.” But she had. There was always a risk when talking to members of the dark occult community. She knew that.
“I said I’d wait until you were done with school, then we were going to settle down and start a family.”
But that had been a promise she’d made when they’d been undergrads together at the University of Toronto. Doing it now, or even in a year, didn’t feel right. She was just getting her career started. She didn’t want to throw away years of education because she’d graduated and they’d made plans before she’d even known what career she’d wanted to pursue.
Besides, this was the OCU’s first serious case. They had to prove they could handle it and if going into the field accomplished that, then that was what she had to do.
She straightened her papers, her fingers trembling. “Someone has to do something.”
“Yes, the police. The FBI. People who are trained.”
“So I’m not trained?”
“You’re a Ph.D. in occult criminology. That doesn’t qualify you to be running around after murderers.”
“I’m not helpless.” She had years of martial arts experience, but that wasn’t what he meant. She wasn’t a trained officer or agent.
“You belong behind a desk.”
“I need to be in the field.” She clutched her papers, unable to look at him. They’d gone over this before — over and over again — and nothing had changed.
He hugged her from behind, wrapping his strong arms around her, his breath hot against the back of her neck, drawing a delicious shiver of attraction. “I love you, Rowan. We had dreams, plans.”
“We still do. We still will. I promise.” She could make this work.
Except right now she had to be the worst fiancée ever. She couldn’t ignore her responsibilities. She might be the only one who could figure out the mind of this killer, the one who’d find the occult clue that could stop him. Ben’s dreams — and her safety — had to step aside. Saving lives was more important.
5
Her office at St. Anne’s College lay at the end of a long concrete and wood hall in the basement of the West Building. The term West Building was deceptive. The school had gone through many transformations, all of which included some kind of addition. As a result, all the buildings were joined, often by narrow, slanting halls.
The squeak of her shoes on the polished marble was the only sound in the empty hall and for a moment she could believe she was the only person roaming the school’s twisted passageways. But it was still early and somewhere above her night classes were in session.
She snapped on the overhead light in her academic home for the next three years. It flickered and caught, glaring white. The office was little more than a closet with a rickety wooden desk filling most of the space and bookshelves lining the walls on either side.
With a sigh, she dropped her backpack on her desk and plopped onto the old yellow armchair across from it, not ready to sit on the creaky metal desk chair. That would mean she’d accepted what had happened, and she was moving on, back to work. And as much as she’d felt she could face her job while arguing with Ben, she didn’t feel so secure anymore.
She picked at a tuft of stuffing coming out of the chair’s cracked corner. Her mind whirled. She thought of Ben sitting alone in her apartment, of the gorgeous man in the elevator, and of Manny, his bloated face emaciating before her eyes.
In hopes of chasing away the dark image, she turned to the bookcase beside her. But there, at eye level, sat the plain box — made from the rowan tree in Grandma’s backyard — holding her deck of hand-painted tarot cards. Had she survived what Grandma saw? Or was there something else, something worse still to come?
Shuffling feet at her open door drew her attention.
“Dr. Hill?” a young woman asked. She stood at the office’s edge, hugging a lean pile of books to her chest. “I didn’t… I mean, your office hours…” She pulled a pink paper from between her books and held it out.
Rowan searched her mental catalog of the students in her classes. Jennifer Wideman: smart girl with a genuine interest in mythological studies.
The paper quivered in her hand. A class-drop form. An archaic piece of college policy requiring a student to collect the signature of the professor teaching the unwanted class. She couldn’t decide if it was a way to torture the student for trying to leave a boring class or an opportunity for the professor to try and talk her out of it.
In this case, Rowan would try some talking. She glanced at the paper. Four classes were listed. “You’re dropping the entire term?”
Jennifer looked away, her shoulder-length blonde hair veiling her face. “Probably the year.”
“This is—” Rowan bit the inside of her cheek. She’d never been in this situation before, but it needed to be handled carefully. “It’s surprising. I thought you were enjoying your classes.”
“I am.”
For a moment she thought she saw a glimmer of the eager young woman who had sat in her class.
“I just can’t concentrate.” She glanced down the hall, back to Rowan, then back to the hall. “I think the College Killer is stalking me.”
“The College Killer?”
“That’s what they call him on the news. You know… the man who…”
Swell, the press had named him. Sure, two girls from St. Anne’s were dead, but it didn’t guarantee the next victim would be a student. And if Rowan had anything to do with it, there wouldn’t be a next victim.
“You have to take precautions, but you can’t let this control your life.” Just like how Rowan couldn’t let her fear or anything else control her. “Call campus security to walk you to your dorm or apartment.”
Jennifer sniffed. “It’s just… they were friends of mine.”
Rowan’s heart skipped a beat, and she ran the pink paper between her thumb and forefinger, weighing the girl’s words. How would she be managing if it were her friends who were dead?
“I can’t sign you back in after three weeks. You’ll have missed too much. I really wish you’d reconsider.” She grabbed a pen from her desk and signed it. “You could try a decreased load. Only take the classes that really excite you.”
Jennifer seemed uncertain. Maybe she’d sign back in.
“We will catch this guy.” Rowan had to catch him now more than ever, to prove to herself she could do this job.
Jennifer nodded, her expression glum. Rowan watched her go, listening to her heels click on the floor. It was a foolish promise, something she had little control of. But still, something she had to do.
Her gaze fell to the floor. Under the corner of her chair lay a piece of paper: white, small notepad size, folded in half.
Hunh.
Her unexpected stay in the hospital had made her miss most of her office hours — where she usually sat by herself until the time ran out. A student must have dropped by, found her door locked, and left a note.
She picked it up and opened it. Two Nordic runes were scrawled in thick purple ink: Peorth for magic and Thurisaz for conflict. A shiver swept up her arm and down her back. Sharp pain bit her thumb.
She gasped, drop
ping the note, and it burst into flame.
6
Tiny tremors shook Rowan at the paper bursting into flame. She scanned the hall, hoping to find a student laughing at the practical joke. But she was very much alone.
Someone was trying to scare her, and it was working. The Nordic runes on the note, Peorth and Thurisaz, were considered powerful. Even the color of the ink they’d been written in — purple — could be significant. But while her grandmother might have a touch of foresight when reading fortunes for tourists, there was no such thing as magic.
She tried to shake away her discomfort by focusing on the intellectual issues. The burning paper was an interesting trick. She wasn’t sure how it had been managed, but she’d taken enough chemistry classes to know that what appeared to be magic could simply be a chemical reaction.
Whoever had put the paper in her office either believed or thought she believed, in magic. She couldn’t deny the possibility that it was connected to the case. If the killer thought she was getting close — heaven only knew why — he could have laid his trap… or whatever this was.
And if it was the killer, it meant he knew who she was and where she worked. It would be easy enough for him to discover where she lived.
She shuddered. Those girls had not died pleasant deaths. The M.E. had found their own skin under their nails. They had clawed at their bodies, digging deep, bleeding rents into their flesh.
She sucked in a quick breath. Her thoughts were running away with what-ifs. She needed to focus. If the note was connected, the runes might lead her to identifying the scrap of text found on the first victim or indicate the type of occult practice used. She and Sister Josephine had already ruled out demon worship, but with new evidence — per se — came new ideas.
Rowan grabbed her backpack and rushed down the hall. Josephine’s office was one flight up. She’d look there first, but at that hour she probably wasn’t there.
Taking the stairs two at a time, she topped the flight and rounded the corner. The janitor, Harry, pushed his cart toward her.