Unmarked Graves

by Christine Pope

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Also by Christine Pope

  About the Author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  UNMARKED GRAVES

  Copyright © 2020 by Christine Pope

  Published by Dark Valentine Press

  Cover art by Christian Bentulan

  Ebook formatting by Indie Author Services

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems — except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews — without permission in writing from its publisher, Dark Valentine Press.

  Don’t miss out on any of Christine’s new releases — sign up for her newsletter today!

  Chapter 1

  The world was a blur of glaring lights and harsh sound, a sharp wailing noise that felt as though it was drilling right through his eardrums. Will Gordon blinked, aware of a throbbing pain in his temple and the face of a stranger bending over him, his unfamiliar dark eyes filled with concern.

  “William?” the man said. “Can you understand me?”

  Will started to nod and realized even that slight movement hurt too much. “Will,” he whispered, shocked at how weak his voice sounded. “Will is fine.”

  The man smiled. “Will, then. Do you know where you are?”

  He blinked and saw a metal roof overhead, realized there was a second stranger, a woman, on his other side, her gaze fixed on a device that was monitoring his pulse and blood pressure and probably a few other vital statistics. However, none of that mattered to him right then.

  Where was Rosemary?

  “Ambulance,” he said, realizing that he’d paused longer than he’d thought before answering the EMT’s question.

  Another smile, one with something of relief in it. “Can you tell me the year? Who’s president?”

  Will dutifully recited those facts, although it hurt more than he’d thought to utter the few syllables those answers required. “Woman…who was with me?”

  “She’s fine,” the EMT said. “She’s following us to the hospital.”

  In his car, Will assumed, since he and Rosemary had driven over to Colin Turner’s house on Las Flores Drive in Will’s vintage Challenger. Recalling that bit of information made other memories come flooding back…the confrontation with Caleb Dixon in the hallway of the house that Colin and his girlfriend Madeline Nash had bought together more than a decade earlier…the jeering expression on Caleb’s face as he disappeared with the hard drive that contained the missing Project Demon Hunters footage.

  No, it was Caleb Lockwood, Will reminded himself. “Caleb Dixon” was a fiction, an identity the man had made up to ingratiate himself with Rosemary and get her to help him find the files from Colin’s canceled show. Caleb Lockwood was something infinitely more dangerous than a self-described indie filmmaker, a man who had the blood of demons running through his veins.

  The mere thought of that footage being in Caleb’s hands was enough to make Will move restlessly on his stretcher. He couldn’t lie there while that demonspawn was off with the precious footage, might already be destroying it —

  “Hey,” the EMT said, putting a gentle but still inexorable hand on Will’s sternum. “You need to lie quiet, Mr. Gordon. You took a pretty bad blow to the head.”

  “I’m fine,” Will protested, although he wondered at that moment whether he actually was fine. Simply lifting his head an inch or two had increased the dull, throbbing ache behind his temple, and the interior of the ambulance seemed to spin around him.

  “That’s for the doctors to decide,” the EMT told him. “Until then, you need to lie still. They’re going to want to do an MRI to make sure you haven’t suffered a serious head injury.”

  Under normal circumstances, Will would have agreed on taking such a prudent approach. Now, though, he could only chafe at his current weakened state. Who knew that Caleb would be so quick, so ruthless?

  You should have known, or at least guessed, he told himself. As soon as Rosemary told you who he really was, you should have been more on your guard. You knew you weren’t facing an ordinary human.

  Well, he couldn’t go back and change what had happened, so it seemed the smartest thing at the moment was to do as the EMT said and wait for a clean bill of health from the doctor.

  “And the police will want to talk to you, too,” the EMT added.

  “‘Police’?” Will echoed.

  “When we arrived at the house, your girlfriend told us you were attacked.”

  Should he bother to point out that Rosemary wasn’t his girlfriend? To be perfectly honest, Will didn’t know exactly what she was. She’d come into his life and assumed far more importance in it than he’d expected…or should have allowed. He was supposed to be helping her, and what had he done?

  Screwed up royally, and kissed her when she came to him at the church, scared half out of her mind because someone had been following her from the parking garage across the street. Will knew he should have been concentrating on locating her pursuer…although the stranger, whoever or whatever he was, appeared to have disappeared into thin air. At any rate, he should have remained focused on the situation with Caleb rather than giving free rein to his emotions and pulling Rosemary into his arms.

  True, she had been more than responsive to his kiss, letting Will know that she’d wanted it just as much as he had, but still, she’d been upset and frightened and in need of reassurance. His timing had been terrible.

  He shouldn’t have kissed her. Not then, anyway.

  But, just like his botched fight with Caleb Lockwood, it was over and done with, and the only thing he could do now was pick up the pieces as best he could and see what happened next.

  It wouldn’t be the first time.

  “Yes,” he said slowly, realizing that the EMT was still watching him intently, obviously waiting for some kind of response. “There was an intruder.”

  That was all he wanted to say, though. If he hadn’t been knocked out cold, hadn’t left Rosemary to handle calling the ambulance, then he would have told her that she should do whatever she could to leave any mention of Caleb Lockwood out of all this. While they would have had to report some kind of confrontation with an intruder in Colin’s house, they could have been purposely vague, said he was wearing a ski mask or that it was too dark to see his face clearly. Will didn’t like lying, but he understood that sometimes a bit of prevarication was necessary in pursuit of a greater goal. Michael Covenant had told him a long time ago that it was never a good idea to get the authorities mixed up in anything supernatural, since they would probably never believe the more outlandish aspects of those cases and often hurt more than they helped.

  Because the EMT now wore an expression of curiosity, Will hastened to add, “But I didn’t get a good look at him. He came at me from behind.”

  “Too bad. But I’m sure the police will want to hear your side of things.”

  Of course, they would. In fact, they’d probably have a long list of questions
they wanted to ask him. Maybe the doctors would put the interrogation off for a while, since he guessed that any tests they’d want to run would take precedence over an interview with the police, but it wasn’t the sort of thing he could delay indefinitely.

  At least Rosemary apparently was all right. She had to be, or she wouldn’t be following him to the hospital. Will wanted to know what had happened during those lost minutes after he blacked out, but that was yet another discussion that would have to wait. Why Caleb hadn’t hurt her — why he hadn’t tried to get rid of Will permanently while he was helpless and unable to fight back — he didn’t know, but there had to be some kind of explanation. Maybe the part-demon had simply decided he didn’t have the time, had thought it better to cut and run rather than carry out any further revenge against his adversary.

  Or maybe…even though Will really didn’t want to admit such a thing to himself…Caleb had realized that an Episcopal priest didn’t present much of a threat, and therefore it was smarter to leave him behind and get out of there just in case the neighbors had heard something of the altercation and called the police. After all, while the authorities would of course investigate an assault, they’d be a lot more dogged in their pursuit of a murderer, and that was exactly the kind of attention Caleb had most likely decided he needed to avoid.

  The ambulance turned and then slowed down, which seemed to indicate they’d arrived at their destination. Most likely Glendale Adventist; Will thought it was probably the closest hospital to the modest-looking house that had hidden such a terrible secret.

  As soon as the vehicle came to a stop, the EMTs opened the back doors of the ambulance and pulled out the gurney he was lying on, and quickly and efficiently rolled it into the ER. He was wheeled off to a corner, and a moment later, a brisk woman with a lilting East Indian accent was shining a penlight into his eyes.

  “Pupils responsive,” she said, making a note on his chart. “Good.”

  “I’m fine,” he said, although his head had started to pound again, and he knew the claim was probably more bravado than actual reality.

  “Well, we all hope so, sir.” She looked over at the male nurse who had come over to stand next to her, and he fastened a blood pressure cuff around Will’s arm.

  Weren’t they monitoring my damn blood pressure the whole way over here? he wondered, but he didn’t bother to protest. Now that he was at the hospital, he knew there was protocol to be followed, and better to let things run their course and act as cooperative as possible in the hope that they’d realize he really was okay and there was no need for him to remain here.

  A few minutes later — after the nurse had removed his watch and his belt and taken his cell phone and house keys from his pants pocket, and put everything in a plastic bag for safekeeping — he was wheeled out of the ER and into the room where the MRI machines were located. He lay quietly while the thing banged away, his eyes shut, body tense with cold, worry for Rosemary mounting even though he tried to tell himself she was fine, that he just hadn’t seen her yet because they weren’t going to allow him any visitors until all the necessary tests had been run.

  “All done,” the tech announced, and then Will was whisked away and brought to the elevator, where he rode up a few floors before being taken to a room at the end of the hallway. Although there were two beds in the room, the other one was unoccupied for the moment. The two orderlies who’d wheeled his gurney into the hospital room transferred him to the bed closer to the window, informed him that a doctor would be along in a bit to discuss his MRI results, and then turned on the television overhead, although with the sound off.

  “Try to stay awake,” one of the nurses told him. She was pretty and blonde and probably a year or two younger than he was…not that he really cared about her appearance. Right then, the only thing he cared about was seeing Rosemary. Well, and getting out of the hospital as soon as possible.

  He summoned a weak smile. “I’ll do my best.”

  “We’ll be by to check on you in a few minutes, bring you some ice chips,” she said. “And the doctor shouldn’t be too long.”

  Nodding hurt too much, so he only said, “Thanks.”

  “Just part of the job,” she replied, and went out, with the other nurse — who hadn’t spoken a word — following immediately behind her.

  Will lay in the hospital bed, staring at the bright images on the TV screen without really focusing on them, and wondered where Rosemary was.

  She knew Will’s tricked-out 1970 Dodge Challenger could have kept up with the ambulance without breaking a sweat, but honestly, Rosemary would have been frightened to put it through its paces even if she’d wanted to top off this gem of an evening by getting a speeding ticket. No, she knew they were headed to Glendale Adventist, and so she’d driven there at about five miles an hour over the speed limit, just enough to feel as if she wasn’t dawdling, but not so fast that she thought she’d attract the attention of any police in the vicinity.

  A sigh of relief escaped her lips as she pulled into the hospital lot and parked in the closest open space to the ER. Since it was a Saturday night, the place was busy — she saw a man covered in blood getting wheeled in on a gurney, and a pair of cops were escorting a disheveled woman who appeared to be around thirty or so, obviously high on something, who squirmed in their grip and wailed in syllables that didn’t sound like any language Rosemary had ever heard.

  Like she’s possessed, she thought, and a shiver passed over her, even as she scolded herself for letting such a notion enter her head. No need to conjure demons when it was far more likely the strange woman was whacked out on meth or PCP or bath salts or whatever chemical cocktail people used these days to recreationally scramble their brains.

  Ignoring the tumult, Rosemary headed toward the front desk, where a stern-looking black woman in her late fifties or early sixties sat. “Hi,” she said as the woman glanced away from her computer to make eye contact. “I’m Rosemary McGuire. My friend William Gordon was just brought in by ambulance. Do you know where he is?”

  “Just a moment,” the nurse said, her voice far friendlier than her appearance had seemed to indicate. She typed in something — presumably, Will’s name — and then added, “He’s being taken to have an MRI.”

  “Is that bad?” Rosemary asked, hating how frightened her voice sounded. Wasn’t she supposed to be tough and confident when horrible stuff like this happened? At the moment, though, she was mostly glad that she hadn’t burst into tears.

  “Not necessarily,” the woman replied. “It’s standard whenever someone’s suffered a bad blow to the head. Just want to make sure he hasn’t suffered a TBI.”

  “A what?”

  “Traumatic brain injury.” The nurse went on before Rosemary could respond, “But the notes on his file say he was conscious and responsive on his ambulance ride, so it sounds like he’s doing well.” Her brows drew together in a frown. “Glendale P.D. is sending a detective over to speak with you. Go ahead and have a seat in the waiting area.” She pointed to a group of chairs upholstered in gray fabric where a number of people were sitting. They were all ages and races, but they all shared the same anxious expression, one that Rosemary guessed she wore on her face as well.

  The last thing she wanted to do was talk to the police. Unfortunately, she had a feeling she wouldn’t be allowed to opt out of that particular interview. If she’d been thinking straight, she should have realized the police would be involved at some point. When she’d made the initial call to 911, she’d only said that she was with someone who’d suffered a blow to the head, but when the ambulance arrived and the EMT asked her what had happened, she’d blurted out that she and Will had surprised an intruder, and it was while protecting her that he’d been assaulted. She guessed that one of the EMTs had contacted the Glendale police department while they were en route.

  Okay, so, she’d have to think of a story to give the detective. More than ever, she wished she’d had a chance to talk to Will. They needed to make su
re their accounts of the incident matched up. Somehow, she knew he wouldn’t want her to tell the truth — not that the police would believe it anyway.

  Yes, officer, Will Gordon and I surprised a man who’s part-demon, and he attacked Will and tried to hurt me, only I summoned powers I didn’t know I had and used them to protect the two of us. That’s when the part-demon man gave up and disappeared into thin air.

  You know, your usual Saturday night in Glendale, California.

  Rosemary let out a huff of a breath and tried her best to corral her racing thoughts, even though her hands kept shaking and she felt as though she couldn’t truly focus on anything until she saw Will again and was able to confirm that he really was okay.

  Think, Rosemary, she scolded herself.

  All right, the full truth obviously wouldn’t work, and so probably the wisest course would be to use just a little bit of it to concoct a story that was both plausible and vague. There was no point in saying who the true culprit was, because “Caleb Dixon” wasn’t even Caleb’s real name. Besides —

  “Rosemary McGuire?”

  She looked up and saw a man in his early forties, slim and of medium height, with cool, piercing gray eyes, standing a few feet away from her. He wore a sport jacket and tie, which told her he must be the detective from the Glendale P.D., because she couldn’t think of anyone else in Southern California who would wear that sort of an outfit on a Saturday night.

  Feeling suddenly tired, she said, “Yes, that’s me.”

  The man pulled a wallet out of his inner breast pocket and flashed a badge at her. Glendale P.D., just as she’d thought. “I’m Detective Phillips. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”