Of Blood and Sinew (Moon Born #1)

Chapter 15 - Salt Lake City - the Dead [ Editing ]

The call came in early in the morning.  The sun had yet to rise and the stars twinkled outside in the midnight skies lit up with the barest of moonlight.  Sunshine shivered in the cold of the car, staring out the window towards the empty streets, her eyes reflecting the light like an animal's, glowing yellow as light after light hit it.  It was another fact that remained the truth of her life, Sunshine hated to be woken up in the morning.

"We can get coffee," Micah said quietly gripping Sunshine's hand.

"No, we need to...do this.  Before the world awakes and the scene is disturbed," Sunshine said.  There was no coffee shops around here open, but there was a diner.  It was one of the rare moments where missed where her home was with her parents, coffee shops every couple of miles to the point that everyone told directions around the coffee shops.  Micah gripped her hand in apology.

They arrived at the scene, on the outskirts of Salt Lake City.  It was what looked like a quiet neighborhood, with white picket fences.  It seemed so terribly cliche, a crime happening in a white picket fence neighborhood.  The left the car parked on the side of the street and made their way to the house.  A metallic smell filled Sunshine's nose, her nostrils flared. She glanced over at Micah who gave her an apologetic smile.

'If it gets to much, let me know,' Micah's voice drifted to her mentally.  Sunshine nodded, focusing on the white door, it looked so innocent.  She took a deep breath, the metallic scent sweet and tantalizing. If memory served her right, it was blood she was smelling.  She remembered the scent of her own blood from training to hard with Liam.  The door opened, revealing Beta Woods, looking pale even for this dark skin.  Zoey entered first with Micah, then Sunshine and Daniel last.  Sunshine glanced around the room noting there was no blood in the room.

"Zoey you know what to do," Micah ordered Zoey.  Zoey nodded and started moving around the room and then disappeared beyond the hallway into the house.  Sunshine glanced around the house noting the pictures hung on the wall, a mother, a father, and a child.  She heard faint crying and she started to move through the house on her own.  Micah followed her closely as she drifted through the warm family home, until she entered the bloody kitchen.  Sunshine stopped before the blood splatters.  There was the woman in the pictures crying over a mutilated body.

"Um hello there," Sunshine greeted.  Sunshine heard the sharp intake of breath behind her, but ignored it.  The woman glanced up at Sunshine.

"You can see me," the woman said more as a statement then a question.

"Yes I can," Sunshine agreed with a small smile, focusing on the face of the spirit and not the mutilated body.

"Oh thank god!" The woman said and ran towards Sunshine, but passed through Sunshine making her shiver from the experience.  Spirits were energy, soul energy, that could interact with others on a small level.  Spirits most often could not interfere with the real world but they could affect the person's soul, wearing them down, making them depressed, or comforting them too. The most Sunshine had experienced besides the involuntary from the spirits passing through her, was the way they could affect a person's emotions. Sunshine sighed and turned around to the woman.

"We can't actually, um, touch," Sunshine said.

"Oh," the woman said and began to wail.

"Please, please calm down!"

"They took my child!  They took Jimmy!"

"Jimmy is still alive?"

"Yes!" The woman sobbed and start rocking back and forth.  Sunshine glanced over at Micah with a questioning glance.