I squeezed past my desk and plunked down into my chair. My office was only about the size of the walk-in closet in my bedroom, but it was mine. The walls were plain white, which I kept meaning to decorate with pictures or posters, but somehow I never managed to get around to it. I had a desk, a chair, a filing cabinet, and barely enough room for one extra chair. I didn’t mind having a small office. That just meant I didn’t have to share.
I spent the next several hours typing up my notes and running more checks on missing persons, placating the twinges of hunger with the cereal bars I kept stashed in my desk for when I worked late. A few possibilities emerged among the missing persons, and those I set aside. They were probably long shots, but I’d get with Dr. Lanza later to see if we could compare dental records, if they were available. DNA comparison would be used only if we were reasonably certain that we’d found a match, since it was expensive and took forever.
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. Agent Kristoff’s remarks about not limiting avenues of investigation came back to me, and I frowned. Was I doing just that by clinging to my deep-seated conviction that this was the Symbol Man again? What if I really was being narrow-minded? It was possible—albeit remotely—that this could be a different killer, one who was also versed in the arcane. Perhaps the symbol on this victim had been a coincidence. No one—including several experts in the arcane whom I’d consulted—had ever figured out just what the symbol was supposed to represent.
I mulled over the possibilities, eyes still closed. And that Agent Kristoff—was he always such a prick? Maybe he was just having a bad day. But he does have some nice eyes…. My thoughts drifted to another set of eyes—crystal blue, full of power, ancient and potent …
He stood behind me, potency surrounding me and arms loosely clasped around my body as I looked out over a stone battlement into a lushly forested canyon. Above were tumbled cliffs split by a shimmering waterfall that plunged to mist-filled depths. I could see creatures in flight—at first I thought them to be birds but then realized they were reyza and syraza, wheeling and diving in some sort of complex aerial sparring match. I looked to my right to see a reyza crouched upon the stone wall and beside him a man wearing what looked like some sort of medieval guardsman uniform, with a sword at his waist. The man didn’t seem to have any fear of the reyza. In fact, they seemed to be deep in conversation. I looked down, oddly unsurprised to see myself dressed in a black silk shirt and leather breeches, with a sword strapped to my side.
He lowered his head to nuzzle the side of my neck and I smiled, leaning back into him and holding his arms tighter around me. “All yours, dearest,” he murmured. “Call me to you, and I will give it all to you.”
“All of what? This?”
His hands slid over my breasts, teasing, caressing. I dropped my head back against him and gave a languorous sigh. “This world. Your world. All worlds,” he breathed. “Call me to you.”
“But you never gave me your number,” I said. “You have a cell phone, right? Isn’t that it ringing … ?”
I jerked awake, still hearing the insistent trilling. I blinked several times, trying to clear away the lingering shards of the dream, finally realizing that the trilling came from my pager, not from a cell phone that a Demonic Lord was carrying.
I fumbled for the pager, wincing as a sharp crick in my neck made its presence known. I jammed the button to silence the pager and tossed it on my desk. Teach me to fall asleep at work. I smiled wryly as I finger-combed my hair back from my face. Small wonder that I’d fallen asleep, and small wonder that I’d had a crazy dream that threw me into the comic book my aunt had given me. Maybe something about getting only two hours of sleep in the past two nights?
I picked up the pager and tried to get my eyes to focus. Why the hell did they page me instead of just calling me here? I glanced up at the clock, blinked, then looked frantically at the time on the pager.
“Holy crap,” I murmured, shocked. I hadn’t just fallen asleep. It was five in the morning! No wonder my neck had a crick in it. I’d been damn near unconscious!
Then my eyes focused on the actual message on the pager. My throat tightened as the meaning penetrated. Another victim. That made two victims in three days. The Symbol Man was definitely back.
THE BODY HAD been found at Leelan Park—only a couple of miles from downtown Beaulac on the east end of the lake. The park was one of the pride and joys of the city, built within the last decade through the combined efforts of residents, local businesses, and the estate of the previous mayor of Beaulac, the late Price Leelan. There were sports fields, basketball and tennis courts, and a sprawling playground with nearly every conceivable climbing or swinging activity represented. A boat launch was in constant use on nice days, and on weekends when the weather was pleasant the park was packed with people.