“Yeah, I’ll help,” I murmured. I started to go for my coat in the closet when Trixie’s voice stopped me.
“I’m going too.”
“Trix—”
Trixie stepped forward, pinning Serah with a piercing stare. “My name is Trixie Ravenwood and I’m a tattoo artist for Asylum. I’ve been tattooing for several years longer than Gage. I want to help.”
“Um . . . yeah. Sure,” the TAPSS investigator said, still leaning against the door. “We’d appreciate the help.”
“Trixie, you don’t have to do this.” Stepping into her line of sight, I gently cupped both of her shoulders. “You’ve already had a long, bad day.” Thanks to me, I mentally added. “Stay here. Eat something and relax. I’ll be there and back again in a couple hours.”
“Are you trying to say that I can’t handle this, Gage Powell?”
A bark of laughter jumped from my throat and I dropped my hands back to my sides. “You’re the most capable woman I know. If you’re looking for a fight regarding my opinion of you or your abilities, you’re not going to get it.”
“Asshole,” she grumbled.
I leaned forward and gently kissed her cheek. “I love you too.”
The anger dissolved from her face in an instant and her shoulders slumped with weariness. She looked more worn to me now than when she first came through the door.
“Without being a sexist asshole, I am suggesting you stay here and rest. I know you’re tired. I’m worried about you.”
“I’m going because I knew Kyle. Not well, but I knew him. I also know a lot more about potions. I can help.”
I smiled at her, wishing I was looking into the blonde beauty I loved rather than her glamour twin. “I welcome your help.”
“Have you two lovebirds got this worked out now? Some of us would like to get home tonight,” Serah said, breaking the tender moment, which was probably for the best.
“I’m sure your cats can survive a couple more hours without you,” I said as I went to the closet and grabbed my heavy winter coat. When I turned back, Serah was glaring at me and Trixie was trying to glare at me but was failing miserably.
Serah said nothing as she led the way out of my apartment and to her car with Trixie and me trailing behind her. After telling Trixie the truth, this was not how I had expected to spend my evening. I didn’t know whether I had been granted a temporary reprieve or if she was storing up her anger for a later date.
Either way, we were headed to the north side of town, where I was potentially going to see my second dead body in a week. I just hoped he still had his head.
Chapter 4
Tattered Edge was located in a decent neighborhood about a thirty-minute drive from Asylum. It was on the end of an older shopping plaza next to a place that specialized in Far East remedies and curios. There was also a hair salon, community bank, liquor store, and greeting-card shop. At just past midnight, only the liquor store and hair salon were still open catering to all the nocturnal customers, but the police had the entire area blocked off. Their red and blue lights splashed garishly over the area, sending shadows darting and lunging under cars and around corners.
As I got out of Serah’s neat Honda sedan, I pulled my coat closed and stuffed my hands in my pockets against the bitter cold. Winter had moved into the area after All Hallows’ Eve and had not let up. We hadn’t gotten much snow, but the temperatures rarely ventured above freezing and never for long since the start of December. Glancing around, I spotted an ambulance parked past a scattering of emergency vehicles. Apparently, the paramedics had also drawn morgue duty. What was disturbing was that they were leaning against the ambulance chatting with two people wearing coats with “CORONER” written in large yellow letters across the back. It gave me a sneaking suspicion that they had yet to remove Kyle because they were waiting on us. Fabulous.
For half a second, I thought about warning Trixie, but I kept my mouth shut. Why have my concern thrown back at me as a challenge? I was in enough trouble already and we still had to get through this.
As Serah neared the yellow police tape, a cop reached over and partially lifted it for her. “Thanks, Carl,” she said, ducking low. “How are Patricia and the kids?”
“They’re good. Everyone’s looking forward to the holiday break.” Carl’s dark eyes swept over Trixie and me, while his arm lowered. “These your experts?”
“Yeah. Trixie and Gage from Asylum, on the south side,” she said. The cop nodded and let us duck below the tape. His eyes lingered on me and he took a step back as I walked by, but I ignored him as best as I could. He’d recognized my name and it didn’t give me a good feeling.
We paused at the entrance, where Serah directed us to put on some latex gloves and little covers over our shoes. “The police have already been through, dusting, collecting, and photographing, but we need to preserve the scene. Try to touch as little as possible.”
Following Serah in, I was disappointed to find that it wasn’t much warmer inside than outside. They had turned off the heat and opened doors to keep the smell down. It wasn’t working. Kyle’s rotting corpse and final bowel movement could be smelled in the small waiting room filled with worn chairs and ragged magazines. A couple large photo albums were left open on a table, displaying an assortment of tattoo designs.
Lifting a gloved hand to my nose, I breathed in the latex, giving my stomach a break from the other gut-twisting scent filling the space. “When was Kyle discovered?”
“About seven o’clock this evening.” Serah looked back at us, her brows bunching over her nose. “Coroner estimates that he’s been dead three days.”
“Three days?” Trixie repeated in horror. “How could no one notice for three days?”
I shook my head, frowning down at the tattoo books. “Doesn’t he have anyone else working for him?”
“Two artists actually.” Serah paused and pulled out a little notebook from an interior coat pocket. “Nicole Quelsen and Ben Breen,” she read when she’d found the right page. “Both have been in San Diego since Tuesday at the Ink Pot Convention.” Serah started to continue to the main workspace, tucking her notebook in a pocket, but suddenly stopped. “Is it strange Kyle didn’t go with them?” she asked, looking at me.
“No. Kyle hated to travel. He attended only those cons that were within two hours’ drive of Low Town.” That and the Ink Pot Convention wasn’t a big tattoo artists convention. Most on the East Coast used it as an excuse to go out to the West Coast for a vacation under the guise of work.
As we stepped into the main tattooing space, my first thought was at least he still had his head. Unfortunately, Trixie immediately lost her stomach. By the sound of it, Trixie ran out of the room and grabbed a small wastebasket along the way. I was more disturbed by the fact that I didn’t get sick. But years of living in the Towers and fighting to survive had pretty much killed my gag reflex. I was growing more detached from it all, as if the violence couldn’t touch me.
Kyle’s body sat up against a tall mirror that had spider-webbed when he hit it. A large black pool of blood had dried beneath him while his guts were spilled into his lap from where his stomach had been cut open. Kyle’s face also was beaten and bruised badly from where the killer had taken a meat tenderizing mallet to it before dropping it at Kyle’s feet. What struck me as strange was that the mallet was in the tattooing room, when it normally would have been kept in the back for crushing certain potion ingredients. But then maybe it wasn’t so strange. The whole room was a chaotic, haphazard mess of items that had been tossed aside when they were no longer needed.
But the worst for me was seeing Kyle stabbed in the heart with his own tattooing gun. Was this the act of an angry customer? Had Kyle’s carelessness finally gotten him killed? If so, he wouldn’t be the first and probably not the last. Tattooing was dangerous business.
“Have Ben and Nicole been co
ntacted?” I asked when Serah returned. She had chased after Trixie while I stayed locked to the spot.
“Yes. They’re flying back in the morning. Ben is part fey and doesn’t travel well at night.”
I nodded. Why rush? It’s not like they could help Kyle now.
At the sound of Trixie’s footsteps, I turned to see her slowly come back into the room looking paler and a little unsteady but determined to see this through. Her eyes flicked to the body for a second before finding my face. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out a peppermint and handed it to her.
She managed a weak smile as she took it with trembling fingers. “You’re always prepared, aren’t you?”
“I try.” I didn’t tell her I used a tiny spell to summon a peppermint from the bag of peppermints sitting on the nightstand in my bedroom. It wasn’t important. The peppermint would help with the nausea and the smell.
With Trixie on firmer footing, I turned to Serah. “You had something for us?” The sooner we answered Serah’s questions, the sooner I could get Trixie out of this nightmare.
“The design is here.” She directed us to a counter with a couple pieces of paper on it. The first was Kyle’s original sketch, which was about half the size of a standard sheet of paper and was largely an abstract piece with bold and swirling lines. There were some images, like a knife, embedded in it but it didn’t make much sense to me.
“This isn’t good,” Trixie said in a low voice. Serah and I both looked over at her to find her chewing on her bottom lip in worry as she stared at the design.
“You recognize it?” Serah asked.
“It’s used in Alpha Conversion potions.”
Using the tip of my index finger, I carefully turned the paper slightly, taking another look at the drawing. My stomach sank as some of the lines finally tugged some memories free in my brain. It was an old and basic technique to change a chunk of a person’s inner core, their sense of self. I had done something similar but far more delicate and subtler to my brother. The difference between the two was like the difference between a jackhammer and a chisel. Trixie was right. This wasn’t good.
“What’s an Alpha Conversion?” Serah asked. She was holding a pen and small notepad now, ready to take notes.
“Most people in the world can be divided into two groups: alphas, which are the bold aggressors and risk takers, and the betas, which are the cautious followers,” Trixie explained.
“Like Type A and Type B personalities?” Serah supplied.
Trixie looked at me and frowned. Trixie was an elf and she dealt in nature’s laws, not Serah’s human constructs of human psychology. When Trixie spoke of alphas, she was talking predators.
“In a basic sense, yes,” I jumped in to keep things moving. “The design is important, but the types of ingredients used determine the degree and power behind the change.”
“Can this tattoo be prepped and completed quickly?”
“No.” I looked down at the design, smeared with Kyle’s blood. “The client would have contacted him and discussed it days ago. Probably met at least once prior to tattooing the person.”
“How long have you worked for TAPSS?” Trixie asked. I was beginning to wonder that myself. Not all TAPSS investigators have a detailed knowledge of tattooing and potions, but most have a solid working knowledge. Serah was asking some pretty basic questions she should have known the answers to.
“Four months, but I was a cop for five years before that. I know how to run an investigation,” she said through clenched teeth. I couldn’t blame her for getting pissed, but we wanted to see Kyle’s killer stopped and that was unlikely to happen with someone who didn’t know the pointy end of a tattooing needle.
“Shouldn’t you have a partner or something? Someone with more tattooing and potion knowledge?” Trixie continued.
“I do and even he didn’t recognize the symbol.”
I shrugged. “Alpha Conversions are extremely rare and aren’t taught during an apprenticeship. A lot of tattoo artists probably couldn’t do one. Not an effective one at least.”
“My partner also refused to work with me when I mentioned your name,” she said, looking very pointedly at me. “None of them wanted to work with me if I contacted you.”
Trixie lifted one questioning eyebrow at me, as if to ask what I’d done to deserve that reaction.
“Don’t look at me like that. Bronx was the last one to give TAPSS any kind of shit. Not me.”
“I’m sure you didn’t help matters,” Trixie said with a smirk.
She was right, of course, but I bit back my snide comeback in favor of pressing forward. Spending the evening standing in the dried blood of a deceased acquaintance wasn’t my idea of a good time.
“Where’s the potion?” I demanded.
Serah led the way to the next room, which wasn’t much larger than the bathroom in my apartment. A large cabinet stood open with a chaotic array of ingredients that were stored in jars, bowls, and envelopes, while others just lay out on the shelves with no labels. It was a tattoo artist’s worst nightmare. Effective potions for tattoos required fresh and properly preserved ingredients. You couldn’t just throw a bunch of unknown shit in a bowl and expect it to work.
The table used to stir the potions didn’t look much better. The surface was covered with so much old flotsam and random crap that I couldn’t be sure what he’d used to make the killer’s potions and what was left over from potions he’d stirred weeks ago.
Trixie shook her head, standing beside me. “This is a fucking disaster.”
“Yeah, but we can throw out these bowls,” I said, waving my hand at two crucibles and a butter bowl growing mold and collecting dust. They hadn’t been used recently. Carefully picking up the chipped ceramic bowl closest to me, I ran my finger along the interior and then sniffed the residue left behind on the glove. I held it up to Trixie, who also sniffed it.
“I can definitely pick out Woodruff and Saint-John’s-wort,” she said. She stepped back as if she wanted to mentally examine what she had just smelled without any interference.
I nodded, grateful she had come along. My sense of smell was that of an average human’s, while Trixie’s elf senses were much keener. She’d have a chance of picking out the exact ingredients.
Peering closely at the remains of the potion in the bowl, I tried to identify the rest of the items. Woodruff was a common herb used as a catalyst for significant changes, while Saint-John’s-wort was used for invincibility. “I thought I smelled holy thistle,” I added, which was used for strength and protection. It was likely that Kyle had also thrown in a black market item or two such as werewolf sinew or ogre spleen, but I didn’t want to mention it and send Serah running after the black market vendors. I had no desire to piss of the guys from whom I still got goods.
“And to bind it all . . .” Trixie picked up a bundle of oak branches that had been bound together with twine. Kyle would have lit one end and let the ash fall into the mix. Not a good sign. Oak was a heavy hitter in the natural world. It was used for a burst of inner strength and power. It was the reason that oak was linked to powerful kings and conquerors through history.
“So, how bad is it?” Serah asked. Her pen was poised over her little notepad, ready to take down my opinion. She wasn’t going to like it.
“We’re fucked,” I said, pulling off my gloves and shoving them in my coat pocket.
“Why?”
“The ingredients were strong, assuming most were somewhat fresh, and the binding agent made it permanent,” Trixie said. “The person is now extremely aggressive and focused. Seeing as this isn’t the person’s nature state, it’s likely that it pushed their mental state off balance.”
“Kyle created a monster,” Serah said.
I sighed and pushed my fingers through my hair, sending it standing on end. “Yes and no. This person had to have the
desire or . . . predisposition toward murder already. He probably just lacked the courage to do it.”
“Until now,” Trixie added. “The tattoo gave the killer that final shove over the edge and most likely unhinged his mind in the process.”
“And he’s going to keep killing,” Serah murmured, staring down at the notepad in her hands.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t already,” I said. Serah said nothing but I noticed her hands grip her notepad a little tighter, her knuckles turning white. “You think he has already!” I stepped closer and her head popped up.
She opened her mouth and I think she was going to deny it, but then closed her mouth. Her eyes darted thoughtfully from me to Trixie. “Kyle’s the first death, but not the last. I think the bastard has killed twice since leaving here. We found two women, one last night and one tonight, with their stomachs slashed the same as Kyle. Both were in their last trimester of pregnancy.”
Beside me, Trixie let out a horrible cry. I turned to see her knees buckle and she started to collapse. Catching her, I scooped her up and sat her on the only stool in the crowded little room. She gripped my arms with fierce, trembling hands and raised tear-glazed green eyes to my face. For the first time since I’d met her, Trixie involuntarily lost her glamour spell. Serah was staring at her in shock, but I ignored the human.
Cupping Trixie’s cheek with one hand, I kept the other on her shoulder to hold her steady. “Are you okay? Do you want me to get the paramedics?”
“No,” she said in a squeak. She cleared her throat and repeated it with more force. “No. I’m just overwhelmed. First, Kyle dying like this and then those women.” She paused and looked at Serah. “Did the babies survive?”
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