Water of Souls Read online

  Until we see the first brush of hair against the stained pillow.

  Dark hair, perhaps once shiny and well-cared for.

  The sheet moves further down to reveal the top of a face. Just the forehead. It looks dry, as if the owner has been out in the freezing cold too long and chapped her face. A little lower. The nose. The mouth. The chin.

  I know what I’m seeing before the sheet is pulled further.

  I recognize the set of the mouth, so artificial and forced. There will be wire, forcing the smile.

  There will be wire, forcing her hands to sit just so across her stomach.

  There will be wire.

  And more wire.

  This is not one of the victims we have already found. She is new. No more than a week by the state of the body. I memorize her face. Every facet of it. I memorize her face.

  When I am pulled back from the torture chamber, both for my mind and for the victim’s body, I am crying.

  “Do you know who the killer is, Mordecai?” My voice is soft, more ruined than it has ever sounded.

  “No, I am sorry.” And the once Dwarf King does sound sorry, like he would do anything to help the Earth heal from human atrocities.

  “Thank you for showing me.”

  “It was not by my choice.” He said, leaning forward so his head rested for a short moment against the soil wall.

  Mordecai does not walk us up the stairs to leave. He stays in the basement, communing with the God stones.

  When we are in the car, the doors closed against the bitter cold and the interior still nearly-stifling hot from the engine running, Liam turns to me. “Victoria, the God stones must be obeyed. They are... the ultimate authority in the universe.”

  “I’m going to find this killer, Liam. I don’t need some deity stones to tell me to do it. I can’t believe he’s killed someone else. I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. Timothy disappeared over a year and a half ago. True serial killers will always find another victim. They crave it, like food on an empty stomach. So he... or she... has taken another innocent girl. Woman by the age of her face and size of her body.” I clasp my hands together on my lap, squeezing my fingers tight enough that it’s uncomfortable. “I’m going to find who’s doing this and I’m going to do it for me, for Timothy, for Maggie Smythe. I’m going to do it for the Jane Doe sitting in Doug’s morgue who might never get justice.”

  Liam sits quietly for a moment. “What can you remember about the place you saw, the place the God Stones took you?”

  “Underground, beneath a house.” I bite my lip hard, trying to recall little details I may have missed. “I’d say a very large house. When we pushed through the foundations beneath the basement, it took some time to reach the hidden room. And things above us felt... real. Like expensive real. Animal leather, mahogany, mother of pearl.”

  “Do you remember anything about the journey from the King Dwarf’s basement to the killer’s basement?”

  “Nothing, aside from that it seemed like a long distance. Definitely not nearby.”

  “It could be the Sherwin’s home. The description fits.”

  “I thought you didn’t get inside to see anything.”

  “I didn’t, but I was able to look through the windows of the first level and the basement. Everything is lavish and expensive. The mother of pearl seems unique and the downstairs bar was decorated with it.”

  “That’s enough for me, but not enough for the police I’m afraid.”

  “And I’m afraid that we need them behind us if we’re going to search that house.”

  “We’re not going to do anything, Liam. It’s a stretch for Terrance to even allow me at crime scenes. I get away with it because I’m on file as a consultant now. No, I’ve asked you to do enough already. You could have been caught today.”

  “I would not have been caught, Victoria.”

  “It could have happened. Don’t act all tough guy ‘faster than light’ fae on me.”

  “Not quite faster than light.” His mouth quirks in a smile. “I like that you worry about me, Victoria.”

  “Liam, don’t.”

  “You tell me not to talk about it, to not show you my feelings, but then I hear your thoughts, loud as a scream in my mind, telling me that you know you care for me too. That you love me too.”

  “I can’t help what I think, Liam. And it’s not my fault that you’re constantly trespassing on my thoughts.”

  “Would it help if you could hear my thoughts too?”

  I frown, wondering if I actually would want to hear what he was thinking. Yeah, I would. “At least then it wouldn’t be this one sided intrusion all the time.”

  And just like that, as if I’m being hit by a truck—but a soft truck, padded like a room for a self-harming patient in a psychiatric hospital. I can see inside his mind. And, because he has allowed me to enter, it is not just words and sentences and conversation. It’s pictures of his past, his present, of the way he sees his future.

  His future with me.

  I pull myself back, trying to exit his thoughts, just as a small child with bouncing mahogany curls runs to him and jumps into his arms, calling him ‘daddy’. The little girl has my eyes.

  Liam seems to sense that I do not want to see what is coursing through his mind. He releases me and my chest is rising and falling rapidly, my breath coming in little surprised gasps. “Is that how it is,” I gulp air ‘every time you talk to me. Do you see inside me like that?”

  “I control what I do and do not see, but it would be like that each time, if I allowed it to be.”

  I can’t think of a response to that. If he can see me, so transparently, and still love me... if he can see and accept both the darkness and light within me, and still love me...

  Shaking my head, I dislodge the aftershock of venturing into his mind. I push away the image of the beautiful child jumping into her father’s arms.

  I’m with Kyle. I love Kyle.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Terrance, I don’t think we should wait until Monday to question the Sherwins.” It’s after one in the morning. I’d tried Terrance four times before he’d finally answered. I’d barely waited for him to say ‘hello’ before barking at him.

  “Tori, what the hell time is it?”

  “After one.” I hear him fumbling about, covers rustling, and a female voice murmuring something.

  “Go back to sleep, honey, it’s just Tori.” He’s walking then, I can hear his floors creak and the soft padding of his feet against the wood floors of his room. The master bedroom door whines as he opens it. It’s always sounded like that, from the day they’d moved in. He’s never oiled the hinges. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s a cop thing—the sound will alert him to someone entering. Maybe he just likes creaky houses. After I hear the door cry again and the soft click as it closes, Terrance’s voice comes to life once more. Still whispering though, trying not to wake the kids of course. “Now what are you on about?”

  “The Sherwins. I think they could be the ones killing people and, God, Terrance, I think they might have killed a fourth person. I saw the body tonight. I saw it.” I stop talking, knowing my voice is reaching a note of hysteria. Kyle’s not home yet, tending to Mikey probably. I’d tried texting him to see if he was okay, but he hadn’t answered. Maybe he didn’t have his cell? He was naked when he’d changed back. Had he had his cell on him when he’d busted out of his clothes?

  “Wait, you saw the body?” Terrance’s voice gets loud and two seconds later I hear a child crying. “Shit.” More walking, heavier steps this time and faster. Another squeaking door. “What’s wrong, baby?”

  “I need water, daddy.”

  “If you drink water now, you’ll wet the bed.”

  “I will not!” The voice is belligerent and adorable.

  “Sadie.” Terrance is using his authoritative voice, but it’s toned down and more suited for a four year old. “Go back to sleep now. You can drink as much water as you like once the sun’s
up.”

  “Will you read me a story?”

  Got to give the kid credit, she was going for the gold.

  “Bed, Sadie Grace.” And the door squeaks again, settling into the frame with a little thud. “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be. I can’t believe I haven’t seen the kids in so long.”

  “You’ll have to come to dinner, bring that new guy of yours.”

  “Um...sure.” Which new guy? Is what I really wanted to say.

  “All right, Tori. Go slowly and don’t leave anything out. Why should I bring the Sherwins in sooner for questioning?”

  I told him almost everything, minus what Mordecai was and how he, and a couple thousand God Stones, had helped me ‘mind’ travel through soil to the bad guy’s lair. Of course, that meant I had to bend the truth a little.

  “So... the spirit of the fourth victim contacted you and told you where her body was?”

  “Well, she described it.”

  “So you’re not, in fact, sure at all that the Sherwins are the killers.”

  “No, but—”

  “Tori, I trust your gifts, I do, but there’s no way a judge is going to sign off on us searching the house because a department consultant has a feeling. And we can’t exactly say you spoke to a ghost and ghosts can’t lie.”

  “Not a ghost, Terrance. A spirit. Ghosts are different.”

  “Fine, a spirit. You spoke with a spirit.”

  “Well, bring them in for question earlier than Monday. That’s what I said in the first place. Just bring them in so I can get a read on them, see if the spirit’s attached to them or something.”

  Silence for a while. I can see Terrance’s face, scrunched up in thought.

  “I’ll see what I can do tomorrow morning, Tori, but no promises.”

  “That’s all I ask.”

  “You need anything else?” The way he says it, he clearly doesn’t expect me to say ‘yes’.

  “Um... actually...” how do I ask him to file a report on my Bronco without pointing the finger at Mordecai? “I wrecked my Bronco over on Crawford Lane. Kyle thought I’d had it towed because he saw some man in a truck hooking it up and hauling it off. He didn’t think it was the city contractor. Can you see if it’s at the impound for me? And, if it is, pull some strings to get it out? I really don’t want to have to deal with the insurance company, possibly buying a new car, and having to pay impound fees.”

  “Sure, I’ll have Steve call over first thing in the morning and get it out for you.”

  “Thanks a mill, Terrance.”

  “No problem.” And he hangs up. I wonder what he’ll think once he finds out that my Bronco isn’t at the impound yard. Will he put together a stolen property report? As long as I have something to turn into the insurance company to prove I’m not attempting some sort of fraud.

  Dammit. I’m going to have to go car shopping. I don’t want to go shopping. I want my freaking Bronco back. Mordecai says we’re even, that he’s gotten his pound of flesh, but I don’t feel ‘even’. I feel angry.

  But I know I have to let it go. The Dwarf King and I are allies now. We can’t be enemies.

  I lock my front door, not throwing the safety latch in case Kyle comes back before I’m awake, and I strip off my clothes as I walk to the bedroom, leaving them in little piles along the floor. I don’t even care. I fall into bed in my skivvies, so desperate for sleep that my eyes close before my body has even made impact with the comforter.

  I wake up in a coffin, but I don’t panic. I’ve had this dream before. Buried alive, fists beating against the interior of the lid, voice crying out for help. I know how to handle this illusion. I take deep, slow inhalations of air. I forget about the casket. I forget that I am in it. I will myself to wake up standing, looking down at a closed coffin already lowered into the earth, waiting for the concrete to be poured to seal me in for all time.

  It’s a scary thought, but then again, if the concrete begins to slap against the lid of the dark wood coffin and I’m inside. Then I am dead. I won’t care that I’m trapped.

  And that’s preferable to being burned to ashes. I don’t ever want to be burned.

  Now that I’m outside, standing on the ground, I walk. It is nighttime and when I look up at the sky, I see the stars blinking in the heavens.

  Only they are not stars.

  They are God Stones. Bright and pulsing, trying to converse with the world, trying to bring sanity back to humankind.

  I close my eyes, feel their warmth upon my cheeks, and when I look again, I am in a room, small and dark. The walls are dirty and there is a distinct dampness floating through the air. I turn in a circle very slowly, until I see the bed and the body. I stare at her, embarrassed because I realize she is clothed only in a red negligee.

  As I watch, she begins to rise into the air, supported by the wires running through the holes bored within her bones.

  The corpse’s steps are unsteady as she walks towards me. Yet, she still tries to sway her hips seductively.

  A noise from above our heads has both of us looking upward.

  A door is opening. A ladder is lowering.

  An older man is descending, dressed in a robe better suited for the owner of a mansion who has far too many young, blonde girlfriends.

  He walks toward the human doll and he kisses her full on the mouth. His tongue flicks in and out of his mouth, pushing between her unyielding lips. It makes me sick to my stomach and I want to wake up.

  He moves her to the bed. She moves better now, with his aid.

  He lays her down against the stained mattress and pillow.

  His aging fingers push the negligee up to expose breasts that look too pale. He’ll have to let her go soon, I realize.

  I can smell the decay of her. He’s kept her too long. Even down here, in the room that I realize is freezing, she will only last a short while longer.

  I turn away as he works his hands beneath the thin lace thong covering her private parts.

  And it is not until I hear him grunting and thrusting that I finally, mercifully, wake up.

  I wake up to a spirit hovering above my bed.

  “Shit!” I jump, sitting up quickly, my back banging into the headboard.

  “I’m sorry.” The spirit floats down to sit—as well as a spirit can sit—on my bed. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “You gave me that dream, didn’t you?”

  She nods.

  “How? I didn’t know spirits could do that.” My eyes widen. “Wait, are you... were you human?” I stutter over the ‘were’, hating to have to ask her the question in past tense.

  “No.”

  That made sense. Supernatural beings retained some of their powers in the afterlife, at least for a short while. “Is that what happened to you?”

  She nods again.

  “Who did this? What was his name?”

  This time, her head shakes.

  “You don’t know?”

  “No. It all happened so fast. I was alive and then... I wasn’t. I’d just gone on a quick run around campus. That’s all. I just wanted to kill some calories before Chemistry class.”

  A student. That was something.

  “I couldn’t get out of that room with him. It’s like I was stuck there, like I couldn’t move.”

  “That happens sometimes. A spirit becomes attached to a place.”

  “But then I could. I felt you, you and another mind, enter the room and then I could leave. And I felt a power that I thought didn’t exist anymore.”

  “God Stones.” I say, realizing that she must be fae.

  “Only half fae,” she responds, reading my mind, “my powers are weak. I can only catch bits and pieces of what others are thinking and I can project my thoughts and memories into someone else. At least I could... I suppose, now that I’m dead, I’ll lose my abilities, won’t I?”

  “Yes, it’s a matter of time.”

  “I always felt that being half-fae was what made me s
pecial.” A tear rolls down her cheek, falling from her face to hit the comforter. No damp spot appears. Spirit tears are never wet, yet they drown me with their sadness as well as any flood could. With that tear, her form begins to waver. She’s fading, moving on.

  “If you see a light, you should go into it.” I whisper, fighting my own tears.

  “I know I should, but it’s hard.”

  “It’s always hard.” I realize I haven’t asked her name, as her body continues to flicker. “What’s your name?”

  “Meghan.” She’s turned away from me, watching the end of everything she knows come to life. The light to the ether. “Meghan, being half-fae isn’t what made you special.”

  She smiles softly. “Being half-fae is what made me, me.” And with that, she fades completely away, the light calling her to where she belongs.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I go to the coffee shop first thing in the morning, hoping Mr. Barrington might be there. He’s not, but Shannon says he usually doesn’t arrive until around 9:15 for coffee before Doug lets him into the morgue to visit with Timothy around 10. She should say ‘Timothy’s body’, but I don’t correct her. The living always hold onto what was a bit longer than they should. Hell, I feel half-dead sometimes, and I do the same thing.

  They’re out of blueberry scones today, but I’m hungrier than that anyways, so I order the largest breakfast special on the menu. It’s clear, when the waitress brings the platter, that my eyes were way larger than my stomach. Two buttered English muffins, four scrambled eggs, two slices of bacon, two sausage links, and a side of cheesy hash browns.

  “Good god, who could possibly eat all of this?”

  “Officer Steve does, about four times a week.” Shannon quips, setting ketchup and a little basket of jellies in front of me. The first waitress has already left, a young girl that didn’t think my comment was interesting at all. In fact, I was pretty sure she’d given me a dismissive eye roll. Apparently, I was just not cool enough for the high school crowd any longer. Not that I was ever cool enough for the high school crowd. Mei and Adam were just about the only people who liked me back then. Everyone else thought I was weird, especially when they’d catch me talking to walls and ceilings.