Framed, p.1
Framed, page 1
Framed
An Urban Paranormal Novella
Ivy Wynter
Framed
Copyright © 2022 Ivy Wynter Published by Ivy Wynter
First Edition: 2022
ISBN: 9798427036726 (paperback)
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: ivywynterlbb@gmail.com
Cover Design by illustrator lonelycosmicegg
Editing by Courtney Cundiff of The Moonlight Editor
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
A Body and A Candy Wrapper
Blackwood Apothecary
The PIU
Fugitives
To Learn About One Another
A Mirror of Clues
A Lapse in Control
Reality Comes Crashing In
Veiled Confessions
The Stone Court
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
To those who said I could when I thought I couldn’t.
A Body and A Candy Wrapper
From the old, rotten beam it hung, swaying gently from side to side. The rope creaked and the wood groaned from the weight of it. It was oddly mesmerizing, in a grotesque sort of way.
"Poor bastard," Frederick muttered.
"Aye," his partner agreed. "Poor bastard indeed."
The two of them watched the body sway with morbid fascination. "Terrible place ta die," Borris said after the sixth sway.
Frederick nodded as he tore his eyes from the corpse to look at their surroundings. "I'd have to agree with that one."
The old, dilapidated barn was a husk of its former self. It was dank, dark, and musty. The wood was rotting and hollow, and he could hear the tiny scurrying footsteps of the termites as they devoured the walls from the inside out. The wooden slats were bowing, some even split up the middle, from the weight of the roof. A gentle breeze could send a wall toppling over at any moment. And the smell! Mold, manure, and wet dirt. It was nauseating.
But the worst part—the most awful thing in existence in his opinion—was the odor wafting off the corpse. Not only was it unsightly, all purple and bloated as it was, but it was emitting the rankest smell he'd ever had the misfortune to encounter. It was a terrible mixture of sulfur, rotting fish, and decaying flesh—dead man's blood. The foulest thing in existence. Poisonous to his kind.
Frederick shuddered. He hated cases like this. He preferred to work with the living.
"T'ink ta same t'ing t'at killed ta others killed ’im?" Borris asked.
"Maybe," Frederick muttered. He squared his shoulders and reluctantly took a deep breath. His face contorted into an ugly grimace. Ugh . . . he could taste the sulfur on the back of his tongue as if he had licked the corpse itself. Shaking his head, he fought past the unpleasant taste to try and find any underlying scents. Huh. He rubbed the flat of his tongue along the roof of his mouth. Cherries and cream with the barest hint of chocolate. Sickly sweet and bordering on disgusting.
"Smells like it,” he told Borris. “Need the techs to test his blood to be certain, but I'm eighty-five percent sure."
Borris snorted. "How can yeh be eighty-five percent sure?"
Frederick turned to his partner, his expression unamused and his tone flat. "Just like I'm eighty-five percent sure that's the Misses rose-infused body wash clogging your pores.
The old orcs face scrunched up, his shoulders tense. "It's refreshin'," Borris grumbled under his breath before clearing his throat, looking at anything but Frederick.
Frederick hummed and turned away from his partner to face the corpse just in time to watch the techs cut him down.
"Don't forget to get a blood sample," he instructed. "After I'm no longer in here, Kurt." The lanky tech shrunk in on himself at Frederick’s acerbic tone, tucking the syringe he'd pulled out back into his bag. "Idiot," he grumbled as he turned to stalk out of the barn.
Borris barked a couple more orders at the techs before trailing after him. The mud squelched under their shoes as they walked, and Frederick had to bite back his laughter each time Borris slipped.
"I can hear yeh gigglin' up t’ere, yeh fanged bastard," Borris growled.
"I don't know what you're talking about,” Frederick said, and Borris snorted in response, sounding rather boarish. "So,” he continued as if Borris hadn’t made a sound. “Think it'll be the last body?" As he asked the question, he pulled his badge out from his inner coat pocket. "Or should we expect more?" Frederick paused at the luminescent blue crime scene tape surrounding the perimeter of the barn and passed his badge through it. It flashed green and he walked through.
Borris flashed his own badge as he answered, "Can't rightly say." He passed through the tape and came to stand beside Frederick at the circle of transport runes drawn into the dirt road outside the barn. "But ta way it's been goin' we should expect anot’er body ta turn up soon."
Frederick hummed in agreement as he pulled a candy from his pants pocket. "It'd be nice if we had just one thing besides the pink sludge in their veins to link them all together." He unwrapped the candy from the wax paper and popped the hard, yellow sweet into his mouth. Lemon burst across his tongue, causing saliva to flood his mouth, and he grimaced.
"Why do yeh eat t'ose if yeh don't like ’em?" Before he could point out to his partner just how stupid that question was by a single raise of the brow, Borris said, "Nevamind. I forget yer allergic ta da sun."
Allergic? If one could call burning and blistering in direct sunlight until his skin sloughed off an allergy, he supposed he was allergic. His skin certainly itched under the sun’s golden rays, even now. It gave him the urge to scratch until his skin peeled off.
"Thank you for that reminder, you pug-faced inbred," Frederick grumbled.
The orc grinned, the expression making his yellowed tusks seem twice as big. "Aye. My pleasure yeh half-breed bloodsucker."
Vampire and orc stared one another down for a long moment before bursting into a fit of full-bellied laughter. Borris clapped a meaty hand on Frederick’s shoulder and gave it a shake.
"I hate you," they said in unison which sent them both into another bout of laughter.
"Coin toss for paperwork duty?" Frederick asked when he'd finally caught his breath. "I'm tossin' it. I don't trust yeh, not after last time." Borris held out a hand for the coin.
With a roll of his eyes, Frederick rummaged around in his pocket for some change. "Distrustful bastard," he muttered as he pulled out a gold coin and slapped it down onto Borris' palm. "’eads," Borris called, making to toss the coin into the air when a yell caught their attention.
"Detectives! Detectives!"
The partners looked towards the barn to find a tiny imp sliding her way through the mud straight for them, waving a blue-rimmed evidence bag frantically about in the air.
"Wait!" The tech slipped, nearly falling on her face, but righted herself just in time before she got a mouthful of mud.
"Yes, Cherri?" Borris asked when she finally reached them.
She put up a hand, indicating for them to wait a moment while she caught her breath.
"S-Sorry," she panted. "We found something that I thought you might want to see." Cherri straightened up and held the evidence bag out to Borris.
The old orc took the bag and held it out in front of him, squinting as he attempted to distinguish what exactly it was inside the plastic. Frederick scoffed.
"Blind old bat. Give me that."
"OI!" Borris growled as Frederick snatched the bag from his hands.
Frederick ignored him, holding the bag up out of his reach, and assessed what was inside.
Odd. It was a candy wrapper.
The wrapper itself was an off-white color with bold chocolate-colored lettering that read: Drowsy Cherry Truffles: The sweet that puts you to sleep. Frederick looked at Cherri, his expression skeptical.
"And the significance of this candy wrapper is . . . ?"
Cherri blinked up at him, eyes wide and uncertain. "O-oh. W-well it has traces of the s-same stuff we found in the victim's b-blood," she stammered out as she twisted her fingers around each other.
"And the stuff in his blood?" Frederick asked
"S-same as the other victims," she confirmed.
"And yeh couldn't 'ave led with t'at, Cherri?" Borris asked, his tone sharp.
Blood flooded the little imp's cheeks—whether out of embarrassment or anger he wasn't sure—and assaulted Frederick’s senses with the scent of moss and pine. His gums itched as his fangs elongated, and a familiar pang in his stomach had him taking a small step back.
"We had just finished the test before I came running out here!" She said, her voice slightly shrill.
Borris snorted as he turned away from her and he waved her off. Cherri huffed at the abrupt dismissal but still did as she was told, turning on her heel to head back up to the barn.
"Thank you, Cherri!" Frederick yelled after her as she scurried away, grumbling nasty curses under her breath as she went.
"Could've been a little bit nicer to her," he said to Borris. "She did just hand us the first shred of evidence that’s mattered in months." Borris just grunted at him. "Ill-tempered old man," he muttered, returning his attention to the bag in his hand.
; Finally. An actual fucking clue. Now, where will you lead me . . . ?
Frederick straightened the wrapper inside the bag the best he could, searching for the company name or a logo. And there it was, in the top right corner. The logo was of a boiling black cauldron with a little witch poking her head up over the rim. She even had on an adorable little witch’s hat, the point crooked and twisted into a jagged swirl.
Frowning, Frederick scrutinized the image carefully. Why did it look so familiar? He moved the wrapper so that it bent at an angle and that’s where he found it, curled around the underside of the cauldron—the company name.
"Moonlit Sweets by Blackwood Apothecary," Frederick read aloud slowly.
Well shit. No wonder he’d recognized the logo.
"Blackwood Apot'ecary?" Borris questioned. "Ain't t'at ta place yeh get yer SunDrops from?"
Frederick nodded. "Yes, it is." He rolled the lemon SunDrop in his mouth from one cheek to the other with his tongue, wondering if he should spit it out.
Borris barked out a gruff, sardonic laugh. "Well, here's ta hopin' yeh never get a laced batch like t'is poor sucker."
He had the knee-jerk reaction to snarl something nasty or sarcastic back at his partner, but Frederick instead said, "Flip the coin. Loser takes the paperwork; winner takes the apothecary."
Grinning, Borris flashed the gold coin at him, showing first heads then tails. He flicked it into the sky—the metal clinking on his thumbnail—and Frederick watched the sunlight bounce off the edges in golden sparks of light.
Tails, tails, tails . . . come on! Give me tails!
Blackwood Apothecary
So, this is the place.
Standing on the edge of the sidewalk with his hands on his hips, Frederick took in the quaint little shop with a curious eye. It reminded him of a cottage, smoking chimney and all, and was entirely out of place squished between the two brick office buildings.
Ivy had overtaken the entire storefront to the point none of the walls were visible. He couldn't even see the windows; if there were any to begin with. Hanging above the door was the shop sign which happened to be an exact replica of the logo on the candy wrapper Cherri had found.
Frederick turned his ear to the door. He could just make out the faint sound of shuffling feet, and then the brass door handle jiggled. The door swung open, and a myriad of scents spilled out into the street to assault his senses: herbs, dirt, flowers, and underneath all that was—what was that?!
Frederick sucked in a deep breath as his eyes rolled to the back of his head, a low growl shaking his ribcage. That is . . . wow! The scent was unlike anything he'd ever come across before. It was tantalizing . . . delectable. It tasted like pure heat on his tongue. An ache pulsed at the roots of his fangs as saliva flooded his mouth. He needed to sink his fangs into something. Anything. Preferably into the thing emanating that scent.
Frederick shook his head vigorously. Pull it together, man, he berated himself. This was no place to lose it and go feral.
He took another breath to try and calm his more animalistic half, to clear his head, but the scent continued to scorch his tongue and blister its way down his throat. Frederick spun around to face the street and get ahold of himself. Lifting the collar of his coat over his nose, he took deep, shuddering breaths of his own scent. The tasteless smell soothed the fire in his throat to a level that was a little more bearable and cleared his head enough that he could think somewhat rationally. Frederick took in one last pull of pure, scentless air for good measure as he steeled himself to turn back around.
Thinking it best to hold his breath for the moment, Frederick refused to breathe as he dropped the collar of his coat and whirled around to face the store in a single movement. The shop door now sat propped open by a potted bush with tiny bluebell flowers sprouting from the leaves, spelling out the word “Welcome”. Off to the right of the door, a woman knelt, arranging puffy, sunshine yellow flowers throughout the wall of ivy.
Each time she tucked the stem of a flower in amongst the leaves, it would weave its way around the ivy and affix itself firmly into place. He observed her silently, going completely unnoticed, as she continued to add the little bursts of color to the sea of green.
She was a waif of a thing really, her oversized sweater nearly swallowing her whole. Her blood red curls were stacked atop her head in a messy bun that was barely being held together by a green scrunchie. And she was barefoot, he noted with surprise. Her toes were pale and the nail beds slightly purple; her feet had to be freezing.
He watched as she picked up the last flower and paused with her hands in midair, seeming to consider where to place this last one.
“What kind of flowers are they?” he asked abruptly, curious but also to get her attention. The woman jumped, falling back on her ass with an ‘oof’. “Sorry,” he muttered sheepishly, stepping forward and offering his hand to help her up.
“I-it’s okay,” she huffed, looking up at him from under her lashes. “You just startled me is all.” Her slate-grey eyes met his briefly before they lowered to look at his outstretched hand. “They’re, uh, marigolds,” she told him as she took his hand with minimal hesitation. Her skin was soft and warm, and he absently noted the array of colors staining her fingertips. “From my sister.” Frederick helped haul her to her feet. “Thought they’d look the best at the front of the shop.”
They both glanced at her arrangement of flowers on the wall. “I think you were right,” Frederick agreed.
She shot him a pleased grin before bending down to pick up the discarded marigold. “Can I help you with something?” She asked. “Or do you just like to wander up on unsuspecting women and scare the crap out of them?”
Frederick held back a snort. “You the owner of this place?”
“The one and only,” she answered as she placed the last flower in a seemingly random spot.
“Just who I was looking for then,” he said. “I’m Detective Frederick Devoe with the Chicago PD Paranormal Investigative Unit.” Frederick pulled out his badge and showed it to her. She looked at it, and then at him, in surprise. “I’ve got a couple of questions for you, if you have the time, Miss . . . ?”
She blinked up at him owlishly. “Vivian,” she said slowly, her tone guarded and confused. “Vivian Blackwood.”
Frederick flashed her a grin. "It's a pleasure, Miss Blackwood."
Her nose scrunched up in distaste. "Just Vivian, please."
"Of course," he agreed easily. "Let's head inside then, Vivian." Frederick couldn't help the little instinctual purr as he said her name, confusing himself. Where did that come from?
With a hesitant smile, Vivian gestured for him to follow as she made her way back into the shop. Before he stepped through the doorway, Frederick pressed his coat over his nose and took a deep breath. He just hoped this breath lasted the entire time he was inside, but just in case it didn't, he shoved the beast inside of him down to the depths of his very being. He couldn't risk losing control once he was inside and surrounded by that delicious scent.
When he stepped through the door, his feet sunk a bit into the floor and he looked down, confused. Beneath his feet was the plushest bed of grass he'd ever seen. He bounced on his heels a bit, amazed at the springy texture of it. A soft giggle brought his attention to the woman standing a few feet ahead of him.
"Like it?" She asked. "Charmed it myself."
Frederick hummed in the back of his throat. "Impressive. Is it throughout the entire shop?"
Vivian nodded, "Yeah. I like to wander around barefoot, and I prefer to walk on something other than tile or hardwood." They both glanced down at her feet as she wiggled her toes in the blades of grass.
"Should I take my shoes off too, then?" He asked, thinking it the courteous thing to do.
The little witch tilted her head and regarded him curiously, unsure if he was being serious or not. "If you'd like," she answered finally.
Frederick toed off his boots with a smirk. "So, how long have you owned this shop?" He asked as he placed his shoes alongside the wall where a pair of tiny flats rested.
"About four years now," she said as she continued through the entryway.
