Raising Innocence (12 page)

The problem was, even I didn’t know much about this particular supernatural I was suspecting, so if I was right, I was going to be in for some surprises.

Breaking into a jog, I was at the caretaker’s hut in no time, banging on the door. Suspicions were all I had, but
if
I was right, I at least knew what we were dealing with when it came to the kidnapper. Or at least it was a start.

“Hello? Anyone home?” I banged my fist on the door again, rattling the thin wood on its hinges.

A muffled voice shouted out at me. “Bloody hell, give me a minute to get me pants on!”

I stepped back as the door opened, an older man with long grey hair and squinting eyes peeking out at me.

“What you want? A burial?” He shooed at me with his hands, “Go to the church, they do the arranging of burials for you. I just dig the hole.”

He started to close the door and I put my hand on it, stopping him. “No, I’d like to ask you a question. Do you get many grave robbers here?”

His eyebrows shot into his hairline and I thought perhaps I’d been wrong. Staring at me, he shook his head. Damn it, I’d thought I’d been on to something. Looked like I was back to square one.

I turned to walk away when his voice stopped me.

“How did you know?”

I spun around. “Know what?”

“About the graves that have been disturbed. Robbed isn’t quite the right word for what happened here.”

“Will you tell me about them, the disturbances?” Fingers crossed, this could be the break I needed.

He beckoned me in. “No one would take me seriously, just brushed me off like I was a crazy old coot.”

I followed him into his hut, the heat from an antique pot belly stove taking the chill out of the air.

“I’m the caretaker here. Name’s Harold. Have a seat.” He pointed to a solidly built chair.

l lowered myself into it. “I’m Rylee.”

“Good name. Warrior name, I think,” he mumbled as he bent and rifled through a box next to the stove. “Was going to burn these papers, just never got around to it.”

With an almost casual toss, he flopped a stack of papers onto the table in front of me.

Each paper contained a number, name and date, along with pictures in many cases. There were over a hundred sheets.

Harold pointed at the paper on top. “That number there designates the grave, the name of the deceased and the date the grave was disturbed.”

“Why do you have all these? I mean, I understand you’re the caretaker, but this is . . . .” I looked at the stack of pages, knowing without counting that there were a lot. More than just keeping records. “Extremely detailed.”

Giving me a smile, he looked over my shoulder, as if seeing things that weren’t really there. “My pa was a details kind of man. Taught me the importance of keeping things until they were no longer needed. If you’d been a day or so later, might be that all these would be gone.”

I flipped through the pages quickly, staring at the few pictures that Harold had pinned to the pages. Each grave looked not as if it had been dug up, but more like it had been
dug out
. Like whatever had been in the grave had clawed its way to the surface.

Gripping the paper, a shot of excitement zipped through me. “Can you show me some of these graves?”

Harold bobbed his head, and then grabbed his coat. “But you know, they stopped—all the grave robberies stopped. Haven’t had one in, oh, about—”

I finished it for him. “The last two years?”

Blinking his squinty eyes of indiscriminate colour up at me, he smiled. “Yup, that’s right on the mark. You a bobby?”

Staring at him blankly seemed to get my point across that I had no idea what he was talking about. He cleared his throat and clarified. “A police officer?”

“Private investigator,” I answered without hesitation.

“Ah, I see. Makes sense, the police, they’re too busy to be bothered with grave robberies. Too busy by far.”

He grabbed two umbrellas and handed me one. But the weather wasn’t bothering me anymore. Shit, this was why O’Shea liked to ask questions. Because when the puzzle pieces came together it was a freaking high like no other!

We made our way around the graveyard, Harold pointing out the graves that had been disturbed. All of them were children, all under five years old, with the exception of one—the oldest grave.

From close to a hundred years ago, the kid was the oldest of the group as well. Twelve years old, a girl, and—I bent to read the tombstone better—she died of the wasting disease.

Brittany Mariana Tolvay
. Nothing else but her name and the dates. No, that wasn’t true. I bent down and brushed the grass back from the base, the words faded with age and weather, but I could read them still.

Beloved daughter. Cleansed by fire in the hands of God. Gone for but a moment.

“This one was dug out?” I pointed at it, not sure if what I was seeing fit or not.

Harold stepped forward. “That one there is strange, the only one where it looked like a proper grave robbing. Someone trying to get in.”

But if the kid’s body had been burned, there wouldn’t have been anything left to steal. This was the only one that didn’t fit with the others. This was the starting point.

I shook myself. No, what I was seeing confirmed my suspicions. I had some proof, and I was ready to rumble. The asshole stealing kids from their deathbeds was about to get a nasty surprise on his doorstep.

I saw Harold back to his hut, thanked him for his help and turned to go, papers tucked inside my jacket; but something pulled at me, like string tied around my waist, I felt it vibrate under my skin.

Standing quietly, I let my senses guide me. Someone was throwing around a lot of power, so much so that even my miniscule abilities with detection were picking it up. The church bells tolled and I frowned. The time was wrong for the bells to be tolling. Hell, it was twenty-two minutes passed the hour, not even close. And churches were, if nothing else, particular about their rituals.

Setting out once more in a brisk walk, I made my way to the church, feeling the power of whoever it was grow the closer I got. Like a wash of home I felt the hum of magic and knew it was a witch battling it out in the church. For one brief second, I wondered if it was Milly. But no, whoever this was throwing power around was stronger even than Milly; besides Milly was an ocean away, it wouldn’t be her.

The bells tolled again, and this close, the sound rumbled through my chest. Leaning up against the huge wooden doors, I pressed my ear tight against them. Chanting, a lot of chanting. My skin crawled in remembrance. The last time I’d been on the other side of a set of doors and chanting we’d almost lost a little girl, India in fact, to a serious demon possession.

Though I doubted that was the case now, I still couldn’t turn around and just leave without making sure whoever was being chanted over was okay.

With a shove, I opened the double doors wide and strode in, stopping in the vestibule, the scene before me not something I’d expected.

Two circles of priests surrounded a girl strapped down on the altar; a cloth was draped over her body and a chunk of wood, what I was betting was a heavy wooden cross, was on her chest. One priest held a bowl over her head as he chanted, then slowly poured the water out on her face.

She snapped her head to the side. “Get the hell off me!” Her English accent made me think of the girl from Harry Potter. Hermione, if I remembered the name right.

The priests, of course, didn’t listen, nor did they listen as she flicked her wrist and sent one of them flying into the air. They had no idea what they were dealing with.

“You should let her go,” I said loudly, and the church went silent.

Stepping down out of the vestibule and into the main alley between the pews, I ran my fingers over the wooden armrests. “She isn’t possessed and you have no right to torment her.”

Two priests came toward me, faces grim, the one on the right doing all the talking. “Her family gave her to the church to heal. Now be gone with you.” They shooed at me like I was a stray dog.

I smiled and slid my two swords from the crossed sheath at my back. “I don’t play nice, boys.”

They stopped their advance on me and it was my turn to motion for them to get out of my way. They listened, stepping back.

The head honcho, the one with the fancy scarf around his neck and ridiculous looking hat, lifted his hand to me, palm out. “God will not be denied, and no matter the temptations that the devil will send, we will be faithful and bring this child to the light of Christ.”

I lifted my middle finger to him. “This ain’t got nothing to do with God or Christ. Now. Let. Her. Go.”

The priest’s eyes blazed with anger; I just continued to smile. This was about to get fun. I wouldn’t really kill any of the priests, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t make for some good practice. I put my swords back into their sheaths one at a time. There were nine priests, just enough to make this interesting.

I beckoned to the high priest, or whatever the fuck he was. “You’re going to have to take me out before I let you put one more drop of holy water on her.”

The church went even more silent, as if everyone held their breath, as if the air and tension from the tombs below had crept upward.

Mr. High Priest with the funky scarf and stupid hat made a motion with his left hand toward me. “Take her. We must not be interfered with; the child’s soul is at stake.”

Let the fun begin.

Hands circled around my waist in an attempt to keep my arms pinned. I snapped my head backwards, connecting with his nose, the crunch of cartilage crackling through the air, blood hitting the back of my neck. He screamed and let go. Spinning, I jerked my right foot up catching the second priest under his chin, knocking him out cold. Damn, that was over way too fast.

Dusting off my jacket, I turned and lifted an eyebrow at the remaining priests. “Anyone else care for a go?”

Six of the remaining seven moved toward me, spreading out through the pews. Perfect. Hopping up onto the pew closest to me, I ran toward the closest priest, dropping my weight and sliding along the wooden bench, as he swung a sloppy right hook at me.

“Let me guess, you’ve got mommy issues. That’s why you’re a priest,” I said, spinning on my butt and pinning the priest to the pew in front of us. He glowered at me and I booted him hard in the chest, knocking the breath out of him. As he slid down, a second kick to the jaw made his eyes roll back in his head.

Moving quickly, I dispatched the next two priests with ease, leaving three young men who looked like they were fresh out of seminary, two of the three covered heavily in pimples.

“Listen, I can kick your asses and you can wake up tomorrow morning uglier than you are now . . .” I paused to let them take that in, “or you can fuck off and keep what’s left of your pride.”

They grouped tighter together and slowly advanced.

Smiling, I said, “Alrighty then.”

I unhooked my whip and let the tail drop to the floor, the leather shushing along the wood as I walked. A flick of my wrist snapped the whip into the air, and I pulled down hard with my whole arm to crack the leather tip over their heads. They scattered like a herd of sketched out cows, running for the exits.

Laughing softly, I tucked the whip away and turned to face the final priest who, no doubt, wished he had some magical powers of his own right then.

“You are of the devil and I cast you out,” he yelled, flicking holy water at me.

I couldn’t stop the laugh that leapt out of me. “Oh my. Please, throw some more lukewarm water on me. I’m trembling with fear all the way down to my tight little ass.”

The high priest shook with what I could only assume was rage as he started in on the Latin.

I cleared my throat, then held up a hand to him and miracle of miracles, he stopped. “Listen, I’m going to take the girl, and you’re going to say that she ran away. Got it?”

“She is my charge! I cannot—”

My sword cleared its sheath, the blade slicing through the air so fast he couldn’t dodge it; I held the tip against the hollow of his throat. “You can. She doesn’t belong with you in your world. She belongs in mine.”

He opened his mouth to speak, and I stepped closer; let him see my tri-coloured eyes as they swirled.

Stuttering to a stop he stepped away. “Get thee gone. And take the devil child with you.”

I saluted him with my sword. “Excellent.”

Two swift slices and the girl was free of her bonds. She slithered off the altar, clutching the tablecloth over her. The priest snatched it away. “Do not touch the emblems of Christ!”

“Stuff a sock in it,” I said, as I held my hand out to the girl.

Barely covered with a thin sack-like dress that hung to the floor, she stood in the shadows of one of the stained glass windows, the faint midday light coming through doing nothing to give me a better look at her. Blazing blue eyes glared at me, and though I felt her power swirl around me, it did nothing. Her eyes widened and I smiled at her. “You can’t hurt me. Not like you do the others.”

“I don’t want to come with you.”

Ignoring the priest and his muttering, I kept my focus on the girl. She made me think of Berget. They were so similar in colouring with the blonde hair and almost shocking blue eyes, but this girl, from what I could see of her, was rail thin, all angles and points. It looked as though they’d been starving her, the bastards. If she’d been a little older or better trained, they never would have been able to tie her down. They were lucky she hadn’t killed them by accident.

“Well, here’s the thing,” I said, putting a hand on the altar and swinging across it to sit with my legs dangling on the other side. “You don’t really fit in this part of the world, do you?”

Her eyes narrowed.

I went on. “And I’m betting your family just dumped you here, once your temper tantrums got out of control?”

“They weren’t temper tantrums!” Tears starting to leak out of her eyes, the first I’d seen since I’d stepped into the church. This was one tough little kid. She reminded me a little of myself.

I softened my voice. “No, they weren’t. But that
is
what they thought, isn’t it?”