No Humans Involved (Otherworld 7)

I followed her. "They're from last night. The meeting."

Her face scrunched in distaste. "In other words, as you said, it was consensual. Which explains why I'm not getting much in the way of chaos vibes."

Jeremy hadn't said a word. Not unusual. But when I looked over, I saw him staring out across the room, nostrils flared. He turned his head slowly, inhaling, as if trying to get a fix on a scent. Then his gaze came to rest on a wall of boxes along the wall--the wall with the embedded hooks.

"Those boxes weren't like that last night," I said, walking toward it.

Jeremy called to me, but I was only a few feet away and by the time I realized he was trying to stop me, I could see a foot protruding from behind the stack. I backpedaled to avoid an attack. Then I saw the hook, and the chain pulled taut and, without thinking, I stepped sideways for a better view.

A man hung suspended from the hook by the chain. His feet touched the ground, knees bent, dangling. My first thought was How do you hang yourself if you can touch the ground? Then I saw the choke chain around his neck.

Jeremy put his hand on my shoulder, but didn't pull me away. If I wanted to look, that was my choice. He moved past me to examine the body.

The man's head drooped, but even before I saw his face, I knew it was Botnick. His eyes were bulging. His fingers were wrapped around the chain at his neck, as if he'd tried to pull it free.

"He couldn't get it loose," said a soft voice behind me. Hope's. "They took off the helmet and kicked his legs out from under him, and the chain tightened, but something kept it from loosening, even after he got his footing."

Jeremy moved alongside the body, looking without touching. Watching him, my gaze moved down Botnick for the first time, and noticed something...unexpected.

"He's not wearing any pants. Did they...rape him?"

"Doesn't appear so," Jeremy said. "There's no sign of struggle. I think that was intentional--using a spell to restrain him--so there wouldn't be any marks. Nothing to indicate he didn't do this to himself. As for the pants, though..."

"That's intentional," Hope said. "They've set the scene for autoerotic asphyxiation."

I explained to Jeremy.

"Ah," he said. "And, given the nature of this room and the equipment upstairs, that's exactly the sort of thing the authorities would expect someone like Botnick to do."

SO WE did have a murder. Jeremy had found a return trail because Botnick had been in and out of this basement several times in the last twenty-four hours.

Had he made contact with the group? Gotten in touch with his former lover, who'd called her former lover and they'd set up a meeting with Botnick? It wasn't the only possibility. Maybe that cult member he'd whipped last night had her "I'm not going to take it anymore" epiphany, and had come back to kill him. Or maybe it was a customer, furious that his "ground rhino penis" hadn't outperformed Viagra, as advertised. Guys like Botnick had their share of enemies--not all the most stable individuals.

But that would be mighty coincidental and wouldn't explain the magical weakening Hope had picked up. So we set to work playing CSI. The supernatural version. The werewolf untangled and followed scent trails. The half-demon reviewed the death vision. And the necromancer tried to contact the spirit of the deceased.

I summoned Botnick repeatedly, with no luck. Not surprising really. Rigor mortis had set in and the body had cooled, meaning he'd been dead for hours.

Newly dead spirits don't hang around long before someone whisks them off to the afterlife, and once they're gone, necromancers can't make contact until the powers-that-be decide they're ready to receive visitors. Still, I tried, in case Botnick hadn't been scooped up yet. I was about to give up when I spotted a shape slipping through a stack of boxes across the room.

"You!"

I advanced on the ghost. It was the voyeur from the night before. He started to fade.

"Don't you dare," I said. "Unless you want to be reported for loitering at the scene of an unauthorized occult gathering, I'd suggest you tell me what you saw."

"I didn't--"

"Yes, you did. You're the only witness to a murder and you'd better tell me what you saw or you'll add 'failing to remain at the scene' to those charges."

He peered at me, his eyes narrowing. I tried to look severe. Even fierce. I think I blew it when I went for fierce.

"Pfft," he said, and started to fade.

A bolt of energy sliced through the boxes and hit him in the stomach. He yelped and stumbled. Eve strode from the crate pile and kicked the man's legs out from under him. When he fell, she planted her boot on his throat.

"Feel more like talking now?" she asked.

He yowled as she ground her foot into his neck.