Of Life and Death Read online

  “I’ll check the system for her. Is Karen a shifter?”

  “Yes, runs on her mother’s side of the family.” Mason flipped through his notes. “So that’s another thing the three victims have in common.”

  I stepped away from the box and turned towards the road. Any of the gawkers that had been there when I arrived were gone now, leaving the sidewalk empty. The world started to spin a little bit, and I closed my eyes. Taking a few deep breaths, I forced myself to focus on the situation at hand.

  When I opened my eyes, a rune in the middle of the street caught my attention. I walked toward it and felt the magic march up my body, just as it had done at the office. Same magic, same person.

  “What is it?”

  I smirked. “I think I know who’s behind the magic. Don’t let anyone near that mark in the middle of the street. Russel up any of the reliable press that was here that might have been filming the crowd.”

  Mason followed my gaze to the middle of the road. “I’ll make sure to have them mark it off. Do you know who you’re looking for?”

  “I think so. I’ll be in the office for the rest of the day. Get any footage that might have been shot today and get it to me.”

  “You got it.” He walked over to one of the officers. I went back to the Hummer and got in the car. Since I was feeling better, going into the office was probably the better idea than going back home right now.

  I turned the key and texted Merick so he knew where I was going. I debated on texting my uncle, but if he needed to disconnect from me, I’d let him. Who knew what kind of trouble he’d gotten himself into. I should have just been glad that he wasn’t trying to trade me for anyone again.

  I took the car down the road and watched as Mason’s people placed some plastic bubble over the rune. I assumed that it was specifically made for magic, so I let them be. Mason knew what he was doing, even if he wasn’t a warlock.

  I headed to the south office and prepared myself to work the afternoon away.

  I stopped to get coffee on the way to the office because I was still dragging. It was like my body was refusing to wake all the way up and actually function. I still took the stairs, and when I got to my office, I found two women standing in front of the door.

  One of them I knew well. She was a little bit shorter than me, and her blonde hair was pulled up into a tight bun on her head. Last time I’d seen her she was dressed in red and supposedly going to see Boss Man, but now she was back in typical hunter black. Her badge was clipped almost on the back of her pants. Agent Melody Grace.

  “I’m sorry Special Agent Grace, Abigail Collins is to work alone.”

  My heart leaped, something was going my way.

  “Liz, you don’t know what she’s capable of, it is not wise to leave her on her own.”

  “Oh really, do you care to tell me what I’m capable of? Because there’s nothing that would require me to have a partner.” I walked up to the pair. “You must be Special Agent Liz Jefferson.” I held a hand out.

  The woman was petite, straight short hair, but there was nothing about her that would make people mistake her as weak. She shook my hand. “I am, I’m lead on the Black Magic task force.”

  When our skin touched, I felt a little zap of power and got a taste of just how powerful our lead was. It made me smile. “It’s good to meet you. Glad to see some of my requests will be honored.”

  Grace spun to look at me. “You are a loose cannon.”

  “Wow, such hostility. What did I do to you?” I raised a brow. “I thought our last case together went well. Then Tomes was recaptured, and now you’re here. I thought as soon as Tomes’ trial was over, you’d be heading back to where ever it is you came from.”

  “That was my plan, and I got resigned here because of issues with my paperwork on Ira.”

  That struck me hard, and I remembered what Yorkingson had said about Tomes’ case getting caught up in paperwork.

  “It was in order when I gave it back to the supervisor of the executioner.” I had needed to add the location I’d found via magic. There were a couple things that she had neglected to put in the paperwork, and she’d made a note about Ira’s relation to the king.

  She poked me in the chest. “You performed a spell for Ira’s location.”

  I gently pushed her finger down, not wanting to give a bad impression to my newest co-worker. “I did because I wanted to do more than just hand over a mostly blank file.”

  “Yeah, well Boss Man wanted to know why I hadn’t done that. Why you’d done it alone when he had assigned the case to both of us.”

  I bit my lip. “Because you told me the case was closed. So I went ahead and did the rest to the best of my ability.”

  “Which screwed me over. I want to be your partner because I think you’re reckless. You need someone to follow and show you the correct way to do things.”

  I glanced at Liz, and she motioned to Agent Grace. “Clearly, you two have something to hash out here.”

  “No, because that would be unprofessional.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry you feel that way Agent Grace, but I don’t work with partners. The last one I was assigned was killed.”

  “It should have been you.” She snarled, and I couldn’t help myself. I punched her.

  Grace threw a punch at me and took me down to the floor. I kicked her off and snarled at her. “What the fuck do you know?”

  “I know that Nick was transferred here after being kicked off a case and that the reason he came here was because of you.” She wiped blood from her lip.

  “And what the hell does that have to do with you? You two didn’t even know each other.” I pulled myself up off the floor.

  Grace shook her head. “You’re right; we didn’t. He dated my sister and broke her heart when he came here.”

  I just stared at her. “And for that reason, it should have been me?” It didn’t make sense. The reaction was way too far off target for something like that.

  “My sister lost her light when Nick left her. I’d never met him because I was undercover, so I couldn’t risk leaving Tomes’ side. But she wrote me letters. Then he left her. They were engaged. I didn’t know until I called back home after our case and she told me that he’d been killed.”

  I pressed my lips together. “I’m sorry that it happened. But your sister isn’t the only one that was hurt from that.”

  “You have no idea.” She lunged at me again, and this time I just put a protective circle up.

  “Listen, Grace. I’m fucking exhausted, I’ve been poisoned, I’ve seen a dead body, and I’ve got a child vampire running around. If we’re even going to be on the same team, I need to know that you have my back. And I need you to tell me the truth.”

  Her brows shot up. “I am telling you the truth.”

  “No, you’re not. None of your story lines up. I thought you’d be a better liar than that since you’ve been an undercover agent.”

  She crossed her arms. “You’re right. You’re not privy to the truth, Collins.”

  “Then I don’t want you watching my back.” This was why I hated having partners. I turned to my office and swiped my keycard.

  Jefferson followed me in. “I thought you weren’t coming into the office today.”

  She shut the door behind her, making sure that it clicked shut. I ignored the shouting that came from the other side of the door and kept my back to it so I didn’t have to see Grace’s angry face through the glass.

  “A dead body came up, so I had to. I’m feeling better.”

  She laughed. “You look awfully good for being poisoned.”

  “Well, I’ve had worse.” I shook my head. “What can I do for you?”

  “I just wanted a briefing on your current cases. And see if you needed any support.” She crossed her arms. “Came up here and found Grace trying to get into the office. Gotta say, you have a way with people.”

  I shook my head. “It would have been fine if she hadn’t mentioned Nick. I didn’t realize
she had such disdain for me.”

  “And all that about her sister, why are you sure that’s a lie?” She looked at the doll on my desk. “That’s unsettling.”

  I walked around and put my bag by the desk before sitting in my chair. “I do know she’s lying. Because Nick was like me, he was married to his work. There was no dating in his life. He also would have given me a heads up about Agent Grace, it would have been subtle, but he would have.” Much like the clues he’d been leaving around to tell me he was still alive.

  “Then what do you think it is?”

  “She hasn’t been hostile towards me for the last few months, I can only assume something happened with the case paperwork, and it got blamed on her.” I shrugged. “Without evidence of anything else, that’s the only conclusion I can come to.”

  She sat down on the chair in front of my desk. “Good instincts.”

  “Nick called it paranoia, but it keeps me alive.” I gave a short laugh. “As for my cases? You want the full brief?”

  She nodded. “Lay it on me.”

  I gave her the breakdown of both the cases but kept my theory about Drake to myself. I also kept my connection to Oliver out of it.

  “Sounds like you have a handle on this. Boss Man said that you knew how to close a case.”

  I tried not to look smug. “I have one of the highest close rates.”

  “And why do you think that is?”

  I thought for a moment. “Because I don’t give up. I refuse to believe that a murderer or a criminal gets away.”

  “There’s always a couple that escape us.”

  “But not if I can help it.” I sighed. “That was what went wrong with the case Agent Grace was assigned to help me with. We knew who it was, but we couldn’t bring him in. She insisted that she file the paperwork, but I had gone one step further.”

  She nodded. “You wanted to give it every chance you could to succeed.”

  “And I don’t know why Agent Grace wouldn’t want that.”

  Liz leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “I have something for you.”

  I raised a brow. “Something what?”

  “Sorry, a mission, off the records.” She leaned forward on my desk. “Do some research on Grace; I don’t like her. I’ve researched you both. Neither of you fit the personality type for a partner. She was insistent that she wanted to work with you.”

  “And after that show in the hall?” I shook my head. “Grace’s clearance is higher than mine; I have a feeling most of her information is blocked. She was a secret agent, so I don’t know how much of the database I could trust.”

  Liz smirked. “Abigail, your clearance is higher now. Special Agent, remember. The only thing you can’t access is the top priority things that the government hides from everyone.”

  Things like who the vampire king was. I laughed. “That’ll make my life easier. I’ll see what I can dig up on Grace.”

  “Thank you. Oh, and welcome to the team.” She stood. “Good luck with your cases, if you need some support, make sure you let me know.” She walked out of my office and once again made sure that the door shut behind her.

  I turned to my computer and unlocked it. I wasn’t sure what to make of Liz, but I knew that Agent Grace just cast more suspicion upon herself. Things could get ugly if I weren’t careful.

  Chapter Eleven

  I looked through the things that I pulled up on Cynthia. Everything that I found said that she was still in the mental hospital south of here. I had called, and they said that I could visit, but they weren’t sure how she would respond. So I had driven down there to see what she had to say.

  I had a few hours before dusk, so I had plenty of time to talk to her. After dusk, I’d get home to ask Mario to get me in touch with Drake and to talk to Levi about Oliver’s strange behavior. I got out of the Hummer and clipped my badge to the front of my pants. I was going in as an Agent because that’s what would get me the most respect and the most information.

  The mental hospital probably had seen better days. Cracks covered the adobe siding, and dead succulent plants dotted a square planter that sat a few yards from the front door. I walked in, and the glass door squeaked as I pulled on it.

  To my left was a little visitor window, a plump woman sat behind it, looking over today’s paper. She looked up as the door crashed close behind me. “Oh, good evening.”

  I smiled at her until she set the paper down and I saw the article she was reading. “Retailers Delivering Bodies?” was the headline. I tried not to cringe.

  “Good evening. I’m Special Agent Collins, I called earlier about visiting Cynthia Moll.”

  “Oh yes! Of course, Agent Collins. I just need to see some ID and give you the disclosure.” She closed the newspaper and set it aside.

  I handed her my ID and watched as she wrote down my name and some other information. “Disclosure?”

  “Yes, we have a circle to prevent magic from being performed inside the main part of the building. This way not only are our clients protected but our visitors as well.”

  It made sense, but it was always odd to be cut off from my magic. “Okay, thanks for the heads up.”

  She handed me my ID back and then reached over to hit a button. I heard the door next to her click, and I opened it.

  I didn’t spend a lot of time in mental hospitals, or any other type of hospitals for that matter. I didn’t like them, they smelt funny, and they were too quiet. This one wasn’t like a regular hospital. The door opened up into a round common room with a television and a few couches. When I stepped into the main area, a shiver went down my back alerting me to the circle the woman had been talking about.

  A sign hung above a window that read ‘Nurse Station,’ with two women standing behind a counter.

  One stood. “Hello Agent Collins, Cynthia is expecting you.”

  I looked around to see if the child was in the common room, but she wasn’t. No one was.

  “It’s time for group therapy. Most of our clients are there.” The nurse said as if reading my mind. “Cynthia is in her room. She rarely leaves, and because of her situation, she doesn’t have to attend group.”

  That caught my attention. “And what is her situation?”

  “Most of our clients are here on a temporary basis; Cynthia is not. She was left here by her grandfather because she was out of control, seeing things, screaming at random times. Upon studies, we discovered a few health issues.” The woman shook her head. “There has been no rehabilitation for her, no medications that have helped, nothing. Currently, she’s being studied by a university on magic developing in children under the normal age.”

  “How old is Cynthia exactly?”

  “She’s ten, in technicality, but she hasn’t aged past seven. Her body has started breaking down.” The nurse answered and led me down a cheery yellow hallway. “She’s one of six children here. So she’s not alone. They stay in this wing, while the adults stay in the other. I’m one of five nurses.”

  “And the doctors?” I followed her and glanced at the paintings on the wall. I stopped when I came to one of a doll. “This must be Cynthia’s.”

  The nurse chuckled. “How did you know?”

  “Her mother owns a doll shop; I simply made the connection.”

  “Mama never comes to visit.” The child stood there, her arms crossed. The big round brown eyes stared at me, framed by long, honey-colored hair in natural curls. She was similar to the child that I had seen in the spell, but it wasn’t exactly it. She was older by a tad, and she wasn’t wearing in rags.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Cynthia, I’m Agent Collins, and I was hoping we could talk a little bit.”

  She nodded and motioned to the door that she stood by. “Would you like to talk in my room?”

  She words didn’t exactly belong to a seven-year-old, and neither did the mannerisms.

  “I would, thank you. If you’re comfortable there? Or would you rather go sit on the couches?”

&n
bsp; She glanced at the nurse, and I looked back to see the reaction. The nurse nodded. “It’s fine Cynthia. Everyone is in group; you can go where you want.”

  Interesting. “Do they keep you isolated?”

  “No, I just don’t like other people.” She stepped into her room and then returned with a doll.

  Following her, I glanced at the nurse. “She doesn’t like people?”

  “She doesn’t. Occasionally someone comes that she likes and she’ll get close to, but as I said, most people stay here temporarily.”

  I nodded and watched Cynthia sit down on the couch and look around as if she was worried someone else was going to join her.

  I sat down on the couch but not right next to her. I turned so I was facing her. “Cynthia, you said your mother doesn’t come visit. How long have you been here?”

  “Three years, three days, and fifteen hours,” she answered without hesitation. “I’ve seen twenty-three different doctors, there have been ten nurses who stopped working here, but my two favorites are still here. I’ve been on thirteen different meds, I’ve been on a trial magical bracelet thing meant to lessen magical abilities, and nothing is working. My body refuses to age with me, and I’m convinced it’s slowly decaying.”

  Well, that certainly answered a lot of things for me, even though I was only looking for one answer. “I see you have a wonderful memory.” I really wasn’t good with kids. I always wanted to treat them as adults, even though I knew they weren’t. Cynthia’s demeanor was making it hard to remember that.

  “It’s all just numbers; I like numbers. They make sense to my head and give me something else to focus on.”

  I nodded slightly. “Can you tell me how long it’s been since you’ve seen your mama?”

  “The same amount of time.” She looked down. “She doesn’t love me anymore because I can’t control my abilities.”

  My heart broke a little bit. “What abilities?”

  “All of them, particularly the ones where I can jump through visions.” She looked up at me. “But she has that ability too.”

  Like the vision in my office. “Those abilities are normally passed down, so it doesn’t surprise me. Does your grandfather have it?”