A Grave Magic: The Shadow Sorceress Book One (13 page)

“
S
o are
you going to tell me what happened, or do I have to guess?” Graham asked, standing behind me as I filled out the discharge form.

I could still feel the female doctor’s disapproving glare boring holes in my back as I scribbled my name across the bottom of the sheet and, for the millionth time, readjusted the Elite jumpsuit Graham had brought in for me.

It was several sizes too big, but it was clean; so clean I’d had to rip it out of the packaging before I could pull it on. I slipped my arms into the sleeves of Nic’s jacket. It was the only thing the hospital hadn’t confiscated, and for that, I was more than a little grateful.

“Vamp bit me and set fire to my apartment,” I answered in as bored a tone as I could muster.

There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell that I was willing to explain to him that I had caused the fire. Especially when I still hadn’t fully wrapped my own head around it.

I’d been angry, but the sudden flames had been something else altogether. That and the rush of power. I’d felt it, just like I had when Madeline had tried to take it from me, whatever “it” was. Power like I’d never experienced before, magic so strong….

Well, it just wasn’t something I wanted to think about. I had way too much on my plate as it was without adding complications like that to it.

Graham shook his head, but he didn’t continue to question me and, for that, I was glad. I knew he had more questions; I could practically feel them beating at my skin like bats, but he was keeping his mouth shut on them for now, at least.

Stalking down the corridor, I made it as far as the elevator before the female doctor who had treated me called out.

“You’re making a mistake, Ms. Morgan. If something goes wrong, this is on your head.”

She was just trying to scare me. Trying to force me to stay in a place I had no intention of hanging around in a moment longer than was necessary. But there was something else about her words.

It wasn’t intentional on her behalf, but it did have the ominous feeling of a warning.

There was no mistake where leaving the hospital was concerned, but I was making a mistake in something else. Had I missed something important, something that could crack the case?

I just wasn’t sure, and my head was pounding so hard it felt as though something was trying to beat its way out through my skull.

“She’s cheery,” Graham said with a smile as he pressed the button in the elevator for the ground floor.

I wanted to smile, to nod and agree with him, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. There was something at stake, something more to Joanna’s death, more to the two vampires taking Christina, and a hell of a lot more behind the vamp attack in my own apartment. The question wasn’t whether I was smart enough to solve the case. It had become would I be capable of preventing whatever was coming and survive it at the same time?

G
raham pushed open
the door to his apartment and I followed him inside.

“You can take the bed, I’ll get some clean sheets and….”

“Graham, don’t worry about it, the couch is fine. I probably won’t do much sleeping anyway. You go back to bed….” He studied me for a second as though a protest was right on the tip of his tongue.

Whatever he saw in my face made him change his mind, and he nodded. “If you’re sure then.”

“I am,” I said, dropping down onto the couch and pulling one of the folded up blankets from the back of the sofa over myself. “And, Graham,” I said, causing him to halt in the door way to his bedroom. “Thanks for this, and thanks for not asking too many questions.”

I watched the emotions go to war on his face. He wanted to know the truth, he wanted answers, reasons behind the vampire attack, and that was something I couldn’t give him. It was something I didn’t have myself.

Finally, he smiled and disappeared in through the bedroom door without another word.

I lay on the couch and stared up at the ceiling as the car lights from the city streets below passed by. Morning was coming; I could practically taste it on the air, but I didn’t want to move.

Lying on the couch, buried beneath the blankets, seemed like a much better use of my time. My arm was beginning to really ache, the pain spreading up into my shoulder and neck, and the smoke I’d inhaled still caused my lungs to hurt each time I sucked in a long, deep breath.

But I was alive.

Another thing I could add to my list: survived vampire attack and setting own apartment on fire before being knocked out and left for dead. I could put it with the other near death experience I’d had. Surviving a demon attack wasn’t something just anybody did, but it wasn’t as though I could really claim credit for it.

Sitting up, I wrapped the blanket a little tighter around my shoulders. If I was honest, I couldn’t claim any credit this time either. It had been my father calling out to me that had woken me in the fire. Without him, I would have been toast; the type that wouldn’t taste good with butter.

With a sigh, I pushed up onto my feet and padded across the floor to the pictures lining the walls. The last time I’d been here, I’d seen them, but I’d been too caught up in the surveillance footage Graham had taken of me misusing what little magic I had to pay any real attention to them.

Following the pictures along the wall, I stared at the progression of happy family photos. They were nothing at all like the ones I had.

One picture in particular caught my eye; Graham in his police dress uniform, the hat covering most of the top half of his face from the sunshine that beamed down on him, and the young girl standing in front of him.

There was something so utterly familiar about her face, but I couldn’t figure out where I had seen her before. I studied the picture a little harder, taking in the way her dark hair fell about her shoulders and her wide, blue eyes.

Where did I know her from?

Moving down the wall, I continued to scan the pictures; each time I saw her she seemed a little more familiar. And then she disappeared. It was like she was no longer a part of the laughing, smiling family that existed on the wall.

Moving to the next wall, I froze, the blood in my veins turning to ice as I found what I was looking for.

I did know her. Not in reality. We’d never actually met before, but still I knew her.

Her cupid-bow lips were done up in a scowl as she stared at the camera and Graham stood next to her once more, beaming into the camera lens. They were complete opposites of one another. And yet the closer I looked the more I could see the resemblance.

Why hadn’t I seen it before?

Because you weren’t looking for it.

The voice in the back of my mind piped up, reminding me of the truth. The girl in the pictures, Graham’s daughter, was the same young woman I’d seen in my vision, the one who’d taken the male vampire’s hand as they climbed the stairs together. The one he’d called baby. The one who’d held the struggling body of Christina and forced her to watch her brother’s neck getting broken.

Graham’s precious missing daughter was the other half of the sick couple that had murdered the Sidwells.

How was I supposed to tell him that his daughter was dead, that she was a vampire? That she was one half of the murderous duo we sought? He had so much hope, so much resting on the idea that he would get her home, that she could be saved if only he could get her away from the one who had taken her.

But if all that was true, then Graham had been right when he’d said he’d seen his daughter. She had survived the vamp’s nest getting burnt to the ground, and the hunter that had turned up at Graham’s door had been wrong.

It seemed unlikely that he would be so wrong about the situation.

There had to be more to it then I knew. There had to be a reason why he would lie so blatantly, but what could it be?

“Can’t sleep?” Graham asked, his question in the stillness of the apartment making me jump. “Sorry, didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said sheepishly as I turned to face him.

I couldn’t keep my emotions from my face, I’d just figured everything out and I wasn’t a particularly good liar. The fact that nearly everyone who knew me seemed to also know my deep dark secret was testament to that.

“What’s the matter?” Graham said, crossing the room to pause in front of me and the pictures on the wall.

“Nothing,” I lied, fighting to keep the truth hidden from him.

“Did you have a vision or something? Do you know something about Jessica? Is she hurt?”

There were so many questions, and his voice was filled with so much worry and concern that I turned away from him. It was the only way I could guarantee that I didn’t just blurt the truth out to him.

“I don’t know anything about her, Graham, you know that…. Everything is too fragmented.”

“Bullshit, Morgan. I’m not a fool; I was a cop for twenty-five years before I joined the Elite, I know when someone is lying to my face.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Jesus, why can’t you just mind your own business and stop constantly poking your nose in places where it doesn’t belong?”

“Morgan—” He grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him, “—this is my daughter we’re discussing, this is my business.”

“And I’m telling you I don’t know anything about her.”

“I don’t believe you.”

I could see the pain in his eyes as he searched my face, the hope that flared deep within him still flickering after all this time. If I told him what I knew, I would kill that piece of him, that part of him that still cared about things, that still fought.

“Believe what you want, I’m leaving.” I said, crossing the room and grabbing Nic’s jacket from where I’d left it over the end of the sofa.

“Please, Morgan, just tell me if she’s still alive….” His voice was low and pitiful. It pained me to hear it and I paused with my hand on the door knob.

“She’s not gone, Graham; that’s all I’m going to say on the matter.” I pulled the door open and stepped out into the hall.

I could feel him gearing up to ask me more questions, and without thinking about what I was doing I picked up my pace and started to run. I raced to the stairs and practically flung myself down them in my haste to get away, to escape the pain and the anger that coursed through his veins.

We all had out crosses to bear, but I refused to carry someone else's. I didn’t want it, and I sure as hell didn’t need it. I had my own problems to deal with, and just because one of them was somehow connected to his daughter didn’t mean jack squat.

Grabbing the front door, I flung it open, letting it flop back against the stone brick work of the apartment block as I drank down long gasps of cool morning air.

My first day out in the field might have been over, but it had sucked far more than I ever could have expected.

T
aking up a steady pace
, I jogged down the road as the first of the early morning commuters started up their days. The looks I received from them would have been enough to make a self-conscious person want to crawl away and hide, but I didn’t care.

I knew I looked like Hell, but the day they fought off a vampire and survived an apartment fire, in that order, was the day they could come bitching to me about fashion sense and perfect hair.

The crisp air made my lungs hurt even more than they had inside and each step I took was harder than the one before. A nasty combination of exhaustion and smoke inhalation.

Reaching my own street, I paused; the emergency vehicles were gone but I could see the city’s fire investigation truck pulled up outside the apartment block and my heart sank. If they were here it would mean only one thing. Questions and lots of them.

I could just keep walking, walk straight past the apartment and go somewhere else, wait until they’d left, but the thought of standing a moment longer in public wearing the Elite’s ridiculous jumpsuit for wet work was too much.

I wanted my own clothes, my own everything…. Even if that meant a charred and sodden mess. Which was exactly what I was expecting.

Crossing the street, I climbed the front porch and pushed open the front door. There was no one in the entrance hall, but I could hear voices coming from somewhere up above me.

I climbed the stairs as slowly as I could. It was prolonging the agony; the sooner I got this over and done with the better, but I just couldn’t bring myself to go running head long into the middle of it all.

Reaching my floor, I spotted a woman dressed in a smart charcoal-coloured suit standing outside my door before she saw me. If I was going to run, now was my opportunity.

Instead, I moved towards her, my pace slow and deliberate and she lifted her face and glanced in my direction. The moment her gaze met mine, her back stiffened and I could see the suspicion that filled her eyes. She was obviously just as much of a rookie as I was. She hadn’t yet managed to master the art of cop face.

“Are you Amber Morgan?” she said. Her tone was authoritarian and instantly put my back up.

I did not like her. And I could tell from the way she was staring at me that she didn’t like me.

“Yeah,” I said, reaching the apartment door and craning my neck to peer around her and into the rooms beyond.

“Then perhaps you’d like to tell us what happened here last night?”

“Vampire attacked me, knocked me out, and the next thing I knew, the place was on fire around me….”

“So, you didn’t see who set the fire or…?” She trailed off but her silence said more than her words ever could.

They were suspicious. The fire didn’t look like an accident and it couldn’t have looked like a regular arson job or she’d have just come out and said it.

“Or?” I prompted. I needed her to spill whatever little secret they were keeping back from me.

“This vampire that attacked you, was he a friend of yours?”

“What?” I said, my mind reeling to keep up with the direction she’d suddenly decided to take the conversation in. “What has that got to do with a fire?”

“Just answer the question, Ms. Morgan; we need to work up a picture here and you’re not making it particularly easy.”

“I nearly died in a fire, I didn’t think I had to make it easy….”

“So, how did you get out of the fire? You said you were knocked out, but somehow you managed to crawl to safety. How is that possible?”

“I had help, a friend called round. He found me and—”

She cut across me, her voice grating on my nerves more and more with each second that ticked by. “This friend, does he have a name?”

“No, actually, he doesn’t. He’s an informant, I don’t need to give you his name.”

It wasn’t strictly the truth. Nic wasn’t my informant, and in an ongoing investigation, I was pretty sure I would have to give her whatever information I might have. But she was getting on my very last nerve and the last thing I wanted to be right now was friendly.

“Ms. Morgan, you do realise hindering an ongoing investigation is an offence.”

“And you know who I am, you know I work for Elite. You know I’m going to have lots of enemies who might contemplate knocking me off when I’m at my most vulnerable. Why you’re standing there like Miss High Almighty, questioning me and treating me like the criminal, is beyond me….”

“What the hell is going on out here?” A male voice cut over my announcement and I took a step back as someone I assumed was the real Chief of Arson Investigation stepped out through the apartment door.

“Sir, I was just—” She started to speak, her words coming out faster than she could keep track of them.

“Gillian, you were just nothing. You know you don’t have the authority to question anyone without me present.” His tone was mildly scolding, but there was a softness in his eyes as he looked at her that told me immediately that their relationship was more than just boss and underling.

Covering my mouth with my hand, I coughed politely, drawing his attention from her and back to me.

“Can I get into my apartment now? There’re some things I need to pick up….”

“I’ve got a few questions for you, Ms. Morgan, if you’d join me down the station once you’re done here.”

“And I would love to, but, as I was trying to explain to your colleague here, I’m a member of Elite. I have enemies, and right now I’ve got enemies that would rather I didn’t continue working the case I’ve got. That means I’m getting close, and if I’m stuck downtown, answering questions for you lot, then I won’t be out on the street doing my job.”

He shuffled on the spot, his eyes studying mine before he let out a sigh and pushed his hand back through his hair.

“Fine, after work hours, but I do need to talk to you.”

There was something about his tone of voice that made me nervous. I’d detected something in the one he’d called Gillian; there was something they knew that they weren’t sharing with me. Whatever it was, I needed to know it.

If they’d somehow managed to figure out that what had caused the fire was magic, then I was in more trouble than I could handle. I couldn’t explain it away; vampires didn’t have magic as far as I was aware, or, well, as far as anyone was aware.

It wouldn’t take much for them to make a leap in logic, and if they did that, if anyone suspected me for even a moment, then that would be it. I would lose my job; the Elite wouldn’t run that kind of risk, whether or not I was guilty.

People would start digging into my past and they would eventually find something.

I was stuck.

“Fine,” I said, keeping my voice as devoid of emotion as I could. Of course, if I gave the game away myself, if I sounded stressed or panicked by the thought of going to their meeting, then that in itself would be enough to make them start digging around on me.

I pushed into the apartment past him and my knees felt weak as I surveyed the damage. It was destroyed; everything as far as the eye could see was either water damaged, smoke damaged, and if that hadn’t affected it, then it was burned or charred.

My stomach did a frightened flip as remembered my weapons belt. I carried an athame. If they were suspicious about whether magic started the fire or not, finding an athame in the apartment would give them all the proof they needed.

Shit.
I started for the bedroom and paused in the doorway. There was nothing left of the bed, the mattress was burned right down to the springs. Scorch marks covered the walls and, in places, I could see where the paint had bubbled and peeled away to reveal the stone and concrete beneath.

Only real heat could cause damage like that.

I had caused it.

Shaking my head, I crossed the room and scrambled through the pile of items heaped in the corner. Pulling the weapons belt free, I stared down at the place where the blade should have been and my heart froze.

It was gone.

That wasn’t possible, I remembered leaving it with the weapons belt; taking it out only meant I was inclined to misplace it around the apartment. If an emergency came in during the night, the last thing I wanted to do was waste time by scrabbling around searching for it.

It couldn’t be missing. I wouldn’t lose something so important, something that meant so much to me. Tears burned at the back of my eyes blurring my vision and making my frantic search harder.

There were, of course, two possible alternatives to where the blade had gone, but neither of them filled me with joy.

Either the arson investigators had found it and confiscated it—but I couldn’t help but think that if they had then they would have said something at the door—or the other and, much more likely, scenario was that the vampire that had attacked me had taken it with him.

Whatever he was working for, whoever he was working for, was capable of doing magic. Having something so integrally connected to me gave them a power over me. It gave them an opening and if they had it the….

I cut off my own thoughts; there was no point in even going down that path. I wasn’t going to turn into a homicidal maniac just because someone stole something belonging to me.

I’d heard the stories when I was growing up back home, but it was flavour of magic that my mother and her white coven had no interest in messing with, so the details were something I was a little hazy on.

You could always ring her up,
the voice of reason in the back of my mind volunteered. It wasn’t something I wanted to do. Our last conversation was still too fresh in my head. If I called her up now and told her about what was going on….

Well, I was disappointed enough with myself; I didn’t need to add her very complex emotions into the mix too.

Sitting back on the floor, I threw my head back and stared up at the ceiling. My stomach clenched violently as my eyes focussed in on the symbol etched on the ceiling directly over the place where I’d fought off the vamp attack.

The runic symbols and the swirls of power left a nasty taste in my mouth and my head began to spin.

I could see it.

If I could see it, why hadn’t anyone else seen it too?

“When you steal power from the earth, it leaves a mark, a scar. One that can be seen by anyone with the gift. It becomes a signature of sorts….” My mother’s words rang in my ears, but none of that mattered. I wasn’t worried about the creation of a signature and that wasn’t what the symbol really meant. “Only the blackest of magics leave a signature. There haven’t been magical signatures left since the Shadow Sorcerers were wiped out.”

Only the blackest of magic could leave a signature. I had left a signature….

What the hell did it mean?

My mother was a white witch; everything she’d taught me was white and, for all intents and purposes, I was terrible at it.

Granted, I could do enough to get by, and certainly enough to earn the title and condemnation of a witch were anyone to learn the truth. But I wasn’t as powerful as she was. I couldn’t do the magics she could, it just wasn’t in me….

And yet, here I was staring up at the proof that said otherwise.

Terror caused my stomach to knot up.

I needed to get rid of the signature and I needed help, but who I was going to explain this to…? Well, that was a step I hadn’t considered, and one I didn’t want to think about.