Knight Casefiles Book 1: Revelations

Revelations [Chapter 27]

Chapter 27

Crime scenes are the basis of entire investigations. Without them, the case doesn’t get started and the truth is lost. In this particular case, I was just hoping the truth was just running late.

It took us several false starts but we arrived at the clearing generally unscathed. Elaine kept silent the entire way, only occasionally speaking when she was pointing out where we must’ve run based on the fallen branches and disturbed snow. The clearing was easier to recognize my third time around, a featureless circle in the middle of a vague forest. It looked exactly the same as when we first arrived. And that was a bad thing.

“Maybe this isn’t the right place,” Elaine said quietly.

I resisted the urge to scream in frustration. This was the place. I knew it. But that didn’t explain the complete lack of any indicators of a fight which there should’ve been. I started pacing around the clearing.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for bullet shells. This has to be the place, Elaine,” I said. I tried to keep my voice down but it apparently didn’t work as Elaine flinched at my tone. There was a growing feeling of discomfort in my chest, piercing needles that pricked my lungs, making it difficult for me to breathe correctly. It was here. It had to be.

Elaine gripped my shoulder and forced me to look at her. “Chris, calm down,” she said soothingly. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay, Elaine,” I said through gritted teeth. “Sigrun, they…they took her.”

“And we’ll get her back,” she said forcefully, her grip tightening. “I don’t know what’s going on but I know enough to understand what we need to do. We need to get back to Lodge. Head Mr. Whistler off if we can. But this is not the time for you to break down on me.”

My chest tightened and my body seemed to burn with useless flames. I tried not to cry, willing myself to calm the hell down. It wouldn’t help anything. It wouldn’t help Sigrun. She’d been taken – the only constant in my life for the past three years – taken alive, meaning Adam had other plans for her. Gram was gone too, the only weapon I had that made me feel like I stood a chance.

I was impotent.

That shouldn’t have changed a thing but it did. I wasn’t ready yet; I realized that now. The certainty I’d once had. It was all an illusion. But the fact that Sigrun, Margaret and everyone else who was still in the Lodge wasn’t.

Margaret.

“Not yet,” I murmured. “There’s something else.”

I closed my eyes and focused, trying to pinpoint the location where Margaret must’ve been taken.  It came easier this time, the sensation crawling up my spine, invisible eyes boring at the back of my head. I turned in a slow circle and faced where the feeling was strongest, opened my eyes, and started walking. Elaine followed with the barest of protests.

The impression got stronger the deeper into the forest we ventured, cold, dark tendrils lapping at my senses, writhing and twisting around me. Elaine shuddered beside me, leaning closer. She may not have been as sensitive to this stuff being human and all but she was still feeling it. At some point, the vegetation started to thin, patches of afternoon sunlight beaming down through the canopy. When we finally broke through the flora, I was…confused.

The path opened up into a wide expanse of snow dotted by shrubs and rocks here and there. Other than the absolute ordinariness of it, there was nothing about it that was even vaguely sinister.