Bloody Bones

16

Detective Freemont sat on one end of the Quinlans' couch and I perched on the other. We were as far away from each other as we could get and share it. Only pride kept me from taking a chair. I wouldn't flinch under her cool cop eyes. So I stayed nailed to my end of the couch, but it was an effort.

Her voice was low and careful, every word enunciated, as if she thought she might yell if she rushed the words. "Why didn't you call and tell me you had a second vampire kill?"

"Sheriff St. John called the state cops. I assumed you'd be told."

"Well, I wasn't."

I stared up into her cool eyes. "You're twenty minutes away with a crime scene unit looking into a possible vampire kill. Why wouldn't they send you over to a second vampire scene?"

Freemont's eyes shifted to one side, then back to me. Her cool cop eyes had melted just a little. It was hard to read for sure, but she looked uneasy. Maybe even scared.

"You haven't told them it was a vampire kill, have you?"

Her eyes flinched.

"Shit, Freemont. I know you don't want the Feds to steal your case, but withholding information from your own people... Bet your superiors aren't happy with you."

"That's my business."

"Fine. Whatever plan you've got, more power to you, but why are you pissed at me?"

She took a deep, shaking breath and blew it out like a ru

"You saw the body," I said.

She nodded. "A vampire could have ripped the neck apart."

"I saw a blade, Freemont."

"The ME will either back you up, or not."

"Why don't you want this to be vampires?"

She smiled. "I thought I had this case all solved. Thought I'd make an arrest this morning. I didn't think it was vampires."

I stared at her. I wasn't smiling. "If it wasn't vamps, then what was it?"

"Fairies."

I stared at her for a heartbeat. "What do you mean?"

"Your boss, Sergeant Storr, called me. Told me what you'd found out about Magnus Bouvier. He's got no alibi for the time of the killings, and even you think he could have done it."

"Because he could have done it, doesn't mean he did," I said.

Freemont shrugged. "He ran when we tried to question him. I

"What do you mean, he ran? If you were there questioning him, how could he run?"

Freemont settled back into the couch, hands clasped together so tightly her fingers were mottled. "He used magic to cloud our minds, and made his escape."

"What sort of magic?"

Freemont shook her head. "What do you want me to say, Ms. Preternatural Expert? Four of us sat there in his restaurant like idiots while he just walked out. We didn't even see him get up from the table."

She looked at me, no smiles. Her eyes were back to that neutral coolness. You could stare all day at someone with eyes like that and keep all your secrets safe.

"He looked human to me, Blake. He looked like a nice, normal guy. I wouldn't have picked him out of a crowd. How did you know what he was?"

I opened my mouth, and closed it. I wasn't exactly sure how to answer the question. "He tried to use glamor on me, but I knew what was happening."

"What's glamor, and how did you know he was using a spell on you?"

"Glamor isn't exactly a spell," I said. I always hated explaining preternatural things to people who had no skill in the area. It was like having quantum physics explained to me. I could follow the concepts, but I had to take their word for it on the math. The math was beyond me, hated to admit it, but it was. But not understanding quantum physics wouldn't get me killed. Not understanding preternatural creatures might get Freemont killed.

"I'm not stupid, Blake. Explain it to me."

"I don't think you're stupid, Detective Freemont. It's just hard to explain. I was riding with two uniforms in St. Louis. They were transporting me from a crime scene, playing taxi. The driver spotted this guy just walking along. He pulled over, put him up against a car. The guy was carrying a weapon, and was wanted in another state for armed robbery. If I'd been in a room with him, I'd have noticed the gun, but just passing by in a car, no way. I wouldn't have seen it. Even his partner asked him how he spotted him. He couldn't explain so that we could do it, but he knew how to do it."

"So it's practice?" Freemont said.

I sighed. "In part, but hell, Detective, I raise the dead for a living. I have some preternatural abilities. It gives me a leg up."

"How the hell are we supposed to police creatures, Ms. Blake? If Bouvier had pulled a gun, we'd have sat there and let him shoot us. We just sort of woke up and he wasn't there anymore. I've never seen anything like it."

"There are things you can do to protect yourself from fairie glamor," I said.

"What?"

"A four-leaf clover will break glamor, but it won't keep the fey from killing you by hand. There are other plants you can wear, or carry that break glamor: Saint-John's-wort, red verbena, daisies, rowan, and ash. My choice would be an ointment made of either four-leaf clovers or Saint-John's-wort. Spread it on your eyelids, mouth, ears, and hands. It'll make you proof against glamor."

"Where do I get this stuff?"

I thought about that for a second. "Well, in St. Louis I'd know where to go. Here, try health-food stores and occult shops. Any fairie ointment will be hard to find because we don't have any fairies native to this country. Ointment from four-leaf clovers is very expensive, and rare. Try for the Saint-John's-wort."

She sighed. "Will this ointment work on any mind control, like for vamps?"

"Nope," I said. "You could drop a vamp in a whole tub of Saint-John's-wort and it wouldn't give a damn."

"What do you do against vampires, then?"

"Keep your cross, avoid eye contact, pray. They can do things that'll make Magnus look like an amateur."

She rubbed her eyes, smearing eye shadow on the ball of her thumb. She suddenly looked tired. "How do we protect the public against something like that?"

"You don't," I said.

"Yes, we do," she said. "We have to; it's our job."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I didn't try. "So you thought it was Magnus because he ran, and he doesn't have an alibi?"

"Why else would he run?"

"I don't know," I said. "But he didn't do it. I saw the thing in the woods. It wasn't Magnus. Hell, I've only heard about vampires forming from shadows. I'd never seen it before."

She looked at me. "You've never seen it before. That's not comforting."

"It wasn't meant to be. But since it wasn't Magnus, you can call off the warrant."

She shook her head. "He used magic on police officers while committing a crime. That's a class C felony."

"What was his crime?"

"Escaping."

"But he wasn't under arrest."

"I had a warrant for his arrest," she said.

"You didn't have enough for a warrant," I said.

"Helps to know the right judge."

"He didn't kill those kids, or Coltrain."

"You pointed the finger at him," she said.

"Just an alternate possibility. With five people dead, I couldn't afford to be wrong."

She stood. "Well, you got your wish. It was vampires, and I don't know why the hell Magnus Bouvier ran from us. But just using magic on a police officer is a felony."

"Even if he was i

"Felonious use of magic is a serious crime, Ms. Blake. There's a warrant for his arrest. You see him, you remember that."

"I know Magnus isn't nice people, Detective Freemont. I don't know why he ran, but if you put out the word that he used magic on cops, someone'll shoot him."

"He's dangerous, Ms. Blake."

"Yeah, but so are a lot of people, Detective. You don't hunt them down and arrest them for it."