Matt Archer: Bloodlines (Matt Archer #4) (6 page)

“Looking forward to it.” Mike’s smirk was grim, but I could
see the anticipation in it.

Great…they were planning to kill each other on my behalf.
Well, screw that. “Listen up. Anyone starts a fight and I’m not speaking to
either of you ever again. Understand? I’m dead serious. Next one to act like an
asshole doesn’t get a word from me for the rest of this trip. We’re on an op
and this crap isn’t helping, so pull it together.”

Both of them looked like they wanted to start yelling, but
thankfully, we scored another interruption.

“What’s that?” Lanningham said, pointing at a lump in the
dirt about thirty yards ahead.

I peered over Dorland’s shoulder to get a better look
through the windshield. From the way it was lying, I thought it might be an
animal.

“Pull over,” Dad barked. “Stop, now!”

Blakeney asked, “Major?”

“Do it.” Uncle Mike sounded as unsettled as Dad. What had
gotten them riled up? It wasn’t anything but a dead kangaroo or something.

We pulled up behind the lump and came to a stop about
fifteen feet away. The headlights cut through the dark, shining bright and
unforgiving.

That’s when I saw the shoe.

We climbed out of the vehicle slowly. Dorland and Lannigham
held rifles at the ready, while Blakeney stayed in the truck in case we needed
to pile in and haul ass out of here. The night was still and I didn’t feel
anything stirring in the back of my head, either. Whatever had happened, there
weren’t any monsters close.

Uncle Mike and Dad approached the body. Gently, they rolled
it over so the person was face up. The arms flopped like a horror-movie
mannequin come to life, but it didn’t sit up and try to eat Mike’s face, so it
probably wasn’t a zombie.

“God,” Dad breathed, then knelt down next to the body.

Now that he was out of my field of view, I could see it was
a woman, probably in her thirties. She’d been pretty at one point, too.

Had
been.

Her face was contorted in fear and pain, her jaw slack and
eyes wide open. There were burn marks on her cheeks, arms, and bare legs. They
weren’t like burns from a lighter or a cigarette or even a campfire. No, these
were in a pattern—whirls, lines, symbols—decorating her skin.

Dad looked up. “Anybody know her?”

My horror was replaced by rage. “Only by reputation and a
picture.”

Mike gave me a sharp look and bent down to examine the
woman’s face. “Wait…I feel like I should know her, too.”

“You should,” I told him. “And Julie would recognize her
right away because Mamie sent us all pictures of her last year after I got back
from Canada.”

Air whistled through Uncle Mike’s teeth. “My God. She’s…that
physicist.”

“Dr. Burton-Hughes,” I said, nodding. “The woman we think
is—was—the Australian shaman. The one they kidnapped from Carlton University.”

He stood. “Just like Zenka and her husband.”

I didn’t say anything. That made three dead shamans. Zenka
had been murdered by her own tribesman. Her husband had been killed by the
monsters in Africa. Now we had Dr. Burton-Hughes. “And we still don’t even know
why they wanted her, exactly.”

“She’s been used in some kind of ritual,” Dad said, pointing
at the burns on her skin. “I’ve seen these markings before. Nocturna Maura
definitely had her.”

“I can’t even imagine what they used her for.” I paused,
feeling all my nightmares creep around me. “But people are going to keep dying
until we force the endgame. Until then, all we can do is minimize the loss.”

Well said
, Tink whispered.
Although that last bit
sounded a little familiar.

“Butt out,” I muttered. “Unless you’re picking up something
useful.”

The taint of darkness is here, on that woman. Whatever
these people are doing, they’re meddling with things outside their understanding.

“Should we turn back?”

No. Something’s happening, and we need to discover it
before the next blood red moon.

Which was in less than three weeks. The lunar eclipse would
bring more horrors than just a few Dingoes. Tink was right. We didn’t have any
time to spare cowering back in camp, making useless plans.

Dad took off his BDU jacket. After carefully wrapping Dr.
Burton-Hughes in it, he scooped her up and carried her to the back of the
Humvee.

“Um…shouldn’t we just bury her?” Dorland asked.

“We need to send her body to a forensics team.” When we all
just stood there, Dad said, “Can someone clear some of this gear for me?”

Lanningham did it and helped him settle her inside the
storage compartment. They covered her with a tarp that Dad tied up as a makeshift
shroud, which gave me a good shudder. Dorland didn’t look too happy about
having a dead woman ride along, either.

“Not a very dignified resting place,” he whispered to me.
“What if our equipment falls on her?”

“I never said my old man was sane, did I?”

We piled into the Humvee and Blakeney put the vehicle in
gear. By my estimation, we were about twenty miles out. A long way to go to
dump a body. Why had the witches wanted to put so much distance between
themselves and Dr. Burton-Hughes? Was Tink right? Were they messing with stuff
beyond their control and had realized it too late?

We were quiet the rest of the way. Every jolt and bump
across the pebble-littered ground grated against my nerves, which were already
drawn as tense and tight as a steel cable stretched between a couple of posts.
If Dr. Burton-Hughes was an example of what the coven did to a shaman, what
would they do to us if we weren’t successful out here?

Dorland caught my eye, then glanced down at his ordinance
pack. “They’re human. Bullets will work if need be.”

Maybe so, but that only made the prospect of killing them in
a firefight worse. I’d shot someone before—a kid. Sure, she’d been little
better than a zombie at the time and was about to kill me; still, that moment
haunted my dreams almost as much as the Shadow Man did.

Some wounds never healed.

The Humvee slowed. “Where do you want to stop, Major?”
Blakeney asked.

I looked out the window. It was deep dark outside, and I
could barely make out the shapes of stunted trees, brush and large rocks
dotting the plain. A place this barren made for bad cover.

“There’s a gorge to the west,” Uncle Mike said. “It’s a
little out of the way, but it’ll let us close to within a couple hundred yards
without being seen.”

Even though going in quiet was a good idea, I had a feeling
these people already knew we were here. But what else could we do? “Then let’s
go for a walk, sir.”

* * *

We crouched behind a cluster of thorny bushes at the edge of
a shallow ravine. Uncle Mike, using hand signals, sent Blakeney ahead to scout.
It was a shock how easily he disappeared into the gloom. Given how chatty he
normally was, I had no idea he knew how to turn into a ghost.

While he was gone, I counted my heartbeats. It forced me to
keep calm, because I wanted my pulse to stay steady and slow. It was kind of
hard, though. Tink was doing her best to light me up by running energy along my
nerve endings. Subtlety wasn’t really her thing and I pushed against her. I
couldn’t afford to be jacked up if we were planning an ambush.

Between one eye blink and the next, Blakeney appeared at
Uncle Mike’s right elbow and my respect for him went up several notches. I
hadn’t seen anyone that stealthy since working with my old hunting instructor,
Schmitz. Blakeney wasn’t quite
that
good, but the guy could sneak.

“What’d you find?” Mike whispered.

Blakeney shook his head. “All dark, sir.”

Dad rocked back on his heels. He’d been crouched next to me,
unmoving, the entire time we waited. “Nothing?”

“No, sir.”

Mike pointed at me. “Feel anything?”

I closed my eyes, stretching out my senses and opening up to
Tink. She seized the opportunity and my body jerked as she assumed some
control. The sound of wind sliding across the pebbly sand grew more distinct
and the fibers of my clothes set my teeth on edge as they rubbed my skin.

But that was nothing compared to the smell.

I swallowed hard to keep from gagging. Something was rotting
nearby. It smelled like raw steak that had been caught in a garbage disposal
for a few days—rancid, oily and…wet.

Tink let out a hiss.
This place is full of blasphemers
and the damned.

Pretty strong opinion. “You said we needed to gather clues.
Is it bad enough that we should leave?”

She was quiet for nearly a minute.
No. We must bear
witness to what they’ve done, but this place…I almost can’t stand it.

“Are you going to be separated from me again?” If that was
the case, I was leaving the investigation to the others.

I don’t think so. Still, if I start fading, leave
immediately and come find me.

Her distress really bugged me. “Major, I don’t think we’re
going to like what we find.”

Uncle Mike’s forehead creased. “Dorland, Blakeney, you’re
with me. Lanningham, you’re in command until I get back.”

Before I could protest, Uncle Mike checked to make sure he
had extra ammo, then led the other two out of the ravine. I closed my eyes
again, straining to listen for anything out of the ordinary.

“What’s up, Matt?” Dad asked.

“Don’t know.” I forced myself to take a deep breath and the
rotting smell made my stomach churn. “Something’s wrong, though.”

A light flashed, shining through my closed eyelids. My eyes
popped open and a reddish glow lit the ground above the ravine. A flare.

Lanningham rose slowly to take a look. “Blakeney’s waving us
in.”

I pulled myself over the dirt wall and jogged to Blakeney.
Behind him, a series of metal buildings squatted together like small children,
dwarfed by the miles of desert behind them. There was a propane tank and what
looked like an outhouse off to one side. Primitive, but proof the coven weren’t
a bunch of survivalists wandering in the wilderness.

Uncle Mike came out of the largest building, the one in the
center, and strode toward us. His face was an iron mask and fury rolled off of
him like this tangible thing. He grabbed my arm, spun me around, and started
pushing me back to the ravine.

“You aren’t going in there. You’re not, so don’t even
argue.”

“But…I need to see…Tink says--”

“I don’t give a good goddamn what Tink says. You are
not
going to see that, understand?”

“See what?” I dug my heels in and yanked my arm free.
“What’s going on?”

Dad came to stand next to me. “Major, is there a problem?”

Uncle Mike’s fists clenched. “Yeah. You brought us to a
death trap.”

Dad drew a sharp breath and took off for the building at a
sprint. Dorland staggered out before he got there and vomited all over the
ground. The same Dorland who watched everything with detachment, like they were
merely targets to be hit. Dad passed him and bolted inside.

I glanced over at Blakeney, who stood guard at the edge of
the compound. In the light of the flare, his face was drawn and he stared into
the distance like he didn’t see us at all.

“What’s in there?” I asked. When Uncle Mike didn’t answer, I
gripped his bicep. “Mike, look at me.”

Calling him Mike snapped him out of his angry simmer. “I’m
going to hate myself forever for putting you through this, Chief.”

I took a step away from him. “You ordered me to stay out.
Whatever I do now is my own fault.”

He didn’t stop me as I crossed the compound. Dorland sat
slumped against the wall of one of the outer buildings. He looked up when I
passed and shook his head. I heard voices when I reached the door. Dad and
Lanningham must be inside.

Taking a shaking breath, I pushed open the door. A few battery-operated
lanterns had been set up along a long hallway running along the back wall of
the building. To the right, an open doorway led to a kitchen. The next was a
small storage room that smelled of strange spices and a faint musky odor,
almost like skunk.

But none of it overpowered the stench of rot coming from the
doorway at the end of the hall. I crept slowly that way. There was still time
to leave. To avoid seeing whatever was in that room. But my feet had a mind of
their own, dragging me toward that final door.

Three steps away, my dad’s voice became distinct. “…digital
camera and specimen containers. We’re not going to want to transport any of the
rest.”

His voice was cold, unemotional. The super spy had come to
work while others flinched.

“Will do,” Lanningham answered. Unlike the rest of Uncle
Mike’s team, he didn’t sound like he was freaking out. Instead he sounded
incredibly sad. And that was worse.

He came into the hall and jerked to a stop when he saw me.
“Officer Archer? Matt’s out here. Should I take him back to the major?”

The pause went on so long, I wondered if my dad was debating
himself or ignoring us. Finally, he said, “I’m afraid he needs to see this.
He’ll probably understand it better than I do.”

Lanningham squeezed my shoulder, then stepped aside.

Wondering what I’d find, I went through the doorway.

The room was square, without windows, but someone had turned
on another lantern hanging from the ceiling. It didn’t do much to cut through
the gloom. Dad stood in the far corner, rubbing his chin. He looked like a guy
trying to figure out how to pull a truck out a muddy ditch, not someone
analyzing a shop of horrors.

But that was exactly what he was doing.

In the center of the room, four bodies—two men and two women
wearing white pants and shirts—lay in a circle around a heavy wooden table.
Each one of them held a knife.

Each one of them had a slit throat.

Blood had spread in a large pool around them, but no flies
were buzzing around. I could see why; no living creature would want any part of
this. Just like Dr. Burton-Hughes, there was something totally unnatural about
these corpses.

If it were just the bodies, I might’ve been okay, but it was
the table that glued me in place as bile scalded my throat. Its edge had been
carved with symbols similar to those on Dr. Burton-Hughes’s body. At the center
of the line was an upside-down pentagram—it was an altar, to the Dark. Tink
banged around in my skull, crying out in her own language. Her reaction was
nothing compared to how I felt when I finally noticed the little boy lying dead
on the altar’s top.

He looked like he might be sleeping. His dark brown skin and
dark hair were clean, as was his outfit of white shorts and a plain T-shirt.
Based on his size, the kid was probably six or seven, and he held a sprig of
green leaves against his chest with folded hands. Other than that, there wasn’t
a mark on him.

But he wasn’t asleep. He was dead, and I couldn’t tell how,
or why.

“Poison,” Dad said, as if the question were printed above my
head. “Best I can tell. Hopefully a type with a sedative effect, so he didn’t
suffer.”

“They were buying kids on the black market,” I rasped, as a
deep, burning anger rose in my chest. “Is this why?”

“That would be my guess. This boy is Indian. A long way to
travel to end up dead here." For a moment the emotionless façade broke
down and a fleeting glimpse of all the anger I felt flashed across his face.
“We thought maybe they were buying them to use as slaves—that’s bad enough—but
human sacrifice? Because that’s what this is. They sacrificed this kid like a
lamb to whatever deity they worship.”

“Then killed each other?” I forced myself to keep examining
the gory scene, hoping I’d pick up enough to give Tink a running start at
deciphering what it all meant because nothing here made sense to me. Not one
damn thing.

“No. Based on the wounds, they killed themselves. Ritual
suicide. Again, points to a cult-type religion of some sort.”

“How long ago?”

“It’s been a few days.”

“But
why?
” I came back to that question again and
again. “What’s the point of all this?”

“No idea, son.” He gave me a grim look and I was struck
again at how much I resembled him, right down to the cold-ass stare. Mike might
have taught me how to knot my shoelaces, but this man imprinted something
deeper on my genes. “Here’s the odd thing. There’s a gap.”

He pointed at a body-sized space between a dead man and
woman. Almost like another person should’ve been there.

“Did someone skip out?” I asked.

Now Dad smiled, and that scared me more than anything I’d
seen yet. He looked like a wolf, homing in on his prey. “Yes—Carrie. She was my
contact and she should be here. My guess, because of the empty space, is that
she started the ritual with everyone, then waited for all of them to slit their
throats before bolting.”

“But why would she do that?” How could someone just stand by
and let others kill a little boy then themselves?

“To avoid suspicion. You saw what they did to that
physicist. Carrie is playing a very dangerous game, and to our benefit. The
longer she can avoid detection, the more information I’ll get out of her.”

I noticed he didn’t mention that he’d eventually help her
escape the coven for her own safety, or that she was being brave. No, this
woman was a pawn in a bigger game—the one between Dad and Ann Smythe, the head
witch. Unease prickled at my scalp. I figured he’d be rational, logical and
cold. The ruthlessness surprised me a little.

By now, the smell of blood and death was making me
lightheaded. This was worse than any monster den I’d visited. Tink huddled in a
corner of my brain, seething, and her power had been steadily building—rather
than weakening—since we arrived. I had a feeling I’d go psycho if I didn’t get
out of here.

“I’m not feeling so hot. Think I’ll go for some air.”

Dad nodded. “Please ask Lanningham to come back. We should
take the boy with us. His family deserves the chance to bury him if we can find
out who he is.”

I paused in the doorway. “What about the rest of them?”

“I’ll finish with my pictures and take some samples. I’m
going to pull things out of that supply closet, too, and we’ll want to go
through the outer buildings, see if we can find any correspondence or records.
Maybe Carrie left me some clues or a message,” His expression was so cold, I
swore I could see ice crystals in the air. “After that, we burn the whole
compound to the ground.”

The reasonable part of me thought we should preserve it
somehow, save the evidence. The other ninety-five percent wondered if Dorland
had a spare flamethrower.

The less reasonable part won. “Can I help?”

“You deserve to be the one who throws the first match,” Dad
muttered, kneeling down to take a close up of one of the dead women.

I made my way outside, still dizzy and aching inside for
that poor kid. I had no idea if he had a family, or was a street-orphan from
Calcutta. Either way, he didn’t deserve to die this way, alone and afraid, far
from home.

“Major!” Dorland called. “Sir, we’ve found something.”

He and Blakeney were standing in the entry to one of the
small buildings at the edge of the compound. After telling Lanningham that my
dad wanted to see him, I joined Uncle Mike to see what was up.

“Sir, I think I should go for the truck,” Blakeney said. “We
need some bolt cutters for sure.”

Uncle Mike frowned. “
Why
do you need bolt cutters?”

Dorland pointed at the building. “You should come inside,
sir.”

After sending Blakeney for the truck, we followed Dorland
down a narrow hallway. Like the main building, the hallway ran along the outer
wall, and doors opened up on the other side. We paused at the first door and I
thought I heard whimpering.

“What’s in there?”

Dorland raised an eyebrow and opened the door. Inside, in a
makeshift cage made of iron bars, were four kids. Two were Asian, a boy and
girl. The other boy—the youngest of the lot—was black. The oldest was a girl
with big blue eyes and dirty blond hair. None of them was older than nine and
the littlest boy couldn’t be more than five.

“Hey guys,” Uncle Mike said in a voice he usually reserved
for Baby Kate. “Don’t be scared. We’re here to help, okay?”

The kids blinked up at us, and the little girl said, “We’re
hungry.”

Her English was accented, eastern European maybe? I knelt
down so I could see her eye-to-eye through the bars. “What’s your name?”

“Elske.” She pointed at the black boy. “He’s Ayax.” She
waved the Asian kids forward. “Dat and Mai.”

“You speak very good English, Elske,” I said. “Do any of the
others?”

She shook her head. “They didn’t have Elmo.”

Elmo?
Sesame Street
. Of course. “But you saw Elmo on
TV?”

“My mama let me watch when she had to work,” Elske said.

“How’d you get here, sweetheart?” Uncle Mike asked.

She shrugged. “Mama let me go to the park. Then…don’t know.”

“Kidnapped, probably,” Dorland growled. “When Blakeney gets
back, we’ll cut the locks and let them out. He’ll bring whatever rations he can
find in the truck, too. But, sir, there’s something else.”

He drifted to the door, ready to lead us to the next
problem, but Elske caught my hand. “Don’t go.”

“I’ll check it out,” Uncle Mike said. “You hang with our
friends here.”

They left and I sat cross-legged in front of the bars. I
didn’t have any food on me, so I tried to come up with ways to distract them
until Blakeney came. It took ten minutes, but by the time he arrived, I’d
taught them how to play Rock, Paper, Scissors. Well, mostly. Ayax kept waving
his little hands when I signed that scissors couldn’t cut rock. He didn’t seem
to believe me.

“Looks like you have a fan club,” Blakeney said, smiling. He
held up the bolt cutters. “Who wants to get out?”

The kids scurried to the back of the cage, cowering. I
looked up a Blakeney. “Um, Sergeant, they might think you plan to use those on
them.”

“Oh.” He lowered the bolt cutters. “How about I change their
opinion?”

He clamped the cutters around the lock and bore down hard.
There was a squeal and a scraping sound, then the lock brock free. I pulled the
door open and was almost knocked over as the kids dog-piled me.

“Yeah, I’m glad you’re out, too.”

“Archer.” Dorland stood in the hallway. “Got a minute?”

Blakeney held up a packet of protein bars and, in an
instant, my fan club disappeared. They gathered around his knees, reaching for
the food. I smiled. “Seems like I do.”

He led me to the last door and motioned for me to go first.
As soon as I hit the threshold, I stopped short, my heart in my throat.

The Shadow Man stared back at me.