Amanda Stevens - The Sinner

The dark eyes glinted. “If by police you mean John Devlin, does it matter? Now that you’re no longer together, he’s of no consequence to either of us.”

“How did...” I cut myself off before admitting my estrangement from Devlin. The last thing I wanted was to divulge my innermost pain to a predator in search of a weakness. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

“I’ve known about it ever since it happened. Word travels fast, even in deepest, darkest Africa.” Another of those mocking pauses. “Was the separation your idea or his? I’m assuming it was his.”

My chin came up once more. “That’s none of your concern.”

“Isn’t it?”

The intensity of his stare drew a deep shiver, and despite my considerable resistance, my own gaze slid back and locked on to his. A breeze drifted across the graves, bringing another draft of ozone and something spicy and exotic, like the perfume of a rare flower. I had a sudden vision of a moonlit garden filled with orchids and songbirds. A seductive oasis where untold dangers lurked in the shadowy recesses. That was what I saw when I looked into Darius Goodwine’s eyes.

I quickly glanced away. “I’m not going to discuss Devlin with you, of all people.”

He laughed softly. “I admire your loyalty, displaced though it may be.”

“Meaning?”

“You don’t know the man you’ve put on a pedestal as well as you think. Few people know the real John Devlin.”

“And you’re one of them, I suppose.”

“I know him better than most. We’re far more alike than he would ever dare acknowledge.”

“That’s not true,” I said coolly. “The two of you are nothing alike.”

Another flash of those white, white teeth. “To the contrary, I would suggest that the only real difference between us is this—I embrace who I am and what I’m meant to be while John Devlin is still trying to run away from his true nature.”

He was goading me and I knew it, yet I found myself asking, “And just what is his true nature, according to you?”

“Have you never wondered why a man who professes nothing but disdain for the unknown was so inexorably drawn to someone as mystical and mysterious as my cousin, Mariama? Her great beauty aside, of course. I’m sure he gave you any number of reasons for the attraction. He enjoyed flaunting her exoticness in the face of his grandfather’s rigid conformity. Or perhaps he told you that my influence changed and corrupted her. The woman capable of such dark deeds at the end of her life was not the same woman he fell in love with.”

Devlin had, in fact, confided both motivations, but I wasn’t about to betray him to a man we both considered an enemy.

Darius continued to study me. He cocked his head slightly, as if something puzzled him. “You must also have wondered about the medallion he wears around his neck. Why would a man who claims to have turned his back on the trappings and privileges of his upbringing cling to an emblem that epitomizes wealth and greed? But then, I suppose it’s hardly surprising. Men of his ilk have always had an affinity for secret societies, particularly those that protect and promote the status quo. John Devlin is no exception.”

I didn’t try to defend Devlin this time because there was an uncomfortable truth in Darius’s words. I had wondered about those very things. I’d fretted over Devlin’s relationship with Mariama ever since we’d first met and I’d contemplated his affiliation with the nefarious Order of the Coffin and the Claw on many a sleepless night. But I found it hard to admit, even to myself, that the darkness in Devlin and those mysterious gaps in his past still worried me.

Darius Goodwine had wasted no time in homing in on those niggling misgivings.

He knelt and picked up a stick, using the pointed end to trace the shadow of a gravestone in the dirt. I watched, mesmerized by his languid movements. His fingers were long and tapered like those of an artist and his nails were meticulous, bringing to mind the dirt-and-blood-encrusted nails of the victim.

Was that why he had come? I wondered. Did he know something about the dead woman? About her murder? Should I shout for the authorities? They were still combing the woods and the clearing. Too far away to hear anything other than a scream.

“The Order of the Coffin and the Claw.” Darius pronounced each word with derisive exaggeration as he drew a snake wrapped around a claw in the dirt.

I hardened my tone. “Why are we talking about the Order of the Coffin and the Claw or even Devlin for that matter? Why don’t you just tell me why you’re really here? What do you want?”

“You made an important discovery yesterday. You’ve no idea how important. In order to deal with the consequences, you must understand the deep roots and entangled affiliations of those involved.”

“By discovery, you mean the caged graves?” I slid a hand to my chest, tracing the outline of the key resting beneath my shirt. “How do you know about those?”

He smiled. “Have you forgotten that I have eyes and ears everywhere?”

“Even in the Ascension Police Department?”

“Everywhere.”

“Even on the other side?”

“Everywhere.”

“What do you know about those cages? About the victim?” I demanded.

“I know she won’t be the last to die unless you unmask her killer.”

I stared at him in shock. “Unmask her killer? How am I supposed to do that?”

“Think back.” His voice dropped to a silky murmur, soothing and hypnotic. “In all your years of research and cemetery work, surely you’ve come across references to other secret societies. Some, perhaps, with close alliances to the Order of the Coffin and the Claw. Have you never heard of a group called the Eternal Brotherhood of Resurrectionists?”

I frowned at the unfamiliar name. “No. But I know that body snatchers for hire in the early nineteenth century were called resurrectionists.”

“That was in Europe,” he said. “Here in the Lowcountry there was a more literal meaning—those who raise the dead.”

A shudder rocked through me. Those who raise the dead. What did he mean by that?

He continued to scribble in the dirt with the end of the stick. “For generations, the Order of the Coffin and the Claw provided men of a certain class and breeding—men like Devlin and his forefathers—protection from their indiscretions and unsavory appetites, but the Brotherhood promised them immortality.”

“How?” The flesh on the back of my arm crawled and I looked down to find a corpse beetle inching toward my wrist. Repulsed, I tried to flick the insect into the grass, but the pincers dug into my skin and clung. I glanced across the grave where Darius had drawn a likeness of the beetle in the dirt. He wiped away the image with the palm of his hand and the one on my arm disappeared.

For the first time since his arrival, I felt the shock of real fear. Darius Goodwine was up to his old tricks and everything inside me warned of imminent danger. I wanted to rise and put more distance than a grave between us, but my limbs suddenly felt weighted.

He was in control now, I realized. I could protect myself to a certain extent, but he was clever and cunning and knew too many ways around my defenses. I’d insisted that I wouldn’t discuss Devlin, and yet that was exactly what we’d done for almost the entirety of his visit. I’d convinced myself that I could keep him out of my head, but he’d slithered underneath the slammed door and manipulated my perception.

No more than a moment had passed since I’d glanced at the ground, but Darius had already etched another symbol. Where he’d wiped clean the rendering of the beetle, he’d drawn three linked spirals. I’d seen a variation of the emblem before, but there was something sinister about his depiction.