“Why couldn’t we just drive down here in the first place?”
He gave me a sour look. “Two reasons. Herne told us to take the long way, for all the good it did. As to the second reason, look around and answer your own question.”
I glanced in the direction he had indicated. The streets were all blocked off, with heavy road work being done. In fact, I couldn’t see the end of the detour.
“Where we parked at the market is about as close as you can get to this area without walking all the way. And if you look at the pavement here? At the panel we came through?”
I glanced down and realized that I could no longer see it. “Illusion?”
“I don’t know if it’s magic or whether it’s just damn good engineering, but it’s almost impossible to find the entrance from the outside unless you know exactly where it is. The vampires have managed to make it almost impossible to enter the catacombs unless you know their secret handshake, so to speak.”
I folded my arms across my chest, turning away from the blowing rain. In Western Washington, it rained about nine months out of the year. Not every day, of course, but we had enough drizzle and sputter interspersed with the driving rain that our reputation for cloudy weather was well-deserved.
Puget Sound extended deep into Western Washington, coming in off the Straits from the Pacific Ocean. The waves were choppy today, whipped by the wind into a frothy mix of water and foam. I noted that the dock we were standing on was on Pier 67C. There were no boats currently at the dock, though a reader board said that a barge from China was due in later in the evening. Dockworkers were scrambling, getting ready for the impending offload.
“So where were the bodies found?”
Vik nodded over his shoulder. “Follow me.” He led me to a place about three yards away, behind a series of dumpsters. “They were found here, sprawled on the ground.”
I looked down. Although the rain had washed a great deal of the chalk away, I could still see the outlines of where the bodies had been. Apparently the police had started an investigation, even though the medical examiner had nixed the idea of homicide. There were dried stains on the pavement, and I knelt, placing my hand in a puddle next to one of the splatters. I tuned in to the water as it caressed my fingertips.
Tell me, I thought, reaching out to touch the essence of the rain. Tell me what you taste.
The wind picked up, gusting around me, as a large wave crashed over the side of the dock, spraying both Vik and me. I could feel the nature of the elemental behind it as it responded to my call. The ocean was a goddess, and Puget Sound a part of her. She surrounded the world, massive and huge, older than the land, older than humanity, older than most anything on the face of the planet. I slid into her cadence, feeling the way it rocked back and forth within me, within my veins, my tears, my soul.
A moment later, the image of blood spread through my mind, and I caught a visual of the mangled bodies as they were dropped onto the pavement, the rain washing over them and onto the ground below. I tried to see what was holding them, but the rain hadn’t noticed their attacker, only the bodies as they fell into the puddles.
“I think they were dead when they were dropped here. They weren’t killed here.” I glanced up at Vik, wishing I could have seen more.
“How do you know?” He cocked his head, watching me.
“I’m one of the Water Fae by blood—half, anyway. My mother was Water Fae. She was pledged to Morgana.”
“So you’re a siren? One of the undines?”
“No, the sirens and undines, along with the naiads, are actually elementals. The Water Fae are connected with the element of water, but we aren’t actually part of it. I can tune into rain and lakes and rivers and oceans—and I can use some of their inherent magic, but I’m not actually a part of them, like an elemental is. But if there are any water elementals nearby, I can usually contact them as well.”
“Good to know,” he said. “So you think the bodies were just dumped here?”
“I know so. They were dead when they hit the ground. If there had been a struggle, I would have sensed it through the moisture that’s still on the ground here. I’m not sure where they were killed, but it wasn’t right here.”
“The dockworkers are leery. You can tell by the way they’re moving.” Vik pointed to a couple of the nearby men, who were working quickly, glancing over their shoulders at us. “They’re nervous.”
“If I knew three bodies were found, mutilated, near where I worked, I’d be nervous too. Has the garbage been emptied since the bodies were found?” I was thinking we might find something in the dumpster.
“Yeah. In fact, my notes say that the garbage men made a special run the next morning. Which tells me that there may have been something in there they were trying to cover up.”
“Is there anything else we can learn? Should we question the workers over there?”
Vik shook his head, staring at the men. “If they know anything, they aren’t going to tell us. Come on, I think we’ll have better luck at the park.”
“Do we have to go back through the tunnels? I’d almost rather walk in the rain than do that.”
“From your mouth to my legs. Let’s go. We’ve got a bit of a hike given the slope of the streets. But I’d rather walk too.”
As we headed back to the car, hiking up the steep city streets, I thought about the catacombs. I had never known they were so extensive; it was simply a fact that had never crossed my radar. But now it made me nervous to think about the vampires roaming beneath the city streets. And if there was one entrance secreted out of sight, how many more were there, and how far did the network of catacombs run?
RATHER THAN BOTHER with the freeway, we took Holgate Street over to Beacon Avenue, which we followed until we could turn left onto Orcas Street. From there it was a straight shot all the way to Lake Washington Boulevard, which led into Seward Park.
Adjacent to Lake Washington, like a mini peninsula, the park housed three hundred acres of forest. Sheltering wildlife and waterfowl, it offered easy access to the shoreline. Directly across from the park, attached to the Eastside by a bridge, Mercer Island loomed in the middle of the lake. An exclusive neighborhood, the population was mostly human—nouveau rich. The I-90 freeway ran through Seattle, over a floating bridge to Mercer Island, and then over another bridge to the Eastside.
I had been to Seward Park a number of times. It was soothing to walk among the trees, out of the city grit.
“How many bodies were found here?” I asked, hating to think that violence had spread into a place that I loved.
“Six. Half of the victims. According to Herne’s notes, they were found after the other six, which tells me that whoever killed them decided he needed a safer dumping ground.”
“Yeah, because by then, the other dump site was being watched.”
“All the bodies here were found down near Seward Park Road, on the Cutlass Trail. It’s one of the lesser-used hiking trails—”
“I know it. I’ve walked it many times. I come here a lot, Vik. I can think here.”
We took Seward Park Road, parking in the lot near the center of the park. The rain had eased off by the time we arrived and I was grateful that we wouldn’t be bombarded by the weather.
“We’ll have to walk a little bit. I hope you don’t mind.” Vik locked the car and motioned for me to follow.
“I’m used to it.” I jammed my hands in my pockets, following him across the trail into the forest. We passed the Broken Tree Trail, finally coming to the Cutlass Trail. It was steeper than the others, and it wasn’t kept up. Well, compared to the rest of the park.