Touch of Shadow (The Shadow Sorceress Book 5)

by Bilinda Sheehan

  But I'd had a taste of Marcel's power and there was no way he wasn't one of the Bokor. Graham had decided that, because it was Voodoo, someone like Marcel Deco should be called in. According to Graham, Marcel's reputation preceded him and he was an expert. The magic he had performed had certainly been expert-level, but that didn't mean he was the type of expert we needed working on the case.

  "Amber, the man lectures up and down the country on this type of thing; he's worked dozens of cases with the Elite and the cops before and things just like this. He's a good guy. I wouldn't have called him in if I didn't think so."

  "Graham, you didn't feel his power just now.... Power like that doesn't usually scream ‘good guys’," I said.

  "Power like yours, you mean," Graham said, his words hitting below the belt and a little too close to the truth for my own comfort. "Amber, just give him a chance. See what it's like to investigate with him. If it doesn't work out, I'll get rid of him.” While it was nice of him to offer, I knew that wasn't what he really meant.

  Graham would move me off the case before he'd move Marcel off it, especially if Marcel truly was the expert Graham, and everybody else he'd listed out, seemed to think he was. Deep down, I knew it was just part of Graham's practicality and his impeccable instincts as an investigator, but it still didn't mean I had to like it.

  "I'll give him a chance," I said. "Now, I need to go in and do my part of the job." I tried to keep the bitterness in my voice to a minimum, but from the beginning of the sigh I'd heard Graham release, I was pretty sure I'd failed in that endeavour.

  I hung up the phone without waiting for Graham to get another warning out. And anyway, I didn't want to hear any more justifications about how and why I should trust this Marcel guy, this stranger.

  I'd been wary of Victoria from the first moment I’d met her, and while my wariness had been unfounded—well, sort of unfounded, anyway—I couldn't exactly call her a friend, but she certainly wasn't an enemy. I had been right in thinking she wasn't human. Finding out she was a changeling, seeing her in her true form, had certainly been an eye-opening experience. I could only hope I wasn't in for the same kind of surprise with Marcel.

  "We ready to go in now?" Victoria asked, waiting as patiently as only she could on the front steps of the porch.

  "Yeah," I said, stuffing my phone back into my jeans.

  Turning to face the house, I stared up at it. The base boards were white, the paint flecked and peeling in the afternoon heat, and the brick was a deep red that shimmered everywhere the sunlight hit it, reminding me of some of the houses back in Ireland.

  Victoria disappeared into the house and I followed her, quickly climbing the front steps once more. I half expected to find myself choked and suffocated again, but this time, it went without incident.

  The second my fingers wrapped around the front door’s knob, I felt a jolt of electricity. I jerked my hand back, but the sensation continued to sting against my skin and I couldn't help but wonder if it was part of the power Marcel had used, left over from his time in the house. It certainly had the same taste to it that his had had; the metallic tang coated my tongue.

  Tentatively, I reached out to touch the door once more. This time, nothing happened, allowing me to pull it open. Stepping into the entry hall, I let my eyes adjust to the gloom. But it wasn't the lighting in the house that bothered me most—it was the smell that hit me like a punch to the face. There was one thing for certain: it was not the kind of smell you expected at a fresh crime scene.

  "Victoria?" I called out into the darkness. It seemed the drapes were the heavy-duty blackout variety and not one ounce of light penetrated through them, giving the house an almost murky vibe. The smell really didn't help.

  "Yeah," she said, poking her head out from what I assumed was the sitting room door. I didn't bother answering her, simply crossing the hall and entering the room after her.

  The smell in here was worse, a combination of wet earth and putrefaction, and it instantly halted me in my tracks, causing me to study the room a little more closely.

  "What else died in here?" I asked, pulling a mask from my pocket and sliding it over my face. Not that the mask did much to keep the smell out. This was the type of scent that pervaded everything, seeping into the pores and hair; there wasn't enough shower gel on Earth to get it out once you were coated in it.

  "Nothing, as far as I can tell, anyway," Victoria said, leaning over the remains. How she could stand there and not be bothered by the stench, well, it had to be another changeling thing.

  I pulled a pair of latex gloves from my back pocket and slipped them onto my hands before moving further into the room. I didn't want to contaminate any of the evidence. Despite the crime scene guys already having come through here, I still didn't want to take the risk of cross-contamination by screwing up some sort of preternatural clue.

  "The marks are...." Victoria started to speak and then trailed off. I kept moving across the room until I reached her side. Pausing, I stared down at the body—what was left of it, anyway.

  "I thought they said she died last night?" I asked, noting the gouge marks across the front of the body's chest. The skin was ripped—torn, even—and I had no doubt that it had been done by some sort of creature. Animal maybe, or more likely, considering the scene, a rogue shifter. But until I had walked the scene, I couldn't say what it was with any kind of certainty.

  "They did. The neighbours heard some sort of commotion and called the police. While on the phone to the operator, they said they heard screaming and then silence. In the days leading up to it, Tess has been seen coming and going from this house as usual. According to the eye witness account, she entered the property last night at around 9 PM and nobody noticed anything after that, or at least not until they heard the screaming," Victoria said.

  There was something odd about the marks on Tess's body and it wasn't just the fact that they had obviously been created by some sort of creature.

  "Where's the blood?" I asked, crouching down next to the remains. The smell was worse here; it seemed the closer I got to her the more fetid the air became. And the mask wasn't doing anything to help, and making me feel more claustrophobic than usual.

  "That's the weird part," Victoria said, prodding at the edges of the wounds across Tess's chest, causing the thick, black, congealed blood to ooze up at the sides.

  "Wait a minute. There is no way she died last night. Not with her body in that state. She looks like someone who’s started to rot a few days, maybe even weeks or months, prior. And while the temperature isn't that high in here," I said—the feel of the air conditioning blowing across the back of my neck attested to that fact, "I'm pretty certain that bodies don't rot as quickly as Tess's has in the few hours it took us to get the case and come out here."

  "It's definitely weird," Victoria said, before pointing up at the ceiling over Tessa's body. I glanced up at the markings, the ones I'd heard so much about from Graham when I rang him to confirm Marcel's story, and there was no doubting that they were definitely unusual.

  "Is that…?" I asked, and Victoria nodded in response, making me wonder if she could sometimes read my mind.

  Climbing slowly to her feet, she craned her neck back so she could see the markings more clearly. "Looks like some kind of Voodoo to me," she said. "Although I don't actually recognise the markings.... But then, Voodoo never was my thing."

  "No, but then that's why we've got Marcel to help us," I said, not bothering to hide the bitterness from my tone this time. Victoria probably already knew how I felt about our new friend, and there was no denying the hostility that rolled off me in waves. As a preternatural, picking up on my emotions would be a piece of cake for Victoria.

  She laughed, a short barking sound that echoed oddly in the room.

  "You hear that?" I asked. Straightening up alongside her, I peered around the room with renewed interest in the surroundings. There shouldn't have been an echo in the room, especially considering the size and the heavy
curtains covering the walls and the number of soft furnishings. Clearly, there was more going on than initially met the eye, but what that was? Anyone's guess was as good as mine.

  But there was something I could do to change it. I shuddered at the thought of walking the scene—I hadn't tried to since my last case, and I could already feel the traumatic energy beating against my skin.

  There was definitely more going on here beneath the surface; it wasn't just a straight up preternatural kill. Between the weird rotting of the corpse, the fact that Tess Greenville's ghost had been haunting me for the past two months, the odd echoing in the room, and, of course, the weird Voodoo markings on the ceiling, there wasn't a good vibe in the space. And when I added all of that to the fact that the traumatic energy seemed to be connected to more than whatever had occurred in the early hours of the morning, I was pretty convinced that Tess Greenville had been dead longer than the police actually believed.

  "You need anything?" Victoria asked as though she had read my mind.

  "Nope," I said, closing my eyes slowly, drawing a deep breath in, and clearing my mind as I allowed the power to well up within me.

  Since my time in Ireland, or at least my time in the Faerie realm, my power came more quickly to my hand. It wasn't that I had more of it—it just seemed easier to find, and whether that was because I had spent time with my mother and she had unblocked part of me, I couldn't be sure without asking her. Her death made it more than a little difficult.

  Lily, of course, had done the big job of unblocking my memories, but it had still been my mother's spell and I couldn't help but wonder if spending time with her, hearing the truth from her lips about my past and my father's role in it all, had allowed the remnants—or, as it had felt, the cobwebs—of her magic to finally be cleared from my mind.

  My power spread from my core, its warmth spreading up into my chest, neck, and face until I could see tiny blue flashes behind my eyelids. I knew the light wasn't coming from the room itself; instead, it was coming from within me. The second I felt it on the verge of spilling over and out of my control, I released my grip on it, and it flowed outwards. My magic poured into the void that was the crime scene and the empty feeling that swirled in my gut jolted me back to the present.

  "What is it?" Victoria asked. Staring at me intently, her eyes had flashed to black, the eyes of a changeling, and my stomach churned nervously. Seeing her flick like that wasn't something I would ever get used to.

  Whatever was going on in the room—the empty void that sought to consume my power without end—Victoria had obviously felt it, too. That thought alone was enough to make me even more uneasy.

  "Someone is screwing with us," I said, "and I have a feeling I know exactly who it is."

  "There's no scene to walk, is there?" Victoria asked, her eyes slowly bleeding back to a more human colour as she stared around the room in confusion.

  "No. Whatever happened here, it was washed clean."

  And it had been washed clean. The entire room, now that I'd opened myself up to it, had all the hallmarks of metaphysical bleach. The brick wall I'd hit hadn't been because of any sort of protection placed over the scene. It had simply been because there was nothing for me to feel, and definitely nothing for me to walk.

  The traumatic energy still beat against my skin, but now that I'd dropped my warding, I could feel it for what it truly was: an echo and nothing more. And definitely not enough for me to get a read on what had happened.

  For the first time since I'd started working for the Elite, I was completely helpless and utterly blind. The Elite relied on the ability to walk a scene, to get a taste for the kind of nasty we were facing; without it, we were little more than sitting ducks. Walking into the wrong situation without the right kind of protection meant we could lose more than just our lives. If it was demonic, it would rip your soul from your body just as quickly as it would remove your head.

  We were as blind as the cops who dealt with the human cases. I didn't like it, but I knew who to blame.

  "We need to find Marcel," I said. "He said we'd want to talk to him, and I have a feeling he knew what would happen as soon as we walked in here."

  "You think he did this?" Victoria asked.

  I shrugged and said, "Your guess is as good as mine, but he was here first, and he walked the scene. It was his magic that practically choked me out on the street there and he practices Voodoo, so whatever is going on here, he knows all about it. Plus, if he was capable of walking the scene when I wasn't, then I wouldn't like to bet that he didn't clean this place magically so we would have no choice but to use him."

  Victoria's eyes glimmered in the half-light, the darkness from within her momentarily swelling to the surface as she smiled. It wasn't a pleasant smile and, under normal circumstances, it would have filled me with dread. But in this instance, I knew it wasn't aimed at me and I was only too happy to oblige in leading her to the one that it was aimed at. We'd soon see how brave Marcel was facing a changeling, and a seriously pissed off changeling at that.

  I smiled back at Victoria. Marcel wouldn't know what hit him.

  3

  "We're going to track him how?" Victoria said.

  I nodded. It wasn't the usual kind of thing, but I had tasted Marcel's magic and I knew I could track him. Part of me couldn't help but wonder if he knew that, too. If that were true, then how much did he know about me? Did he know what I was? Did he know I was a shadow sorceress? If he knew my secret, then he was even more dangerous than I'd first believed; the last thing I needed was to be exposed by a Bokor.

  "Yeah, I'll track him him. I've tasted his magic," I said.

  "You've what?" Victoria asked, staring at me incredulously, as though she couldn't believe what I'd just told her. "You've ‘tasted his magic’? How did you do that? From where I was standing, you could barely stand to be on the same side of the police tape as him when he was working his magic. And that was with him inside the house, thick brick walls between you and him ... but you're telling me that, despite all of that, somehow, from a distance, you tasted his magic."

  For someone who was innately magic, not just a fae but a changeling, Victoria didn't have appear to have a strong grasp on what magic was and how different people experienced it.

  As a shadow sorceress, I'd been exposed to lots of different types of magic, lots of different styles, and certainly lots of different flavours. For me, Marcel's magic really was something I could taste on my tongue. Lily's magic, on the other hand, was something I could see in the form of colour. It made the air heavy, and made my bones ache because it came from a place as old as time itself.

  Marcel's power wasn't like that; it was old, but not in the same way. So, instead, Marcel's magic had the metallic tang of blood sacrifice and the spicy sweetness from climates hotter than I'd ever visited.

  It gave his magic a sensuality I'd never felt before. If I was honest, his magic tasted like a dance with death itself—as though, with one false move, you would fall before him, never to rise again. That alone intrigued me. It frightened me, too, but I'd never found much use for the emotion of fear in this kind of situation, and especially when it came to trying to understand who and what I was being forced to work with.

  "His magic … it's Voodoo, Victoria. It's different to the type of magic than the kind I wield, different from the magic you have, and as such, appears in a different way."

  Victoria cocked her head to the side and stared at me with curiosity. "How does my magic taste?" she asked.

  I laughed, the sound echoing oddly in the room surrounding us, reminding me of what had happened here, or of all the things I didn't know had happened here. But not knowing hadn't stopped it from leaving me with a feeling of unease.

  Walking a scene wasn't easy. Seeing the victims last terrified moments, knowing their thoughts, their sorrows, their regrets—it was hard.

  But not being able to walk a scene was much worse. At least when I experienced what the victim had, I could help them.
I could bring their killer to justice, bring the victim some peace in wherever it was that they went to after this life. This way, I was stumbling blind in the dark, and I didn't like it one bit.

  "Your magic doesn't have a taste," I said, "it's just...." I struggled to find the words to describe Victoria's power and failed. "It's just there all the time. Everything about you is magic. You don't have a power that comes from within like I do—the magic simply is you and that expresses itself differently. If I wanted to taste your magic, I'd probably have to bite you," I added with a smirk.

  Victoria's expression soured and she shook her head sharply. "I'd like to see you try," she said, and I laughed. "You'd be leaving without your teeth, if you did try it.” The ghost of a smile played around her lips.

  A sense of humour was something she was struggling to work on, but at least this time she'd understood I was telling a joke and not actually being serious. That was progress.

  The last time I'd attempted a joke like this, she had taken it seriously and I'd found myself face flat on the training mat, struggling for enough breath to explain the misunderstanding.

  "So where do we begin?" she asked, placing her hands on her hips.

  "Follow me," I said, heading for the door.

  I knew the general direction in which Marcel had gone, and that would make it easier to track his magic. Not that I needed it to be any easier than it already was; I could feel his power in my head, his magic trying to worm its way through my shields.

  If he was doing that intentionally then he would be sorry. But, of course, there was always the possibility it wasn't intentional, that his power was simply something that bled from him, and if that were the case, then not only was he the real deal but he was also extremely dangerous.