by Lyra Evans
Closing his eyes, Oliver drew out his magical sense, searching for a signature he hoped was there. But his heart sank, his mind finding only that same buzzing, echoing silence of nothing. No signature. He pulled back, his head aching.
“Our killer knows you well, Oliver,” Sky said, studying him. “You still rely on that old tactic? It’s so unreliable. And clearly not impossible to fool.”
Oliver shot him a glare, but a ringing sound drew his attention. Connor pulled out his cellphone and answered the call. As he listened, his face turned ashen. Oliver hardly needed him to explain when he terminated the call.
“There’s been another murder,” he said.
With a heavy exhale, Oliver asked, “Where?” But something in the look on Connor’s face, the brittle quality in his eyes, and the slowness as he spoke, told Oliver it was much worse than he thought.
“My house.”
Chapter 11
The house was eerily silent. Even when it was empty, Oliver had never experienced Connor’s home this way. As though entering a tomb, nothing moved when they stepped inside. The air was still, breathless, bearing only ill tidings as Oliver found himself inhaling more forcibly than usual. The lights were off everywhere, and all the scattered remnants of the wake were missing. There were no cups or napkins or paper plates lying around, no clothing discarded in haste and lost along the way, no crumbs of food or drops of spilled drinks. It was as though no one had been here last night, mourning a friend with an indulgence in the pleasures of life.
Oliver felt wrong, uneven, his mind unable to process the possibility ahead of them. Connor’s home was a refuge for him, an escape into a dream, a fantasy of the best things that life could be. Coming here for work, for his work, was wrong. As wrong as it had been when he’d come the first time, trying his hardest to fight the pull between him and Connor, to remember Connor was a suspect, to make him one. It had been a lie to himself then, to suspect Connor when he’d known right away in his heart that Connor was innocent.
“Where is everyone?” Oliver asked, his voice a dull rasp.
Donna was waiting for them outside when they arrived, dressed in the most casual clothes Oliver had ever seen on her. The jeans and fitted sweater were almost incongruous with her identity in his mind. She was always made up, clothed in impeccable dresses, skirts, blouses, and always finished with a pair of spiked heels. He didn’t think she owned flat shoes, but as she waited, her face set but drawn, Oliver thought the world began to crack.
“Gone,” she said. “They woke soon after you left and cleaned up. Most were gone by ten, but the ones that stayed were all upstairs, putting the last few things away. I was the last to leave and that was around ten thirty.”
“And who found—” Sky began, but Donna didn’t wait.
“I did.” She addressed Connor when she said it, her normally bored expression creased. “I came back about an hour ago to see to some things and pick up some business files for Hunt. I was in the house for twenty minutes before I found him. It’s Will Sumpter, Connor. It’s Will.”
Her knuckles were white where she clung to her own arms, crossed over her chest. There was no colour in her except around the eyes, where redness crept in around the edges.
“Where?” Connor asked, and the two of them exchanged a look. It was silent and inscrutable and personal. Oliver felt an unreasonable pang of jealousy. Connor and Donna had been partners for years before Oli came along. She was his second, his most loyal friend, and Oli tried to push the jealousy away, to kill the unfair thought.
Then Donna turned to Oli, her dark eyes flickering with something Oliver didn’t expect. She was concerned for him. It took until she spoke the answer to Connor’s question for him to understand. “Downstairs.”
In a fog, Oliver filed down the stairs with Connor and Sky to find the crime scene. He didn’t need to, really. He already knew more or less what he would find. After the scene at Black Moon, he knew what was inevitably coming. But seeing it in flesh and blood and three dimensions was something else altogether.
For the first time since the Academy, Oliver felt himself gag. The urge to vomit was so bad he felt his hand slam into the wall, barely steadying his legs as the world spun around him. Usually the smell was it, the smell of death and decay, that made him feel sick. But, as with the other crime scenes, there was no smell. No death or decay or bodily fluids. None of the usual senses he found at a murder scene.
The victim, Will Sumpter, who Oli vaguely remembered seeing the night before, was lying naked on the leather couch. His chest pressed down onto the cushions with his head turned outward to the room, his legs were folded downward over the arm of the sofa. His feet pressed lifelessly against the ground, his knees partially bent to accommodate the low height of the couch. His messy brown hair was cut similarly to Oliver’s, shorter on the sides, but his eyes—a burnished amber that once would have sparkled—were the closest to Oliver’s yet. The collar at the man’s neck was like the others, and though he was chest down, Oliver knew there would be silver bullets buried in his chest. But the remaining item—the one that had to be of Fae origin—was what brought Oliver to the brink. A shimmering black dildo was in full view thanks to the position of the body.
“Spruce and Fir,” Sky breathed. “All the Sacred Wood, this—I’ve never seen.”
There was a loud bang, and Oliver jerked around, hands up to cast a spell. Connor was against the far wall, his fist caught in the drywall where he’d punched the wall. With a growl more like a Wolf than a man, Connor yanked his hand back, tearing a greater hole as he did. White dust and flecks of paint floated in a cloud around him as he flexed his hand. Oliver watched in muted anguish as Connor struggled. His jaw was vise-tight, his lips pulled back over his teeth, his head thrown back. The muscles along his neck and arms bulged with an almost invisible effort.
He roared suddenly, throwing his head to the side, and Oliver saw his eyes flash red. The air around him vibrated and shook, as though an earthquake contained to Connor was ravaging him. As Oliver watched, Connor’s face changed, his mouth and jaw lengthening, his hair bleaching whiter with every second. Soon his whole body warped and shuddered with the shift, the scream torn from his throat indicating this was not a welcome transformation.
Then a Wolf stood panting before them, nearly the size of a bear and white as the snow outside. It’s hackles raised, it lost the bright blue of Connor’s eyes, the blue he normally kept in transformation. Instead, the Wolf’s eyes were glowing red, it’s snout a snarl full of teeth. Oliver couldn’t move, blood pumping wildly in his ears. There was nothing else in the world but Connor then.
“Stand back,” Sky said, reaching a hand out to halt Oliver. He’d begun to move toward Connor without realizing it, but feeling Sky’s hand on his chest, he snapped back to himself.
Shooting Sky a horrified look, Oliver said, “Don’t!”
Sky hesitated, the gun he’d pulled lowered to the ground. “He’s not Connor now, Oliver. He’s lost himself to the Wolf here. He could—”
Connor snarled at Sky, and Oliver grabbed his hand holding the gun, forcing it further down. “He’s still Connor. Let me try to calm him down!”
Sky shook his head, but Oli stepped in front of him, barring his way to Connor. The white Wolf growled still, braced for an attack, the fur jutting out in tiny spikes. He looked larger than was possible, so much larger than any man could take on. But Oliver made himself smaller still, crouching slightly, his shoulders slumped, his body angled sideways.
“Please, Connor,” he said, words quiet and low. They rang on the air, a quavering tone. “Please, come back to me,” he said. Reaching a hand out slowly, palm up, Oliver sank to his knees cautiously. The Wolf’s eyes followed Oli as he went, a bark breaking up the sound of the constant growl as his kneecaps touched the floor.
“Oliver, he’ll tear you to pieces,” Sky said behind him, but Oliver ignored him.
“You won’t hurt me,” he said to Connor, heart beating out the rhythm of the wor
ds. “I know you won’t. You’re hurting—the pain must be excruciating. I know, Connor. I know. But I need you to come back to me. I need you to help me find this person, this monster killing your friends, your Wolves. I need your help. I need you.” He moved slowly forward, inching across the ground to close the distance between himself and the Wolf. Still it growled, its eyes wary as he approached, as Oliver reached to him. “It is a violent, sickening act, defiling something that was good and true and full of love. But you can’t let it have the victory. You can’t let this monster win, Connor. You have to come back to me.”
The growling quieted, the snarl easing off his face. As Oliver’s hand found fur, the red eyes faded back to blue, and the Wolf relaxed. It fell to a seated position, and Oliver wrapped his arms around Connor, holding him close, his face buried in thick white fur. As Oliver held him, Connor drew his head back, letting out a low, pained howl to the sky. The sound of it travelled through Connor and into Oliver’s chest, burrowing into his heart. Every held note hurt more.
When he pulled away, Oliver wasn’t holding a Wolf anymore, but Connor in Human form. He wrapped his arms around Oli, pressing tightly to him, his eyes screwed shut and his face nuzzling the crook of Oliver’s neck.
“I know,” was all Oliver said to him, stroking his back. “I know.”
“This is personal,” Sky said, and Oliver held fast to Connor, refusing to turn around.
“You already said that,” Oliver said.
“No. This is much more personal than I thought,” Sky said. “Why did you react that way? What aren’t you telling me?”
Oliver took a deep breath, and Connor pulled back his hands cupping Oliver’s face. He leaned in a pressed a soft kiss to Oliver’s lips. Oliver exhaled as they pulled apart, and Connor nodded to him. He got to his feet, pulling Oliver up as he went, and turned to Sky.
“The last two poses aren’t random,” Connor said. “They’re places and positions Oliver and I have had sex.”
Oliver looked back at Will Sumpter’s body, remembering how he’d splayed himself like that last night, begging for Connor to fuck him. He should have mentioned it sooner, but telling Sky was much more painful than he expected. With a thick lump in his throat, Oliver addressed him.
“This happened last night,” Oliver said, nodding to the body. “Which means he’s watching me.”
Sky’s jaw tightened, a thick rope of muscle at his neck pulling hard. Oliver recognized it, knew the sight of it. He was frustrated, the way he got when a case didn’t solve itself immediately in his head. He had been missing information, and Oliver felt a stab of guilt.
“You should have told me,” Sky said quietly, his green eyes travelling over the body. “At the last scene.”
“It didn’t necessarily—” Oliver said, but Sky rounded on him.
“This is your life we’re talking about, Oliver!” he cried, his palm colliding with Oliver’s chest, forcing him back a step. Connor caught him, body arced to lunge at Sky, but Oliver held him back. Sky shook his head. “Do you really care so little about your own life?” He glanced back at the body of Will Sumpter again, looking more shaken than he’d ever been at a crime scene. “Well, maybe you don’t care if you die, Oliver, but I do. And you,” he said, rounding on Connor now. “For all your grandstanding and growling, you could have told me this. You said you wanted to protect him!” Connor said nothing, his face a mask of intense calm. “You realize this means the killer was probably here. Maybe standing outside one of those windows just watching while you two—” He gestured angrily at the window, then shook his head again, leaving off the rest of his sentence. A flash of something passed over Sky’s face, and Oliver studied him, uneasy. He looked hurt.
“There would have been an alarm,” Connor said, shaking his head. “If he was on the grounds, the wards would have alerted me.”
Sky shot him a look. “Even if you were otherwise engaged?”
Connor’s eyes widened, his pupils contracting. His mouth pulled sideways slightly. “Are you suggesting I would endanger the safety of my pack, of Oliver just to get off?”
“You already did!” Sky snarled, and Connor gritted his teeth, the Wolf within him pulling at the edges of his control.
“Let’s just fucking check,” Oliver said, casting the spell to call up personal ward logs. Much like the ones at the border, Connor’s ward logs appeared on the air before them in a shimmering green line. Peaks marked entries and exits of the grounds while small break in the line indicated an animal crossing the wards. All the peaks were marked with names and times, and the previous night included so many peaks entering it was difficult to read through the names. Oliver stretched out the section from the previous night and enlarged it to clarify the names.
“These are all pack members and Oliver,” Connor said, perusing them. “No one else enter—”
He stopped abruptly, his gaze fixed on a single point, a single peak. Oliver glanced at Connor then studied the spot more closely. At the top of one of the peaks, so small it was almost unnoticeable, there was a break. Because it was at the top of a peak, it read as a single entry, but the break was there.
“What does that—” Oliver asked, but Connor interrupted him by pulling the timeline along, searching each peak closely. He stopped again almost an hour later. Another peak, this one marked by a different name, was also broken at the top.
“Someone did come in,” Sky said, explaining where Connor would not.
Shaking his head in disbelief, Connor said, “He must have crossed the wards at exactly the same time as these Wolves. Or a half-second later. He let their foot cross onto the grounds, suspended the wards’ magic, crossed, then brought it back up in time for the Wolf’s other foot to touch down. It would have had to be almost instantaneous. Precise down to the second.”
When Oliver glanced at Sky, he found him looking smug. A shuddering fear loomed at the back of Oliver’s mind, coupled with a spiraling nausea in his stomach. The killer was so adept, so precise to pull that off without notice, just to come and watch Oliver, to watch him with Connor—to watch him beg for Connor to fuck him, harder and harder, until Oliver could only cry out Connor’s name.
Revolted, Oliver felt his jaw shake, his whole body wanting to purge the thought from his mind. But then another thought occurred to him.
“Then he had to cross again, to kill Will Sumpter,” Oliver said, swiping away the log from last night and pulling up the details from earlier in the day. He found the point where Donna left the grounds and searched from there. A few breaks in the line indicated animals wandering into the grounds, but there was only one peak before Donna’s return—the one marked Will Sumpter.
“So he entered at the same time as—” Oliver said, enlarging the singular peak to study it more closely. Only the line wasn’t broken. The peak was intact, without any sign of interruption.
“That can’t be right,” Connor said, glancing back at Will’s body. “Someone had to come in to—”
“Unless,” Sky said, and he crouched down by the couch. Sky’s hands hovering mid-air by Will’s body, Oliver interrupted him.
“Wait,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
Sky nodded at him and stood up, stepping out of the way. Oliver cast a silent stasis spell to protect the scene, then cast another spell to lift Will’s body slowly, carefully, until they could see his chest and the cushions beneath him.
There was more blood than at the previous scenes, pooled and spilling into the crevices of the couch, previously hidden by his fallen body. But instead of five bullet wounds over his heart, there was only one there. One wound to the chest, directly to the heart. And beneath him, trapped between his body and the couch as the blood had been, was the gun.
Chapter 12
“This…doesn’t make sense,” Connor said, his words full of air, as though his body meant to expel all that was in him in the face of reality. Oliver stood silent for a long while, staring at the bloodied gun, lying innocently—absurdly—beneath Wil
l Sumpter’s body. It shone with a strange aura in Oliver’s mind, as though it was meant as an answer to all his endless questions, to dispel all his confusion about this maddening case. But try as he might to understand, Oliver thought Connor was right. This didn’t make sense.
Serial killers—and that was what this was now, a serial case—did not just kill themselves. Not like this. Not without good reason. If Will Sumpter was the killer they were after, and that was a big if, why would he just take himself out? If Oliver was the ultimate goal, why would Will kill himself while Oliver was still wandering about, healthy and living? He couldn’t have thought Oliver and Connor were close to catching him. Unless this was never about Oliver, just an unlikely coincidence of appearance.
But that idea sat uneasily in Oliver, like shoving a round peg into an oval hole—it fit, just not well.
“We should test the gun,” Sky said, which Oliver should have done immediately. But the jagged turn of events had halted him. There was an uneven flow in this case now. The gun didn’t make sense. None of it did.
As if in a trance, Oliver magically lifted the gun, enveloping it in an evidence bubble larger than the ones he had used previously. He let the bubble float in midair as he cast the forensic spells for testing blood, gunpowder residue, and striations. His obsidian collar pulsed and vibrated a warm, grounding sensation against his neck. Sky’s eyes flickered up to Oliver’s neck now and again, but the collar was hidden behind Oliver’s shirt.
As he cast his spells, Oliver hoped that the results would come back negative, that somehow this was a different gun, that maybe Will Sumpter had killed himself but was completely unrelated to the other murders. Maybe this one death was a coincidence.
Even as the spells circled to completion, marking their results on the air before him in shining green writing, Oliver knew his hope was vain. Coincidences did happen, but not like this. This was something else.
“It’s a match,” Oliver breathed, unable to make his words louder than the level of a whisper. Connor shook his head.