The Coveted (The Unearthly) (3 page)

Chapter 3

Harrison Moore didn’t
much like the outdoors, yet his job always seemed to bring him back out here.

He picked his way through the graveyard. The graves here were so old that the names and years had mostly worn away. They leaned towards and away from each other like drunken revelers partying the afterlife away. At least that was how Harrison liked to think of death
—
as a party that got better the longer you were gone.

For all his knowledge of the dead, he still had no idea what truly lay beyond.

Behind him he could hear his gravedigger shoveling dirt into the hole. Only moments before, that grave’s occupant had whispered to Harrison secrets he’d taken to the grave. Secrets that would earn Harrison his next paycheck.

Once the ceremony was complete and the soul had once again been released from the body, Harrison’s job was over. And tomorrow, other than the dark brown stain where the goat’s blood had spilled, there’d be no signs that anything supernatural had occurred here.

He hated his job.

As he considered alternative careers
—
perhaps a job that didn’t require supernatural powers
—
the leaves around the graves rustled.

They crackled as Harrison stepped over them. It had been a long time since any graveyard spooked him. The dead were not so scary. The living were the ones you had to watch out for.

Out of his peripherals, the shadows cast by the headstones moved. Harrison’s head snapped to the movement, but when he focused on the grave, it stood motionless, its shadow firmly in place.

That’s what you get for working in cemeteries,
he thought to himself.

In front of him two trees loomed, arching over the entrance to the cemetery.

To his side, Harrison heard leaves stir again, even though the air was still. The hairs along his arm rose.

It might’ve been a long time since a graveyard had spooked him, but this cemetery on this evening had managed to set his nerves on edge.

He picked up his pace. Behind him he heard a chuckle. He never had time to run. Someone rammed into his back, sending him sprawling to the ground. The bag he carried spilled open next to him. Some vials rolled out.

He flipped over. And he only had a moment to scream before the thing descended on him.

***

Leanne paced our room. “What was Madame Woods
—
or that thing that possessed her
—
talking about?” she asked.

Oliver lay back on my bed, eating chocolates and reading a Cosmo magazine. “Really chickadee?” he said, not bothering to tear his gaze away from the “Six Sensual Tricks Sure To Make Him Stay.” “It seemed pretty obvious to me. Even the devil has the hots for Gabrielle,” he said, popping a chocolate into his mouth.

“Ugh, Oliver,” I said, “don’t put it like that.”

He raised his eyebrows and laid the magazine on his stomach. “Then how should I put it? That the devil and his little cloven hooves want to
—
”

I put a hand up. “Please don’t finish that sentence. And Leanne, I can answer your question.”

I’d meant to tell my friends about the man in the suit, but the moment just never seemed right. Now, however, they deserved to know that I came with a little extra baggage
—
okay, a lot of extra baggage.

I looked from Oliver to Leanne and took a deep breath. “Remember how people had tried to kill me at the beginning of the school year?”

Leanne nodded and Oliver popped another chocolate into his mouth.

“Well, one of those people who stalked me was someone I call the man in the suit. He’s haunted me all my life. And the day Bishopcourt
—
Andre’s mansion
—
burned, I found out that he may be the devil.” Except it wasn’t maybe. He was the devil. I just wasn’t comfortable with that piece of information.

Leanne’s brows furrowed. “What does he want?”

I gave her a sad smile. “Me.”

***

I lay in my bed in the middle of the forest. The white gown I wore looked like snow against my skin. I stared at the night sky above me. Stars shone between the treetops. A chilly wind blew through the forest and someone rubbed my arms.

That was when I realized I wasn’t alone in my bed.

“Do you want this?” the stranger whispered in my ear. “You can have it all.”

I turned my head to see him. The pale moonlight cast his face in blue hues. His face was perfect
—
strong jaw, full lips, thick lashes that fringed bedroom eyes. At the moment, I did want it all. Oh yes please I did.

But what about Andre?
Something about this situation felt wrong.

“No . . . I can’t.” I pushed against the man. His hands moved to my upper arms, and he held me in place.

“What do you think you’re doing? Get off of me!” I struggled against him.

His nails dug into my arms and I woke up gasping for air. Just a dream.

Only, the man was still on top of me.

I let out a bloodcurdling scream.

On the other side of the room Leanne woke up gasping. “Gabrielle, are you okay?”

“Get the fuck off of me!” I yelled at the man.

I figured that would answer Leanne’s question.

Lucky for me, my strength gave me an edge. I catapulted him off me, and I heard him grunt as he hit the floor.

The light in our room clicked on and a naked man scrambled up.

Ew, ew,
ew
! A naked man had been in my bed! At the moment, I didn’t really care that he was a perfect specimen of the male species; I was about ready to toss him out my window.

“What the . . . ?” Leanne’s voice trailed off as the man clambered to his feet. He didn’t even bother covering himself up. “What’s a naked man doing in your bed? I thought we had a code for these kinds of things Gabrielle. Not cool.”

“What?” I squeaked. “I didn’t bring him in! He just made himself comfortable.”

The man looked back and forth between the two of us. And then his form blurred until he vanished completely.

What. The hell.

***

“Goddess above,” Leanne said, “what was that?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea,” I said, still creeped out that he’d been in my bed. I glanced at my upper arms. Half moon divots were still impressed into my skin from the man’s fingernails.

“How the hell did he disappear?” Leanne asked.

I rubbed my face with a hand. “I have absolutely no idea.” And I had no idea how to prevent something like that from happening again in the future.

“So you really didn’t invite him in?”

I gave her a look. “Did you really have to ask?”

“Well, he was pretty easy on the eyes . . .”

“
Leanne
.”

She held her hands up. “Okay, okay
—
I just had to give you a hard time about it.”

We both stared at the place where he disappeared.

Leanne cocked her head. “He had really big
—
”

“Man bits?” I finished for her.

“Yeah.” A slow smile spread across her face. “Oliver is going to be so jealous.”

***

At 4:00 a.m. the following morning my phone went off.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mumbled.

“No,” Leanne moaned. “Turn off that hellbeast.”

I silenced the phone and rolled out of bed. I could already guess the caller.

Once I exited my room I answered my silenced phone. “I don’t think I like investigations,” I opened.

“Too bad,” Maggie said. “I don’t think our victim likes being dead either. We need you to come in. Another person has been murdered.”

***

It felt like déjà vu, watching the pathologist slide out another victim. This one was Harrison Moore, a middle-aged man with dark hair and a goatee. And just like the last victim, he had an ugly neck wound.

“Harrison Moore. Age forty-three,” Chief Constable Morgan said. “He was found inside the Douglas cemetery. From his belongings he appears to be a necromancer, and his job seems to be what brought him to the cemetery.”

I choked on the smell. He too, seemed to have been scared at the time of his death.

“Just like Catherine O’Connor our victim here was drained almost dry. His body was then placed in a spread eagle position. Maggie, what read did you get off this body?”

“Same as the last one, sir,” she said. “That is to say, nothing other than an overwhelming sense of fear.”

Chief Constable Morgan rubbed his mustache. “I assumed as much.”

The room was too hot and too cold at once. I couldn’t tell if it was the stench of death and preservatives that clung to the room, the gruesome body in front of me, or that I had to help locate the person responsible, but I felt lightheaded.

The chief constable didn’t seem to notice my unease. “From the timeframe of the murder,” he said, “as well as the manner he was killed and the body’s post mortem positioning, one thing is clear.”

He paused to look at Caleb, Maggie, and I. “We have ourselves a serial killer.”

***

Someone knocked on the morgue’s door, and an inspector poked his head in. “Eugene,” the inspector said, referring to the chief constable, “Can I speak to you in private for a moment?”

“Sure.” Chief Constable Morgan glanced at the three of us. “Would you three mind waiting outside for just a minute?”

I wanted to cry with joy at his words. I was going to get sick again if I didn’t get out of here.

“Not at all,” Maggie said.

We walked out of the room, and only then was I able to release the breath I’d been holding.

For a moment we all stood silent.

“A necromancer?” I finally asked. I thought I was catching on to this world, but at times like these, I really felt out of my element.

Maggie gave me a look. “One who raises the dead. Reanimates corpses.”

I curled my lip. “Why would anyone do that for a living?”

“Oh, lots of reasons. But the main one is that it pays really well. When it comes to death, people tend to underprepare and leave a lot of loose ends behind them. A necromancer can reanimate the deceased long enough to settle an inheritance dispute, find a lost family heirloom
—
anything really that the dead take with them to the grave.”

Throughout this entire discussion, Caleb had stayed silent. I didn’t ask him his thoughts, but his silence piqued my curiosity.

“And it works?” I asked.

“Absolutely.”

I looked at Maggie like she was insane. “Then why are we not using a necromancer to find the killer?”

Maggie laughed. It was a laugh that said I still had a lot to learn. “Necromancers practice the dark arts. It takes a blood sacrifice to reanimate a corpse. And the deader they are, the heavier the sacrifice. The House of Keys does not condone such practices, so we are forbidden by law to use them in our investigations.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So even though a necromancer makes blood sacrifices, they’re still accepted in the community
—
but vampires aren’t?” I couldn’t understand how the supernatural community could draw an arbitrary line in the sand and declare everything to one side okay, and everything to the other side evil.

Maggie curled her upper lip. My question must’ve hit a nerve. “As far as I’m concerned, our victim is a necromancer and the perpetrator is a vampire,” she snapped.
Fair point.
“And until the day that changes, we’ll keep the beliefs we currently have.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Caleb said. “That’s not
—
”

But she wasn’t finished. “Perhaps society and even Andre himself have convinced you that vampires are harmless. They’re not. They have to feed every single night. Off of humans. Thousands of victims have died just like the man in that room.”

I could’ve guessed as much, but I’d truly never thought it completely through. I tended to avoid those topics that scared me. But now I couldn’t.

I was becoming a monster, whether I liked it or not.

No wonder the devil wants me.

***

Caleb put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re not going to be like that,” he said to me. He shot Maggie a dirty look.

“She needs to know,” Maggie said. “It’s not like those bloodsuckers are telling her the truth.”

I bristled at her words. Andre had been nothing but truthful with me. It was part of the reason I’d needed space. I’d seen and heard too much.

“And the Politia is telling me the truth?” I said to her. My anger was beginning to get the best of me. “Don’t bother answering that. It was a rhetorical question.”

Maggie looked as though she was about to put me in my place, but she didn’t get the chance. The door to the morgue opened and the inspector and Chief Constable Morgan stepped out. We watched the inspector walk down the hall. Only when he’d rounded the corner and his steps had faded did the chief constable speak.

He scratched his mustache. “So far, we’ve been able to keep the media out of this, but the individual who discovered Harrison’s body works with the newspaper in Douglas. They’re printing a story on it today.”

He seemed weary. “This is going to make the investigation that much more difficult.”

“We’ll deal with what comes at us,” Maggie said.

“I’m sure we will,” the chief constable said. “If anyone asks you all about the case, your job is to refer them to our station’s contact information. Do not disclose anything yourself.

“I’m going to head up to my office to put together a statement for the inevitable press conference.” He tapped my shoulder and looked at Maggie. “Can I borrow Gabrielle for a moment?”

I didn’t like the sound of his voice. I could already tell by his inflection that I wouldn’t like whatever he wanted to discuss.

“Of course,” Maggie said.

I gave them both sullen looks. What about my consent?

“Great, I’ll chat with you later then, Maggie.” Chief Constable Morgan began walking, while I stood in place, refusing to budge.