Killer Moon

by Hermione Stark

  I take a seat and put India’s bottle of wolfsbane potion on the table so that I do not forget to give it to her. It is wrapped securely in a brown paper bag.

  The couple have left their newspaper behind. It is a free edition of the Metro that I usually read on the bus on the way in to work in the mornings, but today I had fallen asleep while scanning a manual on using crystals to unlock the psychic mind. The manual hadn’t been of much help for my particular problem anyway. I turn over the newspaper to take a look at the front page.

  The headline screams, ‘Police Cover-up As Wolf-Claw Strikes Again!’

  My heart goes from sluggish to pounding in a second flat. I quickly scour the column. The article speculates that a crime scene had been cordoned off in Shoreditch yesterday evening and Special Agents from the Agency of Otherkind Investigations had been seen arriving at the scene.

  The article has a frustrating lack of any real information. Mostly it recaps the timing and details of the previous murders and speculates that another was overdue. It says that the London Met Police are cooperating closely with the Agency.

  The Agency. I wonder if that means Storm’s team.

  On the front page of the paper are the images of the girls that the werewolf had savaged to death - ranging from age fifteen to eighteen, all similar looking with their sweet features and hair in varying degrees of blond.

  If I’d had my psychic powers, would I have dreamed of them? Could I have saved any of them? Have I made the wrong choice by choosing to keep wearing Theo’s amulet? These are the thoughts that haunt me every time I see this news story.

  I turn over the page, and find a grainy black and white photo on the second page. It was taken at night, and shows the Special Agents working at the scene of the crime. My pulse rockets when I spot Storm. The picture is too grainy and the figure too distant to really tell for sure that it is him, but I know it is.

  If Storm is there then it has to be another Wolf-Claw Kill. Not that any of the team have contacted me to let me know if they are working the Wolf-Claw case, but I have no doubt that they will be. Storm’s team is the Agency’s top team for murders involving otherkind. It makes sense they would be working this case.

  It stings that Storm hasn’t even messaged me about it. It has been three weeks since I practically solved the copycat Devil Claw case on my own, and the chief had agreed that Storm could continue to hire me as a consultant on a case-by-case basis, but Storm hasn’t called me once. Not once.

  Oh, I had gone for dinner with the team that Monday after catching the killer. It had been like a little celebration for a case closed, but no other dinner invitations had been forthcoming. Not even from Remi.

  I sigh. I should probably be glad. If Storm called me I would have to tell him my psychic powers are on the blink, and then he might never call me again. I am still hoping I will have them sorted before he makes that call. I have to get them sorted. I will get them sorted. I will. Because I need to work for the Agency if I am ever going to catch the Devil Claw Killer and make him suffer for what he did to my mother.

  The café’s door opens and a swift breeze rushes in with a bunch of new customers. I glance up hoping to see India, but she is not among them. I check the time on my phone. She is twenty-five minutes late. That’s nearly half my lunch hour gone. I feel a twinge of disappointment. Something has no doubt held her up. I can’t wait for her much longer. I flag down a waitress and order a panini and a tea.

  After eating it I find myself yawning again. I decide to rest my head on the table for a few minutes, and next thing I know I am raising my head from the table and blinking blearily and realizing it is ten past two. Not only is my lunch hour over, but I should have been back at the office ten minutes ago!

  Swallowing my disappointment that India never turned up, I grab India’s wolfsbane potion and run back to the shop.

  The front door of Grimshaw’s is still locked, just as I had left it. Either Theo has not come down or he is pottering around his workshop working on some new project. Unlocking the door, I let myself in.

  A man follows me in, so close at my heels that he must have been just outside. And yet I had not noticed him.

  “Diana Bellona?” he says.

  I turn to him in surprise, feeling totally creeped out that he knows my name. I’ve never told my full name to anyone, not even the regulars, and he is not one of them.

  “Maybe. How can I help?”

  The man is of average height, a couple of inches shy of six feet, with muddy brown hair and a day or two’s worth of stubble on his cheeks. Early thirties maybe, and wearing smart-casual clothes that are more rumpled than smart. He might have come into the store before, but I can’t be sure.

  “You’re a friend of India Lawrenson, are you?” he says.

  I frown at him. Did she send him? “Yeah, I know India. Why?”

  “Yes or no?” he demands.

  “I can’t see how it is any of your business.” I know that my attitude isn’t endearing me to him, but neither is his making me like him much at all.

  He gives me a smile that isn’t much of a smile. “Didn’t you just have lunch with her?”

  How the hell does he know about that?

  I find myself reaching into my bag for the wolfsbane-dipped dart that Theo had given me. I could jab him with it right now and he wouldn’t see it coming. Except I’ll look a damn fool if he is just some harmless human. And if I do it here, they’ll know I got the dart from Theo and he might be in a bunch of trouble for using magic against an unarmed human.

  Goddamn hyperactive mind! Times like this I wish the little voice in my head, Nemesis, were still here. She would know what to do.

  I retreat to behind the relative safety of the counter before withdrawing my hand from my satchel. I place a finger on the discrete alarm button that will have Theo here in a flash if I press it. Theo, an experienced wizard in his forties, will make mince meat of this guy.

  I fix a polite smile on my face and switch to a more conciliatory bland tone. “I’m sorry. Who are you?” I ask.

  “Detective Inspector Brynden Zael, Metropolitan Police.” He shows me his police badge. It looks real. I should be reassured, but it just makes me feel even more on edge. My guilty conscience I suppose.

  But I haven’t done anything, and I’d damn well better act like it. “Is India alright?” I ask. “Did something happen to her?”

  “Why would you think something happened to her?”

  “Because she was supposed to meet me for lunch and she didn’t show up.”

  “Didn’t she?”

  “That’s what I just said.”

  He takes out a notebook and pen. “Where and when were you supposed to meet her?”

  “Just now. At Frannie’s café around the corner at one o’ clock. Can you please tell me why you are here?”

  He ignores my question. He is noting down the things I am saying. “How do you know India Lawrenson?”

  “She came into the store yesterday.”

  He raises a skeptical eyebrow. “You met her yesterday for the first time and decided to have lunch?”

  “She was nice. And she lives in my neighborhood. We’re both new-ish to London so we thought it would be nice to have lunch.”

  “And where were you on Friday night?”

  “What time? At six I started work at Luca’s in Notting Hill. It’s an Italian restaurant. I finished at quarter past twelve and walked home. I live not too far from it. Then I went to bed.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmmm,” he says.

  “Why did you need to know?” I ask. It sounded like he was asking me for an alibi, which is really freaking me out. My voice rises an octave as I say, “Are you going to tell me if India is okay or not? Was it the Wolf-Claw Killer?”

  That super-malleable eyebrow of his rises again. “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because the newspapers said there was another one last night in Shoreditch. India tol
d me she was going to Shoreditch for her friend’s birthday party. And India’s blond like the other victims.”

  “So you knew all about where India and her friend would be last night, hmm? Quite the little detective.”

  “Yes, if you must know,” I snap, losing my patience with the buffoon. “I work with the Agency of Otherkind Investigations as a consultant sometimes.”

  “You?” he sneers. He looks me up and down, and doesn't seem much impressed with what he is seeing.

  “Yes me. As a psychic.”

  “Really? And what can your psychic skills tell me about the current whereabouts of India Lawrenson?”

  “Nothing,” I say, seething now. “It doesn't work like that.”

  “If it works at all.”

  That stings. Especially since what he says is true. I should never have mentioned it. “Are you going to tell me what happened to India,” I demand, “Or do I need to call Agent Storm?”

  “You know Agent Storm?” He looks mightily peeved at the mention of Storm’s name.

  “Yes,” I say smugly. “He’s the one I work for.”

  “Then where were you yesterday evening? I didn’t see you at the crime scene.”

  The smug bastard. He’s got me there. I give him a smile that barely conceals my gritted teeth. “I’m not going to answer any more of your questions. I think I’ll call Agent Storm first.”

  “Look here, girlie,” he snaps. “I am a Detective Inspector from Scotland Yard, and if I have questions, you’ll answer them.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Your questions don’t seem to be doing either of us much good.”

  “I don’t appreciate your attitude! There is a girl dead and her best friend is missing. Where is your respect?”

  A girl is dead. Suddenly I feel the need to sit down, but I stay where I am, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. “Is it Rachel who is dead?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because you asked me where India was. She must be the one who is missing.”

  “It sounds to me like you know more than you are letting on. Your name was on her wall calendar. Why did she want to meet up with you today? Were you in it together? If you know where she is, you had better tell me this instant!”

  “I don’t know where she is.”

  “Some psychic you are,” he says scathingly. “Or maybe you’re just a liar. I think you had better come with me.”

  Chapter 5

  DIANA

  I really really do not want to go with Detective Inspector Zael. I have a feeling he will throw me into a cell somewhere and I might not see daylight for days. Heck, what if the human police decide to search me? What if they see my navelstone? What if the whole thing escalates into some awful scenario far beyond what it is now?

  The rush of adrenalin surging through my body is making me tremble, and I am doing my best not to let him see it. My finger hovers over the secret alarm button, wondering whether to summon Theo. But what could he do? DI Zael is a police inspector. Even Theo can’t get me out of this. And it might make matters worse.

  I don’t want Zael to think Theo is involved. I don’t want to give him a reason to shut down Theo’s magic shop. Zael looks like he would do it in a heartbeat.

  “Okay, just let me tell my boss and use the ladies,” I tell Zael.

  “Be quick about it,” he snaps.

  I walk into the passageway behind the counter that leads to Theo’s workshop and his apartment. As soon as I am out of earshot of DI Zael, I call Storm. I tell him what has happened. Storm sounds busy, like he doesn't have time to talk.

  This is not how I imagine our first call in three weeks would go. Our conversation is far too hurried and urgent for me to feel any of the butterflies I had expected to feel given that I had been dying for an excuse to hear his voice.

  I hang up, and a minute later Storm calls DI Zael. I hear DI Zael’s phone ring, and I head back out to the store front.

  DI Zael looks furious when he has got off the phone to Storm. “You had better be there at Agency Headquarters at 4:00 pm sharp missy, or you’ll have me to answer to,” he says as a parting shot.

  By 3:00 pm Theo has finally made his way down to the store, nattily dressed in his usual brown tweedy suit that he somehow manages to look perfectly good in. I explain the situation to him. He agrees to take care of Beastie while I head out.

  “And I promised Mozz I would play a game with her, but she seems to have disappeared for a bit. Can you tell her I had to leave?”

  Theo does his best not to smile. “She really has got you under her thumb. She’s probably forgotten already.”

  “She hasn’t. She remembers these things.”

  “I’ll tell her,” he says, a twinkle in his eyes.

  AngelBeastie follows me to the door, rubbing my ankles, and then meowing ferociously when it becomes clear I have no intention of taking her with me. She finally hisses at me in disgust and retires to her spot atop the bookshelves, no doubt to mull over some way to punish me later.

  I arrive at Agency Headquarters with only a few minutes to spare. The receptionist gives me the directions to the incident room, which I find not far from Storm’s office. Storm is in there with his team — Agents Leo Kane, Remi Bronwyn and Aiden Monroe — along with Detective Inspector Zael and some other guy I have not yet met.

  I pause outside the glass walled office and take a moment to appreciate Storm. The man looks like he has stepped out of a fashion magazine spread called Detective Style. It’s more to do with his good looks and athletic grace than to do with time spend in front of the mirror. Someone should carve him in marble for posterity. Hell, if we’re dishing out wishes, can someone let me start by running my fingers though that cropped black hair of his and rumple it a bit. He is too tasty to look so perfect all the time.

  He looks especially perfect as he faces off with the obnoxious DI Zael. The two are having a heated discussion about something. Remi sees me and she waves at me to come in. I ease myself into the room and shut the door behind me quietly.

  “Clearly this India girl has killed her friend and run off!” DI Zael is insisting. “She’s a werewolf. The girls must have argued about something or other. The werewolf lost her temper and killed her human friend. That poor girl Rachel never stood a chance!”

  “They were foster sisters,” says Storm. “It’s unlikely that India would have accidentally killed Rachel after all these years.”

  “They were drinking for hours,” says DI Zael. “Maybe she got into a drunken rage.”

  “And where is she supposed to have got the murder weapon from?” says Remi. “Do you suppose she was carrying a butcher knife in her handbag?”

  “Agent Bronwyn is right,” says Leo. “This looks like a planned crime. Not a crime of passion.”

  “This is supposed to be a joint task force!” DI Zael snaps. “But it looks to me like you are running away with your own theories.”

  “That is not our intention here,” says Storm in a reasonable voice. “We have every intention of cooperating with your team, but you have to accept that we are more experienced and better equipped to handle crimes involving otherkind.”

  “And we’re more experience handling crimes involving humans,” says the young police guy standing staunchly beside DI Zael. “Rachel Garrett’s uncle is the mayor of her home town, and he requested a joint task force for this investigation. It won’t look good if you try to push us out.”

  “With all due respect, Sergeant Lowry,” says Remi tersely. “Rachel Garrett’s uncle is also India Lawrenson’s uncle. And Agent Storm has just said nobody is trying to push you out.”

  “Foster uncle,” says Sergeant Lowry. “It’s not the same.”

  “We’re wasting time debating this while the murderer is getting away,” says DI Zael. “There’s no sign of India Lawrenson. She is clearly on the run.”

  His words infuriate me. India had been so excited about Rachel’s birthday just three days ago. She’d been so careful ab
out choosing the right gift. And now Rachel is dead and India is missing and this buffoon is intent on calling her a murderer without a shred of proof!

  “How do you know India isn’t a victim too?” I snap. “How do you know she isn’t out there somewhere, scared and alone and desperate for help? Or dying? Or dead!” My voice rises to the verge of hysteria at the last word. India can’t be dead. She can’t be. I’d told her to stay safe like it was a joke.