The article has a frustrating lack of any real information. Mostly it recaps the timing and details of the previous murders and speculates that another was overdue. It says that the London Met Police are cooperating closely with the Agency.
The Agency. I wonder if that means Storm’s team.
On the front page of the paper are the images of the girls that the werewolf had savaged to death - ranging from age fifteen to eighteen, all similar looking with their sweet features and hair in varying degrees of blond.
If I’d had my psychic powers, would I have dreamed of them? Could I have saved any of them? Have I made the wrong choice by choosing to keep wearing Theo’s amulet? These are the thoughts that haunt me every time I see this news story.
I turn over the page, and find a grainy black and white photo on the second page. It was taken at night, and shows the Special Agents working at the scene of the crime. My pulse rockets when I spot Storm. The picture is too grainy and the figure too distant to really tell for sure that it is him, but I know it is.
If Storm is there then it has to be another Wolf-Claw Kill. Not that any of the team have contacted me to let me know if they are working the Wolf-Claw case, but I have no doubt that they will be. Storm’s team is the Agency’s top team for murders involving otherkind. It makes sense they would be working this case.
It stings that Storm hasn’t even messaged me about it. It has been three weeks since I practically solved the copycat Devil Claw case on my own, and the chief had agreed that Storm could continue to hire me as a consultant on a case-by-case basis, but Storm hasn’t called me once. Not once.
Oh, I had gone for dinner with the team that Monday after catching the killer. It had been like a little celebration for a case closed, but no other dinner invitations had been forthcoming. Not even from Remi.
I sigh. I should probably be glad. If Storm called me I would have to tell him my psychic powers are on the blink, and then he might never call me again. I am still hoping I will have them sorted before he makes that call. I have to get them sorted. I will get them sorted. I will. Because I need to work for the Agency if I am ever going to catch the Devil Claw Killer and make him suffer for what he did to my mother.
The café’s door opens and a swift breeze rushes in with a bunch of new customers. I glance up hoping to see India, but she is not among them. I check the time on my phone. She is twenty-five minutes late. That’s nearly half my lunch hour gone. I feel a twinge of disappointment. Something has no doubt held her up. I can’t wait for her much longer. I flag down a waitress and order a panini and a tea.
After eating it I find myself yawning again. I decide to rest my head on the table for a few minutes, and next thing I know I am raising my head from the table and blinking blearily and realizing it is ten past two. Not only is my lunch hour over, but I should have been back at the office ten minutes ago!
Swallowing my disappointment that India never turned up, I grab India’s wolfsbane potion and run back to the shop.
The front door of Grimshaw’s is still locked, just as I had left it. Either Theo has not come down or he is pottering around his workshop working on some new project. Unlocking the door, I let myself in.
A man follows me in, so close at my heels that he must have been just outside. And yet I had not noticed him.
“Diana Bellona?” he says.
I turn to him in surprise, feeling totally creeped out that he knows my name. I’ve never told my full name to anyone, not even the regulars, and he is not one of them.
“Maybe. How can I help?”
The man is of average height, a couple of inches shy of six feet, with muddy brown hair and a day or two’s worth of stubble on his cheeks. Early thirties maybe, and wearing smart-casual clothes that are more rumpled than smart. He might have come into the store before, but I can’t be sure.
“You’re a friend of India Lawrenson, are you?” he says.
I frown at him. Did she send him? “Yeah, I know India. Why?”
“Yes or no?” he demands.
“I can’t see how it is any of your business.” I know that my attitude isn’t endearing me to him, but neither is his making me like him much at all.
He gives me a smile that isn’t much of a smile. “Didn’t you just have lunch with her?”
How the hell does he know about that?
I find myself reaching into my bag for the wolfsbane-dipped dart that Theo had given me. I could jab him with it right now and he wouldn’t see it coming. Except I’ll look a damn fool if he is just some harmless human. And if I do it here, they’ll know I got the dart from Theo and he might be in a bunch of trouble for using magic against an unarmed human.
Goddamn hyperactive mind! Times like this I wish the little voice in my head, Nemesis, were still here. She would know what to do.
I retreat to behind the relative safety of the counter before withdrawing my hand from my satchel. I place a finger on the discrete alarm button that will have Theo here in a flash if I press it. Theo, an experienced wizard in his forties, will make mince meat of this guy.
I fix a polite smile on my face and switch to a more conciliatory bland tone. “I’m sorry. Who are you?” I ask.
“Detective Inspector Brynden Zael, Metropolitan Police.” He shows me his police badge. It looks real. I should be reassured, but it just makes me feel even more on edge. My guilty conscience I suppose.
But I haven’t done anything, and I’d damn well better act like it. “Is India alright?” I ask. “Did something happen to her?”