“First off, I don’t think they’re as sensitive to light as the first ones that escaped onto this plane, but they still can’t go into direct sunlight. Nothing from hell can without insulation.”
“You mean, without having the advantage of a human host?”
“Exactly. And I don’t think they can actually possess people.”
“You aren’t sure?”
“Not really. I never dealt much with the hounds. But I know who has.”
It only took me a moment to guess: “The Dealer.”
The Dealer was our newest acquaintance, a slave who, like Reyes, had escaped from hell and now lived on earth as a human. He was centuries old yet barely looked nineteen.
“Yes. He was Daeva. He was a slave, and part of their job was to take care of other slaves, like the hounds.”
“You know, someday you’re going to have to explain to me in great detail exactly what hell is.”
Kit’s grip was so tight on the steering wheel, her knuckles shone white. I couldn’t help that now.
“I understand what you meant earlier,” Reyes said.
I still wanted to know more about hell and the hounds raised there. “Changing the subject will not help your – Wait, what do you mean?”
“This world,” he said, his jaw working as he gazed out the window at the last of the pine and juniper as we emerged from the mountains and onto flatter land. “Bringing a child into it. What happened to those girls.”
I wrapped my arms over my chest. “I guess it doesn’t matter now, but still, it kind of breaks my heart. Especially knowing what our daughter is going to face.”
Without looking at me, he said, “It breaks mine, too.”
Hoping Kit couldn’t give me a ticket for not wearing my seat belt, I unbuckled it and crawled into the backseat with my affianced. He took my hand in his, lacing our fingers together, his heat soft and stirring.
As we got closer to town, I called Cook to fill her in, as promised.
“How’d it go?” she asked in lieu of a salutation.
“Well,” I told her, “we not only figured out who committed the murders ten years ago but also IDed a serial killer.”
“Another one? We seem to have a lot of those around here.”
“We do, don’t we?” I’d never thought of it that way, but we really did seem to attract our share of crazies. I explained about the little girls. I shouldn’t have. Cookie sank into that same deep, dark depression I’d been experiencing, but her depression was much more noble. Mine was just kind of whiny.
After a moment where Reyes studied the hand he was still holding, running his fingertips along my lifeline, Cookie asked, “What would you attempt to do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”
“Calculus, prolly. Why?”
“Just curious. What if you could create the perfect murder? Like literally? Who would you kill?”
“Well, if I could create the perfect murder – of which there are none – I could probably time travel, too. I’d go back in time and kill Hitler.”
“Interesting,” she said.
“Why?” I asked. “Whom would you kill?” This was so not a conversation to be having in the back of an FBI agent’s SUV.
“My ex,” she said.
“Probably best not to mention that to your lawyer.”
Her ex, whom I had yet to meet in the three years I’d known Cookie, was giving her a hard time about putting their daughter in danger. Apparently, he’d found out about an attack in my apartment, one Amber had witnessed, only she’d been too sleepy to realize what was happening at the time. Amber must have put two and two together and mentioned the incident to her dad. She would never have said anything if she knew what kind of strife it would cause her mother. Amber didn’t know her dad as well as Cookie did.
“But if you’re shopping, I know a guy who knows a guy.”
“Nah,” she said, dropping the idea, which was probably for the best. “But thanks. Still, if I could get away with murder, I’d hunt down serial killers and take them out one by one. I’d be a serial killer serial killer. Like Dexter, only with curves.”
“I get that. Hey, I could be your assistant! I’d be an Assistant Serial Killer Serial Killer. I’d be an ASS. Or do I need the Ks in there? Because that wouldn’t sound nearly as cool.”
She chuckled. “So, what’s with this note you left on my desk?”
“It’s a list of words.”
“Yes, which is why I’m confused. Are these words significant in some way?”
“Are they ever? It struck me recently that if you put an A in front of a word, it negates that word. Like amoral or asymmetrical.”
“Yes —”
“I mean, I knew that, naturally. I just don’t think we’re taking full advantage of the precedent.”
“Right. I got the list. But I don’t think a-smart is a real word.”
“That’s what I’m talking about. It should be a real word. And it’s nicer than saying dumb.”
“Did you call your uncle Bob?”
“Not yet. But I could use a paycheck since, you know, I have to pay you. Eventually.”
“That’d be awesome. I could eat this month.”
“Well, now, I didn’t say I was going to pay you enough to eat the whole month long. You might want to ration your food. And get rid of that kid. She eats entirely too much, now that she’s turned thirteen.” The part I was leaving out, of course: Amber was roughly the size of a twig in winter.