by T. G. Ayer
I raised my eyebrows, impressed. I kept forgetting that DeathTalkers were human to begin with.
As I tapped on the next file Anjelo grunted. “Text from Storm,” he said lifting his phone. “He’s asked around and none of the kids have reported anyone suspicious, or even anyone new in the area.”
I let out a breath. “Dead end, then.”
“Yeah. He said he’ll keep looking. He sounded very strange when I told him. Like it was a big deal.”
I scowled, my attention no longer on the laptop. “Isn’t it?”
Seeing that Nerina and Lily were also glaring at him Anjelo raised his hands in defense. “Hey. No. That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what did you mean,” asked Lily, her tone icy.
Whoa.
“I meant that Storm took it in stride. Like it hadn’t shocked him at all.”
I mulled it over. “So he wasn’t surprised.”
“Yep. I mean nope. He wasn’t surprised. Shocked. Upset. But not surprised.” Anjelo leaned back and folded his arms. “Why would that be?”
Not everyone knew that Storm was Immortal. “He’s not your run-of-the-mill guy.”
Anjelo shrugged. “Must have something to do with all the time he’s been spending with Jess.”
“Maybe.” My mind was busy, dancing between worry over Grams and the fact that the files she’d given me all seemed to be empty. Had she taken the wrong ones or were they protected in some way?
Then what Anjelo had just said clicked in my head. “Storm and Jess?”
He nodded. “Not romantically. I don’t think. Just very . . . busy . . . And very serious.”
“Interesting,” I murmured.
Jess’s sudden association with Storm pushed her up my list of people to talk to. If Storm wasn’t surprised about the massacres then it was possible Jess knew something.
No one said anything as I returned my attention to accessing the data. At last one file opened. Letters and numbers filled the screen.
“What’s this?” I asked, flipping the laptop around for Anjelo to see.
He glanced at the screen and snorted. “How the hell should I know? I don’t read code.” Judging by the look on his face reading code was in the same category as wearing a dress.
“Lily?” I asked.
She shook her head. So did Nerina.
“Then we’re all outta luck,” Anjelo said. “Anyone know a coder?”
I had to smile. “As a matter of fact, I do know someone.”
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“My friend Baz. He’s a hacker.”
“You know a hacker?” asked Anjelo.
“Yeah. Cassie and I dropped him off at Storm’s yesterday.”
“Oh, the English kid.” Anjelo nodded. “He’s not much of a talker.”
I smiled and removed the drive. “Can you get him to decode this for me?”
“You think that’s a good idea?” Lily asked frowning. “Shouldn’t you keep a copy at least? Or have him come decode it here, or somewhere safer?”
“Good thinking. I’ll figure it out.” I tapped the drive into my palm while I tried to decide what was best. At last I sighed and slipped it into my pocket. “You two do some nosing around with the other kids. Ask about anything unusual.”
“But Storm—”
I cut Lily off with a wave of my hand. “Yeah, but I’d rather not put all my eggs in one basket. The more sources of information we have the better.”
Lily nodded, and as she got to her feet, Anjelo rose with her. They seemed to work fluidly, moving together as if they still belonged. And I hoped for Lily’s sake that they really did.
They were good for each other.
As they headed for the door.
I scented Logan on the stairs outside. Hurrying to see the pair out, I greeted him at the door. We huddled for a moment, everyone saying helloes and goodbye, with Anjelo’s awkward greeting a little painful to see. He still had problems with Logan and I had to figure that one out as soon as I had time.
Waving them off, I dragged Logan inside.
“So?” I asked as Nerina looked on expectantly.
Logan’s expression was dark. “It’s not good.”
I sank onto the nearest seat at the dining table. “Is anything good right now?”
Logan remained standing, his face tight. In the last few days he seemed to have aged a decade.
“Sit down,” I told him. “Tell us what you found.”
He hesitated. Then he pulled another chair out from under the dining table and sat.
“I scanned the scene report,” he said. “It’s been tampered with. No entries to suggest a massacre. The incident now reads like a paranormal accident. The energy detectors measured pretty high amounts of paranormal Air energy, which suggests an air mage was involved, but the conclusion is accidental death. The file is now closed.”
I couldn’t believe it. “And they didn’t get a DeathTalker in?”
“You saw the scene,” he said. “There wasn’t much left to talk to.”
“Such things do not matter to a DeathTalker.”
Both Logan and I swung our attention to Nerina.
“When a DeathTalker dies,” she said, “the spirit of that person can roam the normal plane for a certain time. For millennia, this ability has allowed us to communicate with the living, to pass on crucial information, family secrets. In Mika’s case, her spirit found its way back to our estate and contacted her mother.”
I shuddered. “That must have been awful for Kira.”
“It was,” she said sadly. “Lady Kira may not be the kindest of people but she is respected. Seeing her grief now has made it all the more clear to us how much of her emotion she hides. But Mika’s arrival alerted us to the fact that she’d been killed and as soon as she showed us her vision, Lady Kira and I traveled to the scene to verify it.”
“Verify?”
“Lady Kira could not completely trust the word of her daughter even in death. They had a lot of history.” Nerina sighed and twisted her fingers. “The scene confirmed what Mika had said. Confirmed, too, that there was little left of her body. So we left.”
“Kira didn’t want to claim her child?”
Nerina shook her head.
I sat back, not understanding. “There are urns in your castle containing the remains of long-dead high-priestesses, but Kira’s own flesh and blood isn’t important enough to take home?”
My voice had taken on a dangerously critical edge.
Nerina’s lips curved but it wasn’t a happy smile. “Lady Kira does what she must. She felt that it would endanger the rest of the order if we came forward to claim the body.”
“She wanted to avoid the scandal,” I said, my voice hard. “She knew any media attention would focus on her relationship—or lack of a relationship—with Mika and would have been bad for her reputation.”
And suddenly I no longer wanted to discuss Kira. Her daughter was more important.
I turned back to Logan. “I want to see the scene for myself.”
Logan sat back, his brow creasing. “I’m not sure we can do that. Both Sentinel and Omega have people watching the place.”
“I can get in and out and they’ll never know I was there.”
Skepticism gleamed in his eyes. “Turning into a panther doesn’t always make you safe. It can make you vulnerable.”
I scowled. “I’m fully capable of protecting myself, panther or otherwise.”
“I’m well aware of that,” he said. “But there are armed agents guarding scene. Not even your panther can survive being shot by modern weaponry.”
He had a point. “But I still need to see the scene myself. I might just pick up on something you all missed.”
Logan nodded. “Fine. We haven’t used a walker at the scene. Your sense of smell may provide more information.”
I got to my feet and dusted off the seat of my jeans. “I’m ready. Call Saleem.”
Logan frowned. “I don’t wa
nt to get him involved.”
“He’s already involved,” I said, starting to lose patience. “And I can just imagine what he’ll say when he finds out you went without asking him to help you.” I raised an eyebrow. “Or would you rather I asked?”
In answer, Logan drew out his phone.
While he called Saleem I talked to Nerina. “Will you be able to get there on your own?”
DeathTalkers can move within the ether, going from place to place wherever they are needed. I’d also heard they used the Graylands to travel.
Nerina nodded. “I know where the place is. I shall meet you there.” She drew her hood back over her head. “But first, I should report to the Lady Kira.”
I made a face. “Just be careful what you tell her. A lot of what we have is just speculation. We don’t want to get her hopes up.”
Nerina nodded, her expression determined, as if she was building up the strength to face the grieving woman. “I will tell her only what is necessary. Don’t worry, Kailin. We are both on the same team.”
I smiled and nodded. Watched as she disappeared into a tiny hurricane of gray shadow and then disintegrated into nothing.
And wondered which team Nerina would support when it came to a fight.
Chapter 22
WITH NERINA GONE, I TURNED to Logan, ready to depart. And saw the expression of concern on his face. I smiled and he took me in his arms. There, in the privacy of the empty apartment he let himself go. What started as a simple hug built fast into a passionate kiss. I’d missed him so much and the depth of my need for him built as our lips met in blazing heat.
Finally he pulled away. Squeezed my butt. “Saleem’s on his way, you know.”
About five feet away someone cleared their throat. “Already here.”
We both turned to the djinn, and found him grinning, his dark eyes sparkling. It always amazed me how he found the time for humor in the middle of all the mayhem that defined his life.
He clapped her hands together then rubbed them vigorously. “Now where are we headed on this clandestine mission?”
I gave him the address and told him to take us a block away. Appearing inside the room while it was occupied would be a bad move.
The shift through the planes was as disorienting as always, and my stomach turned. I was a big bad alpha panther and I got ether-sick. How embarrassing.
And just as suddenly as we’d left we returned to the human plane, the ground beneath my feet solidifying as the quiet street slowly came into view.
Cicero was a small city, west of Chicago, which had at one time been a bustling city. Not anymore. Now, most of the buildings were abandoned as citizens sought better opportunities in other more lucrative cities.
But the city, like Chicago, hadn’t been entirely abandoned. Although Chicago still had a city council to maintain services, facilities, and run numerous businesses, Cicero had no council, and provided nothing to its citizens. The people who remained had to live without power and water, and so the city’s atmosphere had sunk into something akin to a squatter camp.
Along its southern edge ran what had once been a popular nightspot. Its restaurants and bars now stood abandoned and bare, with glass frontages smashed, and doors hanging open to dust, dirt, and animals.
As we moved down the street I allowed my panther to filter through my senses. Sounds of scurrying. Sniffing. The stench of garbage, old fat. And desperation.
Logan led us to the nearest corner, paused, and then peered around it into the street on the right. From that position we should be able to see right inside the destroyed room, the energy blast having destroyed a good portion of the front wall.
He pulled back quickly. “We have Sentinel on guard duty on this side of the sidewalk, and Omega throwing their weight around on the other side of the street.”
“Why are both organizations watching the place?” I asked.
“They don’t trust each other right now,” said Saleem softly, giving Logan’s enigmatic face a glance.
“With good reason,” I said, my tone dry and little too hard.
Saleem grinned. I wasn’t the only person on this sidewalk who didn’t feel friendly toward Omega.
“So. You spiriting us inside the building?” I asked him.
Saleem nodded and held out a hand. Then he looked at Logan. “Coming?’
Logan nodded and grasped his arm.
When we rematerialized, it was inside a dim hallway that stretched ahead of us into darkness. A door loomed a few feet from us. We’d solidified outside the bar where the kids had been killed, and somehow the murky dark that occupied the threshold to that awful place seemed to be filled with ominous shadows.
I took a step closer and inhaled a sharp breath. Logan placed a supportive palm on the small of my back, leaving it there for a few comforting seconds.
And then we entered the darkness.
Chapter 23
MY NOSE TWITCHED, THE PANTHER scenting the coppery tang of blood. Although dried and old, the life essences in the children’s blood called to me and I stepped deeper into the room.
Logan held out a hand, barring me from moving forward. When I glanced at him he pointed down. A little yellow flag lay beside a dark spot on the gray concrete floor.
Blood.
Stupid. I should have known to be careful at a crime scene. Instead, I’d barreled inside like an idiot oblivious to the evidence I could destroy by carelessness.
Get it together, Odel.
I sank into a crouch and stared at the dark spot as Saleem stepped around me to do his own search. The blood had dried to a red-brown, so much like the ochre sand of the African village that I had to suppress a shudder.
I drew on my senses and focused, giving my panther more access to my human body. My nostrils flared as I huffed in more of the scents around me, and I smelled the blood itself.
My ability to smell blood remains went only so far as to identify it as blood with a particular unique odor. And yet, now, as I stared at the reddish blotch, and inhaled the scent of the DNA, an image floated before me.
I blinked and jerked back slightly, thankfully not too far that I fell over on my butt.
“What is it?” whispered Saleem as he too hunkered down beside me.
I stared blankly at his dark face for a moment, unsure what it was that had just happened to me.
“You okay?” he pressed, his brow furrowed in concern.
I cleared my throat. “I’ve always been able to smell blood, then identify the owner at a later stage by recognition. Like a bloodhound. But now, for some reason I can see an image of someone when I smell that drop of blood.”
Saleem frowned. “Could be a coincidence?”
I shrugged. And looked back at the drop on the floor, seeing again the blurred image of a girl.
“How about we test it?” I glanced back up at Saleem as he spoke. “Keep studying the room, and when you get to the next blood smear, see if that also has the same result for you?”
I nodded and got to my feet, feeling the wobble in my legs match the strange tumble within my gut. What the hell was going on with me?
I scanned the room, my eyes falling on Logan who’d wandered over to the far wall beside a huge pile of debris.
A scent, out of place amongst the odors of the kids who’d been regulars within the room, caught my nose. A stronger, feral, more adult note. My nostrils twitched as I scented the air again, studying the notes. Again I blinked when the image of a man came into view.
His humanity was clear from the odor, but there was something strange about it. Something I couldn’t quite fathom. His face brought back the images I’d seen of the silver-eyed killer from Mika’s memories. I frowned, unsure if I should trust the instinct that was saying I’d caught the scent of the killer. Or wonder if this was just me projecting my memories of Mika’s vision into the scent.
I cleared my throat and decided to try a different tactic.
I headed over to Logan, coming to a halt beside him, I
asked, “So can you describe what it looked like when you saw it? I’m assuming they’ve cleaned up the place a little.”
From where I stood, I could see smatterings of dark patches marring the concrete and the bare walls behind Logan. More blood, but I wasn’t yet ready to tackle those stains.
Logan nodded and passed me his phone. The screen showed clearly the initial damage, hiding little of the horror of the scene. There were scraps of clothing and pieces of flesh from the victims littering the floor.
I suppressed a shudder at the horror of it all. Inhaling sharply, I looked closer and began to compare the image with what the room looked like now. They’d removed the bodies, and swept the debris, both concrete and wood, all to one side of the room.
I studied the patterns of where the children had ended up and the bloodstains that now remained. Then I gave the tablet back to Logan, hoping that if he saw the tremor in my hand, he would ignore it.
He did.
I inhaled again and walked closer to another streak of blood that marked the rutted concrete floor. The ground too bore the marks of the impact of the explosive force used to kill the kids.
I crouched down and studied the patch of blood, lowering my nose closer to the surface. I felt self-conscious knowing my panther nose took a partial physical form and that my human face would look decidedly feline. Neither Saleem nor Logan would say anything but the fact they’d see me in partial animal form made me uncomfortable.
Again, the scent of the blood penetrated deep into my nasal passages and I inhaled and concentrated.
Then I hissed with shock.
A face hovered in front of me. A face I knew. A girl, all blue hair and metal jewelry. The pool player from my vision.
This was her blood.
I surged to my feet still staring down at the blood. “This belonged to a paranormal girl. Around seventeen. She was dressed punk style, lots of metal, a dog-collar. And she was an air Mage. She played pool with her ability to manipulate air energy.”
When I looked up, both Logan and Saleem were staring at me, their eyes wide and white.