Sound's Familiar (Terra Noctem Book 1)

by Dana Marie Bell

  Carol frowned. Maybe she was wrong, and dimen cops could come in. “What about the dimens who work on the force? Can they come in here and view things like the wither?”

  Jonah shook his head, confirming her previous thought. “Nope. I already told you, remember? It’s something they have to deal with whenever they come across this kind of thing, so they’re usually paired with someone who can come into one of the warded rooms without problems.”

  “Huh. Guess that works, but then you can’t have your partner’s eyes helping you.”

  “It’s a problem, but there’s no way around it.” Jonah began fiddling with the computer. “Turn out the lights, will you?”

  Carol did so, then took a seat beside Jonah and stared at the setup. The actual computer was set on the floor, hooked up to a seventeen-inch monitor. There was a large, flat-screen TV across the room attached to the wall. A cord came from the side of the TV and ran to the computer. “Dual monitors?”

  “Yes.” Jonah opened the file in his email and began playing the video Dean Hill had sent. “Makes it easier to view details you might miss otherwise on the smaller monitor.” Jonah watched the screen intently.

  Carol did as well, but focusing on the screen was more difficult than she’d thought when Jonah took hold of her hand. All she could sense was the warmth of his skin on hers. In the confined space, his scent filled her nostrils, distracting her even further.

  “There.” Jonah let go to pause the video. The wither was in the corner of the screen, glancing behind it. “Let’s slow this down. Maybe we can find something we missed before.” Jonah started it up again but slowed down significantly.

  The wither was just as ugly and frightening as it had been in real life. Worst of all, it began to batter against her senses, seeking her out but unable to find her behind the shielded door. “Can you feel that too?”

  “Yeah.” Jonah sounded calm, almost serene. “Don’t worry. It can’t locate us here.”

  She took a deep breath and tried to dismiss the sensation of something searching for her. It was unnerving, to say the least, but Jonah’s composed attitude went a long way to keeping her and her wolf from bolting out the door.

  The wither was pulling something as it moved farther into view. She watched in horror as the body of the victim was dragged along. The wither was using the victim’s arm to tug it along, causing the body to leave behind deep grooves in the sandy earth of the baseball field. “How the fuck did the wither get the body to the field without anyone catching it?”

  Jonah bit his lip before replying. “Only a Traveler can survive that.”

  “Traveler? The sorcerers who can cross dimensions?” Carol whistled softly. “I’ve heard of them, but never met one.”

  “Not surprising. I’ve only ever met one. They’re incredibly rare.” He pointed to the victim, pausing the video once more. “Do you see that?”

  “What?” Carol squinted at whatever Jonah was pointing at.

  Jonah stepped in front of the television and put his finger right next to the victim’s chest. “That.”

  Carol stood and stepped closer to the TV. She stared at the victim, tilting her head as she stared at the edges of a rune…a magical one, not the symbols she’d read before. With the way the body was twisted, she could only glimpse a little bit of it. “The knife was used to get rid of that rune.”

  “Exactly.” Jonah pulled out his tablet as he started the video once more. She watched as he scribbled down what they could see of it.

  The body turned on-screen, and Carol stifled a gasp. Oh, shit. “The rune…” Carol thought she recognized it, but she didn’t want to say anything until she was certain. Besides, part of it was still obscured by the way the victim’s body was leaning and the arm the wither was using to pull the victim along.

  “What about it?” Jonah’s tone was absent as he continued to scribble.

  “I think…” Carol shivered as she considered the ramifications of that particular rune being etched into someone’s skin. “No, wait. I need to observe more of it before I can be sure.”

  He headed back to the computer to start the video once more. Still moving slowly, the video continued as the wither dragged the victim to home plate.

  “Stop.” Carol held up her hand as the video froze. She stared at the rune, shivering. A cold chill traveled down her spine. “Damn it. I was right.”

  “What is it?” Jonah once more stood at her side, staring at the rune with an intent expression.

  She studied the image of a tightly coiled snake burned into Louis Reeves’s flesh. “The serpent of Apophis, aka Apep.” Carol closed her eyes and tried to remember her Egyptian mythology. Mythology was her second love after the law. She’d almost chosen to become a magical anthropologist, studying magical mythology connected to different religions around the world, but the puzzle-solving aspect of police work had won out in the end. “Apep is the ancient Egyptian spirit of evil, darkness, and destruction.”

  “Oh?” Jonah pulled up a web browser and began typing Apep into the search engine.

  Before a page loaded, Carol continued. “He’s the arch-enemy of the sun god, Ra, and would attack him at the end of every day or the beginning of the new one, trying to stop him from ascending into the heavens.”

  “Why?” Jonah was studying one of the pages he’d found.

  “Ra is the bringer of light, so he’s the one that upholds Ma’at, or order, Apep’s opposite. That makes Ra his mortal enemy.” She closed her eyes and went over everything she could remember. “It’s said Apep’s roar can shake the earth, so those who worship Egyptian gods claim he’s the source of thunder and earthquakes, and that he’s also the reason for eclipses as he temporarily overcomes Ra.”

  “Can he be stopped?” Jonah sounded worried now.

  Carol could understand that. No one wanted to mess with gods. They tended to be a bit tetchy if you moved against their priests, but Apep was supposed to be one of the gods that wasn’t worshipped. “He can’t be killed, only temporarily overpowered.”

  “Priests?”

  She shook her head. “No one worships him because they are terrified of him. You have to always put other gods with his image or symbol to make sure he’s contained, but it’s always temporary.”

  “So why would Apep’s serpent be on our victim’s flesh? And without some other image to protect him?” Jonah studied the marking, probably seeking something embedded in the image that would make her interpretation invalid.

  “I have no idea. We can send your sketch to an expert, right?” Carol clenched her hands. If she was right about what had happened to Louis Reeves, then his death hadn’t been torture enough for the killer. They’d wanted him to suffer in the afterlife as well. There was a margin of error, always, but the story of Apep had always fascinated and horrified her.

  “My sister can take a look at them. Lessa’s an expert on runic and dimenic symbols and languages.”

  “This is bad, Jonah. It means that if I’m right, even his soul is gone. He won’t go to the afterlife or be reborn because his soul has been fed to Apep.”

  If he was a follower of the ancient Egyptian gods, this was the worst fate anyone could bestow upon him. Hell, if the rune-maker was a follower, then…Reeves was truly fucked, no matter how you looked at it.

  “A sacrifice, then?” Jonah scowled at the screen.

  “Sacrifice the soul and keep the magic?” Carol tried to figure out the riddle. “Is that why he wasn’t drained completely?”

  “Enough magic to send him to a soul eater, using the rune as a portal?” Jonah ran his finger across the head of the snake. “If we’re right…”

  “We’ll find more of them. More victims to feed to the perpetrator’s god. It’s just a matter of when.” Carol blew out a breath. This… Jesus, they had to stop anyone else from being a sacrifice. “More students, or others?”

  “Impossible to tell, other than students can be easy targets. They don’t have the same control over their magic that
older sorcerers have, so fighting back is harder for them.”

  “Louis Reeves didn’t even get that chance. He was hit from behind, dazed or knocked out.” Carol shook her head. “His familiar will be devastated when he finds out. They’ll never meet again, in this life or another.” She bit her lip, wondering what she would do if something like this ever happened to Jonah.

  She couldn’t even begin to imagine it. Already, the bond was so strong that if something happened to Jonah, she’d want to follow him into the afterlife.

  Was it always like this? If so, how could a familiar walk away from a sorcerer who matched them, ever? Or was their bond different?

  Jonah pulled out his phone. “I have to call Dean Hill. It seems we’ve got some sort of ritual going on. If you’re right, there will be at least three more murders. We need to keep a close eye on the baseball field until this fucker is caught.”

  Carol listened silently as Jonah made the call. He explained the situation and told the dean that the police would be there for the students. She couldn’t make out Dean Hill’s reply, but the soft smile on Jonah’s face pissed her off. She held back a snarl, turning away from Jonah to stalk over to the computer. She started the video once more, still in slow motion, watching carefully as the wither stabbed the student’s body over and over until the serpent symbol was gone.

  It was possible that the stabbing was done not only to hide the symbol, but also to make the murder look like a homicide case. If Wheeler and Ridgely had kept the case, there would be no chance of solving it.

  Once that was done, it posed the body, placing the lily in its hands. It waved a hand, dispersing the trail the body had left as he’d dragged it through the sand to home plate. Finished, it disappeared from sight, leaving no trace that it had ever been there.

  All of the evidence collected at the scene, like the cheap vape pipe, was useless. The killer hadn’t been anywhere near the dumpsite. They’d need to call the CSI guys before the city wasted any more money on useless tests.

  She stopped the video and glanced up, to find Jonah watching the TV. His phone was no longer in his hand. He spoke absently, his gaze glued to the dead body. “If we can track where the wither came from, we could find the blood sorcerer.”

  Carol shook her head. “It’s a dimen. There’s only a few ways to track one of them.”

  Jonah glanced at her over his shoulder. “Then perhaps it’s time we spoke to one.”

  “Huh? You’re friends with a dimen?” Carol had met some pretty…intense dimens during her time at college. Somehow, she couldn’t picture even one of them who’d be willing to help them.

  “Mm-hm.” Jonah rubbed his hands together, his expression evil. “And I can’t wait for you to meet her.”

  Chapter 14

  Jonah pulled the car to a stop in front of a familiar adobe house. He’d spent quite a lot of his life there, playing video games, practicing magic, and just getting into trouble with one of his best friends in the world. “We’re here.”

  Carol glanced up from her iPad and stared out the window. “Huh. Not what I expected.”

  “You were thinking brimstone pathways and fire-filled windows?” He got out of the car, watching as Carol also got out. Her gaze never once left the house.

  “Nah, not quite. I was thinking more Stepford wife, with a picket fence, and two-point-five children. You know, really scary. Not hippie central.”

  Jonah gazed at the house again, trying to view it through Carol’s eyes. True, there were a number of hand-made wind chimes strung around the house and several strands of colored lights in the trees that Rose loved to turn on every night. And the hand-made stepping stones were shaped like sunflowers. There was an overabundance of plants, lots colorful furniture on the front patio… Okay. Carol was right. It was kind of hippie-ish and really cluttered. “If you think that now, wait until you see the inside.”

  Carol shivered. “I can’t wait.”

  He strolled around the car and took hold of Carol’s elbow. “C’mon. Rose probably has tea and cookies waiting for us.”

  Carol gaped at him. “Isn’t that how children get lured into an oven?”

  Was she serious? “Does this house look edible to you, Gretel?” Jonah shook his head over Carol’s obvious unease. He had to reassure her that Rose was mostly harmless. “Seriously, you’re the big bad here, not Rose, okay?”

  Carol sniffed and immediately sneezed. She peered around, confused, and sniffed again. A third time she sneezed, her curls bouncing with the force of it. “What’s that?”

  “Rose.” Jonah knocked on the wooden door using the wrought iron knocker.

  Within moments, the sounds of pounding feet reached his ears. He braced himself for the onslaught, aware of what was coming.

  The door swung open, and Rose Wright came tumbling out and into his arms. “Jonah!”

  Carol snarled, then sneezed again. “’Scuse me.” She rubbed her nose, taking a step back.

  “Jonah, who’s your friend?” Rose didn’t bother gazing at Carol. She’d been down this road with him before. Her dark brown hair was soft against his chin. “Another familiar?”

  “Her name is Carol Voss, and she makes my magic sing.” Jonah stepped out of Rose’s embrace to find his friend ogling Carol.

  “Really?” Rose drawled. Her hands went to her ample hips. Like most earth elementals, Rose tended toward what she lovingly called “goddess size.” That never once stopped her from wearing whatever she pleased.

  Today, she was in skin-tight jeans, a halter tunic in an eye-searing fuchsia, and sandals covered in multicolored bits of plastic meant to mimic gems. Her toenails were painted in an iridescent shade of pink, but the nails on her hands were bare. She’d told him once that nail polish didn’t stand up to the amount of digging and crafting she did on a daily basis, so she colored her toes instead.

  “Come in, come in. I’ve just made a batch of chocolate chip cookies.” Rose surprised him by grabbing hold of Carol’s arm with a gleeful expression that terrified him. “I bet we’re going to be really good friends.”

  Carol was pulled into the house, staggering behind Rose with a pleading backward glance.

  Jonah, amused by Carol’s uncertainty, followed the women, closing the door behind him. Rose’s two small dogs, Hermes and Hera, greeted him with yippy barks and waggling bodies. He took a moment to pet the small bundles of happy fur before heading for Rose’s kitchen.

  Carol was sitting at the concrete and colored stone table that Rose had made one day when she was bored out of her gourd, she said. She did some of her best work then. The colorful, seemingly random pattern was actually a magical ward, keeping Rose’s home safe. A plate of cookies and a teapot sat on the table, with steaming cups of tea at each place setting.

  Rose was sitting across from Carol, her chin on her hands. “So, you’re a wolf?”

  Carol nodded, apparently dazzled by the affable Rose. Jonah took the seat beside her and glared at Rose, aware of how curious she’d be about his new familiar and how little brain to mouth filter she had. “Have you been hounding my familiar, Rosie?”

  The earth dimen seemed offended by the hated childhood nickname, but the twinkle in her eye told the truth. Rose was thoroughly enjoying herself. “Of course not, Joanie.”

  Jonah winced. He deserved that for calling her Rosie. She’d told him more than once how much she despised being called Rosie. He was always compelled to tweak her tail only to have it bite him in the ass. “Please don’t call me Joanie. I swear I’ll be good.”

  Rose smiled sweetly and turned back to Carol. “Jonah and I have been friends since we were toddlers.” She shot Jonah a smirk that scared the crap out of him. “When he was six, he used to—”

  “Can you follow a wither to its master?” There was no way Jonah was going to allow her to tell Carol that story. Hell. No.

  Rose blinked. “What?” She bit absently into a cookie, quietly pushing one into Carol’s hand. “Eat up, dear. You’re way too skinny.”<
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  Carol nibbled on the cookie, still apparently shell-shocked.

  “Can. You. Follow. A. Wither. To. Its. Master.” Jonah pounded each word into Rose, waiting for her reply. If he let her, she’d talk their ears off before allowing them to get to the reason for their visit.

  Rose pouted. “And here I’d hoped you’d come to visit for friendly reasons.” She sat back and shook her head. “No. I. Can’t.” She then turned back to Carol. “When he was six, he used to pee in his mother’s petunias. She never did figure out why they kept dying.”

  Carol giggled, choking on her cookie.

  Jonah shut his eyes in pain. “Dear gods, woman.”

  “What?” Rose sounded both smug and innocent.

  “I haven’t met his mother yet.”

  Jonah opened his eyes at Carol’s words. She sounded shy, and her cheeks were bright red. “You want to, right?”

  Her eyes went wide, and so did her smile. “Yes?”

  Hmm. She seemed both interested and terrified at the thought of meeting his family. “Then I guess it’s a good thing we’re going to my parents’ place for dinner Friday night.”

  She made a sound that to his dying day he’d swear was an eep. “Oh. That’s good.” She shoved the whole cookie in her mouth and began to chew.

  “They’re good people.” Rose winked. “You’ll like them.”

  Jonah sighed. He’d take the attention away from Carol and allow her to regain her composure. Otherwise, she’d just start shoving cookies in her mouth till she either choked again or exploded. “Rose. Why can’t you track the wither?”

  “For one thing, which wither would I follow?” Rose shrugged. “Without something that’s a part of it in some way I can’t track it. And”—she held up her hand when Jonah went to interrupt—“because the wither was once human, the realm created for them is off-limits to those of us of purely otherworldly blood. To follow him to his master, first I’d have to follow him through the realms. I’d lose him before I ever got to the master.” She picked up another cookie and handed it to Carol. “There’s just no way I can go there.”