Disturbed Earth (Ritual Crime Unit Book 2) (35 page)

Doctor Moss’s face was drawn taut with the tension, almost cadaverous in the shifting light of the circle. Pierce couldn’t see her eyes behind the reflections that danced in her glasses, but she still kept her head up, shouting to the sky. Pierce could feel the rhythm of the ritual reaching a crescendo, the pressure growing, growing, until she felt like something in her head would surely burst, that any moment now her eyes and ears would start to bleed.

“Begone!” Moss shouted in English, as her words reached their climax. “I banish thee! I banish thee! I banish thee!
Begone!
” Her voice cracked into hoarseness on the final repetition, and she threw her arms up crossed to shield her face as there was a great rushing in the air, as if someone had punctured the Earth’s atmosphere.

Pierce was almost thrown off of her feet, and she dropped to the ground, sinking her fingers into the soil as if that would somehow help her to cling on to the earth. The ground was quaking even more violently than before, and she was sure that something had gone wrong. There was a rolling, drawn-out thunderclap...

And then nothing. Darkness and silence.

Pierce took a moment to wonder if she was dead before she became aware of the sensation of soil between her fingers. She realised that her eyes had fallen closed, and cautiously opened them, one at a time. It was still dark, but she could see a little, by the light of the fire burning in the pit to her left. It had died down to the level of a standard bonfire now, and the blaze burned with a normal orange hue.

She cautiously stood up; the ground had stilled, but she felt the way that she did disembarking from a boat, the world still weaving even after the motion had halted. Moving on stiff, uncooperative limbs, she turned around to face the stone circle.

All she could see now was the ring of ancient stones, dull, inconspicuous lumps in the dim firelight. The great crack in the substance of the world had sealed itself.

Looking up at the sky, she saw that the swirl of alien clouds had also vanished, and now there was just the overcast night sky, occasional stars peeking through the grey clouds. She looked down for her watch, but her wrist was bare. Confiscated. Right. She doubted it would have retained the right time in any case. She wasn’t sure the
world
had kept the right time. That rip in the air had chewed time and space up into something out of step with their traditional measures, and it was anybody’s guess how much they might have lost.

But it was gone. Pierce drew in a deep breath, brushing the clinging dirt off of her hands. “Everybody all right?” she asked. “Freeman, you okay?”

The pained groan that she got in response concerned her a little, but at least the young DC didn’t seem to be much worse off than before, sitting rocking forward slightly as she clutched her head. The light show and rapid shifts in atmospheric pressure would be enough to give anyone a headache, let alone somebody who was already concussed.

“We’ll get you medical attention as soon as we can,” she promised. God knew when that would be. She wondered if the cars parked outside the site had escaped unscathed, if anyone had phones that might work now. She turned to check on the others. “Doctor Moss? Are you injured?” she asked.

“I seem to be in one piece,” Moss said, standing cautiously. “Though I think this outfit has seen better days.” She squinted at the site of the failed summoning. “It seems my hunch was right. The partially opened portal was unstable from the start—I only had to snip the ritual threads feeding it power, and it collapsed in on itself.”

“Good to hear.” Pierce twisted round to look at the small knot of druids. “Mr Greywolf? Are your people all right?”

“Those of us that are here are fine,” he said, though he was leaning heavily on his staff for support. “But others have been hurt. We need to see what’s become of them all.”

“Right,” she said, turning about to face what she thought was the direction of the road. The great mass of plants surrounding the ritual triangle had withered and died away, but with only the limited light of the dying fire down in the pit she couldn’t see much in the darkness. “Let’s see what we can do—”

She was cut off as the bright beam of a torch shone in her eyes, quickly joined by half a dozen others.

“Stay where you are, please, Chief Inspector. All of you,” said a calm voice from outside the circle. She squinted past the light to try and make the speaker out, and glimpsed the dark army surplus outfits of the Red Key guards. Beside them slunk the hulking shape of the bear-form shapeshifter that she’d lost track of in the general chaos.

This wasn’t over yet.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

P
IERCE WASN’T SURE
if she and her fellows in the circle were outnumbered, but they were definitely in no condition to fight. Freeman was probably concussed, Doctor Moss had been through far too much already for an aging academic who’d been in hospital just days ago, and the druids seemed shaken and drained after their ritual. Pierce herself might have just about enough energy left to throw a punch or two, but it would be a wholly futile gesture.

She substituted bravado instead. “Cut your losses, folks,” she advised. “Your ritual’s a bust, and you’ve already committed enough crimes tonight. Let’s not add anything else to the tally.”

The spokesman of the Red Key forces didn’t bother trading taunts. “Everyone stand up,” he said. “Leave all your ritual equipment on the ground and move away from it. We’re going to have to ask you to come with us, please.”

Pierce held her ground. “I don’t think we’re going to be doing that, son,” she said, staring past the glare of the torches in an effort to meet the man’s gaze. Refusing to go along might just get them all killed, but accompanying the Red Key forces anywhere would more than likely end in the same fate, with less chance of their bodies being found.

“I appreciate your reluctance, but I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.” The lead guard nodded his head towards the bear-form shapeshifter. “Move, or we’ll encourage you to do so.”

Pierce tensed. Getting hit with a Taser would be one thing—and not one she looked forward to—but the shapeshifter’s crushing jaws and vicious claws were another level of lethal. The bear’s ears were back as it swung its lowered head from side to side, snarling, animal instincts probably still twitchy from the magical events in the circle. It wouldn’t take much to trigger it to attack.

It might not need any real trigger at all.

“All right,” Pierce said, breathing out as she raised her hands. “All right.” Playing for time. Bear or no bear, she knew they couldn’t afford to just meekly go along with the Red Key team. As soon as they let these people take them away from this site, they were done for. “But we have injured here. You’re going to have to give us a chance to help them.” She moved towards Freeman, but a jerk of the man’s Taser made her freeze.

“Not you,” he said, and nodded his head at Doctor Moss instead. “You help her up.”

After that ritual, Pierce wasn’t sure Doctor Moss even had the strength to support herself, but that was probably the point of the selection. The guards weren’t taking any chances. “All right,” she said, making a point of stepping away to exchange places with Moss.

As Pierce crossed in front of her, the lecturer twisted slightly to reveal something in her hand—the ritual knife that she’d been using to mark symbols in the dirt. She stumbled as she took a step, and in grabbing Pierce for support, managed to shove the knife into her coat pocket. It was an unexpectedly smooth move, Moss already moving away again as the lead guard barked a warning. “Sorry, sorry,” she said, still tottering. “Not very steady on my pins right now, I’m afraid.”

Pierce kept her back to the guards, subtly lowering her hands as she stepped away from the rest of the group. Was the knife Moss had given her made of solid silver? She hadn’t been able to get a good look in the limited light, and she certainly couldn’t pull it out to inspect it now.

If it was, then she might have a paper thin chance of damaging the shifter’s pelt before it ripped her head off. If it wasn’t, they were fairly fucked... but that was hardly a downgrade on their current situation. She kept shuffling backwards, hoping the guards’—and the bear shifter’s—attention was more on Moss as she helped Freeman up.

In her peripheral vision Pierce spotted the sprawled form of the warlock, apparently still unconscious on the ground. There was her chance. As she took another step backwards she deliberately let her foot catch the man’s limp, outflung arm, and staggered, her hands flailing for balance.

She dipped into her pocket and drew the knife out as she twisted, looking down at her feet. She half raised her hands in a gesture of apology, hoping no one would see the glint of metal tucked behind one of them.

One last chance. Just one card left to play.

“Move away from the rest of the group, Chief Inspector,” the head guard ordered.

“I’m moving. I’m moving.” Pierce half turned towards the group of guards. Where was the bear? Not within her line of sight, so it must be creeping closer in the blind spot on her other side.

Behind her was the dull thump of something hitting the dirt—the Archdruid’s staff, maybe, or some other distraction, intentional or otherwise. Pierce turned towards the noise—and just kept turning, spinning round to lunge at the bear with the knife in her hand, slashing at the creature’s thick brown pelt.

But not fast enough. Even as she struck out, the shifter reared away, slapping out at her with one great heavy paw. She jerked backward by reflex before it could make contact, but the rapid movement caused the knife to fly from her fingers. Before she could scramble to recover it, the head guard moved to stamp his foot down on the blade.

One last gamble—and she’d lost.

“Move away from the knife, Chief Inspector,” the head guard said, his tone more steely than before. Pierce took a few slow paces down the hill towards the road. Ahead of her she could see more of the guards moving around, torches flashing as they packed away equipment and herded the surviving druids onto a lorry. She tried to eyeball the distance past all of them and down to the road where they’d left the cars behind; cars that might or might not start, that she wasn’t sure she’d kept hold of the keys for.

Too far. Too many obstacles. No way she could realistically hope to escape.

But as she heard the metallic click of a weapon behind her that she knew wasn’t just a Taser, Pierce tensed to run anyway. If she couldn’t get away, at least she could leave behind a crime scene too messy to clean up.

“That’s far enough,” the chief guard said. She paused. Drew a slow breath. Could she stall them any longer, or just start moving n—?

An incandescent glare filled the world, and Pierce reflexively cried out, throwing her hands up to shield her face even though she was sure the light was the blaze of a fatal shot as it blew through her brain. They said you never got the chance to hear the one that killed you...

Then sound filtered back in past the first burst of alarm: vehicle engines, a hum that built into the rotor noise of an approaching helicopter, and the distortion of an amplified voice over a loudhailer. “This is the police! You’re surrounded! Drop all your weapons and get down on the ground!”

Firearms officers swarmed the site, followed by a wave of uniforms. Pierce saw the dark shape of the bear go hurtling past her, charging over the fallen wreckage of the hoardings to flee for the hills. “Shapeshifter’s on the move!” she shouted urgently, but she wasn’t sure if anybody heard or paid attention.

A bright light was shone in her face, and she reeled backwards, squinting. “DCI Pierce, RCU!” she said, yanking out her warrant card. “You’ve got a shapeshifter in bear form, making a break for it across the fields—where’s your officer with silver bullets?” Anti-shapeshifter rounds were rare and expensive; she’d be lucky if the local Firearms Support Unit had even one officer with training and ammo to stop the bear.

“Do you need medical attention?” the young officer asked her.

She waved him away. “I’m fine.” Starving, busting for a pee, and her bad shoulder was aching, but otherwise still in remarkably close to one piece. She thumbed over her shoulder at the circles. “But DC Freeman took the backlash from interrupting the ritual. Make sure she goes to hospital and gets thoroughly checked.”

There was little way of guessing what damage the magical blast might have done, nor of predicting whether anyone who’d been here at ground zero would face after-effects. Ritual Crime was a crapshoot of unanticipated consequences, and the scale of tonight’s ritual was a first even for Pierce.