A dusting of snow covered everything. The highway was almost invisible, just pale tracks of the wheels of whatever vehicles had come this way before. The air was hazy, causing halos around the lights ahead. I held the coffee in my gloved hands, close to my face, to keep warm. Jack’s car was a bright yellow VW bug, one of the old ones from the sixties. It had flower decals all over it, a peace sign on the door, and no heater.
“I hate you,” I said.
Jack had been telling me something about winter mornings in Beverley, East Yorkshire. “What?”
“Why am I up at this ungodly hour again?” which was really what I’d meant to say the first time, but hadn’t ingested nearly enough caffeine to be civil.
“Didn’t Jones tell you?”
“I was sleeping.”
“Right, well, this rancher, Jerry Olson, called downtown this morning in a state of hysteria. He’s got crop circles and dead cows.”
I nodded, but I still felt I was missing something. “Who died?”
“About six cows,” Jack repeated.
“But no people?”
“Right,” he said.
“Take me home,” I said. When he shot me a confused look, I explained. “Cows and humans are completely different species. I think they have six stomachs. I’m not a veterinarian.”
Jack shrugged and didn’t turn the wheel even the slightest. “You’re all we’ve got.”
I had intended to make my case to Jones the moment we pulled into the ranch. Instead, I found myself standing in a frosty field staring down at a mauled animal. It was hard to even tell what it had been. My boots scrunched on the stiff clover as I bent closer to examine the haunch. “Looks like something chewed on it, here.” I gestured with the lip of the coffee cup.
The rancher, Jerry Olson, a beefy guy in a cowboy hat and parka, nodded. “Coyotes. I had to chase them off with my shotgun.”
I could still see the pale moon hanging in the morning sky overhead. It was nearly full. I exchanged a look with Jones, because I’d noticed Devon’s conspicuous absence. Jones shook his head slightly, and I took that to mean that Devon’s alibi for last night was solid. So, real wolf-type animals, not the were-vamp kind.
I returned to my examination.
Underneath my coat, I felt the tattoo constrict suddenly and I looked down at it. I glanced up just in time to see the mangled head of the cow lift off the frozen ground.
TWELVE
The meat of its skinless flesh steamed in the cold. Its exposed, lidless eyeball hung loosely in its socket, but somehow seemed to look directly at me. It lowed pitifully. Then it dropped its head with a wet, sticky sound.
“Holy shit!” I fell back on my ass in shock. The remains of my coffee spilled on my shoes. I scrambled to my feet and pointed frantically. “It…it…it…” I was about to tell them that the cow was clearly not dead and needed to be shot in the head, when I looked again.
The light in its eye had gone out.
“Are you okay?” Jack asked. He bent to pick up the coffee container and brushed the grit from the side. He handed it to me. There was a little mocha left inside. I took it and tried to communicate with my eyes that we needed to talk somewhere without Olson.
“Sorry,” I said. “I slipped. I guess it just freaked me out a bit.” My excuse sounded stupid even to my own ears. I hid my face as I brushed the snow from the butt of my coat.
“Why don’t you show Alex the other thing?” Jones suggested.
Jack led me through the pasture. We threaded along the uneven ground, careful to avoid the lumps of icy cow pies. It was the third time, or maybe fourth if I counted the necromancer, that something dead had spoken to me. My stomach shivered and threatened to revolt.
Once we’d gotten to the far side of the stables, Jack asked, “What happened?”
“You didn’t see?”
He shook his head. I wasn’t surprised, but I was still disappointed. Despite everything that I knew about magic now, it still bothered me when I experienced things that no one else did. I had a hard time trusting what was real.
Bits of hay covered the gravel near the entrance to a long, brick building. Inside, the few remaining cattle huddled near the grain bin. Their glossy black hides tensed and shivered, as their brush-tipped tails flicked like an irritated cat’s. Waves of heat from their bodies were visible in the chill.
“ ‘I see dead cows’ is the dumbest superpower ever,” I said. I took a swig from the mocha before I remembered I’d dropped it. The drink was cold and slightly crunchy.
“It tried to communicate with you?” Jack asked, shoving his hands deeply into the pockets of his wool trench coat. “What did it say?”
“ ‘Moo,’ ” I explained.
“Oh. Right,” he said, looking at the clump of cows. They stomped their hooves and bellowed lowly amongst themselves. After a moment, he asked, “Do you suppose that’s a sign it was killed by magic?”
I looked around for a place to dispose of my cup while I considered. Not all the dead things that had talked to me thus far were killed by magical means. Though both the necromancer and the severed head were clearly under some spell, I wasn’t so sure about Mrs. Finnegan. From all accounts, she’d died quite naturally. I spotted a metal garbage can just inside the door. “I don’t know what it means,” I admitted, tossing the cup and putting the circular cover back in place. “I wish it would stop, though.”
He gave me a sympathetic nod. “The crop circle is over here.”
I followed Jack around the side of the barn. Rolls of hay, taller than our heads, dotted the field. Nubby remains of the harvest threatened to trip my clumsy feet. I tried to walk, tightrope style, along the narrow tire treads. The sun broke on the horizon, throwing pink and orange onto the cloud cover.
Under my coat, I could feel my tattoo shift and squirm the closer we got to the circle.
Given that the hay had all been baled last season, I wondered how the circle had been formed. I was about to ask Jack, when the answer became obvious. Just ahead I could see green tendrils of plants, growing up from the frost-sheathed ground. Knee-high, they stood out in sharp relief to the mowed field.
My tattoo buzzed angrily.
“Wow,” I said, because it was strangely beautiful, with the sun glinting off the straight, stiff stalks. Though there were no visible seed heads or blossoms, I swore I could smell a spring freshness coming from the circle. I edged as close as my arm would allow. “So aliens are real, too?”
“What? No,” Jack said. He was kneeling in front of the grass, his hand brushing the tips. He withdrew his fingers quickly and rubbed them together, as if checking for residue of some kind. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Oh,” I said, shoving my gloved hands into the pockets of my coat. The tattoo ached so much that it felt like someone was twisting my skin. “It’s just that I heard something on the police radio yesterday about an unidentified flying object. Or maybe it had been a plane that hadn’t registered a flight plan?”
“That’s something else entirely,” Jack said. He stood up and took a digital camera from the inside of his coat and started taking pictures. “We’re tracking that.”
Was it morning grogginess, or did Jack seem a little distant and snappish suddenly? Could he feel my tattoo’s response to the green circle? Did it remind him that I might be one of the unnatural ones? Maybe that accidental “I hate you” hurt his feelings?
I shook my head and let my gaze drift toward the windbreak of trees on the horizon. The sun’s light made the frost on the long expanse of mowed field sparkle—blue, white, and pink.
“So if it’s not aliens, what makes crop circles?” I wondered aloud.
“Zombies,” he said, walking along the edge of the green, snapping images from all angles. “That’s why we wanted you out here. Zombies could be related to the necromancer.”
I nodded, wishing I had more coffee. Zombies made crop circles. Of course. How many magical things happened in this town, anyway? Maybe Valentine
was wrong. Pierre seemed almost too small this morning, because too much was visible. I could see my breath and my cheeks stung in the wind. “Do zombies usually make things sprout like that? That seems kind of”—I rubbed my aching arm—“natural, doesn’t it?”
Jack paused to scratch the whiskers on his unshaved chin. “It does,” he agreed. He shoved the camera deep into the pocket of his coat and shook his head. He glanced in the direction of the pasture just beyond the barn. “Spenser is going to be pissed off.”
I thought that defined Jones’s usual disposition, but I didn’t say so. Instead, I asked, “Why?”
“It’s obviously a fairy ring, isn’t it?”
By the time we left the farm, the sun had warmed the interior of Jack’s car. I cracked a window to get a bit of fresh air.
Jones had, in fact, been quite mad about a number of things, it turned out. He wasn’t happy that I had no veterinarian training and could not positively identify the cause of death of the cows. I mollified him a bit when I told him it looked as if something massive had staved in their heads, and that the coyotes had probably tried to drag the bodies off at a later time. But we’d argued again when Jones made arrangements with the rancher to send a carcass back to my morgue. I told him that unless he planned to also send along a butcher, I had no use for a bunch of cow meat. At that point, Jones played the boss card and ended the discussion.
I was currently chewing Jack’s ear off about the whole situation. “He’s not even my boss, you know. I work for the county. I was elected. Why did I let him push me around like that?”
Jack had no comment. I didn’t blame him. I’d been saying the same thing over and over for the last few miles, getting increasingly angry at myself.
I sighed. “The dumbest part? I don’t even have a freezer big enough for the stupid thing.”
“At least it’s not likely to walk off,” he said with a smile.
“With my luck, it probably will. Or moo through the entire autopsy.” I pushed at the manual lock button angrily, clicking it closed and then pulling it open. “And, anyway, what am I supposed to do? It’s like the necromancer all over again. I don’t know what the signs of a bloodthirsty fairy attack should look like.”
“You don’t have to. That’s our job. Just tell us what you find, like you would in any case.”
Except no one seems that interested in doing detective work besides me, I thought but didn’t say. Besides, I liked Jack and didn’t want to insult him any more than I probably already had between my casual slight and the snake’s reaction to the circle.
“Fine,” I muttered, but I conceded his point by allowing a change in subject. “So, speaking of the necromancer, any new developments? Did Boyd get a reading on the toe tag?”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t think so. I guess he’s doing other work for the Lyman County sheriff about a missing girl or something.”
I remembered the bicycle tire and nodded. I understood that missing persons cases were time sensitive, but I wondered exactly how long it took to pick up vibes or whatever from an object. Jack didn’t seem overly bothered by the delay, however, so it must be business as usual.
“How’d it go last night?” he asked.
At first, I thought Jack knew about Valentine’s return. I blushed remembering the fantastic, if often interrupted, sex. “Uh…What do you mean?”
“At the morgue?” he prompted. “When we dropped you off? Did you get a lot accomplished?”
“Oh, oh…yeah, sure,” I started. Then I remembered the truth. “No, not really. I filed paperwork and all that sort of thing, but I don’t really feel like I got much done. I don’t know what killed the necromancer. In fact, from what I can tell, nothing did.”
“You think he faked his death?”
“If magic weren’t a factor, I’d say no without hesitation,” I said. “When I cut into him, he was definitely dead.” When Jack gave me a quick look, I added, “Trust me, when you cut a living person, it’s a very different experience. Blood flies everywhere.”
“Oh. Er, I’ll take your word for it.”
Oops. I guess that was the wrong thing to say. God, I needed more coffee. From the paleness of Jack’s face it occurred to me that I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that I did have experience seeing a living body slashed. Jack couldn’t know details of what had happened with my stepmom, at least. I shook my head. I didn’t want to remember that right now, anyway, especially with Valentine at home in bed.
Jack drove a short distance without speaking. I wished his car had a working radio, but there was a hole in the dash where the stereo would normally be housed. Instead, I watched the fields pass outside the window.
“You never called me,” he said, a few miles down the road. “I left my number on your phone. Didn’t you find it? I was hoping to take you out to dinner.”
Wow, that had to be the most passive-aggressive way to ask me out in recorded history. “Oh, um…” The truth was I hadn’t even really looked at my phone since he handed it back to me at the meeting. “A friend of mine came into town last night unexpectedly. I was…distracted. Sorry.”
Even though I’d been careful about how I said that, Jack looked disappointed. “Maybe after your friend leaves, we could go out.”
I wondered if Valentine had plans to leave anytime soon. A better person would’ve confessed right then that my friend was more than that, and let Jack down easy and early. But, if the past was any indication, Valentine would get restless eventually. He might be here for the moment, but I could never hold him in one place for very long.
Not without trouble, anyway.
Selfishly, I told Jack: “Yeah, maybe we could go out sometime.”
Jack rewarded me with a genuine smile and happy chatter for the rest of the drive back.
Even though it was held in the war room, the morning meeting was very different from yesterday’s more intimate one. Everyone was there—tons of people I didn’t know, in uniform and out—milling around, drinking bad coffee from disposable cups, and talking and laughing about last night’s reality shows.
I stuck to the edge, near the door, trying to look like I belonged.
The whiteboard with all the information about the necromancer was off to one side. I was pleased to see that Jones had updated it with information about the mysterious Twitter correspondent and the severed head. Another whiteboard had been set beside it, with only a few words written on it: cow mutilation, crop circle, and, most curiously of all, dragon. There were no pictures or any notes under those yet, though.
Stone stood against the side wall, a hand wrapped around her chutzpah cup. The other played with a bit of her hair, which was as loose and disorganized as ever this morning. A young detective, the sort who wore his golden badge clipped to his belt and his sleeves rolled up, seemed to be telling her a very earnest story. He was half her height, though tightly muscled. She listened shyly, flirtatiously. It was sweet, if a little strange, to see such a massive woman so demure.
Jack pressed a cup into my hand. I looked down at muddy brown burnt-smelling stuff, but thanked him anyway. He noticed my interest in the guy talking to Stone. “That’s Vito,” he explained. “We’ve got an office pool going for when he finally asks her out.”
I was curious to know what held Vito back, but Jones called the morning meeting to order. Everyone hushed, as he spoke. “As you all know this is an unusually busy time for us. We’ve got three active cases at the moment, and I want updates on all of them.”
Stone pushed herself from the wall and, with a little fond smile at Vito, made her way to the front of the room. She gave a neat, precise rundown of everything we knew about the necromancer so far. I learned that he’d come to the precinct’s attention three months ago, when the first grave had been robbed. I was extraordinarily disturbed to discover that, besides the head, he’d taken a hand and three toes. None of the other body parts had been found so far.
I sipped my coffee accidentally and burned my tongue on the ran
cid liquid. My arm, at least, had stopped hurting on the drive back to headquarters. I rubbed it now, absently, through the fabric of my sweater. Thanks to dressing in the dark, I’d ended up in the garish Christmas sweater with the jingle bells attached to the reindeer’s reins that my stepmother had bought me the first year she’d moved in with us. I hated it about as much as I hated her. I had no idea why I still had this thing, much less why I’d dragged it all the way to Pierre.
Guilt, maybe.
Stone wrapped up her briefing, and Jones took over again. “We got a call this morning about a crop circle and cow mutilation out at the Olson ranch. Preliminary investigation does not indicate a connection to the necromancer case.”
This revelation seemed to shock everyone in the room.
Jones pointed to two guys in uniform standing near the front. “I want Peterson and Hanson to cover the ordinarium procedures. Interview all the neighboring ranchers. Find out if the rancher, Olson, has any enemies. Use words like ‘cattle rustling’ and ‘property damage;’ we don’t need ‘cow mutilation’ getting around.”
The two cops nodded.
I remembered Peterson was the poor guy who everyone assumed was Boyd. Honestly, I couldn’t tell who was who at this distance. They were both white guys with short hair…in uniform. Absolutely no distinguishing features at all.
“Jack, you’re on damage control. Make sure the Internet stays quiet about this one.”
“Yes, sir,” Jack said, saluting Jones with his coffee.
“Alex, since you’re new here, you can come with me while I touch base with my local fairy connections.”
I was surprised by this, but I gave a little wave of acknowledgment when everyone craned around to see who Jones referred to. I really wished I hadn’t dressed in the dark. I must have looked like a complete idiot wearing a Christmas sweater in April. No one seemed bothered, however. I didn’t get more than the usual curious looks. After Jones went back to assigning various tasks, Jack leaned in and whispered, “Lucky you.”
Precinct 13 Page 12
