Stormrage (16 page)

Aspen looked sheepish.
"I also kind of figured you could use a hand if you found anything down there."

Raven frowned
, but Aspen was right, next to Ming the kid was the best forensic technician on the force. "Alright, you can come," she said. "But if any shooting starts you stay behind me."

"Pfft, I will be gone, Ray.
I'm a lover not a fighter," Aspen replied with a grin.

Raven shook her head and led the way through the snow-covered churchyard to the catacomb entrance.

The square building looked very much like any other tomb save it was sloped at the back, indicating stairs within. The entrance was barred by a large iron gate padlocked shut with what appeared to be the original lock. Raven inspected the gate and lock for a moment, holding the lock in her hand like she'd seen it before.

"Aspen
?" she asked. "Do you have that key we collected from Shevlin's belongings?"

Aspen rummaged in her kit and pulled out the bagged key.
"Right here."

Raven retrieved the key and tried it in the old lock
. While its iron matched the lock, the key wouldn't turn.

"Is this weirding out anyone besides me?"
Levac asked.

"Just you,"
Aspen and Raven said in unison.

Raven handed the key back to Aspen and gripped the lock, pulling it free with little effort.
She then opened the gate, which squealed like a witch's nails on a chalkboard and the small group entered. Aspen clicked on her Maglite as they proceeded down the crumbling steps, shining it alternately on the black lichen growing on the walls and on the ice-slick steps.

The stairs emptied into a foyer with several corridors branching off in different directions.
Raven started in one direction, but was stopped by Aspen's light touch on her elbow.

"Let's try this way, Ray,"
the girl said.

Raven looked at her, her detective instincts clicking on, but she sensed nothing
, but the helpful kid of whom she'd grown so fond.

"Lead the way, Aspen," she said after a moment.

Aspen nodded and turned right, heading down a sloping corridor that went toward the old church. After about thirty yards Raven stopped and reached up, touching the foundation stones of the old building. They felt strangely warm.

"Aspen, are you sure you know where you're going?"
she asked.

"Yes,"
the girl replied. "We're under the church. The stones always feel warm, I don't know why."

"Wait, you've been here before?"
Levac asked.

Aspen nodded.
"I told you, I wasn't always a crime scene technician. I used to play down here with some of the other kids from the orphanage."

"Nice playhouse,"
Raven said. "At least it would have been warm."

They continued to follow Aspen deeper through the catacombs.
The young woman stopped periodically to get her bearings and then continued, eventually reaching a door made of ancient English oak. It had been bound with black chains sealed with another black padlock.

Raven grabbed the chain
s and pulled, tearing them free of the door.

"Eat your Wheaties again, partner?
Levac asked, nodding toward Aspen.

"
I always eat my Wheaties," Raven replied. "Besides, I don't think much will surprise our Aspen, now will it?"

Aspen smiled faintly but didn't say anything.

The door opened on recently oiled hinges to reveal a large chamber that overlooked the river through a wall of smoked quartz. A black stone carved with occult symbols and covered in melted candles and jars of herbs, spices and crystals was placed before the quartz. A single black candle flickered in the breeze coming through the door.

"I guess we fou
nd our Dark Altar," Raven said, feeling black magik tingle on her skin and make her hair stand on end.

"One of
the darkest," Aspen said. "This is an altar Angul and it rests on leylines, dark power if I ever saw any."

"What's an Angul?"
Levac asked.

Raven frowned and began poking around the altar, looking for anything that might be a clue.
"He's a demon who kills people for fun, if you believe in such nonsense."

Levac pushed between Aspen and Raven.
"Ray…a couple days ago you fought a thing that just rose up out of the floor. I think I am starting to take a few things on faith, here."

"You should,"
Aspen said. "A spell was cast here, you can feel it in the air. These candles and herbs, they are all the things needed to request a boon from Angul and from the look of the altar it has been cast several times."

"So what…
someone was asking several favors from a demon?" Raven asked.

"
That's what it looks like," Aspen confirmed.

Levac looked at all of the items scattered across the altar.
"Favors from a demon…you know, working with you two isn't exactly normal police work."

Raven shrugged.
"No matter how weird they seem, in the end all crimes are human ones. No matter what the means used, every homicide has a human motive like love, hate or plain old revenge."

"Raven?
Come take a look at this," Aspen called.

She was standing next to another, smaller altar upon which burned two candles.
A poppet wearing a blindfold sat in the middle of the altar, next to a photograph of Lieutenant Frost.

"What the hell is this
thing?" Raven asked.

Aspen pointed
at the poppet, "I think that is what is keeping Frost from seeing you didn't kill Rayne DeGrey. I think it is a very powerful blinding spell."

Levac joined them next to the flat rock.
"Seriously? This little doll is why Frost is being an idiot?"

"To h
ell with that," Raven said. She blew out both candles and pulled the blindfold from the poppet.

"Not exactly how I would have ended the spell, but effective,"
Aspen said.

"So Frost should be coming out if it
and letting Raven off the hook?" Levac asked.

Aspen nodded.
"Any time now, if I'm right about the spell."

Raven nodded and looked back at the other altar.
"What about all this other crap?"

"The demon has already been summoned,"
Aspen replied. "The candle indicates it is under someone's control and will remain so until the candle burns down."

Levac reached
toward the candle, " so what happens if we snuff the candle?"

"Don't
touch it!" Aspen yelled.

Raven reached out and grabbed Levac's arm, pulling him away before the candle went out.
"Why not?" she asked. "How bad could it be?"

Aspen pointed to several sigils that meant nothing to
Raven. "The demon is out and doing the witch's bidding. The candle and these markings are what keep it under her control. If you put out the candle there will be an uncontrolled demon running loose in the city until its magik runs out."

Levac frowned, his eyes searching the altar.
"I'm way out of my depth here. If we can't just put it out what do we do?"

"Kill the witch that summoned it,"
Raven replied.

Aspen nodded.
"Kill the witch that summoned it. That will end the magik and send the demon back to wherever it came from."

"Great, now if we only knew who that was,"
Levac said wryly.

* * *

Aspen's attempt to gather trace evidence from the jars and candles turned up only a partial print which she collected and tagged; she would run it through AFIS in the morning. She had also bagged and tagged the poppet and the group had chained and locked the door with a fresh chain from Aspen's van to keep any snoops or the witches out and Levac had called in a patrolman to guard the catacombs in general.

The sun was coming up by the time Raven and Levac returned to the car and by then Raven had a message from Frost to report to the precinct.
They arrived shortly before 7:00 a.m. and the homicide office was quiet and almost empty. Frost leaned out of his office as they approached.

"Storm, Levac, my office!"
he ordered.

Raven looked at Levac and the two of them entered the office with Raven kicking the door shut behind her.

"Raven, I owe you an apology," Frost said as the two detectives sat down. "I've been going over the evidence that kid Aspen collected and I agree, there is no way you could have been in two places at once. Your injuries make it obvious where you were at the time DeGrey was killed."

He pulled open his desk drawer, removed Raven's badge and tossed it to her.
"I don't know why I am putting Chaos back on the streets, but you're unsuspended as of now. There's new info in the case as well. Zhu confirmed that the stiff in the morgue isn't DeGrey. Her name is Cassidy Stryker, a girl who went missing from Canada last month. A little hair dye and a boob job and she is the spitting image of Rayne DeGrey."

"I bet if we check passports we'll find a familiar name,"
Levac said.

Raven shook her head and smiled at her partner.
"No bet here, Rupe, cause I'm pretty sure you're right."

"You two are back on the case, I am pulling Gibbs and Murtaugh off as of now,"
Frost said.

"Thank you, sir,"
Levac said.

Raven nodded and the pair rose to leave.

"One more thing," Frost said. "Ray…I'm sorry about the Shelby. I know it was your father's. He was a good man and it meant a lot to see the old girl outside every day."

"Thanks, Chris,"
Raven replied. "I will find whoever blew her up before dad starts rolling over in his grave."

Raven and Levac had just sat down at their desks when Frost leaned out of his office
again. "A black and white just found another stiff. It is hanging from a light pole just outside Chi Che Wang Park. Get that kid Kincaid and go check it out!"

"Swell,"
Raven said. "Demons, headless bodies and we still don't even have a living suspect. Can I be suspended again?"

Levac stood and shrugged back into his coat.
"What would be the point? You were working the case even while you were suspended. Come on, partner, let's roll!"

Raven slipped into her own jacket hung her badge around her neck, happy to have the familiar weight hanging between her breasts.
She polished it with her sleeve and then followed Levac out the door.

En route to the new crime scene
, Levac called both Aspen to meet them at the scene and the border patrol to see if either DeGrey's or Riscassi's names came up around the time Cassidy Stryker went missing. By the time he'd finished arguing with the stubborn border agent, Raven was parking the 770 behind a black and white at the crime scene. Though the patrolmen were making an effort to keep the scene from prying eyes, the body dangling on two meat hooks from the street light was somewhat hard to ignore. Like Shevlin the body was headless and covered in cuts. On the man's back someone had carved and sewn 'Die Raven Storm'.

"This is getting more and more personal,"
Raven said.

Levac nodd
ed, his face somewhat green. "Then someone doesn't like you very much."

Raven climbed out of the 770 and started
toward the scene. "The feeling is mutual."

Chi Che Wang P
ark sat in the middle of a large condominium development, essentially surrounded on all sides by three and four story buildings. During the summer the park was alive with children running and playing and even on some winter days you would find kids playing after school. Today, it was thankfully empty except for a handful of crows hoping for a murder victim snack.

Raven
ducked under the crime scene tape and, ignoring the body, began to search the area around him, her gaze occasionally drawn to the big red slide in the middle of the playground. As before there was high-speed blood spatter from whatever removed the victim's head, this time on the fence that surrounded the park. The pattern indicated the victim had been sitting or kneeling when he was beheaded.

"Do all your cases come with multiple victims?"
Aspen asked, squatting and opening her crime scene kit.

"Most do,"
Levac said. "We always get the most interesting and gruesome cases. Raven thinks I look like this cause I'm a slob. It's really cause her cases give me nightmares."

Raven half turned her head to focus on something stuffed in a nearby storm drain.
"No…you're a slob and you sleep like a rock, Rupert."

She dusted off her hands and reached inside
the rusty old drain where she found a wad of clothing. She pulled out a pair of mechanic's coveralls, a pair of boxers and a pair of work boots that had an inch of blood in them. She turned the coverall until she could read the name: Kenny.