Mark of the Demon (Kara Gillian 1)

His lips twitched into something vaguely resembling a smile. “I’m going to give this one to you, since right now you know the most about the Symbol Man cases.”

I stared at him for several heartbeats, certain that I’d misheard him. “You want me to work with Crawford and the others on this?”

He shook his head. “No. I want you to take this case.”

I was suddenly insanely grateful that Crawford had remained by the body. I didn’t even want to think what his reaction would be to this. “Sir, you do remember that I have no experience with working homicides?”

“And you never will unless you work one,” he replied with calm logic.

“Well, yes, but—”

He held up his hand to cut me off. “Gillian, you’ll be fine. You’ve proven yourself with your white-collar crime cases, which is why your transfer to Violent Crimes was approved. And it’s not like you’re going to be on your own with this. Crawford and Boudreaux can help point you in the right direction, and I plan on pushing the chief about forming a task force.”

“Yes, sir.” Holy shit. He really is throwing me a Symbol Man case! I gave him my best effort at a confident smile, trying to avoid looking either cocky or nervous. I’d heard that Captain Turnham liked to throw new detectives into the deep end. I just hadn’t expected to be forced to swim so quickly.

“You’re a good detective,” he continued. “You’ll do just fine.” Then in the next breath he said, “But don’t relax too much. It’s in our jurisdiction, which means if we do get a task force, I’m going to make sure you’re the lead.”

Are you fucking serious? I thought. “I appreciate the opportunity,” I said instead, keeping my voice even and calm. It was a damn good thing that he couldn’t hear the racing of my pulse. Holy shit! I’m the fucking lead on a Symbol Man case!

Captain Turnham nodded toward the other detectives. “Tell Crawford to get you caught up. I need to go talk to the chief.”

“Sure thing, Captain.” Oh, yeah, this would be interesting.

Crawford and Jill walked up to me as soon as the captain left. “So, what’s his take on it?” Crawford asked.

I turned to him, making an extra effort to maintain a cool and professional demeanor, even though I wanted to jump up and down in excitement or do something else that would have been completely inappropriate on a murder scene. “Well, he thinks it looks enough like a Symbol Man case to treat it as such.”

He shrugged and nodded. “Okay, makes sense. I’ll need you to fill me in on details as soon as you can.”

“Yeah. About that.”

He looked at me expectantly.

“Captain Turnham said that the case is mine,” I added in a rush.

His eyes widened in shock. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Yeah, he wasn’t one to hide his emotions. “Actually, no, I’m not fucking kidding you.” I kept my tone cordial but firm. “He said I need the experience, and since I have the most knowledge of the Symbol Man cases—”

“You read through the case files a couple of weeks ago,” he exclaimed, face reddening. “That doesn’t make you a fucking expert!”

I blinked, briefly shocked by the force of his reaction. Then I recovered and narrowed my eyes. Screw cordial. I leaned forward, lowering my voice and drawing on my experience in dealing with demons to keep from losing my careful composure. “It’s not my fucking fault, Crawford,” I said, nearly snarling. “I didn’t ask for it, and if it bugs you that fucking much, then take it up with the fucking captain!”

He looked at me for several heartbeats, expression stony. “The security guard who found the body is ninety if he’s a day and is waiting to be interviewed at the front office,” he finally snapped. “You have no other witnesses. Have fun.” With that, he turned and stalked off.

I watched him go, clenching my hands to keep them from trembling.

“Okay, he’s a dick,” Jill said quietly from beside me.>In my entire life I’d had only two boyfriends, and neither relationship had lasted longer than a few months—each man ending it with the complaint that I was too private and wouldn’t “open up.” I’d fabricated lies and excuses for why I was always busy on the full moon or why he couldn’t stay the night at my place, but the constant deception had been tiring. It was the same reason why I’d never had any sleepovers when I was a kid and why I’d had so few friends—none of them close—in high school. There are worse things to endure, I told myself, not for the first time. Being a summoner is worth it.

I shoved aside the doubt that always accompanied that thought and glanced back at the man coming toward us. Jill kept her expression neutral, but I knew that she didn’t care much for Detective Cory Crawford. He was another transplant from the south shore, though he was from Jefferson Parish instead of the city. Jefferson Parish was just west of New Orleans and had almost as much crime as the city. He’d been with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office for almost fifteen years and working Homicide for over ten of those years, which meant that he had the most experience of anyone at Beaulac PD except for the captain.

And he made sure everyone knew it.

“Prepare to be astounded by his brilliance,” Jill said in a low voice before Crawford reached us, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing.

Cory Crawford was a stoutly built man, not quite gone to fat though obviously battling a growing midsection. He had gray hair that he stubbornly dyed a dull brown, a neatly trimmed mustache that was dyed to match, and brown eyes that were so close to the color of his hair that many suspected he had specifically matched the two. In stark contrast to the all-consuming brown of his coloring, Crawford preferred to wear highly colorful ties, especially favoring the mildly psychedelic Jerry Garcia brand. A faint scent of wintergreen and tobacco clung to him, and I was exceedingly grateful that we were on a crime scene so I wouldn’t have to be subjected to the sight of him spitting tobacco juice onto the ground or into an empty bottle.

Detective Crawford gave a bare nod to Jill and a slight glower to me. “I hear you’re the resident expert on the Symbol Man cases.”