Secrets of the Demon (Kara Gillian 3)

“Any luck pinning down what it is?” he asked quietly.

I twitched a shoulder up in a shrug. “I have some theories. But I’m not sure it matters. It doesn’t point to who might be controlling it, or how to stop it.”

He laid a hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Well, then we’ll simply have to resort to over-the-top violence.”

I laughed and gave him a grateful smile for pulling me free of the funk before I could get into it.

He stood and I followed suit. “I’d better call Zack and fill him in,” he said.

“And I need to call my rank.” And how was I going to justify to Crawford that I knew this was connected to Vic Kerry’s murder? I fought back a sigh. Deal with that later. For now, follow procedure.

Fortunately, there was no one else left in the building, which made it easy to secure the scene. Zack arrived about ten minutes later, with Jill pulling up in the crime scene van right behind him.

“You know what I love about working your scenes?” she asked after I filled her in on what I had. “The fact that I do all sorts of work and collect all sorts of evidence, and then I never have to actually process any of it since you then go off and solve the case using your spooooky demon powers.” She wiggled her fingers at me and made an absurd face.

I had to laugh. “That’s so not true, but I will say that I highly doubt that the perp in this one left behind any fingerprints.”

She wrinkled her nose as she readied her camera. “Well, unfortunately I still have to check for prints, since it’ll look pretty bad if I don’t.”

“And it’s always possible that I’m wrong,” I added.

“Well, I’m still not gonna waste my time hunting down matches for fingerprints on AFIS until you tell me to.” She stepped past me and began photographing the scene. I grinned and stayed out of her way.

Crawford showed up as Jill was finishing up her pictures. He peered down at the crumpled body and then looked back up at me. He opened his mouth to say something then closed it again, clearly conflicted. He flicked a glance around, taking in the people present.

Finally he cleared his throat and returned his focus to me. “I take it you have some reason to believe this wasn’t an accident?”

I nodded. Shit. How was I supposed to explain? This one wasn’t as easy as saying a dog had been chasing me. “There are some, er, similarities to the Victor Kerry scene, as well as to the attack on Lida Moran in New Orleans.”

His inner turmoil was painfully obvious. Even Ryan and Zack seemed to be aware of it as they stood silently by, carefully pretending to be paying no attention to our conversation.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. Then he swept his gaze over the agents. “This is some kind of supernatural-type bullshit, isn’t it?”

Ryan gave Crawford a grave nod. “In a way, yes. Our task force often handles cases that fall outside the commonly accepted norm.”

Crawford gave a snort. “ ‘Commonly accepted norm.’ I don’t fucking believe this.” He looked almost relieved, though, as if the fact that Ryan had admitted it helped to prove he hadn’t lost his mind.

“Sarge,” I began, but he held up his hand to stop me.

“Kara. It ... it’s okay.” He still had a pained expression, but he didn’t look miserably conflicted anymore. “So, are you some kind of psychic or witch or something?”

I fought the urge to smile. “Not exactly. I ... um ... have the ability to see arcane power and can shape it for certain purposes.”

He blew out his breath. “Fucking shit, but that explains a lot about you.”

I burst out laughing. He looked at me sharply, then joined in a second later. After a few seconds he regained control of himself and looked over at Jill. “And you’re part of this X-Files crap too?”

She made a rude noise. “Look, just because I hang out with these weird peeps doesn’t mean I’m one of them!”

That seemed to relieve Crawford more than anything. “All right. So, what do you really have here, Kara?”

“I have reason to believe that an inanimate creature controlled by supernatural means was involved in the attack on Lida Moran and in the two murders.”

I could see him visible struggling to accept the otherworldly aspect to all of this. “Okay,” he said slowly, voice perhaps a tiny bit shaky. “What do you do now?”

I spread my hands. “For now, treat it like any other investigation.”

Relief filled his eyes. He knew how to handle “any other investigation.”