Fifteen
as she waited for Avery and the others, wondering what was taking so long.
She eyed the crates full of gold coins that gleamed in the lamplight and couldn’t help but shudder.
Ever since Nancy had called it blood-soaked gold, she couldn’t think of it any other way. The deaths that had occurred in order to obtain this would have run to the hundreds, if not thousands. All the men who died trying to ship goods to Cornwall, only to be wrecked on the coast. The men who died trying to transport it off the beaches, through passages and caves, waging private wars and fighting with excise men. Blood-soaked didn’t even come close. It was a bloodbath. Not to mention, Cruel Coppinger’s gang had been worse than most. And on top of those deaths would have been the additional deaths or heartbreak of their widows, daughters, fathers, sons, and mothers. After all, smuggling was sometimes a family affair—dark, ugly, and rife with risk.
Suddenly, El wanted the gold out of her warm, comfortable apartment that was blessed with light and life. The treasure seemed to pulse with malevolent intent. How could she have ever thought it exciting?
Whirling blackness heralded Avery’s return, and with a shock, El saw Briar at her feet. “Briar!” she cried out, racing over and crouching at her side. “What happened?”
“I have no idea! When me and Reuben found the others in the car park, it had already happened. I’m going back for Hunter.”
Within seconds she’d gone again, and El shook Briar gently, murmuring her name. But Briar was unconscious, horribly still, her breaths shallow.
El made her comfortable, placing a pillow under her head and a blanket over her, and with a quick spell, she lit the fire in the grate, sending it blazing. Then she ran to her spell supplies, choosing a few gemstones she knew had healing qualities.
By the time she’d grabbed those, Avery and Hunter were manifesting on her rug. Hunter barely acknowledged El, instead sitting at Briar’s side and holding her hand. “She looks awful,” he murmured.
El exchanged a worried glance with Avery, and then settled on Briar’s other side. “Did you see what happened?”
“No. Well, sort of.” He tore his gaze away, and El saw that his eyes were ringed with yellow fire—a sure sign of his anger and agitation. “She sent me inside to warn you they’d arrived. By the time I got back, she was trapped in some sort of lightning strike.”
“A what?”
“It was like this white light over the car park, crackling with energy. It was very odd. Alex hit Mariah with a ball of magic and it went away, but Briar hit the ground.”
Avery crouched behind Briar’s head and lifted it, and El felt underneath, her hands coming away streaked in blood. “Shit! I hadn’t seen that. Okay, I have herbs that we can use to make a poultice, and a spell to bolster her healing. I’m not as good at healing as Briar is, but I can certainly help.”
“Me too,” Avery said. “And perhaps we call Eli?”
“Of course!” Relief swept through El. “Yes, but let’s stabilise her first.” It was then that she noticed Hunter sitting awkwardly, blood seeping through his jeans. “By the Gods! What happened to you?”
“Harry and a pane of glass. Don’t worry, I took a chunk out of his leg.” He snarled. “I’ll take a bigger one when I see him next.”
El felt she’d abandoned all of them in keeping watch on the pile of gold, and she glared at it. “And all because of that!”
“But we got it,” Avery said, a note of triumph in her voice. “And Mariah.”
El was heading back to her magic supplies, but that pulled her up short. “What?”
“Alex has her bound in runes in the carpark. They’re moving her now.”
“Where to?” El felt her panic mount. “They can’t bring her here! And what the fuck are we going to do with her?”
Avery regarded her calmly. “We leave that with them and focus on Briar.”
Reuben drove the museum van along the lane to his house, checking regularly on Alex in the back.
“Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine, except for the fact that Mariah is shooting daggers of hate at me with her eyes.” He clambered up behind Reuben. “Are you sure about this?”
“Not really. Locking a woman in my cellar is not something I’ve ever aspired to do. It’s sort of creepy.” He glanced over his shoulder, seeing the runes binding Mariah glowing in the dark. “I amend that. It’s super creepy. What the hell were you thinking, Alex?”
“I was thinking that she was attacking Briar and that I was next, and I needed to stop her, moron! I don’t normally plan on kidnapping women, either. And besides, she’s a bloody killer, and has seriously injured Briar.”
Reuben felt an ugly wave of panic roll though him. “She’ll be okay.” She has to be.
Once alone in the carpark, he and Alex had realised that they hadn’t got a car to use, as no one had planned on taking a captive. The only thing they had accommodated for was the treasure. They had improvised and stolen a museum van, using glamour to disguise the lettering on the side, and a spell that ensured no one would take any notice of them as they passed down the quiet roads of White Haven. Alex had waited until they were on the edge of town before calling the police anonymously and then Newton, and the sounds of police sirens had quickly followed.
Reuben continued, “Seriously. What are we going to do with Mariah? Kidnapping is an imprisonable offence, and I’m way too pretty to go to jail.” He frowned at Alex. “And so are you. Besides, if you get imprisoned, Caspian will swoop in on your missus.”
“Thanks for that reassurance, Reu, you gigantic tit of a man. I thought you said he was moving on.”
Reuben shot Alex a guilty smile. “He is. But even so, with you gone…”
“I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you!”
Ignoring Alex’s agitation, Reuben pulled onto the huge, circular driveway in front of his house, and then headed for the road than ran around the back toward the old stables and his garage, finally stopping at the side door. “This is the closest door to the cellars. There are some big rooms down there with sturdy doors, and we can make up a bed and ward the whole place with spells.”
He exited the van, opened the door to his house, and then opened the van’s rear doors. Real fear as well as fury had settled in Mariah’s eyes now, and despite everything that Mariah had done, Reuben felt like shit.
“I hate this, Mariah,” he said to her. “But this is your fault, and for now, I’m going to have to live with it. I am your karma—and karma is a bastard.”
Alex had already pulled her to the rear doors, and he leapt out. “I’ll take her feet, and you take her head. Just avoid the binding runes.”
“And if I can’t?”
“They’ll give you an unpleasant buzz. Just like they’re giving Mariah now.”
Mariah was of average build and height, and they lifted her easily. Reuben guided them along the passage, down the stairs, and through the meandering cellar rooms. It was tricky, and they bumped into walls and shuffled through places until Reuben guided them into a room in the middle of the area, pushing open a door with his hip.
“Let’s put her on the floor, for now.”
They lowered her down, and Alex checked his runes again. Reuben saw them flare as he reinforced them, and Mariah winced.
“How long will they last?” Reuben asked Alex.
“As long as I need them to. But she’ll need to eat and drink at some point.” He stared at her. “I can adjust them to be around her ankles and wrists. Secure her to a wall, perhaps.”
“But we can’t keep her down here forever.”
“Of course not. We need to think over our options. And we haven’t got many.”
“We have more than we had an hour ago. I’ll go get my kidnappers kit—you know, blankets and shit. You’ll be okay for a while?”
“I’ll be just fine.”
Newton surveyed the gigantic mess of White Haven Museum’s reception area and raged silently. This was supposed to be easy. In, out, with no one the wiser until the next morning. But the place was a bloody disaster zone. And he had to pretend to know nothing. Well, to the other team, at least.
Normally, this wasn’t his jurisdiction. This was theft, not murder, but with weird blast marks over the walls, a crater in the car park, and a hole in the floor between the basement and the ground level, everything indicated that this was clearly not normal. He’d had to wait impatiently for the call to come in, pretending he knew nothing, and then try not to arrive on scene too quickly.
He’d half wondered if he’d get called in at all. Alex had been brief on the phone, so the details were lacking, but just as he was beginning to doubt, his superior called him, and dutifully he called Moore and Kendall. His new sergeant couldn’t keep her eagerness out of her voice.
She was currently examining the wall, properly dressed in her white coveralls, and she looked over at him. “What could cause these scorch marks?”
He swallowed. “Blasts of energy…magic. I’ve seen it before.”
“Magic!” She sprang upright. “Witches? Wizards?”
“Perhaps. Many things have magical abilities. Let’s take a stroll through the building and let SOCO do their thing.”
Moore shot him an amused look, but said nothing as Detective Johnson, a big bear of a man with a huge, bushy beard who had been called in first, approached them. “Thanks for coming, Newton. It looks like there was a fight, so I suspect a couple of gangs arrived at the same time.”
Johnson was competent, but hated complications, especial paranormal ones. Newton glanced around the space, trying not to give too much away. “Why don’t you tell us what you have so far.”
“Excellent.” His head bobbed. “None of the exhibition halls are disturbed…well, apart from the one with a hole in the floor, but the exhibits are undamaged. The fight took place here, the car park, and the basement. And someone attacked the security guard.”
That was unexpected. “Is he okay?”
“Fine, just shocked. Says he can’t remember a thing.” He nodded beyond Newton and his team to the first exhibition hall as he walked to the door to the basement. “We found him in there.”
“And definitely no bodies?” Newton asked, following him down to the stairs, his sergeants in tow.
“No. But,” he grimaced with annoyance, “there are plenty of scorch marks on the walls, so God knows what caused those.” He shot Newton a dark look. “I’ll leave you to work out that one.”
“No problem. And do we know what’s been stolen?”
“The museum director has just arrived—very upset,” he added in an undertone. “It seems it was the treasure that was in the paper today.”
Newton tried to look suitably shocked. “Ah! That was fast work, then.”
Newton observed the marks on the corridor, hoping his friends were okay, but Johnson grunted as he rounded a corner and pointed at the ceiling. “That’s the hole leading to the exhibition hall above. And the room the treasure was in is the last one on the right. The director is in the room opposite. I thought you might want to have a word.”
Kendall spoke up. “I thought they had more security in place than just one guard!”
Johnson looked at her as if noticing her for the first time. “You’re not normally on this team!”
“She starts today,” Newton said, realising it was already after midnight. “And that’s a good point. What about security?”
“In addition to the guard, the place is fully alarmed, but it was fried. And there’s a security patrol who said they heard and saw nothing. And,” he grunted again, “the security cameras are fried, too.”
Relief swept through Newton, but he again looked annoyed. “That’s the trouble with the paranormal—it undermines everything we normally use.”
Arriving at the room the museum director was waiting in, they found a woman sitting on a lone chair looking rumpled, tired, and utterly shell-shocked. She was surrounded by boxes and unused exhibits.
Johnson introduced them. To any member of the public, Newton’s team was referred to as a Special Operation, as they liked to keep the word paranormal out of it. “This is Ms Natalie Hughes, the museum’s director.”
Natalie rose to her feet, surprising Newton with her height, and shook his hand. She was almost as tall as him, in her forties, he estimated, with blonde hair and blue eyes, and a very firm handshake. “DI Newton. I’d like to say this is a pleasure, but it really isn’t. I don’t understand what’s going on! Who did this?”
“It’s too soon to know that, I’m afraid, but obviously we’ll do everything we can to find them, and your treasure.”
“But the scorch marks,” she persisted. “What’s caused them?”
“Probably a flamethrower,” he suggested, thinking that was a terrible lie. “Not a usual weapon to use, but all thieves have their preferences. Once we’ve completed our investigation, we’ll have a better idea. You’re sure only the treasure was stolen?”
“It seems that way. Oh, and a van from the car park.”
“A van?” Newton didn’t know if that was good or bad, but he kept his face neutral. “Okay. Sergeant Moore will interview you, while I take a good look around with Sergeant Kendall. You can go home as soon as that’s done.”
She looked horrified. “Absolutely not! I have to stay!”
He shook his head. “No. You’ll only get in the way. You can come back when we’re done. And besides, the museum will be closed tomorrow.”
“But—”
He turned away before she could finish, knowing Moore would go through it all, and instead led Kendall out.
“Right Kendall,” he said with a smile once they were out in the corridor. “Time to get you acquainted with our processes.”