Fair Game

Goldstein watched A

‘No,’ A

‘Fae.’ Singh frowned. ‘How do you know?’

‘I’m one of the monsters, Dr Singh,’ A

‘I knew the agent who worked this case,’ said Goldstein. ‘Melissa had parents and two siblings who were ten and seven at the time. He talked to them. She was eighteen years old.’

No parents, Charles told A

not well, but well enough to say that she was not eighteen.

Could the victim have been the real Melissa Snow and the fae took her identity after she died?

A

I knew her during Prohibition, she was working at a speakeasy in Michigan– Detroit, I think – but long before the eighties.

‘She was fae,’ A

‘The other two?’ Goldstein asked, though he didn’t sound convinced.

‘I’m not an expert on fae,’ A

Goldstein asked,‘Every year?’

That would account for the lack of bodies, Charles told her.Some of the fae just fade away when they die. If the fae lost his glamour, the other fae would make sure the body never came to light.

‘That I’ve seen.’

There was a growing tightness in Goldstein’s shoulders, and an eagerness in his scent that told Brother Wolf that Goldstein was thinking, adding this to all of the bits and pieces he knew about the killer, trying to see how this changed the big picture.

Charles considered the repercussions of a serial killer who hunted fae. Surely the Gray Lords would have noticed that someone was killing their people? But they were not Bran, who protected and loved his wolves. If a fae who was not powerful and kept his head down for safety died, would the Gray Lords who ruled the fae even notice? And if they did notice, would they do anything?

‘Could the killer be a fae?’ That was from Pat, the Cantrip agent. ‘If he’s been killing since 1975 and he was human, he’d be using a wheelchair by now.’

Agent Fisher frowned.‘I know an eighty-year-old man who could take you with one arm tied behind his back, Pat. And if this guy was eighteen at the end of the Vietnam War, he’d be a lot younger than eighty. But most serial killers don’t last this long. They devolve or start making mistakes.’

‘The Green River Killer hunted for over twenty years,’ offered Pat. ‘And when they finally found him, he was a churchgoing married man with two kids and a stable job he’d had for over thirty years.’

Goldstein hadn’t been listening; he’d been staring at A

‘I don’t think he’s fae,’ he said. ‘Not our original killer. Why else would he have waited until the fae came out to start killing them?’

Not our original killer, thought Charles to himself.

‘I don’t know all of the fae personally,’ said A

Goldstein shook his head, and Charles agreed with him when he said,‘No. This is an escalation of the type of prey the killer hunts.’

He’s on the scent, said Brother Wolf, watching the older FBI agent with interest.

‘Hunting the enemy,’ said Singh unexpectedly. ‘Say he’s a Vietnam vet. He goes home and sees Vietnamese – or Asian, which is close enough for him – on his territory. So he goes hunting, just like he did in the war. He switches to boys. Maybe it’s because he likes sex with boys better – but let’s say that it is because he finds them tougher, better hunting. And then he finds the fae – and decides they are more worthy opponents. And, like his original victims, in his eyes they are invaders.’

‘He’s good and he’s smart if he’s killed this many fae,’ said A

‘He’s killed werewolves,’ said Heuter, unexpectedly. Charles had quit paying attention to the Cantrip spokesperson, dismissing him. ‘Aren’t they harder to kill than the fae?’

A

‘Melissa Snow died before you were born,’ said Pat. ‘How did you know she was fae?’ It wasn’t what he said, but rather the aggression in his voice, that caused Brother Wolf to take notice that the tenor of the meeting had changed.

‘Family photos,’ A

‘You are twenty-five,’ said Heuter. ‘Got your photo on my phone and sent it to home base. They got a hit about two minutes ago. A

‘So how doeshe know?’ murmured Singh, ignoring the Cantrip agent’s attack on A

A werewolf could scent the fae, most of the time.

‘Maybe he had some way of watching while his potential victims touched iron. My Scottish grandmother swore that there were herbal salves you could rub on your eyes to see the fairies,’ continued Singh, who didn’t look as though he could possibly have a Scottish grandmother, though Charles could hardly talk because Charles didn’t look very Welsh, either.

‘Turning your clothes inside out or wearing cold iron is supposed to work, too,’ said Fisher, who’d been pretty quiet up to this point. Charles rather thought that she was making sure that the Cantrip agents didn’t take control of the meeting again, as she’d spoken just as Heuter opened his mouth to say something else.

‘You said “original killer,” ’ said A

‘Right,’ Goldstein agreed, completely ignoring the Cantrip agents and Singh to focus on the murders. ‘We noticed some differences in the UNSUB’s killings starting about 1995 that seemed to indicate he’d acquired a partner. Then in 2000 the killings took place over six weeks. Though we –2000 is the first year I caught this case – only found five bodies, the timeline indicated that there might be six victims. As there were six the next year, and every year thereafter his killing window has been six weeks instead of four, we’re pretty sure that there were six victims in 2000 as well.’

‘If the MO didn’t match, how did you know they were still the Big Game Hunter’s victims and not some other killer’s?’ Singh asked. He was caught up in the hunt for their killer – even thoughhis hunt had started with an entirely different prey: the werewolves. Brother Wolf agreed with Charles’s assessment of Singh: smart and distractible if something more interesting than his current prey ran in front of him.

Goldstein reached into his briefcase and pulled out

a bright yellow ear tag. The kind ranchers staple to their livestock. ‘He tags his kills. In ’seventy-five he used hunting tags for deer, stolen from a hunting supply store. In ’eighty-two, he switched to this. The current batch can be purchased on the Internet in bags of twenty-five for a buck each.’