Chapter Ten
The come-and-go chatter of the FIB guys was pleasant, much like the audible equivalent of the hot chocolate I was sipping: warm, comfortable, and soothing. I watched the FIB officers with half my attention as they finished up, having vacuumed, photographed, measured, and taken samples within an inch of being ridiculous. They hadn't strung up their yellow tape except for the door, and after I had promised that I'd stay sitting on the counter, they'd left me alone. I was being a good girl, and I think they'd forgotten I was here. It had been almost four hours.
My eyes strayed to a square of concrete that was lighter than the rest, and I couldn't help but wonder why no one had commented on it. Even Ivy and Jenks - who had been allowed to help gather information - ignored it.
Setting my paper cup of powdered fat, sugar, and cocoa down, I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs. I couldn't help my sigh. Ivy took to data collection like a duckling to water, and Jenks, with his ability to see the smallest thing and wedge into the narrowest place without leaving anything but dust, was equally as welcome. Even the two I.S. personnel, standing on the outskirts and watching, were more accepted than I was. Somehow, between the investigation at Trent's stables a few summers ago and the house where a banshee and her psychotic husband killed a young couple and stole their identities, I'd gained the reputation of being a disruptive force at a crime scene.
"But they can't be replaced!" Mr. Calaway exclaimed as an FIB officer tried to lead him back out into the hallway. Smiling, I rested my cheek on my knees. The guy was having a very bad day, and his tidy state had slowly decayed. His small temper tantrum of frustration at Glenn's estimation of his chances of recovering his property had been entertaining. I thought it odd that Mr. Calaway was more upset that his machines had been stolen than the fact that there had been six people living down here for almost a week without his knowledge, but I agreed with his assessment that even though the machines had been insured, replacing them would be impossible. They didn't make equipment and software that revolved around identification of the genetic markers anymore.
Trent probably had one, I thought. I'd ask him if he was missing any sensitive machinery when I talked to him about the memory-charm blocker.
A soft prickling of the skin on my neck brought my head up, and I looked across the wide room to see Nina making a slow beeline for me. Her expression was one of surprise that I'd felt her attention, and I shifted my legs to a more professional position, dangling them over the sides of the counter and a good foot off the floor.
"May I join you?" she asked formally, and I nodded, feeling uncomfortable. She'd been here as long as I had, going upstairs once to make a call before returning to sit on the outskirts and watch. I didn't think she was waiting her turn like I was, but rather learning firsthand how extensive FIB data gathering was.
She sighed heavily as she leaned a hip against the counter, sounding so alive that I stared at her. "Not mad at me anymore?" I said, and she chuckled.
"Mildly annoyed," she drawled, her hands holding her biceps. "Losing jurisdiction was a small concession for the chance to see you work." Looking sideways at me, she all but smirked. "If the FIB fails to apprehend the people responsible and to keep HAPA out of the headlines, you will still take the blame."
It was what I figured, and peeved, I thumped my heels into the cupboard I was sitting on. "Getting settled?" I said sourly, meaning him into Nina, and her expression flashed, dark.
But then she smiled to show her little living-vampire teeth. "Nina is most appreciative," she said, her voice lower than one would expect. "She was destined to be no one, and now she will walk away from this with myriad coping techniques and little wisdoms that other vampires will recognize and acknowledge. I've furthered her evolution tremendously, and her chances of living past the crucial forty-year ceiling after death have increased as well."
I was talking directly to the undead vampire, and it gave me the creeps. "Okay, so why don't you do this all the time? There's got to be a downside."
Nina shifted her body away. "How right you are, Ms. Morgan."
I waited for more, but he/she wasn't telling, instead watching the FIB personnel examining the bags of dust they'd sucked up in the vacuum. "Tell me yours, and I'll tell you mine," I mocked.
Nina stiffened. She slowly turned back, still leaning casually against the counter but with a new wariness tightening her features. "Why should I?"
I was dealing with the devil, and my heart hammered. "Rynn Cormel believes that I can save her soul after death." I glanced at Ivy, who was studying a printout with Jenks. "He believes I'll find a way to keep her soul intact after she dies, and with that, she won't need the blood anymore. The information might help me figure out how." I licked my lips. It was the first time I'd openly admitted to anyone not my friend why the city-wide master vampire and former U.S. president had put me and my roommate off-limits to everyone.
Apparently my "show" was enough for a "tell," and Nina turned her attention to Ivy, saying, "Borrowing Nina this long isn't healthy. I'm feeling a great lack in myself, a longing. I've had to almost double my blood consumption to combat it. Feeling her emotion, even filtered through my thoughts, has taxed my ability to maintain my balance."
It went with what Ivy had said earlier, and I shivered when Nina's eyes suddenly became a hungry-vampire black and her reclining posture became a threat.
"I am quite hungry," she said casually. "But it's not for blood. I want to feel the sun on my face, not feel it through Nina. It grows harder to not give up and simply . . . rise into the sunlight. It might be worth ending it all for that exquisite moment of joy." Her eyes fixed on mine. "What do you think?"
I put my palms on the counter, wanting to inch away from her. "I think you need to stay where you are, in the dark."
The undead vampire thought about that for a moment, then nodded, all the rising tension washing out in a soft sigh. "Perhaps you're correct," Nina said, and I breathed easier when she looked across the room to Glenn, peering up at Jenks, who was standing in a heating duct. "This Detective Glenn. My information says he's been working with you for some time. Do you find him . . . trustworthy? Unbiased?"
I appreciated the change of topic, and I eased when she shifted her position so we were more side to side than facing each other. Unbiased. What he/she meant was unprejudiced. It was an understandable question. "I've worked with him off and on for a couple of years," I said, remembering Jenks pixing the man for all but kidnapping me that first day. I chuckled, then explained, "He wasn't afraid of me when we met. He still isn't, but he learned respect quickly."
Nina made a small sound of agreement. "Respect can't always save you. He's been with a skilled vampire," she said, her eyes on Glenn in a way that made me feel decidedly protective. "A dead one, by the look of it."
Concerned, I brought my knees back up to my chin. It was cold down here. "Glenn? No. He's dating Ivy. He knows better than to get involved with a dead vampire."
"Her?"
I frowned at the disbelief in Nina's voice, and brought my attention from where Ivy and Glenn were discussing something with Jenks. Jenks wasn't happy, and red dust was pooling under him. "Yes, her," I said. Ivy's old master had made Ivy into something just this side of the undead, while still living, to satisfy his own depraved longings. "And you will leave her alone," I added, "or I'll track you down, Mr. Ohem-whatever-your-name-is, and I and my little pixy friend will do something permanent."
Nina smiled ingratiatingly, and my face burned. I fingered the charmed silver on my wrist, feeling my tension rise. Would I take it off to save Ivy? Probably, though it would mess up my life. Nina suddenly sobered. "You are serious," she said, her brown eyes wide. "Then I apologize. I will leave her alone."
"Good," I said tightly, unkinking my fingers from around my shins. Why is he being so chummy? It was almost as if yesterday hadn't happened.
Ivy, too, had smelled my anger, and she swung her hair from her face and looked at me, her gaze flicking questioningly to Nina. I gave her a sour bunny-eared kiss-kiss to tell her we were okay, and she said something to Jenks, who then laughed like wind chimes.
"She knows you're talking about her," Nina said, sounding almost wistful.
"Yup." I didn't want to think about how close a tie we had for her to be able to do that. Ignorance was bliss.
Jenks darted up and down like a yo-yo, and I tossed my nasty, snarled hair off my shoulder as he approached, but it was my knee he landed on. His wings looked gray with cold, and they were rattling. They'd been getting progressively louder the longer he stayed down here.
"You okay?" I said as he landed, huffing a little. "Want them to turn up the heat?"
"Nah, I'm okay," he said, but he sat down to take advantage of the heat coming up off my knee. "The people who strung up that witch in the park were here, all right. The air ducts are closed, but you can tell they were opened recently and the filters changed. Hardly a day's worth of dust on them. The ductwork has been cleaned, too. Only a pixy could tell." He glanced at Nina, listening intently. "Or one of those optic lines, maybe.
"And the computers?" the pixy added, his wings shivering to up his core temperature. "I got into the history files of the ones they didn't take. All of them say they haven't been used recently, but the trash was wiped last Thursday, so it's my guess that that's when they left."
Nina tapped her fingers and pushed herself away from the counter. "The day before they dumped the man in the park."
Jenks nodded. He looked about as cold as I felt, and I promised myself I'd make cookies tonight to get the kitchen warm and cozy for him. "I don't even know why they used them," Jenks said. "They're so old that a laptop would have more power."
"Not the same programs, though," I said, wondering if he'd accept the unused tissue I had jammed in my shoulder bag as a blanket.
"Right," Jenks said. Arms wrapped around himself, he looked up at me, an odd look of both revulsion and attraction on his face. "The curator said the computers down here were for doing genetic stuff."
I nodded. "Helpful when you're making witches capable of invoking demon magic," I said. God! What were they doing? This was crazy. Who would want to be like me? My life sucked.
"Like you," Jenks said, his voice thick with warning.
"Yes, like me," I said, then sighed. "I'll be fine, Jenks." I glanced at Nina, who had heard my theory in the coffeehouse about what these wackos were doing. "They know better than to go after me, or they would've done it by now."
"Maybe they would have except for Wayde," he said. "He's a lot better at this than you give him credit for. You need to get off his case."
"I know. I apologized," I said, and he made a satisfied noise.
"You need to stay away from Ivy, too, Mr. Walkie-Talkie Man," Jenks said suddenly.
My head came up to see Jenks standing, still on my knee, with his hands on his hips and staring at Nina. "Ah, Jenks?"
Nina slowly slouched until she was reclining against the counter again, her attention on the FIB as they began packing up their gear. On a man, her posture would have looked casual and attractive, but on Nina, it was untidy and at odds with her expensive pantsuit. "I know. I apologized," she said, mimicking me to sound mocking.
"I know your type," Jenks said, unconvinced. "You see something, and you want to know if you can eat it. You're worse than my youngest daughter. Stay away from Ivy or I'll find where you sleep and send my gargoyle in to carve out your heart."
"I'm staying away from Ivy," she said flatly, and Jenks hummed his wings.
"Good. See that you do."
"Oh, thank God," I whispered as Glenn started our way, and Jenks took to the air when I dropped my feet back over the edge of the counter. "Maybe I'll get out of here before the sun sets."
"Agreed," Nina said sourly, standing to tug her cuffs down. "I have things to do tonight."
I didn't want to know. Really. The FIB personnel were starting to leave, dipping under the yellow tape and talking loudly in the hall as they made their way back to the elevator. Glenn was taking off a pair of blue plastic gloves as he approached, cataloging my weary acceptance and Nina's bored apathy as he shoved them in a back pocket. "Thanks for staying out of the way," he said as he halted before me, and I winced.
"No problem."
"The room is remarkably clean," he said, ignoring my sarcasm. "No fibers, no small particles. Nothing. They wiped it down, meaning they knew we'd find it."
"It's unusual for serial killers to move like that," Nina said, and Glenn shrugged.
"The stain in the corner is coolant from the machine they moved. Jenks told you about the ductwork?"
I nodded. "Cleaned out. He told me the computers were wiped, too. It might be nice to know what programs were on them. And the ones that were stolen."
"Already have a call in to the university," Glenn said.
Ivy had finished with the lab guys, and Glenn shifted to make room for her before he could possibly have heard her coming. Nina made a small noise as she noted it. "There was a lot of fear here," Ivy said as she scuffed to a stop. "I'm not registered to do a court-rated moulage, but you can tell what's coming from the cabin and what isn't, and there's a lot to be accounted for."
Nina closed her eyes and breathed deep. "I taste it, too," she said, and I shivered when her eyes opened, black as sin. "Perhaps that was why they chose to be here. Someone passing in the hall wouldn't be as likely to notice. My God, it smells good."
Camping here because of the cabin's moulage was a good theory, but I was betting the computers they took were the real reason.
Ivy's attention flicked to Nina, worry pinching her brow as the dead vampire struggled to bring Nina back under control. As I watched, Ivy suddenly frowned and turned away, as if refusing to acknowledge the incident. Ivy had a tremendous - and usually hidden - need to nurture, and I knew the risk that the master was putting Nina through was bothering her.
"So," I said as I slid from the counter in an effort to put more space between me and Nina, quietly vamping out. It was a longer drop than I had counted on, and my ankles, stiff from the cold, hurt. "You ready to let me move around, Glenn? I've been waiting hours."
Jenks laughed, and the tension eased even more. "Face it, Rache," he said, slipping gold dust as he warmed up. "You and crime scenes don't mix. You should have seen the mess she made of one last year."
"Which one was that?" Ivy dropped back a few steps to make room for me, worry for Nina showing in her slow movements. "Getting her fingerprints on the sticky silk at Kisten's boat, or touching things at the house with the banshees?"
"Hey! I'm being good," I said, not as upset about the ribbing as I thought I'd be. Must have been the cocoa - or that the laughter at my expense was giving Nina's master something to hook his control on to and calm her down. "I'm sitting here waiting my turn until everyone else gets what they want. And if you remember, I found the information that turned the entire case around. Both times." My mood became suddenly melancholic as I remembered Kisten. Sorry, Kisten, I thought, my gaze down on my damp, dirty shoes. Damn memory charms. No wonder Newt was nuts.
Recognizing my mood and knowing its source, Glenn tapped his clipboard against his palm. "We're almost done, yes."
"Then you want to know what the amulet pinged on?" I said as I pulled it from underneath my shirt. "I do."
Jenks's wings hummed in anticipation as he moved to my shoulder where he could watch better, but Glenn looked betrayed. "You mean - "
Nina put a hand on my other shoulder, and I stiffened. "There's more, yes," she said, her voice low, rich, and rolling with her master's accent. Jenks had taken off when I shuddered, and I slipped out from under Nina's grip.
"No touching," I said, glaring at her. "Okay? Them's the rules."
Ivy, too, wasn't happy, and Jenks was nearly beside himself, sifting a bright red dust as he hovered with his hands on his hips. Nina ignored them both, hands behind her back. "Rachel, you've developed your timing to the point of exquisite delayed gratification," she said. "Use your amulet. I'm dying to know what drew us here."
"You mean it wasn't the ambient residual evidence?" Glenn said, and I filed that away for future use. Ambient residual evidence. Nice.
"No." I frowned as I pointed at the patch of new concrete behind him. "I've got a bad feeling about that."
"That what?" Jenks asked as I went to stand over it, watching the amulet more than my feet clinging damply to my garden shoes.
"That this," I said flatly, pointing at the new cement.
Glenn came over and looked down. "That what?"
"This," I said more stridently. "The floor. Where they poured the new concrete?"
Glenn's brow furrowed. "Uh, the floor looks fine to me," the FIB detective said.
"No friggin' way!" I exclaimed as the last of the FIB crew left. "You can't see the patch of new concrete? It's right there!"
Ivy and Nina came over and looked down, but I could tell they couldn't see it, even when Jenks walked right over the seam, spilling a faint hint of dust. "There's a patch of new concrete!" I said, pointing down. "Right there! It's about three by four. You can't see it?"
Glenn crouched and ran a hand over the floor. "I can't even feel it."
"No fairy-assed way!" Jenks strutted over the floor, looking for but not seeing what I was. Scared, I backed up. Nina was waiting for me when my head came up, and I froze at the anger in her expression.
"Maybe Ms. Morgan can see it because she poured it?" the vampire suggested.
Ivy's hands clenched, and Jenks rose up, his fingers on his garden sword. "You take that back!" he shouted. "Rachel can see it because it's a curse, and she's in the demon collective," he exclaimed, and I winced. I had a feeling I could see it because I wasn't in the collective, not because I had been.
"Will you take it easy!" I exclaimed, and Jenks zipped back to me, leaving a slowly falling cloud of silver dust. "I've never been down here, Nina, and you know it. You smell me down here? Huh? Do you?"
"No," she said, clearly reserving judgment.
Disgusted, I turned my back on her, not wanting to know what was under the floor but knowing we'd have to find out. I didn't like the fact that I was the only one who could see it.
Jenks hovered close, then landed on my shoulder. "How come we can't see it, Rache?"
Taking a breath, I brought my head up. "I don't know," I lied, figuring it was a demon curse that required the collective to work. Curses stored and doled out from the collective didn't recognize me because of my complete lack of connection to the lines, a basic, living connection to the source of all energy that even the undead and humans had. I was special, and I hated it, even if it was a good thing in this instance.
"Maybe we should open it." I looked up, reading worry in Ivy, doubt in Glenn, and mistrust in Nina. "I'm telling you, something is buried under the floor."
Glenn put one hand on his hip and stared down at the floor. "Where are the outlines?"
My pulse hammered. I went back to my bag on the counter and dug in it until I found my magnetic chalk under my splat gun. Breath held, I carefully crouched over the floor, moving awkwardly so Jenks wouldn't lose his balance and have to fly from my shoulder as I ran a line next to the seam.
Nina bent over the lines when I stood, a young, manicured hand feeling the line as the old presence in her analyzed what it might mean. "I still don't see it." Stretching, she snagged a metal rod from a pile. There were others inside the glass box propping up the pen, and she tapped it experimentally on the floor, her back hunched, making her look old. I retreated to stand beside Ivy as Nina continued tapping, her expression shifting when the tone changed as she worked her way off the new floor and onto the old.
Nina looked up, her eyes fixing on mine with such ferocity I could almost see the undead vampire in them. "There is something under here," she said, and I shivered.
"Yeah, we know, dirt nap," Jenks said. "Rachel already told us."
"Chill, Jenks," I said, and he clattered his wings, cold when they brushed my neck.
"Can we get a saw here?" Glenn shouted, but everyone was gone.
"Back up," Nina said as she took a firmer stance, feet spread wide. "It's hollow. I'll open it up."
I was getting a really bad feeling. Whatever was under the floor was close to but not quite identical to the man in the park. Ivy yanked me out of the way, and I stumbled. My eyes were fixed on the new concrete, hidden by a curse tied to the collective. Someone had made a deal with a demon. Or, even worse, they had succeeded in duplicating demon blood and twisted the curse on their own. Watching Nina lift the bar over her head, I wasn't sure which one scared me the most.
Nina sent the butt of the support bar crashing into the floor with a grunt. The cement cracked at the blow, and Jenks left me in excitement. Again the vampire swung. This time, the pole went right through, the resounding crack of cement seeming to shake me to my bones. Nina stumbled to catch her balance, and Glenn reached out to stop her fall before she could tread on the broken slab.
"I can see it!" Ivy exclaimed, and I jerked my attention from Nina, staring at Glenn's hand on her arm.
"Well, if that doesn't beat all creation," Nina said, and I stiffened at the old-world phrase. I must have heard it a dozen times from Pierce, and it would make the vampire in Nina at least 150 years old.
Cold, I leaned forward over the hole. "You must have broken the charm," I said, not wanting to call it a curse.
Jenks flew down to the dark hole, rising almost immediately with his hand over his face and gagging. I found out why when he brought the scent of burnt amber to me. "Tink's titties!" he exclaimed as he landed on Ivy's shoulder, grasping a swath of her hair and hiding his face in it. "Rache, it stinks more than you when you get back from the ever-after."
"Thanks," I muttered, trying to see in as everyone else backed up. The smell didn't bother me much - anymore.
"That's burnt amber," Ivy said, her hand over her nose. Wincing, she looked over the patched floor to Nina. "Can you open it up more?"
"What the hell is wrong with you Inderlanders!" Glenn protested. "You can't just bust it open! Give me ten minutes, and I'll have a saw in here!"
But Nina was already hammering at it with the regularity of a metronome. Cement chips flew and we all backed up and let her go, dust and dirt layering her new pantsuit. Glenn looked as angry as if Nina were beating up his little sister, but finally Nina set her pole down and wiped her forehead. Rust-smeared hands on her dusty knees, she peered past the chunks of head-size concrete and dust to the small cavern below. The scent of burnt amber was obvious, thinner but somehow more pervasive as it was diluted out.
As one, Glenn, Ivy, Jenks, and myself crept forward and peered down to the burlap bag holding a shape about the size of a large dog. It was tied with a HAPA knot.
"You all see that, right?" I asked, and Glenn nodded, not looking up. "Better open it then," I said as I backed up, and he reached for the blue gloves jammed in his back pocket.
Nina fidgeted at the delay as Glenn put his gloves on again and knelt over the bag, cement chips popping under his shoes. His fingers worked the knot, and I clenched my teeth when it opened to show another mutilated body, curled up as if sleeping, under four inches of concrete. She was wrapped in a sheet. I don't think clothes would have fit her anymore, her limbs were so twisted.
"Please tell me she was dead before she was cemented in," I said, seeing the hoofed feet and curly pelt.
Dropping the sheet to the side, Glenn carefully shifted a wrist, red and swollen. "She was restrained," he said in a flat voice.
"For only a few hours," Nina said, and she shrugged when she met Ivy's gaze. "If it were longer, there'd be more damage."
"And you'd know all about that, huh?" Jenks asked. Yeah, the dead vampire would.
Glenn turned the corpse's face and lifted a lid. Red, demon-slitted eyes stared up, cloudy in death, and I shuddered, making Nina suck in her breath to gain control. Or perhaps she/he was responding to the corpse's teeth, pointed like a living vampire's. The skin was ruddy like Al's, but bubbled and pebbled like a gargoyle. It was hard to see with her curled up, but the arms looked wiry and strong, as if she could haul nets over the side of a boat all day. Wings? I thought, and I backed up fast. What were they doing to these people?
"Okay," Glenn said as he stood. "We need to get this back to the . . . ah, forensics lab. I want to know how long the body was stressed before she died."
"An hour. That's all. Perhaps less." We all looked at Nina, and she shrugged, dust and rust marring her makeup like dried blood. "But by all means, do your scientific poking and prodding. She's suffered so much, what's one more indignity?"
Hands over my middle, I turned my back on one monstrosity to face another that society had deemed too uncomfortable to put on public display. My vision grew blurry, and I wiped a hand under my eye. Damn it, she'd been conscious when they'd done that to her, I could tell by the pain in her face. And it was a her. Something gut deep told me it was a woman, something more than her pointy facial features landing somewhere between a pixy and a buffalo.
I could hear the soft sound of sliding fabric as Glenn opened the shroud farther, and the creak of his shoe's leather as he shifted his weight. "A body under the floor doesn't match anything you've found at the earlier sites. We need to revisit them for a spell-hidden body."
I nodded, stiffening when Ivy touched my shoulder. "You'll be okay for a moment?" she asked. There was pity in her eyes, and I tightened my resolve even more. "I'm going up to make a call. The reception down here sucks like a dry socket. You'll be okay until I get back?"
"Yes," I whispered, and she strode to the hallway, the sound of her feet vanishing almost immediately. The whining of the elevator replaced it, and I closed my eyes. This might be the last time I had a chance to look at the body, and unclenching my teeth, I opened my eyes and turned around.
Nina noted my pain and said nothing, probably cataloging it as something to be used against me at a later date. "Apart from the young woman whose heart gave out, this is the first female victim we've found," she said. "She's also the most deformed. Even more than the newest victim."
"Meaning?" Jenks prompted harshly as he sat on Glenn's shoulder.
"Meaning perhaps what they're doing is more effective on the female gender," Nina said as she shifted the shards of broken cement around with the tip of her metal rod. "I don't think they expected what happened here. This woman lived for a day. They buried her instead of putting her on display. They weren't ready to move yet, and couldn't risk her being found."
I put a hand to my middle again, sick from the cocoa. I'd grown up with experimental practices and wild theories as my parents struggled to keep me alive, and this was hitting close to home.
"I know this woman," Glenn said, and Nina looked sharply at him. The FIB detective was carefully examining the woman's clenched hand and didn't notice the vampire's dilating pupils. "Not personally, but from the missing persons' files. I looked them over last night."
"The I.S. files?" Nina asked, and Glenn glanced up, blanching at Nina's black stare.
"Yes. I don't remember her name, but her ring matches the description of one worn by a witch who went missing last Friday."
Glenn dropped her hand, and the deformed fist fell against the corpse with a soft sound.
Numb, I stood over her and forced myself to look. "Did you notice if she was a carrier for Rosewood?" But I already knew the answer.
The skin around Glenn's eyes gave away his distress. "Yes. They all were."
Nina squinted at me as if we had been holding out on her. "Rosewood? The blood disease? They were all carriers? When were you going to tell me this?"
"I confirmed it this morning," Glenn griped back. "When were you going to tell me Rachel had found a new site?"
Jenks was a darting blur of silk and glowing dust. "Rache," he said, trying to get into my line of sight. "What more do you need? God to send a telegram? I know you think you're safe, but you need to go into hiding, and you need to do it now!"
"I'm fine," I breathed, my eyes on the woman's hand, the skin red and cracked, as if it was trying to turn into a hoof and she had held the change off by her will alone. "She has something in her grip."
Glenn hesitated, sighed at Nina's gesture, then gave up on protocol and pried her hand open. Jenks flew down and darted back to me, something shiny in his arms. "Hey!" Glenn protested, but I wouldn't let him land, and he finally dropped it right into the collection bag that Glenn had hastily opened.
"It's a piece of mirror!" he said as Glenn zipped the bag shut and wrote on the label.
"Now you can see it," he grumbled as he handed it over, and Jenks landed on my wrist as I took it. I'd seen evidence through a bag before, and together we peered down at the thumb-size piece of rose-tinted glass. My heart sank.
"I think it's a chunk of a scrying mirror," I said, and Jenks hummed his wings.
"No fairy-assed way!" he said, clearly not seeing what that meant.
Demon magic, hidden bodies deformed into increasingly familiar shapes, blood slowly being changed into something else. The scattershot amulet I'd used was keyed to the man's hair. Clearly he wasn't under the floor, which meant the man's structure had been changed right down to the genetic level enough to match the woman and to ping on a scattershot charm. They really were trying to make a demon. They were trying to make a demon out of a witch by using the questionable success of each previous victim and layering it on the next. And by the looks of this corpse, they might be getting close.
"There's blood on it," I said, my fingers trembling as I handed it back. "If it's not hers, it belongs to one of her captors. We can use it to make a locator charm and find them instead of an empty room."
Glenn shifted in excitement, but I felt awful as I looked down at the woman and silently thanked her. She'd been forcibly abducted, experimented on, and tortured. Yet she had given us a clue, hiding it with her body and hoping we were clever enough to find it, recognize it, and then use it.
"Let me smell," Nina said. "I can tell you what species it is."
There were voices in the hall, and, grimacing, Glenn quickly broke the seal and held it under her nose. Nina jumped as the scent hit her, and Jenks and I watched as the two consciousnesses fought for control, eyes closing and hands trembling. It was the elder vampire who looked out at us when Nina's eyes opened again. "Human," the undead vampire said through Nina, a ribbon of excitement in her voice. "It belongs to one of the captors. We have a chance. Finally we have a chance."
I looked at the ruined woman under our feet and silently thanked her again. A chance. That was all I needed.