“Like a vampire?”
“No, like it actually tried to suck my life force out through my mouth.” A cold shiver raced down my spine as I remembered the creature’s hold over me. “I felt the creature drawing it out, and I couldn’t stop it.”
“How did you get away?” he asked.
“I fought back, which it wasn’t expecting.” The lie tasted bitter on my tongue, but it was better than Grey knowing that I was a true immortal. As far as he was concerned, I was simply another kind of fae, and I intended on keeping it that way for as long as possible. Historically, gorgons hadn’t fared well if the myths were to be believed. We had a tendency to make those around us nervous, and I had no idea how Grey would react if he knew what I was. It just wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.
I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not, but he didn’t press me any further on the topic and for that I was grateful.
“What has that got to do with the circle not having any of its power?” Grey said.
“Well, what if the creature used the victim as a means of tapping into the henge’s magic? It’s a life essence of sorts.”
“And you think the creature is capable of drinking down that much power?” Despite his attempt at keeping his voice even, I saw him flinch.
“It makes sense, though, doesn’t it? How else can you explain the lack of power in here?”
He nodded thoughtfully, but I knew he was still keeping something from me.
“What is it?”
“This is the third henge we’ve found with a body in it,” he said.
“And are they all empty?” My stomach sank.
“I don’t know, we weren’t looking for something like that…”
“Christ, Grey, you’re only telling me this now?”
His phone chose that moment to ring, the shrill tone piercing the evening air. Without a word, he turned his back to me, and I could tell from the way his shoulders tightened that he wasn’t receiving good news.
“Got it,” he said, then turned to face me once more, his expression grim. “There’s another body.”
I balled my hands into fists at my sides. “Is it Tracey?”
He shook his head, but he didn’t look hopeful. “The bodies aren’t visually identifiable, Jenna. It takes dental records and DNA. Whatever is doing this has never killed this quickly, but it doesn’t keep its victims for very long.”
“Fuck,” I whispered, the tight knot in my chest returning with a vengeance. I’d failed. I’d been so close to saving her, and instead, the creature had kicked my ass. If I were stronger… If I wasn’t so bloody afraid of using my power…
The thoughts swirled in my head, churning my stomach violently. I was supposed to stop shit like this from happening, and instead I’d probably made it worse. I’d pissed the killer off, and Tracey had paid the price with her life.
“Stop blaming yourself,” Grey said, cutting through the bitter rhetoric filling my head.
“Why? Someone’s gotta be held accountable for this, Grey. I’m as good as any.”
“Let me take you home.”
“Are you kidding me? Home is the last place I want to go right now,” I said. “No, you’re going to take me to the newest crime scene, and I’m going to try and pick up this thing’s trail before it goes cold.”
He nodded and turned back toward the SUV. That was one of the things I loved about him: he didn’t question me when I was in the mood to rip things apart. It had made us a great team, and I only hoped we could recapture some of that same magic so we could put a stop to this creature once and for all.
Chapter 14
The flashing police lights gave away the location of the crime scene long before we arrived. The rhythmic red and blue pulses lit up the sky, and my heart quickly fell into step with them. I’d thought I was done with this. I’d seen my last crime scene, brought my last preternatural criminal to justice, and I’d walked away, leaving it behind me.
And yet here I was.
Grey parked the car along the side of the road. The scene wasn’t what I’d expected, especially after what I’d seen at the stone circles—that place had been quiet, peaceful even. We were now on the outskirts of a town, and the hustle and bustle just didn’t sit right with me. The creature might have been made of shadows, but it would have a hard time hiding under the street lights, and I also had a feeling it had no use for houses.
As we climbed out of the SUV, the other Division 6 officers cast curious glances in my direction. My black jeans and leather jacket definitely weren’t part of the dress code.
“Why is half the police force here? I thought this was strictly Division 6’s territory.” I caught Grey’s eye as he made his way around the front of the SUV. Tension radiated from him, and the urge to touch his arm, to reassure him, overwhelmed me.
“It’s supposed to be,” he said through gritted teeth, then he took off toward the nearest group of agents.
I followed him, surveying the scene in front of me. I’d been off the job for five years, but I definitely hadn’t forgotten my training… and alarm bells were now going off in my head.
Pausing in the middle of the road, I closed my eyes and allowed my senses to spill outwards. There was no magic here, no power flowing beneath our feet. But the air was stained with the stench of death… and something else. Using my senses to search the scene wasn’t particularly easy, especially when I kept the heightened half of my nature under wraps. Despite the difficulties, though, I quickly discovered the root of my unease. The creature was still here. And it was pissed.
Snapping my eyes open, I scanned the scene and picked Grey out. I darted toward him, running headlong into the arms of a uniformed police officer who was crossing the street toward the squad cars.
“Civilians aren’t supposed to be here,” he said, his arms tightening around me as he began to push me back from where I’d come. Even though I wasn’t using the gorgon side of my nature, my senses were still way stronger than any human’s, perhaps even stronger than some preternatural’s, and knowing that the creature was still here kicked my body into overdrive.
“I’m no civilian,” I said, pushing back against his blocky body. The stale odour of cigarettes overlaid with antiperspirant slammed into me as I leaned into him.
“Stop fighting.” He grunted with the effort of trying to stop me from pushing past him. Not that I was really trying… not yet, anyway. I was still trying to be polite, but the more I drank in the scent of the creature’s proximity, the more agitated I became.
“The thing, the creature we’re after, is still here.” I took a sudden step backwards, causing the policeman to stumble after me.
“We’ve done a thorough sweep of the area, ma’am. I can assure you there’s no monster here, just the poor sod who got in its way.” He grabbed my arm in an attempt at stopping himself from falling on his face.
Since when did I become a ma’am?
“I need to speak to Grey Cooper; he’s the Division 6 agent in charge.” I shrugged free and skipped just out of his reach. “I promise, I’m no civilian, and he knows I’m here. We came together.” I regretted that statement the moment it left my mouth, but there was no taking it back now. “Um, I mean we arrived together… in the same car.” Heat flooded up into my face and I could feel myself growing more flustered as the seconds ticked by. I didn’t have time for this. Dicking around out here, while the creature was in there doing Goddess knew what, felt wrong.
I darted around him. The police officer grumbled but started after me. I couldn’t really blame him; it wasn’t as though I had any identification to show him. If I was going to work with Grey again, though, we’d have to get that sorted out sooner rather than later. The last thing I needed was well-meaning uniforms chasing me down and getting in the way of me doing my job.
I swivelled around, searching the scene, but while I’d been chatting to “Officer Means Well,” Grey had disappeared.
“Have you seen Grey?” I called to the neare
st agent, who had his back to me. It was pretty easy to assume he was Division 6, since the suits tended to give them away. The red and blue pulsing police lights showed each and every crease in the guy’s outfit, making it look as though he’d slept in it. And maybe he had; a situation like this would surely be cause for all hands on deck.
The agent turned toward me, his scowling face a familiar sight that I met with a smile. “Nice to see you again,” I said.
“So you’re the reason Grey is late,” Man-Boy Alex said, his frown only deepening as he took in my attire. “I thought you wanted nothing to do with him?” The small plaster he wore across the bridge of his nose told me he’d needed stitches after our first meeting, and his eyes stood out against the dark black rings of bruising that covered his face. Regret swept through me; he wasn’t the enemy, and yet that was exactly how I’d treated him. Even if he had overstepped his bounds, I had a responsibility to keep my abilities in check, and using them against the innocent definitely wasn’t a good idea.
“Changed my mind,” I said, keeping my smile firmly in place as the police officer who was following me caught up.
“Sorry, sir, this one got through before I had a chance to secure the perimeter,” he said. I cringed at the way he called Man-Boy Alex ‘sir’; the guy was still wet behind the ears and hadn’t yet earned that right.
Gotta stop calling him Man-Boy. You know you’re itching to slip up and ‘accidentally’ let him know exactly what you think of him, the voice in my head told me, and I had to agree. Part of me definitely wanted to keep yanking Alex’s chain, but pissing him off more than he already was wouldn’t win me any favours. And with Grey nowhere to be seen, and Man-Boy—no, Alex—in charge, I needed to make friends, not any more enemies than I already had.
“Where’s Grey gone, Alex?” I rolled my tongue around the letters of his name in an attempt to familiarise myself with it. Officer Means Well once more tried to manhandle me away from the scene, but I planted my feet firmly, rooting myself to the spot. “And can you please tell this guy I’m supposed to be here.” Using the word “please” grated on me, but I tried not to show it.
“Are you?” Alex asked, suddenly feigning innocence. “Last time I checked, only Division 6 and a select few local law enforcement are allowed inside a crime scene. You”—he jabbed a finger into my chest—“are neither.”
Anger seeped into my veins, and I could feel its heat suffusing my cheeks. “Still sore about our initial meeting, are we?” I asked, struggling to keep both my voice and the urge to snap his finger off in check. He couldn’t know he was getting under my skin.
He rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously as colour flooded into his face. “I’m still considering bringing charges.”
“You do that,” I said. “Division 6 won’t be too happy to know one of their agents is incapable of taking care of himself in the field.” He spluttered, and I could practically taste his rage rising from his skin and tainting the air with its metallic tang. “Look, we can do the macho crap later. Right now, you need to get the techs and uniformed officers pulled back from the scene. The creature is still here.”
“We swept the scene, it’s long gone.” Alex glanced back over his shoulder nervously, and I could sense his unease, which only served to amplify my own.
The creature knew we were here—I could feel its anger all the way out on the street. But if I could sense it, then why couldn’t anyone else? More importantly, how the hell had they done a sweep of the scene and missed it?
“I’m not arguing with you about whether you swept the scene or not. I’m telling you that thing is still here, and it’s pissed as hell,” I said, taking a step toward him.
His shoulders stiffened, and I could see the denial in his eyes as he opened his mouth. A scream ripped the air, and I could tell it came from outside a nearby house.
Alex froze, his expression betraying his fear. What the hell was Grey thinking, bringing little more than a child into a situation like this? He had to know that Alex was woefully unprepared for the job, for the creatures he would face, for the death and destruction, not to mention the constant threat to his own life. If it were up to me, I’d have sent him back to the office to ride a desk, only allowing him out for field training drills until I was sure he could handle himself.
The colour had drained from his face, and I half-expected him to crumple into a ball and start sobbing. I’d seen tougher agents crumble.
From the corner of my eye, I was aware of the other officers and agents darting toward the house. I spotted Grey fighting his way through the fleeing forensic officers until he disappeared around the wall of the red brick house. I felt my heart leap into my throat.
“Grey needs backup,” I said, moving toward him.
Despite his ashen appearance, Alex seemed to recover himself and followed me through the melee of people. One of the forensic techs dropped to his knees as he reached the roadside, the blue tinge around his lips and the unnatural colouring in his face suggesting he’d been starved of oxygen. He clawed at his throat as though that would somehow clear his airways.
I left him behind; first aid definitely wasn’t my area of expertise. I had a working knowledge, enough to get by on, but certainly not enough to be of any real use to the wounded emerging from the property.
My breath caught as I rounded the corner of the house. I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d been expecting, but it definitely wasn’t the scene that greeted me.
Bodies littered the ground… not that they were recognisable as bodies anymore. The scattered remains made it impossible to get a true reading on just how many people had died. I’d only ever seen something like this after one of the great wars between the Faerie Courts. Kypherous had taken me out to witness the aftermath of the carnage. The fae of the UnSeelie Court had figured out a way to contain and compress their collective magics by forcing a type of possession on the lesser fae, making them go mad and then turning their fragile bodies into a type of bomb.
The banshees had brought an end to the UnSeelie Court’s madness, but it had come at a great cost to them, completely devastating their numbers and forcing them underground.
The humans had created weapons with the same capabilities, but I knew the destruction laid out before me hadn’t been created by a human device. The tang of the creature’s magic still rode the air, burning the back of my throat with each breath.
“Christ Almighty,” Alex said beneath his breath, and I knew he’d caught up to me.
As I surveyed the scene, it was clear to me that Grey and the creature had moved on, but I had no idea which direction they’d taken. If he caught up to it and was attacked like me, he wouldn’t survive. Druids weren’t immortal.
“What can you tell me about the area,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at Alex.
Despite the shock evident on his face he recovered fast, schooling his features into a more neutral and assessing expression.
“What do you mean, the area—” he started to say, but I cut him off.
“I mean the thing that did this has gone to ground, and I need to know where. So what can you tell me about the surroundings that’ll give us a place to start looking for it and Grey.”
Realisation dawned on his face, and he nodded before he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. I watched on impatiently, a gnawing feeling of trepidation filling my gut as he tapped away on the screen before finally pointing to the opposite side of what had once been a green lawn.
“Through the back of those shrubs, there’s a path that leads down to what looks like the opening to some caves.”
Without hesitation, I started in the direction he’d pointed, skirting the edge of the destruction to the best of my ability. The people who had died here hadn’t deserved what had happened to them, and I wasn’t going to disrespect them by racing headlong through the new crime scene.
The overgrown shrubs covered an iron fence. If the creature had passed through it, then we clearly weren’t dealing with one
of the fae.
I found an area where several of the bars were bent back, forming a gap just wide enough for me to fit through. Drawing a deep breath in through my nose, I picked up Grey’s scent on the other side, and relief flooded through me.
I hadn’t sensed him amongst the dead, but the overpowering stench of death and blood had been too much to get a true read. Knowing I’d been right, and that he had followed the creature away from the scene, made me feel marginally better.
“Grey!” I called out, my voice bouncing back to me unevenly. The distortion of my voice told me that Alex had been right: there were definitely some sort of caves in the area.
I took off, crossing the ground at breakneck speed, allowing my senses to sweep outwards as I searched for Grey and the creature.
The metallic tang of blood hit my nose, and I paused, raising my face into the wind. I drank down the breeze, parsing out the different scents until I found the one I was looking for, the one that filled me with sour dread.
I knew the scent of Grey’s blood. He’d been injured on the job before, a knife wound that had practically gutted him. I’d taken the scent of his blood then, filing it away for future reference as I’d applied pressure to the wound and prayed to the gods above that he survived to be a pain in my ass.
He had then. And he would now.
Alex caught up to me, his hand wrapping around my arm as he squeezed my bicep with enough force to make me wonder just what he was. Because he certainly wasn’t human.
“What is it?” he asked, keeping his voice low. His eyes darted to the sides, and as I realised he was scanning the area, he came up in my estimation.
“What’s your sense of smell like?” I asked, unable to shake the scent of Grey’s blood. It filled my nose, and I imagined it coating my hair and skin, settling into my clothes so that no amount of washing would ever get the stench out.
“Slightly above average. I don’t have heightened senses, per se,” he said.
Cast in Stone Page 11