The twisted dead, p.1
The Twisted Dead, page 1
THE TWISTED DEAD
GRAVEKEEPER BOOK 3
DARCY COATES
Copyright © 2023 by Darcy Coates
Cover design by Molly von Borstel/Faceout Studios
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
CONTENTS
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
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Afterword
CHAPTER ONE
“This probably isn’t good.”
Keira, standing outside her burnt cottage, stared at the small, neatly addressed letter she held in both hands. The note had been left for her on her front step, resting against the lightly charred wood of the door, its envelope blank.
She turned to look at the scene around her. A low stone fence formed the boundary of the cottage’s front garden. Beyond that, mist flooded the earth. Gravestones rose out of the ground, crooked and cracked and discoloured from age, but they became scarcely more than vague, grey forms as the fog wrapped around them.
Keira felt for the muscle inside her head, just behind her eyes, that controlled her second sight. It ached faintly when she pulled on it, but additional shapes came into focus, like she’d lifted a veil.
Figures appeared through the fog. They were white and ethereal—not quite real and not quite solid—as though they had been made out of the condensation itself. The only part of them that had any colour were their eyes. Those were pitch-black.
Some of the shapes were so clear that Keira could see the creases around their mouths and the dirt under their fingernails. Others were so faint they were barely more than a shimmer. There were dozens of them. They were Blighty Cemetery’s ghosts.
That was her gift—if gift was even the right word—to see the dead.
She didn’t know where the gift had come from or much else about who she’d been before she arrived in Blighty. She remembered waking in the forest outside of town and being hunted by unknown men, but nothing before. Figuring out who she’d been—and why and how she could see the dead—was turning out to be more complicated than she’d expected.
Keira lifted the note for the spectres. “Did anyone see who left this?” she asked, a joking smile twitching over numb lips. As expected, there was no answer. Her ghosts weren’t especially chatty. A few heads turned at her voice, but others strode away, vanishing entirely. “Right. Didn’t think so.”
A haze of blue canvas was visible near the forest’s edge. That was her temporary home. Technically Mason owned the tent, but he’d lent it to her while she made her actual home habitable again. She’d woken just at dawn, which meant the note must have been delivered during the night. And they’d been discreet about it. Keira had gotten good at detecting when strangers were entering her domain, even when she was asleep.
She looked back down at the message, frowning, then pushed the cottage door open.
Her home—the groundskeeper’s cottage lent to her by the town’s kindly pastor—had suffered an arson attempt from a doctor with a grudge. The damage could have been a lot worse, all considered. One of the windows was broken, but Keira had already taped cardboard over it. A healthy layer of soot hung across all surfaces. Some of the floorboards and fixtures were damaged, but the cottage’s walls were made of stone, and they could be restored with some aggressive scrubbing. She’d already made a start on one.
A small dark shape flitted past her ankles. Keira glimpsed the swish of a tail and called, “Hey, Daze.”
The small black cat sent her a frenzied, wide-eyed glance. She held a dead leaf in her jaws: the mighty hunter returned victorious. Keira barely had time to chuckle before Daisy slipped beneath the bed and vanished into the shadows.
Keira opened a can of cat food and served it up for when Daisy grew hungry, then grabbed a handful of biscuits for herself. She chewed her way through them as she stared at the message in her hand.
So what am I going to do about this?
She needed a second opinion. Keira unplugged her mobile from the kitchen counter. It was an outdated flip model with an abysmal battery and only a few numbers programmed into it, but it worked fine as a lifeline to the outside world. She selected Zoe’s name and pressed to dial.
The call was answered on the first ring. “Keira, bestie, light of my life, it is a joy to hear from you this morning.”
“Same to you,” Keira said. She was more grateful than she’d expected to be to hear her friend’s voice. “Sorry, I know it’s early.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I have a new bonsai tree on a strict watering schedule and I had to get up for that. But what’s got you in a chatty mood at such an unmerciful hour?”
“Ah.” Keira glanced down at the note. “Someone left a message outside my door this morning. I wanted to get your thoughts on it.”
“That sounds like something we should meet over. I’ll see you in a second.”
The phone beeped as the call was disconnected. Keira barely had time to frown at the display before the cottage’s door slammed open. She flinched.
“He-e-e-y,” Zoe crowed, leaning through the doorway. Early morning light glanced over her cropped black hair and emphasised the mischief in her eyes as she grinned.
“Okay.” Keira let herself slump with relief. “You meant literally in a second.”
“It was too good of an opportunity to pass up.” Zoe stepped inside and a taller figure followed: Mason, doctor-in-training, his dark brown hair brushed back from his face. “We were on our way here when you called.”
Mason raised a hand in greeting. “Sorry. We weren’t sure if you’d be awake yet.”
“Yeah, but we figured this was worth disturbing you over.” Zoe held up a sheet of paper, and Mason mimicked the motion, showing a note of his own. “You weren’t the only one to get a message.”
Keira felt a sinking in her stomach. She laid her own note out on the table, and the others gathered around as they did the same. The contents, handwritten in formal cursive, were identical save for the name at the top. Keira’s said:
Ms. Keira,
You are cordially invited to dinner at the Crispin Estate this evening, Wednesday, at 6:00 p.m.
Please attend Farrier Street, Blighty. The gates will be left open.
Sincerely,
Dane Crispin
“So,” Zoe said, folding her arms as she looked down at the three notes. “It’s pretty safe to say we’re going to get murdered if we go, right?”
“Oh, yeah,” Keira said. “Definitely.”
Mason made a faintly unhappy noise but didn’t argue.
Keira had met Dane Crispin once before. Descended from the wealthy family that had founded the town and then fallen from grace during a scandal, Dane was now the sole heir still living in Blighty. He occupied a crumbling mansion outside of town and was notoriously unwelcoming to visitors.
A woman had been murdered on the estate, and her ghost had appealed to Keira for help. While trying to untangle the woman’s history, Keira had trespassed onto the Crispin grounds in the dead of night, along with Mason and Zoe. They’d been seen. And then shot at. Keira had been followed through the forest and only managed to keep her life by hiding in the abandoned mill.
Apparently guessing her thoughts, Mason said, “It might be unrelated to that night. It was dark. Dane shouldn’t have been able to see our faces.”
Keira chewed on the corner of her thumbnail. “It seems too much of a coincidence, though, doesn’t it? The three of us went onto the estate. The three of us now have these notes. Even if he couldn’t see us, he must have figured out who we were.”
“How did he even know you were in town?” Zoe asked. She pulled a chair out, sitting on it sideways, apparently unconcerned about getting soot on her sweater and sleek jeans. “He’s not exactly a regular visitor at the pub. Or anywhere, for that matter. Sometimes people go up to the gates to try to catch a glimpse of him wandering around his gardens, but they only really do that to make sure he’s still alive.”
Mason tilted his head. “When you say people, you’re mostly talking about yourself, right?”
She grinned up at him. “Yep.”
“He really must be isolated.” Keira traced a finger over the message. The paper was old, yellowing around the edges, and the words’ ragged lines and tiny splatters told her it had likely been written with a fountain pen and an ink well. “This could have been teleported out of the eighteent h century.”
“Everything about this note is amazing,” Zoe said, ticking off on her fingers. “The formality. The way he gives you his address as though it’s possible to miss the biggest house in town. The absolute class he displays by keeping his threats of violence veiled.”
“We don’t know that he actually wants to harm us,” Mason said, arms folded. He made a faint, disgruntled noise. “It’s just…an uncomfortably high probability.”
“And it leaves us with an important question.” Zoe took a deep breath. “With the full knowledge that we’re most likely never leaving the Crispin Estate alive, do we attend?”
“I feel like the answer to that should be obvious.” Mason looked from Zoe to Keira. “Please tell me it’s obvious.”
Keira rubbed the back of her neck. “I think I should go.”
“Yes. Hell yes.” Zoe pumped a fist, a victorious smile lighting her face. “No one has seen inside that house in decades. What’s he hiding? How many skeletons are in there? Death is a fair price to pay for a glimpse behind its doors.”
Mason only sighed.
“From my perspective, if he wants to meet me, I can’t reasonably avoid him.” Keira shrugged. “He left the note outside my cottage. That means he knows where I live. And, well, I’d rather face him directly than have him sneak up on me in the middle of the night or something.” She glanced at Mason. “That’s my choice, though. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to stay home.”
He grimaced. “If you and Zo are going, I’ll come too. It seems less awful than the thought of trying to form a vengeful mob when you inevitably fail to return home by morning.”
“Friends that stick together…” Keira gestured vaguely. “Die together, I guess?”
“I believe that’s how the saying goes.” Daisy had appeared and wove between Mason’s legs, purring. He bent to pick her up and cradled her gently as he scratched her head. “It sounds like it will be a proper dinner party. I hope Dane Crispin is a good cook.”
Zoe inhaled sharply as her face lit up. “I’m going to wear my fancy black dress. I’ll look so cool when I’m being stabbed to death.”
“I will also be wearing my best clothes,” Keira said. “You remember the sweater with the bug-eyed cat face on it?”
“Ooh, good choice. He’ll love it.”
“He’d better. I’m overdue for laundry and it’s all I’ve got.”
Zoe chuckled, leaning back in the chair, one arm thrown over its back. “D’you want to borrow an outfit? I’m sure I’d have something I could alter to fit you—”
Keira waved a hand. “Don’t worry. The cat sweater’s part of my identity by now. If Dane Crispin wants to chop me up with an axe, I’m at least going to be comfortable while it’s happening.”
“You’re both way too calm about this,” Mason muttered.
“Eh.” Keira shrugged. “I’ve cheated death plenty in the last couple of weeks. Might as well go for one more round.”
“Let’s meet up at the fountain,” Zoe said. “Say, five forty or thereabouts. We can walk up to the house together.”
Mason clicked his tongue. “Zoe, that reminds me. You said you wanted to meet up today regardless of the invitation, right?”
Zoe’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yes. And you’re going to love the reason for it. Keira, I think I have a lead on the people who’ve been hunting you.”
CHAPTER TWO
“So you remember how I offered to ask around with some of my contacts in case they had any clues about the logo you saw on that van?” Zoe asked. “But then you decided that we should put that on pause because it was vitally important that we hike through a mercy-forsaken forest in search of clues to help us kill a serial killer who was already dead?”
“Gerald Barge, yes.” Keira folded up Dane’s letters and pulled out a seat so that she could face Zoe. Mason carefully lowered himself into a chair of his own, with Daisy purring furiously in his arms.
“Well, I finally got back to the main project and made some progress. There’s a guy I know from an obscure forum who’s super into corporate conspiracies. He’s hard to reach, though. He has, like, five phone numbers and if you call the wrong one, he’ll basically go into hiding for most of a week. And the correct number changes any time an unfamiliar car parks in his street. So. You could say he’s a little paranoid.”
“Maybe a little,” Keira conceded.
“Anyway, I got lucky and managed to get through to him.” Zoe reached into her pocket and wrestled out several tightly folded sheets of paper. She spread them out on the table. “Check this out.”
The first page was a photocopy of the drawing Keira had made. She’d created it after visiting a hospital with Adage, the pastor, and finding the mark on a van parked outside. None of her memories from her time before arriving in Blighty had survived…but she’d recognised that symbol. It had filled her with dread and deep, deep loathing.
The mark was comprised of a hexagon made of thin, curling leaves. There had been no company name attached. Keira had drawn the mark as accurately as she could from memory, but neither Mason nor Zoe had been able to recognise it.
“So he thinks he’s found a match.” Zoe unfolded another sheet of paper and laid it out beside the first.
“That’s it,” Keira said, sick horror rising through her like a nest of cold snakes writhing towards her throat.
The image on the second sheet of paper was made of low-resolution black lines on a white background. The edges were pixelated, suggesting it had been enlarged. It was an almost perfect match for the logo she’d drawn.
As she stared at the new image, she could feel cold, dead memories stirring in the back of her mind. She knew the logo. Almost too well. She hated it. She feared it. But as she reached for the memories, they blinked out again, vanishing back into her subconscious.
She tore her eyes away from the papers as she turned to her friend. “What is it? Who are they?”
Zoe’s smile was thin lipped and sad. “The group goes under the name of Artec. That’s all I know about it so far.”
“Artec…?” There was something there. Just like the image, the name sparked a distant familiarity that Keira couldn’t quite catch. “Do they have a website? Are they a business or government or…?”
“They’re a publicly traded company.” Zoe tapped the paper. “That’s where Mr Toast recognised the icon from: the stock market.”
“Sorry.” Mason flicked a hand up. “I know this is too important to interrupt, but…Mr Toast?”
“I met him on an anonymous forum, okay?” Zoe shrugged. “He’s way too nervy to tell me any personal info. Apparently he secretly had a legal name change a few years back and now not even his parents know his real name. Everyone online just calls him Mr Toast.”
“Right, sure.” Mason returned to stroking Daisy, who was halfway to melting off his lap. “That’s not weird at all.”
“Anyway.” Zoe glared at Mason before continuing. “Mr Toast doesn’t trade, but he likes to watch the stock market. Especially smaller companies. And he came across Artec a while back, and his curiosity got sparked by how little information they have online. They’ve been active for four years but have no website. No social media presence. Even their company description is a string of nothingness.”
Zoe unfolded the third and final sheet. It was a print out of Artec’s registration. Under description it simply read A midsized, publicly traded company in the renewable energy sector.
“That’s as far as I’ve gotten,” Zoe said. “Mr Toast is trying to dig up some more info on his side, but last time I spoke to him, he said he saw a plane flying at the wrong altitude so I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t hear from him for a while.”
