ENTANGLED (52 page)

“The witch at Defiance used her identity.” And likely cast a confusion spell, Rafe reasoned, so anyone from the camp who may have met the real Tessa wouldn’t have recognized the imposter. He exchanged a glance with Moira—he didn’t have to repeat their conversation from the night before: she understood that they were dealing with a powerful magician.

“I don’t fucking care whose identity she stole, we don’t know where she is!” Grant reached into his pocket and pulled out a near-empty bottle of aspirin. He spilled four tablets into his hand, tossed them into his mouth and chewed. “I sent a unit to Defiance, and the owner, on paper, is Reginald “Rex” Van Allen. He did nothing to land himself in prison, was apparently helpful and alarmed that anyone had taken sick. The health department will inspect the place on Monday, but we all know they won’t find a fucking thing!”

“By Monday it’ll be over,” Moira said.

“That doesn’t help Carter, and that doesn’t get me any closer to finding Tori Schaffer!” He glared at Moira. “Why did you leave Carter in there? How could you not see this coming?”

Rafe said, “Leaving Carter was my call. I told him not to drink anything.”

“So this is now
his
fault? He was doing me a favor! Do you know what shit I’m getting from my boss because of an unsanctioned undercover op? Once Tori went missing, I had to tell him the whole thing. At least everything except demons and witches. Which means I told him nothing.” Grant kicked a chair.

“Arguing isn’t going to get us any closer to finding her,” Moira snapped.

“Don’t you get it? It’s not my job anymore. I gave the local cops what I know about the camp and the threadbare connection to Defiance. And I had to lie—I said
I
saw her, not a psychic demon hunter!”

“I’m not psychic!”

Rafe put his hand on Moira’s back. “You understand, Grant, that the cops won’t be able to stop this. They won’t find Tori until she’s dead.”

“What am I supposed to do? Did you not hear that I’m no longer working this case? I made the argument that Amy was killed by people associated with Defiance all on specious circumstantial evidence. We have
nothing
connecting Amy with that club, and
nothing
connecting the fake Tessa Standler with Amy except a photograph.”

“Why isn’t that enough?” Moira asked.

Grant looked at them both as if they were stupid.

Moira strode over to the hotel desk and pulled a map out of her backpack. “We have to find Tori.”

“What are you going to use, a Ouija board?”

Moira turned and shoved Grant backward. He was a big guy, but Moira was strong and he wasn’t expecting to be pushed. “I don’t have magical answers, I’m a lot like you, believe it or not. I investigate crimes, only mine are spiritual and yours are human. I know a lot more about how these people operate than you do.”

“You do? Then how come you didn’t know that they would go after Carter? He was doing me a favor!”

“So are we!”

“Forget it. I don’t know why I came here. I’m all out of options. At least I found out what happened to Amy Carney and she’s being buried Monday. At least one good thing came out of this fucked situation.”

Rafe said, “It’s not over.”

“For me, and you, it’s over. The cops know what they’re doing.”

“This time, they won’t know where to look or what to do,” Rafe said. “I know what type of place they need to set up the ritual. If you want to find Tori before she’s drained of her blood and the fake Tessa is one step closer to becoming a vessel for Baphomet, you need us.”

Grant ran his hands through his hair and sat on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know what to do.”

“We do,” Rafe said. He looked at Moira. She was staring at him.

“How did you know?” she asked quietly.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have the answer.

Moira spread the map on the desk, taking her time because she knew that Rafe was hiding something from her. Maybe he
didn’t
know how he knew Tessa was preparing to become a vessel for a demon, but that he
did
know with such certainty scared her.

Why should it? She had unexplained visions connected to demons and Rafe didn’t back away from her. He didn’t look at her with surprise or as if she’d betrayed St. Michael’s Order. He wanted her to accept her curse—he called it a gift—and find a way to use it.

But how did she know if she actively sought out the visions that she was doing so purely, without magic, without snapping the thin spiritual line between them and the astral plane? What if she weakened the layers between her life and Hell? She was already connected to the underworld from birth, thanks to her mother. What if she only sealed her fate?

She glanced at Rafe. She had to trust him. He was the only one who truly seemed to care about her future—that she even
had
a future.

She extended her hand and Rafe took it, standing next to her looking at the map. “Grant,” she said, “where was Amy’s body found? That’s our starting point.”

Reluctantly, Grant walked over. He looked at the map, pointed to a place in near the Encino Reservoir.

“Was her body moved?”

“Yes, we believe her body was dumped in the woods, but very close to the time of death.”

“She died in the mountains,” Rafe said.

Moira didn’t ask how he knew, because she suspected Amy’s ghost had given him the information.

“Her body was found off Encino Avenue,” Grant said. “There’s a lot of open space, valleys and hills. She wasn’t tossed, she seemed to be positioned.”

“It’s common for rituals like this to be performed outdoors, but they can’t risk contamination of the area, and they’re not simply casting a spell,” Moira explained. “They’ll have placed her on an altar. The altar may have been flush to the ground, but she would be on something.”

“Can we go back to the morgue?” Rafe asked.

“Why?” Grant asked.

“Amy’s ghost spoke to me. Now that we know more about what happened, I can ask her questions.”

“I don’t fucking believe this!”

Moira defended Rafe, though she didn’t want him to talk to Amy or any other ghost. “You saw your girlfriend possessed by a demon, you saw what that demon did at Grace Harvest, you believed Julie when she told you about Amy Carney in the first place—that
she’d
spoken to the ghost—and you’ve risked your life and your career finding out what happened to her. Why can’t you accept that Rafe can talk to ghosts?”

Both Grant and Rafe were staring at her. Then Grant asked, “Why is it so important to know
where
she died?”

“Because if this is the ritual Rafe thinks it is, there will be five sacrifices. One on each equinox, and the last on the anniversary of the first, the autumn equinox, which is Baphomet’s feast day. And if we don’t stop the fake Tessa Standler before tonight, she’ll be exponentially stronger, and after facing her, I don’t think I can fight her if she gains more power, short of shooting her in the head. And honestly, I don’t want to go to prison for murder. Last time I checked, the criminal justice system doesn’t allow psycho-bitches to be killed because they’re summoning demons from Hell.”

Grant ran both hands through his hair and closed his eyes. “I’ll call Fern Archer and have her meet us there.”

Fern was at the morgue by the time the three of them arrived.

“I’m not going to ask,” Fern said in greeting. “Just don’t do anything to get me fired. And put on these.” She handed them foot coverings and gloves.

Rafe didn’t know how he was going to find Amy again, or if she was still here. “Where is her body?” he asked Fern.

“She was released to her parents. The mortuary is picking up this afternoon, so the body is probably bagged and ready for transport in the main crypt.”

Fern led the way. She checked tags on all the bagged bodies. “Here.” She gestured to the fourth body in the row.

Rafe stood next to the gurney, mindful that Moira was watching him closely. He didn’t see or feel Amy’s spirit anywhere. Maybe she’d already gone to the afterlife in peace, knowing that her parents knew what had happened to her.

“Well?” Grant asked, impatient.

Rafe asked Fern, “Could I be alone for a minute?”

Fern hesitated. “I really can’t do that.”

Rafe looked at Moira and Grant. “I think if you both leave, she’ll come.”

Reluctantly, Moira left with Grant, saying to Rafe as she walked out, “Don’t break the rules.”

“What’s going on?” Fern asked.

Rafe smiled. “I thought you weren’t going to ask.”

“Changed my mind.”

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

She didn’t say anything.

Rafe continued. “You work here. You’re a comfortable presence to any lingering spirits. They know you. They appreciate how you treat the dead. They’re not scared of you because you’re not creeped out by their physical bodies.”

“It would be hard to have this job if the dead freaked me out.”

“Moira is...sensitive,” Rafe said, not knowing exactly how to explain her fear of the morgue. He didn’t fully understand, and he didn’t think Moira knew, either. He suspected it went back to her past. “And Grant is angry.”

“What are the rules?”

“We’re not supposed to communicate with ghosts, but if they choose to talk to us we can listen and ask them about
their
lives—often, if they can’t move past the astral plane to the afterlife it’s because of a powerful unresolved issue before they died. With Amy, she was trapped with her body because she couldn’t leave without her parents knowing what happened to her. Her love for her parents and their well-being kept her anchored to her body until it was identified.”

“Then she’s gone.”

“I don’t think so.”
I hope not
. “But I can help her.”

“And that’s the only rule? Don’t talk?”

“Don’t question. Don’t ask about the future. Don’t ask for any favors. That’s forbidden, because it opens a portal to the underworld, and your soul is at greater risk. It’s why going to psychics and asking what your future holds is a sin in the Church.”

“I’m not Catholic.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“To me it does.”

Then Rafe qualified, “For me, it’s a grave sin.” He didn’t need to explain further. “There’s also the problem of opening oneself up to possession. The more talking, the more opportunities you give a poltergeist—a bad ghost—from getting inside.”

“So all ghosts aren’t bad?”

“Ghosts are lost souls, not demons. Some are bad, some are simply...lost.”

You came back
...

Rafe turned around. Amy stood behind him, surprised and smiling. “Yes,” he said.

Fern asked, “Is she here?”

Rafe asked Amy, “Do you want to say something to Fern?”

Tell her thank you for being so nice to my parents
.

Rafe smiled and said to Fern, “Amy appreciates that you were kind to her parents.”

Fern looked freaked a moment, then she shook it off. “Well, it’s part of my job.”

She sings when no one is around. She has a very pretty voice. I can’t hear everyone, but I can hear her sing
.

“I have a couple questions about what happened to you.”

Amy’s face twisted and she started to fade.

“Please, Amy—stay with me.”

I don’t want to think about that
.

“I can help stop who did this to you. Do you know that Beth Milner went missing three months ago?”

Amy shook her head, but Rafe suspected she had sensed it.

“Tori Schaeffer is missing. She disappeared between midnight and six a.m. She’ll die the same way you died if we can’t find her.”

Tori?
Amy came back into full focus.

“Do you remember a girl at your camp last summer who called herself Tessa Schaeffer?”

Yes. She was in our cabin. But she left early. Is she missing too?

“She killed you.”

No. It was him
.

“Does he have a name?”

She frowned.
I don’t remember. Everything is fuzzy. Tall. Long blond hair. So nice, so kind. I went with him, I don’t know why. I just—did
.

“I think you were under a spell. Sort of like hypnosis. He said the right words and you went with him as if it were your idea.”

She was thinking.

Rafe pushed. “I need to know where you were when they took your blood.”

I died in the mountains
.