Olivia came up beside me. “Here comes Tinkerbell.”
Great, the Soothsayer standing away from a chalk outline was Lulu, and she flexed her fingers at the sight of me and Olivia.
I was so not in the mood to be frozen. But I’m sure Lulu wasn’t in the mood to be tracked down afterward and face my fist.
All Soothsayers were shapeshifters, and Lulu’s form was a Manx cat with a bobbed tail. Funny as hell, but she still should have been a rat instead.
When Lulu saw T, her manner changed completely and she turned her petite nose away from Olivia and me.
Olivia smirked when she met my gaze. “Oh, brother.”
Lulu smiled and practically drifted over to T like the air carried her on a royal carpet. The beautiful beyond beautiful Soothsayer wore her hair in golden ringlets and had on a frilly, long iridescent dress (give me a break) that made her look like a Disney fairy princess.
“I’m Lulu.” She actually fluttered her eyelashes. “Who might you be?”
I tried not to roll my eyes. Honestly. But I couldn’t help it.
Score one for T because he didn’t fall all over himself to introduce himself. He gave a simple nod. “Torin.”
Lulu raised her chin and immediately had a miffed expression. No doubt because T hadn’t referred to her as “my lady” and bowed or showed any other formalities to please her enormous ego.
I looked around what was apparently the living room. Experts had been dusting for fingerprints while other police officers were obviously looking for clues.
And there was Adam, frozen in a crouch, his back to me, his muscles tight, radiating a bleak, gut-tearing energy I had never felt from him before.
Immediately my heart started pounding, from excitement at the sight of him, and from worry. I left T and Olivia behind and went to Adam and crouched beside him.
He wouldn’t know I was there until I touched him, but I could see pain in those gorgeous blue eyes that made my chest ache.
His expression told me everything I needed to know.
These were his people, a cop’s family. He was taking this as personally as I took the death of a fellow Tracker. Seeing these innocent people slaughtered was as bad for Adam as it was for me watching Demons demolish what was left of Jon.
I braced one knee on the polished wood floor and I touched the sleeve of Adam’s worn leather bomber jacket, unfreezing him. “Adam,” I whispered, overcome by his sadness.
“This blue looks like fresh paint—” Adam stopped and glanced at me. “Nyx.”
He seemed both pleased to see me, yet angry at what had happened. I gave him a sad smile.
Adam moved his gaze to the man on the other side of him, who was still frozen. “Christ, I wish your Soothsayers wouldn’t do this freezing sh—crap. It makes everything harder.”
When he shifted his weight from one knee to the other, I caught his leather, coffee, and masculine scent, and wanted to wrap my arms around him. I leaned closer so that I could breathe more of him in, and hoped that he might take comfort from my presence.
He looked around and saw Lulu, who had her hands on her hips. Humans were the lowest of creatures as far as she was concerned.
“Oh, lighten up,” Olivia said, moving away from T and intercepting Lulu before she could fire any smart remarks—or nasty spells—in Adam’s direction. “Finding lipstick on your teeth is about the only thing worse than being sent on paranormal cases involving humans, isn’t it, Lu-lu?”
Olivia emphasized the name as she pushed aside her Mets jacket to rest her hand near her Sig.
The slogan on Olivia’s navy blue T-shirt said it all:
People like you are the reason
people like me need medication.
Lulu’s voice snapped like one of those firecrackers kids tossed around during the human Fourth of July celebration. “Hurry and do whatever so that I might leave this Goddess-forsaken place.”
She looked away, her nose in the air, and Adam and I glanced at each other, both of us trying to hide a laugh.
While Olivia started her part of the investigation, T came up and crouched on the other side of me. I worked to keep my attention fully on Adam to let him know I was there for him, that I understood how bad this kind of thing felt.
A few moments later, I felt T’s awareness turn to Adam, too, and Adam’s turned to T.
They did that male sizing-up thing, and Adam’s tension seemed to rise. I almost rolled my eyes for the second time since coming to the liaison officer’s home.
“Boyd.” Adam got to his feet and held out his hand to T.
“Torin.” With a slight nod, T stood at the same time I did, then he reached across me and shook hands with Adam.
“Definitely a paranormal crime,” Adam said to me after he and T released their grips. “You won’t believe some of the shit we found.” He gestured toward what I knew wasn’t paint, but blue blood. “This isn’t the half of it. Think it could be those Demons you were telling me about?”
I took a good look around me. “I don’t think that underling Demons could possibly do this.”
“Why not?” Adam said.
“After fighting the underling Demons for a while, I just can’t picture it.” The total destruction of the home was almost overwhelming. “The power it would have taken to do this is like a cyclone was contained within this house.”
“Could be the major or master Demons Rodán told you about.” Olivia gripped her electro-pad in one hand. “No one knows what they’re capable of. Yet.”
I made an absentminded sound of acknowledgment as I caught sight of more blue spots. They were on a carpet that lay over a portion of the wood floor. “The Demons do have blue blood and there are more scattered droplets.” I pointed. “Right there.”
“Not paint, huh?” Adam said as we walked toward the spots of blue that hadn’t fully dried.
“It’s possible the major Demons or master Demon also have that same color of blood,” T said.
“Did your Proctor tell you anything?” Adam cleared his throat. “Do you think Officer Crisman was, uh, eaten or something?”
T’s expression turned amused. I ignored him. Adam had a valid question, and it was way past obvious that this was a big deal for him.
“It is possible but we really don’t know,” I said. “Hopefully we’ll find more clues than this blue stuff.”
Somewhere in my purse was my electro-pad where I kept my notes on every case. I dug through my purse and came up with it. Adam watched me as I jotted down a few notes with the stylus.
I looked up at Adam. My human half didn’t like to ask these kinds of questions. “Were the bodies mutilated?”
It was obvious to me that Adam was trying to keep his professional cop-cool. “Their faces are—hell, I don’t know what you’d call it. Mutilated and burned off would be the closest thing I can come up with.”
“Goddess.” I glanced at T, who frowned. I moved my gaze back to Adam’s. “That’s definitely not underling Demon behavior.”
T shook his head in a slight movement, his frown deepening. “Impossible.”
“So you think we’re probably dealing with another type of Demon or Demons,” Adam said.
“Right now the only thing I know for sure is that a Tracker and a human law enforcement officer were attacked the same night, in the same vicinity,” I said. I didn’t want to ask, but I had to. “May I see one of the bodies?”
Adam studied me. “They’re pretty bad.”
“I need to get a look at them.” I rubbed my fingers lightly over my Drow collar, which always gave me a burst of strength and confidence when I needed it. “Olivia and I need to.” I glanced at T. “Oh, and him, too.”
T scowled.
Adam started toward the body bags. “I know you’ve seen some pretty crappy things, Nyx, but this—like I said, it’s bad.”
“Stop babying her,” Olivia said as she came toward us with her electro-pad and stylus gripped tight. “She needs toughening up.”
Adam nodded, and I walked beside him to the largest of the bags. “From the ID he was carrying, apparently this is the grandfather.”
He inched down the zipper. A very much human gag reflex came over me as I breathed in the even stronger smell of burned sugar and flesh.
And saw the face—or what was left of the man’s face.
It wasn’t like the flesh had been seared. No part of the skull was exposed. Instead it was like something had taken a big stomp and flattened the flesh so that the face was like a wax blob and not human.
A shock went through my elemental energies, nearly stealing my ability to breathe. The haze in my mind was like I’d drained nearly all of my powers.
“Holy shit,” Olivia said.
T grunted.
My Drow half was screaming for me to draw blades at the side of it. I could hardly keep my own cool.
“Do you need to leave?” T said in an arrogant tone.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said in a voice so harsh it didn’t sound like my own. The words weren’t even my own. They were deeper, more primal, as each sensation hit me.
“Nyx.” Olivia’s voice came through the haze in my mind. “What are you sensing?”
“I don’t know.” I swallowed down the desire to vomit, scream, and run like I’ve never run before.
Adam said, “I think we’d better get you out of here.” The concern in his voice was unmistakable and protective. It was so different from T’s asinine tone.
Even though I felt my energies draining, I forced myself to study the face. I had to be professional. But all I wanted to do was flee.
Calm down. Calm down, Nyx.
I scanned the horrific image. It took a moment, but then I made it out. A pattern had been “stamped” into the flesh.
“What the hell is that?” Olivia said, but like Adam maintained her professional cop-cool.
My gaze traced the strange lines and whirls. I couldn’t speak.
T stood. “Let’s see the others.”
I looked at Adam, and even though all of my muscles felt weak, I managed to talk. “Believe me, it’s the last thing I want to do.”
He paused. Nodded. “Okay,” he said quietly.
Olivia, T, and I checked the other bodies, and each time the human half of me wanted to throw up. Only my Drow half kept me from losing it.
Each face had the same symbol distorting the darkened flesh. A sort of cone or funnel. The symbol was like nothing I’d ever seen.
Pretending that the horrible images I was looking at were just on wax dummies and not on real people, I used my electro-pad to photograph the faces.
Just in case the symbol wouldn’t photograph well, or the Demon had put some kind of sick spell on the faces, I used the stylus on a blank screen to copy the pattern. My artistry isn’t the best and I could barely keep my hand from shaking as I did it, but I managed a fair rendering.
I started to get up, but what T did next brought me to a complete halt. With slow purpose, he moved his hand over the face of the fourth victim. The nightmarish look of the face vanished and was replaced by what looked like a sleeping child. The bad energy vanished around the child’s body.
Oh, my Goddess. I held my hand to my mouth. As I looked at that small angelic-looking girl, I would have cried if I could. Whatever T had done made it all the more real.
“Maybe he’ll be useful after all,” Olivia said.
I watched as T did the same to the other three faces so that they looked normal and human, and peaceful with their eyes closed.
Even the odor of charred flesh had vanished. Only the smell of burned sugar remained. I no longer felt a hint of the darkness remaining in the bodies, and my own energy started to flow back into me.
I stared at T for a moment when he was finished. “How did you do that?”
He studied the room. “We should start looking for clues.”
Adam and I exchanged looks.
“Thank you,” Adam said to T. “It would have been pretty damned bad for their extended families to see them that way.”
I nodded. It was hard enough having the images burned into my own mind.
People were still frozen around us, and we had to dodge police officers and others as we searched for any kind of clue. I walked slowly around the house, checking each room and looking around furniture.
Then I found it.
“Hey.” I stared at the same image that had been on the faces, but it was much clearer on the wood floor of the dining room. It looked like it had been lasered into the wood, then painted with blood. Smelled like it, too. “Get over here.”
They reached my side at almost the same time. Adam whistled through his teeth as T and Olivia crouched beside the symbol. I took a few pictures with my electro-pad.
I lowered myself so that one of my knees was on the floor while I used my thigh to brace the pad on so that I could do my best to sketch the symbol again, this time a lot more clearly and with more detail—or at least the best I could with my limited artistic talents.
The symbol started with a flat, bumpy surface, then spiraled down, like a cone, but was jagged and uneven in what looked like layers.
“What does this thing mean?” Adam said as he crouched beside me so that all four of us were down, examining the strange symbol.
“Not sure.” I shook my head. “I’ll have to check with my Proctor to see if he has any ideas. Derek, James’s partner, is an occult expert. I’ll scan and email the image to Derek right away.”
I could see Olivia’s mind working overtime as she appraised the symbol. “We’ll do an Internet search to see if we come up with a match.”
“We can check a few symbol books, too,” I said. “I have some, and Rodán has a good-sized library. Then there’s always the public library.”
“Sure.” Olivia smirked. “Good ol’ New York Public Library. I’m sure it’s up to date on the latest Demons that escape through well-guarded Demon Gates.”
T’s voice came from the other side of me. “We have more on our hands than random acts by a rogue Demon.”
A chill ran through me even though I’d been thinking the same thing. All I could do was nod.
Adam’s expression went from his usual calm to furious. “I’m going to get this fucking sonofabitch who did this to the kids, whatever it is.”
The fire in his eyes and the fact he’d forgotten to watch his language in front of me like he normally did gave me a pretty good idea of just how angry he was, how angry he’d keep being until we shut down the creature or creatures who’d committed these atrocities.
“I think this Demon is taunting us with this clue,” I said as I shut off my electro-pad and stuffed it into my purse.
T’s strong features seemed strangely impassive. “It wants to let us know what it can do. And maybe that it can’t be stopped.”
With her brows narrowed and her lips twisted into a frown, Olivia got to her feet. “We’ll find the sicko, whatever this Demon is, and it won’t have time to wish it could go home to mommy.”
Adam had clear meaning in his eyes when he met my gaze. “I’m not letting the sonofabitch get away with this.”
He had so much courage and determination to fight whatever paranormal creature was evil and involved humans. And he was a mere human himself.
He’d helped me solve paranormal crimes against humans, but I’d never given him the chance to eliminate the threats. With my Drow abilities, I always managed to slip away from him and take care of business myself at night. Vampires, Brownies, a rogue Werepack, Metamorphs. Because all of the cases had been so easy for me and Olivia to eliminate, there had been no need for additional backup—human or paranorm.
Not to mention I hadn’t been ready for Adam to see the other half of me. The dark half. The half that came out only when the sun slipped away and darkness took hold.
But soon, I told myself. It was time to let him see all of me.
Each time I’d taken care of a paranormal crime
myself, Adam made it clear he wasn’t happy about it and that he should be with me taking down whatever being had committed the crime. But he really had no idea what he was asking. He was a brave human, and I didn’t want him to get hurt.
This time I wasn’t sure I could stop him from avenging these deaths. And if I tried, he would probably never forgive me. But we were dealing with a Demon. What looked like a powerful Demon. A master Demon.
A gut feeling told me this Demon was playing with us and that a timer had started to count down.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The Demon had given us a bizarre symbol that we had to decipher.
Before we ran out of time.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Cheyenne McCray - [Lexi Steele 01] Page 34
