by Annie Bellet
“Of course it is,” Harper said. “It’s the boss fight.”
I could almost hear her attempt at a smile. “We’ll get him,” I said with more conviction than I felt. “For Steve.”
“For Steve,” Harper said, her voice grim.
After that, there was nothing more to say.
Alek’s phone went straight to voice mail. I tried not to let it worry me. If he was on a plane, it would be off, right? Nope, not worried at all. I wanted him away from danger, but I also knew he was a badass who could handle himself. If yesterday had taught me anything, it was that going up against Samir wasn’t going to be as simple as “throw a lot of magic at him and win.” He wasn’t playing fairly.
He’d isolated me. I was sure he’d waited until I was alone in my shop. I had a suspicion he was behind the trouble with the building and Brie’s shop. I doubted he had anything to do with Fey business, but the timing was suspicious as well. Maybe he was behind Alek going to New Orleans. It was hard to quell my paranoid thoughts as I sat alone in the jail cell and waited for Kate Perkins to come bail me out.
When she showed up, she wasn’t alone, and I knew from the look on her face that something had happened.
Rachel unlocked my cell and motioned for me to come out. Out in the bull pen, Kate Perkins stood talking to two new detectives. I assumed they were detectives, anyway, from how they stood and the clothing they were wearing.
One was a Hispanic male, somewhere in his thirties, with short brown hair and watchful, heavy-lidded brown eyes. He wore a navy-blue suit without a tie, the cut and material of which was understated but had clearly been tailored for him. He kept in shape from the way he filled it out. I saw no badge, but he was carrying a gun in a shoulder holster under the suit jacket. I’d lived with Alek enough to recognize the shape.
His partner was a stout white woman in her fifties, crow’s-feet and worry lines clashing with the laugh lines in her sharp face. Her hair was also cut short and iron grey. She had on a thick sweater and dark jeans, with her badge and gun clipped to her belt. She looked me over with a cool, assessing gaze, and I couldn’t tell if she liked what she saw.
I followed Rachel over to them. We were the only ones in the building and it felt strangely subdued. A shiver of foreboding crawled up my spine but I shoved it away. I wasn’t handcuffed, and at least Dick and Balls weren’t here with their accusing, closed-minded looks. Things could’ve been worse.
“What happened?” I asked as I stopped next to Kate.
“They are dropping the charges.” She had her hip up on one of the cluttered desks and a grim look on her face.
“They?” I said, jerking a thumb at the two new people. The scent of mint tickled my nose in a way that wasn’t natural. Magic was present. I focused on the woman, but didn’t probe at her with my own magic. She had some kind of ward on, centered on a simple silver cross around her neck. Things were getting interesting again quickly.
“I am Senior Detective Hattie Wise,” the woman said. “Everyone just calls me Hattie.” She nodded to the man and added, “And this is Special Agent Salazar.”
“Special agent? You FBI or something?” I looked the man over again.
“Something like that,” he said with a bland smile.
“So where are Dick and Balls?” I asked.
“Jade,” Kate admonished with a discreet cough, hiding a grin behind her hand.
“Dick and…” Hattie threw back her head and laughed from her belly. “Oh, I’m going to remember that one.”
“Hattie is their supervisor with the Staties,” Kate said.
“My sympathies,” I said.
“We’re sorry about the mistake,” Hattie said, sobering quickly. “You are free to go, but we were hoping you would come with us instead.”
“There’s been another murder, just like your friend’s,” Salazar added.
Time stopped as my stomach turned into a twisting rope and the room started to spin.
“Who?” I’d just talked to Harper an hour ago. She had said everyone was safe. Alek? No no no, not him. Not any of them. Please merciful Universe please.
“Jade. Breathe, Jade,” Kate was saying over and over as she gripped my arm. “It was the librarian, Peggy Olsen.”
“Peggy? But I hate her,” I blurted. At the look on Salazar’s and Hattie’s faces, I probably should have kept that tidbit to myself. “I mean, she’s not someone Samir should go after. He wants to hurt me. Killing people I don’t like makes no sense.” I couldn’t make it line up. Peggy seemed like such a random choice, unless he was just killing everyone I’d come in contact with. I really hated that thought and shoved it away into the throw-up-over-later file.
“You witnessed the first murder. We’d like you to come see the second scene. Maybe you can help us figure out why this man is doing this? Kate said you know him,” Hattie said.
“I did. A long time ago. He’s stalked me for years. I thought he was here to kill people I care about before coming for me, but… Peggy? Makes no sense.” I shook my head. More death. I hadn’t liked her, but she didn’t deserve this. “Are you sure it was him?”
Murders didn’t happen here that often, though we’d had our share this last year, some perpetrated by yours truly, but there was a chance that Peggy had hexed the wrong person or something and this was unrelated.
“The coroner is waiting with the body. She was killed early this morning or late last night. He says it was the same kind of wire used yesterday on your friend. I think it would be too big a coincidence, no?” Salazar said.
I took a deep breath and nodded. It was clear that I was now free to go because this murder had been committed while I was locked up in here. I was now doubly glad I hadn’t blasted my way out last night, though the illogical part of me wished I could have stopped Samir from hurting another person. He’d gone after Peggy for some reason, and as much as I loathed the idea of seeing another crime scene, of seeing anything that would remind me of Steve’s horrific death, I needed information. Samir was still way out ahead of me, and if I was going to pwn this boss fight, as Harper would put it, I needed all the tiny advantages I could muster.
“All right,” I said. “Let me grab my stuff and I’ll go with you. I want to help if I can.”
Rachel brought me my coat, wallet, and shoes as I gathered up the duffel bag and said goodbye to the holding cell for what I prayed was forever. I thanked her again and then whispered, “You might want to get your family out of town for a few days, and warn the pack to stay away.”
She leaned in and searched my face with troubled eyes. “How bad is this?”
“Bad,” I said. “Samir is a sorcerer.”
“Fuck,” she said. She took a deep breath and tucked her chin down. “Take care of yourself, Jade Crow. Us wolves haven’t forgotten what you did for us. Wylde’s pack is here if you need us.”
I nodded and blinked back a tear. I needed all the help I could get, but I wasn’t going to use the shifters as cannon fodder. I’d figure a way out of this, find a way to face Samir again one on one and beat him.
I didn’t have any other fucking choice.
Hattie and Salazar were already outside, sitting in a huge black SUV. The day was overcast but the snow had stopped. Someone had shoveled the stairs and snow piled in dirty drifts up to my waist. I climbed into the back seat and buckled my seatbelt. The SUV looked like it could handle the roads, at least.
“So,” I said as we pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road, “which one of you is Mulder?”
Peggy the librarian lived on the south side of town in a housing suburb called Dogwood Park. The park in question was a single block wide and two blocks long, with a playground now buried under a couple feet of fresh snow. The play structure stuck up from the snow like a lurking beast, red-painted metal glinting like spilled blood where the snow hadn’t covered it. Peggy’s two-story bungalow backed up to the park. It was easy to spot, because there were two police cars, about twenty neighbors in ba
throbes and parkas, and a shitload of yellow crime scene tape.
I was surprised our local news station wasn’t on it, but things around Wylde had a habit of not getting reported in a timely manner. People here liked their peace and quiet, for very good reason. This was supposed to be a sanctuary for the supernatural, a place they had existed more or less peacefully for over a century.
Until I showed up. I mentally stuck another black X in the “I suck” column, then tried to shrug it off.
“You coming?” Salazar asked me.
I took another deep breath of cold air and nodded. I didn’t want to walk into that house. No more crime scenes. No more death. There was too much of it in my life.
But I had to know why Peggy had been targeted. There were pieces in play I didn’t see yet, that much was obvious. Samir wanted to fuck with me, to fuck up my life, kill my friends, and just win the award for ultimate evil ex-boyfriend. I wanted to kill him, because that was the only way any of this would end. To do that, I had to get the bastard to stand still and fight me.
And to do that, I had to find him. Had to figure out what he was doing, and why.
Peggy’s house smelled like mint, rosemary, and death. I stretched out my magical senses and saw where her wards had been smashed apart. There were broken lines of fine dust, powdered herbs, perhaps, along the windowsills. Motes of it still swirled. She’d tried to protect herself, but I couldn’t tell if they were normal everyday wards or if she’d been afraid of something. Someone.
The front entry divided into three rooms with a narrow staircase leading up. The room at the back looked like a small bathroom. To the right was the kitchen. To the left, the living room.
That was where Peggy had died. A deputy gave us little booties for our feet after we stamped the snow off, and I pulled a pair of latex gloves from the offered carton. I didn’t want to touch anything, but this was a crime scene, so it was better to be careful. A tall, gaunt white man stood wearing scrubs, waiting by the body. I assumed he must be the coroner.
Blood misted a nice set of blue and white porcelain vases. The carpet was a soft earth tone with a very subtle maple leaf pattern in it. One of the pictures, an oil painting of a black cat and a vase of wild irises, was crooked on the far wall. There was no television, just a coffee table, two linen-colored stuffed chairs, and a Victorian-style brown couch.
My eyes took in these details in stutter step, skipping around the room, looking at everything but the body sprawled on the other side of the coffee table. I forced myself to look, trying to see Peggy and not relive Steve’s murder.
She lay on her back, arms wide, legs together and bent to the side slightly tucked beneath her, as though she’d been kneeling and fallen backward. Her throat was open, the wire still embedded in the wound. Her hair was loose around her head, partially matted with blood. I hadn’t realized how long it was, since she had always had it tucked into a tidy bun every time I’d seen her. There was something nobody had mentioned yet, however. I moved closer to the body, trying not to step in blood.
“She’s dressed,” Hattie commented.
“And her chest has been blown open, maybe by a gun?” Salazar added. He glanced behind him at the coroner. “Nobody mentioned that.”
“Didn’t want to touch anything till you got here,” the coroner said. “And we didn’t find a gun.”
I felt like I was caught in a cop movie again listening to the two of them. I turned a manic giggle into a cough.
“You gonna vomit, don’t do it on my crime scene,” Hattie said, glaring at me. I think she knew I wasn’t about to vomit.
I forced away the crazy thoughts, the unreality of the last twenty-four hours, and made myself look at Peggy. Grey edges of rib bone were visible through her mangled blue sweater. Unidentifiable lumps of lung and whatever else we carry around in our chest cavities gleamed wetly in the morning light spilling through the sheer curtains. I didn’t need to touch her to know what had happened.
“Her chest wasn’t blown open. There was no gun. I think you’ll find someone removed her heart.” It almost physically hurt to say the words aloud, but life was going from worse to worser and down the hand-basket express to worstest.
“Fuck,” Hattie said very softly as she reached up and rubbed her own chest in an almost unconscious gesture. Her expression told me she knew exactly what a missing heart meant.
The coroner took the four steps to get to me and bent over the body. He probed the open chest wound and I turned my head. I didn’t need to watch that. It was like someone mixing gravel and Jell-O.
“She’s right, heart is missing. I’ll be damned.”
You and me both, dude, I thought, but kept it to myself. I looked at Hattie and flicked my eyes to the others in what I hoped was an obvious way. I couldn’t tell her much with everyone standing around. I didn’t know who was a normal or not. I had a sneaking suspicion that Salazar wasn’t, but he’d done nothing overtly that said Supernatural-R-Us.
“Dan, why don’t you go get some fresh air. Take the deputy with you. Too many bodies in here. I’ll call you back in when we’re ready for the processing, all right?” Hattie said.
Dan, the coroner, raised a salt-and-pepper eyebrow but shrugged and left. We waited until the front door had closed behind them before Hattie nodded to me.
“Start talking,” she said.
“What about?” I asked, jerking my head at Salazar. I moved away from Peggy’s body as I did, putting my back to the wall with the least amount of blood on it and facing so that I wouldn’t have to see her lying there if I was careful about it.
“I’m an eagle,” he said, obviously expecting that to make sense to me.
Which, sad to say, it totally did. Shifter it was. Right.
“You?” I asked Hattie. “Witch?”
She snorted. “That’s me, though my fellow officers like to use a B instead of the W most of the time. And you?”
I was surprised no one had told her. It was pretty much an open secret what I was these days, ever since I went toe to toe with a corrupt shifter Justice a couple months back.
“So you don’t talk to the Wylde coven much?” I asked, dodging the question for just a moment longer. I didn’t know how they were going to react to what I had to tell them. I wasn’t sure how much I even should. I needed more information before I spilled my guts.
I really had to stop thinking about spilling guts. Stat. I swallowed bile and focused on my gloved hands for a moment.
“No,” Hattie said after exchanging a glance with Salazar. “I’m a solo practitioner. Never much cared for politics. I have to play them enough in my job as it is.”
I took another deep breath and regretted it as mint and blood and urine soaked my senses. Samir had killed Peggy for a reason, all right. He was harvesting hearts. He would have taken her power, minimal though it was, and all her knowledge. He’d know everything she knew, have access to all her memories, if my experience with heart-nomming was any guide to go on. I had to talk to her coven, to warn them. I’d only seen them all together once, when I went and laid down the new threefold law about fucking with me and my friends. I’d recognized a few faces then, but names were eluding me. Shit.
“Jade?” Hattie prompted. “What’s going on here?”
“And don’t feed us a line. This is serious. There’s going to be human heat on these killings and we need to stop them before it gets too big to manage.” Salazar moved a couple of steps toward me, his eyes intent on my face.
I made myself look back at Peggy. Samir had done this. He would keep doing this, or maybe worse. I had to stop him, and I clearly wasn’t going to be able to do it alone. Keeping the truth from Hattie and Salazar would just get them hurt if they went after Samir without knowing. I could almost hear Alek’s voice in my head telling me that the truth was a good thing, and suddenly I missed him like hell. He’d know what to do; he’d have stood here with me, solid and warm and smart.
And he’d have told me to trust, to take the
leap and give these people whatever information I had. To save lives if I could.
I pushed back my longing for Alek, and nodded slowly. “Let me explain,” I said with a slight smile. “No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”
Not Princess Bride fans, these two, because neither gave any sign they recognized the line. So much for trying to smooth things. I sighed.
“Samir, the man who did this? He’s a sorcerer. And so am I.”
We moved to the kitchen and sat on Peggy’s chairs. There was a cold cup of tea with the bag still in it on the kitchen table. I tried not to think about her last moments and instead let the words spill out of me as I gave Hattie and Salazar a rough sketch of what I thought was going on and who the players were.
My story summed up was pretty thin and sad, even to my own ears. There was so much I had to leave out, partially because a lot of it would implicate me in a metric butt-load of crimes, and partially because that stuff might be a distraction. The important thing was that they understood how dangerous Samir was, and that he wasn’t going to stop.
“Summers!” I said, breaking off what I had been saying about Samir in mid-sentence as I remembered the name of one of the women in Peggy’s coven. “Joyce Summers. She runs a no-kill shelter, Pet Haven. I saw her at the coven meeting. She’ll know who the rest are. Do you have Peggy’s phone? They’ll all be in there, I bet.”
“One moment,” Hattie said. Both she and Salazar were sitting on the edge of their chairs, not writing anything down, just staring at me with grim faces. “The heart-eating thing, it’s real? It really works that way?”
“Yes,” I said. “All the horror stories you might have heard about sorcerers? They are probably all about Samir. If he’s decided to gain power and knowledge by eating the witches, he’s going to keep going until we’re down thirteen women.” I didn’t know why he was doing it. They hadn’t been that powerful, but maybe it was more than what their magic could add. Memories and experiences, I knew firsthand, were powerful things in their own right.
