Prison of Horrors (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 6)

by Sonya Bateman

  “Sort of.”

  She stared for another minute, and then sank into the chair and closed her eyes. Her lip quivered a bit. If she started crying, I wouldn’t know what to do. Which meant whatever I did would probably make her feel worse. “Hey, uh. You okay?” I managed awkwardly, hoping to stem the impending flood.

  Her eyes opened and fixed on me. All at once, she seemed far older … the kind of aging that comes from seeing too much, knowing too much. And beneath that awful weariness was a frozen flash of fear.

  “I’m fine,” she said in a dull tone. Her expression went blank, and she looked away.

  Damn. Even if I could talk to her, and she knew what was going on around here, I had a strong suspicion she wouldn’t tell me. After all, we were strangers. I decided to focus on questioning the dead woman.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t glamour her into the world and speak face-to-face. I doubted Nova would react well to a corpse coming back to life.

  So I’d have to do it the old way.

  I wandered closer to the body, until I could rest my foot against her shoulder. That’d have to be good enough for contact. I’d already braced myself for the initial discomfort — but it wasn’t long before I realized it hadn’t happened. No familiar, painful tug from a startled soul that had suddenly been pulled from the other side. No voice in my head asking who the hell I was or what I was doing.

  I frowned at nothing in particular. Maybe she just wasn’t fighting me. That did happen once in a while … okay, it’d happened once. The first time I talked to my mother, the real one, who’d died giving birth to me. Still, that meant it could happen again.

  I’d just start with the same question I always asked first. Nova wasn’t paying attention to me, and if she heard, maybe she’d think I was talking to her. “What’s your name?” I said, kind of under my breath.

  The girl blinked once, looked at me, and went back to staring at the floor. “You heard her,” she murmured. “It’s Nova.”

  The corpse said nothing.

  That wasn’t right. At all. I’d had plenty of experience with dead people trying to resist me — and it hurt like hell when they fought — but when I asked a question, they had to answer. There was no getting out of it.

  No struggle. No protests, no pins jammed into my brain. And no words.

  Maybe I wasn’t concentrating hard enough. It had been a while since I’d needed to use my abilities, so I could be rusty. Something deep in me insisted that wasn’t it, this was impossible and I should get the hell away from the non-responsive corpse and this horrifically perfect town, right now.

  But I didn’t listen. Hell if I’d let some dead woman get the best of me. I pressed my foot a little harder against the stiffening body and spoke a little louder. “How old are you?”

  Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  This time Nova’s reaction was a little more obvious. She shot me a disgusted look, and drawled, “Old enough to know I’m not interested.”

  “Ergh. No, that’s not—” I stammered. I almost added I wasn’t talking to you, before I realized that would sound even worse. “Sorry,” I said. “Trust me, I’m not interested either.”

  Well, damn. That was definitely worse. Now I was coming off creepy and insulting.

  She went back to ignoring me, and I tried for the non-verbal method. At the least, I should have been able to reach out and touch the soul of the dead woman. I still wouldn’t cast a glamour. But at least I’d know she was there.

  I closed my eyes and pushed toward her without moving. The mental projection of my hand encountered the corpse. I could feel her, stiff and cool, no different than the hundreds of other bodies I’d handled.

  And in my head was cold, black nothing.

  Suddenly, Nova bolted to her feet and stared at me, horrified. “What are you doing?” she hissed. “Don’t you know—”

  She cut off and slumped in place as the front door opened, and Frost came back inside.

  An instinct I didn’t understand told me to act natural, so I moved casually away from the body and nodded at Frost. “Did you find anything out?” I said.

  “Yes.” She looked at me strangely for an instant, and then turned her attention to the girl. “Nova, would you please go with the others?” she said. “I need you to get something for me. They have the details.”

  Nova murmured something that might’ve been assent and slouched toward the door.

  “Thank you.” When the girl slipped out behind her, Frost shook her head and smirked. “Well, at least I know for sure that they have the artifact,” she said. “It’s not far from here. Mind if we head out? I’d like you to see it with me, and I’m hoping once this is sorted out, you and I can relax for a while. We’ve been going all day.”

  At least I’d get the chance to talk to her alone for a few minutes. I still hoped she’d have answers that made sense, but that hope was fading fast. “All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 9

  If it was going to be a short drive, I figured I’d better talk fast. So I got straight to the point — one of them, anyway. “What’s the deal with that girl?” I said as I took my coat off and tossed it in the back seat. The unnatural warmth was getting to me. Another thing I intended to mention soon. “I mean, it seems like you know her kind of personally.”

  “Well, I do know her. More or less.” Frost shrugged it off. “I was here for a few days the first time the team came out, and she was hanging around from the beginning. She’s been working pretty closely with the researchers. No one here would talk to us without an introduction. You know how it goes. Outsiders in a small town. If it wasn’t for her, we never would’ve gotten anything done here.”

  That made sense, at least. I’d seen plenty of closed communities in action. But it wasn’t the only problem. “Don’t you think she’s a little young for … I don’t know. Murder?”

  “Yeah, I do. But murder wasn’t in the plan,” she said. “It was supposed to be a glorified treasure hunt, you know?” Her voice was tight with anger. “Anyway, Nova is kind of a big deal in town. She’s the mayor’s daughter — they’re one of the founding families of Lightning Cove, which is still important to these people. And she volunteered to help.”

  I managed to relax a little. Now I felt kind of bad for suspecting Frost was holding something back. Honestly, why would anyone ever think a research assignment to find an old mirror would get someone killed? It had to be hard on all of them.

  Part of me wanted to tell her about the body, and how I’d got nothing from it. Almost like the dead woman didn’t have a soul for me to talk to. But I had to figure out what happened first, because maybe it wasn’t the corpse. Maybe it was me. The DeathSpeaker, suddenly unable to speak to the dead. I figured I’d find another body, even if I ended up visiting a cemetery — there had to be one here somewhere — and test the theory first.

  I glanced out the window. We’d reached the town proper, and we were passing a large, open area paved with real cobblestones. There was a sizeable wooden platform at one end, and a bronze pedestal statue of three stern-looking men at the other. Behind the statue was a stately building with fat columns that read Lightning Cove Town Hall and Justice Center above the gabled entrance.

  Frost looked over at me. “That’s the town square,” she said. “And those are the town’s founding fathers, in front of the town hall.” She smirked a little. “Told you this stuff was still important to these people. They’re all about history and heritage.”

  “Yeah,” I said absently. But if the whole being-a-town thing was so important, why was the town square completely empty in the middle of the day?

  I decided to change the subject. “What did you want Nova to get for you?”

  “Something to help us figure out what happened to Nicole.” Frost made a turn, slowed the car, and I realized we were already pulling in beside the huge church I’d seen from the top of the hill coming into town. She drove around back onto a good-sized gravel lot, where ther
e were already five or six other vehicles on a Friday afternoon, and parked close to the building. “Her and the rest of the team will meet us here soon,” she said. “They’re pretty shaken up about Nicole.”

  I murmured something sympathetic, but I was mostly staring at the building that loomed ahead. I did not like this place. As a general agnostic, I didn’t have a problem with churches in general, whether small and welcoming or big and awe-inspiring. But this stone mammoth of an ancient building felt more like condemnation than salvation.

  As if God Himself — the vengeful Old Testament version — waited inside, salivating over the prospect of smiting any sinner who wandered through that black door.

  “Why are we at a church?” I finally said.

  Frost pulled the keys from the ignition and pocketed them. “This is where they found the artifact,” she said. “My team confirmed it. And they also said it’s been vandalized, which is why everyone’s here.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Everyone?”

  “Sure. Local law enforcement, important town figures. A few others involved in the project.” She opened her door and looked at me. “You coming?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said reluctantly. “Count me in.”

  CHAPTER 10

  The artifact was even creepier than the church.

  Frost led us into the sanctuary through a back door that opened onto the pulpit. And there it was, right where the podium with a Bible on it should’ve been. A six-foot wreath of black branches with a flat, pointed panel at the top, standing on four clawed feet. But if it was supposed to be a mirror, there wasn’t any glass. The frame was empty.

  Maybe that was what’d been vandalized. If someone had busted the mirror, though, they did a damned clean job of it. I didn’t see a single fragment of glass anywhere.

  The sanctuary itself was unsettling, more so than the outside of the place. Two rows of darkly gleaming pews, each with a tall metal candelabra beside it along the center aisle. Heavy chains connected the candelabras. And there were seven stained-glass windows—three to the right, three to the left, and one above the entrance doors. An odd number, but after a minute I figured out why.

  Each window depicted one of the seven deadly sins. The closest one was Wrath, written in large red letters beneath a stained-glass angel with blood-red wings, a blood-stained sword in each hand, and flames where the eyes should’ve been.

  The one over the doors was Envy.

  There were more people here than the cars outside suggested. Three men, one with a gun and badge, another in a suit, and the third in religious robes, stood at the foot of the platform by the center aisle. Two more in suits flanked the main doors. And there were maybe a dozen people scattered on the pews —not talking or praying or reading Bibles. Just sitting there.

  It seemed like all of them were staring at me.

  Frost broke the spell of silence by stalking across the platform, headed for the mirror-less mirror. At least that got people murmuring and looking around. She stopped, reached up and brushed a hand along the flat panel at the top. “Goddamn it. They’d better—” She broke off with a hard breath and headed down to the three men at the front for a brief, murmured conference.

  After touching each of them briefly on the shoulder, Frost came back over to me. “Come on,” she said, taking my hand. “I’ll introduce you around.”

  I nodded and walked with her. “A little hardcore around here, aren’t they?” I said softly. “I mean, those windows. Damn.”

  “Yeah, it’s something. The Puritan hasn’t worn off this place yet.” She glanced at me and smirked. “Hell, they still accuse people of witchcraft around here.”

  “Seriously?”

  She nodded. “One person in particular,” she said almost bitterly. By then we’d reached the steps leading off the platform. “Come on, I want you to meet these guys,” she said.

  ‘These guys’ turned out to be Mayor Nicholas Davenport, Pastor Victor Lennox, and Head Constable Quentin Garber. Their handshakes were firm, their eyes mistrustful — with the exception of Mayor Davenport, who had that same deer-in-the-headlights look as his daughter did for a minute, back at the cottage.

  In fact, it almost looked like the constable and the pastor were guarding him.

  “Remember those founding families I mentioned?” Frost said when the introductions were finished.

  I nodded. “You’re them, huh?” I said.

  “We are,” Garber said. His tone was less than polite.

  “Er. Nice to meet you.” I decided to try breaking the ice with Nicholas Davenport, since he was the only one who didn’t look like he wanted to punch me. “I’ve met your daughter already. Nova,” I said. “Nice kid.”

  The mayor’s brow furrowed. “Nova?” he murmured absently. The other two glared at him, and he looked down. “I … yes,” he said. “My daughter is Nova.”

  That worried me. The man almost seemed drugged or something, like the people sitting in the pews. Who still hadn’t moved yet.

  Before I could react, an echoing bang filled the sanctuary. Every head turned toward the large main doors as Nova and the men working with Frost walked in. One of the men, Seth, was in the lead, with the other just behind him and Nova hanging back. The end of a chain was wrapped around Seth’s hand.

  At the other end of the chain was an inverted spiked collar, fastened around the throat of an older, sixty-something woman in an ankle-length black dress, with her hands bound behind her back.

  Frost actually grinned as they approached. “There you are,” she said. “Witch.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Jesus Christ. This was what Frost sent them to fetch? A human being?

  My gut tensed at the sight of Seth leading the old woman along like a dog, though she wasn’t resisting. That collar was monstrous — a thick copper ring with three-inch copper spikes pointing inward. Blood trickled down the woman’s neck from where the pointed ends of the spikes dug into her skin.

  More than that, I was horrified by Frost’s reaction. “What the hell are they doing?” I hissed at her. “What are you doing?”

  She barely looked at me. Her cold gaze stayed fixed on the old woman, who was giving it right back to her. “This is Winifred Davenport,” she said. “Town historian and suspected witch. She’s the one who killed Nicole, and she stole the Eye. What I’m doing is getting it back from her.”

  The eye? I failed to say out loud. I was more focused on her name — Davenport. Which probably made her the mayor’s mother, and Nova’s grandmother.

  Maybe that was why they both seemed so terrified.

  “Come on, Frost,” I said. “This isn’t like you. I mean, bringing people in for questioning, yeah. But you can’t know for sure she did anything yet.” I shot her a glare and pushed past her, headed for the chained woman. “You need to get that thing off her, right now.”

  “Gideon, stop.”

  Her voice rang through the sanctuary. I’d only gotten a few steps away, but I stopped and turned to face her, already beyond furious. This was some serious Milus Dei torture bullshit — something I thought she’d never pull. “I’m taking it off,” I said.

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  Frost huffed a breath. “Because it’s a witch collar,” she said.

  I blinked. “It’s what?”

  “See, Winifred actually is a witch. That’s how she got the drop on Nicole. We can’t have her doing any more magic, can we?” Frost made an expectant gesture, and then shook her head and dropped a hand to her side. “Screw it. I’m tired of this,” she said. “And come to think of it, we can’t have you doing any magic, either.”

  In the space between my ears hearing those words and my brain processing them, she drew her gun and shot me at near point-blank range. Twice.

  I was on the floor before I understood what happened.

  Damn. If I hadn’t been so close, she would’ve missed. The whole anti-bullet glamour thing only worked at a distance. For some reason
that was my first thought, when it should have been why the hell did Frost shoot me?

  That was my second thought. Probably because I didn’t want to believe it.

  My overwhelming instinct was to get up despite the pain and start firing spells. But this hurt a hell of a lot more than it had any right to, and I could barely move. I did manage to push up with one trembling arm — just in time to catch Constable Garber’s baton to the back of my head.

  I didn’t pass out, but I probably should have. Once again the pain was far higher than expected. It felt like my skull was made of glass, and the blow had shattered it and sent shards into my brain. My vision and hearing blurred, and I caught the muffled sound of rattling metal. “Put those on him,” a voice that was more or less Frost said.

  Someone jerked my arms behind my back and handcuffed them. The metal started burning on contact.

  Great. Cold iron cuffs.

  “By the way,” Frost said from somewhere outside the pain. “Those bullets are laced with mandrake oil. Lots of it.”

  “Fuck you,” I managed to gasp, and my own voice drilled my ears harder than hers had. That explained the enhanced pain and my fucked-up senses. Mandrake oil was poison to the Fae — but unlike cold iron, it didn’t kill. A single drop of the stuff heightened every sensation. Including and especially pain.

  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to curl up in a ball and die, or savagely murder Frost and then curl up in a ball and die. Her betrayal was a fire burning me from the inside.

  She’d pretended to be my friend for months. Months. She knew so much about me — not just the personal things, but the general things. Where I lived. Who lived with me. She could get to Taeral and Sadie, everyone at the Castle, so easily now. Hell, I could picture it. A tearful phone call or a knock at the door. Something horrible happened to Gideon. Come quick.

  And what we’d done last night … it was all I could do not to throw up thinking about.

  Right now, I had to do something. Anything. Cold iron might weaken me, but it didn’t completely prevent me from using magic. If I could just focus long enough to cast a spell or two and get out of this creepy-ass church —