By the time I had worked through about a dozen stories, my heart was racing. Many of the tales sounded like the kinds of dangers Teag and Sorren and I fought as part of the Alliance. I knew that monsters were real. A lot of the urban legends sounded like what I imagined a second-hand account might sound like if someone told about one of our encounters with bad nasty supernatural creatures. I could personally provide an explanation for several of the legends, just from the cursed objects and dark magic we had fought.
What if there’s a kernel of truth in all of these stories? I wondered. The thought made me shiver. Most people take comfort in believing that there are no monsters and that the strange noises and shadows in the middle of the night are just their imagination. Teag and I know better. In fact, some of the threats we had fought went way beyond the “imagination” of these urban legends, too fantastic for someone to believe even recast as a tall tale.
“The Deadly Stranger is an urban legend that has been around since the mid-1900s,” the website article said. “The murders are always on a holiday, although the holiday itself may vary. Embellishments abound, but at its core, it is a warning about being too quick to bring a stranger into one’s inner circle. Stripped down, the Deadly Stranger legend has several basic elements: a stranger is befriended and invited to come for holiday dinner. Everything goes well to a point, when the host family collapses, likely from being drugged or poisoned. The stranger kills the family and sets their bodies up in a ghastly tableau as if they were seated around the table, enjoying a holiday feast. Whether the legend has a basis in a few unfortunate incidents or whether it has inspired copycats is debated. Law enforcement sources refuse to comment, unwilling to confirm or outright deny the legend’s reality.”
“Wow,” I said aloud. Baxter pawed my leg for attention, and I picked him up, giving him a hug that was more to reassure myself than for his benefit. This time, I searched on “unsolved murders of families.” The results were depressing and more numerous than I expected. My food went cold as I worked my way through the articles, eliminating anything that didn’t occur on a holiday. After a couple of hours, I had a list of twenty-five accounts that went back almost fifty years. There were Thanksgiving deaths, but also ones on Christmas, Easter, and Mother’s Day. Some were suspicious fires, while others just noted “unusual circumstances” and “remains open for further investigation.”
I jumped when my phone rang and nearly dumped Baxter off my lap. It was Teag. “You scared me half to death!” I greeted him.
“Did you get a chance to check out that site? I think I’ve found some more information about our dinner murderer,” Teag said. “Would you mind if I came over?”
Having company sounded great since I was jittery from the stories I’d been reading online. “Come on over,” I offered. “I’ve found some things I want to show you.”
“Any word from Sorren?”
“Not yet,” I said. “But maybe he can connect the dots if we have enough information together for him.”
Twenty minutes later, Teag rang the doorbell at the door from the sidewalk to let me know he was on his way, then knocked at the main door. We’ve had enough scares and intruders that we developed routines, so there are no unexpected surprises. Baxter went ballistic, as usual, bouncing and barking. A Voudon mambo friend of ours put powerful protective wardings around my house a while back, which have saved my bacon on more than one occasion. She’s warded Teag’s house and the store, too. Teag and Sorren are two of just a handful of people who can enter the wardings around my house without consequences. At least that’s the theory. We try not to take chances. I consider Baxter to be the backup alarm. He could wake the dead—and make their ears bleed.
“Down, Killer,” Teag chided Baxter affectionately, then picked him up for the requisite snuggle that was the price of admission. Then he came into the kitchen and pulled his laptop from his messenger bag. “You’re never going to believe what I’ve found,” he said.
“I might,” I replied, pouring some sweet tea for both of us. “I’ve got some interesting—and disturbing—things that I bet are related.”
Teag got settled in at the table, and I sat down next to him so I could see his screen, pulling my own computer around to make it easier to show him what I had discovered.
“You first,” he said, listening intently as I told him my suspicion that the urban legends might be more of a watch list than a compilation of tall tales.
“I’ll keep my eye on those sites from now on,” Teag promised. “Good catch. And you saw what I meant about the Deadly Stranger ‘legend?’”
“Yeah, I think you’re onto something,” I replied. “What else did you find?”
He pulled up a scattergram on his screen. “I found one hundred unusual holiday deaths involving multiple people that weren’t car accidents,” he replied. “I bet they include most of the ones you logged. The others weren’t from publicly accessible sites.” That meant he’d been hacking into law enforcement databases, maybe even the Feds. His Weaver gift made him a scary-good hacker.
“I plotted them by official ‘cause,’” he said. “Fires are popular. So are gas leaks, ptomaine poisoning, botulism, even one or two for ‘unknown wild animal attack.’ But the largest group are ‘undetermined.’” He brought up another chart.
“This chart shows the deaths grouped by holiday,” he said, sounding like the Ph.D. student he had been before Trifles and Folly opened up a whole new calling for him. “And this one plots the deaths by year and city.” He glanced at me. “What do you see?”
I leaned forward to study the charts. “The deaths happen more often at Thanksgiving and Christmas than any other holidays,” I mused. “A few in a particular city for a year or two, then it looks like whoever’s behind this moves on.” I squinted, peering at the screen. “The locations are all big or medium-sized cities. From the dates, it looks like he—she—it—has been moving steadily south.”
Teag clicked a key, and a new screen came up with the path of the murders tracked against a map of the Eastern United States. A red line zig-zagged from Portland, Maine down through the New England states, hitting Boston before moving on to New York, Philadelphia, and points south. A circled number told the tale of how many incidents in each location. Only a few in smaller cities like Portland, Rutledge, or New Haven, a dozen in New York, half that many in Boston and Philadelphia, more in Washington, DC, and Baltimore. Richmond, Fredericksburg, Raleigh, and Charlotte were on the map. But what drew my attention and made my heart pound was the red dot on Columbia, South Carolina.
“The killings in Columbia happened last year and the year before,” Teag said quietly. “The murderer only stays two years in a city that size. If the killer holds to pattern, Charleston will be next—and the deaths will happen this year.” Thanksgiving was less than a week away.
I sat back in my chair. I was frightened, but then I thought about the vision I’d had from the gravy boat, and I got angry. Some kind of monster was preying on innocent people, families that were kind enough to invite a stranger to share a holiday with them, and the reward for their kindness had been death. Whatever it was would strike again, here, unless Teag and Sorren and I stopped them.
“Charleston may not be as big as New York City,” I said, “but it’s big enough that we can’t be everywhere at once. What are we going to do, go on television and tell people not to invite psycho strangers for dinner?” I hated to think about turning away innocent travelers, college students, and others who might be alone on the holiday. “Do we have any description of either the ‘stranger’ or the accomplice?”
Teag shook his head. “We don’t have any information at all on the stranger except for your vision. The cold case files I hacked acknowledged the deaths were unlikely to be suicide.” He met my gaze. “They weren’t just poisoned, Cassidy. All the bodies were drained of blood.”
The knock at my front door startled me, and I jumped, nearly spilling my tea. Ramifications of what Teag discovered were
spinning in my mind as I got up to answer the door. Baxter went tearing toward the porch, then stopped when he reached the door and sat down with a goofy grin on his face. That confirmed who my guest had to be.
“Hi, Sorren.” I opened the door, and Sorren walked in. Sorren looks like he’s in his mid-twenties, but he’s almost six hundred years old. His blond hair had a trendy, European cut. I could tell from the warm tone of his skin that he had already fed. Before he was turned, Sorren was the best jewel thief in Belgium. Now he puts those skills to use for the Alliance. “How did you manage to glamor my dog through the door?”
Sorren chuckled and bent down, scratching Baxter behind the ears. “Dogs can sense more things than humans. He could tell it was me by my approach, and I’ve glamored him enough times that it’s become habit. Literally like Pavlov’s dog.” Since vampires don’t make any noise, Baxter being able to sense Sorren’s presence was a neat trick. I’d have to remember that, for times when we might meet less friendly vampires.
Teag greeted Sorren with a wave. Sorren joined us at the table and listened as we both caught him up on what we had discovered. He grew more concerned as we spoke. “Have you tried reading any of the other pieces of china or the silver?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “Not yet, although the idea occurred to me.” I really didn’t want a repeat of the vision I’d had, but the killer was on the loose and likely to strike again unless we did something fast.
Sorren seemed to guess my thoughts. “I can understand why you’re reluctant,” he said. “And maybe it would just put you through unnecessary anguish. But there’s also the chance that one of the other objects might provide a clue.”
I took a deep breath, then nodded. “I’ll do it. At least this time, I’ll have an idea of what I’m getting into.”
“Do you think we’re dealing with a rogue vampire?” Teag asked. “Or something else?”
Sorren leaned back in his chair. “Did any of your pilfered reports describe wounds on the bodies?”
Teag grimaced. “They all did, in graphic detail. Coroner’s reports manage to be gory and boring at the same time. Bottom line—the methods of bloodletting aren’t consistent. Sometimes the throats were slit, other times the wrists. A few of the reports make it sound as if the bodies had been chewed on, along with some partial dismemberment. Once or twice, the victims were stabbed.”
“I thought serial killers repeated their patterns compulsively,” I said. “That’s often how the police catch the killer and link the murders together.”
“That’s one reason the cops haven’t said much publicly about the deaths,” Teag said. “The notes show they can’t agree on whether it’s one killer or several, maybe even some ‘copycat’ murders.”
“I’m sure they’re not considering supernatural possibilities.” Sorren stood and began to pace. “Vampires aren’t the only creatures that feed on blood. But few of the other beings could pass for human. No one would be likely to invite them for dinner.”
“The stranger I saw in the vision definitely looked human,” I said. “Except for the blurry face. But there was someone—or something—else who came later that I never saw.
Sorren nodded, frowning. “That’s the part that might be the key to this. The mysterious stranger incapacitates the victims so the killer can feed. If that’s correct, then the stranger isn’t using a deadly poison. Maybe something that will drug the victims, make them unconscious or at least keep them from fighting back.”
“The man whose viewpoint I shared in the vision certainly seemed drugged,” I agreed. “He was still conscious and aware, but unable to move or speak.” Just thinking about it made me angry again.
“I suspect that whoever—or whatever—does the actual killing prefers the victims conscious enough to register horror and pain,” Sorren said with distaste. “Whatever type of supernatural creature this is, it’s a monster.”
“But who’s working for whom?” Teag asked. “Is the stranger feeding his pet? Or setting up the situation for someone more powerful?”
“That’s what makes me uncertain whether or not we’re dealing with a vampire,” Sorren confessed. “The various methods of death might just be a way to throw off the authorities. A vampire could heal the puncture wounds almost immediately, so there wouldn’t have to be marks on the bodies at all, if he—or she—stopped shy of death.”
A chill went down my spine. I trust Sorren completely, and he’s sworn to me that he is oathbound not to harm my family—and by extension, that includes allies like Teag and even Baxter. But occasionally, Sorren knows something that reminds me just how dangerous he can be, and makes me wonder what he’s done in all those long-ago centuries.
“Wouldn’t a vampire just be able to glamor the family and feed, regardless?” Teag asked.
Sorren nodded. “Nearly always, yes. There are a few exceptions. Glamoring is a part of the Dark Gift, part of how we hunt. But some vampires are better at it than others.” He gave a wistful smile. “After all, we began as mortals. Some individuals have tremendous charisma. They can move an audience to its feet and win over strangers with a smile. Their charisma is very close to a vampire’s glamor, just a matter of degree.” He shrugged. “And for famous con men who put their victims under their sway, I’m not sure there’s much difference at all.”
“Are there socially awkward vampires?” Teag asked. I chuckled, but he looked serious. “I mean, what if you had someone who was really bad at glamoring because he or she was terrible at social things as a mortal. Maybe a dorky vampire would team up with a smooth henchman who was good at gaining people’s trust and they’d work together in exchange for—something.”
“Was anything stolen from the homes where the murders occurred?” The thought had just occurred to me. I had been focused on the murders, but it was possible the real goal was theft.
Teag shrugged. “The police weren’t certain, because the families were all dead. No one walked out with the television or the silverware if that’s what you mean, nothing obvious.”
“A careful thief who has the advantage of time can make a house appear untouched,” Sorren said. “That’s something I know for a fact. I used to be quite good at it.” He smiled. “It’s a skill that still comes in handy, now and again, on Alliance business.” Breaking and entering was often a part of chasing down supernatural bad guys.
“There’s another possibility, even more disturbing than theft,” Sorren continued. “Some supernatural creatures feed on death and fear, as a vampire feeds on blood. It could be that the pair have complimentary goals, and can achieve them more effectively working together than they could separately.”
“We’ve got a lot of questions, and no answers,” I said. “Thanksgiving is coming up soon, and people are going to die unless we figure out how to stop these psychos. What do we do?”
“I think the one clue we have lies in the fact that you can’t make out the stranger’s face,” Sorren said. “That suggests magic to me. And if we’re going up against magic, we’ll need a good witch.”
The next evening, Teag and I waited nervously at Trifles and Folly. The store was closed, the lights in the front were dark, and we were in the break room, awaiting Sorren’s arrival. Teag had unwrapped all of the china and silverware from the auction and set it out on the table. It was a lovely set in excellent condition, with tiny little pink flowers and silver accents, something that should have been passed on to make a new generation of users happy. Now, we’d probably have to destroy it, since objects with such strong negative emotional resonance don’t make good gifts.
“I heard back from the auction house,” Teag said as we paced. “They received the china and silver from a guy who picks things up cheap at sales of abandoned storage unit items and lost suitcases—and police property.”
“You think they came from him?”
Teag couldn’t help a satisfied little smile. “I’m sure of it. He remembers the items. Got it at a sale up in Columbia. The police take items
into evidence and sometimes, there’s no one to return them to. When that happens, they sell the stuff to buyers looking for a good deal.”
“So the police took the dishes into evidence after the murders,” I said, putting the pieces of the puzzle together. “And since the family was all dead, no one wanted them back.”
Teag nodded. “Yep. The man at the auction didn’t buy anything else that sounded like it was related. I asked, just in case.”
Just then, the back door opened. Sorren entered with a woman I didn’t recognize. “This is Rowan,” Sorren said as they came into the break room. I knew a little about witches, enough that I was certain “Rowan” wasn’t the name on her birth certificate. It was a “use-name,” an alias to keep others with power from using her real name to gain power over her. Rowan was in her early thirties. Her blond hair was loose around her shoulders, and she wore a loose, light blue dress that fell to her ankles. The dress was embroidered with runes and symbols. I glanced at Teag, and he gave me an almost imperceptible nod, letting me know that he sensed magic in the fabric of her clothing.
Rowan was pretty in a girl-next-door way, and she didn’t seem worried about what we thought of her. Rings of silver and onyx glinted on her fingers, and she wore bracelets of agate beads. A silver necklace with the three phases of the moon—a symbol of the goddess—lay against her throat.
“Rowan, I’d like you to meet my business partners, Cassidy and Teag,” Sorren said. He turned to us. “It’s all right to speak freely—Rowan knows about what we do here, and about the Alliance. We’ve worked together before.”
I felt myself relax, just a little. Our work is dangerous, and knowing we can trust a new person helps a lot. “Nice to meet you,” I said. “Would you like some sweet tea?” This is Charleston. We’re polite to a fault. Death and destruction might be imminent, but manners were still important.
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