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“Shit. Okay, I’m getting dressed.”
“Stay inside!” I insisted.
“Did I say get dressed and go outside? Nope.”
I made a frantic grab for the oh-shit handle as Zack took a turn on two wheels. “Okay. Good. Call if you see or hear anything weird.”
“You know I will,” she said and hung up.
I closed my eyes for part of the drive. I trusted Zack’s demon reflexes and senses, but that didn’t mean I needed to see how close we came to obstacles, ditches, and other cars. I finally reopened them as we got near and kept a sharp eye out for anything unusual, but it was tough to see much.
Zack slowed, then pulled into her driveway. He cursed as the headlights passed over a suspicious lump on the lawn.
“That’s not good,” I muttered.
Zack backed up a bit and turned so the headlights lit the front yard fully. I scanned the area with normal vision and othersight, then un-holstered my gun and stepped out, gun at the ready position.
Zack exited the car at a more sedate pace. I noted his eyes flicking here and there, likely picking up information from his wards.
“We clear?” I murmured.
“All clear.”
I moved forward into the wash of the headlights, confirmed it was indeed a body on the lawn. White male, naked, probably in his early twenties, long and lean with little muscle tone. I stopped, shifted to othersight again and looked for any sign of arcane activity on the body. I remembered the near disaster with the arcane trap on the body of Idris’s sister, and didn’t want a repeat scenario.
Everything appeared normal, but that didn’t reassure me. “Zack, you see anything on it?”
“Hold on.” He moved up beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. An instant later a shimmer of blue and gold sprang up between us and the body, and with his free hand Zack lobbed a tightly coiled sigil. Upon contact with the victim it flashed in an expanding ring of light, then dissipated.
Zack exhaled, tension easing from him. “All clear. If there had been a trap, it would have triggered.”
“Gotcha,” I said. “Like throwing rocks into a minefield.”
“The analogy fits.” His hand dropped from my shoulder. “I didn’t detect the trap on Amber’s body, and I apologize for that. The rakkuhr is alien and devious.”
“No apology needed, demon-man,” I told him with a reassuring smile.
Still with my gun at the ready, I cautiously moved forward then crouched. The victim lay twisted on the grass, partially on his back, his limbs in a haphazard tangle. Something rested on his chest and I eased closer, peered at it.
Sick nausea knotted my gut. A security company patch had been cut from a shirt and nailed to his left pec. Apex Security, a lesser branch of the StarFire company, reserved for more menial security details. Last time I’d seen one of their guards was—
Shit. I shifted my gaze to his face, but it was too battered to be recognizable. Then I saw how weirdly long his arms were in proportion to the rest of his body. “Sonofafuckingbitch,” I muttered. It was the security guard who’d shot Bryce.
I didn’t touch anything, stood and looked back over my shoulder. “Zack, you need to call this in,” I said, then shook my head. “No, Jill needs to call this in. That way we can say we’re here for moral support.” I glanced to the front window of the house, certain Jill was behind it, watching. I spread my pinky and thumb of my left hand, held it to my ear in the universal sign for making a phone call. With my right hand, I pointed to the body, held up three fingers then made a zero, confident she would know I meant a thirty, our area’s law enforcement code for a murder.
Zack snorted, and I glanced over to find him watching me in amusement. “I could just go tell her.”
I rolled my eyes. “And what would be the fun in that?”
“All righty then. Charades over?” he asked with a smile. “Looks like it worked. I can see her on the phone.” He moved up beside me. “What do we have?”
I peered down at the corpse. Deep ligature marks on the wrists, flesh flayed in gruesome strips on abdomen and legs, bruising on the torso, various ugly blotches in different locations as though he had been struck repeatedly with a blunt object. “It’s a goddamn message from Farouche,” I said in a tight voice. “He’s telling me this is what he can do, and that he knows where our friends are.” I shook my head, teeth clenched. “I’m getting really sick of bodies being used as messages. Don’t the fuckers have email?”
“Sure, but it doesn’t have the same uumph.”
Jill emerged from the front door, phone in hand. “What the hell?”
I moved to her. “It’s the security guard who shot Bryce.”
