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Be careful, Japhrimel's voice whispered at the very back of my brain. He ca
I came back to myself with a jolt. What the hell? I didn't smell this at Christabel's. That damn lilac perfume of hers, maybe. Or maybe the scent had faded. "I can smell it."
"Da
No, I wasn't. I was hallucinating my dead demon lover's voice. But it didn't matter. Getting the smell of the quarry is important in any hunt. And if imagining Japhrimel's voice helped me get through this, I was all for it no matter what price I would have to pay afterward, when the hunt was over and I had to face the fact that he was truly gone.
"I'm fine," I rasped. A pattern was starting to appear under the shape of events. "Let's take a look at Mr. Helm." I stepped past Gabe and looked into the room. "He certainly did believe in protection, didn't he?"
"Either that or he was afraid of something," Jace said grimly. "Chango…" It was a long breath of wondering disgust.
I agreed. Past the hacked and battered door was an orgy of blood and bits of what had once been a human body. The chalk marks on the floor were familiar but hurried, scrawled instead of done neatly. The circle was sloppily and hastily finished. Had the killer been interrupted? "Who found the body?" My nose wrinkled. The only thing worse than the effluvia of dying cells around living humans was the stench of rotting ones.
You think that as if you're not human, Da
"Housekeeper," Gabe said. "Apparently was paid a good deal to come in and work ten hours a day cleaning this pile. And to keep her mouth shut. The body's a few days old, she wasn't supposed to come into this part of the house very often. Once she found the body, she didn't know whether she should call the police. She brought the question to one of her cousins, who's a low-level retainer for the Owens Family and a stooge for the Saint City PD. He brought it to us. If the shields hadn't already been cracked we would have called you in to crack them."
"Gods." Jace looked definitely green, yet another new and amazing thing. I felt a little green myself. "There's only pieces."
Check that. I wasn't just feeling a little green. I felt green as a new crop of chemalgae. Nausea rose, twisted hot under my breastbone. I forced it down. I'd seen a lot of murder and mayhem in my time, but this… the smell of blood wasn't bothering me, but the visuals were begi
I should know, I've had my share of wonderful nightmares.
I looked into the bedroom. This was evidently where Aran Helm truly lived. Scattered papers and dirty clothes strewn about, a huge four-poster bed with wildly mussed covers now spattered with blood and other fluids, and burned-out candles in many holders. Between this and Christabel's careful obsessive order, I wasn't sure which I preferred.
I stepped delicately inside the room, wishing once again that I could shut my nostrils down, and saw something.
A human hand, severed at the wrist, clutching a bit of consecrated chalk.
A few more bits of the pattern fell together. "Sekhmet sa'es, Gabe. We've got it all wrong. The marks weren't made by the killer."
"What?" Gabe stopped at the door. "What are you talking about?"
"Look." I pointed at the hand. "The victims made the marks. I need a laseprint of these. If I can figure out what they were trying to defend against—"
"You don't think it's human?" Hope and dawning comprehension lit her face.
"I wouldn't say that," I answered slowly. "I can't tell. But if the marks are defensive, I've been going about this all wrong." I whirled. "If Jace gives you a list, can you find out who on the list is still in Saint City? And who's still alive?"
"All things should be so easy." Gabe's eyes lit up. She looked a few years younger. "You're sure, Da
"Not sure." I gave the room one last look. "But it's better than any other theory I had. There's something else, too."
"What?" She almost twitched with impatience, and I suppressed the desire to giggle nervously. Couldn't she see? Why did she need me to tell her?
"This door's hacked in." I looked back at them, saw Jace was watching me, his blue eyes bright against the shadow of the hall. A deeper shadow slid over his face, and I would have recoiled if my feet weren't nailed in place. When I looked again, the shadow was gone, and I had to chalk it up to nerves.
I was chalking a lot up to my nerves lately. It was a bad habit to get into.
"What?" Gabe's tone wasn't overly patient. I had drifted into silence, staring at Jace, my forehead furrowed.
I shook myself and met her dark worried eyes. "I don't think the attack started here."
Chapter Twenty-three
I was right. We found his sancta in the basement, a hexagonal stone room with nudiegirl holoposters gummed to the rough walls. A pentacle was etched into the discolored granite floor—Aran had done well for himself, if he could spend time and Power etching stone. I was uncomfortable looking into the room—after all, a Ceremonial's sancta is like a Necromance's psychopomp, the deep place they trust to work their greatest magicks. Apparently, Aran Helm had derived a great deal of his power from sex; it didn't look like he had many partners, however. He must have done a lot of Power-raising with his right hand.
A drawer in a low armoire was pulled all the way out, showing shiny sharp implements. Bloodletters and weights. I sucked in a breath, delicately touching the wood of the drawer with a fingertip. The shiver that went through me wasn't entirely unpleasant—blood and sex, and pain. Good fuel for magick.
And very tempting for demons. Even part-demons like me.
Interestingly enough, there was only one door to the sancta, and it was hacked open—but from the inside. I cast my gaze over the hexagonal room.
Jace leaned in the door. Gabe's voice raised in the corridor beyond, giving orders. Jace's staff glowed golden, a faint light edging it and the bones tied with raffia clicking together. Here in another sorcerer's sancta, any Shaman would be uncomfortable. And the lingering trail of terror and bloodlust on the air would only add to that discomfort.
Cigars lay fa
Most of the time, after a Left-hander was finished, there wasn't much of the sacrifice left to eat.
A half-bottle of very good brandy sat on the altar too. His ceremonial sword, its blade twisted into an unrecognizable shape, was a two-handed broadsword, pretty but cheap metal. If he did wetwork it was with knife or projectile gun, not honest steel. Aran Helm had used the human deaths to pay for his house, and animal death to fuel his magick.