Mallory's Hunt

by Jory Strong

  Amy was suitably sympathetic. "Have you made arrangements with a funeral home?"

  "No, this is our first stop. It's on Mom's mind so…" He shrugged.

  "I understand. We're part of a corporate entity. Many people make all the arrangements, including plots and burial, through the funeral director."

  "So I need to go there, not here?"

  "No, no, not at all. Let me show you what's available. Then we can look at the plots that might appeal to your mother as her final resting place."

  She pulled a map from her desk, a miniature of the one on the outside wall, except this one indicated available grave sites.

  He didn't flinch when she quoted plot costs. This was L.A.

  "I saw the cameras pointed along the outside hedges, what other measures are in place?"

  "There are discreetly placed cameras on the grounds."

  He stiffened visibly. "So my visits to my mother will be recorded."

  "There's no need for concern, we respect your privacy. Unless there's a specific problem, we would never intrude on it. And let me assure you, Royal Oaks is a quiet, peaceful place."

  "But there are recordings?"

  "Yes."

  "How quickly are they erased?"

  Amy's demeanor changed, subtle enough that without his training he probably would have missed it. He cursed himself for the misstep when he already had what he needed.

  He recognized the system from the keypad. He had the equipment to deal with it.

  Spearing his fingers through his hair, he huffed out a sigh. "I'm sorry, this is a difficult time."

  Mallory's arm went around his waist. "I'm sure they'll respect your privacy. Why don't we look at a couple of the plots? There were two I think your mother might like."

  He turned his head, pressed a kiss to her hair because he could as much as to work the role. "You're my rock."

  Christ. That'd come out of nowhere.

  Only it hadn't. Not completely.

  His heart lurched at how often he'd seen his dad spontaneously hug his mother and say that very same thing.

  "Which two?"

  Mallory stabbed the map, picking plots close together.

  Amy took them in a canopied golf cart, driving to the farthest location, one of the more expensive resting places, though all he could think was, What's to see? The grass? The view? Who the neighbors are?

  "Nice."

  He had to work at making it sound heartfelt, just as he did at the second plot.

  "Does your mother have money set aside for funeral expenses and burial?" Amy asked in a hushed tone.

  Fearing there'd be more stops with a wrong answer, he said, "I'm not sure. With all the hospital bills…"

  "I understand. Let me show you another option before you leave."

  Hallelujah. Almost out of here.

  Amy took them to a rocked building shaped like a wide, squatting v.

  "This is one of our columbaria. It allows for inside visitation. Some of our others are in a monument style."

  This was what his parents wanted, this was what they'd arranged for themselves, though he didn't know the details.

  Mallory resisted getting out of the golf cart, but he tightened his grip. She'd gotten him into this, he wasn't giving her a pass.

  He stepped inside, tugging her in with him. Light filtered through stained glass windows. There were concrete caves waiting for urns, but most of the places had been claimed.

  A distorted portion of Mallory's face was reflected in a bronze marker.

  Her eyes glimmered gold. Freezing him in place.

  And then she dropped.

  He caught her before her head hit stone flooring, his heart thundering as he carried her to the cart.

  She stirred before he could put her down. Her eyes fluttered open.

  They were black pools but his pulse continued to race. He couldn't shake the feeling that he hadn't imagined them changing color.

  He set her on the seat. "You okay?" What the hell happened?

  "I'm good." A hesitation, as if she was searching for an excuse. A slight smile when she found one. "Claustrophobia."

  Really?

  Her nostrils flared as if she could smell his disbelief, a reminder to be careful.

  "What do you say we get out of here?" he asked.

  "Sounds good."

  A solicitous Amy drove them straight to the parking lot.

  His skin tingled. His gut burned. He wanted answers from Mallory—real answers.

  Her phone rang.

  "You have something?" she asked, and he guessed it was Hayden.

  A wary glance in his direction and he knew he didn't want to separate.

  "I'll head there next."

  She pocketed the phone.

  "Hayden?"

  "Yes. I need to head out."

  "Not solo."

  She laughed. "I've got Dane."

  He risked the hound lunging through the window by crowding Mallory. "You passed out. I'm going with you."

  "No."

  Take a huge risk or not?

  He had to mean it if he said it.

  He straightened away from the Jeep. "If you want me to get you into the Brides' office tonight, then I stick with you until I'm sure you're okay. Otherwise you fire me. Or you give me jobs I can work solo."

  Mallory's heart sped. He wasn't bluffing.

  The truth was in his scent, in his eyes, in the way his body transmitted determination.

  She couldn't tell him goose bumps had risen on her skin the same way they had when she approached the mass grave. She couldn't tell him that she hadn't wanted to enter the columbarium, hadn't wanted to be in a confined place with so many of the dead. She couldn't tell him that maybe they'd been the reason she blacked out, or that maybe there'd been a spell in place, guarding ashes so they couldn't be taken and used for working magic.

  She rubbed her arms. "You don't want to be more deeply involved in my business."

  He gripped her forearms, pulling her into him, his heat chasing away the chill. "Yes I do."

  His answer battered against her senses, penetrated them with sharply focused intent and beneath that, spears of need that slid into place alongside the desire she felt.

  He'd left her no choice. "Okay. But I go in solo."

  "That's a call we make when we get wherever we're going. There's a parking garage close by, I'll leave the Harley there and ride with you."

  This is a fucking mistake.

  Hayden's voice but she acknowledged the truth of it. She was counting on Matthew not putting the pieces together. She was counting on him not learning about the other girls, and if he figured it out, if he understood they'd kill the man they hunted, she was counting on him not going to the police.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 17

  The address Hayden had given her took them into a canyon that cut through the Angeles National Forest. Sweat coated Mallory's skin at being in the area where the Reaper Lord had run his Hounds on those hunts she'd managed to avoid.

  A cluster of paint-chipped and bullet-damaged mailboxes marked their turn. The Jeep's tires spat dirt and kicked up dust.

  Dogs were chained in the front yard of the first house they passed. No Trespassing signs were nailed onto trees of the second.

  "Friendly neighborhood," Matthew said.

  A dust-covered white car coming toward them forced Mallory into a turnout so it could pass. A man drove. A woman sat next to him. Neither looked at the Jeep.

  "Freaky," Matthew muttered.

  Another quarter mile and the road dead-ended at the address they were looking for. Goat heads were jammed onto pickets at either side of the driveway.

  "What the fuck?" Matthew said.

  Mallory silently cursed Hayden. This was a message to her, that she couldn't avoid becoming what she was meant to be. This was payback for not freeing Dane when she'd had the chance.

  Let Hayden come here. Let him get what they needed.

  She had to pull forwa
rd and to the right to turn around. Doing it brought the house into view.

  The blood-red Sigil of Baphomet was painted next to the front door. A Goth teen stood smoking on the stoop.

  She braked, shifted into reverse.

  Matthew got out of the Jeep.

  Dane jumped out after him.

  Her heart rabbited. She struck the steering wheel with a fist. This was exactly what she'd wanted to avoid, Matthew learning there were other girls and getting pulled more deeply into a Hound's world.

  She abandoned the Jeep, catching up with Dane and Matthew on the crack-riddled concrete stoop.

  Reefer smoke perfumed the air. Heavy metal blasted from the teen's earbuds.

  Seven hoops pierced each of his eyebrows. Another seven looped through his upper and lower lips.

  He parted his mouth, flicked his tongue in and out, flashing a stud shaped like a goat's head.

  Anger at Hayden turned to dark amusement.

  The boy moved into her, the thick chains securing his wallet to his pants slithering.

  "Back off," Matthew growled, hand landing on the teen's chest, shoving him with enough force that the boy's arms flailed as he stumbled off the stoop.

  Warmth twined around Mallory's heart. "Apparently you've forgotten I've got Dane."

  "Let's get this over with."

  Matthew pounded on the door.

  The teen jumped onto the stoop. "You didn't have to be so fucking rude. Go on in. Everybody's welcome in the temple, even the cops."

  Matthew opened the door. She caught a whiff of sulfur before he spun to face her. "What the fuck's going on, Mallory?"

  Searing jalapeno emanated from him.

  He stepped to the side, revealing the altar pushed against the wall, a picture of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl at its center.

  Mallory cursed Hayden again, then slipped around Matthew, Dane's serious growl stopping him from grabbing her arm.

  The altar was dotted with black and red candles, the wax waterfalling down the holders, across the table and over, onto the floor, enough of it to say the vigil for this girl had gone on for months, maybe a year.

  The girl was probably fourteen. But take the piercings out of her nose and eyebrows, have her adopt a different attitude, she could pass for eleven or twelve.

  Softball trophies lay on their sides. A row of pictures captured the girl at various ages, one of them with a cockatiel on her shoulder.

  The bird lay sacrificed on the altar, wings spread as if its spirit took flight.

  The stench of her sire's realm wafted above the altar. But the place she'd named Hell was a world of carved out territories. The goat heads and the Sigil of Baphomet were outer trappings, easy symbols, just as the label of Satanist covered a diversity of beliefs, some of them as contradictory as that of mainstream faiths.

  Matthew wrapped his hand around her upper arm. His fingers tightened to the point of pain but she welcomed that pain, she deserved it, for joining him at the pool table, for inviting him in for coffee, for taking him with her on that very first hunt, for involving him in their affairs.

  "How much of the story about Iosif is bullshit?"

  "None of it."

  "You're looking for a guy who preys on girls who look like your sister."

  There was no point in denying it.

  "Yes."

  He tugged, forcing her around, their bodies so close that all she smelled was him.

  "I told you at the start, I'm in, Mallory. All the way in."

  A part of her wished he could be told the truth, that he could handle it.

  She shook her head. "I never agreed to that."

  Matthew's lips flattened. She could hear the grind of his teeth.

  The Goth teen joined them at the altar.

  "What's her name?" Matthew asked.

  "Maven Stone. You here about her, man?"

  The boy's voice held hope, fear. Mallory asked, "When did she go missing?"

  He deflated. "Eight months ago. You don't know anything about her."

  Not true.

  She knew Maven was dead.

  "Where was she when she went missing?"

  "Checking on friends in L.A. Doing mission work."

  "Mission work?" Revulsion threaded through Matthew's voice.

  Dane moved in, staring at his face, warning him against interfering with lips pulled back.

  Mallory's phone vibrated with an incoming text. Probably Hayden, making sure his message had been received. She ignored it.

  "Maven was visiting temple members?" she asked. "Or spreading the word?"

  "Both."

  "Do you know where she was last seen?"

  His answer put Maven less than a mile from where Amanda Edson worked the streets.

  "Did she use?"

  "Sometimes."

  Then it wasn't a stretch to think Maven might have hooked up with a john for quick cash. Not a stretch, depending on what was taught in this temple, that she'd be gaining a soul for hell by pretending to be younger, by adding to a pedophile's sins.

  "Did she live here?"

  "No. She's the high priest's daughter. This is a place for us to crash and worship."

  "You expect the high priest to show up?"

  "He just left. Won't be back until tomorrow."

  "You have an address for him?"

  "No."

  "A phone number?"

  "No."

  "A name?"

  "No."

  Mallory's gaze strayed to a softball nestled against one of the trophies, its stitching frayed, its skin dirt-stained. Its value was greater than Zinaida's zebra or Kseniya's velvet-gowned doll, but only because she clung to the hope that they were still alive in the same way she hoped Amanda was, and only that because of Rahmiel's involvement.

  A couple of Goth girls and a boy entered the house. They smelled of eucalyptus and sex and tobacco.

  With only a cursory glance at the strangers in their temple, they knelt in front of the altar. "It's time," one of the girls said.

  The boy they'd been questioning took a step toward the altar. "You can watch if you want to. But you guys need to move so I can be where you are."

  They backed away, clearing the space.

  The boy knelt, looking over his shoulder at Mallory. "We do this every hour, for Maven."

  Their prayer made her heart race with recognition. It was a request for safe return. It was a request for vengeance. It was a call for a demon lord's intervention—not just any of them, but the one whose brand she wore.

  You know so little about your sire's realm, about his motivations.

  In the ring room she'd thought he allowed time for her fear and hate to build, so she'd clearly understand, when she saw the pictures of Maven Stone and the other girl, that this choice of predator had been deliberate. But what if bending her to his will was ancillary to answering a supplicant's prayers, what if the resemblance to Sorcha wasn't an implied threat for a resistant Hound, but added reason for a hunt, added cause to place the burden of it on her?

  Rejection was first instinct and second and third when it came to the Reaper Lord. But this time it didn't erase thought, didn't eradicate the questions.

  She allowed Matthew to pull her out of the temple.

  "Christ," he said when they were in the Jeep. "Jesus. Do you think they sacrificed the girl's bird?"

  "Yes." She inhaled, found the black bog smell of primal fear, as if a farmer had tilled and turned deep loam, exposing soil from a time when the majority of humans believed in the existence of dark fey and demons and monsters. A part of him recognizing the existence of the supernatural.

  A hit to the gas pedal kicked up dust and gravel. They cleared the goat heads jammed onto pickets and buzzing with flies.

  "Have you taken this to the police?"

  "I have suspicion, no proof, no body."

  Remembering the incoming text, she slowed the Jeep. Not a taunt from Hayden, but another address with a name to go with it, Caitlyn Lawrence.
r />   He'd identified the girl in the other picture given them by the Reaper Lord.

  "Where to?" Matthew asked, fingers tapping the GPS, determination pouring off him, and she didn't see the point in trying to separate.

  It was an hour past sunset by the time they parked in front of a two-story green house. A Mom van was in the drive, two baby seats in the back.

  Mallory knocked rather than hitting the doorbell, smiled at remembering how quickly she'd learned the importance of going in quiet after Sorcha was born, and then had a refresher course with Austin's arrival.

  The door opened on an older version of the dead girl. The crisp-air scent of surprise slammed into Mallory, followed by the jasmine of hope.

  Her hands were grabbed. Tremors of high expectation vibrated up her arms.

  "I should have thought about you," the woman said, hands squeezing, squeezing. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You must think I'm crazy. I'm Deb Lawrence. Deb Ribley now. I used to work with your mother in the ER. We've both made the move to pediatrics, though I'm taking a break right now. She used to brag about you."

  Deb stepped back, taking Mallory's hands with her. "We hired a private detective. My husband is a policeman. He chose Marquice. I should have remembered you. I should have—"

  She swayed. "You're bringing bad news."

  She gulped a deep breath. "I'd rather know than not know. I need to call Adrian. He should be here—"

  Mallory squeezed the hands still gripping hers, battling her own emotions at finding a connection to her mother, the need for answers to the questions raised at the Satanists' temple deepening.

  "I don't know where Caitlyn is," Mallory said, aching for this woman whose worst fears had been realized, whose child was dead though she didn't know it yet. "I'm sorry. I'm here for information."

  Deb's hands went lax. Deb's scent became the sharp smell of disappointment almost immediately buoyed by the return of hope.

  "But you'll look for her? While you're looking for whoever you're looking for?"

  "Yes." Mallory eased her hands out of Deb's. "Tell me about Caitlyn's disappearance."

  Deb sagged. "Let's sit."

  The living room was to the left of the front door. Mallory took the edge of the couch. Matthew sat next to her, leaning forward, forearms on his knees and hands clasped.