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Ryan made a strangled noise as he followed me into my house. I lived in a single story Acadian-style house, with peeling paint and a broad front porch, on enough of a hill to allow me to have a basement; it was located in the middle of ten acres at the end of a long, winding driveway. Very private. I loved it.
“I’m too used to living up north,” he admitted. “I’m melting like a Nazi at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
I dumped my bag on the desk by the door and then turned to him. “So what brings you back to these parts?” It had been more than a month since I’d last seen him. We’d exchanged a few emails, but since we were both understandably reluctant to mention anything related to the arcane in email, they’d been fairly terse and boring.
His mouth twitched. “Well, I think I’m going to have to get used to this insane heat and humidity. I’m on a temporary transfer down here.”
My heart gave a mad thump of delight, and I had to fight to keep my face from showing anything more than a pleased smile. “Seriously? There are enough crimes related to the arcane in this area to warrant that?”
“There is a variety of reasons,” he said, shrugging, “and I’m not privy to all of them, but the suits at the top apparently felt it was worth it to base our little task force in this region, at least for now.”
“Well, I approve,” I said, with as much of a sober nod as I could manage.
He laughed. “I’ll be sure to pass that on to the powers that be.”
“You do that!” I couldn’t keep a straight face anymore and had to grin. “Okay, seriously? I have to admit that this is the best news I’ve had in quite some time.”
He tilted his head. “I can’t decide if that’s incredibly flattering or seriously pathetic.”
I rolled my eyes. “Pathetic, obviously, because I just realized that I’d forgotten what a smart-ass you are.”
“You know me too well.”
I wish! I thought, then hurriedly pushed the thought from my mind. “So, are you working anything right now?”
He made a face. “Nothing fun. I’m working a public corruption case—utterly mundane. Can’t really talk about it.”
I nodded and resisted the urge to pry. I’d been in law enforcement long enough to know that there were some things that had to remain confidential—if I wanted to remain friends with him, that is.
I gave a mental sigh. Ryan was seriously good-looking, though certainly not in any pretty-boy sort of way. He was about a head taller than me, with nice broad shoulders, a trim waist, and gorgeous eyes that I often felt were wasted on a guy. But I didn’t have very many friends, and I was—okay, I admit it—too chicken to make any sort of move and risk blowing the friendship all to hell.
But, damn, there were times when I really wanted to jump his bones.
“So where’s your partner?” I asked instead. During the Symbol Man investigation, Ryan had been partnered with Special Agent Zack Garner, who looked far more like a lifeguard than an agent specializing in arcane and supernatural incidents.
“That blond bastard is on vacation. California.”
I laughed. “Surfing?”
“You nailed it. So how about you?” he asked as he looked through my fridge for something to drink. He snagged a Diet Barq’s out of the bottom drawer and quirked an eyebrow at me. “Anything going on that you can talk about?”
I grimaced. “Yeah. I’ve had a pretty shitty day. Sarge called me this morning to go wake up one of our narcotics detectives, and I found him dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
“Damn,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry to hear that. It doesn’t get much shittier than that.”
I scrubbed at my eyes and leaned back against the counter. “Actually it does.”
He gave me a disbelieving look.
I took a deep breath. “Brian’s essence was gone. Consumed.”
He was silent for several heartbeats. “You mean, like your aunt?”
I shook my head. “Tessa’s essence was drawn out to power an arcane ritual. It was intact—sort of like taking a battery out of a robot and using it in something else. Brian’s essence was … eaten. There was nothing but shreds left.”
Ryan sat down at the table and looked up at me, a frown playing across his face. “How can you tell? I mean, doesn’t the essence leave the body after death anyway?”
“Yes, but not immediately, and it’s more of a gentle release.” I pulled out a chair on the other side of the table and plopped down. “Fuck, you’re going to make me try to explain this? Um, it’s like the body—the physical shell—has the essence in a firm grasp. When it dies, the grasp is loosened, which allows the essence to float away whole, so to speak. But when it’s consumed, there are ragged edges still left behind, like meat torn from a bone.”
