Agent of Enchantment (Dark Fae FBI Book 1)

by C. N. Crawford

  “Maybe he knew he could trust her,” Gabriel suggested.

  “Would you trust Gemma? Here’s another thing. He’s clearly after fame—emulating the Ripper, making these murders as grotesque as possible. But half the papers have been accusing immigrants of the murders, and he doesn’t bother to correct them. He sends the police a note, playing mind games, but he doesn’t send anything to the reporters. It’s almost like he’s happy for the papers to stir up xenophobic rage. Why?”

  Gabriel shrugged. “Maybe he likes the chaos.”

  I whirled toward him, beaming. “Yes! Chaos!”

  I wrote Chaos in the middle of the whiteboard, and circled it three times. “That’s what he’s after! He’s not after fame. He’s after chaos!”

  “Okay.” Gabriel stepped closer to the whiteboard. “Why?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not sure yet. It’s an unusual motive for a serial killer. It’s too… large-scale. It’s like he’s trying to disrupt society for a larger purpose.”

  “Right.” Gabriel thought for a moment. “Let’s assume that there is no conflicting evidence. How would you profile the killer right now?”

  I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to organize my thoughts. “The killer is between twenty-five to thirty, educated, strong, and handsome. He has an exaggerated self-confidence, and assumes people will do what he tells them to. He is meticulous about detail, and has an obsession with fear and chaos. He is single, has a car, and lives near the City of London. I’d say within three miles.”

  Gabriel raised his eyebrows. “That’s quite a detailed profile.”

  “Yes.” I allowed myself a small smile of satisfaction.

  “Care to explain how you reached those conclusions?”

  “Sure. He’s between twenty-five and thirty because he should be young enough to allow for his obvious physical prowess, but he can’t be too young, or Catherine wouldn’t have left with him. He was calm enough to kill women in very public places, which speaks of high confidence. But his self-confidence is dangerously exaggerated, to the point where his judgment is compromised. He could have easily been seen and caught.”

  “Maybe he subconsciously wants to be caught.”

  “That’s a myth about serial killers,” I said. “They never actually want to get caught. You know why?”

  He sipped his tea. “Why?”

  “Because they like killing too much. And they don’t really feel guilt anyway, so why would they need to stop?”

  Gabriel scrubbed a hand over his stubble. “I’m with you so far. And what about assuming people will do as he says?”

  “If my hunch is right about Gemma, she and the killer have been in contact. He’s got her thinking she’s his servant. And his plan hinged on his assumption that Catherine would go with him.”

  “Right. And you assume the car because he would have been covered in blood after the murders.”

  “Right. Not exactly the ideal state to ride the Tube.”

  “Why three miles?”

  “Geographic profiling teaches us that killers usually don’t kill too far from where they feel safe, which is typically their home. A three-mile radius around the city of London would match this pattern.”

  “That’s… convincing.”

  My cheeks warmed. It was a delicate compliment, but I felt that compliments from Gabriel were hard-earned. “I’m glad you think so.” I walked over to the whiteboard and begun underlining words I had written earlier. “Now we need to explain the rest. Why the marks behind Catherine’s ear? The strange fingerprints? The flawed DNA samples? All this stuff about water? How does it all add up?”

  Gabriel stared at the whiteboard, silent.

  I underlined the word Chaos twice. “What’s this about? This doesn’t align with anything we’ve ever seen. Serial killers are obsessed with fantasies, mostly sexual in nature. Some of them kill for financial gain, or to cover up for other crimes. But I’ve never heard of a killer who just wants chaos.”

  “I’ll admit, this case is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

  I stared at the underlined words, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Roan’s voice echoed in my mind. The killer isn’t human. And the human police won’t put him behind bars. Roan, incidentally, didn’t seem entirely human either.

  Whispers in the interrogation room, making a witness try to kill herself. A man with horns and color-changing eyes. The recognition I felt when looking at the marks. This evidence was… different.

  Magic. The word materialized in my mind again.

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “We need to find out more.”

  And I knew a good place to start.

  Chapter 9

  It was twilight when I got out of the cab near Guildhall, a towering medieval stone hall. Shadows from the hall’s spires stretched over the empty stone square like spindly fingers.

  From what I’d learned from the guidebook, Guildhall was the ancient Roman center of the city, and the spot where the medieval guilds met to discuss business. It was also the place where kings had brought half-dead heretics for trials, after a bout of torture in the Tower and just before death-by-burning in nearby Smithfield. If ghosts were real, this place would be crawling with haunted memories.

  My phone buzzed, and I pulled it from my bag. Gabriel’s name shone on the screen, and I answered. “Hi.”

  “Gemma Roberts is dead. She hanged herself in Mile End Hospital.”

  My stomach lurched. “How did that happen?”

  “She used a belt, I think.”

  Anger flared. “How the fuck did she end up with a belt?” I loosed a sigh. “Never mind. Thanks for letting me know.”

  I hung up, my heart aching.

  Shit. Someone had screwed up their job, and now we had another dead woman and no solid leads.

  The purple-gray hue of the sky filled me with melancholy—the time of day that, years ago, my mother would have called “the gloaming.” Right now, its ominous color matched my dark mood. My mind burned with the pictures of Gemma and Catherine, long before they’d encountered the killer. When they’d sat next to each other on the sofa, smiling over boxed wine and pizza.

  Of course, the killer hadn’t given Gemma a mental illness, but it was hard not to blame him for her death, too, if he had convinced her she was his servant. Now I felt more determined than ever to catch the bastard.

  And maybe that began with Roan.

  I headed down a narrow pedestrian alley toward Leroy’s Wine Bar, off the main square, half-wondering if I was losing my own mind.

  This particular mission was perhaps a fool’s errand. I would never have considered following up on such a lead a week ago. But now, after being confronted with so many things I didn’t understand, I was desperate to get some answers. Desperate enough to talk to an unreliable, potentially dangerous source like Roan. Maybe he would tell me something that would shed some light on the unknowns of this case. Or maybe he’d clarify what he had meant by “not human.” Was this some racist slur? Or was Roan actually hinting at an inhuman killer? A… monster?

  Either way, I needed to know more, and Roan might have answers.

  I stopped in front of Leroy’s Wine Bar, an ancient-looking brown storefront with gold lettering inset into the guildhall buildings. Even as short as I was, I nearly bumped my head on the doorframe as I entered. This place must have been built back when everyone was three feet tall from poor nutrition.

  I crept down a crooked stairwell, certain one of my black heels was about to plunge through the ancient wood. The outfit—the heels, the tiny black dress—was all a tactic, designed to throw Roan off-guard. Berry lipstick, a shimmering of powder on my cheeks, bit of cleavage and leg. Classic honey-trap scenario.

  The stairs led to a stone room, warmly lit by candlelight that danced over an ancient stone floor. From the main, circular room, tunnels branched off, just as crowded as the main room.

  From the entrance, I surveyed the space. Patrons crowded around round wooden t
ables, worn with age. People were eating bread and cheese, drinking red wine. Some kind of heraldic shields hung on stone walls below lanterns. I felt instantly at ease in here, with the murmur of dozens of conversations humming in my ears.

  The crowd, however, struck me as strange. There were several elderly men and women, in groups of three or four. One table hosted three of the largest men I had ever seen in my life, each with arms as thick as my body. Wherever I looked I saw something that struck me as unusual: a woman dressed like an Elizabethan countess, with blood-red jewels and a lace ruff. A short and hairy man, wearing an open vest with no shirt underneath. A table of children, none of them older than twelve. Lithe, stunning women with perfect skin, dressed in wisps of gossamer that left nothing to the imagination. A cat wearing a Jacobean ruff lounging on an old harpsichord, nestled against the wall.

  I glanced down at my own attire, suddenly feeling underdressed in my short black dress. Even the cat had a fancier get-up.

  In any case, Roan was nowhere to be seen.

  I took a step further into the room, and the candlelight waned. For just a moment, in the dimming light, I was sure I saw a different crowd. The skin of the enormous men had become gray and cracked. The countess’ eyes glimmered in red, mirroring her jewels. A collection of translucent wings sprouted from the children’s backs.

  I blinked, and the vision was gone, the room back to normal. Or as normal as it had been before. Okay, Cassandra. You are definitely losing it.

  Shaken, I looked a little closer at the shields hanging on the walls. Below the dancing candlelight were images of phoenixes, herbs, ravens, mourning doves. One shield had been defaced, while the last made my heart tighten in my chest. It was a human skull below a blue line of water. Just like Gemma’s tattoo.

  Unnerved, I approached one of the tunnels, searching for an open table where I could sit with my back to the wall, the room in full view. But every seat was taken. I glanced back at the bar. A bartender leaned on an old oak table before aged barrels of wine.

  I frowned. There was only one escape route here, up that rickety old stairwell. Not an ideal spot to get caught if I needed to make a fast escape for any reason. For a moment I considered leaving, waiting for Roan outside in the open.

  Screw it. I’d risk it. I crossed to the bar, clutching my little bag. Bartenders always knew something, didn’t they?

  Eerily, as I walked, I kept seeing unexplainable images from the corner of my eye. Flickers of colors, sounds, and smells that seemed to come from nowhere—the scent of rowan trees, the fleeting sound of a magpie singing, faces that looked suddenly animalistic… It was like walking around on Halloween, except the disguises kept melting away when I turned to look at them. The countess noticed me staring, and shot me a furious glare. When I got to the bar, I pulled out a stool, taking a seat beside a teen who had no business being at a bar. A halo of blond curls framed his cherubic face, and as I looked closer, I noticed that his T-shirt was torn and ragged under his black dust coat. It read Don’t Trust Anyone, with a picture of an eye in a triangle.

  Great. A conspiracy theorist. They loved FBI agents.

  A cloud of marijuana smoke hung over him, and his eyes were red, half-lidded. “C’mon, mate.” The teen drummed his fingertips on the bar. “I’m proper starving, Leroy!”

  “No.” The bartender surveyed him from below extravagant silver eyebrows, calmly, wiping a glass with a towel.

  The sign out front looked several hundred years old. How was there still someone named Leroy working here? Was it a job requirement?

  Leroy turned his pale blue eyes to me. “Can I help you, miss?”

  I scanned the wine barrels. Claret, malmsey, vernage… I didn’t know a ton about wine, but those names seemed oddly old-fashioned.

  “Glass of claret, please.”

  Leroy turned around to the taps behind him and filled a glass with a golden wine—a color of wine I’d never seen before.

  “Isn’t claret supposed to be red?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Not this claret.” When he’d finished, he slid it across the bar. “Four pound fifty.”

  I pulled a fiver from my purse, dropping it on the bar.

  Next to me, the teen reached into his pocket, pulling out a handful of coins and some fluff. “I’ve got the dosh here, Leroy.”

  Leroy glanced at his pile of change, and snorted in disgust. He turned his back on us.

  I looked at the teen again. His shoulder blades protruded under his thin, dusty coat, and dirt stained his jeans. He might’ve been a stoner, but a pang of pity shot through my heart.

  “Leroy?” I said.

  He turned around, eyebrows raised.

  “I’d like to order a meal for my friend here.”

  He frowned. “You paying?”

  “Yeah.” I narrowed my eyes. His apparent lack of concern with the young man’s hunger made me grit my teeth in anger.

  “It’s your lucky day, Alvin,” Leroy said. “What can I get you?”

  Alvin looked at me, and I almost fell off my stool. For just a moment, his eyes looked orange-yellow, the color of flames, before returning to their regular brown. He smiled wide, his mouth full of bright white teeth. Whatever his plight was, this kid brushed three times a day.

  “Thanks, mate. I’ll have a cheese platter with brie, camembert, and compté. And don’t bring me none of that gruyere, thinking I won’t know. I always know, Leroy. I always know. Compté’s got that proper nutty flavor, innit?”

  Leroy sighed. “Will that be all?”

  “Nah,” he continued. “Bread and pickles. And lamb with mashed potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. Cheers, bruv.”

  Leroy glanced at me, smirking. For a moment my mouth dropped at the insanely large order. But what the hell? He was starving, plus he had impressive taste in cheese for a kid.

  Leroy arched a satisfied eyebrow, as if to say ‘I told you so.’ “Twenty-three pound twenty.”

  I nodded at Leroy, then plopped twenty-five pounds on the bar. Young Alvin wouldn’t go hungry tonight. Who knew? Maybe he planned to take the leftovers for later. Leroy shrugged, wrote the order on a piece of paper, and rapped on a small hatch below the wine barrels. A hand darted out, plucking the order from him.

  “Cheers.” Alvin smiled at me again. His eyes were brown, not orange. The flickering candlelight had confused me again.

  “No problem.” I turned to Leroy. “Do you know a guy called Roan Taranis? He said I could meet him here, but he didn’t say when.”

  “Oh, him, yeah. Ladies love that guy. Even fit ones like you, hanging around, hoping for a glimpse of the Taranis.”

  I bristled. “It’s just for work.”

  Leroy’s lip curled, and he gave my outfit a once-over. “You’re having a laugh, love.”

  My cheeks heated, and I suddenly wished I’d just worn jeans and a T-shirt. “Is he a regular?”

  “He’ll be here soon, I reckon. I’m sure he’ll sense you here soon enough.”

  Sense me?

  Before I had a chance to ask what he meant, the bartender’s icy blue stare sent a chill up my spine. “Anything else I can get you?”

  “Just some info,” I said.

  “Let me check.” He picked up a stray menu from the bar. He glanced at it for a second and then turned to me. “Sorry, we don’t serve info. Anything else I can get you?”

  “No,” I snapped. I took a sip of the claret. It was a light wine, delicately spiced, and the taste made up for Leroy’s attitude.

  Alvin turned to me. “What you want with Roan?”

  “Do you know him?” I asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  Alvin shrugged. “I owe you a debt, and I will pay it before I leave tonight. But I ain’t suicidal, you know what I mean?”

  “Should I be worried? Is he dangerous?”

  Alvin considered this, his brow furrowing. “No. And yes. There are things in this world most people don’t even know
about. Dark secrets and shit like that.”

  I glanced at his T-shirt. We were T minus thirty seconds from a discussion about shapeshifting lizard people, which would make me want to rescind that meal offer entirely. “What, like the Illuminati?”

  He gave me the side-eye. “What?”

  “Your T-shirt. It’s an Illuminati symbol. A conspiracy theory.”

  “Oh, this? Got this in a charity shop. No clue what this is.”

  “Look, I just bought you a large meal—”

  “You have! I’m grateful as fuck. No joke.”

  “And all I need is a bit of information about the guy I’m supposed to meet. I won’t tell him where I got it—”

  “I already gave you information.” He cocked his head, smiling blearily.

  “You told me nothing of use.”

  “Exactly! Smart woman such as yourself can deduce quite a lot from that, I reckon.”

  I considered this. Both Leroy and Alvin knew Roan, but neither would say anything about him. Alvin was right. I could deduce quite a lot from that. Roan was shaping up to be something a lot deeper than just a guy who’d been following me around.

  I nursed my golden wine, my body tense. Whenever footfalls creaked on the ancient stairs, I glanced at the entrance, my heart missing a beat. But even as I neared the bottom of my glass of claret, Roan still didn’t make an appearance.

  Leroy placed the cheese plate in front of Alvin, followed by the roast lamb and potatoes, garnished with rosemary. Alvin dug into the lamb ravenously, occasionally pausing to grab a chunk of cheese with his hands. He was inhaling his food at an alarming rate, and I tore my eyes away, feeling slightly queasy. I swiveled around, focusing my attention on the stairwell.

  Good thing this wasn’t a date, or I’d look like a major loser showing up here early and staring obsessively at the entrance.