Sound's Familiar

by Dana Marie Bell

  The rest of the ride to the college was uneventful, the silence only broken by the static-y sound of the police scanner. He’d already called in where they were headed, informing Miles that they were working the university case. It was standard procedure, one he was going to teach Carol. As shotgun, she’d be calling Miles in the future when they were in the car. He’d have to make sure to introduce her to him as soon as possible.

  He hoped the dean he needed to speak to was not only available but accommodating. Jonah didn’t want to have to get a subpoena to view the tapes. Since the body had been found on campus, he doubted the dean would have an issue, but he hadn’t dealt with her before.

  Sometimes colleges could be dicey when it came to cooperating with non-campus police, citing the privacy of their students and staff. Vice especially would complain about how colleges would clam up when it came to student drug use. Robbery-Homicide Division, or RHD, had often run afoul of administration, especially when it came to investigating sexual assault cases. One detective had complained about one of the state’s largest colleges cock-blocking him on three rape cases. He’d been forced to get a court order to get the college administration to cooperate with him.

  It was frustrating, but it was part of the job they’d all signed on to do.

  He parked in visitor parking in front of the administration building. Carol got out, her expression all business, her shoulders back and her hair blowing in the slight, ocean-scented breeze. He smiled as he followed her, his eyes once again drawn to the sway of her hips.

  She had no idea how beautiful she was. One of the best things about her was that she didn’t notice or didn’t care about the hungry gazes that landed on her. Jonah wanted to gut every man who had nasty thoughts about her.

  How had he come to want her so much in such a short time? Was it the magic between them, or how adorable she was? Remembering the trusting way in which she’d curled up in his lap during last week’s thunderstorm, he was pretty sure he understood exactly why he’d grown so fond of her.

  Not one of his previous familiars had ever made him want to keep them forever, even the ones who’d gone from friends to lovers. She’d understood his need to protect and had given him the gift of allowing him to do just that. Despite being a wolf, she’d permitted him to protect her without once complaining about how she could take care of herself. If they could find the balance between her wolf and his instincts...

  “Can I help you?” Jonah noticed a woman walking toward Carol, a professional smile on her face. “Admissions is one building over.”

  “No, I’m not here for admissions.” Carol pointed to Jonah and then her badge. “We’re here to speak to the dean.”

  Jonah nodded to the woman, who was busy shaking Carol’s hand. “Detective Jonah Sound, LAPD. This is my familiar, Carol Voss. We’re investigating the murder that occurred here on—”

  “Oh no, Detective,” the woman interrupted, shaking her head. “The murder didn’t occur here.”

  Shit. Official stance at the ready, willing to fuck with his investigation. “And you are?”

  “Laura Butler. I’m Dean Anthony’s secretary.” She took his hand, still smiling that professional, fake smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Jonah smiled back, giving her the same fake expression that was on her face. Shit. Did the university decide to send his secretary to deflect them? It wouldn’t be the first time a secretary had been sent to “help” the investigation, and he doubted it would be the last. “We need to speak to the dean about surveying the security camera tapes from the night of the murder.” He flipped open a notepad, pretending to check something. “I’ll also need a list of every sorcerer who was on campus at the time of death.”

  Ms. Butler winced. “I’m not certain that’s possible, Detective. We’re very protective of our students and staff here. Perhaps you should—”

  “Is there a problem, Ms. Butler?” A female voice broke through Ms. Butler’s spiel, startling the secretary.

  She jumped, whirling around to face the speaker. “Dean Hill. I wasn’t aware you were here today.” Ms. Butler’s composure was rattled.

  Interesting.

  Dean Hill’s pale blonde brows rose. “It’s Monday morning, Ms. Butler. Where else would I be?” Her grass-green gaze rested on Jonah after quickly passing over Carol. “Detective Sound, right? I’m Dean Arlayna Hill, head of this university.” She glanced dismissively at Ms. Butler. “That will be all, Ms. Butler.”

  The woman sputtered for a moment before walking off with a stiff nod of farewell to the dean.

  Dean Hill shook her head, revealing slightly pointed ears. She must be a half-elf. Full elves could only hide their ears with elaborately styled hair, scarves, or hats. “I’m sorry about that. Dean Anthony and I are having a slight disagreement on some things. I’m afraid it’s spilled out onto campus security.” She gestured toward the door. “Come, I’ll show you where our security setup is. I’m sure you have questions for me as well.”

  Dean Hill walked them back out of the building and down a pathway to another brick building not far from the administrative building. “Dean Anthony is the dean of students, whereas I run the school itself. I can understand his desire to protect them, but I’d rather find out if we have a murderer in our midst or if some asshole just used our baseball field as a dumping ground.”

  Jonah held open the door of the building for the two women, accepting the quiet thanks of the dean. Carol stood by the door once inside, staying close to Jonah’s side.

  “Let me introduce you to Larry, our security expert. He should be able to bring up the videos you need.” The dean took them up a set of stairs to an office. The nameplate said Laurence Rivers, Chief of Police.

  Jonah kept quiet as the dean knocked on the door. While he didn’t always care for campus police, he understood that the majority of them truly cared for the safety of the students. Having their hands tied by bureaucracy couldn’t help their situation, especially in a situation such as this.

  “Come in!” a voice bellowed from behind the door, deep and cheerful.

  Dean Hill opened the door. “Larry, I’ve got two LAPD officers here to talk to you about the murder.”

  A large man stood from behind a maple desk, his shoulders practically spanning the width of the doorway. “Jonah Sound, huh?”

  Jonah tilted his head. “Do I know you?”

  “Nope, but I’ve heard of you. Your mother heads one of my favorite charities.” Chief Rivers waved his hand. “Come in, come in. You want to view the security cam footage, am I right?”

  Jonah allowed Carol to enter first. “Yes, that’s exactly right.” Jonah put his hand on Carol’s shoulder. “This is my familiar, Carol Voss.”

  “Ms. Voss.” Chief Rivers held out a beefy hand. “Welcome to our humble campus.”

  “Thank you, Chief Rivers.” Carol smiled and shook the proffered hand. “I look forward to working with you.”

  “We’ll need a list of professors and students, those with magic, who would have been on campus the day of the murder.” He didn’t say anything about how the body hadn’t been completely drained. They’d decided to hold back that choice little tidbit, at least for now. It was SOP on murder cases. You always held something back, something only the murderer would know.

  Chief Rivers sighed, his shoulders slumping. “Of course. We can do that, but it will take time. I’ve been working on it, but things have been a little more tense around here. I haven’t had time to go through the videos yet, so do you want to go through them first?”

  Jonah nodded. The last thing he wanted to do was antagonize someone who had the ability to aid in their investigation in such a large way. Chief Rivers had information that Jonah didn’t. “Thanks. Your cooperation means a great deal to us.”

  “Not a problem. I want this fucker caught before he kills another student.” Chief Rivers rubbed a hand wearily over his face. “To be honest, the kids are scared shitless, and it’s leading to people a
sking for escorts around campus at night or calling us to look into things they’re finding suspicious.”

  “Like what?” Jonah was hoping at least one of those students had given a good lead to the chief.

  “People they haven’t seen before hanging around a dorm room, which turned out to be visiting friends of one of the residents. Another call was about a woman seen somewhere near the athletic field. Turned out to be one of our secretaries, out jogging because she was going out with her boyfriend after work and wouldn’t have time to get her exercise in otherwise.” Chief Rivers shrugged. “Simple stuff like that. I’ll get you the notes of the officers who responded, but I doubt you’ll find anything linking these calls to the crime.”

  “Thank you.” Jonah sat in front of the desk. “Now, let’s get this asshole.”

  With Carol’s quiet agreement and Dean Hill’s silent assent, the four of them got to work.

  Chapter 11

  Carol’s eyes fluttered shut as the video rolled on and on and on. Dear gods, was it ever going to end? Students entered, students left, faculty stopped to chat; lather, rinse, repeat.

  Someone nudged her shoulder, and she jolted upright. “I’m awake.”

  “Uh-huh.” Jonah’s voice was low, amused. “Watch monitor three.”

  She turned her gaze, only to find Chief Rivers fast asleep, his mouth open as his head rested firmly against the back of his chair. They’d been at this for hours now, and none of them had spotted a damn thing. The most exciting thing she’d caught was a view of a guy checking out another guy’s ass.

  Carol scooted over and began watching monitor three as instructed. “Mother of magic, I need coffee.”

  “We all need coffee,” Jonah muttered, his gaze still glued to his own monitor.

  “Jesus God, yes.” Dean Hill’s eyes were wide as she also stared blindly at a monitor. “Get some for me while you’re at it. Light sugar, no cream, please.”

  “I thought elves didn’t believe in Jesus,” Carol muttered, frowning when she thought she spotted the victim’s familiar walk past the baseball field.

  “They do if they’re half-elves raised by a minister.” Dean Hill yawned and shook her head. “Seriously, make with the caffeine already.”

  Carol pointed to the monitor. “Watch this then.”

  Dean Hill grumbled but let Carol past. Jonah didn’t say a word, just kept his eyes on his monitor. He was making the rest of them look bad.

  Either that, or he’d mastered the art of sleeping with his eyes open.

  Luckily, Chief Rivers had a one-cup coffee maker in his office, so all Carol had to do was insert pods and press some buttons. Soon, three steaming mugs were in her hands. She gave a lightly sugared one to Dean Hill, a black one to Jonah, and kept the third sweat and creamy one for herself, then managed to crawl back over Dean Hill—without spilling a drop of either her coffee’s or the dean’s—and began watching her monitor once more.

  Students occasionally crossed the field, some lone, some in groups. It was confusing the hell out of her, unless... “Where are the dorms?”

  “Um.” Dean Hill rifled through some papers until she grabbed a campus map. “Here, see? You go past the quad, down toward the sports fields—”

  “Sports fields?” Carol paused her video so she could stare incredulously at the dean. “Seriously?”

  Dean Hill grimaced. “Yeah, I probably should have mentioned that.”

  “Ya think?” Carol sighed and turned back to her video. “We need the names of these kids so we can question them, find out if they saw or sensed anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Sorry.” Dean Hill grimaced. “I didn’t even think of it.”

  Jonah grunted, the sound irritated, but his gaze remained on the screen in front of him.

  “So, every student goes past the sports fields to get to their dorms.” Carol leaned back in her chair and groaned. “We’re never gonna find this asshole. It’s a blood sorcerer smorgasbord out there.”

  “We’ll find him. It has to be...I mean... What the fuck?” Dean Hill paused her video, then squinted at the screen. “What’s that?”

  Carol rolled closer so she could observe the monitor over the dean’s shoulder. “What?”

  Carol sucked in a shocked breath. The creature on the screen was bipedal, its skin black and wrinkled, sagging in places like the biceps and thighs. Its eyes were eerily white and sunken in the flesh of its face. Its nose was gone, its lips thin over stained teeth.

  Shit, shit, shit. A fucking wither? What was a wither doing on this side of the veil?

  Carol reached behind her and tried to get Jonah’s attention. “Jonah. Oh, God, Jonah?”

  “Hmm?” Jonah was soon there, his face close to hers as he stared at the screen. “Fuck.” He took hold of Carol’s chair and moved her out of his way. He crouched next to the dean and stared at the creature with a hard, angry expression. “A wither.”

  “Oh, shit.” The dean shivered. “It’s like it’s staring at me.”

  Jonah turned off the monitor with a pissed expression. “It may have been.”

  “What?” The horrified screech of the dean almost woke Chief Rivers. He muttered something in his sleep, moving restlessly before he settled back down.

  “Someone had to have summoned it, right?” It was the only way she could think of that a wither would be on Terra Mundus.

  “Wonderful.” The dean scrubbed her face. “So, we have a dimen murderer?”

  “Not likely. Withers leave a very noticeable mark on their victims, a black splotch over the heart where they suck the mana out of their victims.” Jonah stared at the blank screen. “No, this one must have been under the control of a blood sorcerer. A powerful one.”

  “Why a powerful one?” Carol was shivering for some reason, unable to sit still, her hackles rising.

  Jonah’s hands were clenched on the desk, his jaw tight. “Only a powerful blood sorcerer can control a wither and have it do his or her bidding. They’d have to feed it power, or it would devour them instead.”

  “What’s going on in here?” A man stood in the doorway, staring at them curiously. He was about five-foot-nine with short, thinning brown hair and puppy-dog brown eyes. His skin was almost vampire pale and slightly sallow. His suit did not complement his thin frame. The shoulders of his tan tweed jacket were too broad, making his head appear too small. The golden color of the shirt he wore underneath only emphasized the yellow undertones of his skin. He wore jeans a size too small, causing him to appear as if he had a beer gut.

  “Dean Anthony, these are the detectives assigned to the case of that poor Reeves boy,” Dean Hill answered, her tone full of authority. “Detective Sound, Ms. Voss, this is Dean Anthony. He’s in charge of—”

  Carol started to growl, her wolf on full alert. The compulsion to shift had never been so strong before. The urge to shove Jonah behind her, to guard him from whatever was driving her wolf mad, was so powerful she reached out to him. She grabbed his arm, trying to tug him behind her.

  Jonah stopped staring at Dean Anthony and turned his attention to Carol. “What’s wrong?”

  Dean Hill stood, her gaze glued to the doorway. “Something’s coming.”

  Dean Anthony backed out of the doorway, his gaze glued to the slowly flickering lights in the hallway.

  Carol was surprised that the dean caught on so quickly, but maybe her elven genes were giving her the same heebies that Carol had. Her wolf was snarling, snapping, eager to be released.

  Carol wasn’t one to ignore her instincts, not since she’d been locked outside in that fucking thunderstorm. Her wolf had been howling that something wasn’t right, but she’d listened to someone she shouldn’t have and had regretted it ever since.

  Never again.

  Carol shifted, slipping under the shoved-together desks to stand guard in front of the door. Whatever was coming would have to go through her to get to Jonah. She crouched, snarling, ready to attack.

  If what Jonah said was true, then
odds were good it would be the wither.

  The hall lights began to sputter sporadically, fluctuating between extra bright and completely out so rapidly she had to narrow her eyes or be blinded. Energy crackled along her skin, raising the hairs on the back of her neck even higher. An alien hunger crawled along her spine, making her gag in horror.

  Whatever was coming wanted Jonah. It would settle for her, but its primary target was the sorcerer filled with animus.

  Carol waited until the first hint of darkness filled the doorway. She lunged, biting hard into leathery flesh, bone snapping as the creature shrieked in pain.

  She did her best not to vomit at the vile taste of the thing. It was like biting into a really dried-out pepper. The skin gave easily, but it was so dry, so parched, with none of the juices you’d expect when biting into flesh. No blood flowed, no flavors burst on her tongue to tell her she’d actually bitten anything. Only the impression of skin, muscle, and bone.

  It was so weird.

  From behind her came a multi-tonal voice chanting. Dean Hill must be using the unique magic of the elves. Usually, their power was nature-based, focused on healing and growth, a remnant from their original dimension, Terra Dryadalis.

  But when it came to creatures that did not belong in this world, their magic could be a powerful tool, forcing dimens to return to their original dimension. Strong elves could force dimens back to their own dimension using their solid connection to Dryadalis to fuel their magic. The elves claimed the magic came from when there was a war between Dryadalis and Terra Aether, the plane of air.

  No matter where it came from, it was useful as hell.

  Carol shook her head viciously as the wither tried to back away. She wound up taking a chunk of its calf. The creature shrieked, the pitch so high she wasn’t certain the others could even perceive it.

  She spat out the dried flesh and advanced on the creature, trying to ignore the flashing lights. They made it harder to track the wither, possibly a defense mechanism against visual tracking. It seemed to flash in between the lights, appearing in the shadows and dark spots in the hallway. Behind her, the computer monitors were beginning to flash, too, making her wonder if the wither was using those shadows to teleport as well.