I slipped in behind them, mentally apologizing to the landlady for the damage to the door. Ryan came in behind me, and together we slowly worked our way through the house in the team’s wake, guns still at the ready. My heart beat rapidly, adrenaline dumping into my system even though I knew logically that the TAC team could handle damn near anything that could possibly be found. Unless there’s a demon here, I thought grimly. Then it would get really ugly really fast. Warrants were dangerous anyway, and this guy would be ten times as dangerous if he did have a demon at his command.
The interior of the house was painted in unexciting colors, a palette of browns and dark maroons that might have been called “autumnal” a decade ago but now merely made the house feel dark and depressing. No wonder Greg went elsewhere to do his work, I thought. The front door opened onto a living area occupied by a dull brown couch that was so close to the color of the wall that it almost blended in. There was no television in the room, just a floor lamp in the corner and a glass-topped coffee table in front of the couch. A hallway led off to the left from the living room, and to the right was a swinging door that I decided probably led to the kitchen. There were no decorations on the wall, no shelves with pictures or trinkets, no ornamentation of any sort anywhere that I could see. And it was painfully clean. The tracks from a vacuum were still visible in the dull tan carpet, marred now by a multitude of boot prints from the TAC team.
I paused as a fluttering touch of sensation brushed against me—a nebulous whisper of the arcane. I frowned, trying to catch that fleeting sense again. I couldn’t see any arcane markings in the house so far—no wardings or protections, or even traces to show that arcane activity had occurred here. But something wasn’t right.
I heard a shout from beyond the swinging door, then the voice of Sergeant Dimera, the TAC team leader. “Hey, Gillian. You need to get in here.”
I quickly pushed through the door, then stopped in my tracks and let out a low curse. Now I knew what it was I’d felt.
Ryan came up behind me. “Ah, shit.”
Lying in the middle of the linoleum of the kitchen floor was Greg Cerise, spread-eagled like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and surrounded by a chaotic circle of runes and sigils painted in blood. On his chest, gouged messily as if with a butcher knife, was the symbol, large enough to cover nearly his entire torso. In my othersight, ugly purple clots of arcane potency twisted around the body, bloated and wallowing with hatred and anger. This had been done quickly and nastily—both the murder and the arcane sigils and markings. Even if I hadn’t spoken to Greg a few hours ago, I would have known that this was not done with the same care and precision as the others.
“Is anyone else in the house?” I asked Dimera, not taking my eyes off the body. There was always the chance—slim though it was—that the killer was still here.
Dimera shook his head. “It’s all clear.”
I muttered a curse again and shoved my gun into its holster. “Call this in, please. And we’re going to need the lab.”
Dimera nodded and stepped out of the room, door swinging shut behind him. I could hear him relaying the information on his radio as he moved toward the hallway, checking on the rest of his team. I crouched, looking over the pattern of blood and the markings on the artist.
“These aren’t the same runes that I saw on the other body,” I said, glancing up at Ryan.
“Do you know what they are?”
I peered at the runes that had been painted in blood, then stood and moved to a point near the artist’s head, being exceedingly careful not to mar or touch anything. “Yep. These are diagrams of warding, the kind used in a summoning.”
“So, wait, is this our guy? Did he fuck up a summoning?”
I shook my head. “No, he’s not the one.” Shit. “I just talked to him a few hours ago, which means he was probably killed right after he talked to me.” I felt cold. “This is not an actual summoning diagram. There are certain elements missing. But this was drawn deliberately to be recognized by anyone who is versed in those arts.” I rubbed the back of my neck, tense.
“It’s a message,” Ryan said, voice quiet. “To you.”
I looked at him sharply. “Or a test. To see how much I know, how much I can see.” The implications of that were deeply unsettling. He knows I can use the arcane. So what will his next step be? I must be getting close. But if I was close, why did I still feel like I was stumbling around blindly?
“Kara! Ryan!” Garner called. “Come see this!”
“You go,” Ryan said. “I’ll stay here and make sure no one messes this up before it can be documented.”
I nodded, then headed through the living room and down the hall toward Garner’s voice. As soon as I entered the room, I knew why he was so excited. “Oh, wow.”