Mark of the Demon (Kara Gillian 1)

Dr. Vaughn nodded, pursing her lips. “Oh, yes. Or, rather, I can tell you how long the bodies have been out here.” She flicked a finger at a fly. “These are blowflies.” She glanced over her shoulder at the lake. “And out here in the open like this, flies are going to find these bodies almost instantly.” She looked down by her feet, then picked up a number of tiny black pellets. She peered at them, then held them out toward me. “These are the egg cases, and these,” she poked at a few of the pellets that looked as if one end had been cut off, “have already hatched.”

I looked at the egg cases and then up at her. “Okay.”

Dr. Vaughn met my eyes. “Give me a few minutes and I should be able to give you a time frame.”

“You got it. Just don’t make me pick up any bugs.”

Dr. Vaughn gave a throaty laugh. “Deal.” She turned away and crouched, examining the insects on the bodies with what I privately thought was an insane amount of interest.

Heck, who am I to judge? I thought, wrinkling my nose. She does bugs, and I do demons.

I moved to the side to keep out of the way of both doctors as they examined the bodies and conferred with each other in hushed voices. Finally Doc turned to me. “Crime Scene has taken pictures of the pile already, so I’m going to have them start moving the bodies, unless there’s anything else you want to look at.” He nodded toward three men in striped outfits who were clambering down the slope—trustees who would get extra “credit” for helping to remove bodies on this scene.

“Go for it,” I replied. I could feel only the faintest flickers of the arcane, and with all the insect activity I couldn’t even tell if the symbol was on any of these bodies. It would seriously suck if these were not Symbol Man victims. Two serial killers would be more than we could handle. Hell, one is more than we can handle.

Doc flicked his fingers to dislodge a stray maggot, lip curling in disgust. “As soon as these guys get the bodies off one another, I’ll be able to tell more.”

I didn’t have to wait long. As the first body was pulled away from the others and turned over, I could clearly see the symbol that had been carved onto the chest. Okay, so we’re still dealing with the same killer, I thought with strange relief.>“Whoa, whoa, slow down. Okay, it’s Greg’s dad. So where is he now?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know what he looks like or what he’s doing.”

I heard him mutter a curse. “All right. Well, it’s a start, at least. I can go back and do some legwork and see if he had any prints on file or anything like that.”

“I bet Greg had photos of his dad.”

“Mr. Greg Cerise is quite dead, and the search warrant on that residence is no longer valid.”

“Details, details!” I retorted. “I’ll find you a damn photo.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

The search warrant was expired, but at this point I really didn’t give a shit. I called dispatch and got the number for the owner of the house, Greg’s erstwhile landlady, a Ms. Dana Sebastian. I dialed as I drove to the house.

A woman answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hello, this is Detective Gillian with the Beaulac Police Department. Is this Dana Sebastian?”

“Yes … yes, it is. Is this about the murder?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m the lead investigator on the Symbol Man murders. Look, I know the search warrant has expired, but I really need to get back into your rental house and look for something.”

“Oh, damn, I’ve already had a crew come through to fix the door and scrub the place down, and I packed all of Greg’s stuff up. It’s all still there in boxes, though. I really don’t know what to do with any of it, to be honest. I don’t know if he has any family.”

“I can’t help you there,” I said. The only next of kin I knew of wasn’t likely to step forward just to claim some boxes of junk. “Is there any way you can come by to let me in and let me look through the stuff?”

“I’m at work and can’t get away until late this afternoon, but if you want you can let yourself in. The key’s under the frog statue on the back porch.”

“I really appreciate this,” I said fervently.

“Sure thing. I hope it helps you out. I still can’t believe this happened. Greg was a supernice guy and a good tenant.”

“I met him only once, but he seemed pretty cool,” I said. “Of course, the neighbor across the street was convinced he was up to no good.”

“Oh, my God, that racist bitch? I swear, I wanted to rent the place out to a black Jewish gay couple just to piss her off, but then I figured it wouldn’t be fair to the black Jewish gay couple.”

I smiled wryly. “Makes me glad I live way out in the country with no neighbors.”

“Lucky you! Look, if you need anything else, just let me know.”