Lovely Bad Things

Alister sighs. “It’s been a long twenty-four hours. You’ve been through a lot.”

A laugh falls from my mouth. And I realize how inappropriate my behavior is—but last night won’t stop playing on a loop in my head…and now I’m staring at a new Harbinger killing…

Pushing the maddening thoughts aside, I thrust my sleeve up and read the words. I read them over and over until my head stops spi

I pull myself upright and lick my lips, still tasting Kallum. He’s all over me.

Resigned, Alister releases a heavy breath through his nose and crosses his arms. Turning to face me fully, he says, “So we’re working opposing sides, then.”

I tear my gaze away from the crime scene. “We don’t have to be.”

My meaning resonates in his light eyes, and the sharp brackets caging his features soften.

“When…” My voice falters, and I try again. “How recent is this scene?”

He shifts his attention to his team marking evidence. “The tongues? Could be as recent as last night, or early morning. The victim…the medical examiner needs to declare that.”

I swallow hard. “But likely before Landry went to the ritual crime scene,” I say, surmising.

His silence infuses the stagnant air of the marsh, and I can feel the tension of what’s not being said. His stance becomes even more guarded.

“What?” I ask, my heart beating around a dull ache in the center of my chest. “Alister. I’ve been working this case. I deserve to—”

“Landry didn’t commit suicide.” He hesitates before saying more. “More results are needed to confirm, but it’s looking like the man who attacked you was not the main perpetrator. The injection sites found on his body weren’t self-administered. Someone else had to inject the hemlock into him.”

It takes a moment for this information to process, and I slowly nod. “He was a pawn,” I say. Someone set him up.

“Or there’s more than one offender involved,” Alister says.

I realized something was amiss when I saw the sloppy stitch-work of the suspect’s eyes. There was just too much to process, and too much hope. Something I should know by now only clouds reason.

The suspect who designed the ritual site—the person who intricately weaved the eyes to the trees and who has methodically staged the scene before me—would never have done such a careless job on their own eyes.

And that suspect is still out there.

I look up into Alister’s wary face. “But that’s not all.”

With a heavy sigh, Alister reaches into the inseam of his suit blazer and removes a folded page wrapped in an evidence seal. “There’s this.”

Before I even unfold the page, I already know.

My hands shake as I hold the letter from the Harbinger killer written in block letters. After reading it over quickly, I lower the note next to my thigh.

“The original letter was found on the body.” He mumbles something and drives a hand through his hair. “I can’t believe there’s two of these goddamn psychopaths ru

Dread knots my spine. “I think there always was.”

“What?” Alister barks, his fuse short.

I shake my head. “There’s something wrong with this town,” I say, crossing my arms to stave off the chill. “I hate the trees.”

He actually laughs. “Yeah, me too.”

I slip the copy of the letter into my pocket and step down from the boardwalk.

As I near the victim, I can’t take my eyes off the severed head. The face, the skull. But it’s the bones protruding from the bald head that stalls my blood inside my veins.

Each antler projecting from the victim’s head has been sawn off at the base.

The eyelids have been sewn together.

“He’s missing his eyes,” I say, sensing Alister’s presence at my back. “And his ears.”

“And his tongue,” Alister confirms. “And he has fucking antlers adhered to his head.”

This victim is one of the missing.

“You know I can find them.”

I swallow down the acid burning my throat. “Has the victim been identified?”

“Not officially,” he says. “But one of the local case workers did give us an initial ID.”

I turn to face him. “Who?”

“Detective Emmons,” he says, fixing his hands on his hips. “He believes the victim is his missing brother.”

Oh, god. I look away and stare out over the wasteland of reeds, at the eerie trees clawing the gray sky. At the evil rising over Hollow’s Row.

As gravity falls away, I seek something stable to latch on to, and find Devyn’s commiserating gaze across the marsh. She was right.

I brought something worse to her town.

“Thank you for including me in the updates,” I say to Alister, somehow finding the strength of will to hold myself together.

The sense of standing outside myself crashes over me, the riptide dragging me out.

Alister nods, but then a menacing glint flashes behind his gaze, and he says, “I’m thinking of bringing Professor Locke back as a consultant.”

I shake my head. Not in disagreement, but in disbelief. “Isn’t that a conflict of interest with the Harbinger killer?”

His eyebrows draw together in a confused continence. “Locke was never questioned in regard to those murders. He was also found i

“I

“Hmm . And yet you found him to be a necessary asset on my case.” He pushes in even closer, his voice a husky, stern whisper. “Or was that just an excuse to fuck him?”

I turn flaring eyes on him. “Excuse me?”

His smile is smug, and he wets his lips. He trails his fingers across the small of my back, out of sight from anyone else. “If that’s what you need to solve cases, maybe we can arrange something.”

I step away from him, beating down the rising revulsion. “I’ll confer with you when I have something to confer,” I say, then I head back to the boardwalk.

With numb hands, I call my ex-field manager. Before Aubrey can start with condolences of my layoff or reprimand me for not going through proper cha

“Halen, I’m sorry—”

“Aubrey, send a zip file of my Harbinger case files to my email. Right now. Then send all copies of physical files to the storage facility address when I give it to you.”

After a lengthy pause, he concedes. “I am sorry for what happened. It wasn’t right.”

The sound of a plane flying overhead draws my attention to the sky, and my heart constricts painfully in my chest. The sigil carved into my thigh pulses with a searing heat.

I feel his breath on my skin.

I smell the woodsy scent of his intoxicating cologne.

His touch heats my flesh.

Ending the call, I close my eyes. I inhale a calming breath before I march toward my case with my crime-scene tools.

I’m the only one who knows Kallum wasn’t in his hotel room all night.

If there is evidence—even a fraction of a particle—I will find it.

I overlooked one crucial aspect of the story: Nietzsche’s character that appeared near the end of Zarathustra to corrupt the higher men.

The sorcerer.

The liar.

I have never believed in a higher power. Logic is my deity. The universe didn’t bring Kallum and I together—he did .

Kallum told me at the start that I had no idea what’s within my power.

He was right; I had no idea—but I’m figuring it out now.

If Kallum Locke wants to play on a bloody game board, we’ll play.

But I’m changing the fucking game.

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Epilogue Letter from the Harbinger Killer

T he Overman ca

The Overman is not a gift to humanity but a death knell, tolling the end of days.

The Overman will not bring enlightenment or peace. The Overman’s rising will commence the doomsday that will befall every civilization and plunge humanity into an abyss.