Chapter 5 #2
“To a funeral? Of a murder victim? From a case that you are helping to investigate?”
“Never let it be said I don’t know how to show a man a good time.”
“If you’d been around in the Victorian era, you would have been one of those men who took their date to watch a live autopsy at the Royal College of Surgeons, wouldn’t you?”
He chuckles. “Is that a yes?”
“It’s a we’re both going to the same funeral so I might as well get a lift with you. It saves me getting the Tube, I suppose.”
“And I really appreciate the lukewarm enthusiasm.”
“I don’t like funerals either, so this is as good as it gets.” I pull my phone from my pocket and check the time. “I suppose we should get this over with.”
“That’s the spirit, Prickles.” Sam opens the door, and I grab my keys on the way out.
Sadness swamps me. And this time it’s not someone else’s feelings I’m being involuntarily smothered with.
Nope, it’s all my own. I shift on the uncomfortable chair in the crematorium and glance around the almost empty room.
On the left side of the room, Chan sits with Aidan beside him.
Behind them are Maddie and her wife, Sonia.
A middle-aged man with a cold expression sits directly behind them, but I don’t recognise him.
To the right side of the room, Dusty sits next to Tristan and Danny in the front row.
Besides me and Sam, there’s only one other person in attendance, a man sitting in the back corner.
He’s in his sixties, maybe. His hair is pure white, his eyes a pale green, and he’s wearing a black suit with a crisp white shirt and a perfectly knotted tie.
I don’t recognise him either, so I turn back to the coffin on the dais at the front of the room.
This was all my mother’s life amounted to. A handful of people, most of them she met in the last couple of years. Was she lonely? Did she intentionally keep people at arm’s length like I do? Is this what it’s going to be like when my time comes?
The thought makes me even sadder.
I glance across to Sam, who is reading the order of service, I think more to have something to do than out of any real desire to see which hymns Tristan and Danny chose.
A throat clears at the small podium beside the coffin, and I turn my attention to the officiant who, obviously realising there will be no other mourners attending the shamefully small funeral, seems ready to start.
“Friends, we are gathered here today in remembrance of our dearly departed sister, Vivienne. Let us come together in unity and share our sorrow at her passing, but also celebrate her life, which I’m sure was lived to the fullest.”
Looking around, I can’t say that I believe that to be true.
As his voice drones on, I lose track of what he’s saying.
My skin begins to prickle, and I roll my shoulders uncomfortably.
It feels like I’m being watched. I turn my head and my eyes lock with the man sitting behind Maddie and Sonia.
He’s staring at me brazenly, his mouth set in a thin line, his eyes dark and penetrating.
There’s something about that gaze that unnerves me.
“Sam,” I say quietly. I feel rather than see him turn his attention to me. “Who’s that man sitting behind Maddie?”
“That’s Detective Byrnes.” I can hear the disdain lacing his usually easy-going tone.
The air begins to grow heavy, and it feels like it’s charged with static electricity. Once again, the hairs on my arms rise, and I taste the magic on the air.
“What the hell?” Sam mutters. I break the staring match between me and Byrnes to look at Sam. “Can you feel that?”
“Feel what?” I ask, wondering if he sensed the shift in the air too.
“The atmosphere in here suddenly feels really heavy, and I’ve got a strange metallic taste in my mouth.”
That’ll be a yes then.
“It’s magic.”
Sam’s eyes widen in alarm, and he looks around, as if the killer is sitting right behind us. I place my hand on his knee and squeeze. When he glances at me, I nod towards the front of the room.
To where my dead mother hovers near her coffin.
“Jesus,” Sam breathes, obviously getting his first look at what the magic did to her soul.
Her eyes are unfocused, staring into some kind of void neither of us are aware of.
Every inch of her exposed skin is covered in those strange markings that I couldn’t quite see the night she appeared to me in my room.
I stare at the symbol etched into the skin where her mouth should be, fixing it in my memory so I can try and decipher its origin later on.
My heart hurts as I watch her stand there, trapped between worlds. I feel Sam’s hand grasp mine and squeeze. When I turn to look at him, he brushes his thumb over my cheek. It’s then I realise I’m crying.
Where I feel overwhelming sadness, not just for what was done to her but for all the missed opportunities I had to know her, Sam looks enraged. I pity the killer when Danny and Sam find out who they are.
Holding a long-stemmed pale pink rose, Tristan rises from his seat in the front row. Danny also has one, and I watch as they approach the coffin and lay them gently on the lid. For a moment, I wish I had my own offering to leave.
My eyes are fixed on Vivienne. Silvery threads wind down her arms, and she slowly tries to raise them, like she’s attempting to touch Tristan, even though she’d not making eye contact with him.
Every time she reaches for him, the silver cords pull tight and restrain her.
I can see the silent war she’s waging. To me, she may as well be screaming.
Eventually, she breaks through for a second, and her hand shoots forward, gripping Tristan’s wrist. I hear him gasp from here, his eyes widening and his skin turning pale.
I’m halfway out of my seat when Dusty pulls Vivienne’s hand back, and she releases Tristan, who falls back against Danny, his eyes filled with shock and pain.
“What the fuck?” I hear Sam exclaim next to me.
“That shouldn’t be possible,” I mutter in disbelief.
“What shouldn’t?” Sam whispers.
“She shouldn’t be able to touch him, let alone affect his physical being.” I swallow hard. “Did you see his lips turn blue?” I turn to Sam, whose expression is as concerned as mine probably is. “This magic is far more dangerous than we thought.”