The Talisman Killer, page 1
The Talisman Killer
Wolffe & Bane
Book One
Shéa MacLeod
&
Miranda Mayer
Smashwords Edition
The Talisman Killer
Text copyright © 2017 Shéa MacLeod & Miranda Mayer
All rights reserved.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author
Cover Art by Christian Bentulan
Editing by Yvette Keller
Photographer: Rachel Salisbury
Models: Jacqueline Jae and Ophelia Darkly
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Acknowledgements
A hearty thank you to Ranger Jimmy, who so kindly helped us with research at the Bradford Island Visitor Center at Bonneville Dam. Also with thanks to our Beta Readers. Thanks to the City of Astoria, for inspiring us with its beauty and ambiance.
Dedication
To all the bad-ass women
Chapter 1– Bane
“Hold him down!” I eyed the massive, demon-like creature my partner was trying to wrestle to the ground. It’s thick, horned hide glistened in the light from the car’s high beams. The salt shaker in my pocket wasn’t going to work. I tossed it over my shoulder, where it hit the ground with a clink and rolled.
“I am,” Wolffe snapped, her voice breathy. “Stop that.”
I heard the smacking of flesh against flesh. Go Wolffe.
I knelt on the soggy earth and yanked back the zipper of my duffel bag. The cold and damp from that morning’s rain soaked the knee of my jeans. I rummaged around until I found what I was looking for. With a crow of delight I pulled out an entire box of Morton and waved it in the air.
Wolffe let out an oof as the demon shifter below her bucked wildly, tossing back his horned head in a vain attempt to gore her stomach. For a minute she was airborne. Then she landed, clamping her knees harder around its leathery back. She shot me a wild grin. “Like riding a bronco.”
“Like you’d know.” Wolffe was more of a dressage kind of girl. Other arm still in my bag, I pulled out the first weapon I came to. It was a rusty railroad spike. Iron, so that was good. For whatever reason, the monsters didn’t much care for iron. “Hold him and I’ll stab him through the heart.” I said, striding toward the pair as they rolled amidst the fallen leaves and pine needles carpeting the forest floor.
Wolffe gave me a horrified look. Her black rimmed glasses slid down her nose making her look like a deranged librarian. “Are you crazy?”
“No more than usual.”
“You can’t stab him through the heart, Bane. He’s not a vampire.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know that. He’s a demon.”
She let out a grunt as the demon bucked again. She smacked him on the back of the head with her palm. “He’s also a person,” she finally managed. “A human being.”
“Only part-time,” I argued.
“We do not kill humans. Not even part-time ones. Now would you shut up and salt him?” she snapped.
I sighed as I opened the spout on the Morton box. “Here goes nothing.” As he opened his mouth to let out another howl, I poured a stream of salt into the shrieking beast’s mouth. He choked and gasped before shifting back into a scrawny twelve year old boy with Wolffe perched on top of him. He was still coughing and gagging over the salt. Tears streaked his face and snot covered his chin and dripped down his ragged, striped sweater.
“Well, this is awkward,” she said, climbing off him. She could now easily hold him in place with just her hands. “No doubt,” I said. “Roll him over and I’ll get the cuffs on him.”
The kid didn’t try to get away. He just sobbed uncontrollably. He was going to need some serious psychological help after this. Unless they sent him back through. Chilling thought. Too bad we couldn’t separate demon and child, but the boy was too young to survive the shock.
I cuffed the kid’s hands with a zip tie. It may sound weird, but they were surprisingly effective for restraining our more exuberant prey.
“The cops are never going to believe this,” she said with a shake of her head as she sat back on her heels. Her long, dark hair had pulled out of its neat braid and was fluffed out in a wild halo of curls and tangles around her head, decorated here and there with the odd leaf. Very rakish. Her pale skin was flushed from exertion and her gray eyes glittered with excitement from behind her lenses although she’d never admit how much she enjoyed the hunt.
Veronica Wolffe goes by Ronnie to most people, but I call her Wolffe because it’s badass. In our line of work badassery is important. I mean, who gets all freaked out over someone named Ronnie?
My name is Verity Bane. But I hate my name, so I go by Bane, mostly. Only Ronnie calls me Vee. Anyone else gets a ninja junk punch. At least in my mind.
In the distance, sirens wailed. “Here they come,” I muttered. Half of me was dreading the upcoming confrontation. The other half was looking forward to a good verbal sparring.
Wolffe pinched the bridge of her nose. “Here we go.”
It actually wasn’t bad. Not like it used to be. The police showing up used to involve a lot of explaining on our part, a lot of threatening on theirs, and a news story the next day about the crazy paranormal investigators that were the embarrassment of the City of Astoria. Never mind the fact that we practically single-handedly supported the city’s coffee industry.
Since the Rift, we weren’t considered crazy. The police no longer questioned. Nobody did, because everybody knew the monsters were real.
It was an accident, they said, but nobody seemed to know exactly what kind of accident. Whatever it was, something went wrong at a lab in Illinois. Something to do with particle acceleration. It tore open the fabric that held together the universe, and allowed other dimensions into ours.
There had always been small bleeds between dimensions. That was where ghosts came from, and why we have stories of vampires, werewolves, and other monsters. They slipped through from time to time, pushing past the thin veil between their world and ours. People like Wolffe and me knew they existed and hunted them before they could kill humans. Sometimes we were effective. Sometimes not so much.
But the Rift made some big ass holes in the fabric of existence. The monsters didn’t slip through anymore. They waltzed in like they owned the place.
Now the newly minted Rift Authority, not so affectionately referred to as the RA, monitored Rift activity. The RA was of the Department of Energy. The guys that made the monsters we caught disappear. Some said the RA experimented on the creatures. I wouldn’t put it past them.
The first police unit rolled up, reds and blues flashing wildly against the night sky, blocking out the myriad stars that glowed gently overhead. The door swung open, gold Astoria Police Department Shield painted on the side caught the flashing lights and glowed like a beacon. A uniformed officer stepped out, and close behind him came a detective. A dark suit emphasized broad shoulders and a narrow waist. His chestnut hair had been swept back and gelled, but one Superman curl tumbled across his forehead.
“Crap,” I muttered. “Not him. Anybody but him.”
Chapter 2 – Wolffe
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Officer Smooooooooth,” was all I had to say to rankle Vee.
She snorted at me, her sharp eyes firing off a volley of daggers before Detective Riley came into earshot. I smirked and pulled the kid to his feet.
“You know, I don’t know why you always leave me to do the wrangling part. I have a kid you know,” I grumbled while we waited for the detective to amble his way towards us.
“Well, since I’m gonna be Winter’s guardian if something happens to you, she’s covered,” Vee retorted with a wry grin. I snuffed through my nose and tried to straighten myself up a bit.
As usual, Detective Riley bee-lined towards Vee with a goofy grin on his face. His cheeks and ears already ruddy with blushes. I couldn’t blame him. Vee is pretty damned cute. No, more than that. It’s disgusting how cute she is. A crisp bob of purple hair, a heart-shaped face with sparkling violet eyes, you really can’t find anything not to love about looking at her. She’s my best friend, my colleague, and a pain in my ass. I call her Vee, but her given name is Verity, which is about the best name the universe could have attached to her. With her penchant for awesome Victorian/steampunky style, well, come on. Verity! And she has the most awesome last name ever known to man. Well, after mine. I think our friendship pretty much sparked off just from the downright coolness of how well our last names went together. Add our fascination with all things supernatural, and our sensitivities to the otherworldy, it had been an easy choice to open up Wolffe & Bane, Agency of the Supernatural (and domestic detective work).
“Miss Bane,” Riley half-waved, tripping clumsily on a root, the red on his face deepening. He was cute too, in a completely-dorky-boy-next-door way. He had fostered this terminal crush on Vee since before the Rift days, when the town pretty much made a mockery of us. Now, they weren’t laughing, and Riley had all the excuses he needed to be around Vee as much as he wanted. He pretty much shows up anytime we call something in to Astoria Police Department. I worry when he doesn’t.
I let Vee handle the explanation to the police, and oversee to the kid’s transfer to their custody. My little rodeo had been enough work. Poor kid was in their hands now.
I’m not a morning person. But we have an office to open every day. I do the opening because I have to drop Winter off at school anyway. And these days, work is a damn sight busier than it used to be. I don’t have to skip meals to afford Winter’s ballet classes anymore, that’s for sure. I slid the key into the door of our brick storefront on Marine Drive in the heart of downtown Astoria, Oregon—in the rainy coast of the Pacific Northwest. Astoria is a city that sits at the mouth of the mighty Columbia River, where the river flows into Pacific Ocean. The three mile long Columbia River bar is known as the graveyard of the Pacific because of the price it exacts in sunken ships. The bar is so complex to navigate, that bargers have to wait in line for local guides to navigate them through the dangerous waters and under the Astoria bridge to safety.
Astoria, although technically a city, is more like a small town. When it’s off season, which is most of the year, it is quiet. Today, the rains had come in, much to my delight. Fall is my favorite because I’m all about rain. I pushed the door of the office open, my gaze passing over our badass new logo with no small measure of pride. Man, we’re cool.
Our digs were pretty simple, but out of habit I scanned everything thoroughly. It was a nice little kingdom, and it was ours. Just one large room, but we had a closet, kitchenette, and storeroom in the back next to a small bathroom. The long, high reception desk was at the moment, unoccupied. Being flush enough now, we are getting ready to hire a receptionist, but it’s been hard to make the time. Behind the reception counter are our desks, with an old 80s cubicle divider defining Vee’s space from mine. It’s easy to tell whose is whose. Vee’s is decorated like Captain Nemo’s drawing room. I don’t know where she finds cool junk like an old copper diver’s helmet, but it makes her space seem fascinating, while mine’s just a frickin’ mess. Clearly, we still have work to do.
The room is mostly raw brick and sheetrock with the mud and tape still unpainted. It’s been in a half-finished state for about a year. First we couldn’t afford to do it, now we don’t have to time to mess with it. Work’s been non-stop since the Rift. Astoria is a Rift hotspot, and we are the only game in town. Not that I’m complaining or anything.
I tossed the morning victuals on the reception desk and went to check voice mail. We hardly get domestic cases anymore. It’s almost all supernatural stuff. Not that I used to find a lot of pleasure in stalking a cheating spouse, but man, this is crazy. The overnight messages were one after the other: hauntings this, demons that, monsters, specters and a baseball bat. I spent at least fifteen minutes scratching down names, numbers and quick notations about each complaint. Mary Blake’s house has talking rats. Kenneth saw a huge man-sized bat-thing hanging from a street lamp on Franklin. Seriously? We’re not pest fecking control!
Thing is, the police aren’t equipped to deal with this stuff. The only people who are, are people like us. We went from being snorted at by the local PD, to being consulted every time anything out of the ordinary happens. It’s been a really weird transition. In the past year, we’ve gotten to know the Astoria PD pretty well. Before the Rift, they would run into us on calls, and we were the force’s best source for great jocularity. Except Riley. Riley was always nice to us. To Vee especially.
They’re not laughing now. We’ve actually been given a little funding from the city to defray our costs when we are on an APD job. I won’t lie. It’s nice to be taken seriously
The door opened while I was still sorting through messages, and there was Det. Riley. His sweet face always makes me happy. He was looking sharp in his suit, young for a detective, but not that young. I estimated he was 35, but I thought I ought to ask him at some point. He’s a nice guy, even if he is a dork extraordinaire. I’m convinced that he and Vee would make really cute babies. But Vee isn’t interested in tiny dork babies. She says she’s ready and waiting to take Winter when I get eaten by a monster, but that’s all the responsibility she’s ready for.
Riley was carrying a coffee. Everybody in Oregon is carrying a coffee. We’re kind of coffee people. I was smart enough to pick some up on the way in, because when Bane shows up, she’s non-verbal until she’s had hers. That’s my job. Getting the morning coffee for the hangry beast. That, and a bagel. And doughnuts—‘cause we’re kind of cops now, right? I’ll take it. Anyway, yeah. the healthy stuff.
I directed my eyes to the intruding cop, who was standing there looking at me in his dorky way. “She’s not here yet,” I blurted, covering the mouthpiece as if the voicemail would somehow overhear me.
“Uh…yeah. It’s not…it is… well…” he stammered. I hung up the phone and rolled my eyes up at him in impatience.
“There’s a thing. Trees…”
“Riley, no offense but, you’re pathetic. She’s not even here yet. Can you try to form a complete sentence?”
“Body. Out at the clear-cut across by Fern Hill. It’s a Rift thing. Has to be.” With an impatient sigh, I snatched up the phone again. I could barely contain my glee. Miss Bane was going to have to go verbal pre-coffee and answer the phone. We had a Rift-related killing.
Chapter 3 – Bane
The woods around me were dark and ominous. Tree branches snapped and snarled as I ran, snatching at my clothes as if they were creatures trying to snare me. I pushed harder, running until my legs ached and my sides heaved, but no matter how fast I ran the trees were there. Waiting.
I dodged a reaching branch only to find a vine had wrapped itself around my right wrist. I struggled to release myself from its vice-like grip, but it was no use. I was stuck fast. Another branch wrapped around my left wrist. I pushed and pulled, but nothing I did worked. The branches wrapped tighter. Deep inside I felt horrible pressure. Pain lanced through my chest. I opened my mouth to scream, but all that came out was a burbling sound as blood dripped down my chest.
The shrill ring of my phone jerked me from the latest nightmare. I opened one eye and glared at it. I should be glad for its rescue, but I was annoyed to be awake. What time was it anyway?
The ringing finally stopped and I let out a sigh of relief. Part of me wanted to roll over and bury myself deeper under the smooth coolness of the cotton duvet. Instead, I grabbed the offending hunk of plastic and tried to make sense of the numbers bright against the dark background. 8 am. Too friggin’ early.
My studio apartment was almost impossibly dark, thanks to the blackout curtains over the tall windows overlooking the city. Only the faint blue glow of the clock on the DVR interrupted the intimate blackness. I’d even hung a curtain over the door so the light from the hallway wouldn’t filter in around the cracks.
The studio was one big room with a small kitchenette along one wall. Next to the front door was a second and third door. One let to the postage stamp sized bathroom and one led to a barely-squeeze-in closet. My bed was a disaster, but mostly hidden from the front door behind a Japanese style screen. The space was too small to fit both a bed and a couch, so a pair of armchairs in burgundy velvet sat off to one side, a black lacquer, octagonal table between them. I’d picked it up at a garage sale and painted it myself.
With a sigh I pulled up the call list to see who’d interrupted my beauty sleep. Wolffe. What was she doing calling me at this ungodly hour? She knew I never got up before nine. Something akin to dread pooled in the pit of my stomach where it mixed with excitement. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. I hit redial. She answered immediately.
