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“Well, there’s one piece of good news I can give you,” I said. “One of the Narcotics guys recognized his arrestee as one of our potential victims. Michelle Cleland.”
His eyes widened. “That’s fantastic. So she’s in jail?”
“Yep, and I told her not to bond out. Jail is the safest place for her.”
“No kidding. How did she feel about staying in jail?”
I gave him a mirthless smile. “Well, once I explained the possible alternative, she reluctantly agreed to it. Of course, it helps that she can’t afford the bond.”
“Good. That’s very good.” He stood up. “Well, at least we know that one of them is safe.” He rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing. “Your company is scintillating, but I need a shower. I’m going to scan and send the picture to Quantico and then go crash for a bit.”
“The full is tomorrow night.”
Ryan looked pained. “I know. I’ll tell the imaging guys to put a big rush on the age progression. We’ll find a way to stop him.”
I couldn’t even find it in me to nod. Would we? Just over a day left, and we still didn’t have much to go on. “Go shower. Get some rest.”
“You need to sleep too,” Ryan reminded me.
“I will,” I lied. “I just want to go over a few more things before I head home.”
“I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Do that.”
He turned and left the office, and I lowered my head to the desk again, groaning under my breath. It was going to happen tomorrow night. Would he succeed this time? Judging by the estimated times of death of the pile of bodies, he most certainly had made an attempt on the last full. He was probably summoning at the exact same time that I was summoning. Too bad there wasn’t some way for me to find out where he was by tracking the portal he was opening….
I lifted my head and turned my pencil end over end, musing on that. Perhaps someone who had far far greater skills in the arcane than I could do that sort of thing. It would probably be well beyond the ability of any human. Would a Demonic Lord even be able to track a portal? If they were actually being summoned, yes, of course, but by then it would be too late. But what if the portal could be—>The trustees staggered by me with their grotesque burden as they carried the body to a clear area to lay it out. I began to step back to avoid the stench, then froze as a faint sensation of arcane resonance rippled over me. I shifted quickly into full othersight, reluctantly stepping closer to the body. It’s the symbol, I realized. The symbol is arcanely protected. I hadn’t noticed it on any of the Series Two victims because they’d been found relatively quickly and there were still arcane traces all over them. But on these, most of the residual arcane energy had faded to nothing—except for the potency twined into the symbol itself. No wonder the symbol had always been recognizable, even on the badly decomposed bodies. I gave myself a mental head-smack. I should have thought of that earlier. Chalk that one up to inexperience, I thought with a small sigh.
For the next hour, I discovered it was impossible not to breathe in the stench of rot. I didn’t have any trouble with nausea, but one of the trustees was not so fortunate and had to lean over a bush several times to heave. Jill was there, taking pictures of the entire process as the bodies were removed and laid out, face grim and pale as she worked.
I crouched next to the two doctors, making notes and listening to their observations as they examined each body as it was removed from the pile. Six bodies, each with the symbol carved into the flesh and positioned so that the symbol wouldn’t be exposed to air and insects. Make it last longer, even with the arcane protection. It’s important to whatever he’s doing.
Finally the last of the remains were zipped up into body bags and Doc stood up and stripped off his gloves. “Four men and two women,” he said, mouth set in a firm line and a thin beading of sweat on his upper lip. “All with ligature marks around their necks and notches at their elbows and ankles, in addition to various other signs of torture.”
Dr. Vaughn rolled her neck on her shoulders. “For now I’m going to say that there’s nothing older than two months and nothing fresher than three weeks.”
I did some quick mental calculations, then took out my phone and pulled up the calendar. “So that would fall between these dates?” I showed my phone to Dr. Vaughn, pointing out the dates.
The entomologist looked at the screen and nodded. “Yes, that would work.”
“Thanks, both of you.” I turned and jogged back up the slope, slowing as I saw Ryan climbing off the back of an ATV.
“Hey, Kristoff. Check this out.” I showed him my phone.
He looked at the screen, a faintly bemused expression on his face. “You have all the phases of the moon on your calendar?”
“Yeah, like, duh. And now it’s finally useful. Doc and the entomologist think that these victims were killed between the last two full moons.”
He looked at me with a So what? expression.
I gestured to the row of black body bags at the bottom of the ridge. “I think these are last month’s victims.” I took a steadying breath. “I think he attempted the summoning last month and it didn’t work.” I rubbed my palms on my jeans, unnerved. I didn’t want to think about what we’d be facing right now if he’d been successful.
Ryan blew out his breath. “Fucking lucky for us. I wonder what went wrong.”
“I don’t know, but he’s not giving up. He’s trying again this month.”
A sickened expression passed over his face. “And he’s going to keep doing this until he succeeds in this summoning.”
