Embraced By Darkness (Riley Jenson Guardian 5)

"Not according to the lab results."

"But he tore that poor woman apart. A human just isn't capable of that sort of strength."

"You mentioned possible vamp involvement in your report."

"Yeah, but if a vamp had been there, we would have smelled him."

He gave me the "look." "Not necessarily. Some of us do wash, you know."

I smiled. "Those of you who do are few and far between." Smelling like the grave seemed to be the "in" thing amongst Jack's lot. Though, admittedly, I did know some very nice-smelling vamps. Jack was one. Quinn was another. Even the cow smelled pleasant, though I was never likely to tell her that. "Besides, if there was someone else involved, wouldn't there have been some indication? Surely Cole and his team would have found something - some hint or clue to suggest this?"

"Not if our vamp was an extremely strong psychic."

"Can even the most powerful psychic push a human to superhuman extremes? I've never heard of a talent that could endow someone with that sort of strength."

"There's a lot of talents out there that we know a whole lot of nothing about," Rhoan commented. "And there arc lots of labs playing around with all sorts of enhancing drugs."

"A comforting thought for those of us on the front line," I muttered.

"Give it a few more years, and you won't even blink at the sort of crap you see or find."

"Actually, that's a place I'm fighting to stay away from."

Rhoan's gaze met mine, gray eyes serious. "You won't have any other choice but to find that place in yourself. It's either that, or go mad."

"Then going mad is the better option."

I didn't want to have the skill to switch my emotions off. Didn't want to ever lose the anger and horror of walking into a crime scene and seeing another useless death. For good or for bad, I was now a guardian, but I'd be damned if I became just another cold-blooded killer.

Which my brother, for all that I loved him, could be. I'd seen it happen. Seen the switch flicked.

It was damn scary stuff.

"Business, people, business," Jack said. "Riley, I want you to go check the boyfriend's current residence. See if there's anything there that hints at supernatural or nonhuman involvement. Then check the girl's apartment and go talk to her parents."

I nodded. "What makes you think the boyfriend may have known this vamp, if indeed there was a vamp?"

"I doubt it was mere coincidence that this vamp and those two young people happened to arrive at that house the same night. Something is going on, and we need to uncover what."

Before it happened again.

And it would happen again.

I shivered and rubbed my arms, wishing my goddamn clairvoyance would be a little more helpful. Like, give me a name, or a location, or something useful like that. Weird little premonitions of impending doom weren't going to help anything, least of all my nerves.

"Rhoan, how are you going with the Footscray killings?"

I jumped off the desk as Rhoan made his report, then dumped my purse on the next desk and sat down, logging into the computer and holding still for the eye scan. Once I'd typed in my password, I entered the system and pulled up Cole's files. I studied his report, but avoided the pictures. I'd seen more than enough bloodshed and human bits up close and personal.

There was nothing that leapt out and waved clue. Nothing that explained the sudden act of violence by a man apparently ready and willing to settle down with the woman he'd so brutally murdered.

Why would he do such a thing? There was no history of violence in Liam Barry's background, no brushes with the law. He'd been a model student through school and university, and had been considered by the law firm he worked for future partner material.

So what had turned him? And how had he managed to tear Callie Harris - the woman he supposedly loved - limb from limb?

I didn't know, but I had every intention of finding out.

I checked both his and his parents' address, then glanced up at Jack, waiting until he and Rhoan had finished discussing the baby vamp case before saying, "I need a car."