Dylan's Witch: 10 (Supernatural Bonds) (16 page)

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“Shit,” Dylan said, jerking a desk drawer open and grabbing the collection of napkins that were evidence of fast-food meals eaten while working on solving homicides.

His handkerchief was already soaked with blood. Within minutes the napkins were too.

The full-body hum was back, making his skin feel too tight. And worse, the whispers were noticeable again, insidious, crawling over him.

It was as if something had slashed through the cut, opening it, and the tidal wave of blood had smashed through the barrier of his belief in Seraphine’s charm so it no longer worked. Or at least no longer worked effectively. He nearly covered his ears, might have except Trace had already come around the desks, first-aid kit in hand.

“This is what happened at the bar?” Trace asked, jamming a wad of gauze against the cut and wrapping tight to staunch the blood.

Dylan could feel it already slowing. “Yeah, this is what happened.”

“The night we now know Katcher was killed.”

He didn’t want to go where he knew Trace was heading, so he didn’t volunteer it.

“Somebody’s dead,” Trace said.

Dylan wanted to shout that there was no freaking way it had anything to do with this. He settled for, “Somebody’s dead. That explains why we were called out this morning.”

Trace shook his head and returned to his side of their joined desks. He opened a drawer and pulled out one of the many small notebooks he used when working a case.

He checked something he’d written on some previous investigation then lifted his phone from its spot next to their latest murder book. Dylan froze when Trace said, “Hey, Seraphine. Would whoever’s got Lucifer’s Blade believe they needed to kill someone before using it in a ceremony?”

A pause for her answer, followed by, “Would they have to summon a demon the same night?”

Christ
. And here was further proof Trace had gone to the dark side and now believed wholeheartedly in the supernatural shit.

And you don’t?After what happened at the dump site? At waking up to find your bed looking like a crime scene?

Dylan surged from his chair with enough force to send it rolling away. He escaped to the bathroom, one-handedly splashing cold water on his face while keeping the wrapped one below the sink and out of sight in an attempt to pretend this wasn’t happening.

At the bar, his first thought had been drugs. LSD could leave lingering effects.

Maybe someone had slipped him some designer shit, stuff so new it hadn’t hit the police radar yet. He considered badge bunnies harmless, and the sex consensual without any expectation of it being more than a good time had by all. But what if he’d banged some psycho like in that movie…

What was it? The one with Glenn Close. Where the husband cheated and the family came home to find the kids’ pet rabbit cooking in a pot on the stove.
Fatal Attraction
. Yeah, that was the title.

Trace came in. Dylan leaned closer to the faucet and splashed another round of water on his face, contemplating whether or not to float his drug theory past Trace, who now seemed to accept the possibility of demon involvement.

On the Vorhaus and Harper cases he’d been pretty sure his partner was just working Seraphine, pretending to believe. But now…

That’s what marriage and love did to a man. His brains migrated to his dick.

Get involved with a woman into the woo-woo stuff…

His gut fisted at remembering Seraphine walking away from him, going to work magic and strengthen the charm. But his cock hardened at remembering all the naked skin and an ass he hadn’t explored or enjoyed.

As if picking up on his thoughts, Trace said, “You should go back to Seraphine’s house tonight.” A repeat of what he’d said at the dump site.

“It’s a sad state of affairs when a guy can’t find peace in the john.”

“Hide in a stall and maybe I’d cut you some slack.”

Dylan straightened, irritation tightening his neck and jaw. “I’m not hiding.”

“You want to hear what Seraphine said?”

Not really. “Let me guess. Whoever’s got the blade just used it. Even if it’s true, what are we going to do? Tell the uniforms to start scouring the city looking for a stab victim? Do you hear how crazy that sounds? Do you remember the headlines when we were investigating the Dean murder? How about this?” He flung his arms wide. “Homicide cop linked to the hellish world of dark magic. Bloody hand predicts murder!”

Trace laughed. “Don’t quit your day job to write.”

It was enough to kill the irritation. “How’d Seraphine answer the other question?”

“She said there’s no way of predicting whether there’ll be another sacrifice tonight.”

And they both knew, there was no way to keep another prostitute from being taken, though the radio cars were now a heavy presence on the streets where the working girls hung out.

They returned to the bullpen. Miguel was at his desk.

“Got anything new?” Dylan asked.

“Brady and Storm have me running with the skeletal remains. I’ve got a possible ID but I’m waiting for dental records from Mexico to confirm it.”

Dylan whistled. “Fast work.”

“What do you know about her?” Trace asked.

“She was a prostitute.”

Another one. No surprise at this point. When it hit, the news media was going to latch onto the serial killer angle and play it for all it was worth.

“It took your DB for her street-walking sisters to open up,” Miguel said. “I went looking for a disappearance right around the time Miles Terry was killed with Lucifer’s Blade—we assume by either the senator or his wife—after stealing it from VanDenbergh’s collection.”

He turned the monitor. “Meet Lupita Perez.”

“She’s got a different vibe than our Jane Doe,” Dylan said. “Not just race. Our victim is fresher while Perez looks like she worked the streets a lot longer.”

“Probably killed by one or both of the Harpers, possibly even the senator and his mistress or sons while the wife was out of town. Storm is looking into that right now. She caught a whiff of there being some tie to magic when it came to one of the senator’s illegitimate sons, which has got her digging on that whole family.”

Trace leaned against a desk. “Can’t be a coincidence where Katcher was dumped, and conveniently Nicole Harper isn’t around to tell us who knew they had the knife or who might have helped them get rid of a body. Assuming of course, that someone at the VanDenbergh estate hadn’t taken it out for a trial run before it got stolen.”

Miguel sighed. “Yeah. Hard to know who to suspect given it’s almost impossible to know for sure whether someone practices this type of magic. The only solid we have is that Lucifer’s Blade was used on both your Jane Doe and Lupita Perez.”

“What, you’re psychic now?” Dylan joked, because without a blade to match to the marks found on Perez’s skeletal remains, they had no proof.

“Khemirra was with Conner,” Miguel said.

“And that’s important how?”

Miguel shared a look with Trace, warning enough Dylan wasn’t going to like what came next.

“Khemirra sensed magic on the bones.”

Dylan wondered what the fuck he was supposed to do with that. Then again, Miguel had bought into Aislinn being the real deal right from the start.
And the two of you rushed into a burning building and saved a kid’s life because of it.

There was no shaking the underlying uneasiness as it got harder and harder to deny the
possibility
there was more out there than could be bagged and tagged and collected as evidence.

The phone on Trace’s desk rang, for which Dylan was grateful.

“Be right down,” his partner said, hanging up and turning toward him. “Front desk. A homeless guy just walked in. Won’t talk to anyone but you or me.”

“Commander Joe?” Had to be, though in all the years Trace had been trying to get the Vietnam-era vet off the streets and shoehorned back into society, Joe had never sought him out even if, from time to time, he’d passed on information.

“Probably. Coming?”

“Yeah.”

They went to the lobby. The officer working the counter said, “He’s waiting outside. I think being in here made him claustrophobic.”

Maybe. But Dylan figured a different reason. Commander Joe wouldn’t want to leave his cart unattended.

They found him next to a shopping basket filled with the treasure he made out of other people’s trash. Dylan managed to avoid looking at the green stone in his ring, though even thinking about it was enough to bring images of Seraphine rushing in.

What next? He’d believe they were heartmates destined for happy ever after?

He forced the door closed on the thought. But in doing it, the hum, the burrowing whispers and chilling, low-level screams took center stage in his head.

Christ. He concentrated his attention on Commander Joe.

The homeless vet was blinking away tears, saying, “Old Tomas is dead. I found him in the alley off Alee Street. The one next to where the shoe repair used to be. There’s blood all over his front. Somebody used a knife on him.”

Dylan’s gut went tight. His heart rabbited and before he could stop himself, he was touching the charm that was once again on the chain and against his skin. Icy sweat broke out on his skin at the prospect of being near a dead body made that way by Lucifer’s Blade.

“You see anyone in the alley?” Trace asked. “Anything out of place?”

“I saw someone walking toward the other end when I was making my rounds. They were past where I found him next to the Dumpster.”

Some of the tightness in Dylan’s gut eased at possibly having a break. “Can you give us a description?”

Commander Joe shook his head. “They had one of those hoodie things on. Gray. I thought maybe a woman at first, only it could have been a slender boy, someone from the university. I couldn’t tell.”

“Or a tourist cutting through and not wanting to get involved,” Trace said. “Did you go right into the alley?”

“No. Not until after I’d cashed out at the thrift shop and got something to eat.”

“So maybe an hour passed,” Trace said, more familiar with Commander Joe’s pattern than Dylan was.

“Maybe.”

They headed out a few minutes later, after Trace had bargained for a stuffed lion in Joe’s cart and passed him some bills, a reward for coming in that the old man’s pride allowed him to accept since it was masked by the other transaction.

Dylan knew the moment they entered the alley that they’d find the body still there behind the Dumpster, and that Lucifer’s Blade had been used in this case too. His steps faltered. His skin got clammy.

Trace glanced at him. “You going to puke again?”

“No.”

“You want to tell me what’s going on?”

The whispering is louder. The wails. Like someone opened a door to hell.

“It’s nothing.”

Trace reached out, vise-gripped his arm. “Talk to me.”

He jerked away. “I’m getting there.”

Jesus. It wasn’t just the craziness going on inside his own freaking head. It was the way things were changing now that he was the last homicide detective left single and unattached. He wasn’t looking for further proof of just how far things had strayed from normal, though Trace seemed determined to demonstrate it.

“Might help if you press the charm against the cut.” Trace said, calmly accepting what he was having a hell of a time coming to terms with himself. “Seemed to work for you this morning.”

Dylan resisted until they reached Old Tomas. Then he unclasped the chain and stuffed it and the charm beneath the gauze and wrap Trace had slapped on him.

It helped, at least with the whispers and screams and vibrating, the underlying terror that accompanied them. It knocked them into the background almost as well as when he’d entered Seraphine’s house.

Not going there
.

The hum remained, leaving him with the feeling he might burst open, filling him with a sick dread.

“At least tell me when we’ve wrapped for the day that you’ll go see Seraphine,” Trace said, not letting the weird die a natural death.

“I’ll call this in,” Dylan said, avoiding answering.

Chapter Ten

Seraphine closed the last of the volumes the librarian claimed might aid her. He’d doled out the various books one at a time, finding some excuse to orbit in her general vicinity as if she were a patron suspected of defacing or stealing library books in the past.

“Thank you for your assistance,” she said.

Her impending exit smoothed his expression and pulled his lips into a genuine smile. It allowed her a moment of humorous relief. She’d never considered a dragon could share his hoard, but clearly the human Malik had put in charge cared for the books as though they belonged to him.

He escorted her to the library door, the boundary of his domain, and as if her passing into the hallway were enough to summon him, Malik stepped into sight.

The dragon prince was gorgeous. Elegant and menacing in the same way Arioc was, though instead of pale hair, Malik’s was flowing darkness, with eyes to match and skin that made hers seem luminescent by comparison.

“Was your hunt successful?” he asked.

She suppressed a shiver. “Yes and no.”

He didn’t press for clarification. She didn’t offer it.

At her car she said, “Call when I can assist you.”

“Count on it.” He pressed a card into her hand. “Contact me should you require further help. The blade must be recovered.”

She left the estate, her outward calm a complete lie, though she needed it to be truth before she summoned Arioc and bargained for answers.

The shiver she’d held back came, sliding in like the leading edge of an avalanche and sweeping through, freezing everything in its wake. She wanted to call Dylan, to ask him if in addition to the cut opening, he heard whispers and screams. If he feared he was going insane.

She wanted to believe—desperately hoped—the charm she’d strengthened kept them at bay. It should, for a little while. But not for long. Not when the blade was being used.

Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. Even that didn’t completely eliminate the trembling.