Eileen Wilks - Mortal Sins

Cullen didn’t so much break rules as explode them.

“How’s she doing?’ Karonski asked. “Is she getting fat yet?”

“You do know better than to use the word ‘fat’ around a pregnant woman, don’t you? Especially Cynna. She’s armed.”

Karonski chuckled. “Good point. You figure she’ll make sure Seabourne calls you back?”

“Yeah.” Among Cullen’s bad habits was ignoring phone calls if they weren’t immediately interesting. Lily thought the mention of death magic would get his attention, but you never knew with Cullen, especially when he was hip-deep in some complicated arcane research. Which was usually. “Listen, I’ve got one hypothesis that might fit. I’d like to run it by you.”

“Shoot.”

“What if the whole family was involved? Maybe Meacham got them to participate, told them it was some other sort of ritual they were performing. Some spells require multiple practitioners, right? If they’d all been part of it, then when the boy was killed, they’d all be smeared by it.”

He was silent a moment. “Theoretically possible, but you’d have a hell of a time proving it.”

“I’m going to have a hell of a time proving anything. Especially if the Wiccan coven Ruben’s sending can’t confirm that death magic was involved.” A limited number of Wiccan spells were the only form of magically acquired evidence admissible in court, but the coven might not pick up the traces Lily had. Cullen said that trying to get a spell to do what an innate Gift did was like programming a robot to walk. You could do it, but a toddler would outperform the robot.

In other words, there was a good chance the coven wouldn’t be able to find anything.

“Is he having Sherry’s bunch do the test?”

“Probably, and I know they’re good, but it’s been four days. The traces I felt were pretty faint. I . . .”

“What?”

She’d seen something move, or thought she had—at the edge of her vision, a flickering sort of movement. But when she looked in that direction, all she saw was a single swing swaying gently. The other swings weren’t moving.

A pale bird—a dove, maybe—took off from the other end of the swing set and she shook her head, feeling foolish. Must have glimpsed another bird taking off from the swing, making it move. “Nothing. I’m distractable today.” Maybe because she didn’t like the next question she needed to ask. “Karonski . . . exactly what does a death magic ritual take from its victim?”

“You’re asking about the soul.”

She hadn’t expected him to go there so fast. “I guess I am.”

“Different systems, different faiths, have different takes on that. Most Christian churches teach that the soul is indestructible, but a few of the evangelical ones disagree. Of course, they’re the ones who think a demon can steal your soul, so I don’t put a lot of credence in their opinion. Still, many Wiccans believe that death magic can damage a soul, while Islam—”

“I’m not asking about religion. What do we know ?”

“You asked about souls. Can’t go there without talking religion, because we don’t know a damned thing.” He paused. “You said Turner was knocked out while he was guarding the bodies. He had death magic on him.”

“It’s gone now.”

“Right, but how do you fit that in?”

“With a crowbar and a whole lot of maybes.” She raked a hand through her hair. “If Meacham is the killer, then someone else wandering in the woods last night used death magic on Rule. That’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. We don’t know how many people were involved in the ritual. Maybe Meacham had one or more confederates. But it doesn’t explain why ...”

“Why he or she didn’t kill Turner.”

Lily swallowed. “Yeah. I’m thinking maybe he or she couldn’t do it. Rule’s not easy to kill, and our second perp might not have had enough juice to do the job. If the death magic was shared between a bunch of ritualists, maybe . . .” She broke off, sighed. “That’s a lot of maybes.” She needed to talk to Cullen, dammit, about what was or wasn’t possible, but . . . she glanced at her watch. “Shit. I’m late.”

“You go, then, and I can go get me some eggs.”

Lily thanked him for the consult, put her phone away, tidied the take-out trash, and backed out of her spot in front of the school.

Religion. She hated the way it kept intruding on her cases. Not that she was opposed to religion, per se . . . Oh, be honest, she told herself. She had issues. Her father was Buddhist. Her mother was Christian. There’d been a discreet little war throughout her childhood on the subject. As a result, she was . . . well, not exactly prejudiced. Religion was fine for other people. She simply preferred not to think about it.

Lily pulled into the parking lot in back of the sheriff’s office. Karonski was probably right about most of what he’d said, but they did know one thing about souls. At least, Lily did. Souls existed. That was more than she’d known for the first twenty-eight years of her life, so she counted it as an important datum.

Especially since she’d had to die to obtain it. Lily climbed out of the plush car, shut and locked the door. And did her best not to remember.

INthe fresh light of an early summer morning, something hovered on the wide front porch of the two-story house, waiting. It hung near the door, remembering walls and that doors need opening, but not how to manage the trick.

The man was inside the house. It knew that without having any idea how it knew, nor did it wonder at its knowledge. Questions, curiosity, thought . . . none endured long in the constant fracturing that was its reality.

Cold, cold. So cold. It knew how to gain warmth; dimly it remembered that lesson and the bliss, the sheer joy of heat. For a little while, it had thought it was fixed. Freed. For a little while, it had remembered.

Something had gone wrong. What? It didn’t know, couldn’t hold on to the thought or what passed for memory, not with bits of itself breaking up, always breaking up, like ice chips fracturing under pressure. But it knew—without knowing why—that to be warm again, it would have to leave this house.

It didn’t want to go. The man was inside. The one who knew it. It wanted, needed, to wait here, wait for the man to come out the door. If it could be close to him again, maybe it would know . . .

It no longer remembered what was missing. What it needed to know.

The howl of anguish was silent, a shuddering despair too great for its shredded being. It quivered and lost track of doors and houses and whatever had held it in one place.

Deep in the darkness of its fractured self, it heard The Voice.

Maybe the calling had been there all along; maybe it was newly come. It only knew the loathing and fear and promise of The Voice.

The call would grow louder, until it could no longer resist. It had to escape. It had to get warm again. Once it was warm, it wouldn’t hear The Voice, and then it could remember . . . surely warmth would let it remember enough. Then it could find the man who knew it. Maybe it could ask the man . . . whatever it was it needed so badly to know.

Once it was warm again. Yes.

It skittered away from the house, searching. Resisting the need to return to The Voice. Warmth would protect it, provide for it—yes, it remembered that much: when it was warm enough, The Voice went away.

Once it was warm again, all would be well. Yes.

It glided down the street—lost, fragmented, starved. Picking up speed as it went. Warmths were everywhere, but at first it found only the small warmths. Some of those would let it in, but the small warmths weren’t enough. It remembered that. It needed more.