Mark of the Demon (Kara Gillian 1)

I ignored them and crouched about a foot from the body. Even as I watched, the strands were dissipating. Another twenty minutes and they would be just smudges. Definitely a fresh dump. And, unfortunately, not too difficult to believe that it could be dumped here unseen. “Who found the body?” I asked no one in particular, not taking my eyes off the arcane leavings.

“Anonymous call,” Garner answered. “No luck tracing it.”

He wanted us to find this body quickly. But why? I couldn’t wrap my mind around any answer that made sense. I could accept that the body at the treatment plant had been found quickly by accident, but the one at the ball field had been in plain sight. And now this one—with the phone call to make sure that we found it quickly. I was missing some key connection, some compelling reason for the change in method.

I leaned closer, looking at the ground beside the body. A single strand of arcane energy was twisting, and I realized with a shock that it was forming and unforming a rune. Excited, I hurriedly pulled my notebook out and sketched the rune, shielding the page from the eyes of the others as best I could. As soon as I was done with that one, I focused on another, sketching it as well. I forgot about the men clustered behind me as I slowly crabbed my way around the body, sketching runes as I saw them. Finally, when all the runes had faded away, I stood and closed my notebook.

Kristoff had taken his sunglasses off again, a frown creasing his forehead as he eyed me. Harris stood with his arms crossed and a dark scowl on his face. Crap, they think I’m totally crazy. Now I had to hope that the chief wouldn’t hear about this.

Kristoff’s eyes slid away from me and went to the body on the ground. I followed his gaze and realized with a guilty start that I had yet to actually look at the body.

She was nude, with dark hair that had been permed a few too many times. Bile rose in my throat as I looked at the girl’s eyes. At first glance I merely thought that the girl had died with her eyes wide open, but then I realized with a sick jolt that the eyelids had been cut away. Like the others, she had the deep ligature marks in her throat from strangulation, and she also had the hundreds of precise slices on her limbs and torso, just like the first girl. I looked for and found the nicks in the veins at her elbows, but when I looked to see if her ankle veins had been cut as well, I had another jolt: the girl’s achilles tendons had been cut.

No chance to get away. Had she tried to escape? Had she fought back?

“Jesus,” Agent Garner breathed. “He cut her eyelids off.”

I glanced up at him and nodded, then went back to examining the body. I couldn’t see the symbol, but I knew it was there. This was my guy. I knew it.

Kristoff frowned. “I don’t see that trademark symbol on her.”

“It’s there,” I replied.

Harris spoke up, tugging at his tie. “This could be a copycat. The details of the symbol have never been released to the public, correct?”

I turned to look at him. “You’re right, it hasn’t, but just because you don’t see it right here doesn’t mean it’s not on her somewhere. A couple of times the pathologist has been the one to find it. Plus, the other two did have it.”

Harris pursed his lips sourly. “These murders have never been so close together, either, or so easily found. It would make sense that these newer ones might be a copycat.”

I shook my head. “No, there are—” I stopped. How the hell was I going to explain the arcane smudges? “There are other details that are similar.”

“What other details?” Harris challenged. “We’ve read all your reports.”

Crap. I hadn’t expected them to be up to speed so quickly. “All my reports? How?”

Agent Garner spoke up with a smile. “Your captain forwarded everything to us after the body was found at the park. We were actually going over the details for getting the task force organized when this call came out, so we headed right on over here.”

Okay, he was definitely a newbie. He hadn’t learned how to be a dick yet. “Ah, well, there are still some things in my notes, you know. I didn’t realize my captain had spoken to y’all.” I turned and glared at my captain, but he was too far away to feel my gaze.

“What were you sketching, Detective Gillian?” It was Agent Kristoff again, watching me with a carefulness that was close to unnerving.

I gave him a bright, ingenuous smile. “Oh, you know. Doodling to get my thoughts in line.” Okay, so they were going to think I was crazy and incompetent. This was just great. “Look, guys, how about we meet up back at the station and go over all of this?” I really did want the resources of the task force. I just didn’t want them to think I was nuts.

“That’s acceptable,” Harris huffed, glancing at his watch. “We’ll meet you back there in one hour.” It wasn’t a question.

I plastered an accommodating smile onto my face. “One hour works for me.”

“And bring all of your notes,” Harris said.

“Oh, absolutely, guys. I’m eager to get y’all’s take on this stuff.” I even meant it. Sort of. But I realized that I was going to have to be careful to keep Harris from walking all over me.

Just like keeping a demon in check.

Harris and Garner turned to walk back to the cars. I began to follow them but stopped when Kristoff put his hand on my arm.

I frowned and looked down at his hand on my arm, then back up at him. “Is there a problem?” I asked, tone icy, refraining from saying something equally nice like, Get your fucking hand off my arm, asshole.

He didn’t release my arm. Instead, he glanced to see that the others were still walking away, then leaned in closer to me. “You saw something on the ground. What was it?”