Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by J. L. Murray Read Free Book Online Page B

blood..
    “You okay?” I said. “You can go outside if you want.”
    “Doesn’t it bother you?” he said.
    “The blood? Not really. I’ve helped the cops on some pretty grisly cases. You get used to it. It’s good to be working again.”
    Gage’s eyes were wide. He stood next to me for a minute while I looked at the scene. I liked to take everything in and just think for a bit. After a little while Gage quietly stepped outside and I heard the sound of gagging. Lightweight.
    I stood in the middle of the room and scanned the scene. There was more than one body’s worth of blood, for sure. But something seemed off. It wasn’t your usual homicide scene, but I couldn’t say immediately what it was. I turned slowly, letting my eyes slide around, taking in the walls, the floor, the side table, the knick knacks, the television, the dining table surrounded neatly by four chairs. I stopped turning. That was it. It was extremely neat. Once you got past the shock of the blood, it was obvious that not a thing was out of place. Not a photograph was knocked over, not a single glass figurine was smashed. And it didn’t look like the killer had straightened anything up afterward. It was more like he had been in absolute control, had killed quickly, but then started to play with the blood.. The blood told one story of the death and pain inflicted, and the room told another, about the joy of the kill.
    All I knew about Darks was what I learned from Sasha and Gage. But to me this seemed evil. I looked at one of the photographs. A red-haired man had his arms around a sweet-looking woman with pale, curly hair and two small children. They were all smiling. In fact, they looked extremely happy in every single one of these photographs. At the beach, kids pink with sunburn; at the zoo, kids on the back of a statue of a hippo, parents standing by looking at them lovingly; and an older picture, with younger versions of the man and woman in their wedding clothes kissing. I frowned. I’d seen that woman somewhere, but couldn’t remember where.
    “The only thing it loves is killing and pain. They lock them deep in the pits because they like to slip into people’s bodies.” That’s what Sasha had said about the Dark. He may have lied about how long it took them to get frisky, but I was willing to bet he wasn’t lying about this. The room was practically shouting out that a Dark had been responsible for this. I looked at the wedding picture again. Where had I seen her before?
    I walked outside and joined Gage, who was leaning against his car, looking weary. “Sorry,” he said. “Told you I wasn’t used to this stuff.”
    I shrugged. “It takes time.” Something caught my eye. It was the ghost I’d avoided on the way in. A woman holding two bundles to her chest. “Aw, Christ,” I said.
    “What?” said Gage.
    I gritted my teeth. “That’s how I knew her face,” I said. “The wife, she’s standing over there.”
    Gage looked. “I don’t see nobody.”
    “Of course you don’t,” I said. “She’s dead.”
    “Oh,” he said. “Right. You gonna go talk to her?”
    “It would probably be helpful,” I said. “I hate this stuff, though.”
    I approached her. She had been an attractive woman, and even now her curls hung around her face, and her now-mournful eyes made her look almost alluring in a blonde goth kind of way. She saw me coming and clutched the bundles tighter to her chest.
    “Hey, I’m Niki,” I said. “What’s your name?”
    “Can you see me?” she said.
    “Obviously.”
    “Can anyone else see me?”
    “No. You could say I’m sort of special.”
    “Abnormal?” she said, shrinking back a little.
    “You’re not really in any position to point fingers, lady,” I said.
    She sighed and looked down at herself. “I guess you’re right. I’m dead now, aren’t I?”
    “Yes.”
    She closed her eyes and shook her head. She adjusted the lumps she was holding, sort of cradling them in her arms.