Down into the Pit (Stones of Fire Book 2) Read online

  Down into the Pit

  Sarah Ashwood

  Contents

  Author’s Inspiration

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  The Stones of Fire Series

  About the Author

  Works by Sarah Ashwood

  Down into the Pit

  Copyright © 2020 Sarah Ashwood

  Editing by Olivia Cornwell Editing Services

  Proofreading by Sarah Chorn

  Cover art by Oliviaprodesign.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Excepting brief review quotes, this book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the copyright holder. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, real events, locations, or organizations is purely coincidental.

  All Scripture quotations from The Authorized (King James) Version.

  Created with Vellum

  Author’s Inspiration

  “Son of man, wail for the multitude. . . .and cast them down. . . .unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit.” —Ezekiel 32:18

  “Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.” —Ezekiel 28:14

  Chapter One

  Stunned, Fort Worth PD homicide detective Candace Ewing sat inside her partner’s car, trying to wrap her brain around what she’d just witnessed—the wreck, a possible homicide attempt. The victim inside the smashed car: half human, half bronze statue. But when she’d checked again, human.

  How was that possible?

  Her face was in her hands, her lips moving as she whispered, “I’m not going crazy. I’m not going crazy. I’m not going crazy.”

  The door on the driver’s side opened and her partner, Detective Gary Tozzi, slid into the driver’s seat, shutting the door behind himself.

  Leaning over, he placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “You okay?”

  “Okay?” She wanted to scream. She held it down to a hiss. “Okay? No, I’m not okay. I just saw something insane, something improbable, and you’re telling me I have to keep my mouth shut about it or my life may be at risk.” She raised her face, scowling at the other detective. “How am I supposed to be okay?”

  Gary squeezed her shoulder, removed his hand.

  “Sorry. I know you’re not okay. I know it’s a lot. Really…a lot.” He exhaled a deep breath, staring straight out the windshield, watching the commotion ahead of them as a stretcher carrying a body was loaded into an ambulance. She normally didn’t think this about him, but he looked…old. Tired. Pensive, too. “I remember the first time I saw one of them shift. I think I fell straight down on my butt. On a rock. Hurt to sit for a few days. Bruised my tailbone.”

  Ordinarily, Candace would’ve laughed. She wasn’t laughing now.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me anything about this. We’re partners, Gary. Partners. That’s supposed to mean something.”

  “It does mean something. It means I didn’t want you getting caught up in their world. It means I didn’t want to put you at risk. Plus, how was I supposed to have told you? You wouldn’t have believed me.”

  When she didn’t argue, he pressed. “You wouldn’t have, would you?”

  “I would’ve tried to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  Gary snorted. “Right. If I came to you and said I saw a normal woman transform in the blink of an eye into a harpy…you’d really have believed me? You wouldn’t have thought I was crazy or high or had a brain tumor or something?”

  Candace folded her arms and looked out the window. She hated to admit it, but Gary was right. For once. She wouldn’t have believed him.

  Still.

  It stung.

  “So, from what you’re telling me, there’s an entire underworld…mob…of these shapeshifters.”

  “Not just one mob.”

  “More than one? How many?”

  “There’s at least two groups in Fort Worth alone. And it’s not like they’re confined to Fort Worth or Texas. They’re all over the place, all over the world. They just happen to have some pretty strong factions here.” He blew out a breath. “Very strong.”

  “How? How can that be?” she demanded, swiveling back to him. “How can they exist and nobody knows?”

  Gary smirked, one corner of his mouth tilting beneath his close-cropped, white beard. “Where do you think all the stories of ghosts and monsters and boogeymen come from, Candace? They have to have a source. People have seen them, have seen glimpses. They just don’t want to accept the reality of it. None of us do.”

  Her brain hurt. It actually hurt, trying to accept this. Trying to put the pieces together.

  “But here…in Fort Worth,” she faltered. “You said Sean Costas basically controls a mob, an army of shifters. Sean freaking Costas, who owns towers in downtown Fort Worth and Dallas and hosted a fundraiser for the governor last week.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Is he a shifter too?”

  Gary squirmed on the seat, uncomfortable. The ambulance doors were closed now, and the vehicle was moving, its sirens beginning to wail as it bore the wreck victim to the hospital.

  “Well, you now know his head of security is, and that he basically runs an army of shifters. What makes you think he wouldn’t be?”

  “Um, reality?”

  “Reality?” Her partner barked a harsh laugh. “Our brand of reality—humanity’s brand of reality—needs to broaden. Shapeshifters exist. They walk among us. You wouldn’t ever know it unless they show themselves. Which they typically don’t, unless they have good reason. Like killing you. You might see a monster out of your nightmares coming at you right before you die, but you’ll never tell anyone.”

  “You’re here. You’re alive.”

  “Yes. Yes, I am. Because I saved one of their lives on the job. Know what that earned me? Being drawn into their web. ‘Put into the family,’ they called it. They’ve been watching me for years. I see them sometimes. They give me a glimpse, just enough to remind me nightmare creatures are real and their enemies are now my enemies. They give me protection. In return, I keep my mouth shut, I keep my head down, and I do them little favors from time to time.”

  “Like trying to steer me off this case…”

  It all made sense now. Gary had tried to warn her against going after Carter Ballis—the shifter, the wounded man on the stretcher, currently in the ambulance—from the beginning. He’d tried to persuade her to drop the case. Up until this point, she’d assumed it was because there was so little evidence and no bodies. It was an almost impossible case to crack. Candace didn’t mind almost impossible. She’d wanted to bring Sean Costas down, and getting to him through his head of security had seemed like a good idea at the time.

  Now? Not so muc
h.

  “I tried to warn you, but, yeah, you wouldn’t listen. You’re a fighter, Candace. You don’t know when to take no for an answer. You don’t know when to quit. I hope you’ll take this as a sign.”

  Now it was her turn to shift uncomfortably on her seat. “I didn’t get to interview Ballis.”

  “And you won’t get to. He’s on his way to the hospital. He may not make it.”

  “What if he does?”

  Gary raised silvery eyebrows. “Are you insane? You heard what I’ve told you, and you still want to take on Sean Costas?”

  “I’m a cop, Gary. I’ve been in danger before.”

  “Oh yeah? From bad guys with guns and bullets? Consider yourself lucky. You pursue this, and you’ll be in danger from beasts with the power to incinerate you and turn you to ash, leaving not a trace of you behind.”

  Candace felt the knot in the pit of her stomach growing. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that scene at the park? I’ve seen it before. It’s dragonfire. Burns hotter and cleaner than any fuel mankind has ever devised. If there was a killing in the Botanic Garden, you’ll never find a trace of the bodies. They were incinerated by dragonfire. And it can happen to you too. Don’t think you’re special.”

  Her body felt hot, then cold.

  He’d known. All along Gary had known exactly what the strange ashes were and what they’d most likely meant. He hadn’t breathed a word of the truth.

  “I feel like I’ve been played,” she huffed.

  The wrecker was finally getting Carter Ballis’s fancy, smashed sports car loaded. In a few minutes, traffic would be able to move. They’d be able to move too.

  “Where do we go from here, then?” she asked quietly.

  She didn’t want to surrender the case, shifters or no shifters, monsters or not. She wasn’t sure she was going to. But she had to placate Gary; make him think that she was.

  “We go back to the precinct. We tell the captain that Ballis had an alibi. We talk to the ADA, tell them the truth: there’s no bodies, no real evidence of foul play. The case gets forgotten. It gets swept under the carpet. Buried. You let it go, and you never breathe a word of this to anyone. Ever. You stay safe. Hopefully, no one will ever know that you saw what you saw. Hopefully, you can keep out of it. Hopefully, you won’t get sucked in like I did.”

  When she didn’t immediately respond, Gary leaned over, catching her by both shoulders, forcing her to look at him.

  “I mean it. Let it go, Candace. And keep quiet. Stay safe. Please. Promise me.”

  “I can’t…I can’t promise you that.”

  Gary released her with a sigh, swearing under his breath. Something about stubborn cops who don’t know what’s good for them.

  Candace pretended not to hear.

  “All I can say is best of luck to you, then,” he said aloud, turning the key in the ignition. Traffic was slowly starting to move. He prepared to slide into the flow of it. “Trust me. You get yourself tangled up in this? You’re going to need it. Even then,” he added somberly, “all the luck in the world won’t keep you safe if they decide to come after you.”

  The words sent a chill down her spine, but she didn’t say anything. What was there to say? Gary slid the gearshift into drive and they started creeping forward past the scene of the accident, where one brief moment had forever changed her life and her view of the world.

  Chapter Two

  Three months later…

  Standing outside the little, white church, its steeple pointing up into a grey, cloudy sky, Carter Ballis felt a worm of doubt wriggling into his mind. It was February, and there was a light scattering of snow on the ground. Winter hugged this part of Washington, and the chill breeze piercing his leather jacket reminded him uncomfortably of that fact. Back in Fort Worth, temperatures had been in the low 60s when he’d flown out. It was strange to step off the plane into cold like this.

  “Definitely not in Texas anymore,” he muttered to himself.

  The parking lot contained only a couple of cars. He hoped one of them would be Ellie’s. It was Sunday morning, and too early for services. He hadn’t wanted to show up directly at Ellie’s house and catch all sorts of flak, all sorts of questions from her family who knew nothing about him. Instead, he’d chosen to come here, to the little community church she attended. With any luck, maybe he’d spot her across the parking lot. Be able to catch her coming or going. Pull her aside. Set up a meeting. He could’ve called her, but he didn’t want to run the risk, didn’t want to startle her. Besides, they needed to have this conversation in person, anyway.

  How long he stood in the parking lot, staring at the church’s brown double doors, he didn’t know. It wasn’t like him to waver or waffle. His job depended on his ability to make fast, clear, precise decisions. Something about Ellie threw him, had thrown him since the beginning. Either him or the Talos, but they were so intertwined that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.

  Finally, he realized the cold was getting to him, causing his newly healed wounds to ache. He also realized that standing there staring at the church doors wasn’t doing him a bit of good. He could either get in the car and wait in the parking lot, basically stalking her, or start searching for her. The pastor would probably be a good place to start. It was a small church, so the pastor would know all of his congregants, right? Why not introduce himself, make up a story, tell him he’d come looking for Ellie—rather Taylor, her new identity. The pastor might be able to arrange a meeting in the church, away from everyone else. Especially if he told the pastor a story bordering on the truth: that Ellie/Taylor was his estranged wife, and he’d come to see what they could do about healing their marriage. That was the kind of thing pastors went for, right? Saving marriages? Marriage counseling? That sort of stuff?

  “It’s worth a shot,” he told himself, pushing away from the rental car and approaching the building.

  He jogged up the short flight of steps and tried the handle. It twisted but didn’t give. Locked.

  Well, it was only 8:30 A.M. What did he expect? Services probably didn’t start for at least a couple of hours.

  He gave up on the front doors, walked back down the steps, and headed around the perimeter of the church. The cars in the parking lot meant someone had to be here. Maybe cleaning people. With any luck, he’d run across the pastor or some other church officer who could help him. He found a side door, tried it. It gave, creating little prickles of unease. What scant time he’d spent in churches for funerals and weddings and such had always made him edgy. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it had to do with his shifter heritage. Still, it wasn’t as if there were angels with flaming swords guarding the entrances to keep shapeshifters out.

  Although, given the shifter community, he wouldn’t be too surprised.

  Pushing all that aside, Carter stepped into a carpeted hallway. A drinking fountain was on his right, a men’s bathroom on his left. A little further down the corridor was the women’s. At the end of the corridor was an office, with hallways branching off in either direction. The lights in the office were on, so he headed there first.

  The door was half open. There was no sign on it, but he glimpsed someone moving around inside. Taking a chance, he rapped his knuckles on the doorframe.

  “Hello?”

  The man inside didn’t jump, but he did drop the papers he was holding onto the desk.

  “May I help you?” he asked, rising.

  He was of average height and build, his greying hair cut in a short, military style. His eyes were steely, piercing.

  “I hope so,” Carter answered. “I’m a visitor here. Trying to find the pastor.”

  “He’s out today with the flu,” the man answered. “I’m the associate pastor. Can I help you?”

  He didn’t look like the quintessential friendly, love-everybody type that Carter associated with most preachers. Nor did he give off warm and cuddly vibes.

  “Well, again, I hope so,” Carter
said. “May I come in?”

  “Of course, please do. Have a seat.” He waved Carter to one of the twin chairs across the desk from himself before resuming his own seat. “Are you looking for a church to visit? Thinking of worshipping with us this morning?”

  “Er, not exactly. I’m actually looking for someone who I think attends this church.”

  A frown appeared between the man’s thick brows.

  “Who are you looking for?”

  “She’s—well, she’s my wife,” Carter explained. “We’re estranged. She came out here to stay with her mother.” That wasn’t much of a lie. “I’m not sure where she’s living, but I know she attends this church. I was hoping that, if she shows up this morning, you might be willing to set up a meeting between us. It’s important that I speak with her.”

  “I see.” The pastor leaned back in his chair. “This isn’t a domestic violence incident or anything like that, is it?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Adultery?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Did you cheat on her, or her on you? Were either of you unfaithful to each other?”

  “We weren’t married long enough for that,” Carter half-chuckled.

  The pastor didn’t look amused.

  “Really, it was a simple case of incompatibility,” he clarified. Boy, had Ellie and he ever been incompatible. He a shifter, she a human. He the head of security for a notorious mob boss. She a nursing student. “We didn’t part angry.”