So what I need to find out was who, exactly, the council had pissed off lately. And I very much doubted that it was going to be an easy task. I had no idea who the members were—besides Dante, that is, and I really didn't want to go talk to that man again—and Jack had showed no inclination to share information about the rest of them. Maybe he figured I didn't need to know any more than I already did, or maybe it was just the simple fact that he wasn't allowed to tell me. He was an advisor, after all. Maybe he had to get permission from the greater council before he could reveal that sort of information. After all, ruling bodies the world over never made it easy for anyone to get to them.
Although killers never seemed to have a problem.
My only real option was talking to Quinn. He might not have told me much about the councils, but he'd said a whole lot more than Jack, so he just might be persuaded to give me another name. If I could talk to someone—someone who wasn't sex on legs—I might just have a real chance of cracking this damn case.
I returned my attention to Cole. "Any indication on how our killer got into the house?"
"Back door was jimmied. The killer must have moved extraordinarily fast, because it appeared Bastiel had gotten no further than flipping the sheet off his face."
I frowned. "The only race who can move that fast is another vampire."
"There are several shifters who can move almost as quickly as a vampire, and almost would be fast enough in this case. A vampire's reactions tend to be slightly slower when they're waking from daytime slumber."
Which was why, throughout human history, those suspected of being vampires were staked during the daylight hours. If the staker was human, it gave them a fighting chance. Of course, opening any younger vamp's den to sunlight would have done just as good a job, but humans seemed to prefer the one-two punch, just to be sure.
"It doesn't explain how the other two were caught, though. They both awake and aware."
Cole grimaced. "You've seen the witch dust in action, so you tell me—does it act fast enough to stop a vampire reacting against an attack?"
I wrinkled my nose, remembering the zombie throwing the dust in my face and just how quickly it sucked away resistance. I'd been lucky—that lot of dust had been targeted towards vamps, not dhampires, and my werewolf blood had saved me. "Yeah, it does."
"Then that's your answer. We just have to pin down the ingredients for future reference." He gave me a weary smile. "If you could remember to grab a sample when you catch the killer, that would be of great help."
I snorted softly, and waved a hand at the body. "I guess the murderer has to be non-human. It can't be easy to hack someone's head off like that."
"A nonhuman would definitely manage it more easily than a human, no matter how strong that human was."
"So, basically, I'm looking for a nonhuman with a grudge against the vampire council. That should be easy to pin down."
Cole raised his eyebrows. "All the victims are Melbourne Council members?"
"Yes. And Jack thinks the vampire who was incinerated before the first beheading was also a council member." I paused. "Why wouldn't he tell you that?"
Cole snorted. "The councils are a secretive bunch of bastards, that's why. I doubt Jack would be able to even hint he knows who's who without seeking their permission first."
Which was basically what I'd figured. "It doesn't make our job any easier, though."
"I would hazard a guess that it wouldn't be a major concern for them." He sniffed—a disdainful sound. "They might pay lip service to the Directorate and human rules in general, but I dare say they have their own methods of dealing with situations like this."
Yeah, and they used to be called cazadors. What they were called now was anyone's guess.
"But as it's us dealing with the bodies and the press and the public, you'd think they'd be a little more helpful—especially given that they want this killer caught as much as we do."
"When have vampires ever been overly helpful if it doesn't suit them?" Cole snorted softly. "Director Hunter, Jack, and Quinn are the exceptions, not the rule."
I studied him keenly for a moment, then said, "That's a pretty fierce attitude, considering who we work for and with."
He shrugged. "Just because I think the majority are arrogant sods doesn't belittle what we do at the Directorate. We make a difference, and we stand between what are basically predators and their prey. That more than makes up for any quibbles I might have about who I have to work with at times."
"So the attitude you gave me when I first started working as a guardian was because I'm just as much a vampire as a werewolf?"
He grinned. It wiped the weariness from his face and sparkled in his bright eyes. "It certainly was. But you're actually not half bad, considering you've got two lots of bad blood."
I clapped a hand to my chest. "Be still my heart—that almost sounded like a compliment."
"As if." His smile faded a little, but the remnants still warmed the corners of his eyes, and some of the tension in him seemed to have faded. "Now, if you don't mind, I have work to do, so move those distractingly long legs of yours into another room."
"Now, that sounds more like the Cole I know and love." I gave him a sketchy salute goodbye and obeyed.
The rest of the house didn't reveal much. Bastiel might have been on the council, but his study to didn't hold any clues as to when or where they met. Maybe all such information was sent via a general telepathic broadcast to the appropriate members. I broke open a locked drawer in his desk, but it didn't hold much more than several check books and a netbook. The latter had fingerprint locks installed, so while it might have held the information I was looking for, it was more Cole's field than mine. The kitchen and dining area at the back of the house didn't hold anything in the way of revelations, either—other than the fact Bastiel was something of a neat freak. Everything gleamed, and there wasn't a speck of dust anywhere.
I was walking back up the hall to the study when the air suddenly became chilled.
It was a sensation I was all too familiar with. There was a soul here, and it wanted to speak.
Goosebumps crawled across my skin as I walked forward slowly. Dusty knelt near the body of the woman, carefully plucking a hair from her blue woolen cardigan. He glanced up as I walked into the living room, then his gaze intensified and he straightened abruptly. "You sense something?"
"Her soul is here."
"You want me to leave?"
"No." I paused, trying to pinpoint where the chill seemed to be coming from. Surprisingly, it wasn't near her body but rather over near the big bay window. "What was the housekeeper's name?"
"Helen Hills."
"Helen," I said softly, "why do you linger here? What do you need to say or do?"
My ability to communicate with the dead had gotten a lot stronger in recent months, and their ability to gain shape and materialize long enough to actually speak in my presence had grown. So it seemed Cole's theory that they were likewise using my strength to take shape was true—and these days the mere act of talking to the spirit world left me a whole lot weaker than I liked to admit.
The chill in the air got fiercer, until it felt like fingers of ice were creeping into my bones. No one could really explain why it felt like these souls brought the chill of the underworld with them, but the general consensus was that it had something to do with them being 'in-between'—neither here nor in heaven nor hell, or wherever else it was that souls went to.
Something stirred against the sunlight streaming in through the window. A wisp of thicker air that held no shape and couldn't even be defined as smoke.