Wiretaps & Whiskers (The Faerie Files Book 1)

by Emigh Cannaday

  Logan put his hands on his hips, ambling down the length of the porch until he’d come full circle back to me.

  “You alright, Elena? You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

  My eyes fluttered open. I didn’t even realize they’d been shut until I opened them.

  “That remote viewing session turned my brain into mush,” I confessed. “I’m so tired I could fall asleep right here.”

  Logan turned and peered through the screen door, then lowered his voice.

  “If that crazy cat lady put something in those cookies and drugged you, I’m arresting her ass.”

  “Dude, she made them before she knew we were coming over,” I reminded him. “Calm the fuck down. I think I’m tired because even though my body didn’t go anywhere, my brain just traveled thousands of miles to get to my family’s castle.”

  Right then his phone buzzed again and again. When he looked at it, he frowned.

  “That’s weird. Officer McKinney just sent me the location where all those stones are. Looks like they’re not that far from here. Actually . . . Elena . . . ”

  “Yeah?” I snapped my head up and tried to focus on the satellite image he was shoving in my face. He zoomed out of the screen a little.

  “Look how close Sylvia’s house is to that Pinkie Pie hiking trail. That’s the trail where Rylee and a bunch of other kids disappeared, remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember. There was an ash tree off the trail.”

  “Right. But we were new to town when we went out there. We didn’t meet Sylvia until later, so we didn’t know how close her house was to that trail.”

  “We should go check it out.” This time I yawned so wide that it almost split my skull in half. Then I hoisted myself up, only to sink back down onto the bench. “Gimme five minutes.”

  “Jesus, Elena. You sure you’re just tired?” Logan knelt down in front of me, looking at me with that deep-rooted, ever-present concern.

  “I promise. I just need to lie down for a little bit. Maybe a half-hour?”

  “Do you want me to drive you back to the treehouse, or do you want to stay here while I go check on those stones?”

  “The living room couch will be fine,” I said, taking his hand as he helped me up and onto my feet. “Hopefully the cats won’t mind.”

  Logan snickered as we walked into the house.

  “If they have a problem with it, they can take it up with me.”

  I woke up rested and refreshed, with the sound of purring in my ear. Lafayette was curled in a ball under my chin. I rubbed my eyes and reached over to pet him, confused by how dark the room had become. It was bright and sunny when I’d fallen asleep. Maybe a storm had rolled in.

  I sat up and looked out the windows. The sky had melted into a wash of orange and pink and blue, and I caught a whiff of pizza coming from Sylvia’s kitchen. Above the cheery notes of an old Dolly Parton song, it sounded like she and Logan were playing cards.

  I frowned and reached for my phone, double-checking the time.

  Quarter to nine.

  Damn.

  Why hadn’t my partner woken me up sooner? Didn’t he want to tell me what he’d found out about the boulders on Sylvia’s property?

  Lafayette meowed and stretched, then hopped off the couch and slinked towards the front door. I followed him and stepped onto the porch, watching as he made a beeline for the trees beyond the yard. Nightfall was coming hard and fast, and the crickets and frogs were singing up a storm. I was about to head inside when I heard a mechanical rumble in the near distance.

  I knew that sound.

  It sounded an awful lot like the monster truck that had run us off the road. The growling, choking exhaust quickly silenced itself into the night, and then a car door banged shut.

  There was no way that Logan or Sylvia could hear what I was hearing. Even without Dolly Parton serenading them, they were human. Their senses weren’t half as sharp as mine. Right as I thought about grabbing Logan to help investigate, I heard him let out a big belly laugh.

  That idiot probably found the apple pie moonshine, I thought as I peered down the dark hall. I needed to get a license plate number off that truck, but I didn’t need all six feet and seven inches of Logan’s drunk ass tripping on logs and ruining the element of surprise. His carefree laughter was grating on my nerves.

  If I wanted something done right, I was going to have to do it myself.

  Propelled by anger, I headed for the trees, determined to put eyeballs on whatever vehicle was out there. Maybe it wasn’t even that rusty, muddy truck after all, but a couple of teenagers making out in the back seat of a station wagon. I needed to know.

  My legs struggled to climb over countless fallen logs as my pants caught themselves on brambles. Ahead of me, the thick foliage grew dense and dark. I started to think this was a dumb idea. I wasn’t even sure I was headed in the right direction. I took out my phone to send Logan a text and let him know where I was going.

  No signal.

  Well, I’d already come this far. Sylvia’s house was out of sight, on the other side of a small hill I’d climbed. I started to get the feeling that I wasn’t the only one out here. Maybe there was someone on the other side of the dense thicket in front of me. But every time I stopped to listen, all I heard was the sound of frogs, crickets, and mosquitoes.

  So many mosquitoes. They were flying all around me, filling my ears with their faint, high-pitched hum. What the hell was I thinking, crawling through the Tennessee woods in the middle of summer without bug spray? I debated whether or not I should go back for it.

  Just then I heard something lower in pitch than the mosquitoes. I took another step, swatting at the bugs around me as I strained to listen. Hmmm. Nothing. Maybe I was imagining things.

  I was just about to turn around when I heard it again. I froze in place and held my breath. It was a voice . . . a male voice cutting through the darkness.

  And as I honed in on what he was saying, my stomach turned.

  “Accept this offering, almighty Moloch!” came the voice through the tree. “Rise, and let fire bring you near!”

  For a second, I was frozen in total shock. Then my pulse exploded as my curiosity took hold. Against my better judgment, I moved closer to the voice.

  Who is that?

  “Hail Moloch, demon-bearing king. Accept this gift as a symbol of my devotion!”

  I edged deeper through the darkness until I could just about make out the faint glow of firelight. Crouching at the edge of the brambles, I watched as the small flickering flames illuminated a large, lumbering figure. It was definitely a man. And judging by the scent mixed in with the burning sticks and logs, he was human. I squinted, trying to see his face, but he was turned away from me. All I could see was a dark silhouette of his huge body against a backdrop of fire.

  “Hear me Moloch!” boomed his voice. “I am your servant on Earth!”

  Fear and anger gnawed at my gut. This bastard had to be part of Solana’s plan, but how?

  Forgetting all about the mosquitoes, I edged closer to the fire, trying my damnedest to stay quiet, but of course, my foot found its way to a dried-up twig. It snapped beneath my boot.

  Fuck.

  The chanting came to an immediate halt. I froze in place, wishing I could somehow make myself invisible. Through the leaves, I could see him glance left, then right. By some act of divine intervention, he turned back towards the fire and resumed his ritual.

  “My Lord Moloch! I am your son, your devotee, your disciple! Take this gift, this symbol of my devotion!”

  I tried to get a better look through the thorny stems and thick leaves, but I still couldn’t make out the man’s face. Growing more and more impatient, I edged my way further to the right, hoping to circle around them. Maybe then I could see this asshole’s face.

  Instead of seeing his face, the first thing I saw was the distinct shape of a rusted out pickup with a lift kit. The windows were tinted and the doors were covered in dents. I
could even see the way the mud was splattered across the license plate.

  No. Fucking. Way.

  Whoever had tried to kill me and Logan was now standing just a few feet away from me. Not only that, but he was in league with Moloch . . . and probably Solana. Now if only I could find out who he was. My heart told me to reach for my gun and yell ‘freeze!’ I’d jump on the son of a bitch and arrest him myself.

  But the rational part of my brain was telling me to play it cool and be sensible. If things went wrong I could die out here, and Logan and Sylvia would be none the wiser. I cursed myself for not telling them where I was going.

  Why the hell did I leave them in there playing cards and listening to Dolly fucking Parton? Logan should be with me right now!

  I looked over at the truck, then back to the chanting figure, trying to come up with a plan that didn’t completely suck. He was still yelling into the night, his voice so loud the leaves trembled. With the way he was carrying on, there was no way that Logan and Sylvia wouldn’t have heard him.

  Then I remembered how they were laughing and talking shit over their card game, and how loud the music was playing. I looked over my shoulder towards the run-down house, but I couldn’t see any sign of it. It may as well have never existed.

  I decided my best plan of action would be to get closer to the truck. Maybe there was something inside that could point me in the direction of who drove it. I was hoping for some registration papers in the glove box, a paystub, a cigarette pack—anything that could tell me more about the driver. Stepping sideways with my hand on my gun, I held my breath and drew closer. All the while I kept my eyes firmly on the figure of the man. The closer I got to the truck, the more the trees gave way to the small clearing where it was parked.

  I still couldn’t see a face.

  Creeping to the edge of the truck, I saw a sizable dent in the hood from where it rear-ended us. It was such a piece of shit that it didn’t make much of a difference to the overall appeal. It looked like it was owned for the sole purpose of crashing into other vehicles.

  I glanced up at the figure as I stepped around to the driver’s side. He was occupied with his ritual in front of his little bonfire, utterly clueless to my presence. Not being able to see through the tinted window, I curled my fingers around the door handle and pulled ever so slightly, expecting the door to just fall open.

  Welp. That was a mistake.

  For some god-awful reason that I’ll never know, that piece of shit truck was fitted with a car alarm. The quiet night was immediately filled with the ear-blistering shrieks of the horn and sirens going off. The man spun around, fully lit by the firelight, revealing a face that I never imagined capable of hurting more than a box of jelly donuts.

  “Sheriff McKinney?”

  His jaw fell when he realized who was out there with him.

  “Agent Rivera?”

  He stepped towards me and I pulled out my gun.

  “Don’t come another step closer! What the fuck are you doing, huh?”

  “Rivera . . . You were never . . . ” He looked at my gun and laughed, his expression exaggerated by the flickering firelight. “Don’t be a silly girl now,” he said, chuckling to himself. “What are you going to do, shoot me with that shiny toy gun of yours?”

  I wanted to be angry, wanted to scream some hard-ass threat at him, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t because I was afraid. I was just so hopelessly disappointed. Seeing him standing there, trying to invoke Moloch made me want to weep for humanity.

  “You were supposed to be on our side!” I yelled over the car alarm, keeping my Glock pointed at his chest. “You were supposed to be finding the missing kids, not . . . not being part of whatever the fuck this is!”

  I stepped closer to him, my gun still raised. His expression changed as I neared, changing from amusement to something darker . . . something akin to hatred. There was no trace of the man I’d met when I first arrived in Yarbrough. I was looking at a stranger.

  As I got closer, I saw what he was doing. Down at his feet was a large, gray rock that had been carved with Moloch’s distinctive sigil.

  “It was you . . . ” I sneered. “You put this rock out here. You’re the one who’s been creating those symbols to Moloch!”

  “I was trying to but you arrogant assholes had to go dig it up. Had to go around digging all of them up! And getting my nephew involved too?”

  He shook his head and looked down at the rock, which I realized was meant to replace the one we’d uncovered. It wasn’t until now that I fully grasped just how good an actor the sheriff was. I’d shown him my photo of the sigil and asked to look through his collection of paranormal books, and he hadn’t shown any sign of concern. If anything, he was as confused and dumbstruck as I was.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he drawled, his voice forcing itself out over the sound of the car alarm. “You’re supposed to be the best federal agent there is at this kinda shit. Supposed to be expert in all this stuff and you had no idea what was going on beneath your nose the whole time!”

  He laughed with a calmness that surprised me, running his hand over the top of the rock before stepping away from it. He looked at it for a second as though he was regarding it with great reverence, then he turned to face me.

  “I had fun with you while you were here,” he said, putting a hand on his hip as he shot me a curious look. “I always wanted to meet you, you know. You’ve got a reputation that precedes you.”

  He glanced back down at the rock, then pinned his eyes back to mine.

  “People in occult circles, they talk about you. Talk about the little pink-haired girl with the big green eyes that can take out monsters. But you ain’t so special, are you? Maybe if you weren’t so busy thinking about the dick on that partner of yours you would’ve been able to do your job right. You might’ve been able to catch me sooner.”

  He laughed to himself.

  “You’re the one who called us in,” I reminded him. “You wanted me on the case! Why? To amuse yourself? To see if I was worth my reputation?”

  “I needed to know what you knew,” was his abrupt reply. He laughed again, his voice grating on my nerves. I was half tempted to shoot him just to make him shut up. “Ever heard the phrase keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”

  He smiled into the faint firelight, impressed with himself and his questionable intellect. He was grinning like he’d just won this huge, morbid, deadly game. Of course nobody in this tiny little town would suspect their own sheriff . . . a man whom they’d known for decades. And, lo and behold, he was as evil as Solana.

  I wanted to shoot him dead right then and there. I wanted to see his blood splatter across the small boulder that lay near his feet.

  The car alarm still blared. Coupled with the adrenaline and anger in my bloodstream, it was giving me a splitting headache. In front of me, McKinney just kept smiling. It was a nasty smile . . . one that said I needed to get this fucker in handcuffs before he did something stupid.

  “Now, come on, little girly. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll put down that weapon.”

  Little girly . . . Who the fuck does he think he’s talking to?

  I gripped my gun tighter and stepped towards him, but it only made him laugh.

  “What do you think you’re doing with that tough girl act?” he chuckled. “You think you could ever arrest me? Think you could . . . what? Bring me to justice? No one would believe a word you said. Not around these parts.”

  I blocked out his words. He was trying to undermine me and make me doubt myself. It was a cheap tactic and I wasn’t falling for it. He folded his arms in front of his chest and continued to laugh, but as I grew nearer, I started to think his bravado was just an act. He knew I’d caught him red-handed, and as I neared him, I could see a flash of fear in his eyes.

  “Turn around,” I ordered. He did as he was told albeit with a smirk on his lips. “Hands in the air.”

  He wavered for a moment, keeping his arm
s crossed.

  “I said, hands in the fucking air!”

  Slowly, he raised his hands up over his head. I stepped closer, my gun trained on his head, but as I faced his back, I was aware of his gargantuan size. Before, I’d seen him as nothing more than an overstuffed, weathered old teddy bear. But that softness was no longer in him. I was now acutely aware of his strength and size.

  “Lower your hands behind your back.”

  Slowly, he began moving his wrists behind his spine as I reached for my handcuffs. But before my hand could connect with them, a flash of movement in the dark took me by surprise. That motherfucker had reached out, grabbed my right wrist, and twisted with such force that I dropped my gun.

  McKinney spun around, the smirk still on his face.

  “You dumb bitch,” he snarled. “You think you can arrest me? I’m the fucking sheriff!”

  Pain shot up my arm as he twisted it with his great big meaty hand. I looked down for my gun and tried to reach for it, but he had a vice-like bone-crushing grip on my arm. The pain was so strong I couldn’t stop myself from screaming, but my anger was stronger.

  I lashed out, kicking him hard right below his kneecap. He yelped as my steel toe cap cracked the bone, but all I’d really managed to do was make him even angrier.

  “You fucking bitch!” he yelled while tightening his grip on me before slamming me face-first into the ground. His knees were on my back, pinning me into the sticks and leaves and dirt with all of his weight. His enormous hands reached up for my throat, and although I tried to kick and scream, it made no difference. My legs were growing limp as consciousness began to fade. And as much as I would’ve liked to close my eyes and surrender my life to see my mom and dad again, I was stubborn as hell. I refused to go into the afterlife willingly.

  My vision was getting blurry, although I saw a black shadow leap out from the edge of the clearing. Over the sound of the car alarm, I heard a cat screaming and yowling somewhere above my head. McKinney took one hand off my neck long enough to let me gulp as much air as I could. There was a soft crushing sound and a thump in the leaves, and then I saw Lafayette lying in a heap in front of me.