I stepped around him and ducked under the tape, meek as a mouse. After last night’s disaster at the mage’s house, I didn’t need to make waves with the folks in authority.
“Come this way.” Oscar motioned me on, taking me deeper into the alleyway where a metal trash bin waited to the side. Flags and hasty chalk circles on the rough and cracked cement marked evidence. A man worked from one end to the other with a camera, the flash illuminating the area in bursts.
I felt the pulse of magic and the hint of residual magic. There was a spell in the area. A strong spell. “Tell everyone to freeze.”
“Freeze? Why—”
“Now,” I said, slowly working my way around the evidence being catalogued—droplets of blood, a button, and a shoe. Next to the bin, the broken and twisted body lay in a heap. Beside it was the pile of skin. “Good Lord, this is gross.”
I hunched down next to it and put my hands above the body, feeling that weak thrum of residual magic. Wiggling my fingers in the pulse, I could but guess the spells used. “It’s probably like we said the other day. They froze him when alive, then used the other spell to collect the energy while they were working on him.”
“Spell?” the cameraman asked. A woman with a baggie and a long cotton swab looked up from one of the blood spills.
“You should get them out of here for this,” I told Oscar. “I’m pretty sure you know why.”
“You just said to freeze…”
Someone finally does what I say, and I go and ruin it.
“Walk them out the way I just came in,” I said, analyzing the visible cut marks. “They hacked more than cut. They wanted to get more pain out of this one. He’s a big dude, too. They were trying to find more power. Does that mean they were trying for a higher-powered demon? Or maybe they were trying to push their summons and what they ended up with was an accident?”
“Even if you had those answers, I don’t know how I could use that information,” Oscar said, working his way back toward me.
I held out my hand. “Just chill there for a second. There is something nasty lurking around here.” I glanced at the wall behind me, the back part of the bar. I knew the spell was in that direction, but parts of it seemed to spider-web out to either side, and I had no idea how far the tendrils went. It would be easier—and safer—if the humans just steered clear.
“You can’t use that information. I’m trying to get a complete picture so I can.” I looked into the metal bin. Normal trash. “Why didn’t they dump it into the bin like last time?”
“We don’t know. They also left a lot of evidence. Unlike last time.”
Frowning, I checked out some of that evidence. That spider-web spell wasn’t going anywhere.
“This is a woman’s tennis shoe.” I hunched down next to it. “It’s not from the victim, and I doubt the murderer left it behind. No blood.” The button was random. Something from a trench coat or large jacket. “Are you sure these are even part of the crime?”
“No. How could we know until we check them out? But the blood must be. It’s fresh.”
“The victim’s clothes?”
“We haven’t found them.”
“They would’ve completely disrobed him before starting.” I hunched down next to some of the blood. “They probably put it in a trash bin near wherever they did this.”
“That would be unbelievably stupid of them. Eventually someone will notice if they keep dumping clothes into the trash bin.”
“Number one, these people are murderers, but not in the normal sense. They are killing people as sacrifices, not for the joy or rage of killing. So they would be less likely to think about the stupidity of putting a victim’s clothing into the trash bin. Number two, who is going to bat an eye at some ratty, old, torn clothes being thrown away every few weeks? They wouldn’t have blood on them, so they’d just look like trash.”
“If we can home in on a location, I’m sure we could collect enough evidence to crack this sucker.”
“I’m working on that, don’t you worry. Their number is already down by one.”
His expression hardened, but he didn’t say anything. I doubted his MLE office had any peacekeepers quite like me, and I doubted the captain of said MLE office had as much experience covering up the accidental deaths of bad people as my captain did.
Welcome to the crash course, buddy. It’s going to be a bumpy ride before all this ends.
I pointed at the next bit of blood. “This was staged, as was the last. It wasn’t dripped or splattered—it was poured.”
“That’s what it looks like, yes.” He tilted his head at me. “Since when do you guys know about blood spatter?”
“Think of New Orleans as the magical Wild West, detective. We’re hard-core.”
“It would seem.”
I put my hands to my thighs and took it all in before straightening up and turning toward the spell. “Now for the crappy part. Run and get me that chalk, would you? The one you used to mark that evidence.”
“Why?”
“Why ask why?” I walked toward the throbbing spell slowly, feeling that strange coldness expand within me like ink in water. Something about the magic used here called to my other type of power—the one I’d barely glimpsed so far. Just like it had when that mage used the demon’s gift of magic on me.
Clearly this was part of my heritage in some way.
I thought back to all the things my mother had said about my father. The things she’d noticed, and the things he’d explained to her, however briefly. He had often used his fire to toy with my mother. They’d make a game of it—my mother would try to hex him, and my father would cut right through it, dissolving her attempt. That was how she had come to know enough about his powers to somewhat teach me.
“You okay?” I heard behind me. “Need a light?”
The blue sky still shone above me, but the shadows had lengthened, dousing the alleyway. The deep red of the wall had almost bled away into black as the light retreated.
“No, I’m good.” I put my hands on my hips and shook my head. “Just give me a minute?”
“Yeah. Can I let the others back in? We need to finish processing the scene.”
“Keep them well away from here, and if I say run, make sure they do. And fast. Drop everything and run.”
“Why? What are you—”
I held up my hand, getting frustrated. I really did hate working with other people. It slowed me down. “Just trust me.”
“I hate my job,” he mumbled, moving away. I knew how he felt.