by Jenny Allen
“It’s not like a TV show drama. They have one hour to wrap it up. Sadly, suspects don’t show up with nifty little red bows. But, honestly, I usually turn up more than this. Of course, I usually have a body. Unfortunately for us, there was very little forensic evidence, Duncan and his group weren’t in close contact with the family, and the only person I know that may have any clue about what’s going on is too tired and distraught to be any help right now.”
“So what do we do while we wait to see if Spencer’s cracked completely?” Chance was a man of action, he couldn’t just sit here. She could see the need to do something itching under his skin. Of course her plan of action probably wasn’t going to help him much with that.
She looked up from the table with a fragile smile and already knew what the response would be. “There’s the mass amount of journals and tapes I found down in his office. They weren’t hidden, and whoever was here searching the place left them, so they probably aren’t crucial. However, they might lend some insight into what Duncan’s been doing. They may not solve the case, but they might point us in a direction.” She shrugged at Chance’s frown. “We might get lucky. Maybe he hid something in plain sight within those notebooks. If we can find a motive, perhaps it will help.”
“So your answer is reading a bunch of old scribbled journals?” The right side of his nose crinkled just for a second and it made Lilith smile, despite herself.
She pushed her chair back and tapped him on the shoulder as she passed by. “Come on. You can listen to the tapes if the big bad books scare you, tough guy.”
Chance huffed and reluctantly pulled himself from the chair to follow her downstairs. “Yay, research.” Definitely sarcasm. “This is why I’m a bodyguard and not a cop.”
“Well lucky for you, you get the best of both worlds today.”
Four hours later, Chance was listening to the last tape and Lilith was pouring over the second journal. The tapes hadn’t really turned up anything useful. They seemed to be Duncan’s verbal notes on books he needed to buy, philosophies on different medical treatments, and other scientifically interesting, but otherwise useless, information. Chance would pause the tape every so often and ask her questions, mostly when Duncan referenced alchemical signs or compositions.
The journals, however, were absolutely fascinating. Lilith never knew much about Duncan, beyond his assistance in their medical properties. These notebooks were a goldmine of history and theory. The first one was centered on his ideas about the rapid evolution of their species. Duncan deduced that the fangs present in stronger blood lines, like Gregor, were dwindling in size with the farther generations due to adaptation to the surroundings. If he was right, the species was evolving thousands of times faster than evident in any other species. For Gregor, Duncan, even Miriah and herself, their fangs were more like tough cartilage that folded back to conform to the roof of their mouth, very much like a snake’s.
They were meant to make clean puncture wounds so we could acquire what we needed to survive, but small enough not to be necessarily fatal. Nature wasn’t in the business of mercy, it was simply more practical, don’t kill off the food supply. They also didn’t pop out unless their mouth was fully open. Another one of nature’s camouflage tricks.
In far removed half-bloods, like Chance, there were barely nubs of cartilage there. Duncan believed that it had more to do with the invention and use of tools and the general disuse of our built in equipment that led to the decline, rather than just the purity of the bloodline. He cited confirming measurements from his first generation of children versus Miriah. There was a half inch difference, which was pretty remarkable.
The second book began as a rather dry account of some historical families in medieval Scotland. As she muddled her way to the middle, she found a few references to a book Duncan wrote, encoded to keep his accumulated knowledge safe from prying eyes. He actually stated that he later removed several pages from the book, the ones that were just too dangerous even with the cipher and put them someplace safe. There were several comments about it being stolen, circulated around and then wound up in a museum. Apparently, the cipher still hadn’t been broken, centuries later. He obviously wanted this book back, but he couldn’t exactly walk into the museum and say “Hey that’s mine. Yeah, I wrote it about 600 years ago.”
Duncan was quite a bit older than she’d really thought. Towards the end of the journal she found something interesting. There were several pages about Gregor and his family. According to this, Gregor was wed in 15th century Scotland, and had several children. She relished the chance to understand her father more and the life he’d lived till now. He was very secretive about the past, but the entries were fairly cryptic, merely Duncan’s personal thoughts on events that he already knew and felt no reason to explain.
I still feel such pity for poor little Mary. She was the light of Gregor’s eye and what happened to her was pure tragedy. I don’t think Gregor has ever been the same since. Something changed in him that day, the day poor Mary passed on. First Mary, and then his wife and other children. A man can only lose so much. All the years since, Gregor has never taken another family, not until he met Rosaline. Thank the maker for Rosaline and Lilith. They have resurrected the man. The day Lilith was born was the happiest I have seen Gregor in centuries and the man deserves some peace and happiness. I do worry how much Lilith resembles Mary, but then it is a centuries old wound and perhaps I worry too much for an old man.
Duncan must have written this before her mother’s death. It brought back memories of her and how warm she made her life. Even when she was fighting rebelliously against her mother’s rules and pushing away her compassion, she still loved her. It was just what teenagers did. She wished a million times that she could take back all the hurtful things she’d said to her. But you never stop to think about things like that in the moment because you just assume that your parents will be around forever. Well perhaps for most kids they didn’t think that literally, but for her it was actually a possibility.
Chance threw down his headphones and Lilith jumped, completely startled out of her thoughts. “Dammit. There is nothing useful on there. He just keeps droning on and on and on about alchemical theories about blood.” Chance rubbed at his face and leaned back against the wall. He let out an exasperated grunt as he tapped his head back against the wall and rested his arms on his bent knees. “Please tell me the journals are going better?”
Lilith managed to pull one side up for a half smile. “They are fascinating, maybe even riveting, but none of it seems particularly useful.”
“How many do you have left?”
Lilith waved back at the stack behind her. “Enough to keep me busy for the rest of the week. Maybe I should just find the most recent one and go backwards.” She flipped through the remaining notebooks, looking for dates or some way of telling how new they were. When she picked up the second to last one, a small piece of parchment fell out and fluttered to the floor. She grabbed it and was tucking it back into the book when the design caught her eye. It was the same rough arrow as the one she had, the same one on the drawer.
When she flipped it over, there were very faint markings right around her finger. She looked up at Chance, with something nagging at the corner of her mind. “The tapes, most of them were about alchemy?”
Chance pulled his head away from the wall and looked at her, confused. “Uh yeah. He was big into it I guess. Why?”
She stared back down at the small piece of parchment and the thought finally caught in her mind. “Heat!” She looked back at Chance with a huge grin. “Do you have a lighter?”
He arched an eyebrow, totally confused. “I don’t smoke. What the hell are you talking about?”
Lilith leapt to her feet and started looking around desperately. “I need a lighter, a match, anything that’ll make a flame.” She rummaged violently through the drawers, slamming them closed and tearing open the next one.
“Hurricane Lilith, you want to clue me in?”
She growled in frustration and glanced up. “Alchemists were very secretive about their work. They never wanted anyone to steal their secrets, so they were careful. They used codes and ciphers and other ways of concealing it. One very effective way is a special ink that reacts to heat and acid. Smooth a little lemon juice over it and apply heat, and the letters appear. When it cools, it looks completely blank again.”
“That actually works?” He started to pull himself up from the floor. “I thought that was Hollywood bullshit.”
“It’s rare but real. Go upstairs, check the fridge. See if there is any lemon juice or lemons up there. They have a higher acid content. Also, I need my green coat from the car.”
Chance smiled over at her and they shared a moment of pure excitement. It could be nothing, but something was nagging at her, telling her that the one left for her in New York, held more than it appeared to. Maybe this would finally give them some sort of direction. He disappeared through the door and Lilith listened to his footsteps jogging up the stairs. She flipped the parchment scrap over and smiled at that arrow. A couple days ago it’d seemed about as friendly as the reapers calling card. Now it was a symbol of hope. Strange how context changes everything.
A few minutes later, Lilith had the desk cleared off. She laid out a few swabs, the UV light, and a lighter. Chance rushed into the room holding a couple lemons and her dark green coat. “Why did you need your coat again?” He handed it to her and set the lemons on the desk next to the other supplies.
Lilith was digging through her pockets and finally came up with the envelope. “This is why.” She pulled the slip of parchment out and held it up next to the slip she’d found in the book. “Same arrow.”
Chance frowned and leaned back against the wall. “Where did you get that?”
“Before I left New York. I was leaving my apartment to meet you and Gregor, when Charlie, the guard, stopped me. This was dropped off at the front desk sometime during the day. No one saw who dropped it off. I’d totally forgotten about it till I saw the arrow on the inside of the drawer.”
“You got some cryptic envelope and you just forgot about it?” Chance crossed his arms over his chest and just watched her.
Lilith laid each piece out delicately and smoothed them out. While she talked, she focused on cutting the lemons, soaking the swabs and slowly dragging them over the paper. She worked methodically, never taking her eyes off her work. “Well a lot has happened. I just shoved it in my pocket and I have sustained a serious head injury since then, in case you forgot.”
“Like I could forget.” He tried to sound light and humorous but failed miserably. “So what’s the verdict?”
Lilith fanned the flame over the New York parchment, and slowly the heat began to pull letters to the surface. It was definitely Duncan’s handwriting and it was addressed to her.
Lilith,
If you are reading this, then you are as brilliant as I always thought you were. Things are dire. I’m sending word to Gregor, but I’m unsure if my ruse will be successful. As carefully hidden as this letter may be, I cannot take the chance it might be intercepted, so I will only say that the past has come back for us. Look for my mark and it will lead you to what you need. My dear niece, I will pray for you. I know that if anything happens to me, Gregor will send you, and only you, to my rescue. I wish I could prevent that. If that happens, I will be beyond helping and it will only drag you down with me. Gregor will lose everything again and I shall join him in that fate. Perhaps we deserve it.
-Duncan
Lilith swallowed the lump in her throat and stared hopelessly at the letter. It felt like all the blood had drained out of her body. Duncan knew what was coming. He was trying to warn her against coming to Tennessee. Now here she was, in the lion’s den. “This is not good.” Her voice sounded haunted. She showed Chance the letter and watched him pale.
“Maybe the second one will be more specific. So far, I’m not feeling any better about all this.”
Lilith’s shoulders fell as her mind whirled through the cryptic words. It was ominous, desperate, completely hopeless, but absolutely devoid of any real information. There were hints about the past and Gregor. Maybe he could shed some light. Duncan seemed worried about a hidden letter being discovered, so whatever this was about, Gregor probably wouldn’t be inclined to discuss it on a cell phone. And why in the hell did Duncan feel they deserved to lose everything? It just didn’t seem to make any sense. Of course, Duncan had been losing his tenuous grip on reality.
Hopefully Chance was right and the second one could point them in a direction, any direction. She bent over the second note and gave it the same careful attention. Moments later, she was reading Duncan’s swirling handwriting.
I’ve tracked down a series of properties here in Tennessee. I’m not sure what he’s up to, but it is not good. He’s somehow managed to purchase the Phipps Bend property from Surgoinsville County. What could he want with this place? I’ve consulted Miriah. She has been invaluable to me these past few years. I’ve devoted more and more time to my research and Miriah has taken over my responsibilities within the family. I must send word somehow to Gregor, but I need to know more first. It’s harder and harder for me these years to keep my focus. These notes are dangerous, but I need them. I believe I may be losing my tentative grip on the present. Perhaps my obsession with the past has disconnected me. I only hope that Miriah…
The parchment was obviously torn, abruptly ending Duncan’s thoughts of the future. She knew Duncan was becoming more reclusive, but she didn’t think even Gregor knew that Duncan felt like this. She felt a great wave of sympathy for her poor Uncle. She handed the page off to Chance with a sigh. “He sounds so sad, like everything is coming to an end for him.”
She saw the slight upturn of Chance’s chin as he read through the journal entry. He felt the sorrow in the note as well.
“I should leave Gregor a message of some type.” Lilith whispered it more to herself than to Chance and dug her phone out of her pocket. The message light was flashing. A few clicks later, she was glancing over the report from Alvarez on a body dump. It looked pretty extreme. The victim was tortured for a few hours before bleeding out. There was no ID found on the scene and nothing from forensics yet. It sounded like an interesting case, but she had more important things to deal with right now.
Lilith was just about to close out the email when the address caught her eye and she stopped breathing. It was the Italian restaurant she’d met Gregor in. There was no way that was a coincidence. She flipped over to the crime scene photos and squinted at it. There were dozens of cuts and bruises all over and his right arm was bent at an impossible angle. Lifeless eyes stared out at her from the next photo and Lilith’s heart stopped. She dropped the phone and pulled back like it’d stung her.
Chance leapt forward, toward her, looking her over carefully and finally bent down to grab the phone. “What is it? Do you know him?”
Tears were stinging her eyes as her mind raced a million miles an hour. “This is totally fucked. I have to call Alvarez.” Chance frowned and peered closer at the photo. “What is it, Lily? Who is this?”
Lilith ignored him, grabbed her phone and dialed Alvarez. He didn’t pick up until the fourth ring. “Alvarez, its Lilith. Yeah, that case you sent, I have an ID for you.” Her eyes found Chance’s finally and knew she was displaying every bit of sadness and despair. “Malachi Sanders… Yes, Miriah’s husband. Do me a favor. Go over to Gregor’s and let him know in person. Thanks.”
She hung up the phone and Chance still looked shocked. “Holy shit.” He fell back against the desk like he’d been hit. Things definitely weren’t getting any better.
Chapter 6
“What the hell was Malachi even doing in New York City?” Chance was a barely restrained powder keg of anger. Every muscle in his body was tense as he stalked the room back and forth.
Lilith slumped in the chair, trying to make sense of everything and failing. “I don
’t know.” Her voice sounded tired even to her. “He was tortured, Chance.” Her haunted voice just hung ominously in the air. She just kept seeing those lifeless eyes staring out of the photos on her phone and it made her stomach churn violently.
“Alvarez is going to send the autopsy report as soon as it posts but it won’t be for another day or two. If Miriah was with him…” She couldn’t even finish that sentence. She leaned forward, with her elbows on her knees and just buried her face in her hands. She forced her brain to work, thinking things out. “She couldn’t have. Spencer said he sent her to pick us up at the airport, so she had to be in Tennessee. Maybe Duncan sent him. That might explain the cryptic letter and how it got there. But why didn’t Malachi just come see me?”
She felt a warm hand on her shoulder as a shaking breath threatened to pull a flood of tears from her. She didn’t move or even breathe for a moment, trying to keep it all at bay. She’d give anything to just be investigating some emo kid that took his fantasy too far. Malachi’s death was not only shockingly horrible, but it reminded her too much of her mother’s brutal attack. Everything together was just overwhelming her.
“Lily.” Chance’s voice was so tender that she just wanted to wrap it around her and escape the world. When she finally looked up, he was kneeling in front of her. Both his hands caressed her arms and his eyes were full of worry. “I know you feel like the world is falling apart, and maybe it is, but right now I need you to keep it together.” She wanted to be angry at him, scream at him for being selfish, but all she could do was stare at him.
He brushed a stray strand of hair from her face and she felt her heart pounding in her chest like a drum. “You are amazingly brilliant and you are the best chance to find Duncan and Miriah alive.” Her lip trembled despite her best efforts to keep from breaking down. She sprung forward and wrapped her arms around Chance so fast that he released a surprised grunt. His arms folded around her and for one completely selfish moment, she felt the warmth melt everything away.