shadows of salem 01 - shadow born

by hamilton, rebecca

  I frowned. “But wouldn’t that also require altering the memories of the staff? And any long-term resident?”

  “Aye, but such things are possible.” Maddock regarded me silently for a moment. “Strange, though, that someone would go through such trouble. If they wanted to make it appear as though yer fiancé had died in a fire, why try to cover it up afterward?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe in case someone came along and tried to reopen the investigation?”

  Maddock arched an eyebrow. “Ye mean someone like yerself?”

  I paused. “Are you suggesting that somebody knew I would be coming?”

  Maddock snorted. “If I were the one who’d killed yer fiancé, I’d be counting on it. Yer a detective, and you were in love. Why wouldn’t ye come out here to look into things?”

  I turned that over in my mind as I finished searching the apartment. Unlike my search of the motel room, I didn’t get lucky—whoever had covered their tracks here had done a good job. Frustrated with my lack of productivity, I kicked at one of the chairs. It moved, fractionally, and something winked from the darkness beneath it.

  “Hmm.”

  I dropped to my hands and knees, then fished a pearl earring out from beneath the chair. As I held it up to the light filtering in through the curtains, it glowed, and a vision hit me.

  “Well shit.” A brunette wearing black skinny jeans and an equally black button up shirt sneered up from above me. A similarly dressed blonde stood next to her, gripping a bloody silver knife in her hand. “What the hell do we do now? We weren’t supposed to kill anyone. Just take him alive.”

  The blonde’s cruel features screwed up in distaste. “We’ll have to hide her somewhere. Not that it’ll be easy lugging this fat bitch around.” She kicked at something I couldn’t see in front of her, something I suspected was a dead body. “Where can we bury her, that the cops won’t dig her up?”

  “The old mill up in Wenham,” the brunette said. “It’s well-shielded, and nobody’ll think to look in there.” She glanced over her shoulder. “But first, we have to get him back to the coven before he wakes up. It was hard enough taking him out the first time.”

  The vision faded. A sinking feeling started in the pit of my stomach as I stared at the pearl earring, processing what I’d just seen.

  “I’m guessing ye saw something?” Maddock’s deep voice drew my gaze toward him, and he nodded toward the pearl earring in my fingers. “Your aura changed when you picked that up.”

  I frowned. “You can see my aura?”

  Maddock shrugged. “Aura, life force, whatever ye’d like to call it. It makes it easy for me to tell when someone is using magic, which ye clearly were just now.”

  I shifted uncomfortably on my knees, not sure how I felt about that. I didn’t really consider my talent to be magic, but what else could I call it? It also had me wondering what else he could tell about me from my aura…such as my unwelcome attraction to him.

  “Yeah,” I said, scowling now. “Apparently your giant had a lady friend. The two women who came here to capture him killed her. I saw them discussing how to dispose of her body. They mentioned a mill in Wenham.”

  Maddock blinked. “I dinnae know of any mill up in Wenham.”

  I smiled, then pulled my phone from my pocket. “That’s what Google Maps is for.”

  Maddock brought me back to my apartment so I could change, but once I was showered and clothed, I refused to let him teleport me again. Since my Jeep was still at the precinct, he reluctantly agreed to have someone bring his Mercedes around, and we drove to the mill in comfort and style.

  On the way there, I called Baxter and told him that I was checking on a lead in connection with one of our cold cases and would be running a little late. He had questions, of course, and I was forced to give him vague answers—after all, I couldn’t very well tell him I was investigating the murder of a Giant’s lover.

  Our little field trip took us north, onto the highway for a few miles, and then into Wenham itself, which was a small town with colonial style homes tucked away into neighborhoods with narrow, winding roads shielded by oak and maple trees. There were plenty of dirt and paved roads that branched off the main road, leading up to houses or fields where animals grazed, and my GPS led us up one of those dirt roads.

  “Bloody hell,” Maddock growled as a stone shot out from beneath one of his tires and pinged against the underbelly of his car. He scowled, clenching his jaw. “I should have called for the Land Rover instead.”

  I snorted. “Spoken like an entitled rich guy.”

  He swung his glare toward me, but I ignored him and pretended to examine my nails instead. So what if he was annoyed? Maddock seemed to be perpetually irritated about my existence, so I might as well make the most of it. Besides, most of the time he annoyed the shit out of me too.

  “There it is.” I pointed to a crumbling stone structure, about twenty feet tall and half-covered with moss and ivy, jutting out of the field to our left. A rickety-looking waterwheel hung off the side, suspended over a dry creek-bed that had once turned it and powered the structure. Maddock parked on the side of the road, and we picked our way along the small path leading up to the door.

  “There’s a faint glamour covering this place,” Maddock murmured as he held up a hand, signaling for me to stop. “A simple one that shields it from anyone who wouldn’t already know it was there.”

  “Which explains why we can see it.” I tapped my foot impatiently. “Is there anything else I should be aware of? Like traps?”

  Maddock studied the building, then shook his head. “All seems clear.” He gestured to the large, wooden double doors. “Ye can go on in.”

  I lifted an eyebrow, a little smirk playing on my lips. “Not going to open the door for the lady?”

  Maddock eyed the large metal rings on each door that served as handles with distaste. “Those are made of iron.”

  “Oh.” Understanding, I curled my hand around the cold metal and gave it a tug. The door opened with a loud, rusty creak, and I wrinkled my nose at the smell of moldy hay, freshly-turned earth, and…blood.

  “The body’s definitely here somewhere,” I insisted as I stepped inside the mill.

  My eyes widened as I took in the main room. The same symbol I’d seen in my living room was painted across the millstone in the center, and different symbols were painted on the walls in what had to be more blood.

  “Wait.” Maddock made a grab for my arm as I moved toward the millstone, but I was already there, my hand on it, and—

  The little boy screamed and writhed, his naked skin chafing against the millstone as he tried to break free. Ram’s horns curled back from his temple, and though his small face should have been smooth and unlined, it was shriveled and wizened like an old man’s.

  Rope crisscrossed over his torso, holding him to the stone, and his vertical pupils rolled with fear as he stared up at the naked woman looking down at him. Other naked people frolicked around them in a circle, men and women dancing and chanting in a strange language that sent a crackle up my spine.

  “Please don’t,” the boy sobbed, and then suddenly I was the boy, tied to the millstone as golden tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. “Please don’t kill me. I can be useful, I swear.” My voice was weak and feeble, as if I were at the tail-end of my strength.

  “Your time has come.” The woman stepped forward, her voice distant, a faraway look in her cool grey eyes. “You will serve the Onyx Order in death, as you have done in life.”

  She lifted the blade—a black-handled dagger with a five-pointed star carved just above the hilt. The chanting rose, gradually coming to a fever pitch, and as the edge of the blade flashed in the moonlight, the woman brought the blade down, straight toward my heaving torso.

  I screamed.

  “Brooke!” Maddock’s powerful fingers dug painfully into my shoulders as he shook me. “Brooke, wake up! It’s not real.”

  “What?” I blinked up at him, shielding
my eyes with my right hand. It was too bright in here, with the sunlight streaming in through the windows—it had been night, the only light coming from flickering torches and the moon just a few seconds ago in my vision. “Oh, right. Sorry, I just…I was having a vision.”

  “I noticed.” Lines of disapproval bracketed Maddock’s mouth. “I told ye to wait, but ye went charging in and touching things anyway. Symbols like these tend to hold power long after they’ve been used.”

  “Well, that explains why that happened,” I muttered, batting Maddock’s hands away and rising to my feet.

  “What happened?” Maddock demanded, rising with me.

  I told him about the vision I’d witnessed. “I’ve never had that happen before,” I admitted, a little shaky. “Usually when I get a flash, I’m just an observer. I’ve never suddenly become one of the victims before.”

  “Perhaps this will teach ye to be more careful next time before rushing to touch things in an old ritual site,” Maddock said dryly. His piercing green eyes searched my face. “Are ye sure yer all right?”

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  “Because,” he said softly, lifting a finger to touch my cheek. “Yer cryin’.”

  It was only when his warm finger slid up the curve of my cheek that I realized there was cold wetness there—tear tracks. Mortification made my cheeks bloom with heat, not just because of the tears on my face but because of the way his eyes softened with something that looked suspiciously like sympathy.

  “It’s just an after-effect from the vision.” I swatted his hand away, then briskly wiped the tears away from my cheeks. “The boy I became was about to be stabbed by a crazy naked woman with a wicked-looking knife, so it’s not really surprising that he was crying.” I paused, remembering the ram’s horns curling from his scalp and the strange wrinkles on his skin. “I’m guessing he was fae?”

  “That would be the logical assumption.” Maddock pressed his lips together. “Fecking witches, thinking they have the right to take our young and steal their power.”

  “Young?” I echoed. “So you’re thinking he was a boy even though he had all those wrinkles?”

  Maddock’s eyes flashed dangerously as he glared at me. “The reason he had those ‘wrinkles,’ Detective, is because those witches drained him of his life-force. True witches depend upon fae magic for their powers, and when they can get their greedy little hands on one of our people, it’s like Christmas morning because they can chain us down and use us as a never-ending supply source. They drain us over and over again, until something finally breaks and we can no longer serve as their magical battery. Once that happens, they squeeze our last drops of magic out of us in one of their depraved rituals, then seek out another fae to draw from instead.”

  Every ounce of blood drained from my face, leaving me feeling cold inside.

  “Is that what I saw?” I whispered.

  “Undoubtedly.” Maddock cast a scathing glance at the bloody symbols painted on the walls, faded but still undeniably there. “These symbols are consistent with such a ritual. A barbarism of fae magic.” He spat on the millstone, and I tensed, half-expecting it to sizzle.

  “Right.” I let out a long breath, then squared my shoulders. “Let’s get back on track. Do you have any super-special fae ability that can tell me where the body is that we’re looking for?”

  Maddock lifted his head, nostrils flaring as he sniffed the air. “This way.”

  I followed him out of the front room and down a narrow hall. Wooden floorboards creaked beneath my feet, and the smell of earth and blood grew stronger. We turned into a large room with a pile of large, moldy sacks to our left, and off in the corner, I could see the hard-packed earth had been dug up and patted back down again.

  “Shit,” I muttered, toeing the spot with my booted foot. “I could really use a shovel right now.”

  Huffing, Maddock lifted a hand and spoke a strange word that made my eardrums throb. “Ye dinnae need a shovel,” he told me. “Ye have me.”

  The earth beneath my feet shifted, and I jumped out of the way as dirt spewed out of the ground, almost as if it was being vomited by the bowels of the earth. My stomach lurched as the decomposing body of a large woman popped out of the soil, her flaxen curls and flower-printed dress bedraggled and stained with blood and dirt.

  “There she is,” Maddock said without preamble.

  “Great.” I propped my hands on my hips, not sure whether to glare at Maddock or the dead body. “Now how the hell am I supposed to explain this to the precinct?”

  CHAPTER 15

  It took a good thirty minutes for the local and state police to arrive on scene, and another half hour after that for the medical examiner to get here, as there was only one and he was based out of Boston. During that time, Maddock and I discussed how best to proceed. After all, if a coven of witches was involved, was it really a good idea to involve local law enforcement?

  I believed in the law, of course, but guns were of limited use against magic, and Maddock was of the stringent opinion that humans should have as little involvement with the supernatural world as possible. We argued back and forth for a few minutes, trying to work out a compromise that would serve us both.

  In the end, we decided to let the local police department take the body in and make the appropriate notifications to the woman’s family, and that Maddock would pull whatever strings he had to in order to keep the authorities in the dark regarding the supernatural nature of this case. In the meantime, he took his car and left the scene—having him around would raise too many questions.

  It didn’t feel totally right, lying to Captain Randall about this case, but since he was lying to me, I figured that made us even. I was going to dig up whatever secrets he was hiding, but first I had to figure out what was going on with these disappearances and now murders. After all, I was the only cop around here who could.

  “Jesus, Baxter,” I snapped into my cell phone as I watched the crime scene tech carefully go through the mill, looking for any evidence that I might have missed. “It’s been close to an hour. Aren’t you coming?”

  “I can’t.” Baxter growled. “I caught a murder of my own this morning. Domestic violence gone south, and it’s not pretty. I’m going to be tied up with this all day.”

  “Dammit.” I jutted out my lower lip. “I was really hoping I could at least get a ride from you.” The medical examiner had already left, and I wasn’t exactly looking forward to cramming myself into the van full of crime-scene equipment, though I’d do whatever I had to.

  “Oh, well if that’s what you need, I can always ask my brother to grab you.” Baxter paused. “He told me you stopped by the church the other day.”

  “Oh, Father James?” I relaxed a little. “Yeah, that’ll work. Your brother’s a nice guy.” And he might be able to answer some questions about what the hell had gone on at this mill, too.

  “All right, I’ll give him a call.”

  I helped the crime scene technician finish up in the mill, careful to keep my gloves on at all times so I didn’t touch anything directly with my hands. Breaking down and crying mid-vision in front of the crime scene technician would be exactly the type of nail Captain Randall would love to pound into my coffin.

  Unfortunately, without my special ability, there wasn’t much to see. The technician took blood samples from the symbols, but despite the disarray of the old mill and the presence of a dead body, there wasn’t much else to find.

  “You sure you don’t need a ride home?” the tech asked as he loaded his equipment back into the dusty white Ford van he’d driven here. He was a skinny guy in his early thirties, but the smattering of freckles on his nose and his baby face made him look a lot younger. “I’d hate to leave you out here stranded.”

  “I’m good, thanks.” My grumbling stomach belied the words, but I ignored it. I could afford to wait an extra few minutes for Father James to get here. He was already on his way, so it would be rude of me to leave him waiting.

>   By the time Father James arrived, the sun was hovering directly overhead, and my stomach was crying out for lunch. I jumped to my feet eagerly as a black Camry pulled up in front of the mill and was at the door before he had a chance to roll down his window.

  “Thanks for coming to get me, Father,” I said as I slid into the passenger’s seat and shut the door behind me.

  “You’re quite welcome.” But the words weren’t sincere, and the tone in his voice was enough to drag my attention away from the seatbelt I was fastening. I expected him to be looking at me, but instead his attention was fixed on the old, crumbling structure of the mill. “I’m curious to know what you were doing all the way out here without a car.”

  “Huh?” I was momentarily thrown when he turned his narrowed gaze at me. Why was Father James so suspicious? “I took a cab out here,” I said, repeating the same lie I’d told my peers. “My car’s in the shop.”

  “I see.” He studied me for a moment, then shifted the car into reverse so that he could turn and head back up the dirt road. “You shouldn’t have come up this way alone, Brooke. It isn’t safe.”

  “I’m a cop, Father James, and I was chasing down a lead. Staying safe isn’t really part of my job description.”

  “And did your lead pan out?” he asked, voice tight.

  “Yeah. I found a dead body.” My voice hardened in response to his judgmental attitude. “Just what is your problem, anyway?”

  Father James swung his head around to face me even as he kept his foot pressed down on the gas, careening us up the pebble-strewn road. “My problem is that you’re sticking your nose into places where evil abounds. I warned you about the dangers of this place, tried to give you protection, but there’s only so much I can do. If you keep wandering off the beaten path, you’re going to end up like Tom.”

  “What do you know about Tom?” I demanded, but he was already turning away. I itched to grab his arm, to pull his gaze back to mine, but he was heading onto the highway now, and the last thing I needed was to distract him while he was piloting a moving vehicle.