Grim Rites

by Bilinda Sheehan

  But there was no convincing Graham of that point. He just saw the good in her, the little girl who adored him, the one I’d seen in the pictures on his walls.

  “Your wife was here….”

  He snorted and I stifled a laugh.

  “I don’t know why she bothers. We split a long time ago. I’m not sure what she was expecting out of being here.”

  “She told the nurses not to let me in, behaved as though I was the one who’d put you in the hospital,” I said with a smile.

  “Bloody typical. Let me guess, she had her goon in tow?”

  “There was a man with her. She had a fit of the vapours outside your door when she realised I was in here with you. Collapsed on top of me. It was a sight to behold,” I said with a grin.

  Graham started to laugh, the sound lifting my spirits, and then he cringed, rubbing his hand across his chest as his expression shifted back to one of pain.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Yeah, just laughing makes me ache. I feel like I got punched in the chest by the Hulk.”

  “Well, as good as,” I said with a smirk before I pushed up onto my feet.

  Graham reached out and caught my hand, halting my movements. “Promise me you won’t give her the blade?”

  “I can’t do that and you know it, Graham. I almost lost you once; I’m not going to do it again.”

  “Amber, she’s too dangerous.”

  I shook my head. If he was going to be obstinate and refuse to see how remorseless his daughter was, then I was going to be just as obstinate and refuse to give into his demands. If Lily demanded the blade in exchange for Graham keeping his life, then that would be the trade.

  “I’m going to do what needs to be done, Graham, you know that. Don’t ask me to lie to you,” I said.

  He let his hand fall away from my arm and nodded. “I know you’ll do what you think is right. But my life is not worth putting something so dangerous into the hands of a lunatic….”

  I smiled and shook my head. “You still don’t get it. I need you, Jessica needs you … there is far too much work to do, and even if we lose this battle against Lily, she hasn’t won the war. I’d much rather have you by my side for the day we figure out a way to stop her.”

  My cellphone buzzed in my pocket, making me jump, and Graham nodded at me.

  “Go, you’ve got things to do,” he said.

  “I’ll come back. I won’t leave you stuck in here with bad television and terrible food,” I said with a grin.

  “Next time you see me, I’ll be at home,” he said, scooping up the remote control once more.

  My cellphone buzzed again. Whoever had rung had thought it important enough to leave a message.

  “Now go, before I have them kick you out of here again,” he said with a smile.

  Laughing, I headed for the door and paused with my hand on the handle. “I’m really glad you’re all right, Graham,” I said without turning to look at him.

  “Me too, Morgan, me too,” he said.

  Pulling the door open, I stepped out into the corridor and pulled my cell phone from my pocket. The missed call was from an unfamiliar number.

  “You can’t use that in here, you need to step outside,” The nurse standing at the desk said to me as I scrolled down the screen on phone. Nodding, I slipped my phone back into my pocket. Whatever it was could wait.

  Chapter 6

  Stepping out into the mid-morning sunshine, I blinked rapidly. Fluorescent lighting had never been my friend, and with the way my head was beginning to pound and my eyes water, sunlight wasn’t exactly on my side either. Slipping my phone out of my pocket, I stared down at the unfamiliar number. There weren’t many people who had my cell number, and not many who would bother to call me even if they had it.

  Curiosity got the better of me and I pressed redial. The line hummed and popped before finally ending with a beep. Staring down at the phone, I sighed. Whoever it was obviously didn’t want me to call them back. Or at least, if they did, their phone was dead.

  The voicemail message flashed on the screen and I lifted the phone to my ear. The woman’s panicked voice sent a shiver of familiar fear down my spine.

  Mia was right, I hadn’t thought she was crazy; I’d known what she was. Empaths were a rare and sought-after commodity in the preternatural world, their powers both a blessing and a curse, and I’d known which side of the fence Mia believed her power fell on. Considering what she was, she’d known who I was. Of course, if I met her now, she’d probably be more than a little surprised to find I was more than just a garden variety witch.

  She was overdramatic at the best of times, always choosing to hide away from world. It wasn’t a surprise to hear she’d found trouble at a church. Her life revolved around home and church; she’d always claimed there was nothing else for someone like her. And as far as I’d been concerned, it was nothing more than an excuse.

  Mia had never wanted her gift. She hated it, hated what it did to her, hated the insight it allowed her, and I’d never understood why. Part of me had always imagined how nifty it would be to feel what others felt. At least that way there would never be any confusion.

  “Amber!” Nic called out from the opposite side of the road. He hadn’t been overly distraught when the security guard had asked him to leave. Apparently, it hadn’t been Nic’s first trip to the hospital. The guard had babbled something about “destruction of property” and “banned for life”. It was pretty damn impressive; it had never occurred to me that you could get banned for life from a hospital, but trust Nic to be the only exception to the rule.

  Jogging across the street, I listened to Mia’s message once more. She sounded terrified, and that wasn’t her M.O. Plus, she wouldn’t have called me unless she actually needed me; we hadn’t parted on good terms and, given a choice, I knew I was the last person she would want to have come near her.

  “How is he?” Nic asked, pushing up away from his motorbike.

  “How is who?” I asked, my mind still struggling to process the information Mia had given me.

  I didn’t have her address, not anymore, but she had been kind enough to share the name of the church where something had happened. Maybe if I called there first, they could get me her address….

  There was a far easier way to do it, but it involved Dex, and I hadn’t seen him since the paramedics had carted him off in the back of an ambulance. The guilt over what had happened to him still gnawed at me and I hadn’t honestly been able to bring myself to call him up. Of course, he hadn’t called me either, not that I was keeping score.

  “Graham, your partner?” Nic said, snapping me out of my train of thought.

  “He’s doing really well, reckons he’ll be out the next time I see him,” I answered with a small smile.

  “Did Victoria call you, do you have a case?” Nic asked, curiosity intensifying his gaze.

  “Suspended, remember?” I said, shaking my head. “Just an old friend of mine, she’s in trouble….”

  “Well, I’ll come with you, be your unofficial back-up,” he said with a wink that made me squirm.

  I desperately wanted to say yes, but Mia was sensitive, and meeting strangers wasn’t top of her list for fun things to do. The chances of her even opening the door to me if I brought Nic with me were pretty slim, but then, she had called me looking for help. If she really wanted it, then she would understand.

  “I’m not sure if it’s such a great idea,” I said, hesitantly. “I’m not even sure where I’m supposed to start. I don’t have her address….”

  If he found it strange that I didn’t know the whereabouts of one of my friends, he didn’t even mention it.

  “Can’t you call Victoria and ask her to look it up?”

  It hadn’t even occurred to me that I could ask Victoria for help, but he was right. I’d been thinking of Mia as just an ordinary human, when really she was anything but. Being an empath meant she would have an entry in the Elite database. Everyone in
King City with any kind of gift had one … well, except for me, but that was only because I’d covered my tracks as carefully as possible. Of course, it hadn’t stopped everyone who’d gotten close to me from figuring out I was a witch.

  Calling Victoria’s number, I listened to the dull ring tone. On the last ring, Victoria picked up, her voice clipped and curt as though something had happened to particularly piss her off.

  “Where are you?” she said, her voice laden with irritation.

  “Well hello to you too,” I said with a sigh. Victoria might have been a changeling, but it wouldn’t kill her to learn a few basic manners.

  “I don’t have time for that, where are you?”

  I froze, remembering the black soulless depths to her eyes and the ease at which she had snapped Zeck’s neck. But she’d kept my secret, and that had to count for something, right?

  “Why, what’s wrong?” I asked, noting the change in her voice.

  I sighed again and rubbed my finger against the furrow in my brow. If I continued to frown so much, I was going to have to buy some really good wrinkle cream before I started to resemble one of those English Bulldogs.

  “I’m suspended pending investigation. I was attacked by a rogue shifter pack and…”

  Victoria cut me off: “I don’t care who you killed, we have a case and despite what Jon thinks I won’t work with anyone else. They’re mortals; I won’t risk their lives….”

  “But you’ll risk mine? I’m mortal, too, you know.”

  Victoria snorted, an unflattering sound that did nothing to endear her to me. “We both know what you are, Amber. Working with you allows me to concentrate. I’m not risking your life, and if something were to go wrong….” She trailed off, and I had the sudden urge to start researching changelings. I didn’t actually know anything about them, aside from what I’d learned when I’d seen her change into her true form. She was strong, stronger than I was, and she had enough magic to hold her glamour in place.

  “What could go wrong, Victoria?”

  “It doesn’t matter…. When can you come to the crime scene?”

  “What part of ‘I’m suspended’ didn’t you hear?”

  “I heard it, I just don’t believe in it. Jon is a small-minded fool and I have no intention in listening to him. If he thinks I’m going to hop around from partner to partner, he has another thing coming.”

  Despite knowing she couldn’t see me, I still tried to smother the smile that threatened to break across my face. There was no point in being flattered; I definitely wasn’t that. Victoria wasn’t the type to give out useless compliments and I had a feeling that the only reason she was so interested in working with me was due to our mutual concern for secret-keeping.

  “Does he know you’re planning this?” I asked.

  “I told him, if that’s what you mean. I don’t think he believed me, but I really don’t care.”

  The thought of turning down the case didn’t sit right with me, but what else was I supposed to do? I didn’t have a badge anymore, and my gun had been taken into evidence. It made things more than a little uncomfortable. And I knew what Jon would do to me once he found out I’d taken Victoria up on her offer. He was looking for a reason to get rid of me, and if I directly disobeyed orders now, he’d get his way.

  “Victoria, I….”

  “Listen, I think this one is your wheelhouse; you’re going to want to see it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I need you to meet me at the intersection of Haven and 53rd street. If after you’ve seen it, you decide not to go ahead, I won’t say anything else.”

  It sounded so reasonable, but there was something about the way she said it was in my wheelhouse that told me I wouldn’t be going home after.

  “Look, before I go racing over there, I’ve got someone I need to see and I need you to get me the address.”

  “What could be more important than solving a crime?” Victoria asked. Her needling tone suggested she honestly believed that dangling a dead body in front of me would be enough to make me want to hop to it.

  “A friend of mine is in trouble and I don’t let my friends down….” Silence greeted my words. “You still there?” I asked.

  “That’s good to know. I can get you the address and the longest I can hold the scene for is an hour. Dead bodies don’t exactly stay fresh.”

  “I’ll be as fast as I can,” I said. “Find me the address for a Mia Harris,” I said, but the line was dead. Had she even heard me?

  My answer came in the form of a beep as a text message appeared on the phone screen seconds later.

  “What’s going on?” Nic asked.

  “It seems I’ve got a case….”

  “But you’ve been suspended? And I thought we were going to see this friend of yours?”

  “Yup, but Changelings don’t hold much store in that kind of thing. Anyway, Victoria seems to think it’s something I’ll be interested in, and I’m inclined to believe her. I’ve got Mia’s address here; I’ll swing by her place first and check it out.”

  “Wait, Victoria’s a Changeling?” Nic said, his eyebrows disappearing up into his hair line.

  “Shit,” I muttered. Nic hadn’t been in the room when I’d watched her change and snap Zeck’s neck, not to mention the fact that I’d promised to keep her secret.

  “I’m guessing that was something you weren’t supposed to tell me,” Nic said, with a wide, smug grin.

  “No, I bloody well wasn’t. Christ, what’s wrong with me? I’m normally so careful. I’ve spent years keeping my own secret, and two seconds with someone else’s and I spill the beans without even a second thought.”

  “Well, I guess it goes to show you’re comfortable enough around me to forget yourself…” Nic said, swinging his leg over the bike once more.

  “That’s really not the point,” I said, frustration making me clench my hands into fists.

  “If it makes you feel any better, I won’t tell anyone,” Nic volunteered.

  “Thanks,” I said, shame sending heat flaming into my cheeks.

  “Now, where are we going again?” he asked.

  “I’m going alone, Nic….”

  He shook his head and his smile only grew wider. He looked like an idiot—a drop-dead gorgeous idiot. An image of him slamming me into the table, his hands on my body as his mouth trailed fiery kisses lower and lower, filled my head, unbidden, and the heat in my face burned hotter. The demon mark tingled as though to prove how easily it could manipulate me, and I gritted my teeth.

  “Nope, I’m going, too. You’re suspended, remember? You need all the backup you can get,” he said.

  “And you’re a civilian; when we go to the crime scene, they won’t let you anywhere near it.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. I’m a registered hunter; it means I can work on Elite cases if I’m invited on. Sorry, babe, in this case, you’re the civilian.”

  “Did you really just call me babe?” I asked, my voice as dry as tinder as I planted my hands on my hips.

  “Maybe…” he said, with a smirk, and the bike roared to life.

  “Well, don’t!” I said, folding my arms over my chest before I mentally kicked myself. There was nothing snappy about my comeback—in fact, it bordered on pathetic. All I could do was chalk it up to the morning I was having. Clearly, turning into a mass murderer dulled my sarcastic wit. The sooner I could get to the bottom of whatever was going on with the mark on my shoulder, the sooner I could get back to the relatively normal life I’d attempted to build for myself.

  Although, how would I do that after everything I’d learned? One step at a time. And unfortunately the first step involved another crime scene. It seemed that in King City, all the residents wanted to do was kill each other, and when it was preternatural, well, I could only imagine the mess I was about to walk into.

  “You going to stand there all day looking adorable?” Nic teased.

  With a sigh, I dropped my arms and grabb
ed the helmet from his hands once more. Life was certainly complicated enough without adding a sex-on-legs distraction into the mix. Although, if I was honest with myself, I was glad he was coming with me—I just couldn’t let him know that. The longer he believed I was simply suffering his presence, the better for both of us….

  Shit, I really needed to learn to lie to myself a little better.

  Chapter 7

  The street was eerily silent as Nic killed the engine on his bike. Either everyone was still in bed or … well, I wasn’t really sure what the alternative was.

  Tugging the helmet off, I shook my hair free and stared around at the empty houses. Everything looked run-down and more than a little dilapidated. Mia’s yard had a look of neglect, far more than any of the other houses in the area, and as I peered up at the front door and the windows, I swallowed back the pity that threatened to squeeze my throat shut. Every one of the windows were covered in a thick layer of newspaper and cardboard.

  I could already imagine what the inside of her house looked like.

  The last time I’d seen her, she was struggling to control her empathetic nature. Going out in public was getting harder and harder, and by the looks of the house, it had come to a climax.

  Guilt gnawed at my insides. I shouldn’t have left her alone; I should have done more to help her. Of course, wishing I could change things now wasn’t going to do her any favours. If I could help her with whatever problem she’d called me about, then maybe it would go a little of the way towards easing my own conscience.

  “What did you say your friend was?” Nic asked, his gaze taking in the abandoned street with all the training of someone who’d spent time in the military running drills in preparation for covert operations.

  “I didn’t,” I said, my attention consumed by the house in front of me.