Dark Vessel: An Urban Fantasy Series (Meredith Bale Book 3) Read online

  Dark Vessel

  Meredith Bale Mysteries Book Three

  DC Malone

  © 2021 DC Malone

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  This is entirely a work of fiction. Any similarities to real people, places, or events are purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 1

  About DC Malone

  Other Books by DC Malone

  Chapter 1

  You know how some people have that activity or hobby that clicks so well with them that it occupies a significant portion of their daily thoughts? I’m not talking about an obsession or anything, just that thing that calls to them when they’re off doing other stuff. Less important stuff, like hunting for a deadbeat ex-husband who fell off the radar after falling behind on child support payments. Or taxes.

  For some people, it’s building model airplanes or ships in bottles. Other people collect really bizarre things like antique teeth or roller skate wheels or little plastic figures with oversized heads and big eyes.

  But for me, it was poker.

  The fact that I didn’t learn how much I enjoyed the game until I was nearly thirty may have been the single greatest travesty in human history. Okay, that may be a slight overstatement. But it’s not too far off.

  I enjoyed the simple mechanics of the game. And I liked the camaraderie and general good time of sitting around a table late at night with a group of friends. But mostly, I just liked winning. There’s nothing quite like seeing that slightly drunk half-stranger across the table slam down his cards after losing for the fifth or sixth time in a row. The string of slurred curses that inevitably followed was like a song from an angel.

  I’d like to say there was an art to my winning—that I was simply able to look into the eyes of the other players and discern the strength of their hands. I’m actually pretty good at reading people, and I’m sure that way of winning is quite satisfying too. But who needs to win like that when you have a foolproof method of cheating?

  “Is this your new strategy, Mer?” Francie asked from across the green felt-topped table. “You’re going to take so long to make a play that the rest of us just give up and go home to our beds?”

  It was only the five of us that night. Francie and Nic, who had become regulars at the games over the past few weeks, and two bar stalwarts who just happened to not want to leave at closing time. The two presumed derelicts were called Sam and Neuter, though I sincerely hoped Neuter wasn’t the man’s real name. They were in their late forties or fifties—their constant patronage at the bar had weathered them to the point that it was hard to tell for sure—and looked enough alike, with their shoulder-length salt and pepper hair and matching goatees, that they could have been brothers.

  “I’m thinking.” I wasn’t doing anything of the sort. What I was doing was waiting for the large, dower-faced man behind my opponents to make his circuit around the table. He was slow, but it took even longer because he had to wait for each person at the table to lift their hole cards before progressing to the next. They inevitably did it, but sometimes we had to wait them out until the squirming began.

  When his task was finally complete, my living-challenged accomplice gave me a curt nod, then drifted off to aimlessly wander into the middle of a nearby pool table.

  “Call.” I tossed my coins into the pile and tipped over my cards.

  “A pair of sevens?” Sam flipped his cards over like they were on fire and might burn him. He had a pair of sixes. “You beat me with a pair of friggin’ sevens? Tha’s what, three times tonight it’s been that close?” He craned his neck around, prompting his shaggy hair to bloom out around his head like blown dandelion spores. “It’s a mirror, ain’t it? You can see my cards. I know you can.”

  “Hate to say it, Sam my man, but you’ve got a tell.” I scooped my prize of about a dozen nickels and dimes toward my pile. The stakes were admittedly low, but the thrill was all in the win. An entire night’s worth of winning would probably net me five or six bucks, which I would promptly deposit in Francie’s tip jar. But I was building my mystique, and that was priceless.

  “I don’t have a tell.” Sam hesitated. “What is it?”

  “And give up my advantage? You must think I’ve dyed the brains right out of my head.”

  I pushed back from the table and stood up. “The ladies’ room calls. Nature’s way of giving someone else a chance to win, I guess.”

  “Hardy har.” Nic had folded early during the last hand, and he’d spent the time stacking his remaining coins neatly. It looked like he had about thirty cents left. “But do take your time.”

  I had made it halfway across the barroom before the sound of knocking at the exterior door stopped me.

  “Jeez, you’d think the drunks would give it up at some point,” Nic said.

  “Why’d you look at me when you said that?” Neuter croaked.

  Francie got up and walked over to the door, leaving the two men to their banter. “I’d recognize the shadow of that spiky hair anywhere,” she said, throwing open the locks. “And while he may be a lot of things, I’m pretty sure he isn’t a drunk.”

  I recognized the hair, too. Hiram. Crap! I rushed across the room toward the door, but it was too late. Francie was already welcoming him inside.

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to take you up on your offer to join this little game,” he said to Francie as he slipped off his trench coat. He turned his gaze on me as I walked over. “No need to greet me so closely, Meredith. I’m loaded up on antinausea meds, but they only do so much.”

  “Hey, Hiram. I’m not sure about you being this close to me tonight. I’m feeling a little extra extra.”

  He narrowed his eyes and walked around me. “I’ll take my chances.”

  I hung my head as he sauntered toward the card table. The jig was up. My glorious reign was about to come crumbling to an end. But, then again, maybe he wouldn’t mention—

  Hiram turned back and pitched his voice low. “What’s the deal with the shade lurking around behind everyone?”

  It wasn’t pitched nearly low enough.

  “Oh. My. God! I’m going to kill you, Meredith! We’ve been doing this for weeks!”

  I ducked my head and beelined it for the restroom, leaving Francie behind to explain to the others what her outburst was all about. I was pretty sure she was going to leave the details about the ghost out, but I was equally sure she was going to let the others know about the cheating.

  Oh well, it had been a good run.

  I stayed in the restroom for ten minutes or so, giving Francie and the others plenty of time to see that it had all just been a harmless little joke. I was sure we’d have a good laugh about it in a day or so. Pretty sure.

  When I walked back out to join them, they were all clustered
near the bar. To a one, they looked like they were at a funeral, solemn and silent and waiting for the funeral director. Or the recently departed.

  “Do I know how to kill a good time or what?”

  I was met with more silence.

  “Oh, come on, guys. It was a joke. It isn’t like we were playing for real money or anything.”

  “Meredith—” Francie started.

  “Sure, I’m a cheater. But I’m a lovable cheater. There is a difference.”

  “Meredith.”

  This time, I became aware of the tone of warning in Francie’s voice. I turned back at the sound of the men’s room door clacking shut behind me.

  A cop emerged. He was in his late thirties or early forties, a little thick around the middle, and wore a thousand-mile stare that said he’d seen some stuff. And whatever that stuff had been, it hadn’t been all that long ago. His suit was wrinkled like he’d been in it for too many hours, and his hat was pushed back on his head to reveal his sweat-glossed forehead. Even if he hadn’t had a bright shiny badge stuck to his belt, I would have known he was a cop at first sight. He had the look.

  “Meredith Bale?”

  I ignored him and spun back toward the crowd at the bar. “You called the freaking cops on me? It was a friendly card game!”

  “Ms. Bale, I’m not here because anybody called me. There’s been a murder—another murder. And I’d like you to come with me.”

  I spun back to face him, trying to figure out which scenario was stranger—having my friends call the cops on me for cheating at cards or having a cop show up at well past three in the morning to accuse me of murdering people.

  It was a pretty even split.

  “I’m not sure what you think you have that links me to whatever it is you have going on, but I’ll tell you here and now, it’s not going to stick. I’ve been here all evening. More than that, I’ve been here all week. Any of the people behind me there will vouch for my whereabouts.”

  Well, some of them would. A few might still be miffed over the card thing.

  “That’s not what this is, Ms.—Can I call you Meredith?”

  “Uh, yeah, go for it.”

  “Alright, Meredith. I’m a friend of Luka’s. Well, my wife is—was. She’s not dead or anything. She’s just not my wife anymore. I’m Detective Carter, by the way. Joss Carter.”

  “Okay, Carter, so you know Luka? What exactly does that have to do with me and a murder?” I chose not to harp on the guy too much for not making a lot of sense. The dark crescents under his eyes said he hadn’t seen a night’s sleep in the recent past.

  Carter glanced over my shoulder at our audience. “Like I said there’s been more than one murder—a series of murders, really. I don’t want to discuss the particulars here, but something seems off about the crimes.”

  “Off how?”

  “Off like…” He leaned closer and pitched his voice to a whisper. “Off like the kind of off you people deal with.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, so I had my wife—my ex-wife—reach out to Luka, and he pointed me in your direction.”

  “Nice of him to give me a heads-up. You want me to come and check it out tonight?”

  “That’s what I was hoping. They were just setting up the crime scene when I left. It’s not far. I figured the quicker we got you there to take a look, the better.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense.” I didn’t really know if the recency of the death made any difference to what I might see, but it certainly couldn’t hurt.

  “And if you’re worried about pay, the department will foot the bill for your consulting fee.”

  “Will I get a badge?”

  Carter smiled wanly. “If we can’t figure out who’s doing this, you can have mine.”

  Chapter 2

  We had been driving for about five minutes and neither of us had decided to break the silence just yet. It was that time of night when New Alcott, probably like any other big city, seemed to hold its breath. There was still traffic and sporadic bustle, that never went away completely, but there was also a dream-like hush that fell in those couple hours before the hecticness of the day began once again.

  I also couldn’t help but think about how it was the first time I’d ever ridden in the front seat of a cop car. It wasn’t a cruiser and didn’t look like the kind of police cars I had been in before, but I thought it still counted. It felt a little like a rite of passage—like I had grown up. But somewhere in the back of my mind, a small voice couldn’t help wondering if it would really mark the end of my days as a passenger in the backseat.

  “So, tell me what’s so odd about these murders.” I was reluctant to break the spell, but I needed to know as much as I could if I hoped to be any real help. Besides, I was a little worried that Detective Carter might fall asleep at the wheel. “What makes them so different from all the others?”

  “At first, nothing. A guy got offed over in the Bison Bay Towers. It was a strangling, which is a little out of the ordinary—we don’t see all that many of those—but we figured the brother for it.”

  “Why the brother?”

  “No forced entry, so it must have been someone the victim knew. And there wasn’t even a struggle, which probably meant the victim didn’t see it coming. Plus, the brother was the last one to see the guy alive. Most murders are committed by people you know—family and friends, so to speak.”

  “But it wasn’t him? The brother, I mean.”

  “Honestly, I still figured him for it, but there was no hard evidence. Didn’t end up mattering because a week later there was another murder. And then another. Same MO as the first—no forced entry, no struggle, and both killed by strangling. The first victim’s brother had solid alibis for the next two murders, so we started looking elsewhere. And came up short.”

  “And that’s where I come in,” I said. “How is it that you, or your ex-wife, know about Luka and our not-so-ordinary world? I thought the Congregation tried to keep that stuff from being common knowledge.”

  “They do, or so I gather, but a Gifted’s inner circle gets a pass. You must have some friends or family who know about what you are, right? From what I understand, the Congregation just keeps it from being known on a larger scale. If a few crazies decide to run out into the streets screaming about supernatural such and such, no one’s going to bat an eye. They already do it on every street corner every day.”

  “So, your ex-wife, what is she?”

  “She’s Luka’s niece.”

  “Wait, his niece? How old is your ex-wife?”

  Carter chuckled. “She’s a regular age. My age. Luka’s older than he looks, though.”

  “She’s a Gifted too?”

  “No, she’s normal. Uh, no offense intended. She’s like me, I guess. Not everyone in a family gets special abilities. The only reason I know about Luka is that she thought it was only fair to warn me. For most people, getting a detective in the family might seem a little intimidating. Let’s just say it didn’t work that way for us.”

  I could just imagine. Luka wasn’t exactly the chillest guy in the world, and the fact that he was built like a brick house and could easily lift a truck probably ranked him pretty high on the intimidating in-law list.

  We pulled into the parking lot of a commercial building a few minutes later. The building was about ten stories tall with a stone façade, and under the cover of darkness, it looked like some grim monolith that had been raised to honor a particularly unimaginative deity. A sign on the way in said the place was Vellis Industries, which didn’t tell me very much about what they did there.

  Carter pulled us right up to the sidewalk at the base of the building. The parking area was empty, save for a smattering of NAPD vehicles and an ambulance. We got out of Carter’s car and walked toward the glass double doors of the building’s entrance.

  “The victim, Reginald Hull, was found in his office on the first floor by the overnight cleaning service,” Carter said, holding open the door for me. “Tha
t was just after one this morning.

  We walked into a no-frills lobby. There was a long service desk at the front and center, a bank of elevators along the right wall, and a series of doors and a hallway that led further into the building on the left.

  The place smelled like a boring office building.

  “A place like this surely has security cameras,” I said, following Carter down the hall on the left. “They didn’t show anything?”

  “It’s got a lot of cameras and an overnight security guard who watches the monitors. But wouldn’t you know it, the feed was out for about an hour late last night, and the footage that does exist doesn’t show anyone going to or from Mr. Hull’s office.”

  “You’re checking out the guard, right?”

  “Of course, but he doesn’t seem like the type. No apparent connection to Mr. Hull, no record, and no apparent aspirations beyond dozing through his nightshift.”

  “Anyone else in the building at the time Hull was murdered?”

  Carter looked back at me and smiled. “You sound a lot more like a cop than a Hoodoo slinger. I figured you’d just cast some bones next to the body or something.”

  “Hoodoo slinger. I’m gonna have to add that to my job description,” I replied. “I’m still going to do that, the Hoodoo slinging, but I like to cover my bases.”

  “Sounds prudent. Okay, yeah, there were a few stragglers still in the building when Hull was killed. Just office rats, mostly. And they’re already being rounded up for statements. One of the bigwigs was here too. A Mr. Compton. He’s the president or CEO or something.” Carter pointed at one of the walls where a giant oil painting hung. “There he is for your viewing pleasure.”

  The painting was hyper-realistic and depicted a dark-haired man in his mid-fifties. He wore an impeccable suit and was surrounded by rather regal-looking trappings, but his eyes seemed too wide or too large for his face. The artist had taken pains to make Mr. Compton look fierce and dignified, but the overall effect was like staring at a rather irritated Mr. Bean.

  We walked into a large work area comprised of several long rows of cubicles and a dozen or so more traditional office rooms along the outer walls. The action was going on near the open door of an office in the corner. Milling about were a couple of medical techs in puffy aprons, two uniformed cops, and a stocky guy in a suit that I immediately pegged for another detective.