The road ended after the final house, continuing only as a cycle track. Pierce grimaced to see a small children’s play area on the corner opposite the murder house: she remembered that sight well from the news stories of the time, every reporter worth their salt eager to get a shot of it in the background as they interviewed the horrified neighbours. The brightly coloured paint of the metal slide and climbing frames was flaked and rusted now, and as graffitied as the house.
Beyond the play area was a line of scruffy trees—and among them stood a woman.
She caught Pierce’s eye with the very still way that she was silently observing the scene, removed from the rest of the eagerly gawking crowd. Not one of the goths, though she would have fitted among their number at first glance, pale-faced and dark-haired; she was wearing a simple grey hoodie, though, and against the T-shirt underneath Pierce saw the glint of something silver. Her eyes weren’t up to the task of identifying it at this distance, but she supposed it could have been the necklace Leo described.
Leo’s girl witness from fourteen years ago? Even if she’d been a teenager back then she should be older than this woman looked, but faces could be deceptive. Pierce took a step towards her, picking her way through the assembled crowd. She glanced over her shoulder for Gemma, but she’d moved away to take more pictures of the house from round the side, and there was no way to get her attention without drawing other people’s.
Pierce turned back to her quarry, and saw that in the brief moment her attention had been diverted, the woman had already moved, heading away into the trees. She cursed silently to herself and hurried through the fringes of the crowd to follow.
By the time she reached the tree line herself, the woman was already some distance away across the sloping green, and Pierce almost had to jog to just to match her walking speed. “Hey!” she called out. “Police! I need to speak to you.” That didn’t always get a positive reaction, but a negative one could tell her something too.
In this case it got a complete non-reaction, the woman disappearing behind another cluster of trees without so much as looking back. Pierce chased after her, and found they’d reached a gravel footpath, leading to a set of metal gates with bold yellow warning signs. Pierce could see the overhead cables of the railway line beyond.
Perhaps realising she was cornered, or willing to talk now they were out of sight of the people on the street, the woman had stopped just ahead of the fence. She turned back to face Pierce with a guarded expression.
Pierce raised her hands to signal her peaceable intentions, slowing her approach to a non-threatening pace. “I just want to ask you some questions about the boarded-up house at the end of the row,” she said. “Are you a neighbour? Do you know anything about the people who used to live there?”
Was this the girl that Leo had seen on the day of the raid? If it was, then Pierce thought that he must have overestimated her age back then: she didn’t look like she could be out of her late twenties now. But even if this wasn’t her, they still had one thing in common—she was indeed wearing a silver necklace in the shape of a bat with outstretched wings.
“Listen,” Pierce said, in her most calmly encouraging tones. “My name is DCI Claire Pierce. I’m with the Ritual Crime Unit. Nobody’s in trouble, I just want to—” She was interrupted by the ring of her own phone, a loud electronic blurt that shattered the relative peace of the scene. Probably Gemma, checking where she’d got to. “Sorry, if you’ll just bear with me a second....” She struggled to wrestle her phone free from her overstuffed pocket.
By the time that she had it in her hand, the woman was already gone.
“Hey!” Pierce ran forward to the railway fence, looking both ways before she glimpsed a flash of a grey hoodie disappearing under the concrete bridge off to the right. She eyed the fence herself for one abortive moment, but even if she’d been stupid enough to trespass on the tracks, the thing had nasty spikes running along the top.
The woman obviously knew the area well, and Pierce stepped back from the fence with a defeated sigh. There was no way that she’d catch her now.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT TURNED OUT to be Deepan on the phone.
“Something come up?” Pierce asked, wandering fruitlessly up the hill along the line of the railway fence, though the woman was long gone.
“Big operation just nabbed a gang of thieves in Leeds,” Deepan told her. “Local police had a warrant to search one of their properties for stolen goods and found a shed full of ritual artefacts. I had a look and it seems pretty legit—there’s a few things that I recognise, and some of them are nasty enough that I’d rather have more educated eyeballs going through the place before we try to shift it all.”
“All right, I’ll join you there.” It didn’t look like there was going to be a lot of point in her hanging around here. “Might be an idea to grab Cliff as well.” The RCU’s magical analysts rarely made house calls—mostly too bloody busy and more useful to the team where they were—but while she had decades of crime scene experience under her belt, Cliff was the one who’d made it his life’s work to keep up with the study of occult artefacts.
“Mind you don’t let him wander in before you’ve checked everything for trigger runes and the like, though,” she added as an afterthought. Her experience at the barn yesterday was still fresh in her mind, and Cliff was used to getting his artefacts safely parcelled up in an evidence box after someone else had done the dirty work.
“Will do, guv,” Deepan said. He gave her the address, and she headed back through the trees to the boarded-up house. The news team seemed to be packing up, having reached the limits of the footage they could wring out of a long-empty house and a mob of vampire wannabes. Gemma slipped unobtrusively through the crowd to join her.
“I’ve got pictures of all the graffiti and the stuff left outside the house,” she said. “And some of the crowd. Dunno if it’s likely to be of use, though.”
Pierce pressed her lips together. “Mm. Not convinced any of this is connected to the original killers, but they’re cocky sods, so best be thorough all the same.”
“Did you find our mystery woman?” Gemma asked.
“Possibly, but she did a runner. I doubt she’s going to risk coming back today, but keep an eye out for anyone else wearing a necklace in the shape of a bat.” She grimaced as she took in the primarily black-clad crowd with their lacy shawls and capes and corpse-white make-up. “I appreciate that’s probably not exactly a distinctive marker in this mob, but do your best.”
She left Gemma with the job of canvassing the neighbours, not exactly thrilled to be leaving a constable alone in the field with no backup, but seeing little choice with the way their resources were stretched. In any case, she doubted the vampire cult were likely to try anything here while the media spotlight was on the place: they were cocky, not completely idiotic.
Unfortunately. They’d managed to get away scot free too many times already; Pierce could only hope that this time their luck would run out.
THE ADDRESS DEEPAN had given her led her to a considerably more upmarket neighbourhood of big semi-detached houses with well-kept front lawns. If not for the police presence, her target wouldn’t have stood out from its neighbours: lacy net curtains, neat conifer hedge, satellite dish on the wall. The front door and side gate were both standing open; Pierce waved her warrant card at the nearest warm body. “RCU, called in for a consult on some artefacts?”
The young PC looked blank for a moment, then gestured her towards the wooden gate. “Shed round the back. Your sergeant’s out there, I think.”
“Cheers.” She navigated the collection of wheelie bins parked round the side of the house and passed through the gate, ducking under the overhanging strands of creeper. The back garden was less well-tended than the front lawn, a trampled path leading through the long grass to the shed that took up most of the space. It had no windows, and in place of the usual simple bolt the door had a hefty padlock, though someone had already been a
t it with bolt cutters.
Pierce approached the closed door, pulling on a pair of evidence gloves from her pocket. “Knock, knock, anybody home?” she announced herself before tugging it open, to no response from within.
The inside of the shed was lit by a free-hanging incandescent bulb, and had the unavoidably musty, slightly damp scent of seldom-used space. Not the safest of storage conditions for potentially volatile magical items, especially crammed to the rafters as the shed proved to be: wooden shelves along three sides were loaded with occult objects, some of which made her eyebrows rise immediately. That shrunken monkey head hanging from the corner was definitely up to no good, and she didn’t much like the trio of blank-eyed dolls slumped beside it either.
A few larger pieces including storage chests, stone bowls and a cauldron were stacked in the middle of the floor—which was why it took her a few moments to spot Deepan, crouched down in the corner in front of what seemed to be an antique mirror, its ivory frame carved to resemble a wreath of thorns. The dust sheet that he’d pulled from it still dangled from his left hand, seemingly half forgotten. Pierce whistled softly to draw his attention. “Oi, oi—something interesting?” she asked.
Still no evidence that he could even hear her, and her mood flipped from mildly amused to wary fast.
“Deepan,” she barked, much louder this time. “Sergeant Mistry, I am talking to you, son!” She whistled again, a piercing blast. He didn’t so much as twitch in her direction. The whole of his concentration was intently focused on the tarnished surface of the mirror—though she was pretty sure it was something far more sinister than his own reflection that held him so transfixed.
Pierce edged around the obstacles to get closer to him, wary of falling into too direct a line of sight lest she end up snared by whatever enchantment lay on the mirror. Mirror magic could be nasty stuff, and it probably wasn’t wise to try to move him away from it until she knew what they were dealing with. But how could she figure that out if she couldn’t even look at the thing head-on?
By fighting fire with fire. She remembered she had a mirror of her own, the small square compact she’d taken to tucking into an inner pocket after a run-in with some possessing spirits a few months ago. If she knew her mirror theory, then a second reflection ought to neutralise the power of the first.
Unless it amplified it instead. Such were the joys of messing around with unknown artefacts.
But it was the least risky way of getting the measure of the situation, and whatever that mirror might be doing to Deepan, she doubted it was a good idea to let it continue. There was no saying how long he might have been crouched in front of it already.
She wasn’t even sure he was still breathing.
Forcing down the unhelpful instinct to just run forward and drag him away, Pierce unfolded her own compact mirror and angled it over her shoulder to try and see, an even more awkward manoeuvre than trying to get the back view of an outfit. She couldn’t get a clear look at the magic mirror with Deepan’s body in the way, so she pressed closer up against the shelves at the side, jostling a line of stone jars up on the highest shelf and causing the dangling monkey head to swing ominously.
At last she got the angle right to give her a glimpse of the tarnished mirror, and in it Deepan’s dully reflected face, but it was like trying to see him through a red-tinged fog. At first she thought it was a rusty tint to the mirror, but even as she watched a fresh cloud of brighter red puffed out from the ivory thorns that framed the glass, spreading through the mirror image like a cloud of octopus ink—or blood in water.
Entirely too much like blood in water.
Change of plan, Pierce decided. Get him away from that thing’s grip, now. Still looking through the compact, she backed towards Deepan’s position, bumping a shelf with her hip and flinching as a propped-up book fell sideways with a thud. The stone jars on the top shelf rocked slightly, but all that rained down on her head was dust.
Deepan didn’t so much as twitch.
Pierce reached out to touch his shoulder with the back of her hand, with half-formed thoughts of safety procedures for electric shocks. His skin was warm through his thin shirt, but it was like giving a nudge to somebody unconscious: unresponsive solid meat. She gave him a harder shove, enough to push him off-balance. His feet shifted under him to compensate for the wobble, but otherwise he gave no reaction. Lights on, but nobody home.
Another glance through the compact showed that the ivory-framed mirror was already stained a vivid, bloody red. She took a grip on Deepan’s shoulder, preparing to try and bodily wrench him away from it.
An urgent cough from the direction of the door made her jump and almost stumble back against the thorny frame. Pierce looked up from her intent focus on the compact to see Cliff standing in the doorway of the shed. “Ah, I wouldn’t advise moving him, Claire,” he said hastily. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s an eighteenth-century soul mirror, and separating the victim from its hold prematurely could have very nasty consequences.”
She was pretty sure that leaving him fixated on the thing would have nasty consequences too. “It’s draining his blood,” she said, shaking her head. Was it her imagination, or was Deepan’s face already starting to look grey? “I don’t know how long he was like this before I got here.”
“Yes, but if we break the magical connection the wrong way, it could be like yanking out a knife.”
Pierce stepped away from Deepan, ceding the field to Cliff’s expertise. “Tell me you know the right way,” she said.
“Hmm,” Cliff said, which wasn’t the most encouraging sound he could have made. Cliff was good at what he did, but he was used to thinking things through in the lab, not life-and-death fieldwork. Pierce twitched silently as he paused to think, aware that ‘less haste, more speed’ wasn’t really an approach she’d ever had much talent for. She was only conscious of Deepan, grey-faced and rigid beside her, and that they had no way of knowing how much of his blood the mirror had sapped already.
“Need this?” She held the compact mirror out to Cliff, hoping to kickstart some sort of plan of action.
He seemed to notice it in her hand for the first time. “A secondary mirror? Ah, yes, probably a wise precaution—but don’t worry, I came prepared.” He was carrying a leather satchel over his shoulder, and from it he dug out a case that turned out to hold a pair of wraparound sunglasses. “Mirror shades,” he said, almost apologetically, as he put them on. “Not the greatest fashion statement, I know, but remarkably useful for mirror work.”
“If this works, I’ll put them on the field equipment list,” Pierce said tightly. She edged back into the corner to allow Cliff to pass her in the tight space. Fuck, she hated hanging back and watching while other people took charge, but years of experience policing many different forms of magic didn’t make her a qualified practitioner. Whether performing magic required inborn talent was still a subject of hot debate, but regardless, it certainly took a great deal of patience, obsessive attention to detail, and the ability to block out all distractions.
Even if someone was dying.
Cliff gave Deepan an avuncular but absent pat on the shoulder as he crouched beside him with a creak of knees. “Don’t worry, lad, I’m almost sure that I know what I’m doing.” But his gaze was on the mirror, with the sort of pensive frown that better belonged on a man contemplating a difficult crossword. “Hmm, yes. Judging by the patterning, I think this might be a Schiavelli.”
“Meaning you know what to do?” Pierce said.
“I hope so,” he said. “Schiavelli was known for working a back door of sorts into the enchantments, so that he could reclaim control of his creations, so perhaps...”
He left off explaining in favour of doing, drawing a stick of chalk from his satchel to begin sketching symbols on the mirror. They disappeared into the glass like powder dissolving in water; watching in the reflection of the compact mirror, it took Pierce a moment to cotton onto the fact that she couldn’t see Cliff’s hand reflec
ted in the glass at all, though she could still see Deepan’s face there, submerged in murky red.
Had his eyes been closed before?
Cliff muttered to himself as he worked, half-heard syllables that Pierce couldn’t decipher; she didn’t know if it was ritual or he was just lost in thought, so she stayed silent, though her nerves were twanging.
Was the mirror surface changing as Cliff wrote? It seemed to her it had taken on a subtle new shimmer. Or was that just a stray reflection? She burned to turn around and look at the thing directly instead of through the tiny window of the compact mirror, but it wouldn’t help anyone if she got ensnared too.
Cliff’s chalking had grown faster, a flurry of impassioned strokes like a teacher finding sudden inspiration. Without warning he slashed the chalk across the mirror’s surface, two quick strokes to make an X, and barked, “Release!”
He held still. Pierce started to twist towards him, but he held up an urgent hand to stop her, frowning at the mirror. “No...” he murmured to himself. “That’s not the... Hmm.” He started another frantic chain of hastily scribbled symbols, culminating in a swirling figure eight. “Release!” he boomed again, and this time the image in the mirror visibly rippled, like the reflection in a pond disturbed by a stone. Pierce looked at Deepan for a reaction and saw none, but then Cliff roared again, “Release!”
Deepan sagged out of his crouched position like a puppet with cut strings, collapsing toward the mirror; he would have fallen against its thorny frame if Cliff hadn’t stopped him with an arm across his chest. Pierce was with him an instant later, helping to lay the sergeant down on the ground so she could take his pulse. It was there, but it was weak. She glanced up at the mirror before she could stop the idiot impulse, but it seemed to have been neutralised for now; the blood it had absorbed was oozing back out from the glass in beaded droplets, running down to puddle in the dust on the shed floor.
Spirit Animals (Ritual Crime Unit Book 3) Page 6