“Let’s hope you don’t have to. Okay, let’s recap what we found in the files,” Herne said before swigging his coffee. “All five victims were brutally murdered—overkill, to be precise. And from what the medical examiner said, they were alive when the torture started. Toenails and fingernails were ripped off. Teeth were pulled out. Vocal chords were severed. There were burn marks in the esophagus, indicating that they were forced to drink some form of acid—the ME thinks it was some sort of clog remover. There was lye in it. And they had marks all over their bodies that looked like the killer used a cigarette to burn them. But nothing was quite enough to kill them. That came later.”
I stared at him, horrified. “Good gods. This isn’t just a serial killer, but a sadist, too.”
“Yeah, it looks that way. The timelines are a little hazy, but the victims were still alive after all of that. Then our killer decided to go for broke and cut out their tongues. In all cases, it looks like the victims were still alive. That is, until our psycho decided to remove their hearts. Except their hearts weren’t cut out. It looks like someone smashed through their chests and tore them out.” Herne looked a little green around the gills. I had come to realize that being a god didn’t guarantee an iron stomach or the ability to handle horrific events.
He laid out the photos of the victims, before and after. “Here’s what we have.”
There was a brief silence as we stared at the silent testament to just how far cruelty was willing to go. Finally, Viktor shifted his chair.
“What are the common links?” The half-ogre was staring at the pictures, his face bleak. I recognized the look in him by now. He was a surprisingly sensitive man, and he hated unwarranted suffering.
“They were all mediums, bone witches, or necromancers,” Herne said. “Other than that, the police weren’t able to pinpoint too many connections. Three men, two women. Four were magic-born, but one was a tiger shifter. Three necromancers, a medium—the tiger shifter—and one bone witch. Ages ranged from young—one of the necromancers—to old, again one of the necromancers. They all made their home in Seattle, but only one was born here. Two were married, one divorced, two were single. They didn’t know each other as far as we can tell, but two were loners and the other three each had a circle of family and friends.”
I frowned. That wasn’t a lot to go on. “Did they frequent the same places?”
“That we don’t know yet. The cops were looking into it, but there wasn’t much that they found. There was some overlap, but they didn’t find any common clubs or groups.”
I gathered up the photos, not wanting to look closer but realizing that we needed to examine everything we could. “It might be too late for the earlier victims, but can we get into their homes to look for evidence?”
“I’ll call the families and ask. Talia and Yutani, start researching their backgrounds. See what you can dig up on the net. Yutani, if you have to, go out on the Dark Web. Necromancers often are involved in shady dealings.” Herne glanced at me. “Viktor and Ember, see if you can get into their homes. Make a list of people to interview and head out this afternoon. And all of you, we don’t want this information leaking out. Right now, nobody’s put it together that a serial killer is running around, but it’s only a matter of time.”
“What about me?” Angel asked.
“Your search-engine savvy is good. While we work on this, can you see if you can find any mention of Callan and where he’s hiding? We know Saílle is protecting him right now, but if we can get any clue of where he’s actually hiding…”
“Will do,” she said, looking grateful for the chance to research something a little less gruesome.
“Okay, then, everybody get moving.” After he dismissed the meeting, I followed Angel out to her desk.
“This is a bad one,” she said, shaking her head. “I can feel it, Ember. This one’s a gut-wrencher.” She pulled up a browser and began to type in search words to try to locate Callan. A moment later, she paused, turning to me. “I’m afraid. Not for myself, and not even for you, but this one feels like it could get personal. I don’t know how or why, but it’s coming close to home. Maybe it’s just the energy of Typhon beginning to infiltrate the world. I find myself avoiding driving near graveyards lately, and I keep a watch on the skies, expecting to see something coming in on the horizon.”
I leaned against the post behind her desk. “I understand. I have that same uneasy feeling, and after my vision today, I’m even more leery. Do you know where your fear is lodged? If it’s not you or me, then…maybe just general?”
She frowned, then shrugged. “I don’t know, to be honest. I can only feel it around the periphery. Do you think this has something to do with Typhon?”
I thought about it. “Maybe. But the only link I can make is the fact that all of the victims have been connected to the psychic world, and four of them specifically focused on death magic. Maybe…hey, run a check on the psychic. See if he specialized in any particular direction. He was the tiger shifter, right?”
Angel consulted the files. “Right, Mendin Casey. He was a tiger shifter and he was single. All right. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Okay.” I let out a sigh. “I better get back to my desk. Viktor and I have to head out and check out the list of names. Don’t forget you’ll be going to Marilee’s alone.”
She nodded. “Yeah. But I need you to drive me home. On the way to work this morning, my car blew something, pouring smoke out from under the hood. They still haven’t pinpointed the problem, so I’ll have to take a taxi over to Marilee’s. And before I go, I need to pick up some things from the house.” She paused. “What do you think Morgana wants to talk to you about? I don’t envy you there.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” I said, smiling. “She’s actually pretty cool, for a goddess. Besides, I’m dating her son. She likes me…I think. Or…I hope.”
Chapter Four
Our first stop was Mendin Casey’s house. Mendin had been the tiger shifter, and he lived alone in a small two-story brick house on Kinnear Place in the Queen Anne District. We parked on the street, gazing up at the house, which sat at the top of a sloping yard. A series of concrete steps—probably twenty of them—led to the bottom of the porch, where another flight led to the front door. The yard was impeccably landscaped with tidy ferns, and the lavender and juniper bushes were neatly trimmed.
As we sat in the car, I frowned. Entering a dead man’s house always felt so odd. Especially when the person had lived alone. It was like there was this sudden interruption to life as we knew it. There were always reminders that the deceased had been in the middle of something, and the house always felt heavy with unfinished energy.
“I guess we should go in. The landlady said she’d be waiting for us.” I glanced at my watch. We couldn’t put it off much longer.
“You sure your timing is accurate? You break watches.”
It was true—watches broke around me, but Marilee had taught me a dampening spell so that I didn’t leak so much energy.
“No, I think we’re on time. Let’s go.” I stepped out of the car and smoothed back my hair. I was about as presentable as I was going to look today, and that was the best I could do.
We headed up the front steps. They were steep and cracked, with moss growing between the breaks in the concrete.
“So he was renting the place. I wonder who took care of the yard, Mendin or his landlady,” I said as we headed toward the porch steps. Above the porch was a balcony that opened into what probably was a master bedroom. The brick looked clean, which meant that it had been power washed during the year to blast off the ever-present mold and mildew that permeated the area.
“By the landlady’s tone on the phone, my guess is that Mendin took care of it. She said that nobody has contacted her about his belongings, so I told her we’d send someone to box them up after we look through them. We can keep them while we search for any next of kin. But Mendin was a loner, so I’m not sure how much luck w
e’ll have there.”
The landlady was waiting for us. As we reached the top of the stairs, the door opened. She introduced herself as Leela, and she was younger than I had expected, though I wasn’t sure why I had expected an elderly woman. But the woman standing in front of us looked to be in her forties, and she was thin, with skin that looked like she had lived a hard life. She had wrinkles around her lips in that manner that only smokers get, and she was wearing an old pair of jeans with holes in the knees, and an olive green tank top. Her hair was flame red, curling down to her shoulders.
We showed her our identification and she let us in. Mendin had died in this house, and the blood had saturated the carpet. I blinked, staring at the mess. The house needed a hazmat team. I didn’t want to touch anything.
Viktor gave me a quick look and I shook my head. I wasn’t about to inflict this on the team Viktor had hired to pack up Mendin’s possessions. “We can’t do much about his belongings until you get a cleaning team in here. You’ll need people specifically trained to handle blood and any other…tissue that might be around.” I turned to Leela. “We’ll take a look at his computer system and try to find next of kin, but I’m not authorizing anybody coming in here until that is taken care of.” I pointed to the carpet. “It looks like a blood bomb went off.”
“That’s not my fault, and I shouldn’t have to pay for the cleaning.” She crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes.
“You may not have to,” Viktor said. “The city has a special fund you can apply to if you’ve been affected by a major crime, for things like this—cleaning and car rental and so forth.”
“Well…” Leela gave us a resentful look, then shrugged. “Who do I call to clean up this gorefest? I doubt Milly’s Maids will tackle it.”
“We’ll get you the number of a cleaning company specializing in hazardous waste situations like this.” I looked around, trying to avoid the stained carpet. It might be dry by now, but I had no desire to walk over Mendin’s grave, so to speak. It was likely he’d been killed right in that spot, given the amount of blood. After a moment, I spotted his desk and nudged Viktor with my elbow. “Over there.”
“Right. Come on, if you walk across the sofa, you can avoid the carpet.”
I pushed one of the recliners sitting opposite the sofa back against the wall, leaving a narrow trail around the mess. “Or we can just go this route.” We neared the desk. I glanced over my shoulder at the landlady. “Did he have any pets? Any friends that you know of?”
“Nope, and not that I knew about. Mendin kept to himself and I didn’t intrude. He paid his rent on time, never made any fuss to annoy the neighbors, and he was a good tenant. Steady fellow, even if he was a shifter. I rented him this house about five years ago, and he seemed to settle right in.”
Leela let out a gruff sigh and dropped into one of the chairs on the opposite side of the room. She pulled out a cigarette and, without asking if we minded, lit up. As she sat there, puffing away, I had a sudden picture of her life. She seemed older than her years, hardened by life and tired of coping with everything fate threw her way. She was worn out, and it showed on her face, in her movements, in her energy.
As we approached the desk, Leela said, “I’m not much on his kind, but for someone to do this… I just don’t understand the cruelty of life, you know? I don’t know what the killer did to him, but there’s so much blood… I already talked to the police, but there wasn’t much I could tell them. I live three blocks away, and I wasn’t the one who found him.”
That was the second time she’d made a questionable remark about Mendin’s lineage. I glanced over at her, wondering just how far her distaste extended.
“Who did find him?” Viktor asked.
“He carpooled to work. Tuesday morning, when he didn’t meet them on the street, one of his coworkers came in to find out why he wasn’t answering their texts. The door was unlocked and when the guy opened it, he found him.” She shook her head and went back to her cigarette.
I sat down at the desk. It was one of those simple computer desks, with a hutch over the top. There was a laptop on the desk, along with a few bills, an empty coffee mug that looked like it had been used, a bowl of M&Ms, a framed picture, and not much else. The desk didn’t look like it had been disturbed.
I opened the lid and pressed the power button. It came on so quickly that I realized it had been in sleep mode. And luck was on our side—it wasn’t password-protected.
I glanced at the various apps. Mendin liked to play games, that much was apparent. There were at least two dozen icons for games, most of which I recognized as either role-playing games or first-person shooter games. There were a few puzzle games as well. I opened the folder leading to his documents and scanned the files. A few were labeled as correspondence, but one bore the title “Clients.” I opened that one.
Viktor was watching from behind my back. “You think the killer might be one of his clients?”
I shrugged and glanced over at Leela, who was staring off into space, in her own little world. “Leela, Mendin was a psychic, as well as a computer tech. You know that, right?”
She nodded. “When he first moved in, he and I talked about that. I knew that he told fortunes on the side, or some such thing. I never put any credence in that woo-woo shit, but as long as he paid his rent and didn’t mess up the house, I didn’t care.”
“Did he ever tell you about any of his clients? Were any particularly troublesome?”
She narrowed her eyes, then shrugged. “I have no clue. Like I said, he kept to himself, he paid his rent, and I only dropped over when there was something to fix.” She paused, then added, “I’m not comfortable around Cryptos. No offense intended.”
Any empathy I had for her ended with that. I glanced at Viktor, but kept my mouth shut. We both encountered plenty of prejudice in our lives, and while I’d normally call people on it, I had no stomach for a debate today.
“I see,” was all I said.
“I don’t mean to sound like a bigot, but…you understand.”
“I’m afraid I don’t, being one of those Cryptos myself. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll get back to our work.” To Viktor, I said, “I want to take his laptop with me.”
“All right. You sort through his desk and I’ll take a look through the rest of the house.” Viktor studiously ignored Leela as he answered.
Leela grunted, then heaved herself out of the chair and headed for the door. “I’ll be outside, waiting to lock up.”
“Fine. We’ll be out when we’re done.” I waited till the door shut behind her to explode. “Why do people think it’s all right to say those things to our faces?”
“Because they truly don’t get it. They don’t see why we should be offended when they insult us. It’s stupid, but that’s the way they are. And with people like Leela, I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but it seldom works out in my favor when I do.” Viktor grunted, then shrugged. “Whatever. I’m going to search the rest of the house while you finish here, and then I’ll be upstairs.”
As he left the room, I turned my attention back to the desk. I was sorting through the shelves when I felt someone watching me. Thinking Leela was watching through the window, I turned, but no one was there.
“Hello?” I said, shivering. I waited, but there was no answer. But I could swear someone was standing nearby. “Is that you, Mendin?”
Again, there was no answer, but I felt a stirring in the air. Swallowing, I turned back to the desk. There were a stack of bills marked “Paid,” along with a few cards. I looked through them. They were birthday cards to Mendin. One of them read: I’ll love you forever—Candace.
Who was Candace? I picked up the picture and studied it. Mendin was with a girl, and his arm was draped around her. I turned the frame over and undid the back, popping the picture out. Scrawled across the back of the photo were two names: Mendin and Candy, and it was dated June 8, last year.
I tried to find his phone, but all I found wa
s a spare set of car keys. I pocketed them, then crossed to the stairs and called out to Viktor.
“Did you find his phone?”
“Yes, I’m coming down,” he said. For such a big man, he was surprisingly quiet.
“I think Mendin had a girlfriend named Candace. I wanted to look in his phone to see if she’s listed in his contacts. Did the police mention anything about her in their file?” We had both skimmed the file earlier, but I couldn’t remember if anything about her had been noted.
“I don’t remember. Well, we have his phone. I also cleared out his medicine cabinet of any prescriptions, and I found a notebook next to his bed. It looks like he recorded his dreams so we might find something of use in there.”
“So we’ll take his computer, phone, and a few other things. I’ve gathered up his correspondence and bills.” I paused, then added, “Did you feel anything upstairs? Like someone watching you?”
Viktor shook his head. “No. Why?”
“Because while you were upstairs, I had the distinct sensation that someone was watching me. I asked if anybody was there, and the air seemed to stir. I’m not certain what it was, but I’m thinking it couldn’t hurt to bring in Raven and see if it’s Mendin’s ghost. If so, he might be able to tell us something about his killer.” We were relying more and more on Raven’s abilities when the spirit world came up.
Raven BoneTalker had gone from being a client to being one of Angel’s and my best friends over the past six months. She was a bone witch, and one of the Ante-Fae. The Ante-Fae were the predecessors of both Light and Dark Fae, and every single one had differing powers. Far more powerful than the Fae, the Ante-Fae tended to be capricious and chaotic. Some, like Raven, were good-hearted and fun to hang out with, while others were dark and dangerous. But all of them could be deadly, and few of them lived by society’s rules.
“Are you sure that wouldn’t trigger off bad memories, given Ulstair?” Viktor frowned.
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