I watched the fog-draped, toy-sized scenery pass until the pilot’s voice crackled through our headsets.
“Two minutes till arrival.”
Leaning into the window, I craned my neck to see where we were headed. The helicopter began a casual descent, dipping between rolling peaks. Snowy forests clung to rocky slopes all around us. Compared to the urban bustle of the city, it was ruggedly beautiful and welcomingly serene.
That all changed the moment the helicopter flew over a ridge, revealing a hidden valley. Without a doubt, this was our destination, and it wasn’t just a murder scene.
It was a goddamn apocalypse.
Part II
I stepped out of the helicopter, and my shoes crunched against the grass. Or what was left of it. The ground was scorched and crispy, and a whirlwind of ash and dust billowed around us as the helicopter lifted off again. I wished I was still inside it, flying right back home. This place wasn’t giving me any “cozy mountain retreat” feels.
Winter lay over the surrounding peaks, and beyond the valley, towering trees bowed under the weight of snow on their branches. But here, there was no snow. Only destruction.
Grass was far from the only victim. The trees had been reduced to skeletons, with bare, stubby branches, and the meadow was black. Charred posts, in neat rows, marked the former fence lines, and fire had consumed most of the buildings. I didn’t look too closely at the sad humps scattered across the field. A couple hundred yards down the hill were the remains of a large house, a single plume of gray smoke rising from one corner. Holes marred its walls and one side had crumpled inward, as though a giant had stepped on it. A gigantic giant.
I was starting to understand why the captain had called for backup on this one.
Shane wasted no time in marching toward the scorched house. Lienna cast a long, somber glance at me, then followed. I trailed after them through the desolation. As we drew nearer, I spotted four people gathered out front, talking. One of them peeled away and trudged up to meet us.
Captain Blythe was a sharp-eyed woman in her mid-forties, with blond hair that hung down to her chin and an aura that screamed, “Bullshit not welcome here.” Possibly the scariest lady I’d ever met, and she was the head honcho of our precinct and a powerful telekinetic.
“Agent Morris, Agent Shen, Mr. Davila,” she greeted in rapid succession. “Come with me. The body is this way.”
Blythe, as you might have gathered, was not one for small talk. Or first names.
“Late last night,” she began as she led us to the house, “local law enforcement received multiple reports of a forest fire in the area. As you would expect, a fire in early January was cause for surprise. Emergency responders were dispatched to this property, which they found engulfed in flames, although the fire hadn’t spread beyond the property’s borders.”
“That must have raised suspicions,” Shane remarked.
“It did,” Blythe confirmed. “By the time these reports reached us, the fire was out. We took over the scene as quickly as possible.”
We joined the waiting team. I recognized Nick, our precinct’s coroner, from past dead-body experiences. He was an older man who looked more or less like Santa Claus, minus the red outfit, but including the beard, belly, and dimples. His name wasn’t actually Nick, but until he corrected me, I’d keep calling him jolly ol’ Saint Nicholas.
The other two were strangers: a tall, stick-thin dude with a camera, and a young, gothic woman with dark hair, black eyeliner, and more than a few facial piercings. She held a funky set of potions in test tubes and shiny tweezers. Did I want to know the purpose of the tweezers?
I was so busy analyzing the team that I didn’t immediately notice the object of their attention—a blackened and distorted shape at the base of the porch steps. A heavy weight settled in my gut. That was a body. A very, very, very dead human body.
“Who is that?” I asked. “I mean, who was that?”
“We don’t have an ID yet,” Blythe answered brusquely. “Could be the owner of the property or an intruder.”
Lienna stepped closer to the body and knelt to get eye level with it. Not that there were eyes to get level with.
“Do we know anything about the victim?” she asked.
Nick consulted his clipboard. “Female. Mid-twenties. Average build. I’ll know more once we get her back to the city.”
Lienna wiped a finger through the soot near the remains, then skimmed the wreckage of the house. The fire’s residue wasn’t the normal shade of gray you’d see in your backyard firepit. It was all dark, deep, unforgiving obsidian.
“Black magic,” she murmured.
“It appears that way. Agent Goulding”—Blythe indicated the goth woman—“is our forensic alchemist, and she’s confirmed that there are signs of black magic present all over the property. Mr. Davila, what are your thoughts?”
The famous bounty hunter, hovering two long steps behind me, cleared his throat. “The location of the body suggests she was either entering or leaving the house. The level of destruction …”
He trailed off. Wow, insightful.
“While we finish here, spread out and search the property,” Blythe ordered me and Lienna. “I want every inch of this valley examined. I’ll call you when I’m ready for you.”
Lienna nodded purposefully, stepped around the body, and ventured into the crumbling house. I watched her vanish, then headed in the opposite direction. I needed fresh air before I gave the house a go.
Yeah, maybe other agents would call me a wuss, but I hadn’t been at this long enough to shrug off the charred remains of a young woman.
I wandered across the blackened grass, taking in my surroundings. The mountainous terrain, with its forested slopes and snow-capped peaks, provided a pleasant vista, if you could ignore the line of absolute desolation that cut through the trees and earth. At least the weather was nice—for early January.
After a few minutes ambling in random circles, I approached the ruins of another building—a barn, by the looks of it. Like the house, the framework remained intact but the rest was a mess. The door, twisted and split, lay askew at the entrance, forcing me to climb over it. The ashy crap that coated everything was inescapable, and I was grateful I’d worn mostly black today.
The barn’s interior was dark and I struggled to differentiate between soot and shadows. Once my eyes adjusted, the horror of the place came into focus. My gorge rose. I didn’t like seeing dead humans, but something about dead animals ripped at the heart—even more so when they’d been trapped inside a burning building with no hope of escape.
I turned away. How dark did your soul have to be to commit this sort of atrocity?
“Kit? You in there?”
Shit! I rushed toward the entrance but not fast enough. Lienna poked her head around the broken door, searching for me. With no time to warn her, and knowing her reaction to the equine bodies would be stronger than mine, I did the only thing I could:
I made them disappear.
Spotting me, Lienna scaled the mangled barn door with remarkable grace. She hastened to my side and peered cautiously into the nearest charred stall. “Anything in here?”
“Doesn’t look like it,” I answered.