Blood & Fire (Vigilante Crime Series Book 2) Read online

  Blood & Fire

  Kristi Belcamino

  Copyright © 2021 by Kristi Belcamino

  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.

  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.

  For information contact: [email protected]

  kristibelcaminowriter.com

  Contents

  Blood & Fire

  Foreword

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Kristi Belcamino

  Blood & Fire

  Rose will not rest until she has killed The Sultan.

  Even though Rose escaped from the mysterious cult leader years ago, he continues to torment her. When he killed her boyfriend, Rose vowed to devote her life to hunting him down.

  Now, her search has led her to a small Australian town where a girl’s body was found surrounded by candles and bowls of blood.

  As Rose digs deeper, she soon finds herself the target of a darker, ancient evil.

  Foreword

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  Prologue

  Present Day

  Portsea, Australia

  Tilly O’Brien shed her light wrap on the beach and stepped into the warm, turquoise waters of the Southern Ocean wearing her bright orange bikini. She splashed through the water until it was deep enough to submerge herself and swim.

  She credited her daily swim out to the floating dock for the body she had at fifty-four. Her husband, Tom, said she gave younger women a run for the money with her figure.

  Behind her on the shore, her golden retriever, Honey, barked furiously and ran up and down the shore, not quite letting the lapping waves reach her paws.

  It was a game they played every morning. Tilly went for her swim, and Honey remained on shore, afraid of the water—poor darling—and barked. She would carry on for a good fifteen minutes and then lay down, her chin on her paws facing the water, waiting for Tilly to return to shore.

  Tilly flipped onto her back to do some backstrokes.

  She didn’t worry about Honey disturbing the neighbors with the yapping. Their house was at the end of the road, where the Mornington Peninsula came to a point. It was perched high up on the bluff overlooking the Southern Sea to the southeast. On a clear day, you could see Port Phillip Bay and Melbourne to the Northeast. The historic stone house had been in Tilly’s family for generations. After so many years, the house was worn and possibly a little bohemian and ramshackle, but it would still sell for millions because of the location, the view, and the privacy it afforded.

  Tilly and Tom joked that they’d never in a lifetime be able to buy a home like theirs and were eternally grateful that somewhere down the line, one of Tilly’s ancestors had the foresight to buy the land and build the house. It was truly their own little slice of heaven on earth.

  Despite offers from billionaires to buy the place, they had vowed to live there until their dying day and then donate it to the parks system.

  They’d grown used to the privacy, so if any stranger appeared on the road, it was a bit alarming.

  Most vehicles that drove out to the point turned before the road to Tilly’s house. The signs along the main road clearly marked the exit to the popular beach, even though the beach in front of their house was a public beach as well.

  Sometimes, however, people didn’t pay attention and ended up on the road. It wasn’t private, but it led only to her house and a few places on the way to pull over on the shoulder and enjoy the view. There was one spot where an old wooden staircase led to the beach,

  but it was quite a way down from their house. Sometimes people who missed the turn off for the popular beach, stopped there and walked down the stairs to the shore. Even more rare were the locals who occasionally came and swam at that part of the beach. Usually, if they ventured toward the big stone house, it was only to stretch their legs—they’d walk to where the sand ended at the rocky outcrop and then turn back.

  That’s why when Honey’s bark sounded different—further away—Tilly lifted her head out of the waves to look. She was surprised to see Honey turned away from the shore. Instead of on the beach near the steps leading up to their house, Honey was now down the beach toward the town, facing a grove of thick trees lining the main road.

  Possibly a stranger had stopped on the road above the grove and was looking down at the sea. It was a spectacular view.

  Tilly laid her head back down in the water and kept swimming, but then Honey’s barks took on a ferocious, vicious tone.

  Curious, Tilly flipped over onto her stomach and swam back to shore.

  Her swim to the floating dock would have to wait.

  On shore, Tilly stepped onto the warm sand and shook the water out of her short blonde hair. As she walked, she scooped up her wrap and wiped her face.

  Honey was still barking and now also whining. Out of the water, Tilly could see that Honey wasn’t looking up at the road, but was instead near a clump of rocks at the base of the hill. The beach was narrow at that point, and during high tide, part of that area was submerged, making for a fun place to look at tide pools and examine sea creatures. The tide was low today, and Tilly wondered if some poor creature had been caught on shore.

  One year, when Tilly was an adolescent, a baby seal had become separated from its mother in that spot. The mother had stayed in the water nearby until Tilly’s dad helped steer the baby back to the ocean.

  It had been a very exciting day in Tilly’s life, as she loved seals. She still had a photograph of the baby seal somewhere.

  But Honey, who normally wriggled with excitement and licked small ki
ttens until they fell over, sounded less excited about a fellow creature. She sounded distressed.

  Alarmed, Tilly picked up her pace to a jog.

  When she grew closer, Honey began to whine even louder and looked up at her master.

  At first Tilly wasn’t sure what she was looking at. Expecting some type of sea creature, her brain calculated what she would logically be looking at and for a split second made the leap that the pale, long piece of flesh was a bleached-out eel. But there was something wrong with it. It was shredded at one end—a jumble of torn white and pink and yellow flesh and fat and skin. At the other end was a hand. A small hand.

  Tilly clapped her hand to her mouth in horror.

  1

  Earlier

  Croatia

  To say Shaniqua was disappointed when Rose called to say she wouldn’t be joining her in Dubrovnik for the modeling gig was an understatement.

  The two best friends had popped Champagne and danced around Shaniqua’s Paris apartment when they’d first landed the assignment. The designer’s campaign would feature the two of them on an exclusive beach. They were being paid a million dollars each and would stay in a private, luxurious home with a bevy of staff waiting to fulfill their every desire.

  “I’m sorry,” Rose said in a dull, flat voice.

  Shaniqua closed her mouth. She’d been about to let loose a volley of cursing. They’d been friends long enough and were close enough that she could bitch Rose out and know it would be OK. But her anger deflated instantly when she heard Rose apologize.

  The girl had been through hell and back.

  She deserved to be flaky.

  After a childhood filled with horrific violence, Rose had lost her boyfriend on her eighteenth birthday to a crazed murderer. On top of all that, her father was slowly fading away from Alzheimer’s.

  It was expected that Rose might be acting irrationally.

  And turning down this gig was the height of fucking irrational as far as Shaniqua was concerned.

  “What do I tell them?” she asked Rose in a soft voice.

  “I don’t care.”

  Then her friend hung up.

  It was only two weeks later that Shaniqua realized the extent of Rose going off the rails. At that point, Shaniqua and the replacement girl, a snotty upper-crust redhead from Oxford, had settled into the Croatian mansion.

  She’d hidden in her room from the obnoxious British model, pretending to be tired, but had been binge-watching The Vampire Diaries. The ring of her phone startled her. Nobody she knew actually used their phones to call someone. Only her mom and dad called. She picked up in case they were using someone else’s phone. She was paranoid that way and had been ever since her mom had fallen a few years ago.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Gia.”

  “Hey, Gia.” Shaniqua genuinely liked Rose’s stepmother or mom or dad’s wife or whatever she was.

  Gia had never treated them like babies. She hadn’t pretended to be their friends, but she had always treated them with respect and seemed to really value their opinions.

  “Can you put Rose on the line?”

  Shaniqua froze. Her mouth opened and closed again. What the…? Gia thought Rose was with her.

  “Shaniqua?”

  “Um, sorry. But Rose isn’t here.”

  Gia was silent for a moment. A long moment. Shaniqua closed her eyes, waiting for Gia to speak.

  “You don’t mean she isn’t at the house right now, do you?”

  Gia wasn’t stupid.

  “She called the night before we were supposed to leave and said she wasn’t going,” Shaniqua said. “I thought you knew.”

  “Do you know where she went? She hasn’t answered my calls or texts.”

  “I thought she was staying in Barcelona.”

  “We haven’t seen her since she said goodbye the day before you were supposed to leave,” Gia said. “Her apartment is empty.”

  “Do you think she’s still in Barcelona somewhere?”

  “I’ll find out.”

  And then Gia hung up.

  Shaniqua stared at her phone for a few seconds and then dialed Rose’s number. She’d been sending her texts, mostly pictures of the house and beach in Croatia, but Rose had never responded. She didn’t take it personally.

  The phone rang in her ear and then went to voice mail.

  “Gia just called. You need to let her know what’s going on,” Shaniqua said. “I get not talking to me, but you shouldn’t do that to Gia and your dad. Not cool.”

  2

  Earlier

  Red Hill, Australia

  Maddie May Johnson was excited that Libby Stevens had asked her over that night.

  The two girls had been friends in grade school but had drifted apart. And then in seventh grade, Libby and her mama, Presley, had disappeared. Presley’s dad had up and moved, giving all their belongings to a charity shop.

  Maddie, whose daddy was pastor of the biggest church in town, overheard a few odd things about Libby and her mama during the church socials.

  One time, Maddie May heard the women whispering that maybe Libby’s daddy had killed her and her mama and buried them. But then another woman said that, no, Libby and her mama were living out near the quarry at those cabins that used to be a resort.

  That seemed strange to Maddie May. Why would they leave their nice house in town and go stay in a cabin in the hills?

  But then, when Maddie was only thirteen, she overheard her daddy and mama talking late one night with a visiting pastor from Sydney.

  Hiding in the other room, Maddie heard every word:

  Libby and her mama were living up near the quarry with a bunch of people who worshipped Satan. As soon as Maddie heard this, she clasped her hands together as if she was going to pray. Her mouth grew dry like she was sucking on cotton, and she felt very, very afraid.

  Her daddy preached about Satan and his evils. Now Satan had Libby.

  Looking back now that she was sixteen, Maddie May realized that this night was what had inspired her to create the Jesus club for teens. That was just the nickname her dad gave it. The official name was Teens for Christ. It sounded more refined, Maddie thought.

  Anyway, she was the official leader and was very grateful her life’s mission and purpose had been revealed to her at such a young age. She was put on earth to teach the evils of Satan and bring people to the Lord. Thing was, nobody who came to the club needed to be saved. They were all her Christian friends who worshipped the Lord already.

  That’s why the day she got an email from Libby, she knew that her real life had begun.

  Libby said she’d heard about the club and wanted to talk with Maddie May to find out more. She said she was tired of worshipping Satan and wanted to give Jesus a try.

  It struck Maddie as a little odd to put it that way, but who was she to argue with someone who wanted to learn about the Christ Jesus.

  Not her. She was just happy to share what she knew.

  She invited Libby to a meeting, but Libby said she was not allowed to leave her home up near the quarry. She asked—practically begged—for Maddie May to meet her half way, at the quarry.

  “That way I can sneak out and get back before anyone notices me,” Libby wrote.

  “And please don’t tell your mama and daddy where you’re going. Can it please be our secret? Just for now?”

  Maddie May felt a flicker of guilt for lying to her parents, but only for a few seconds. When they found out she’d lied to save Libby’s soul, they surely wouldn’t be angry with her. She also decided to go along with the lie because she worried they wouldn’t let her go to the quarry at night. But if she told them she was going to Julie’s house down the road, they wouldn’t mind at all.

  Tucking her bible in her small backpack, Maddie May hollered goodbye to her parents and left her house in the dark.

  It took longer than she thought to get to the quarry entrance. By the time she got there, she was slightly annoyed and her feet
hurt. But she sighed and told herself the Lord’s work was never easy.

  At the entrance to the quarry where she was supposed to meet Libby, she didn’t see anyone else. Now that she’d stopped moving, she was a little chilled so she hugged herself, trying to keep warm. To keep the fear away, she started to whistle a little church song. Then she heard something in the bushes.

  “Libby?” she said peering into the darkness.

  There was no answer, but the rustling continued.

  “Libby? Is that you? You’re scaring me.”

  Then a man stepped out of the bushes into the light.

  “Libby will be joining us later.”

  Maddie May frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s okay, Daughter, you don’t need to.”

  “I’m not your daughter,” Maddie May said annoyed. Then she heard another sound—this time behind her—and she whirled, only to come face-to-face with a thick flannel-shirted chest. Before she could react, a hand with a cloth over it clamped down on her mouth.

  When Maddie May awoke, the first thing she thought was that she was out at sea. When her eyes flickered open, all she saw was a vast midnight blue sky above her dotted with more stars than she could count in a lifetime.

  This peaceful vision immediately vanished as she realized she was lying down on the ground with sharp objects underneath her body. She twisted her head, but couldn’t see anything on either side.