by Linda Welch
“No, Maggie, you can’t! He’ll kill Avery.”
She ignored me and took another step to the door.
She wasn’t fast enough for Royal. “Go!” he roared.
Maggie twitched. Blinking, she turned to the door.
I read Royal’s body language and what I saw frightened me. His pale-copper skin darkened to a ruddy brown and his copper eyes roiled in their depths. Royal is a law-abiding man with a conscience bigger than Niagara Falls, he knew shooting Avery was murder, but he wanted to pull the trigger. His hand trembled as he tried to master his rage.
Were I in my body, I’d feel electricity skittering over my skin like a million ants. Maggie rubbed her wrists through the parka; she felt the charge in the air.
Her presence might be the one thing holding Royal back.
I was tempted to yell at her, but she was already on edge. “Maggie, don’t go,” I said softly. “He won’t hurt you. I promise.”
Perhaps if Royal killed Avery, nothing changed for me. But perhaps it did. I couldn’t take the risk, or let Royal commit murder.
“Maggie, please,” I moaned. “He’s a good man. If he kills Avery, it’s all over for him.” Not to mention it would be all over for Avery.
She stopped with her hand on the doorknob, took in a deep breath and nodded. Turning to Royal, she said shakily, “I’m not going anywhere. You can’t shoot him. It’ll be murder.”
“Get out, now!” Royal growled.
She took a hesitant step toward him. “Your finger’s so tight on the trigger, one twitch is all it’ll take. He’s cuffed, so why don’t you holster your gun and we’ll talk.”
He looked ready to explode, but his expression changed, the anger replaced by comprehension. His finger released its death hold on the trigger and he backed a few paces away from Avery, but kept the gun trained on him. “You did not come looking for an empty house to party in. Who are you, Maggie Benson?”
“You’re doing great, Maggie,” I said. “Keep talking. Keep him talking.”
But Maggie had run out of words.
Royal nodded grimly. “Very well. I’m turning Magnusen in and you are going with me.”
“I didn’t want to shoot her,” Avery said in a muffled voice. “He forced me to. I had no choice.”
Royal stared at Maggie for another second. He holstered his gun, swung away, bent, grabbed the neck of Avery’s jacket and yanked him to a sitting position. “What did you say?”
Blood trickled down Avery’s face from a contusion on his cheek. It must have tickled. He lifted his shoulder and dipped his head to rub his face, smearing the blood on it. “Oh, I wanted to hurt her when he told me she put my son in jail. He died because of her. But I couldn’t put my family through that. When I refused, he threatened Anne and Susan.”
“Who? What are you talking about?” Royal asked.
Avery went on with a faraway, horrified look in his eyes. “He tore our dog apart with his hands! I didn’t think anyone could be as strong. With his bare hands!”
He gulped repeatedly before going on. “He swore he’d do the same to Anne and Susan if I didn’t do as he said. I imagined seeing my wife and daughter like . . . what was left of Jasper.”
So Jasper didn’t run away.
“With his bare hands.” Dread thick as sludge turned in my belly. Please God, no.
I don’t think Royal was breathing. Shivering, arms wrapped about herself, Maggie swallowed hard.
“He told me exactly where to shoot her.” Avery looked at Royal. “He told me to run, stay ahead of the police. I must remain free so I could give you his message. I planned to leave tonight and head south. He said you’d eventually find me, wherever I went.”
Royal came to life. He hoisted Avery by his lapels. The man’s toes hung two inches above the floor. “Who?”
Avery met his eyes. “I have a message for you from Dagka Shan. Only blood and magic can bring your woman back.”
Chapter Eleven
If I could have breathed I would have stopped breathing. If my heart beat, it would have faltered. As if I swayed on the brink of a precipice, my stomach dropped away and I felt I’d topple into nothing.
“You can’t imagine. . . .” Avery said.
But I could, and already knew who Avery spoke of when he described his pet’s horrible death. I found myself muttering, “no, no,” under my breath as I desperately tried to push away visions of a massacre in Nebraska and the memory of a room deep in the bowels of the High House. A powerful, pitiless, insane man, torn flesh dripping from his curled fingers. Dagka Shan. Much as I wanted to deny the possibility, how else did Avery know the name? Who else was that powerful, that merciless?
Royal dropped Avery who slid down the wall to sit with legs bent under him.
Dagka Shan. It changed everything. With Shan involved, Royal needed all the help he could get. I couldn’t keep silent.
“There’s nothing else for it. Maggie, you have to convince him I’m alive. Say you want to talk to him and go outside where Avery can’t hear you.”
Maggie’s eyes tried to pop out of her head, but she nodded. “There’s something you should know,” she told Royal. “But not here.” She made for the back door.
With a glance at Avery, Royal followed. They stepped outside into the snow. Royal folded his arms and turned a hard look on Maggie.
“Tell him,” I urged. “It’ll be okay.”
“You want to know why I’m here?” she began.
“Tell the police.”
“You’ll change your mind when you hear.” She took in air which made her chest shudder. “Tiff’s not a vegetable kept alive by machines. I’m a clairvoyant. I speak to her. She’s with me now.”
A humorless little smile began to form on one side of Royal’s mouth, then his lips flattened. “You have five seconds to leave before I throw you in a snowbank. I will not be gentle.”
Oh dear. I ought to take control. It was the only way to make him understand.
“Keep it together, Maggie. I’m going to tell you what to say. Okay?”
I charged ahead. “Tell him only four people know where Jack and Mel are buried.” Saying they were in my basement would have had more impact, but Maggie didn’t need to know that.
“She says only four people know where Jack and Mel are buried—what happened to them?”
I rolled my eyes. “This will work better if you repeat only what I say, or you’ll confuse him.”
“But—”
I used a warning tone. “Maggie.”
“Oh, right. She says—”
Royal suddenly got in her face. “How do you know that?”
Maggie looked at him towering above her. Her tone became apologetic. “I didn’t until she told me. I guess the four are you, Mel, Jack and Tiff?”
The color washed from his face. He couldn’t explain this away. Nobody else knew old Frederick Coleman buried my roommates’ bodies in the cellar. Royal knew because I told him.
“Good. Keep going.” And I told her what to say.
“You know Jack and Mel recently learned how to leave Tiff’s house where they’ve been stuck since 1986 and 1990 respectively. Carrie taught them how. Who’s Carrie?”
“Maggie!”
“Sor-ry.”
“You are speaking to Tiff?” Royal asked, as if trying to comprehend his words.
“Yes. Which is why I’m making a mess of it. She’s telling me things and—”
“Maggie! Get with the program! Finish what I told you to say.”
“So,” she went on. “Tiff can do it. Jack and Mel went to the hospital and found her. They taught her how to cling to a person’s aura to move with them. They came to me. Tiff’s not dead but somehow got pushed out of her body. She can’t be a shade but she operates by the same rules. We’ve been looking for Avery to stop you from killing him. She doesn’t know what affect his death will have on her.”
I looked into his dark-copper eyes and sorrow I didn’t think I could bear slid th
rough me. “I’m here, Royal. I’ve missed you so much.” My hands wanted to stroke the familiar planes of his face. I wanted to hold him, so much it hurt.
“She misses you so much,” Maggie whispered with dewy eyes.
Royal’s face twisted, his pain a physical, visible thing.
“Repeat what I say, Maggie. Only what I say.” When I spoke to Jack’s ex-lover Dale, he heard my voice but Jack’s words. Maggie was my voice as I tried to make Royal believe.
“Remember when we went to Portland? We came out of the Economy Lodge and Detective Haney was outside? He saw us but you zipped us out of sight, leaving the poor guy wondering if he imagined us?
“And when you disappeared and I thought I’d never find you. Cic. . . .” I hated to say my uncle’s name. “Cicero had you all the time.”
As she repeated my words, Maggie’s eyes bugged out with the need to question me.
“And England? We went there looking for Paul Norton and instead found Carrie and an elemental. And you thought you were so ha-ha-bloody-funny talking me into eating the traditional English lunch at the Heart and Garter.”
Royal looked away and brushed his face with his sleeve. He looked back with moist eyes. “Tiff? I can’t believe. . . . It can’t be.”
Maggie spoke with the feeling I put into my words. “You have to believe, Royal. I need you to. I need you.”
He put the back of his hand to his mouth and briefly shut his eyes. Looking at her again, he dropped his hand and said, “We should continue this elsewhere, after I take Magnusen to Clarion PD.”
“But he’ll tell them about Shan,” I said.
“I doubt they will believe him,” he said after Maggie echoed my words. “It is a wild story and there is no proof. If they try to investigate, they will get nowhere.”
“It doesn’t seem fair, Avery taking the fall when he had no choice.” I was glad he didn’t kill Avery. He was Shan’s tool. Shan threatened his family and Avery already lost his son. What man chose to let his loved ones die so a stranger might live?
“Perhaps his lawyers will plead insanity,” Royal added.
“He saw Maggie, he knows her name.”
Maggie automatically repeated my words, paused with her lips parted, then gasped, “Shit!”
Royal said, “You were unconscious when I asked your name. That is to your advantage. I will talk to him. He will not tell the police you were here.”
How did he mean to swing that?
Unconvinced, Maggie walked in a small circle, flinging her arms all over the place. “Shit, shit, shit!”
“Do not worry. I will remind him how he struck you as he came out of hiding and threatened you with a firearm, and suggest he does not want an additional charge of battery filed against him.”
Back in the cabin, her shoes sopping wet and feet frozen, Maggie paced and fumed. Royal set in to interrogate Avery. This meant asking him the same questions repeatedly, hoping the man slipped up. But Avery said what he’d already told us, nothing more. Royal paced, boots crunching glass shards.
I couldn’t keep still. With half an ear on Royal’s and Avery’s terse conversation, I went to the kitchen. I pulled my braid forward over my shoulder and tugged as I tried to think, but my brain didn’t cooperate. Shan’s message spoke of bringing me back, so he knew what happened to me after I was shot. He forced Avery to shoot me, told him exactly where the bullet should hit me. The first shot was a deliberate miss, to make me look up.
I thought we were safe with Shan held captive by the Cousins. Were they all in this?
Only blood and magic can bring your woman back. What the fuck did that mean? What did he want from Royal?
Maggie came behind me as I stood in the kitchen. “What’s going on, Tiff? Who is Dagka Shan?”
She needn’t have bothered to mute her voice. With his superior senses, Royal heard her. But he concentrated on wearing down Avery so maybe what Maggie said went over his head.
And what if he did listen? He knew I was here and Maggie and I talked.
“Shan is an old enemy. A really, really bad dude. He was incarcerated, locked away forever. Apparently not anymore.”
I decided not to tell her about Gelpha, the Dark Cousins and Bel-Athaer. As it was I had pulled her in deep enough, she should not have to carry that burden of knowledge.
“It seems he made Avery shoot you.”
“Yeah, poor guy. I should hate him, but he didn’t have a choice. Shan didn’t give him one.”
“But what does he want?”
I folded my arms and looked through the back window. “No idea, and I don’t think Royal is getting anywhere with Avery.”
Royal came behind Maggie, brushed past and swiveled to face her. “You will wait here until I return.”
“Tell him yes.”
Her chin pumped up and down.
Royal hoisted Avery over his shoulder and left through the back door. I watched him stride down the driveway. “His pickup must be farther down.”
Maggie folded her arms around herself. She felt the cold now adrenalin no longer pumped through her. The cabin was chilly when we came in, now icy air flooding through the broken window made it frigid. “I’m not staying here. I’ll freeze.”
“You must. You leave, he’ll come looking for you and he won’t be happy. And he’ll find you, don’t doubt it for a second.”
She made for the back door. “If he can find me so easily, why stay? And I don’t care about his mood, not when I’m about to die of hypothermia.”
Agh! I sunk my hands into her aura before she left me behind.
Maggie plowed around the cabin and down the driveway. She slowed when her feet almost went out from under her. But we got to her car without an accident.
She delved in her hip pocket, frowned, plunged her hand in her other pocket and her back pockets. “Where are my keys?”
“Did they fall out when the wall hit you? You went down pretty hard.”
Hefting a huge, irritable sigh, Maggie about-turned.
Halfway to the cabin, I harked back to Royal brushing past Maggie. No! He didn’t!
Bet he did.
I didn’t voice my suspicion till Maggie had searched the cabin and remained keyless.
“He what?”
“I think he snuck them from your pocket when he pushed past you.”
She muttered and mumbled and compared Royal to one animal after another. I didn’t defend him.
When she lost steam, I went to the closet under the stairs. “I’m taking a look. Coming? Maybe it’s warmer down there.”
I peered over the edge at a homemade wooden ladder, down a brick chimney into darkness. “I’ll go first.”
I stepped on the ladder and started down. What would happen if I let go? Would I drift downward or stay in thin air? I didn’t experiment, but moved my feet as if I felt the wooden rungs.
Light from upstairs gave a little illumination so I didn’t descend into utter darkness, but it wasn’t much better. Being a ghost didn’t enhance my vision and I couldn’t fumble for a switch at the bottom. “Can’t see a dratted thing,” I called to Maggie. “Avery has to have lights down here, or a flashlight.”
She perched on the ladder above me. “Or a bomb. This place might be rigged to explode.” She descended the last two steps and pointed to the right of the ladder. “I see a switch.”
“If you’re waiting for me to flick it, think again.” I wiggled my fingers at her.
“I meant what I said about a bomb.”
“Jesus.” I rolled my eyes. Then I got close to the switch and saw a wire ran along the wall from it. The wire went to a lightbulb in the ceiling.
“It’s a light switch. I can see the bulb.”
“If you say so.” Maggie gingerly pushed the switch up.
Light blossomed. The switch activated more than the bulb I’d spotted, it flicked on half a dozen more in the small room, plus a standard lamp and a desk lamp.
We stood in a bunker almost the size of the cabi
n’s first floor, with the crude ladder landing in the center. Metal shelves and closets hid most of three cinderblock walls. Cork boards covered in sticky notes and maps filled the gaps, except where two bunk sets, side by side, occupied the remaining space. Tin cans, canisters, packets and boxes of dry goods and five-gallon water bottles crammed the shelves. A long sofa, a dinette set and a desk occupied the middle of the bunker.
On the other side of the ladder, against the fourth wall, we found what I recognized as a portable camping shower and a latrine unit. More shelves and cabinets, and another desk with an office chair.
Maggie started opening cabinets and closets. One held clothing and blankets. Another opened to show us racked rifles, shotguns and handguns on the back wall and inside the doors. Boxes of ammo filled the bottom.
“Well, it’s warmer than upstairs though not by much.” Maggie wrapped up in two blankets and sat on a cot.
Two hours later, a whoosh signaled Royal’s return. I expected him to be longer.
“Quite a setup,” he observed.
His gaze cut to Maggie. “The police are heading here. I suggest we go to where we can continue our conversation.”
“What happened with Avery?” I asked.
Maggie repeated my question.
“My statement says I read the obituary and knew Tiff . . . you were involved in the investigation which led to Ethan Magnusen’s conviction. I know Magnusen is a sharpshooter. I discovered he owns this cabin and came to go through it. I heard a noise and found Magnusen. He ran, I gave chase, we fought and went through the window. I overcame him. Magnusen admitted he shot you. Mike wants to follow up with me after he gets Magnusen’s statement.”
Adding nothing more, he climbed the ladder. Maggie folded the blankets, replaced them and followed and I scooted behind her.
“Fingerprints,” I said to Maggie.
“Um, should we wipe off my fingerprints?” Maggie said to Royal.
“Already done,” he said tersely. He opened the back door and waited for her to follow him.
Outside, Royal shut the door and started along the sloping snowy driveway. Maggie trailed behind him with me attached to her aura.