Hoarfrost (Blood of Cain Book 2) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  HOARFROST

  J.L. MURRAY

  Copyright © 2017

  Hellzapoppin Press

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Dean Samed

  http://deansamed.com

  “But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

  his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

  his wings are clipped and his feet are tied

  so he opens his throat to sing.”

  ~Maya Angelou

  ONE

  "Are you a good father, Jason?"

  Jason Halloran turned slowly, the light from the house flickering in his eyes, the white mark glowing on his arm. He'd taken off his suit jacket and tie, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The wet, gray sky behind him was quickly deepening to dusk, filtered through thick clouds. It was threatening to rain on the dark, choppy sea. Barnacle-crusted stones cut into my bare feet and droplets of salt water collected in my hair. The air smelled clean and sweet and I was sure this would be my favorite place to die.

  And for a little while, I could stop seeing Dekker's face every time I closed my eyes.

  "Why are you alive?" Jason shook his head. "You should be dead by now. You should have been fucking dead hours ago."

  "Poison is a shit way to kill someone, Jason. You're going to have to think outside the box."

  I came here to die. I smiled pretty when Jason fixed me with his cold smile in a seedy bar, handsome and charming if you didn't know what he was. But I knew. I went along when he invited me out to his house, which he claimed had "a view to die for." I pretended not to get the joke. I drank wine laced with enough sleeping pills to drop a horse, and watched his blooming surprise when I didn't collapse. And I feigned delight when he offered me three lines of powder to snort, even though we both knew it was not cocaine. I did everything I could to let Jason Halloran kill me. But that was before I knew about the girl.

  "What are you going to do to Mirabel?"

  "Mirabel?" he said, seeming not to recognize her name. Then he blinked several times, his pulse jumping in his throat. Tears filled his eyes, a shadow of shame passing over his face. When he spoke again, it was in a heated whisper. "How did you know about her?"

  "Your daughter," I said. "What are you going to do to her?"

  "Nothing," he said, watching me. He was afraid. I could feel it, smell it. He was strong, I could see the sinewy muscle of his forearms. Strong on the outside.

  "You're weak," I said. "Get on your knees."

  Ravens were gathering in the sky, flying low around us, screaming at Jason. He glanced at them, a haunted look in his eyes.

  "You don't understand," he said. "I don't want to. I don't want to. But her mother left us here. She left us and Mirabel...she looks so much like her. She looks so much like her mother."

  "She didn't leave," I said, pulling out my knife. Jason's eyes widened. "You killed her. She's walled up in the basement. At least, she was."

  "There's no way you could know that."

  "There is, actually," I said. "You were so sure I'd die after that cocaine you left me alone for a long time. A very long time. You couldn't even bear to watch me die, could you, Jason? What was it really? Rat poison? It left a nasty aftertaste in the back of my throat, if it makes you feel better."

  He didn't say anything. Just stared at me as if I were the most frightening thing he'd ever seen. He looked at me like I was a monster. I shrugged, smiled.

  "I busted open the concrete where she was buried. See, I have this...thing inside me. It lets me see into the cracks. I'm not sure what it is, not really. But when I want something, there's not a whole lot a shitty human being like yourself can do to stop me. You didn't even feel it, I bet. Maybe you were in your room, crying. Maybe you were getting off on the whole prospect of killing an innocent woman. But you didn't feel it when I put my hands on that concrete wall and let go. You didn't feel it when the plaster fell away from all those bodies wrapped in plastic. When the cops come, they'll find them. They'll know what you did. Your own wife. And the six other women you have down there."

  "You...then you saw–"

  "The room where your daughter was locked up?" I said. "I sure did. Did you hear the part about the cops? I have no affinity for law enforcement, but she's just a baby."

  "You can't kill me, I'm bigger than you," he said, looking at my knife, not listening to anything I was saying. I turned the hilt of the knife in my palm. Turn, turn, turn, the dense light of Western Washington gleaming dully off the blade.

  "It might seem that way, Jason," I said, still turning the knife. His eyes were on it, following it hypnotically. "I can see how you might make that mistake. Except I keep telling you, when I put my mind to something, there's not a whole lot you can do to stop me. You thought I was an easy mark, I get it. It'd be kind of cute if you weren't a serial killer."

  He frowned. His fingers twitched. "I could kill you," he said under his breath, as if he were reassuring himself. "I could kill you and then kill her. I've got money. I could disappear. Become someone else."

  I smiled. "You could. It's never as good as it sounds, though."

  "You talk too much." His voice was guttural and hoarse, the shame leaving his face, replaced with something brutal and cold. He took a step toward me. He was taller than me, but small for a man.

  "I get that a lot," I said. "But I just can't seem to stop myself once I'm on a roll. See, my daddy was a preacher. Not the good kind, the take your money and run kind. The kind who has affairs with his parishioners. Just not that great of a person. But he was my dad, and Lord, could that man talk. He could talk his way out of a snowstorm, that's what my mom used to say. He could talk out of both sides of his mouth and people would thank him for his time. I guess I got it from him, because I can chat up just about any sort of person in any situation. Take this one right here, for example..."

  "I don't care," Jason said, what little patience he'd been holding onto disappearing. "I'm going to put you in that wall with the others." He lunged at me, his expensive shoes scraping against the barnacles, the skin of his knees shredding as I stepped out of the way and he toppled over, grasping at the air. It was so easy that a laugh fell through my lips. He turned quickly, from his hands and knees, grabbed my ankle, pulled. The force of the rocky beach against my back as I fell sent a glorious pain radiating through my whole body, and there was a satisfyingly audible crack. I felt the back of my shirt sticking to the blood and open wounds, gashes opened up by sharp barnacles and broken mussel shells, sharp rocks, and bits of driftwood, the salt water burning as it mingled with my blood. My skull throbbed where it bounced off a rock and something was wrong halfway down my rib cage. I struggled to move, but I couldn't breathe. My knife had fallen from my hand and I felt around for it, but only touched sharp rocks and sand.

  "You're not talking now," Jason said, straddling my chest, all his weight on me. I finally managed to suck in air, my lungs burnin
g from more than just having the wind knocked out of me. I grinned through tears, tasting my own blood. The screaming ravens were getting louder and I knew that soon they would be swarming above us.

  "I found you," Jason was saying. "I picked you up. I brought you here to kill you. It was me, it was all me. You're just a girl from a bar."

  "You're wrong," I said, gasping in between words. "I've been following you for a week."

  "Liar." His eyes had gone bright, his cheeks flushed.

  "Go ahead," I said, getting some of my wind back. It hurt to speak, but that never stopped me before. "Try to kill me."

  "What?" A raven landed next to me and turned its head upward to caw at Jason. He waved his hand at it and it flew away.

  "I came here to die, Jason. It's never stuck before, but who knows? Maybe you're the one." He was staring at me, his eyes uncomprehending. "Except, you had to go and mess with your daughter. Why'd you have to go and do that?"

  "Shut the fuck up," he said, his voice a low moan. He finally put his hands on me, wrapping his thick fingers around my throat. Relief flooded over me as I felt the world blur, dark spots floating in my vision, a brightness to the sky that I knew was just my imagination. I could just let go. I could die by the sea, staring up at the beautiful steel-colored sky. My lungs were in agony, but it would be over soon. I felt the familiar throbbing in my chest, scratching against the inside of my skull. I could let it go whenever I wanted, let whatever was inside me take care of Jason Halloran. Stars appeared in my vision, tantalizingly close. I could just die. The cops were on their way, and I'd planned to be gone by now. But they would save Mirabel, and I would get a chance to sleep. And maybe, this time, I wouldn't wake up.

  "Daddy?" The fingers eased. The weight on my chest shifted.

  "Mirabel?" he said.

  I coughed as air filled my lungs yet again. There was something wrong, I hurt myself when I fell. Broken ribs, probably. I breathed through the pain, touching my throat where Jason had choked me. My other hand touched something cold and smooth. I took my hand from my throat and grasped the handle of my knife. A raven landed next to me and regarded me with something like quiet pity. Another landed on the other side of me, then another.

  "You're a bad man," said the voice. A child's voice. But Mirabel stood there, nearly a woman. How old was she? 14? 16? How old had I been when I discovered evil in the world? How old when I realized my own family wanted to hurt me?

  "I forgot to tell you," I said, the words like glass in my throat. "When I was in the basement, I unlocked Mirabel."

  Jason was staring at his daughter, his lips loose and quivering, a string of drool falling onto his shirt, already smeared with dirt and blood. He was still on top of me, but I couldn't die now. I couldn't leave Mirabel alone with her father, even if the cops were on their way. God only knew what he'd already done to her, and I had to make sure he wouldn't ever hurt her again. I had to be sure he wouldn’t hurt anyone again.

  "Remember what we talked about?" I said, and Mirabel nodded solemnly. Her nightgown, once white, was dirty and gray from the basement, her wrists and ankles crusted in scabs where he'd chained her up.

  "I called them," she said, her voice high and scared. But there was a strength there, too. She was shaking, her eyes wide, but her jaw was set. As if she made a decision and was determined to see it through. "The police are coming. And my aunt is coming, too."

  "Good girl," I said. The ravens were multiplying around me, unnaturally quiet. Bearing witness to what was about to happen.

  "No, Mirabel. I love you." Jason stood then, and I felt light. Like I could float right up to the sky if I wanted to. But when I sat up, everything hurt. Breathing sent a familiar jolt up my spine and I knew that at the very least I'd cracked some ribs. I stood slowly, watching as Jason walked toward his daughter, arms outstretched. Mirabel backed away, her face filled with disgust.

  "That's not love," Mirabel said, her voice radiating a sureness I wished I could replicate. So young, and she already knew what love wasn't. "You're sick, Daddy."

  "Go in the house, Mirabel," I said. "Just like we talked about."

  Mirabel lifted her hand, dropping something metallic on the rocks. Keys. "No one knows about this car," she said, not taking her eyes off her father, a victorious cruelty playing on the edges of her mouth. She kept looking at her father as she spoke. "And I won't tell them you took it. It'll take them a long time to find it. I'll say I found him out here like that."

  "Like what?" said Jason, his voice weak.

  "I never saw her, Daddy. And I hope it hurts."

  "You can tell them whatever you want," I said.

  "I never saw you," she said, finally looking at me, surprised that I was so close, right behind her father.

  "Look away," I said, my lips so close to Jason's ear that I felt him stiffen, my hand gripping the knife. He didn't turn. He didn't run. He just went rigid with expectation.

  "No," said Mirabel. "I want to make sure. I want to see it happen."

  "Mirabel," Jason moaned. "No."

  "See what you've done to her?" I whispered and he shuddered. "Maybe she'll be just like you." He whimpered as I slid the knife through his ribs, like cutting cold butter. I felt my breath come faster as I wrapped my arm around his waist and eased him to the ground, pain exploding where my ribs had broken, my vision blurring, but it was already done. I blinked, dizzy, looking down as Jason moved his mouth open and closed on the ground. The cloud of ravens seemed to burst, each taking off with a cacophony of screeching and rising into the sky to soar in a circle above us, watching, screaming. A warmth shuddered through my body, the pain forgotten. Or perhaps the pain was part of the pleasure. I heard myself moan as I straddled Jason's chest, just as he'd done to me. I was still holding the knife, now dripping with dark blood.

  "I usually have a nice chat before this point," I whispered. Jason was gasping under me, watching me through the pain, his eyes trailing to the sky, to the ravens. I cleaned the knife on his shirt, turned to Mirabel to tell her to go in the house again, but I could see the shape of her moving through the sweetgrass, heading toward the shining glass house. I imagined Jason drinking whiskey from a crystal glass, looking out at the sea while his daughter was chained in the basement.

  Jason was trying to say something, his eyes on me again, but there was no sound, only a thick gargling in the back of his throat.

  "Don't try to talk," I said, "just listen. She's never going to be okay. You know that, Jason, I know you do. She's alive because of me, but you've broken her; you made her something that she never asked for, filled her with a darkness that will never ever go away. But she's going to live, and you're going to die, and in a way, there's poetry in that." A raven landed on my shoulder, looking down at Jason, who blinked, looking from me to the raven and back again. He opened his mouth, trying to speak. I put my ear next to his mouth to hear.

  "Are you Death?" he breathed, choking on the words. I watched him for a while, struggling to draw breath, trying to survive, but his blood was staining the pale, craggy rocks all around him, soaking the sand beneath. A trail of it ran through the bright, sharp stones and barnacles and driftwood, a stream of blood that mixed with the soapy, soft waves as the tide came in, and when the water receded, there was nothing there.

  "Nothing so fancy," I said. "I'm just a girl from a bar."

  "No. I see you. I can see midnight in your eyes. I can't believe I didn't see it before."

  "You're dying," I said.

  He stopped for a moment, his eyes moving around, as if he were trying to take in the world, as much as he could soak up before everything went dark. He took a long, shallow, shaky breath, his eyes tearing from the effort and the pain and the loss of hope.

  "No, you're not Death," he gasped. "What are you?" His eyes found mine, searching. "What are you?" I frowned, surprised, the tingle of tears behind my own eyes.

  "I don't know." The raven on my shoulder squeezed hard with its talons, then pushed off into the air to
join the others, circling us in the sky.

  "Do it," he said. "Finish me off. Take my sin from the world."

  "Your sin will stay on her skin for the rest of her life," I gritted my teeth as I brought the knife to his throat. Heat filled my belly and flooded my eyes with a light that felt both familiar and alien. The sky was black with birds. I felt my hand moving of its own volition as I screamed, Jason's face changing, shifting, a dying man turning to a woman, scarred and mocking. Laughing.

  "It's not you," I said. "It's not you. You're dead."

  "I'm going to stay on your skin until the day you die." Her voice, her face, her laugh.

  I brought the knife down then, blood gushing against my face, metal against bone sending a shock wave down the nerves in my arm. But it didn't matter, I brought the knife down again and again, blood gushing through my fingers, solid bone reduced to sand. I couldn’t stop, some force inside of me driving me through the pain in my arm, my ribs, forcing me to turn that face into something unrecognizable. Something that wasn't her. I fell away at last, feeling the stones cutting into me once again, my sobs echoing across the water. It wasn't her, it couldn't be. It couldn't be my mother.

  I'd already killed her.

  But when I dared to look at the body, neck and face a mess of gore, the eye that still remained was bright blue, the oxford shirt stained red, the large fingers slack. It was Jason Halloran, of course it was. I'd killed a killer, just like I always did. It was just another killer. But my heart beat so fast it hurt.

  I watched Jason's unmoving body and tried to breathe in the wet air, the seawater rushing up and carrying away blood and bits of bone, the bottoms of my feet stinging as the salt water dampened the cuffs of my jeans. I fished a nearly-empty pack of smokes from my pocket and pulled one out, my hands shaking, the cigarette bent as it hung from my lips. But my matches were wet and stained red and I spat the cigarette from my lips, and when the wave came up on the shore again, the sea carried it away. I looked back at Jason, still and dead.