“What’s up?” I stopped behind Cole and bent to peer under the car. Something that resembled a bloody mess of flesh lay about halfway down.
Not the torso that matched the arm. That arm had been male. This mess was female.
Although I could really only tell that by the pretty gold charm bracelet that was somehow still attached to her visible arm.
“Two victims?” I said, hoping to God I was wrong.
“Two victims,” Cole confirmed, rising and stripping off bloody gloves. “We think this one is unrelated.”
I straightened and met the icy blue of his gaze. “As in wrong place, wrong time?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“That’s uncharacteristic, isn’t it? I mean, she had witnesses when she did the shoe seller in the window, and she made no move against them.”
“Given we are not dealing with anything remotely human, who’s to say what is, and isn’t, characteristic?” Cole motioned me to follow him.
I glanced at Kade, who was still studying the body intently, then spun and followed the wolf-shifter. I saw the second body long before we reached it. His torso was sprawled across the trunk of the sports car and there was a look of pure terror frozen on his face. Or what remained of it.
That expression said that this was a man who’d experienced the depths of hell in the midst of one of life’s greatest pleasures.
I stopped and silently cataloged his injuries. The blood loss from the scratches alone would have been deadly enough, but she’d also ripped him apart limb by limb, leaving only his torso and head on top of the car’s trunk.
I closed my eyes and fought the bile that rose up my throat. It wasn’t as if I’d never seen bodies pulled apart like this before. I had, but that didn’t mean seeing it again now made it any easier. I doubted it ever would.
“God,” I said, voice thick.
“Yeah,” Cole said. “I think she must have taken cat form to get out of here, because she would have been covered in blood after all this.”
I dragged my gaze away from the body and looked around. “There would have to have been screams from both the victims. Surely someone heard them?”
Cole’s expression was grim. “The local boys are interviewing the shopkeepers and the patrons. I doubt we’re going to get anything.”
“Then how was the body discovered?”
“A bit of the woman was flung over the side of the building. It hit a kitchen hand from the restaurant next door as he was dumping bags into the trash.”
“Anyone talked to him yet?”
“I think he’s been sedated.” Cole grimaced. “He’ll probably have nightmares for weeks, poor kid.”
“He’s not the only one.” I rubbed my arms lightly, then stopped as power began to caress the air and an odd tingle raced across my skin.
Excitement surged. It wasn’t just the escalation of the violence that was different with this crime scene.
“What?” Cole said softly.
“There’s a soul here.” My gaze darted around the parking lot, but I couldn’t see anything that resembled the wispy smoke of a soul. Of course, the wind might be tearing any manifestation apart before it was fully formed.
“Whose soul?”
“I don’t know.” I spun around and took several steps toward the rear wall. The wind was less frantic here, and just for an instant, a wisp of smoke stirred in the shadows holding court in the corner.
Who are you? I asked. I’d learned not so long ago that my ability to sense and hear souls had stretched into being able to converse with them telepathically, as well. Not that there was ever anything resembling whole conversations between us. The ability to talk from beyond the grave seemed to take a lot of strength, and many souls did little more than speak a word or two before their presence disintegrated and they moved on.
But maybe this time, one word might be all we needed to stop other innocents getting mauled by the bakeneko.
I took another step forward, and the chill in the air suddenly increased. Whoever it was, they were close by. Had to be. The presence of a soul in this world always seemed to drag me too close to the fierce cold of the underworld.
Again, smoke stirred in the shadows. Just a wisp, a bare outline—nothing that would even be defined as ghostlike. But it was there. The power of it spun all around me.
Who are you? I asked again.
For a moment, there was no response, but the energy in the air increased, until it felt like fireflies dancing across my skin.
Why? came the reply. So soft. So confused. And very definitely female.
No one knows why this creature is so destructive, I said, hating that I had to talk to her, hating that I had to feel her pain like this. Yet in some odd way, it was probably helping her. She’d have no answers at all if I wasn’t here. You weren’t its intended victim. You were just in the way.
The chill in the air increased, and with it came a sense of anger. It was not my time.
She mightn’t have thought so, but fate always had other ideas on such things. Can you tell me anything about the creature?
She was fast. The sense of energy increased, until the tingling on my skin felt like fire. Very briefly, a wispy face formed in the shadows—a thin pretty face with wide lost eyes. She took my bag. My phone. My car keys.
She took your life, too, but I kept that thought to myself. I had no idea if souls could feel shock, but this one showed every sign of going through that right now. I didn’t need to make it any worse for her.
What is your name?
Maria. Maria Kennedy-Smith.
Is there anything you can tell me about the person who did this to you?
I knew her. But it didn’t seem like her.
The chill in the air was beginning to fade, and the shadows once again swallowed her wispy features.
What was her name?
Jenny Franklin.
One of the missing women. So if her body wasn’t in her apartment, where the hell had the bakeneko killed her?
Why would she do this?
The thought was almost a wail. I shivered and rubbed my arms. It wasn’t her. It was a look-alike. Jenny’s dead, too.
The energy was almost gone, the fire on my skin little more than a caress of warmth.
Get whoever it is, came the thought. Stop her.
Then she was gone, heading back into whatever realm her soul was destined for.
I blew out a breath and turned around. Cole was watching me with a concerned expression. “You know, I didn’t notice it before, but you almost seem to fade when you do that. It’s as if they’re sucking the life from you.”
I rubbed my arms. “I can feel the chill of the other side through them. So maybe it is sucking something out of me.” Who really knew? It might be a talent Jack intended to use to its full capacity, but it certainly wasn’t one that the Directorate had seen much of. My teachers were magi, not other people who shared the same skill.
“If it is, then be damn careful. You might reach a point where returning becomes difficult.”
I repressed a shiver at the thought, and forced a grin. “What’s this? Caring about a guardian? Is the world about to end?”
He snorted softly. “Did I say I cared one way or another? Woman, you’re reading me all wrong.” His blue eyes held a twinkle that took away the harshness of his words. “Now, what did the damn soul say?”
I smiled. The guardian-hating, werewolf-despising shifter actually cared what happened to me. He mightn’t lift a finger to help me, but he did care. It was nice to know, because even if I teased him endlessly and gave him hell, I did actually like him.