Nightstorm (Nightwraith Book 3)

by Gaja J. Kos

  Holding my breath, I padded over to the bushes clustered a short distance to the left from where the van had been stationed. The branches were broken and trampled, and given how fresh the marks looked, it made me think the girl must have put up quite a struggle. But despite the brief elation I felt at the strength she’d exhibited, it was what lay on the ground that drew my attention and whisked all other thoughts away.

  I knelt down and gently pushed aside a leafy branch.

  Tucked in the undergrowth was a silver pendant with a black stone sitting in its middle like some vicious, conniving eye.

  Chapter 12

  I texted one of my mother’s demons to pass on the message that I was working on Tevan’s case, then lingered in the background while Caz and a group of men in uniform crawled like ants all over the scene—quick but precise.

  Naturally, he’d benched me the instant he got here. Although he did bark a command that he would question me personally once a policeman sauntered too close to where I was standing, our interaction was painfully brief. He gave me only the smallest of grunts once I told him what happened and pointed him in the direction of the amulet, then strode off as if he couldn’t stand to be in my presence a single second longer.

  Frankly, I was glad I took a photo of the pendant before the police arrived. I had a suspicion I wasn’t going to get another look at it anytime soon.

  My fingers itched for the feel of a cigarette between them. It was one of the vices I had to give up since stubs were such an exceptional breeding place for DNA, and trying not to smoke on a job was infinitely harder if you did so regularly otherwise. But as I was forced to wait on the sidelines with nothing but my thoughts keeping me company, I would have given my eyeteeth for one.

  It was ridiculous how badly I wanted Caz to at least look at me. Shit, I understood the utter dedication to the job. He was busy coordinating the search and really didn’t have time to squeeze in personal matters. But the treacherous longing was still there. It clawed at me with an unyielding desire to shred apart that last bit of composure I still held on to. And, right now, I felt like I was losing the fight.

  Needing to keep myself busy, I scanned the crowd that had started to gather beyond the tape—probably where I would have been, too, if Caz sending me away wouldn’t attract too much attention from his work buddies. Quite a few gawkers had trickled in over the past fifteen minutes or so, but the number was small enough that I could scan each of them individually. There was always a chance a creep would return to feed on the rush of seeing their own crime—even if it was a kidnapping. But from what I was sensing, the people were all human and none of them had that air of vileness lurking about that I’d come to associate with the less than savory representatives of the world’s population.

  I sighed. This was certainly turning out to be one spectacular shit of a night.

  “Lena,” Caz called out from behind.

  My heart did a little stutter when I noticed the anger in his voice was gone, but I didn’t allow myself to get my hopes up just yet. “Yeah?”

  “The techs need to do another sweep of the scene, but we’re headed back to the station.” He strode over, car keys jingling in his hand. “You haven’t figured out why the amulet seemed familiar yet, right?”

  I shook my head.

  “All right, then we’ll start there.” He marched past me and towards the tape strung around the parking lot, lifting it up with one hand. “Well, are you coming or not?”

  The drive back was uncomfortable, to say the least. Caz and I sat in silence, only the crackling of the police radio blabbering on at irregular intervals. Covertly, I studied his face in the flickering lights and shadows that flashed as we sped down the road, noting that yes, he was still very much pissed.

  Closing my eyes for a moment, I allowed myself a silent groan.

  This was why I didn’t want to get tangled up with anybody. It was just too complicated. A roll in the sack, a night well spent, and no strings attached to drive daggers of guilt into my flesh never made me feel so rotten. Like a part of me was withering with every second this tension lingered between us.

  To say it as plainly as possible, this sucked.

  No wonder I steered the fuck away from relationships. Squabbles with my mother were manageable, if unpleasant, but this thing with Caz…

  It hurt enough to make me want to cry. Not because he was giving me the cold treatment, but because my actions had put him in such a state in the first place.

  I had no idea how to make it better between us, but I knew I had to try.

  “I wanted to go to Velvet to clear my mind, Caz. But I stopped even before I got there,” I said, hating how weak, how small my voice sounded.

  I cleared my throat and tried again. Not that there was any rush, since the Perelesnyk seemed dead set on holding his silence.

  “Look, I was a major ass, and I’m sorry. I really am. Halfway to Velvet I realized a night of sweaty sex with a stranger wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t who I wanted. I turned around, but that’s when I heard the scream and, well, you know the rest.”

  “Lena, you don’t have to apologize. You do what you do. We’re not bound, we’re not even dating, and we’re certainly not exclusive.”

  It should have been precisely what I wanted to hear, but his words slapped me in my face. Hard.

  “I overreacted because I felt like an asshole for wanting something you can’t give. I guess I was pissed that you’d rather go and find a new toy to fuck your brains out and prove a point than just to say no to me outright. I wouldn’t have pressed you, you know, if you told me to back off. I’m not that kind of a jerk.”

  “That’s not what—”

  “Really, let’s just forget about this whole mess and focus on the case.” His gaze flickered over to me. “Truce?”

  “Truce,” I replied. But the word tasted surprisingly bitter.

  Back at the precinct, I was slightly stunned by just how many men in blue Kranjska Gora actually had in its midst. It was a remarkably small town, as was the precinct proper, and yet the bustle of voices and flutter of movement were as lively as in any city. Although infinitely more pleasant somehow.

  I snorted at myself. Police. Pleasant. Right, those were two words that rarely went hand in hand. But at the same time, I couldn’t help marveling at the easy atmosphere.

  Being a lone hunter, I rarely saw what other work environments were like. Infiltrating a company to off one of their employers or bosses hardly counted, and bounty hunters, while aware of each other, had no guild or anything of the sort. Not even a social club to chat about new means of murder over drinks.

  So I stayed a couple of steps behind Caz and took it all in.

  The guys and gals greeted Caz, quick, witty exchanges filled with humor I knew all too well, but had no one to share with—the remarks that kept us sane in light of the loss and horrors we surrounded ourselves with. That took off some of the burden. I might be a contract killer who looked at death as something I sought to bring, not prevent, but the stories of the people who hired me still echoed in my mind as vividly as any nightmare.

  “Screw you, man,” a plain-clothes cop said once Caz pulled up a chair for me and set it by his side. “Why is it that when I have to work with someone from the outside they always look like some gnarled bear the sewers spat out?”

  “Like calls to like, Bilgam,” Caz shot back, the tint of humor making his voice even richer. “Thought you’d look into a mirror by now.”

  “The damned thing would probably crack,” another mumbled from two desks away.

  I hid away a chuckle as mock outrage swept across Bilgam’s features, then quickly turned into something coy as the man who spoke earlier strode over.

  “Probably why they assigned you as my partner, Trev,” Bilgam drawled. “Wouldn’t want some poor bloke getting cut up every time you checked the rearview mirror.”

  “Yeah.” Trev grinned. “A few more scars hardly make a difference with us.”

>   Both of them did sport quite a few lines and patches of scar tissue I’d sooner associate with supes leading the rough life than humans. But that’s what they were. Completely and utterly human.

  I studied them for a moment longer. Despite their comments, the marks didn’t make them any less handsome. But they did give off an air of a past best left in the dark.

  Not that they had any intention to, as was evident from the remarks they kept shooting at one another.

  A smile teased my lips. These guys weren’t like the polished asses I’d had run-ins with throughout the years. They’d seen their fair share of horrors, and they came out of them with matching grins. It kind of made me like them far more than was proper for someone of my profession.

  And Caz, it seemed, harbored the same flavor of silent respect for the pair. There was a light in his eyes, indicating these two were more than just coworkers. They were friends.

  Even if he was keeping the dragon locked away in their presence, Caz wasn’t hiding his true nature. Not really.

  “What?” he asked when he saw me staring.

  “Nothing.” I smiled. Everything.

  Seeing him here, seeing this side of him… It made me realize that I wanted more. More glimpses into who he was, more of that humor that wove through the precinct like a breeze. I wanted to be a part of it. A part of his life.

  Although the question remained, was I willing to share mine?

  Just as I opened my mouth to say gods knew what, Caz’s stationary phone rang.

  He brought the receiver to his ear. “Detective Zeman.”

  The entire room seemed to go still as his features darkened, the silence thick enough that it made me think I wasn’t the only one holding my breath.

  “We’ll be there in ten.”

  He slammed the phone down and exploded out of his chair, the phantom wind and faint pulse of his energy lifting me off my seat right along with him.

  “Bilgam, Trev, you’re with us. Call in the tech team from Jesenice, as well. We’ll need the extra men.”

  “On it,” Bilgam said at once, and I turned to Caz, mind bursting with questions I never got to ask.

  “The missing girls,” he growled. “The local rangers have found them.”

  Chapter 13

  Jasna Lake was a gem, resting just a short drive from Kranjska Gora and tucked in the embrace of nearly untouched nature. An achievement all on its own, considering the sheer popularity of the area.

  But the beauty of it did nothing more than brush the farthest edges of my awareness in light of the grisly scene spread out before me.

  Seven nude bodies were strung up on the hulking trees, their arms and legs caught in rope and spread wide, bloodied, empty eye sockets gazing blankly into the distance.

  Everything about the display screamed of a ritualistic killing, but it wasn’t one I’d ever come across before.

  A uniform was puking out his guts in the nearby brush, the majority of the people on scene looking like they were about to join him any time now. Only Bilgam, Trev, Caz, and I were standing so close to the victims we could see every sinister detail of the wounds inflicted on their bodies. And I had to admit, it was horrifying enough to make me want to turn the other way.

  I breathed through my mouth, struggling to block the stench of feces and blood that made it painfully clear the girls had still been very much alive when they had been brought here. Alive when the bastards had made mush out of their eyes, then drove a dagger straight into their hearts. Sick. All of this was sick.

  It was demonkind that was supposed to be the stuff made of nightmares, but what did that say for the creeps that fed on our power only to go on and do this… I’d seen more disturbed shit in my lifetime than was healthy to remember, but this level of depravity was new even for me.

  I rubbed my hands down my arms, trying to scatter the chill. It stayed.

  Once Trev finished taking the last of the photos, he motioned us to cross that last stretch of space still separating us from the brutal display of death. I wanted to turn on my heel and drive to the nearest bar for a heady dose of vodka to wash down the foul taste in my mouth. Instead, I pulled on a pair of gloves and began the gruesome examination.

  Wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong, a voice in my head kept saying as I carefully dealt with each of the seven girls, taking note of the bruises and cuts, the caked blood plastered to the insides of their thighs. All the while my magic probed them in a different manner. A sigh of relief slipped from my lips when I noticed they hadn’t been injected with anything demonic, but the sensation was weak, only a bare whisper in light of the anger that surged for all they had been forced to suffer.

  I took a few steps back to observe the sight from afar once more. Definitely ritualistic. And with that pendant I’d found…

  “Caz?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, then walked up to me when I tilted my head to the side.

  We wandered far enough away to get out of human earshot, and once nothing surrounded us but that fetid smell of death and vomit, I said, “The girls—I think they might be an offering.”

  “A sacrifice?” He looked about as worn as I felt, but his gaze was nothing but sharp determination to find—and end—the people responsible.

  “I have a friend who could tell us more. If I can show her some photos of the crime scene and the pendant, she just might be able to point us in the right direction.”

  I knew I was breaking protocol—asking Caz to break it, too—but when humans dealt with crimes that reeked of the supernatural, it was hard to play by the rules and win.

  Still, his brisk reply surprised me.

  “You want to go now?”

  I glanced at the girls, at the lives that had been so brutally wrenched from their bodies…

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “Yeah, I want to go now.”

  Caz didn’t say anything more. He simply stripped down his gloves, as I did mine, and handed me his car keys. Our fingers brushed lightly at the exchange, and something in his gaze softened.

  “I’ll catch a ride back with the boys and email you the photos. Take care, Lena,” he whispered.

  “You, too.” I clutched the keys tighter, almost wanting to walk away, then said, “Meet you at your place later?”

  Warmth caressed the corners of his eyes. “I’ll have the vodka ready.”

  In that moment, I couldn’t have loved him more.

  By the time I reached Sam’s place on the northern outskirts of Ljubljana, some of the vileness clinging to my skin had subsided. The images, however, remained, those seven mutilated bodies as vivid in my mind as if I were still standing by the lake, nothing but the thin veil of night between us.

  I let loose a breath. I hated bringing more nightmares into Sam’s life. The gods knew she’d seen enough in the Vesnin community she’d grown up in, but the way the victims were displayed seemed too important to simply describe with carefully chosen words. Sam had a wicked eye for details, and right now, we desperately needed someone who would point out an obvious clue and make all of us feel like assholes for not spotting it sooner.

  The night was dark and more than a little chilly as I climbed out of Caz’s Wrangler and up the winding path leading to a massive, three-story house. It didn’t look like much on the outside, but once you ventured inside… Libraries had nothing on the impressive collection of tomes Sam had gathered over the years. The majority of them were on the supernatural and the occult, forming a merged vault of reality and fables.

  Given the majority of us were nothing but myth to the human population, her approach kind of made sense. Every tale, as incredible or as impossible as it sounded, carried a dash of truth in its core. And Sam—well, she made it her personal calling to filter out those grains and construct an encyclopedia of her own on the supernatural.

  Kind of neat, when you thought about it. Strengths, weaknesses, histories, and possibilities. Even the rare studies made on the scientific aspects of our kind.

  Unfortunately, too fe
w people shared my enthusiasm for common knowledge regarding the non-human population. Or at least the idea of such easy access to it.

  So Sam kept her life’s work hushed as she continued to gain data, loaning her healing abilities to various groups and getting them to cough up info as payment. It was how we got tangled up back when I was nineteen—and nearly ended up disemboweled by a mean-looking Glawackus who’d wandered a little too far away from home.

  Sam had still been living with her coven then and luckily found me on one of her nightly strolls through the woods. She patched me up that night with the invitation to meet again the following day. Unlike her usual approach, she’d tried to seduce a fair share of information on Nightwraiths out of me. I saw through her games, but told her everything anyway, then let her go on with her plan just for the fun of it.

  It was a weird start that provided for a lovely night of harmless pleasure, but in the long run, it set the foundation for a spectacular friendship. The kind that persevered even when our work kept us apart for months at a time.

  “Hello there, Samuan, darling,” I purred as Sam cracked open the door, her dyed teal hair jutting in every direction like she’d been running her hand through it over and over again.

  Which, judging by the fragrance of coffee clinging to her skin and the antique glasses perched low on her nose, was precisely what she’d been doing. Sam never could keep still while conducting research.

  “Ah, the Great Lenowitz, what brings you to my door?” she purred right back at me, a wicked grin dimpling her freckled cheeks.

  I gave her a fierce hug, only now realizing just how damn long it’d been since I’d last seen her. I missed her quirkiness and sharp mind. Missed her company. Unfortunately, that wave of warmth glowing between us died down as soon as a single word left my lips.

  “Murder.”