A Grim Situation

by Whit McClendon

  The shadows were welcoming as always. Ariana drove to the end of the fence, which marked the border of the property. She pulled the Jeep off the path and parked it beneath the shelter of a few large branches that reached over the tops of the tall, wooden boards. I squeezed out on my side and joined her as she pulled her backpack from the back seat. Once she was properly outfitted, she locked the Jeep and then stepped back from it.

  I scanned the fence and decided the best place to go over it was directly under the overhanging branches, since they provided natural cover. I moved towards it, but Ariana stopped me. “Hang on, I’ve been working on something. Give me a second.”

  She looked around and found a decent-sized stick on the ground, which she picked up. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing as she gathered her will. I felt the magick around her awaken as she began to chant quietly to herself. She slowly made her way around the Jeep, dragging the end of the stick in the dirt behind her.

  Energy filled the narrow channel she carved into the dirt, flowing from within Ariana’s body and directed by her intense focus. When she had completely circled the vehicle, she connected the ends of the channel and I felt the power come alive along its length, creating an invisible dome over the Jeep. She backed slowly away, keeping her focus on the spell she had created. She raised her hands, still murmuring quietly, and as I watched, shadows fell from the overhanging branches and engulfed the Jeep in almost complete darkness. She watched for a moment, then lowered her hands and turned to me with a big smile on her face.

  “Ta daaaa!” she said, triumphantly gesturing toward the nearly invisible Jeep. The shadows beneath the branches had claimed it completely, leaving only a faint impression of the car’s shape, if you knew where to look. “Whatcha think?”

  I looked the spell over carefully, examining what I could see of its structure. It was sturdy yet subtle, an impressive illusion. “Not bad,” I said simply.

  Ariana raised an eyebrow, then rolled her eyes and sighed as she turned away to look at the fence.

  “What?” I said. I had the feeling she expected more from me, but I just wasn’t in the mood.

  She kept scanning the fence, looking for cameras. “I worked on that spell a long time, you ass! Took me a couple of months to finally get it right.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve been doing illusions for centuries, Ariana. That one is pretty simple to me.”

  A tiny smirk crawled across her face. “But will yours still be there tomorrow?”

  That got my attention. My illusions were amazing, but somewhat fleeting. They required my focus to exist, and could only survive without my direct involvement for a short time, certainly not a full day. If she could cast an illusion that would still be around for that long, she’d stepped up her game considerably. I handed over a rare compliment. “Ok, I admit it. That’s impressive.”

  Ariana beamed, “Thank you. You’re still an ass, though.”

  “Granted,” I confirmed. “Do you sense any wards around the property?” Despite the fact that my magick was far stronger than hers in many ways, and I had centuries of experience on her, she still kicked my ass in the creation of wards and shields.

  “Hang on,” she murmured, “I was already checking before you interrupted me.” Her eyes were out of focus as she reached out with her awareness, scanning the perimeter for the telltale signs of a magickal ward. After a minute or so, she sighed and looked at me with a frown. “No, there’s nothing there. You’d think someone powerful enough to roast poor Raymond like that and then send a snake-demon after us would have at least a rudimentary shield around their property, right?”

  I nodded. “That’s what I would expect. Maybe she’s arrogant enough to think she doesn’t need one.” I remembered the wicked little smile she displayed in the picture Ariana had found, seductive and knowing. She looked the type. “Maybe she’s got one closer to the house. Let’s get moving. We’ll find out when we get there.”

  I led the way into the shadows that concealed the Jeep and quickly heaved myself over the fence and into the yard beyond. The old tree had a wide trunk, and I stayed close to it while Ariana climbed over. Once she stood alongside me, we scanned the property to get the lay of the land.

  The expansive back yard was surrounded by the same tall wooden fence on all sides, and the house sat closer to the rear of the property than to the main road. The grounds were mown, but the landscaping was otherwise minimal. Trees were plentiful away from the house, and the yard still retained a faint hint of wildness. The porch spanned the entire back side of the house and opened onto an elegant swimming pool with a hot tub on one end and an ornate fountain on the other. There were a couple of other buildings that matched the beige stucco of the main house, and gently curving sidewalks connected them all. Off to one side, two vehicles had been parked next to the house. One was a sporty red convertible, while the other was a more sedate black SUV.

  “Looks like somebody’s home,” Ariana whispered. The walls leading to the porch were glass, affording us a clear view into the back part of the house, and there was movement inside. The woman we had seen in the photo was clearly visible, though far less formally dressed. She wore a white bathrobe with a matching towel turban wrapped around her hair, and her face was clean of makeup. She held a cell phone up to her ear, and she stalked around the room, talking and gesturing angrily. As we watched, she walked over to a cabinet, wrenched open the doors, and proceeded to fix herself a drink. Cocktail in hand, she moved over to a thickly padded couch and flopped down on it, still talking on the phone. With frustrated finality, she thumbed the phone to disconnect the call and tossed it on the far end of the couch upon which she sat, as if to distance herself even further from the caller. She took a long sip from her drink and lay her head back with a sigh.

  “She seems pretty stressed,” Ariana quipped, “maybe we should come back and visit another time?” I cut my eyes over to her and frowned, only to see her smiling at me. She was having fun, as usual. I wouldn’t be having fun until I could get my claws into something.

  Somewhere in the house, the doorbell rang faintly. Diana glanced over her shoulder, then rolled her eyes, stood up, and headed toward the front door. She was only gone a few moments, then she appeared again, leading a man and a woman to a table next to the picture window. She stopped along the way to refresh her drink, then slid into one of the chairs while her guests simply stood next to the table. One held a file folder.

  “Are you kidding me?” Ariana whispered, surprise evident in her voice. I was surprised too. Her guests were our favorite detectives, Avery and Jim. They were all business, and had already pulled a picture out of the folder and laid it on the table in front of Diana Thornwall. She inhaled sharply at the sight of it. “Wow, I have to admire their efficiency. I’ll have to ask how they found out that Diana was involved. I thought we had all of the evidence on Raymond’s hard drive. I didn’t see anything else there but spell supplies. How’d they find her?”

  My gaze was locked on Avery. It had to be her somehow. She had talent, of that I was certain. How strong or how well-schooled she might be had yet to be determined. I had the sense that she was acting only on instinct, or else she’d have recognized the items in Raymond’s summoning room in a heartbeat. Strong, though, I admitted. “It’s that detective, the woman. She sensed it somehow.”

  Suddenly, Ariana looked at me in alarm. “Do you think she knows we’re here?”

  My eyes narrowed and I watched her through the glass. Avery’s attention was focused entirely on Diana Thornwall, who looked somewhat distraught. I didn’t dare reach out with my magick to pick up on their emotions. Avery would probably feel it, even if she didn’t know what it was. For the moment, it looked like she was ignorant of our presence, and I figured we should keep it that way. “No,” I answered, “she’d already have moved to intercept us if she knew. She’s only here for Diana.”

  “We’d better wait until they leave, then,” Ariana suggested.

  I nodded
in agreement, but kept my eyes on the two detectives. They were pretty stone-faced as they showed Diana the contents of the folder. She looked at the other pages briefly, but her eyes kept drifting back to the first photo they had given her. She picked it up to look at it again, and I caught a flash of it as she gestured while speaking. It was Raymond. She knew him, obviously, but something about the way she acted was bothering me. I would have expected her to deny knowing him, or to be defensive and angry when the police accused her of any involvement. I know her type pretty well, but no matter what I might have thought, she actually appeared upset and sad. I frowned as I watched her. Up close, I knew I would have been able to read her emotions much better, but if I had to go by the expression on her face, I would say that she was truly surprised and distressed.

  I watched as Avery gathered up the pages and tucked them back into the folder while her partner took notes in his little notepad. I saw Diana shaking her head no a few times, but then nodding. The detectives nodded as well, as though they were coming to an understanding of sorts. Avery pulled a card from her pocket and handed it to Diana, who accepted it with another nod. She stood, then led the detectives back to the front door on the far side of the house. Apparently, the interview was now over.

  “What do you make of that?” Ariana asked, sounding somewhat perplexed.

  “It looks to me like they didn’t have enough on her to arrest her, or even get a search warrant,” I responded. “She’s putting on a pretty good act. If they told her that Raymond was a suspect in a crime and that she had been implicated somehow, you would think that she would have responded more angrily. I didn’t get that from her at all. She looks genuinely upset, acting more worried for Raymond than anything.”

  Ariana smiled. “I bet we can get more out of her than they could.”

  I wholeheartedly agreed with that sentiment. Police were shackled by certain rules when interrogating suspects. I had none. Although I enjoyed hurting people, I only enjoyed it if they deserved it. Whether or not Diana Thornwall deserved my special treatment remained to be seen.

  Diana appeared once again, this time alone. She went straight to the cabinet and poured herself another drink, and even at that distance, I could see that her hands were shaking. For someone who had masterminded the demonic possession of three innocents for some greater purpose, she seemed pretty rattled. She walked over to the window and stared out at the back yard, obviously lost in her own thoughts. I knew she couldn’t see us; it was so bright inside and dark outside that the window likely acted as a mirror to her eyes. I examined her face carefully. Gone was the knowing smirk, the arrogant tilt to her chin we had seen in the high society photos. Looking at her then, I thought she didn’t seem anything like the business mogul we knew her to be. No, she looked more like a woman who was afraid of something but didn’t know what it was. She stood that way for a minute longer, looking confused and sad, and then she turned away. Sipping at her drink, she ambled slowly to another part of the house, disappearing from our view.

  I nudged Ariana. It was time for us to talk to Diana and maybe make some sense out of it all. We left our place behind the tree and moved around the pool to the covered porch. Once there, we quickly found the sliding glass door. I used a simple spell to quiet it as we opened it just enough to allow ourselves inside. We stood there in the dining area, getting our bearings, and that’s when things went wrong. So wrong.

  Chapter 14

  “She doesn’t know anything,” Avery muttered as they walked to the car. “I’d bet my life on it.”

  Jim jotted something in his notes and nodded, “I’d agree with you on that, Avie. I’ve seen a lot of guilty people, and I’ve seen some good liars, but she got caught completely off-guard with this. She knew Raymond, sure, even cared about him, but I don’t think she had any idea what he was up to, or why. Especially not the, uh, magick stuff.” He flipped his notepad closed, slipped it into a pocket, and sighed. He turned to look at his partner. “The fact that Diana knew Raymond at all is proof that there’s something to your hunch, though. But if she’s not in on it, I don’t know where we should go from here.”

  She leaned against the door of her car and folded her arms. “I’m not sure just yet,” she answered, “and it’s really pissing me off.”

  Jim took one long, deliberate step away from her, as if he had suddenly realized he was standing too close to a bomb. “There’s chocolate in the glove compartment.”

  Avery cut her eyes towards him but felt her lips twitch into a smile before she could stop herself. Her partner always knew the right thing to say. She relaxed somewhat and ran her fingers through her hair as she rolled everything around in her mind. Diana Thornwall had been very forthcoming, and if her own intuition was to be believed, completely honest. Something nagged at her, though, and she finally managed to put it into words.

  “Hey, did you smell something in there? Anything at all?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know…something in there was off to me. Maybe it wasn’t so much a smell, but a feeling. It was like what I felt when I first saw Raymond, but not quite. It was pretty faint, but now that we’re away from it, I can tell the difference.”

  “Is that another hunch?”

  “Yes…no…hell, I don’t know,” she swore in frustration. “Dammit, this case is a mess.”

  “It sounds like we could both use some tacos while we sort this out. I’ve got some ideas. Hop in, I’ll drive.”

  Before she could respond, they heard a car pull into the driveway. They both looked in that direction to see a pair of headlights approaching along the winding concrete drive. “Who is this, do you think?” Avery mused.

  “Dunno,” he muttered. “Maybe it’s a clue.”

  Avery swatted him on the arm as she stepped away from her car and prepared to show her badge. The oncoming headlights belonged to a sporty little red Honda that pulled in next to them and went silent as the driver killed the engine. A young woman with short brown hair slid out of the driver’s seat and approached them. She was dressed smartly in dark slacks and a gray blouse that flattered her, gold glinting at wrists and neck. The resemblance to the woman they had left inside was strong, but where Diana Thornwall had an elegant smoothness to her movements, the newcomer was quick and twitchy, unconsciously displaying the energy of youth. She stared at the two detectives, questions filling her eyes.

  “Detectives Avery Lynne and Jim Kaley, Harris County Sherrif’s Office,” Avery said, showing her badge to the bewildered woman as Jim flashed his. “And you are…?”

  She blinked in surprise and clutched imaginary pearls at her throat, “My goodness, is something wrong?”

  “Your name?” Avery repeated, a calm note of authority seeping into her voice.

  “Oh, yes, of course. I’m so sorry,” the young woman stammered, “I’m Tanya Thornwall. I’m here to visit my mother. Is she all right?” she gestured to the house.

  The muffled sound of gunshots, nearly a score of them in rapid succession, made them all turn wide eyes towards the house. Barely a moment later, a sharp scream from inside the house made them all flinch. The woman’s scream was filled with terror, and it turned Avery’s blood to ice. She burst into action before the sound of it had begun to fade, sprinting for the front door with her gun in hand, followed closely by Jim and Tanya.

  Avery tried the door and found it locked. “Ms. Thornwall!” she yelled as she hammered a fist against the stout wood. “Police! Open the door!” The door was thick and imposing, and she knew she’d never batter it down without the SWAT guys and their breaching ram.

  “Here, here!” Tanya shuffled frantically up to the door, jangling keys as she moved, “I’ve got a key!” Her hands shook so much that she dropped them, but she scooped them up, found the proper key and unlocked the deadbolt.

  “Back away, let us handle this!” Jim shoved Tanya away from the door as gently as he could, then looked at Avery and nodded. She yanked the door open, allowing him to enter
first. “Freeze! Police!” she heard him bellow as she followed barely a moment later. The scene that met her eyes made her gasp.

  Diana Thornwall was lying in the middle of the room, her eyes staring sightlessly up at the high ceiling. Her mouth was still open, as if frozen during her final scream. Blood was everywhere, great sprays of it, and she lay in a slowly spreading puddle of crimson that stained the expensive carpet. Her body bore several vicious slashes, wide gashes that had opened her up to the bone. Standing over her was a figure she had seen in her dreams for years. His skin was the cool dark of shadows, so black it was almost blue. He cut a muscular figure, wiry rather than bulky, with too-long arms and spindly fingers that ended in wicked talons. Blood dripped from those claws, pattering on the still body of the woman at his feet.

  Standing opposite them, on the far side of Diana’s body, was the woman they had met earlier that evening, Ariana. She still wore her tactical gear and had a gun in her hand, but it was pointed at the ceiling. The other hand was held towards them, palm out, in what might have been a calming gesture. “No, wait!” she was saying, “it’s not what you think. You need to listen!”

  Avery barely heard Ariana’s words. Her heart had stopped, then started again at twice its normal speed. The shadowy figure had tilted its face towards her and stared at her through its long, stringy black hair. She saw its glowing silver eyes, pools of quicksilver shining from jet black sockets. It opened its mouth, revealing far too many teeth, all of them sharp. It growled softly at her, and the little girl inside her started screaming in terror. However, the grown woman Avery had become was one tough bitch. She lifted her gun and took aim.

  The figure bolted, and she followed it with the barrel of her gun, squeezing the trigger as she felt her sights come online with the target. The first shot went wide, but the second and third struck home, and she heard the shadowy thing grunt in pain. Ariana flung herself into her line of fire, and before she could stop, Avery had put two bullets in her chest. She grunted and jerked with the impacts and fell hard to the floor. Avery lowered her gun in horror.