by K.N. Lee
“Hey, Harry,” she said, standing at the edge of the stairwell. “I’m looking for the Sister. Have you seen her?”
He bobbed his shaved head and smiled, creating deep creases around his eyes. “She left about half an hour ago.”
“Thanks.” She turned back to the stairs.
“You’re not walking about campus alone, are you, Dr. Hill? What with the…”
“The College Killer stalking about?”
He nodded. “I’m off in an hour. I could walk you to the subway or bus.”
“Thanks. But you can see my apartment from the campus. I’ll—” She bit her lip. She had seriously misjudged the situation with Manny and gotten shot in the vest. Maybe she shouldn’t be so quick to turn down help. But she had no idea how long her conversation with Joe would take. “I’ll call campus security. Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”
“I hope so,” he said. “You’re one of the good ones, you know.”
There wasn’t anything she could say to that. At the moment she didn’t feel good. She felt inexperienced.
7
Rowan found Sister Josephine in her usual high-backed chair at the back of the library’s first floor. She wore her customary navy suit and white blouse. Her simple black shoes sat on the floor before her while she curled herself into the chair. Her head was down, and her salt and pepper curls caught the glaring overhead light, making them seem more silver than gray.
From where Rowan stood by the door, she couldn’t see the Sister’s face but knew if she looked up the light would play on the myriad shades of ebony of her skin. Sometimes it was hard to believe that this demure nun was one of the foremost authorities on demonology, angelology, and exorcism, and not some gentle grandmother.
Sister Josephine glanced up and smiled then placed a crocheted bookmark in the thick text lying in her lap and closed it.
“I was wondering if I’d see you tonight,” she said.
“Did everyone call the office today?” Heat flooded Rowan’s face. She didn’t want to be reminded about her foolishness, and yet it didn’t matter what she did. Everything was going to remind her.
She sat in the chair opposite Josephine — a matching burgundy leather wingback. Too stiff and uncomfortable for her tastes, but the Sister seemed to love them. Maybe it was the view, the rows and rows of books on one side and the large window on the other.
“Agent Brown called, warning me I would have to pick up your classes.”
“Brown’s so sentimental.” Rowan gazed at her reflection in the glass, not ready to fully face Josephine and the concern in her eyes.
“He was worried about you.”
“I know.” Through the window, the campus was shrouded in darkness. A fog crept up from the ground, muting the lamps lining the path to the athletic building — one of the few buildings not joined to the school’s main body. No comfort there.
With a sigh, she turned to Josephine. The Sister sat motionless, waiting for Rowan to make the first move. It seemed she could sit that way forever: feet curled under her, hands on top of the massive book in her lap, and her expression plain but pleasant.
Now that Rowan faced her, she was filled with doubt about the paper with the Nordic runes having any connection with the murderer. She rubbed her thumb against her forefinger. It felt normal. It wasn’t bleeding or even red. Had it been real or a figment of her imagination? Even the memory of the shock when the paper had burst into flames was fading, slipping from her mind.
She squeezed her eyes shut, grasping for recollection, at the thoughts that had swirled around what had happened. What type of runes? Were they runes or something else? There had been a color, but she couldn’t remember what and how. The thought magic flashed like hot panic through her and then was gone. She felt empty, knowing there was something she was supposed to remember but not what. Her fiancé, Ben, had comforted her and then argued with her, she’d gone to her office, had a conversation with Jennifer, and then…
Then she’d gone to talk to Josephine. She was sure there’d been something else. It was there on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t bring it to mind.
“I need to identify the text found on the scrap of paper on the body of the first victim,” she said, her thoughts settling on that one solid idea. Certainly not on being shot in the vest that morning.
Josephine nodded but remained silent.
“I told Brown I could.”
“Now you think you can’t.”
“Two girls are dead.”
“And you’ve just had the scare of your life.” Josephine’s expression stayed mild as if she’d said something mundane like pass the biscuits.
Rowan turned back to the window. Two girls were dead, and all she could think about was herself. She looked beyond her reflection to the rest of the library. Unlike a mirror, the images were darker, the shadows more significant, as if the lights struggled to illuminate the area. Two men sat at one of the large tables, deep in hushed conversation, and a woman in a pastel pink sweater sat with her back to them at an individual desk. Life as usual. All unaware that Rowan could have died that day.
“I still have nothing to show for anything,” she said without turning away.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
She snorted. “Yeah. I’ve picked up a new psychosis, some bad dream-like memories.” Her gaze wandered to the shadows among the bookshelves. A man stepped into sight. His black hair was tied in a ponytail at the nape of his neck, and his jeans hugged his thighs and rear end. She smiled, thinking of the man in the elevator at her apartment building.
The man reached the end of the row and turned to face her, searching the shelf on the other side. His complexion was tanned, cheeks and chin chiseled.
She blinked. He really did look like the man from the elevator.
“Tell me about the bad dream-like memories.”
Rowan dragged her attention from the reflection of the library back to Josephine. “It’s just a dream.” Something else to remind her about how foolish she’d been.
“Sometimes a dream, or a dream-like whatever you experienced, is a way of your unconscious talking to you.”
She glanced at the man between the shelves. In clear light, he looked even more like the man from the elevator. Right down to his tan boots.
“I doubt what I saw had anything to do with my unconscious.”
Josephine eased her feet off the chair and back into her shoes. “So what did you see?”
“What didn’t I see?” Rowan rubbed her eyes and when she looked back, the man was gone. “It was like a bad horror movie, right down to the glowing eyes and fangs.”
“And what do you think it meant?”
“It didn’t mean anything.” It meant she’d read too many scary books and had an overactive imagination. Or it meant she was crazy. She wanted to tell Josephine everything that had happened in the alley. The glowing eyes, the teeth, and Manny’s face emaciating as she watched. She should. The Sister had spent years working with a prominent exorcist. Surely in that time, she’s seen some strange things. And yet…
Rowan pushed the thoughts aside. She hadn’t seen anything but a figment of her imagination. That was all.
“How are you with recognizing obscure texts?”
“There’s a reason you were assigned the task and not me.”
Rowan sighed. She hadn’t thought the answer would be so easy.
“Here’s my advice,” Josephine said.
“I asked for advice?”
She raised an eyebrow and cut through Rowan’s attempt at humor. “Pray and get some sleep.”
“The cure for every troubled mind.”
“Surprisingly.” Josephine stood, the heavy book held between her small hands. “Start tomorrow with a fresh mind, Rowan. If you continue to worry about not having a solution, you’ll never have an open mind to find one.”
She smiled her gentle-grandmother smile and left. Rowan watched her make her way through the large tables but turned back to
the shelves before Josephine reached the door. The sexy man in the tight jeans was nowhere in sight, and she suppressed the urge to search for him. Ben waited for her at home, and maybe all she really did need was to get some sleep. She didn’t think that was the case, but there wasn’t anything else she could think of doing at the moment. It was, in the least, worth a try.
Rising, she left the library and stepped into the empty hall. All the doors were shut and the glass transoms above them dark. Ahead, one of the panels of light flickered and went out. She reached a side hall, pushed open the door, and took the three steps up to the next level. This was an older section of the school. The walls on the inside were red brick and the windows small with thick glass. Here, the lights were spaced farther apart, the wiring running between them visible on the ceiling. Her soft-soled shoes thudding against the hardwood floor and the hiss of her backpack rubbing against her hip were too loud in the silence.
The image of glowing eyes, staring at her through the dark windows, flashed across her mind’s eye. A door behind her squeaked.
Her heart thumped.
She glanced over her shoulder, but no one was there. She squeezed the strap on her backpack and fought to slow her racing pulse.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone watched her.
With a shaky breath, she strode to the end of the hall and out the doors into the cool night air. Mosquitoes and moths danced around the light above her and around the streetlight a few feet down the gravel path. Cold raced through her thin cotton suit, drawing a shiver. The wind rustled the leaves, and a flurry of dark shapes fluttered to the ground. The sense that someone watched her hadn’t lessened.
Above the trees, the lights of her apartment building glowed, beckoning her home. Warmth and safety, and Ben.
She ground her teeth. Her nerves would not get the better of her. But all the images from every horror movie where a woman walked alone raced through her mind. Don’t walk down the dark alley — or in this case gravel path — alone. It was twenty feet to the street, and the way had never seemed so sinister before.
If she were smart, she’d turn around. Caution was better than recklessness.
She tried to open the door behind her, but it was locked.
The leaves hissed and sighed again, skidding across the path. Something snapped. She spun around. Nothing. Nobody. Still, if felt like eyes glowed, a hint of red, where the shadows were the darkest.
When she turned back, the man from the elevator stood on the path. Her heart leapt into her throat.
“It’s just you.” She bit back a hysterical laugh.
“Rowan.”
It was a whisper, coming from all sides of her, carried on the wind, from the wind itself and not from him. It wrapped around her, caressing her cheek, her neck, down the V of her shirt. The hairs on her arms stood up.
His eyes narrowed, drawing her attention to their dark depths. They were so much like those terrifying eyes from her dream. Bottomless, consuming, burning with a pinprick of hellfire. They dragged her in, and she fell, down, down, into nothing. The wind whirled about her, no longer a caress but a gale. It ripped at her clothes, her hair, her flesh, her very soul, determined to consume all that she was and all that she would ever be.
8
She forced her eyes open against the wind and met the man’s gaze. He raised an eyebrow and a moment of surprise crossed his face. The wind stopped with an abruptness that made her gasp.
The path before her was empty.
It had been a figment of her imagination. She hadn’t just been looking at him, and the wind had never happened. Really. A figment, nothing more. And if she told herself that over and over again, maybe she’d believe it. There was no way he could just disappear like that. Which meant he hadn’t really been there. But she couldn’t dismiss the feeling that he was still around, hiding in the shadows.
There was nothing she could do now except move. Go back into the school or go home. If she went back to the school, she’d still have to find someone to walk her home, leaving her back in her current situation, alone.
Fine. It would take her less time to cross the campus and go home than it would to find someone. So with the itch of being watched crawling up and down her spine, she marched home, ready to face anything. She couldn’t wait for this day to be over, and yet she feared what tomorrow would bring.
Ben was already in bed and asleep when she got home, which suited her just fine. She didn’t want to pick up their argument where they’d left off. She had no idea what to say to him. Yes, they’d made a deal. And yes, she wanted to renegotiate, and he didn’t. Where did that leave them?
With her purposefully avoiding a conversation. She undressed in the dark and eased into bed, careful not to wake him.
She slept fitfully, her dreams fraught with glowing eyes, gleaming fangs, and the man from her apartment elevator. At 6 am she gave up, got out of bed, and showered. There were bags under her eyes, so she dabbed on some concealer. Now — if she didn’t look too close — she didn’t appear as exhausted as she felt. It would have to do.
She left the bathroom. Ben still slept, legs spread to her side of the bed, the covers tangled about him. His blond hair lay against the burgundy pillow like a splash of sunshine and his lips held a slight smile that twisted her heart with guilt. She owed it to him to talk this out. They’d been together long enough. They knew each other, knew how to compromise. That was what good relationships were about. But she didn’t know what she could possibly give up right now when there was a murderer stalking college girls, and Ben wanted her trapped behind a desk where she wouldn’t really be able to help.
She hurried into her cramped walk-in closet and changed with the door closed so the light wouldn’t wake him — she could at least give him that. Maybe when she came back that afternoon, she’d know what to say and they’d work everything out. They always worked it out.
Tiptoeing to the bed, she stared at him again, the beautiful hometown boy who’d stolen her heart. He wanted to protect her so much, and she could understand that. And now that she’d had a night to sleep on it, it was astounding he hadn’t demanded she return home right away.
She brushed a lock of hair from his cheek and laid a gentle kiss on his forehead, careful not to wake him, then left. They’d figure this out, just first she needed to check in with work.
Brown’s surly mood from the day before should have blown over — or as much as it usually did — and she wanted to examine the crime scene photos again. If the team was lucky, the local P.D. had picked up Manny, and they could start getting some answers.
She grabbed a coffee and muffin from the café next door and ate it on her way to the Federal Building. The Occult Crimes Unit’s tiny office was on the tenth floor, unadorned and basic. Only Brown and Rowan hoped the unit would stay active, and as a result, the little touches — knickknacks and photos on desks, art on the walls or even a change in paint color from public-servant beige — were absent.
Beyond the half-dozen desks was the wall of whiteboards. Half were covered with crime scene photos and Brown’s scribbled notes in red and black marker, the other half with photos of women between the ages of sixteen and thirty-five who’d been reported missing in the last six months.
Agent Richard Shannon walked by, a paper cup in hand. Steam curled above the lip, the string and paper tag indicating a soaking tea bag. He was off coffee again. She wondered how long it would last this time. Which then made her wonder if the rumor that he suffered from insomnia was true.
Her gaze lingered on his tanned face, searching for signs of weariness. No bags, and she doubted he used make-up like she did.
He nodded at her then picked up his pace, hurried to his desk, and sloshed his tea when he set it down. In all the time they’d worked together, he hadn’t said more than a few words to her and only because they’d been necessary. While surprisingly shy, he was still a big, muscular guy, and deadly with anything that fired a bullet.
; “I thought I told you to call. Not come in,” Brown said, his voice pitched low, edged with a growl. He stood in the doorway to the kitchenette with arms crossed and a scowl hardening his face.
“Last time I checked, there were murders to solve.”
He didn’t move, just remained a broad, balding pillar in a wrinkled shirt and dress pants. “Have you identified the text?”
“Not yet, but—”
“Then I don’t want to see you here. You’re officially on medical leave.” He didn’t sound like he liked the idea, which meant it probably wasn’t his.
“No. I want to—”
“Who’s in charge here?”
“Well, you,” she said. “But I—”
“And who decides the assignments?”
She pursed her lips. Was Brown still angry over yesterday’s transgression or something new?
“That would be me,” he said.
“Are you going to let me finish a sentence?”
“Listen. You’re a contractor, and you were injured on the job. Apparently, this unit can function without you for a couple of days.” He strode over to her. “But,” he lowered his voice, “I won’t really know if you call technical support and have the package of files on your desk couriered to your home.”
She slid her gaze to her desk. A thick envelope, presumably the files Brown knew nothing about, sat on the corner.
“I can’t write you up for insubordination, Hill,” he said, loud enough to carry through the office, “but I can demand that you concentrate on the task I assigned you. You’ve dabbled too much in other work. Go home.”
Office politics at its best. Just fantastic. It wasn’t a game she wanted to play, and it was all evidence that those in charge didn’t see the value of the unit. It was astounding the OCU had been given the case in the first place.
For a second she contemplated continuing the argument to help Brown, but she wasn’t a good enough actor to make it believable. Instead, she marched back to the elevator, hoping it looked like she thought he was an infuriating, ignorant man. When, in fact, it was his boss and his boss’s boss who she couldn’t stand. Life would be easier if she didn’t have to jump hurdles. Of course, if she hadn’t been dumb and gotten shot none of this would be an issue.