The splashing of the fountain covered any sounds there might have been. Holding her gun ready, Kayla walked closer, heading for the central platform, knowing instinctively that it was the best place in the park to cast a spell. Her feet found the first of the stacked cement sheets. Three others were layered on the sides and in front of the base platform. She stopped again to listen, breathing silently. Still nothing.
Adrenaline thrummed through her veins. She stepped up on the left platform and then to the highest central platform. She expected to find a spell circle like the kind used by witches, but as she stepped up, she found only cement coated in a sheet of silvery-white powder.
She circled the platform, angling inward until she came to the middle. Nothing. What was she missing?
Her brows furrowed. Maybe someone had used an amulet or charm? A hex? Kayla didn’t know enough about magic to make a decent guess.
A thought struck her, and she gritted her teeth. Son of a bitch. Of course. Things couldn’t just be simple, could they?
She crossed to the edge of the platform where it jutted several feet above the catch pools and squatted down. She could only see a foot or two out into the fog. A scum of white powder floated across the top of the otherwise clear water, disguising the mortared river rock bottom.
Kayla rubbed her hand over her mouth. Was she really considering jumping in? This wasn’t her problem, and anyway, who knew what this even was? Nobody would thank her for getting involved. And if she went into the water—
She could only hold off a transformation for so long once she got wet. If she dried quickly, she could keep it from happening, but wading into water? Risky. Too fucking risky and stupid.
Kayla straightened and turned away from the water and then stopped. Instinct fought against instinct. The need to protect herself wrestled with the need to serve and protect the people of the city. Being a cop was in her DNA, and leaving the force hadn’t changed that. God, could she be any more fucked up?
Don’t tempt fate, she admonished herself. The universe never refuses that kind of challenge.
She pivoted back around. The water wasn’t deep. Mid-calf, maybe to her knees. That wasn’t so much. She could handle it, no problem.
In your dreams, came the mocking voice of reality in her head.
“No one will see with the fog,” she said out loud, her voice paper thin, but steady with purpose. Her heart, her soul, had already decided. Time for her brain to get with the program.
She gave a little hop and splashed down into the pool.
Chapter 2
Kayla
COOL WATER SPLASHED up her thighs as Kayla landed in the water. It soaked through her pants and filled her boots, settling just above her knees. At only five foot four inches, she should have expected that. The moment the water kissed her skin, she felt the transformation trying to start. She clamped down on it, bending all her will to keeping the change from happening. She couldn’t hold long. A minute. Maybe two.
Quickly she waded through the pool to the base of the waterfall. The spray from the water and fog beaded on her ball cap and bathed her face. Deep inside, she felt a quiver run through her. Crap. Not yet.
Putting all her strength of will into holding her shape, Kayla examined the waterfall in front of her. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But the sound seemed off. Uneven.
She moved through the fog inside the shallow alcove before her, only to stop cold when she came up against the wide vertical plane of the central fall, red planes of stone jutting out on either side. No water fell over it. Instead, three bodies hung pinned like specimens to the wall, the mutilated corpses arranged as part of a grisly ritual.
She’d seen everything she needed to. Now to get the hell out of the water.
Kayla backed away, flinging herself up onto one of the cement platforms. She scrabbled at her neck to draw out her necklace. On it hung an amulet. She invoked it, feeling it heat under her hand. Brilliant yellow light streamed out from between her fingers, and then desert heat washed over her. Instantly she was dry.
She waited. Sometimes the transformation was too far along and getting dry didn’t matter. The ripples inside her increased, wriggling like panicked eels. She clenched her hand on the amulet, the edges of the brass sun disk digging into her palm. She made herself breathe slowly, gritting her teeth and clenching her entire body. Please don’t shift, please don’t shift, please don’t shift.
The words tumbled over one another in her brain. She pressed down on the expanding ripples inside her. She felt the battle between what she was and what she wanted to be. But getting dry had robbed her transformation of its strength, and at last she felt a give, like shoving a car over a curb.
She lay still, panting as if she’d been running uphill in mud. Her heart slowed, and the adrenaline pounding in her veins drained away. She became aware that she was still clutching her gun and the amulet in her hands. She tucked the latter back beneath her shirt and then rolled over, rising into a crouch. Her ears strained to sort through the sounds of the rushing water.
Nothing.
Whoever had committed the murders she’d just discovered seemed to be gone. Her mind started rolling over her next steps to investigate, and she caught herself up short. Not her. Still not her circus.
Sighing, she stood. God but she missed the work. She’d been damned good at it, too. But if she’d stayed on the force—
Sooner or later her brothers and sisters in blue would have found out and then the shit would have hit the fan. Big time.
The brass would have kicked her out on her ass, and her fellow cops would either have despised her or felt sorry for her. That is, if they decided not to hunt her down and put a bullet in her head, all in the name of cleaning up the city.
At least she still had some dignity and self-respect, not to mention her life. She planned to keep it that way, come hell or high water. Her mouth twisted. Or any water at all. One of these days she’d get a handle on controlling the transformation and then maybe she could go back. Nobody needed to know about her little quirk, and they needed people. Word was the thin blue line was very thin these days.
But only if and when she wouldn’t transform every time it started raining.
All the same, she couldn’t help wondering—who had cast the spell? What was it for? And were they gone or lurking around?
The last question she should have asked herself before hightailing it out of the water, but she hadn’t been thinking then. All she’d wanted to do then was stop her transformation at all costs.
She shook her head. She was nearly invulnerable in her other form—at least when it came to normal weapons like guns or knives or even explosives. It would have been smarter to let it happen, as much as she hated it. The fog would have hidden her from anyone more than a few steps away. Then again, it was hiding her from anybody wanting to use her for target practice now. Of course, a witch could just blow away the fog and incinerate her where she stood, which meant she was damned lucky to still be alive.
Not wanting to push her luck, she retraced her steps back to her backpack. She didn’t need to get involved by reporting the murders. The fog would lift, someone would notice, and there’d be an investigation.
If the evidence wasn’t destroyed by then.
“Shit.”
She bent and pulled her phone out of the strap pocket of the backpack. It was an older model—a clamshell style she’d found while scavenging. Powered by technomagic, it worked fine and was sturdier than a touchscreen phone.
She flipped it open and tapped in a number from memory. She wasn’t likely to ever forget it. Hopefully it hadn’t changed.
Ray picked up on the second ring. “Garza here.”
An ache of pain and regret flashed through Kayla. She’d missed his voice. His humor. His call-it-like-it-is attitude. Ray had b
een the best friend she’d ever had. She’d trusted him with her life, and he’d trusted her with his. Tears burned her eyes, and she blinked to clear them. Now was not the time. She set the pain aside to deal with later.
“Hey, Ray. Long time.”
Seconds ticked past. “Reese?”
“It’s me.”
Another silence. “What the hell do you want?”
Kayla cringed at the animosity dripping from his voice. “I got a murder for you. Three murders, actually.”
His voice shifted into cool professionalism. “Where? Who?”
“Keller Fountain, downtown. Don’t know the victims, didn’t see the perpetrator. Whoever it was seems to have fled the scene.” She paused. “Someone cast a spell. I got hit in the wash. There’s white dust everywhere. Absorbs right into the skin. No idea what it does.”
Kayla could tell by his distracted voice that he was writing notes. “How long ago?”
“Maybe fifteen minutes.”
A disgusted noise. “And it took you this long to call?”
She didn’t answer since he wasn’t really looking for one, and he wouldn’t like the one he got if she did.
“All right. I’m sending a hazmat crew to clear the scene. Where are you?”
“A little ways up Southwest Third.”
“Get back to the park. Hazmat will need to clear you, too. And Reese? Stay out of the scene, and don’t even think about disappearing before I get there.”
“I was already in the scene. Anyway, I called you,” she said. “Why would I do that if I was just going to ditch?”
“Maybe because your calling card is leaving when the going gets tough.”
He hung up before Kayla could respond. She glared at her phone. Asshole. What the hell did he know? He had no idea what it had done to her to quit the force, to quit their partnership. Being a cop had meant her entire life.
She tried to ignore the hurt that dug into her with sharp barbs, but tears burned in her eyes. To be fair, he didn’t know because she hadn’t told him, but he hadn’t trusted that she’d had a good reason, either.
She grabbed her pack and carried it across the street to Keller Auditorium. The fog made it impossible to see more than a foot or two ahead of her, and she nearly ran into one of the slender white pillars holding up the high portico in front of the building. She dropped her pack against its base and found herself pacing around it as she waited for the hazmat team and Ray to show up.
Did she really want to do this? See Ray? Get in the middle of an investigation? Just talking to her old partner had opened a vault of painful memories and regrets. Seeing him face-to-face was going to be infinitely worse.
As the minutes passed, it was all she could do to not walk away. Only her unwillingness to fulfill Ray’s bitter accusation kept her there.
Why do you even care? she asked herself. You made your choice. Be a big girl and deal with it.
Even with the stern pep talk, the siren signaling the arrival of the hazmat crew twisted her stomach into a knot. Then another thought occurred to her, sending chills running over her skin.
They’d want to wash her down. The longest she’d ever been able to stave off a transformation when totally submerged was just over a minute, which was why she no longer took showers and lived on sponge baths. Being tired, hungry, and seriously stressed would only speed the transformation if they hosed her down.
She grabbed her backpack. Not a chance. She was not gonna let that happen.
Chapter 3
Ray
RAY HUNG UP THE phone and stared, unseeing, down at his notes. Of all the people he’d imagined might be on the other end of the phone line, Kayla had been the last. Hell, she hadn’t even been on the list. He hadn’t expected to hear from her ever again, not after the way they’d ended things.
He ran his hands through his hair. He hadn’t believed it when she said she was quitting the force. It was unthinkable. At first he’d laughed, but then she’d packed her stuff, and it got real.
He’d lost it. He’d said things he shouldn’t have. He’d felt so betrayed. For himself and for the city. How could she walk away right when everything had gone to hell? Magic everywhere had turned the world inside out, and a lot of cops had been lost to attacks by monsters, or just caught in the middle of a magic catastrophe.
Kayla had known how badly they needed her. She’d always claimed to have been born to be a cop, and then she’d walked out when the force needed her most. When he needed her most. The one person he trusted. The one person he might have been able to tell he’d developed magical powers. She wouldn’t have condemned him.
He snarled silently. If she’d stuck around.
Now four years later and he had a chance to see her face-to-face again. His hands clenched even as his pulse pounded.
After that last day, he’d waited for her to come to her senses. To call him. To come back. She never did.
Instead, she practically became a ghost. She’d moved out of her apartment and vanished. After a few months of licking his wounds, he’d looked for her, hoping to get some answers. Nothing. He’d started to be afraid she’d left the city, or worse, but then about a year later he’d seen her crossing the street in his rearview mirror. She’d been gone by the time he turned around. He’d begun to think he’d imagined her when he found her again, four months later. This time he’d followed her.
He’d kept his distance to keep her from noticing him.
Gone was the spit-and-shine woman he remembered. Instead of sharp, crisp creases in her shirt and pants, she wore ragged jeans, battered boots, an old army jacket, and a Blazers ball cap that looked as though it had been run over. No makeup, and she’d scraped her dark hair up into a ponytail. The rest of her body was muscular, but the sharp cut of her cheekbones suggested she wasn’t eating as much as she should. She carried a heavy backpack with an assortment of weapons attached to her belt.
She stopped at a taco cart, and her gaze roved warily as if she anticipated danger. Her body seemed tense, as though she was coiled to run or fight. After handing over her money, she’d taken her food and given the vendor a fleeting smile, saying something that made him laugh, before moving on.
After that, she stopped at a two-story brick building on the corner of SW 3rd and Salmon just catty corner to the old courthouse. A multitude of thorny vines hanging to the sidewalk in thick curtains shrouded the building. A sandwich board on the corner said “Nessa’s.” It was a shop for scavenged goods, magical objects, and locally produced items.
Kayla disappeared inside. Ray’d waited, ignoring calls on his cell until she emerged several hours later, her pack considerably lighter. He’d lost her shortly after that when one of the tule fogs rolled in and he could barely see more than a few feet in front of himself.
He’d seen her a few times since, and once even started to approach her before thinking better of it. He still felt raw when it came to Kayla. She should have come back, should have explained. As her partner, he had a right to at least to know why she’d left him high and dry right when the world was going to hell. Maybe tonight he’d get the answer.
Ray pulled himself back to the here and now. Don’t get your hopes up, he warned himself. She probably ran off as soon as she hung up. Probably a good thing, too. You’re finally starting to get past that shit. It was true. He’d begun going days and even weeks without thinking about her.
And if she hadn’t run? Ray didn’t let himself consider how his entire body clenched at the thought. He didn’t know if it was hope, anticipation, or fury.
He picked up his phone to call for a hazmat crew and paused. He checked the caller I.D., copying the number into his notebook, and saving it into his contacts. If Kayla disappeared, at least he’d have a way to track her down. For the case, he told himself unconvincingly.
Ray made the call to hazmat, and then gathered his things, urgency biting his ass. How long would she wait?
“What’s up, Garza?” Sharon Dix swiveled her chair to watch him.
He eyed her. She was a decent detective. Cold, calculated, and smart. She wasn’t well-liked. She had the personality of a cheese grater and tended to focus on one trail and forget to look down the others.
“Got a murder call.”
She perked up. “Who? Where?”
“Don’t know who. Keller Fountain.”
He’d kept walking, but now she stood, reaching for her suit jacket.
“I’ll come with.”
He scowled. “Don’t bother. Hazmat has to clear the scene first. Magic was involved.”
Instead of discouraging her, the information seemed to pique her interest. “What kind of spells?”
“No idea yet.”
Sharon donned her jacket and reached for her purse. Ray frowned.
“I can handle this. Work your own cases.”
She cast an assessing look at him. “My load is light right now.”
“Something could come in.” And likely would. The force was spread thin. Mostly detectives took uniforms or trainees with them to crime scenes these days. There weren’t enough detectives available to waste one by partnering up.
“Something might, but it hasn’t yet, and I don’t feel like fucking with paperwork right now.” She frowned at him. “Why don’t you want me to come along?”
Ray’s lips peeled back in a semblance of a smile. “Doesn’t matter to me, so long as you remember whose case it is.”
“I’m sure if I forget, you’ll remind me,” she said, sailing past him toward the stairs.
Ray followed, eyeing her balefully. Sharon Dix wasn’t beautiful by any stretch. She had a nice enough body, if a little on the boney side, but her prominent front teeth made him think of a rabid beaver every time he looked at her. Add a weak chin, and she looked as though she couldn’t be trusted, which she couldn’t.
The Witchkin Murders Page 2