Soul Taken (Mercy Thompson 13)

“I am telling what happened,” said Zee curtly.

“We don’t have enough bodies to have a pattern,” George said. “A witch, yes. But the second victim is human.”

Zee didn’t address that directly. “There was a policeman. In those days we hid ourselves, but there are mortals whose eyes are open. They do not try to find mundane explanations for inexplicable things. This policeman was one of those. When he saw bodies slashed to pieces as if someone were harvesting wheat... he did not look at them and think a normal human had killed them. His involvement concerned someone who decided to do something about the situation. She had an inkling about what was happening, and so did I come to the Tri-Cities. The sickle was not of my making, but she didn’t know that.”

Zee shrugged and straightened a few tools on one of the rolling carts, his face casually turned away from the rest of us. I wondered if it was indignation at answering a summons, but I didn’t think that he’d have hidden that.

My phone rang.

I dug it out of my pocket, but I was watching Zee and caught a glimpse of his expression.

Avarice was one of the deadly sins, wasn’t it?

I glanced at my phone’s screen. The caller’s number was unavailable. Thinking about what I’d seen on Zee’s face, I hit the green button.

“Hello?” I’d called Samuel this morning, looking for information on Sherwood. He hadn’t picked up, so I’d left a message. Sometimes his calls registered as unavailable.

“Hello?” I said.

Silence. Telemarketing companies sometimes auto-dialed and ended up with more calls than their people could handle at once. They usually hung up after a few seconds. This one didn’t.

I couldn’t hear anyone breathing, but I could hear something. Faint whispers of the wind and traffic. Something set the hair on the back of my neck crawling. I knew it wasn’t Samuel on the other end. I don’t know how or why, but it didn’t feel like Samuel.

“Stefan?” I asked.

With a click the call disconnected.

“Mercy?” Adam asked.

I shook my head. Now that I’d disconnected, I couldn’t put my finger on why I’d gotten so freaked-out. I flexed my hands and they hurt. I shivered.

“Mercy? Was it Stefan?” Adam’s voice centered me.

“It’s nothing. Paranoia.” I waved my hand, taking in the daylight streaming through the skylights. “It’s daytime. Stefan would be asleep—and he’s not likely to call me and then not talk.” Some vampires could function during the day. Wulfe could. “It was a telemarketer.” By then I was able to make the last sentence a truthful one. “Anyone spiked by spider-fae-from-hell gets to be paranoid for a few hours.”

“I can find out who it was.” Adam took out his own phone and texted.

George grinned. “Are your people illegally hacking into the phone system?” he asked. “Again?”

“You are a cop,” Adam said. “How stupid do I look?”

“If you can’t find anything, you can give it to me,” George offered. “I have friends.”

I looked at Zee. “Do you see what I have to put up with? A telemarketer calls and all hell breaks loose.”

“I told you what would happen when you started dating an Alpha werewolf,” Zee said without sympathy.

The call over–dealt with, George’s face grew serious. “How many people died, Zee?” he asked. “When was this? I’ve served my time on cold cases and attended some serial killer seminars, a couple focusing specifically on the ones who operate or have operated in Washington, and I haven’t heard about people being killed with a sickle.”

“You would not have heard of this,” Zee said. “Most of the victims were never reported—like your disappearing witches. I think there were official reports on three—though those were destroyed. The situation was managed so that nothing was publicized, and the investigating officer was shut down.” Zee frowned. “I did not like that part. He was a good man doing a hard job, and the way he was quieted was crude. He quit his job soon after.”

“You caught the killer,” I said.

“It stopped,” Zee told me heavily. “It was not me. The sickle and the boy it had used were left for me. They were left where Uncle Mike could find them, but it was understood by both of us that they were left for me.”

“What happened to the sickle?” Adam asked.

“I destroyed it.” Zee’s lip curled. “It was crude old black craft. Witchcraft.” He paused as if reconsidering his opinion. “Effective,” he allowed. “But still crude.”