Page 3 of Deadly Lineage
“And after you completed your work, you decided to come here?” Franklin raised a light ginger eyebrow.
I shrugged, spreading my hands wide. “I don’t find graveyards creepy, but some of them are overwhelming.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “There aren’t a lot of happy souls in the graveyard Antony Livingston’s buried in. I needed something more soothing. Trinity’s Holy Cross is like a warm bubble bath to me. Or, at least, it should be.”
My gaze traveled to the hole not far away. They’d found the body at least fifteen, maybe twenty minutes ago, and were being a lot more careful now with the recovery. The coroner’s van eased down a winding road, rumbling toward a grave that was far fresher than it should be.
“I heard her,” I said, voice softer now. “I… She wasn’t very coherent. Still isn’t.” I grimaced.
“You can still hear her?” Franklin asked.
I gave a slow nod. “It’s quieter now that I’m farther away and I’ve got my mental shields up. Given where I was, I’d kind of relaxed them earlier. My mistake.” I grimaced again, remembering her shrill voice hitting my brain like a hammer.
“Can you make anything out?” Franklin asked.
I gave it some thought and finally shook my head. “No. Nothing sane anyway. It’s all kind of gibberish and that’s…odd.” It was more than odd. “Maybe she’ll make more sense when I pull her soul back.” I looked up at Franklin. “I’m assuming you’ll want me to do that.”
“I’ll need to get the okay from Captain Cicely, but I think it’s fair to assume she’ll be on board. Forensics will want to do their thing first. You can bring the victim back when they’re done, but before the autopsy. We don’t want another Jane Doe experience.” Franklin winced at the memory.
“Not particularly,” I agreed easily. I’d been called in on a rather nasty murder case. The victim was a Jane Doe. Her autopsy was complete by the time I called her soul back. The poor woman had been so shell shocked by what had been done to her body postmortem that questioning her had proved fruitless. She’d been too traumatized for us to get anything coherent. I’d finally let her soul go. It seemed cruel to do otherwise.
My phone beeped again with a fresh text message. Pops was probably worried I hadn’t responded yet.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “But I should probably respond before Pops gets too worried.”
Franklin paled. “By all means.” He waved a hand at the pocket my phone sounded from. “I wouldn’t want Warlock Holland upset.”
Quickly typing in my PIN code, I opened my texts and found four from Pops. Typing out a quick response, I said to Franklin, “He’s really not that bad.”
Franklin grunted while flipping his notebook closed. “Says the warlock’s beloved son. You’ll pardon me if I don’t believe Nikodemus Holland would be so forgiving to those not related by blood.”
I shrugged. “I suppose that depends on who.”
“Lovely,” Franklin murmured before huffing. “Do me a favor and stick around for a bit.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
Detective Franklin O’Hare gave a sharp smile—all teeth and little lip. “Fair’s fair, Boone. If I’ve gotta be up and here, then so do you.”
Considering I wasn’t a homicide detective, I really wasn’t sure how he reasoned that out. Regardless, I didn’t argue. Instead, I found a headstone I thought might hold my weight without tipping over and eased my ass onto it. I wished Aurelia had stuck around. Maybe she could have gotten me some ibuprofen and a bottle of water. Then again, even if she’d been present, I doubted she would have complied. I wasn’t her master and Aurelia was, at best, unpredictable. I hated to think what she could be at her worst.
Chapter
Two
Franklin
Christ, this was another clusterfuck. I wiped my forehead with an already-damp handkerchief. I still wasn’t sure why I’d moved to Mississippi. My sister was even more perplexed, and my brother had written the move off as a slip of sanity. One that continued seven years later.
The summer heat and humidity were brutal, but the winters weren’t. It was a trade-off. Considering I hated the cold more than the heat, I’d deal with the current conditions and keep my complaints trapped inside my mental walls.
Walking away from Erasmus Boone was far more difficult than it should be. Every time I saw him, turning away became increasingly difficult. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. The necromancer was a menace. Not really, but for a homicide detective, Erasmus Boone was the town crier…only instead of a bell, he had a cell phone.
Hitching up my pants, I squatted at the edge of the far-too-fresh grave. Floodlights lit up the area, heating the air even more.
“What have we got, Johns?” Albert Johns was a competent officer, if not a little young and green.
Straightening, Johns placed his shovel to the side and leaned against the side of the grave he was standing in. The man stank of sweat and soil. It was damn near impossible for anyone to smell like roses in this type of weather and situation.
“Not certain yet. Female with long red hair. She’s decked out in jewelry—lotsof jewelry.”
