Table of Contents
Excerpt
Blood, Dirt, and Lies
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
A word about the author…
Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
The bike swerved,
it jagged left, and I hoped he was showing off. I raised my head to see, but through the visor of the helmet I realized with dread he wasn’t. The very trees around us were reaching out for the bike, limbs bending to go in front of him.
He rode through the gauntlet, swerving, working against the forest. I had no idea where to move, how to move; I could only cling to him, desperate not to be thrown off.
I looked down and saw, too late to warn him, the trees were only half of the attack. Deep into the park, surrounded by trees with no way to dodge, the ground rose up against us.
Like a wave of water, the soil and the plants on top of it swelled. Before I could say anything, we were airborne, the bike launched as if it had gone over a ramp. I expected him to stay with the bike, to try to land gracefully, but instead he let it go and grabbed me.
Holding me tight, we fell, plowing into the earth, his back to the ground.
Blood, Dirt,
and Lies
by
Rachel Graves
The Death Witch Series, Book 3
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Blood, Dirt, and Lies
COPYRIGHT © 2017 by Rachel Graves
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by Debbie Taylor
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Mainstream Paranormal Edition, 2017
Print ISBN 978-1-5092-1845-5
Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-1846-2
The Death Witch Series, Book 3
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
This book is for you.
You are stronger than you imagine
and worth more than you will ever know.
Chapter 1
It was cold, but the body in front of me, with her drowned eyes popped wide open and her lips parted in a constant wet scream, felt colder. They’d pulled her out of the river before we arrived. She hadn’t been in long; her water-logged flesh stayed firm under my fingertips. She could still talk to me.
I put my hand on the girl’s arm and called my magic. It made the wind stop howling. It quieted the talk around me. It even chased away the cold. When I channeled death magic the rest of the world fell away. Instead I was in the dead girl’s world, reliving her final moments.
Pain, choking burning pain, and an image dancing behind her eyes, a wall of solid green as her mouth filled with water. She drowned, but not in the icy black waters of the river; no, the water in her mouth tasted salty. She’d died someplace else and from the strength of the images I could tell it’d been a few days ago.
I searched back in the memory trying to find something, some part of her death to give me a lead to catch her killer. There wasn’t anything except the solid green. Maybe swamp water, maybe the side of a pool somewhere, and someone holding down her arms while she drowned, fighting for air.
Reading her took all my magic and the power of her death rocked me back on my heels, leaving me sitting in the frigid mud along the river bank. Baton Rouge didn’t usually get this cold, not even in late January. A bad storm was coming, with snow and ice. With the magic gone cold seeped into my veins. The rain started, cold rain to match the cold water in the river.
“Well, partner?” A warm hand offered me an even warmer cup of coffee which I accepted gratefully. The hand belonged to a man who was handsome once but was older now, soft around the middle. Age hadn’t touched his deep brown eyes or dark black hair, and even the storm couldn’t stop his smile.
My partner didn’t seem to notice the gale force winds or the way the temperature was slipping below freezing. But then, he was standing by the river. Give Danny a river and he was content.
“She drowned but it wasn’t here,” I said between sips of hot coffee.
“Is it one of ours?” he asked, meaning was it a supernatural kill.
I tilted my head, unsure. Our city was about ten percent witches and another two percent assorted preternatural creatures. Citizens were sprites, goblins, fairies, and all sorts of things I couldn’t name, like Danny.
Most of those supernatural beings were content to go about life as a normal person, though some wanted to hide what they were. But no one could hide from the law, and when a goblin or a fairy or anything else a little more than human got in trouble with the law they ended up with us, the Supernatural Investigative Unit.
We were the police unit charged with taking care of domestic disturbances between people who could turn into snow or trolls who could tear apart buildings. The rules were pretty simple; the minute magic entered into a case it was ours. Use a spell to get your ex-wife to give you back some trinket you left behind? That was supernatural assault and we’d see you on Monday. Set up a summoning star and call a demon to take care of your lousy landlord? Supernatural assault with intent to kill.
Even the boring stuff, an air witch loses his temper and blows the windows out of his office, became our problem. But this girl, was she one of ours?
“I have no idea,” I admitted. “She died looking at a field of green, a light green painted ceiling maybe? Someone was holding her arms down. That’s all I’ve got.”
“Better than nothing.”
I agreed with him but I was still angry. I was sick of the cold, and I never wanted to see another body they pulled out of the river in January. Bodies talked to me: animals buzzed, human bodies whispered. Even ghosts chatted with me on occasion. Some of them were comical or helpful but it couldn’t all be good news. I was a detective with the city’s Supernatural Investigative Unit. Most of the dead bodies I saw were murder victims.
****
Danny drove us back to the squad room, unnaturally quiet.
“What’s bugging you?” I asked.
“The kids are sick. Well, actually Nora’s sick but I’m sure Maeve will get it soon enough.” Danny had three kids, all black Irish with pale skin and dark curly hair like him. The youngest, Emma, was a champion step dancer. They looked like angels but could tear things up and I would know: I was their babysitter.
“Emma miss this one?”
“Yeah, she’s like me, never gets sick. Katie’s getting over it and Emma’s doting on her.” Katie was Danny’s Irish-American wife, with bright copper-colored hair and an easy smile. Of course, trapped in a house with three g
irls, one who was sick, another getting sick, and just getting better herself, I didn’t think Katie was smiling very much.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” I said as I slid out of the unmarked car in the parking garage.
“Nothing anyone can do except wait for the storm to be over.”
I didn’t ask him which storm, the one inside his house or the one brewing outside.
****
The SIU lived several stories above the ground in a tall government building built by the lowest bidder. The elevator opened a few steps in front of tall glass locking doors, stenciled with an arching “Supernatural Investigative Unit” and underneath it, in smaller letters, “Lieutenant Edward French.”
The lieutenant was a good guy; he’d hired me with no experience before I was willing to admit I was a death witch. An ex-Marine (was there such a thing?), he kept the bull pen with its four sets of partners’ desks and corridor leading back to his glass enclosed office in strict military order. Still, when I opened those doors I wasn’t expecting the quiet on the other side.
Usually the SIU was filled with people crying, chanting, trying to call up some otherworldly answer to their problem, or plain yelling. Today, on the edge of a historic ice storm, it was quiet, which made the vampire sitting at my desk all the more disturbing.
“What are you doing here?” I knew this vampire. In a town of one hundred thousand people and maybe two hundred vampires I didn’t know all of them. My boyfriend, Jakob, the head vampire in town, who made the rules, didn’t like most of the others. So really, I knew him, his best friend Mark, and well, only one other vampire: the arrogant prick who was sitting in my chair.
“A better question is what are you doing here?” He smiled with an insufferable grin on his boyish face. Amadeus Baptiste was a professional, which was the polite way of saying a prostitute. Thanks to the morality wars, the oldest profession was legal now. Amadeus made his living offering women the delights of cool skin and sharp fangs.
We’d run into each other a few months back when one of my cases took me to the town’s only supernatural brothel. He got under my skin. There was something about the way his handsome face would never look old enough to drink and those brown eyes suggested all the things he could do to me. For some reason, Amadeus seemed to think my steady, grown up relationship with Jakob meant I had a thing for vampires. He was wrong.
“I’m here because that’s my desk. Now unless you’ve got some problem you can run along.”
“Actually, it’s after seven, so this is my desk,” he said cheerfully, opening one of the drawers on the left-hand side to take out a coffee cup.
“What?” My voice came out a little too loud.
“Oh, hey Mallory, looks like you know the new guy,” Ben said, passing through to the break room. Ben Auster was the night shift detective who sat at Danny’s desk. He was Danny’s mirror, doing what my partner did from seven at night until seven in the morning. A hulking Hawaiian with dark skin and a body shaped by hours in the gym, Ben never caused any problems for me.
He was an air witch, and the department’s go-to guy for interviewing vampires when I wasn’t around. It never felt like he was invading my space, which was exactly what Amadeus was doing.
I turned back to the vampire with as much disdain as I could muster. “You’re the new guy?”
“Detective Baptiste at your service.” He held out a hand but I didn’t take it. “Actually, I’m not really new, more like coming back. I was on the force for about thirty years but that was…”
He stopped, making a big show of the math. He looked about seventeen, but he was at least over a hundred years old. “Probably when your parents were toddlers.”
He smiled at me expecting some response but since the only thing I wanted to say wasn’t work-safe I kept my mouth shut.
“So first day on the force and I already outrank you.” He laughed, the son of a bitch laughed.
I turned on my heel and walked out without another word.
****
I’d taken the train to work, reluctant to take my precious Jeep out in bad weather. I loved my Jeep, we were meant to be together. But like all good relationships we needed time apart, and when it was cold and wet with a high wind, Lara’s plastic windows made for a little me time. Unfortunately, the walk to the train station and the one from the train station to my apartment made me even wetter than I had been.
My building is a luxury high-rise with thirteen floors. My place was on the twelfth with a solid wall of windows. I woke up to a stunning view of the city each morning. The Eclipse gave a discount for cops or I could never afford the place. Even with the discount my budget groaned between the rent and the heating bill. No one ever mentioned a wall of windows made a room pretty cold.
Cold enough that when I walked through the front door I went right to the fireplace and spun the dial on the gas flame up as high as it would go. My boyfriend, Jakob, should have been there to meet me, but I suspected he was out on some storm-related errand. My rainy walk drenched me, turning my hair into a drippy wet mess, soaking my clothes, and generally making me miserable. I shivered thinking about the girl we’d pulled out of the river. I probably wasn’t that cold. I was probably just still feeling the way she’d died, cold and drowning. The realization didn’t help me warm up and I found myself mumbling to the fire goddess.
“Anna says you like me, E says you like me; well I’m freezing my ass off here. A little help, please?” I muttered, waiting for the warmth of the fireplace to fill the room. Anna and E were both fire witches; they shared the ability to control flames but to a much different degree. Anna could call mating fire, the bright blue flame that brought lust, and she could make candle flames jump by asking them to, but E was much more.
She was strong enough to be called a mage, the title witches gave to someone who channeled the goddess with ease. Anna had done it once, tapping into a wellspring of power to save me last summer. E did it all the time. She was a friend of Jakob’s, a loner who kept to herself.
Anna was social, one of the most outgoing members of a family who had been fire witches for generations and held a high position in the church. The two women couldn’t be more different.
E was short and boyish, a war veteran who was tough all over. Anna was a model, nearly five-ten and everything about her screamed sensuality. As different as they were right now they had one thing in common that made me jealous: neither of them ever got this cold.
I shivered, half-convinced the fire wasn’t going to get warm enough. I should head upstairs and get into the shower, except the water would take forever to get warm and afterward I’d still be wet. I groaned in frustration, falling back onto the living room carpet, positive I’d never be warm again.
I laid there dripping for a few seconds, mustering up the desire to head to a shower when the doorbell rang. Frustrated, still cold and wet I answered the door to find E’s pixie-like frame.
“Come here,” she said, opening her arms and stepping inside the apartment. She let the door swing shut behind her, offering comfort like someone’s mother.
We ended up in the living room, in front of the fire; somehow it seemed to get warmer because she walked in front of it. E had that effect on fires. She sat down cross legged and gestured I should do the same. A minute later she stretched her hands out to meet mine and bright orange flame licked at me.
It didn’t burn and it didn’t bring the feeling of desire and pleasure I associated with blue mating fire. Then again, mating fire might be something fire witches only shared with each other, not people like me. The fire grew around me, climbing up my arms and down my body, squirming its way under my clothes. E smiled.
“You do this all the time?” I asked. The fire was working its way into my hair, fingers of flame giving me a massage that soothed and warmed all at once. My hair turned from dark black ropes to deep brown waves as it dried.
“Often, not all the time,” she replied with a smile. “Usually whe
n something good happens, I take a fire bath to burn it into my memory.”
“Something good?” And the memory came to me through the flames, E with a man, in a bedroom filled with sunlight, the pleasure and the passion, release after so long. It stopped so abruptly I didn’t think she’d meant to share it with me.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, confirming my thoughts. “It’s hard to be like this and not let your thoughts spill over.”
“Then why come over?”
“You asked for help, and we’re happy to give it.” We’re, I hated it when E mixed up her pronouns. She considered the goddess her sister-self, a thoroughly pagan phrase that set my teeth on edge. I didn’t have a religion of my own, so I struggled with matters of faith. I liked my gods distant and hands off, not intermingling with people.
Then again, I was warm for the first time in what felt like days. Warm and dry, the fire won the battle against the discomfort I’d been feeling for weeks. I’d grown up in the South, in a small town with farmers and sunlight. I wasn’t used to the gray cold damp that invaded from the north. It sucked the life from me, turning my world into a dishwater-colored place, making me worry I was slipping into depression. Wrapped in fire, holding E’s hand, those worries seemed silly.
Magic tingled at me, called, and it had nothing to do with the woman in front of me or the goddess she worshiped. Something was coming, and the death witch in me wanted me to pay attention. I stopped talking, stopped listening to E talk, and turned my mind inward, focusing not on the pleasant warmth but on the tickle of magic.
My building was vampire-friendly, supernaturally safe, built with shutters to block out the sun and cages for things that needed to lock themselves up at night. As my power flew over those floors I felt every vampire in the building. There were five of them, none of them nearly as old as the one who called to me. When I recognized him, I moved past the building, opening my mind further when a voice caught me.
“What is this?” It was the crackle of speech made flames, the popping and burning of a fire turned into words. It was E’s voice when she channeled the goddess and it stopped me cold. “Let me feel it.”
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