Chapter Three
My head hurt, my heart was pounding so hard. Had Nina brought me out here to shake a confession from me? Was the I.S. blaming me for this . . . this atrocity?
Scared, I backed up, but she was a vampire, and with walkie-talkie man in her, it would take eight feet to give me any measure of security. Nina watched me, her expression more one of sour disappointment than the excited thrill of making a tag. Looked like I had passed the "let's surprise Rachel" test.
"You thought I did that?" I said, shaking as I gestured at the body hanging spread-eagled from the roof of the bandstand. "You thought I did that perverted . . . thing!" My God, the body had been utterly deformed. Whoever had done this was either seriously disturbed or utterly lacking in compassion. Demonic? Perhaps, but I didn't think a demon had done it.
Ivy looked up from the clipboard, and Jenks rose high, a silver dust slipping from the pixy. Feeling braver, I faced Nina, outrage filling me as I tried to push out the horror. This was why Trent had been here. As the man who had successfully banished me to the ever-after, they probably figured he'd know better than anyone if I'd done it.
"You brought me out here thinking I did this and that I was going to give something away!" I shouted, my back to the hanging corpse. Everyone was watching now, and Jenks darted to me with a sparkle of dust. I leaned in, furious. "What does your sniffer tell you? Did I do it?" I said bitterly. Jenks hovered before the dead vampire, his garden sword drawn. The pixy was clearly cold but ready to defend me, his tiny, angular features bunched in anger.
"No, not anymore." Nina's suddenly black eyes squinted as she looked past me to the hanging corpse. "But if you so much as scratch me, pixy, I will prosecute. I take care of those I borrow."
Jenks's sword drooped, and when I backed up a sullen step, he put it away and flitted to my shoulder, his dragonfly-like wings clattering angrily. Borrow. Sure. I suppose there were legal ramifications to letting the body you were controlling die. If anyone could kill a living vampire, Jenks had the reflexes to do it. Though pixies were generally a peaceful, garden-loving people, they fought fiercely for those they gave their loyalty to, and Jenks and I went back a long way. He looked about eighteen in his black, double-layered, skintight cold-weather gear, the only softness to him a decorative red sash his deceased wife had made for him. The color would keep any pixies not yet in hibernation from slaughtering him for being on their turf.
"Hi, Rache," Jenks said as the four-inch man landed on my shoulder, bringing the scent of dandelions and oiled steel to me. "This vampire flunky giving you trouble?"
Nina grimaced at the slur. Behind her, Ivy made her slow way to us, scuffing her boots on the sidewalk so there'd be no misunderstanding of her intentions. She looked relaxed in her black jeans and leather coat, open to show her tucked-in T-shirt, but I'd lived across the hall from her for over two years, and I could see her tension in the tightness of her eyes. Some of it was a lingering jealousy she couldn't help, because I was talking to another vampire - one stronger and more influential than she was - but most of it was concern as she prepared to stand up to a dead vampire. Her mother's Asian heritage made her slim, her father's European background made her tall. Straight black hair hung almost down to her midback again. It was in a ponytail right now, swaying as she came closer. Confident, she nevertheless had a healthy respect for her undead kin, and I dropped back a couple of steps to make room for her.
"Hi, Rachel," she said, letting a soft, sultry tone into her voice to help cement her high political standing in Nina's mind. Ivy was still alive, but she came from a very powerful family. "Are they not letting you on the crime site again?"
Feeling better with my friends around me, I uncrossed my arms. Nina was silent, and the surrounding I.S. officers were drifting into scoffing groups, probably making bets. "I don't know yet," I said tightly. "Walkie-talkie man here only gave us the job to find out if I did it."
Jenks's laughter sounded like angry wind chimes, and Ivy tilted her head as she took in Nina's off-the-rack dress suit, scuffed heels, and a warm but clearly last year's style coat, knowing in an instant that she was channeling a dead vampire. "Another stellar decision from the I.S. basement," Ivy said, smiling to let her slightly pointy canines show.
My anger slid three points to unease when Nina smiled back at Ivy with an obvious attraction, clearly liking her strong will and defiant attitude. Yeah, that was about right for the old ones. The more you defied them, the more you relieved their boredom and the more they tried to break you.
Jenks recognized Nina's sultry look as one of the slow hunt, and his wings clattered in warning. Ivy recognized it, too, and grimacing, she rolled her eyes and blandly offered her hand to Nina. "I'm Ivy Tamwood," she said without emotion as she tried to repair the damage and distance herself. "But you already know that."
Nina became almost coy, formally taking her hand and kissing the top of it in an overdone show that looked really odd with the dead body strung up behind them. Jenks and I exchanged looks as the game of cat-and-mouse chess continued.
"I worked with your mother before she retired from the I.S.," Nina said, her voice as gray and silky as holy dust. "You have her strength and your father's humor. Piscary was a fool for mishandling you."
Ivy yanked her hand back. "Piscary was my life. Now he's dead and I have a new one."
Ivy glanced at me, and I couldn't meet anyone's eyes as Jenks harrumphed. My scar was tingling at the vamp pheromones the two of them were kicking out, and I was struggling not to hide my neck when a ping of sensation snaked its way down to my groin. Vampires . . .
I took a slow breath, knowing by Ivy's widening pupils that she was feeling it, too. Nina was getting better at channeling her undead master. Either that, or new hormones were being turned on the longer the master was inside her brain. I was betting it was the latter, and probably part of the perks of putting up with someone being inside you.
A faint yelp from the parking lot turned me around, and I wasn't surprised to see Wayde jogging up the sidewalk, the I.S. officer from the van limping behind him. Nina made a small noise when he ran right over that patch of holy ground, clearly not pleased.
"I thought you were staying in the car!" I shouted as Nina sourly gestured to the surrounding I.S. officers to let him pass.
Giving them space warily, Wayde slowed as he approached, his eyes widening as he glanced at the body, then did a double take. "You yelled," he explained, then looked again and swore under his breath. "I came. That's my job. What the hell is that?"
"Someone's mistake," I said. "They asked me out here because they thought I did it. I got mad."
"Sir," Nina started, and I wondered why he/she used any term of respect at all.
"He's my bodyguard," I said tightly. "You know that. I don't trust you. I should walk away from this, but I'm here, and I'm going to take a look. He stays. Got a problem, take it up with my mom."
Jenks laughed as the undead vampire looked through Nina's eyes, assessed the situation, then nodded, Nina's stance taking on a faint swagger at odds with her slim figure. "He may stay if his talents include keeping his mouth shut."
Wayde exhaled, seeming to lose body mass and tension, but it all came back when he glanced at the body again. "Uh, sorry it took me so long to get here," he said to me. "I had to get around limp dick there."
I looked behind Wayde to the retreating I.S. officer. He had his hand on his nose, and I think he was bleeding if Nina's sharp eyes on him meant anything. Fresh blood and the scent of a fight were like champagne to the undead, and my estimation of Wayde wavered. A good bodyguard could have gotten by the I.S. officer without drawing blood.
"Don't worry about it," I said as I glanced at Ivy and she shrugged almost imperceptibly. "I appreciate it." And despite my doubts, I did. Regardless of having broken the cop's nose, he'd clearly been doing his job if the I.S. had been shadowing me and all I'd gotten was a faint feeling of unease. I wasn't helpless, but another pair of eyes and fists usually kept incidents from ever happening. The best bodyguard was one who didn't have to do anything but be there.
Jenks's wings clattered as he took off from my shoulder, clearly struggling from the weight of his extra clothes. November was the cusp for pixies. Most were hibernating by now, but Jenks and his family would winter in the church, and if the day was warm enough, Jenks would brave the cold.
"We gonna watch walkie-talkie vamp have a blood orgy, or are we going to look at someone else's?" he said snidely, and Nina gestured to the pair of I.S. officers who had been nervously lurking nearby. The better-dressed one jogged forward with the printout and handed it to Nina before backing up. I'd be cautious, too, if my superior had been lusting after someone's nosebleed.
"I've sent a copy to your church of the information we've already gathered," Nina said as she handed it in turn to Ivy. "I want this back. It's my copy."
Ivy took it, her lips tight with repressed anger. Something was bothering her, something more than the body. I looked past Nina to the body again, repulsed and yet riveted. My God, the man had only one hand left. It was thick and malformed, bending in as if cramped, with a thick, horny, inflexible skin. The fingers looked as if they were made of dough and just stuck on. The other hand and both his feet were perfect cloven hooves. If anything, he looked like a faun, only everything was perverted and disproportionate. There were no such things as fauns, never had been, but perhaps mutilations such as this were where the fable had gotten started.
Feeling ill, I looked away, noticing that the blood-drawn pentagram under him was one made to gather power from an external source. Jeez, I hoped this had nothing to do with me. The man looked as if he'd been in his midtwenties, fit apart from the half-goat thing.
"How many have there been?" I asked. They might only have asked me out here to see if I had done it, but now that I was here, I was going to find out who had. Ivy, too, was studiously looking through the packet of information, clearly eager to take the run. There were a lot of papers. The I.S. wasn't known for being meticulous about data gathering, meaning this had been going on for a while. They should have come to me sooner.
Spinning gracefully, Nina turned to the body, looking at it as if it were a painting on a wall. "This is the third incident. His name was Thomas Siskton, and he was a university student, missing since last week."
Jenks whistled by rubbing his wings together, and then he darted to the railing, standing on it and facing the body. "There hasn't been anything in the news. You'd think a hoofed university student with horns would make the papers."
"Keep your mouth shut," Ivy said, knowing how hard it was for the pixy to keep a secret.
Nina looked between me and Wayde, clearly not happy with the Were being here. She probably didn't know Jenks was the higher risk for blabbing despite pixies being noncitizens. "We've kept it quiet. It needs to stay that way."
"Don't worry about me," Wayde said, dropping back and putting a hand in the air as he looked down submissively. "I'm a professional."
I grimaced, hearing what the undead vampire was saying. You don't just keep something like this quiet without illegal memory charms. Great. I hated memory charms.
Nina saw my understanding and smiled with her new, confident, sexy eyes and turned to Ivy, a hand out as if to escort her up the stairs. "The site is open for your inspection," she said as she walked over the blood-painted word of Latin as if it meant nothing. "We've already gathered what we need."
"Good." Ivy casually sidestepped Nina's guiding hand and walked up the stairs by herself. "I'll let you know what you missed."
Her attitude was surprisingly belligerent, and I wondered why she was letting her emotions show like this. She knew it would attract the undead's attention all the more, and clearly she didn't like him. Concerned, I went to follow Ivy up, and Wayde touched my elbow. "Hey, uh, I'll stay here if you don't mind," he said, his face pale as he looked up at the body.
Jenks snickered, which I thought totally unfair, following it up with a "Not used to the blood, wolfman?"
Wayde's expression sharpened on the pixy. "He's half turned into something. You know how many nightmares I've had about that?"
Yes, I suppose being able to turn into a wolf, painfully, might give one a new kind of nightmare, and I smiled as I gave his arm a squeeze, feeling the hard muscle under his shirt. "You can wait at the car if you want. I'll be fine."
"No, I'll stay. Just not up there," Wayde said, and Nina cleared her throat for me to hurry up, even as Wayde looked past me to the body and shivered.
"Rache . . ." Jenks complained, and I headed up the stairs, hands in my pockets and giving the Latin a wide berth, reminded of how Nina had skirted the dead child under the ground.
"This is the third," Nina said, and I blanched as I now had nothing else to look at other than the blood-soaked, softly pelted, cloven-hoofed, disfigured man before me. Jenks was right; he even had tiny horns, and his skin was gray and softly textured like a gargoyle's. What in hell had they done to him? And why?
Please, God, may it have nothing to do with me. But I was the first demon this side of the ley lines, and I was getting a really bad feeling.
"We found the oldest one just last week," Nina added, almost as an afterthought, her voice telling me the vampire speaking through her was deep in thought.
"You didn't find them in order?" Jenks had parked himself upwind of the corpse. It smelled, but the cold had suppressed most of the stench. Actually the body had a distinctive meadow scent under all the decaying blood, and I wondered if that was part of the faun thing that it had going.
Nina gave Jenks a dry look. "All the dump sites are similar to this one, but the first involved three teenagers from three different schools, missing since the fourth of November. Two were contorted like this one, the other died from heart failure. Her medical history shows she had heart issues, and we think she died from fright."
I breathed deep, trying to get beyond the atrocity so I could think. The scent of wine and salt tickled a memory. Electricity, ozone, old books: it all added up to demons, except for the fact that there wasn't the faintest hint of burnt amber. Demons stank of it. Jenks had assured me that I didn't smell like the ever-after, but I think he was lying.
I'd been born a witch, but my blood kindled demon magic and the way the coven of moral and ethical standards saw it was that if it looked like a demon, did magic like a demon, and could be summoned like a demon, it was a demon. I couldn't find fault with them. It had been a shock when I realized my blood didn't invoke every witch charm, failing at the most complex because of the demon enzymes in it. Al, my demon teacher, was the same. I was a demon, like it or not. The first of a new generation thanks to Trent's father. How nice was that?
The soft sound of pixy wings pulled me from my sour musings, and Jenks landed on my shoulder, his wings tinted blue from the cold. He knew where my thoughts had gone just by looking at me. "I don't smell any burnt amber," I said, and Nina nodded. Her canny gaze looked wrong on someone so young.
"It wasn't at any other sites, either," she said. "That's why we thought of you."
Ivy cleared her throat in reproach, and Nina broke eye contact with me to stare at her for a long, slow moment, the smaller woman quietly asserting her dominance until Ivy looked away. "All the victims had a large quantity of their blood drained from them, as you see here," Nina said, turning back to the body. "The first victims showed evidence of being held against their wills: split fingernails, bondage marks, bruises, cuts, contusions. They resisted their capture and restraint. Evidence points to one to six days' worth of torture. The moulage was old, but we're fairly confident that none of the victims was killed where we found them."
The man before me looked worn, in the dry air his dead eyes starting to sink back. The moulage here was clean, too, or Ivy would have said something. I couldn't see emotion imprinted on the world, but vampires could. Most moulages faded with the sun, but murder left a stronger impression that could last weeks or even centuries if the crime was heinous enough and the spirit desperate to continue life. It was the source of ghosts - most times.
"Where were the others found?" Ivy asked, and Nina aggressively took the packet of papers from her, handing them back with a page of photos flipped open.
"The first victims were at an abandoned school," Nina said as she looked down at the page, her jaw tense at Ivy's subtle refusal to accept her authority. "It had been built on property that had once been a cemetery. Like this," she said, her gaze lifting to the surrounding bare trees as if seeing it in another time. "It's one of the ties between the crimes. The second victim, who we found first, was in the driveway of a museum."
"Let me guess," Jenks said snidely. "It was built on an old grave site."
Nina inclined her head, smiling with her teeth hidden. "Cincinnati is riddled with abandoned churchyards. Bodies were moved a lot, and not always back into the ground."
Brow furrowed, I thought of our own graveyard, attached to the church. I didn't want a body showing up there, especially not one with hooves and horns.
I didn't even know this man's name, and I carefully stepped over a blood-soaked cord holding his, ah, hoof so I could see his back, forcing myself to look closer to try and make sense of this. A hint of a tail made my stomach clench. I'd caught a glimpse of the school photo before Ivy turned away, and it made me even more uneasy. The pentagram surrounding the body here was the same they'd used at the school. It was fairly common in the higher charms, but drawing it in blood wasn't. Someone was playing at being a demon.
"The victims at the school were decomposing badly when we found them," Nina said, distracting me, "but they had clearly been restrained. The second victim had been kept sedated. We don't know about this man. The tests haven't been run yet, but he's clearly been held against his will."
Jenks took off from my shoulder, his wings clattering in anger. "Decomposed!" he exclaimed, clearly disgusted. "In this weather? Just how long had they been dead?"
Nina ignored his anger. "The three at the school had been dead somewhere between eight and ten days. We know they went missing on the fourth, but we aren't sure how long they were dead before we found them Tuesday."
Tuesday? Like three days ago Tuesday?
"Tink loves a duck!" Jenks exclaimed. "What have you been doing? Sitting on your thumb and spinning?"
"Jenks!" I exclaimed, and the undead vampire let some of his anger show, Nina's eyes squinting. The anger wasn't directed at us, telling me he wasn't happy with how the investigation had been handled, either.
"The best we can tell, they probably died between the eighth and the tenth," Nina said.
I really wanted off this bandstand, but I didn't want to look squeamish.
"Magic killed them, not blood loss," she added, holding her breath when the wind blew and the man's blood-caked hair moved in the breeze. "That came afterward. Apart from the girl at the school, they died from a transforming spell that wasn't done properly. We can't be sure until the necropsy, but if this man follows the pattern, his insides will be as deformed as his outsides. They died because their bodies couldn't function."
Jenks was a tight hum at my ear, and he was slipping a green dust. "Hey, Rache, you mind if I check the sitch with the local pixies? They aren't hibernating yet."
Nina stiffened. It was a slight movement that probably would have escaped my detection if I hadn't been looking for it. The dead vampire thought it was a waste of time, but not breaking our eye contact I nodded. "Good idea, Jenks."
"Back in a sec," he said, and in a flash, he was gone. I wished I could fly away, too.
"Whose blood made the spells that did this?" I asked, starting to get a bad feeling. Three teenagers killed, then a few days later, a second victim, then a few more days, and then Thomas.
"What an interesting question." Nina backed up to lean against the railing. "We didn't catch on that fast - Ms. Morgan."
Her stance said I knew too much. Maybe she was right. Maybe it just took a demon to catch a demon. "Whose blood twisted the spells that killed them?" I asked again, jaw clenching.
"At the school, they died from their own. The second victim died from a spell kindled with blood from one of the teenagers. We don't know yet whose blood this man died from."
My shoulders slumped as I exhaled, and Ivy, who was looking from the bloody floor to one of the photos to compare the glyphs, met my eyes, reading my worry. Crap, they were leapfrogging. Taking the blood from the last victim to capture and experiment on the next. I put a hand to my middle and looked at the pentagram around me, wishing I had enough guts to take my charmed silver off and see where the nearest ley line was. Close, I bet. Graveyards were often built on them. If Jenks were here, I could ask him.
"Our working theory is once the perpetrators harvest sufficient blood to play with, they simply use the blood of the previous victim to experiment on and torture the next," Nina said.
Play. That was a good word. It was what I'd already figured out, but hearing it made me more nauseated yet. At least there'd probably be no bodies older than the ones found at the school.
"Experiment?" Ivy looked up from her pages.
Nina drew herself up into a lecturing pose, and I wondered if the vampire inside her had been a professor. "In each case, the blood has been modified. To what end, we don't yet know."
I didn't know, either, and I looked at the body so I wouldn't have to look at Nina. This man's death had been painful, his body spending several days twisted somewhere between a human and a goat as his captors played with his blood. But why? This was just nasty. Whoever had done this had dumped him to create a sensation and get noticed. A perverted warning against black magic . . . or a way to get my attention?
"How about the circle?" I said, my hands in my coat pockets. "Whose blood made it?"
Nina drifted closer to me, her posture having a relaxed tension as she passed the body with barely a flicker of acknowledgment. "We're having difficulty finding that out. Our standard, magic-based tests are coming back inconclusive, and we're having some trouble duplicating the FIB's barely legal tissue-typing techniques. We think it's from the second victim as well. He died only a week ago. A businessman in town for a convention."
"Let me guess," I said, doing the math in my head. "Thomas went missing exactly five days after the businessman died."
"Exactly . . ." Nina whispered, her voice drawing through me to make me shiver and Ivy frown. Was she jealous? "How did you know?"
Knees wobbly, I sat down on the top step, my feet just shy of the word written in blood. The man's cloven feet were at my eye level, and I turned away, breathing shallowly. "Because if you know how, and have the right equipment, you can keep witch blood active for that long. After five days, they'd need a new source of blood." I looked up, my gaze flicking to Wayde, at the foot of the stairs. "Anyone file a claim for missing lab equipment?" I asked Nina, and her eyes narrowed.
"I'll find out."
"Good idea," I said sarcastically. God, vampires were clueless sometimes, so secure in their superiority that they didn't ask the right questions.
"So let me get this straight," Ivy said, the papers hanging from her hand as she stood beside and above me, her hip cocked and clearly not impressed. "You found body number two before you found the earlier crime with the kids?"
Nina flushed. "The location of the first bodies was remote. Whoever did this was unhappy that we missed the first one and so left the next one in a more public space."
The better to tease you with, my dear, I thought as I held my breath and looked at the floor. A drop of coagulated blood dangled at the tip of the man's hoof, suspended forever. Why couldn't I have just taken the blue pill and gone home? Taking a deep breath, I stood, gripping the railing until I was sure I wouldn't fall over. Someone was torturing witches. Why? "Ivy, what do you think?"
She shrugged. "Lots of IV marks. He reeks of antiseptic. They tried to keep him alive."
"They were successful for about a week," Nina interrupted.
Seeing me again upright, Ivy slid herself up to sit on the railing and leaf through the packet of information. Her ankles were crossed, and she smiled at me as she saw me catch my mental balance. Shrugging, I turned back to the body hanging before us. Yes, it was ugly, but if I couldn't get past it, I'd never find out who had done it so I could pound his or her head into the pavement.
"The businessman," I said as I finished my circuit of the man and carefully stepped between the cords keeping his legs spread-eagled. I was at his face, and I dropped my eyes. His skull looked malformed, the brow heavy. "Was he contorted like this?"
"Fairly close, but he still had his hands. Obviously they're working toward a specific body type. There was no sign of a fight from him. Stress levels recorded in the body say he was kept alive for several days under a sleep charm after he was subjected to the malfunctioning spell. They probably woke him only to try a new charm or feed him. The change in SOP was either to extend his life after the failed spell or because their new facility was somewhere public and they couldn't risk someone hearing him. We're not sure."
Whoever did this was insane, but I was willing to bet it wasn't a demon. A demon curse would have worked, and this obviously hadn't.
Ivy perked up as she found something she liked in her paperwork, her feet swinging as she sat balanced on the railing. "They kept moving their base?" she said, not looking from the pages. "Odd."
"Agreed." Nina rocked from her heels to her toes and back again, her hands clasped behind her in a decidedly masculine gesture. Behind her, the I.S. officers were getting impatient, wanting to cut the body down and get on with it. "Microscopic evidence from all the victims is different: dust samples, pollen, residual ley-line orientation at the time of death."
Ley-line orientation at the time of death? I'd been out of the I.S. for a little over two years, and I'd already missed hearing about new technology.
"We'll try to locate where they held this man, but they've probably moved already," Nina said, glancing at the I.S. officers and the radio chatter below us. Two geeky living vampires at the bottom of the stairs with a gurney and a body bag fidgeted in the cold as they waited for us.
"We found enough evidence on the businessman's body to sensitize an amulet. It led to an abandoned site, thoroughly cleaned, but they left the cage so we'd know it was them."
Ivy slid from the railing with the papers securely bundled in her arms. I could tell she was not going to give them back. "They're laughing at you," she said mockingly as she started for the stairs, her motions slow and provocative. Crap on toast, she was intentionally goading the undead vampire, knowing he'd screwed up this run and rubbing his nose in his mistake. Either that or she just wanted to talk to the waiting techs.
"I know they're laughing at us," Nina almost growled, but she was watching Ivy's ass as she took the stairs, and Ivy knew it. Jenks flew in to land on Ivy's shoulder when she reached the sidewalk. He'd probably finished his investigation a while ago and simply hadn't wanted to get near the body again. I could understand. It was probably like being next to the rotting carcass of a blue whale.
"Can we see the previous sites?" I asked just to get the undead vampire's eyes off Ivy.
"If you like," Nina said, annoyed as she brought her attention back to me. "All the information you need is in the reports. There's evidence of at least four people involved in holding the victims." She looked at the hanging man and frowned, her fingers twitching, grasping for something unseen - a nervous tic belonging to an undead vampire. Curious.
I exhaled as I took in what Nina was saying. If they'd moved and dumped the body, then we had five days to find the next victim. Damn it all to hell, this is ugly. Somewhere in the city a terrified man or woman was being experimented on, turned into this . . . halfway thing.
Jenks left Ivy to make irritating yo-yo motions in front of me, his color high. "One guy and two women dumped this guy," he said proudly, and Nina's expression showed stark amazement. "That is, if you trust pixies," Jenks added snidely. "They came at four thirty-five in the morning, strung the guy up, finger-painted with blood from a bag, and left in a blue car. The local pixies didn't pay much attention to them. A guy with a dog found him thirty-seven minutes later, and the I.S. flunky responding hit him with a forget charm and sent him on his way. He's fine, but the dog is going to need massive amounts of therapy."
Nina looked livid, but I was delighted. It was probably the best intel we'd get, and more than the I.S. had gotten in over two weeks - if they were being honest with us, that is. Forget charms. I hated them, and I made a mental note to see if I could find anything in my earth-magic spell books that would counter one. I didn't want to take this run only to be charmed into forgetting everything when the I.S. had what it wanted.
"Nice going, Jenks," I said, unable to resist the dig. "We'll give you that for free, Nina."
The two vampires with the gurney and the folded body bag had started forward, and feeling a little better, I asked, "How long until the new tracking amulets made from the evidence here are ready?" I wanted to nail this coffin shut like yesterday.
Head down, Nina rubbed her chin. "Twelve hours," she said sourly, looking startled when she found her skin smooth and unstubbled. "I don't expect to get a ping from any of them. Ms. Morgan, is there a curse that you can perform to track them down faster?"
I lingered at the top of the stairs, the body hanging, ugly, behind me, the forbidding walls of the music hall peeping through the bare trees. Ivy was with one of the techs on the sidewalk, their heads close as they talked shop. Between us, radio chatter and the dull murmur of anxious cops filled the air. I'd had my look. I'd seen enough to get sick, scared, and now angry.
"Curse? No," I said, feeling cold as I gripped my shoulder bag tighter and took the stairs. I couldn't do a curse to save my life while wearing this band of charmed silver. "But if they're using this man's blood to stir spells to torture the next, you can find them with that using any old earth or ley-line charm."
I started down, and Wayde edged toward me, that same uneasy expression on his face. "It's a big city," Nina said, almost under her breath as she followed me down the stairs, her steps silent in her scratched knock-off heels. "Profilers think there are at least five people involved. Witches."
Witches killing witches? Not impossible, but something felt wrong to me. Jenks was dripping an angry red. "You can't find five psychotic witches?" he said caustically.
"It's a big city," Nina said again tightly. "Do you realize how many witches are in Cincinnati?"
Wayde glanced up at the body as he joined us, sliding close as the gurney vamps brushed past. "Uh, witches didn't do this," he said.
I turned to him as the gurney vamps stood before the body, discussing the best way to get the body down as they put on their protective gear. "But it is witch magic that did this," I said, and the pixy bobbed up and down.
"Witches did this," Nina said, her voice iron hard. "End of story."
Wayde's weight landed solidly on his front foot. "Witches would not use HAPA hate knots to tie him up."
What?
Nina spun to him, and Wayde jumped back at the snarl she wore, her pretty features drawing up into what was almost a hiss. Hunched, she glared at the nearby techs, who were suddenly white faced and apologetic, as if they were supposed to have removed the knots. Ivy was a blur between us, taking the steps two at a time to see for herself, Jenks right beside her, dropping swear words like red sparkles. I stayed where I was on the lowest step, suddenly a lot more scared as I looked at the cords and paled. Damn, he was right. I hadn't even noticed, but the ropes holding him up and spread-eagled were tied with the complex knots that HAPA had been known for, used for hanging witches, tying dead vampires in the sun, and quartering Weres in the nightmare four years of the Turn.
Slowly I sat on the lowest stair again, my back to the body. HAPA: Humans Against Paranormals Association. It was the fear of being dragged out into the street and burned by your neighbors made real, an extremist hate group that had gained a brief foothold during the Turn and advocated genocide for the very same people they'd lived next to and who'd taken great personal risks to keep them alive. It was believed HAPA had vanished years ago, but perhaps that's only what the I.S. had wanted everyone to think. By Nina's pissed attitude, I had the ugly feeling that the I.S. not only knew HAPA was alive and well but had been covering up its activity so they could take care of them the old-fashioned way.
Sickened, I wrapped my arms around my middle. I didn't know which was uglier: the body hanging behind me, or the I.S. hiding the crime so they could quietly murder those responsible for it. "It's coincidence," Nina said, but though the knot had been around for centuries, the knowledge that HAPA exclusively used it was not. After that little display of temper, I doubted very much that it was a coincidence here.
Beside me, Wayde was clearly not buying it, either. "Before I got my security license, I worked large crowds. That's a HAPA knot. We kick two or three haters out of every show. Why are you hiding this?"
Ivy looked up from her crouch where she had been examining the knot. "Maybe it's a copycat organization trying to blame HAPA."
"HAPA would never use magic," I said, agreeing with her. "Not in a million years." Witches had suffered the most from HAPA. Weres were naturally reticent, and vampires were better at hiding. Witches, though, were easy to spot if you knew what to look for.
Jenks hovered between Ivy and me as if torn. "What better way to get rid of a group of people than to use their individual magic to sow distrust among them?"
I stood up, frustrated. "HAPA doesn't use magic!"
Ivy's brow furrowed. "They used to, until they decided that even magic-using humans were tainted. What has me scared is why now? Why start using magic again?"
Something evil was crawling over my shoulder, and I looked up to see that Nina's entire posture had shifted. Anger had made her eyes hard. She wasn't talking, but clearly Ivy was right. "HAPA has been using magic for the last two years," Nina said, looking as if she had eaten something sour. "We think it's because they have something they think can wipe us out once and for all. Now you know, and you have a choice," she said as she gestured roughly and a nervous agent edged his way up the stairs and handed her an evidence bag. Smiling without mirth, she held it up so I'd be sure to see the curly red hair in it before she tucked it in an inner pocket. "You can either quietly help us find and 'reeducate' the people responsible for this, or you, Rachel Morgan, will take the blame for it, because as everyone knows HAPA does not use magic."
"What the hell?" Jenks exclaimed, spilling red dust as he got between me and Nina, his sword out and pointed. Ivy was aghast, and Wayde's hand clenched on my shoulder until I shrugged it off. Reeducate? They meant catching and killing them without a trial in a back basement somewhere. If I didn't help the I.S., that curl of red hair was going to make me responsible for it. All they'd have to do was drop it at one of the sites, and standard magic detection would lead them right back to me.
Son of a bitch.
"I am not taking the blame for this," I said hotly.
Nina tucked the bag in an inner coat pocket. "Good. I'm looking forward to seeing how you work," she said calmly. "I want a list of the curses you can do on my desk by tomorrow night. Early."
They thought I was going to work for them? Fuming, I stood on the sidewalk. Ivy's eyes were black, and Jenks almost dripped sparks. I was not going to do this. I was not going to become one of the I.S.'s elite hit squad - as flattering as that was. "There's always option three," I said tightly, and Jenks hesitated. Ivy, too. They'd been sending hand signals to each other, planning something that would probably end with me in the hospital or in jail.
Nina's benevolent smile pissed me off. "Option three?"
I sent Jenks the signal to stand down and fumbled in my bag, not taking my eyes off the woman. Behind her, I.S. agents were slowly dropping back. Finding my cell, I flipped it open and scrolled through the numbers-called list. The one I wanted was at the bottom. I hadn't realized it had been that long. "A HAPA hate crime is the FIB's jurisdiction, not yours," I said as I texted HAPA @ WASHINGTON PARK to Glenn, thumbs moving fast, and Nina sucked in her breath, her eyes going black.
"You wouldn't dare," Nina said, and I fought to not back up as I hit send. "The FIB can't find their asses in a chair! They don't even want these people caught!"
"I think they do," I said, and she stepped toward me, her hands rising in wicked claws.
Ivy shifted forward and Jenks's wings clattered. I shut my phone, heart pounding as I took up a stance, smelling the spicy, complex scent of Were behind me. The vampire stopped, her jaw clenched as she evaluated us and her own people quietly retreating. Ivy shook her head at the incensed vampire. If the head of the I.S. had been here in person, we could be in trouble, but here, in the sun in a body he wasn't familiar with and had a responsibility to keep unmarked, he was at a disadvantage - and we all knew it.
"Too late," I said, and Nina's hands shook. "I don't like being blackmailed," I said, not knowing how we were going to get out of here without setting her off. "Didn't watching the coven teach you anything?"
Must be calm and controlled. Relaxed and matter of fact, I thought as my stomach knotted. I was used to dealing with out-of-control vampires. I could do this. "Hey! Leave the body," I said to the gurney guys still in the gazebo, trying to distract Nina by doing something not focused on her. "The FIB will want a look at it first."
I turned to Nina. "You should stick around. I'm sure the FIB's Inderland specialist will want to talk to you. Get your take on the situation. Detective Glenn's a very reasonable guy."
"Do you have any idea what you have done?" she nearly spat at me as she halted an unsafe four feet away, anger flowing from her like a wave. "Any show that HAPA is still active will increase their numbers. They're like a pestilence. Given the right conditions, they bloom like fireweed. You've just destroyed the facade of decades of peace between us and them!"
Us and them? I felt sick. I knew the unrest existed. We all did. I saw and ignored it all the time, wanting to live in a world that accepted us as we were, hoping that if I believed in it hard enough, it would happen. There was a reason most of Inderland lived in the Hollows, away from humans, and it wasn't the lower property taxes. But the disfigured form of a tortured man hanging six feet away was too much to pretend away. "Your fake peace is making the right conditions, not me," I said, heart pounding. "A cooperative venture between the I.S. and the FIB to take down a hate group is better than a decade of your fake peace. You should just go with it, Nina. Make lemonade."
It wasn't the best thing I could have said. She jerked into motion and I found myself yanked out of her reach by Wayde. I gasped as I stumbled and then found my balance, but Nina was walking away from me and back to the street, her hands clenched and her stride showing her anger.
I gave Wayde a weak smile and pulled away from him, thankful for his quick reaction. It could have been me she had been going for just as easily. Maybe he was better than I thought. Fuming, Nina stormed across the park, I.S. officers fleeing her path. "Thanks," I whispered, and he winced.
"I should've kept my mouth shut," he said, shooting a quick glance at the knots, and I shrugged. Perhaps, but there was no sense in crying over squished tomatoes.
Ivy's steps were slow as she came down from the gazebo, the I.S. gurney guys thumping behind her. Jenks was laughing, but I was more than worried. I was still going to have to find and catch these guys, but with the FIB involved, I might survive being successful.
"Don't worry about it," I said to Wayde as my phone hummed and I saw it was Glenn. Smiling weakly, I showed Ivy the screen and flipped the phone open. He was either going to be really happy or really pissed. I just hoped the I.S. wouldn't take my license away.
