Dead and dusted, p.9
Dead and Dusted, page 9
Agent Gemwood re-examined the photo, but ultimately shook her head. “Honestly? No. Even with all my time at the bureau working with some of the most obscure supernatural species, this is new for me.”
“Really? I’ve seen one before,” I said, and Gemwood’s eyes shot to mine.
“You have? When? Where?”
I hesitated, knowing full well how crazy I was about to make myself sound. Eventually, though, I found my courage. “In my dreams. It spoke to me and said the same thing that the letter you found in Zadie’s room did, about it taking back what belongs to it.”
Agent Gemwood’s eyes shot wide open as if I had electrocuted her. “You left that part out.”
“Yeah, well, can you blame me? Everyone around here thinks I’m falling apart from the inside out, so I didn’t really want to give them more evidence to support it,” I said as I reached for the tooth in my lap, despite the voice in my head screaming at me to leave it alone. We’d come here to prompt a vision, and I wasn’t about to leave the room empty-handed. If the tooth really came from where I suspected, then I couldn’t imagine a better catalyst.
“So, this creature has been communicating with you through your dreams?”
“Only once so far, but I’ve been having recurring nightmares about an avalanche starting on Mount Starcrest and burying Starfall Valley for more than a week now. I’m pretty sure they’re related.”
“Starting on Mount Starcrest?”
I glanced up at her, puzzled. “Yeah, why?” I asked, but as soon as I spoke the words, I understood why she’d clarified. The origin of the avalanche couldn’t have been a coincidence — and neither could the fact that the two people competing to purchase land on the mountain were now dead! “Wait, you don’t think this creature is behind all this, do you?”
Agent Gemwood shrugged. “It’s impossible to say for sure, but all this seems connected.”
“That makes no sense, though. Why would the creature be warning me about what it’s going to do?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers for that either.”
“Well, then I think it’s time to get some,” I said and scooped the tooth out of my lap. All at once, the familiar rush of magic stirring into action around me, concentrating in the palm of my hand that clutched the tooth. My eyes fluttered shut as I let the magic wash over me, transporting me to another time and place. When I re-opened them a few moments later, I stood on the ledge of a mountain looking down at the sprawl of a town below, while a howling sheet of snow swirled around me like a protective barrier.
“They grow too fast. Too close,” a voice said from behind me, and I turned to find a mountainous creature with a pair of eerie blue eyes burning like little blue fires in the night. When my gaze met theirs, they smiled, revealing a horrific set of stony razors. “We cannot trust them.”
“No,” I agreed, and turned back to the scene before me. The lights of what I realized was Starfall Valley twinkled and blinked hundreds of feet below. “But we must try.”
“We already have, and they violated our trust!” the other shouted. “They set foot on our hallowed ground, and they will do it again. You know this. We must protect Nature, sister.”
“They are curious about us and our way of life, nothing more. Once they have satisfied their curiosity, they will leave us be. It has happened before.”
“Fool!” my companion shouted, their voice echoing all around us. “Look at how their city expands! That will not stop, and they will not leave us be! They will come here again, and they will not leave until they’ve run us away from our home and taken everything they can use. They are human; it’s what they do.”
“You are young and brash, sister. You do not yet understand the way of this world. Remember: the humans came from Nature, just as we did. We are no different, and we cannot harm them, or we would harm Nature Herself. We must maintain balance.”
“And you are old and naïve, sister. Remember: They have already upset the balance, and if you are not willing to restore it, then I will,” they snapped, and stomped away through the snow.
“Morea!” I shouted, to no answer. “Morea, return to me at once!” As if the raging nature around us picked up on the anger sparking in me at my sister’s insolence, the snowstorm surged until I could no longer see the town below. “She will see. She must,” I muttered, and paced through the whipping snow — until a piercing squeal froze me in my tracks.
“Morea!” I called, but still got no answer. The storm spinning around me fell away as my heart lurched at the realization that I was in danger, and that I wasn’t alone. Like a wild animal driven by instinct, I crouched and bared my teeth, ready to lunge, but a light flared, blinding me.
Hissing and snarling in my blindness, I stumbled forward and swiped at the empty air around me, but never connected with anything. Another shriek from my companion drew my attention further down the mountain, and I hurried toward its source.
“Sister!” the creature screamed.
“Sister!” I bellowed back, but when all I could see was white, I had no way to help her. I blinked furiously, willing away the whiteness, and slowly my vision returned in scattered spots.
Down the slope, I spotted a group of men surrounding my sister, who flailed and snarled at her captors from inside a glowing magical net. One man spotted me, and before I had the chance to do anything, he jabbed a wand at me and a ball of light hurled through the air to collide with my chest, lifting me off the ground and slamming me into the mountain’s rock-hard exterior. The impact knocked the air from my lungs, and I fell onto my back in the snow, gasping for breath as agonizing pain coursed through my nervous like I’d swallowed fire.
Stunned and unable to move, I watched through the growing blackness in my vision as the men flashed devices in my sister’s face, despite her shrieking and slashing.
“Make sure you get some photos of the other one, Kade,” the man who’d attacked me said to a younger man. “But be careful; it seems much feistier.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean, it isn’t even restrained,” the younger man said with a grimace in my direction.
“Oh, for Lilith’s sake, I hit it with a killing spell. Now quit being a baby and get some pictures of the cursed thing before it dies! We’ve gotta hurry and get the other one back to Starforce.”
Dazed, I watched the young man cautiously approach me with a square device in his hands. He wore so much clothing to fight the elements that he looked twice his actual size, and he fumbled with the device in his gloved hands as he crouched down in front of me. “Please don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me,” he muttered as he aimed the device at my face.
“Morea… You must maintain balance,” I croaked, and the young human who hovered over me looked horrified. Of course, he couldn’t understand me, but my message wasn’t for him. Something clicked, and another blinding flash washed over me, but it barely registered as the pain overwhelmed my senses, the blackness crowding my vision fully consumed it, and I slipped into unconsciousness.
When my eyes fluttered open again, I found myself back in Leland’s room, but spots and sparks danced across my vision. I heard Agent Gemwood dash across the room, and a moment later she shouted, “What do you think you’re doing? This is a crime scene; you can’t take photos here! Get out!”
I blinked several more times, and the room slowly swam back into view — until another flash coursed through the room, blinding me all over again — and I realized what was happening. It had to be Kade!
“Let him in!” I shouted, and the surrounding commotion stopped.
“What? Are you sure?” Gemwood asked.
“You should listen to Selena,” another voice said, and I recognized it instantly as Kade’s.
“I’m sure. He was in my vision; I want to talk to him.”
“See? She knows what she’s talking about,” Kade said, and I heard him take several steps across the room toward me. A moment later, Leland’s bed bounced as Kade plopped down on it beside me.
“So, what have you two found in—” he started but cut off abruptly. The rustling of paper met my ears as Kade picked up the photo that Agent Gemwood must’ve dropped on the bed in her rush to stop him from coming inside the room.
“Look familiar?” I asked as I blinked my sight back and found Kade sitting open-mouthed beside me with his camera in one hand and the photo only he could’ve taken in the other.
“Where did you get this?”
“Selena, what’s going on here?” Agent Gemwood asked, completely lost and no doubt concerned about Kade being there, but I didn’t have time to catch her up.
“You took that photo, didn’t you, Kade?”
“What? No. I mean, maybe, I—”
“Just admit it,” I interrupted. “I know you took it because I watched it happen,” I continued, and as I spoke, everything fell into place. I’d always wondered why Kade wanted to accompany Leland and the rest for a weekend at Kindred Spirits, and while I’d assumed the answer was because he’d hoped to land a major exclusive story for his newspaper, now I knew the truth: Whatever had happened up on Mount Starcrest directly involved him, and he was probably trying to cover for himself — which also explained why he’d forced his way into a crime scene. For all I knew, he could’ve been following Agent Gemwood and I all along.
“What do you mean you watched it happen?”
“Your powers,” Agent Gemwood said with a little laugh as she pieced everything together. “You saw something, didn’t you?”
I nodded without taking my eyes off Kade. “I saw him taking pictures of those creatures,” I said, pointing at the photo in Kade’s hand. He flung it back on the bed like it was poisonous and jumped to his feet.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re freaking me out.”
“What are those creatures, Kade? And who were you taking their pictures for?” I asked, thinking back to the other men I’d seen in my vision. They were all unfamiliar, but I hadn’t gotten the sense they were also employees of a newspaper. So who were they?
Kade’s eyes shot from me to Agent Gemwood and back again, and though I thought he might try to make a run for it, eventually he sighed and sank back down on the bed beside me — probably because he realized he had no other choice. “I don’t know what those things are, I really don’t, but that’s part of the reason I was there. To document what we found.”
“We? Who’s we?”
Kade’s eyes drifted back to the photo, and he grimaced as if fighting with himself about how much to share with me and, by extension, an FBI agent. “A group of warlocks Mr. Marth hired to do some field research for him.”
My heart jumped into my throat. “What kind of field research are we talking about here?” I asked, because what I’d just seen in my vision seemed a lot more like an invasion than an information gathering session.
“Mr. Marth wanted the land near the peak of Mount Starcrest, but it’s protected by the government,” Kade said.
“Yeah, I’m aware, which I assume means this little excursion wasn’t exactly legal.”
“Not at all. Mr. Marth kept trying to pressure Mayor Nash into selling him the land, but Mayor Nash wouldn’t budge. In fact, he wouldn’t let anyone set foot on the property, not even to examine it, because he claimed it wasn’t safe, but he’d never say why.”
“So, Mr. Marth hired you and some other warlocks to trespass and document what you found?”
Kade sighed. “Yeah, more or less. Look, I’m not proud of it, okay? I mean, for Lilith’s sake, we killed one of those poor things, and for what?”
I shivered at the memory of the creature’s death I’d witnessed first-hand in my vision. “Then why did you do it? You could’ve said no.”
“When you’re a no-name reporter like me and someone like Mr. Marth offers you an exclusive interview for a bit of photography work, you can’t exactly say no,” Kade said, and another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. Despite what I’d thought before, Kade hadn’t come to Kindred Spirits to cover anything up, he’d come to collect what Leland owed him.
“The team captured a creature, didn’t they? Is that where this came from?” I asked, holding the tooth up to him.
Kade looked like he might be sick, but he nodded. “I found it near one of them after… After we attacked it. I think it fell out.”
My stomach flipped, but I held it together. “Where’s the creature now, then?”
“No one knows. I heard it escaped,” he answered, and all the air in my lungs rushed out at once. “Mr. Marth was keeping it locked up somewhere in the belly of Starforce Tech, but it broke free somehow.”
I turned to Agent Gemwood. “Well, I guess we got our answers after all.”
“Did the team at Starforce learn anything about the creature before it escaped?” Gemwood asked Kade, but he shrugged.
“I have no idea, honestly. They cut me out of the whole thing as soon as we got the creature safely back to Starforce, and demanded I turn over all the pictures I’d taken, along with my memory cards,” he said, and my eyes shot to the plastic squares scattered across the bed. I didn’t need to ask to know the answer: they were Kade’s. “Mr. Marth made me sign a non-disclosure agreement about the trip and promised me he’d ruin my career if I ever told anyone about anything I’d seen.”
Based on the fact he’d made everyone in the inn sign an NDA too, I didn’t find that hard to believe. “Well, I don’t think you have to worry about that being a problem for you anymore,” I said, gesturing at Leland’s now ownerless belongings. I let out a laugh, unable to stop myself. Brady and I had been so worried about Kade leaking news of Leland’s death to the press, but he’d turned out to be the least likely of us.
“No, I guess not,” Kade agreed.
So, did all this mean Leland’s visit to Kindred Spirits was about him trying to hunt down the creature that’d gotten away? Or was he really so arrogant as to assume that they weren’t anything to worry about and tried to plow ahead with a deal to buy up the land around Mount Starfall now that he’d disposed of them? Most importantly, what did he really want with the land, anyway? For every answer I’d gotten, another three questions had popped up — including whether Mayor Nash knew about the creatures. If he didn’t, why would he have been so adamant about keeping everyone away for their safety?
“Do you think…? Ah, never mind,” Kade said with a shake of his head.
“No, finish that sentence. Do we think what?” I asked eagerly.
“This is gonna sound crazy, but I haven’t been able to stop wondering about it since Mr. Marth, well, you know,” he said with an uncomfortable glance at the bed that Leland never got the chance to sleep in.
“This entire situation is crazy, Kade,” I said, and he laughed, which seemed to raise his confidence. “Whatever it is, just say it.”
“I’ve been wondering if all this might be that creature getting its revenge for what we did to it, and if so, I’m worried I might be next,” Kade said, and I would’ve been lying if I’d said I hadn’t thought the same thing, but because we knew next to nothing about the mountain creatures outside of what I’d seen in my visions, I couldn’t say for sure — especially since Zadie had also gotten killed. If it was really the creature behind Leland’s death, why would they target Zadie too? As far as I knew, beyond their competition for the land on Mount Starcrest and their rocky professional history, there weren’t any links between Leland and Zadie.
“I guess we can’t rule it out,” I said after thinking Kade’s theory over, and he grimaced.
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“Sorry,” I said with a shrug. There wasn’t much else I could say — given the way both Leland and Zadie died, I couldn’t exactly guarantee his safety if he stayed in the inn.
“I never should’ve done it. I don’t know what I was thinking,” Kade muttered, then looked to Agent Gemwood with pleading eyes. “You aren’t gonna arrest me, are you?”
Gemwood laughed and shook her head. “Trespassing on government ground is illegal, but it’s out of my jurisdiction.”
“I didn’t do anything else, I swear,” Kade said as he wiped his palms on his pants. “I just took pictures like they asked me to.”
“I believe you,” I said, and I meant it. Anyone who’d had something to hide wouldn’t have been so eagerly forthcoming. Kade’s involvement in the trespassing had clearly been eating him up inside, so it’d probably felt good to confess. “But I want to ask you something else.”
“I’ll tell you anything, as long as it keeps me out of trouble.”
I liked the sound of that. “You said Mayor Nash forbid anyone from visiting the land Leland wanted to buy. Did he know those creatures were there?”
“I’m not sure, but it seems like it. Why else would he be so determined to keep everyone away?”
I’d thought the same thing, and I also wondered why he’d suddenly changed his mind to come to the negotiating table with Zadie and Leland. If he knew there were creatures living on the mountain and that they were dangerous, why would he ever entertain the idea of selling the land to a private party?
“Or keep their existence a secret from the FBI?” Agent Gemwood added, and my eyes shot open as I realized I hadn’t even considered that. “It’s our job to keep tabs on things like this in case there’s ever an incident.”
I picked up the photo of the creature, folded it in half, and tucked it the pocket of my robes along with the tooth and as many of Kade’s memory cards as I could fit. “I think it’s time to ask the mayor about all of this personally,” I said, and hurried for the door before I lost the courage.
Chapter 11
Kade dashed down the hall after me as I rushed to the elevator. “Selena, wait!” he called, but I didn’t stop until my hands reached the elevator’s grate. “What can I do? I want to help. I have to make up for what I did somehow.”
The offer took me by surprise, but an excellent answer occurred to me immediately. “Keep an eye on Zadie’s room on the third floor for us,” I said, and Kade’s brows furrowed.
