P. Stormcrow

They’ve reconvened in the small room Finn thought of as home away from home. She sat hunched over on the stool, staring at the portable whiteboards looming over them while Jackson leaned against the edge of the table, hands tucked in his pocket. Meanwhile, Newman brought up the rear, closing the door behind him with a soft click before letting out a long sigh.

“So you’re saying it’s not a serial killer?” Newman repeated, pinching the ridge of his nose. He has been asking the same question every few minutes since Tania Jennings left. They had tried to sift through the new information while waiting for Jackson to return, but it didn’t fit with any of the current theories.

Finn held up her forefinger. “I’m just saying there is a possibility that it’s not a single human perp like we thought.”

“And is it possible that it’s still a serial killer with some supernatural means?” The older FBI agent waved his free hand in the air?

At that, Finn could only shrug. They all knew that there was too little information for them to draw any conclusions. 

“Okay. Okay. Let’s go back to the basics. We know each one was made to look like some freak accident, but there’s a call sign at each scene as some toy. We know that there’re some traces of power on most of them, especially the more recent ones.” Jackson ticked off each finger as he spoke for emphasis.

“Same kind of magic?” Finn interrupted.

“We think so, but a lot of it has faded too much for us to tell.”

“Okay. And we have one account of potential premeditation with the period lasting as long as a month before the murder itself.” This time, it was Newman that added the fact.

Jackson raised a brow, turning away from the boards to face them both 

“The cleaner at the last victim’s home said the vibe of the place turned sinister around then,” Finn explained. “Like something was watching her and it was why she started rushing through the cleaning.” She should have felt a shot of pride at being able to add this new bit of information to the case, but it was all too gruesome. And sad.

Crossing the tiny space, Newman grabbed a marker and spun a board around on its casters to reveal another blank canvas. “So, theories.” Without waiting for either of them to chime in, he wrote serial killer in caps then added superpower with a question mark in brackets. 

The marker skidded to a stop and Newman faced them once more, expectant. Silence stretched on until Finn took a breath and shrugged again. “Maybe some kind of malignant spirit?” she ventured, but shook her head right away. “It makes little sense, though. We know hauntings are usually centered on a place, a person, or even an object. How it can hop from household to household?”

Newman jotted her suggestions down, anyway. “No bad idea for this brainstorming.”

“A curse or some kind of hex,” Jackson blurted out of nowhere. 

Finn jerked her head towards her partner. From the way his eyes widened and how he straightened from where he stood, she guessed the hypothesis was a new one, even to himself. Still, the theory fitted better than most they’ve had so far. All they needed to figure out was the source and the motivation — who was doing the cursing and why.

And was it the dolls that were the hexed objects?

A sudden knock disrupted her train of thought. The handle jiggled, and the door opened before any of them could call out. Given the material they were studying, Finn half expected no one to show up, but fortunately, one of the other guys from the meeting earlier, Agent Shannons, poked his head in.

The message he had however, was much less fortunate.

“We have another victim.”

Newman swore under his breath even as the heavy weight of dread settled in the pit of her stomach. Weren’t they supposed to have forty-eight hours? What had broken the pattern?

The warmth of a comforting hand on her shoulder drew her attention away from the rising tide of questions threatening to overwhelm her. Finn turned to gaze up at Jackson’s grim face. 

“We’ll figure it out,” he reassured.

She wished she had his confidence, but she nodded anyway as she followed the rest of them out of the room and towards the underground parking lot. Others joined them, but she barely noticed, preoccupied with bracing herself for the scene they were heading to. Images of previous cases filtered through her head. It would look like some sort of accident except something would be off. There would be a new toy. It was likely some senior. Those were all facts, but she knew on some instinctive level that seeing it all in real time would take it to a whole new reality.

Jackson led her to their own vehicle while Newman got in another. She settled on the passenger side, still functioning on autopilot. 

“Hey.”

She blinked at him.

“This case…” Jackson stopped, then started again. “I know it’s not your first, but there’s no shame in being scared or horrified. This case is especially gruesome and whoever or whatever is doing this is using some pretty primal fears as fodder. This job pits us against a lot of stuff straight out of nightmares.”

Surprised by his speech, Finn summoned the ghost of a smile. “‘The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.’”

Jackson grinned. “Nelson Mandela was one of the greats.”

They settled into a more comfortable silence after that and it wasn’t until Finn stood there with the team, staring at the body with the porcelain doll with its perfect curls stained in red that Jackson’s words but her at full force. Bile rose in the back of her throat and a queasy, unsettled sensation filled her with apprehension. The house was not unlike the first and she suspected it was on a normal day a quiet one, with its muted colors and plain furniture, which made this single bright mark of violence such a stark contrast.

She forced herself to study the call sign. The white blond of the doll almost matched the silver of the dead woman laying next to the dishwasher. Finn wonder if the victim had much family, too. A son or daughter? Grandkids? Who would mourn her death? Would her remaining recognize the toy? 

Meanwhile, local officers and forensics bustled around them, combing the kitchen and the other rooms for clues. In their midst, Finn spied from the corner of her eye pink pigtails bobbing up and down and a sense of relief flooded her system. If anyone could find something that could point them in the right direction, it was Olivia.

“Seventy-two-year-old, Marjorie Brown.” Newman approached her and Jackson, reading off a little notepad in his hand.

“Death by that knife sticking out of her chest, I’m guessing,” Jackson finished for him, pointing at the weapon protruding from the body. It was a sort of gallows humor, despite the flat tone in his voice. 

She wanted to go hug her partner, both to give and derive comfort from the gesture, and the thought both startled and disturbed her. 

“Yeah. But the techs say it looks like she fell on to it rather than being stabbed. They can’t be sure though until they take the body back to the lab.”

Finn suppressed a shudder and stared at the doll again. This time, despite the continual flow of conversation between the two other agents, she couldn’t tear her gaze from the unblinking stare of the beaded eyes and the mysterious slight smile of the ruby lips. Something didn’t add up. What were the chances of someone falling on to a knife?

A snippet of new information drew her focus away at last. “Her next-door neighbor called nine-one-one when she saw her laying on the floor through the kitchen window. She was coming over for tea.” Newman’s expression seemed to be stuck in a permanent grimace not that Finn blamed him.

“Any family?” Jackson asked from behind her in a hushed whisper.

“Husband passed away eight years ago. She has a son next state over. He’s on his way now.”

“Grandkids?”

“One, one-year-old baby boy.”

Finn was learning that it was never easy. Majorie would never get to see her grandson grow up. But it seemed unlikely that she would have bought the doll for him. Would she have?

“Lots of magic here, too. I think Marjorie here was a witch in life.”  

“Wait. So someone’s targeting senior witches?” Finn stared up at Jackson. Two data points drew a line. It wasn’t much of a pattern, but it was at least something.

“Could be,” Jackson trailed off, his eyes growing distant. He must be considering the possibility himself.

“Coming through!” A higher pitched voice cut through their pondering as Olivia squeezed past Newman and stepped up beside Finn, shaking her head. But instead of greeting anyone, she kneeled in front of the doll right away and studied it through that same kaleidoscope Finn often saw her with.

“Same threads?” Jackson peered over Finn’s shoulder. But she had gotten so used to him that the closeness didn’t bother her for once.

“Yups. Except… crap!” Olivia shuffled back and with gloved hands covered in sigils, lifted the doll and stuffed it in a similarly warded aluminum bag.

Everything in Finn tensed and she wished she was wearing the stand-issued snap bracelet with its protections. “What happened?”

“Whatever magic is this thing is still active. I’m not taking any chances.”

“Wait, does that mean we can use it to trace it back whoever cast the spell on it?” Finn asked, recalling the last case they worked. Didn’t the coven do something similar to help them track down Sunny?

“We can try.” Olivia held the bag up at arm’s length between pinched fingers. “We should use the lockdown rooms at the base for this.”

Finn watched Olivia’s movements. “I thought the whole place was warded.” After all, hadn’t she encountered those protection spells her first day with the division? At one point, she had even directed her research to figure out who had laid the groundwork for the magic that powered the warehouse, but had no luck despite the wealth of information found in the underground library.

“Yeah, but stuff like this calls for a room where we can isolate and keep any dangers in if we have to,” Jackson explained.

“Right.” Not that anything in this case felt right.

Meanwhile, Newman’s shoulders only tensed further, and he looked as if he had swallowed something sour. “Go do what you need. I’ll sign the authorizations for you to check the evidence out and continue to monitor things here.”

“Thanks.” Jackson clasped him on his shoulder before nodding to both women. “Let’s track down this fucker.”