The Last Raven: An Urban Fantasy Noir (Riftborn Book 1), page 8
“You’re not runnin’ off again, are ya?” Hannah said as she opened the door to her burnt orange coloured Toyota Land Cruiser.
“No,” I assured her before noticing the slight smirk on her face.
I climbed into the BMW and started the engine as Isaac got into the passenger seat and strapped himself in.
“You okay?” he asked as I reversed the car before turning it around and driving out of the car park.
“I’m as good as can be, considering what I just saw,” I said. “Human-fiend hybrids that peel apart like pulled pork.”
“And now I’m never eating pork again,” Isaac said with a grimace.
I parked in the hospital car park and followed Isaac inside, letting him talk to any FBI or RCU who happened to be there. It turned out there were none of the latter and quite a few of the former.
There was a light ping as we reached the right floor, and the lift doors opened. I continued to follow Isaac around the horseshoe floor to Dan’s room. Isaac knocked twice and opened the door before anyone could say anything.
Dan was sat up in bed, drinking water. “Isaac,” Dan said, his expression solum. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Isaac told him softly. “You’re alive; that’s something to celebrate at least.”
“I don’t remember . . .” Dan started, and spotted me. “Lucas?”
“Hey,” I said. “Glad to see you’re not dead.”
“Why are you here?” Dan asked, a slight panic to his voice.
“You got hurt,” I said, leaning against the wall and crossing my arms over my chest. “Isaac thought something bad was happening; he asked me to help. I said yes.”
Dan drank more water and put the glass on the table beside his bed. “What did you find?”
“We’ll talk later,” Isaac said. “I’m going to go check on Annie.”
“She’s alive?” Dan asked with surprise.
“No one told you?” Isaac asked him.
Dan shook his head.
“She lost an arm in the fight; she’s been in surgery and is now recovering. It’s a good thing revenants heal fast, because she’d be dead otherwise.” Isaac gently placed his arm on Dan’s shoulder. “I’ll be back soon.”
I took the chair from by the door and dragged it across the room, putting it by the window so I had a good view of the door. I shut the curtain right behind where I sat. It was force of habit on my part, but that force of habit had kept me alive before.
“Four years out of it and you come back because of me?” Dan asked.
“I saw those claw marks,” I told him. “You going to be okay?”
“Docs have said I’ll be fine,” Dan said. “There was venom in the claws, apparently; it stopped my body from being able to heal. I assume the same is true with Annie. Otherwise, we might not have lost so many.”
“What do you remember about it?” I asked him.
“Nothing,” Dan said with a frustrated sigh. “The FBI were investigating two hikers who were killed by fiends a few days back. I heard that the hikers were working with the FBI on something. We were meant to supply help to the FBI investigation. The RCU was doing morning patrols of the area every morning since we’d become involved. Some of the agents wanted to go fiend-hunting with us. They figured we might be able to track them closer to dawn as the previous attack had been at first light. The FBI agents wanted to be there early, to get ready. They wanted to look around at night too, see if we could find something. I advised them against it, but one of the agents—I don’t remember his name—insisted. We took the FBI to the preserve. I remember getting to the preserve; I remember going down the path, and then I got hit and woke up here.”
“Getting hit saved your life,” I said. “You got sent flying into some bushes; the fiends couldn’t get to you, or forgot about you, I don’t know.”
“My team . . .” Dan said, shaking his head. “Fuck.”
“I’m sorry,” I told him.
“Is this how you felt?” Dan asked. “After the Guild were . . . After you . . .”
“After I was the only survivor?” I finished. “Yeah. Survivor’s guilt is a hell of a thing. It took me a long time to deal with it. I still get attacks of it even though it happened seven years ago. Isaac will make sure you have people to talk to. People who can help you. It’ll be hard at times, but you’ll get through it.”
“The fiends are dead, yes?” Dan asked. “No one else was hurt?”
“They’re dead,” I told him. I didn’t want to mention the hybrids we’d found; Dan didn’t need anything piled on him at this stage.
“Good,” Dan said with a large sigh.
“Your team went down fighting,” I told him.
“Half of them were fairly new,” he said. “A couple of the revenants had only become rift-fused a few decades earlier.”
“They knew what they were doing,” I said, hoping my words might help but knowing that very little would for a while.
Dan nodded as if he understood and lay back on the bed. “Lots of FBI here.”
“They’re either helping or leading the investigation; I can’t decide which,” I said. “Apparently, the higher-ups want to play nice.”
“Ancients?” Dan asked.
I shrugged. “They do have an interest in maintaining human and rift-fused relationships. After what happened to you, it was inevitable, I guess.”
Dan nodded slowly, closed his eyes, and sighed. “Where have you been all this time?”
“Around,” I told him. There’d be time to explain things to him later.
“Wherever you’ve been, it’s good to see you again,” Dan said. “Wish it was under more pleasant circumstances.”
“Me too,” I told him. “You just rest and get better.”
“If the fiends are dead,” Dan asked after a few seconds of silence, “what are you looking into?”
“Isaac wanted me to run the crime scene,” I told him. “There are some things that need to be looked into. The RCU wants to know how it happened, obviously. He thought a neutral pair of eyes might go a long way.”
“You think it was a setup?” Dan asked me. I knew that he wanted answers, probably more than any of us.
“It’s possible,” I said. “I think it’s suspect, but until I have any information one way or the other, I can’t say for sure.”
“Your gut?” Dan asked.
“My gut says that all of you were set up,” I said. “My guess is the RCU were the target.”
Dan sighed again. “Fuck.”
“I hasten to say that it’s only a theory, and I have no evidence to say who was behind it or why it happened,” I told him.
“But you’ll find out.”
I nodded. “I won’t stop until I do.”
Dan nodded sadly. “I think I might get some sleep. I’m still feeling pretty wiped out.”
“I get that,” I said.
I pulled the second curtain shut and left Dan alone in the room. Hopefully, his sleep wouldn’t be where his brain decided to decode all of the footage of the attack he couldn’t remember.
I found Isaac by the nurses’ station in the centre of the horseshoe. “He okay?” Isaac asked me.
“Nope,” I said. “He’s going to need help. He’s going to need people around him who care. And it’s going to take time. How’s Annie?”
“Unconscious,” Isaac said. “The venom in her body is doing a real number on her ability to heal. She’ll survive, but they docs are going to keep her in a medical coma until the venom is gone.”
I recounted the conversation I had with Dan.
“You think they were set up?” Isaac asked for confirmation when I was done.
“No doubt in my mind,” I told him as we walked toward the lift. “Those hybrid things were waiting for Dan and his team. Question is why.”
“And who sent them,” Isaac said as we stepped into the lift.
“That too,” I agreed. “Someone wanted the RCU—you said the FBI weren’t meant to be there—team killed off. Someone went to a lot of trouble to set it up, to make it look like fiends did it. Where’s the dog walker who found the fiends?”
“You want to go see him?” Isaac asked.
I nodded. “We got a name and address?”
“Sure, Emily told me earlier,” Isaac said as we exited the lift.
“Wait,” I said when we were outside. I stopped walking and looked at Isaac. “What time did the attack take place?”
“Four fifty-two,” Isaac said, removing his phone from his pocket and tapping the screen.
“And you called me at nine,” I said. “So, when did the dog walker find the fiends?”
“A little after six,” Isaac said, reading from his phone. “Six ten, to be exact.”
“The attack took maybe ten minutes,” I said. “The fiends would have wanted it done quickly, the ambush taking out as many agents as possible. That’s how I’d do it. Eliminate the main problems, deal with everyone else after.”
“You have a very scary mind,” Isaac said.
“Fair,” I agreed. “How long before you and other RCU agents arrived?”
“We arrived at five seventeen,” Isaac said. “We were there until the ambulance arrived at five twenty-two. I left with Annie and Dan, and the rest of the RCU agents remained there to do an investigation. That was until the FBI arrived at five thirty-eight. I received a call to tell me that we were to let the FBI into all of our findings.”
“Right,” I said, my brain spinning with ideas. “Once the attack is done, the cover-up begins. That cabin is a good ten-minute walk from the attack. No one thought to check the cabin for a whole hour after the attack was called in. And thirty minutes after the FBI arrived.”
“Why didn’t the FBI look into the cabin?” Isaac asked.
“It’s a good point,” I said. “The lake is far enough away from the attack; there might not be a cordon there. It’s certainly possible someone walking their dog there doesn’t notice the law enforcement, but I’d have expected the FBI to find the fiends. Way before a dog-walker did.”
“You think someone in the FBI is working against us?” Isaac asked. “That they helped set up my team?”
“Not the second bit,” I said. “I doubt the FBI set up the RCU and their own people. That doesn’t make sense. Emily doesn’t strike me as the type to want a bunch of people killed, especially not those she works with. She was as surprised as anyone about the human-fiend hybrids. No, this is about something else. Someone else with power and money set this up.”
“Sky-High Security,” Isaac said.
I nodded. “My guess is that they sent the hybrids; no idea why, though. The dog walker probably works for them. Had him make the call because it was taking too long to find the fiend bodies and someone needed to push that along. Dog walker calls the FBI. That’s the thing. Who, when finding fiends, would call the FBI? If you know what they are, the RCU number is plastered all over the place. And if you don’t, you’d just call the cops. Why the FBI? Unless you don’t want the RCU to find the fiends because you know they’d spot something wrong immediately, and the local cops would just call the RCU.”
Isaac let out a long sigh. “I’ll call Emily. Let her know I’m going to put some more RCU people at the hospital. She’ll be fine, lets her pull her FBI guys out, and it gives us a chance to ensure we’re not about to have something else awful happen.”
“Something doesn’t feel right,” I said. “There’s something I’m missing.”
“What?” Isaac asked. “About Emily?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” It was just out of grasp, but my brain couldn’t quite get hold of it. “It’ll come to me.”
“Emily,” Isaac said, walking off to talk to her.
“I’ll meet you by the car,” I called after him. I sat in the front seat of the BMW and tried to get my brain to figure out what I was missing. But every time I was close to getting it, it slipped away. Hopefully, it would come to me.
The passenger door opened and Isaac climbed inside. “She was planning on contacting me about it now that Dan is up and Annie is out of surgery,” Isaac said. “She thinks her people are better placed to investigate the original deaths. The two humans. She figures that if those two fiends in the cabin were placed there, who killed the two hikers?”
“You said they were connected to the FBI,” I said.
Isaac nodded. “Emily told me. Didn’t tell me an awful lot more, though. I got the feeling it wasn’t something she was allowed to divulge.”
“I think she can divulge now,” I said. “Something about this whole thing smells off. It starts with those two deaths, so I think we need to know more about them.”
“Well, she’s going to look into it,” Isaac said. “I’ll let you know what Emily says about the hikers. If she says anything. At shift change tonight, the FBI personnel will swap with ours. If there’s an FBI involvement in this that’s less than stellar, I’d rather they weren’t looking after my people.”
“Where do you want dropping off?” I asked him.
“Nowhere,” Isaac said. “My car is still here. I’m going to take it to RCU headquarters in Rochester. Talk to the Ancient in charge.”
“Be careful,” I told him. “You know the Ancients have their own motives for getting involved.”
“I will be,” Isaac assured me. “Take care, Lucas.”
I drove to the Church of Tempered Souls and stopped in the car park at the rear of the property.
The church was impressive on the outside. A gothic building, towering over a garden that ran around the outside of it. There was a steeple high above with several ornate gargoyles. I walked through the garden, nodding hello to two elderly women who were sat on a bench, deep in conversation.
Pushing open the heavy door, I stepped inside the church, walking under an archway that led through the pews, above which were several large stained-glass windows. At the far end of the nave were the pulpit and seating area for a choir.
A huge stained-glassed window sat at the far end of the building, depicting rift energies and a glorified image of the transformation of human into rift-fused. It was probably very impressive when there was actual sunshine to come through.
A door behind the pulpit opened and Gabriel walked out. He wore a black suit, which, to be honest, I was a little disappointed about. I figured he’d have been wearing his finest cassock.
“Hannah with you?” I asked him.
Gabriel nodded. “She’s making coffee in the cleric house; she told me you had something you needed to talk to us about.”
“I do,” I admitted.
Gabriel took me through a door at the far end of the church, across a small courtyard with several small trees and bushes. There was a metal table in the middle of the courtyard, with four identical chairs.
The cleric house was a two-storey red-brick building at the far end of the courtyard, with large trees surrounding it. There was maybe a hundred feet between the church and the house, and despite not being far from the road, it was remarkably quiet.
Gabriel opened the midnight-blue painted wooden door and ushered me into the kitchen beyond. “This is the rear of the house?” I asked.
Gabriel nodded. “The front faces the sidewalk on the opposite side of the block.”
“You have a lot of land,” I said. “A church, a home, a car park. The church takes care of its own, I guess.”
“It does,” Gabriel told me. “We also pay our taxes.”
I chuckled. “I wasn’t going to ask.”
“Yeah, but you thought it,” he said.
“True,” I agreed.
The wooden centre counter in the middle of the kitchen had half a dozen stools around it, a metal tray sat on top with a bright yellow teapot with sunflowers painted on it, a coffee cafetière, and a small tray of chocolates.
“No sandwiches?” I asked as Hannah entered the room.
“You’re more than welcome to make your own,” she said. “I’m not your ma.”
I sat down as Gabriel poured. When he was done and my cup of coffee was in front of me, I sighed. “So, I guess it’s time to tell you what happened.”
“You’re bloody right it is,” Hannah said.
Gabriel said nothing.
I couldn’t think of a good way to start, so I just went with the headline first. “I’m human.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Five Years Ago
I’d been a guest of Dr Callie Mitchell’s for three days. She had spoken to me, given the tour of the facility several times, but I still didn’t understand what she actually wanted me to do.
Dr Mitchell assumed I was a reporter working for the BBC; I got the feeling that if she ever discovered otherwise, I was dead. The second-skin suit she made everyone wear would make sure that the death was permanent for me. Creating a garment that could remove my connection to the rift, to my embers, was something that I didn’t think was possible until I’d met her.
Dr Mitchell said she wanted me to document her time there and had given me a notepad, pen, and tape recorder to do just that, but she kept talking about the bigger story. She told me that what I wrote about there was an audition, that no one would ever read the story about her asylum. She liked to mention that if I failed, she would find a new use for me, and I was grateful that I only had a few days left in her company before Isaac came. Before I could be done with this whole charade and Dr Mitchell could be put into a cell in the deepest, darkest prison we could find. She deserved to be forgotten about.
One of the other inmates had told me that the nights were the hardest, but he’d been wrong. I could block out the weeping in the darkness, ignore those who prayed to whatever deity they thought might help, those who shouted abuse at the guards, or begged to be released. Sleep would take me, and I would be free from all of it for a few hours.
The worst part was just after awakening, realising that my dreams weren’t reality, that I’d been lied to by my own brain. The crushing awareness that I was not free at all.
I woke up, cursed the world at large, and ran my hand through my long dark hair as I spotted the guard outside of my cell. I didn’t know his name, but he was quick to hurt people for supposed infractions. The infraction in question could be anything from someone saying something when he didn’t want them to, or looking at him too long.
