He leaned back in the chair. “So how did you get into law enforcement?”
I curled my fingers around my mug. “My mom died of cancer when I was eight and my dad was killed by a drunk driver when I was eleven, so my aunt came to live with me.” Best not to mention the fact that my aunt was a summoner. Let Ryan figure that out on his own. “I turned into something of a wild child—acting out and all that stuff—but somehow I managed to graduate from high school with an adequate GPA.” I didn’t know him well enough to tell him how I’d nearly destroyed my life with drugs and how finding out I could summon demons brought me back from that edge.
“Anyway,” I continued, “when it came time for me to go off to college, my aunt sat me down and had a serious talk with me about how in this day and age education was a priority. I got my act together and went off and got a degree—art history.” I rolled my eyes. “Talk about a pointless degree. I found out that there aren’t too many jobs that use art history degrees, and after I whined for about three months about not being able to get a decent job, my aunt got fed up, threatened to kick me out, and told me to go apply to the Beaulac Police Department, since they were accepting applications.” I smiled. “Best thing she ever did for me. So at the ripe age of twenty-two, I became a street cop, though I think my aunt had something safe like ‘dispatcher’ in mind when she told me to go apply.”
“She sounds pretty no-nonsense.”
I let out a bark of laughter. “She doesn’t take shit from anyone, that’s for sure. I worked as a street cop for five years, then transferred over to Investigations. I’ve been a detective for two now.”
“Are there enough homicides here to keep you busy?”
“Well, before the Symbol Man, there really weren’t that many at all. We’d get three or four in a bad year. But we’re small enough that we don’t have detectives who work homicides exclusively. Actually, this is my first homicide case.” I fought the urge to squirm in embarrassment. “I worked in Property Crimes before this.”
“So you became a cop about the same time the Symbol Man started up?”
I nodded. “The first body was found the day after I got out of the police academy. Of course, as a rookie, I couldn’t get anywhere near it.” I swirled the dregs of coffee in my mug. “He was dumping the bodies in remote locations back then, too, so they were usually pretty decomposed by the time they were found. But I got the chance to be on the scene of a body dump about three years ago when I was still a street cop. The body had been there for only about two weeks, and I saw what I just knew were arcane traces.” I looked up at him. “And I’ve been fascinated with the case ever since.”
His expression grew serious. “And you think he’s gearing up for a major summoning.” He frowned and leaned forward. “Didn’t you say something about him possibly preparing to summon a lord?”
“Yeah. It would make sense.”
He was silent for a moment. “That’s pretty bizarre.”
I looked at him quizzically. “What is?”
“Well,” he said, voice oddly smooth, “the murders started happening more frequently right about the time that a lord came to visit you.”
I stared at him. The pleasant feeling I’d been having about his company began to fade rapidly. My throat felt dry. “No, a lord did not come to visit me. He came through without being called.”
“Still, it seems like a strange coincidence.” His expression was calm, his eyes steady on me.
“Yeah, it is,” I retorted. “A coincidence. I have no explanation for it. But Rhyzkahl is not the only Demonic Lord in the other plane,” I added, tone icy.
He looked at me levelly, and I got the distinct impression that this was 100 percent Special Agent Kristoff speaking to me now. “I’m just thinking that it’s pretty amazing that you’re a summoner, and it seems clear that the killer is either a summoner or someone else with strong ties to the arcane. Add that to the fact that the murders started right after you became a cop …”
I stood, a slow and hot anger building. “Are you accusing me?”