Disturbed Earth (Ritual Crime Unit Book 2) (31 page)

P
IERCE LOWERED HER
phone, but only to draw her warrant card, taking a chance that an outfit as professional as this wouldn’t attack her on a public road without real provocation.

“Police,” she said, showing the card, though she kept her fingers over the RCU badge. She nodded at the Taser. “That seems to be a prohibited weapon you have there. Care to tell me where you got it?”

“Come with us,” the man said, ignoring the question. “Now, please.” He motioned her and Doctor Moss around the far side of the closed off site, away from the druids and the Portakabin.

“You have no authority to order us anywhere,” she said, without moving. Getting it on the record, playing for time and a chance for their situation to be spotted, rather than any hope he would back down. This lot were clearly professionals—they wouldn’t panic at the first hint of passive resistance, and fighting or running would only make things worse. She was unarmed, lacking even the uniform standards of a police baton and stab vest, and she had a vulnerable member of the public with her. She couldn’t afford to antagonise their captors.

It didn’t seem that she was going to get far with the delaying tactics, either. “Now,” the man repeated, with a motion of his head. With three Tasers on her, and the likelihood of being overpowered by three strapping lads even if they didn’t use them, Pierce didn’t push her luck. She nodded for Moss to follow, hoping the demonology lecturer was old enough and wise enough not to try anything stupid either.

The road failed to oblige her with any passing traffic. She wasn’t sure their situation would draw enough attention to raise alarm anyway—actual guns might cause a panic, but at a glance the Tasers would have passed for power tools, and it wasn’t obvious that she was police. Their best bet now was to hope that Dawson, in his impatience, would move in as fast as possible.

So, primary objective: keep herself and Moss and any other innocents involved alive until that backup arrived. Secondary: try to find some way of disrupting the ritual before it was too late. At least they still had time in the bag, with the main event not due to occur until an hour before midnight. A magical ritual this size wasn’t easy to reschedule.

As they were led through a side gate into the enclosed region of the fields, she could see that the preparations were well underway already, teams of people measuring, marking, and digging. The surface turf had been stripped away, and circular ditches had been dug around the stone circle’s original embankment, more figures in military surplus filling one with rock salt poured out from big sacks. Wooden stakes carved with runes had been pounded into the ground around the circle, long taut lines of exposed copper wire strung between them.

But even that great set of rings around the stone circle was only one small part of the ritual. The stone circle lay at one corner of an enormous triangle, marked out on the barren ground with what looked like lines of ashes; at the two other corners were more circles of equal size. Inside one knelt a figure that she was sure must be the warlock masterminding the ritual: he was shrouded in blood red robes, talismans hung round his neck, and on the ground before him lay several open tomes.

The third corner of the triangle held a deep pit; as they were led past, Pierce looked down and saw that the bottom was piled with chopped wood, like a pyre. Somehow she doubted it was intended for an innocent bonfire.

Across the field she spotted another shapeshifter, or perhaps the one glimpsed on the video: a burly bear-like figure, prowling the perimeter. The field was crawling with black-clad pseudo-military types, all of them armed with Tasers; she doubted that the lack of any actual firearms was due to difficulty getting hold of them. Live hostages they could feed to the sacrificial pyre were probably more use to them than bodies, and she doubted they would want to risk the chance of a stray bullet damaging the protections around the circles. Snap a copper wire, kick a furrow in the line of salt, and suddenly what had been a powerful magical barrier was no more than a line drawn in the dirt.

Red Key were clearly taking their preparation seriously—but no matter how much effort they put into the defences, they couldn’t know their designs would keep the demon contained. A ritual as big as this couldn’t have been refined and repeated before it was set down in the occult texts: it might well even be a hypothetical projection, never put into action before tonight. Just because they followed every step outlined in their books didn’t mean that the ritual would work.

Pierce looked up at the sky, hoping for rain or snow to disrupt the proceedings, but despite the chill and the clouds there was no sign of salvation.

Her escort didn’t give her or Doctor Moss time to gawk, hustling them uphill past the stone circle and through a farm gate into the next field. A knot of penned sheep stood huddled there, packed shoulder to shoulder and bleating in agitation.
Lambs to the slaughter
, she thought—all too literally. The fire pit inside the circle would need sacrifices to feed it, and she doubted that the sheep were all the summoners had in mind.

There was probably a reason they were keeping her and Doctor Moss alive, and she doubted very much that it was altruism.

Past the pens were several JCBs parked on the churned-up earth, and a large metal shipping container, padlocked and watched over by one of the guards. Pierce already had an idea of where this was going before their escort prodded them towards it.

“Drop your phone on the ground,” the guard who’d spoken before ordered her. “Got a watch, got any police equipment, got any other electronics? That goes too.” He jerked his head at Doctor Moss. “You, drop your bag and do the same.”

Pierce could see that though Moss’s jaw was trembling, it was set, and she feared the lecturer would cause herself trouble by refusing. Wary of giving any verbal caution against it that might put thoughts in the guards’ heads, Pierce tried to forestall any conflict by obeying instructions herself. She winced as her phone hit the ground, hoping that the springy grass would shield it from the impact. She doubted she was going to get a chance to snatch it back, but if she did, she needed the thing working.

She stripped off her watch, and, more reluctantly, the malodorant spray from her belt. Her silver cuffs were still on the panther shifter they’d arrested at the university. Her penlight probably counted as electronic equipment, but it was on her keys; she might get away with keeping it, or at least be able to claim that she’d overlooked it. Might as well try her luck.

For all the good the tiny rebellion might do her.

Beside her Doctor Moss grimaced unhappily, but after a moment she lifted her bag from her shoulder and moved to set it down at her feet. The guard raised his Taser warningly. “Don’t bend down. Just drop it.”

She held his gaze, pressing her lips together. “There are materials in here that could potentially interact to cause a magical effect,” she said. “While I don’t countenance what you’re doing here, I don’t think it will help anybody if I introduce unpredictable effects to the equation.” She stooped deliberately slowly to set the bag on the grass, and this time the man let her do it without incident.

Once they’d finished divesting themselves of items of interest, he gestured for them to step away, and then had one of his associates give them a further pat-down, as efficient and impersonal as any the police themselves could have delivered. Pierce was tense until he’d finished searching Moss and stepped away, apparently finding nothing of concern besides her cigarette lighter.

Then the lead guard banged on the doors of the metal shipping container, an echoing
clang
that must have been deafening to anyone inside. “Get back from the doors!” he ordered, and aimed the weapon through them as the man beside him hauled them open. Pierce wasn’t sure what a Taser would do if the electrodes struck the metal walls of the storage unit, but she hoped no one inside was eager to test it and find out.

There was no rush from out of the darkness, and another jerk of the guard’s chin motioned her and Moss inside. “Get in. Down the back,” he ordered. They obeyed. This was a tight operation, no obvious carelessness or blind spots in their captors’ procedures that they could easily exploit to get away. Meekly biding her time didn’t sit well with Pierce, but trying something half-baked would almost certainly just fail and make things worse. These people might be willing to keep them alive for now, but that didn’t mean they’d stick to that plan if it became more trouble than it was worth.

And she and Moss clearly weren’t the group’s only captives; as she shuffled into the dark interior of the shipping container, she was conscious of dim shadows and rustling noises further down, an unknown number of people at the back.

The guards threw the doors closed behind them with an echoing clang, and the gloom abruptly gave way to pitch black; the only way to tell which way was out were the thin lines of light that framed the doors. The inside of the shipping container was distinctly chilly, but the air felt still and stale. Pierce avoided any mental speculation on how close it was to airtight and how many hours of air it held. Nothing they could do about it either way inside, and panicking would only burn through the air supply faster

“DCI Pierce, Ritual Crime Unit,” she said aloud, once the ringing echoes of the slamming doors had died away. “Who else is here? Identify yourselves.”

“Guv?”

Pierce felt a stab of relief as she recognised Freeman’s voice, sounding even younger than her twenty-something years without visuals to back it up. “That you, DC Freeman?” she asked. No first names now—emphasize rank, make it clear they were police, try to act in control for the benefit of any panicking members of the public. “Who else is in here with you?”

“I’m here, Chief Inspector.” She recognised the sonorous voice of Archdruid Greywolf. “We came alone. No one else was captured with us.”

“All right,” Pierce said. “Everybody stay calm. People know where we are, and they’ll send someone out after us if we don’t manage to check in. All we need to do is sit tight and await rescue.” She left out the more difficult question of exactly when they could expect that to occur. “First of all, is anybody hurt?”

“We’re both fine, Guv,” Freeman said. She sounded slightly rueful. “We weren’t expecting trouble. Went round to ask if we could take a look at the site and got herded in here by men with Tasers and a shapeshifter—lioness. They’re definitely doing something big at the stone circle here.”

Pierce had forgotten how much the situation had developed in the brief time since she’d parted from her officer. “We’re pretty sure this is the central site for our demon-summoning,” she said. “I’ve got Doctor Moss here, from the university—she believes she should be able to counteract the summoning ritual if given the opportunity.” Pierce turned to look her way, though she could make out little more than a patch of deeper shadow in the darkness. “Are you going to need the bag that they confiscated back, or can you do it without the equipment?” she asked.

“I still have a few things,” Moss said, a faint crinkling noise audible as she checked through her pockets. “Fortunately that young yahoo who patted me down was apparently only concerned with weapons and electronics. Between that and the ritual materials that this group have lying around, I could probably do something to disrupt or delay their plans if I get access to the warlock’s circle.”

Pierce grimaced. Even if they could somehow escape this prison, that was going to be tricky.

Greywolf spoke up from the rear of the shipping container. “I saw enough to know these people are intent on corrupting the sacred ground,” he said. “They’re obviously planning to perform sacrifices at the circle: I assume we’ll be among them.”

“They’ll need to shed blood, and vast quantities of it,” Doctor Moss said, a touch of the habitual lecturer in her voice despite the grimness of the situation. “No doubt all of that livestock out there is lined up ready for the chop, but they’ll need to offer human lives too—the more the better, from their point of view.” She paused. “I’m afraid, Archdruid, that they more than likely plan to sacrifice as many of your group as they can lay their hands on. As worshippers with a prior connection to the site, their lives can only increase the potency of the ritual.”

Not to mention that it would be all too easy for the perpetrators to spin the resulting carnage as the actions of a suicide cult. Pierce set her jaw, thinking of how easily they could have lured the druids in tonight with promise of a compromise and access to the land for the solstice. With any luck the police involvement had disrupted that plan, but anyone descending on the site unprepared could still be nabbed.

Her stomach twisted at the thought of the group of druids she’d asked to act as a distraction outside. She could only hope Cynthia and co. had been alert and sensible enough to do a runner as soon as she and Doctor Moss were picked up by the guards.

“Your people brought us here,” she told the Archdruid. “Cynthia was helping us by setting up a diversionary protest outside the barriers. I asked them to leave if they encountered any danger, so hopefully they will have all made their escape by now.”

“Unlikely,” he said. “Cynthia won’t leave the sacred ground unless compelled to do so. I’ve warned my people that this company who took our land is intend on corrupting the purity of the circle with evil magics. We’re prepared to do battle for the sanctity of the site.”

Pierce couldn’t help the unhappy noise that slipped out through her lips. “I’d rather nobody was doing battle, if we can avoid it,” she said. “This ought to be a matter for the police.”