Fire flares to life in Declan’s open palm, caressing him like a lover. He bends his fingers—works it, shapes it, until it’s a glowing sphere of light. It takes a minute or so, but once the orb is created, he sends it spinning out into the middle of the room, where it grows and grows and grows.
Within seconds, the entire room is bathed in the warm, soft light of Declan’s fire. And that’s when I see him, when we all see him at the front of this plush, well-appointed room that is very obviously a Councilor’s office.
In the very front of the room, over what was once a desk but now has very much become an altar, is what is left of ACW Councilor Viktor Alride. And it isn’t pretty.
His first glimpse of the murder scene has Declan cursing, low and long and vicious. Lily gasps, and then it’s her turn to be sick. Declan conjures up a container and hands it to her before she can make a mess.
I know I should be shocked, repulsed, horrified, by what I’m seeing, just as they are. And there’s a part of me that is. But that part isn’t in control right now. Instead, the compulsion still has me and it’s dragging me across the floor until I’m inches from the desk. And inches from the body suspended in midair over it.
Councilor Alride did not have an easy end.
“Xandra.” Declan comes up behind me, rests his hands on my shoulders. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know.” I sound lost, confused. I don’t feel that way, but then I’m not feeling much of anything right now. The compulsion has finally eased and now I just feel . . . empty. Like I don’t have anything to fill up the void it’s left behind.
“Fuck!” he mutters under his breath, then turns his voice low, soothing, as he addresses me. “Come on, baby, let’s step back a little. You don’t want to mess with the integrity of the scene.”
Oh. Right. The integrity of the scene. So that Witchcraft Investigations can get to work finding out who did this to a mighty Councilor.
“We need to get out of here. Xandra, please.” Lily looks at me with pleading eyes. “We have to leave.”
I look at her in surprise. She knows I can’t leave until the body has been taken care of. Until it has left the scene.
“We should call someone,” I tell Declan. The only problem is, I don’t know whom to call. Austin’s Witchcraft Investigations department? Though Austin is a lot bigger than my hometown of Ipswitch, the WI department here is pretty much a joke. Except for the Council—whose headquarters most people don’t even know are here—Austin is pretty much a witchcraft-light city. In fact, I know only about ten members of my coven who actually live here. Which means Austin is not exactly a hotbed of witch-on-witch crime. No crime, no WI.
“They must have security headquarters down here somewhere.” I walk closer to the desk, reach for the phone. “There must be some kind of internal—”
“Don’t touch that!” Declan’s voice cracks like a whip. “We can’t call anyone, Xandra.”
“We have to. We can’t just leave him here. There are things that need to be done.”
Things like cutting him down. Things like—
I freeze as a new observation penetrates my shock. I stare at the body, horrified, even as I allow Declan to guide me a few steps back. Only then do I ask him, “Do you notice anything strange?”
“You mean, besides the fact that there’s a man spread-eagled and strung up in the front of the room? And that he’s been completely eviscerated?”
“Yes. Besides that.”
Declan looks at me like I’m insane. And maybe I am. Goddess knows, I’m not sure where this bizarre sense of calm is coming from. There’s a part of me that’s freaking out, that’s screaming. I’m staring at a man whose abdomen has been so deeply sliced open that his internal organs have fallen out of his body—all thanks to gravity and the heavy-duty hooks and chains that are keeping him suspended from the ceiling.
Yet there’s another, darker part of me that looks at this as karmic justice. Maybe I should have more pity for him, because, goddess knows, he suffered. But as I stare up at Councilor Alride, all I can think is that he still didn’t suffer as much as Lina did. Or Amy. Or the other two girls Kyle tortured, raped and murdered at the Council’s behest.
Why shouldn’t he have died like this?
Why shouldn’t he suffer the way he ensured others did?
The thoughts are so black, so unlike me, that I feel a little nauseated just having them roll around in my brain. Nobody should die like this. Nobody should suffer this way.
And yet, there’s a righteousness about it too. . . .