Black Wings, Gray Skies (Black Hat Bureau 4)

“The donuts were phenomenal,” he continued, “but not very filling.”

“You only ate, like, eighteen of them.”

“It’s not my fault you and Ace are lightweights. Who only eats three donuts?”

“That’s all we had time for before the Hoover in the backseat sucked down the rest.”

“You knew the risks, and yet you let me hold the boxes.”

“What did you find?” I offered Asa a hand up, and he took it. “Does it tie into our case?”

“Tracy is dead.” He shucked his soggy underwear. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Neither had I.

Goddess bless, Asa was not just a little naked, but all the way naked, and I was staring.

Clay dug his fingertips into my shoulders and spun me in the opposite direction faster than I could blink.

“Put that away,” he scolded Asa. “Can’t you tell this trembling virgin is terrified of the one-eyed snake?”

“Really?” I cranked my head toward him, only to get smacked in the face with my discarded clothes. “That’s what you went with?”

He had done me a favor, really. I didn’t want Asa to feel like I viewed him with the same raw hunger as a fresh heart, warm and dribbling juices, because drool flecked my parted lips. Even if it might be true.

“The connectors in your brain shook loose.” He massaged my scalp while I dressed, mostly to control the direction of my head. “I had to act fast to preserve as many cells as possible.”

“And you thought pulling out the one-eyed snake would do the job?”

“No.” He tugged the end of my hair. “Pulling it out caused the problem in the first place.”

The peep show was over by the time Clay finished teasing me, for which I was grateful.

There was a time and a place for lascivious thoughts, and right now was neither.

Dang it.

With a flick of my wand, I dissolved the spell concealing us before our absence made us suspect.

“There was no body, per se.” Asa ignored us discussing his, um, snake. “There was skin.”

That shocked my mind out of the gutter with a jolt. “Skin?”

An evidence baggie, or snack baggie as Clay called them, had kept Asa’s phone dry during his swim.

“Yards of it.” He woke his display then turned the screen toward us. “Sliced to ribbons.”

Tracy Amerson had never left the bathroom. Her remains, such as they were, unfurled from her stall.

“I peel apples that way.” Clay dropped the humor too. “What the actual fuck?”

Thankfully, Colby was off in her own world, but still.

“Language,” I reminded him. “Colby doesn’t need to start cursing like a sailor.”

“Sailors could take pointers from me.”

Given his age, all that he had seen and done since his creation, he was probably right.