by Steve McHugh
Elijah looked pale. "You are no human," he eventually seethed.
"You never asked," I told him. "That's no one's fault but yours." I walked back to the centre of the pit. "Anyone who wants to step in here with me, I created an easy access for you." I pointed to the crater and the wolves' eyes followed my hand, either transfixed or wondering if they really could take me.
A thud from behind me took my attention, and I turned ready to strike, but found only Tommy walking toward me.
"Could you stop me from falling over?" I whispered. "I think I may have overdone myself."
Tommy embraced me, just as I fell forward.
Gordon was first beside me. "I guess you win," he said with a slight grin. "I've never seen anything like that."
"It'd be awesome if you could get me out of here without dropping me," I said to no one in particular before passing out.
Chapter 17
I woke to the smell of bacon. Nothing bad could come from that. I opened one eye gingerly and found myself on Matthew's sofa. I weighed the pros and cons of sitting up and decided it was worth the risk.
"How're you feeling?" Tommy asked in between mouthfuls of a sandwich.
"Is there more bacon?"
Tommy laughed, and handed me a plate full of bacon sandwiches. I ate my fill and instantly felt better.
"So, do you plan on telling me what the fuck happened out there?"
"What in particular would you like me to explain?" I asked drinking a bottle of water that Tommy had gotten for me.
"Let's start with the stabbing. I've never known you to let your guard down like that."
"I don't know what happened. I wanted to kill him; it was all I thought about. To end his miserable existence. It was only for a second, but I guess that was long enough."
"That doesn't explain how you healed from a stab with a silver knife." Tommy produced the knife from the floor, and placed it on the coffee table between us. Someone had cleaned my blood from it.
"I really do have no idea whatsoever. I just accessed as much magic as I could."
Tommy didn't appear too impressed with my answer, but he left it alone. "And that sphere? What the hell was that?"
"Since I learnt that my power has increased, I've been trying to see just what I can do. What I can push. I've managed to create a sphere that contains the power of a hurricane. It's somewhat spectacular when released."
"No fucking shit. They found Randal. Sorry, they found most of Randal. He's alive, but he lost one arm when it vaporised, or whatever the fuck happens when the power of hurricane is contained in something that's eight inches in diameter and then unleashed on one person."
"I've never used it on a person before, lost my temper a bit when he stabbed me."
"Well, it works," Gordon said as he entered the room. "Would you really have fought Elijah?"
"No, I'd have killed him fast. I didn't have it in me to fight. Using the magic in the sphere and being stabbed, sort of takes it out of you."
"You're up," Ellie said as she entered the room. "That was pretty damn impressive."
"I try," I said to her. "Did Elijah tell you about Neil?"
"Within about two seconds of Matthew asking. I called Olivia, who's put together a task force to go get him." Tommy stood and stretched. "I'm going to go talk to my daughter."
"I'd like some clean clothes," I said. My trousers were covered in blood and my t-shirt was probably still in half on the floor of the pit.
Gordon left the room, returning a few minutes later with a pair of dark blue jeans and a green t-shirt. "We have clothes of all shapes and sizes on standby here. You'd be amazed how often werewolves don't think about keeping their clothing safe when they go hunting."
I thanked him and he left to go attend to whatever duties he needed to do. Tommy took the cue and left too, leaving Ellie and me alone.
"I'm glad you're okay," she said.
"Me, too."
"I haven't met many sorcerers who I'd say I trusted. You just made the top of a very short list, Nate."
"Honoured. Sorcerers have a tendency to think only in terms of magic and how it can be applied in life; it makes some of us appear cold towards others."
"Especially werewolves."
"Oh, not just werewolves, all weres, vampires, trolls, basically anything that isn't a sorcerer. We're not picky; we're just better than everyone else." I grinned as I spoke to ensure that Ellie knew I was only teasing.
Ellie laughed. "Humble, too."
"Yeah, sorcerers are basically perfect."
Ellie glanced down at my still naked chest and stomach, and gave me a sly smile. "Yes. Yes, you are."
I chuckled and stood up, putting on my clothes. The t-shirt was a little snug, but at least the jeans wouldn't fall down, although the feeling of clean clothes against my skin reminded me that I really needed a shower.
"Maybe we'll see each other again sometime, Ellie," I said. "Hopefully under better circumstances."
Ellie offered me her hand, which I shook. She pulled me toward her with considerable strength and kissed me on the cheek. "I look forward to it," she said and stared at me with her beautiful blue eyes.
I watched Ellie leave the room, or rather I watched her ass move seductively as she left the room, to be replaced by an entering Tommy.
"Ellie's impressed with you. And she's not easily impressed," Tommy said. "She's turned down half the men in the pack who have been sniffing around her."
"I think my dating life is on hold for the moment," I told him. "How's Kasey?"
"Waiting for me to come home, apparently I'm out after my bedtime. You want to come to mine for a drink?" my old friend asked.
I shook my head. "I'm going to take a look at Vicki's place."
"You don't need to do that, Nate."
"I know, but I'd feel better taking a look myself. Her disappearance is wrapped up with these murders."
"You want some help?"
I slapped Tommy on the shoulder. "Go see your daughter, have a nice night. I'm only going to look around, and then I'm off home."
"Take care," he said and then shook my hand. "Thanks for your help," he told Matthew before leaving the house.
"You're not done with this are you?" Matthew asked. "And I don't mean about just going to search some girl's house."
A smile crept onto my lips. "Something isn't right here. The women are being killed in a ritualistic manner. It's just that I don't know what the ritual is meant to do. I think Neil's involvement is meant to keep us away from whoever is actually doing the killing."
"You're certain the killer isn't Neil?"
I shook my head. "Whatever or whatever the killer is, it isn't some werewolf with impulse control issues. These women are taken somewhere secluded, stalked, and then butchered. If Neil's past crimes are any indication, he would have killed them before they'd even gotten to their destination.
"I'll leave Neil for the LOA to figure out," I continued. "They've still got an agent missing, so I may as well look into her. Just in case we can't ask Neil questions after his arrest." What I didn't say out loud was that the LOA were not known for their restraint when dealing with the murderer of an agent's family.
Matthew got it anyway. He chuckled. "You make a good point." He held out his hand, which I shook. "I hope this is not the last time, Nate. And maybe in future we can do each other a favour once again."
"You knew that Randal would cheat, didn't you?"
Matthew gave no sign that he agreed with me. "I knew that you'd be able to take care of yourself, although I didn't imagine a knife being involved."
"You could have warned me."
"I could have just killed Elijah and be done with the whole stupid mess. As it is, Randal cheating in full view of everyone does nothing to aid Elijah or his cause. Everyone wins. Warning you would have meant you waiting for him to cheat. I now appear to have an incredibly powerful sorcerer in my corner, one who will destroy those who cross him."
I punched him in the ja
w, wrapping my hand in dense air, just hard enough to knock him to the floor.
"Feel better?" he asked, rubbing his face.
"Next time, ask." He took my hand and I helped him back to his feet, but I didn't release my grip. "Don't put me in that situation again."
Matthew's eyes hardened. "I did what I needed to do for my pack."
"That's why I didn't take your head off."
"Have you tamed over the years?" Matthew said with a laugh. "I know all about you, Hel-"
"Excellent," I interrupted, hiding my shock at hearing that name almost spoken after so many years. "Then remember this. That man is dead. And I can assure you, you don't want him back."
Chapter 18
I left Matthew's house abruptly and didn't calm down until I reached my bike. I wasn't really angry that he'd known that Randal would cheat, or that he'd assumed I'd deal with it accordingly. In his situation, I would have done the same thing. But the fact that he nearly called me… I turned and punched a nearby tree, my first wrapped in fire.
Bark snapped and crackled from the heat and a small fire started, quickly removed from the tree as I absorbed it into my magic.
That name was behind me now. It was part of a past I no longer needed. The only person who should have known was Tommy and I would need to have words with him sooner rather than later about whom he told my secrets to.
I thanked the guards for keeping an eye on the bike, but they both shrugged as if they only did it because it was next to them.
There were no street lights around, and only the glow from the nearly extinguished torches helped light the road outside of the field. I removed my phone from my pocket, and tapped in Vicki's address, something I'd memorised from the file on Amber Moore. Apparently, it would take nearly an hour to get there, meaning I'd arrive just after three in the morning. That would give me a while to look around whilst it was still dark outside and while the majority of neighbours would be likely still in bed and not watching the comings and goings on their street.
I used the bike's lights on the journey to Vicki's, not wanting to try and outrun any police or explain why I was riding in complete darkness. I doubt they'd accept the "I can use magic to see in the dark" excuse all that easily.
The journey took a little over forty minutes. I stopped the bike outside further down the street, and switched off the engine, walking the remaining few hundred feet to Vicki's home. It was a fairly modest detached house, with an immaculate front garden, complete with lawn gnome who had been placed next to a small pond so that he appeared to be fishing. I wondered when, or if, lawn gnomes were ever considered funny or interesting.
"Do you plan on breaking in?" a woman asked as she stepped onto the driveway behind me.
"Hi, Olivia." I turned toward her and smiled. She wore dark combats, and a white top. I could see the butt of her gun in the holster beneath her dark jacket. "I thought you'd be trying to arrest your werewolf."
"Agent Reid is in charge of that. I got a call from Avalon about my request to get Mordred's file, and, thought I'd relay the info."
"I assume from your tone that it didn't go well."
"If I ever call with that request again, I'll be lucky to remain in Avalon, let alone in the LOA. You know what that means don't you? They really don't want anything about him getting out. They're circling the wagons where he's concerned."
"It confirms that someone there was involved. And that they were worried enough about it to wait a while to get back to you, so they could make sure there was nothing you could find for yourself. Thanks for doing that."
"What are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing at the moment; it's just nice to know that I was right."
"Well, while I'm here we may as well search the house together."
She strolled past me and walked up the three steps to the front door, where she unlocked it with a key from her pocket. Despite the alarm box proudly displayed on the front of the house, there were no tell-tale signs of any alarm needing to be switched off as I stepped into the house.
Apart from a shoe rack next to the door, a rug on the floor and a small table with a bowl to drop keys in, the hallway was devoid of anything. A set of stairs led up, and there were three doors, one a few steps inside the house, one at the far end of the hallway and another under the stairs. Olivia walked to the doorway at the far end of the hall.
"Kitchen," she said, as she clicked on a torch and opened the door under the staircase.
I took a moment to adjust my eyes with magic and could soon see, even in the almost total darkness that the house was in. "Why don't you just turn a light on?" I asked as Olivia disappeared from view.
Her head popped out a few seconds later. "You want to see this. And I don't want anyone watching the place to know someone's here. Just in case you're right and Vicki is involved."
"You're coming round to my way of thinking?" I asked.
"Just follow me." And she disappeared from view again.
I did as was asked and ducked my head as I stepped through the door. A set of steep stairs led down into a sizeable basement. "She has an office in the basement," I said, looking down.
"The house is only two bedrooms. I guess Vicki used the basement to get her work done."
And she would have spent a lot of time doing it. One long desk sat adjacent to the staircase. A computer monitor and laptop both had a thin film of dust on them. Two filing cabinets sat at the end of the room.
I took a step toward the cabinet, but Olivia stopped me. "You're not the only one who can get into a locked cabinet." She flicked her finger toward her target and a stream of ice smashed into the lock, pushing it into the cabinet with a shriek, where it ricocheted around the top draw.
There were no glyphs or marks that lit up under Olivia's use of her element. If I'd been standing in front of her, I'd have seen her irises turn a pure light blue, but that would have been it. Whereas sorcerers manipulated elements using magic, elementals were one with the element itself.
Olivia pulled open the top cabinet draw and removed a thick file from inside. She passed it to me, before she removed a second of equal size and began going through it.
I took mine over to the desk and opened the cover, immediately understanding why it was locked up. The front page had a picture of a man in full police uniform. According to the information written beneath it, he was over six feet tall, and weighed twenty stone. His name was Peter Jarvis, thirty-six and a serial killer responsible for sixteen murders in two years. The six victims were the same as those that had been in the files on Vicki's desk.
"So, why was she reading through the victims' files?" I asked.
"Because of this." Olivia passed me the file she'd been reading, which contained a picture of Peter with a young blond woman. They were stood in front of a large oak tree somewhere in a forest. They both appeared young and in love, the smiles genuine as they held one another. "This is Vicki."
"Your agent was dating a serial killer?"
"Yeah. It led to her drinking problem," Olivia said. "Like I told you, she had some anger issues."
"Anyone else know this about her?"
Olivia shook her head. "Just me. Peter used to beat her pretty badly. He nearly killed her once, just before she left him. She said she drank to forget what had happened. Sometimes she would wake up in a cold sweat at the thought of him coming after her."
"According to his file, he died in prison two years ago."
"His cellmate slit his throat. Vicki took a week off, and drank herself silly. I remember because Amber called me, worried that she was going to kill herself."
I bit my tongue, stopping myself from saying what I was thinking, but Olivia pretty much said it for me. "What the fuck have you got yourself into, Vicks?"
I grabbed one of the files inside the cabinet and started reading. related to a series of murders committed between five and seven years previously. Each of the victims had been young, pretty and murdered in brutal fashion. Their cars had be
en discovered on the major motorways around the New Forest, and their bodies found tied to trees with their hearts cut out.
"Fucking hell," I whispered. “Why wasn’t this house searched before? Hell, why didn’t you mention that Vicki’s ex was killing people in the same way as the current murders?”
Olivia snatched the file from me and started reading it. “Fuck. I swear I didn’t know the details of the murders. It was a human crime; I was far too busy to take notice. Even with it involving Vicki, I still didn’t find out much about what happened. She wasn’t exactly chatty about it, and I was swamped with work.”
“And the house?”
“Reid told me some human cops did it on our orders, just a cursory check… damn it, I fucked up.”
“We’ll ask Reid why he didn’t find anything.”
I opened the drawers on the desk, found a rucksack inside one, and used it to place the files inside. "They might come in handy," I pointed out.
We had one last look around the basement, but after finding nothing, decided it was best to head back upstairs.
Olivia's phone rang almost immediately and she walked off to answer it, leaving me alone to search the large living area of the house. Paintings were hung on walls, and a near empty bottle of vodka sat alone on the coffee table. Apparently, Vicki still had issues.
On a sideboard against the far wall sat rows of photos, all in elegant frames. Most of them were pictures of Vicki and Amber smiling, but one was a picture of seven women, including Amber and Vicki, all dressed up for a party. I picked up the photo and stared at it, until the realisation of where I'd seen them before clicked in my mind. They were the other victims. I turned it over n my hands and removed the photo from the frame. A date of four years previously was written on the back in pen.