Blood Rite (Maggie Devereaux Book 2) Read online

  BLOOD RITE

  Maggie Devereaux Mystery #2

  Stephen Penner

  Published by

  Ring of Fire Publishing

  Blood Rite

  Maggie Devereaux Mystery #2

  ©2011 Stephen Penner. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity with real persons or events is purely coincidental. Persons, events, and locations are either the product of the author’s imagination, or used fictitiously.

  Cover image from joshuahorn.com. Used with permission.

  Cover design by Stephen Penner.

  ALSO BY STEPHEN PENNER

  Maggie Devereaux Paranormal Mysteries

  Scottish Rite

  Blood Rite

  Last Rite

  Highland Fling (Short Story)

  David Brunelle Legal Thrillers

  Presumption of Innocence

  Tribal Court

  By Reason of Insanity

  Case Theory (Short Story)

  Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Short Story)

  Other Novels and Short Stories

  Mars Station Alpha

  The Godling Club

  Capital Punishment (Short Story)

  Children’s Books

  Katie Carpenter, Fourth Grade Genius

  Professor Barrister’s Dinosaur Mysteries

  To all my friends and family,

  without whom none of this would be possible

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Epilogue

  Preview

  About the Author

  1. Heir Apparent

  He had no idea what was happening.

  The year-old boy slept peacefully within a magnificent, solid mahogany crib, his opulent sheets enveloping him in illusory protection. While across the impeccably decorated nursery, through the elegantly dressed window, silver moonlight streamed in over the child’s angelic face. Indeed, so sound was the baby’s slumber that he didn’t stir at all as the watery light spilling across his soft features was blocked by the cloaked figure who stepped silently to the edge of that magnificent, solid mahogany crib.

  A woman’s strong, fine hands reached down and gently lifted the infant from his cotton womb, trading him his cotton sheets for the equally luxurious warmth of a waiting silk blanket. The boy cooed contentedly as he nestled against his kidnapper’s breast and returned to whatever happy images fill a yearling’s dreams.

  Several silent moments passed. Then the happy images were sliced violently away. A muffled yelp, followed by a smothered wail, rebounded dully off the walls of the nursery; and a woman’s fine, strong hand hurried to paint the words in blood on the wall above the crib:

  ‘I AM RETURNED TO FULFILL THE PROPHECY’

  And then, with even more haste, the same hand scrawled out another bloody phrase, this time on the polished wood floorboards next to the bleeding child:

  ‘ A THÁINMHNE NA DOHRGHATAS, SLÁINAICH AN LÁINABH A’SIO’

  ‘Forces of Darkness, Heal this Child.’

  2. The First Hours

  Inspector Robert Cameron stood motionless, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his crumpled blue suit, and stared down at the bloody pattern etched at his feet. Again.

  He was a large man, six foot three with broad shoulders and thick muscles beneath his forty-something skin, and he towered incongruously within the infant’s nursery. Closely cut, snowy-white hair retreated sharply from either side of his furrowed scalp to an increasingly large bald spot at the back of his head. His tired blue suit dated from the Thatcher administration; his frayed red tie, hanging limply between his unbuttoned coat sides, from the one before. Intelligent blue eyes shone out from their recessed sockets as he stood in the middle of both the nursery and the cacophony which had seized the residence.

  Officer MacGregor was sliding the diminutive baby furniture away from the walls for Officer Richards to peer behind. Flashbulbs from Officer MacAllister’s camera lit the room repeatedly while Officer Henderson began to dust both the crib and the windowsill for fingerprints. From down the hall Cameron could hear the soft, choked sobbing of the nanny, being both half-consoled and half-interrogated by Officer Wilkins; he’d have to make sure Wilkins printed her before he let her leave. And Sergeant Willis was downstairs, undoubtedly failing utterly to prevent the lord of the house from leaving.

  Cameron raised his gaze and stared several moments at the bloody phrase above the crib, drying brown, its drips extending almost to the floor. He was of the opinion that the gory script was just for show—to make the kidnappers appear to be more than just that, and to ensure the ransom would be paid quickly and without questions. After all, it was almost certainly not the boy’s blood. Cameron doubted the body of a one year old even held enough blood to spell out the shocking graffiti on the wall above the crib. But he had to concede that the lad’s blood could well have been the source of the enigmatic phrase drying sticky to the priceless wood floor next to his own dull, worn, black shoes.

  Cameron rubbed a hand over his head and chewed his cheek contemplatively. Then he pulled his pipe from his coat pocket and lit the bowl, still packed with last night’s tobacco.

  He told himself it was just another kidnapping.

  He told himself they’d get the ransom note within the hour.

  He smacked disappointedly at his pipe and told himself to be sure to put some fresh tobacco in it once he was back at the station.

  And then he told himself to wait until the end of the day for the ransom note not to come before calling her in on the case.

  3. Maggie Devereaux

  ‘The University of Aberdeen Summer Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies,’ read the banner draped from the registration desk.

  “So which workshop do you want to go to first?” asked the friend as she lifted a brochure from the table.

  “Hmm, let’s see,” answered Maggie Devereaux, perusing the list of events within her own pamphlet. “Anything but Old Gaelic.”

  Ellen Walker laughed at this reply. She was a young, gregarious woman, with a mop of dirty blond curls atop a ruddy face. When she smiled her cheeks pushed her blue eyes shut, leaving her strong, white teeth to dominate her visage. “Now that is a surprise,” she chuckled. “And a relief. I thought for certain I’d spend the entire conference trapped in lecture after lecture on the latest theories of dialect variation in ninth century Old Gaelic narration.”
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  Now it was Maggie’s turn to laugh. Hers was a pretty round face beneath thick, straight auburn hair falling just to her shoulders. Unlike that of her Scottish friend, the petite American’s smile did not render her eyes invisible, but rather added extra sparkle to the caramel-colored irises flashing behind her small and fashionable glasses. Her full lips held an understated smile as she crossed her arms faux-accusatorily. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  Another laugh from the blond Scot. “Well …” she started.

  “No, it’s okay.” Maggie waved away whatever her friend was about to say. “Believe me, I understand. After spending the last year studying Old Gaelic in one form or another,” she paused and smirked enigmatically, “I think I’ve mastered what I can. I’m ready to move on.”

  Ellen nodded in reply. “Fair enough.” She glanced down at her watch, then again at the brochure. “And speaking of moving on, we should probably decide which session we’re going to. They start in five minutes.” She glanced critically at the choices in her pamphlet. “What about the panel discussion on ‘Scotland, Ireland and the Romantic Aesthetic?’”

  “Sounds delightful,” Maggie said with an affected air. “Let’s away.”

  And with that, the brunette American and the blonde Scot stepped lively from the registration table to the free coffee across the lobby, before disappearing up the nearby stairs to their chosen workshop.

  While the woman in the corner, her green eyes blazing, looked over her newspaper and watched their every move.

  ***

  Maggie fiddled briefly with the lock then threw open the door to her new flat.

  “Welcome,” she announced with a flourish of her arms, “to Chez Devereaux!”

  “Aye, well, thank you then.” Ellen peered inside from her spot atop the Ceud Mìle Fàilte printed on Maggie’s welcome mat—Gaelic for ‘A hundred thousand welcomes’—then traversed the threshold and assessed the dwelling from its foyer. “And a bonny nice chez it seems at that.”

  “Why thank you, kind lass,” Maggie mimicked the Scottish burr good-naturedly. She’d gotten rather good at it over the last ten months.

  “I imagine you’re glad to have moved out of your aunt and uncle’s house, aye?”

  “Oh, they’re wonderful people,” Maggie was sure to say of her Scottish relatives who’d hosted her during her first year in Aberdeen.

  “Is that a ‘yes?’” Ellen pressed, a sardonic grin exposing her teeth.

  “That’s a yes,” Maggie admitted. “It’s nice to have my own place. Would you like the tour, then?”

  “Oh, aye. But of course.”

  “All right then,” Maggie was happy to comply. “I’ll give you the quick tour, then go fetch those DVDs on the American Revolution. I’d never really considered the connection between the Highland Clearances at the hands of the English and the American Revolution a generation later with all the patriots of Scottish descent. Sounds like an interesting angle.”

  “I’ll keep you advised of my progress,” Ellen assured as she stepped further into the flat. “And thanks again for letting me borrow them. Most British accounts of the American Revolution have a slightly different take on it than I expect I’ll find in your videos.”

  “I can imagine,” Maggie smiled. “So anyway: the tour.” And with that Maggie escorted her guest fully into the small, but impeccably decorated flat. It boasted a single bedroom and a single bathroom, both of which Maggie pointed out from the foyer before stepping through a short hallway into the living area. The sitting room to the left held a miniature sofa between two comfortable looking armchairs, all in a classic ivory and smothered in vibrantly colored throw pillows. Two glass-topped end tables stood at either end of the sofa, supporting photographs and carefully arranged knick-knacks. Against the far wall loomed two huge bookshelves, packed full with books of every shape, color and size, and a smaller but similarly laden bookcase supported the small television in the corner. To the right was a small, sharp looking kitchen, with ash cupboards, handsome gray countertops, and a selection of shiny steel pots hanging importantly from a rack suspended elegantly from the tall ceiling.

  Finally, every available inch of wall space was absolutely filled with framed prints: watercolors, landscapes, photographs, old maps of every part of the world, and so on. The most striking of these was a reproduction of a portrait, hanging importantly above the couch, its subject gazing across the living room and out the window toward the top of the King’s College Tower visible only a few short blocks away.

  “Who’s that beauty?” Ellen asked, practically mesmerized by the portrait. The beauty in question was clearly a young noblewoman from some bygone era, with an aristocratic visage, a red velvet gown, long blond hair done up in strands of pearls, and clear blue eyes shining cat-like down through the centuries.

  “That,” Maggie was almost irrationally proud to say, “is my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great,” she paused for breath, “great grandmother. One Brìghde Innes, daughter of the Innes chieftain.”

  “Do tell,” Ellen replied, duly impressed.

  “She married one of the sons of the Gordon chieftain, thus becoming Brìghde Gordon, but she named her daughter Margaret NicInnes Gordon so the name wouldn’t be lost.”

  “Are you named after her daughter then?”

  “Not as such,” Maggie answered. “That is, I don’t think I was named ‘Margaret’ after her. But every daughter of every daughter after her had the middle name of NicInnes, all the way down to me, Margaret NicInnes Devereaux.”

  “NicInnes,” Ellen repeated, then translated the Gaelic: “Daughter of Innes.” She returned her attention to the portrait. “So when is this from?”

  “It was painted in 1621. It’s printed at the bottom there. See?”

  Ellen leaned onto the sofa back and squinted at the words she found there. “Bean-Slànaighear. 1621.” She considered the Gaelic for a moment. “Bean-Slànaighear. That means ‘healer,’ doesn’t it?”

  “Aye,” Maggie resumed the brogue, then thought better of it. “Brìghde Innes, Healer. She was born in 1600, so she would have been twenty-one when this was painted.”

  “Well, I must say,” Ellen stood up straight again and considered the portrait with a fist to her chin. “This is most definitely cool. Quite brilliant really. Where is the world did you get it, though? Did you have it shipped over from the States?”

  “Not hardly,” Maggie replied. “No, I didn’t even know it existed until I got here last fall. I just ran across it in an old art book at the university library.”

  “You didn’t steal it from the library, did you?” Ellen asked, aghast at the very notion.

  “Of course not,” Maggie defended. “It was a library book. I’d never steal a library book. But I was telling Iain about it—”

  “Iain?” Ellen interrupted in a sing-song voice. “Your wee Iain?”

  Maggie could feel the blush begin to sear her cheeks. “First off, he’s hardly wee,” she replied instinctively. Then, in an effort to maintain her dignity, she smoothed back her thick brown hair and went on, “In any event, Iain has a good number of connections in the Highland memorabilia industry. I just happened to mention the portrait to him once and without my even knowing it he made some calls, found an enlarged copy of the print at some out of the way shop in Inverness, and voilà, it’s on my wall. It was a late birthday gift.”

  “It was a thank-you-for-not-leaving gift,” Ellen opined cynically.

  “Yeah, well maybe that too,” Maggie conceded, the blush returning. “Anyway,” time to change the subject, “how about those DVDs? I’ll go fetch them. Wait here; I’ll be right back.”

  Ellen assented with a laugh and a nod as Maggie turned and disappeared down the short hallway. It took Maggie only a minute or so to retrieve the disks. Like the rest of her flat, her bedroom was in a constant state of order. ‘A place for everything and everything in its place.’ And the DVDs were in their place: her closet she
lf; informative or not, videos, she felt, really had no place on a bookcase. She pulled the three-disk set down from their perch and strolled triumphantly back into the living room.

  “Here you go, Ellen.”

  Ellen spun around from her position by the far end table. “Oh, brilliant. Thanks again.” She stepped over and accepted the DVDs from Maggie. Then she paused and tentatively motioned toward a silver-framed photograph on the nearer end table. “Speaking of family ties,” she said with a grin, “is that wee lass you?”

  The photograph was of three women: one an older woman, probably in her fifties; another a young woman in her twenties with long, dark hair cascading onto her shoulders in loose ringlets; and the third a young girl, five years old at the most, with thick dark hair, wide, intelligent-looking eyes, and a band-aid on her chin.

  “Yeah,” Maggie replied with a smile, “and grandma.” Then she sighed slightly and pointed to the young woman hugged between the girl and the grandmother. “And that’s my mom. This was when I was about five,” Maggie explained. “So my mom would have been 30 or 31.” Maggie paused, then went ahead, “It would have been about three years before she died.”

  A tight frown cramped Ellen’s mouth and she nodded sympathetically. “Aye. You told me that once. Sorry to have brought it up.”

  Maggie smiled and waved the suggestion away. “Oh, please. It’s been, gosh, nearly seventeen years now. I can talk about it. In fact, I kinda like to talk about her.” She picked up the photograph and inspected it. “I actually remember the day this was taken. I’d tripped and cut open my chin. It really hurt. But my mom cleaned it up and made it all better. She was really good with that kind of stuff.”