Den of Secrets - Chapter 1

I wasn’t worried about my soul. Even though the man shouting on the corner of 10th and Main, dressed in a plastic poncho and holding a battered umbrella in broad daylight, said I should be.

“…You think life is a party. But who’s to say when that party is gonna end? You could die by the end of the year. By the end of the day. You could die right now and not know if your soul—”

Maybe I should have been worried based on what I knew about souls and what happened to them when we died. Or before we died, for that matter. But if I spent every day worrying about the afterlife, I wouldn’t be as good at my job as I was, and then a lot of others would be in danger. I was one agent of a small unit in the FBI tasked with supernatural crimes. The things that go bump in the night were real, and while we did keep their secrets, we also had to protect humanity.

At last, the light flicked from red to green, and I moved my foot to the accelerator. The man at the corner held a beat of silence as my car rolled forward. Then he locked eyes with me, pointed a knotted, arthritic finger, and said, “You must make it right with Him. Make room for Him in your future or your soul will—”

I never found out what my soul would do.

As my car picked up speed and headed deeper into town, his words faded, leaving his heartwarming welcome to Little Bluff, Arkansas, behind.

Little Bluff was a charming place with a bustling downtown area and a local college branch that filled the town each fall and left it quiet during the summer. As I drove through, I passed more churches than gas stations and a high school that boasted about its football team. Other than the man yelling at the corner, I didn’t encounter much foot traffic.

Although I wasn’t there to actually visit the town at all. The crime scene I was heading toward was right outside Little Bluff.

My phone began to ring the ominous tune of “The Imperial March” as I wove through the thick trees of the Ozarks. I turned down my music, then grabbed the phone from my passenger seat to answer.

“This is Agent Ross.”

“Is this a bad time…agent?” A distinct baritone filled my ears and sent a wave of warmth through me. The man calling was Cian Harding, who was both my supervisor and fiancé. Some people say don’t date where you work, but I never seemed to listen to that advice.

I smiled into the phone. “No, it’s perfect timing. I’m right outside the state park.”

Normally, I liked to go to my hotel first and prep before heading out to survey the crime scene. But there was no time for that on this particular trip. The most recent victim was waiting for my arrival, and the locals were holding everything until I could get there.

I took a sharp turn onto a gravel road, trusting the GPS knew where I was going, and marveled at the dense trees on either side of the road. I’d never been to Arkansas before. In fact, I don’t know that I had been somewhere so rural before. My normal beat was more metropolis and less forest.

“Glad I caught you before you got to the scene,” Cian said.

“Why is that?” Was there new information about the first body? Did we already have a lead? The warmth ebbed. I’d hoped he was calling to wish me luck.

His tone was part teasing, part actual concern. “Just wanted to double-check that you’re ready for this. Your first solo case is a pretty big deal. Think you can handle it?”

A shock of nerves ran through my body with the realization. I was finally on my own. Finally given my own case. Finally trusted to work without a superior rechecking my every step. Finally free.

I’d been working for the Federal Bureau of Investigations for going on seven years, and the Classified Investigations Unit for six of those. The CIU was a high-level clandestine unit dedicated to the identification and regulation of supernatural creatures. It was work that made my childhood Halloween-loving self dance with glee. The little girl who loved magic and also always dreamed of success was thriving.

My clearance was higher than any standard FBI unit, and I knew government secrets people could only dream of. Our team was small, only consisting of fourteen agents and two supervisors. The CIU had to spread resources out across the country, leaving us unable to send the whole unit at once. We were typically assigned in pairs, but because our skills were so rare the best of the best were assigned solo to cases deemed low-risk. And I had spent years coveting one of those cases.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” I reassured him. “I think I’ve been ready for a long time.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said. “After Ortega left, you seemed kind of…lost.”

His doubt wasn’t totally inaccurate. But I’d grown a lot since my former partner—and ex-fiancé—had left without a trace. You’d have thought I’d learn not to date where I worked, but Cian had won me over. So yeah, it had taken a lot of work to get where I was, but I was there at last. Driving myself and myself alone to start an investigation. That meant if anyone else came in, I would be the lead.

Not that I expected anyone else.

“Losing him was hard,” I agreed. “But I don’t think him fucking off to wherever he went ever interfered with my job. If you’ll remember, I started working with Diaz instead the same week so we could keep the unit running.”

“You did.” Again, his tone held concern. “That wasn’t your best work, though.”

“Maybe not, but I’ve worked through all that. I promise, I’m ready for this case. Besides, all the signs point to a freed ghoul. I’ll probably be in and out of Arkansas within a couple of days.”

I was assigned my own case, but only because the crimes were textbook characteristics of a ghoul attack. Not that there was a textbook for this sort of thing. Ghouls were supernatural creatures that lived near graves and ate human flesh and organs from the buried bodies. They were vaguely humanoid, but their strength and speed outmatched humans every time. As far as classified beings went, they weren’t the biggest threat.

Our unit was never short on cases. Every day we received new pings in our system that flagged new reports for potential leads. This one was pulled because the injuries reported on the first victim in Little Bluff were more than abnormal. The way her abdominal cavity had been emptied and then the body left behind set off an alert for us. When Cian asked me to check through the police report, I immediately pointed out signs of a ghoul attack. That’s when Cian finally asked me what I’d been dreaming about since joining the CIU—did I want to check out the case solo? I clutched the wheel with a tingle of excitement running down my spine at the memory.

The first victim was a college student who had been mauled while out in the woods. Not anything to raise red flags, but the details reported were enough to spark federal interest. Then a second body showed up, and Cian asked if I still wanted to check things out. A couple of hours later, I was on a plane to the middle of nowhere.

“You agreed this was probably an open-and-shut case, remember?” I knew he remembered because that was the biggest selling point for him to assign me a solo case.

“I remember. But you know I worry about you.”

My heart swelled. “I know,” I said. It was one of the reasons I loved Cian—verbal reminders that he cared—something I never got from my previous fiancé.

“Make it back quick,” Cian told me. “I have to make a trip to Dallas to see my family soon, and I want to see you before I go.”

“Didn’t you just visit them a month ago?” Cian had been going to Dallas nearly once a month in the last year. He said there was some family drama happening he needed to help take care of. I’d offered to go with him, but he always declined. He said I was needed more by the unit than by his backwoods cousins.

“Yes. But you know my cousins. Always up to something.”

It was weird because I’d met his parents, and they lived in upstate New York; they’d never mentioned any family in the South. And he was always so vague about his Texas cousins. Part of me worried he was seeing someone out there. That I was going to be left again. But there was no one in the world I trusted more than Cian.

The gravel road widened, and as I approached, I found a swarm of responder vehicles parked in the clearing. On a normal day, the lot probably hosted cars from hikers looking to spend a day in the Ozarks. In the brief I read on the plane, it said the victim was likely one of these hikers, but had been dragged off the marked path.

“Cian, I gotta go. I made it to the hiking trails and the sheriff is supposed to be waiting for me at the scene.”

“Okay. Good luck. And let me know if you need anything from Quantico.”

“Will do,” I said absently. I was already scoping out the other cars and the breaks in the tree line that started a few different trails. I hung up with Cian and readied myself for my case.

Getting out of the car, I decided to leave my computer and bag in the car. I threw on my FBI flak jacket against the chilled breeze outside and watched as the wind blew leaves loose from the wall of trees surrounding the trails. The wind also picked up pieces of stray hair from my ponytail and swept the red strands across my face. I’d missed my last hair appointment, running between towns, and the red dye was fading away slowly with every wash. Turning into the wind, I patted my pockets to make sure I had my phone and keys before shutting the car door and making my way into the woods.

I ’d never been to the Ozarks before. The forest was a lot denser than I imagined. Even with the grip of fall shocking the foliage with burning oranges and yellows, the trees remained a massive tangled canopy of welcoming darkness as I entered the trailhead. Quickly, they enveloped me with the uncertainty that I was alone.

Fresh autumn air laced with moss and oak filled the woods, and my own breath seemed in stereo as I made my way up the sloping path. Each step I took was careful as my eyes swept over the forest floor while I walked. I didn’t want to miss anything that could be important—entrails left behind by a ghoul, bits of flesh torn free by a lamia—anything that might tell me what was lurking in the woods. And as I turned to follow the trail up a curve to the right, they snagged on something in the distance.

My gut led me to stand at the base of a robust oak tree just off the hiking path. The tree was large, but not anything that would make it stick out from all the others. What did make it stand out were the deep claw marks carved straight into the trunk.

I splayed my hand over the wood, lining my nails up with the harsh gashes across the bark. Based on size, they couldn’t be from a bear. But they felt too high up for a wolf or a bobcat. And why would either of those be clawing at a tree?

The distinct click of the hammer of a gun rang loudly in my ears, and my entire body tensed. I had gone from predator to prey in a matter of seconds. My heart sank as I slowly stood up, lifting my hands above my head. This was supposed to be an investigation. Which meant holstered guns and people who were on my side. That hammer click had me cautious. Maybe this wasn’t a supernatural murder after all?

Staring straight ahead, my muscles clenched, and my mind ran down the options for my next move. My gun was clipped into a holster at my hip, and although I was a quick draw, any movement could provoke the person who was currently aiming what I imagined was inches behind my head. Could I talk the person down? Could I distract them to get to my gun? Or maybe I could reach behind me and grab the other gun and—

A hearty laugh rang out through the otherwise quiet woods.

My head whipped around and I came face-to-face with not only the barrel of a gun, but more importantly, the man pointing it. He might as well have shot straight into my gut because the moment I heard his laugh, every bit of breath in me was sucked out.

“I can’t believe I got you so easily.” He continued to laugh, lowering his weapon. “You really need to brush up on your field skills, Ross. Wouldn’t want the Feds to boot you.”

“Why, because then I’d have to leave town like you?” I shot back. I didn’t know who I would be without the FBI, but I certainly knew who I was without him.

Tommy Ortega grinned back at me, mouth a mile wide, not a bit hurt by my comeback. He’d become a little more rugged than the last time I’d seen him. Heavy stubble covered his jaw, his biceps bulged under a flannel shirt that hadn’t expanded with the gain, and his near-black hair had grown out considerably. His appearance had relaxed a lot since we’d worked together, but the gun in my face said his somewhat cocky personality had stayed the same.

He holstered his gun behind his back, still grinning with satisfaction. However, while he tucked a small revolver into the back of his blue jeans, my holster held a standard-issue Glock identical to the one he used to carry.

“Ellery Ross,” he said, continuing to beam from ear to ear. “How the hell ya been?” Like nothing had changed. Like he never left. Was this some kind of joke to him?

“Same as always, Ortega,” I replied, adrenaline flushed away by anger. “Running from city to city, chasing monsters. You remember what it’s like, I’m sure. You used to thrive on that sort of thing.”

“Sure do.” He nodded. “Haven’t quit the game since I left. And I’m going by Tom now.” Ortega winked, and I rolled my eyes in return. I didn’t care if he was going by Grand Poobah now; he’d always be the same man who left me behind.

Crossing my arms, I asked, “What do you mean you haven’t quit the game since you left? You literally quit the game.”

The day he’d left me, he’d also left the bureau. Like all the training and resources spent on him meant nothing. We’d worked so hard to help the CIU become what it was, and the second we started to see some growth in our small unit, he quit. Not just quit, but left entirely with no trace. But I guess if he was bold enough to walk away from his fiancée without a word, then leaving his job and all the people who relied on him wasn’t surprising. One day, we were engaged, living together, building a future. The next, he was gone. His disappearance always bothered me, but I moved on.

“I’m a contractor now,” he said, chest out.

“You’re not.”

“Indeed, I am,” he confirmed, shoving his hands in his pockets. “All the beauty of catching baddies and none of the paperwork. It’s beautiful.”

Is that why he left? I wondered. He assumed he could do more outside the constraints of government rules than with them? We both knew that wasn’t true. Before the CIU, we’d both dabbled in the supernatural, and sure, he’d done a bit more than dabbled, but we both knew what a mess contractors could make. Yet, here he was, telling me that he’d chosen the chaos of contract work over having proven resources. Bullshit.

“You’re right,” I pandered. “Wouldn’t want you to get any paper cuts or, I don’t know, follow any legal guidelines.”

“Hey, I follow the law. I just do it with a little more wiggle room now than I used to.”

“You can take the man out of the FBI, but you can’t take the FBI out of the man.” I shook my head more to myself than to him.

He snorted. “Something like that.”

What, did he think he’d learned everything he could from the CIU and now was going to run his own cases? When I first met Tommy Ortega, he was so eager to train and be a good Fed. At the time, I really thought he would eventually outrank all of us, but instead, he chose to join the Classifieds Investigations Unit.

CIU was an honor all its own, but fieldwork tended to limit just how far you could rise. However, Ortega said he liked a challenge, and after getting a hint of what CIU work entailed in training, he couldn’t see himself doing anything else, let alone sit at a desk and approve everyone else’s work.

And who could blame him? I, too, got sucked in by the enigmatic pull the CIU provided. A chance to see some of the most mind-boggling crimes, help victims who never knew what was coming, and get paid to serve our country? It was a no-brainer for a young field agent. I mean, who doesn’t want to say they took down a rare form of shifter or discovered a new supernatural creature altogether?

However, for Ortega, the natural curiosity and excitement seemed to fade fast. And then one day, he was gone. Just another agent who didn’t make it. Along with ripping out my heart, he’d let me down as a partner. I’d had to be reassigned to other agents for a while because the Unit Chief didn’t think I was ready for my own cases yet. I spent years picking up all the pieces he’d broken me into, all because he wanted to work for himself? Or was there something more? There better be more.

His chin jutted out at me. “I see you’ve made a change. Can’t say I like the red as much as the blonde.”

My fingers twitched to touch the strands of my ponytail, but I held them and kept my eyes steady on the ghost from my past.

“Anything else change? Did you miss me?” Ortega teased.

“Not a chance,” I lied, and he smirked, knowing I was. How could he be so casual? Who was this man I thought I knew? Clearly, he didn’t want me to know.

“So what are you here for? Travel a few thousand miles for a leisurely hike?” I feigned hope in the question as I changed the subject.

I knew exactly why I’d run into him in the middle of a forest on the edge of the Ozarks. The man had never hiked a day in his life. He was here for the Palafax-Riggley case. My case.

“As much as I love a long walk to nowhere, I heard there was an attack recently that might require my services,” he said. “Thought it might be worth making the drive. A missing girl was recently found in the strangest of places. Hear about it?”

I lifted my palms, presenting our surroundings. “I’m here too, aren’t I?”

The other victim was found in a tree. Not in the way you would think, though. She was found draped over a low-hanging limb. Reports said she may have been tossed during the attack. But was she hefted up by a black bear? Or a beast more powerful? That was for me—and I guess Ortega—to find out. It was too much to hope that he was in the same city for an unrelated reason, like a haunting or a nightcrawler running through the woods. If he hadn’t quit chasing cases, I was surprised I hadn’t run into him sooner. But of course this is where we’d meet again—on my first solo case. Like he’d been tracking me while he’d been gone so he could pull the rug out from under me and watch me shatter once again.

“Turns out I was right,” he continued. “As soon as I got to town, I found out they had another one. Another hiker missing for a day or so, only to be found out here.”

“So you were here before the second victim went missing?”

“Calm down, Ross.” He laughed with his hands up. “Save your questioning for the people who matter. I was in Missouri before all this even got started. Not just that, but I highly doubt a mere mortal like myself could take someone down the way this monster did.”

I knew my cheeks were burning, but I refused to acknowledge it. He’d probably been hired by the first victim’s family. That didn’t stop my mind from leaping to other possibilities.

My investigator brain switched on at the slightest detail about a case I was working on. And even sometimes when there was no case. I couldn’t help the reflex. I had a job to do, and the faster I solved the problem, the more people would be out of harm’s way. I would bite at anything within range for those people.

At first, learning magic was real was thrilling. My witch roommate who could do her makeup with a quick glamour? Amazing. And the time said roommate introduced me to a ghost to prove they were real? Mind-blowing. Magic and the supernatural were like bursts of dopamine my body begged to see again and again.

But then you realized not everyone was using glamour spells to get the perfect cat eye. Sometimes all of that beautiful power was used to hurt. To kill. And I couldn’t sit back and let people who didn’t know suffer because of it.

“I wanted to know what you’ve found out since you’ve been here.” I coughed into my fist and tried to bring my shoulders down.

See, everyone, I’m calm. Not over-eager and ready to chop anyone’s head off who could tell me about my case.

He looked at me skeptically. “Uh-huh. Well, I can tell you you’re not going to get anything from that tree you’re inspecting.”

“How do you know this wasn’t the tree that the first victim was attacked against?” I brushed my hands over the scars in the trunk. “How much force do you need to carve straight into a tree?”

Without saying anything, Ortega reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a large pocketknife. He flicked the blade open with a quick swish, took a step toward me, and jammed the sharp end straight into the tree trunk.

The sudden movement didn’t surprise me. I was more caught off guard by the subtle musk and leather-scented breeze that passed by with the new proximity. A scent full of memories and regrets I had to shake off. I couldn’t let myself get lost in the familiarity of someone who didn’t care enough about me to tell me they were leaving.

I stared at the blade, about to ask if he had lost his mind. Then he leveraged the knife down as he yanked it free from the tree, leaving behind a new scratch above the other marks.

“Well, claws aren’t exactly made of steel,” I argued.

One-handed, he snapped the blade closed, then used the folded blade to point at his new addition. “Your average house cat could damage that tree.”

“If the uck is a house cat, then I have way more questions about how they threw a full-grown human into a tree.”

An uck was an Unknown Classified. At one point, the bureau tried to come up with a label separate from UNSUB to distinguish between human suspects and supernatural suspects, and chose to go with the abbreviation UKC. However, agents tended to have the same humor as a twelve-year-old, and UKC quickly devolved into uck. Of course, that made the most vile of supernatural beings be called “fucks.” In front of polite society, though, you’d usually hear those referred to as a UKC Class F.

“You’d be surprised,” he said, pocketing the knife. “I would bet money those are not from our uck.”

“It’s not our uck. It’s not our anything. You’re not on this investigation.”

And you’re not in my life anymore.

He’d given up on working with me. Why would I let him walk back into my life now that I’d proven I was ready to investigate on my own? Like hell would I let him take that from me, no matter who hired him.

“Whatever,” he brushed off. “I’ve already seen the tree you’re looking for anyway. This is unrelated.”

“You could have started with that.”

“I could have. But it’s not our uck.” A flash of teeth was displayed in a grin as he threw that back at me.

I was going to punch him in the throat. There was no one there to stop me.

“So whose uck is it?” he asked while pointedly searching for another person, like my partner was going to spring out from behind a tree. “Who’d you bring with you and lose in the woods? Diaz? He’d be an easy one to lose.”

Rocking back on my hip, I couldn’t help the pride that pooled in my chest as I held back a smile. “Me. Just me.”

“Well, look at that,” he awed, nodding his approval. “Little Agent Ross all on her own. Calling the shots.”

The smile slipped through, but I quickly shut it down. “Who you calling little? You were in my same recruitment class.”

A twig snapped in the distance, ending the conversation abruptly. Like an unspoken command, we both snapped into full defense mode. Our guns were out and pointed in the direction of the sound faster than a blink, stances tall and waiting for the uck to arrive and make itself known.