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“Help me,” I murmur into my palms. “Please help me find something.”
There is honor in asking for guidance.
Some may call it prayer, but what is prayer but asking for assistance? What is magic but asking for assistance?
I know I need help, but I have not decided what kind of help I’m going to ask for.
Ignatius walks into the room, and his presence seems to fill the large space. For all his laidback demeanor, there is an undercurrent within him, some looming thunderstorm inside just waiting to be unleashed, you can practically feel the crack of restrained energy beneath his skin. It’s unforgiving and demanding, it makes my entire body quiver, like the crack of lightning would burn me to the ground.
He walks directly to me and boxes me in on the sofa, his hands on either side of me. “Don’t,” he says right up in my face.
I stare into those intense eyes of his, on the verge of breaking down or losing my shit. “Don’t what? Be angry they’ve made all this out to be the latest fad, The Voodoo Burning crimes?”
His gaze narrows to slits. “I get it. I’m angry too. They’re turning this into a goddamn three-ring circus. Those women don’t deserve that.”
He’s so right, and I’m so angry. And, goddamn it, I’m scared. I’m absolutely terrified.
“Don’t torture yourself like this. It’s a job, keep it that way.” His words are firm, but tender.
I shove him away. He moves only because he allowed it to happen, not because of any of my effort. “Easy for you to say,” I snap as I shove myself to my feet.
“It’s not easy. I fucking know that. I saw them too.” The victims. They’re a constant presence all around. He follows me as I move across the room, for nothing else than to expel this pent-up rage brewing inside me. “But you can’t let this sick bastard get inside your head, Dominique.” He grips my arm and spins me around. He’s got me by both arms, our bodies close as he peers down into my face. He’s angry too, I can see it in his expression, and that somehow comforts me. “You’re an incredibly intelligent, strong woman. Don’t forget that.”
My eyes search his, and I don’t know if I’m searching for something, or maybe taking. If I’m absorbing his strength and his patience. I can feel him affecting me, grounding me, keeping me level.
“You’re right, Ignatius. But I’m so angry, I can’t stand it.” I feel as if I could explode with the cauldron of emotions brewing inside me.
He shakes me a little. “Good. Use it. Use that anger, let it fuel you to take this bastard down. You are Dominique Chavelle, and you have magic in your blood.”
In that moment, I can see the Beauchamp heritage flicker in his eyes, the blue-blood and pedigree. It stirs something within me, calls to my own heritage, all that I am responds to all that he is, that energy inside him igniting something inside me. I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him. Because I have to. Because that is what I’m meant to do.
Because this is where I’m supposed to be, in the Beauchamp Plantation house, in the arms of the Beauchamp heir.
~
We were able to get inside the building fifteen long hours later, and that was only because Ignatius was with me, and he insisted I wear protective gear.
I was extremely grateful.
But I was horrified.
I was able to come in before the rest of the crime scene team arrived. And before the body was removed.
Seeing the remains, and the mutilated way she was left, up-close and personal, shook me right to my core. I vomited. I had to run from the building, and heaved and wretched, the spasms kept coming even after there was nothing left. It was an automatic response to the gore, even though a lot of it had been burnt away.
There is no way to describe how seeing this horror in person rather than in photographs impacts you, even though it’s the same thing. You are indelibly forever changed.
And the killer came to see me yesterday.
That knowledge haunts my every thought as I walk around the crime scene and photograph the symbols. I walk the area, take measured steps of the perimeter, around what’s left of the candles, and try not to look directly at the victim. I pretend I don’t see the dismembered hands sitting on the floor, or the stumps where they’d been attached to the burnt carcass. But it’s difficult to ignore what I’m feeling.
There’s a negative energy in the air, it presses down on me, heavy and thick. It’s angry and afraid, furious and insane, and every single bad feeling, all of them pounding down like a hailstorm coming at you a hundred miles an hour. You want to scream and cry and run away.
The heinous act committed in a church hits you in the middle of the chest. It’s evil in the vilest form. It’s like the devil fucked you and you feel it in every cell of your body, violated in the most horrible way, and the only way to be clean is by an exorcism.
I push on and take my pictures, I’ll make notes later when I’m able to take my time and examine them. I want to be done here so I can leave.
Because hell is real, and I’m standing in the middle of it.
