Page 5 of Ravenous Prophecy
My heart beat so loudly in my chest, I was sure she heard it. It was a marching drum banging away. No. Elaine would never reveal any weakness. Even when she was standing next to the broken lamp, baseball bat in hand, it was impossible for her to have done anything wrong.
“Doubly so, when it turned out the digital files had also been corrupted.” The woman leaned back in her chair. “So. Should we expect a visit from the Brooks family retainers? Maybe the MEA gets a new break room out of this? A meditation room? A masseuse on staff?”
My shoulders slumped. If I called, that would be giving in. Father would be disappointed. Mother would be relieved. Elaine would be… unbearable.
“No?” The woman smirked. “No. I didn’t think so. The little black sheep of the family never asked Daddy for all of this… largess. Are you ready to tell me about JA Williams?”
I looked up, feeling something in my chest loosen. Finally, someone was listening. “Yes. He asked me to authenticate a document related to the Hive. But you need to understand, it wasn’t a normal historical record, or even a firsthand account, it was about summoning?—”
The woman began setting pictures on the table, lining them up like soldiers on a parade ground. My stomach turned over. The people in the photos were corpses.
“We know you’re working with him. We know what he’s doing. So you’re going to flip, you’re going to show us that little yellow belly that let Daddy buy your degrees, and you are going to give us all the information we need to arrest JA Williams for murdering mundanes.” She finished, the nine pictures making a neat square on the table. “Start talking.”
“I—I—I—” I shut my mouth, biting down on the stutter that wanted to burst out. I had never seen a dead body before. Of course, I’d seen them in movies, but they weren’tactualdead bodies, and the occasional newspaper article with a photo of human remains always showed them covered by a white sheet.
This was something else entirely. My stomach turned over, and I swallowed down the burn of acid in my throat. These people were dismembered, the blood spreading out from their bodies. I had never seen anything like it. Certainly not with the clinical precision of the MEA cameras.
The woman swiped on each of the photos and the views shifted, giving me a new angle on the crime that would live behind my eyes for the rest of my life.
“I’m going to be sick.” I started to lean away, searching for a trash can, but the woman stood, leaning forward.
“Tell us what you know.” Her words were implacable.
“I don’t know anything about this!” There were no trash cans in the room, and I swallowed down on the bile, staring up at her so that I wouldn’t look at the pictures anymore. But they existed there too, superimposed on my vision. I couldn’t focus on anything but?—
Frowning, I reached out and grabbed one of the pictures, swiping back on it until I found the image.
“You know her? Or are you just admiring?—”
I cut the woman off. “I know what he’s doing. Oh my God. You have to listen to me. We only have a limited amount of time. Are these all the people he’s killed?”
I swept all the pictures up, squinting at each one until I saw the same thing. Runes, carved into the rib bones. Justsmall enough that they might look like damage from whatever weapon had been used to disembowel the people.
“Are you enjoying this? Looking at his handiwork?” The woman crossed her arms, frowning at me. “Or are you enjoyingyourhandiwork?”
“The document he had me authenticate. It was specifically about calling the Hive back to our realm.Summoningthem. I have no idea where he even found the document, but these runes, do you see them?” I slapped one of the pictures down, pinching insistently at the area until the picture enlarged. “They are part of the ritual. He’s putting together blood sacrifices!”
“The Hive.” The woman’s lips went tight. “And I suppose, for his next trick, JA Williams is planning on summoning the bogeyman? Or, no, the Easter Bunny.”
“You don’t understand. When I read the document, I read itout loud, to correct his mispronunciations. But when I said the words correctly, it started?—”
“Let me tell you what I understand. Those marks you’re pointing at were left by the weapon Williams used. We need to know what the weapon was and how he’s choosing these people. We need to know where he’s hiding the weapon. We need any eyewitness statements you have to make.” The woman leaned forward. “Because, Bradley Brooks? Your daddy can’t buy your way out of MEA custody.”
My back straightened. “I would like to talk to my attorney. Please and thank you.”
For a long, stretched moment, the woman glared at me. “This is yourone chanceto come clean. Because if you don’t tell me what you know right now, then the next time we talk to each other, you aren’t a witness. You’re a suspect.”
“I’ve never seen these people before. I never even met JA Williams before today.” I tapped the picture again. “Please, you have to believe me.”
“I believe what I know. And what I know is that JA Williams transferred a large sum of money into your bank account and has been quietly making donations to the Moraira City Magical Museum that supports your research specifically.”
The woman reached her hand out, and I returned the pictures. She tapped them on the table to straighten the little pile, placing them back inside the folder and shutting it decisively.
“I’m sure it’s hard to say no to the man who’s making your dreams of academic irrelevancy possible, but we are looking at a string of murders. Not some hunt for Bigfoot. Start talking, or you’re going down for this by yourself.”
I swallowed. “I don’t know anything about the killings. I just know what it looks like. Please.”
The woman shook her head, striding to the door. When she opened it, she gestured at me. “He’s going back to lockup.”
