Witch Hunt, A Paranormal/Urban Fantasy (The Maurin Kincaide Series) (14 page)

Masarelli
parked off to the side of the lot. We both got out and walked over to the warehouse. He slid the large metal door open and we went in. Halogen lights were set up throughout the warehouse, because the windows had been blacked out. I saw a few familiar faces from SPTF milling about. I waved and said hello as I followed Masarelli to the far end of the space.

We passed a makeshift office, a couple of tables with computers, GPS, COMM units and more technical gear.
There were some more folding tables with maps and papers strewn across them as well. Farther to the left was an old school chalkboard on wheels with what looked like a family tree drawn on it. There were two easels with flip charts on them in front of two rows of five folding chairs. I couldn’t see anything else yet, but judging by the number of people working back here, we were getting closer to the bodies.

“Did they move the bodies already?” I asked, trying to figure out what I was looking for exactly.

“There weren’t any bodies,” Masarelli replied.

“Then how do you know that ten people were murdered?” I asked, confused.

“There weren’t any actual bodies, but there were enough pieces left for us to figure it out. See for yourself.” He pointed to the right rear corner.

I headed in that direction.
Masarelli pulled me back.

“Watch where you’re going.
Just stay behind me,” he ordered.

I looked down to see that the cement floor about two feet in front of me was covered with blood. I fell in behind Matthison and followed him along the back wall.
He snapped his fingers and one of the officers turned the lights so that they lit up the corner. There were small white numbered flags everywhere, marking different bone shards and pieces of flesh. The walls and floor were covered with blood. It looked like someone had thrown open cans of red paint all over the place.

“And you seriously thought witches did this?” I asked
Masarelli in disbelief.

“You seriously think they didn’t?” he asked.

“It looks like a Pollock painting back here. If the coven was going to send out its best witches to kill the Inquisitors, do you honestly think that they would leave it looking like this?” I asked.

“If they were trying to throw us off and make us think that someone else did it, then yes,” he said.

“You’ve been watching the Sleuth channel again, haven’t you?” I asked, getting a few chuckles from some of the other officers.

“I know you know something.
You say the witches wouldn’t have done this, but maybe they sent their dogs in to do the dirty work for them; maybe they came in here and tore them all to bits,” he said, grasping at straws.

“Okay, a werewolf is strong enough to take down a Norm.
I’ll give you that. But why would they?” I asked, trying to follow his desperate logic.

He didn’t have an answer.

“You haven’t found anything to connect what happened here to the coven or to the wolves. And you won’t, because the Council has been cleaning up after the Others in Salem for centuries,” I told him.

“Thanks for proving my point,” he said.

“You damned well know what I meant! Did you know about the Others before the Shift? Of course not, because they didn’t leave shit like this for you to find. The only reason you know about them now is because they want you to. They would have made the Inquisitors disappear - not splatter them all over the walls,” I said.

“Wasn’t hard to win you over, was it?
Just had to get a hot guy to make some magic in your pants and you’d say anything they told you to,” Masarelli said, trying to degrade me.

“You think he’s hot?” I said, turning his insult back on him.

There was an immediate eruption of exaggerated coughing and throat-clearing in an effort to cover up the laughter of some of the officers who were within earshot. I walked away from Masarelli, careful not to step in any of the tacky blood on the floor. I took my phone out of my coat pocket and started taking pictures. Ignoring Masarelli’s protests, I continued to walk around taking more pictures at different angles, making sure to stay out of the way of the crime scene photographer.

I got a pair of gloves from one of the detectives and started looking at the p
apers on one of the tables. There were maps of Salem and Winter Island, a file on me that I know Masarelli read more than once, and more photos of coven members. I moved to another table. There were some papers that looked like they were torn out of a really old book, in a language that I couldn’t read. It looked like the Inquisitors were trying to translate them. I wanted to take them back to Mahalia, but I’d never make it out of here with them. I could feel Masarelli’s eyes on me. I took a few pictures of the papers, hoping that the zoom feature on my phone’s camera was good enough to glean some details.

They had enough evidence to prove that the Inquisitors murdered those girls, but that wouldn’t help us now.
Masarelli saw it as a motive here and I had to admit that it looked pretty bad for Mahalia and the rest of the coven. I couldn’t believe that the Inquisitors might actually succeed in their plan to take down the Salem Coven, albeit ironically. Masarelli was going to try to take this case all the way to the courthouse. He genuinely believed that the coven was guilty and that this proved that all of his prejudices were accurate.

There had to be something here that would prove the coven’s innocence and I was hoping to find it.
I had to find it.

Masarelli
was through letting me play in his sandbox. I could see him talking to a couple of uniforms and pointing in my direction. I decided not to wait for my escort and walked out of the dark warehouse and out into the bright winter sun. The same officer who looked like he couldn’t be older than twelve was at the gate. He gave the chain link gate a pull and opened it just enough for me to slip out. I walked about a block and called Oberon for a ride.

I was on the verge of turning into a popsicle by the time he arrived.
I climbed into his truck and started turning all of the vents toward me. Oberon kicked the heat on high, so I put my hands in front of one of the vents to thaw them out. I needed to invest in some gloves.

“How are you with bolt cutters?”
I asked.

“Why?”
Oberon groaned.

“We might need to come back here t
onight,” I said.

“What are we looking for?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet. There were too many people in there for me to touch anything, so I couldn’t get a reading,” I responded.

“You might want to figure that out b
efore we go committing a felony at a place that’s crawling with cops,” he said.

“I’m hoping that the pictures I managed to take will help.
We’ll skip over the areas that Masarelli’s team has been through. That should help narrow it down,” I said.

“I’m not sure I follow. Why are we ski
pping the places that SPTF looked?” he asked.

“Anything
Masarelli’s tagged as evidence will be pointing toward the coven. If we look at everything else we’re bound to find the real killer.” I explained.

“We’d be less likely to get caught if we had a vampire with us.
They can cloak themselves in shadows better than I can with any spell.” He said.

“Perfect.
Agrona’s due back tonight. We’ll ask her for a volunteer.” I said.

12

I sat on the floor in Mahalia’s study surrounded by the pictures of the warehouse. It took forever to get them off of my phone and onto the computer, and even longer to print them out. I used Photoshop to zoom in and enhance the pictures of the book’s pages, but they still looked like cell phone quality. I shuffled the enlarged prints around, fitting them together like a puzzle. I lined them up to match the originals to the best of my ability. Out of everything that the Inquisitors were working on, these pages seemed the most important. Hopefully someone here would be able to read them.

Oberon moved the couch back to open up more floor space and I started laying out more pictures.
I stood back up and looked down at the whole bloody scene on the floor.

“Now what?” I thought out loud.

“Now you have to eat something. You haven’t actually sat down to eat in days,” Oberon prompted.

“Not true.
Amalie brought me pancakes at my apartment and I sat down to eat those,” I said.

“Maurin, I’m serious.
You can’t keep up this pace. You’re using up valuable energy just so you can keep going on a few hours sleep and a couple of snacks,” he said.

“What are you? Are you my dad now?
We’re running out of time! We don’t know who or what did this and we’ve got to figure it out before Masarelli starts convincing people that it was the coven. Food isn’t high on my list of priorities right now,” I replied.

“Well, it needs to be or you’ll be no good to anyone.
I’m going to go fix you a sandwich and you’re going to eat it,” he ordered, as he headed to the kitchen.

I didn’t move.
I just stood there staring at the photos spread out all over the floor. I was missing something. I could feel it. But what?

“I don’t think you have them in the right order,” a man’s voice said.

I jumped, startled by the unexpected sound. I turned around to see who was behind me.

“Damn it, Kedehern, I hate it when you all do that!”
I said.

“Forgive me, centuries-old habit,” he said, smirking.

“Save it. You enjoy sneaking up on people. What makes you say they’re out of order?” I asked.

“I’ve become quite the expert on blood over the years,” he said with a chuckle.

His laughter rolled over me, giving me goose bumps. The untucked white dress shirt, perfectly distressed jeans and boots made his light brown hair and eyes stand out. I could see how women would have been lured in by his fashion model appearance. The danger was so well hidden beneath the surface.

“Right. That certainly makes sense - in a disturbing kind of way.
Go ahead, Mr. Expert, put them in order,” I said, stepping to the side.

Kedehern bent down and slid some of the photos around.
Before I knew it, he had everything in order; all of the pictures were in their correct place. It looked identical to how it was in the warehouse. He stood up, admiring his work.

“How did you - you weren’t even there! Never mind, I probably don’t want to know,” I said, stopping myself.

“There was a time when we weren’t bound by the rules that we have now. My queen and I did as we pleased. This is a finger painting compared to the masterpieces we created,” he said wistfully, reminiscing of the days when vampires weren’t romanticized and were still at the top of the food chain.

I tried to block out the images of Agrona and Kedehern slaughtering town after town, driven by their insatiable thirst for blood.
I looked at Kedehern and wondered: could a vampire have done this? It was unlikely. No vampire would risk the wrath of Agrona and Kedehern. And it’s not like the vampires were short on blood donors. Not to mention that Agrona had basically said that the coven was on their own in ridding themselves of the Inquisitors. There’s no logical reason for a vampire to do this. Not that anything about this situation was logical.

Oberon came back in with a turkey san
dwich and a look that said, “You will eat this and not give me any shit about it.” I took the plate and sat on the couch. As soon as I took one bite, I realized how hungry I had been. I ate the first half of the sandwich in four bites. Just as I was about to devour the second half, the rest of the Council tiptoed in around the photos on the floor. I set the plate on the couch cushion next to me and waited for the fireworks to begin.

“You’ve gotten sloppy, Mahalia.
Letting the humans find your prey before you? Roul and I would not have allowed our enemies to hide from us and we certainly wouldn’t have been outwitted by a bunch of mortals,” Agrona spat out, obviously disgusted.

“We have been working within the co
nfines of our agreement with the mortals, Agrona, something that you seldom do,” Mahalia said. “And it was dumb luck that SPTF found the Inquisitors.”

“None of that even matters now.
There’s a new player in this sick game and we’ve got to find out who it is before Masarelli starts detaining coven members. He is becoming a liability. Before the Shift, the government agreed that the existence of the Council system should be kept secret to ease human acceptance. It would be chaos if the humans knew just how little control they actually have. Masarelli is perilously close to breaking that agreement,” Roul said.

“I have an idea,” I said.

They continued to argue. Everyone was talking over one another so that no one was really being heard.

“Hey!
I’ve got an idea!” I tried again.

That didn’t stop them.
They just kept right on going. Agrona was berating Mahalia for not ridding Salem of the Inquisitors herself. Oberon was about to jump in to defend Mahalia’s honor. From my previous experiences with Agrona, I’d have to say that would not be a good idea. Kedehern wanted to know who was moving in on their territory, and it sounded like Roul wanted to dig a hole for Masarelli’s grave.