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On the wall were some framed art photo prints of dancers, and eight of them were black-and-white photos set in a circle. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were immortalized in a moment when Ginger was up in the air, a huge smile on her face, and Fred had a sly grin. Another black and white was of the scene fromDirty Dancing that caught the primary actors on hands and knees, staring hungrily at each other though the tension of their pose told the observer that they were still in the midst of a dance. A number of other dancers he didnt know, mostly couples in a wide variety of dances from ballroom to tribal to modern. In the center of the circle of photos was a poster-sized image that dominated the room.
The photographer had caught a male dancer in mid-flight, stretched across the canvas in a gracefulY. His feet at the lower left-hand corner were slightly out of focus, giving the photo a sense of aliveness and making the stillness of the rest of it more profound. The dancers left arm, farther from the viewer, was stretched out to the top right, and his right arm, nearer to the viewer, flung back to the top left corner. His head was bowed, the line of his body so pure and straight he might have been swinging from the rope of a pirate ship. His muscles were flexed and straining, yet somehow he managed to give the impression of being relaxed, at peace.
Unlike the others, it was in color, but just barely, as if someone had filled it with shades of brown. The loose white shirt hed worn looked cream, his tights were taupe, and the backdrop came out a dark brown rather than black. A warm, beautiful image.
Rudolf Nureyev, supplied Charles.
Brother Wolf, called A
She was standing out in the hallway, next to the bathroom, a thoughtful look on her face.
What do you smell? she asked him, and when she did he came another step closer and caught it, too.
Terror, he answered and tried again, closing his eyes to shut out other senses.Blood. Her blood. And
A low growl rose
And his.
She had fought her attacker, the little dancer had. It was only a small drop of blood, but it was enough.
He licked it feeling the scent rise up as soon as his tongue touched it, breaking the magic of concealment that had tried to hide even so little of the man who had come here to do harm. A man, but not human, or not wholly human. The bitter flavor of magic in the blood made his tongue tingle. He would recognize this man when he smelled him again.
Half-blood fae, he told her.
We probably should have left that blood for the FBI labs, said A
My hunt, Brother Wolf assured her, though Charles agreed with A
She wrapped her hand in the tail of her shirt and opened it. At first he thought there was nothing to find, that the womans attacker had awaited her somewhere else.
Then he caught a faint trace of excitement, something he felt almost more than scented and a hint of something else that brought Charles to the fore, drawn by something he understood better than the wolf did: spirits.
Some homes had spirits and some did not, and neither he nor Charles knew why that was. Spirits werent ghosts; they were the consciousness of things that Charless da didnt believe were alive: trees and water, stones and earth. Houses and apartments some of them, anyway.
This one was faint and shy, better for the shamans son to deal with rather than the wolf.
Show me, said Charles to the spirit of the house.Show me who waited here.
The condo was new. It had not been a home for generations of children, so the spirit was weak. All it was able to give them was an impression of patience and largeness, so much larger than she whose home this was. Clean smelling no, that was wrong; he smelled of cleaners. He carried a
something.
Something? Charles was patient with it.A weapon? Brother Wolf provided the smell of a gun, oil, powder, metal.
Swift negation and a response, an answer more sensory than in words: something soft, mostly textile, with only a hint of metal.
A bag, like a gym bag, Charles thought, picturing such a bag carefully in his head, and the spirit all but jumped for joy, providing more and more information about the bag. As if by naming it, Charles had pulled a cork out of the bottle of what the spirit knew.
He brought a bag, Brother Wolf told A
He has no scent? A
He hid his scent with magic that feels something like fae magic, Charles told her.
Brother Wolf thought of the bitter taste that still lingered on his tongue from the kidnappers blood.It also feels like witch magic, black and blood-soaked.
Charles agreed.It feels less
civilized than the fae magic Im familiar with.
Would a witch have been able to carry a full-grown woman down twelve flights of stairs? A
Maybe not directly, answered Charles after a moment of consideration,but there are ways.
Early in the hunt, said A
Exactly, agreed Charles.
Who do we know who knows a lot about fae and their magic? asked A
We have a better source, suggested Brother Wolf.Her father is old and powerful.
He reached for a sword, A
Brother Wolf supplied the memory of the scent of creatures that were older than a few centuries, a light fragrance that grew richer.
Old, explained Charles.
And then they gave her what power smelled like among the fae, begi
So a fae will probably not smell more powerful or old than he is, said A
Brother Wolf huffed out an affirmative sneeze. Charles added,I think it might be a good thing to discuss this with Lizzies father when there are no humans present.
Discuss how powerful he is? asked his mate, a corner of her mouth twitched up. She knew what Charles had meant she had a silly sense of humor sometimes. Brother Wolf liked that about her. Charles, however, was in a more serious mood and treated her question as if shed really meant it.
No. Discuss with him what kind of fae would fit the parameters we have been given for this serial killer.
Brother Wolf sneezed to let her know that he thought she was fu
Did you find something? asked Leslie as A
A
Yes, A
or has some access to fae magic. He concealed himself in her bathroom and waited for her to come to him.