Chapter Ten
Moira’s head ached, not from the mind control but from being hit over the head when she emerged from the morgue.
You were such an idiot!
She had a call, but it was a wrong number. Then she had an urgent need to go outside and look at the blood moon. So urgent that she believed, for a moment, that if she saw the moon, all her questions would be answered.
But even as she stepped out, she knew something was wrong. She was on alert, waiting for something, and she turned just as Rex from Defiance stepped away from the building and hit her with a gun. He had a friend, the bouncer from the night before, who handcuffed her and they lifted her up and carried her to a waiting car. Her scream was cut short by a hard slap across her face, then she was in the back seat of a car and it started moving before Rex even closed the door.
She realized what Rex had done the night before. While she had a face-off with the fake Tessa, Rex had hypnotized her. It was subtle, and because she’d been so focused on the powerful woman, she hadn’t thought the weaker Rex could have gotten through to her.
She’d underestimated him because she hadn’t thought he was a threat. Her ego had defeated her.
You have to get out of this mess.
“Search her,” the woman behind the wheel said. It wasn’t blondie, it was a dark-haired witch.
They took both her knives, her gun, her holy water—which Rex tossed out the window—and the blessed oil, which he pocketed. He tossed her phone out the window. It shattered on the pavement.
Plan B.
She had no Plan B. She’d have to wing it.
“April, did you tell Gwen that we have her?”
April laughed and glanced at Moira in the rearview mirror. “She is extremely pleased.”
Rex put his arm around Moira’s shoulders, leaned over so his face was practically next to hers and whispered, “I haven’t seen a bounty so high before. You’re worth a lot dead, but a fortune alive.”
Moira butted her head hard against his. She winced, satisfied only in that Rex yelped in pain.
He grabbed her face with his hand and squeezed so hard she heard her jaw pop. “Do not forget you are worth something dead.”
She jerked her head out of his grip and stared out the window.
Once, she’d been a powerful witch. Trained in magic by her mother, Moira thought everything they did was contained in their own world. As a child, she didn’t know that most of what Fiona did was evil. That she’d been conceived in a black magic ritual, a daughter bred specifically to liaison between her mother’s growing coven and the underworld. She was to be sacrificed on her twenty-first birthday to become Fiona’s counterpart in Hell, walking the astral plane to facilitate her mother’s ascension as the head of all united covens, to give her mother direction to the tree of life.
That she’d turned her back on it, renounced her birthright, and ran away only angered her mother. The first time she escaped, Moira had been punished her so severely that even now, she was terrified of being underground. The second time, she’d begged to die.
But the third time...Father Philip found her, saved her, trained her.
She closed her eyes. Ten years ago she would have been able to destroy the three people in this car with little effort. That ability had nearly cost her her soul. She still didn’t know if she’d earned it back. All the damage her mother had done, all that she’d had Moira do as a child...before Moira knew that her actions had terrible consequences.
She couldn’t use magic now to save her life. And maybe that was the only thing that would save her soul.
April took the freeway north, then east. Two, three freeways. They drove for nearly an hour because of traffic.
Rafe and Grant had to know she was missing by now. Surely there’d be video surveillance. Someone got the plates of the car. Maybe the police were already following at a discreet distance.
Moira didn’t like cops. She had some legal issues of her own. But she’d rather risk the criminal justice system and deportation to Ireland than face Baphomet’s puppet, Gwen Simmons.
Finally they turned onto a road called Big Tujunga Canyon that wound through a valley in the mountains, then up a long, private driveway. So secluded that she could scream and no one would hear.
They stopped outside a pathetic house falling apart from disrepair. Magic, dark and evil, surrounded this place and threatened Moira specifically. It was like the spell had been created specifically for her. It was Gwen, the blonde from Defiance. Moira would recognize her magical signature anywhere now.
Rex yanked her out of the car. The ground was muddy from the overnight rain and her boots sank a half-inch. He pulled her hard. She lost her balance and fell in the mud.
He laughed. “Not so cocky now, bitch.”
He lifted her up and she shook her body like a dog, getting the worst of the mud and water off her face. The fake Tess Standler—Gwen Simmons—stepped out onto the porch and smiled widely at Moira. “I knew who you were the minute you walked into Defiance. You made it so easy, I thought I was wrong. Fortune has shined on me.”
She said to Rex, “Put her in the cellar until we’re ready. I don’t trust her, nor do I believe she won’t use magic.”
#
“Let’s do it again.” Rafe started down Alonzo Drive for the third time.
“Stop.” Grant didn’t follow him, but Rafe didn’t stop walking.
“Cooper!”
Rafe halted. Slowly, he turned around. “She’s here.”
Grant pointed to a house across the street. “You swore to me that house was where Amy Carney died. But a seventy-two year old widow lives there and doesn’t recognize any of the photos we showed her. What do you think a judge will say if I go to him requesting a warrant on the grounds that a ghost told me where she died?” Grant put his hand on Rafe’s shoulder. “We’ve knocked on every door and talked to every person we met and no one fits the description of either Gwen or Rex or anyone you recognized from Defiance. We need to think of something else.”
Rafe wasn’t leaving. He trusted the information from Amy. This was where she died.
The sun had set two hours ago, and still they were no closer to finding Moira or Tori Schaffer.
Grant’s phone buzzed. He said to Rafe, “Jeff downloaded the security footage from the morgue. Look.” He turned his phone to Rafe.
The wide-angle camera was fixed to show the rear entrance of the morgue. “This is a secured area,” Rafe said.
“Just watch.”
Moira emerged. She hesitated, then from the left of the screen, Rex Van Allen jumped her with a gun, hitting her over the head. She stumbled, he grabbed her at the same time another guy—the bouncer—came from the shadows. They carried her off-view.
A second later another camera showed her outside the back gates of the morgue being pushed into the backseat of a dark American sedan. It drove off. The plates couldn’t be seen, but through the open side window was a good shot of the driver.
“That’s the woman who poisoned Carter,” Rafe said. He replayed the spliced recording. Moira was confused when she walked out of the morgue, but he recognized the look on her face. She knew something was wrong, she’d hesitated, as if she were going to go back inside. When Rex hit her, Rafe flinched. If Rex and Gwen found out who Moira was, her life was in even greater danger.
“Jeff is running the images of the bouncer and the driver, I’ll let you know what pops. But we can’t stay here. Maybe what you thought you saw was wrong.”
“It wasn’t.”
A car drove up and pulled into the garage of the house next to the widow. A mother with two teenagers got out of the car and went into the house. “They might know something,” Rafe said and crossed the street.
“Rafe—” Grant began. Rafe didn’t care if Grant came or not, he wasn’t leaving. If Moira wasn’t here, Tori would be when Gwen tried to kill her. And Rafe would then find out where Moira was. He would do whatever it took to locate her.
Rafe rang the bell of the small mansion. The houses on this stretch of Alonzo Drive were set back from the road, with wide parcels allowing privacy. This side of the road they backed up to a cliff, so no one was behind them. Now that it was dark, the only thing Rafe could see beyond the houses was black, and a cluster of lights on the buildings that serviced the Reservoir.
One of the teenagers, a boy, answered the door. He was as tall as Rafe, but pencil-thin. Before Rafe could speak, Grant flashed his badge. “Detective Grant Nelson. This is Rafe Cooper. Is your mother home?”
“Mom! There’re cops at the door!”
His mother came quickly. “Is something wrong?”
Grant learned that the mother was Kris Barnes, and said, “No, ma’am, but we have some questions about your neighbor’s house. May we come in?”
Mrs. Barnes led them to the den off the foyer. “Is Mrs. Truesdale all right?”
“We believe so, but we’re following up on a report. A minor reported that she’d been kept in that house against her will. She redacted her report, but I’m compelled to follow up on it.”
Rafe was impressed at the lie Grant came up with so quickly.
“I can’t imagine— Mrs. Truesdale is seventy-two years old.”
“Does she have relatives who live with her? When I spoke to her, she wanted to help, but seemed a bit confused.”
“She has visitors, of course. But I haven’t heard of any trouble. She’s getting a bit forgetful—Jason—my son—takes her garbage cans to the curb when she forgets, which is more often these last few months.”
Rafe showed Mrs. Barnes the picture of Gwen Simmons, both the camp picture and her Oregon driver’s license. “Have you seen this woman with Mrs. Barnes or at her house?”
Jason spoke up. “That’s Tessa, Mrs. Truesdale’s granddaughter.”
“She doesn’t have any grandchildren,” Mrs. Barnes said.
“I met her a couple times. She’s hot—um, nice.”
Mrs. Barnes looked sternly at her son.
Rafe forced a smile on his face. “Yes, she’s hot. What did you talk about?”
He now looked sheepish. “Stuff.”
“Jason!”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Barnes.” Grant turned to Jason. “You’re not in trouble. But I’ll be honest with you, if you’ll tell me the truth.”
“Uh, sure.”
“This woman isn’t Tessa. Her name is Gwen Simmons and she’s dangerous. She confessed to murdering her boyfriend, then she disappeared. I need to know when you last saw her.”
“Sunday night. I saw her drive off with her boyfriend.”
Grant showed a picture of Rex Van Allen. “Is this the man you saw?”
“Yeah, that’s him. I’ve only met him once, but seen him with Tessa—um, Gwen several times.”
Grant showed pictures of Amy, Beth and Tori. “Have you seen any of these girls in the neighborhood?”
Neither of them had.
Rafe asked, “Have you seen anything unusual at the house next door? Particularly in the backyard.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Mrs. Barnes said. “Why all these questions?”
Jason said, “Like really weird stuff?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, yeah. Over Christmas break there was this party over there. It’s pretty quiet up here at night, and my buddy Seth dropped me off late after the movies. I heard this chanting and thought it was weird music for an old lady. I noticed a couple cars in the driveway and was thinking, wow, she’s having a party? Bizarre. From my room I can see part of her backyard through the trees. There was a flickering, like candles. I went in the backyard and looked through a knothole in the fence. I couldn’t see much, except that there some people standing in a circle and they were the ones chanting. It kind of freaked me out a bit, I don’t know why,” he added sheepishly.
“Did you ask Gwen about it?”
“No—I kind of forgot. And I didn’t see faces. They were all wearing dark clothes or something.”
Grant turned to Mrs. Barnes. “Would you mind if we inspected your backyard? We may need to access the house next door quickly.”
“Of course.”
“And let’s keep this visit between us, no need to tell Mrs. Truesdale or the other neighbors. Not until we know what’s going on.”
Rafe and Grant went outside. “So is the old woman part of it or a victim?” Grant asked.
“I don’t know.” Moira would. She’d know if Mrs. Truesdale was practicing black magic or under a spell.
Grant sent his partner a message to look into Truesdale and any relatives who might have a connection to Simmons or Van Allen.
Rafe inspected the fence. There was indeed privacy on both sides—vines, trees, bushes. There was a wrought iron fence at the back to maximize the view. Two feet beyond that was a fairly steep drop into the canyon. Very difficult to scale without equipment.
“We should talk to the other neighbors,” Grant said.
“We’re running out of time!” It was nearly nine p.m. Tomorrow was the equinox. Was the ritual to be scheduled after midnight? Or after sunset tomorrow? Rafe felt Gwen would be acting sooner rather than later. She could move it up, knowing that they would be looking for Moira. She knew they were onto her. Would she change the location of the ritual? Could she? Was there a specific reason that it had to be here?
In Rafe’s experience, the location of the ritual was important, but not as important as the process. There would need to be a cleansing and purification ritual that could take hours. The victim had to be prepared as a sacrifice to appease the rules the demon and the magician agreed to. One screw up and the demon could call off the deal, and the magician would still lose his or her soul.
But the cleansing could take place elsewhere, and still the victim could be transported here.
That didn’t feel right. They had to bring several people into the process. A coven could be as small as three people or as large as thirteen. There were extended covens that could work together, simultaneously, in separate but connected rituals, strengthening their power, but the covens themselves weren’t large groups.
“I need to talk to Mrs. Truesdale,” Rafe said. “And search her house.”
“We can’t do that,” Grant said, but Rafe was already on his way.
Grant caught up with him outside her house and grabbed his arm. Rafe nearly hit him. The slow burning panic that started when Moira had been kidnapped was coming to a full boil, and he needed to do something. Mrs. Truesdale had the information he needed, he just had to get it from her. He needed to hypnotize her.
He frowned. He had never hypnotized anyone before.
It’s easy, for someone with the proper training.
Suddenly, a sharp pain burst in his head. He grabbed his skull with both his hands, as if holding his brains in.
“Rafe, what’s happening?” Grant reached for his gun, looking all around them.
Don’t look too closely. Don’t look for answers.
His head throbbed but he let go of trying to figure out where he’d learned how to hypnotize someone. The sharpest of the pain subsided.
“I’m okay,” he said, breathing rapidly. “Please trust me, Grant. I can find Tori and Moira. I need to talk to Mrs. Truesdale now.”
Grant hesitated, and Rafe took that as a yes. He practically ran up to the front door and rang the bell multiple times.
Get a grip on yourself, Raphael.
If he didn’t calm down, he wouldn’t be able to think clearly, he wouldn’t be able to do what had to be done.
Mrs. Truesdale opened the door with a concerned look on her face.
Rafe said slowly and clearly, “There is a blood moon tonight.”
Mrs. Truesdale smiled broadly. “Come in, please.”
Rafe hoped getting answers was as easy as getting into the house.