“Right.” I swallowed. “Right.”
“Glinda,” he said, calling my eyes back to his face. I was so caught up in my own thoughts, I didn’t even correct him. “I can’t take you back there if you’re going to fall apart on me.”
I sucked in a sharp breath and considered this. Despite my immediate reaction to the rather scary news that there was crime scene in the alleyway behind my shop, despite the fact that this morning was going even more off the rails than it was before… I knew I’d rather see for myself what was going on than hear about it secondhand. And I knew, no matter what I was about to face, I’d seen worse. I’d lived worse.
I would not fall apart.
I was Gwendolyn Goode. I kept my shit together, no matter what happened. I was steady. I was strong. I was forged by a childhood of hellfire and brimstone. I wasn’t going to crumble. Not then, not now.
“I won’t fall apart on you,” I told Graham firmly.
“Good.”
Before I could protest, he reached forward, snatched my hand in his, and tugged me toward the emergency exit. I stumbled after him in my heels, unsuccessfully trying to extract my fingers from his iron-clad grip with every step. Then, the metal door swung open with a screech of rusty hinges and we stepped out into the leaf-strewn alley, harsh morning sunshine nearly blinding after the dimness of the storage room, and I found myself grateful for the strong, male hand wrapped so firmly around mine. Because, when the sunspots cleared from my eyes and the alley swam into focus… when I saw the cobblestones stained with blood and the utter carnage at my feet… I very nearly went back on my promise not to fall apart.
* * *
I saton the stoop just outside the emergency exit, taking slow breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth. The door was propped open with a brick and I was leaned back against it, my feet planted on the cobblestones. I was so focused on my breathing, I didn’t even care that I was likely ruining my favorite pair of wide-legged linen trousers, the high-waisted ones accented with six smooth pearlescent buttons. My eyes were fixed purposefully on the brick wall that divided my alley from a pay-by-hour parking lot. I was careful not to let them drift down and left, to the horrific site currently being taped off by uniformed police officers.
Graham was standing with them, speaking in hushed tones, but I was careful not to look at him either. I could feel his gaze on me, though, even across the distance. Studying me. Likely weighing whether or not I was about to fall into a fit of hysterics.
I was not.
I was holding it together.
(Barely.)
I didn’t get squeamish around blood. Lord knew I’d seen enough of it spilled in my life, growing up the daughter of a certified loose cannon whose taste in men ranged from patently unpleasant to downright deranged. I’d witnessed violence first hand, up close and personal. But that didn’t mean the sight of my alleyway hadn’t sent a shockwave through my system.
When I’d stepped out with Graham twenty minutes earlier, it was all I could to do to keep my legs from giving way beneath me. He’d felt it, since his hand was still gripping mine, and he’d squeezed so tightly, I thought my bones were going to snap.
“You good?” he’d asked.
I hadn’t answered. My eyes were fixed on the massacred animal in my alleyway, trying to make sense of something so horrific, so out of place in my generally drama-free existence, it nearly brought me to my knees.
I’d seen blood.
I’d seen death.
I’d never seenanythinglike this.
It was a donkey. Or, the remains of one. Whoever had killed the chestnut-brown beast had been beyond thorough in their execution. Its limbs were severed, as was its head, leaving the once-beautiful animal in six distinct pieces. Four legs, the torso, and the head. The cuts were not torn, not ragged at the edges. They looked as though they’d been made with a sharp blade, nearly surgical in precision.
The remains had been carefully arranged in a chillingly macabre circle, with the torso at the center, the legs fanning out in a ring at the bottom, the head at the top. The blood I’d seen was not spilled out from the violence of the massacre, but rather traced, with clear intention, in the shape of an encircled star around the carcass.
A pentagram.
Even more disturbing — and the donkey was pretty damn disturbing, so that was really saying something — was the accompanying message written across the back wall of my building. The dark brownish red of the dried blood formed one large, lopsided word across the pale beige siding.
RESURGEMUS
I’d read just enough Latin in old occult texts to know what that meant. And, let’s just say, it did not give me a happy-go-lucky feeling inside.
WE SHALL RISE AGAIN
Somehow, I didn’t think they were talking about bread dough.
“You need a paper bag to breathe into?”