“That this wasn’t a fight. Even a dark magic battle wouldn’t result in everything getting torched. Once your opponent is dead, it doesn’t make sense to burn the entire property to a crisp—unless that was the whole point.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying this was a massacre. Someone was sending a message, but I have no idea what that message is.”
Dr. Honeydew pushed his glasses up. “I have suspicions along the same lines. The man who left traces of ownership on everything here hasn’t been present in months.”
That got my attention. Mr. Dark Arts Farmer had either ditched his homestead or chosen a really bad time for a vacation.
“But the burning question,” Shane added, digging into the tote as he spoke, “isn’t who he is but who the other people are … and …”
Eyes going out of focus, he lifted a pair of women’s runners out of the bin. My nose wrinkled. A disgusting black stain had ruined the shoes, but Shane was clutching them like they’d been autographed by Serena Williams.
“… where they are now,” he finished distractedly.
Still clutching the shoes. Weird. Super weird. I waited to see if he’d come back from mentally feeling up the runners, then shook my head and walked away. Shane didn’t even notice.
Thoughts spinning, I picked my way back to the front porch. The plastic-wrapped body was gone, and I could see Nick and Photo-man in the distance where a single overgrown road joined the valley. A black van was parked at the edge of the trees. Clearly, not everyone was special enough for a chopper ride.
I gazed at the spot where the woman had died. If I was right, she was the victim of a power play between the mysterious attacker and the equally mysterious owner of the property.
Lienna, Blythe, and the goth alchemist—Agent Goulding—were still clustered in the same spot, and with a mental shrug, I headed toward them. As I drew closer, I spotted more torched fence posts and deduced that the ladies were parked in the middle of a former garden. Blythe stood off to one side, while Lienna and Goulding were crouched beside a hole in the ground.
“Whatchya digging for?” I asked casually as I stepped between two stubby posts.
“Stop!” Goulding pointed commandingly. “You can’t go that way.”
I halted and looked down at the sooty earth and crispy stems of overcooked plants in front of my toes. “I might not look it, but I’m more than a match for dirt clods.”
“I identified the remains as plants from the Apiaceae family. If you disturb the ashes, we’ll all get to enjoy vivid, violent hallucinations for the next hour.”
I took a careful step back. “Sounds like this was a fun garden.”
“For a practicing alchemist who specializes in poisons, maybe. Do us all a favor and don’t touch anything.”
As I circled around to enter the garden behind Blythe, Goulding bent over the hole. Beside her, Lienna was reaching into the foot-deep pit, her lovely brown eyes scrunched with concentration.
“What’s happening?” I whispered dramatically to the captain.
She slashed me with the same look parents give their toddlers when they reappear after a two-minute absence covered head to toe in raspberry jam. “We uncovered a buried container. It’s sealed with magic. Agent Shen is nearly finished.”
I filled in the rest of that sentence: Agent Shen was nearly finished employing her extra-special, extra-difficult anti-magic abjuration. No sealing spell stood a chance against her.
Leaning closer for a better look into the hole, I spotted a dirty metal surface, upon which Lienna had drawn a double-ringed circle with runes on the inside. The shapes were complex, and she’d added several small objects around the border. Currently, she was chanting in a language I didn’t recognize.
She concluded the chant with a bold exclamation of gobbledygook, then pushed to her feet.
“Well?” Blythe demanded.
“I don’t know how it was sealed,” Lienna replied. “It’s probably dark magic, so I’m using a combination of abjuration sorcery to erase the seal and something with more punch to take out the defensive portions, if there are any.”
“Wait,” Agent Goulding cut in, dripping judgment. “So you don’t know if this will work? You’re just throwing everything at it and hoping something will stick?”
“You’ve got a lot of attitude, Wednesday Addams,” I shot back at her, feeling more than a little protective of my partner. “Do you have a better plan?”
“Proceed, Agent Shen,” Blythe said loudly.
Lienna glanced around. “We should back up a bit.”
Blythe and I were out of the garden in a blink; we’d both witnessed the shit Lienna could do. I’d seen her ignite steel, dismember monsters, reduce grown men to tears, and crush spirits—both metaphorically and literally. She’d once threatened to turn all my body hair into catnip and send me to an alternate dimension populated by giant, angry housecats. That might sound outside the realm of possibility, but with Lienna, I never chanced it.
Once we were all clear, Lienna took a deep breath and uttered a final nonsensical phrase.
The runes drawn into the circle glowed so brightly that it hurt to look at them. Even from ten paces away I could feel the heat. I shielded my eyes as the metal hissed and bubbled like a pot of water boiling over.
When the light faded, I peeked into the hole. The case’s metal top had melted away, gone without a trace—which didn’t seem possible, but then again … magic, so …
The open case was about two feet deep and stacked with strange objects: a Russian doll, a raccoon tail, nunchucks, a crystal orb, and masks that looked like they should either be worn to a Victorian ball or in a Stanley Kubrick film. Curiosity lighting her face, Lienna stepped forward.
A deep, braying laugh interrupted her. It sounded like the cackle of a bad actor portraying a theatrical antagonist. We all glanced uncomfortably at each other as though any one of us could be the source of that villainous jubilation. Where the hell was it coming from? Who the hell was it coming from?
The laughter subsided and a low voice echoed from the buried case: “Greetings, purportless mortals! Welcome to the vestiges of mine own hell.”
Part III
Lienna cautiously approached the case and peered into its depths. “It’s … a talking skull.”
The rest of us followed her back into the ravaged garden. Sure enough, nestled beside the Russian doll was a yellowed human skull with a faint red glow in the empty eye sockets. I hung back with Goulding, letting Lienna and Blythe flank the case.
“I am no mere skull,” it retorted, glaring balefully at the two women. “I am power beyond the comprehension of your feeble female minds.”
Lienna arched an eyebrow. “A sexist talking skull?”
“As I said, mulish heifer, I am not a skull but one of the most feared and formidable Lords of Drangfar. I once ruled—”
“Tell us what you know about this farm,” Blythe interrupted, leaning over the hole threateningly.
“Am I to obey a pair of squawking hens?”
Goulding shifted closer to me, her narrowed eyes on the animated noggin. “The Drangfar Lords were mighty darkfae. Thousands of years ago, they terrorized ancient Persia until a druid and a sorceress, both the most powerful of their age, joined forces to defeat them.”