“No. And by Rowan’s expression, I’m thinking she can smell them, too,” Carson replied to Lyle.
I sucked in a deep breath and instantly regretted it, but kept my juice down. “Well, time to see what we can.” I flipped the first sheet off.
The body, minus the head, was lying on its side. An ornate, white dress that didn’t fit properly had been stained from the top down. Her hands had been tied in front of her with smooth, white nylon rope. Next to her was a knife, elegantly curved with beading in the handle. It was about ten inches long. Pretty for such a grizzly scene. It had fallen close to the bound hands, as if she’d been holding the blade.
I froze as my eyes went wide. The blade wasn’t just a dagger as Keller described it. No, it was much more. It was an athame–a ceremonial blade. I stared back at the dress and blinked hard as dizziness overwhelmed me. I knew what they’d been trying to do.
Racing over to the next sheet, I flung it off the face. The sight was horrific. Eyes glassed, the throat raggedly torn around the edges where it was wrenched off. Knowing what to search for now, I scanned the edges until I found what I knew was there: a puncture and a half were right on the edge of the tear. The decapitation was a cover up. There was blood all around the girl’s mouth. Too much blood to account for just the beheading. She’d been fed.
The implications were huge. Bigger than my pay grade.
I gazed at Carson to see if he’d come to the same conclusion, hoping he saw some other conclusion I’d missed. “Please tell me I’m wrong,” I whispered.
“What?” Lyle stared back and forth between us. “What am I missing?”
Carson’s eyes were over-bright as he darted his gaze to the different pieces of the gruesome scene. “I don’t know how you could be wrong. This could have only been one thing.” He tried to examine the dress without taking in too much of the neck trauma. “They didn’t do it right, obviously. Bond didn’t take, perhaps?”
“Bond? What ‘bond’ do you mean?” Lyle prodded, his voice rising in irritation. “Would one of you please explain what’s going on?”
I ran my eyes over everything in the room, trying to take inventory for later analysis. “Not now.”
Lyle flung his hands into the air.
I rubbed my arms as I stood. My mouth was dry, and I had to work to form my next words. “Don’t say a word about this scene before we leave–both of you. Please.”
Carson nodded, but his voice was shaking as he whispered, “We’re the only ones who know what to search for here. I suggest we observe in silence and relocate.”
“And then fill me in,” grumbled Lyle.
I swept the room once more. School books and notes cascaded beside the broken desk. Her work was scattered like she was. I knelt down and scanned her final assignment–notes from her different ley classes filled the pages with her hard won insights. She’d created hypotheses on the unsettled lines of the west and east coasts and why no one could resettle there. A paper beside it described the transference of ley energy between a shifter and the line during transformation. Another proposed how, theoretically, ley energy could be stored in the body and manipulated. She had been brilliant. A real rising star.
There were pictures of the last five years of participants in the Cups. Smiling, hopeful faces overlaid with handwritten notes in green asking, Where are they now? Everything was organized and clipped with research in color-coordinated files. She’d been dedicated.
I curled my lips as I stacked the papers together. No one would get to read what she’d stayed home on a Friday night to write.
I focused on the heat in my chest, swallowing the lump in my throat, and moved toward the stairs. “Have you seen enough?”
“More than enough for a lifetime,” Carson said.
“Ditto,” Lyle agreed.
We moved upstairs, and I presented the cops with a face of what I hoped was disinterest. Lyle stalked behind me with a kind of herky-jerky step, far from his usual grace. His eyes were empty and haunted as we exchanged looks. We were used to blood, but not this old. We usually got to take down the bad guy during the action. Satisfying. We were out of our depth here.
Carson held onto the doorframe as we stepped from the landing. He was holding his breath. If we didn’t leave soon, our delicate diplomat was going to blow chunks or pass out.
In the front room, the forensics team waited with Keller. A large, pasty vampire with heavy cheeks that nearly took up his narrow eyes stood next to him in a lab coat. He attempted to untangle himself from the daytime transport compartment his team had brought him in, due to the daytime hours.
His foot got stuck in the compartment, and his brow creased in frustration, but when he caught my eye, he inclined his head to me and straightened himself.
“All yours,” I said with a wave of my hand.
His team started to move, then caught themselves and waited for a nod from their superior. Instead, the lab coat wearing vampire approached us, and Keller was forced to keep stride with him or get left behind. The vampire greeted us with a smile just shy of showing off his canines.
His voice surprised me when he spoke with a pleasantly staccato tone. “I am Doctor Walton, medical examiner assigned to this case.”
I took his extended hand. It enveloped mine easily. I returned his friendly tone, but kept my distance at the handshake. “Doctor Walton, it’s a pleasure. I’m Rowan Brady from Blood Theft, and this is my partner Lyle Kits.” As I stepped back, Carson cleared his throat lightly. “Oh, and this is Carson Holt, visiting expert from up north.” An easier explanation than the truth would be.
Walton nodded at me. “I’ve heard of your impressive work. I am sure you didn’t, but I have to ask everyone: did you disturb anything?”
I smiled reflexively at the compliment. At least someone thought I could do my job. “No, we just looked around. I moved some of her papers but nothing of… her… at all.”
“Very good. Thank you, Agent Brady. I hope we meet again.” He moved toward the door to the basement, but stopped when Keller spoke.
“Find anything?” Keller asked.
“Seems your initial findings correspond with our own, but I’ll follow up as ordered. I’ll send you a copy of my report tomorrow.” Nodding goodbye to Walton, who moved his team to the basement door, I hurried toward the front door. I wanted to be as far away as I could.
“Then I’ll send you a copy of the reports on the other two.”
I froze, and Carson and Lyle almost barreled into my back. I spoke out the door, not trusting my face. “Other two?”
“Yeah. This is the third vic that matches the M.O.” Keller’s voice was full of the smugness I knew would be all over his face.
I turned around, my friends caught between us. “How is it there’s been a serial going on, and no one’s heard anything about it?”
Keller walked across the room until he was right behind Carson and crossed his arms over his chest. Carson’s shoulders tightened. He better keep it together.
“Look,” Keller said, “I’ve been doing my job. The first appeared to be a crazy sex thing gone wrong. The second seemed marginally similar, because that was the first one to lose her head. This was the one that confirmed the pattern.”
I squinted at him. “And you didn’t tell us before going down there?” Throwing up my hands, I stalked outside.
Keller followed close behind, pushing his way past Lyle and Carson. His lips rolled into a smirk. “I wanted fresh eyes down there.” He took a step away from me, further outside. With a deep breath, he changed gears. “I will find the bastard who’s hurting these human girls. I’d appreciate any help you can give.”
I stared at him harder. He was calming, now that he was away from the pheromones. The cleaner air was doing him good, bringing him back to the jerk we all knew and loved, not the Captain Asshole I wanted to punch. Maybe I should suggest everyone breathe outside every ten or so minutes–especially the medical examiner vamp. Breathing all that crap down there was
going to get people twitchy, and twitchy people made bad mistakes.
“Send me those files,” I said, finally. “I’ll let you know what I see. We’ll get him.”
As a group, Carson, Lyle, and I moved through the stares of the crews outside and didn’t stop until we got to my Buick. When I reached for the handle, a whole mess of car doors slammed almost as one. Turning, I watched as about fifteen people stalked away from a variety of cars.
They were all different. Most in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties, but some were older. Nothing should have been off about them, except, as I watched, they each shifted their steps to near lock-step with each other. The effect was palpable, and made the hair on my neck stand in the we-need-to-run-from-those-higher-on-the-food-chain sort of way.
Noticing their formation, I determined they were matching their pace to the chiseled African-American taking over as the head of their group. His eyes were hard, though his motions bore a fluid grace a man his size shouldn’t possess. As if he sensed us watching, he stopped, and his pack did too. He turned in a near circle, searching the area, then fixed his gaze on us. The weight of that stare was heavy. He nodded to us, reached into his pocket, and slipped a blue armband on his right bicep. His group put theirs on too, and, after their leader, they filed into the house. The arm band cinched what they were
“Trackers?” I said.
“Yep. Wolves,” Lyle answered. “Basement is pulling people from all over the building.”
“As long as it gets the bastards found, who cares who does it?”
I waited for Lyle’s sure-to-be witty response, but it never came. Not good. I turned and gave Lyle a hug. By his ear, I whispered, “Do something for me–don’t tell anyone what you heard. Wait for my call before releasing anything major.”
He wrapped his arms around my waist. “I’ve got your back, Ro. Just let me know when and where.”
I squeezed him, then kissed his cheek. Stepping back, I said louder, “Now, get back to work, birdie-boy.”
He laughed and turned to Carson, taking his hand. “Bye, Dudley-Do Right.” Leaning in, he added, “You’d better watch her back in whatever this is.”
Once the doors of my car closed Carson and I in, and we were cut off from prying ears, I found I didn’t know where to start given what we’d just seen.
As I turned to ask his thoughts, I noticed Carson’s face was flushed as he gazed at Lyle’s still-retreating form.
“Carson? Problem?” I asked.
He cleared his throat, and his color deepened. “I don’t mean to be indelicate, but you and your partner…”
I raised an eyebrow. “What about us?”
“Since I’ve gotten to know you–”
“Which has been forty-eight hours or so,” I prompted, my temperature already rising for a fight.
“Yes, I’m not sure how to put this, but… you’re not a touchy-feely girl.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Except with him. Are you two together, and is it appropriate for others on the job to see it where it could be reported back?”
I busted out laughing. The idea was so funny; it was cute.
The red on his face spread until it coated all the way over his ears as he turned away. “I just meant for your job,” he added to the window.
“Carson, I’m sorry, but you have to understand, that’s funny. There is nothing between Lyle and me except friendship and two people who care about their jobs. We couldn’t be a thing even if I wanted to.” I took a deep breath to stop from laughing. “I’m not his type.”
As I stressed the last word, Carson turned back around with overly large eyes. “But he’s an alter.”
“A shifter, yeah, but they have different types, just like everyone else. He and I just like having someone we can watch bad movies and yell at the screen with, without any hidden agendas. We value that as much as our good working partnership.”
Carson shook his head in a visual attempt to clear his brain. I took pity on him and shifted our conversation back to the more important task at hand–the serial killer. “So, three attempts.”
Carson answered in a frail voice. “Three attempts and three failures. This is bordering on psychopathy, even for a renegade.”
I turned the car on and pulled into the street. I pointed us back to I-94, but I wasn’t sure where to go. Frowning, I merged onto the expressway and decided to worry about direction later.
“I’m still on three attempts,” I said. “Someone is trying to make an unwilling scion. Would they even know how? It’s so heavily regulated. No vampire can even attend a ceremony unless they already have a scion.”
“Whoever is doing this clearly has no respect for regulation. It’s almost… desperate. Assuming that this isn’t the work of a fundamentally broken mind, we’ll have to begin with the question ‘why?’ What would be the purpose in an unregistered and unwilling scion? Seems one would be a greater liability than anything.”
“There’re several reasons I could think of, none of them good. The best case scenario is just one vampire trying to make what he can’t afford.” I glanced at Carson. “I’ve been told we’re expensive to maintain, let alone get the registration and permit for.”
“An unregistered and untested scion would be like an albatross around one’s neck. Whatever benefit he–or she–would gain by having a psychic-bonded companion would be offset by the sheer burden of hiding her. A regular blood source, perhaps, but given the carnage back there, I don’t think this particular criminal is concerned with his source of blood.”
What else but food did I give Devon, though? Ice rolled down my spine. “An unregistered scion, once bonded, could become the ultimate alibi and, depending on the person, assassin. The original idea of a scion was more than a blood source–someone the vampire could work through, sometimes wholly, during the sunlight hours. Without registration, if caught, the vampire wouldn’t be traceable to the crime.”
“That kind of pretext implies a coordinated effort. If that’s the motivation, then we’re not dealing with a crazed lunatic. I don’t know what’s worse, to be honest.”
“Bad thing: it isn’t the worst scenario I can think of.”
“Well, unless you have a psychic in your black book who can sniff out vampires, it appears there’s little more to do than wait for those files.” Carson blinked and peered over at me. “You don’t… happen to have one?”
“Several, but unless the ghosts they work with were haunting this particular basement, I’m not sure it will be a lot of help. But they are unimaginably useful for recon work.” I snapped my head up. “You may be on to something, though.”
“I’m full of helpful ideas, aren’t I? So, what’s our next move?”
I clicked the button on the steering wheel as I took a hard–and illegal–U-turn to go west on the interstate, back into the city. The car chimed at us, prompting me to speak. “Call Blueboy.”
Carson gave me a confused look as he grasped the handle above his head until Lyle’s voice filled the car’s speakers.
“Solved it already? What have you got for me?” my partner asked.
“I wish. Could you call Norman for me? Get him on Keller’s list as a consultant and get him to the crime scene ASAP. We need him and his gang to search around and do any witness interviews Keller’s people can’t.”
“You don’t think they’d have thought to bring someone?”
“The way Keller and his lackeys feel about prets, not a chance. The energy frenzy will be dissipating fast, so get him there now.”
“I’ll bring him in personally. You know how sensitive he gets.”
“Yeah, tell him I’ll buy him a burger later for it. Then bring him to Devon. Don’t let him report to Keller. In fact, pay him through our department, so he has to report to me first. Bring him to Devon’s when he’s done. I’ll work there this afternoon after I grab some stuff downtown.”
“Really?” I could hear the thousands of questions resonating in that one word from my pa
rtner.
“Safer for Will. Oh and Lyle…” I let the silence hang there long enough for him to prompt me again. I took a deep breath and finished. “Curtis is back.” I punched the button to end the call. I glanced at Carson, and veered the car to take the next off ramp. “Time to go back to the place we first met.”
arson sat in silence most of the way into the CBD as I maintained a steel grip on the steering wheel. His desire to say something was obvious, but the shadows of the suburban wind mills had turned into the shadows of high-rise buildings, cloaking the car in false twilight before he nodded to himself and cleared his throat.
“I’m not trying to be nosy.” He put up his hands in surrender. “I’m truly not. But this Curtis fellow… is he anything I need to worry about?”
I turned into the DEC’s employee lot sharper than I needed to and pressed the pulse pass on the dash, so the gate would be open as I slid past. How did I explain Curtis? How does someone explain ten years of friendship and love crashing down around you in a moment?
“He’s my ex,” I began. It was the simplest explanation, but far from the actual truth I knew Carson was asking for. I drove through the lot, solar panels streaking by over our heads while the artificial lights painted lines across our faces. I took a deep breath. “We were very close until Devon. Very close. He didn’t approve of my decision to become a scion, and made his feelings loudly and violently clear on my ceremony day. He made threats and then left town.”
Carson nodded. “That’s how it tends to work, isn’t it? Those who don’t leave you during the tests end up having a problem once you take the bond. And we know it, somehow. We know when we make the choice to pursue scionship that we’ll end our normal relationships. Eventually, they’ll all end.” I stiffened, and he shook his head. “You know I’m a grandfather? Three grandchildren. All girls. The oldest is about to enter college.” He sighed. “I’ve never met them.”
I pulled the key from the ignition. He all but bolted from the car once we stopped, leaving me alone with my thoughts. How a vampire’s long life affected their scion was something I’d wondered about for three years–and a subject Devon kept dodging. Thoughts of Will growing older than I physically appeared and moving away swam in my head.
Of Scions and Men Page 10