Corpse-jumping spirit Tamsin West must take part in one of the Prime Vampire's infernal role-playing stories. But this a game within a game and one she can't win.For corpse-jumping spirit Tamsin West, the afterlife bites. Hard. Captured by the vicious Prince Duprey and trapped in the body of his twice-dead daughter, Tamsin must take part in one of the Fae vampire's infernal role-playing games. Her character is assigned to a team of unsuspecting FBI agents investigating a string of Satanic killings. The murders are real and, unfortunately for the agents, so is the magic behind them.
But this is a game within a game and Duprey is making all the rules. Demons and blood-soaked rituals are just a distraction. Tamsin's Fae lover once foiled the Prince's plan to seize a Faerie throne. Thanks to Tamsin, that kingdom is again within reach. For Duprey, revenge is a dish best served cold. Cold as the grave. All this magical meddling opens a crack in the world of the dead and Tamsin's past begins crawling out. Tamsin has cheated death so many times she's lost count. Win or lose, Death has decided it's finally time to collect. Adult themes and language. Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA |
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Dust to Dust 3: Ghost of a Chance
by Eden Crowne
Copyright Eden Crowne 2016. All rights reserved
Chapter 1
Tamsin
The universe is a vast sea of energy and the afterlife no different.
Tamsin saw the white hole of energy far ahead. A jagged tear in time and space meant one thing: a body. All around her, other phantoms were massing toward the rift. Some pitiful, some terrifying. Hunting for a new body to hijack. Just like her.
None of them needed wings to fly in this world and they soared through the darkness. Ethereal hands reached out to grab her. Lesser spirits trying to hitch a ride into the light. They couldn't enter the body, but hoped to ghost once again in the real world. Others, just as strong and determined as Tamsin, fought to force her out of the way. The rift represented the last breath of a dying supernatural. The first to reach that tantalizing promise of light and life might live again.
Energy is both esoteric and dangerously physical in the shadow realm. Tamsin had lost bodies in melees like this before. Drawing a short gray blade from the scabbard strapped to her back, she closed her fingers around the sigils etched into the handle. With a whispered word, the sword flared into icy blue flame. She had to remake the weapon anew every time she landed back in this spiritual black hole.
Evie felt the cold twist around trying to take a bite out of her as she knew it would. This weapon was bound with a wild, feral spell. It did not like being tamed and fought her every time she used it. Once it tasted blood, or whatever spirits bled, the spell would focus the anger on her assailants.
The lesser spirits clawing at her arms burst into jagged pieces of crystal as the spell-cast blade turned its anger away from Tamsin and reached for them. Screaming in frustration, they drew back. She surged ahead, hacking at the stronger phantoms blocking the way, pushing to the front of the free-for-all.
There were so many. More than she had ever seen. It was as if someone sent out invitations to the death event. Tamsin tumbled and spun, hacking with her blade, kicking, and throwing sharp spells like shuriken from her left hand. The other spirits did the same and she felt their hexes slicing into skin. Spirit world did not equal 'misty ball of fluff'. She had a body and felt every cut, kick, and punch. Hopefully her adversaries felt them just as strongly, too.
The light from the rift dimmed ever so slightly. A shadow moved across it and Tamsin shouted in frustration. Something had beaten her to it. Beaten all of them. It took a heartbeat before she realized she was wrong. The shadow was not going into the light, it was coming out of it.
All of them, lesser and greater phantoms, spirits and monsters, skidded to an airborne halt with a collective gasp of surprise.
Things went into the light from the shadow realm, nothing ever came out of it.
The shadow sped toward them. The trajectory fast and precise, as if it knew exactly where it was going.
Throwing its shadow arms wide, the phantom sent out a blast of energy, blacker even than itself, and pushed through the mass of spirits. Anything the shadow touched exploded dramatically in a shower of burning sparks. The phantoms around her panicked. They split to either side of the oncoming shadow like a herd of frightened deer, leaving Tamsin completely exposed.
She had just enough time to think 'Yikes!' before the shadow was upon her.
A pair of red embers burned into her eyes, only inches from her face. The shadow wrapped itself around her sword and oozed up her arm in a cold, wet mass. Unlike the others, she did not blow up firecracker-style. That was a good thing, she hoped.
Tamsin struggled, chanting spells and spitting hexes at the entity. The shadow ignored her. The burning red ember eyes turned resolutely away. Dragging her along like a trophy, it made a U-turn and flew directly back the way it came, scattering the spiritual sparks it had left in its wake. None of the other phantoms tried to approach the shadow. They hung back in a seething, roiling mass and watched. Before Tamsin quite knew what was happening, she and the shadow entered the rift.
One of the rules of the afterlife was the body had to be on the point of death, not quite dead yet but nearly there, for a spirit to take possession of it. Time passes very differently on the borders of life and death. The entire battle to reach the rift and Tamsin's kidnapping had happened in the blink of an earthly eye as the body teetered on the edge of the endless abyss.
For spirits on their way back in, the blinding light is not warm and welcoming. This dark magic bordered on necromancy and the keepers of the afterlife did not like this blackest of black arts. Entering a body at the point of death was not a pleasant experience. As their spirits crossed, Tamsin was forced every time to see the life that was lived speeding by. A raging, unfiltered torrent of images and emotion worse than any physical assault. Though every body she entered was a supernatural, not all of them were bad or evil. Many were good people. Feeling their consciousness fade – even though Tamsin knew death was not the end – was still heartbreaking.
Each time Tamsin fought against the tide, following the tsunami of consciousness back to its spiritual source. If she succeeded, she emerged into the metaphysical center of the body. When she didn't, and there had been many failures, the body spit her right back to the shadow realm.
Tamsin hurtled through the portal, exploding into the real world of the body and saw...nothing. No images. No roller coaster apex plunge and somersault of love and hate. Only darkness. A thick, viscous darkness enveloped her exactly as the shadow had. Tamsin's progress came to a screeching halt. Where was the path? Somehow she must have entered too late, despite the mysterious intervention of the shadow with the glowing eyes. Unwilling to give up, she stubbornly pushed through the morass. There were emotions embedded in the metaphysically sticky liquid, hate and rage that tried to take bites out of her spirit. This body was obviously not one of the happy ones.
Primal instinct for survival is even stronger in supernaturals than human beings. And he, she, or it had to be supernatural. Tamsin's spirit could not enter a human being. The Soul Eaters had seen to that when they murdered her and took her soul.
Something grabbed her hand. If she'd had a body she would have screamed. Outside the Shadow Realm she was nothing more than a puff of spiritual dust. Her spiritual self did its best to freak out, squirming and struggling. The hand pulled her through the suffocating darkness. This had never happened before either. Then Tamsin saw it. A spark fluttering ahead. The shadow hand released her and Tamsin instinctively strained forward, sending out threads of energy to feed the tiny glow.
The spark blossomed and began to push back against the dark. Tamsin turned her own energy in that direction and pushed with it. Suddenly, light flooded the way. Tamsin followed the shining path.
Usually she had to writhe and wriggle herself in as she hijacked a body. Pushing into the corners, filling it like a spandex dress two sizes too small. This time she slipped smoothly into the curiously blank form.
Everything was wrong about this possession. Unfortunately, she'd come too far to go back now.
Getting the heart, lungs, and other major organs started was vital. Once she filled the body, Tamsin had a vey short time to come to life. Too long and she was back where she started with the other hungry phantoms.
The lungs would not fill and the heart refused to start pumping and fill those cold veins. She was suffocating.
Suddenly she felt a presence within her. With it came a flare of hope and, almost, laughter. A familiar essence brushed her spirit. She knew that touch. The Charmer. Her last body was a wonderful little Charmer Witch out of Faerie. How had she lost that body? Tamsin couldn't remember and it didn't mater at this moment. Faerie magic was very good at healing and the Charmer better than most.
A clap of thunder heralded the first beat of the body's cold heart and a breath of air seared Tamsin's new lungs. The Charmer's magic had done it. Like the little spark of light, life swelled Tamsin's spirit to fill this vessel, becoming one.
The body was sluggish and chillingly cold, but she was alive. Breathing turned from agony to automatic. Gradually, she mastered the internal organs. The heart settled into a slow steady pace.
Tamsin opened her new eyes waiting for the fuzz to lift. As it cleared, she cursed out loud – though the only sound out of her mouth was a hoarse croak. She knew exactly where she was. That telltale chill and the smell no amount of disinfectant or air conditioning could remove. The cold metal slab with the grooves carved to drain the blood away from autopsies pressed into her back and hips.
A morgue.
This scenario was not new and she had no interest in repeating that particular drama. Somehow she must get up and get moving before a doctor or one of the attendants came back.
The room was cold, but she was far colder internally. Like they'd taken her out of the freezer. Maybe she'd frozen to death? In a morgue? Her spirit had to wait until the moment of death. Not hours later. So maybe she'd lingered in the cold, between life and death. That would explain the fuzzy numbness in her brain and body.
It took an enormous effort to wiggle her fingers, then her toes. Circulation returned in burning waves. Someone was bound to come in at any moment.
Her stomach came back to life faster than the rest of her. Tamsin flinched as it growled and gurgled. She always woke up famished – taking a body expended a huge amount of her spiritual reserves – but not like this. This hunger was ravenous.
Predatory.
Tamsin strained her new muscles to raise her head, trying to get a look at her body. At least find out if she was male of female this time around. 'Please let it be female... please let it be female,' she chanted as she lifted her chin.
A woman's body was stretched out on the table. Thin, too thin, pale and covered in complex tattoos. Grinning skulls hid her small breasts and flat belly. They ringed her bony hips and spilled over onto her thighs and legs right down to her toes.
Skull tattoos.
No, it wasn't possible.
The hunger surged through her again.
It can't... it couldn't be. She was back in the body of the twice-dead Prime Vampire Princess Angelique Duprey.
Tamsin began to scream.
Chapter 2
Tamsin
A group of people rushed upon her. Some dressed in surgical scrubs, others in street clothes. One wheeled a metal IV frame, the tubes dangling. There was a lot of shouting. None of the words made any sense. Maybe the synapses processing language had yet to reconnect.
Tamsin was having too much trouble keeping the heart beating after the shock of realizing she had slipped into the body of Angelique Duprey. They could be whispering the secrets of the universe and she wouldn't care because she was back in the very, very dead Princess Angelique Duprey. Tamsin had first taken her body after Drake, the Fae hunter tormented by the Prime Vampire for more than a century, drowned her. Prime's were elemental vampires, the only thing that could bring them the true death was one of the elements. In Angelique's case, water.
A very few days later, Tamsin had drowned Angelique again to free Drake from his bond to the wizard Batholomew Knightly, one of the Soul Eaters who had taken Tamsin's soul.
A second chance at life for a body was one thing. A third? That just didn't happen.
They lifted her from the hard metal bed onto a gurney, covering her with blankets and inserting the needles as they rushed her from the room. They talked stridently, as though arguing. Raised voices, harsh words. Not angry. Frightened. Tamsin could feel the fear resonate through the fingertips of the one with the needles.
Being back in Angelique's body meant she was in Prince Duprey's hands once again. A powerful aristocrat of Fae and the master of Chicago's dark world of magic. She owed him a blood debt. No, wait. That had been fulfilled. When she had her new body, the Charmer. Or old body considering she was now Angelique again. That meant the Charmer's body was gone. Really and truly dead. How had she lost it?
Her head was too fuzzy. She remembered being Angelique clearly enough and all the traumatic events associated with that. Then she was the Charmer. Looking again for Knightly. He had disappeared the night she drowned Angelique. Everything else a blur. And what did it matter anyway because she was so unbearably hungry. Her stomach clenched and she couldn't keep back a moan of pain.
The ceiling sped overhead in a dizzying blur as they hurried her along. Evie had no tricks to pull out of her magical hat to help her escape. She still could barely move. Rolling off the gurney and flopping on the floor was not a plan.
They wheeled her into a room where everything was far too bright. The walls, the lights. Someone dimmed them almost immediately. Blinking back tears, Tamsin watched as they placed her next to another gurney.Out of the corner of her eye she saw a man. He lay very still.
Two people in surgical gear busied themselves around the man and suddenly Tamsin smelled something wonderful. She tried to sit up, get closer to the tantalizing smell. Strong hands held her down, but still she fought, weak as she was. Tamsin was washed away on a wave of pure feral hunger. Her vision narrowed to one goal. The only thing that mattered.
Blood.
A tiny prick in her arm and she not only felt, but tasted the wonderful liquid flowing into her starved body. Human blood. Deliciously warm and alive. She stopped fighting and sank back onto the thin mattress letting the sensuous euphoria overwhelm her.
One of the people stroked her hair and another leaned close to whisper soft words. She couldn't keep her eyes open. Tamsin slept.
Chapter 3
Tamsin
“My apologies for your awakening alone in that dreadful room.” A deep, accented voice spoke in Tamsin's ear. “You astound us, Miss West. Truly, this will to live you possess is beyond remarkable.” She felt fingers brush her cheek. “Just as I hoped.”
Her spirit shrank from his touch. It would have been better if she had never woken again, just slept on and on in an eternal night. Slipped back into the otherwhere far away from the Prime Vampires of the Duprey clan .Desperately, she looked within for a remnant of the shining path back to the shadow world. Please, please. Just let her crawl out of this hateful body.
It was too late, of course. Only violent death could bring that release.
What had she done to wake up once again in the body of this murderous Prime Vampire? Had it been days? Weeks? Month? She couldn't seem to dredge up much memory at all. Prince Duprey, though... He said something to her. Whispering in her ear in his cold, implacable voice. “This was never about Knightly, my dear. Nor the Saints, or the Sinners. Not even you, Miss West, are the true prize. I play the long game. This is all on Drake. Come, my Angelique awaits.”
When had she heard those words?
The all consuming hunger had abated. Not entirely, but enough. She opened her eyes and looked into the steely gray gaze of the Prime Vampire. He stepped back to lean casually against a large bank of monitors, arms crossed over his chest. He was tall and iron straight, a large nose and old world aristocratic features like those painted by a Dutch master. He had a hard, thin mouth, high cheekbones and strong jaw. Tamsin had never seen him dressed in anything but a sharply-cut tailored suit in shades of steel gray. He wore one now, with a charcoal-colored shirt and dark patterned tie. His thick black hair, long on top, was brushed back over both ears.
Duprey regarded her, his head titled slightly to one side, a half smile tugging mirthlessly at one side of his thin mouth.
Tamsin tried to speak, only managing a few hoarse croaks. The Prince was by her in an instant, cradling her head and lifting a cup and straw to her lips.
“Drink.”
Dry mouthed, she didn't have the strength to protest. Sucking at the straw, she sighed as a thick, cool liquid slid easily over her tongue and down her throat. Thank God it wasn't blood. Angelique's reaction would have been far more dramatic.
“A special solution, Miss West. Plasma, electrolytes, herbs, and coconut milk. Coconut milk!” He exclaimed, sounding mildly amused. “Who would have thought it was such a potent elixir for Fae bodies? There. All done?”
As she finished the last of the drink, he laid her head back on the pillow and resumed his position against the monitor desk.
Tamsin wiggled her fingers and toes experimentally. They responded easily enough. Encouraged, she tried to lift her knees and arms. They were stiff and heavy and her back ached terribly. With a great effort she struggled up enough to push back against the pillows and at least raise her head. The effort left her breathless and for a moment all she could hear was a roaring in her ears.
Duprey, saying nothing, continuing to regard her with his frighteningly piercing gaze as she recovered her breath.
“How...” she panted, “how did I get here?”
She knew he would understand she was asking what happened to her other body.
He raised one eyebrow quizzically, “Don't you remember?”
She shook her head.
“I killed you.”
Tamsin swallowed.
“With a knife. Through your back, near the heart, not into it. I needed to keep you alive long enough to get to the ritual circle I prepared ahead of time.”
Tamsin stared at him.
The eyebrow arched up again. “No? Oh do try to put it together Miss West. The battle between the Saints and the Sinners in the hospital. Your manipulation of the necromancer and his zombies in your effort to locate that pompous little Soul Eater, Batholomew Knightly. The hound reached him instead. Your heroic Fae Hunter Drake swooped in to the rescue and the hospital fell to pieces.” He mimed an explosion with both hands. “Boom. Coming back to you now?”
The alley. Smoke and dust. The whole front of the hospital had come down into the street. Drake. She thought harder. Yes. He'd been there along with Desmond the Shadow Hound, Theo, and his leopard, Kitty, the demigoddess. Someone else. Spiders... Noelly! The Jorogumo shapeshifter. They'd been together. Beyond that, her mind was blank.
Duprey waved one hand, brushing her memories aside. “Not that it matters. Let us concentrate on the here and now. You are once again in darling Angelique's body and my plan is back on track.”
“Your plan? I fulfilled my blood debt to you already. And how is Angelique part of your plan?”
“Oh come now,” he moved abruptly away from the monitors, his voice sharp with impatience. “Surely you don't think you were drawn to Angelique the first time just by chance? A Prime? I orchestrated that event. Very carefully, I might add.”
Tamsin sat up a little more, the adrenaline getting her slow heart back up to speed. “You allowed Drake to drown your daughter?”
“I have a kingdom to preserve. We are aristocrats. A child's duty is to serve their parents. In this case, Angelique's duty was to die.”
“Did she agree?”
“Don't be naïve,” he sneered.
“Didn't think so,” she said under her breath.
“And now you are going to serve me once again. Just as you did when you slipped into the little Charmer witch. Just as I planned.”
Normally she would be freaking out. In fact she should be in a state of panic upon learning Duprey had mastered some subtle necromancy to put her back into Angelique. Who knew how many drugs were zipping through her half-dead system at the moment. Her emotions seemed to have deflated.
“But you let me go,” she said. “Remember? You gave me a choice to stay or go. The first time we met.”
“I did, didn't I? I was honor bound by certain rules to allow you a choice. The demon I summoned to aid me with the spell stealing you from the ether, made me agree to those terms. Allow you to accept of your own free will. Or not. You chose not to.”
He sighed, shot his cuffs and adjusted the cuff links in a distracted way. “At the time I thought things would have been so much easier if you had. However, in that odd way of destiny, it all twisted to my advantage. I then orchestrated your return as the Charmer. She provided me with an intricate strategy that eventually won us the game here in Chicago. As head of the Sinners team, I have been amply rewarded.”
Tamsin couldn't quite raise her hand but got it to twitch. “Wait, wait, just wait. How can I be back in Angelique? Your daughter's spirit had fled. This,” she tried to indicate her body – thankfully now covered in a hospital gown – and managed a feeble wave. “She met the true death months ago. There was no one to come back to.”
Tamsin didn't even see him move. One second he was on the other side of the room and then he was looming above her, both hands on her shoulders. He shoved her roughly back down on the bed. “Stop deluding yourself. Your victims are not as dead as you believe.”
“They're not my victims!” Tamsin snapped.
“Oh, but they are,” he shoved her again and then stood, glaring down at her. When he spoke, his tone was ice cold. “You are not a guest in their body. You are a thief. The instinct to survive among those you call supernaturals is far stronger than humans. Even after you abandon them to a second death, there is a tether. Tenuous and thin as it is, they could come back if they had your strength.”
“No,” she gasped. Duprey said something like this the night he called in her blood debt. As much as she had wanted to deny it, she had begun to suspect he might be right.
“After your spirit fled the Charmer Witch, we revived her. Her body is on life support in a nearby room. Her organs functioning, her wound will heal. Granted there is only minimal brain activity, however, she is not totally brain dead. Death is not final. Humans can survive for minutes after they flatline. Supernaturals can be revived after far longer periods. You say you jump into their body after their spirit has fled, but it is still very nearby, holding desperately to life. How else do you think you have their skills? Their sensory memories? That vicious entry by your spirit slices that sweet link, dooming them. Dividing them from their very spirit. They are as much a victim as you were.” He gave her a thoughtful look, “I am surprised you have not met any of your former selves there in the shadow world of phantoms and spirits.”
Tamsin felt the sting of those words even through the medication. She had access to her host's powers, skills. She called it muscle memory. Now it seemed something far more sinister. Was she really no better than the Soul Eaters who doomed her to dust? Some of the supernaturals had been evil creatures. Not all, though. Not all.
“Angelique is strong. After you abandoned her body, I found her tiny spark in the darkness. Nourished it. I bound her to another Prime of nearly equal strength. When I sacrificed that body, I drew you in.”
Duprey had used the death of another Prime Vampire to push the tattered remnants of Angelique's spirit to draw Tamsin in. He must have been the guiding spirit of the dark shadow pulling her past the other phantoms, ensuring she would enter the body.
He turned abruptly, sliding a card key through what Tamsin saw was a metal security door. The door slid into the wall. Pausing in the doorway, Duprey said, “We just did not expect you to arrive so soon. The ceremony had not even been concluded. You are full of surprises, Miss West. So refreshing to be surprised for one as old as I.”
The door slid closed and Tamsin was alone.
Chapter 4
Tamsin
Tamsin woke up to find herself sitting in a wheelchair with a complex set of manacles fastened around her wrists, waist, and ankles. Two tall heavily muscled men stared impassively down at her. How had she gotten here?
Trying to peer through the fuzz in her brain, Tamsin remembered speaking with Duprey. Then… Someone had come in. No. Several someones. They’d wheeled in someone on a gurney. They must have given her another transfusion. She tried wiggling her fingers and toes. They were definitely more responsive than before. The attendants must have moved her to this wheelchair as she slept off the blood.
Her chin was wet and she realized she'd been drooling. Great. Swiping her face across the shoulder of her hospital gown, she asked, “What now?”
Apparently they'd been waiting for her to wake up. One of the men moved behind the wheelchair and the other opened a steel door with a card key from his pocket. She was rolled along several empty, brightly-lit corridors. There were no windows here either. No sounds filtering in from the outside. Just the men's footsteps and the chair's rubber wheels rolling over the slick linoleum.
Her body still felt sluggish and heavy. Like she was in deep water. But she could feel. The dire reality of Tamsin's situation began filtering in now the drugs were beginning to wear off.
During the time Duprey had abruptly left the room and the next infusion of fresh blood from the same donor in the same room, she'd desperately rummaged around her body's shell. No spark. No seething core of anger that she remembered from her short sojourn as Angelique. Just a foggy nothingness. The Prime was in there, to what degree she would have to find out.
Maybe she couldn't even access Angelique's powers anymore. Twice-born was definitely new territory for Tamsin. There was the blood though. She'd been hungry, no, ravenous for it. Rather than the super adrenalized burn she'd felt the one and only time she fed as Angelique, this time the blood put her to sleep. Maybe because she’d been dead?
They eventually entered another white, featureless room through a security door. This one was bigger than the last and there was no hospital bed or banks of monitors. A table, ornately carved and gilded and very out of place in such a sterile environment, was pushed against one wall. Two matching chairs had been placed at either side. The table held an assortment of items Tamsin only got a brief look at as the men wheeled her around, a set of metal clamps emerged soundlessly from the floor. They set the wheelchair inside. A panel in the ceiling opened and more machinery dropped on either side of the chair. The men quickly fastened heavy metal tubing around her arms, legs, and waist. A clicking sound behind her sounded as though a lever had been pressed. There was a hum and buzz of electricity. Tamsin twitched as a circle of thick ice formed over the metal. She sucked in her stomach instinctively, even though the ice couldn't touch her skin. Bartholomew Knightly had imprisoned her in ice chains very much like this her last time as Angelique.
Tamsin heard a light step behind her and sensed the awful power of Prince Duprey. Another door must be behind her. He walked around the wheelchair, looking her up and down.
“Good, good. You have recovered enough that we can get down to business. Excuse the ice chains. Just a temporary precaution until I have presented you with my offer. ” He held up one finger as though to forestall any words from her. “Before you protest and declare you have no intention of helping me, let me show you a short, yet touching documentary we have put together for your benefit.”
A flick of his hands and the lights lowered. Images flickered onto the white wall in front of her. Tamsin saw an older man and woman and a young man, tall and fair. They were all laughing, holding cold drinks and walking along a waterfront promenade. Her mother and father. Older now, of course, than the last time she saw them. Could this good looking young man be her gawky game-obsessed younger brother Thomas? He was dressed in loose faded jeans, an Abercrombie T-shirt with a plaid shirt tied around his slim hips. His hair hung just a little below his ears, an artful shadow of blond stubble on his chin and jaw.
There was a low moaning sound and it took Tamsin a moment to realize it was coming from her. A lump in her throat made it hard to breath.
The sound switched on and she heard their voices. Her parents wonderful and familiar. Thomas' voice so different, deep and resonant. A man's voice. They spoke of inconsequential things in the verbal shorthand of people who know each other so well. There was a lot of laughter.
Duprey reached out and brushed a tear away from Tamsin's cheek.
“How touching,” he said. “Angelique almost never cried.”
Duprey stepped to the wall, indicating the background. “Seattle. Young Thomas is a Graduate Student at Washington State. Go Huskies!” He gave a fist pump and laughed to himself. “This was taken last week.”
The film stopped, freezing on an image of the three people who mattered more to her than anyone else when she was alive. She'd tried very hard not to think about them since her death. Never to go where they might be found. This was cruel and it hurt, just as Duprey intended it to.
Duprey put his hands behind his back and stood to one side of the image. "Simple threats are the best threats. Those that have stood the test of time. Good people are easy to control. Despite your monstrous abilities, you are a good person. Contact Drake and I will kill your father. Disobey me and I will kill your mother. Try to engineer Angelique's death and I will force you to drink the blood of your brother. Again and again and again."
Tamsin gagged. The bile rising in her throat. She struggled and raged against the chains, overcome with anger. Not against Duprey, but herself. She had done this. Put her family in danger with her single-minded devotion to destroying the Soul Eaters and finding the tattered pieces of her soul.
The heat of rage at the true core of Angelique finally began to awaken. Duprey pulled a heavy metal lighter from his pocket and flicked the flame. Tamsin's inner Prime seized on the tiny spark to ignite her anger. The air surrounding her body burst into flame burning through the chains of ice.
Duprey watched, a little smile playing around the corners of his mouth, the flames reflected in his bright eyes.
Tamsin flared hotter, hoping to burn through the chains and get her hands around Duprey's throat. She felt the metal beneath the ice melt away, so hot had she become. One of the burly gods stepped over holding some sort of canister and hose. Squeezing a trigger he shot a spray of icy cold vapor enveloped her. She froze. Literally. Suddenly unable to move. The fire went out just as quickly leaving nothing but the smell of sulphur and ozone. .
White mist flowed across the floor. Duprey applauded.
“Excellent. I knew Angelique was in there, she just needed a push to make an appearance. And now,” he indicated her with a flourish of both hands, “here she is.”
“Why? Why must I be Angelique?” she shouted, her voice cracking in frustration. “What value could she possibly have that is worth all this?”
“Far more than you need to know at this time. She – and you – are linked to an item I need. More will be revealed as necessary. To move this plan forward, you will learn what it means to be a game player in the world of the Prime. I have chosen a story already in progress and your role in it. That is all you need to know at the moment.”
She heard the door slide open behind her. A tall, handsome man with skin so dark it was almost blue walked to the Prince. His tightly curled hair was cut short, the sideburns shaved into diagonal slices down to his jaw. He wore a magenta shirt tucked into tight, tailored navy blue pinstripe trousers. He carried several garment bags over one arm and pulled a small rolling carry-on. Despite the load, the tall man managed a very elegant bow to Duprey before facing Tamsin.
Angelique's senses marked him instantly. Not Prime. Turned human.
Duprey indicated the man with a graceful wave of one hand. “This is one of my assistants, Victor. He will give you the necessary tools and information for your new role. You are a quick study, Miss West. Do not pretend otherwise. Do as he tells you and do it quickly.”
Duprey held out a hand to the man. Setting everything on top of the ornate table, Victor removed a small object from the front zipper pocket of the rolling suitcase.
Duprey let the object drop to hang by a braided leather lanyard. Tamsin’s nerves jumped.
“Your spell book,” he said slipping it over her head and letting the small book fall between her breasts. He carefully pulled Angelique's long black over the lanyard, smoothing it gently. “A gift from your Hunter boyfriend, wasn’t it? I felt we would save time if I just gave it back to you.”
Tamsin could take nothing physical with her when she lost a body. A few years ago with the help of a friendly Swiss succubus, she’d set up a safety deposit box at a bank in Zurich. There she kept a number of real world items and her own personal Grimoire. Spell books were very important in the magical arts. Writing a spell brought the magic more fully into this world. The spell didn’t need to be on the summoner’s person in order to use it, however, it had to exist in a grimoire or notebook somewhere that belonged to the spellcaster.
Whenever Tamsin reappeared in a new body, one of her first tasks was to get a notebook and write down all the new spells she learned since she was last able to update her personal spell book locked away in Zurich. It was maddeningly laborious work.
Drake surprised her this little book when she found him again as the Charmer Witch. The understanding had been he would be there to find the book when she lost the body – which she always did – find her, and give it to her again. The gesture had touched her deeply. Until Drake, she’d had no one to care for her -- or care about. Meeting him had changed everything. Oh, Drake. She'd hoped for a little longer with him.
“Hopefully you will learn some new spells to add to your little collection. If you are very good, I will see you visit your bank in Zurich to update your personal grimoire and cash flow.”
He moved out of her range of vision and she heard the snick of the security door sliding open.
“Take good care of this body, Miss West. I know how to capture your spirit, I have done it three times now. Lose Angelique, and I might just be forced to insert you into the body of a demon. They are far less fastidious in their feeding habits. Your brother would not enjoy that.”
Chapter 5
Tamsin
Tamsin stood on the soft dirt of the forest floor breathing in the smell of death mixed with the heady scent of redwoods and rich brown dirt. Sun filtered through the tall trees. Blue jays squawked, dogs barked in the distance, and a hawk’s call trilled shrilly overhead.
The few sparkling rays of sunlight managing to find a way through the thick canopy of branches were blocked out as the tall man with close-cropped hair took several steps closer to Tamsin.
“I didn't ask for you and I don't need you,” he snapped. “So just get in your rental car and go back to spook central.” He pointed in the direction of the parking lot.
'Yep,' Tamsin thought to herself. 'This is off to a great start.'
Events had proceeded at a bewildering rate following her harrowing chat with Prince Duprey and introduction to the very efficient Victor.
Unlocking the shackles, the guards hauled her to her feet and stood back to flank the door, arms crossed, silent and imposing.
Duprey's assistant gave her a rapid fire run down of her role in the game, that of a profiler and analyst on occult related crimes on loan to the FBI from the NSA.
“Do they have those sort of profilers?” she asked.
He rolled his eyes. “Who cares? Our team made it real for the game.”
Victor either wouldn't or couldn't provide an explanation of why Prince Duprey wanted her inserted into a Prime RPG game.
As she hurriedly changed into clothes he laid out from the garment bags, Victor ran through far too many rules regarding game play for her scrambled back-from-the-dead brain to remember. The only one that stuck was 'don't break character.'
“I don't know anything about being a Federal Agent. You do realize, don't you?” she said hopping awkwardly as she pulled on the other leg of a pair of gray wool trousers.
He made a pffft, sound between his lips and waved one hand in the air. “No matter. You have your own private assistant.” He waggled his fingers at her, “Zip up those pants and put on your jacket. You have a plane to catch.”
“I have a plane to what?”
“Catch. Now zip!” he insisted.
She did as he said.
“Stand,” he ordered.
She stood.
“Turn!” he said spinning one hand in the air.
She turned.
He gave her a long appraising look up and down. “Hmm… You are too skinny and your hair is too long. Skinny I can’t fix, hair, I can.”
Producing a couple of hair ties from one pocket, he stepped over and with a few deft twists, wound it into a bun on the back of her head.
Holding her head with one hand, Tamsin saw out of the corner of her eye as he pulled a palm-sized gadget out of his pocket and put it next to her ear. “Hold very still.”
She felt a rush of air and then a stinging pain shot from her ear to her jaw.
“Ow!” she protested, “That hurt!”
Victor sneered, “Don't be a baby. You are now online with your personal assistant. Winston, introduce yourself to Angelique.”
A very cultured British voice spoke in her ear.
No.
Inside her head.
“How do you do, Madam. My name is Winston. It is my pleasure to serve as your personal game valet and navigation aid.”
Tamsin stared wide-eyed at Victor. “How is it doing that?”
“Vibrates through the bone directly in your ear canal. No chance of anyone overhearing what he says. Comes through on a scrambled secure channel. Every Prime player has their own game valet on a different frequency for security.”
“What about volume control?”
“No need, since it is directly in your ear, this is about as close as we can come to telepathy. You'll be fine. Winston will inform you of points won or lost. You can also ask him questions like a search engine and check on the progress of the game. Be careful when you talk to him as people might think you're nuts.”
Taking her shoulders, he turned her back to the table holding the rest of her gear. There was a small black cross body bag, laptop case with a shoulder strap, a gun in a clip-on holster, and a rectangular silver flash drive. “Take those. The flash drive has what you need to get up to speed on the game so far. The password for the laptop is your name,” he gave her a significant look, “your real name.”
Tamsin thought for one wild moment about grabbing the gun and trying to shoot her way out of Duprey’s stronghold. Biting her lip against such a foolish urge, she silently clipped the gun to her belt. Who knew how many Primes stood between her and escape? More importantly, Duprey’s threats against her family were not idle ones. She had no doubt about that.
Giving her a final once over, Victor hissed an impatient sound before pulling out a pair of sunglasses and tucking them in her breast pocket. “Almost forgot,” he said. “There are two extra pairs in the suitcase and the ibuprofen is in your handbag.”
Prime's were nocturnal beings. Sunlight gave them a serious headache only partly alleviated by dark glasses and pain killers.
Victor snapped his fingers and th large men advanced on Tamsin. He showed her a white tube before shoving it inside the rolling bag. “Do not forget this! Body make-up. Cover up those ridiculous tattoos.”
A short time later the guards practically threw her and the baggage out of a black limousine at O'Hare and sped off. One of her low-heeled black pumps fell into the gutter as a result of her hasty exit. Retrieving it, Tamsin scraped her heel on a broken piece of cement. "Damn it," she hissed under her breath. Straightened the coat of her plainly-cut gray pantsuit, she grabbed her roller bag, slung the strap of her laptop case over one shoulder, took a deep breath, and walked into the terminal.
The game was on.
Tamsin did not feel particularly Prime-like as she made her way to security and the gates beyond. In fact, she thought she might throw up. Everything was still surreal. Her body awkward and clumsy like those first days out of bed after a bad flu. The world a strange and noisy place full of too many people and far, far too bright until she remembered to put on her sunglasses.
Tamsin had been on her own in this crazy, magical, afterlife for many years. She made her own decisions, her own mistakes.
Lots of mistakes.
Lots and lots.
But still, they were hers to make.
Victor told her to identify herself to airport security as a Federal Agent. She would then be escorted through a different security check. It wasn’t until just before she reached the I.D. check she remembered to look at her ticket and find out exactly where the hell she was bound for.
'San Jose International' was printed on the front. Just one way. Was that a good or bad thing? Probably bad. A not-so-subtle hint she was coming back.
Given her dangerous line of investigations, she came into contact with some pretty terrible creatures with no compunction about using violence as a form of communication. She had three more pieces of her soul to locate and four more hidden runes to seek out.
During the flight to California, she desperately studied the information on the flash drive. The FBI was investigating two murders that had occurred over the last five days. The first on federal land, the second at a state park. Both looked like the work of satanists or some sort of occult group. Cryptic writing in blood around the bodies. Death had been by exsanguination – massive blood loss. No sexual attacks. Very little bruising on the bodies. In fact they had been far too clean. Most likely killed somewhere else and then placed at the scene. She was being sent into the field to assist a team led by Field Agent Marshal Edwards on yet a third murder.
As the plane banked for its descent over the low brown hills surrounding San Jose, she realized she’d forgotten to ask Victor if she was on the Saints or a Sinners side of the game. The Prime's chose sides before commencing play or entering a game in progress. The designation had nothing to do with their true nature. Only whether they wanted to role play heroes or villains. Just because she was working with the FBI didn’t mean she couldn't be a Sinner player infiltrating from the other side.
A rental car had been reserved at San Jose with a preset GPS telling her how to get to her destination. Santa Cruz. Or near it. A place the mountains about forty miles away from the airport.
Before long she pulled into a large parking lot presently very full of black and white patrol cars, an ambulance, two fire trucks, and what must be cars from the sheriff's office. People dressed in casual clothes and hiking boots, some holding dogs on leashes, milled around a hastily constructed barrier of incidence tape and orange traffic cones.
The air smelled rich and warm with the special wild grass, black oak, and dry earth smell so much a part of California away from the sea. Secretly she was excited to be back. After the Soul Eaters realized she'd found a way to resurrect herself from that dusty death, the group scattered. There had been no reason to stay in the Golden State and the newly dead shouldn't really return to their old haunts anyway. She was stronger now, emotionally. Maybe...
More yellow incidence tape blocked the entrance to a wide dirt trail by a small visitor center. She flashed her badge and the uniformed policeman manning the entrance let her through. Ahead was a small mixed group of men and women in police and park ranger uniforms or somber suits.
“Winston?” she asked, as she walked slowly toward them. “Are you there?”
“Of course, Madam,” he answered immediately. “What can I do for you?”
“Do you have any information on the people I’m meeting? Stuff that wasn’t in the file?”
“The only one who matters at this time is Agent Marshall Edwards,” Winston said briskly. “He is in charge of the investigation and your temporary boss, as you must know by now. He has solved two serial murder cases in different parts of the country and is considered a rising star in the Bureau.”
“Really or in the game?”
“I do not have access to that information.”
For all she knew, the Primes could have initiated both serial murders for him to solve in order to reach this point. The Primes gleefully used human avatars as playing pieces and Prime RPG games could stretch on for years. In fact, they seemed to prefer the long game. What was a few years when your were virtually immortal, like the Fae.
Tamsin asked one of the officers on the edge of the group for Agent Edwards. He pointed to a tall man in a navy-blue suit.
Agent Edwards looked like he belonged in a men's cologne ad, Tamsin thought. Rugged good looks, strong jaw, straight nose, deep brown eyes with thick brows, dark hair cut executive short. He had a wide mouth and nice lips that probably looked very charming when they were smiling. He wasn't smiling as Tamsin held out her hand and introduced herself.
Ignoring her outstretched hand, he made it very clear he wanted nothing to do with her.
“Why is the NSA interested in my case?” he snapped.
Tamsin immediately took note of the 'my' inserted into that sentence. Edwards was territorial. This was 'his' case, not the Bureau's. Duprey was right when he said she was a quick study. She had jumped in and out of enough bodies and strange situations to be able to adopt a persona and lie like a pro.
“As far as I know, the NSA could care less,” she answered. “A series of nasty murders by crazed satanists is local stuff. Not a matter of national security. But,” she added quickly before he could protest, “someone in your Bureau either sent out a call or contacted a buddy. They asked for an analyst with security clearance.” She spread both arms in a flourish. “And here I am.”
“Who asked?” he demanded.
“Assistant Director Fortnam and your boss, Derek Calloway,” whispered Winston.
“Assistant Director Fortnam and my boss, Derek Calloway,” she dutifully repeated.
“And the NSA cares about the occult because?”
When Tamsin complained to Victor during her rushed briefing she didn't know what the NSA did, Victor had laughed. “No one knows what they do. That's why it's the perfect cover. Just look mysterious.”
Better take his advice.
“Sorry, I am not at liberty to answer such a question at this time.” And she gave him an Angelique stare so steely her fangs came dangerously close to popping out. Angelique seemed to consider biting a solution to most confrontations.
Edwards started to protest, still unwilling, but Tamsin cut him off. “I'm here to offer my expertise in the occult. Not trying to steal your thunder, agent. Not looking for credit or a promotion. I will help you put the puzzle pieces together if you will let me.”
The little Charmer Witch Tamsin had been before this could clearly see people's aura's, Angelique not so much. However, the Prime could hear the agent’s heart and it was beating very fast in anger.
Heart.
Blood.
Warm, red blood rushing through his veins.
Tamsin felt her mouth water and wiped at the drool trying to escape out of the corners.
'Timing,' she growled at her Angelique self. He back-from-the-dead state probably needed more blood than a healthy Prime. Duprey's minions had given her several transfusion, yet she already felt empty in an alarmingly Prime way.
Angelique was actually only about five-foot-three and the FBI agent towered nearly a foot over her. Tamsin, of course, knew exactly how lethal her deceptively thin frame was. If she wanted to, she could have picked him up and thrown him on the other side of the yellow crime scene tape. She had played the new body game too many times to be intimidated by a human male.
Keeping her voice calm and leveling her gaze up at him, she said, “Agent, like it or not, I am part of this now. So why don't you introduce me to your people and show me the body?”
A man and a woman, both in dark suits, were standing silently nearby, their eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them during the interchange. They had to be part of Agent Edwards group.
Tamsin decided to address them directly. “I'm Catherine Monroe, an analyst in occult crimes with the NSA.” There, she'd said the name without stumbling “I am hoping I can be of help in your investigation.”
With a quick glance up at Edwards, a sturdy young Asian woman with straight black hair cut to just below her ears, stepped forward with her hand out. “Vivian Cho,” she said with a quick smile. She was wearing a white collared shirt open at the neck and a black pants suit, the jacket cut fashionably short to brush her hips but still long enough to cover the gun clipped to her belt in back.
Tamsin shook it, saying, “Nice to meet you.”
After a slight pause, a thin man with red hair, freckles, and thick black-rimmed glasses said, “Thomas Lawrence.”
Tamsin guessed he might be around thirty. He had deep lines in his forehead and a crease between his brows giving him a look of concern. He held a tablet computer in one hand and empty evidence bags were stuffed in both pockets of his navy blue suit. It looked almost identical to Edwards'. No handshake. Lawrence stayed where he was, slightly behind Agent Edwards, mirroring his expression to his team leader's.
Teams were just like wolf packs, there was always a hierarchy. Edwards was the Alpha, Cho the Beta maybe, and she bet Lawrence was the Gamma. Tamsin got no supernatural vibrations from any of them. Though she would have to touch Lawrence to be reasonably sure. Even that was no guarantee. The Primes seemed very good at masking their presence among humans when they wanted.
“Just the three of you?” she asked Edwards.
“Agent Park is with the police, directing the search by the river,” Cho said after Edwards remained silent.
“So,” Tamsin said matter-of-factly, “are you just going to glare at me, Agent? Or can I see the body?”
“This way.” He didn't bother to look over his shoulder to see if she followed. “Watch out for poison oak!” snapped Edwards. He pulled on a pair of disposable rubber gloves as he strode off down the wide dirt path between the trees.
Lawrence stayed behind; Cho trotted up, keeping pace with Tamsin.
“How did you get here so fast? “ she asked. “We only arrived about an hour ago. Flew from Sacramento to Monterey and drove here.”
Which meant Tamsin had actually left Chicago hours before they'd learned of the death. Duprey knew this was going down. So was she working for or against Edwards and his team?
“Say you were in San Francisco.” The voice in her ear startled her so much she jumped.
“What?” Cho asked. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Tamsin brushed her hair aside and rubbed her ear. “I think a bug flew in my ear. Um... I was already en route to join you. The timing is just a coincidence.”
Edwards looked over his shoulder and gave her a hard stare. She looked back, raising her eyebrows in a silent challenge. He said nothing and walked faster. They were practically jogging to keep up with him.
“Long legs,” Cho said, indicating the agent. “FYI, the faster he walks, the angrier he is.”
Tamsin laughed and the young woman smiled more broadly.
The redwood trunks tapered as they rose to towering heights. No lower branches, creating a sort of umbrella effect. Ferns and bay laurel leaves lay scattered over parts of the forest floor. The bay trees were skinny and deformed, twining in places they were able to steal a little sunshine from the towering trees. Other spots were mostly bare of anything but dried brown redwood needles and hardy clover. Redwood trees make family circles. The parent tree sends out shoots that grow in a ring around it. Sometimes several of the younger trees grow together forming a tree even bigger than the original. When the parent tree eventually dies, it creates a large open circle in the center.
Tamsin was grateful for the shade. This was her first full day outside as Angelique and having to be awake in the afternoon made her feel sluggish, like a bad case of jet lag.
Mom and Dad had taken her to Sequoia National Park when she was still in elementary school, just before her brother was born. Redwood groves had seemed full of magic and mystery when she was a child. As though faeries were hiding just out of sight. Funny, redwoods were even more mysterious now she knew places like this could hold actual magic. And there was magic in the air. No doubt about it. The peppery taste on her tongue and prickling along the back of her scalp gave it away.
They walked about a hundred yards before coming to the scene of the murder. A uniformed policeman stood guard at the base of a massive redwood trunk. The tree had been sliced cleanly across about fifteen feet above the ground. Obviously that happened long ago. The murderers had just taken advantage of this conveniently dramatic setting to stage their ritual.
The tree trunk was around five or six feet across. In the center, the body of a man sat on bended knees, his arms and head tied to what looked like a wooden cross. Tamsin couldn't see what was holding it up, it must be fastened to some sort of platform as another rope was tied around his waist to keep him in place. He was dressed in baggy white cotton shirt and trousers. The kind of things you'd see peasants wearing in a movie about the middle ages. A wide blindfold with large blue eyes outlined in black paint covered most of his face.
The grove was so quiet, Tamsin could hear leaves falling from several large bay laurels.
“That is one creepy blindfold,” she breathed.
“Is creepy your technical analysis, agent?” Edwards said, not even trying to keep the disdain out of his voice.
Tamsin rolled her eyes. He was going to be one of those guys.
He indicated one of two tall aluminum ladders propped up against the trunk.
Tamsin climbed quickly to the top, careful to keep her face expressionless despite the resonance buzzing around the base of the tree like a swarm of angry wasps. She knew Edwards was watching her closely.
A round wooden platform was set on top of the tree trunk to make a level surface. The victim sat in the center within painted concentric red circles, several inches apart. The circles extended all the way to edge. Within each ring were lines of symbols twisting and tumbling in a chaotic jumble. Tamsin recognized at least three different magical alphabets. All painted in blood. Tamsin's eyes blurred as she breathed in the remnants of the spell. The symbols began to twist and turn, swimming in circles around the body.
Tamsin gasped. The spell was still active.
Her eyes flicked to Edwards. He gave no indication he saw anything amiss.
She watched the spellwork in its intricate dance, trying to read the runes and sigils. Searching her memory, she noticed a familiar trio of runes.
“Well?” Edwards said impatiently.
She held up one hand, “Give me a minute.”
She flipped through the spell book hanging around her neck looking for the rune signs. There. The three were contained within a very nasty revealing spell she picked up over a year ago from a shapeshifter. Staring at the runes on the wood, she glanced from them to the the one in her book. Similar but not the same. Nevertheless, those runes appeared to be vital anchors in a revealing spell.
“Well?” Edwards said again.
“The spellwork is interesting. I will have to do some research on it.”
He gave a snort, “Spells? Who cares about spells. What does the body tell you?”
She sighed, “Agent, the people who did this think spells are very important.” She looked the body over, “My guess is he wasn't killed here.”
“Because?” he prompted.
“He's clean. Clean clothes, no body fluids leaking out. Nothing messy. You'd see it with those white clothes.” She peered closer. “There are wooden plugs in his nostrils and I am betting elsewhere as well so his body fluids don't contaminate this ritual space. The other two were also in concentric circles of blood, right?”
He nodded.
“He's very pale,” she added.
“He's dead,” Edwards said dismissively.
“Death comes in many shades of pale, Agent Edwards,” she said bitingly. Angelique knew very quickly this body was an empty shell. Drained. “I'd say it was exsanguination. Massive blood loss. Like the others.”
Marshal pressed his lips together and tightened his jaw. “And the blood was used to paint the symbols here.”
She inhaled deeply, allowing Angelique's senses to reach out. The man smelled of death, but not rotting death. He'd been preserved, possibly in ice, and brought here already dead just as she guessed. His body and what little blood was left, had an earthy scent to it, very different from the complex magical circle enclosing him. Instinctively Tamsin leaned forward to breath in the heady mix of magic and blood. The smell was as rich as an armful of lilies. Intoxicating. A woman's blood, young. Not a child, but young. To Angelique and her kind, blood carried different scents like a human would identify flowers: lavender, roses, daisies, each smell remained unique. So it was with blood.
She let her hand hover over some of the symbols. The residual knowledge of the Charmer swam to the surface. She could recognize a few. These were summoning symbols of some kind. Keeping her eyes closed, she lightly touched the blood with a fingertip. An electric shock shot through her fingertips.
'Yikes!' she thought, swallowing a little yelp of pain that almost escaped.
This spell was way too active. Despite the presence of the police, FBI, and everyone else, the ritual was still going on. That couldn't be good.
She felt something else through the magic making Angelique's mouth water. This was a virgin's blood. An unsurpassed energy boost for a Prime's elemental powers. She wanted to lick the blood, it was so very enticing. Even though it wasn't fresh, the blood called to her basic nature, delightful, delicious...
A shout of, “What the hell are you doing?” broke her out of her reverie.
Agent Edwards stood on the ladder next to her, staring. “Were you going to lick the tree?”
Tamsin realized too late she was leaning way over the edge of the trunk, her chin almost touching the wooden platform. Angelique's instinct was to hiss and push Edwards off his ladder. With an effort she pushed Angelique down, pulled her tongue back in her mouth, and swiftly turned her head away, gripping the ladder tightly. So tightly she felt the metal groan beneath her hands. Damn it, she was forgetting Angelique's strength.
“Agent Monroe...”
“Smelling,” she said quickly. “I was smelling the blood. What's wrong with you?” she adopted a suitably outraged tone. “Seeing if it was mixed with other ingredients. Sulphur, charcoal, myrrh, any number of natural products. Knowing what sort of spell it is gets me a little closer to figuring out what the murderers hope to achieve.”
“Nice recovery, madam,” whispered Winston in her head.
Agent Edwards gave a little snort, “That's not what it looked like. Besides, we'll pick those details up at the lab,”
“I understand that, Agent.” She gave him a hard stare, harder then she intended because for a moment she forgot she was staring out of Angelique's eyes. Even on half power, the Prime's was a stare to be reckoned with.
He drew back ever so slightly from the intensity in her gaze.
'Oops,' she thought.
Turning her face quickly back to the victim, she calmed her inner Prime. “I am trying to formulate a picture of what happened here,” she continued, “so I can add it to the information you've gathered about the other two murders. The execution of this death and ritual is very different from the other two. My guess is unlike the previous murders, this,” she indicated the red marks, “will not be the victim's blood but someone else's. Most likely a young woman. Early or middle teens. Probably a virgin.”
He rocked back on the ladder and gave her an incredulous look, eyebrows raised. “How the hell could you know it was a woman? Did you deduce that from licking the tree?”
She made a face at him. “I did not lick it. Look at the complexity of the ritual plus the initial preparation.” She indicated the tree. “This platform was cut to size. The murderers had to come here and measure the trunk. This sacrifice is far more complex than the last two, judging by the photographs in the file I received. That means they are proceeding step by step with a very big spell. Or so they believe in their deluded minds,” she added hastily. She had to remember to keep this on a purely human level. Crazy-ass human satanists and their blood rituals. Not crazy-ass supernaturals and their all too real blood rituals. She swallowed reflexively. Even though it was not fresh, the blood still smelled heavenly. She needed to put some distance between herself and this.
“If my theory plays out as I am afraid it will, his blood was used to write the runes around the woman's body. Linking two sacrifices. The ritual is getting bigger, the offerings more valuable.The other two murders were leading up to this. This murder will lead to something else.”
“Sacrifices to who?”
“To whatever demon they are trying to summon or powers they wish to invoke.”
Edwards shook his head, his expression showing exactly what he thought of that.
“It's what they believe, Agent. I'm not saying they can actually do anything of the sort. They bumped up the spell with additional blood. Look, this is exactly the sort of analysis you need and why I was brought on board. Take my expert opinion. You probably have another body somewhere in the park. A fresh one.”
Actually she was certain of it. Standing above the forest floor, the enticing scent of blood had floated across the grove on the slow breeze. Cold, but not as cold as this. It wouldn't do for her to find the corpse too quickly. Someone else should discover it.
Edwards was a good at his job. He might not like her interference in the case, but he was paying attention even as he disagreed. He began climbing down the ladder one handed, pulling his cell phone out with the other and speaking quickly into it.
Tamsin stayed where she was. Now that he couldn't see her, she reached out once again to hold her hand above the red circle of rings and markings. The symbols swam in her sea of stolen memories. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, she let her fingertips brush over the rough bark. Instantly an image of a woman jumped out at her. A strong scarred face, wild black hair. She was dressed for battle with a broadsword and and axe fastened at her side. Her armor was of tanned leather and iron over a chain mail shirt. And wolves. She was surrounded by wolves. Wolves in armor. As one, the woman and the animals looked at Tamsin. Their eyes glowed amber in the swirling snow. One of the beasts lunged and Tamsin instinctively tried to dodge out of the way.
Her feet slipped on the ladder rung and she fell.
Before she hit the ground, she felt an arm around her waist.
“Whoa, hold on!”
The forest came back into view and the image of the warrior woman receded. Agent Edwards had a firm grip on her.
She was panting; her heart beating hard and fast.
“Agent Monroe. Hello? You okay?”
“I'm okay, I'm okay,” she said hoarsely. “Got lost in thought trying to decipher those markings in the blood and my foot slipped. Thanks. Sorry.”
“First time around a dead body?” he asked as he put her feet on the ground and stood her upright.
That made her laugh. Oh my God, if he only knew!
His eyebrows shot back up at the harshness of her voice.
Recovering herself, she waved one hand in the air. “Sorry. No. Very much not my first body. I'll be fine.” Stepping away from him, she smoothed her suit coat back in place. “I'd like to see the rest of the grove and the areas you are searching.”
“Yeah. Okay, sure.”
He told Agent Cho he was “going through the fence” and strode off up the path, deeper into the park. Tamsin followed more slowly, keeping an eye out for clues.
The haunting image of the tall woman and her wolf pack remained firmly imprinted on her inner eye. She seemed familiar somehow. Could they be summoning someone from Angelique's past? Was that why Duprey put her here?
The trail wound through the grove stopping to circle around what a signboard nailed to the fence said was the oldest tree in the park. She might not be a real federal agent, but she had spent her afterlife searching for clues and fragments of information to the whereabouts of the soul eaters who murdered her. That hunt had taken her to many countries. Actually, the more she considered it, the more she realized she was actually well suited to this assignment. Clues were clues, whether they belonged to the living or the dead. She looked up, down, and around, pausing to take a note here or there.
From the clearing, the trail began to work its way around in a circle and then back to the Visitor Center. The smell of blood was stronger on this side of the trail. Drifting on the warm current of air of the forest. Glancing over her shoulder, she breathed in deeply again. Not far. She couldn't find it too quickly. Better to keep exploring the area.
Just beyond the enormous tree, Tamsin saw what Edwards meant by 'going through the fence.' With only a small arrow as a clue, a break in the fence led out to a dusty trail away from the grove.
“The gate here leads to the main hiking trails,” he explained. “There are miles of them. Access is from the parking lot. Horses and dogs have to come that way since they're not allowed near the grove. According to the rangers, they get hundreds of people here on a summer weekend.”
Within a very few yards they came to a hillside trail bordering a small river. A large rusty sign described the river as a vital part of the coastal salmon run. Looking at the clear, shallow water below, Tamsin thought they would have to be very small, determined salmon. There was perhaps only three or four inches thanks to the perennial droughts of California.
Police officers with dogs were on the opposite bank scrambling up and down the hillside and walking along the riverbank. About twenty or thirty yards to the left stood a large metal railroad bridge on concrete supports over a modest gorge.
“Tracks,” she said shortly, pointing at the bridge and heading in its direction.
The two of them struggled up the loose gravel lining the incline.
“The train comes along here once or twice a day.” Edwards indicated the slope with his chin. “From Santa Cruz.”
Tamsin paced along the rails keeping an eye on the forest. The tracks ran parallel to the old-growth grove.
“Back,” she said after just a few minutes, doing an abrupt about-face.
They returned to the trail by the shallow river.
A tingle at the base of her spine led Tamsin to the concrete support for the bridge on this side of the river. Graffiti was scratched into the concrete. Nothing big or bright or gaudy. Those would have been swiftly painted over by the rangers. Tamsin ran her fingertips across as many as she could reach. The tingle turned to a slow burn that settled around the souls of her feet as she bent lower.
At the bottom of the far edge, almost in the dirt, she found it. Small, about palm-sized. Not scratched in; drawn on. A skull haloed in blue flame set on top of a black spider's body.
Careful not to stand right in front of the mark, she touched it with a fingertip and got an electric shock in response.
“Crap!” she yelped involuntarily, pulling her hand away and shaking it vigorously. Her feet burned so much she had to do a little hop, step.
“What? What happened?” Edward's head snapped around from her to the bridge and the area near them, his posture alert.
“Nothing, just surprised.”
Blood again. Only an hour or so old. Made after the ritual while the police and agents were already in the area. She could smell it was far fresher than the two bodies. A daring move. They were deliberately taunting the authorities, or maybe the Prime players. Whoever was behind this was part of the game, whether they knew it or not.
“Here look at this. Oh!” She gestured with one hand at the base of the structure. “Don't stand there, you'll want to take a cast the footprints.”
She knelt closer to snap pictures with her cell phone. “Do you have a sample bag? We need to scrape this off and test the substance.
He squatted next to her to look at what she found. He pulled an evidence bag out of his coat pocket along with a small zippered kit. Taking out a scalpel-like object, he shaded it and the bag to her. “Doesn't look very demonic. More like a biker gang symbol.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” she put the disposable gloves back on. “Could also be a boast by one of the people involved. Have you seen something like this at the other crime scenes?”
“No.”
“Were you looking?” she asked as she knelt and began to carefully scrape flakes of red into the bag.
He gave her a sour glance. Tamsin had a feeling he'd be calling Washington and sending agents back to the crime scenes to look for the spider skull.
“Your basing this theory on what?”
“The symbol,” she stood up, sealing the bag and then brushing the dust off her pants with one hand, “there's something off about it.”
“So a feeling?” His tone of voice dropped as he stood. Just enough to let Tamsin know he was calling her out. “You're saying you have a feeling?”
Straitening up, she looked him in the eyes. “I'm saying, I'm following my instincts based on past experience with cases involving followers of the occult. I have an extensive knowledge of symbols, signs, and their meanings in many cultures. The willful pairing of the skull and the spider is disquieting. Enough so that it should be investigated. If I am correct, you will find it was made with human blood but not from either of the victims in the grove. ” She handed him the evidence bag and the scalpel. “Okay? Thanks.”
She turned away, walking back along the river trail in the direction of the grove.
Whatever game the Primes were engaged in, it involved a very non-playful series of murders.
The Prime's played their games as if they were real. Even in her wildly varying experiences of the afterlife, she never thought she'd be taking part in one.
Behind her, she heard Edwards calling in the forensic people to take casts of footprints around the side of the underpass.
She paused a short distance away, staring at the searchers on the opposite side of the river. She might not know FBI protocol but she knew magic.
Waving an arm to get his attention, she said, “Pull your men back to this side of the river and inside the inner perimeter of the railroad tracks.”
She held up her hand to forestall the objection do doubt on the tip of his tongue. “This is a supernatural ritual. They would not want to cross running water and the railroad tracks are made of iron. That's a no-go for these sort of people as well. The boundaries are going to be within...” she pointed back to the circle walk near the old grove, “that area, there.”
Two mounted park rangers came up the narrow trail. Tamsin and Edwards stepped out of the way. Both horses snorted and swished their tails anxiously as they passed Tamsin. They would not like what they smelled, she was pretty sure. At least they didn't try to bite her.
“What about the parking lot?”
“Tarmac is a neutral substance. So, no impediment.”
“A neutral substance?” he said ironically.
“That's right, agent. My theory is nothing will be found beyond the natural circle of the grove. Perfect for containing magical energy on its own. At least they believe,” she added quickly. She had been inside enough supernaturals to know what she was talking about. Prime games involved real murders and real magic. The magic they summoned still vibrated on a deep level, buzzing under her feet and resonating in her belly. And what was up with the itching on the bottom of her feet?
“The skull spider is the exception. I believe it is not linked directly to the ritual but was left maybe to taunt us.”
“You really believe we should pull the officers back?”
“That is, of course, your decision.” Maybe it was time for a little diplomacy. “My opinion is it's a waste of time.”
Tamsin walked through the fence gap back into the grove. With Angelique's keen ears she heard Edwards calling the officers back on this side of the river.
Returning to the victim, Tamsin saw several men and women standing around the ladders. Cho was waiting there and she waved to Edwards. He jogged up directly to a woman in a white forensic coverall.
The woman indicated the stump, “Can I take the body now?”
Must be the Medical Examiner or a representative.
“I think we have what we need,” Edwards answered, not waiting for Tamsin’s opinion. “I'll wait to hear from you.”
They still hadn't found the other body, damn it. Tamsin and the team were downwind. The body smelled like it was almost directly opposite them. Why hadn't the dogs located that?
Actually, she realized the only barking she heard was on the other trails.
“Where are the dogs?” she asked Edwards. “They should be in here looking.”
Edwards glared in the direction of the Visitors Center.
Cho spoke. “So far they're fighting to keep them out of the grove.”
“Who's fighting? Don't you have...” she paused looking for the right word. What was it? “Jurisdiction!” she said a little too triumphantly.
Edward’s raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, jurisdiction. Complicated within the park grounds and given their mandate. They're saying we'll disturb the trees. They are insisting it's a bio park,” he sneered over the last words.
“Aren't all parks bio parks?” Tamsin considered, “Well, maybe not skate parks.”
“The Park Service is not happy about having our men tramping around their sacred grove.”
“It's not really sacred, is it?”
“What? No.” He shook his head firmly. “Not like Indian burial ground sacred. I should have said they don't want us on their precious land. Ranting about disturbing the trees.” He snorted. “They're trees. Pretty sure a few officers looking for clues is not going to destroy them. She's the ranger in charge.” He pointed to a large, strongly built woman in a tan and brown ranger's uniform scowling in their direction. Two other officers, a man and another woman, stood at her back with equally cross expressions. They all looked oddly similar. Dark eyes, olive skin, and deep black hair. About the same size and weight.
Tamsin narrowed her brows, staring at the ranger in charge.
“Saying we have to get a court order,” Edwards growled, “not cooperating.”
“Maybe there are bodies buried in there they don't want us to find.” Tamsin said flippantly. Edwards shot her a look that said he didn't think it was funny at all.
“They are stalling...” he began to say. “Or should I say, she is.” He walked off to join the frowning group.
Tamsin began examining the area around the stump. The trail was bordered by split rail fencing on both sides. This was a ritual and Tamsin had been in a lot of magical bodies. Much of their knowledge travelled with her from body to body. Only now was she beginning to find it creepy. Knowing there was another body meant there had to be links to it as well. Getting down on hands and knees she examined the rails. The fence created a circle around the grove. Spells liked enclosed spaces. Crawling, she found what she was looking for: three runes carved on rails flanking the stump. She scooted to the next set of fence rails. The same set of runes here, too. She bet they would repeat all the way around.
“I've found something,” she announced.
Edwards was speaking animatedly to the park ranger.
“I said I found something!” she said louder. “Agent Edwards!”
He walked over followed by the Head Ranger and another woman in a ranger's uniform.
“Agent Moran, this is Officer Chrysanthos of the Park Service. Agent Moran is a specialist in crimes involving the occult.”
The woman gave her a narrow-eyed stare.
Tamsin put her hand out first, then barely contained her start of surprise as the ranger, frowning, gripped it. There was energy running through her.
Chrysanthos was not human and, Tamsin realized, the other ranger wasn't even alive.
Chapter 6
Tamsin
Chrysanthos recognized her immediately as another supernatural. She straightened up to her full height and the energy began to burn Tamsin's fingers. Tamsin held tighter, letting her Prime power ramp up as well. They squeezed each other’s hands with a grip that would have cracked the bones of a human. Despite her petite size, Tamsin was far stronger than whatever this woman was.
“Who's your pal?” Tamsin asked indicating the ghostly woman with a turn of her head.
With a gasp of surprise, the ranger broke her grip, taking a step back.
The ghost in the ranger's uniform looked anxiously from Tamsin to Chrysanthos. Edwards obviously couldn't see her.
Chrysanthos was the one blocking the dogs from entering. She might be involved in the ritual? Or could it be something else? Maybe there really were bodies buried there.
'Tree, trees, trees,' she thought staring at the ranger. Edwards was saying something but Tamsin didn't even hear him.
Several bodies ago she'd been heading for Prague searching for a Soul Eater named Nicole. One of the sorcerers who murdered her. The trail had gone temporarily cold in Munich, Germany. Tamsin took a little time to visit some of the city's museums. There had been an etching at one. A woman sensuously languishing inside a tree trunk while satyrs danced around a glade.
Dryads!
Tamsin cleared her throat. “Nice grove of trees you've got here,” she shifted her eyes from the ranger to the ghost and back again. “I found some runes. Ritual markings. They start, or finish, I don't know which, here by the body.” She knelt down and pointed. “See? Here and here.”
Edwards and Chrysanthos squatted down to peer where Tamsin was pointing. The ghost got down on her knees as well.
“So far I've found three sets. If you want to follow me, we can see where the trail leads.”
Edwards indicated she should walk ahead. Tamsin moved down the trail. She could feel the large ranger's eyes boring into her back.
“Winston,” she whispered as she searched for runes she was sure would be there, “what do you call dryads whose life force is tied to their tree or grove or whatever.”
“Technically the life force of dryads, or wood nymphs as they are also known, is always tied to trees, forests, or a specific grove,” he replied instantly.
Tamsin winced and rubbed her ear. It felt like someone was sticking a pipe cleaner inside her head whenever he spoke.
“Found another one!” she said out loud. Standing, she dusted off her pants legs and walked a little further.
“However,” Winston continued, “I believe you are referring to hamadryads. If their tree dies or is cut down, they die with it.”
That was it. The head ranger and her ghostly pal must be hamadryads. Maybe the ghost's tree had died, but in the nature of redwoods, she wasn't really gone. Even now she could be slowly coming back to life as the family of trees around the parent bough matured, explaining the ghost’s strong spirit presence. She must be buried in the grove along with who knew how many other ancestral tree spirits who had come and gone over hundreds of years.
No wonder Chrysanthos didn't want dogs in there. They'd sniff out the bodies in no time and then there'd be official hell to pay. Either that or the dryads would just swoop in and kill every witness. A distinct possibility. The word 'nymph' was deceptively sweet. There was nothing sweet about nature spirits in Tamsin's experience.
Either the dryads agreed or didn't care about the murders. Nothing could have gone down in this grove without their knowledge. Given the amoral nature of ancient spirit races, that might be exactly what happened.
Tamsin got down on her hands and knees every few yards. Just as she surmised, the runes continued along the inside perimeter fence. They were getting closer to the second body. Good.
Edward's phone vibrated. The forest was so quiet, Tamsin could hear it easily.
He held up one hand, “Okay, okay. Got it. Monroe! Forensics is going over the stump after moving the body. Do you want to be there?” he asked.
“I'll join them in just a few minutes. Ask them to get some pictures of what, if anything was under the body.”
“Do it,” he said into the phone.
They were almost in front of the second victim, Tamsin could smell it. Her stomach growled loudly. She glanced at Edwards.
“Hungry?” he asked, almost smiling.
“Starved,” she admitted. “No time to eat on the way here.” She looked and found more runes, then one more set beyond them. So they did make a circle. That had taken a lot of work and she said as much.
“They go all around, I'm sure. They didn't need to carve these all on the day. Just the last ones at whichever end closed the circle. So they could have been coming here for a couple of days. Probably after dark. Is there CCTV at the entrance to the park?”
“No,” the Ranger answered flatly.
“Parking lot?” she asked.
“No,” she said again. “The only CCTV is in the gift shop, near the register.”
“They don't keep track of the license plates coming in and out either,” added Cho who had joined them.
Before Tamsin could complain about this lack of security, the Ranger said, “No funding. If the State can't keep libraries open they sure as hell aren't going to hand us funding for CCTV.”
Tamsin held up both hands, “Not judging.”
Okay, she thought quickly to herself. None of the FBI people could read runes. She wasn't sure about the supernatural Park Ranger. So, she had to make them look where the other body was. There was probably a specific number of runes. She'd make something up.
“The halfway point is back here.” She walked to where the body was near.
Lawrence, who had been following quietly behind dashed up and marked it with a red strip of duct tape.
“I believe there are two anchor points for the spell. And that means there will be something around here to hold it.” Beyond leaping over the fence and into the grove shouting, 'Tadaa!' this was about as much as she could do to give them a hint.
“Something bad?” asked Edwards grimly.
Tamsin nodded.
“Lawrence, how are we doing with the court order for the dogs?”
Lawrence moved in closer to huddle with his boss.
“Walk with me,” Tamsin put her hand on the ranger's arm and gripped tightly. Unless Chrysanthos physically pulled away, she'd have to come with her.
Tamsin waited until they were far enough from Edwards not to be overheard.
“There's something in there, don't tell me you can't smell or feel it.”
The ranger jerked her arm away forcefully and started to protest.
Tamsin cut her off. “A body you and I both know is nestled in the ring of trees just on the other side of the rail. Did you have a part in this? Because if you did, I am going to be all over your ass.” She allowed a measure of Angelique's malevolent anger to show through, her fangs popped out and she knew her eyes burned ruby red.
The other woman manifested in response. Her pupils shifted into a green oil slick that spread over the entire eye. Tamsin saw the veins in her arm pulse and glow green in response.
Tamsin was not impressed. “This is your forest, dryad. Nothing goes down here without you noticing.”
“What do you think you can do about it?” Chrysanthos sneered, refusing to be intimidated. “The humans will not believe you.”
“Who said I planned to involve humans?”
Reaching in her pocket, Tamsin pulled out a lighter and held it over her palm. With the merest flick of Angelique's energy, she captured the flame and held it in her hands. She allowed it to grow a little larger, all the while keeping her eyes on the woman.”
“Burn my trees and I will kill you,” she said.
Tamsin gave a genuine laugh, “Go ahead! In fact, please do. It would make things less complicated for me right now. I can jump into another body and you will never find me.” Under her feet she sent a shock wave of energy into the ground shaking the entire grove.
Shouts of “Whoa!” and “Earthquake!” echoed from nearby.
“I am Prime. I can destroy your world, dryad. This grove means less than nothing to me.”
Though she tried not to show it, Tamsin spotted the fear in the other woman's eyes. She would have heard of Primes and their utter disdain for the mortal world and its beings both normal and paranormal.
Tamsin ordered the earth to be still, keeping one eye on the agents and police. “Just so we understand one another. What did they promise you to look the other way while the ritual went down?”
Chrysanthos paused, giving Tamsin a sullen stare.
Tamsin still had the fire ball in her hand and allowed it to double in size. “
“Money,” Chrysanthos said at last.
Tamsin blinked, “Money? They gave you money and you took it?”
“I am the mistress of this grove. In the world as it is now, the State Park Service maintains it officially. I and mine are a part of their world now. The spellcasters promised an endowment to be used solely for the park.”
“How much?” she asked.
“Two million dollars.”
Tamsin raised her brows. “Wow! That is a lot of money.”
“The sacrifices were killed elsewhere, the magic they used did not affect the trees or the earth.”
“What did it affect?”
Chrysanthos shut her mouth firmly and looked as if she might not answer.
“You realize I don't have to do anything while all these people are here. I can burn it from a distance and call the earth to fall from the tree roots one after the other so they fall. In fact, why don't we start with that one right there?”
Tamsin extinguished the flame and, instead, pointed to a lone tree towering up to the sky not far from where they stood on the dusty path. Wriggling her fingers, Tamsin concentrated on feeling the earth beneath them as if she was digging. Keeping her concentration on the tree, she made digging motions with her hands. The earth shuddered and began to fall away in great spade fulls from around the tree.
“Stop!” the dryad whispered urgently. “Just stop. They are creating a portal spell or summoning spell or both from what I can tell. The energy traveled into the ground and is resonating there still. Can you not feel it?”
Tamsin nodded, “I do. Do you know why?”
“No, and I did not care. Once they showed me the money had been sent into the new endowment I and mine removed ourselves to beyond the river to wait.”
“You let them dirty up your sacred grove with dead bodies and black spells but you don't want dogs here?”
“They will find the bodies.”
“Of the dryads who are regenerating with the new trees.”
She gave a curt nod, her stare icy.
Just as Tamsin suspected.
“Okay. No dogs in the grove. What about people?” She gestured to Edwards who was having an animated conversation on the phone watched closely by Lawrence.
“These kind of people?” the dryad asked disdainfully.
“Yeah, just people people. It will be over quickly. All we need is for them to find the other body.”
The ranger gave a sharp exhalation of breath. The ghost approached to stare earnestly at the ranger. Chrysanthos looked at the ghost who gave her a quick nod.
“Fine,” she said at last. “And what about you? I do not want you in the grove. You are an abomination.”
“Sticks and stones,” Tamsin said, waving at Edwards to get his attention. “You are not in a position to negotiate. Hey! Agent!”
He looked over.
“Chrysanthos says you can have men in the grove searching.”
Chapter 7
Tamsin
Edwards walked swiftly to join them, looking quizzically from Tamsin to the other woman and back. “Really?”
“Yep. Right, Chrysanthos? Fist bump!” Tamsin held up her right hand.
The woman looked like she wanted to spit, preferably in Tamsin’s face. Scowling even harder, she stalked off in the direction of the Visitor Center. The ghost followed, looking anxiously over her shoulder at Tamsin.
“Yep,” Tamsin said sarcastically watching them go, “we are totally BFF's now. Anyway, at least you can get in there and if nothing turns up, you can still pursue the court order about the dogs. Sound reasonable?”
Instead of answering, he immediately called and explained the situation over the phone. Lawrence left at a trot, probably to organize the search. He seemed like someone who was good at organizing things.
Agent Cho passed Lawrence going in the other direction. He stopped briefly to speak with her and she changed course to walk with him.
Tamsin's little demonstration of Prime elemental magic had left her depleted of energy. The rushed infusions of blood at Duprey's secret lair had not stayed with her very long. Given Angelique had been brought back from the dead twice, that was probably to be expected.
The humans around her began to glow with a very inviting warmth. She licked her lips and quickly wiped her mouth on one sleeve as she began to salivate. Real hunger and blood hunger were poised to merge into something terrible. If she couldn't drink blood, she had to have some food. And fast.
The call had gone out and officers were already grouping for the search in front of the Visitors Center. Cho and Lawrence were there. Stabbing aggressively at the air with her finger, Chrysanthos explained loudly what the searchers could and could not do. With loud emphasis on 'could not, better not and under-no-circumstances do not.'
Tamsin's stomach rumbled again.
Something touched her back and without thinking, she grabbed and twisted, whirling in a circle.
“Hey,” a man's voice shouted. Two strong hands took hold of her arms and twisted with equal dexterity.
She was suddenly eye-to-eye with Agent Edwards in a shoulder lock. The soft skin of his throat temptingly close. Tamsin felt her fangs pop out and she snapped her mouth shut, pressing her lips together.
He looked at her, very surprised. “What the hell, Monroe!”
She immediately let go, as did he.
She cleared her throat, awkwardly forcing her fangs back out of sight. “Sorry, sorry. Just... my mind was someplace else. You surprised me.”
“You always attack people who surprise you? Is that an NSA thing?”
“No. Yes. Maybe,” she stumbled over her response, her eyes watering with suppressed desire for a long, slow drink of the robust blood flowing through that brawny body. “Hungry. Too hungry. I've got the shakes I'm so hungry,” she admitted, keeping her head down in case she lost control of her fangs. God, he smelled wonderful. So alive.
He gave her a rueful smile that actually reached his eyes as he looked her up and down. “Remind me to keep you fed in the future. Damn, you are far stronger than you look.”
“Leverage,” she said, doing a pretend shoulder toss with both hands. “All in the leverage.”
He looked unconvinced. “There's some baked stuff in the gift shop I think. At least candy bars. Go. Then come back and find me. But first, how did you pull that off with the Park Ranger?”
“Tact and discretion,” she said trying to keep her voice lighthearted as her stomach howled in desperation. “The dogs were the issue it seemed to me, more than the officers getting in the grove. Maybe she thought they'd pee on all the trees. I explained the sooner we found or didn't find more evidence, the sooner we would pack up and go.”
“And that did it?”
“Yep.”
“I said pretty much the same thing and she still flipped me off in both an official and unofficial fashion.”
Tamsin allowed herself a grin. “Tact and discretion, like I said. This is your team, Agent, but may I suggest they search roughly in a straight line to the opposite side? Where we found the mid-point in the sigils on the fence rails. Magic is all about symmetry.”
“Even pretend magic ?”
“Even that,” she said confidently.
Edwards waved over some of the officers and climbed the fence into the center of the grove. Tamsin practically ran for the gift shop. There were a few muffins by the register and not much else. She picked out a handful of candy bars, a bottle of Coke and two of the muffins. To keep her inner demon appeased, she needed quick energy. Sugar and caffeine should help.
There was no escaping the fact she would have to feed on blood at some point. Last time she found herself in this situation, she was searching for a demon statue in Chicago holding a secret sigil to help her put body and soul together. That was when she met the mysterious sprite, Theo. Needing her help and strength, he cornered and disabled a security guard at the museum for her. The only time she fed as Angelique. Now, she'd have to do it on her own.
Once she started eating, her stomach didn't care she wasn't in the mood for sweets. It was food. She practically inhaled both the muffins as she walked back to the Visitor Center. Perching on the split rail fence, she set her feet on the lower rail and got started on the candy bars.
The ghostly ranger had stayed behind. Smaller than Chrysanthos, she had the same dark hair and dark eyes. Her name tag said 'Dionysodorous.' That was a mouthful.
“Hi,” said Tamsin easily. “We haven’t been introduced. I'm Catherine Monroe. Well,” she whispered conspiratorially, “that’s not my real name. It will have to do, though.” Ghosts were pretty good at seeing through lies. Tamsin knew for a fact.
The ghost glided over to join her on the split rail post. She raised one eyebrow and silently made a circular motion around her mouth.
“I've totally got chocolate on my face, haven't I?” Tamsin said, hastily wiping at her lips with the back of one hand.
Looking at the ranger, she turned her head from side to side. “Better?”
The woman gave her a thumbs up.
“Anything you want to tell me about what happened here?”
The ranger cocked her head and seemed to think about the question. Her eyes met Tamsin's then slid around the grove. She pointed to some spot in the distance. Not all ghosts had voices.
“Something over there? By the tree with the murder?”
The ghost ranger made further pointing motions.
“Farther into the grove?”
She nodded.
“Connected to all this?”
Again, she nodded.
“Thanks, I'll have a look.”
“Hey, Monroe! Stop talking to yourself !” Edwards shouted from between two of the large trees. “Come and tell us what we're looking for.”
Tamsin said quietly, “Is your body in there?”
The ghost nodded vigorously.
Redwoods are not like other trees. Even if the parent tree dies, the others grew and thrived. These Hamadryads didn't just belong to one tree, they must belong to all the incarnations of their redwood. The silent ghost was one of the dryads in the grove slowly coming back as she absorbed the life-giving energy from her offspring.
“Monroe!” Edwards barked.
“Coming!” Quickly getting to her feet, she gave a little wave to the ghostly ranger.
The other woman reached out with one hand as if to hold her back. Tamsin felt a brush of cold across the sleeve of her jacket. The ranger looked down, pointing at the ground with her other hand.
Tamsin followed her gaze and gave a little gasp. There were two shadows stretched out. Her own and just behind it, something else. And that shadow was moving all by itself.
Chapter 8
Tamsin
Tamsin jogged to the fence around the grove and climbed over the rails. Chrysanthos hissed at her. Tamsin shrugged, putting both hands in the air. She couldn't disobey Edwards directly.
The towering trees blocked out most of the direct light here, her shadow – or shadows – faded to nothing in the gloom. She tentatively took off her sunglasses, squinting in what was to her, still bright sunlight. Maybe she would leave them on. She glanced behind her. No shadows here. A small part of her wanted to very much to shrug the second shadow off as an optical illusion. Tamsin knew that was foolish. The second shadow belonged to someone or something else that had attached itself to her. Maybe a parasite feeding off her energy? A haunting? A curse? There were too many possibilities. She tried to push down the choking sense of panic. This body, this transition into Angelique, was so completely out of her control. She couldn't seem to find her feet.
Edwards looked at her expectantly, a group of uniformed officers grouped around him. Right now she had to focus on the investigation.
“Look inside the tree circles, under the roots,” she told them. “The other body was in plain sight so I’m thinking this one will be hidden. Opposites and all.”
Edwards gave a curt nod and told the others to get started.
The search team began working methodically back and forth, sifting through the fallen redwood needles and clover, brushing aside the dried bay laurel leaves. There was no poison oak here, not enough sunlight filtering through the canopy.
It was maddeningly slow, made even more so since Tamsin could have walked them right to the body. She paced slowly back and forth, pretending to search for clues. Other police officers searched alongside and her Angelique nature couldn't help sniffing them for who would be the tastiest blood donor.
Tamsin's stomach growled again.
'He's nice,' said the Prime part of her, smiling at a strongly-built officer with skin the color of an Arabica roast and a generous mouth.
'Really?' she asked her inner self. 'Are we really going there now?”
The officer smiled back.
'Very nice!'' growled the Prime pushing at her fangs.
Tamsin gave her inner Prime a metaphysical kick in the butt.
The weaker she got, the more the blood hunger would grow. Eventually it would gain control. Back in Bartholomew Knightly's mansion she experienced exactly what it was like to lose her human self. Angelique was not a nice person. Even for a Prime. Tamsin had to maintain dominance and to do that, she must keep herself strong.
Her inner-Angelique looked longingly at the strongly-built man. Maybe she should work on being strong at a distance. So saying, she walked deliberately away from most of the searchers. The ghostly Hamadryad had pointed deep into the grove. Looking back in the direction of the Visitor Center, she judged the spirit pointed this way.
As she walked deeper into the grove, the forest grew still, the voices of the police and agents muffled and indistinct. Near a circle of redwoods burned and blackened by some old fire, she heard a whisper.
“Angelique...”
Bringing her hands up, she called forth a defensive spell. The spell glowed red in the shadows of the massive trees, the words twining around her hands, burning her fingers, impatient to fly free.
Tamsin turned in a slow circle, searching with her Prime senses. She saw the searchers, hot red like a thermal scan, no one closer than twenty yards, moving away from her.
“Angelique...” the sibilant voice called softly.
Angelique, not Tamsin. Something knew this body but not that she was in it.
Not everyone who walked – or crawled and slithered – was warm blooded. She refocused her sight, looking for cold spots.
A wavering outline of faint icy blue floated near the circle of burned trees on her right.
She readied a few more spells in her mind, keeping them primed, but not summoning them yet. If it turned out this voice was not a threat, she would be stuck with a mouthful of firepower. Once called, magic needed to be used. You couldn't just put it back in the jar.
Moving cautiously, she approached the circle. Much of the lower trunks had been blackened long ago. A large chunk of the thick, knotted base on the side nearest her was burned away completely leaving a dark shelter that looked uncannily like a cave. Thick spider webs covered most of it. Tamsin felt a velvet touch along her shoulders that traveled slowly down her spine. She didn't bother to turn around. The touch came from nothing in this world.
She took a step forward and stretched out one hand. The air was thicker, a tangible thing. The sensation made the skin on her hand itch. This barrier had probably been enough to keep any searchers from venturing further.
Taking a deep breath, she pressed forward, allowing her Prime senses to rise to the surface. The itching spread from her arm to her whole body. Pushing aside the spider webs, she crouched low and stepped into the tree cave. The defensive spell still buzzing around her hands illuminated the dark space. Here, the dusty scent of the redwoods was overshadowed by the thick smell of cloves, cinnamon, and pepper. The scent of magic so strong it made her eyes water.
The space narrowed and Tamsin got down on her hands and knees. Redwoods often have massive, knotted burls of wood at their base, this hollow was within one of those. The entry opened inside onto a space big enough to stand up in.
Here, the blackened and seared bark was smeared in a thick, messy coating of blood. Her fangs slipped out of their sheaths, even though she knew there was nothing alive in here with her. Although spells, if you thought about it, were alive in a predatory way. Waiting to pounce.
Two dull metal bowls held what her nose told her was more blood. Her mouth watered at the scent. Young blood, though cold now. She sniffed again. Very cold. There had to be more than blood in this tight space to resonate with so much magic.
Primes could see like cats in the dark. With an effort, she reigned in the defensive spell enough so she could open the little book hanging around her neck without singeing it. Flipping through the pages she found what she needed.
Energy could be radiant, chemical, magnetic, mechanical, thermal, electrical and oh so very much more. In the right combinations, any or all of them could also be magical.
A revealing spell. Tamsin brushed away the dirt in front of her and carefully drew the symbols for a complex sign that twisted and curved in on itself. She did not just draw it in the dirt. Contorting the fingers of her other hand, she re-created the mark in the air, little yellow and green tendrils of power shadowing her movements. For any spell to be successful, large or small, the spellcaster must have a clear intention of what they hoped to accomplish. As she tied the magic together, Tamsin expressed her desire to see what was hidden behind the cloaking veil as if a heavy velvet curtain was pulled back.
She really needed some sea salt to draw a circle of protection around herself. No help for that now. She'd have to take her chances.
Taking an old school lighter from her pocket, she flicked it on and placed it in the dirt.
With one fang, she bit into her wrist and dropped blood at four points of the sigil. She needed a little more blood to finish and had to bite again as the wound quickly healed. Letting the blood pool in her palm, she spat into it, and then readied herself.
Placing one palm in the center of the sigil, and the other with her blood and saliva on the blackened trunk, she called forth the power of the defensive spell and fed it into the words of revealing.
“In palam veniat!”
The inside of the cave became incandescent with golden light.
At the same moment, the ground beneath her feet twisted and buckled. Black roots shot out of the soil to knot around her arms and legs, pulling her onto her back in the dirt. She struggled against them, tearing both arms free only to have more roots shoot out and wind themselves over her shoulders. Thick roots twisted across her throat like fingers, squeezing tight. She felt a terrible pain on her forearms and legs, as though the skin was being peeled off.
Tamsin threw the spell on the tip of her tongue to the still burning lighter. Fire elementals couldn't make flame from air, they needed a spark. The fire roared into true flame. Tamsin pulled it to her with a twitch of her fingers. The flame exploded onto the tendrils and tentacles of the roots holding her down. At the fires' touch the roots let go, slithering back into the ground as quickly as they appeared.
The initial flare of the revealing spell was fading but the still visible. The pain on her arms and legs was agonizing. No time for that now. Within the blood was a maze of hexes and arcane symbols. Powerful and so dark Tamsin felt the bile rising in her throat and her stomach heaved. Choking and coughing, she looked up to see the skull-faced spider grinning directly above her head. It was many times larger than the one on the trestle. As she watched, the figure blurred and there was a nauseating sensation of the world turning in on itself.
A frigid blast of air tore through the cave and a massive wolf's head shot out of the space above her, it's hot breath on her face. Tamsin fell backwards, scrambling to get away. The beast snapped its jaws, spit flying. The wolf writhed and struggled as though trying to force itself into her world. She heard shouting in a language she couldn't understand. Harsh words of magic bit into her skin as though the wolf had indeed gotten hold of her with those sharp teeth.
In a flash, the apparition was gone. Tamsin could have sworn she heard a chorus of howls in the distance as the spell-fed light faded and the cave became nothing more than charred wood and dried blood once again.
‘Well damn,’ she thought to herself. That was unexpected. The true center of the ritual was right here. She’d been wrong about the spell traveling in a straight line between the bodies. The magic was constrained within a triangle. The bodies anchoring two points to feed the apex with energy. But the apex of what?
Coughing and rubbing her bruised throat as she scrambled to her feet with a groan. Her arms and legs were pulsating with waves of pain. Tamsin stripped off her suit coat, shirt, and then her pants. The skulls on her shins and forearms were moving. Slithering higher and leaving a bloody trial of torn flesh. Screaming was not an option and she choked back the cries of pain until the bile rose in her throat and she threw up everything she'd eaten earlier. Eyes watering and gasping for breath, she leaned both hands against the burned wood. Finally, the uncanny movement stooped. Most of the skulls on her arms had pushed up into a black mass circling her shoulders. The ones on her legs had shifted high on both thighs. She looked more closely at the dark mass. There were round spaces in it. Two on one, two on the other. She twisted around and looked at the back of her legs. More spaces. It took a moment to realize the hundreds of tiny tattooed skulls had merged into a large skull , one wrapped around each thigh. The mass on her arms and shoulders probably made the same thing. She wouldn't be able to tell without a mirror.
“What the hell,” she gasped. “What the freaking hell?”
Her body was shaking so hard, she could barely stand. The trail of torn flesh on her legs and arms was gradually scabbing over. Prime blood had uncanny clotting abilities. One reason they healed so quickly. With a little trill of alarm, she saw it was scabbed but not really healing, the pain pulsing in time to the beat of her heart. She picked at a bit of scab on her arm and saw the skin underneath still raw and red. This was not a good development.
Moving tattoos was so far outside her realm of experience, she didn't even know where to begin asking questions. The voice calling her here whispered Angelique's name. This was all about Angelique. Tamsin was just a bystander, she felt it instinctively.
A Portal spell was scary enough. A Portal Spell targeting her? Off the scale.
The search was still in progress. She would have to process what just happened later.
“Get it together, Tamsin!” she told herself out loud.
Thank god she'd shed her clothes before she she did much bleeding. She pulled them back on as carefully as she could, wincing as she stretched the torn skin on her arms and legs. Picking up the lighter, Tamsin snapped the lid shut and put it in her pocket. It fell through back onto the ground. She looked at her jacket and saw the pocket was ripped in half.
“Oh crap,” she moaned. How was she going to explain this? One sleeve dangled by a few threads and the spell-fire had singed the hem of her pants. Her clothes were blackened and dirty from the roots. She did her best to brush the worst of it off, starting at the top and working down. She was pulling at a long twig still wrapped around her shoe when she heard a soft footfall.
Prime hearing is a formidable thing. Before her gun even cleared its holster, Tamsin had crawled through the narrow entrance and was out in front of the tree circle. Both hands around the barrel, she aimed the weapon at whoever had taken that step.
Chrysanthos stood a few feet in front of her. The dryad's eyes were pools of liquid green. Her hands were level with Tamsin’s gun, a spell ready in each palm.
“Prime! You said you would not disturb the grove!” she accused. The spells glowed brighter until veins of green popped out in the skin of her face. “You lied.”
Tamsin kept the gun on the dryad as she put another few steps between herself and the opening. “This wasn't me you idiot!” She gestured at the tree with her head. “There was a kick-ass power spell in there. Must have taken days to set up.”
Though she kept her hands raised menacingly, the dryad stared behind Tamsin into the circle of trees. “There’s nothing there.”
“Well, the magic is dissipating…” Tamsin started to say.
“No!” Chrysanthos cut her off. “I mean I feel nothing from these trees, they are not breathing.” She glared at Tamsin and the green pulsed faster through her veins.
“Hey, don't look at me,” Tamsin said shaking her head. “Your new pals with the cash are the ones who set this up.The hex was waiting for someone to trip it.”
Chrysanthos lowered her hands, letting the spell bleed into the ground. The dirt rippled around her feet from the earth energy and followed her as she walked abreast of Tamsin and stopped. The dirt continued moving forward in a wave that crested and broke as it reached Tamsin.
With a flick of her finger, the dryad raised another wave, this one higher than the last. The dirt came to an abrupt stop in the same place.
“Waiting for you,” she said very quietly.
Tamsin pushed by the dryad and entered the circle. She motioned for the other woman to follow . “Come on then, I'll show you.”
Chrysanthos didn’t move.
“What are you waiting for?” Tamsin said impatiently.
The dryad stood very still, looking right and left. “Where are you?”
“Hey! Come on!”
Crouching low, Chrysanthos put her hands up again and the green magic jumped from the ground to her fingertips.
Tamsin waved the gun up and down, “Come on! I'm standing right here!”
The dryad's eyes roved around, searching, but not seeing her.
Tamsin moved back and Chrysanthos jumped as if she'd appeared out of nowhere.
“I was standing right there,” she indicated the narrow entrance to the burned tree hollow. “Couldn't you see me?”
“I could not.”
“And you can't see this?” Tamsin pointed at the entrance to the tree cave.
“See what?”
That meant the cloaking spell hadn't dissipated. The magic was still active.
“This spell is for you,” the dryad said accusingly. “You did not just wander in. It called and you answered.”
Of course she was right. This spell was set up for specifically for Angelique. Unless there were other Primes wandering around with slithering skull tattoos. For all she knew that could be a thing. A Prime thing.
Chrysanthos raised her hands higher and the towering trees surrounding them vibrated in response.
“Oh power down, tree girl,” Tamsin said impatiently. “You're the one who allowed these people into the grove. Not me. Pretty sure they couldn't have done any of this without your initial permission. You looked the other way for two million dollars. You only have yourself to blame.”
Tamsin holstered the gun but repeated a defensive spell that tingled on the tip of her tongue, ready to manifest if she needed it. She had no desire to engage in a hexing battle with a posse of police and federal agents no more than a hundred yards away.
After a tense stare off, the other woman gradually lowered her arms and the trees became still.
“Do not speak of this to the humans,” she growled, and walked away.
“Yeah, “Tamsin muttered under her breath as she watched the dryad leave, “like I would walk over to Agent Edwards, shouting, 'Help! I was attacked by a hex'd tree!'”
She brushed angrily at the remains of dirt on the back of her pants. This jacket was going to have to go the way of all flesh. Was there a spare? She hadn't even opened the rolling suitcase to look inside.
An active spell was not a good thing. Consulting her little book, Tamsin found what she thought would work. She quickly wrote three runes around the tree circle in the dirt. These foundation runes looked deceptively simple, just rows of straight and crossed lines with a few circles here and there. Sometimes simple is better. Tamsin gave an involuntary shiver as she realized the thought echoed what Duprey said to her about threats.
Ripping out a few hairs – the spell called for something from the caster’s body – she knotted them four times, speaking a word at each tug. She set them next to the entrance to the cave. The circle was now ready to be closed. Writing the last rune, she felt them settle into place. A few drops of blood on the closing rune and she was ready. Taking a deep breath and focusing her will, she chanted the words to activate the spell. The trees nearby seemed to whisper the words along with her.
Nothing happened.
The spell ignored her.
Completely.
Taking a firmer stance and loosening up her hands and fingers, she set about weaving the intricate spell again. At the end, fingers laced, she threw in an extra word of power. There was a rush of air and something swatted Tamsin away from the trees and onto her butt. The hex’d redwoods groaned.
If the magic was a person, it would have sneered and given her the finger. The spell was intact and humming away with energy.This was some kind of anchor point and Tamsin didn't have the power to close it.
“I've got a body!” came a shout from across the grove.
Tamsin picked herself up out of the dirt. “Now they find it!”
by Eden Crowne
Copyright Eden Crowne 2016. All rights reserved
Chapter 1
Tamsin
The universe is a vast sea of energy and the afterlife no different.
Tamsin saw the white hole of energy far ahead. A jagged tear in time and space meant one thing: a body. All around her, other phantoms were massing toward the rift. Some pitiful, some terrifying. Hunting for a new body to hijack. Just like her.
None of them needed wings to fly in this world and they soared through the darkness. Ethereal hands reached out to grab her. Lesser spirits trying to hitch a ride into the light. They couldn't enter the body, but hoped to ghost once again in the real world. Others, just as strong and determined as Tamsin, fought to force her out of the way. The rift represented the last breath of a dying supernatural. The first to reach that tantalizing promise of light and life might live again.
Energy is both esoteric and dangerously physical in the shadow realm. Tamsin had lost bodies in melees like this before. Drawing a short gray blade from the scabbard strapped to her back, she closed her fingers around the sigils etched into the handle. With a whispered word, the sword flared into icy blue flame. She had to remake the weapon anew every time she landed back in this spiritual black hole.
Evie felt the cold twist around trying to take a bite out of her as she knew it would. This weapon was bound with a wild, feral spell. It did not like being tamed and fought her every time she used it. Once it tasted blood, or whatever spirits bled, the spell would focus the anger on her assailants.
The lesser spirits clawing at her arms burst into jagged pieces of crystal as the spell-cast blade turned its anger away from Tamsin and reached for them. Screaming in frustration, they drew back. She surged ahead, hacking at the stronger phantoms blocking the way, pushing to the front of the free-for-all.
There were so many. More than she had ever seen. It was as if someone sent out invitations to the death event. Tamsin tumbled and spun, hacking with her blade, kicking, and throwing sharp spells like shuriken from her left hand. The other spirits did the same and she felt their hexes slicing into skin. Spirit world did not equal 'misty ball of fluff'. She had a body and felt every cut, kick, and punch. Hopefully her adversaries felt them just as strongly, too.
The light from the rift dimmed ever so slightly. A shadow moved across it and Tamsin shouted in frustration. Something had beaten her to it. Beaten all of them. It took a heartbeat before she realized she was wrong. The shadow was not going into the light, it was coming out of it.
All of them, lesser and greater phantoms, spirits and monsters, skidded to an airborne halt with a collective gasp of surprise.
Things went into the light from the shadow realm, nothing ever came out of it.
The shadow sped toward them. The trajectory fast and precise, as if it knew exactly where it was going.
Throwing its shadow arms wide, the phantom sent out a blast of energy, blacker even than itself, and pushed through the mass of spirits. Anything the shadow touched exploded dramatically in a shower of burning sparks. The phantoms around her panicked. They split to either side of the oncoming shadow like a herd of frightened deer, leaving Tamsin completely exposed.
She had just enough time to think 'Yikes!' before the shadow was upon her.
A pair of red embers burned into her eyes, only inches from her face. The shadow wrapped itself around her sword and oozed up her arm in a cold, wet mass. Unlike the others, she did not blow up firecracker-style. That was a good thing, she hoped.
Tamsin struggled, chanting spells and spitting hexes at the entity. The shadow ignored her. The burning red ember eyes turned resolutely away. Dragging her along like a trophy, it made a U-turn and flew directly back the way it came, scattering the spiritual sparks it had left in its wake. None of the other phantoms tried to approach the shadow. They hung back in a seething, roiling mass and watched. Before Tamsin quite knew what was happening, she and the shadow entered the rift.
One of the rules of the afterlife was the body had to be on the point of death, not quite dead yet but nearly there, for a spirit to take possession of it. Time passes very differently on the borders of life and death. The entire battle to reach the rift and Tamsin's kidnapping had happened in the blink of an earthly eye as the body teetered on the edge of the endless abyss.
For spirits on their way back in, the blinding light is not warm and welcoming. This dark magic bordered on necromancy and the keepers of the afterlife did not like this blackest of black arts. Entering a body at the point of death was not a pleasant experience. As their spirits crossed, Tamsin was forced every time to see the life that was lived speeding by. A raging, unfiltered torrent of images and emotion worse than any physical assault. Though every body she entered was a supernatural, not all of them were bad or evil. Many were good people. Feeling their consciousness fade – even though Tamsin knew death was not the end – was still heartbreaking.
Each time Tamsin fought against the tide, following the tsunami of consciousness back to its spiritual source. If she succeeded, she emerged into the metaphysical center of the body. When she didn't, and there had been many failures, the body spit her right back to the shadow realm.
Tamsin hurtled through the portal, exploding into the real world of the body and saw...nothing. No images. No roller coaster apex plunge and somersault of love and hate. Only darkness. A thick, viscous darkness enveloped her exactly as the shadow had. Tamsin's progress came to a screeching halt. Where was the path? Somehow she must have entered too late, despite the mysterious intervention of the shadow with the glowing eyes. Unwilling to give up, she stubbornly pushed through the morass. There were emotions embedded in the metaphysically sticky liquid, hate and rage that tried to take bites out of her spirit. This body was obviously not one of the happy ones.
Primal instinct for survival is even stronger in supernaturals than human beings. And he, she, or it had to be supernatural. Tamsin's spirit could not enter a human being. The Soul Eaters had seen to that when they murdered her and took her soul.
Something grabbed her hand. If she'd had a body she would have screamed. Outside the Shadow Realm she was nothing more than a puff of spiritual dust. Her spiritual self did its best to freak out, squirming and struggling. The hand pulled her through the suffocating darkness. This had never happened before either. Then Tamsin saw it. A spark fluttering ahead. The shadow hand released her and Tamsin instinctively strained forward, sending out threads of energy to feed the tiny glow.
The spark blossomed and began to push back against the dark. Tamsin turned her own energy in that direction and pushed with it. Suddenly, light flooded the way. Tamsin followed the shining path.
Usually she had to writhe and wriggle herself in as she hijacked a body. Pushing into the corners, filling it like a spandex dress two sizes too small. This time she slipped smoothly into the curiously blank form.
Everything was wrong about this possession. Unfortunately, she'd come too far to go back now.
Getting the heart, lungs, and other major organs started was vital. Once she filled the body, Tamsin had a vey short time to come to life. Too long and she was back where she started with the other hungry phantoms.
The lungs would not fill and the heart refused to start pumping and fill those cold veins. She was suffocating.
Suddenly she felt a presence within her. With it came a flare of hope and, almost, laughter. A familiar essence brushed her spirit. She knew that touch. The Charmer. Her last body was a wonderful little Charmer Witch out of Faerie. How had she lost that body? Tamsin couldn't remember and it didn't mater at this moment. Faerie magic was very good at healing and the Charmer better than most.
A clap of thunder heralded the first beat of the body's cold heart and a breath of air seared Tamsin's new lungs. The Charmer's magic had done it. Like the little spark of light, life swelled Tamsin's spirit to fill this vessel, becoming one.
The body was sluggish and chillingly cold, but she was alive. Breathing turned from agony to automatic. Gradually, she mastered the internal organs. The heart settled into a slow steady pace.
Tamsin opened her new eyes waiting for the fuzz to lift. As it cleared, she cursed out loud – though the only sound out of her mouth was a hoarse croak. She knew exactly where she was. That telltale chill and the smell no amount of disinfectant or air conditioning could remove. The cold metal slab with the grooves carved to drain the blood away from autopsies pressed into her back and hips.
A morgue.
This scenario was not new and she had no interest in repeating that particular drama. Somehow she must get up and get moving before a doctor or one of the attendants came back.
The room was cold, but she was far colder internally. Like they'd taken her out of the freezer. Maybe she'd frozen to death? In a morgue? Her spirit had to wait until the moment of death. Not hours later. So maybe she'd lingered in the cold, between life and death. That would explain the fuzzy numbness in her brain and body.
It took an enormous effort to wiggle her fingers, then her toes. Circulation returned in burning waves. Someone was bound to come in at any moment.
Her stomach came back to life faster than the rest of her. Tamsin flinched as it growled and gurgled. She always woke up famished – taking a body expended a huge amount of her spiritual reserves – but not like this. This hunger was ravenous.
Predatory.
Tamsin strained her new muscles to raise her head, trying to get a look at her body. At least find out if she was male of female this time around. 'Please let it be female... please let it be female,' she chanted as she lifted her chin.
A woman's body was stretched out on the table. Thin, too thin, pale and covered in complex tattoos. Grinning skulls hid her small breasts and flat belly. They ringed her bony hips and spilled over onto her thighs and legs right down to her toes.
Skull tattoos.
No, it wasn't possible.
The hunger surged through her again.
It can't... it couldn't be. She was back in the body of the twice-dead Prime Vampire Princess Angelique Duprey.
Tamsin began to scream.
Chapter 2
Tamsin
A group of people rushed upon her. Some dressed in surgical scrubs, others in street clothes. One wheeled a metal IV frame, the tubes dangling. There was a lot of shouting. None of the words made any sense. Maybe the synapses processing language had yet to reconnect.
Tamsin was having too much trouble keeping the heart beating after the shock of realizing she had slipped into the body of Angelique Duprey. They could be whispering the secrets of the universe and she wouldn't care because she was back in the very, very dead Princess Angelique Duprey. Tamsin had first taken her body after Drake, the Fae hunter tormented by the Prime Vampire for more than a century, drowned her. Prime's were elemental vampires, the only thing that could bring them the true death was one of the elements. In Angelique's case, water.
A very few days later, Tamsin had drowned Angelique again to free Drake from his bond to the wizard Batholomew Knightly, one of the Soul Eaters who had taken Tamsin's soul.
A second chance at life for a body was one thing. A third? That just didn't happen.
They lifted her from the hard metal bed onto a gurney, covering her with blankets and inserting the needles as they rushed her from the room. They talked stridently, as though arguing. Raised voices, harsh words. Not angry. Frightened. Tamsin could feel the fear resonate through the fingertips of the one with the needles.
Being back in Angelique's body meant she was in Prince Duprey's hands once again. A powerful aristocrat of Fae and the master of Chicago's dark world of magic. She owed him a blood debt. No, wait. That had been fulfilled. When she had her new body, the Charmer. Or old body considering she was now Angelique again. That meant the Charmer's body was gone. Really and truly dead. How had she lost it?
Her head was too fuzzy. She remembered being Angelique clearly enough and all the traumatic events associated with that. Then she was the Charmer. Looking again for Knightly. He had disappeared the night she drowned Angelique. Everything else a blur. And what did it matter anyway because she was so unbearably hungry. Her stomach clenched and she couldn't keep back a moan of pain.
The ceiling sped overhead in a dizzying blur as they hurried her along. Evie had no tricks to pull out of her magical hat to help her escape. She still could barely move. Rolling off the gurney and flopping on the floor was not a plan.
They wheeled her into a room where everything was far too bright. The walls, the lights. Someone dimmed them almost immediately. Blinking back tears, Tamsin watched as they placed her next to another gurney.Out of the corner of her eye she saw a man. He lay very still.
Two people in surgical gear busied themselves around the man and suddenly Tamsin smelled something wonderful. She tried to sit up, get closer to the tantalizing smell. Strong hands held her down, but still she fought, weak as she was. Tamsin was washed away on a wave of pure feral hunger. Her vision narrowed to one goal. The only thing that mattered.
Blood.
A tiny prick in her arm and she not only felt, but tasted the wonderful liquid flowing into her starved body. Human blood. Deliciously warm and alive. She stopped fighting and sank back onto the thin mattress letting the sensuous euphoria overwhelm her.
One of the people stroked her hair and another leaned close to whisper soft words. She couldn't keep her eyes open. Tamsin slept.
Chapter 3
Tamsin
“My apologies for your awakening alone in that dreadful room.” A deep, accented voice spoke in Tamsin's ear. “You astound us, Miss West. Truly, this will to live you possess is beyond remarkable.” She felt fingers brush her cheek. “Just as I hoped.”
Her spirit shrank from his touch. It would have been better if she had never woken again, just slept on and on in an eternal night. Slipped back into the otherwhere far away from the Prime Vampires of the Duprey clan .Desperately, she looked within for a remnant of the shining path back to the shadow world. Please, please. Just let her crawl out of this hateful body.
It was too late, of course. Only violent death could bring that release.
What had she done to wake up once again in the body of this murderous Prime Vampire? Had it been days? Weeks? Month? She couldn't seem to dredge up much memory at all. Prince Duprey, though... He said something to her. Whispering in her ear in his cold, implacable voice. “This was never about Knightly, my dear. Nor the Saints, or the Sinners. Not even you, Miss West, are the true prize. I play the long game. This is all on Drake. Come, my Angelique awaits.”
When had she heard those words?
The all consuming hunger had abated. Not entirely, but enough. She opened her eyes and looked into the steely gray gaze of the Prime Vampire. He stepped back to lean casually against a large bank of monitors, arms crossed over his chest. He was tall and iron straight, a large nose and old world aristocratic features like those painted by a Dutch master. He had a hard, thin mouth, high cheekbones and strong jaw. Tamsin had never seen him dressed in anything but a sharply-cut tailored suit in shades of steel gray. He wore one now, with a charcoal-colored shirt and dark patterned tie. His thick black hair, long on top, was brushed back over both ears.
Duprey regarded her, his head titled slightly to one side, a half smile tugging mirthlessly at one side of his thin mouth.
Tamsin tried to speak, only managing a few hoarse croaks. The Prince was by her in an instant, cradling her head and lifting a cup and straw to her lips.
“Drink.”
Dry mouthed, she didn't have the strength to protest. Sucking at the straw, she sighed as a thick, cool liquid slid easily over her tongue and down her throat. Thank God it wasn't blood. Angelique's reaction would have been far more dramatic.
“A special solution, Miss West. Plasma, electrolytes, herbs, and coconut milk. Coconut milk!” He exclaimed, sounding mildly amused. “Who would have thought it was such a potent elixir for Fae bodies? There. All done?”
As she finished the last of the drink, he laid her head back on the pillow and resumed his position against the monitor desk.
Tamsin wiggled her fingers and toes experimentally. They responded easily enough. Encouraged, she tried to lift her knees and arms. They were stiff and heavy and her back ached terribly. With a great effort she struggled up enough to push back against the pillows and at least raise her head. The effort left her breathless and for a moment all she could hear was a roaring in her ears.
Duprey, saying nothing, continuing to regard her with his frighteningly piercing gaze as she recovered her breath.
“How...” she panted, “how did I get here?”
She knew he would understand she was asking what happened to her other body.
He raised one eyebrow quizzically, “Don't you remember?”
She shook her head.
“I killed you.”
Tamsin swallowed.
“With a knife. Through your back, near the heart, not into it. I needed to keep you alive long enough to get to the ritual circle I prepared ahead of time.”
Tamsin stared at him.
The eyebrow arched up again. “No? Oh do try to put it together Miss West. The battle between the Saints and the Sinners in the hospital. Your manipulation of the necromancer and his zombies in your effort to locate that pompous little Soul Eater, Batholomew Knightly. The hound reached him instead. Your heroic Fae Hunter Drake swooped in to the rescue and the hospital fell to pieces.” He mimed an explosion with both hands. “Boom. Coming back to you now?”
The alley. Smoke and dust. The whole front of the hospital had come down into the street. Drake. She thought harder. Yes. He'd been there along with Desmond the Shadow Hound, Theo, and his leopard, Kitty, the demigoddess. Someone else. Spiders... Noelly! The Jorogumo shapeshifter. They'd been together. Beyond that, her mind was blank.
Duprey waved one hand, brushing her memories aside. “Not that it matters. Let us concentrate on the here and now. You are once again in darling Angelique's body and my plan is back on track.”
“Your plan? I fulfilled my blood debt to you already. And how is Angelique part of your plan?”
“Oh come now,” he moved abruptly away from the monitors, his voice sharp with impatience. “Surely you don't think you were drawn to Angelique the first time just by chance? A Prime? I orchestrated that event. Very carefully, I might add.”
Tamsin sat up a little more, the adrenaline getting her slow heart back up to speed. “You allowed Drake to drown your daughter?”
“I have a kingdom to preserve. We are aristocrats. A child's duty is to serve their parents. In this case, Angelique's duty was to die.”
“Did she agree?”
“Don't be naïve,” he sneered.
“Didn't think so,” she said under her breath.
“And now you are going to serve me once again. Just as you did when you slipped into the little Charmer witch. Just as I planned.”
Normally she would be freaking out. In fact she should be in a state of panic upon learning Duprey had mastered some subtle necromancy to put her back into Angelique. Who knew how many drugs were zipping through her half-dead system at the moment. Her emotions seemed to have deflated.
“But you let me go,” she said. “Remember? You gave me a choice to stay or go. The first time we met.”
“I did, didn't I? I was honor bound by certain rules to allow you a choice. The demon I summoned to aid me with the spell stealing you from the ether, made me agree to those terms. Allow you to accept of your own free will. Or not. You chose not to.”
He sighed, shot his cuffs and adjusted the cuff links in a distracted way. “At the time I thought things would have been so much easier if you had. However, in that odd way of destiny, it all twisted to my advantage. I then orchestrated your return as the Charmer. She provided me with an intricate strategy that eventually won us the game here in Chicago. As head of the Sinners team, I have been amply rewarded.”
Tamsin couldn't quite raise her hand but got it to twitch. “Wait, wait, just wait. How can I be back in Angelique? Your daughter's spirit had fled. This,” she tried to indicate her body – thankfully now covered in a hospital gown – and managed a feeble wave. “She met the true death months ago. There was no one to come back to.”
Tamsin didn't even see him move. One second he was on the other side of the room and then he was looming above her, both hands on her shoulders. He shoved her roughly back down on the bed. “Stop deluding yourself. Your victims are not as dead as you believe.”
“They're not my victims!” Tamsin snapped.
“Oh, but they are,” he shoved her again and then stood, glaring down at her. When he spoke, his tone was ice cold. “You are not a guest in their body. You are a thief. The instinct to survive among those you call supernaturals is far stronger than humans. Even after you abandon them to a second death, there is a tether. Tenuous and thin as it is, they could come back if they had your strength.”
“No,” she gasped. Duprey said something like this the night he called in her blood debt. As much as she had wanted to deny it, she had begun to suspect he might be right.
“After your spirit fled the Charmer Witch, we revived her. Her body is on life support in a nearby room. Her organs functioning, her wound will heal. Granted there is only minimal brain activity, however, she is not totally brain dead. Death is not final. Humans can survive for minutes after they flatline. Supernaturals can be revived after far longer periods. You say you jump into their body after their spirit has fled, but it is still very nearby, holding desperately to life. How else do you think you have their skills? Their sensory memories? That vicious entry by your spirit slices that sweet link, dooming them. Dividing them from their very spirit. They are as much a victim as you were.” He gave her a thoughtful look, “I am surprised you have not met any of your former selves there in the shadow world of phantoms and spirits.”
Tamsin felt the sting of those words even through the medication. She had access to her host's powers, skills. She called it muscle memory. Now it seemed something far more sinister. Was she really no better than the Soul Eaters who doomed her to dust? Some of the supernaturals had been evil creatures. Not all, though. Not all.
“Angelique is strong. After you abandoned her body, I found her tiny spark in the darkness. Nourished it. I bound her to another Prime of nearly equal strength. When I sacrificed that body, I drew you in.”
Duprey had used the death of another Prime Vampire to push the tattered remnants of Angelique's spirit to draw Tamsin in. He must have been the guiding spirit of the dark shadow pulling her past the other phantoms, ensuring she would enter the body.
He turned abruptly, sliding a card key through what Tamsin saw was a metal security door. The door slid into the wall. Pausing in the doorway, Duprey said, “We just did not expect you to arrive so soon. The ceremony had not even been concluded. You are full of surprises, Miss West. So refreshing to be surprised for one as old as I.”
The door slid closed and Tamsin was alone.
Chapter 4
Tamsin
Tamsin woke up to find herself sitting in a wheelchair with a complex set of manacles fastened around her wrists, waist, and ankles. Two tall heavily muscled men stared impassively down at her. How had she gotten here?
Trying to peer through the fuzz in her brain, Tamsin remembered speaking with Duprey. Then… Someone had come in. No. Several someones. They’d wheeled in someone on a gurney. They must have given her another transfusion. She tried wiggling her fingers and toes. They were definitely more responsive than before. The attendants must have moved her to this wheelchair as she slept off the blood.
Her chin was wet and she realized she'd been drooling. Great. Swiping her face across the shoulder of her hospital gown, she asked, “What now?”
Apparently they'd been waiting for her to wake up. One of the men moved behind the wheelchair and the other opened a steel door with a card key from his pocket. She was rolled along several empty, brightly-lit corridors. There were no windows here either. No sounds filtering in from the outside. Just the men's footsteps and the chair's rubber wheels rolling over the slick linoleum.
Her body still felt sluggish and heavy. Like she was in deep water. But she could feel. The dire reality of Tamsin's situation began filtering in now the drugs were beginning to wear off.
During the time Duprey had abruptly left the room and the next infusion of fresh blood from the same donor in the same room, she'd desperately rummaged around her body's shell. No spark. No seething core of anger that she remembered from her short sojourn as Angelique. Just a foggy nothingness. The Prime was in there, to what degree she would have to find out.
Maybe she couldn't even access Angelique's powers anymore. Twice-born was definitely new territory for Tamsin. There was the blood though. She'd been hungry, no, ravenous for it. Rather than the super adrenalized burn she'd felt the one and only time she fed as Angelique, this time the blood put her to sleep. Maybe because she’d been dead?
They eventually entered another white, featureless room through a security door. This one was bigger than the last and there was no hospital bed or banks of monitors. A table, ornately carved and gilded and very out of place in such a sterile environment, was pushed against one wall. Two matching chairs had been placed at either side. The table held an assortment of items Tamsin only got a brief look at as the men wheeled her around, a set of metal clamps emerged soundlessly from the floor. They set the wheelchair inside. A panel in the ceiling opened and more machinery dropped on either side of the chair. The men quickly fastened heavy metal tubing around her arms, legs, and waist. A clicking sound behind her sounded as though a lever had been pressed. There was a hum and buzz of electricity. Tamsin twitched as a circle of thick ice formed over the metal. She sucked in her stomach instinctively, even though the ice couldn't touch her skin. Bartholomew Knightly had imprisoned her in ice chains very much like this her last time as Angelique.
Tamsin heard a light step behind her and sensed the awful power of Prince Duprey. Another door must be behind her. He walked around the wheelchair, looking her up and down.
“Good, good. You have recovered enough that we can get down to business. Excuse the ice chains. Just a temporary precaution until I have presented you with my offer. ” He held up one finger as though to forestall any words from her. “Before you protest and declare you have no intention of helping me, let me show you a short, yet touching documentary we have put together for your benefit.”
A flick of his hands and the lights lowered. Images flickered onto the white wall in front of her. Tamsin saw an older man and woman and a young man, tall and fair. They were all laughing, holding cold drinks and walking along a waterfront promenade. Her mother and father. Older now, of course, than the last time she saw them. Could this good looking young man be her gawky game-obsessed younger brother Thomas? He was dressed in loose faded jeans, an Abercrombie T-shirt with a plaid shirt tied around his slim hips. His hair hung just a little below his ears, an artful shadow of blond stubble on his chin and jaw.
There was a low moaning sound and it took Tamsin a moment to realize it was coming from her. A lump in her throat made it hard to breath.
The sound switched on and she heard their voices. Her parents wonderful and familiar. Thomas' voice so different, deep and resonant. A man's voice. They spoke of inconsequential things in the verbal shorthand of people who know each other so well. There was a lot of laughter.
Duprey reached out and brushed a tear away from Tamsin's cheek.
“How touching,” he said. “Angelique almost never cried.”
Duprey stepped to the wall, indicating the background. “Seattle. Young Thomas is a Graduate Student at Washington State. Go Huskies!” He gave a fist pump and laughed to himself. “This was taken last week.”
The film stopped, freezing on an image of the three people who mattered more to her than anyone else when she was alive. She'd tried very hard not to think about them since her death. Never to go where they might be found. This was cruel and it hurt, just as Duprey intended it to.
Duprey put his hands behind his back and stood to one side of the image. "Simple threats are the best threats. Those that have stood the test of time. Good people are easy to control. Despite your monstrous abilities, you are a good person. Contact Drake and I will kill your father. Disobey me and I will kill your mother. Try to engineer Angelique's death and I will force you to drink the blood of your brother. Again and again and again."
Tamsin gagged. The bile rising in her throat. She struggled and raged against the chains, overcome with anger. Not against Duprey, but herself. She had done this. Put her family in danger with her single-minded devotion to destroying the Soul Eaters and finding the tattered pieces of her soul.
The heat of rage at the true core of Angelique finally began to awaken. Duprey pulled a heavy metal lighter from his pocket and flicked the flame. Tamsin's inner Prime seized on the tiny spark to ignite her anger. The air surrounding her body burst into flame burning through the chains of ice.
Duprey watched, a little smile playing around the corners of his mouth, the flames reflected in his bright eyes.
Tamsin flared hotter, hoping to burn through the chains and get her hands around Duprey's throat. She felt the metal beneath the ice melt away, so hot had she become. One of the burly gods stepped over holding some sort of canister and hose. Squeezing a trigger he shot a spray of icy cold vapor enveloped her. She froze. Literally. Suddenly unable to move. The fire went out just as quickly leaving nothing but the smell of sulphur and ozone. .
White mist flowed across the floor. Duprey applauded.
“Excellent. I knew Angelique was in there, she just needed a push to make an appearance. And now,” he indicated her with a flourish of both hands, “here she is.”
“Why? Why must I be Angelique?” she shouted, her voice cracking in frustration. “What value could she possibly have that is worth all this?”
“Far more than you need to know at this time. She – and you – are linked to an item I need. More will be revealed as necessary. To move this plan forward, you will learn what it means to be a game player in the world of the Prime. I have chosen a story already in progress and your role in it. That is all you need to know at the moment.”
She heard the door slide open behind her. A tall, handsome man with skin so dark it was almost blue walked to the Prince. His tightly curled hair was cut short, the sideburns shaved into diagonal slices down to his jaw. He wore a magenta shirt tucked into tight, tailored navy blue pinstripe trousers. He carried several garment bags over one arm and pulled a small rolling carry-on. Despite the load, the tall man managed a very elegant bow to Duprey before facing Tamsin.
Angelique's senses marked him instantly. Not Prime. Turned human.
Duprey indicated the man with a graceful wave of one hand. “This is one of my assistants, Victor. He will give you the necessary tools and information for your new role. You are a quick study, Miss West. Do not pretend otherwise. Do as he tells you and do it quickly.”
Duprey held out a hand to the man. Setting everything on top of the ornate table, Victor removed a small object from the front zipper pocket of the rolling suitcase.
Duprey let the object drop to hang by a braided leather lanyard. Tamsin’s nerves jumped.
“Your spell book,” he said slipping it over her head and letting the small book fall between her breasts. He carefully pulled Angelique's long black over the lanyard, smoothing it gently. “A gift from your Hunter boyfriend, wasn’t it? I felt we would save time if I just gave it back to you.”
Tamsin could take nothing physical with her when she lost a body. A few years ago with the help of a friendly Swiss succubus, she’d set up a safety deposit box at a bank in Zurich. There she kept a number of real world items and her own personal Grimoire. Spell books were very important in the magical arts. Writing a spell brought the magic more fully into this world. The spell didn’t need to be on the summoner’s person in order to use it, however, it had to exist in a grimoire or notebook somewhere that belonged to the spellcaster.
Whenever Tamsin reappeared in a new body, one of her first tasks was to get a notebook and write down all the new spells she learned since she was last able to update her personal spell book locked away in Zurich. It was maddeningly laborious work.
Drake surprised her this little book when she found him again as the Charmer Witch. The understanding had been he would be there to find the book when she lost the body – which she always did – find her, and give it to her again. The gesture had touched her deeply. Until Drake, she’d had no one to care for her -- or care about. Meeting him had changed everything. Oh, Drake. She'd hoped for a little longer with him.
“Hopefully you will learn some new spells to add to your little collection. If you are very good, I will see you visit your bank in Zurich to update your personal grimoire and cash flow.”
He moved out of her range of vision and she heard the snick of the security door sliding open.
“Take good care of this body, Miss West. I know how to capture your spirit, I have done it three times now. Lose Angelique, and I might just be forced to insert you into the body of a demon. They are far less fastidious in their feeding habits. Your brother would not enjoy that.”
Chapter 5
Tamsin
Tamsin stood on the soft dirt of the forest floor breathing in the smell of death mixed with the heady scent of redwoods and rich brown dirt. Sun filtered through the tall trees. Blue jays squawked, dogs barked in the distance, and a hawk’s call trilled shrilly overhead.
The few sparkling rays of sunlight managing to find a way through the thick canopy of branches were blocked out as the tall man with close-cropped hair took several steps closer to Tamsin.
“I didn't ask for you and I don't need you,” he snapped. “So just get in your rental car and go back to spook central.” He pointed in the direction of the parking lot.
'Yep,' Tamsin thought to herself. 'This is off to a great start.'
Events had proceeded at a bewildering rate following her harrowing chat with Prince Duprey and introduction to the very efficient Victor.
Unlocking the shackles, the guards hauled her to her feet and stood back to flank the door, arms crossed, silent and imposing.
Duprey's assistant gave her a rapid fire run down of her role in the game, that of a profiler and analyst on occult related crimes on loan to the FBI from the NSA.
“Do they have those sort of profilers?” she asked.
He rolled his eyes. “Who cares? Our team made it real for the game.”
Victor either wouldn't or couldn't provide an explanation of why Prince Duprey wanted her inserted into a Prime RPG game.
As she hurriedly changed into clothes he laid out from the garment bags, Victor ran through far too many rules regarding game play for her scrambled back-from-the-dead brain to remember. The only one that stuck was 'don't break character.'
“I don't know anything about being a Federal Agent. You do realize, don't you?” she said hopping awkwardly as she pulled on the other leg of a pair of gray wool trousers.
He made a pffft, sound between his lips and waved one hand in the air. “No matter. You have your own private assistant.” He waggled his fingers at her, “Zip up those pants and put on your jacket. You have a plane to catch.”
“I have a plane to what?”
“Catch. Now zip!” he insisted.
She did as he said.
“Stand,” he ordered.
She stood.
“Turn!” he said spinning one hand in the air.
She turned.
He gave her a long appraising look up and down. “Hmm… You are too skinny and your hair is too long. Skinny I can’t fix, hair, I can.”
Producing a couple of hair ties from one pocket, he stepped over and with a few deft twists, wound it into a bun on the back of her head.
Holding her head with one hand, Tamsin saw out of the corner of her eye as he pulled a palm-sized gadget out of his pocket and put it next to her ear. “Hold very still.”
She felt a rush of air and then a stinging pain shot from her ear to her jaw.
“Ow!” she protested, “That hurt!”
Victor sneered, “Don't be a baby. You are now online with your personal assistant. Winston, introduce yourself to Angelique.”
A very cultured British voice spoke in her ear.
No.
Inside her head.
“How do you do, Madam. My name is Winston. It is my pleasure to serve as your personal game valet and navigation aid.”
Tamsin stared wide-eyed at Victor. “How is it doing that?”
“Vibrates through the bone directly in your ear canal. No chance of anyone overhearing what he says. Comes through on a scrambled secure channel. Every Prime player has their own game valet on a different frequency for security.”
“What about volume control?”
“No need, since it is directly in your ear, this is about as close as we can come to telepathy. You'll be fine. Winston will inform you of points won or lost. You can also ask him questions like a search engine and check on the progress of the game. Be careful when you talk to him as people might think you're nuts.”
Taking her shoulders, he turned her back to the table holding the rest of her gear. There was a small black cross body bag, laptop case with a shoulder strap, a gun in a clip-on holster, and a rectangular silver flash drive. “Take those. The flash drive has what you need to get up to speed on the game so far. The password for the laptop is your name,” he gave her a significant look, “your real name.”
Tamsin thought for one wild moment about grabbing the gun and trying to shoot her way out of Duprey’s stronghold. Biting her lip against such a foolish urge, she silently clipped the gun to her belt. Who knew how many Primes stood between her and escape? More importantly, Duprey’s threats against her family were not idle ones. She had no doubt about that.
Giving her a final once over, Victor hissed an impatient sound before pulling out a pair of sunglasses and tucking them in her breast pocket. “Almost forgot,” he said. “There are two extra pairs in the suitcase and the ibuprofen is in your handbag.”
Prime's were nocturnal beings. Sunlight gave them a serious headache only partly alleviated by dark glasses and pain killers.
Victor snapped his fingers and th large men advanced on Tamsin. He showed her a white tube before shoving it inside the rolling bag. “Do not forget this! Body make-up. Cover up those ridiculous tattoos.”
A short time later the guards practically threw her and the baggage out of a black limousine at O'Hare and sped off. One of her low-heeled black pumps fell into the gutter as a result of her hasty exit. Retrieving it, Tamsin scraped her heel on a broken piece of cement. "Damn it," she hissed under her breath. Straightened the coat of her plainly-cut gray pantsuit, she grabbed her roller bag, slung the strap of her laptop case over one shoulder, took a deep breath, and walked into the terminal.
The game was on.
Tamsin did not feel particularly Prime-like as she made her way to security and the gates beyond. In fact, she thought she might throw up. Everything was still surreal. Her body awkward and clumsy like those first days out of bed after a bad flu. The world a strange and noisy place full of too many people and far, far too bright until she remembered to put on her sunglasses.
Tamsin had been on her own in this crazy, magical, afterlife for many years. She made her own decisions, her own mistakes.
Lots of mistakes.
Lots and lots.
But still, they were hers to make.
Victor told her to identify herself to airport security as a Federal Agent. She would then be escorted through a different security check. It wasn’t until just before she reached the I.D. check she remembered to look at her ticket and find out exactly where the hell she was bound for.
'San Jose International' was printed on the front. Just one way. Was that a good or bad thing? Probably bad. A not-so-subtle hint she was coming back.
Given her dangerous line of investigations, she came into contact with some pretty terrible creatures with no compunction about using violence as a form of communication. She had three more pieces of her soul to locate and four more hidden runes to seek out.
During the flight to California, she desperately studied the information on the flash drive. The FBI was investigating two murders that had occurred over the last five days. The first on federal land, the second at a state park. Both looked like the work of satanists or some sort of occult group. Cryptic writing in blood around the bodies. Death had been by exsanguination – massive blood loss. No sexual attacks. Very little bruising on the bodies. In fact they had been far too clean. Most likely killed somewhere else and then placed at the scene. She was being sent into the field to assist a team led by Field Agent Marshal Edwards on yet a third murder.
As the plane banked for its descent over the low brown hills surrounding San Jose, she realized she’d forgotten to ask Victor if she was on the Saints or a Sinners side of the game. The Prime's chose sides before commencing play or entering a game in progress. The designation had nothing to do with their true nature. Only whether they wanted to role play heroes or villains. Just because she was working with the FBI didn’t mean she couldn't be a Sinner player infiltrating from the other side.
A rental car had been reserved at San Jose with a preset GPS telling her how to get to her destination. Santa Cruz. Or near it. A place the mountains about forty miles away from the airport.
Before long she pulled into a large parking lot presently very full of black and white patrol cars, an ambulance, two fire trucks, and what must be cars from the sheriff's office. People dressed in casual clothes and hiking boots, some holding dogs on leashes, milled around a hastily constructed barrier of incidence tape and orange traffic cones.
The air smelled rich and warm with the special wild grass, black oak, and dry earth smell so much a part of California away from the sea. Secretly she was excited to be back. After the Soul Eaters realized she'd found a way to resurrect herself from that dusty death, the group scattered. There had been no reason to stay in the Golden State and the newly dead shouldn't really return to their old haunts anyway. She was stronger now, emotionally. Maybe...
More yellow incidence tape blocked the entrance to a wide dirt trail by a small visitor center. She flashed her badge and the uniformed policeman manning the entrance let her through. Ahead was a small mixed group of men and women in police and park ranger uniforms or somber suits.
“Winston?” she asked, as she walked slowly toward them. “Are you there?”
“Of course, Madam,” he answered immediately. “What can I do for you?”
“Do you have any information on the people I’m meeting? Stuff that wasn’t in the file?”
“The only one who matters at this time is Agent Marshall Edwards,” Winston said briskly. “He is in charge of the investigation and your temporary boss, as you must know by now. He has solved two serial murder cases in different parts of the country and is considered a rising star in the Bureau.”
“Really or in the game?”
“I do not have access to that information.”
For all she knew, the Primes could have initiated both serial murders for him to solve in order to reach this point. The Primes gleefully used human avatars as playing pieces and Prime RPG games could stretch on for years. In fact, they seemed to prefer the long game. What was a few years when your were virtually immortal, like the Fae.
Tamsin asked one of the officers on the edge of the group for Agent Edwards. He pointed to a tall man in a navy-blue suit.
Agent Edwards looked like he belonged in a men's cologne ad, Tamsin thought. Rugged good looks, strong jaw, straight nose, deep brown eyes with thick brows, dark hair cut executive short. He had a wide mouth and nice lips that probably looked very charming when they were smiling. He wasn't smiling as Tamsin held out her hand and introduced herself.
Ignoring her outstretched hand, he made it very clear he wanted nothing to do with her.
“Why is the NSA interested in my case?” he snapped.
Tamsin immediately took note of the 'my' inserted into that sentence. Edwards was territorial. This was 'his' case, not the Bureau's. Duprey was right when he said she was a quick study. She had jumped in and out of enough bodies and strange situations to be able to adopt a persona and lie like a pro.
“As far as I know, the NSA could care less,” she answered. “A series of nasty murders by crazed satanists is local stuff. Not a matter of national security. But,” she added quickly before he could protest, “someone in your Bureau either sent out a call or contacted a buddy. They asked for an analyst with security clearance.” She spread both arms in a flourish. “And here I am.”
“Who asked?” he demanded.
“Assistant Director Fortnam and your boss, Derek Calloway,” whispered Winston.
“Assistant Director Fortnam and my boss, Derek Calloway,” she dutifully repeated.
“And the NSA cares about the occult because?”
When Tamsin complained to Victor during her rushed briefing she didn't know what the NSA did, Victor had laughed. “No one knows what they do. That's why it's the perfect cover. Just look mysterious.”
Better take his advice.
“Sorry, I am not at liberty to answer such a question at this time.” And she gave him an Angelique stare so steely her fangs came dangerously close to popping out. Angelique seemed to consider biting a solution to most confrontations.
Edwards started to protest, still unwilling, but Tamsin cut him off. “I'm here to offer my expertise in the occult. Not trying to steal your thunder, agent. Not looking for credit or a promotion. I will help you put the puzzle pieces together if you will let me.”
The little Charmer Witch Tamsin had been before this could clearly see people's aura's, Angelique not so much. However, the Prime could hear the agent’s heart and it was beating very fast in anger.
Heart.
Blood.
Warm, red blood rushing through his veins.
Tamsin felt her mouth water and wiped at the drool trying to escape out of the corners.
'Timing,' she growled at her Angelique self. He back-from-the-dead state probably needed more blood than a healthy Prime. Duprey's minions had given her several transfusion, yet she already felt empty in an alarmingly Prime way.
Angelique was actually only about five-foot-three and the FBI agent towered nearly a foot over her. Tamsin, of course, knew exactly how lethal her deceptively thin frame was. If she wanted to, she could have picked him up and thrown him on the other side of the yellow crime scene tape. She had played the new body game too many times to be intimidated by a human male.
Keeping her voice calm and leveling her gaze up at him, she said, “Agent, like it or not, I am part of this now. So why don't you introduce me to your people and show me the body?”
A man and a woman, both in dark suits, were standing silently nearby, their eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them during the interchange. They had to be part of Agent Edwards group.
Tamsin decided to address them directly. “I'm Catherine Monroe, an analyst in occult crimes with the NSA.” There, she'd said the name without stumbling “I am hoping I can be of help in your investigation.”
With a quick glance up at Edwards, a sturdy young Asian woman with straight black hair cut to just below her ears, stepped forward with her hand out. “Vivian Cho,” she said with a quick smile. She was wearing a white collared shirt open at the neck and a black pants suit, the jacket cut fashionably short to brush her hips but still long enough to cover the gun clipped to her belt in back.
Tamsin shook it, saying, “Nice to meet you.”
After a slight pause, a thin man with red hair, freckles, and thick black-rimmed glasses said, “Thomas Lawrence.”
Tamsin guessed he might be around thirty. He had deep lines in his forehead and a crease between his brows giving him a look of concern. He held a tablet computer in one hand and empty evidence bags were stuffed in both pockets of his navy blue suit. It looked almost identical to Edwards'. No handshake. Lawrence stayed where he was, slightly behind Agent Edwards, mirroring his expression to his team leader's.
Teams were just like wolf packs, there was always a hierarchy. Edwards was the Alpha, Cho the Beta maybe, and she bet Lawrence was the Gamma. Tamsin got no supernatural vibrations from any of them. Though she would have to touch Lawrence to be reasonably sure. Even that was no guarantee. The Primes seemed very good at masking their presence among humans when they wanted.
“Just the three of you?” she asked Edwards.
“Agent Park is with the police, directing the search by the river,” Cho said after Edwards remained silent.
“So,” Tamsin said matter-of-factly, “are you just going to glare at me, Agent? Or can I see the body?”
“This way.” He didn't bother to look over his shoulder to see if she followed. “Watch out for poison oak!” snapped Edwards. He pulled on a pair of disposable rubber gloves as he strode off down the wide dirt path between the trees.
Lawrence stayed behind; Cho trotted up, keeping pace with Tamsin.
“How did you get here so fast? “ she asked. “We only arrived about an hour ago. Flew from Sacramento to Monterey and drove here.”
Which meant Tamsin had actually left Chicago hours before they'd learned of the death. Duprey knew this was going down. So was she working for or against Edwards and his team?
“Say you were in San Francisco.” The voice in her ear startled her so much she jumped.
“What?” Cho asked. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Tamsin brushed her hair aside and rubbed her ear. “I think a bug flew in my ear. Um... I was already en route to join you. The timing is just a coincidence.”
Edwards looked over his shoulder and gave her a hard stare. She looked back, raising her eyebrows in a silent challenge. He said nothing and walked faster. They were practically jogging to keep up with him.
“Long legs,” Cho said, indicating the agent. “FYI, the faster he walks, the angrier he is.”
Tamsin laughed and the young woman smiled more broadly.
The redwood trunks tapered as they rose to towering heights. No lower branches, creating a sort of umbrella effect. Ferns and bay laurel leaves lay scattered over parts of the forest floor. The bay trees were skinny and deformed, twining in places they were able to steal a little sunshine from the towering trees. Other spots were mostly bare of anything but dried brown redwood needles and hardy clover. Redwood trees make family circles. The parent tree sends out shoots that grow in a ring around it. Sometimes several of the younger trees grow together forming a tree even bigger than the original. When the parent tree eventually dies, it creates a large open circle in the center.
Tamsin was grateful for the shade. This was her first full day outside as Angelique and having to be awake in the afternoon made her feel sluggish, like a bad case of jet lag.
Mom and Dad had taken her to Sequoia National Park when she was still in elementary school, just before her brother was born. Redwood groves had seemed full of magic and mystery when she was a child. As though faeries were hiding just out of sight. Funny, redwoods were even more mysterious now she knew places like this could hold actual magic. And there was magic in the air. No doubt about it. The peppery taste on her tongue and prickling along the back of her scalp gave it away.
They walked about a hundred yards before coming to the scene of the murder. A uniformed policeman stood guard at the base of a massive redwood trunk. The tree had been sliced cleanly across about fifteen feet above the ground. Obviously that happened long ago. The murderers had just taken advantage of this conveniently dramatic setting to stage their ritual.
The tree trunk was around five or six feet across. In the center, the body of a man sat on bended knees, his arms and head tied to what looked like a wooden cross. Tamsin couldn't see what was holding it up, it must be fastened to some sort of platform as another rope was tied around his waist to keep him in place. He was dressed in baggy white cotton shirt and trousers. The kind of things you'd see peasants wearing in a movie about the middle ages. A wide blindfold with large blue eyes outlined in black paint covered most of his face.
The grove was so quiet, Tamsin could hear leaves falling from several large bay laurels.
“That is one creepy blindfold,” she breathed.
“Is creepy your technical analysis, agent?” Edwards said, not even trying to keep the disdain out of his voice.
Tamsin rolled her eyes. He was going to be one of those guys.
He indicated one of two tall aluminum ladders propped up against the trunk.
Tamsin climbed quickly to the top, careful to keep her face expressionless despite the resonance buzzing around the base of the tree like a swarm of angry wasps. She knew Edwards was watching her closely.
A round wooden platform was set on top of the tree trunk to make a level surface. The victim sat in the center within painted concentric red circles, several inches apart. The circles extended all the way to edge. Within each ring were lines of symbols twisting and tumbling in a chaotic jumble. Tamsin recognized at least three different magical alphabets. All painted in blood. Tamsin's eyes blurred as she breathed in the remnants of the spell. The symbols began to twist and turn, swimming in circles around the body.
Tamsin gasped. The spell was still active.
Her eyes flicked to Edwards. He gave no indication he saw anything amiss.
She watched the spellwork in its intricate dance, trying to read the runes and sigils. Searching her memory, she noticed a familiar trio of runes.
“Well?” Edwards said impatiently.
She held up one hand, “Give me a minute.”
She flipped through the spell book hanging around her neck looking for the rune signs. There. The three were contained within a very nasty revealing spell she picked up over a year ago from a shapeshifter. Staring at the runes on the wood, she glanced from them to the the one in her book. Similar but not the same. Nevertheless, those runes appeared to be vital anchors in a revealing spell.
“Well?” Edwards said again.
“The spellwork is interesting. I will have to do some research on it.”
He gave a snort, “Spells? Who cares about spells. What does the body tell you?”
She sighed, “Agent, the people who did this think spells are very important.” She looked the body over, “My guess is he wasn't killed here.”
“Because?” he prompted.
“He's clean. Clean clothes, no body fluids leaking out. Nothing messy. You'd see it with those white clothes.” She peered closer. “There are wooden plugs in his nostrils and I am betting elsewhere as well so his body fluids don't contaminate this ritual space. The other two were also in concentric circles of blood, right?”
He nodded.
“He's very pale,” she added.
“He's dead,” Edwards said dismissively.
“Death comes in many shades of pale, Agent Edwards,” she said bitingly. Angelique knew very quickly this body was an empty shell. Drained. “I'd say it was exsanguination. Massive blood loss. Like the others.”
Marshal pressed his lips together and tightened his jaw. “And the blood was used to paint the symbols here.”
She inhaled deeply, allowing Angelique's senses to reach out. The man smelled of death, but not rotting death. He'd been preserved, possibly in ice, and brought here already dead just as she guessed. His body and what little blood was left, had an earthy scent to it, very different from the complex magical circle enclosing him. Instinctively Tamsin leaned forward to breath in the heady mix of magic and blood. The smell was as rich as an armful of lilies. Intoxicating. A woman's blood, young. Not a child, but young. To Angelique and her kind, blood carried different scents like a human would identify flowers: lavender, roses, daisies, each smell remained unique. So it was with blood.
She let her hand hover over some of the symbols. The residual knowledge of the Charmer swam to the surface. She could recognize a few. These were summoning symbols of some kind. Keeping her eyes closed, she lightly touched the blood with a fingertip. An electric shock shot through her fingertips.
'Yikes!' she thought, swallowing a little yelp of pain that almost escaped.
This spell was way too active. Despite the presence of the police, FBI, and everyone else, the ritual was still going on. That couldn't be good.
She felt something else through the magic making Angelique's mouth water. This was a virgin's blood. An unsurpassed energy boost for a Prime's elemental powers. She wanted to lick the blood, it was so very enticing. Even though it wasn't fresh, the blood called to her basic nature, delightful, delicious...
A shout of, “What the hell are you doing?” broke her out of her reverie.
Agent Edwards stood on the ladder next to her, staring. “Were you going to lick the tree?”
Tamsin realized too late she was leaning way over the edge of the trunk, her chin almost touching the wooden platform. Angelique's instinct was to hiss and push Edwards off his ladder. With an effort she pushed Angelique down, pulled her tongue back in her mouth, and swiftly turned her head away, gripping the ladder tightly. So tightly she felt the metal groan beneath her hands. Damn it, she was forgetting Angelique's strength.
“Agent Monroe...”
“Smelling,” she said quickly. “I was smelling the blood. What's wrong with you?” she adopted a suitably outraged tone. “Seeing if it was mixed with other ingredients. Sulphur, charcoal, myrrh, any number of natural products. Knowing what sort of spell it is gets me a little closer to figuring out what the murderers hope to achieve.”
“Nice recovery, madam,” whispered Winston in her head.
Agent Edwards gave a little snort, “That's not what it looked like. Besides, we'll pick those details up at the lab,”
“I understand that, Agent.” She gave him a hard stare, harder then she intended because for a moment she forgot she was staring out of Angelique's eyes. Even on half power, the Prime's was a stare to be reckoned with.
He drew back ever so slightly from the intensity in her gaze.
'Oops,' she thought.
Turning her face quickly back to the victim, she calmed her inner Prime. “I am trying to formulate a picture of what happened here,” she continued, “so I can add it to the information you've gathered about the other two murders. The execution of this death and ritual is very different from the other two. My guess is unlike the previous murders, this,” she indicated the red marks, “will not be the victim's blood but someone else's. Most likely a young woman. Early or middle teens. Probably a virgin.”
He rocked back on the ladder and gave her an incredulous look, eyebrows raised. “How the hell could you know it was a woman? Did you deduce that from licking the tree?”
She made a face at him. “I did not lick it. Look at the complexity of the ritual plus the initial preparation.” She indicated the tree. “This platform was cut to size. The murderers had to come here and measure the trunk. This sacrifice is far more complex than the last two, judging by the photographs in the file I received. That means they are proceeding step by step with a very big spell. Or so they believe in their deluded minds,” she added hastily. She had to remember to keep this on a purely human level. Crazy-ass human satanists and their blood rituals. Not crazy-ass supernaturals and their all too real blood rituals. She swallowed reflexively. Even though it was not fresh, the blood still smelled heavenly. She needed to put some distance between herself and this.
“If my theory plays out as I am afraid it will, his blood was used to write the runes around the woman's body. Linking two sacrifices. The ritual is getting bigger, the offerings more valuable.The other two murders were leading up to this. This murder will lead to something else.”
“Sacrifices to who?”
“To whatever demon they are trying to summon or powers they wish to invoke.”
Edwards shook his head, his expression showing exactly what he thought of that.
“It's what they believe, Agent. I'm not saying they can actually do anything of the sort. They bumped up the spell with additional blood. Look, this is exactly the sort of analysis you need and why I was brought on board. Take my expert opinion. You probably have another body somewhere in the park. A fresh one.”
Actually she was certain of it. Standing above the forest floor, the enticing scent of blood had floated across the grove on the slow breeze. Cold, but not as cold as this. It wouldn't do for her to find the corpse too quickly. Someone else should discover it.
Edwards was a good at his job. He might not like her interference in the case, but he was paying attention even as he disagreed. He began climbing down the ladder one handed, pulling his cell phone out with the other and speaking quickly into it.
Tamsin stayed where she was. Now that he couldn't see her, she reached out once again to hold her hand above the red circle of rings and markings. The symbols swam in her sea of stolen memories. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, she let her fingertips brush over the rough bark. Instantly an image of a woman jumped out at her. A strong scarred face, wild black hair. She was dressed for battle with a broadsword and and axe fastened at her side. Her armor was of tanned leather and iron over a chain mail shirt. And wolves. She was surrounded by wolves. Wolves in armor. As one, the woman and the animals looked at Tamsin. Their eyes glowed amber in the swirling snow. One of the beasts lunged and Tamsin instinctively tried to dodge out of the way.
Her feet slipped on the ladder rung and she fell.
Before she hit the ground, she felt an arm around her waist.
“Whoa, hold on!”
The forest came back into view and the image of the warrior woman receded. Agent Edwards had a firm grip on her.
She was panting; her heart beating hard and fast.
“Agent Monroe. Hello? You okay?”
“I'm okay, I'm okay,” she said hoarsely. “Got lost in thought trying to decipher those markings in the blood and my foot slipped. Thanks. Sorry.”
“First time around a dead body?” he asked as he put her feet on the ground and stood her upright.
That made her laugh. Oh my God, if he only knew!
His eyebrows shot back up at the harshness of her voice.
Recovering herself, she waved one hand in the air. “Sorry. No. Very much not my first body. I'll be fine.” Stepping away from him, she smoothed her suit coat back in place. “I'd like to see the rest of the grove and the areas you are searching.”
“Yeah. Okay, sure.”
He told Agent Cho he was “going through the fence” and strode off up the path, deeper into the park. Tamsin followed more slowly, keeping an eye out for clues.
The haunting image of the tall woman and her wolf pack remained firmly imprinted on her inner eye. She seemed familiar somehow. Could they be summoning someone from Angelique's past? Was that why Duprey put her here?
The trail wound through the grove stopping to circle around what a signboard nailed to the fence said was the oldest tree in the park. She might not be a real federal agent, but she had spent her afterlife searching for clues and fragments of information to the whereabouts of the soul eaters who murdered her. That hunt had taken her to many countries. Actually, the more she considered it, the more she realized she was actually well suited to this assignment. Clues were clues, whether they belonged to the living or the dead. She looked up, down, and around, pausing to take a note here or there.
From the clearing, the trail began to work its way around in a circle and then back to the Visitor Center. The smell of blood was stronger on this side of the trail. Drifting on the warm current of air of the forest. Glancing over her shoulder, she breathed in deeply again. Not far. She couldn't find it too quickly. Better to keep exploring the area.
Just beyond the enormous tree, Tamsin saw what Edwards meant by 'going through the fence.' With only a small arrow as a clue, a break in the fence led out to a dusty trail away from the grove.
“The gate here leads to the main hiking trails,” he explained. “There are miles of them. Access is from the parking lot. Horses and dogs have to come that way since they're not allowed near the grove. According to the rangers, they get hundreds of people here on a summer weekend.”
Within a very few yards they came to a hillside trail bordering a small river. A large rusty sign described the river as a vital part of the coastal salmon run. Looking at the clear, shallow water below, Tamsin thought they would have to be very small, determined salmon. There was perhaps only three or four inches thanks to the perennial droughts of California.
Police officers with dogs were on the opposite bank scrambling up and down the hillside and walking along the riverbank. About twenty or thirty yards to the left stood a large metal railroad bridge on concrete supports over a modest gorge.
“Tracks,” she said shortly, pointing at the bridge and heading in its direction.
The two of them struggled up the loose gravel lining the incline.
“The train comes along here once or twice a day.” Edwards indicated the slope with his chin. “From Santa Cruz.”
Tamsin paced along the rails keeping an eye on the forest. The tracks ran parallel to the old-growth grove.
“Back,” she said after just a few minutes, doing an abrupt about-face.
They returned to the trail by the shallow river.
A tingle at the base of her spine led Tamsin to the concrete support for the bridge on this side of the river. Graffiti was scratched into the concrete. Nothing big or bright or gaudy. Those would have been swiftly painted over by the rangers. Tamsin ran her fingertips across as many as she could reach. The tingle turned to a slow burn that settled around the souls of her feet as she bent lower.
At the bottom of the far edge, almost in the dirt, she found it. Small, about palm-sized. Not scratched in; drawn on. A skull haloed in blue flame set on top of a black spider's body.
Careful not to stand right in front of the mark, she touched it with a fingertip and got an electric shock in response.
“Crap!” she yelped involuntarily, pulling her hand away and shaking it vigorously. Her feet burned so much she had to do a little hop, step.
“What? What happened?” Edward's head snapped around from her to the bridge and the area near them, his posture alert.
“Nothing, just surprised.”
Blood again. Only an hour or so old. Made after the ritual while the police and agents were already in the area. She could smell it was far fresher than the two bodies. A daring move. They were deliberately taunting the authorities, or maybe the Prime players. Whoever was behind this was part of the game, whether they knew it or not.
“Here look at this. Oh!” She gestured with one hand at the base of the structure. “Don't stand there, you'll want to take a cast the footprints.”
She knelt closer to snap pictures with her cell phone. “Do you have a sample bag? We need to scrape this off and test the substance.
He squatted next to her to look at what she found. He pulled an evidence bag out of his coat pocket along with a small zippered kit. Taking out a scalpel-like object, he shaded it and the bag to her. “Doesn't look very demonic. More like a biker gang symbol.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” she put the disposable gloves back on. “Could also be a boast by one of the people involved. Have you seen something like this at the other crime scenes?”
“No.”
“Were you looking?” she asked as she knelt and began to carefully scrape flakes of red into the bag.
He gave her a sour glance. Tamsin had a feeling he'd be calling Washington and sending agents back to the crime scenes to look for the spider skull.
“Your basing this theory on what?”
“The symbol,” she stood up, sealing the bag and then brushing the dust off her pants with one hand, “there's something off about it.”
“So a feeling?” His tone of voice dropped as he stood. Just enough to let Tamsin know he was calling her out. “You're saying you have a feeling?”
Straitening up, she looked him in the eyes. “I'm saying, I'm following my instincts based on past experience with cases involving followers of the occult. I have an extensive knowledge of symbols, signs, and their meanings in many cultures. The willful pairing of the skull and the spider is disquieting. Enough so that it should be investigated. If I am correct, you will find it was made with human blood but not from either of the victims in the grove. ” She handed him the evidence bag and the scalpel. “Okay? Thanks.”
She turned away, walking back along the river trail in the direction of the grove.
Whatever game the Primes were engaged in, it involved a very non-playful series of murders.
The Prime's played their games as if they were real. Even in her wildly varying experiences of the afterlife, she never thought she'd be taking part in one.
Behind her, she heard Edwards calling in the forensic people to take casts of footprints around the side of the underpass.
She paused a short distance away, staring at the searchers on the opposite side of the river. She might not know FBI protocol but she knew magic.
Waving an arm to get his attention, she said, “Pull your men back to this side of the river and inside the inner perimeter of the railroad tracks.”
She held up her hand to forestall the objection do doubt on the tip of his tongue. “This is a supernatural ritual. They would not want to cross running water and the railroad tracks are made of iron. That's a no-go for these sort of people as well. The boundaries are going to be within...” she pointed back to the circle walk near the old grove, “that area, there.”
Two mounted park rangers came up the narrow trail. Tamsin and Edwards stepped out of the way. Both horses snorted and swished their tails anxiously as they passed Tamsin. They would not like what they smelled, she was pretty sure. At least they didn't try to bite her.
“What about the parking lot?”
“Tarmac is a neutral substance. So, no impediment.”
“A neutral substance?” he said ironically.
“That's right, agent. My theory is nothing will be found beyond the natural circle of the grove. Perfect for containing magical energy on its own. At least they believe,” she added quickly. She had been inside enough supernaturals to know what she was talking about. Prime games involved real murders and real magic. The magic they summoned still vibrated on a deep level, buzzing under her feet and resonating in her belly. And what was up with the itching on the bottom of her feet?
“The skull spider is the exception. I believe it is not linked directly to the ritual but was left maybe to taunt us.”
“You really believe we should pull the officers back?”
“That is, of course, your decision.” Maybe it was time for a little diplomacy. “My opinion is it's a waste of time.”
Tamsin walked through the fence gap back into the grove. With Angelique's keen ears she heard Edwards calling the officers back on this side of the river.
Returning to the victim, Tamsin saw several men and women standing around the ladders. Cho was waiting there and she waved to Edwards. He jogged up directly to a woman in a white forensic coverall.
The woman indicated the stump, “Can I take the body now?”
Must be the Medical Examiner or a representative.
“I think we have what we need,” Edwards answered, not waiting for Tamsin’s opinion. “I'll wait to hear from you.”
They still hadn't found the other body, damn it. Tamsin and the team were downwind. The body smelled like it was almost directly opposite them. Why hadn't the dogs located that?
Actually, she realized the only barking she heard was on the other trails.
“Where are the dogs?” she asked Edwards. “They should be in here looking.”
Edwards glared in the direction of the Visitors Center.
Cho spoke. “So far they're fighting to keep them out of the grove.”
“Who's fighting? Don't you have...” she paused looking for the right word. What was it? “Jurisdiction!” she said a little too triumphantly.
Edward’s raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, jurisdiction. Complicated within the park grounds and given their mandate. They're saying we'll disturb the trees. They are insisting it's a bio park,” he sneered over the last words.
“Aren't all parks bio parks?” Tamsin considered, “Well, maybe not skate parks.”
“The Park Service is not happy about having our men tramping around their sacred grove.”
“It's not really sacred, is it?”
“What? No.” He shook his head firmly. “Not like Indian burial ground sacred. I should have said they don't want us on their precious land. Ranting about disturbing the trees.” He snorted. “They're trees. Pretty sure a few officers looking for clues is not going to destroy them. She's the ranger in charge.” He pointed to a large, strongly built woman in a tan and brown ranger's uniform scowling in their direction. Two other officers, a man and another woman, stood at her back with equally cross expressions. They all looked oddly similar. Dark eyes, olive skin, and deep black hair. About the same size and weight.
Tamsin narrowed her brows, staring at the ranger in charge.
“Saying we have to get a court order,” Edwards growled, “not cooperating.”
“Maybe there are bodies buried in there they don't want us to find.” Tamsin said flippantly. Edwards shot her a look that said he didn't think it was funny at all.
“They are stalling...” he began to say. “Or should I say, she is.” He walked off to join the frowning group.
Tamsin began examining the area around the stump. The trail was bordered by split rail fencing on both sides. This was a ritual and Tamsin had been in a lot of magical bodies. Much of their knowledge travelled with her from body to body. Only now was she beginning to find it creepy. Knowing there was another body meant there had to be links to it as well. Getting down on hands and knees she examined the rails. The fence created a circle around the grove. Spells liked enclosed spaces. Crawling, she found what she was looking for: three runes carved on rails flanking the stump. She scooted to the next set of fence rails. The same set of runes here, too. She bet they would repeat all the way around.
“I've found something,” she announced.
Edwards was speaking animatedly to the park ranger.
“I said I found something!” she said louder. “Agent Edwards!”
He walked over followed by the Head Ranger and another woman in a ranger's uniform.
“Agent Moran, this is Officer Chrysanthos of the Park Service. Agent Moran is a specialist in crimes involving the occult.”
The woman gave her a narrow-eyed stare.
Tamsin put her hand out first, then barely contained her start of surprise as the ranger, frowning, gripped it. There was energy running through her.
Chrysanthos was not human and, Tamsin realized, the other ranger wasn't even alive.
Chapter 6
Tamsin
Chrysanthos recognized her immediately as another supernatural. She straightened up to her full height and the energy began to burn Tamsin's fingers. Tamsin held tighter, letting her Prime power ramp up as well. They squeezed each other’s hands with a grip that would have cracked the bones of a human. Despite her petite size, Tamsin was far stronger than whatever this woman was.
“Who's your pal?” Tamsin asked indicating the ghostly woman with a turn of her head.
With a gasp of surprise, the ranger broke her grip, taking a step back.
The ghost in the ranger's uniform looked anxiously from Tamsin to Chrysanthos. Edwards obviously couldn't see her.
Chrysanthos was the one blocking the dogs from entering. She might be involved in the ritual? Or could it be something else? Maybe there really were bodies buried there.
'Tree, trees, trees,' she thought staring at the ranger. Edwards was saying something but Tamsin didn't even hear him.
Several bodies ago she'd been heading for Prague searching for a Soul Eater named Nicole. One of the sorcerers who murdered her. The trail had gone temporarily cold in Munich, Germany. Tamsin took a little time to visit some of the city's museums. There had been an etching at one. A woman sensuously languishing inside a tree trunk while satyrs danced around a glade.
Dryads!
Tamsin cleared her throat. “Nice grove of trees you've got here,” she shifted her eyes from the ranger to the ghost and back again. “I found some runes. Ritual markings. They start, or finish, I don't know which, here by the body.” She knelt down and pointed. “See? Here and here.”
Edwards and Chrysanthos squatted down to peer where Tamsin was pointing. The ghost got down on her knees as well.
“So far I've found three sets. If you want to follow me, we can see where the trail leads.”
Edwards indicated she should walk ahead. Tamsin moved down the trail. She could feel the large ranger's eyes boring into her back.
“Winston,” she whispered as she searched for runes she was sure would be there, “what do you call dryads whose life force is tied to their tree or grove or whatever.”
“Technically the life force of dryads, or wood nymphs as they are also known, is always tied to trees, forests, or a specific grove,” he replied instantly.
Tamsin winced and rubbed her ear. It felt like someone was sticking a pipe cleaner inside her head whenever he spoke.
“Found another one!” she said out loud. Standing, she dusted off her pants legs and walked a little further.
“However,” Winston continued, “I believe you are referring to hamadryads. If their tree dies or is cut down, they die with it.”
That was it. The head ranger and her ghostly pal must be hamadryads. Maybe the ghost's tree had died, but in the nature of redwoods, she wasn't really gone. Even now she could be slowly coming back to life as the family of trees around the parent bough matured, explaining the ghost’s strong spirit presence. She must be buried in the grove along with who knew how many other ancestral tree spirits who had come and gone over hundreds of years.
No wonder Chrysanthos didn't want dogs in there. They'd sniff out the bodies in no time and then there'd be official hell to pay. Either that or the dryads would just swoop in and kill every witness. A distinct possibility. The word 'nymph' was deceptively sweet. There was nothing sweet about nature spirits in Tamsin's experience.
Either the dryads agreed or didn't care about the murders. Nothing could have gone down in this grove without their knowledge. Given the amoral nature of ancient spirit races, that might be exactly what happened.
Tamsin got down on her hands and knees every few yards. Just as she surmised, the runes continued along the inside perimeter fence. They were getting closer to the second body. Good.
Edward's phone vibrated. The forest was so quiet, Tamsin could hear it easily.
He held up one hand, “Okay, okay. Got it. Monroe! Forensics is going over the stump after moving the body. Do you want to be there?” he asked.
“I'll join them in just a few minutes. Ask them to get some pictures of what, if anything was under the body.”
“Do it,” he said into the phone.
They were almost in front of the second victim, Tamsin could smell it. Her stomach growled loudly. She glanced at Edwards.
“Hungry?” he asked, almost smiling.
“Starved,” she admitted. “No time to eat on the way here.” She looked and found more runes, then one more set beyond them. So they did make a circle. That had taken a lot of work and she said as much.
“They go all around, I'm sure. They didn't need to carve these all on the day. Just the last ones at whichever end closed the circle. So they could have been coming here for a couple of days. Probably after dark. Is there CCTV at the entrance to the park?”
“No,” the Ranger answered flatly.
“Parking lot?” she asked.
“No,” she said again. “The only CCTV is in the gift shop, near the register.”
“They don't keep track of the license plates coming in and out either,” added Cho who had joined them.
Before Tamsin could complain about this lack of security, the Ranger said, “No funding. If the State can't keep libraries open they sure as hell aren't going to hand us funding for CCTV.”
Tamsin held up both hands, “Not judging.”
Okay, she thought quickly to herself. None of the FBI people could read runes. She wasn't sure about the supernatural Park Ranger. So, she had to make them look where the other body was. There was probably a specific number of runes. She'd make something up.
“The halfway point is back here.” She walked to where the body was near.
Lawrence, who had been following quietly behind dashed up and marked it with a red strip of duct tape.
“I believe there are two anchor points for the spell. And that means there will be something around here to hold it.” Beyond leaping over the fence and into the grove shouting, 'Tadaa!' this was about as much as she could do to give them a hint.
“Something bad?” asked Edwards grimly.
Tamsin nodded.
“Lawrence, how are we doing with the court order for the dogs?”
Lawrence moved in closer to huddle with his boss.
“Walk with me,” Tamsin put her hand on the ranger's arm and gripped tightly. Unless Chrysanthos physically pulled away, she'd have to come with her.
Tamsin waited until they were far enough from Edwards not to be overheard.
“There's something in there, don't tell me you can't smell or feel it.”
The ranger jerked her arm away forcefully and started to protest.
Tamsin cut her off. “A body you and I both know is nestled in the ring of trees just on the other side of the rail. Did you have a part in this? Because if you did, I am going to be all over your ass.” She allowed a measure of Angelique's malevolent anger to show through, her fangs popped out and she knew her eyes burned ruby red.
The other woman manifested in response. Her pupils shifted into a green oil slick that spread over the entire eye. Tamsin saw the veins in her arm pulse and glow green in response.
Tamsin was not impressed. “This is your forest, dryad. Nothing goes down here without you noticing.”
“What do you think you can do about it?” Chrysanthos sneered, refusing to be intimidated. “The humans will not believe you.”
“Who said I planned to involve humans?”
Reaching in her pocket, Tamsin pulled out a lighter and held it over her palm. With the merest flick of Angelique's energy, she captured the flame and held it in her hands. She allowed it to grow a little larger, all the while keeping her eyes on the woman.”
“Burn my trees and I will kill you,” she said.
Tamsin gave a genuine laugh, “Go ahead! In fact, please do. It would make things less complicated for me right now. I can jump into another body and you will never find me.” Under her feet she sent a shock wave of energy into the ground shaking the entire grove.
Shouts of “Whoa!” and “Earthquake!” echoed from nearby.
“I am Prime. I can destroy your world, dryad. This grove means less than nothing to me.”
Though she tried not to show it, Tamsin spotted the fear in the other woman's eyes. She would have heard of Primes and their utter disdain for the mortal world and its beings both normal and paranormal.
Tamsin ordered the earth to be still, keeping one eye on the agents and police. “Just so we understand one another. What did they promise you to look the other way while the ritual went down?”
Chrysanthos paused, giving Tamsin a sullen stare.
Tamsin still had the fire ball in her hand and allowed it to double in size. “
“Money,” Chrysanthos said at last.
Tamsin blinked, “Money? They gave you money and you took it?”
“I am the mistress of this grove. In the world as it is now, the State Park Service maintains it officially. I and mine are a part of their world now. The spellcasters promised an endowment to be used solely for the park.”
“How much?” she asked.
“Two million dollars.”
Tamsin raised her brows. “Wow! That is a lot of money.”
“The sacrifices were killed elsewhere, the magic they used did not affect the trees or the earth.”
“What did it affect?”
Chrysanthos shut her mouth firmly and looked as if she might not answer.
“You realize I don't have to do anything while all these people are here. I can burn it from a distance and call the earth to fall from the tree roots one after the other so they fall. In fact, why don't we start with that one right there?”
Tamsin extinguished the flame and, instead, pointed to a lone tree towering up to the sky not far from where they stood on the dusty path. Wriggling her fingers, Tamsin concentrated on feeling the earth beneath them as if she was digging. Keeping her concentration on the tree, she made digging motions with her hands. The earth shuddered and began to fall away in great spade fulls from around the tree.
“Stop!” the dryad whispered urgently. “Just stop. They are creating a portal spell or summoning spell or both from what I can tell. The energy traveled into the ground and is resonating there still. Can you not feel it?”
Tamsin nodded, “I do. Do you know why?”
“No, and I did not care. Once they showed me the money had been sent into the new endowment I and mine removed ourselves to beyond the river to wait.”
“You let them dirty up your sacred grove with dead bodies and black spells but you don't want dogs here?”
“They will find the bodies.”
“Of the dryads who are regenerating with the new trees.”
She gave a curt nod, her stare icy.
Just as Tamsin suspected.
“Okay. No dogs in the grove. What about people?” She gestured to Edwards who was having an animated conversation on the phone watched closely by Lawrence.
“These kind of people?” the dryad asked disdainfully.
“Yeah, just people people. It will be over quickly. All we need is for them to find the other body.”
The ranger gave a sharp exhalation of breath. The ghost approached to stare earnestly at the ranger. Chrysanthos looked at the ghost who gave her a quick nod.
“Fine,” she said at last. “And what about you? I do not want you in the grove. You are an abomination.”
“Sticks and stones,” Tamsin said, waving at Edwards to get his attention. “You are not in a position to negotiate. Hey! Agent!”
He looked over.
“Chrysanthos says you can have men in the grove searching.”
Chapter 7
Tamsin
Edwards walked swiftly to join them, looking quizzically from Tamsin to the other woman and back. “Really?”
“Yep. Right, Chrysanthos? Fist bump!” Tamsin held up her right hand.
The woman looked like she wanted to spit, preferably in Tamsin’s face. Scowling even harder, she stalked off in the direction of the Visitor Center. The ghost followed, looking anxiously over her shoulder at Tamsin.
“Yep,” Tamsin said sarcastically watching them go, “we are totally BFF's now. Anyway, at least you can get in there and if nothing turns up, you can still pursue the court order about the dogs. Sound reasonable?”
Instead of answering, he immediately called and explained the situation over the phone. Lawrence left at a trot, probably to organize the search. He seemed like someone who was good at organizing things.
Agent Cho passed Lawrence going in the other direction. He stopped briefly to speak with her and she changed course to walk with him.
Tamsin's little demonstration of Prime elemental magic had left her depleted of energy. The rushed infusions of blood at Duprey's secret lair had not stayed with her very long. Given Angelique had been brought back from the dead twice, that was probably to be expected.
The humans around her began to glow with a very inviting warmth. She licked her lips and quickly wiped her mouth on one sleeve as she began to salivate. Real hunger and blood hunger were poised to merge into something terrible. If she couldn't drink blood, she had to have some food. And fast.
The call had gone out and officers were already grouping for the search in front of the Visitors Center. Cho and Lawrence were there. Stabbing aggressively at the air with her finger, Chrysanthos explained loudly what the searchers could and could not do. With loud emphasis on 'could not, better not and under-no-circumstances do not.'
Tamsin's stomach rumbled again.
Something touched her back and without thinking, she grabbed and twisted, whirling in a circle.
“Hey,” a man's voice shouted. Two strong hands took hold of her arms and twisted with equal dexterity.
She was suddenly eye-to-eye with Agent Edwards in a shoulder lock. The soft skin of his throat temptingly close. Tamsin felt her fangs pop out and she snapped her mouth shut, pressing her lips together.
He looked at her, very surprised. “What the hell, Monroe!”
She immediately let go, as did he.
She cleared her throat, awkwardly forcing her fangs back out of sight. “Sorry, sorry. Just... my mind was someplace else. You surprised me.”
“You always attack people who surprise you? Is that an NSA thing?”
“No. Yes. Maybe,” she stumbled over her response, her eyes watering with suppressed desire for a long, slow drink of the robust blood flowing through that brawny body. “Hungry. Too hungry. I've got the shakes I'm so hungry,” she admitted, keeping her head down in case she lost control of her fangs. God, he smelled wonderful. So alive.
He gave her a rueful smile that actually reached his eyes as he looked her up and down. “Remind me to keep you fed in the future. Damn, you are far stronger than you look.”
“Leverage,” she said, doing a pretend shoulder toss with both hands. “All in the leverage.”
He looked unconvinced. “There's some baked stuff in the gift shop I think. At least candy bars. Go. Then come back and find me. But first, how did you pull that off with the Park Ranger?”
“Tact and discretion,” she said trying to keep her voice lighthearted as her stomach howled in desperation. “The dogs were the issue it seemed to me, more than the officers getting in the grove. Maybe she thought they'd pee on all the trees. I explained the sooner we found or didn't find more evidence, the sooner we would pack up and go.”
“And that did it?”
“Yep.”
“I said pretty much the same thing and she still flipped me off in both an official and unofficial fashion.”
Tamsin allowed herself a grin. “Tact and discretion, like I said. This is your team, Agent, but may I suggest they search roughly in a straight line to the opposite side? Where we found the mid-point in the sigils on the fence rails. Magic is all about symmetry.”
“Even pretend magic ?”
“Even that,” she said confidently.
Edwards waved over some of the officers and climbed the fence into the center of the grove. Tamsin practically ran for the gift shop. There were a few muffins by the register and not much else. She picked out a handful of candy bars, a bottle of Coke and two of the muffins. To keep her inner demon appeased, she needed quick energy. Sugar and caffeine should help.
There was no escaping the fact she would have to feed on blood at some point. Last time she found herself in this situation, she was searching for a demon statue in Chicago holding a secret sigil to help her put body and soul together. That was when she met the mysterious sprite, Theo. Needing her help and strength, he cornered and disabled a security guard at the museum for her. The only time she fed as Angelique. Now, she'd have to do it on her own.
Once she started eating, her stomach didn't care she wasn't in the mood for sweets. It was food. She practically inhaled both the muffins as she walked back to the Visitor Center. Perching on the split rail fence, she set her feet on the lower rail and got started on the candy bars.
The ghostly ranger had stayed behind. Smaller than Chrysanthos, she had the same dark hair and dark eyes. Her name tag said 'Dionysodorous.' That was a mouthful.
“Hi,” said Tamsin easily. “We haven’t been introduced. I'm Catherine Monroe. Well,” she whispered conspiratorially, “that’s not my real name. It will have to do, though.” Ghosts were pretty good at seeing through lies. Tamsin knew for a fact.
The ghost glided over to join her on the split rail post. She raised one eyebrow and silently made a circular motion around her mouth.
“I've totally got chocolate on my face, haven't I?” Tamsin said, hastily wiping at her lips with the back of one hand.
Looking at the ranger, she turned her head from side to side. “Better?”
The woman gave her a thumbs up.
“Anything you want to tell me about what happened here?”
The ranger cocked her head and seemed to think about the question. Her eyes met Tamsin's then slid around the grove. She pointed to some spot in the distance. Not all ghosts had voices.
“Something over there? By the tree with the murder?”
The ghost ranger made further pointing motions.
“Farther into the grove?”
She nodded.
“Connected to all this?”
Again, she nodded.
“Thanks, I'll have a look.”
“Hey, Monroe! Stop talking to yourself !” Edwards shouted from between two of the large trees. “Come and tell us what we're looking for.”
Tamsin said quietly, “Is your body in there?”
The ghost nodded vigorously.
Redwoods are not like other trees. Even if the parent tree dies, the others grew and thrived. These Hamadryads didn't just belong to one tree, they must belong to all the incarnations of their redwood. The silent ghost was one of the dryads in the grove slowly coming back as she absorbed the life-giving energy from her offspring.
“Monroe!” Edwards barked.
“Coming!” Quickly getting to her feet, she gave a little wave to the ghostly ranger.
The other woman reached out with one hand as if to hold her back. Tamsin felt a brush of cold across the sleeve of her jacket. The ranger looked down, pointing at the ground with her other hand.
Tamsin followed her gaze and gave a little gasp. There were two shadows stretched out. Her own and just behind it, something else. And that shadow was moving all by itself.
Chapter 8
Tamsin
Tamsin jogged to the fence around the grove and climbed over the rails. Chrysanthos hissed at her. Tamsin shrugged, putting both hands in the air. She couldn't disobey Edwards directly.
The towering trees blocked out most of the direct light here, her shadow – or shadows – faded to nothing in the gloom. She tentatively took off her sunglasses, squinting in what was to her, still bright sunlight. Maybe she would leave them on. She glanced behind her. No shadows here. A small part of her wanted to very much to shrug the second shadow off as an optical illusion. Tamsin knew that was foolish. The second shadow belonged to someone or something else that had attached itself to her. Maybe a parasite feeding off her energy? A haunting? A curse? There were too many possibilities. She tried to push down the choking sense of panic. This body, this transition into Angelique, was so completely out of her control. She couldn't seem to find her feet.
Edwards looked at her expectantly, a group of uniformed officers grouped around him. Right now she had to focus on the investigation.
“Look inside the tree circles, under the roots,” she told them. “The other body was in plain sight so I’m thinking this one will be hidden. Opposites and all.”
Edwards gave a curt nod and told the others to get started.
The search team began working methodically back and forth, sifting through the fallen redwood needles and clover, brushing aside the dried bay laurel leaves. There was no poison oak here, not enough sunlight filtering through the canopy.
It was maddeningly slow, made even more so since Tamsin could have walked them right to the body. She paced slowly back and forth, pretending to search for clues. Other police officers searched alongside and her Angelique nature couldn't help sniffing them for who would be the tastiest blood donor.
Tamsin's stomach growled again.
'He's nice,' said the Prime part of her, smiling at a strongly-built officer with skin the color of an Arabica roast and a generous mouth.
'Really?' she asked her inner self. 'Are we really going there now?”
The officer smiled back.
'Very nice!'' growled the Prime pushing at her fangs.
Tamsin gave her inner Prime a metaphysical kick in the butt.
The weaker she got, the more the blood hunger would grow. Eventually it would gain control. Back in Bartholomew Knightly's mansion she experienced exactly what it was like to lose her human self. Angelique was not a nice person. Even for a Prime. Tamsin had to maintain dominance and to do that, she must keep herself strong.
Her inner-Angelique looked longingly at the strongly-built man. Maybe she should work on being strong at a distance. So saying, she walked deliberately away from most of the searchers. The ghostly Hamadryad had pointed deep into the grove. Looking back in the direction of the Visitor Center, she judged the spirit pointed this way.
As she walked deeper into the grove, the forest grew still, the voices of the police and agents muffled and indistinct. Near a circle of redwoods burned and blackened by some old fire, she heard a whisper.
“Angelique...”
Bringing her hands up, she called forth a defensive spell. The spell glowed red in the shadows of the massive trees, the words twining around her hands, burning her fingers, impatient to fly free.
Tamsin turned in a slow circle, searching with her Prime senses. She saw the searchers, hot red like a thermal scan, no one closer than twenty yards, moving away from her.
“Angelique...” the sibilant voice called softly.
Angelique, not Tamsin. Something knew this body but not that she was in it.
Not everyone who walked – or crawled and slithered – was warm blooded. She refocused her sight, looking for cold spots.
A wavering outline of faint icy blue floated near the circle of burned trees on her right.
She readied a few more spells in her mind, keeping them primed, but not summoning them yet. If it turned out this voice was not a threat, she would be stuck with a mouthful of firepower. Once called, magic needed to be used. You couldn't just put it back in the jar.
Moving cautiously, she approached the circle. Much of the lower trunks had been blackened long ago. A large chunk of the thick, knotted base on the side nearest her was burned away completely leaving a dark shelter that looked uncannily like a cave. Thick spider webs covered most of it. Tamsin felt a velvet touch along her shoulders that traveled slowly down her spine. She didn't bother to turn around. The touch came from nothing in this world.
She took a step forward and stretched out one hand. The air was thicker, a tangible thing. The sensation made the skin on her hand itch. This barrier had probably been enough to keep any searchers from venturing further.
Taking a deep breath, she pressed forward, allowing her Prime senses to rise to the surface. The itching spread from her arm to her whole body. Pushing aside the spider webs, she crouched low and stepped into the tree cave. The defensive spell still buzzing around her hands illuminated the dark space. Here, the dusty scent of the redwoods was overshadowed by the thick smell of cloves, cinnamon, and pepper. The scent of magic so strong it made her eyes water.
The space narrowed and Tamsin got down on her hands and knees. Redwoods often have massive, knotted burls of wood at their base, this hollow was within one of those. The entry opened inside onto a space big enough to stand up in.
Here, the blackened and seared bark was smeared in a thick, messy coating of blood. Her fangs slipped out of their sheaths, even though she knew there was nothing alive in here with her. Although spells, if you thought about it, were alive in a predatory way. Waiting to pounce.
Two dull metal bowls held what her nose told her was more blood. Her mouth watered at the scent. Young blood, though cold now. She sniffed again. Very cold. There had to be more than blood in this tight space to resonate with so much magic.
Primes could see like cats in the dark. With an effort, she reigned in the defensive spell enough so she could open the little book hanging around her neck without singeing it. Flipping through the pages she found what she needed.
Energy could be radiant, chemical, magnetic, mechanical, thermal, electrical and oh so very much more. In the right combinations, any or all of them could also be magical.
A revealing spell. Tamsin brushed away the dirt in front of her and carefully drew the symbols for a complex sign that twisted and curved in on itself. She did not just draw it in the dirt. Contorting the fingers of her other hand, she re-created the mark in the air, little yellow and green tendrils of power shadowing her movements. For any spell to be successful, large or small, the spellcaster must have a clear intention of what they hoped to accomplish. As she tied the magic together, Tamsin expressed her desire to see what was hidden behind the cloaking veil as if a heavy velvet curtain was pulled back.
She really needed some sea salt to draw a circle of protection around herself. No help for that now. She'd have to take her chances.
Taking an old school lighter from her pocket, she flicked it on and placed it in the dirt.
With one fang, she bit into her wrist and dropped blood at four points of the sigil. She needed a little more blood to finish and had to bite again as the wound quickly healed. Letting the blood pool in her palm, she spat into it, and then readied herself.
Placing one palm in the center of the sigil, and the other with her blood and saliva on the blackened trunk, she called forth the power of the defensive spell and fed it into the words of revealing.
“In palam veniat!”
The inside of the cave became incandescent with golden light.
At the same moment, the ground beneath her feet twisted and buckled. Black roots shot out of the soil to knot around her arms and legs, pulling her onto her back in the dirt. She struggled against them, tearing both arms free only to have more roots shoot out and wind themselves over her shoulders. Thick roots twisted across her throat like fingers, squeezing tight. She felt a terrible pain on her forearms and legs, as though the skin was being peeled off.
Tamsin threw the spell on the tip of her tongue to the still burning lighter. Fire elementals couldn't make flame from air, they needed a spark. The fire roared into true flame. Tamsin pulled it to her with a twitch of her fingers. The flame exploded onto the tendrils and tentacles of the roots holding her down. At the fires' touch the roots let go, slithering back into the ground as quickly as they appeared.
The initial flare of the revealing spell was fading but the still visible. The pain on her arms and legs was agonizing. No time for that now. Within the blood was a maze of hexes and arcane symbols. Powerful and so dark Tamsin felt the bile rising in her throat and her stomach heaved. Choking and coughing, she looked up to see the skull-faced spider grinning directly above her head. It was many times larger than the one on the trestle. As she watched, the figure blurred and there was a nauseating sensation of the world turning in on itself.
A frigid blast of air tore through the cave and a massive wolf's head shot out of the space above her, it's hot breath on her face. Tamsin fell backwards, scrambling to get away. The beast snapped its jaws, spit flying. The wolf writhed and struggled as though trying to force itself into her world. She heard shouting in a language she couldn't understand. Harsh words of magic bit into her skin as though the wolf had indeed gotten hold of her with those sharp teeth.
In a flash, the apparition was gone. Tamsin could have sworn she heard a chorus of howls in the distance as the spell-fed light faded and the cave became nothing more than charred wood and dried blood once again.
‘Well damn,’ she thought to herself. That was unexpected. The true center of the ritual was right here. She’d been wrong about the spell traveling in a straight line between the bodies. The magic was constrained within a triangle. The bodies anchoring two points to feed the apex with energy. But the apex of what?
Coughing and rubbing her bruised throat as she scrambled to her feet with a groan. Her arms and legs were pulsating with waves of pain. Tamsin stripped off her suit coat, shirt, and then her pants. The skulls on her shins and forearms were moving. Slithering higher and leaving a bloody trial of torn flesh. Screaming was not an option and she choked back the cries of pain until the bile rose in her throat and she threw up everything she'd eaten earlier. Eyes watering and gasping for breath, she leaned both hands against the burned wood. Finally, the uncanny movement stooped. Most of the skulls on her arms had pushed up into a black mass circling her shoulders. The ones on her legs had shifted high on both thighs. She looked more closely at the dark mass. There were round spaces in it. Two on one, two on the other. She twisted around and looked at the back of her legs. More spaces. It took a moment to realize the hundreds of tiny tattooed skulls had merged into a large skull , one wrapped around each thigh. The mass on her arms and shoulders probably made the same thing. She wouldn't be able to tell without a mirror.
“What the hell,” she gasped. “What the freaking hell?”
Her body was shaking so hard, she could barely stand. The trail of torn flesh on her legs and arms was gradually scabbing over. Prime blood had uncanny clotting abilities. One reason they healed so quickly. With a little trill of alarm, she saw it was scabbed but not really healing, the pain pulsing in time to the beat of her heart. She picked at a bit of scab on her arm and saw the skin underneath still raw and red. This was not a good development.
Moving tattoos was so far outside her realm of experience, she didn't even know where to begin asking questions. The voice calling her here whispered Angelique's name. This was all about Angelique. Tamsin was just a bystander, she felt it instinctively.
A Portal spell was scary enough. A Portal Spell targeting her? Off the scale.
The search was still in progress. She would have to process what just happened later.
“Get it together, Tamsin!” she told herself out loud.
Thank god she'd shed her clothes before she she did much bleeding. She pulled them back on as carefully as she could, wincing as she stretched the torn skin on her arms and legs. Picking up the lighter, Tamsin snapped the lid shut and put it in her pocket. It fell through back onto the ground. She looked at her jacket and saw the pocket was ripped in half.
“Oh crap,” she moaned. How was she going to explain this? One sleeve dangled by a few threads and the spell-fire had singed the hem of her pants. Her clothes were blackened and dirty from the roots. She did her best to brush the worst of it off, starting at the top and working down. She was pulling at a long twig still wrapped around her shoe when she heard a soft footfall.
Prime hearing is a formidable thing. Before her gun even cleared its holster, Tamsin had crawled through the narrow entrance and was out in front of the tree circle. Both hands around the barrel, she aimed the weapon at whoever had taken that step.
Chrysanthos stood a few feet in front of her. The dryad's eyes were pools of liquid green. Her hands were level with Tamsin’s gun, a spell ready in each palm.
“Prime! You said you would not disturb the grove!” she accused. The spells glowed brighter until veins of green popped out in the skin of her face. “You lied.”
Tamsin kept the gun on the dryad as she put another few steps between herself and the opening. “This wasn't me you idiot!” She gestured at the tree with her head. “There was a kick-ass power spell in there. Must have taken days to set up.”
Though she kept her hands raised menacingly, the dryad stared behind Tamsin into the circle of trees. “There’s nothing there.”
“Well, the magic is dissipating…” Tamsin started to say.
“No!” Chrysanthos cut her off. “I mean I feel nothing from these trees, they are not breathing.” She glared at Tamsin and the green pulsed faster through her veins.
“Hey, don't look at me,” Tamsin said shaking her head. “Your new pals with the cash are the ones who set this up.The hex was waiting for someone to trip it.”
Chrysanthos lowered her hands, letting the spell bleed into the ground. The dirt rippled around her feet from the earth energy and followed her as she walked abreast of Tamsin and stopped. The dirt continued moving forward in a wave that crested and broke as it reached Tamsin.
With a flick of her finger, the dryad raised another wave, this one higher than the last. The dirt came to an abrupt stop in the same place.
“Waiting for you,” she said very quietly.
Tamsin pushed by the dryad and entered the circle. She motioned for the other woman to follow . “Come on then, I'll show you.”
Chrysanthos didn’t move.
“What are you waiting for?” Tamsin said impatiently.
The dryad stood very still, looking right and left. “Where are you?”
“Hey! Come on!”
Crouching low, Chrysanthos put her hands up again and the green magic jumped from the ground to her fingertips.
Tamsin waved the gun up and down, “Come on! I'm standing right here!”
The dryad's eyes roved around, searching, but not seeing her.
Tamsin moved back and Chrysanthos jumped as if she'd appeared out of nowhere.
“I was standing right there,” she indicated the narrow entrance to the burned tree hollow. “Couldn't you see me?”
“I could not.”
“And you can't see this?” Tamsin pointed at the entrance to the tree cave.
“See what?”
That meant the cloaking spell hadn't dissipated. The magic was still active.
“This spell is for you,” the dryad said accusingly. “You did not just wander in. It called and you answered.”
Of course she was right. This spell was set up for specifically for Angelique. Unless there were other Primes wandering around with slithering skull tattoos. For all she knew that could be a thing. A Prime thing.
Chrysanthos raised her hands higher and the towering trees surrounding them vibrated in response.
“Oh power down, tree girl,” Tamsin said impatiently. “You're the one who allowed these people into the grove. Not me. Pretty sure they couldn't have done any of this without your initial permission. You looked the other way for two million dollars. You only have yourself to blame.”
Tamsin holstered the gun but repeated a defensive spell that tingled on the tip of her tongue, ready to manifest if she needed it. She had no desire to engage in a hexing battle with a posse of police and federal agents no more than a hundred yards away.
After a tense stare off, the other woman gradually lowered her arms and the trees became still.
“Do not speak of this to the humans,” she growled, and walked away.
“Yeah, “Tamsin muttered under her breath as she watched the dryad leave, “like I would walk over to Agent Edwards, shouting, 'Help! I was attacked by a hex'd tree!'”
She brushed angrily at the remains of dirt on the back of her pants. This jacket was going to have to go the way of all flesh. Was there a spare? She hadn't even opened the rolling suitcase to look inside.
An active spell was not a good thing. Consulting her little book, Tamsin found what she thought would work. She quickly wrote three runes around the tree circle in the dirt. These foundation runes looked deceptively simple, just rows of straight and crossed lines with a few circles here and there. Sometimes simple is better. Tamsin gave an involuntary shiver as she realized the thought echoed what Duprey said to her about threats.
Ripping out a few hairs – the spell called for something from the caster’s body – she knotted them four times, speaking a word at each tug. She set them next to the entrance to the cave. The circle was now ready to be closed. Writing the last rune, she felt them settle into place. A few drops of blood on the closing rune and she was ready. Taking a deep breath and focusing her will, she chanted the words to activate the spell. The trees nearby seemed to whisper the words along with her.
Nothing happened.
The spell ignored her.
Completely.
Taking a firmer stance and loosening up her hands and fingers, she set about weaving the intricate spell again. At the end, fingers laced, she threw in an extra word of power. There was a rush of air and something swatted Tamsin away from the trees and onto her butt. The hex’d redwoods groaned.
If the magic was a person, it would have sneered and given her the finger. The spell was intact and humming away with energy.This was some kind of anchor point and Tamsin didn't have the power to close it.
“I've got a body!” came a shout from across the grove.
Tamsin picked herself up out of the dirt. “Now they find it!”