Mark of the Demon (Kara Gillian 1)

I dragged my eyes up from the wild red and blue pattern of his tie. “Expert? I’ve read the file on the old cases. That’s about it.”

Crawford’s expression soured still further. “And that apparently makes you more of an expert than anyone else here. Or so our captain has stated.”

It obviously pained him to admit that he wasn’t the sole fount of all knowledge. But the detective who’d been the lead on the cases before was retired and long gone, living in North Carolina. And the two other detectives who’d worked with him had both gone to work for other agencies. I knew I was pretty much the only one in the department who was up to speed on the cases, but I sure as hell hadn’t expected the captain to champion me to such a degree. “Er … I guess I am.” I ran my fingers through my hair, somewhat discomfited. No pressure. Yeesh. “So who recognized the symbol?”

“No one has recognized it,” Crawford corrected me gruffly. “This is not yet deemed a Symbol Man case. But Captain Turnham told me to let you take a look at it.”

Holy crap, but that had to have hacked him off. “All right. Let me take a look at it, then,” I said, feigning casualness. I wasn’t about to let him know just how badly I wanted to do this.

Crawford’s lips tightened, then he shot a look to Jill. “Are you finished processing enough for her to go look at the body?”

Jill nodded, maintaining an outward appearance of serene calm. “Yes, of course.”

Crawford spun and marched off toward the body. Jill and I exchanged a glance that we both knew meant What a dick, and then we followed him, trying not to laugh.

All thoughts of laughter died away as I got my first close look at the damage that had been done to the young woman. I sucked my breath in as my stomach clenched. “Holy shit.”

A muscle in Crawford’s jaw twitched. “I’ve never seen anything like this, Kara. It turns my stomach, and you know that I can handle a lot.”

There was nothing covering the body. What I had thought to be netting was actually the woman’s flesh. Precise parallel cuts had been made along the woman’s arms, legs, torso—a slice every half inch from the neck down, so perfectly placed that I could have used the cuts as a ruler. The only deviation in the meticulous spacing of the slices was the symbol that was centered between her breasts, carved into the flesh.

I breathed shallowly as I took in the hundreds and hundreds of thin cuts. None of them was deeper than a quarter inch, but I knew that I was looking at days of torture. It was almost a relief to drag my gaze up to examine the ligature marks at her throat—deep grooves in the flesh of her neck, with her face mottled and red above it. At least the ligature had meant an end to her agony, even if it had also meant an end to her life.

She was probably praying for an end by then.

I struggled to remain impassive and clinical as I looked over the precisely mutilated body, but it took every ounce of my self-control. I swallowed, throat achingly dry, and crouched to get a better look. This was not a brutal hacking. This was almost elegant and artistic, even as it was thoroughly horrific. All these cuts… This was all done while she was alive. And this matched the other victims. Even decomposed, there had been evidence of significant torture on those bodies.

I took a shuddering breath and steadied myself to look more deeply. More important than the strangulation and the mutilation were the features I could see that others couldn’t. I let my vision shift into othersight, breath catching in a mixture of relief and revulsion as the flickers of arcane light appeared. They were faded, but I could definitely see traces of arcane energies scattered on the body.

Just like the body I’d seen three years ago.

And now I could feel the arcane resonance—a hum of power, like a bass speaker a room away. Keeping my hand a couple of inches from actually touching the body, I spread my fingers over the symbol carved into her chest, opening myself further to that resonance. I knew that it probably looked weird as shit to anyone watching me, but I wanted to soak up as much sensation from this arcane resonance as possible.

I pulled my hand away and glanced up at Jill and Crawford, relieved to see that they were looking at the area surrounding the body and had apparently missed my faith-healer impression. Regardless, it would have been worth it. Whoever had killed this woman had been working deeply in the arcane at the same time. Was this the arcane touch that Kehlirik had felt? He’d said it had the taint of blood and death, and there was certainly plenty of that here.

I shifted my awareness back to normal sight. I could still feel the resonance, but at least now it didn’t feel as if my teeth were going to vibrate out of my head. “If it’s not the Symbol Man, then it’s one hell of a copycat,” I said for Jill’s and Crawford’s benefit, but I knew this wasn’t a copycat. Not with the symbol and the arcane traces and the timing that coincides so perfectly with the convergence of the two spheres. That’s just way too much coincidence.

“Looks like we’re going to be busy for a while,” Crawford said as I stood. “Oh, by the way, the captain said he wanted to see you when you got here.”

I nodded. “Is he on the scene?”

Crawford snorted. “As if. No, he’s conferring with the chief and some of the other brass.”

I scanned the area beyond the tape for the distinctive silhouette of the head of the detective division. Captain Turnham seldom went inside the crime-scene tape unless his presence was vitally needed. He despised being subpoenaed simply because his name had been on a crime-scene sign-in sheet and also despised seeing extraneous people on a crime scene, refusing to be one of that number. I guess he doesn’t consider me extraneous, I realized, allowing myself a brief flush of satisfaction at the thought.

Taller than most of the others on the scene by nearly a head, the captain was easy to pick out. As expected, he was standing just beyond the perimeter of the crime-scene tape. With him were Boudreaux, Pellini, and Wetzer—the three Violent Crimes detectives other than Crawford. And how are they going to handle hearing my input in this case? Will they even take me seriously? Pretty doubtful, considering that lot. There’d been a few times when my white-collar crime cases had intersected with an armed robbery or a homicide, and they’d made it quite clear that I didn’t know dick about what they did and that any opinions I had were unwelcome and unnecessary. Crawford had a huge capacity for being an ass, but at least he was fairly good at his job and was usually willing to listen to input.

I left Crawford and Jill by the body and headed toward Captain Turnham. He stepped away from the other detectives as I approached, full attention focusing on me. A tall, thin black man with arms and legs that seemed too long for his body, he’d been a police officer in New Orleans for fifteen years before moving out to “the boonies.” He’d been with the Beaulac PD for almost ten years now. He seemed humorless and dour to those who didn’t know him, but the people who worked with and for him knew that he was merely relentlessly dedicated and overly meticulous. Even now, at three a.m., he was wearing a crisp white dress shirt and khaki pants with creases sharp enough to slice bread, while every other detective on the scene was in jeans and PD T-shirts.

“Morning, Gillian.” Captain Turnham looked down at me over his wire-frame glasses.

“Morning, Captain,” I said with a small nod. “Thanks for letting me come out on this.”

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.”