by Jami Gray
Mayson’s chin rested on his chest, his head covered in thin, long, stringy brown hair. The brown strands provided a partial curtain, hiding most of his face.
Dealing with Mayson over the years, Raine learned to deal with the disconcerting impact of meeting the amber eyes of a wolf, staring out from a heavily scarred human face. His elongated canines didn’t help matters. It was as if two unfinished pictures of a human male and wolf were merged into one warped image. It was a shifter’s worst nightmare brought to life—an incomplete transformation.
Except Mayson had never been a shifter.
“Magic.” Gavin squatted down, getting eye level with the body. “Do you have gloves we can wear?” He aimed his question at Osborn. “I don’t want to contaminate your crime scene.”
Osborn pulled out two sets of latex gloves from a box sitting on the side table and handed them to Raine and Gavin. It took her a few seconds to get them on comfortably. She flexed her fingers, getting used to the powdery feeling of latex against her skin. Once her hands were covered, she knelt down on Gavin’s right, facing Mayson.
Gavin’s glove-covered fingers gently tilted Mayson’s head up. Strands of hair fell back, revealing his face. Something was wrong, but it took a second for her to figure it out. When she did, she flicked a glance at Gavin to see if he noticed.
His lips were pressed into a thin line. “The eyes are missing.”
She nodded. The eyelids were down, as if Mayson was sleeping, but instead of the normal slight roundness lifting the lids out that tiny bit, they were sunken.
Cupping her hand around the lower part of his chin, she held Mayson’s face still while Gavin gently pried open the right eye.
She sucked in a shocked breath. The eye wasn’t gone, but it appeared the liquid filling it had been sucked out. The amber iris ringed in red was still visible, the black pupil remained dilated, and the white clear of any trauma, but the orb itself was flat, like a deflated balloon. Gavin let the lid drop, wiping his fingers absently along his jeans.
She let go of Mayson’s chin slowly, carefully letting his head rest on his chest. She touched the arm nearest her. The cool skin felt like tissue paper, fragile and thin. Pushing a bit deeper, she looked for the bone and hit something spongy. Where both the ulna and radius were supposed to be was a soft substance.
She lifted a puzzled gaze to Gavin. “There’s no blood and the bones are spongy.” Disbelief kept her voice soft. “What the hell happened?”
Gavin’s expression was just as confused. This close to Mayson’s body, the traces of magic were stronger, giving her an idea. Raising her hands with her palms facing downward, she dropped her mental walls and skimmed her hands mere inches above his body.
Nothing. She couldn’t read anything. Making a small, frustrated sound, she pulled the gloves off, and did it again, this time going up the arm to the shoulder, across the chest, and stopping above center point. Closing her eyes, she sent a flicker of her own magic out, trying to get a sense of what happened.
When she hit something, it hit back. The impact struck her magic like an electrical current. The silent explosion sent her flying back into the wall behind her. Her head hit with a resounding thunk and she collapsed into a heap. Something sucked her magic down into the body on the couch. Frantic, she tried to pull it back, only to encounter agony. Fire and pain whipped through her as if she was being simultaneously burned from the inside out and crushed to death. Between trying to draw a breath and yanking her magic back, she couldn’t find the strength to call out for help.
When her escape efforts seem to increase the drain on her magic, she decided to overpower whatever was dragging her under. Instead of pulling back, she opened the lock on her magic and powered it down the tethering line. Her magic rushed forward and, with a silent explosion, the two forces collided. The impact body-slammed her into the ground, sending pain radiating through her.
Strong hands tightened on her shoulders snapping the magical connection. She opened her eyes, her vision swimming for a second before steadying on Gavin’s face.
“Raine, can you hear me?”
“Yeah.” Her voice came out rough, her throat raw. She raised a hand to rub the back of her head. She was going to have a doozy of a headache.
Osborn knelt down on her other side. “What the hell just happened?”
“She tried to read the magical traces left behind.” Exasperation came through loud and clear in Gavin’s tone. “Not the smartest move in the world.”
“Well, next time you do it,” she muttered, pushing herself up to a sitting position with her back to the wall. Gavin helped until she got settled, then sat next to her. Now she faced Mayson’s body with Gavin on one side and Osborn on the other.
Osborn looked from Gavin to Raine. “Did it tell you anything useful?”
“Yeah, it was a spell, and it doesn’t like being poked at,” her voice strengthened, but the headache started to pound.
“Can you tell who or what cast it?”
She shook her head slowly. “Not definitely, but I can give you a couple of choices by the taste of it.”
“Taste of it?” Osborn eyed her closely.
“I don’t know how else to explain it. Magic leaves images behind, like afterimages when you’ve stared too long into a bright light. Sometimes another magic user can figure out who did the spell by how it feels, how it tastes mentally.” She disliked trying to explain magic to anyone, especially humans. It was instinctive for her, so trying to find the right words to explain was awkward.
Osborn appeared to grasp the idea she was trying to get across. “So what did it taste like?”
She held Gavin’s gaze when she answered, “It’s either a demon or a wizard. I’m not sure which one.” She rolled her head back to Osborn. “Whatever spell they used, it drains its victim.”
“Explain that please.”
“It pulls magic out of the victim, and I would bet once it drains the magic, it moves on to the next step.” She considered Mayson, and recalled the burning pain and crushing sensation before she overpowered the traces of the spell. “I think it also burns and crushes its victims from the inside out.”
Osborn’s voice was hard, “Which would explain the lack of fluids and bone structure.”
She nodded. One thing bothered her though. “It doesn’t explain why his skin is so cool. Shouldn’t his body temperature be warm?”
Osborn’s attention snapped to her. “Why do you ask?”
“I spoke to him on the phone roughly four hours ago.” Gavin absently rubbed his hand along her arm, his earlier anger seemingly set aside, his focus on Osborn. “That doesn’t seem to be enough time for a body to cool, especially if they’ve been cooked from the inside out.”
Osborn didn’t comment, but ran a hand over his face. “I don’t suppose you know any demons or wizards who might be in this area?”
Gavin bared his teeth. “If I did, I’d hand them right over, sir.”
The agent pushed his body upright with a huge sigh. “I don’t believe you.”
Gavin shrugged, not bothering to argue.
“How did you find him so fast?” The question was out before Raine could stop it. Osborn stared at her. “Look,” she continued. “You said it yourself, Mayson was a recluse. I know you were coming up from Portland, but I didn’t notice any close neighbors when we drove up, so how did you find him?”
A cynical light sparked the dark eyes. “Would you believe an anonymous tip?”
The flippant answer triggered her temper. “Fine, but we leveled with you. It would be nice if you could stop with the inscrutable federal agent shtick and give us a straight answer.”
His only reply was a raised eyebrow.
Rising to a standing position, she leaned slightly on the arm Gavin offered until she was sure her legs were steady. Looking up at Osborn was not fun, and she wanted out of this house. Gavin’s arm dropped as she moved away from the wall, determined to leave. Her head started to throb in earnest. Sh
e was tired of the questions, and even more tired of looking at the dead body on the couch.
Osborn’s smile was grim. “Let’s finish your statements and get your contact information so you two can go back to Portland.” A dismissal if she ever heard one.
Damn Federal agents, they never shared anything important, which made working with them the equivalent of working by yourself, blindfolded. Or like working with the Kyn.
“Yeah let’s,” she growled, heading out of the dim house, both men following behind.
Chapter Fifteen
Raine tried not to think about Mayson, but it was a futile exercise. The image took its place among others in her nightmarish collection. It wouldn’t be the last one, either, before this job was finished.
Her headache was almost gone now. Carefully she rolled her head to the left, watching the early evening sun play over Gavin’s face as they headed back to Portland.
“How did you meet Osborn?” Her soft question fell into the quiet interior of the car.
He flicked a glance her way. “We met on one of my cases a few years back.” His smile was wry as he turned back to the road. “We’ve met up a few times since.”
“Is he a good agent?”
He nodded. “He tries to keep an open mind and use whatever tools he can. He’s gotten pretty good within the Division.”
The Division was actually the Preternatural Crimes Division, a deeply cloaked, specialized unit within the FBI, created ten years ago. It had taken a while for those humans in the know to admit a more than normal investigative unit was needed to handle supernatural crimes. Rogue Kyn of any bloodline could create quite a stir in the mortal world. To help hide the existence of the Kyn, the alphabet soup of agencies handpicked humans with varying psychic skills and created the Division. After all, who better to help solve the unexplainable than those who were unexplainable themselves?
“I guess that’s something then.” She sighed. “I’m not sure what he’s going to be able to accomplish against whoever set that spell. It was nasty.”
Gavin’s attention didn’t leave the road. “I’m betting we’ll run across whoever it is before he does.”
She grimaced. “You’re probably right. I’m going to talk to Cheveyo about what we can use against it.”
Gavin rolled his shoulders. “Why not ask Natasha?”
“No thanks.” No way in hell was she doing that. “I’m really not into pain. She doesn’t trust me, and I don’t trust her. Makes for a tricky working relationship.” She fell silent, realizing her last statement could now include him.
He slashed her an indecipherable look, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Now why wouldn’t she trust you?”
She stiffened as renewed tension thrummed in the air. The pounding in her head made a comeback leaving her in no mood to be tactful. It was time to handle this like she handled everything—straight up, no apologies. If she didn’t believe in her own actions, then she had no business being a Wraith. “Look, I’ve apologized for not telling you sooner.”
“There’s a ‘but’ on the end of that.”
She sighed, rubbing her forehead. “Yeah there is. Trusting people hasn’t gotten me anything nice.”
His eyes stayed on the road. “Sounds like a pretty isolated way to live.”
She gave a harsh laugh. “Oh yeah, like you’re a big old teddy bear yourself.”
“You disappoint me, Raine. I thought you were stronger than that.”
“Than what?”
“It doesn’t take strength to be alone, because there’s no risk. Trusting a person, having friends, partners, that takes strength.”
He didn’t need weapons to wound her. He did just fine with words. Not bothering to reply, she brooded over what he said. Trusting, caring for someone weakened you. They became your Achilles’ heel. She worked hard not to have a weakness. She needed to be unbreakable.
Logically, she knew he had a point. She closed herself off from others, fearing one more rejection, one more loss, would loosen her tenuous hold on sanity. Deep down she knew she was damaged, but she held on to the small spark of hope she would find someone who could accept her, warts and all. Realistically, if she couldn’t entirely face what she was, how could she ask anyone else to?
Bleeding inside from his apt criticism, she stared blindly out the passenger window. “I may be lacking, but you’re proof that I’m justified.”
“How do you figure?”
“Oh, please!” She turned awkwardly—trapped by the seatbelt—and glared at him, clenching her fists in her lap. “Cut the crap. I saw your eyes when I told you what I’d done, what I am. You’re like everyone else. You may be a Wraith, maybe you tell yourself when you kill it’s justified. You looked at me and decided, because I took pleasure in killing those men, it makes me less than you.”
Her voice was harsh as all the resentment she kept bottled up came spewing out. “You said I was lying to myself, but you’re way off base. You have no clue what it’s like to know you don’t belong, or not even know what you are! I’m an aberration, created by a bunch of demented scientists.”
Raking her hands over her face, she turned away, staring blindly at the passing scenery. “Did you see Mayson, Gavin? Did you get a good look at him? Do you know who put those scars on his body, gave him the claws and eyes of a wolf?”
Turning her head, she studied his profile through narrowed eyes. “The same four men I killed.” Her breath heaved. “You asked me why I was judge and jury. Mayson is one reason, my mother is another. Let’s not count the other Kyn and innocent humans they twisted and murdered. I still hear their screams. Someone has to stand for them. They sure as hell can’t do it themselves.”
“You escaped,” his voice was even.
Her body trembled. A scream of frustration beat at her, but she locked it behind her teeth. How could she make him understand? Should she even bother? “None of us really escaped. Death was the only true way out. Those who were rescued or escaped were like Mayson. Mentally, he was a mess. He stayed inside, kept to himself, because it was the only way he could control his environment. I was the only one left to strike back. It was my responsibility to make those men pay. I can’t apologize for it. I won’t.”
His face remained stony. “I don’t think less of you.” When she gave a snort of disbelief, a thin layer of warmth rode his tone. “What I’m finding hard to understand is why you continued to be a Wraith if the fact you like the hunt, the kill, disturbs you so much? Why not do the last three men? Why not kill Jonah?”
Disappointment spiraled through her, leaving her numb. It was useless, and she was tired of trying to explain, tired of justifying her actions. He could never truly understand. Defeat haunted her voice, but she blamed the burning in her eyes on the steady pounding of her head. “Being a Wraith is all I know. I never wanted to be a victim again, so I became a weapon. A damn good one. Those four kills were personal. My job is not. It’s business.”
Hearing it out loud, it hit her just how close she came to falling over the edge. “Matthew Peyton, the food poisoning, was when it hit home. I was becoming exactly what they tried to create. I didn’t want to be that.”
He didn’t say anything, and silence flowed back into the car.
She closed her eyes, shutting him out. Her thoughts going back to the night she followed Peyton to a Japanese sushi restaurant in London.
After months studying his habits, she had his routine down. He liked to take chances—such as his attractive young companion while his wife was out of town. He was out with the young thing, eating his favorite dish, fugu, also known as blowfish, dipped in bitter orange sauce. His taste for the exotic made it a simple thing to initiate his death. A couple of milligrams of tetrodoxin—blowfish poison—when Raine stumbled into his server and his already dangerous menu choice became a fatal one.
She sat at a corner table watching the older man and his decidedly younger female partner laugh while chatting back and forth throughout dinner. His tongue occasi
onally flicked out, wetting his lips. Raine’s research indicated those lips had to be going slightly numb. He drank his saki while his gaze wandered around the dimly lit restaurant. He stopped briefly on her table, never realizing who she was.
Playing the role of student, with books spread out around her, she enjoyed her bowl of rice and Tempura. Heavy rimmed glasses hid her gray eyes, and her long dark hair drawn back into a braid. A small bit of glamour covered her tattoos and scars. She kept an eye on the dining couple.
Peyton paid the check and wiped his mouth once on his sleeve. Gauging the time from ingestion, Raine was certain the numbness had spread to Peyton’s entire mouth at that point.
When the couple left and headed down the street, she followed. Their laughter drifted back to her. The young woman’s voice relating a story of a drunken student who mistook a sink for a toilet.
Peyton’s left arm dropped from the girl’s shoulder, and he stopped to shake it as if it had fallen asleep. Raine stepped into the shadows, watching, anticipating. Her gaze never wavered as Peyton clutched at his companion’s arm, missed, and fell to the sidewalk clutching his throat. Unable to keep the smile off her face, a tide of dark joy rose as Raine watched Peyton struggling to breathe.
His date’s shrill voice tore through the night, “Ma-thew? What’s wrong?” Once she realized he was suffocating, she started screaming. She rolled him over, loosened his tie, and kept begging for someone to call an ambulance.
Peyton’s panicked gaze swept over the slowly gathering crowd and found Raine. Their gazes locked and she watched the horror and knowledge spill into his eyes.
She stood there, no longer hiding behind the illusion of glamour, smiling as he asphyxiated, never taking her gaze from his. Peyton’s silent screams for help echoed in his eyes, even as his life drained away. She was still smiling when he took his last labored breath, the light in his stricken eyes dimming, before finally disappearing.
It wasn’t until she was getting ready to sleep on her flight out of London, it hit how much she enjoyed watching Peyton suffer. She could get addicted to that feeling of pleasure. The small realization rocked her. That night she made her decision. She wouldn’t hunt down any more of Talbot’s men. She wandered too close to being the monster they created, and that was unacceptable.
