Agent of Enchantment (Dark Fae FBI Book 1)

by C. N. Crawford

  Three feet later I smashed into something headfirst, my vision clouding.

  “Ugh,” someone moaned. “What in God’s name just hit me?”

  This was getting to be the most moronic situation I had ever been in. Slowly, I edged against the wall, shuffling back to the stairs. Pressed against the wall, I descended slowly. I brushed against only two more people on my way down, accidentally groping someone’s ass.

  Finally, I was back in the reception area. It looked eerily empty, though I could hear the frantic chatter of dozens of people.

  Leaving the relative safety of the wall, I plunged forward, my arms held in front of me, like a toddler playing Superman.

  I hit someone, then another, then another. Panicked shouts erupted around me as I got closer to the exit.

  I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my scalp.

  I heard the low voice of DCI Wood in my ear. “I’ve got you.” I felt him grab me by the hair.

  I whirled, punching at his approximate location. My fist hit something, and I heard a groan, my scalp suddenly free. I turned to bolt outside, nearly falling over someone as I plunged into a completely empty London street.

  Chapter 14

  I walked down Catherine Wheel Alley, trying to calm myself. Alvin had said that the potion would only last a short while, and I needed a plan if I was going to become visible again. I hoped he had meant half an hour, and not two weeks. In retrospect, I should have pressed him for more details about the damn thing.

  When I got to the other end of the alley, I found that people were shimmering back into view in Devonshire Square. A young man glanced at me, checking me out. The effect of the potion had faded away.

  I continued south, away from the hotel. I had no doubt the police were already there. I guess I could kiss my favorite black dress goodbye, but at least I still had my Dior red lipstick… And why was I thinking about that right now? I was a fugitive, and it hadn’t even sunk in yet.

  As I walked, I took out my phone, removed the battery, and discarded it in a nearby trashcan. Then I rifled around in my purse. I had about fifty pounds in notes. I would, under no circumstances, use my credit card in the near future, so this was the extent of my monetary resources.

  I walked onward, looking around me. After about ten minutes, I turned onto Cornhill, a narrow street between imposing stone buildings. I wasn’t far from the London Stone, I thought.

  I tried to walk as fast as I could, keeping my mind as blank as possible to avoid outright panic. I felt like I was on the brink of mental collapse, and I knew I had to get somewhere safe before that happened.

  My gaze landed on a small T-Mobile shop. Perfect.

  I pushed through the door. After a few minutes I left the shop, a prepaid phone in hand and half my pound notes left behind. Frantically, I hammered out a text to Scarlett.

  Scarlett. It’s Cass. I think I might be losing my mind.

  A moment later came her reply.

  What’s going on?

  I glanced over my shoulder before typing back to her. I’m on the run from the police.

  Her text appeared. Come on, Cass. Stop texting me and focus. Fugitives don’t have the luxury of texting. And for god’s sake, don’t tell me what you did.

  Okay, maybe she was right.

  After a while the thoughts began creeping in, despite my efforts at keeping them at bay.

  The woman in the video footage, taking the spleen… If it wasn’t me, who was it? I couldn’t have done it, clearly. I would have remembered it.

  Or would I?

  What had happened in the interrogation room? One moment I was standing there, the next I was in the public bathroom. How did that happen? I couldn’t remember going there. What if I was missing time, forgetting things?

  Could I really be certain it wasn’t me who went into the morgue? What if I had blacked out this morning as well? Perhaps I’d gone into some sort of fugue state, and stolen the spleen? Or maybe I’d developed a dissociative disorder with psychotic features? Multiple personalities, hallucinations, delusions…

  In the cold light of day, that seemed the most rational explanation. I’d been seeing visions, losing portions of my memory, acting irrationally, talking about faeries and magical serial killers. I could easily diagnose myself.

  If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s not a fucking airplane. It was time to face the truth. My father had lost his mind when I was thirteen. And it was now happening to me as well.

  In a daze, I walked through the center of the city, past the banks with their classic façades and imposing columns. Dread welled in my gut as I wandered through a maze of winding streets. I was a danger to everyone around me.

  And Roan—assuming he was real at all—had been right. I fed off fear.

  I wanted to be sick. As far as I knew, I’d already hurt someone. What had happened to the men who’d cornered me in the interrogation room? I was trained to kill, even when unarmed. I shuddered.

  My fingers shaking, I took the prepaid phone and dialed Gabriel’s number from memory.

  It took him only a second to answer.

  “Hello?” His voice sounded strained, worried.

  “Gabriel, it’s Cassandra.” My own voice was strange in my ear, half-hysterical.

  “Hey, Mom. Hang on, I can’t hear you—bad reception. Wait a minute, I’ll go outside.”

  “Gabriel, it’s okay. I want to turn myself in.”

  “What’s that? No, everything’s fine, Mom, just wait one minute.”

  My feet kept on carrying me through the city, though I didn’t know where. Somehow it felt reassuring to keep on walking.

  “Cassandra?” Gabriel whispered into the phone.

  “Gabriel, listen, I think something’s very wrong with me… I obviously have a psychotic disorder. You need to come and get me. I’ll come willingly.”

  “Okay, listen—where are you?”

  I looked up at the buildings around me, searching for the street names. “Cock Lane.” My gaze landed on a small alcove inset into the brick building by my side. Gleaming in the alcove stood a golden statue of a boy. “There’s a gold statue here. Something about Pye Corner.” I narrowed my eyes, scanning the text. “Apparently the Great Fire of London was caused by the sin of gluttony, did you know that?” Focus, Cassandra.

  “Smithfield,” he said.

  “Okay.” A tear rolled down my cheek.

  “There’s a church there, through a Tudor gate. Go inside, and I’ll find you there. Don’t let anyone see you.”

  “Okay.”

  He hung up, and I shoved the phone back in my pocket.

  In a daze, I walked past an old stone hospital that loomed over Smithfield, my gaze landing on a placard commemorating the death of William Wallace. Visitors had left wilting flowers beneath the placard. I tried not to envision how he’d died, disemboweled as a public spectacle. Clearly, ripping out organs wasn’t just for modern city folk.

  I spied the ancient Tudor gate, and hurried through it to a narrow pathway. A church of stone and brick stood at the other end of the path. To my left, a few crooked graves jutted from the raised ground that loomed high above the pathway. My trusty guide book had told me that long ago, Londoners could only be buried in the consecrated earth of churchyards, which meant the earth around the churches always stood several feet above street level, crammed with bodies.

  I pulled open the wooden door and stumbled into the vast space inside. It was breathtaking—a proper medieval masterpiece. My footsteps echoed off the high arches. Light spilled through stained glass windows onto a tiled floor, inset with stone grave markings. Rows of wooden pews lined aisles on each side of the church, and to the left, stone columns formed a transept. Beneath the majestically arched ceiling, I walked down the transept, half entranced by the wavering candlelight. In a stone alcove, I sat down on a wooden bench, my body drained of energy, and waited for the police to show up.

  I felt something to my right—a sort of
presence, that gravitational pull I’d felt with the mirrors. I turned to find a brass candlestick, my pale face reflected in its surface. As I gazed into the reflection, I felt my mind click with it, forming a sort of bond, and a cool, soothing magic that pooled in my mind. I was losing it, wasn’t I?

  In the brass candleholder, my warped reflection shimmered, showing me different rooms and people. A group of people sitting in a coffee shop, smiling at each other. An empty room, devoid of furniture, the floor dusty. A naked man lying on top of a woman, thrusting away while she stared at the ceiling in boredom. The visions kept shifting, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away, even if the hallucinations horrified me.

  I closed my eyes, trying to force myself to relax. I can get control of this. Slowing my breathing, I imagined myself with Scarlett, lying on the beach in Florida, reading magazines and sipping margaritas, the waves lapping gently at the shore. We wore pink bikinis and oversized sunglasses, our toenails painted vibrant shades of blue and orange. When I opened my eyes again, I gaped at the candleholder. There we were: Scarlett and I, reflected in the brass, wearing pink bikinis. Had I just created this vision? It wasn’t a memory. It clearly wasn’t happening now, so… I’d just created it with my mind.

  Maybe this had happened to my father as well. Was this what had driven him to kill, and then end his own life in such a horrific fashion?

  My mind slid away from the thought and onto other questions. Had I sent a letter, or was it the killer? I couldn’t rule out the possibility that a killer planned to murder again tonight.

  As I mulled it over, the image on the candleholder flickered again, showing a woman walking down the street, concentrating on her cellphone. Shrouded in shadows, a man’s silhouette loomed behind her, as large as Roan. As I gaped at the scene, he grabbed her, muffling her screams with one hand. With the other, he poured a large bottle of liquid all over her as she squirmed, trying to get away from his grip. He then tossed the bottle aside, and pulled a small square object from his clothes. It glinted in the streetlight. A pale blue lighter. He sparked it and held it against the girl, letting go of her mouth. Her body blazed, her mouth open in a scream of torment, her eyes wide, skin blistering as her beautiful hair went ablaze. I whimpered, unable to shut my eyes against the vision as she ran into the street, a human torch in the dark night… And when he’d finished his gruesome task, he left a note next to a stone placard covered in heraldic shields.

  My heart hammered against my ribs. That hadn’t been an image I’d created with my mind. So where had it come from?

  * * *

  A pair of strong hands grabbed my shoulders, and Gabriel’s warm eyes looked into mine. I had to resist the urge to hug him.

  “Cassandra, are you okay?” He was kneeling in front of me, his face etched in concern.

  “You can take me now, I won’t resist,” I mumbled. “I’ve diagnosed myself with a dissociative disorder with psychotic features. Hallucinations, delusions. I need Risperdal and some serious psychotherapy.”

  Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “Cassandra. Psychotic people don’t diagnose themselves, because they believe their delusions.”

  Sadness welled in my chest. “You need to take me in. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

  “Hurt anyone—who did you hurt?”

  “Those constables. The ones who tried to arrest me in the police station.”

  “Cassandra, no one was hurt in the police station except for Weston, the man you Tasered. And frankly, that knob-end deserved it. I’d like to Taser him for the way he beats the shit out of every black guy he arrests.”

  I blinked in surprise. “I don’t understand. How did I get away from those men in the interrogation room? Did they just let me go?”

  He cleared his throat, brow furrowing. “Well… according to them, you fell through the mirror.”

  My jaw fell open. I stared at him. “I… what?”

  “They claim you just moved into the mirror and vanished. DCI Wood is furious. He says they were all either stoned or drunk, and after a Valentine’s Day incident with some of our force… Anyway, another dispatcher claims you literally disappeared from the loo.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “She says you were there one moment, and the next you were gone. Most of the force think they’ve lost their minds, though Captain Higgott claims a phantom grabbed his arse, which he frankly seemed quite chuffed about.”

  Stunned, I muttered. “I couldn’t see where anyone was. It was an accident.”

  “Cassandra… how did you do all that?”

  “Hang on, I need to think.” I tightened my fingers in my lap.

  Witnesses had seen me go through the mirror. Assuming that this was somehow possible, it explained why I didn’t remember getting from the interrogation room to the bathroom—because it happened instantly. Combined with the invisibility potion, I was beginning to understand that magic really did exist. And if I was going to move ahead with the investigation, I needed to stop doubting it.

  Maybe I was sane after all.

  I mentally ran through all the visions I’d seen in reflective surfaces. Looking at Roan through the bathroom mirror in my hotel room. The things I saw just now, on the candleholder. What was this ability, and why did I have it?

  It had begun the first night in London. I’d seen something in the mirror in my room. After that, it had happened again, several times. Somehow, I could see through mirrors to an entirely different place. And apparently, I could pass through mirrors as well. It had all started immediately after the attack in the alley, after meeting Roan for the first time. What had triggered it? I recalled the kick to my head—how, for a moment, everything had faded away. Was that what started it? Or was it something Roan had done?

  “I think…” I swallowed hard. “That I have some magical abilities. I don’t know how, but I can use reflections somehow. To see things, to create images. Maybe to move through them. It’s happened to me several times in the past few days.”

  Gabriel blinked. “Explain.”

  “I don’t understand it exactly. But maybe… maybe I can make it happen. See this candleholder? I saw things on its surface before. I could look into other places through the reflection.”

  “I find this difficult to…” Gabriel frowned, taking a seat on the bench next to me. “If I hadn’t heard those men describe how you got away…”

  “I know,” I said. “It sounds crazy. But maybe I can do it now. Maybe I can show you. Hang on.”

  I focused on the candleholder, clearing my mind. I concentrated, willing it to show me a different place. To open up.

  Instead, it reflected my face back at me, scrunched up like an angry mouse.

  “Are you okay?” Gabriel peered over my shoulder. “You look like you’re having a stroke.”

  “Shhh.” I took deep breaths, feeling for the reflection within the candleholder. Searching for what lay beyond it. Imagining a flow between me and the reflection, I willed energy from my body into the brass.

  The Cassandra staring at me from the surface looked like she had a bug on the tip of her nose.

  “I can’t now.” I sighed. “I don’t know why.”

  “Okay.” He looked unsure, but he added. “You can try again later.”

  His patience was saint-like, and I had another urge to hug him.

  “Listen, forget about that. I didn’t break into the morgue this morning. But I know who wanted to. Roan. It must have been him.”

  Gabriel cocked his head. “And he looks exactly like you?”

  “Look, he can do weird things, okay? When I first met him in the alley…” My words trailed off. Right, that was the part I wasn’t supposed to tell Gabriel about. The part about wanting to kiss Roan.

  “When you first met him, what?”

  “Oh, nothing,” I felt my face flush. “He just… has these strange powers, okay? Like I said. I’ve seen horns on his head, and his eyes change color.”

  Thinking about Roan made me realize something else: m
y visitor’s badge. He must have lifted it off me by the elevator, when his hands seemed to be roaming over my body. I hadn’t even noticed.

  Gabriel’s eyebrows drew together. “But how did you get out of the interrogation room?”

  “Gabriel, I don’t have all the answers yet, but I’m working on it. I—” A wave of panic struck me. “The police! Did you—”

  “I told no one about your call. Don’t worry. I believe you.”

  I loosed a sigh. “Okay. I think I need to find Roan.” I swallowed hard, my stomach lurching. “Before you got here, I saw a vision in the reflection. A murder.” I swallowed hard. “And I think it was our killer. He left a note, something about the King of Hearts again. But it doesn’t fit with the past MOs. He was burning a woman alive.” I bit my lip. “Did anyone set a young girl on fire around here in the past few years? She had blonde hair, wore a red dress, and she was texting on her mobile phone when it happened.”

  “I don’t recall such a case. Are you sure it was here?”

  “It looked like London—a stone building. Actually, it looked a lot like that old hospital, just outside here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I think so. I’m pretty sure the killer stuck a note on that placard with the Scottish flags.”

  He scratched his forehead. “Smithfield is where they burned heretics, once upon a time. Tied them to stakes, and lit them up like torches.”

  “But this wasn’t a long time ago. She had a cell phone.”

  “I know. Look, did you happen to see what the killer looked like in the vision?”

  I shook my head. “It was dark, and he came from the shadows. I could only tell that he was big, and he moved very quickly. He was as big as…” I swallowed hard. “As big as Roan. Do you think it could be a vision of the future? Of Roan killing again? The crime we’re expecting tonight? It doesn’t fit the other crimes. They were all eviscerations.”

  “Maybe they have one thing in common.”

  “What?”

  “You thought the killer was trying to cause panic, right?” he asked. “The nursery rhyme, the notes, the heart sent to us. Designed to terrify. And so were the public burnings. Terrify the heretics into submission. The executions of traitors, too. Rip them apart in public, and keep the people in line.”