Unmarked Graves

Chapter 1-2

Like she’s possessed, she thought, and a shiver passed over her, even as she scolded herself for letting such a notion enter her head. No need to conjure demons when it was far more likely the strange woman was whacked out on meth or PCP or bath salts or whatever chemical cocktail people used these days to recreationally scramble their brains.

Ignoring the tumult, Rosemary headed toward the front desk, where a stern-looking black woman in her late fifties or early sixties sat. “Hi,” she said as the woman glanced away from her computer to make eye contact. “I’m Rosemary McGuire. My friend William Gordon was just brought in by ambulance. Do you know where he is?”

“Just a moment,” the nurse said, her voice far friendlier than her appearance had seemed to indicate. She typed in something — presumably, Will’s name — and then added, “He’s being taken to have an MRI.”

“Is that bad?” Rosemary asked, hating how frightened her voice sounded. Wasn’t she supposed to be tough and confident when horrible stuff like this happened? At the moment, though, she was mostly glad that she hadn’t burst into tears.

“Not necessarily,” the woman replied. “It’s standard whenever someone’s suffered a bad blow to the head. Just want to make sure he hasn’t suffered a TBI.”

“A what?”

“Traumatic brain injury.” The nurse went on before Rosemary could respond, “But the notes on his file say he was conscious and responsive on his ambulance ride, so it sounds like he’s doing well.” Her brows drew together in a frown. “Glendale P.D. is sending a detective over to speak with you. Go ahead and have a seat in the waiting area.” She pointed to a group of chairs upholstered in gray fabric where a number of people were sitting. They were all ages and races, but they all shared the same anxious expression, one that Rosemary guessed she wore on her face as well.

The last thing she wanted to do was talk to the police. Unfortunately, she had a feeling she wouldn’t be allowed to opt out of that particular interview. If she’d been thinking straight, she should have realized the police would be involved at some point. When she’d made the initial call to 911, she’d only said that she was with someone who’d suffered a blow to the head, but when the ambulance arrived and the EMT asked her what had happened, she’d blurted out that she and Will had surprised an intruder, and it was while protecting her that he’d been assaulted. She guessed that one of the EMTs had contacted the Glendale police department while they were en route.

Okay, so, she’d have to think of a story to give the detective. More than ever, she wished she’d had a chance to talk to Will. They needed to make sure their accounts of the incident matched up. Somehow, she knew he wouldn’t want her to tell the truth — not that the police would believe it anyway.

Yes, officer, Will Gordon and I surprised a man who’s part-demon, and he attacked Will and tried to hurt me, only I summoned powers I didn’t know I had and used them to protect the two of us. That’s when the part-demon man gave up and disappeared into thin air.

You know, your usual Saturday night in Glendale, California.

Rosemary let out a huff of a breath and tried her best to corral her racing thoughts, even though her hands kept shaking and she felt as though she couldn’t truly focus on anything until she saw Will again and was able to confirm that he really was okay.

Think, Rosemary, she scolded herself.

All right, the full truth obviously wouldn’t work, and so probably the wisest course would be to use just a little bit of it to concoct a story that was both plausible and vague. There was no point in saying who the true culprit was, because “Caleb Dixon” wasn’t even Caleb’s real name. Besides —

“Rosemary McGuire?”

She looked up and saw a man in his early forties, slim and of medium height, with cool, piercing gray eyes, standing a few feet away from her. He wore a sport jacket and tie, which told her he must be the detective from the Glendale P.D., because she couldn’t think of anyone else in Southern California who would wear that sort of an outfit on a Saturday night.

Feeling suddenly tired, she said, “Yes, that’s me.”

The man pulled a wallet out of his inner breast pocket and flashed a badge at her. Glendale P.D., just as she’d thought. “I’m Detective Phillips. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

Actually, she did, but she knew that sort of response wouldn’t earn her any points. She’d only just met him, but those coolly assessing gray eyes had already given her the impression that Detective Phillips wasn’t the sort of guy who messed around. Instead, she responded, “Here?” as she gave a dubious glance around the crowded E.R.

His stern mouth relaxed ever so slightly. “Let me take you to the cafeteria, get you a cup of coffee.”

“Sounds great.” In all honesty, it really didn’t, since she tried to avoid caffeine so late in the evening. This particular evening, though, having some coffee was probably a good idea. She had a feeling it was going to be a very long night.

She picked up her purse from her lap and slung it over her shoulder, then followed the detective as he led her away from the emergency room and down a hallway to the cafeteria. At that hour, they weren’t serving food anymore, but the vending machines worked 24/7.

“How do you take it?” Detective Phillips asked as he fished some change out of his trousers pocket.

“Black is fine,” she replied. She shuddered to think what that vending machine used for milk or cream.

Without responding, he got two cups of coffee — both black — and then guided her over to a table off in one corner. The cafeteria wasn’t entirely empty, but no one else sat in that part of the room.

He slid one of the cups of coffee across the table to her and said, “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Rosemary picked up the coffee and took a very small sip. It was too hot and too bitter, but it did do a good job of sending a much-needed jolt along her nerve endings. “Will and I went to the house — ”

“The house at 1830 Las Flores Drive,” Detective Phillips interjected, pulling out a notepad from his pocket. Irrelevantly, she wondered how much random stuff he kept in there.

She nodded and said, “Yes. It belongs to a…friend of a friend.” Close enough. After all, she was friends with Michael Covenant, and he’d been friends with Colin Turner, so the connection wasn’t a complete fabrication. “The owner passed away recently, and we were checking on it to help out the owner’s sister.” Again, not a total lie; now that she knew about the house’s existence, Colin’s sister Emma Weston would have to figure out what she wanted to do with the place, whether that was to sell it or continue renting it. “When we were inside, we were attacked by an intruder.”

“Description?”

“Sorry, I don’t really know,” Rosemary replied, hoping she looked properly apologetic. “We were just about to turn on the lights in the hallway when he came at us, so it was pretty dark.”

The detective scribbled something on his notepad. “But you’re certain it was a man.”

That seemed like a safe enough piece of information to pass along, so she nodded. “I think so. He was a little shorter than Will, but still tall. I couldn’t see his face. His build seemed pretty athletic, though.”

“Clothing?”

She shrugged. “Jeans. Some kind of dark shirt, I think, but I don’t know whether it was a T-shirt or a button-up.”

“Collar?”

Again, all she could do was lift her shoulders.

“Did he say anything?”

Oh, Caleb had said a lot — most of it, things she really hadn’t wanted to hear. However, since she couldn’t repeat any of what the part-demon had said during that frightening encounter in the Las Flores Drive house, she replied, “No. He just came at us. I think that’s why he got the drop on Will — we were both totally taken by surprise.”

The detective made a few notes, although Rosemary saw the way his mouth tightened and guessed he wasn’t very happy about the complete lack of any useful information in her report. “Anything missing?”

“What?” she asked, not sure what he meant.

“Anything stolen from the house?” Detective Phillips said, his tone so even that she knew he was probably starting to get annoyed with her and doing his best to keep the irritation out of his voice.

She shook her head. “No. That is, the house was empty — the previous tenants moved out a while ago. There wasn’t really anything to take.”

Nothing except a hard drive crammed full of footage that had incontrovertible evidence of demons really existing. Colin had hidden the hard drive in the crawlspace of the house, figuring it would be safe there. And it had been — until Caleb followed her to Las Flores Drive and realized the previously undiscovered house would have made the perfect hiding place for the footage. How he’d figured out the hard drive had been secreted in the crawlspace, she didn’t know. Maybe, being part-demon, he’d been able to sniff it out. Or maybe he’d simply used his powers of deduction and realized there weren’t a lot of places to hide something in an otherwise empty house.

“Any vandalism?”

“Not that I noticed. But we weren’t in the house for very long before we were attacked.”

A few more notes, and then Detective Phillips replaced his notepad in his inner breast pocket. “We’ll want to take a look at the property.”

“Sure,” she said automatically, although she wasn’t quite sure how to manage that. She assumed the police would want her there, but she wasn’t leaving the hospital until she knew Will was all right. The nurse had made it sound as though he was doing okay, and yet, if they were performing an MRI, that must mean his injury was serious enough to warrant a thorough examination.

The detective must have noticed something stricken in her expression, because he said, “Sometime tomorrow is fine. We’ll have a car go by the house a few times tonight, just to make sure everything is still quiet over there, but I think the assailant is long gone.”

Oh, he was gone, all right. To where, Rosemary wasn’t really sure. Probably not back to the rented house in Eagle Rock where he’d been staying, though. He’d told her he was from Indiana, but she figured that had to be a lie. Or maybe not. She tried to remember where the Underhill trust — set up by Belial in his disguise as Jeffrey Whitcomb all those years ago — and its demon trustees had been located. Somewhere in the Midwest, she thought, but she couldn’t recall for sure. So maybe Caleb really had gone to Indiana.

If so, maybe she didn’t have as much to worry about as she’d feared. On the other hand, if he really was hiding half a continent away, he could be up to all sorts of mischief.

Well, wherever he was and whatever he was doing, that would have to wait. “Tomorrow should be okay,” she said.

“I’ll give you a call in the morning,” the detective said, and got a card out of his pocket and handed it to her. “I can meet you at the Las Flores house.”

Rosemary glanced at the card before slipping it into her purse. The next day was Sunday, but she guessed that didn’t make a difference. Detective Phillips was on duty on a Saturday night, which told her he wasn’t working the regular nine-to-five, Monday-through-Friday shift. “Okay,” she responded, since she really didn’t know what else to say.