Reign of Night (Thorne Hill #7) - Emily Goodwin Page 0,90
name on my screen. I unlock my phone, not really paying attention to what Tabatha’s saying at the moment.
Melinda: Hey, Callie! The news hasn’t hit the general public yet, so you probably haven’t seen. We have a friend in the Tampa area who told me three bodies were found, strung up with their throats slit in Philippe Park (in the Tampa area). Victims all seem random too, with one being a tourist from Asia coming for a visit.
I put my phone down and look at Tabatha. “This coven that felt energy fluxes…is it by any chance in the Tampa area?”
“Yes,” she says. “It is. Why do you ask?”
“Because three more bodies were found there this morning.”
Chapter 27
“How do you know?” Tabatha asks, looking alarmed.
“Melinda just texted me. This is all she said. ‘Hey, Callie! The news hasn’t hit the general public yet, so you probably haven’t seen. We have a friend in the Tampa area who told me three bodies were found, strung up with their throats slit in Philippe Park (in the Tampa area). Victims all seem random too, with one being a tourist from Asia coming for a visit.’ I’ll text her back now.”
Me: Well, shit. Did you get any more info?
Melinda: Yeah, want me to call?
Me: That would be perfect.
A few seconds later, my phone rings. “Hey, Melinda,” I answer.
“Hey, Callie. Someday I’ll call you with good news.”
“I wouldn’t even know what to do with it,” I joke.
“Right? That awkward small talk would be, well, awkward when demons aren’t mentioned.”
“Can I put you on speaker? I’m with Kristy, Evander, and Tabatha.”
“Oh, uh, sure,” she says, sounding a little nervous. I pull the phone away from my ear, put the call on speaker, and lower the volume just a bit so people around us can’t hear. “Okay, tell us what ya know.”
“I don’t know a whole lot,” Melinda starts. “A group of kids found the bodies while at the park for a field trip.”
“Ugh,” Kristy says with a shudder. “Poor kids.”
“Right? Talk about childhood trauma. Easton and I had talked to another—another, uh, friend,” she says, aware she’s talking about hunters to a group of witches. “And they knew we were interested in the case in Arizona. We were actually going to drive there and see what we get dig up when I got the call just now about the bodies in Florida.”
“Do the police think it’s connected?”
“Yeah, because the FBI is getting involved.”
“There’s no chance it’s a copycat?” Evander asks.
“No, because there were sigils carved into the bodies, and that detail wasn’t released. I’m working on getting crime scene photos of both set of murders. My friend that’s in Florida is at the scene now.”
“The bodies were discovered a few hours ago?” Tabatha asks. It’s about seven p.m., much too late for a field trip have just concluded, especially since Florida is an hour ahead of us.
“Yes, around two in the afternoon, and time of death was marked around dawn.”
“So that rules out any sort of creature that cannot be in the sunlight,” Evander notes.
“Oh, my friend just texted me and—holy crap,” Melinda says, and we all lean in, waiting for her to go on. “I’m texting you the photo. It’s a demon sigil with some sort of writing around it. No one was able to identify it, and they sent photos to two professors who specialize in ancient languages already and have come up empty handed.”
A second later, her text comes through, and I open it up and zoom in on the sigil. Its swirly markings are familiar looking, with four circles on both the top and bottom of the markings.
“Paimon,” I say, reading the word carved around the sigil. “That’s what it says. I’m guessing it’s in Enochian to you guys?”
“Yes,” Tabatha says, looking from the sigil to me and back again, looking slightly panicked. “Was the same sigil carved on each body?”
“On the three victims here, yes. From what my friend can gather, a different one was carved on the bodies in Arizona, but it was the same on all three victims out there. Do you know what the sigil means?”
“Yes,” Tabatha says again. “Paimon is a demon, powerful just like Bael and the demon who came looking for Callie in the spring. But unlike Bael, he has never been captured and locked away in a demonic prison.”
“So something is trying to summon him?” Evander asks.
“My fear,” Tabatha starts, “isn’t that something is trying. My fear is they already have.”