Whiskey Witches by F.J. Blooding (mobile ebook reader txt) 📕
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Paige scratched an itch at her temple, the sun piercing the night with delicate swords of light. “This is big and getting bigger.”
“We can’t allow Malika and Mike to go free,” Scott said fiercely. “We need to catch them.”
“I hear you.” But they had bigger fish to catch. “We’ll gather the evidence first and then review it.”
“We already know who did this.”
“And if it were just us, that would be enough. You with your visions. Me with my demons, but this is a big scene in a little town right now, Special Agent Scott. I don’t know how you do things, but with me, when humans are involved, we let the law handle them.”
He gnashed his teeth.
“This is the first time you’ve worked with someone who didn’t think you were crazy, isn’t it?”
He pulled his lips back, then settled them in place in a relaxed, settled expression. “Yes.”
She’d seen it before, mostly with “psychics” who couldn’t tell a stick from a tree. When they tripped onto people who didn’t immediately assume insanity, they latched on, felt the rules no longer applied. “If the evidence points to Jones and Malika, we bring them in. We try them on the evidence they present.”
“And everything else we know?”
“We use to guide us to the evidence they wouldn’t otherwise have provided.”
Scott dropped his gaze to the ground and released a frustrated breath.
“It’s not fun. Especially when we know what’s going on.”
“I’ve seen you bring people in with no evidence at all.”
And she had.
“So let’s bring them in now. Get them in custody while we’re processing the evidence.”
“Then how do we find Sven?” Dexx asked.
Scott raked his teeth over his bottom lip and turned to the victim behind him. “That man had a name. He had a family. He had friends.”
A wave of guilt and regret washed over Paige like a bucket of acid. “He’s one man.”
“And the woman from earlier?”
“Is one woman.”
“And the three they killed before?”
“Were three more.”
Scott shot daggers from his gaze.
It was time to share with the fed what the real issue was. “Sven is after a key that opens the Gate to Hell. It’s in three pieces. We have no idea how many pieces he has. We have no idea if it is working. We only know he has been successful in opening the gate for a short period of time. Things got loose. Things got free.”
Scott’s eyes widened.
Finally, she had his attention. “If he gets his hands on all three parts of the key and then uses it? Imagine how many thousands, how many hundreds of thousands, millions, billions of lives will be affected then? Demons, running around loose. Damned souls. Angels. Worse.”
“What could be worse?” he asked, his voice low.
“You don’t want to know.” And neither did she. She didn’t know what could be worse. She’d never faced it before. It could be Satan. It could Jesus. Hell, it could be God. Who knew? One thing she did know.
That gate had to remain closed at all costs.
Five bodies was a small price to pay.
They spent the better part of the morning collecting evidence from the three scenes. Brian eventually allowed three of his officers to assist, but Duke wasn’t one of them. He remained suspiciously absent.
Paige should ask why, but she didn’t care. She did, sort of. Too many other things, bigger things, were more important at the moment.
Like sleep.
Then, figuring out how they were going to catch Sven.
Dexx closed the door behind them, dropping his keys on the table next to the door.
“How are we going to catch Sven?” Paige asked, kicking off her boots.
“We’ll figure that out in the morning.”
“It is morning.”
“Your clock is drunk, Pea. It’s seven o’clock. You’ve been possessed. I’ve been up for two days? The two hours I slept before discovering you’d disappeared don’t count because the freak-out nullified any sleep I got. We need rest.”
She sank onto the edge of the bed. Her mind fought to remain awake, alert. People were dying. It could get much, much worse. She didn’t want to close her eyes, to delve into her subconscious.
Her mouth fell open in a huge yawn that kept going and going and…When it finally released her, all her energy to remain awake evaporated, and the only thing she could think about was going to sleep.
Dexx gave her a tired nod, his eyes half open. “Pea, let me sleep in the bed. I’m begging you.”
She was too tired for anything to happen and she trusted that man with her life. She nodded. “Just, don’t snore in my ear.”
He took off his green button-up—that hadn’t even been buttoned—and shucked his pants, leaving him only in his blue briefs, green t-shirt, and socks. He fell into bed on the other side and covered his eyes with his arm. “I make no promises.”
“Will the protections hold?” She flopped an arm at the Sharpie marks on the door jam.
He reached under his pillow and pulled out a gun. “If not, this’ll slow ‘em down.”
There wasn’t much else she could do. She shuffled to the window and drew the curtains closed, then hobbled to the door, slipped the chain, checked the deadbolt, and shoved a chair under the doorknob. Feeling mildly secure, she thought about it for two long seconds, then removed her pants, slid off her socks, and reveled in the freedom of having no bra.
With the warm comfort of Dexx lying beside her, she was asleep before her head did more than kiss the pillow.
She woke to Dexx breathing softly in her ear. His arm was thrown over her midriff, one leg nestled between her own. Her bladder screamed at her to get up. To move. To find relief.
Paige toyed with the idea of staying up as the toilet flushed, reviewing the case files again, trying to get a feel for Sven and who he was, but Dexx had been right. She was beat. The past few days had really taken it out of her. She returned to bed, Dexx curling around her as though she’d never left, holding her tight, surrounding her in warmth.
When she woke again, light streamed through the cracks in the heavy curtains. The shower played a song to her bladder she couldn’t ignore. They’d never been intimate, and to walk in while he was showering to take a piss? Not happening.
As soon as the water stopped and the door opened, she plowed past him, shoved him out of the room, and took complete advantage of the room.
He was dressed and writing down notes when she emerged, showered and a great deal better. He grabbed her wrist and tugged her into the chair next to him. “Let me check your wounds.”
She sighed and let him. She hadn’t removed the bandages and they were more than a little damp. She should have removed them, probably, or attempted to protect them from water, but there’d been a lot of not-caring involved in her shower. A blatant disregard for caring, actually.
The bandage on her chest peeled away easily. He froze, his brow furrowed.
She glanced down with a slight belch. The only thing that remained of the mark carved into her flesh was a slight, pink scar. “I heal fast.”
“That fast?”
No. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Hmm.”
“What about yours?” She reached for his shoulder.
He kept it out of arms reach. “I just dressed it. It’s fine.”
“You’re a baby.”
He shot her an angelic expression. “Yes. I am. I’m going to check in with Brian. You stay here behind the protections. I won’t be gone long.”
“Fine.” Time to figure out what she could piece together on Sven.
His mark, his calling card had to be on the victims. Malika and Jones were his puppets. Not to say they couldn’t come up with a few details on their own. Jones didn’t seem like the kind of guy who followed blindly without bucking the system a bit here and there, but the Gates of Hell? He wasn’t that kind of genius.
What did Sven want with the gates open? That question could lead to a considerable part of his name. What was the end game? What could arise from having the gates opened?
Demons would flood through. They’d wreak havoc on the world of mankind, have all kinds of fun at Man’s expense.
Payback on God for casting them out of Heaven, maybe? That seemed a bit farfetched, but everything from the Bible did. After all, it claimed the world had been made in seven days.
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