“But I thought you were staying here for winter break.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not,” I said. “The Politia put me on a case in Romania.” I walked over to my closet and grabbed a section of clothing and threw the items into my bag, hangers and all.
“Oh, unh uh, girl. That is not how you pack a suitcase.” Oliver crept over to my bag and began removing the hangers from my shirts and folding them. It was actually pretty endearing, until I realized he was screening out shirts he didn’t approve of. “And Romania?” he said skeptically. “There’s, like, a whole body of water that will separate us.”
I exhaled. “I know.” I dropped a couple of coats into my bag.
“You’re leaving me all alone!”
“You have Rodrigo.” Rodrigo, the poor werewolf who decided to not go to Brazil so that he could spend winter break with my commitment-phobe friend.
“But he’s so clingy,” Oliver complained.
I snickered. “You find relationships clingy.”
“Plus,” Oliver added, ignoring my comment, “things are bound to get interesting where you’re involved.”
I looked up from my packing so I could give him the stink eye.
“What?” he said. “It’s not like it isn’t true.” Oliver muttered to himself, “I just wish those incubi would come back.”
I shuddered at the thought. But what I didn’t tell Oliver was that, though the incubi were gone, their leader haunted my dreams.
Just like Leanne, I was getting better at keeping secrets.
“Nice to meet you Inspector Vasile,” I said, shaking our liaison’s hand in the airport terminal. It was late evening by the time Caleb and I landed in Cluj-Napoca and met up with the inspector.
“Please, call me Grigori,” he said, inclining his head. “It’s an honor to meet the Politia’s youngest demonologist.” If only he knew how ill-deserved that title was.
“I’m glad to be here,” I lied.
“Well, we are indebted to the Isle of Man for letting us borrow you and your partner for this investigation.” Grigori’s attention moved to Caleb. “Ah, and you must be Inspector Jenning’s son. We’ve heard about you even all the way over here. A lot of officers are excited to see another shapeshifter on the force.”
Caleb’s face flushed. He rubbed the back of his neck and extended his hand. “It’s nice to meet you too. I, uh, look forward to working with you on the case.”
“Good, good.” Grigori nodded and took one of my bags. “Well, let’s get going. We’ll get you settled tonight and begin the investigation tomorrow.”
We headed to Grigori’s car and loaded our belongings before getting in and pulling out of the airport. It was only then that I got my first close up look of Cluj. The city appeared to be nestled at the foot of a sloping mountain range, and everywhere I looked, old European architecture blended with more modern buildings.
Andre’s somewhere out there. This was not exactly how I’d imagined visiting his home country for the first time, and it felt strange being here without him by my side.
“A snowstorm is heading our way within the next few days, so I hope you planned to stay for awhile,” Grigori said to us, his accent rolling the words. “Air travel will likely be stalled during that time.”
“Fantastic,” I said, suppressing a sigh. Caleb and I would be stuck here even if we managed to solve the case in record time.
Eventually we pulled up to a small inn that sat on the outskirts of the city and made our way to the inn’s front desk.
“Sergeant Fiori,” Grigori called, following Caleb and me inside.
“Gabrielle,” I corrected him, glancing over my shoulder.
“Before you and your partner retire for the evening, can I speak to you both for a moment?” he asked, gesturing to a sitting room across from the front desk.
I glanced at Caleb who flashed me an excited look. We were really doing this. I nodded to Grigori. “Of course.”
I dropped my luggage, and Caleb and I made our way to one of the couches facing the inn’s stone fireplace.
Grigori took a seat across from us. “How much do you both know about the crime?”
“Not much,” Caleb replied, “other than what was given to us in the file earlier today.”
“Do you know why we called a demonologist in to investigate?”
I paused. “Not exactly.”
Grigori nodded to himself. “I figured as much. You see, we called you in because we feel that there are some glaring similarities between this murder and the Samhain murders.”
I jolted in my seat. “Similarities?” I repeated, my voice weak.
“After the Samhain murders, we’ve been watching our ley lines in case a copycat decided to mimic those killings.”
I swallowed. I knew what was coming next.
“Our victim was killed on one such ley line.”
I closed my eyes. No wonder they wanted me here.
“If you’ve looked at the case file on this murder, then you’ve seen the photos. Our victim, Ana Gabor, wasn’t simply killed. There are details that indicate this was premeditated, ceremonial.”
I grimaced, remembering the photos.
“Here’s what we know,” Grigori said, leaning forward in his seat. “Whoever killed our victim dressed her in a white gown, then proceeded to inflict three separate, lethal injuries: she was suffocated, stabbed through the heart, and her throat was slit. One of our psychometric officers got a read from the body; it appears that the wounds were inflicted simultaneously.”
“Was the psychometric able to pull any other information from the body?” Caleb asked.
Both of us knew from working under Maggie, who herself was a psychometric officer, that certain bodies produced more information than others. Some of it had to do with the victim’s state of mind at the time of death, some of it had to do with the perpetrator’s, and some of it had to do with the psychometric’s own ability to read the information.