Dark Gods in the Blood

Chapter Twenty-Six

The pilgrims were dining in the mess-room, and I took my

place opposite the manager, who lifted his eyes to give me a

questioning glance, which I successfully ignored ... Suddenly

the manager's boy put his insolent black head in the doorway,

and said in a tone of scathing contempt -- 'Mistah Kurtz, he

dead.'

-- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

The house was very dark. Very dark and very cold -- apparently, the Aurors who had been called to the scene yesterday switched off the heat.

Hermione shivered as she stepped through the front door. The shiver turned to a downright shudder when the scent hit her nostrils.

A coppery sort of tang, so strong that it flooded her mouth, saturating her senses -- taste and smell. She bit down on her bottom lip, hoping her nausea would abate.

Instead, it doubled, trebled, as the next wave hit her. Other odors -- other ... human odors.

Forty-eight hours ago, two people had died here.

Turning around, Hermione bolted out the door she'd come through, ducking into the bushes, retching.

Why had she come here alone? she asked herself as she coughed and spat, breathing in the cool, fresh air outside.

Kingsley had offered to escort her to the site personally. Or even to send Ron, if they could pry him out of the flat. But no ... Hermione had decided that she needed to go alone for some reason.

With raised eyebrows, Kingsley had consented, although ultimately he'd insisted that she notify him the minute she left the house, to make sure she was safe.

Queasiness fading considerably, she snorted a bit as she unbent, coming back to a standing position. First Kingsley, and then Snape. What was it about her that brought out people's protective urges?

Entering the house for a second time was difficult, but she managed it, rapid breaths through her nose as her stomach roiled once again.

She was reminded achingly of the Potter home as she looked around. While perhaps not as impeccably clean as Françoise's house, this one -- up until very recently owned by Ulysses and Eleanor Bridell -- had an air of neatness about it, and certainly a caring sort of quality. A family portrait, done in oils, greeted her in the foyer, husband and wife and two children smiling gently at her, welcomingly.

Hermione wondered briefly where the children were. Whether they had lived at home when it happened. Whether they had seen --

Brushing past the portrait, she walked down a short hallway, dim and oppressive in the light of a dreary, cloudy day. It had been threatening to rain all morning, but the sky simply grew darker and more swollen, the raindrops refusing to fall.

And she was in the kitchen.

The smell was overpowering.

Close to hyperventilating, Hermione paused in the archway, trying to bring herself back under control.

Why had she come here alone?

She moved her hand toward a nearby light switch -- the Bridells had lived in a Muggle neighborhood, as had the other victims, Ron Weasley noticed one day -- and flicked it on, fluorescents flickering into life overhead.

In other circumstances, if she'd been visiting the Bridells and been greeted with a warm house, filled with laughter, instead of a dark hole reeking of ill deeds, she would have made sure to mention what a lovely kitchen they had. And so it was -- floors and walls over the counters done in white tile, although the countertops were a rich, dark marble that contrasted wonderfully with the stark, painted cabinetry. To soften this look, the Bridells had gone with a tasteful wallpaper on the remaining walls, a delicate blend of dark green ivy and the palest of pink rosettes. The border above the paper was actually done in what Hermione thought might be oak, lightly stained, with a beautiful pattern -- ivy and roses to match the wallpaper -- carved into it.

A lot of thought had gone into this kitchen, and she imagined that the Bridells had shown it off to their friends, with cute little suburban stories to go with each feature.

Turning the corner, Hermione had to pause again.

Here was a feature that did not have a cute little suburban story to match.

Blood was sprayed liberally throughout the entire breakfast area, coating the walls, even spattering the ceiling. A horrific dark stain covered most of the oak table in the middle of the area, with a disturbing clean spot in the very center -- presumably where Ulysses Bridell had lain. Bloodstains ran down the table legs.

The photographs she'd been given of this scene were far worse than the autopsy shots from the Desmond murder, although at the time, they'd been the worst things she'd ever seen.

But these photos had been decidedly more terrible. Bridell -- the victim -- sprawled lifelessly out on the table, face a rictus of pain, eyes open, staring up at nothing in terror. His chest had been carelessly split open, ribs carefully arranged in a gruesome parody of a butterfly's wings, opening upward, toward the ceiling.

She had only looked at that particular set of pictures once.

And then there was the anomaly. The wife. Eleanor Bridell, a Muggle in a household of wizards, found slumped over in a corner of their breakfast area, stabbed to death.

Hermione closed her eyes, trying not to look over at the corner in question. Stabbed to death did not nearly cover it.

Eleanor Bridell had been stabbed no less than ninety-seven times. The top half of her body had been little more than pulp in the pictures Hermione had seen, her face unrecognizable as human.

Her stomach turned over again and Hermione's closed eyes tightened.

There hadn't been any sign of sexual abuse, according to the coroner, but he had also determined somehow that the killer had made Eleanor Bridell suffer all the same. The killing cut had been an incision along her throat, but the autopsy showed that that had been one of the last ones. Eleanor Bridell had been alive to feel almost all of her ninety-seven stab wounds.

She swallowed with great difficulty, saliva rising in the back of her throat. The smell of blood was so strong that it was all she could taste in her mouth.

There were worse ways to die, Hermione supposed. But whatever they were, she didn't want to know about them.

A few more minutes, a few more calming breaths, and Hermione decided to open her eyes.

She needed to see this. As she'd told Kingsley, as she'd told Snape.

But she had to concede, as she stared down at the sticky, clotted mass of something unspeakable in the corner with horrified fascination, that if there indeed was evidence here, she lacked the skill to collect it.

She closed her eyes again.

Bridell had been splayed out on the table with his feet facing the kitchen sink. And there had been four chairs in the picture, if she remembered correctly. The chairs were not here now.

Opening her eyes once more, she looked closely at the floor and saw a few pieces of tape stuck to the tile, corresponding roughly to the chair placements. They'd probably had to shift things around to move the bodies.

One of the chairs had been tipped backward. Another laid on its side. The other two had been shifted away from the table slightly but remained otherwise upright.

She could almost picture the scene.

Bridell, poison crawling slowly through his system, had lost motor control and fallen out of his chair -- that would be the chair on its side. If he'd fallen backward and hit the tiles with the back of his head, there would have been some sort of indicator in the autopsy. No, Bridell's head had been blessedly undamaged, meaning it made more sense that he'd slumped to the side. Which implied, then ...

The killer had been sitting in the chair that was on its back.

Hermione was nearly certain that the wife had not been in the house when Bridell was initially attacked. There was no trace of poison in her system and the sheer ... brutality of her killing indicated that it had been an impulsive, angry one.

Which left the only other person in the house at the onset of Bridell's symptoms as the killer.

Holding her breath, she took a couple tentative steps across the little area, standing in between the pieces of tape on the floor that marked the overturned chair.

She was standing in the exact same place that the killer had been.

The air was devoid of feeling. Somehow, Hermione had thought that by occupying the same space the killer had, she would have a flash of insight. She would be ... closer to the killer in some way.

But there was nothing.

It was just like standing beside the table in Ron's flat. Save, of course, the blood and the chill in the air.

Reaching out a hand, Hermione let a single finger rest against the wood of the table, mind whirling.

The killer, then, had come around the table to his victim quite quickly, overturning his chair in his haste. And then he'd gotten Bridell onto the table -- Kingsley and Snape had both suggested that the killer was a large fellow, and the more Hermione considered it, the more she agreed with them. With the hemlock in his system, Bridell would have been little more than dead weight by this point, although fully conscious.

And then the cutting would have started. According to the coroner, the first cut was a long, downward stroke, beginning at the base of the throat and extending the entire length of the torso. It was not smooth, however, and had many fits and starts.

Hermione rather thought that it was during this first stroke -- this first sawing open -- that the wife came in, returning from whatever had taken her away from the house for the afternoon.

She walked briskly through the archway nearest the kitchen table -- not the one she'd come in through -- and into the sitting room. Another door was on the opposite side of the room and she went to it, turning the knob to test her theory. The garage. So she was right then -- Eleanor Bridell had probably come through this door, into the sitting room, and run over to help her husband.

The killer would have immediately attacked her, the force of his angry blows driving her into the corner where she would ultimately meet her doom.

Quite likely, then, Ulysses Bridell died with the knowledge that his wife had died as well. She didn't know whether he had remained conscious throughout her slaying -- he would have been, after all, losing enormous amounts of blood -- but he certainly would have seen its beginning.

But standing here, in the middle of this forlorn scene, Hermione had no more of a feel for the killer's identity than she did when reading the case file.

Snape had been right.

She shouldn't have come.

Hermione decided she'd Floo Kingsley Shacklebolt as soon as she got back to the flat, not wanting to use the fireplace in the Bridell home.

Maybe she could pry Ron out of the bedroom and spend the afternoon doing something mindless, even.

Or maybe she could pry Ron out of the bedroom and spend the afternoon finding out why he'd holed himself up in there in the first place.

As quickly as she could, Hermione left the house, feeling the cool afternoon air against her skin, washing off the stink, the shadow that the Bridells' murders left hovering in their home.

-- -- -- -- --

"Ron!" she shouted, banging on the bedroom door. "Enough is enough!"

"Leave me alone, Hermione," he said tiredly, muffled through the wood.

She glared at the door, which Ron had carefully warded against any and every charm she'd tried to use to open it. "You've been in there for more than a week," she exclaimed. "After the first three days you went without speaking, I thought you were dead. You owe me an explanation, Ron Weasley!"

Silence.

With one last huff, she stormed away, an idea brewing in her head. A few moments later, she returned, bearing a screwdriver.

Two screws and a couple of pokes into the locking mechanism with the screwdriver later found Hermione standing at the foot of Ron's bed, a scowl on her face. "It stinks in here," she said.

He did not turn over to face her, choosing instead to keep his head firmly under his pillow. "Go away."

"And it's so dark ... what did you do? Cast Darkening Charms on the window glass in addition to the shades?"

"Leave me alone," Ron moaned, a single foot twitching under the sheet.

"Now, Ron," Hermione began reasonably, gathering a handful of blankets in her hand carefully, making sure he didn't see her. "You know that if the situations were reversed, you would have blasted the door to bits days ago. I've let you wallow long enough, and Kingsley Shacklebolt is nearly ready to fire you."

"Kingsley Shacklebolt can pucker up and kiss my ass," he muttered.

She smiled, well aware that he couldn't see her. "It's that sort of talk that keeps you from being promoted, you know, Ron."

With a single, practiced jerk of the wrist, she pulled the blankets swiftly off him. "Hey!" he protested, finally turning over to reveal bloodshot eyes and cheeks covered with reddish stubble. His hair stood up in multiple spikes all over his head.

Hermione's smile widened. "Ron, you look like hammered shit.**"

He glared, but it was weak.

"Get up," she said sternly, imitating Molly Weasley as best she could. "Get up, clean off some of that stench, and I'll be in the kitchen with a fresh pot of tea. Then, you will explain to me why you've locked me out of what you told me was my bedroom for the last ten days." She paused as he rolled back onto his stomach, placing his pillow over his head yet again. "Oh ... and the door won't lock manually any more, which pretty much guarantees that any magical lock you put on it I can break through. And I will. So you'd be best off to go ahead and admit defeat."

He groaned into his pillow.

"I'll be in the kitchen," she repeated, turning on her heel and marching out of the room.

It only took him thirty minutes to appear, freshly shaved and smelling of soap. He was still wearing ragged, worn clothing, but at least it looked relatively unwrinkled and clean. "Well?" he asked, still glaring at her.

"Tea," she said in reply, pushing a cup across the table at him. "Just like you like it."

He slumped down into a chair, wrapping both his hands around the teacup, and then fell still, watching her patiently.

Hermione tried not to laugh -- Ron was doing his best to be recalcitrant and uncooperative, but she'd had three months of contending with Severus Snape. She could wait as long as he wanted to. But just in case ...

"I've put up wards on the entrances to the kitchen," she said casually, taking a sip from her own cup. "I'll take them down when we're through, of course, but they're staying up until you start talking. I assume you left your wand in the bedroom?"

Ron swore colorfully and she had to resist her urge to laugh again. "I hate you sometimes, Butterfly," he said bitterly.

"You'd do the same for me," she reminded him.

Taking a grudging drink of tea, he looked down at the tabletop. "Yeah, but not nearly as skillfully, I don't think. Besides -- you'd never do something as stupid as forget your wand."

"You'd be surprised," she said ruefully, remembering an incident at the monastery a few years ago. Master Xi had spent the next three months laughing gently at her. "So ...?" she prompted as his posture suggested he might be more receptive.

"What have you guessed?"

"Pitifully little," Hermione admitted. "All I know is that I came here one night after spending the day at the Aurory to find the bedroom door locked and warded to the teeth. Françoise Potter Flooed me the next morning looking for you and that's when I knew for certain it was you in the room. I suppose it could have been someone else, but it was rather doubtful."

"Françoise ..." His voice rasped suspiciously on the name and Hermione's interest was piqued. "Françoise was looking for "

Her eyes narrowed. "Well ... according to her, there was ... an altercation of sorts between the two of you and you ran off. I told her that I'd keep an eye on you, although it's had to be more of an ear than an eye due to my lack of x-ray vision."

"An altercation?" he echoed with a rusty laugh.

And here it was -- she tried not to show the true level of her interest. "Was there not an altercation?" she asked carefully. "I'd assumed that was the reason you came back here, but ..."

"Oh ... no," he said. "That's the reason I came back. But I don't know if I'd characterize it as an altercation."

"So what would you characterize it as?" she asked, quelling her rising excitement.

"More of ... an incident," he replied carefully, taking another sip from his cup.

She tried to mask her disappointment. "An incident," she said uncertainly.

"Well ..." Ron amended, voice thoughtful, "less the incident itself and more my reaction to it."

"You're far better at obscuring your words than you used to be," Hermione said, irritated with him.

Snorting, Ron smiled thinly. "Serves you right for being nosy, miss. All right, then. I'll tell you. Françoise and I ... well ... we ... there was just a moment, you see, and it seemed right, so we ... erm ..."

Eyes widening as she understood what he was trying to stumble through, she decided to have mercy on him. "Who initiated it?"

He did not meet her questioning gaze. "As far as I can remember, it was mutual. And if it didn't start out as mutual, it soon got there."

"Holy Merlin, Ron!" she cried. "You didn't ... well, sleep with her, did you?"

Head snapping up, he regarded her with abject shock. "Of course not!" he exclaimed. "What sort of horrible person do you think I am? Fuck, Hermione, she's Harry's wife!" His cheeks were lightly stained with either embarrassment or anger. "But ..." he continued, more quietly this time. "But I wanted to. And I would have -- gladly -- if I hadn't remembered ..."

She did not speak, hoping he'd work out his own thought for himself, as she had absolutely no idea where he was going with it.

"She's Harry's wife," he repeated, sounding rather uncertain.

"Do you ..." she began after a pause, trying to formulate her inquiry as kindly as possible. "Are you in love with her?"

His eyes were wild. "I don't know!" he nearly wailed. "I've thought about it, but I just don't know."

"Jesus, Ron ..." she said, unable to come up with anything better. "That's ... just ..."

"I know," he breathed heavily, drinking more tea. "A colossal cock-up."

"I think ..." Hermione said, giving him as compassionate a look as she could muster. "I think you really need to talk to Françoise."

"I'm terrified to," he admitted. "I don't know what she'll say. Hell, I don't even know what I'll say. But I know you're right," he said quickly, watching her mouth open in protest. "And I will talk to her," he promised. "As soon as I scrape myself together enough so that I won't fall apart when I set eyes on her."

"Good man," she teased, trying to smile.

He mostly returned it. "So ..." he drawled, obviously ready to change the subject. &lquo;You said Kingsley's ready to give me the boot?"

Hermione laughed. "I mostly said that just to get your attention. He knows you're going through a rough patch, and the fact that you're working on Harry's murder case isn't helping. I imagine he's rather surprised you didn't hare out earlier. Me either, for that matter. He was dead against me going to the latest site, but I wore him down. Had to talk him out of coming with me, though."

Blinking, Ron looked up from his tea. "Latest site? I assume you're not talking about Desmond, are you?"

"No, there's been another one," she said. "Two, actually. A husband and wife up in Yorkshire."

"Both of them?" he asked, brow furrowed.

She shrugged slightly, swirling the dregs of her cup in contemplation. "My theory is that the wife came home unexpectedly and surprised him. The autopsy results ... erm, bear that out."

"And you went to the site?"

"Yes," she confirmed with a short nod. "Just this afternoon, actually. I confess, half of the reason I dragged you out of the depths of despair was because I desperately needed good company."

Letting out a breath he'd been holding, Ron's expression was full of mixed admiration and apprehension. "So, did you ...?"

"Nothing," she sighed. "The files are just as good. I expect if I knew more about actual Muggle police procedure -- evidence gathering technique and whatnot -- it would have been more helpful. I just thought ..."

"You thought that by being there somehow, something would click into place," he supplied sagely.

"Exactly." Quiet for a moment, Hermione sat her cup back down on its saucer, unwilling to swallow the last few bitter drops. "I only learned one thing -- I think the killer administered the poison directly -- he seemed to be sitting at the table himself when everything began, by the look of things."

With a grimace, he laid his left hand against the table, fingers drumming out a nonsensical pattern. "Not exactly the most useful of theories."

"I know ..." she replied, tone showing her self-frustration. "I should never have gone. That house was so ... so ..."

"Unhelpful?" he suggested in an obvious attempt at levity.

She frowned. "I was going to say sad, actually. All dark and cold. It sort of reminded me of Harry's house, though, apart from that. Tastefully decorated and all that ..."

"Ah," Ron said with a knowledgeable nod. "So are you going to tell me now that the killer targets blokes with wives that have good interior design sense? With sconces and whatnot?"

"Ron," she admonished, frown deepening. "That's ridiculous. Of course he wouldn't ... I mean, how could he know ... oh my God!" she breathed suddenly, a puzzle piece abruptly falling into place in her mind.

His fingers ceased their endless tapping. "What?"

"The woodwork ..." she whispered. "The carvings in the rails ... Ron, did Françoise do that chair rail in her den? With all that ivy carving?"

He blinked, clearly confused. "The rail?" he asked, thinking hard. "No ..." he said slowly. &dquo;They brought in a fellow a few months ago to do a bunch of woodwork. He did a new banister for the stairs and a few cabinets in the kitchen and, now that I think about it, he did do the rail in the sitting room, with all that carving. I remember because Françoise was so thrilled with how it turned out. Why?"

"In the kitchen," Hermione replied. "The kitchen in the Bridell house -- they're the latest victims -- there's a rose and ivy pattern carved into some molding up near the ceiling. I wonder ..."

Ron forgotten, she strode quickly into the den, grabbing a handful of Floo powder and calling out, "Kingsley Shacklebolt's office."

If Kingsley was srprised to see Hermione's head hovering in his fireplace, he did not show it, merely continuing to shuffle papers about with nary a glance. "Yes?" he asked. "Granger, didn't I already talk to you today?"

"The other victims," she said, ignoring his question. "I need you to find something out for me."

"Yes?" More irritated now.

Hermione did not care. "I need to know if they had any carpentry work done lately, any sort of distinctive carvings in the woodwork. And, if they have it, the name of the person that did it."

"What are you saying, Granger?" he asked, no longer sounding the least bit angry. In fact, a glimmer in his eyes suggested excitement.

"I think, sir, that I may have found our missing link," she said.

The glimmer became a definite sparkle. "Right," he replied. "I'll get on it immediately -- I should have everything we need by tomorrow afternoon at the latest, maybe earlier."

She ended the Floo connection, shaking a bit of soot from her hair. Turning to face Ron, who was standing in the doorway, looking absolutely baffled, she grinned. "Do you think Françoise still has the name of the person that did that chair rail?"

-- -- -- -- --