Crimson Death

“Mr. Pennyfeather and his partner aren’t in the hallway to invite inside even if I were so inclined, Sheridan. It’s only Murdock and Santana on post currently.”

“They were going to take turns grabbing sandwiches,” I said. “It’s hard to eat standing up in a hallway. An international flight takes a lot out of you, so we’re still a little beat.”

“We could have offered your men a desk or something to eat their lunch at,” Pearson said.

“That would have been nice,” I said.

Pearson got up and started for the door. “I can see what I can find for them to use.”

“Thank you, Inspector, but I’m pretty sure that at least two of them will stay on the door.”

“I know you’re implying they’re standing guard, but we are inside a police station.”

“True, but until they have more of a role in the case, they’re going to do the only job they have.”

“The men with you don’t even have badges in your own country. I can’t justify letting them see evidence in an ongoing investigation.”

“Totally reasonable,” I said.

Pearson gave me a narrow look. “Why does that sound like a criticism?”

“It’s not meant as one,” I said.

He looked from me to Edward and back. He looked downright suspicious. People usually had to know me longer before I got that look. I did my best to give inoffensive and pleasant back. I used to try looking innocent, but I really wasn’t good at it, even when I was innocent.

Pearson looked even harder at me. It wasn’t his hardest look—I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he hadn’t made detective without being able to stare the socks off a suspect—but he was still trying to give me a “hard” look. I smiled at him. I’d found it an effective way to either irritate people or win them over. It could go either way when they were already trying to intimidate me by being a hard-ass.

“Now, Anita, I’m sure Superintendent Pearson is just doing his job,” Edward said in his drawling Ted voice, which managed to be pleasant and theatrical. I wondered if the Irish police were disappointed that my accent wasn’t the same as his.

I started to say, I never said he wasn’t, but one minute we were doing some mild double-team manipulation and the next minute the hair at the back of my neck rose and goose bumps ran down my arms. I think I stopped breathing, my throat tight with the power that was reaching out.

“Anita,” Edward said, “what’s wrong?”

“You’re pale,” Sheridan said.

Nolan had grabbed the back of a chair. He was fighting to stand upright and not show that he was sensing it, too.

I held up a hand, and Edward understood that I wanted them to be quiet for a second. He made everyone else stop talking. I needed to listen. Listen to what? There was a voice on the air, or in it, and the voice was saying something, wanting something.

There was a sharp double knock on the door. Pearson said, “Who is it?”

“Nicky Murdock,” he announced, but didn’t wait for an invitation before opening the door. “Anita, what the hell is that?”

I held up my hand and waved it at him, and he went quiet. I listened, reached out toward that skin-prickling rush of energy, and found . . . “Come out,” I said.

“What does she mean, come out?” Sheridan asked.

I repeated it. “Come out. That’s what it’s saying, over and over. It’s wanting . . . us to come out. Them to come out.”

“Who is them?” Edward asked.

I felt Damian take his first breath for the day inside the bag at my feet, felt him startle before the bag moved. Edward actually jumped as the bag bumped his chair.

I knelt beside Damian’s bag. He was afraid of the small space and of the power that had jarred him awake. “Close the shades,” I said.

Nolan was closest, but I think it was taking all he had to simply try to stand there, gripping the back of the chair, and not show the reaction that all the other preternaturals were having. Nicky walked across the room to do what I asked. The weak sunshine was suddenly plunged into gray twilight. Pearson didn’t complain or tell Nicky to get out of the room because of evidence. No, Pearson was staring at the bag on the floor as it struggled. It was his turn to look pale. I saw Domino in the doorway; he was still watching the hall like a good bodyguard.

I unzipped the duffel bag. One long pale arm shot out, grabbing for air. Damian forced the zipper down before I could get to it, pulling his upper body free of it like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. His hair spilled out around him like liquid fire, so perfectly red in a stray line of sunlight that managed to get through the draped window.

He grabbed my hand in his, green eyes wide with the fear I could already feel. “It can’t be,” he whispered.

“It can’t be who?” I asked.

“Her.”

“Who is her?” Sheridan asked.

“It’s a compulsion spell,” Jake said from the open door, where he and Kaazim had just run up.

“A what spell?” Pearson asked.

“A compulsion spell, a magical way of ordering or commanding people,” Jake said.

“I have not felt one so strong in many, many years,” Kaazim said.

Damian wrapped both his hands around mine. “It’s her. It’s her, Anita. It’s her.”

“Who?” Sheridan asked.

“She-Who-Made-Me.”