Heart of Malice (Alice Worth Book 1)

by Lisa Edmonds

  I stared at him, my face blank. He’d gone from intimidation to explicit threats in a blink. Neither was anything new to me. If he expected me to be rattled, he was destined to be disappointed. I’d spent the first twenty-four years of my life being threatened with—and suffering—far worse torments than he could even begin to imagine.

  “Forget it,” Parker said. “She isn’t going to tell us anything. Let’s go.” She yanked on my cuffed wrists, and I barely suppressed a wince.

  Lake held up his hand and met my gaze. The anger in his eyes faded, replaced with grim determination. He sighed. “We saw what happened,” he told me.

  From behind me, Parker made a disgusted noise. She let go of my arm and stepped back, as if to distance herself from Lake.

  “We overheard you tell him that you were here because of Maggie, and we heard him confess to taking the girls,” Lake said. “We saw him throw the knife. You didn’t mean to kill him; you were protecting yourself. If I take those cuffs off you, will you tell me what you know?”

  “For God’s sake, Lake,” Parker exploded. “You can’t do that.”

  “I can and I will,” Lake snapped. “You want to go back and tell them we don’t know where their girls are?”

  Parker stayed silent.

  “Do you?” Lake demanded.

  “No, but—”

  “Take the cuffs off.” Lake glowered at Parker. A full minute passed.

  Apparently Lake won the staring contest, because suddenly I heard a jingle of keys. I braced myself, but when the cuffs came off, the surge of released magic caused me to stagger before Lake caught me by my left arm.

  Before I could stop myself, I grimaced at the pain in my side as my weight pulled on my arm. “Are you injured?” Lake’s eyes narrowed as he looked me over.

  “No.” I pulled away from him and forced myself to stand up straight. “Just stiff from the cuffs.” If he thought I was hurt, he might try to force me to go to the hospital, and that was something I had to avoid.

  Lake looked like he wasn’t sure he believed me, but luckily for me, he was more interested in Grierson than any bumps or bruises—or cracked ribs—that I might have. “Tell me what you know.”

  I’d thought at first that Lake’s change in attitude was simply a tactic to get me to talk, but he looked sincere. Grierson was dead, and as far as the agent knew, so were his chances of finding out where Maggie and the other girls were. My instincts were telling me that Lake cared far more about finding them than about throwing me in prison for accidentally killing a half-demon.

  My only way out of this might be to tell him what I knew. I was about to take a very big—and very uncharacteristic—gamble with my freedom and my life. “Two weeks ago, I was hired by Maggie Hill’s parents to look for their missing daughter. They were frustrated by the lack of progress the task force was making, and thought a private investigator might be more successful.”

  Behind me, Parker made a derisive sound. My eyes narrowed, and Lake gave her a quelling look. “How did you connect Maggie to Grierson?” he asked.

  “I canvassed all of the bars Maggie’s friends said she liked to visit and got nothing, just like the cops did. I started checking other bars close to her apartment and didn’t have much luck until I got to the bar we were in tonight. The bartender there said Maggie had been in a couple of times, and he thought he remembered her with a flashy guy who liked to brag about his car. I got a physical description and a first name. I staked out the area for a couple of nights until I saw a guy matching the description parking his Porsche in the alley behind the steakhouse. I followed him home that night. This was about a week ago.”

  “That was before we got the surveillance footage.” Parker’s tone made it clear she wasn’t happy I had identified their suspect before they did.

  I continued. “Once I had Grierson’s name and address, I did some digging into his background. It didn’t take long to figure out that he was half-demon; I’d already guessed it from his size.”

  As I talked, Lake wrote in a little notebook. He paused at the last, his eyes narrowing at me. “Why didn’t you pass his information on to the police or SPEMA?”

  “At that point, it wasn’t anything more than a possible lead. I needed something that would tie Grierson to Maggie, or to one of the other girls. I hoped I could find physical evidence I could give to the police.”

  “Did you find any evidence?”

  “How familiar are you with magic trace, Agent Lake?”

  Parker snorted.

  Lake’s mouth compressed into a grim line. “Parker, Mr. Grierson’s vehicle and the alley behind McGovern’s are a crime scene. I need you to head there and request a CSU.”

  “I can’t leave you here alone with a suspect,” Parker said. “It’s against regulations.”

  “She’s not a suspect; she’s a witness. I’ll call in for additional agents and a second CSU,” Lake told her. “We’ll be fine here in the meantime. Go secure the other scene.”

  Seething, Parker spun around and headed off in the direction of the park gate. Lake watched her go, then turned back to me. “I’ll have to report this soon. She’ll be sending more agents out here.” In other words, get to the point.

  I tucked my cold hands into my jacket pockets. “Maggie and the rest of the girls went missing the day before a full moon. I suspected the timing might indicate some sort of ritual magic. I went to Grierson’s house to look around. When I got close enough, I could sense traces of what felt like a demon summoning. It was strong enough that I could sense it through the house wards, which meant if I was right, Grierson had summoned a very powerful demon.”

  It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but I thought Lake looked pale. “What did you do then?”

  “The house wards were strong enough that if I tried to unweave or break them, he would know immediately. I asked an acquaintance to come with me and try scrying, to see if he could see anything that might have taken place in the house.” I’d cashed in a big favor to get Michael to do it.

  A pause. “What am I going to find in that house, Ms. Worth?”

  “Not what you were hoping to find,” I told him. “You’ll need to unweave or break Grierson’s house wards first. You’ll find a basement with black wards. Make sure you bring a strong blood mage, and be aware that it will take some time to get through.”

  “What’s in the basement?” Lake demanded.

  “A very large summoning circle. Grierson was summoning his father from the demon realm and using the girls’ blood to bring him over on the night of the full moon.”

  “When the boundary between the demon realm and ours is thinnest.”

  “Yes.”

  Another pause. “Did Grierson kill the girls to bring his father over?”

  I hesitated.

  “Tell me,” the agent commanded, stepping back up into my personal space.

  Despite our height difference, I didn’t move away. “Grierson used their blood for the summoning circle. When the demon appeared, he ate them.”

  Lake staggered back like I’d hit him.

  When Michael saw what happened to Maggie, he’d vomited, packed up his scrying mirror, and told me never to call him again. He wouldn’t even let me take him home; he called a cab and walked away without a backward glance.

  “I’m not sure you’ll find any physical evidence showing that the girls died in the basement,” I said as Lake visibly reeled. “He probably used a burner spell to clean up the blood, but you may find something else that puts the victims in his house—hair, fingerprints, maybe bone fragments.” Michael had told me enough before he walked off for me to know that Maggie hadn’t died quickly. Demons liked to play with their food.

  Lake stared at me. “Please tell me the Hills don’t know how she died.”

  “No,” I said, and he looked relieved. “I told them she was sacrificed as part of a summoning ritual, and it was over quickly.”

  “What were you going to do with Grierson?”

&
nbsp; “At the request of Maggie’s parents, I was going to turn him over to the vampires. The Hills believed, as did I, that the best chance for them—and the rest of the families—to get justice was in Vampire Court. They wanted him punished, and the vampires have the facilities to ensure he wouldn’t have known an hour of peace for the rest of his long and miserable life. I didn’t want Grierson dead; I wanted him to suffer.”

  If Lake was taken aback by that, he didn’t show it. “If he did clean the basement with a burner spell, there might not be any physical evidence left. The Vampire Court could have been the only chance for a conviction. None of the magic-related evidence would have been admissible in human court.” He seemed to be reasoning out loud to himself. I let him think.

  Finally, Lake turned to me. “All of the victims had long, dark hair and were similar in height and body type. We speculated it was the work of a serial killer.”

  “I don’t think you were wrong,” I told him. “He selected his victims based on their appearance. It’s possible that if you dig into his past, you’ll find the woman he hated, who he felt he needed to kill over and over again. He needed blood for the summoning, but he didn’t need to feed the girls to his father. He enjoyed watching them suffer.”

  After a moment, Lake said, “You went into that bar and used yourself as bait, knowing you were his type. You risked your life to get justice for Maggie and the other girls.” I could see grudging respect in his eyes.

  I stayed quiet.

  Lake turned back to Grierson’s body, his face set. “You need to leave. The official report is going to say that we confronted Grierson in the alley and then chased him into the park, where he died resisting arrest. I don’t need to tell you that saying anything to the contrary would be inadvisable.”

  “What about your partner?”

  “Parker’s report will match mine. I’ll be visiting with the Hills privately. Other than sending them a bill for your services, I don’t think there’s any need for you to have further contact with them, do you?” His tone made it clear that it would be in my best interest to agree.

  Ah, there it was: that trademark SPEMA arrogance. It was a good reminder that when it came down to it, even someone like Lake, who obviously cared a great deal about getting justice for Grierson’s victims, had no trouble letting me know exactly who had the power in this scenario. I’d identified a serial killer, risked my life to capture him, and revealed what had happened in Grierson’s basement, but it was Lake calling all the shots.

  If he was worried that I wanted publicity, I could at least dispel that notion. “You can have the credit; I don’t care about any of that. If everything had gone according to plan, no one outside the Vampire Court would have ever known I was involved, except the Hills.”

  “Good.” Lake bent down and picked up my phone, healing spell, cuffs, and a few other items Parker had dropped on the ground, and handed them to me, along with my wallet. “Take your stuff and go.”

  I put my possessions back in my pockets and paused, looking at Grierson’s body. It was just beginning to sink in that I had killed him. He was far from the first person to die by my hand, but at least I had no doubt he’d deserved his fate. So many others hadn’t. I took a shaky breath.

  Lake had his phone out. “What are you waiting for?”

  I turned on my heel and headed for the main gate. Behind me, I heard Lake barking orders into his phone. I resisted the urge to hold my side as I walked, even though each step sent a bolt of pain through my ribs. The moon disappeared behind the clouds and I shivered.

  Nausea surged, and I paused just outside the park gate, leaning against a lamppost while I swallowed hard. It was the closest I’d come in five years to getting caught. Part of me wanted to run, to put as much distance between myself and Lake as I could, but I forced myself to walk calmly and not attract attention.

  My car was six blocks away, eight if I took a route that completely avoided Parker and the alley behind McGovern’s, which seemed like a good idea. My feet and calves were starting to hurt, but I could make it. I’d go home, use a healing spell on my ribs, and crawl into bed.

  In my mind, in an endless loop, I saw the glint of a blade and the bright green flash of my cold fire, and heard the sound of Grierson’s knife going into his brain. I wrapped my arms around my middle and walked, my boot heels echoing like gunshots on the empty street.

  Chapter 2

  Two weeks later

  “The worst part about being a ghost,” the ghost confided, “is that you don’t get to pick who you end up haunting. I know that seems counterintuitive, but there’s a system. Of course, you can put in a request, but there are a ton of forms to fill out, which is a bitch if you’re noncorporeal. By the time all the paperwork goes through, what usually ends up happening is you get someone from the priority list—the list of people who deserve to have a demented spirit running around ruining their lives. And that,” he added happily, clicking his long, pointed fingernails together, “is how I ended up here with you.”

  “Fantastic.” I sighed.

  All three of the ghost’s faces were hideous. One visage was alight with excitement, his red goat eyes with their slit pupils zipping around my office, taking in the economical furnishings. Another set of eyes, so black that they seemed more like holes than actual eyes, focused on my MPI license where it hung, slightly crooked, on the wall above my head. The third set, the multifaceted eyes of a spider set in an arachnid head, were fixed on my face. His black robes moved as though hordes of beetles crawled on his body beneath the silk. An unidentified purplish-black goo dripped from his fangs. I had to give him credit: he was thoroughly gruesome.

  I blew out a breath. “Look, nothing personal, but I’m probably going to have you exorcised. I can’t afford to have a ghost on the payroll; the supe insurance alone would kill me.”

  Three sets of angry eyes focused on my face. “Is that supposed to be a joke about me being dead? Because I find that to be in particularly poor taste.”

  “Honestly, I really don’t care.”

  Two monstrous mouths fell open in shock. One was full of rows of very sharp, jagged teeth, while in the other, spider fangs clacked in consternation. The third face—the one with the black-nothingness eyes—had no mouth. He’d probably been expecting a much different reaction, based on the form he’d chosen to take. I might not be his first haunting, but I was going to be his last. I had no use for petty ghosts who got their kicks trying to make living humans miserable, even if I had earned my spot on the “priority list.”

  Some would say that threatening exorcisms or making puns about death to a ghost was cruel, but I’d never really gotten the hang of being nice.

  While the ghost sputtered in indignation, I picked absently at the underside of my new desk. A particularly disgruntled client with surprisingly powerful telekinetic powers threw a fit in my office a little over a week ago, and I was still trying to get repairs completed and the furniture replaced. The remains of the old desk, along with pretty much everything else that had been in the office, were now in the dumpster out back. The large cabinet behind my desk, a heavily warded antique, was the only piece of furniture to withstand the dwarf’s tantrum. The sole other survivor was my framed mage private investigator license, though it looked a bit worse for wear.

  The ghost finally recovered his power of speech and gave me a truly grotesque arachnid smile. “I see you’re an MPI, Alice Evelyn Worth,” he said silkily. “Surely someone in your line of work has use for someone with particular…talents?”

  I scoffed. “How long were you in the Null since your last haunting? Ghosts aren’t a new thing anymore. If I need to get results, I’d have better luck summoning a demon, or hiring one of those crazy half-vamps, a dhampir. At least people are scared of them. You. Are. Not. Scary.”

  The ghost’s red goat eyes flared in anger. I met his gaze without fear. He wasn’t the first nightmare-form ghost to show up in my life, and I’d dispatched all the others as quickl
y as they’d arrived. There wasn’t anything he could do or say that would make me want to keep him around.

  Of course, just as I thought that, he proved me wrong.

  The ghost raised his clawed hand. Bright blue-and-green flames danced along his fingertips.

  Drawing on my air magic, I threw up a protective circle around me and my chair just as my desk—and everything on it and in it—went up in cold bluish-green flames. In seconds, there was nothing left but ash.

  It was my turn to be momentarily speechless. “Well, that’s different,” I said finally.

  *

  Turns out, the ghost had a very particular set of skills—skills that had apparently put him at odds with someone who decided he didn’t need to be walking around alive anymore.

  Now rather intrigued, I poured myself a cup of coffee from the coffeepot that had, thankfully, been sitting on the little table behind me and not on the second desk I watched get destroyed in the past week. I used my desk generally to make my office look more professional, and to create a psychological barrier between myself and my clients. I’d been forced several times to use a desk as a shield, and twice as weapon. The new desk hadn’t been around long enough to be used as any of those things.

  The ghost looked disappointed that I wasn’t all that upset about the loss of my desk and its contents, but I’d long ago ceased to worry about the destruction of office furniture. When you’re a PI specializing in the paranormal and supernatural, it didn’t pay to get attached to office décor. Not all my clients left satisfied, and the nature of my business often brought angry supes of various species to my door—which, though heavily warded, has had to be replaced six times in three years. I wasn’t very popular with the building’s management.

  The ghost watched me sip my coffee. I couldn’t help but notice he was smirking. The spider mouth might also be sneering, but it was hard to tell. Well, I still planned to have him exorcised, so that ought to wipe those smiles right off. He’d thrown me a pretty epic curveball with the speed and precision of his cold fire, though, and I was curious about his past. If nothing else, I’d be adding to my knowledge of ghost abilities, and that was worth fifteen minutes of talking with this dead jerk.