Spirit Animals

by E. E. Richardson

  She shoved at the metal gate again, more urgently now, but it wasn’t budging. Think. Her phone. Violet had thrown it, it had sounded like the screen had shattered, but maybe... She got down on the ground to scrabble through the straw, trying to guess where it had fallen from the sound. There was barely enough light to make out more than the vaguest outlines of the space. If only the bloody torch hadn’t broken too...

  Wait. She still had her penlight. Cursing herself for an idiot, aware of the useless panic hammering away in her chest, Pierce scrabbled in her pockets for her keys. She was so frantic to activate the penlight that she flicked it on and off again before she got a steady light.

  Its feeble beam could barely map the confines of her cage, but it showed enough for her to spot her phone down in the corner. As she lifted it she heard the disheartening rattle of something loose inside, but she tried to switch it on all the same, lifting it to her ear despite the blank, broken screen.

  Dead. Goddammit.

  Dropping the now-useless phone, she turned the penlight upwards, remembering how Violet had jumped down on her from above. There was a trapdoor up in the floor of the hayloft, presumably intended for dropping feed down to the animals below, but it would be well out of her reach even if she tried to climb up the inside of the cage door.

  She was completely trapped.

  In lieu of any smarter escape plan, Pierce went back to slamming her weight against the door of the makeshift cage, bracing herself against the wall and kicking out at it in an effort to jar the lock open. She suspected she was onto a losing game, up against a structure made to contain livestock that could kick a lot harder than her, but she had to try.

  Amid the juddering rattles of the metal framework, she almost missed the sound of Violet’s return. The sudden influx of weak daylight drew her attention back to the barn’s outer door; she grabbed the bars of the door to still the reverberations and clicked off the penlight.

  She could see that Violet had something slung over her shoulders, a bulky burden that she carried as if it weighed nothing; Pierce’s heart jolted as she recognised the unconscious form of Christopher Tomb hefted in a fireman’s carry. At least, she could only hope he was unconscious. There was no way to be sure of his condition in the dark, but he’d yet to make a sound, and though she strained her eyes, she couldn’t see any evidence of movement.

  She thought that Violet would bring him over to another of the cells, but instead she unceremoniously dumped him on the floor a few steps in and went off to rummage for something in the shadows, obviously not worried he was going get up and run. When she returned to the light, Pierce saw that she was carrying a coil of rope. Her heart lurched. While rope at least implied a live prisoner, opting for it over the easier choice of the barred cells suggested she had specific plans for him.

  Her mind flashed back to the stone slab with its metal rings, and she started to yell.

  “Hey!” she shouted, slamming the cell door again, as Violet began to drag Tomb across the barn floor like a sack of potatoes. “Don’t make this worse for yourself. Let him go! The police are coming!”

  Futile words, she knew even as she yelled them, but she kept on shouting anyway, because it was better than just sitting silently by. Pierce could see little of Violet’s movements in the shadows, but she heard the clink of the heavy metal rings, what might have been the drag of rope being tightened through them.

  What she didn’t hear was any outcry or sound of a struggle from Tomb. Was he even still alive? If she was right about what Violet had in store for him, he might be better off to have quietly died when she’d knocked him out—but Pierce doubted Violet would have been so careless enough to render him useless to her.

  After all, corpses didn’t bleed.

  Pierce wasn’t sure how well Christopher Tomb would fit the requirements of the ritual—the previous victims had been younger, fitter—but perhaps the ritual would work just as well with any blood sacrifice... or perhaps Violet was hedging her bets and hoping that two older, less healthy victims could make an adequate substitute for one young one. Pierce had to have been left alive for a reason, and it couldn’t be anything good. More than likely the only reason she hadn’t been first on the chopping block was that Violet had needed to pen one of them up before she could go for the other, and Tomb had a dozen years more life expectancy in him than Pierce did.

  Years that Violet meant to take for herself.

  Still ignoring Pierce’s banging and shouting, she went about the business of stripping Tomb out of his clothes and lashing him down to the rings with practised speed. Then she rose and headed back out of the barn door. Pierce immediately drew the penlight again and shone it through the bars, trying to get a decent look at Tomb.

  “Mr Tomb!” she called urgently. “Christopher. Chris. Can you hear me?” She wasn’t sure waking him up for what came next would be a kindness, but she needed to know if he was going to be capable of getting up and moving.

  Never mind that she was skipping a couple of vital steps in her plan.

  Unfortunately, it was clear that Tomb wasn’t just playing possum. Her shouts failed to raise him, and when she scrabbled around in the straw until she found a suitable pebble to try to throw through the bars, it brought no visible response. She was on her own.

  Where the hell was that backup Deepan had promised her?

  As if summoned by her thoughts, she heard the crunch of wheels on gravel outside—but there was no accompanying engine noise to match it. Violet was moving her car, Pierce realised after a moment, strong enough to simply push the thing along even without having the keys to it. A few seconds later there was a rusty creak and a clang that she could only assume was the doors of the second shed swinging shut to conceal the vehicle and any damage Violet might have done to it.

  Shit. She was in trouble here. Pierce turned her attention to the barred gate imprisoning her, trying to find some way to squeeze her hand through. The grid was made up of small squares, big enough to take a few fingers but not her thumb with them no matter which way she tried to angle her hand, and the latch that held it locked was impossible to reach from the inside. Still, she wasn’t dealing with the kind of heavy duty metal bars you’d get on a cell window; more of an extra-sturdy mesh. Maybe she’d be able to bend the bars, or somehow file away at the rusty metal...

  It wasn’t much of a hope, but it was something to focus her efforts on rather than just sitting and waiting for the horror to come.

  She clicked the penlight back off as Violet returned, not wanting to give away that she still had it, as useless as it probably was. The slam of the metal door plunged the barn back into almost total darkness, deeper still in Pierce’s cell with the shadow of the hayloft overhead. Well, good: maybe that meant her efforts at escape would go unnoticed. It felt like an almost childish level of wishful thinking, but she had to believe that she was doing something, or else she was probably going to lose it entirely.

  She didn’t try to draw Violet’s attention again, and in return was equally ignored despite the small noises as she tested each of the rods that kept her caged in turn, feeling for a loose bar or one that was already bowed out of position. But if Violet didn’t care what she was doing, it was hard to keep up the same indifference to the footsteps, clinks and faint scuffing sounds that spoke of preparations underway. Pierce’s shoulders were tensed at every moment for Tomb to wake up and start panicking when he realised his predicament; for Violet to begin the ritual bloodletting in earnest.

  Where the hell was that backup?

  The sounds of the storm were increasing outside, the rain a torrential downpour hitting the roof like a shower spray, the wind howling around it. Maybe she should wish for the storm to rip the roof clean off and collapse the place: it seemed no less plausible a plan than her current futile efforts at escape. The cold was starting to numb her fingers as she pushed and pulled at the metal bars, searching in vain for a weak spot; she cursed as flakes of rust broke loose, jabbing her fingertip
s.

  At first she thought the flicker of light at the corner of her eye was lightning; then she realised Violet had struck a match. By its tiny glow Pierce could see that she’d set out candles around the concrete slab that Tomb was tied to, and her stomach rolled. Lighting candles was usually one of the very last stages in ritual preparations, because of the risk of the flame going out at the wrong moment.

  Violet’s preparations were as good as done. She was ready to make her sacrifice.

  Pierce realised that Violet was singing as she lit the candles, the words indistinct amid the backdrop of the storm but the tone incongruously clear and sweet. She lit the candles she’d laid out one by one, every new flame bringing a greater, unwelcome clarity to the scene. Now Pierce could see Tomb clearly for the first time, his head slumped sideways where he lay lashed down. His face looked pale even in the warm hue of the candlelight, and there was a trickle of blood at his temple.

  There’d be plenty more of it soon.

  And then Violet’s singing abruptly stopped. Her head snapped up and she twisted towards the door, as if she’d heard something despite the storm outside.

  A moment later, Pierce could hear it too: the grumble of a car’s engine, pulling up right outside the barn door. The backup from the local police that Deepan had called out for her. Would they notice something was amiss? Would they even investigate, seeing her car gone, or just assume that her directions had been wrong and move on in search of some other farm? Pierce froze, uncertain whether to bang and shout now, or hold off until they came closer and were more likely to hear.

  Violet held equally still, both of them waiting for what would come next. It seemed to take forever for any further sound of movement. Pierce could easily imagine the debate going on in the police car as it sat parked outside. Doesn’t look like there’s anyone here... sure this is the place? Well, it’s what they said, mate... Probably gave us the wrong directions, bloody RCU... It’s pissing down out there, is it really worth going over there...?

  The sharp rap on the metal door of the barn made her jump. Violet sprang to her feet immediately, headed not for the door they’d knocked at but the wooden one that Pierce had broken in through. Pierce’s heart lurched. Did she plan to ambush the police? She was easily fast and strong enough to take down two unprepared officers. But they’d have radios with them, and even if they didn’t get a chance to use them, they’d still be missed a lot quicker than Pierce.

  Which was small consolation against the prospect of yet more lives lost, and rescue being delayed for that much longer. The second that Violet was out of the barn, Pierce began to bang on the cell door and shout. “Hey! Hey! RCU! Murder suspect is coming towards you, look out!” She was on the far side of the barn from the police car, and with the lashing of the storm outside, she wasn’t sure that they would hear a thing. “Hey! In here!” She rattled the bars of her makeshift cage.

  If there was any urgent response outside to her yelling, she couldn’t hear it—and if she couldn’t hear them, they probably couldn’t hear her. Pierce fell silent for a moment, trying to listen, but all she could make out were the sounds of the raging weather.

  What was happening out there? Had Violet already killed whoever was outside? Or had she guided them away from the building and the chance of hearing anything, playing the innocent as she did so well? Playing it off as a false alarm, perhaps even claiming that she was the RCU officer who’d put in the call for backup.

  How thorough and suspicious would the local police really bother to be, when they were probably already annoyed to be pulled off their beat for some vague request for help from the RCU, probably all too eager to get back in their nice warm police car and get out of this ugly weather?

  Pierce renewed her shouting and thumping, though her hands were beginning to sting from the impact... but all too soon, she heard the faint sound of the police car pulling away. They were leaving. Violet had managed to convince them it had been a false alarm, or that they had the wrong address.

  As the barn door creaked back open, the dull chill of despair settled over her like a suffocating weight. The local police would report back that the call for backup had been premature, that there was nothing to see at the barn and RCU were probably on their way back to Yorkshire empty-handed. Nobody would miss her now—not until maybe the third or fourth time someone on her team tried to check in and got no response, until a few more hours went by with no contact.

  Until it was far too late.

  Pierce watched numbly as Violet returned to the stone sacrificial altar and pinched out those candles that were still burning. The interruption clearly hadn’t cost her too much delay; she simply began the sequence again, taking up her rising and falling song from before. A pattern of thirteen candles; as she lit the last, the quality of the light abruptly changed, flames rising and thinning and beginning to shine with a purple-blue light that cast long, strange-hued shadows on the walls. They lit Tomb’s laid-out body and slack face, too, a harsh and unforgiving light that reminded her of the autopsy room.

  Entirely too fitting for comfort. As Violet drew a narrow blade and passed it ceremoniously through each of the candle flames, Pierce silently prayed for Tomb to stay unconscious, that he was down too deep to have any awareness of what was about to come.

  But once Violet raised the blade and the cutting began, it didn’t take long for him to start screaming.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “HEY! GET AWAY from him! Stop! Hey!” Pierce lost track of how long she’d been yelling, throwing herself at the barred gate of the pen with all the senseless violence of the animals that it had been made to contain. Long enough for her throat to be ripped raw and her body to feel like it was stamped with grid-patterned bruises.

  It didn’t make the slightest impact on the woman committing ritualised murder right before her eyes—and nor did it block out Tomb’s agonised cries. Violet paused after every slash of the knife to murmur more ritual words, drawing the bloodletting out with hideous slowness, and Pierce could see how Tomb cringed in anticipation, helpless to escape from the bonds that kept him lashed down to the altar.

  It was going to take him a very long time to die.

  It felt like it had been an eternity already. Pierce slammed against the door of her prison yet again, hoping Tomb might at least be aware that she was there—not that it was likely to be any comfort in his current world of pain. Tears stung her eyes, as much from angry helplessness as pain and distress. It was supposed to be her job to protect the public from this kind of horror, and instead she was trapped here, forced to watch it happen, because she couldn’t get out of this fucking cage. She tried to jam her fingers through the gaps between the bars again, knowing that it was useless but refusing to just give up and watch this obscenity unfold. She had to keep on trying.

  And then she heard it: another car engine approaching.

  It could have been just her imagination, a hallucination born of desperate wishful thinking. Violet didn’t seem to hear anything, but she was deeply wrapped up in the ritual, features rendered skull-like by the unnatural light that seemed to shine, as much from the offering-bowl of blood as from the purple-blue candles.

  Another faint noise from outside—just the wind, or could it be a car door slamming?

  Pierce realised she’d stopped her own thumping and hammering to listen, and started again quickly, fearful the sudden lack of noise might draw Violet’s attention where nothing else she’d tried had done the same. She found a renewed volume from her parched, ragged throat as she began to yell again.

  “Hey! You think you’re going to get away with this? The police are going to be coming in armed!” she shouted. “You may have strength and speed on your side, but there’s only one of you. Let him go before he bleeds to death! Let me out of this cage!”

  She yelled out every useful bit of tactical information that she could, not knowing for sure that there was even anyone out there, or that they could hear anything she said—but grip
ped by a near-paralysing sense of hope. Maybe the local patrol hadn’t been fooled, maybe Deepan had raised the alarm over her failure to check-in, maybe someone had seen Violet attack Tomb and hide the car...

  If this turned out to be a false alarm, then it might just be it: the moment she gave in to the howling panic that lay beneath the thin veneer of anger.

  Please, Pierce thought, almost prayed—but only inside her head, just in case Violet was listening after all. Somebody be out there...

  “Let him go!” she shouted out loud. “He can’t afford to lose much more blood!” She wanted to yell out the full details of their positions, but she couldn’t think of any way to get the facts across that wouldn’t alert Violet to what she was doing. “Put the knife down!” she cried instead. “Step away from the altar!”

  Maybe she was just shouting to the wind.

  Her voice was cracking, losing strength from all her futile yelling, but she did her best to keep on making noise, as much to provide cover for anyone outside as in hopes of getting their attention. Tomb’s screams had died down now to a pained gasping, and she didn’t know how much longer he had.

  She pressed up close against the barred door of her makeshift cage as she slammed and rattled it, trying to see the wooden door she’d come in through. If the police were coming in, that would be their point of entry. The way the altar was positioned left Violet facing that end of the barn, but Pierce had no effective method of drawing her attention away, and no way to warn whoever might be coming in.

  If anyone was coming in...

  With every second, the initial rush of hope was seeping away. Maybe it had been just the wind, her imagination clutching at straws to distract her from the horror. In the brief lull in her shouting, she heard Tomb let out a stomach-churning whimper, lacking the strength now to scream as he’d done in the beginning, but still stubbornly, horribly failing to sink into the mercy of unconsciousness.