Magic Rising

by Jennifer Cloud

  “Deirdre, why are you pursuing this? The case is over. There’s nothing we can do now. Even if Lora wanted to be with her father, she couldn’t.” Tech’s voice trailed away into silence.

  Deirdre couldn’t answer. There wasn’t a logical explanation for her behavior, not one Tech could understand. It was Jack’s eyes. The emotion in there appeared like a sane man that had been pushed too hard for too long. Perhaps he had custody and Tamara wanted to get him locked away to claim her daughter. That would’ve created an uglier scandal though.

  “I have my reasons. Just keep digging. I want to know why a woman who loves the press didn’t give out the correct stalker information. The man was in her hotel and she claimed to not know him. Shit like that doesn’t happen unless there’s a reason.” She started to end the call, and then stopped. “Listen, I may be out of range soon. I’ve got some business out of town. I’ll get back with you tonight.”

  “Have fun. Bring Chinese food when you come by.”

  * * * *

  Stone House was in the middle of nowhere; consisting of a main stone structure surrounded by smaller houses and storage buildings. A person could hike for a day before finding another home and the long stretch of interstate nearby was nearly a two-hour jog.

  At least, she doubted industry had broken that far into the mountains. She wasn’t even sure who owned the property now. The state or some hunting club might have acquired it. Either way, she doubted there were cell phone towers or satellite signals that could break through that steep mountain range.

  Deirdre pulled back onto the road, taking the first exit for 25/70. The drive was a long one. That particular piece of property had been bought for a reason. She had no idea how far back ownership went but it was perfect for their purposes…for the leaders’ agendas. There were three high-ranking leaders at Stone House. Someone outranked them but she had no idea who that had been, a benefactor maybe.

  Cars passed her, some beeping as they cut around in the left-hand lane. She usually drove fast, but she couldn’t maintain pressure on the accelerator. The further she drove, the slower she went, and when she saw the sign for the state line, she slowed even more.

  She couldn’t put this off. Going back to that place was the only way for her to discover what Ryan Farmer knew. There was no paper trail for him, no record of events that could be looked up from a safe computer at the station. Farmer had gone to that house and he’d learned something.

  There couldn’t be anything left. She hadn’t watched the entire structure go up in flames but the fire had been too intense to leave much behind. She’d watched it burn for three days from the safety of the woods before she hitched a ride to town. From the edge of Walnut she had made her way to the bank and the money her mother had promised would be waiting if they ever got out of the house. It was there, enough money to get her out of town. Deirdre’s legal birth certificate had been there too. That’s the first time she’d seen her full legal name.

  They always called me Dragonfly.

  The trip should’ve taken just over two hours, with highway speeds of seventy miles an hour, but her trepidation slowed the drive. Instead, over three hours had passed from when she took the exit and found the old dirt road leading to Stone House. Weeds filled the center of the narrow road with bushes and limbs crowding the sides. Visibility from the main road was poor, causing her to pass the turn, and have to circle back.

  An old metal sign marked the way. Rust ate at the edges, speckling the surface of the “No Trespassing” sign. A thin metal cord blocked the road. Deirdre stopped her Viper, stepped out, and unhooked the cord from the wooden post across the drive. Standing there in knee-deep weeds, she knew she should’ve smelled pine, instead there was smoke.

  “Someone got cold and started their woodstove.” She spoke to herself hoping to end the awful feeling that she would go up the drive and find Stone House still in operation. That was ridiculous, but part of her knew they would find a way to keep her there if any of them had survived.

  Staring at the road coiling in front of her made it hard to move. Her car was going to take a beating. If it rained, she was sure to get stuck. Deirdre took a quick glance at the clouds above, hoping for some sign of rain, or any excuse to end this adventure. There was none. The sky never looked so blue.

  Taking a deep breath, Deirdre went back to her car. Around her, there was nothing but the sound of crickets and the noise from the nearby interstate. She hesitated, listening, expecting to hear a voice from her past. They might not have died. A few might even remain in these woods watching for a trespasser, waiting for her to come further into their lair.

  Waiting would only make the feeling in her stomach worse, driving back felt too close to dying. She wasn’t used to fear, only heightened senses when danger came close and her instincts kicked into gear. Fear wasn’t pleasant but being caught somewhere in between afraid to leave and afraid to continue was misery.

  Deirdre slid the car into drive and started over the difficult road. The bumps jostled her hard and she had to drive slowly. Several times rocks hit the underneath of her car, digging loudly or scraping.

  Ahead she saw the stone archway marking the true entrance to the compound. Vines grew along the round river rock, some sliding into the grooves and appearing next to another section. The concrete lip and the top remained intact. That was where the sharp shooters watched, waiting for a target to cross their path. She shivered, wondering if ghosts still lurked there, marching to and fro on guard.

  “May the powers that be protect and shield.”

  It was a silly saying she had learned here but it made her feel better as she drove beneath the archway. It marked the entrance to a different world, one no government had breached, no child services had ventured far into, and where nothing from the outside was permitted to stay for long.

  The old gardens were to the right. A few grapes remained, gnarled-looking vines running from what was left of their support and onto the ground. The rest were weeds surrounded by remaining blackberry bushes.

  As a child, she had worked many hours there. Children were the main labor behind the food crops. It was supposed to build their bodies and endurance. There weren’t many children here when she was young. Most hadn’t survived the training and a few had escaped.

  Ahead were the stables or what was left of them. No horses lived there now. She’d set them free before leaving and hoped none had died. It had been her last act of defiance because they never let her care for the horses. No contact beyond basic tending was allowed.

  She drove by two dormitories. Most of the adults stayed there, lodged like college students, unless a leader suspected them of treason. The children and leaders were housed in the main building. It was a control tactic. As long as children were kept separate from their parents, the parents couldn’t sneak away with them in the middle of the night.

  Staring at those old buildings brought an odd shiver. They seemed smaller now, but she supposed everything looks larger to a kid. The structures weren’t as menacing anymore either. They were just old buildings, stale places where people were housed a half a mile from the main structure.

  She almost passed the men’s facility when movement in the front window caught her eye. At first, she thought she’d imagined it then someone looked out of the dirty glass. This place wasn’t unoccupied after all.

  Deirdre pulled over, stopping halfway in the road. She had to find out who stayed in that house. If it was him…no…couldn’t be. He died. She watched him die and spat in his face as blood drained from his body while the outer wall collapsed. He’d killed her mother, but Mercury was dead.

  Her heart pounded too fast as she went to the front door of the old dormitory. She couldn’t control it. In normal circumstances, she would knock, but this wasn’t normal. Whatever, whoever stayed here had to be malevolent. Nothing else would survive on this evil soil.

  She stepped onto the wooden porch, hearing a long creaking sound. The diamond cuts were still in the gl
ass, the paint was peeling, and bits of rot clung to the surrounding wood.

  Going through the front door would be too dangerous, the same with the back. Either could have a shooter, waiting for someone to access the home. The safest entrance would be through the second floor.

  Deirdre stood on the rail and pulled herself to the roof of the porch. She wrapped her legs around the post and shimmied up. From there, she crawled to a second floor bedroom window. The glass was cracked and dirty, but she could see the room and it was empty. She tried lifting the frame, pressing her palms against the glass. It moved enough to let her know it wasn’t locked and gave her the smallest finger hold. Unfortunately, the swollen wood was difficult to lift. She pushed, straining the glass before the wood slid up enough for her to get inside the building.

  The smell of must and stale air enveloped her. She eased across the room and listened. Heavy footfalls filled the first floor. The sound traveled back and forth, moving then stopping. Someone downstairs was pacing, not crouched and ready for the kill. But what better ruse to trap her?

  She eased open the door and inched toward the open landing just after the hall. Through the pine slats, she had a good view of the first floor where a man walked between the windows, peering out every few minutes. He had a heavy beard. His bones jutted sharply from his too thin body. He wore a flannel shirt and jeans. Both were thin and dirty, worn long beyond their use. On his shoulder sat a shotgun, no doubt loaded for whoever stepped inside. That weapon made her nervous. It took no finesse to kill with it, especially loaded with buckshot. A general aim in the right direction would wipe out the target.

  His stride stopped halfway across the floor. Like a hunter, he sensed her before seeing her. She waited, not wanting to do this like she’d been trained. There were better ways to deal with obstacles and hurting an old man seemed cruel. At least she thought so before he turned to her and fired.

  Chapter Four

  Detective Ryan Farmer parked at the corner, just out of sight of Deirdre’s house. She wasn’t home. He was nearly certain of it, but he hadn’t found her at the gym or her downtown office. She could stay away from the office for days, but she always returned home. This was her sanctuary, her little corner where she pretended to be normal. She enjoyed hiding in a subdivision like the successful family types.

  His phone call this morning must’ve sent her scrambling. He smiled to himself, trying to imagine the tough demeanor fading. It was worth sacrificing his sleep in order to handle this situation with Deirdre. She had far too much power in this town. Even his superiors looked up to her because of her thoroughness and noted that she never sent a guy to the hospital unless he tried to shoot her. Despite hostile circumstances, the perpetrators’ injuries were never life threatening. Little Miss Perfect never screwed up, never brought down the wrong guy.

  It took some digging and long hours on the road, but he found the little princess’s secret. Her clients would go scrambling if they knew that she was a product of a cult bent on political upheaval. If Stone House hadn’t burned, who knows how messy things could’ve gotten.

  Ryan took a deep breath thinking about the liberals she provided protection for whenever their world grew difficult. Their suspicious nature would make them stop using her once they knew her past. A few might start trusting the cops with their secrets instead of some pay-by-the- hour bouncer service.

  He glanced down the road, wondering how much longer she would be. He’d been put on administrative leave since the Shope shooting, so he had time. That was a cluster fuck. He had no idea how that man escaped, but one minute sitting behind a stalled car, and Shope was out on the streets. Ryan tried to implicate Deirdre but that wouldn’t carry far. Those damn videos always saved her ass.

  Truth be known, he never liked Deirdre. She was too masculine for his tastes. He never saw her wearing dresses, only pants, tight pants that nicely displayed the curve of her ass. Deirdre needed a man on that ass, burying her face in a pillow while he taught her what it was like to be a woman.

  His cock gave a half salute at the image. Deirdre wouldn’t be so bad if she acted more like a woman. From the things he discovered, he understood why Deirdre was so combative. Her upbringing made her that way. It also made her too dangerous for his quiet little town.

  Fear crept up from the pit of his stomach when he thought about her training. Something about Deirdre had always frightened him. It was in her eyes, a primal power or hatred that made him afraid. Ryan hid it well, goading her, standing close to see if he could shake her up. Nothing had. He witnessed that woman stand down a man holding a submachine gun. She didn’t flinch. Everything about her stayed ice cold.

  That’s not normal.

  Ryan had to wonder if she’d cringed after their conversation. She should. He’d found a diary from someone identifying himself as a leader. He only answered to a man named Colinster. From the record, Colinster enjoyed hearing the details of the regimen and the tortures. There were several entries about Deirdre, only under the name Dragonfly, and the job where she was supposed to kill a government official. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Deirdre was bad seed from the beginning, a criminal from birth.

  Like everything else, his lead came in the form of a tip. Someone left him a message with directions to Stone House and Deirdre’s name. He had no idea who had called him or why. The people working the phones didn’t remember anyone asking for him. It was like someone had walked in and dropped the message on his desk.

  After trying for a year to find dirt on Deirdre, he wasn’t going to ignore a clue. He used plenty of anonymous sources but never one so mysterious that they were afraid to speak directly to him.

  When his shift had ended that night, he followed the directions, driving to some god-forsaken stretch of land in the middle of the mountains. In the darkness, he nearly missed the turn but perseverance paid off. He’d found the remains of some kind of organization. The message even told him where to look for evidence. He found it. Under the beam of his flashlight he discovered the evidence in a pile of rubble near the door, he found a diary.

  It seemed he’d been right to mistrust her. His detective’s instincts screamed a warning about the bombshell in a role that should belong to a man. This was no normal woman, but a trained killer. He had the proof he needed in the leather-bound book hidden in his apartment.

  There was no room in this town for renegades, especially dangerous ones. If he played his cards right, he would have Deirdre packing for some other town where she could peddle destruction disguised as protection.

  The plan could backfire. He never saw Deirdre hurt someone or terrorize a person who didn’t deserve it. Of course, he doubted anyone had threatened her personally. None of that mattered. She’d been trouble since day one and had caused his first disciplinary action. Deirdre might’ve even caused the death of that Shope guy yesterday in some round-about way. He wouldn’t put anything past her.

  All official records on the woman started when she turned eighteen and had gotten a driver’s license. Nothing exceptional followed. She spent some time teaching self-defense. Her business license for a private security agency was granted six years ago, making Deirdre a business owner at the ripe old age of twenty. Rumor had it that she came to the aid of a wealthy elderly man. Her heroics spread through town causing her success story.

  She was now twenty-six, drove fancy sports cars, had a staff, and hobnobbed with people who’d turn their noses up at him. It wasn’t fair. He’d worked his entire life to be a cop and this young bitch walks into town with no respect for the law and clients ready to trust their lives to her instead of the police. Deirdre had crossed his path too many times, gotten in his way, and worked above the law. She’d caused him enough grief. It was time for her to go.

  He supposed Deirdre was the first person he truly hated. There had been enemies he made during school and in his career, but Deirdre was worse than any of them. She bested him at every opportunity. That one woman had nearly cost him his j
ob and made him a joke among his peers until he earned a promotion to detective.

  The first incident occurred nearly six years ago. Ryan had been new to the force. His partner was an old son of a bitch who didn’t get out of the patrol car unless he had to. They’d gotten the call around nine at night. A security agent busted a man breaking into the home of his estranged wife. That’s what she was called, a security agent, not “demon from hell,” just security. It sounded so innocuous, a bodyguard or some flunky that tended to the rich and needy.

  Ryan had never been on a call like that. His partner had, not bothering to turn on the blue lights as they drove through town to the high-end house. Ryan could still remember the trip, the calm look on the old man’s face. There was the way he intentionally took his time so the neighbors wouldn’t be suspicious of any activity, and his behavior was only to cater to another star trying to keep bad publicity to a minimum.

  “I bet this is Deirdre’s work.” His partner mentioned this casually as they drove. “Good security work. Deirdre should’ve been a cop.”

  The words stung because his partner had looked over at him, demeaning Ryan in that way that drove him nuts. Ryan took the slight. He always took it without remarking or starting any trouble. He considered it paying his dues for a job he loved.

  They parked in front of the house and stepped inside. Ryan could remember every moment. The smell of cigarettes hung on the air while a woman sat in front of a piano shivering. Another woman, younger and dressed from head to toe in black leather, stood next to her. Her spike-heeled boot in the square of the man’s back, a set of heavy handcuffs bound his wrists. The scene reminded Ryan of some BDSM game and he expected the leather-clad woman to produce a whip. Instead, she stepped back, looking the old man in the eye.

  “Here’s your perp.” Her voice had been dead, flat and low in tone like she could be a sexual animal on a better night but tonight she was just bored. “I’m officially turning him over to you. She will give you the statement.” The surreal dominatrix pointed to the shivering woman. Her boots made sharp notes on the tiled floor, her hair swung softly, hanging over her small, but perfect breasts, as she stepped back.