whiskey witches 01 - whisky witches (27 page)

Yeah. She could use the support and the backup. Brian might not know how to handle himself in a fight with a demon, but Dexx did.

It did give her time to scope the place out. No movement. None. No graffiti. No signs of disturbance from the outside.

She called up her globe and searched again, hoping for a glitch. Afterall, she’d been possessed by a demon. Maybe that had jacked things up. She pulled the perimeter back. No one. It was like, either all the magickal people on the continental U.S. were hiding under the same shield, or every single one of them had disappeared. She couldn’t figure out which scared the crap out of her the most. She couldn’t even find her grandmother, mother, or sister. She was always able to find them.

Dexx must have traveled a bit cross country. Well, it really wasn’t that bad. Just dirt roads that could barely be considered roads anymore. Paige heard Jackie’s rumble and a car door slam. She gritted her teeth as she played all the possible conversations that were about to ensue. They all started with, “What were you thinking?” and ended with, “Shut the fuck up.”

Brian walked back to meet Dexx half-way. The sun slid behind the trees, casting long shadows over the gravestones.

Paige didn’t want to be left by herself, even though she had full control over her gifts. Yes. She recalled she had great and powerful abilities, but it had been years since she’d used them. Like a runner who used to do marathons taking a break for three years.

Dexx had his duffle bag slung over his shoulder, his sawed-off in his right hand. His expression was tight, fixed. “I see you found their lair.”

“Maybe,” Paige said, matching her gait to his as she turned and headed back toward the church. “Seems empty now.”

“Then why are we here?”

“To see what they left behind.”

“What are we hoping to find?”

She frowned at him. The shadows hid his expression at that angle.

He stretched his neck. “I just want to know if this is even worth the trip.”

“We’re here.”

“And there could be a trap in there.” He stopped and hitched the bag on his shoulder. “What brought you here?”

“The scry globe.”

Brian folded his arms over his chest.

“And what did you see?” Dexx asked.

“About a dozen demons in this location.”

“You’re sure.”

“My globe has never lied before.”

“Okay. Fine. I’m assuming you’ve scried since you got here. Where are they?”

Paige faced the church and let out a long breath. “I don’t know. Nowhere.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said, twisting toward Dexx, “I can’t see them. They’re either hiding or they’re all gone. All of them. Every single one of them, including Grandma and Les, and every other magickal person out there.”

Pale light from above, probably the moon, glinted in his eyes. They concentrated on her chest.

Paige touched the bandage. It seemed like days ago, but her abduction had been mere hours ago. Well, a bit longer than that, but still. Her wounds hadn’t healed and she hadn’t thought much of them. “What is it?”

He shook his head and stomped toward the church.

Brian moved to follow. “I feel as though I missed something.”

Dexx wasn’t forthcoming with answers.

Paige was just as confused as Brian.

Reaching around his back, Dexx pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and turned it on with a loud click. The interior of the church was one large room. The bell tower reigned in the far back, rafters partially fallen, dangling dangerously. He scanned the roof.

“Looks a bit unstable,” Brian commented.

Paige pulled out her phone and brought up the flashlight app. After a second or two, the light came on, bathing the area in a bright light. “I’m looking for anything other than dirt and leaves.”

“Like?” Dexx asked, meandering toward the back.

“Like a clue as to where they are and what their next move is. The idea is to stop them, Dexx. Before they kill someone else.”

Brian pulled out his phone, staring at it. “How’d you get the light thingy to work?”

“App.”

“Oh.” He flailed with his phone, then shoved it in his pocket.

Dexx dug another flashlight out of his bag. “Here.”

Paige decided to ignore his tone and the set of his lips. She already knew he was unhappy with her. She had a job to do and she wasn’t going to stop because someone targeted her.

There was the fact, though, that Sven had no idea they’d been able to expel Lucius from her body. Or that he was still in the area.

If she had to, she might play that card. But when? How?

“Don’t touch anything.”

She glared at Dexx. Like she needed the reminder.

Brian headed toward one wall. “How’s the shoulder?”

Paige ran the question through her mind, trying to recall what he was talking about, then remembered in a flash. Dexx. He’d been shot before she’d been kidnapped. How had she forgotten? Like the wounds carved into her flesh, his was still new, raw.

“Fine,” Dexx said, shining his flashlight into the bell tower. Finding nothing, he moved to the walls.

The walls were bare. The dirt floor had no markings on it. A few footprints, but nothing to show over a dozen demons had been there. Maybe they hadn’t been in the church.

“I’m not seeing anything.” Dexx spun, his flashlight pointed at the dirt floor.

“Me either.” Brian flopped one hand against his leg.

“This is so frustrating.” Paige took in the scene one last time. “I know they were here.”

“And you searched the area around the church?” Dexx asked.

“Yes.” The only signs of . . . the broken branches, the smashed grass. Maybe she’d gone in the wrong direction. “I’ve got an idea.”

Dexx and Brian followed her out of the church and into the woods. It took her a moment to find the path again. It had been difficult to see the first time. She wasn’t a tracker, had never been taught. There it was again. A broken branch and blades of grass smashed outward.

“I see it.” Dexx took the lead. “Someone taught me to track. I can read the trail better.”

She shrugged. “Fine.”

Even with her “super bright LED flashlight app,” the going was crazy. The vegetation was thick. The night impossibly dark.

Or was she finally getting scared of the dark? After all these years, raised the way she had been. It seemed hard to believe, but there it was. The dark terrified her.

Dexx passed a point that might have been where she’d intersected the path. Maybe. Everything looked so different at this point. He kept going, tramping as quietly as he could.

Brian wasn’t as light on his feet.

Dexx stopped suddenly, holding his arm out to stop Paige.

“What?” She stepped around him then froze.

Brian followed suit, but went to the other side of Dexx.

Blood. Everywhere. And fresh.

“I don’t see a body,” Paige murmured.

“Me either.” Brian’s voice lowered as if he were forcing his words around something lodged in his throat.

“How many people were in that coven?” Dexx asked.

“I didn’t ask.” Paige kicked herself. Why hadn’t she thought to ask that? She’d been trying to get Malika to flub up and admit to being the killer, or at least knowing him. She knelt and reached for a blade of grass.

“Don’t!” Dexx slapped her hand away, the bag falling as he stooped. He straightened, rearranging the bag over his shoulder. “Don’t touch anything.”

Brian ran his free hand over his head. “I thought you said they were killing people to get Lucius to possess them.”

“I thought they were. It made sense. Everything fit the puzzle.”

“Then why are they still killing?” he demanded rounding on her. “That’s fresh blood. I don’t have to touch it to know. I can smell it.”

Also, there was the fact it hadn’t dried and turned brown. Even in the not great light, she could tell it gleamed. “Maybe it’s not human.”

“And maybe we have another body that’ll turn up at the shack tonight.”

Paige dug her elbow into her knee and stared at the bloodied grass in deep thought. Why had they taken her to the cellar? She didn’t even know which cellar, only that it was one. And yet, all the other sacrifices had been conducted here. Granted, it was a leap in logic. The evidence hadn’t been gathered, but there was a lot of blood here. Some old. Some new. It didn’t take an Einstein to see that. More than one body could carry. It splattered on the branches, the leaves, the vegetation—everything in a wide circle of maybe six feet in diameter.

What was going on here? She scanned the area for clues, afraid to touch anything. Her spidy senses told her nothing. Her gift didn’t register anything.

She was blind. Her scry globe didn’t work.

She was being played. Again.

D
EXX RETRIEVED JACKIE,
bringing her closer to the church. He’d needed to stash his “tools.” Brian made a call on his cell and within minutes—which might have been longer than that in reality—a car parked on what had once been a gravel drive at the church behind Jackie.

A tall, white man with a bit of a belly stepped out of his unmarked car. “Brian. I didn’t think you’d actually call,” he said with a soft Southern drawl mixed with something else that marked him as a native-born Louisianian.

“But you were in town anyway?” Brian clasped the other man’s hand.

“I thought I’d come by and ask what was going on in person. See what all the commotion was about for myself.”

Brian turned to Paige and Dexx, waving them over. “We have a case and I don’t know how many of my people I can trust.”

Paige narrowed her eyes at him, trying to tell him to keep a few things to himself. “Detective Whiskey.” She offered her hand.

“You’re new,” the other man said, taking it.

“Chief Jim Nolan,” Brian introduced. “I called her in from Denver.”

Chief Nolan’s eyes widened.

Brian nodded in response. “This is Dexx Colt. He’s a specialist who assists her on cases like this.”

“I see. So, what kind of case do we have here?”

“Paranormal.”

Nolan rolled his eyes in the glare of the flashlights. “You can’t be serious.”

“Dead serious. Someone thinks he’s raising demons.”

“You haven’t drank the Kool-Aid, have ya?”

“Of course not, but I’ve got people dropping all around me, Jim. People I knew. And the things this guy is doing to them, it’s beyond horrible.”

Nolan took Brian’s shoulder and squeezed it. “What do you need me to do?”

Brian gestured for Nolan to follow and led everyone through the woods to the crime scene they’d discovered. “I need someone who isn’t on my team to gather evidence and process it.”

Grabbing Dexx’s flashlight, Nolan scanned the scene, then reeled back. “What is that? Animal slaughter?”

“We think we found where they’re torturing their victims before killing them.” Brian joined his friend at the edge of blood-stained grass.

Nolan swiped at a tall blade of grass. “This is fresh.”

“And I know where the body’s going to be.”

“Brian.”

“I know.”

Paige stopped at the edge, unwilling to touch anything. As the expert called in to help on the case, she wasn’t doing much of a bang up job. Guilt was such a small word when pitted against a scene like this.

“So,” Nolan said. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Detective, is this what you specialize in?”

Could she call it specializing if she kept allowing the killers to murder people? “Yes.”

“What can you tell—”

Brian’s cell rang. He dug it out of his pocket. “White.” A frown flickered between his brows. “What? No. I’ll be right there.” He disconnected the call and headed for the cars.

“Brian,” Paige called.

He stopped and turned to them. “We have a new body.”

“Like we knew we would.”

He closed his eyes for a long moment, his expression filled with sinking dread. “This one’s in town.”

Shit. “They changed their MO.”

“It would appear so.”

Fuck. “Nolan, how soon can your people be here to process this scene?”

“Half hour at best.”

“Call them, but stay here to keep it secure. Dexx, you stay with him.”

“No.” Dexx grabbed her arm. “I’m going with you. You have no idea what they have planned.”

“I won’t touch anything.” She took a step closer, her arm brushing his chest. “If anything demony happens here, you handle it. You keep him safe so he can do his job.”

“What are we doing here, Pea?” he asked quietly. “We know who the killers are. Let’s just handle this.”

“Two of the killers are human.” She peered at his face in the dark, seeing only shadows. “They can and will be tried in a court of law. The demon, though? Sven? He’s mine. But I have to catch him and I have no idea where he is.”

“I don’t like this.”

She didn’t either, but what choice did she have? Placing a hand on his chest, she pushed him out of the way. “We don’t have to, Dexx. We just have to deal with it.”

He didn’t try to stop her as she left to follow Brian through the woods to his car.

Brian took the corners sharp, his lights and siren blaring on, but he didn’t say a word.

Paige couldn’t blame him. The man had to be freaked. He knew the people piling up as corpses all around him. She didn’t think she’d handle it any better.