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

  Carter turned and stopped me before we got any closer. “So, I didn’t exactly know how to frame this for the others. It’s not like I could tell anyone about Luka and the Gifted stuff. Close as I could get was psychic consultant.”

  “You’re saying everyone here is going to think I’m a crackpot?”

  “Yeah, but if it makes you feel any better about it, they’re starting to think that about me too.” He tugged off his hat and ran a hand over his buzzed dark hair. “And maybe I am. Wasn’t that long ago when the idea of calling in a Necronomiconist wouldn’t have been very high on my list. Desperate times and all that.”

  “It’s Necromancer, but I take your point.”

  “Just do your thing and keep your head down,” Carter said, once again leading the way.

  We passed the uniformed officers and the medical techs with only a nod, but the stocky guy in the suit stood blocking our entry to the office. He wasn’t much shorter than Carter, but he was at least half again as broad. His bushy brown mustache would have been right at home on a news anchor from the seventies, and he wore a broad smile that didn’t quite light up his eyes.

  “Surely, you’re gonna introduce us, JC. It’s not every day I get to meet a bona fide witch. A momentous occasion is what it is.”

  Carter sighed. “She’s not a witch, Al. Meredith Bale, this is Al Tompkins.”

  “Detective Tompkins,” Tompkins said, still smiling his false smile.

  “Sure,” Carter replied. “He’s here to help out with the investigation.”

  Tompkins put a hand to his mouth, then proceeded to whisper loud enough to wake the dead guy in the next room. “I’m here because Carter can’t seem to hack it. And now the poor devil’s gone off his nut, hiring magicians and warlocks to do our jobs for us.”

  I shot Carter a look, but he didn’t react.

  “How about we get this over with, Al.” Carter started toward the door before Tompkins had even moved out of the way.

  “Sure, sure,” Tompkins replied jovially, sliding back into the office. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world. I’d’ve got some popcorn, but it seemed in poor taste, what with the stiff.”

  The stiff in question was still seated at a computer desk in the middle of the small office. He had light brown hair that looked to have been recently trimmed and styled, and he wore a bright white dress shirt. His head was slumped forward and to one side. If I hadn’t already known he was dead, I would have thought he had simply dozed off in his chair.

  “There’s your guy,” Tompkins said, guiding me in with a flourish of his hand. “You need me to clear a spot for your tarot cards or what?” He narrowed his eyes, looking me up and down. “I don’t see any candles or crystal balls. No dead chickens, either. You sure you’re a real witch?”

  “That’s what a lot of my old boyfriends have told me.” I walked over to stand next to the late Mr. Hull.”

  Tompkins barked out a harsh laugh. “She’s got a sense of humor, JC. ‘Course, I guess she’d have to to take you through the wringer like this.”

  “Do you need anything?” Carter asked me, ignoring Tompkins entirely.

  “Nope, I don’t think so. This should just take a few minutes.”

  “Billing a flat rate, then?” Tompkins chuckled.

  I ignored him and placed my hand gently on Mr. Hull’s shoulder. A jolt of something cold shot up my arm and into my chest, and the room emptied of its other occupants.

  Mr. Hull was still seated in pretty much the same position as I had found him. Only now, he was clacking away at the computer keyboard on the desk in front of him.

  And he didn’t seem to notice that his office door had slowly begun to creep open.

  Chapter 3

  Since the day I had discovered my gift for peering into the last moments of a person’s life, I had only had occasion to use it a handful of times. Even still, you’d think I would have started to get used to it a little.

  I hadn’t.

  Some part of my brain absolutely insisted that what I was seeing was happening then and there and that I should do everything in my power to see that it didn’t happen—again. I’m sure it was some primitive, animal part of my brain that responded to the visceral nature of the experience but thinking about it logically really didn’t make it go away.

  I stood at Mr. Hull’s side, trying hard not to scream at the man to look at his office door and the killer that was about to stride through it. Thankfully, I was put out of my misery pretty quickly.

  The door opened and Hull jolted in his chair.

  I jolted a little myself. Not only because I knew the man in front of us was about to become a murderer, but also because it was Angry Mr. Bean himself. In the flesh, Mr. Compton was no less regal—and no less comically aggressive-looking. But he didn’t look particularly murderous. Whatever that might have looked like.

  “Uh, Sir!?” Hull said, starting to stand.

  “Keep your seat, Mr. Hull,” Mr. Compton said with an amiable wave. “This won’t take long, and you don’t need to be standing for it.”

  “Ah, it’s—it’s an honor, sir. I didn’t realize you even knew my name.”

  “Uh-huh.” The older man walked over and stood next to Hull. I had to hop away to keep from standing inside of the man. “I want you to pull up everything we have on the Glouster account.”

  “Absolutely. Glouster, Glouster.” Hull began tapping away at his computer. “Shouldn’t take more than a moment.”

  For a moment, Mr. Compton simply watched his employee perform the requested task. Then, with a horrifying casualness, the smartly dressed gentleman wrapped his arm around Mr. Hull, locking the crook of his elbow at the man’s throat.

  Hull must have been in shock because he didn’t even react for several seconds. When the gravity of the strange situation did finally set in, Hull began to bat frantically at the besuited arm that continued to keep the air out of his lungs.

  Compton didn’t seem to register the man’s attempts to free himself. He held on and kept squeezing. Eventually, Hull’s movements slowed.

  And then he stopped moving altogether.

  When the deed was done, Mr. Compton straightened his suit and strode toward the door without a glance back. I could hear him humming a soft tune as he walked away from the office and his victim.

  Everything faded to black.

  “Jeez, would you look at that!” The voice of Al The Obnoxious Detective was the first thing to greet me as the here and now faded back into existence. “That was quite the show—a trance, some wobbling back and forth. Really think Carter got his money’s worth on this one.”

  “Did you get anything?” Carter asked as I moved away from Mr. Hull’s body.

  “Sure, she did,” Tompkins said. “She just got herself a job at my nephew’s next birthday party. He’s into all that séance and Ouija nonsense. How much would you charge for an hour or two of hocus-pocus?”

  “My hourly rate is reasonable,” I replied, gesturing for Carter to follow me out of the office. “But I require a down payment in the form of a kick to the uncle’s family jewels at the place and time of my choosing. You can get my number from Carter when you want to set that up. I look forward to hearing from you.”

  Back out amongst the cubicles, I kept walking until we were out of earshot of the group near Hull’s office. I chose a spot right next to the painting of Mr. Compton.

  “So?” Carter started. “Anything?”

  I nodded toward the painting.

  “Yeah, it’s creepy. But anything with Hull’s murder?”

  “Him,” I said, pointing between the wide painted eyes. “He did it.”

  “The president of the company?” Carter scratched a finger against one temple. “You saw him do it?”

  “As clearly as I see you now.”

  “Any idea why he did it?” Carter asked. “Were the men fighting about something?”

  “Not that I saw,” I said. “It looked to me like they hadn’t ever met in person bef
ore. But for all I know, Hull had slept with the guy’s wife or something. The vision doesn’t show me anything more than what happened during the moments immediately surrounding the guy’s death.”

  “I guess you’re right. Could be a thousand reasons.”

  “I thought you’d be happier to have a suspect,” I said. “You think it’ll be that hard to pin it on him?”

  Carter shook his head. “We’ll go at him hard. And we’ll continue to comb the office looking for any trace materials or prints that positively connect Compton to Hull. Plus, there were others in the building at the time, so maybe we’ll be able to jog a memory or two. Someone probably saw Compton headed in this direction.”

  “So, why the less than enthusiastic expression?”

  “Remember how I said there was something off about the murders?” Carter gestured for me to follow him back down the hall toward the building’s entrance.

  “Where are we going?”

  “The restrooms.”

  “Okay…”

  We walked to an area off of the right side of the main lobby. Carter pulled open the door marked men’s and held it open for me.

  “It’s right inside. I want to know what you think.”

  “Alright, but I’m going to be really upset if Al ends up jumping out of one of the stalls.”

  Inside, the room was like any other public restroom in the city, only clean. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, and the room had a vaguely citrus smell. I didn’t see anything that might warrant our visit.

  “I don’t see anything—”

  “Check the wall,” Carter interrupted. “It’s just below the sinks, near the corner.”

  I walked over to the corner and peered down beneath the last sink basin. On the wall, just above the floor, there was a dark soot-like stain that marred a patch of the gray stone surface. It was about twice the size of the palm of my hand.

  And I quickly saw it was more than just a stain. It was a face. Not a drawing or painting of a face, but something more like a photographic representation—like someone had printed an image directly on the surface of the wall.

  It was Mr. Hull’s face.

  “How did you even find this?” I was at least as impressed by Carter’s thorough detective work as I was by the bizarre image itself.

  “I wouldn’t have, had I not already known to look for it. The other two murder scenes had images just like this. The first one we found was on the ceiling, and the other was inside a medicine cabinet. They depicted those victims, too.”

  “Do you have any idea what it means?” I ran my finger along the dark image and then pulled it away to see if any of the substance came off. My finger was clean.

  “I was hoping you might,” Carter replied. “This is why I thought there was more to all this than straightforward murder. It also doesn’t sit well with me that Mr. Compton is the one responsible for the other two killings. I suppose he may be a serial killer, but if just feels—”

  “Off,” I finished.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you mind if I take a picture of this, uh, thing?” I pulled out my cell and aimed it at Mr. Hull’s likeness. “I have a friend who might be able to shed some light on what it means.”

  “Be my guest,” Carter said. “Anything you can get will be helpful. For the time being, I’m going to approach this with Compton as the sole suspect, but I don’t believe it ends with him. This is a group of copycats or a cult. Something. It’s not just one wealthy businessman going around strangling people at random.”

  I snapped off a couple of quick shots of the image on the wall, then stowed my phone back in my pocket. “You find a cult of copycat killers more appealing than one lone maniac?”

  Carter shrugged, not taking his eyes off of the stain-like image on the wall. “A cult doesn’t fit either, but I can’t fathom how Compton could be responsible for all three murders. From the evidence, the victims appeared to know their killer, at least enough to let him or her in without a fight. Obviously, there is more that needs to be checked out, but my gut tells me Compton had no connection to the first two murders.”

  I stared at Hull’s image on the wall. If it had been a photograph, I would have bet money that it had been taken within the last week or so. His likeness was rendered entirely in shades of gray, but the nuance was impeccable—perfect, really—right down to his hooded, almond-shaped eyes that seemed to project a constant state of boredom. What kind of serial killer artist would take the time to scrawl a perfect portrait of his or her next victim on the wall of a public men’s room?

  I traced my fingers down the cool surface of the wall until I was in contact with the image once again. I couldn’t be sure, but it almost seemed to feel minutely warmer than the wall around it.

  “I’ll do what I can to find out what this image might mean,” I said, walking back toward the restroom exit. I suddenly didn’t want to be in that place any longer. “In the meantime, you should do what you can to get Compton off the street. We know he’s at least one of the killers.”

  Carter chuckled softly as he followed me back out to the lobby. “On it, boss.”

  “Sorry, did that come off a little order-y?”

  “You’re fine,” he said, still smiling. “I’m just glad for the help. Some of this is a little outside of my comfort zone.”

  I shrugged. “It’s starting to seem like it’s smack in the middle of my comfort zone. Which reminds me—”

  “Payment?” Carter suggested.

  “Well, yeah, but that’s not what I’m talking about at the moment. I was wondering if you might want to take me out on the town tomorrow.”

  Carter’s eyes widened. He looked a little like a deer caught in headlights. “Out on the town?”

  “Yeah, nothing fancy. I was thinking the morgue.”

  “Oh, you want to see the other bodies.” Carter had been fiddling with his badge, and he nearly yanked it off his belt.

  “Try not to sound too relieved.”

  “It’s not that.” His badge fidgeting began anew. “I mean, I would be happy to—you’re a perfectly fine…” Carter cleared his throat. “My marriage just ended.”

  I held up my hands, trying to curtail the awkwardness for both of us. “Let’s stick with the murder case, okay? Can we do the morgue thing?”

  I wasn’t certain how long after the fact I would be able to see the victim’s death, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to try. It would put a tidy bow on things if I saw Compton with both of the others.

  “Yeah, we can do that,” Carter said, regaining some of his composure. “But we only have the previous victim’s body now. There was a fair gap in time between the first and second victims, and at the time of the first murder, we didn’t realize this was something that was going to continue. So, the first body was returned to his family to be buried.”

  “One is better than nothing.”

  “Okay, I’ll set aside some time tomorrow afternoon. Around one?”

  “It’s a date.”

  We both cringed.

  Chapter 4

  It was after five in the morning by the time Carter dropped me off in the front of my building, and not even the early crew at Sason’s were stirring yet. As I bumbled my way into my apartment, I felt too wired to give any serious thought to going to bed. The thrill of a new case was nothing new to me, especially one of real substance, but what I had before me was in a league of its own.

  Maybe it was juvenile or maybe it was a personality defect, but I felt like there was something morbidly appealing about a serial killer. Or a serial killing cult. And the fact that I was going to play a part in bringing him or them down was even better. I knew it was serious stuff—life and death—but it felt like a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, and I had every intention of winning it.

  I sat down on my futon, still in bed form, and pulled my phone out of my jacket. The pictures I took of the bathroom wall all showed nearly the same thing, but I still selected three of them and sent them to Hira
m. I included the message: Image of murder victim on wall. Supernatural or psycho artist? He was likely at home and in bed by now, but it was the only thread I had to pull at while I waited for my morgue trip with Carter to roll around.

  With that done, I leaned back and considered my options. It was still several hours before Carter would be over, and I could use that time to get a jump on things. I didn’t know much about the first two victims, but I could stroll by Compton’s residence. I doubted it would be all that difficult to find the address of a man like that, and I could at least look around and see if there might be some helpful spirits in the area that were willing to talk about his extracurricular activities.

  Somewhere between that thought and my good intentions to act, things got a little hazy. And comfortable and warm. And the next thing I knew the distorted and strikingly loud sound of A-ha’s Take On Me was jolting me awake from some dream about murderous zombie businessmen. It was coming from my cell, which I still had clutched in my hand.

  I swatted at the phone until it finally shut up and then jabbed the speakerphone icon on the screen. Strangely, even though the song had ended, someone continued to beat on the drums.

  “Meredith?” It was Luka’s voice.

  “Uh-huh.” The sound that came out of my throat sounded like it belonged to an asthmatic bullfrog. I wondered if I should talk to Francie about that health club she was running.

  I got up from the futon and shambled across the middle of my apartment. As the drumbeat got louder, I realized it was actually the sound of someone incessantly pounding on my front door.

  “I wanted to give you a heads-up. Someone from the Congregation will be visiting you today. I only just found out, or I would have let you know sooner.”