by Eli Constant
“Sorry, I think I’m confused.” I turn around, facing the living room and Kyle—who looks like he’s ready to knock Liam out with one well-placed punch. “I’m promised to some prince I’ve never met?”
“Yes.”
I keep focused on Kyle, willing him to hold his temper in check. “And you never thought you should tell me this? In all our nights of talking and me writing down helpful little tidbits about werewolves and pixies and witches, you never once thought, ‘maybe I should tell her that being Blood Queen means she’s also got to marry Prince Light Court?’”
“His name is Prince Oran, Son of Ivar the Golden One.”
“I don’t care what his damn name is. I’m not marrying anyone, especially because of some shit contract that I didn’t agree to.”
“It’s not something you can break from lightly, Victoria. This contract has kept balance between the light and dark courts for centuries. You would be risking that balance by your refusal.”
Kyle speaks up then, having stood quiet for some time listening. “She’s not going to be forced to marry anyone.” His skin ripples, as if he is a body of water and some passerby has dropped a stone to disrupt his tranquility.
“I don’t make the rules.” Liam leans angrily towards Kyle, taking a step forward. His power fluctuates, like someone turning a light switch off and on rapidly.
“Both of you stop!” Once again, I put myself between them—but this time, there’s actually a chance they might fight. “I’m the one who’s been made a Blood Queen without my permission. I’m the one who they want to force into some damn arranged marriage. You two need to chill out! How the hell am I supposed to freak out if I have to babysit you two?”
Kyle takes a step back. The first hint of fur had just started sprouting along his skin, but it recedes quickly as his anger flows from him. Liam takes even less time to return to his human state—calm and put together.
We all stand awkwardly for a while, the only sound my phone buzzing softly against the side table next to the sofa. Kyle breaks the silence.
“If you told the guy she’s supposed to marry that you love her, then why the hell would he let you come back.”
“He didn’t let me come back. I’ve been imprisoned for the past seven weeks while awaiting trial. It would have been a death sentence.”
“They would have killed you?” I hated that thought, that Liam might have died and not come back to me. Shit, I do not care about Liam that way. He’s just a friend.
Liam’s voice comes to life in my head. How long will you lie to yourself, Victoria?
I didn’t have time to mentally tell him to shut up again, my phone had stopped buzzing, but now it was buzzing again. And it wouldn’t stop. I walk towards it, my eyes trained on the black phone with the screen lit up. It was Terrance.
“We are not all done with this conversation, but I have to answer this.” I don’t wait for them to respond, I answer the call. “Terrance, what’s up?”
“Look out your window.”
“What?”
“Look out your living room window, Tori.”
I did. And across the street, I saw what must have been every first responders vehicle in the county parked outside Leslie’s house. My heart freefalls out of my chest and into my feet. “Shit.” I breathed the word out.
“Yeah, shit.”
“Is it Leslie?”
“Who?”
“The woman who lives at the house. Is it her?” Please don’t let it be her. I don’t want to lose her. If Jim was like a grandfather figure then Leslie was the closest thing I had to a grandmother now.
“No, it’s not her. Just come over.”
“Terrance, give me something more. Prepare me. Please.”
“Another victim. I’ve a hunch it’s the same killer as Maggie Smythe.”
I swallow hard. “I’ll be over in a second.”
Terrance doesn’t say goodbye.
The line goes dead in my hand and I go a little more dead inside, knowing that Terrance would call for only one of two reasons right now. Either they’d had a break in the case and he had questions for me or they’d found another body.
Looking at the strobing lights in Leslie’s yard, I know the answer. Another body. Another victim.
Chapter Fourteen
Only a truly insane woman would have left Kyle and Liam alone in the apartment with them glaring at one another and itching for a fight.
I am not an insane woman. I send them both packing—Kyle to the bar even though Mikey is already set to open up, and Liam to wherever the hell he goes when he isn’t with me. I’ve never asked. And I don’t really care to right now. I am glad he is back, but also beyond pissed that he’s kept the little detail of my arranged marriage to himself.
Kyle pulls out of my driveway in the Thunderbird just as I’m crossing the street. We wave and he slows down so that I can walk to the driver’s window for another goodbye kiss, but we are thwarted by Terrance’s voice booming out to me from behind Leslie’s house.
I shrug, Kyle looks sullen. But duty calls.
This duty, unlike marrying Oran, Light Prince and Son of the Golden one, is one I’m happy to perform. You can’t say no to the Prince of Light, Victoria.
Get the hell out of my head, Liam.
Looking around, I try to see where he’s hiding, but he’s nowhere to be found. Not even in the trees above my head.
I don’t have to be near you to talk to you. I’m not in the trees. His laugh floats through my mind and sends chills rolling down my arms. I quickly lower my face so I’m not staring at the changing colors of the leaves above.
And then I push, with all of my might, to eject him from my mind. I feel it when he goes, like wind rushing through my brain.
I catch sight of Leslie speaking with Steve. They’re standing on the porch of her house. I wave at her, but she’s too distraught to wave back. I wonder if she’s the one that found the body.
“Thanks for answering.” Terrance waves a hand, indicating to the officer in front of me to let me pass. I don’t recognize him. The new guy I guess. The one that replaced Darryl. He’s small, about my height, with baby blonde hair and pale brown eyes. A spattering of freckles dots his nose. He looks so young, too young to be a cop.
I say hi as I go by, but the man ignores me. Maybe he doesn’t think a civilian should be called to a crime scene. Great. I felt like shit that Darryl had died, but he and I had butted heads like hateful siblings. It looked like his replacement wasn’t going to be much better. I throw him a glance over my shoulder just before getting to Terrance’s side.
“What’s his problem?”
Terrance looks past me at the officer who’s standing with his back to us. “Don’t mind Timothy. He’s green and this was his first body. He shouldn’t have been out on patrol alone yet. I’ve got to have a few words with Steve. He was closest, answered the call. I didn’t handle it well as a seasoned cop, so I can’t imagine what he’s feeling.”
I nod. I’m desensitized to bodies and I don’t remember what it was like before I got used to the look of them, the pallor and the way their eyes are so empty. “I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“He’s a good kid.”
We’re nearly to the water’s edge now, or the ice’s edge rather. The sheet of glassiness goes as far as the eye can see. Lake Moultrie is huge and it has to be damn cold to freeze the thing. In the distance, about fifty feet out on the ice, I see yellow tape held around a patch of ice that’s been cleared of snow. Several people stand around it, one is taking pictures.
“I didn’t want them to cut the body out until you got here. I didn’t know if it would mess with your... gift if we disturbed the remains.”
“It might have. If a spirit is connected, being here might help him or her remember what happened. It might not though. I told you it’s not an exact science.”
Terrance nods. “Better safe, though.” He starts walking out on the lake and I halt.
&nbs
p; “Whoa, is it safe to walk out there.”
“I’ve been off and on twice already and we still have three folks on the ice. It’s safe, Tori.” He continues walking, leaving me to watch his back and decide whether I trust him or not.
“Shit,” I whisper, walking close enough to press one Nike-clad shoe onto the ice. It slips a little, but I don’t hear any cracking. Taking a deep breath, I start walking, praying I don’t hit a weak spot and end up neck deep in frigid water. Of course, if I fell through out where the body was, then I wouldn’t just be neck deep. “Who even found the body out here, Terrance?”
“Some guy’s dog chasing a stick. Doberman got all the way out here on the ice and wouldn’t stop barking. He’s at the station now, giving his statement.” Terrance hollers back, not turning around.
As I walk forward, with Terrance way ahead and already almost at the yellow tape, I reach down into the waters hidden below. Lake Moultrie has never held secrets, not the way Hellhole Bay does. There was the one suicide some time back, but that was it and she’d passed peacefully into the ether after giving me a message for her family. Why hadn’t I felt the victim? Had he or she passed on already? That would be unusual for a murder victim. They nearly always had some form unfinished business, but, then again, there had been no spirit connected to the Jane Doe’s body either. Perhaps this spirit, too, had become ghost.
I reach as deep as I can, trying to make sure that the victim’s spirit was really not clinging on. And then I feel it, like the most tentative touch inside my mind.
The feel of it reminds me of the difference between a body and its connected spirit when it is in its natural state and when it has been prepared for burial with embalming. I visualize the words in my grandmother’s diary again, how she describes how the bodies feel before and after they’ve been embalmed, how the absence of blood and bodily fluids changes the aura around the deceased.
And I realize that that is why I did not feel the body in Lake Moultrie, that is why I was not drawn to its spirit, so wasted and quiet in the waters. Just like Maggie and the Jane Doe, this body has been embalmed.
I’m almost there, seeing in double vision—the body building slowly so that I can see who the victim was in life. Only her face comes together in completion and I know now that it is because the body is no longer in its natural state. But her face is familiar. So familiar, not just because it resembles the two victims already identified, but because I have personally seen it before.
In a picture handed to me by a grieving father with an odd funeral request.
The truth I now hold makes me not want to see his body. Timothy Barrington, born Amanda Barrington. A young man never accepted by his mother. A young man whose childhood dog had just died. A young man whose boyfriend would speak at his funeral.
Allen Barrington would get his wish—a proper send off for his son—the only change was that I could now confirm that his son was dead and that we would be burying two bodies instead of only Rosemary’s cancer-struck frame.
I realize, as I’m picturing Timothy’s face, that I have stopped moving. I’m staring at nothing, unable to bring myself closer to the spot that has been cleared away. I do not want to see him trapped in the ice.
“Tori, you okay?” Terrance is looking at me and so are the other three people standing around. The one with the camera directs the lens at me and he snaps a photo. I can hear the soft click of the shutter closing and opening again.
“Don’t take my damn picture.” I spit out the words. I don’t want to be immortalized, now when I am seeing this poor man laid to waste by a cruel and practiced hand.
“Put the camera down,” Terrance murmurs at the man.
“She the one we were waiting for?” Another man looks me up and down; I focus on his face, giving him my best ‘eat shit’ expression.
“Yes.”
“She’s a civilian. What’s her expertise?” The man looks like he’d rather get my phone number than my opinion on the victim. It makes me feel all kinds of skeevy and I, to my discredit, squirm a bit under his gaze.
“She owns the funeral home across the street. Her expertise is embalming and if you’ve taken a close enough look at our victim here,” he points to the cleared patch of ice, “and you had half a brain in your damn head, then you’d know that she’s been embalmed. Or at least, her body has been treated in some unusual way after death. So I called her in to look before we disturb the remains. Does that answer your question fully enough?” Terrance waits for the questioner to respond. I speak first.
“He,” I correct automatically without thinking.
“What?” Terrance looks at me and everyone else is looking at me again, too, right after Terrance has said what he could to get them to leave me the hell alone. I’m super intelligent sometimes.
“I’m not sure what kind of an expert you are, but if you actually look at the body, you’ll know the gender was female. It doesn’t take a genius.” It’s the man with the camera. He doesn’t sound exactly unkind, but he doesn’t sound like he’s hopping with happiness that I’m here. The third man’s stood completely silent through the whole exchange, smoking a cigarette like this is just any other Tuesday and Lake Moultrie is a hotbed for murder victims. I wish I could be that nonchalant about the whole thing. But all I can see now is Allen and the way his grief consumed him.
“I’m sorry; this just reminds me of something else. And then, it wasn’t a woman who’d died.” I try to center myself as I walk forward.
“Why don’t you three take a break? When she’s done, we’ll get the body out.”
“Doug just wants us to cut around and transport the body in ice. He doesn’t want us to risk damaging evidence.”
Terrance nods, “Yeah, I know. I’ve got a guy coming out here to do it for us—a local contractor. He’s got a six foot saw. We’re going to sink eyebolts before he cuts through to the water and attach it to a portable lift that we can roll across the ice. I can’t think of any other way to do it.”
“Damn Rising and what it did to our weather. This would never have happened before the war.” It was the man with the cigarette, the end of it glowing in the weather like an ember trapped by the frosty air, just like the body is trapped.
I’m finally at the yellow tape, it presses against my upper thighs softly as I lean forward and see Timothy in the ice.
I know they all see Amanda. The killer made sure of that.
He is lovely, but not in the way that he was truly lovely. In life, where he’d discovered his true identity, an identity that his father and boyfriend both cherished. I can see dark, long hair, flowing in the ice like each strand has been placed with purpose. That is not possible, but that is what it seems like—like within the ice a wind is blowing, carrying the hair in a lovely, uninterrupted wave.
The little wave of spirit touches me again, licking at my body. He’s not strong enough though, to reach out and really let me see him.
I say nothing as the three other men shuffle past me and head towards the shore. I wait for Terrance to speak, indicating that they are out of ear shot.
“You said he. That wasn’t a mistake was it?”
“No, not a mistake.” I swallow, my eyes picking over every detail, and it’s amazing how well the glassy ice is cooperating. It is crystal clear, barely a bubble preventing our view of the body it holds. The pale blue dress he’s wearing has white buttons at the collar. One hand is so near the surface that I can see the tiny white crescents at the base of each nail. They have been manicured, lovingly filed down and painted a translucent pink. The shoes he wears are the same shade, a baby girl’s hue full of innocent promise.
I want to fall to my hands and knees and claw through the ice to him, to take off the things that ruin his sense of self. “His name is Timothy Barrington.”
“He told you that, just now?”
“No, his father told me that when he came to talk to me about holding a funeral for his son who’d disappeared. We weren’t going to have a bo
dy, but he needed closure.”
Terrance says nothing when I do fall to my knees, bringing my face too close to the ice and to Timothy’s frozen expression. I reel backwards, rising away from the surprise I can still make out in his very dead eyes. The yellow tape is a barrier again.
“Can you feel him now?”
“Yes, but he’s faint. I think he’s scared. Murder victims nearly always stay around for a while, so long that they start to deteriorate. Any spirit with unfinished business can do that and many are lost to the anti-ether if they can’t find resolution.”
“That’s interesting.” Terrance does take out his notebook now.
“You can’t write that down.” My heart jumps a little.
He hasn’t opened the notebook and he looks torn. “I’m never going to remember all of this.” He sighs, slipping the pad back into his pocket.
“Ask the same questions over and over. I’ll be here.”
“It’d be easier if I had my own reference.”
“Sure, that won’t ever fall into the wrong hands.” I say sarcastically.
“Fine, fine. I’ll only record things that could have been discovered by honest-to-god police work.” Terrance doesn’t seem happy, but shit, it’s my ass on the line if his precious little police notebook gets misplaced. Not that he’d be idiot enough to write down where he got the information. Ha. Actually, maybe they’d institutionalize him for writing about spirits and unfinished business and leave little ole me alone. In a perfect world.
“Thank you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Okay, tell me what else you can get out of this.” He gestures around. “I’ve got guys ready to go home for the day.”
“Well they can fucking wait, because this poor guy’s never going home.” I sound bitter. But whatever. I can’t always be sunshine and ice cream.