The Last Keeper's Daughter

by Rebecca Trogner

  It must be the alcohol, she thought, and finished off the last of the drink.

  “If you want to go back I’ll understand.” Jo gave her a smile. “Give Martha a hug for me, will you?”

  Lily nodded. She was relieved, but felt ridiculous going back inside just yet. It had taken her an hour to get ready and she’d barely been here a few minutes. She looked around for the three men, but did not see them. Slowly she walked over to the other tent, where a few couples were dancing on the parquet floor. Her senses were dulled by the medication and alcohol. She felt fuzzy and disconnected from the barrage of light, and sound, and patterns. Her mind wasn’t cataloging every person or fixating on the way the lights cast patterns onto the panels of the tent. Maybe alcohol was the answer to her prayers. Why hadn’t she tried it years ago?

  A woman walked up to stand next to her, very beautiful and poised, comfortable her in own skin in a way Lily never felt. They exchanged looks as strangers often do in a public setting. The chemical cocktail wasn’t enough to make Lily feel comfortable so close to a stranger, or anyone.

  She walked away, but took one last glance back as the summer breeze caught the table covers, causing them to flutter like gossamer butterfly wings. When she was little, Martha would tell her bedtime stories about the parties her parents hosted. Lily would go to sleep dreaming about how beautiful her mother was, and the crazy things their guests would get into. There were scrapbooks full of photos of costume balls and New Year’s Eve parties that were now creased and bent from her looking at them as a child.

  If she went back inside now, Martha would be disappointed. She loved Martha too much for that, so Lily decided to visit the conservatory instead. It was the inspiration of Grandfather Randolph, Walter’s father. He’d spent a lifetime travelling through Africa, and fell in love with the plants which he had shipped home. The plants could not survive the Virginia winters, and he’d commissioned a conservatory. The natural dip in the land was a perfect spot for the workmen to excavate and level for the heavy structure to sit upon. Family lore said there were underground tunnels which connected the conservatory to the main house, but she’d never found them.

  Standing at the top, looking down the menacing stone steps, Lily debated whether to turn around. I’ll be fine, she thought. She wasn’t drunk, just dulled, like the rough edges of her brain had been sandpapered. She popped off her shoes and left them to the side of the steps. Picking up the hem of her dress, she went barefoot, each step taking her further from the party goers.

  She wasn’t exactly sure when she became aware of the first tiny tendrils of the cold sensation, but she knew something was brushing along the outside of her elbow. That feeling of tiny spiders moving under her skin returned. Someone was watching her. She turned slowly, looking around, and behind, but she didn’t see anything.

  Touching her toes down onto the next step, she felt the cold sensation move down her arm. What had been unease morphed into panic. She took the steps too fast, throwing off her coordination. She pitched forward. The cold sensation became icy fingers trying to wrap around her wrist. Her body reacted by yanking her arm wide and away, causing her to pinwheel over and down the long drop. With her other arm trapped inside the sling, she had no counterbalance, and nothing to keep her shoulder from slamming into the sharp edge of the bluestone. She heard rather than felt the snap of her collar bone, then, like a stone in water, she fell down to the bottom and into darkness.

  Chapter Four

  Detective Hunter despised the country. He didn’t want to be walking down this ridiculous path to some crazy church. He’d received a call early this morning from the inspector. He was not a morning person. Why she’d sent him out here, other than to annoy him, he didn’t know. This investigation did not fall under their jurisdiction, but she said another murder did, and she thought the two were connected. He had not heard about the murder she referred to. All he knew was the shit was flowing downstream and he was caught in the torrent.

  In his mind, a church that didn’t have a paved road, with a parking lot, shouldn’t call itself a church. Apparently, at five thirty this morning, the Reverend Whitcomb had gone to prepare for the morning service. What he found inside was anything but Christian charity.

  The dispatcher replayed the reverend’s frantic message over the detective’s mobile. Something about pieces, and blood, and writing on the stone walls. Most of the reverend’s words were incoherent babble which was not surprising since he’d witnessed something traumatic. Now it was hours after the discovery and the detective knew his testimony would be tainted.

  Civilians were not used to the harsh realities of life. They lived in a bubble of disbelief at what they saw on the news. When the unthinkable happened to them or a loved one, their reaction was almost always the same. I can’t believe this happened to me. Or, how could someone do this? Even the most empathetic person became jaded after years on the job.

  “Crap,” Hunter barked. Bending over and grabbing a stick, he tried to scrape the mud off his sole. He’d just bought these shoes.

  “Detective,” a man’s voice called out.

  Dale looked up and saw exactly what he’d expected. The reverend was a rotund, middle-aged man with a round moon face.

  “I couldn’t stay near it any longer,” the reverend said. He bent down and placed his hands on either knee, clearly out of breath.

  “How much further?”

  “Just over that hill.”

  Great, now I get to navigate down a muddy slope too. The morning just keeps getting better.

  As they walked to the crime scene, St. Peter’s Chapel, the reverend compulsively spoke about the history of the place, probably to keep his mind off what lay inside. The bricks and stones were from the Roman fort of Othona. Long after the empire had fallen, the Saxons, being ever practical, had fashioned the rubble into a church. To Hunter it looked like an unlikely place to worship. He carefully stepped inside the dark structure, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness. Even with the compromised light he knew that humans had been slaughtered here. The smell of death was unmistakable. Finally able to see clearly, he looked around.

  There was part of a hand, over there a thigh, maybe. Pieces and parts were lying on the overturned pews like offerings or decorations. On the altar were two severed heads, watching him through eyeless sockets, pleading with him to avenge them.

  Leaning his head back, he realized that the ghoulish embellishments even extended to the ceiling. How could someone spray blood and entrails up there?

  Back towards the open door, he saw the silhouette of the reverend. The man had refused to re-enter the church and he couldn’t blame him. Hunter was not a religious man, but something evil had happened here. Even after twenty years of working investigations, he’d never seen anything quite like this.

  Careful to retreat in his original steps, he emerged back out into the sunlight.

  “Bleeding hell,” he said, then added, “Sorry, Reverend. I’ll have to call in a team for this. Your church won’t be usable for at least a few days.” By that I mean never, he thought. “Did you see anything?” Hunter nodded towards the church. “Other than that?”

  The reverend shook his head.

  “We’ll need to bring vehicles up here. Can you get someone to wait by the parking lot to direct them across the field?”

  “Of course.” The reverend’s shoulders slumped as the adrenaline started to ebb out of his system.

  “Go on home, then. Get some rest, we’ll be in touch.”

  Hunter watched him walk away, feeling bad that the man had seen something so heinous. Of course, he’d be thoroughly investigated. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone had called in their own crime. But Hunter knew the reverend hadn’t done this. He remembered the images of Jack the Ripper’s victims. They didn’t compare to what lay inside the church.

  It took the murder team specialists a half hour to arrive on scene. He’d taken a few photos while he waited. Now, he impatiently chewed on th
e end of his pen, wishing it were a steak. He’d been out here in the hinterlands all day and this case was just beginning.

  What he knew so far was that two men were dismembered inside the church. The coroner had spent the better part of five hours searching for each and every piece, no matter how minute.

  Hunter looked down at his notes and frowned. No one on the scene could figure out what sort of murder weapon was used or how the murderer had subdued them. Some of the pieces had bite marks. The forensic specialist had taken molds but didn’t think they were human.

  Digging inside his coat pocket, Hunter pulled out a stick of gum. He’d quit smoking; this was his substitute. A damn poor one.

  Two wallets were found, both still inside pants pockets, though they were no longer attached to the legs. The victims were Walter Ayres from the United States and Gibson Bryant from London.

  He’d learned today that dismembered heads were more difficult to identify than one would imagine. Separated from the body, they lost those unique characteristics which aided in identification. He stared at evidence Bag Number 1, which he had decided was Walter Ayres. Gray hair, glasses, obviously placed back onto the bridge of his nose by the murderer, and the receding hairline of old age. Evidence Bag Number 2 was Gibson Bryant, far younger and somehow the more tragic of the two, probably because he was only in his early thirties. A whole life of possibility had lain ahead of him.

  Of course, these were not positive identifications by any means. DNA tests would be performed along with other analyses, but it was perfunctory. There was a rental car in the parking lot which Walter Ayres had procured at Heathrow Airport. The other car was registered to a – he looked down at his notes – Legacy Foundation, of which Gibson Bryant was a member. Once he got out of this godforsaken place, he would pay the foundation a nice visit.

  A few hours ago, he’d called the U.S. Embassy. It was protocol to inform them of any suspected criminal activity involving one of their citizens. Being dismembered and partially eaten should qualify as involved in criminal activity. He suspected the diplomat would need a stiff drink after their conversation.

  He leaned back against the coroner’s van and watched the detectives carry out a box filled with the remains of one of the victims. This is how it ended. A lifetime of struggle and it all got wrapped up in a pine box for someone to carry off. He hoped his would be significantly larger than a banker’s box.

  “Detective Hunter.”

  He turned around to see a well-dressed, overconfident man walking towards him. Being half American himself, Hunter instantly profiled him as an arrogant, entitled American who’d grown up with a steady diet of comic books, cartoons, and police shows on the television.

  “Great,” he mumbled. Just what I need; Captain Fucking America gracing us with his presence.

  The man reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his badge. “Special Agent Ford, with the FBI. I got a call that Walter Ayres has been identified as a victim here.”

  Tired, overworked, and a head feeling like a split melon, Hunter pointed to the appropriate box. The agent was too fresh, almost like a young recruit, but when he looked in the box, with the evidence bags of various parts of the alleged Mr. Ayres, there was no emotion. This lack of emotion piqued Hunter’s interest and unnervingly reminded him of a few psychopaths he’d met.

  “May I?” Agent Ford asked.

  Nodding, Hunter watched as the young man lifted one bag after another of what was left of Mr. Ayres. Finally, he chose the head and raised it up to eye level. Sitting it gently back inside the box, he turned back to Hunter.

  “Any ideas? Anything else?”

  Moving over to peer down into the box, Hunter used the abused end of his pen to point. “Something very sharp made these wounds. Teeth, claws…” He shrugged to indicate they really had no idea. “Some sort of saw, maybe.”

  “No internal organs?” the agent asked.

  “We think they were used to write on the walls.”

  After twenty years working cases Hunter had only met a handful of people this devoid of emotion, and none of them were civilians or law abiding citizens.

  “Excuse me for a moment.” The agent walked out into the field for privacy.

  Hunter shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Captain America talked on the phone for a while. When finished, he clipped the mobile back on his belt and stared off towards the water. It was obvious he was waiting for something.

  The vibration of Hunter’s phone startled him. The caller ID did not improve his mood.

  “Yes, Inspector.” He listened but couldn’t believe what she was ordering him to do. He interrupted her. “We can’t just hand over this evidence.” The call went on for a few more minutes while he used a deep breathing technique to stay calm. He slipped the phone back onto his belt, watching as Agent Ford picked up the box of Walter Ayres’ remains.

  “We all clear here?”

  “Oh, I’m perfectly clear,” Hunter shot back.

  A slight smile moved across the young man’s face, the first sign of any emotion. “On behalf of the United States Government, I’d like to thank you for your cooperation in this matter.” He turned, clearly dismissing Hunter and the crime scene, and went back to his vehicle.

  “What the hell?” The inspector had taken Hunter off the case, and ordered him to wrap up the site, now. No more evidence was to be collected. He was to wait for the cleanup team which would be arriving within the next half hour. By morning, there would be no evidence of the heinous crime.

  Throughout his career, he’d witnessed small cover ups, but this, this took major juice from an elevation high above his pay scale. Flipping his notebook to the crime scene particulars, he carefully ripped out the pages and stuffed them into his pants pocket. Knowing this was the case of a lifetime, maybe the biggest case since old Jack, he decided to collect some data of his own before the cleanup team arrived.

  Chapter Five

  They’d found Lily mere seconds after she’d fallen. Krieger felt the remnants of another’s presence, and from the wary expressions on Liam and Merlin’s faces, he knew they’d also sensed something. It wasn’t a scent, but more of an aftertaste. Whatever it was, it was not a corporeal being.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here. This place is giving me the creeps.” Liam, if not eloquent, was effective with his words.

  Krieger’s first memory was of dragging a sword too large for him to carry. He’d grown into a man fighting the Romans. His combined experiences had hardened him mentally and physically into the man he was today. That man was ill equipped to be a nursemaid to a broken and frail woman. In battle, he’d carried injured men over his shoulder, while still hacking and fighting. Now, he awkwardly held Lily out from his body, trying not to injure her further as they maneuvered through the access tunnel. Merlin hastily closed the hidden passageway door behind them, concealing the entrance inside the conservatory to the outside world.

  Walter’s underground study was exactly the same as last time, and the time before that. Liam stood guard outside the study door. Merlin stepped inside the room and glared at the fireplace, and flames obediently leapt up, crackling the wood and casting shadows about the room.

  Krieger ever so gently laid Lily down on the blanket hastily spread out over the old sofa. Her shoulder blade, already compromised, had broken through the skin, and the jagged bone glistened in the firelight. The scent of her blood filled his mind with dark and carnal images. He was vampire and she was bleeding. The bouquet of her blood clung to his nostrils, luring him in with sweet promise. Imprisoned fangs pressed against sore gums, his jaw muscles clenched, but he refused to succumb to the call of her blood. Instead, he spread his large hand over her lower belly, fascinated by someone so small that his hand width was wider than her hip bones.

  “Can you fix her?” he asked Merlin.

  Merlin washed off her face with a damp cloth and folded it to lie on her forehead. He ran his hands over her body, not touching
her but hovering inches above her skin, feeling for areas of heat.

  Merlin stood. “Let her die.”

  “Has this wisp of a woman spooked the Great Merlin?”

  Merlin’s face twitched with a low seething anger. “She is not what she seems. Your keeper has misled you.”

  “Remember your place.”

  “My place,” Merlin said, running his hand over short cropped hair, “is by your side. I am the King’s Advisor.” He bowed low, and rose slowly. “I advise that this–” he pointed to Lily’s unconscious form– “should be let die.”

  “No,” Krieger said quickly.

  “You have ruled your kingdom well.” Merlin pointed his long finger at Lily again. “There is something…” He shook his head. “Must you have her?”

  Krieger nodded.

  “The future changes then. What I have foreseen will not come to pass.”

  Lily’s breathing was labored, her lips moist with exhaled blood.

  “It’s too late,” Merlin said. “Her lungs are filling with blood; she’s drowning.”

  Krieger loomed over Merlin. “Then weave your magic, sorcerer.”

  Merlin turned away from Lily’s body, shaking his head. “The price is too high.”

  Merlin was a powerful sorcerer, but he still respected the laws of nature. Krieger knew he was asking Merlin to use dark magic, something the sorcerer had turned his back on years ago.

  “I command you.”

  Merlin glared at him.

  “Do it,” Krieger urged. “For me.”

  “So be it.” Angrily, Merlin lifted up his arms. Energy crackled through the room, the fire leapt up, threatening to escape the confines of the brickwork. Tiny particles in the air collided and combined to create a vortex of matter above her. Lily’s body lifted and hovered inches above the sofa. Her long hair floated out and around her face.

  Krieger watched as sweat seeped through and drenched Merlin’s clothes. The room felt heavy and weighted down with the stench of ozone. Merlin began to chant, his body swaying with the effort of the spell he was weaving. With an audible pop, Lily fell back onto the sofa.