The Devil's Pride (Wild Beasts Series)

by T. Birmingham

  But Cam’s expression, as an adult, was hard to read. And even though he’d sensed that Cam knew he wasn’t the killer, Devon knew Cam was getting that tingling feeling that told him he was somehow involved. Devon just hoped Cam understood what the feeling was and what it meant, and yet, he also knew that, as a cop, Cam would want facts. He would want something concrete.

  “Instead of driving straight into town, I drove down Route 17, toward the old minimart we used to sneak out to,” he said, smiling faintly at the memory. Cam couldn’t help but answer with a smile of his own, but the shared moment was gone in the next instant. “Anyway, I didn’t know where I was going, I just needed to get there as soon as possible. I knew if I stopped, something bad was going to happen.”

  Devon took a breath remembering the pounding of his heart, the feeling that Death was on its way, and the unusual feeling of having no control over what was happening. For years, Devon had always made it a point to have complete control. Even when he’d learned to transform and his other gifts had kicked in, he’d had control, and looking at Cam, Devon knew that this other man – his twin – would understand that need for control.

  “I turned onto Martins Road at the end of Route 17, and I saw a Shadow coming out of one of the University’s townhouses. Then another. And another. All in all, there appeared to be four Shadows. I didn’t stop to call the police. I probably should have, but my gif – the feeling was there, and I knew I had to get inside.” Devon paused and rubbed his eyes, trying to clear the image of the girl out of his mind, but he couldn’t. “I didn’t even try to engage the Shadows. I just knew I had to get inside...”

  Not to mention, the Shadows had already disappeared by the time he made it across the lawn, and he wouldn’t have been able to take them on alone anyhow. Devon couldn’t have told his brother this, but Shadows weren’t the typical human shadows attached to bodies. The shadows he had seen were the ghostly forms of the Skröm, one of five ancient Clans. The Skröm, though, were different than the other four Clans, who called themselves the Light Clans.

  Thousands of years earlier, the Skröm fell into a terrible cycle of gluttony and power, and with their mythical powers, they were often the terror of the Clans, which is why they were referred to as the Dark Clan. They were also barely tolerated. The Light Clans, the four who had not given into that same pattern of blood-lust, only tolerated the Skröm because they still sat on the Clan Council. Because the Skröm still had power that was useful in fighting the Others, creatures who had truly been made by the Darkness and not by the gods.

  The Skröm’s mental abilities, great strength, and powers of seduction weren’t much different than Devon’s own gifts due to the Clan history they all shared. But shared history or not, Devon had rarely met a Skröm who hadn’t killed, and he’d also rarely met another Clan member who would let a Skröm live if presented the opportunity to take them out. Even if this was frowned upon by the Clan Council. His family back in Dunham had fought many a battle with the Skröm Clan. They’d lost quite a few along the way as well.

  But battles with the Skröm were never really over because when a Skröm died, their soul didn’t reach the Afterworld. They were too corrupt and evil, but they were still Clan. So, instead of their souls burning in Hades, like that of the Others or humans who had done evil in their lives, the Skröm were unable to move on to the Afterworld where the gods lived. Instead, their soul stayed behind, and because of the darkness the soul accumulated in life, they became Shadows rather than ghosts.

  Cam wasn’t asking about the Shadows, though. He was just starting, waiting for Devon to continue. He looked at the hard expression on Cam’s face. No, he wouldn’t be sharing any information about the Shadows or the Clans right yet with his brother.

  “So, I walked into the old townhouse. When I thought the coast was clear, I searched the house before coming to a back room upstairs, and the first thing I noticed was a large window was open and there were bags lying about as if the occupants of the house had been about to leave for vacation. That’s when I noticed the pale girl on the floor.”

  He stopped, trying to maintain his sense of calm, but there were some things that deserved a person’s anger. A girl that young should not have been murdered – especially if she’d been murdered by a Shadow. A girl that young should have been safe in her home with her family, sheltered from the true evil of the world.

  “So, what did you do when you saw her?”

  Cam’s voice jarred Devon from the moment he had found the girl. “What was her name again?” he asked Cam.

  “Kayla,” Cam said, a catch in his throat. “Her name was Kayla.”

  “Kayla,” Devon whispered, sending a prayer that her soul made it safely into the Afterworld. “I went to her. I couldn’t stop myself. I had to see if she was alive. If she was all right. When I reached her, I put my ear to her mouth, and felt for a pulse. There was no breath. No pulse. The only thing I saw was a message in blood on the floor at her feet. The message read ‘die Krieger Skröm’. As I was about to call the police, I heard sirens, and a few minutes later, your friend Danny was hauling me up, cuffing me, and calling me a ‘murderer’ without giving me a chance to explain.”

  Devon got up. He couldn’t sit anymore. He had too much adrenaline running through his system. That happened when he had premonitions or when he used his more mental powers, gifts that came from his mother’s side, the Taryn Clan.

  He preferred his other gift that came courtesy of his father’s side of the family, the Luna Clan: his ability to transform or shift into a bear. That was often the way of Hybrid, though. They took to one gift. They preferred one facet of themselves, and with Devon, it was no different than other Clan members who had two or more mixtures of different Clans in them. He was his bear through and through. He’d always found that his animal side – his Luna Clan side – was a source of calm for him. His bear gave him peace in ways nothing else could.

  When he had nightmares about the servants taking a lash to his back as Matthew Waters watched close by, the bear side of him chuffed and pawed and helped him cope. The calm had receded recently, though, and his bear side had been a bit more anxious, like that particular side of him was waiting for something.

  But the premonitions and the mental gifts he got from the other side of the family…those were not calming. When his premonitions came, they blew through him, seeming to take up all of his energy before smacking him in the face with an adrenaline rush so bad, physical exertion was the only solution.

  Cam must have noticed how agitated Devon felt because he didn’t tell him to sit down.

  “Okay, look. Danny was just doing his job,” Cam said, wearily. “You’re free to go, but I have some work still to do here. Rest up at my place for the day.” He handed him a key. Devon already had the address, since the original plan had been to meet at the large, wood-sided modified trailer his twin owned on a ten-acre parcel of land. “And if you want, you can come meet Mindy tonight. She’s bringing her friend, Alexia, too.” Cam paused and stood. “If that’s what you want.”

  Devon was looking forward to catching up but dreading it at the same time. He knew how Cam felt. There was a tension in their relationship that had been fifteen years in the making. He wanted to get to know his brother again, but he understood Cam’s need for time. He also understood that his presence hadn’t changed Cam’s need for normalcy and order. So, meeting the people who mattered to Cam was exactly what Devon would do.

  “Sure, Cam. Get stuff done. I’ll just wait at your place,” Devon said, walking over to Cam and giving him a bear hug. It was different now that they were full grown, but the hug was needed. They held it for a second, and then broke off, knowing that there was too much history to start off where they’d left. They needed to build their relationship up again. Devon just hoped it was possible to rebuild their once unbreakable bond.

  Caty Rios stood over the autopsy table and tried to focus on the bodies and not the fact that she knew the family or tha
t she had an incredibly irritating itch on her nose. She was dying to scratch that damn itch. She was also dying a bit inside as she looked into the eyes of the beautiful Margarite Anderson and her younger sisters, Lauren and Kayla. Caty’s lab assistant, Marcus Johnson, had taken the late night call for Kayla, and she trusted Marcus to collect the data and to take the pictures of the scene for the department. But when she’d come into the autopsy room to find the family of five laid out on their blocks and prepped for her, a little part of her had broken at the sight of Kayla’s tiny body splayed out on the cold, metal table.

  The girls all had their mother’s eyes, a crystalline blue with flecks of silver and white, and were easily recognized as Marilyn’s little ones. The skin and the hair, though, was their father’s. A fresh, alabaster skin tone complimented their blue eyes and the almost bleach blond locks the whole family sported. But seeing the family in such a deep sleep, in death, made them appear ghostly, eerie.

  Caty looked away. Work, she told herself. That’s what this was, and she needed to focus on that. As the local coroner, Caty was used to seeing dead bodies, but murder in Montville just wasn’t a regular occurrence. And if there was a murder, it was usually related to a bar brawl or a domestic disturbance. Those latter cases were the hardest for Caty because of her own past, but sadly, those were the cases a coroner sort of expected in her field. Those and heart attacks, cancer, and other medical issues. But, a local family who’d just been living their lives? No. Those she didn’t see often. In fact, she’d never seen anything like the current case in her small, college town. Caty took a deep breath, only slightly smelling the death around her through the microscopic holes in her mask, and she turned her recorder on.

  “Case Number 332978J-dash-03092016,” Caty stated, reading off of the file paperwork she’d been given by her son, Danny. “The date is Wednesday, March 9, 2016. 08:15 hours…” Patient’s name is Margarite Anderson. Seventeen years old. Caucasian Female. Medical records show several sports-related injuries, including two fractures. Caty read from her notes, making sure to stick to the facts. She knew, to the everyday observer, she might sound cold, distant, indifferent. But that’s how she dealt with her morgue. She calculated. She analyzed. She was practical. She saved her emotions for Danny, for Cam, for her family and friends. “Cause of death appears to be exsanguination. Further tests and examination will be completed to corroborate COD.”

  Caty noted the redness and the slight petechial hemorrhaging that was usually indicative of strangulation or suffocation. However, her hyoid bone remained intact, so strangulation was invalidated but suffocation could still have played a part. There was bruising around the sternum, as well as around the ribs, the wrists, and the ankles. The forearms… She did a double take. She hadn’t seen it the night before, but there seemed to be a pattern under the bruising. She squinted to see better, and took out some transfer paper and a swab. She collected the possible fingerprint and swabbed the area that was now clean of any markings. Every bit of evidence mattered.

  She took pictures of the injuries as well as the evidence she found along the body, and she noted that it appeared Margarite had been tied up recently, most likely in her capture, but Caty would let the detectives make that conclusion. Her job was to present the facts, and she didn’t allow stories in her morgue. The detectives knew. The doctors who assisted after a death, where an autopsy was requested or required, knew. And her interns knew. In fact, Caty looked at her watch. It was almost 9:30 am. Mindy would be there any minute to assist. She was the only one who got away with telling stories in Caty’s morgue, but Mindy was different, special. Beyond Mindy’s innate gifts and her ability to just know things about people, she had been working as Caty’s grad student for almost two years now, and Caty had the utmost faith in Mindy’s abilities in the morgue.

  Caty moved onto the body of the second youngest next, making note that the same sort of bruising was present, but there was also slight bruising to the mandible and the zygomatic suggesting – by fall or by force – a break in the bone. The x-rays she would take later of all of the bodies would tell her more details. The possible break looked to be about one-two days old based on the greenish tint to the mostly dusky purple of the bruise. It had already started to heal, and could have been caused by any number of events. Caty made a verbal note on her recorder that she would later add to the file. Again, the strange marking that was barely visible on the forearm stood out to Caty, but she used the transfer paper and the swab once again, and the marking was gone.

  “Jesus,” Mindy said as she walked into the room. Her voice was slightly muffled by the mask she had already put on. As she walked over to the sink to wash and glove up, Caty saw a tear slide down her cheek.

  “Mindy, you got this today? I can call in Jessenia if you can’t handle this. I’d understand,” Caty said, although she needed the help, and Mindy was the best choice for this case.

  Mindy would notice things. She knew things about people. Dead people. Live people. Didn’t matter. Mindy had an uncanny ability to understand a person’s life and death. If Caty was superstitious, she would have called Mindy a bruja, and she often did behind her back when something truly eerie happened.

  “Nah, I got this, Caty,” Mindy said with a wink as she finished washing up and grabbed a pair of gloves.

  “Good. I need you on this one,” Caty said before walking back over to Margarite. “I was working on the second youngest, but I’ll go back to the oldest first. You can get a feel, tell me if you see any new evidence, and write down some notes and impressions to share with—”

  “With the detectives. I know the drill, Caty. We haven’t had a case like this before, but I do know how to deal with the deaths we get in the morgue. And I know what you need. Just the facts,” she said, without hesitation. “But Cam and Danny will appreciate my – what do you call it when you think I’m not listening? Oh yes, my Brujeria instincts.”

  Caty barked out a laugh after her initial shock. That girl had some cojones, and she most certainly...probably – if Caty believed in that sort of thing – was a bruja. No one was that observant.

  “All right, show me Marga—” Mindy took a deep breath and tried again. “Show me the eldest daughter. Though what you think I’m going to find, evidence-wise, that you haven’t already is beyond me…”

  Caty and Mindy went over the already gathered evidence for Margarite.

  “The mark on the forearm,” Mindy said, absentmindedly. “You noted in the report that it was removed by the transfer paper and the swab, but was it the left or the right forearm?”

  “The right. I noted it on the report.”

  “It’s still there. It’s just barely visible, but I can see it.” Mindy took the transfer paper from Caty and then the swab, but she could still see the marking. “It’s not going anywhere,” she continued. “You sure you didn’t see it after?”

  Caty moved around the table. She didn’t miss things like that, especially evidence that was so, well…evident. She pulled up the forearm and examined it again. “Mindy girl, what are you looking at? There’s nothing there.” She held up the forearm for Mindy to see and Mindy squinted and looked worried, but she nodded her head.

  “Interesting,” Mindy said and they moved on with the evidence. She wrote an occasional note down, but otherwise, they talked about the case, about Cam. About how poor Kayla, who’d been dead when the police had gotten there, had been found with none other than Cam’s twin standing over her body.

  “Wait a sec!” Mindy stopped writing as they finished x-raying and re-wrapping up the two oldest girl’s bodies. She stared at Caty with a shocked expression. “Cam’s brother is back? What the fuck was he doing at a crime scene?”

  “Language,” Caty admonished. “Didn’t you know he was coming into town?”

  “Yeah. Cam and I have been talking about it. Correction,” Mindy said and paused. “He told me a month ago his long lost twin was coming back for a visit, and I’ve since pried every ounce of info
rmation I could out of my tight-lipped boyfriend. He was supposed to be in late last night, early this morning. But you’re saying he was the one who found Kayla?”

  Caty nodded. “Apparently, my Danny held him overnight. Didn’t tell Cam until this morning,” she said. “And he spent half of last night interrogating him on five counts of murder. Cam’s with his twin now.”

  “What?! But he didn’t tell me! Why wouldn’t he tell me his brother had been implicated in these deaths? I don’t know Devon, but if he’s anything like Cam, he couldn’t have done something like this…and…” Mindy had a faraway look in her eyes as Caty moved over to the bodies of Loren and Marilyn Anderson. “No…he’s important to this case. I can feel that. But he didn’t do this. He’s a good man. I know you don’t like feelings, Caty,” she said, giving her a small condescending smile. Caty hated to be condescended to, but she let this slide.

  It wasn’t that Caty didn’t like feelings. She was just terrified of them. Her ex-husband, who she’d run from when Danny was four, had been an abusive and dangerous man, and she’d spent years trying to be the love he needed. But she’d never been enough, and it had taken her another ten years to bottle up the hurt, the anger, and yes, the debilitating fear she had over a man who had probably moved back to Europe after she’d left Guatemala. And in those ten years, she’d attended college full-time in Montville.

  Over the years, Montville had become her home. Her sanctuary. But emotions? No, she hadn’t been good with those in a while. Only Danny, Cam, and a few of her closest friends ever got to see that surface layer of love and loyalty she held for them.

  “Whatever, Mindy girl,” Caty said, smiling back. The two women turned from Loren Anderson as the door to the morgue creaked, and Caty’s second son, Cam, walked in. His face showed just as much horror as Mindy’s had when she’d walked in. Cam hid it quicker. Ah, men, and their sensitive egos.