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He rose and disappeared, but he was back within minutes with a small bottle of water. He must have raided Kinnard's store to get it, because she couldn't imagine the hotels selling plastic bottles of water. Surely it wouldn't be in keeping with the feel Dunleavy was trying to achieve. He handed her the water and sat beside her on the ground. His arm brushed against hers, and warmth pulsed through her body, erasing the chill, calming the churning.
"What happened in there?” he asked, thumbing toward the building at their back.
"I made a major mistake."
He frowned. “What do you mean?"
She took a gulp of water, swished it around her mouth, and then spat it out. “Kinnard told me when I arrived here earlier that Dunleavy would sacrifice two men at midnight if I did not rescue them. I thought they were the two people I knew would die tonight—"
"How did you know two people would die?"
She hesitated. “It's preordained."
He raised a dark eyebrow. “Fate can always be changed."
"Not this one,” she said glumly. And she should have known better than to blindly trust that someone like Dunleavy would play by the rules. “Anyway, I thought the two destined to die would be the two Dunleavy mentioned, which is why I was looking for them."
He gave her a speculative look—the sort of look that suggested he knew she wasn't telling the entire truth. “This town is full of men. How did you intend to define the search?" She hesitated again, not sure how much she could safely tell him. Dunleavy had probably guessed she'd try and tell Michael the truth, and he would have factored some sort of counter into the spell holding Michael's memories hostage. “Because the missing men are rangers."
"Ah.” He considered her a moment longer, then said, “So, if two are to die tonight, was it their bodies in that room?"
Images of blood and gore and shredded body parts flitted through her mind. She shuddered and took a hasty swallow of water. It only seemed to stir her agitated stomach more.
"One definitely wasn't. Hard to say if there was another."
"Why?"
"Because there are bits everywhere."
"He tore the body apart?” There was no surprise in Michael's voice. But then, why would there be? She knew he'd seen far worse in his time, though he'd never really discussed it with her. She nodded.
"That doesn't make sense if he needed the body for a ritual." No, it didn't. She frowned, forcing herself to look beyond the gore in her memories. “He left a head on the windowsill.” She hesitated. “It could have been my twin." Michael wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. Warmth leeched from his fingers and body, chasing away the chills that still ran through her. “He's trying to scare you."
"He damn well succeeded."
"You're tougher than that. It's merely the shock of it that got to you." And how.
"Was there only one head?” he continued.
"One is more than enough, believe me."
"Not if two were meant to die tonight."
"There was lots of blood. And blood dripping from the middle of the ceiling.” She hesitated, swallowing more water before adding, “The roof."
"The roof,” he agreed and removed the warmth of his arm from her shoulders. “You stay here while I check."
"Like hell.” She scrambled upright, all awkward arms and legs compared to his elegance. “I'm here for a reason, too, remember, and like it or not, you and I have to be a team on this." He gave her a look that said, Yeah, right . But he didn't try to stop her from following as he turned and made his way around the back of the building.
The stairs were around the far side—an old, rickety, bleached-wood structure that barely seemed capable of supporting a gnat, let alone the two of them.
"Don't say it,” she warned, as Michael glanced at her.
"One at a time, then."
With the whole structure seeming to sway in the barely existent breeze, she could hardly disagree. He turned, running up the stairs so fast his feet barely seemed to touch each step. She followed more warily, trying to ignore the shudder that went through the wood as she climbed. Unlike many of the other buildings that still remained in the old town, the whorehouse had a flat wooden roof. The sides of the building rose a good three feet above the roofline, providing a nice amount of shelter from prying eyes in the street or nearby buildings. Shelter someone had obviously needed. She stopped on the last step, her gaze on Michael rather than what lay in the middle of the roof.
"Here's your ritual killing,” he said, squatting on his heels. “Complete with pentagram." She took a deep breath and let her gaze drift left. Compared to what lay in the room below, this killing was almost sterile. A black star had been etched onto the roof, and a man lay in the middle of it. Candles sat on each point of the star, their bluish flame shooting odd colored shadows across the surrounding walls, and lending the man's skin a weird, almost luminous glow. He was naked, his body white and flaccid. His hair was dark and still looked damp, and his cheeks and chin were free of stubble, as if he'd cleaned up before coming here to die. This impression was reinforced by the fact there was no terror in his face, and his eyes were closed. He would have looked asleep, were it not for the two inch wound in his chest, and the tiny trickle of dried blood that ran from the cut and down his left side.
