Ignoring him, Diana slipped past Gist into the bedroom, carefully holding her breath.
The victim lay spread-eagled on the double bed under a cheerful yellow canopy. The matching bedspread beneath his naked body was covered in tiny blue flowers and splatters of drying blood. His empty eyes stared at the canopy, his face slack and waxen.
Looking at the ruin the killer had made of him, Diana wondered if he’d begged God to let him die.
Once he’d been a handsome, well-built young man whose blond hair and blue eyes had probably attracted more than his share of feminine admiration. Now his groin was a mutilated ruin. Above that, deep furrows scored his muscular belly, revealing pink coils of intestines. Well, that explains the smell. He was probably headed for a closed-casket funeral; Diana doubted even a skilled mortician would be able to hide the butchery.
“Sweet Jesus.” Diana stepped closer to examine what was left of him. She winced. “What have we got, Chief?”
Gist flipped open his notebook. “Ronnie Jones, twenty-four, worked first shift over in Carson at the roller bearing plant. Lived with his brother, who works for UPS. Tim Jones had the extreme bad fortune to come home from work and find him.”
Diana glanced up at Gist. “He alibied?”
Gist frowned, his long face lengthening even more. “We’ve got the brother under wraps, but I doubt we’ll charge him unless you find something. Given his job, Tim could easily have come home and killed the guy, but somehow, my gut says no. He’s too busted up over it.”
She nodded. “And whoever did this was seriously pissed.”
“Right. If Tim had been the killer, he couldn’t have faked that kind of grief.”
“Makes sense.” Frowning, she bent closer to the corpse. “Looks like the killer used a knife. But where’s the blood? Are those injuries postmortem?” There was a great deal of splatter on the bedspread, but Diana knew if Jones had bled to death, the mattress should have been soaked right down to the box springs.
On the other hand, if the killer had hacked him up after his heart had stopped beating, there wouldn’t have been as much blood. She frowned and twisted her head, examining the angle and length of the splatters.
“Coroner said he thinks the guy probably bled out.”
Diana glanced up at him. “I’d feel more confidence in that assessment if George Miller had an M.D. to go with his ego.” Under South Carolina state law, a county coroner had to have a high school diploma, but that was about it. The theory was that anybody could tell when somebody was dead. Which was how Miller had managed to get himself elected based on his standing in the community rather than any knowledge of medicine. That wouldn’t have been so bad, if the man hadn’t been a media hound who loved to make pronouncements about cause of death.
“Yeah, but if Miller’s right, where did the blood go?” Gist raked a hand through his salt-and-pepper crewcut, his bony face tired. His wife always ironed his blue uniform until the creases were sharp enough to cut paper, but it was visibly wilting now. “I thought maybe he’d been killed somewhere else and moved here, but there’s just enough blood in the mattress to indicate otherwise. Besides, look at his arms and legs.”
Thick bands of red, scraped flesh circled wrists and ankles. “He was bound,” Diana said. “Looks like some kind of manacles.”
“Chained to the bed. You can see the bedposts are scored, too. He must have fought like hell to get loose.”
Diana looked up at Gist. “So where are the restraints?”
The chief shook his head. “We haven’t been able to find them. Or the murder weapon, whatever it was.”
“Maybe I’ll have better luck.” She looked at the closed door. “That lock?”
“Took care of it while you were checking out the body.”
Diana nodded shortly and closed her eyes to visualize the form she wanted. A tingling sensation gathered under her scalp and spread down her body, intensifying into a hot burn as muscle and bones contorted. The bottom dropped out of her stomach, as though she was riding an elevator that had gone into free fall.
When Diana opened her eyes again, a wall of yellow fabric stood in front of her. She’d always been grateful that she wasn’t color-blind in the German shepherd form she assumed when playing K-9.
She resisted the urge to give her body a doglike shake, having no desire to contaminate the crime scene with black fur.
“I’ll never get used to that,” Gist said, rocking back on his heels as he looked down at her. He suddenly seemed much taller. “I always hope that I’ll see the moment when you change, but I never do. It’s just too quick. And where the hell do your clothes go?”
Automatically, she tried to answer—It’s magic, Chief—but the first word emerged as a soft woof, reminding her to shut up before somebody heard her. This was not a form with human vocal cords, though at least her brain didn’t seem to change. Which was probably why Diana became such a damn big dog; she needed a skull with enough room to house it. She’d never been able to turn into anything smaller.
As it was, this form actually weighed more than her human body. She had no idea where the extra mass came from, any more than she knew where her clothes went. It was, as she’d tried to tell the chief, magic.
Unfortunately, she had an ugly suspicion she wasn’t the only one in Verdaville capable of working a spell.
Rising onto her hind legs, Diana braced her forepaws on the mattress, then extended her long nose for a sniff at the body. If anything, the smell of death was even more overwhelming in this form, but somehow she didn’t find it as horrific.
But there was something beneath the ripe smell of blood and waste, an overlay of…
Alien.
Her canine lips curled into a snarl as a deep growl rumbled in her throat. Instinctively, she dropped down and backed away from the bed, repulsed.
“What is it?” The chief looked down at her, a frown on his face. “What’d you smell? Dammit, would you turn back? I feel like I’m trapped in an episode of Lassie.”
Diana ignored him, forcing herself to approach the corpse again. She’d never smelled that particular scent before, and she had to make sure she wasn’t mistaken. This time, though, she lowered her head to the carpet, hoping to sample whatever it was without the distracting overlay of death.
As she’d expected, the scent trails around the bed were even stronger. There was the victim’s—a healthy young man in his prime with a taste for Stetson cologne and Dial soap.
And there was his killer’s.
A woman. Or something that looked like a woman, anyway. She’d been human once, but she certainly wasn’t anymore. The alien magic in her scent made Diana’s hackles rise.
She dared. She dared come into Diana’s town and kill Diana’s people. She was going to pay for that.
And what the hell was she, anyway? Maja? Diana cursed silently. She’d never met one of Merlin’s witches and had no idea what they smelled like, so she couldn’t say whether the alien taint in the killer’s scent was Maja or not.
Still, though Merlin had created the Direkind in case of just such an eventuality, Diana had a hard time believing a Maja could do something so horrific. She’d grown up listening to her grandfather’s tales of heroic Arthur, his vampire Knights, and the witches of Avalon.
No hero did this.
The chief huffed. “Would you please turn back into something that can talk instead of pacing around the room snarling to yourself?”
Rumbling in frustration, Diana closed her eyes and visualized her human form. Magic raced over her skin, tingling and burning by turn. When she opened her eyes again, she was dressed once more in the conservative charcoal slacks and jacket she’d put on that morning, badge and holster in place. “The killer’s not human,” she told Gist, scrubbing both hands through her short-cropped black hair in frustration.
“Not…” Blinking, he looked wide-eyed at the body. “What do you mean, he’s not human?”
“It’s a she. And I mean she’s”—Dian
a huffed out a breath—“like me. Some kind of magical whatever.”
“A werewolf?” The chief’s eyes flickered. She could almost see him imagining the consequences of a magical killer lose in Verdaville.
She waved off the suggestion. “No, not a werewolf; the smell’s wrong. Something else. I won’t know for sure until I find her. Look, I need to track this monster, if that’s even possible in the muddle of scents with all those people outside. Can you…?”
He nodded. “I brought Luna’s stuff, just in case.”
“Good. Oh, that reminds me,” Diana added, as the thought of going outside into the crowd made her remember the victim’s sister, “you’re going to need to talk to the sister. She’s outside.”
“Coroner said he was going to take care of that. He’s probably with the family now.”
“Good.” She took a deep breath. “Okay. Then it’s time to play K-9 Corps before the trail goes cold.”
Llyr staggered through the hidden passage into the Dowager Queen’s quarters. Woozy from loss of blood, he tripped on the threshold and threw out a hand to brace himself against the wall. “Grandmother!” He grimaced as he noticed he’d left a bloody handprint on one of her floor-to-ceiling tapestries. “Oh, I’m in for it now.”
Tiny wings whirred. He turned his head. “Janieda?” No, that couldn’t be right. Janieda was dead. Fresh grief stabbed him.
He’d failed another of his women.
A tiny face stared into his, startled. “Your Majesty!” Instantly, the Demisidhe grew to his full height—Becan, Oriana’s chamberlain. Normally as dignified as he was tall and wiry, the man looked panicky now as he wrapped a surprisingly strong arm around Llyr’s shoulders. As he helped him hobble toward the nearest chair, Becan lifted his voice in a shout. “Oriana! Come quickly!” In his anxiety, the chamberlain neglected to use the Dowager’s royal honorific. He corrected himself the next breath. “Your Highness, it’s the king! He’s been hurt!”
“What?” Light feet pattered in from the next room. Llyr looked up blindly and found himself instantly surrounded by the familiar warmth and scent of his grandmother’s arms. With a sigh of relief, he let his head rest against her delicate shoulder.
His grandmother had raised him after his mother fell to a Morven rebel when he was barely an infant. Even after all these centuries of manhood, the scent of her was enough to remind him of his boyhood.
“What have they done to you?” Her voice was fierce with rage that anyone had dared touch him.
“Stab wound,” he managed. “Through the side. Poisoned me with something that blocked my magic.”
She caught her breath, no doubt remembering the injury that had killed her son. Gently, Oriana laid a long, slender hand against his ribs. Magic rushed from her palm in a wave of warm power, knitting the wound closed in an instant. He moaned in gratitude as the pain drained away.
At least this wound had yielded to a healer’s magic.
The Dowager Queen scanned his body anxiously. “Is that your only injury? Where are your guards, boy?”
Llyr lifted his eyes to hers. She was a lovely woman still, with the exotic features and almond eyes of her Morven Sidhe heritage. A mortal would have mistaken her for no more than fifty, though in fact she was in her fifth millennium. He gave her a tight grimace. “Who do you think did this? Four of them turned on me.”
“No!” Her long, dark hair seemed to crackle with sparks of magical ire. “Which ones?”
He slumped, defeat rolling through him even as his body strengthened. “Kerwyn and three others. I had to kill them all.”
“Oh, no.” Oriana sat back on her heels, the white silk of her nightgown settling in heavy folds around her slim body. “It was over Janieda, wasn’t it?”
Llyr glanced up, startled. “You knew he loved her?”
“Yes, but I would never have expected him to turn on you. I thought that boy loved you.”
“I thought so, too. Evidently we were both wrong.” He stood, sighing in relief at his returned strength. Magic stirred and crackled at the edge of his consciousness. His grandmother’s healing spell had lifted the block, too.
Becan walked in, carrying a tray with a pitcher and two goblets. Llyr took one with murmured thanks, then added to his grandmother, “Another point to Ansgar. What need has he to brave my father’s curse, when he can hire my own men to kill me?”
“I should have drowned that one like a puppy,” Oriana hissed. “When he was born without the Dragon’s Mark, we all should have known right then what he’d turn out to be.”
Llyr turned a brooding look at the full-length mirror hanging on Oriana’s wall. Bending his right arm, he watched the intricate outline of the Dragon curl around his flexing biceps in brilliant shades of red and blue. It looked like a tattoo, but in fact, it was a magical birthmark signifying his status as the Heir to Heroes. “Kerwyn taunted me about that. He told me to call on Cachamwri if I could.”
Oriana watched him with sympathy in her eyes. “Did you try?”
He shrugged. “No. But then, Cachamwri has never answered me before, not even to save my wives or children. Why should he heed me now?”
“Apparently, you didn’t need him. You did defeat Kerwyn.”
Llyr shrugged, turning away from the mirror. “There’ll be others.”
There always were.
THREE
The county coroner had evidently done his job: Gist and Diana made it through the gauntlet of friends and family without having to stop more than twice to say, “We don’t know who did it yet. We’re following up on all leads. Have you talked to one of our detectives about what you know?”
Finally they escaped the crowd and started toward the chief’s SUV. “You’re awfully damn jumpy,” Gist said finally as they strode up the darkened sidewalk. He’d evidently parked some distance away. “It’s that time of year again, isn’t it?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“I could tell by the way you reacted whenever anybody in the crowd got too close.” He sighed, sounding thoroughly put out. “Among other things. I don’t normally get a boner at a crime scene, especially when somebody’s guts are spread all over the place. Those pheromones of yours are damn inconvenient.”
Gist was happily married, but that didn’t stop his body from reacting when he and Diana were in close quarters too long during the Burning Moon. Luckily he seemed to find the reaction more embarrassing than titillating. That, or he was completely turned off by the fact that she ran around on four legs half the time.
Either way, Diana was grateful. God knew she didn’t need the complication of an amorous police chief right now.
Coming out of the kennel to Gist several years before had been one of the biggest risks Diana had ever taken, but she’d had no choice. They’d been in the midst of a string of violent Main Street armed holdups that had terrorized the city’s merchants and customers. Everyone had known the bandit would eventually murder one of his victims.
As luck would have it, Diana had been getting her hair done when the robber burst into the beauty shop waving a pistol and demanding the customers’ purses. Even through the mask he wore, it was obvious he was high—not only on drugs, but on the terror of his victims.
Diana had known if she made a move toward him, he’d open fire on everyone in the shop. Gritting her teeth, she’d handed over her handbag like the rest of the customers and watched him run out the door.
The minute he was gone, she told the stylist to call the police and followed him. Trailing the bandit into the concealment of a stand of trees behind the shop, she transformed into wolf form and took off in pursuit.
Diana chased him into a house barely five blocks from the businesses he’d been terrorizing. From the scent trails that surrounded it, she knew she’d found the bandit’s home.
However, since she didn’t want to simply kill him out of hand, Diana had been forced to go to the police with what she’d discovered. If she hadn’t, somebody would have eventually ended up d
ead. And that she simply couldn’t allow.
She tried to talk her way around revealing how she’d managed to track the robber, but Gist, unfortunately, had a cop’s nose for a lie.
Diana finally gave up and transformed for him. He’d been terrified and disbelieving at first, but he’d also worked with enough police dogs to grasp the possibilities as soon as he calmed down.
Since then, Diana had helped the chief solve a number of cases. Since she could hardly testify in court that she’d identified the defendant by turning into a wolf, she’d tell Gist what she’d learned and let him collect the necessary evidence by more mundane means.
This murder, however, was an entirely different can of worms. Diana had no idea what she was going to do when and if she caught the killer. You didn’t just lock up somebody with that kind of power.
The chief had parked his blue SUV in a patch of shadow between two street lights. Besides the usual Verdaville coat of arms, the big vehicle was emblazoned with the words K-9 UNIT: STAY BACK. Heavily tinted windows ensured no one could look in to see there was no dog inside.
The chief was reaching for the hatch to open the truck when Diana heard a faint sound. She whirled just as a flash went off in her face.
“Hi, Diana!” a cheerful voice said from downwind. Recognizing it, she suppressed her instinct to lunge at its owner.
“Thanks a lot, Bobby, you jerk,” Gist said, sounding good-natured even as he clamped a restraining hand on her shoulder. He knew how short-tempered she was during the Burning Moon. “I’m totally blind now.”
“Sorry,” Bobby Greene said, not sounding sorry at all. Letting the camera hang by its strap from around his neck, he pulled his notebook out of his back pocket. “So what can you tell me about this murder, Chief?”
“This isn’t the time, Bobby,” Diana growled. She forced herself to straighten and clear her throat.
“We’re trying to catch this guy,” Gist said quickly. “Come by the office tomorrow, and I’ll give you the scoop.”
Master of the Moon Page 4