“Give me a second.” She put the phone down and swung her feet off the couch. Once she was in a sitting position, she rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands, struggling to wake up. When she thought she could have a coherent conversation, she grabbed the phone. “Talk to me.”
“Fresh victim. Warehouse six at the pier.” His voice pulled her back to the present. “Have you eaten?”
She looked at the clock again. “It’s 4:30 in the morning. What do you think?”
“Don’t,” he said and hung up without waiting for a response.
Chapter Four
Juliana slid to a smooth stop outside warehouse six as a cold rain began to spit from the sky. Each icy drop stung like a needle prick against her skin. The crisp morning air tingled in her lungs. The scent of diesel was already mixing with the brine of the ocean as traffic on the waterway increased. She climbed off her bike and nodded a greeting to the familiar faces that patrolled the perimeter of the building.
She turned in a slow circle, taking in the surroundings. Darkness reigned except for the periodic orange glow from an unbroken streetlight. Warehouses and office buildings comprised most of the pier’s real estate.
Cameras hung outside a couple of buildings, but even if they worked, none of them pointed at the warehouse. Regardless, the tapes might show something and she made a mental note to have them pulled. Unable to delay any longer, she walked to the door, took a deep breath and swung it open.
Immediately blinded by the incessant glare of the techs’ work lights, she stood still to give her eyes a chance to adjust. As she did, the acrid scent of cinders and ashes filled her nostrils. A demon. The only Altered without a signature, the only being she couldn’t track her normal way. The techs working the scene wore masks, but she doubted it was due to the demon stench. Only a few Altered could detect the smell. She was one of them. Lucky her.
Jeremiah appeared beside her, offering her a mask of her own. She waved him away. The odor had already permeated every cell in her nose. The mask wouldn’t help now. Besides, it covered up the more mundane aromas of death. She’d take cinder and ashes over blood, sweat and urine any day.
“You know I can’t track demons,” she said. She looked past him into the room, keeping her eyes diverted from the victim for the time being.
“That’s not true,” he argued. “You just can’t see them. Until now, we were only guessing that’s what the perp was.” He sounded so sure in her ability that she studied him from the corner of her eye. At six-foot three he stood a good six inches taller than she did. His red skin was unblemished and his eyes were as black as a raging vampire’s. He looked straight ahead waiting for her to take the lead, to do what he’d called her there for.
They stood at the edge of an empty room with a few boxes scattered around and a small office off to one side. Judging from the grime and cobwebs the building hadn’t been in use for some time. She settled her eyes on the body. Demons rarely killed clean and this victim was no exception. Thankfully, she listened to Jeremiah and hadn’t grabbed a bite to eat on the way out the door.
A mound of flesh, indiscernible as male or female, lay in a pool of congealing blood in the middle of the floor. Arterial spray decorated the area surrounding it along with bloody chunks she could only assume were once part of the poor bastard in front of her. The body had been literally ripped apart. She could only hope for the victim’s sake that it was after he was already dead. The amount of blood told her that probably wasn’t the case, but she’d let the M.E. decide.
One lone drop fell from the ceiling to add to the gore below. She glanced up to see something wet dangling from one of the beams above her head. She smacked Jeremiah on the arm with the back of her hand and gestured toward her find.
He looked up and grunted before yelling to one of the techs.
The tech frowned, hands on his hips. “How, by all the gods, am I supposed to retrieve that?”
“Not my problem,” Jeremiah said with a small smile as he shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. He fell into step beside Juliana as she moved farther into the room. She crouched at the edge of the blood, careful to keep her boots out of it. Agency standard issue, they were enchanted to avoid crime scene contamination. They would leave nothing behind, not even a print, and they wouldn’t pick anything up either. That didn’t mean she relished the thought of standing around in body fluids.
A tech dangled a pair of gloves in front of her face. She snatched them away and put them on, snapping them into place. “Is he done?” She gestured to the photographer standing at the perimeter of the room.
When Jeremiah nodded, she began cataloguing what she saw. From this distance, the gender became easier to determine. “Based on the clothes and hairstyle, I’m guessing the victim is male.” Jeremiah recorded every word so there was no need for her to write anything down. “There’s not enough left of either the chest or the face to make a determination based on physical attributes and I’m not checking anywhere else.”
A stifled laugh came from her left. The corner of Jeremiah’s mouth twitched as he tried not to smile.
“Victim is approximately five-foot seven and lean. Has...” She reached forward and grasped a chunk of hair, twisting it in the light to ascertain the color. “Blond hair. Dressed in ripped jeans and black sneakers. Also wearing a T-shirt, appears black but with the amount of blood I can’t be sure. Denim jacket.”
She had a brief flash of someone watching her house, someone without a signature and she shook her head to chase the thought away.
“What is it?” Jeremiah asked.
She started to explain, then shook her head again. “Nothing.”
“It’s never nothing with you. Talk.”
“I thought someone was watching my house earlier, but when I went outside to find them, they weren’t there.” She looked up and met his eyes. “No signature, nothing.”
His eyes widened. “Was it our vic?”
“I didn’t get a good look and I’m not sure there’s enough left to identify even if I did,” she said.
“So what made you think of it?”
“I’m not sure. The signature thing maybe. My innate paranoia most likely.” There was no reason for a demon to be watching her house. None at all. She clung to that and focused on what she knew; she had a dead body that had been killed by a demon.
Peeling off her gloves, she stood and stepped away from the body, wanting some distance. She put on her glasses and opened her mind, letting her gift flare to life. The body had no signature, but nothing truly dead did, so that wasn’t a surprise. Her gaze darted around the room, searching, seeking. She picked up a signature that didn’t belong to anyone in the room. It was faint, but there. “Any dark fae been in here?”
He frowned in thought. “No one besides you.”
“Either the victim was one or the demon jumped from the victim into the dark fae. Either way one was involved. I’ve got the signature.”
Demons preferred to stay with one host as long as possible, but they could jump from host to host as often as necessary to avoid detection or capture. Unfortunately, their hosts sometimes ended up looking as bad as the victims did.
Despite her conjecture that the victim was demon-ridden at some point, it was possible he left the trail after the demon jumped. Unlikely, but it was important to examine every possibility. The fae would have to possess a large amount of power for the signature still to be visible. The demon wouldn’t voluntarily leave a host with that much power. Unless it found something better.
Even if the demon had jumped into the dark fae, knowing it wouldn’t help them much. Dark fae were as varied in their appearance as the beasts of the animal kingdom. Some had teeth and claws, wings or antennae and others looked as human as Juliana. And there was no less variety when it came to abilities and power. Some could barely summon a light orb to see in the dark and others had nearly toppled kingdoms.