by Shéa MacLeod
“I don’t know how to explain it.” He tucked his hands into his pockets. “I’ve seen a few crime scene photos in my time and it just … it looked staged.”
“And he hadn’t been depressed? Acting funny?”
“Of course he was acting funny. He took off for Nowhereville without a word. But depressed? Definitely not.” Trevor ran a hand over his closely cropped curls. “In fact, he seemed really excited. He wouldn’t tell me anything, but it was like he was on the scent of something big.”
I knew that feeling well. I got the same way when I was on a hunt.
Inigo was pacing the room, frowning.
“You get anything?” I asked.
“No,” his tone was filled with frustration. “There are too many imprints here. Too many lives have passed through. I can’t get a fix on anything.”
“Not even a violent death?”
He gave me a look. “There’s been more than one violent death in this room. And we’re not even sure Agent Vega’s death was violent.”
“Craptastic.”
“Tell me about it.” Inigo went back to pacing the room.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flicker. A wisp of something white like smoke or fog. I turned my head but whatever it was vanished. A puff of air caressed my cheek, stirred my hair ever so slightly.
I frowned and touched my cheek. Must have been imagining things.
“When did they find his body?”
Trevor spoke up, face grim. “Two days ago. The maid turned up around ten in the morning to do her cleaning. When no one answered the door, she went in. Found him in the bathroom in a pool of blood.”
“And before that? When was the last time anyone saw him?” I kept scanning the room, taking in the faded bedspread and the stained carpet, but I was coming up blank.
“Not sure. The desk clerk says she saw him about lunchtime the day before. He was in his car, headed out. She didn’t see which way he turned. I can’t find anyone who saw him after that.”
“Okay.” I gave the room a last once-over. I could feel it, something tugging at me. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
“Uh, Morgan.”
I turned to Inigo. He had the oddest expression on his face. “What?”
“Your amulet is glowing again.”
I glanced down. Sure enough, the sapphire was giving off a soft blue glow. Honestly. Did I not have enough crazy in my life without throwing more magical weirdness into the mix?
“Not important.” I tucked the amulet inside my shirt to hide the glow. “What is important is focusing on the task at hand. I don’t think we’re going to get any more information here. Do you know where they’re holding the body?”
Trevor nodded. “The local funeral home.”
“The funeral home?”
“Yeah. There’s no morgue in Madras. The County Medical Examiner does the initial examination at the funeral home. If he’d ruled it suspicious they’d have transported the body to Portland for an autopsy. Since it was ruled suicide, there’s no investigation. The body stays here until his family claims it.”
We headed outside and I waited while Trevor locked up the room. “Can you get me into the funeral home?”
“Shouldn’t be a problem. Security around here is a joke.”
I raised my eyebrows at that. Both of them since I can’t do the whole Spock thing. “A government agent breaking and entering? I am shocked. Truly.”
“Watch it, sis, or I’ll dunk you in a snow bank.”
I stuck out my tongue at him. “You were ordered not to make waves, Trev. I don’t want you getting into trouble.” I was a free agent. I could pretty much do what I wanted. He couldn’t. Not if he wanted to keep his job.
“I’ll be fine.” The look of determination on his face reminded me of someone I knew. Quite possibly me.
“Trev … ”
“I’m going with you, Morgan.” The tone of his voice told me that was the end of the discussion as far as he was concerned. I barely resisted the urge to growl.
“Fine. Let’s go visit the mortuary.”
It’s not every day you get to say something like that.
***
The funeral home was out toward the airport on the outskirts of town. It was a chunky, red brick building with cheap wooden columns painted white to give it that “Colonial” look. I swear every other funeral home in the state had the exact same facade.
“It’s broad daylight and you want to break into a funeral home?” Inigo gave me a look usually reserved for crazy people. “Why don’t we wait until tonight?”
“Because we’re not going to break in. Besides, I need to get back to Portland tonight.”
“Why?” He gave me a suspicious look.
I heaved a sigh. “Mom made me promise to come to dinner.”
“We’re driving all the way back through the snow so you can have dinner with your mom?” The incredulity in his voice was understandable.
“It’s my birthday dinner. And breaking a promise to my mother is out of the question.”
He raised an eyebrow at that. “I’m sure she’d understand.”
“You’ve met my mother. What do you think?”
He froze for a split second. “Oh, yeah. Good point.”
We joined Trevor beside his car, his breath making little white clouds in the chill air. “How do you want to play this?” He glanced toward the front door.
The place looked closed up tight, but I knew better. This was small town America. I smiled. “We walk right in like we own this place.”
The door swung open easily and we paraded into the front room. “If anyone asks,” I told them, “we’re here to pay our respects to our aunt Emily.”
“And if they don’t have an aunt Emily?” Inigo asked.
“Oopsie, we’ve got the wrong funeral home. So sorry.” I turned to Trevor. “Where would they be keeping Agent Vega’s body?”
“In the back where the coolers are.”
I nodded and headed toward the back of the building. No one appeared to challenge us. The place was as silent as the proverbial tomb.
The hall was lined with viewing rooms on either side. Some contained caskets and flowers. Others were empty. So far as I could tell, no one was home. No one alive, anyway.
“I can’t believe they’d just leave the place unlocked in the middle of the day.” Trevor kept his voice hushed.
“It’s a small town. They’re probably having a late lunch or something. It wouldn’t be entirely unusual to leave the place unlocked in case of visitors. Who’s going to steal from a funeral home?”
“Actually, they’re one of the best places to steal from,” Trevor’s voice took on an almost professorial tone.
Great. We were in for a lecture.
“The deceased are often buried with small valuables. No one would notice if a ring or watch went missing.”
I repressed a groan. “This isn’t New York, Trev. It’s Madras. Nobody is going to steal from the dead unless they want the entire town on their ass. This must be it.”
The door was half hidden by a wall hanging and marked “private” with a small, neat plaque. All very subtle and tasteful.
Inigo tried the door. Locked. “Great,” he hissed, “the one place we need to get into is the place they decide to lock.”
It made sense, actually. It was one thing to leave the viewing rooms open to the public, but quite another thing to leave the rest of the place open. “You can pick the lock, though, right?”
“Sure, easy enough.”
Trevor groaned. “I’m a government agent. I do not want to know about this.”
“You can go wait in the parking lot if you want, brother mine,” I said sweetly.
He just shook his head.
I grinned and turned back to Inigo. “Well, what’s the verdict?”
“Easy enough to pick, but if we get caught back there, we aren’t going to be able to explain ourselves away.”
I shrugged. “Needs
must. Do it.”
Chapter Six
Daniel Vega’s body lay inside one of the mortuary refrigerators, neatly tucked inside a body bag. I frowned. Totally not like what they showed on CSI.
“You getting anything?” I turned toward Inigo. Sometimes he could sense the souls of the departed. Feel how they died. Apparently this was not one of those times.
“No, still nothing. It’s like something is blocking me.”
“We should hurry up,” Trevor said, keeping his voice low. “The mortician could be back any minute.”
“So flash your badge at him.” I swear, sometimes men are so thick.
“Remember, we’re on the down low, Morgan.”
“Like he’s going to care. All he’s going to see is the badge of a government agent and bend over backward trying to cover his ass.”
“Why don’t you try, Morgan,” Inigo interrupted our little sibling spat.
I blinked. “What?”
Trevor looked equally baffled, but Inigo just shrugged. “Your abilities have been doing the freaky lately. Maybe you can sense something where I can’t.”
He wasn’t wrong about my abilities. It seemed like every other day something new and weird popped up. I guessed it didn’t hurt to try. As long as I didn’t start raising the dead.
I had no idea what I was doing, so I just sort of held my hands a few inches from the body, palms facing down. I’d seen Cordelia Nightwing do something similar when working with the Tarot. I figured it couldn’t hurt.
At first there was nothing. I reached down to that place where the Darkness lived. I could feel it there like a tight little ball of blackness and next to it, a tiny flame. Neither seemed interested in the body on the slab.
Strands of violet red hair danced in the breeze, tickling my face. Nothing. I was getting nothing. Wait. What? Breeze?
“Did one of you leave the outside door open?”
“No, babe.” Inigo was a warm presence beside me. “Trevor shut it.”
“And the door to the room?”
“Shut,” Trevor confirmed.
“And you don’t feel anything weird?” I didn’t open my eyes to look at them, but I could almost feel them giving me dubious looks.
“Weird like what kind of weird?” Inigo again.
“Weird like the fact there’s wind inside this room.”
“Uh, Morgan?” Trevor cleared his throat. “There’s no wind.”
Freaking fantastic. So, only I could feel this mysterious wind. Just fabulous. “So neither of you felt any sort of breeze?”
They both assured me they hadn’t, which didn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it was freaking me out just a little. I would have liked to have brushed it off as an overactive imagination, but with all the bizarreness in my life lately, brushing things off wasn’t an option.
I reached down again. Down into that place where the Fire and the Darkness lived. Still they didn’t respond, which was weird because they did like to get out and cause a fuss.
So, I went a little deeper. There. Underneath the Darkness and the Fire was something else. Something new. I’m pretty sure my heart stopped beating.
It looked like smoke, swirling in ribbons of pure white, pale gray, and shimmering silver. It wound itself up and over and around the Darkness and the Fire like strands of glitter, making itself at home.
But it didn’t feel like smoke. It felt like …
Without warning it rushed up and out of me, whipping my hair around like I was standing in a hurricane. Inigo staggered back a couple steps, clothes plastered to his body while Trevor very nearly went ass over teakettle, unprepared for the blast. Sheets whipped wildly as though lashed by … wind.
Holy crap. The new power inside me was freaking Wind!
The Wind was a visible thing, swirling around the room as it had swirled inside me. It circled around until it hovered over the body of agent Vega, creating a tiny wind funnel that sparkled in the dim light.
I felt heat on my chest and glanced down. The sapphire in the center of my amulet was glowing again, bright light turning the smoke-like wisps of wind into rich, blue clouds.
Then out of the curls of smoke a figure began to form. It was shaped vaguely like a man, but I got the impression it was bigger, meatier.
The image grew sharper. Reddish skin drawn tight over bulging muscles. Inky hair spilling over broad shoulders. The image turned toward me, almost as if it were alive and could see me. Its eyes were twin pinpoints of sapphire: Reflections of my amulet.
It definitely looked human. Well, other than the coloring. Not a lot of people with skin the color of a tomato running around.
I watched as the man, for lack of a better word, leaned over the body of Daniel Vega. Only it wasn’t the body lying on the table I was seeing, it was a superimposed image. The background looked like the hotel room, and living Daniel Vega was being held down on the bed by a meaty red hand. The strange man opened his mouth inches away from Vega’s, as though about to kiss him. Then he inhaled, his red-hued chest expanding.
Shimmers danced along Vega’s body before being swept into the large man’s maw and disappearing down his throat. Like an incubus inhaling a person’s soul. I stared in horror as the life in Vega’s eyes flickered, then died. Then the strange red man turned to me, teeth bared in a frightening sneer.
I took an involuntary step back, forgetting for a moment that what I was seeing was in the past. The image of the red man dissipated in front of my eyes. The smoke and wind stopped swirling madly around Vega’s body and began a lazy dance toward me. It pushed its way through my chest and down into my center to wrap itself around the Fire and the Darkness that already lived inside me. Only then did it let me go.
I staggered backward and nearly fell over Inigo. “Whoa, Morgan.” He caught me and held me tightly to his chest. “What is it? What happened? What did you see?”
I swallowed hard. “I saw how Daniel Vega died.”
“You did? How?” Trevor glanced from the body back to me, confusion written all over his face. Couldn’t say I blamed him.
“I don’t know. All I know is you were right. Vega was murdered by a supernatural.”
***
The first thing I did after we left the funeral home was call Jack. I might be pissed at him, but I still needed his help.
“Listen, Jack, is there something I should know about the amulet?”
He hesitated. Telling, if you ask me.
“I need the truth, Jack.”
He sighed. “What is it doing?”
“Glowing. The damn thing’s been lighting up like a Christmas tree.”
A pause. “How many times has it happened?”
“Three times. Dammit, Jack … ”
“And what were you doing when it started glowing?” he interrupted.
“The first time was at my birthday party. Kabita was doing some kind of ceremony. Cleansing my aura or something.”
“There was sage involved?”
I frowned, forgetting he couldn’t see me. “Uh, yeah. How’d you know?”
He ignored my question. “And the second and third times?”
I glanced over at Inigo. I’d let him drive the Mustang. I was still a little shaky after the weirdness. “I don’t know, exactly.”
“What do you mean by that? Exactly.”
I sighed and shoved a lock of violet red hair out of my face. I really needed a haircut. “I was trying to figure out how someone died.”
Jack was silent.
I sighed again. “He died under mysterious circumstances, okay? And the cops are saying it was suicide, so I thought I’d check it out.”
“You just thought you’d check out some random stranger’s body? Come on, Morgan. Be straight with me.”
“Fine. The person in question was possibly connected to the supernatural, so I thought I’d see if there was more to his death than, you know, normal dying.”
“And was there?”
“Oh, yeah.”
&nbs
p; I could almost see Jack frowning on the other end of the line. “So, the amulet started glowing around the dead body?”
“Well, yeah. Once I started channelling wind.”
A heartbeat. “Excuse me?”
“Um, yeah. It’s my new thing. Apparently I can channel wind, though it looks kind of weird and smoky, or misty, or something.”
“I assume you discovered this by accident.”
“Yeah. You could definitely say that.” Discovering a new superpower had so not been on my agenda.
I told Jack how the wind had swirled out of me. How the amulet had started glowing, and then seeing the red man-thing sucking the life out of Daniel Vega.
“Crap.”
“I know, right? Please, Jack, what the hell is going on?”
“With the wind channelling, I have no idea. That’s Eddie’s department. The amulet … ”
“Yeah?” Damn, it was like pulling teeth.
“The amulet has been known to glow when it senses a certain type of magic nearby.”
I was getting a really bad feeling about this. “What type of magic, Jack?” I all but snapped.
“Sidhe magic.”
Well, damn.
Chapter Seven
“Wait. Jack said it glows when sidhe magic is near, right?” Inigo’s forehead creased in a frown as he stared at the road twisting into the darkness in front of him.
“Yeah, that’s what he said.”
“There wasn’t any sidhe magic at your birthday party. Not until Fringe anyway.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t remind me. Apparently the amulet does sometimes respond to Earth Magic, as well.”
“Which is what Kabita does.”
“Yep. That’s why Jack asked about the sage.” I noticed it had started snowing again. A few little flakes glowing white against the darkness as they drifted slowly on the wind.
“I still don’t get why it lit up like a Christmas tree in the mortuary. I think we’d have noticed if there were any sidhe around.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. The sidhe didn’t exactly blend. At least not to Hunter eyes. And Inigo’s dragon senses certainly would have picked one up.
“I don’t get it either.” I frowned. “There’s something we’re not getting. I need to give Eddie a call tonight.”