The Witchkin Murders

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  He laughed at the last with genuine humor then sobered. He took another bite of steak and chewed thoughtfully as if preparing his answer. Kayla resisted the urge to tap her fingers impatiently. Instead she grabbed her knife and fork and cut her steak into little squares, then pushed it around into shapes. His confirmation that he continued to hate her had killed her hunger entirely.

  “I have questions,” he admitted. “But I’m not sure they’re any of my business, and . . . I don’t want to scare you off.” The look he gave her bore through her. “This is a new world, and we aren’t the same people we used to be, not by a long shot. But I’ve missed you. I want you in my life again.”

  Her mouth gaped. “But you just said you still hated me. Why would you want me hanging around?”

  He frowned. “When did I say that?” He shook his head. “I said no such thing.”

  “Just a minute ago you said you felt the same way about me after seeing my shifter form as before, and if I recall correctly, you’d made it pretty clear you hated me.”

  He actually rolled his eyes. He never rolled his eyes. Kayla was affronted.

  “I never hated you. I wanted to kill you a little bit and maybe shake the shit out of you, but I didn’t hate you.”

  Kayla glared at him. “Then you did a damned good job of faking it.”

  He sighed. “I was pissed.”

  She snorted.

  He had the grace to wince. “Okay, I was really, really pissed, and I said some pretty shitty things. But I never hated you. I couldn’t if I wanted to,” he added in a soft undertone as he reached for his orange juice.

  Was he for real? Ray had never lied to her. He didn’t have any reason to start now. He’d always had uncompromising integrity, courage, humor, and he never let her down. She’d been the one to let him down.

  “You can ask,” she said fixing her eyes on her plate and taking a bite, returning the subject to a marginally safer one.

  If it gave him whiplash, he didn’t show it. “You were beautiful,” he said startling her.

  Her head jerked up. “Say what?”

  “Your other form. It’s beautiful.”

  “Did you get hit on the head?”

  He smiled. “Haven’t you seen yourself?”

  “Just reflected in the water. Sometimes a little bit in the windows facing the backyard.”

  “Then you know what I’m talking about.”

  “You have an extraordinarily strange idea of beauty,” she said. “I’m a giant blue-and-gold water-lizard-snake-crocodile thing. With big sharp pointed teeth. I’m Water-Godzilla.”

  “On that, we’ll have to agree to disagree,” he said, then changed the subject before she could argue. “Raven gave me the box to bring to you. I left your pack of gifts there for her. She said she’d give it to your friend Nessa to bring back.”

  Kayla nodded grateful for the change of topic. Her shoulders relaxed a little. “Have you heard from Zach or the coroner’s office?”

  At hearing the technomage’s name, Ray got an irritated look on his face. “Not yet, but I called a request in for a full autopsy. Should get it back in a few hours. I put a rush on it.”

  Kayla couldn’t hide her surprise. He told Raven he wanted to get to the bottom of the killings, but this was going farther than she expected. This was getting into on-the-record investigation territory. He would get a lot of shit from the brass for this—wasting department resources on vermin.

  “That could hurt you,” she said reaching for their empty plates and taking them to the sink. “You could get reprimanded or busted down to foot patrol.”

  She put on her gloves and started washing the dishes, surprised when Ray grabbed a towel to dry them. The domesticity of the scene unnerved her for reasons she didn’t care to examine.

  “There’s a serial killer in the city conducting magic rituals that a witch says will be very bad for us when he finishes whatever he’s up to. That will keep them off my back.”

  For his sake, Kayla hoped so. Like Landon, he was a big boy and entitled to make his own choices.

  “Where’s the box?”

  “In the dining room,” Ray said.

  Vintage houses often contained formal dining rooms, and hers was no exception. The previous owners had left behind a cabinet full of floral china and an ornate wood table with eight chairs around it. A crystal chandelier hung above it. Ray had sorted the papers on the table top. One, a handmade map of the current geography of the city, took up one end.

  Kayla started with it. Red dots marked where bodies had been found. Most of the murders had occurred on the west side of the river, which wasn’t all that surprising given the devastation on the northeast side from the fire. Two had occurred down south as far as Wilsonville, with three more on the east side of the lake. The rest were sprinkled over downtown into Tigard and Tualatin, out toward Beaverton, and around Lake Oswego.

  She didn’t notice an obvious pattern. Each of the murder sites was numbered and corresponded with a pile on the table. Some of the piles consisted of merely a single sheet of paper, while others contained pictures, witness statements, and even a few evaluations of the magic.

  “Have you read this stuff?” Kayla asked Ray.

  “I skimmed most of it.”

  “Anything helpful?”

  “All the bodies were witchkin. Like Raven said, at least one bone had been taken from each, and none of the bones were the same.”

  “So is this guy taking trophies? Is he building his own skeleton a la Frankenstein? Or has he got another use for the parts? Something magical maybe.”

  “Could be any one of those, but I’m leaning toward the last one,” Ray said. “Aside from the dryad, every single murder was accompanied by ritual symbols.”

  Kayla dug through one of the piles until she found some pictures. They were grainy. Either the camera or the printer hadn’t been a particularly good quality, and the images were too small to make out details. “A magnifying glass might come in useful right about now,” she said. “Give me a second. I’ll see if I can find one.”

  After Magicfall, Kayla had continued to live in her apartment until she realized that she couldn’t get out the windows when she transformed, and the place was very cramped for her other self. She could just barely get out through the door if she wriggled, but then she’d scare the ever-living shit out of those neighbors who remained.

  She started searching for a new place to live, discovering this house not far from Washington Park and the amphitheater, the latter of which gave her a reasonably private place to hole up when she was waiting to return to her human body. No doubt the dryads of the trees surrounding the earthen bowl had also witnessed her transformations. She’d thought she’d kept a pretty good secret, but all this time, the magic community must have known about her.

  This house had been abandoned and not yet looted or salvaged. She’d taken the tile serpents above the front door as a particular welcome, as if the house wanted her there. Despite living there almost four years, she hadn’t bothered to rummage through the things the former owners had left behind.

  She started her search for the magnifying glass in the laundry room which contained a folding counter/desk. She opened the drawers finding the usual collection of pens, pencils, paper clips, Post-it notes, electronic gadgets, computer records, and a variety of other household junk. In the middle drawer on the left, she found what she was looking for. A round, domed magnifying glass, the kind you could set on top of a paper in order to read it more easily. She would have preferred one with a handle, but this would work. She hoped.

  She returned to the dining room and Ray. He’d spread out one of the piles on top of the map and stood poring over the documents.

  “Find anything?”

  He didn’t look up. “Nothing so far. The s
tatements do list the names of the witnesses and how to find them, so we can interview them ourselves.”

  They didn’t have time for that. Kayla didn’t say it. She didn’t know it for sure, but tracking down witchkin and getting them to talk would take a week at least, probably longer. From the way Raven had spoken, Kayla didn’t know if they had that kind of time.

  She pulled aside one of the photographs and set the magnifying glass on top of it. Inside the four-inch-wide domed glass, images sharpened and grew big enough to see.

  At first the familiarity of the symbols didn’t register. After all, what could this serial killer of witchkin want with her grandmother and aunt? Her mind wasn’t connecting the cases. Then the images sank in. Kayla snatched another picture. More of those symbols. She grabbed several other pictures. Still more of them.

  “What is it? What are you seeing?” Ray asked.

  “Have a look.” Kayla thrust the glass and the picture she held at him, watching for his reaction.

  He stiffened, and his eyes rose to meet hers. “Shit,” he said.

  “This guy has my grandmother and my aunt,” Kayla said, horror lumping in her belly.

  Ray read her mind. “That doesn’t mean they’re dead.” He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “If he’d wanted to kill them, he could have done it right there. He had the time and the privacy. He’s got to want them for something else.”

  It sounded believable, but it made Kayla feel only marginally better. Whatever the killer wanted, it couldn’t be good. Sooner or later he’d be done with the two witches. She doubted he’d just let them go.

  She bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from saying something stupid. Like, We have to find them or something equally inane. That didn’t stop the urgency from battering her. How much time did they have left?

  Ray’s hand tightened. “We will find them.”

  She believed him. She just didn’t know if the two witches would still be alive when they did.

  Wordlessly they went back to examining the evidence Raven had provided. Their conclusions didn’t point in any particular direction, nor did the examination tell them anything new. The evidence clearly pointed to someone with a magical agenda and magical abilities. Neither cop nor ex-cop was ready to say it was a witch. Other beings had the ability to use magic. They couldn’t rule them out, though witches were far more common. Nothing Kayla knew was helpful, but that wasn’t surprising. What she didn’t know about the magical community would fill the Library of Congress.

  “What’s weird is the symbols at Keller Fountain aren’t the same,” Kayla said, examining the images she’d taken on her phone. “Even though they have the same feel. But what are the odds there are two killers in the city butchering witchkin?”

  “On the other hand, why would he suddenly change his M.O.?” Ray asked.

  “New kind of spell, or escalation maybe.”

  “Possible. Or a copycat.”

  “I suppose,” she said, but didn’t believe it. Somehow the two had to be connected.

  They didn’t find a pattern for the location or the choice of victims. The number of victims in each particular instance seemed random, but only one person at any given scene had had bones removed. They concluded the others likely must have been innocent bystanders, or possibly witnesses the killer wanted to silence. The one thing those people had in common was that they had been beheaded. All except the Keller Fountain victims who were neither missing bones nor their heads.

  “How medieval,” Ray said thoughtfully. “Why beheading, though? That’s got to be making a statement. There are a lot easier ways to kill someone. Cut looks clean. Like the killer only used one stroke. He’s gotta be strong.”

  “Could be a she though,” Kayla said. “A lot of witchkin have supernatural strength no matter their gender. But beheading does mean the killer has to be able to hold the blade, which means he or she has something that passes for hands. Probably not a shifter, since most don’t tend to use weapons. They prefer teeth or claws.”

  Ray nodded. “Someone carrying a big blade like that would probably get noticed. These murders are messy. The killer’s clothes would be covered in blood.” He took a breath and blew it out. “There have to be witnesses who saw him coming or going from the scenes. We need to set up a tip line and get the word out.”

  “That’s going to take a lot of manpower to check out,” Kayla said. The department wasn’t about to fund that. Not for witchkin. No way in hell.

  Ray fished his phone out of his pocket. Kayla couldn’t help her surprise that he’d even bother making the request. A fool’s errand if there ever was one, and the request would earn him ridicule, if not a reprimand.

  His choice, though. He didn’t want or need advice from her.

  She went back to examining the map and the pictures, only half listening to Ray’s conversation. She felt as though there must be something there, something she could almost put her finger on. Or maybe she was rusty and was just hoping for a good clue to pop up out of nowhere. She couldn’t trust her cop instincts. She wasn’t sure they even existed anymore.

  “Captain Crice? This is Garza. Got a couple leads. It looks like the Runyon/Valentine kidnapping could be connected to a series of witchkin murders in the city. Yes, sir. I’m sure. Found some ritual symbols at the Runyon house that match some symbols from the murder scenes.

  “I want to set up a tip line and send uniforms to check out whatever seems likely. All I know right now is that we are looking for someone who’s very strong. Killer could be male or female and has the ability to perform magic. They carry some sort of long blade—like a machete or sword or maybe even a bowie knife—that they use to decapitate victims. They may be covered in blood or possibly wearing some sort of overcoat or other covering. Yes, sir, that’s right. I know that. Captain, but right now it’s the best lead we have.”

  He paused a moment to listen.

  “Thing is, sir, Theresa Runyon and Margaret Valentine are both witches.”

  Kayla’s head jerked up, and she caught Ray watching her. Alistair would not appreciate his revealing the family secret. She’d have to warn Ray to watch his back, though he’d probably figured that one out already.

  Ray stayed silent for a long minute. Kayla imagined his captain was chewing up the scenery. With her father’s power and influence, letting a secret like family witches out of the bag could be a career killer. She expected Ray’s boss knew that all too well. It spoke to Ray’s integrity and honesty that he reported it at all, since shit rolls downhill and he’d be buried when Volcano Alistair Runyon went off.

  Not that having witches in the family would ruin the Runyon name. More likely it would strike the fear of God into her father’s enemies, of which there were many. On the other hand, maybe he’d be embarrassed he didn’t have any witch talent. She’d always thought that chapped his ass.

  “Yes, sir. Alistair Runyon confirmed it himself. No, sir, he isn’t pleased. In fact, he kicked me and Zach Logan off the premises.”

  Another pause.

  “No amount of diplomacy was going to soothe Runyon’s temper,” Ray said dryly, no doubt in response to the captain’s criticism. “That doesn’t matter at the moment. Chances are this killer has both women. We need to track him down quick before he kills them. For that we need that tip line. If we can retrieve them, Runyon’s less likely to go nuclear on us. Especially if Theresa Runyon never gets wind that he decided family secrets outweighed her and her daughter’s lives.”

  Another pause.

  “Yes, sir. I understand. I will. Yes, sir.”

  Ray hung up his phone and pocketed it.

  “So that went well,” Kayla said.

  “He didn’t fire me,” Ray replied. “Yet. He is setting up a tip line. And he’s going to put together a press conference. He wants me there for it.
”

  That didn’t surprise Kayla. If any of this went sideways, Ray’s captain would want a scapegoat. Ray on camera outlining what they knew of the suspect would make him the perfect choice.

  “You see anything new?” Ray asked.

  “No. But it feels like I’m missing something,” she said, frowning at the pictures in her hand.

  “Let’s head to the lab,” Ray said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and Logan will have found something. In the meantime, I’m gonna send some pictures of the symbols over to headquarters and get them started tracking down someone who can tell us what they are.”

  “I’ll pack up the stuff. We should take it with us just in case.”

  Ray helped her gather and stack the papers back into the box. He didn’t say anything, and his silence seemed ominous.

  “Something wrong?”

  “I should be sending teams out looking for witnesses, but witchkin aren’t going to talk to human cops, and not a lot of cops are willing to talk to witchkin.”

  “They can suck it up. This is the job,” Kayla said. “Besides there might be human witnesses too. If you want to solve this then you’re going to have to crack the whip and get people out in the field.”

  He nodded. “Get together anything you might need,” he said. “I’m going to give the captain a call back.”

  “Good luck,” she said, taking the box with her as she left.

  Kayla was tempted to eavesdrop on Ray’s conversation again. Necessity beat out curiosity. She ran upstairs and found a crossbody bag. She packed it with a rain suit, waterproof gloves, rain boots, and an umbrella. She hoped it was overkill, but she couldn’t take chances. Damn but she should have had Raven recharge the spell on her drying amulet.