by Nova Archer
Caine looked at her, eyebrow raised. “What makes you say that?”
“The emails on her computer. I checked the ones in her send file, the ones she sent to him. Very eager, very...smitten, I guess is the word. She was definitely attracted to him. She wanted to be with him.”
He nodded, now eager they were on the right track. “Yes. Yes, that’s good. Were there any notes about meeting him somewhere? Maybe if we can find the place she was picked up at, we can trace her path to the city.”
“Not that I could see. She might have been instructed to delete the note after she received it.”
“Can we trace the message from his account?”
“If I could get into the account...”
Caine slid his phone out of his pants pocket. “I’ll get us a warrant and access.” He glanced at Gwen. “Thanks for the quick work.”
She grunted and went back to work.
He looked at Mahina, then at Eve. “Okay, we’re at least moving. I’ll get Jace to get on our trace evidence and see where our fibers and wire lead us, and see if our witch has deciphered those symbols yet.” Caine turned to leave the lab, Mahina leading the way.
“Wait,” Eve called after him. He stopped and looked at her. “We’re not letting him go, are we?”
Caine could see the unasked question on her face. She was still shaken up from the incident in the alley. He could tell by the welling concern in her eyes that she thought they would let the vampire go even after he had assaulted her. There was no way in hell, Caine was going to let that slide. Xavier had hurt Eve, and he would pay for it one way or another.
“No. I’m asking for charges. No one assaults a crime scene investigator and walks away from it.”
She nodded at him. “Thank you.” Pulling her gaze away, she put it on the floor. “I’ll go pore over her laptop again, maybe there’s something I missed. I’ll also see what Detective Salinas found out from her friends and the boyfriend.” Without looking at him, she brushed by him and out the door. As she passed, she gently squeezed his arm then just as quickly let go and continued down the hallway.
He watched her go.
Mahina cleared her throat. “Um, is there something you want to talk about?”
Swiveling his gaze to her, he frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Mahina motioned toward Eve, who had just disappeared into the analysis room. “Blondie. You’re not the only one that can sense feelings you know.”
“Can we go do our jobs, Garner?”
She put her hand on his arm to stop him from walking away. “You’re attracted to her.”
Caine shrugged off her touch and frowned. “I am not.”
“The fact that you can’t look at me tells me you are and you know it.”
Lifting his gaze, he glared at the lycan detective. “I’m looking at you, Mahina. Can we get on with our jobs now and solve this blasted case?”
“Be careful, is all I’m saying.” She patted him on the shoulder. “As a friend.”
He smirked. “Mahina, you don’t have friends, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” She grinned. “Sorry I said anything.” She slapped him hard on the back, and then walked away humming the theme to Jaws.
He wanted to tell her to go to hell that she didn’t know what she was talking about. But she was right. He needed to tread lightly. He was nearing dangerous territory with his emotions. Soon, they would start clouding his judgment. And he refused to let that happen.
Without his keen senses and intuition, he wouldn’t be doing this lab any good. And Eve was starting to interfere with that. He was starting to care about her in a way that made the case come second.
He couldn’t let that happen, he wouldn’t. Not after all he worked for, all he did for this lab. The sooner they solved this case, the sooner Eve would be gone. And he could carry on with his life—uncomplicated and with a singular purpose—to collect evidence and solve crimes.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Head down, Eve marched along the corridor toward the analysis room. As she walked, she had the distinct sensation of being watched. When she neared the open door, she looked up and spied Kellen down the hall leaning against another doorjam, eyeing her.
She met his gaze, expecting him to smile, but he just watched her with a slight twitch in his upper lip. She had the distinct feeling of being ogled from head to toe. His gaze was not of friendly interest but one of predatory lust.
Swallowing down the rising apprehension, she quickly dropped her gaze and stepped into the room. She pulled up short when she saw Lyra at the computer, looking at magical symbols projected in large format on the wall.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize anyone was in here.”
“No worries.”
“I need to go over the laptop again. Is it going to bother you if I work in here too?”
“Knock yourself out,” Lyra said without looking at Eve, as she flipped to another symbol.
Eve settled herself at the smaller worktable behind Lyra’s workstation. Trying to shake the creepy sensations left by Kellen’s gaze, she opened up the laptop and attempted to access Lillian’s email account. Maybe she could recover all the emails sent to her address even though Lillian had deleted them from her inbox. They still could be in the system somewhere.
After a half hour of trial and error, Eve couldn’t find any emails in the victim’s computer that had been requests for a meeting. All she could find were several notes from vamploverX claiming how much he liked Lillian and had enjoyed talking with her at the concert. Although Xavier hadn’t confessed to being vamploverX, there was no doubt in Eve’s mind that he was. She’d have to wait until they had a warrant before she could access that particular Hotmail account.
Now she had to call Detective Salinas. A call she dreaded more than working a grisly crime scene. She could just imagine what her former lover was going to say about Caine and the situation that transpired at the Crawfords.
Sliding her cellphone out from her purse, she dialed his number and waited with a lump forming in her throat.
He picked up after three rings. “Salinas.”
“Aaron, its Eve.”
The silence on the other end came through the phone like an icy fog. She shivered involuntarily just picturing Aaron’s stern face on the other end.
“I wanted to know if you talked with Lillian Crawford’s boyfriend and her friends.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“And?” It was like pulling teeth with him. He had always been a stubborn son-of-a-bitch. Macho to a fault.
He hadn’t started out like that. She had fallen for him initially because of the respectful way he had dealt with her once on a crime scene she attended, and it hadn’t hurt that he possessed those dark Latin looks coupled with a hard, muscled body. After meeting her on the scene, he had sent flowers to the lab every day for a week until she agreed to go out with him. A month later, the flowers stopped and so had the respect.
“The boyfriend confirmed that she was starting to hang out with this Goth crowd. The last time he spoke to her was on the phone Tuesday morning. They were supposed to hook up later at the mall, but she never showed. He thought she was just playing the bitch and it never crossed his mind to track her down or call her parents. He started to get worried by Wednesday afternoon when he hadn’t heard from her. That was when he called her parents and they reported her missing.”
Eve wrote as he spoke. “And the friends?”
“They confirmed the vic was at the Creston Community Hall a couple of Saturdays ago at the concert with this Crimson Strain group. One of her friends, Sarah Hamilton, says that she saw the vic speaking to at least two or three of the band members and the roadies. She pointed them out on the band poster I had. I circled the ones she identified.”
“Good. Could you fax a copy of that?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks Aaron.”
“So, this Crimson Strain band, are they vamps too?”
“Yes.”
Eve didn’t like the sound of disgust in his voice. She had a feeling the conversation was going in a direction she wasn’t going to like.
“What’s it feel like to be surrounded by them? Are you scared that they might eat you?”
“Aaron, I’m not going to answer that. Thank you for the information. I’ll call you if anything else develops.”
“Why, are you afraid I’m going to find out you’re sleeping with Valorian?”
Sighing, she clenched her jaw and tried hard not to scream into the phone. “Aaron, even if I was, it would be none of your business. You lost your privileges to care whom I sleep with. Good-bye.”
Ending the call, she set the phone on the table and rubbed at the spot on her forehead where a headache was throbbing. Thankfully, she had hung up on him before he had a chance to call her a whore. He had once before, after they broke up.
She couldn’t figure out why he thought that way, but she had never understood him. That was one of the reasons their short relationship was doomed to failure. They barely talked, and when they did, Aaron was always telling her she should give up her criminalist career for something more suited to her disposition. Meaning her gender. Like waitress, or bank teller, or nurse, or pregnant housewife.
She had told him directly, to shove his advice and never to talk to her about it again. A week later, their affair ended.
Sighing, she ran a hand over her face and glanced up at Lyra to see if she had heard her conversation. The witch hadn’t as much moved from her position behind the computer. Eve mumbled a thank you under her breath.
Eve looked up at the displayed drawings on the wall. Lyra clicked to another one. Eve eyed it curiously. There was something about it that seemed familiar to her. The looping tail. The point at the end of it. It looked like a serpent’s tail.
Lyra flipped to the next slide.
“Wait. Go back,” Eve blurted, excitement coursing through her.
Lyra turned and stared at her, a questioning look on her face.
“I recognize something about that symbol.”
Lyra flicked it back once.
Eve stood up and walked to the wall. “What are these symbols used for?”
“Either a spell or summoning a spirit.”
She traced the line of the tail with her finger. “It’s a tail. A serpent’s tail.” Cocking her head to the side, she scrutinized the rest of the symbols. She put her finger on the three points with circles on top. “Three heads.” Then she moved her finger over to a looping that looked like a squished letter B. “And the letter B.”
She took a few steps back, putting her hand on her hip. “I could be wrong but I think this is the symbol for-,”
“Balam,” Lyra finished for her.
Eve turned and nodded at Lyra. “Yeah. From the Key of Solomon.”
Lyra knocked herself in the forehead. “Damn it! Why didn’t I see that?”
“Sometimes when we get too close, we can’t see anything,” Eve offered.
Lyra looked up at the wall again. “These markings on her body were not a spell, but a summoning. A demon summoning.” Her gaze then settled on Eve. “How did you know? This isn’t exactly everyday knowledge, especially for-”
Shrugging her shoulders, Eve answered, “I was bored in university and took a demonology course for fun.”
“For fun?”
“Yeah, I’ve always been enthralled with people’s fascination with the occult and certain mythologies, like, well, vampires, werewolves and such.” She cleared her throat. “But now that I know you guys are real, gives it a whole new perspective.”
Lyra flipped through the rest of the markings. Eve watched them flash by on the wall one by one, a sense of dread washing over her with each picture.
“So they were really trying to call Balam forth?” Eve asked. “Why would they do that? Demons aren’t real, are they?”
The witch was staring at the wall, at one symbol in particular—a crescent-moon shape with two arrows and another shape she couldn’t discern.
Lyra looked pensive as she chewed on her bottom lip, but something flashed across her face that Eve had not expected. Fear.
Before Lyra could answer Eve’s question, Jace popped his head into the room. “Meeting in the staff room in five minutes.” He was gone again just as quick.
Eve wandered back to her workstation, shut down the laptop and started for the door. She glanced over her shoulder at Lyra, who was still flipping through slides, her face a mask of determination. “Are you coming?”
Lyra waved her hand in the air. A dismissal if Eve ever saw one. She walked out of the room and started down the hall toward the staff room. As she neared the glassed-in room, Eve noticed she didn’t have her purse with her. She turned and walked back to the analysis room.
She stopped a foot from the door when she heard Lyra’s voice.
“Gran, you could’ve offered some help on the symbols, you know.”
Eve risked a peek. Leaning forward she looked around the doorframe and into the room.
Lyra was still standing at the computer but now her chin was lifted a little and looked like she was eyeing something floating above her.
“I know you knew what these symbols meant. A little help once in a while would be appreciative.” Lyra shook her head and waved her arms in the air. “What do you mean Eve needed a break? Whose side are you on, for Goddess sake?”
Eve decided that it wouldn’t likely be a good time to barge into the room with Lyra conversing with her dead grandmother. At first, Eve had thought the little brunette mad, but the longer she’d been here and the more she’d seen, the more she was starting to believe.
She would clear her throat to let Lyra know someone was coming so she didn’t think Eve was rude walking in on her private—however weird—conversation.
However, she didn’t get the chance to.
Lyra turned to the door. “You might as well come in, Gran says you’ve been standing there long enough.”
Face blushing bright pink, Eve stepped into the room. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude on your...conversation.”
“Don’t sweat it. Even Caine has a hard time accepting that I talk with my dead granny.”
Sheepishly, Eve glanced around the room. “Can you see her too?”
Lyra shook her head. “No. I just hear her as plain as I do you. Sometimes when she’s angry, I can get a glimmer, but it usually doesn’t materialize into a recognizable shape.”
“I see.”
Lyra sniffed. “It’s okay if you don’t believe it Eve. Not believing in something doesn’t make it any less real.”
A cool draft blew over Eve making shivers run down her back. Rubbing her arms and eyeing the room for a suspicious glimmer, she nodded. “I’m starting to realize that more and more every day.”
Lyra smiled.
It was the first genuine smile she’d seen from the petite witch. Its warmth and generosity made her return it in kind. Somehow, she felt as if she had just made a friend.
Lyra motioned toward the door. “We shouldn’t keep Caine waiting. He can get really grumpy.”
Eve grabbed her purse from the floor near the workstation and slung it over her shoulder. “Really? I just can’t see him as grumpy.”
“Oh, just wait. Give him some more time. You’ll see it and it ain’t pretty.”
Smiling, Eve followed Lyra out the door.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
How odd, Caine thought, that Eve and Lyra walked into the staff room together, seemingly relaxed and friendly. They filled the remaining seats on the sofa, side by side. Those were the last two people—well maybe Jace was the last person—that he ever thought to see being friendly to one another.
Jace was leaning against the table, Givon had joined them and was perched in one of the wooden chairs at the long lunch table, and Mahina paced around the room like a caged animal. Kellen was MIA.
His unusual mismatched team was assembled.
Pushing off the counter he
had been leaning on, Caine took control of the room. “All right, we need to lay out what we have and brainstorm where we need to go. The longer this case is open, the longer the shit is going to continue to roll downhill. The Baron is paging me every half hour, and I don’t like it.” He eyed everyone in the room. “Who wants to start?”
“I happened to recognize a symbol from my demonology course I took in university on the body. The one for a nasty demon named Balam.”
Everyone turned toward Eve.
“Demonology? Interesting,” Caine remarked.
Lyra took up the thread when Eve glanced at her. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it earlier, but the markings on the victim’s chest are indicators of a demon summoning.” She glanced around the room at everyone. “They used the victim as a human blood sacrifice to call Balam forth. It’s one of two ceremonies needed to summon the entity to this world.”
“Who’s Balam?” Jace asked.
“He’s one of the seventy-two demons that King Solomon evoked and imprisoned to be used for his own purposes,” Eve started.
Lyra continued, “He’s a terrible, great, and powerful king of demons that commands forty legions. He supposedly can see the past, present and future and can make men invisible.”
Caine felt a ripple of fear pass through the room. He glanced at Givon and saw his old friend fidget in his seat. Odd. He didn’t think Givon was afraid of anything.
“Did the summoning work?” Jace asked.
“I don’t know. They’d have to do another ceremony to complete the cycle.” Lyra answered.
Jace snorted. “Well, we wouldn’t want a demon running around Necropolis.”
“I wouldn’t joke about it, Jace. Demon summoning is serious business.”
“Get real, Lyra, demons?”
Lyra shook her head, and leaned back against the sofa. “This from a werewolf.”
Caine put his hand up to stop the squabbling he could sense coming. “Okay, let’s just stick to the evidence please. We can hear theories after.” He nodded to Eve. “What did Detective Salinas have to say?”
“He talked to Lillian’s friends and boyfriend, and they all confirmed that she was starting to hang around with the Goth community, that they all went to the concert put on by Crimson Strain, and they all identified Xavier as one of the band members she talked to. They also said that she’d been having a weird fascination with vampires lately, and had been doing a lot of research.”
