by C. M. Cevis
Nina shifted from her position against the wall, and Willow braced herself for something that was going to piss her off.
“And you? What can you do that’s different from that?” the captain asked. Willow smirked, and in a blink, she was almost nose to nose with Nina. Willow heard the sound of chairs scraping against the floor as officer leapt to their feet, but it didn’t matter. Their desire to protect their captain was admirable, but unnecessary. Willow had no intentions of hurting her.
Willow’s skin came in contact with Nina’s, and Nina’s world for the last few months downloaded into Willow’s consciousness. It was easier to show how Willow was different from other clairvoyants than by trying to explain it. While palmists got hints of the future, Willow could see the past as well. It was akin to mind reading, but not as real-time. To most who had secrets in their past, it made her dangerous.
It was during their brief contact that she finally saw the reason why the captain had judged her. It changed Willow’s animosity into something akin to sympathy. Every male figure that Nina had ever had in her life had shit on her accomplishments. They felt as if she should be at home, under the thumb of a husband they picked out for her, baking cookies and popping out babies. Her promotions and accolades at the office weren’t things to be proud of, they were shameful. So Nina worked harder, clamoring for their approval because she felt that she needed it. It destroyed her inside.
Willow let go of Nina’s hand and took a step back, speaking before Nina could rattle off something big and bad. “You don’t need their approval,” she said softly. Nina’s words seemed to be stuck in her throat, her mouth open but not speaking as the anger drained from her face. “You are amazing. You’ve done amazing things, gone places that no woman has in this city. What they think doesn’t matter. What matters is what you think.” Nina sunk into a chair. Willow saw the tears forming and knew that Nina wouldn’t want her people to see that.
“Take her outside,” she whispered to Nick with enough urgency that he thankfully didn’t question it. Willow began moving back toward the front of the room, speaking animatedly as she did. She wanted the attention on her, not Nina.
“I can see and feel more than your average, everyday clairvoyant, boys and girls. Sometimes that’s a good thing, and sometimes it’s bad. For me, it’s simply life. I choose not to profit from my genetic abilities because I feel that it gives me an unfair advantage over others. Not everyone shares my beliefs.” Willow reached the front of the room and spun around, her eyes searching to make sure that Nick and Nina were sufficiently out of sight before she continued speaking.
“Now, witches do have a governing body. Yes, the police count, but no one counts more than the Council. Each region has their own Council office that handles local affairs on behalf of the main US headquarters of the Council, located in Los Angeles, California. Why? Because they have the highest concentration of beings that are not human in the country. It’s easy to hide what you are when others just think you’re an eccentric trying to make it big.” Willow noticed Nick returned alone, and smiled to herself.
“So they’re like police for witches? Then why do they need DCS?” another rookie asked.
“Good question. When a crime is committed, the perpetrator’s governing body will handle the consequences. Unfortunately, it is rarely obvious what race committed the crime. That is where DCS comes in. They’re the first responders that help determine which governing body needs to step in. Most of the governing bodies have no issue working with humans,” she said.
Willow allowed the room to turn into a question-and-answer session. She was pleasantly surprised by the questions that the officers asked, glad that they were thinking about how to deal with these cases instead of wanting to default to violence and blaming. It gave her hope.
“What about this one?” one of the officers asked, holding up a picture from one of the case files that had been sitting on a table off to the side. “Is this a witch case?”
Willow moved closer and took a good look at the picture before picking up the notes on the case from the table and glancing them over. The presiding officer had booked it as a witch case.
“No. This is all wrong,” she said confidently.
“How so?” Nick interjected.
Willow smirked and took the picture from the officer who’d asked the initial question, turning it so that everyone could see.
“This mark on his neck,” she said, pointing, then grabbing a better shot of it from the table. “This is an old sign representing the Directorate, the governing body for vampires. They haven’t used that mark in centuries, so that tells you that the executioner was old enough to know it.” She rifled through a few more of the pictures on the table. “I don’t see the autopsy report here, but check it for dental anomalies. When vampires die, their fangs involuntarily hyper-extend from their jaw. Here, it looks like the victim’s were broken off and filed down a bit in the hopes that no one would notice.”
The officers crowded around her, all paying close attention to where her fingers pointed on each of the pictures before she passed them on. Willow looked once more to the notes from the officer on that case. “And this order of injury is incorrect.” She held up the list of twelve actions. “Only one of these would have actually killed him, and continuing on after the victim is dead isn’t really something vampires do. Humans, sometimes. Shifters, sometimes, if they are meat eaters. But the thrill is gone for vampires when the screaming stops. Even the sadistic ones. This,” she pointed to the action “silver spikes driven into eyes,” “is what killed him. He was gravely injured before, but the silver brain injuries would have kept him from healing properly and eventually killed him.”
A shiver seemed to move through the officers.
“That’s diabolical,” someone said.
“No more so than humans do to each other every day,” she said to the quiet room. “Until next time, officers.” Willow set down the files and pictures and left before anyone could ask her to look at anything else unpleasant. She had an appointment to keep.
“Thank you,” Nick said, his voice solemn as he caught her on her way past. Willow didn’t smile but nodded as Nick’s phone started to ring.
“I hope that’s good news for you, Detective. Bad news after all of this terrible talk wouldn’t be fair.”
9
ALEX GOT TO NICK’S OFFICE and found it empty. That was fine—he had some reading to do in preparation for a talk he was giving in a few weeks. When he heard footsteps coming down the hall about ten minutes after he’d gotten settled in with the reading, Alex made a promise to himself to finish up that night.
“I didn’t keep you from something, did I?” Nick asked as he walked into the office with a wide smile on his face. Alex stood, and the two of them bumped fists and shook hands.
“Nah, no worries. I thought I would be interrupting you,” Alex responded. Nick motioned for Alex to sit back down before moving to his office chair.
“We had a speaker come in and talk about the preternatural—stuff that you wouldn’t know unless you had a lot of experience with them, or you are one. I figured it was good for the guys and for me. I know quite a bit, but I know I don’t know everything,” he said.
Alex nodded and said in mock seriousness, “That’s a good idea, but it also sounds like you won’t need my services anymore, if all goes well.”
“We’ll always need your services, Alex, don’t worry,” Nick said with a grin. Then he grew solemn. “Did you see anything that might help us with this case?” He sat back in his chair as if bracing himself for the possible news that they had a serial killer of some sort.
“I definitely think your captain’s instincts are spot on for this one. The fact that the victims were all completely drained makes me think that they are related. That isn’t common, and considering how much blood a body holds, it’s not easy either. I can’t see more than one person doing this.”
Nick sighed and nodded. “That’s what I thought
too. I guess I just needed someone else to say it.” He rubbed a hand down his face. “It’s almost like they’re trying and failing to make it look like a vamp kill, but why? What’s the point?”
“That one I can’t answer. Maybe it’s some weird cult thing, or someone who thinks that they’re a vampire?” Alex shrugged, wishing he had a better answer.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Nick mumbled to himself, forehead creased in concern.
“Can I see the body? Maybe that will tell me more.”
But Nick shook his head. “Sorry, not until Patrick is done with it. I’ll call you if we can get you down there before the family comes to claim. We can’t put them off.”
Alex nodded his understanding. “Well, either way, I’d say this guy is alone. No pack would condone anything like this if the guy is a shifter. The marks on the body make me think large, carnivorous and clawed,” Alex said, counting off the descriptions on his fingers.
“So you don’t think it could be a vampire at all?” Nick sounded hopeful.
As much as it would be nice to have an easy case, this one wasn’t it. Alex paused to think. “It could be. But if it was, I’d say it was several vampires. One couldn’t completely drain a body that quickly. I think a lone shifter is your best bet. Vampires normally prefer fresh blood, from what I’ve seen, and this wouldn’t be fresh anymore after about a day.”
“Right,” Nick replied. “So I’ve heard.” He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the desk and then sighed. “Thanks, Alex.”
“Anytime, you know that,” Alex said, standing to leave. Nick’s voice stopped him.
“You know, back when we first started working with you, we had to run a background check on you. We didn’t find anything alarming, but I did notice that before a few years ago, we didn’t find much of anything.”
Alex laughed. “And yet you still come to me when you need help. That’s odd,” he said, pointedly not addressing the underlying question.
“If you don’t know that Alex isn’t actually his first name, you’re worse at this than I thought, Detective.”
The voice brought Alex’s attention around to the entry to Nick’s office. And his jaw hit the floor.
“His name is Archimedes Alexander Thomas, though he’s always hated the name. So he used to go by Archie, for short,” Willow said, taking a few steps into the room.
10
WILLOW HAD EXPECTED ARCHIE… ALEX, to be surprised to see her. After all, they’d been kids the last time they’d laid eyes on each other. Kids who were very close. What she hadn’t expected was for him to sweep her up into his arms and swing her around. Once she’d finally convinced him to put her down, she’d called and sent one of the other girls to her appointment and invited Archie… damnit, Alex to lunch.
They made their way to a small sub shop a few blocks away and settled in at a table in the corner to talk in relative privacy. They could talk about why he’d been in Nick’s office later—she had a feeling that was an interesting story. For now, she just wanted to know what had happened to the first boy that she’d ever cared about.
“What happened that day? No one would ever tell me why you had to leave,” Alex asked. He studied her face like he was memorizing it.
The reason why wasn’t something she spoke about often. Honestly, since it wasn’t really his business, it wasn’t something that she wanted to go into right now.
“The long and short of it was that my grandmother was condemned for defending herself. The fact that her defense killed the person who was trying to cause problems just made things worse. We ended up having to leave in a hurry, which meant that I wasn’t allowed the time to tell you goodbye.”
Alex nodded his understanding. “I broke into the house a few weeks after you all left, once I was done being angry at you. I found the note that you left me.”
Willow smiled. She’d been woken up in the middle of the night and told to pack everything that was important to her. Her friend was important to her, but she couldn’t take him with her. Instead, she pushed her bed out from the wall and carved a note to the one person that she knew would find it.
Archie, I have to leave. Don’t forget about me. -Willow
That had seemed to be the most important thing for her to tell him at the time, and she’d had to hurry before anyone came looking for her again. She’d pushed the bed back against the wall and ran out of the room, tears streaming down her little face.
“I knew that you’d find it before anyone bothered doing anything like moving the bed away from the wall,” she said softly.
“The police showed up at your house a few days after you disappeared and turned the place upside down. That was the day I stopped being angry. I figured that something must have happened, something that you couldn’t tell me about. But then again being a kid, I was still angry that you hadn’t called or anything after some time had passed.” He leaned toward her expectantly, wanting her to fill in the gaps.
Willow sighed and nodded. “After we left, we ended up having to lay low for a while. I wasn’t allowed to contact anyone because we didn’t want anyone to tell where we were. And once my grandmother told me that contacting you could bring your family police attention that you wouldn’t want or need, I stopped asking to call. Once everything finally died down enough for us to be able to not constantly watch our backs, it had been over a year, and by then, I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me anymore.” She looked down at her hands, realizing the guilt she had carried about leaving her friend without saying goodbye had weighed on her more than she thought.
Alex reached across the table, wrapping his hands around hers. “Willow, it didn’t matter how long it had been. You were my best friend, and the only girl I cared about. I was well into my college years before I could even look at another girl seriously because I was still having moments when I thought that I’d spotted you, and I’d run off. That has a tendency to really piss off your girlfriends.” He finished with a soft laugh that Willow echoed.
“I didn’t want you to stop your life because of me,” she said.
Alex nodded. “Knowing that you’d hate my life grinding to a halt is the only thing that made me finally move on. But notice there’s no wife and no kids. The psychiatrist in me says it’s because I never let you go.”
Willow smirked, glad she didn’t blush easily. “That’s silly. It’s been years,” she grinned. Alex gave her hands a squeeze.
“You’re right, it has been years. And even after all this time, I don’t think you fully realize how much I loved you,” he said, voice quiet.
Now Willow felt her face flush, and she sighed. “Back then, I always thought it was you that didn’t get me.”
Alex looked up at Willow and smiled. “I guess we have some time to understand each other now, don’t we?” At her nod he continued. “Let’s start with the simple stuff. I’m a psychiatrist by trade, but I teach more than I practice,” he said, looking at her expectantly.
“Oh boy,” Willow whispered. How did you explain to someone who remembered you as a pigtailed little girl that you were a high-dollar madam now?
“Right, about what I do…” she started.
11
“HEY PAT, HOW’S IT HANGING?” Nick said, strolling into the morgue with a grin on his face.
“Low and lazy for most of the guys around here,” he responded with a chuckle. “What brings you down to the wonderful world of stiffs and stuff?”
“I came to check on that body from the other day. Did you find any puncture wounds?” Nick moved to a stool off to the side. He didn’t want to touch something that he wasn’t supposed to, so he had a tendency to keep his distance when he came to visit Patrick.
“Actually yeah, though they were a bitch to find. Here’s the thing though: they weren’t real,” he said, pulling off the rather bloody rubber gloves that he’d had on.
“What do you mean, they weren’t real?” Nick asked, eyes narrowing.
Patrick tossed the gloves in
to a biohazard bin and walked to the file cabinet that he kept beside his desk.
“I mean that someone made them to look real but failed. On top of that, they were made post mortem, not pre.” He pulled out a file and set it down on the desk so that Nick could take a look at the pictures it contained. Close ups of the wounds that he always made sure to get before bodies were manipulated any more than he’d already done.
“So we’re back to framing vampires?” Nick asked as he shuffled through the images.
“Oh, it gets stranger. The blood was drained through the torn wounds on the torso, from what I can tell, but there were also ligature marks around the victim’s neck,” Patrick said, pulling one photo to the forefront.
Nick thought through the process out loud. “So the guy was drained and hung by the neck? Maybe during the draining. Like, over the container meant to catch the blood.” Nina told him that his thought processing was one of the reasons he’d made it so far in the police force, but that if he ever decided to go criminal, no one would ever be able to catch him.
“That, I can’t answer. I can only tell you what I see evidence of on the body,” Pat said.
Nick sighed, sat back, and nodded. “Right. Thanks for this, it gives me a lot to think about,” he said, before remembering that he’d had another reason to come down there. “Oh, hey, do you think Alex can come down and take a look at the body?” Patrick knew Alex, and trusted him, so he didn’t think it would be a big deal.
“Yeah sure, but you’ll have to bring him either today or tomorrow, because the family is coming to claim the body soon,” Pat said.