“What is going on with you and my brother?”
“It’s complicated.”
Jareth reached into a pocket to bring out a silvery shiny pocket watch. He clicked open the cover and examined the face. “I have time. Explain.”
“I’ve been going through some changes,” I said, dropping down on the end of my bed. “I wanted to take some time to be on my own, get to grips with it all before I tried to continue in a relationship with someone I could literally be with forever.”
“Do you not love him?”
“Of course I do,” I said, outraged. Why was everyone so interested in hearing about my feelings all of a sudden?
“Then for what other reason than self-punishment, or punishing him, makes you think that you must go through this alone?”
I let my shoulders slump and stared at him. No one had ever put it that way to me before. “I just…”
“Cassandra, you will find no reason. He loves you. All he does when he is not working is mope, and from what I can tell you are not faring much better. Being apart is detrimental to both of you. Why can’t you see that?”
Aram was moping over me? Aram, for a vampire, was incredibly lively; he had always had an easy boyish charm that even I had been loath to fight. When I’d given into it, I found that it was more than that. Aram made me feel at ease in a way that was unnaturally natural. No one had ever made me feel like that.
Even around Magnus, who I had slightly more in common with—a pulse, a love of movies, solid foods—I’d always been on edge. When I had to tell Magnus about the two worlds I’d been scared out of my mind that he would reject me. Telling Aram had been comparatively easy. I rubbed my temples and sighed deeply.
“This really isn’t about our relationship,” I tried again. Jareth quirked a brow at me. “Lower that brow, mister.” He obliged.
“This is about me knowing who I am, what I am, what I can do, what I can expect to become. It’s about me learning to be comfortable in my own skin before I start sharing it with someone else.”
I gave up on words and tried to push my feelings, all of them, into a wave that could wash over him so that he would understand. He closed his eyes; I could tell that he was taking it in, letting each ounce of love, fear, confusion, self doubt, loneliness, bitterness, sadness, and hope wash over his senses. He was perfectly motionless for a long time. At last he stood up and walked over to me. He placed his hands on my shoulders and, leaning down, kissed a tear on my cheek that I hadn’t even felt escape my eye. He looked me in the face. I swallowed hard.
“I will convey this to my brother. I feel an assurance that your heart is still his.”
I didn’t acknowledge his words; I didn’t even watch as he let himself out my balcony doors and disappeared into the darkness outside. I’d buried my face in my hands and began to cry.
Chapter Sixteen
I ran myself down with the crying. There is something cleansing about a good long cry. Of course, it’s not pretty, and is something more often than not better off done alone. By the time I was finished my eyes were red and puffy, my lips dried and cracking, and I was bone tired.
Sleep is a luxury of the innocent. I had my eyes shut for less than half an hour when my phone started its merry jig.
You’ve got bones in your closet. You’ve got ghosts in your town.
My ringtone trilled until I couldn’t ignore the county song I’d chosen and answered the damn thing, grumpy as hell.
“This had better be good.”
“Well, that depends on your viewpoint. Do you mean good as worthy excuse for waking you, or good as in overwhelmingly positive?” Hamilton said. He sounded as if he’d either had a good nap or enough coffee to wake Rip Van Winkle.
“If you’re calling, I have a feeling it’s not going to be that second one.”
“I’m afraid not.” His voice went serious. “I’m looking at another body.”
I groaned and looked at my alarm clock: twelve thirty-two a.m.
“What do you want from me, Hamilton? I’m a paranormal investigator. What you’re dealing with is less para and more normal than I go for.”
Was it wrong that I just didn’t want to get out of my bed? My body-warmed sheets felt like a cocoon swaddling me, coaxing me to just hang up and go back to sleep.
“I thought witches were up your alley?”
I couldn’t help myself. I giggled.
“What’s so funny?”
“That sounded kind of dirty, Hamilton.” I took a deep breath. “Have you positively decided it’s witches? What does Rourke say about that?”
I was prepared for any number of scenarios. Rourke didn’t know about the new body. He planned to deal with her later. He wasn’t planning to admit he was looking at witches right now. I was truly shocked with what I got.
“Rourke’s here too. She knows I’m calling you. We both want you to come to the scene.”
I was glad Hamilton couldn’t see me; he would have scoffed at my jaw almost hitting the floor.
“You agreed to work together? Already?”
“You were right, Cassandra. We need to stop fighting with each other and focus on what was important.”
“A bunch of dead girls.”
“Exactly.”
I rubbed my temples, not sure whether to be pleased or not that they’d taken my advice to heart with apparent haste.
“Well—Mom, Dad—I’m glad you two have stopped fighting in the kitchen, but what do you want me to do?”
“She’s got no ID.”
I grumbled.
“Great, now I’m the lost and found box.”
“Cassandra,” he said, lowering his voice. “What is up with you? You’ve been uncharacteristically unhelpful.”
More temple rubbing, I needed another set of hands just to do that while I talked on the phone. “I’ve got a lot on my mind right now. Personal problems.”
“Well, suck it up!” I stared at my phone, anger rising. “We all have problems, Cassandra. But we chose to do this as a job. You have to do your job. Now get your butt out of bed and stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re better than that, now come prove it to Rourke. Shove your open mind and way hotter ass down her throat so that it sticks in her craw and she’s forced to choke on it.”
“Hamilton!”
“That last comment was a bit much, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. I never again need to hear what you think about my ass.”
He laughed, and I was smiling now, too.
“Thanks, Hamilton. I’ll be there as soon as I know where there is.”
He gave me his location and hung up.
I pulled myself out of bed, wondering if being yelled at like that had been what I needed. Hamilton was right in a way; I was still mewling my lot in life. I’d only replaced my drinking myself stupid with self-pity. I was wallowing. I’d fooled myself into thinking that I was doing better than I actually was. Perhaps Jareth was right too. What made me think that I had to go through this alone? Some mistaken sense of pride, probably.
I thought about reaching out to Aram, but still, I shied away from the idea. I didn’t want him to become a crutch for me. I had to learn to stand up on my own again. I’d clung to him after Magnus, then I’d pushed him away after another disaster had struck and he’d refused to join me in my pity party.
I would take one step at a time. It was a shame they didn’t have Inhumans Anonymous—a Twelve Step program to coping. Maybe I would Google those Twelve Steps and see how many of them I could apply to my situation—my own “how to deal with your issues and prevent further acts of jack-assery” program.
Step one, getting dressed. I pulled some clean jeans and a T-shirt from a drawer; was ready and on my bike ten minutes later, zooming across town to an area by the river I had little occasion to ever visit. I parked outside the BBC Hereford and Worcester radio station, next to a police cruiser whose lights were flashing silently.
I hung my helmet on the bike handle and walked toward th
e bright yellow police tape. It secured off a small alley between two buildings. I saw the metal toned suits of the forensics team scurrying around like scientific moles.
Hamilton was leaning against the wall, half watching while having a low voiced conversation with Rourke who was leaned next to him. He cut himself off when he saw me, and Rourke turned to look at me—for once her glance wasn’t hostile. Hamilton came toward me, looking around like he was expecting an entourage.
“Lost something?”
“Well, I was kind of hoping that you might have brought your little ghost-seeing friend with you.”
“Nope. No sense in making two grumpy people get out of bed. She’s way worse than me if you wake her.”
He gulped, and that made me smile.
“Oh, and she won’t date you, either. Still want me to see what I can do?”
“Of course,” he said as if there shouldn’t be any doubt. He escorted me under the tape and over to where I had a clear line of sight on the body. The smell of the blood was strong, a rusty copper smell that rankled. I felt my nose wrinkle.
“Fresh?”
“Only about an hour or so dead. It’s pretty strong smelling right now, so breathe through your mouth,” Rourke advised.
I saw a mass of vomit near the wall where someone else had already lost out to the smell. I stuck out my chin and breathed through my mouth but it didn’t help. Have you ever come across a smell that is so bad it almost becomes a taste on the back of your tongue? It was like that, like I could taste the woman’s death. I closed my eyes and prayed to the spirit of strong stomachs to just let me keep dinner down.
The girl was a pretty blonde. Her eyes, wide and sightless, looked up in shock. I tried not to look at her face after that first glance; instead I concentrated on the wound. The heart was gone, but this wound seemed somewhat neater than the last.
At that point I gave up and heaved. God help me if there was some sick kind of learning curve at work here. Ororo Soltaire was already on her knees beside the body, swabbing the wound. Once I recovered, I squatted down next to Ro, trying to ignore the smell. She gave me a weak smile. I liked to think that the doc and I were friends to a degree; enough that I could tell that it was more than the body in front of her that was bothering her. I wanted to bring it up, but she was focused, or at least trying to be, so I put it into the back of my mind as something to think about later.
“What do you see, Cassandra?”
“An inappropriate misuse of tin foil,” I said eyeing her silver bodysuit.
She elbowed me, jostling me so that I had to stick my arms out to the side to regain my equilibrium. I watched her fight a genuine smile as she ran her finger over the wound.
“It’s neater,” I said, “but the cuts look wonky.”
“Wonky is one way to look at it, and I guess it does to us.” Ro traced the line of one of the knife cuts with her finger again. “The blade sliced from right to left.”
I held my hands up in front of me, thinking. “Wouldn’t that mean our perp would be left handed?”
“Yes.”
“The last one was definitely from left to right. I remember it. I’m unlikely to forget it for a long, long while.”
“You and me both.”
“So, what does that mean?”
“Most likely we’re looking at two different attackers. The likelihood of a perp being able to wield a knife ambidextrously is remote.”
I began to understand why my coven theory might suddenly be gaining more strength in Rourke and Hamilton’s minds. I leaned in a little closer, reaching out to the ground to support myself, and pulled back when my fingers hit a damp spot.
“Oh, God. Please tell me I didn’t just put my hand in something icky.”
Ororo had to stifle her amusement. “There are a couple of small wet spots around the body. It appears to be just water, but it hasn’t rained recently, so I don’t know what caused them.”
I leaned my face into my palm and sniffed. It smelled cold and had a tingle of chemicals to it. “Ice?”
“What?” she asked, blinking at me. I smelled my hand again before wiping it on my pants leg.
“I know this is going to sound weird, but it smells like ice, the kind you get in those medical transport boxes. Cold, but with that hint of chemicals. Almost a sterile smell.”
“Your nose must be really sensitive. It doesn’t smell like anything to me. It would make sense, though. Something to put the heart in. Keep it fresh.”
“Storing it for later. Okay, I just yucked myself out.” I pulled myself back up to my feet and rubbed my hands on my pants again with more vigor. I looked around. They hadn’t brought me here for amateur forensics night. I would think about the new intensity of smells later.
Hamilton wanted me to try to identify the body. Part of me did wish I’d been able to bring Incarra with me; her latent talent for seeing spirits would have been handy. There were spells to allow me to do that briefly, but it was like taking a psychedelic drug ending in one of the worst trips of your life—also, I didn’t know any of them by heart.
I examined her outfit. She was dressed nice, club nice. She was out this evening. The creamy brown top had been pulled down to her waist and the little black mini-skirt was tight around her thighs. I glanced along her body, looking for the death blow.
“What’s C.O.D?”
Ro reached gently under the head. Her gloved hand came back out sticky and red.
“I’m guessing she fell over backward and hit her head. I’ll have to test it once I get back to my lab, but I’m pretty sure her blood alcohol level will be high.”
“So, her death could have been an accident.”
“Except for the missing heart.”
“Right. Sorry.” Unlikely that the person who’d taken her heart had chosen an accidental victim.
Her outfit had no pockets; if she was out, she’d have had a purse. A way to pay for drinks, a mobile, probably a set of door or car keys. I walked a few paces away and stood in the middle of the alley. I should have tried this spell at the first murder scene; worrying about Incarra had driven it from my mind. I could have followed the missing Prada bag right back to the murderer; alas, the trail would be too cold for that one now.
“What is she doing now?” Rourke hissed from behind me. I shushed her with a gesture, then closed my eyes and concentrated on what I wanted.
“Aradia, Goddess of the lost…”
I didn’t even need to complete the spell. How much had my magic grown? I felt a tug in the middle of my chest. It wasn’t the full deal, as I’d done no prep work and I wasn’t focused enough to get the precise location as visuals. Not that this spell ever gave me a clear address I could repeat to someone with a pad and pencil; it gave me only a vague impression of the surroundings of the sought after item, such as cold or dark or a smell.
In this instance I felt a tug in the direction of what I was searching for, which meant it had to be close. I walked along with my eyes closed—not the easiest thing to do, out of the other end of the alley and into another street. A few steps later, I felt the tug shoot down from my chest and out through my feet.
I opened my eyes and peered down at a storm drain. Great, just my luck. I walked to the nearest manhole cover and pulled it up.
“Hamilton, I need a flashlight,” I shouted, hoping he heard me. I started down the ladder, hoping that the nearby streetlights would provide some light, but the sewers were entirely dank and dark, as sewers tended to be.
“Where the hell is she now?” boomed Rourke from above me. I shot my hand up in the air and waved it about. Rourke bent over the hole, cutting out the vague illumination of the street lights.
“How did you get that up by yourself? Those things are heavy.”
“Do you have a flashlight?” I asked, ignoring her question.
She shook her head. “Hamilton’s gone to get you one from his car. Can’t you just magic it?”
“Not without knowing what’s down there. I�
��m not taking the chance of running into goblins.”
“I thought they were like cockroaches,” she said. I lifted a brow, waiting for her to elaborate. “They scatter when a light comes on.”
“Yeah, I used to believe that too. Remind me to show you the claw marks on my ribs sometime.” I had just a moment to catch her incredulous smile before Hamilton leaned in and handed me a flashlight.
“Cheers, Paris,” I said, then with one hand on the ladder I started down into the darkness. The flashlight gave a steady beam of light down into the darkness. I heard the gentle rush of water as I stepped down onto firmer ground; I took a tentative step forward—right into the water. I cursed.
“Did you find something?” Rourke called.
“No, but the police department owes me a new pair of boots.” I swept the flashlight around, letting the beam bounce off the wet grey walls. I prayed that a whole city block wouldn’t get the urge to all flush their toilets at once while I was down here.
“Go down to the storm drain and make a noise or something, so I know where I’m heading.”
“What kind of noise?”
“I dunno, whistle or something.” I waited patiently, then heard the distinct sound of the theme tune from Magnum, P.I. “Great.”
I wished sewers could just be one straight line. It was eerie in the darkness with just the flashlight beam to guide me, especially when the whistling cut off. Hamilton had probably run out of breath. Fortunately, I was close enough by then that it didn’t matter.
Just below the storm drain grate and just above a pool of stagnant water, a black, imitation snakeskin purse hung from a broken piece of pipe. I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed it. A single solitary goblin stood under it, jumping in an attempt to reach it. I shone the torch in its face; it hissed at me.
“Back off,” I warned it. “The bag is mine.”
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