[Kassandra Lyall Preternatural Investigator 03] - Bloody Claws (2 page)

A rumbling growl beat like angry wings against my ribs. Hunter's pupils were too large to be human, too large and oblong to be wolf. I took another step forward, driving her further into my office. I was fairly certain if June saw her, I couldn't explain the marks on her face.

"Hunter," I said, "I think there's something you forgot to mention."

She backed into the client chair, sending it wobbling and crashing to the floor as she tried to get past it.

I stopped, trying to cage my instincts. If I kept moving toward her, she was only going to keep backing up until she had no other place to go, and neither animal nor human likes being backed into a corner. I tried to breathe past the scent of fear and adrenaline.

Hunter stopped, chest rising and falling quickly and jerkily.

"What are you?" she asked, voice trembling around the edges.

I pulled the jacket of my suit down, focusing on pulling the energy of the beast back into the core of my body, focusing on my shields, the metaphysical walls that kept the beast at bay.

"I should be asking you that."

She closed her eyes, as if she too were trying to calm herself. Breathing techniques help a lot when it comes to shifting. I had absolutely no doubt that Hunter Kinsley was a shape-shifter. I just didn't know what flavor.

It dawned on me. I'd seen those oblong pupils only once in my life, when I was in elementary school and had gone on a field trip with my science class to the zoo.

"You're a clouded leopard." I stared at her.

There was still that hint of panic in her when she nodded. "Yeah…you?"

"You don't know what I am?"

She inclined, sniffing the air between us. "You're not a cat,"she said, snarling slightly.

"No, I'm not."

Her nostrils flared. "Canine?"

When I nodded she took a timid step forward, watching me warily.

"I won't attack you. You can calm down."

"Why did you block the door?"

"I don't need you running out of my office like that, and since you weren't up front with me, I doubt you want the rest of my office to know."

A blush tinted the skin of her face around the black markings. "I didn't know you weren't human or I would've been up front with you."

I moved, picking up the chair and setting it upright. Hunter scrambled to the other side of the room.

"Why are you afraid of me?" I asked.

"You smell dangerous."

"How do I smell dangerous?"

"Instincts? I don't know," she said. "When you moved to block the door you triggered all my instinctual responses. Those responses told me to run."

"I'm not going to hurt you." I offered my wrist. "Here," I said, "smell."

She knew I was canine, but she had yet to determine what type of lycanthropy I carried. She came to me and held my wrist lightly in both her hands. She glanced at me before sniffing just above the skin. Her mouth opened as her top lip curled slightly. She drew my scent in, like a cat would when having the flehmen response to a smell. On a human face, even with the dusting of gold and the black markings, it looked strange.

"Wolf?" she closed her mouth.

"It's really hard not to be insulted when felines do that."

"Do what?" she asked, leaning back against my desk.

"Flehmening," I said. "The feline stink face like you've just smelled something incredibly nasty."

She smiled awkwardly. "It wasn't bad," she said. "But the perfume was a little overwhelming." She scrunched up her nose.

"If I don't mask my scent with perfume-"

"Others will figure out what you are?" She finished my sentence with a question.

"Exactly."

"How long have you been infected?"

"A few years."

"I was six," she said. "My babysitter."

"Your babysitter attacked you?"

"No, she didn't mean to," she said. "It was an accident. I didn't understand until later that the strand I carry…we're easily spooked."

"I hadn't noticed."

She blushed again. "I brought a stray dog into the house and she freaked. Somewhere in the midst of her freak-out, I got scratched."

"Do your parents know?"

"No," she said. "I kept it to myself. What about you?"

"I was a cop working on a case."

"Was it traumatic?"

"No, I feel much better now that she's dead."

Hunter swallowed loud enough that I heard it.

"She deserved it, Hunter. She was out of control."

The tension between her shoulders eased a little. "Okay."

"What about your girlfriend?" I asked. "Am I going to face any supernatural surprises with her?"

"No, she's human."

"A human and a were-animal?" I raised my brows. "Does she know? Is that even safe?"

There's really no such thing as "safe sex" between a human and a were-animal. The tiniest scratch during the throes of passion could potentially infect a human lover. And unfortunately, there's no morning after pill to cure the lycanthropy virus.

"She knows. We've always been very careful with each other. She's careful not to spook me or do things that bring out my inner kitty, and I'm careful not to scratch or bite her."

I nodded, picked her jacket up off the floor, and handed it to her. "I'll see what I can find, Hunter." A thought occurred to me. "Can you not smell if she's been cheating?"

She paused in putting her jacket on, letting it hang from the tips of her fingers. As a were-animal, she should've been able to smell another woman on her girlfriend.

Slowly, she shook her head. "I smell sweat, burgers, grease, perfume, but I've never smelled another woman on her, in that way. And if she's hugged someone, you know…I don't want to jump to assumptions just because someone's smell rubbed off on her. We've gotten into some nasty fights in the past over that kind of thing. I need proof this time," she said, sounding reasonable. "Kamryn has always come home from work and hopped in the shower as soon as she walked in the door. She's just…she's distant. I don't know if it's from working so many hours or what."

"That's understandable, Hunter."

"I'm sorry I went all scaredy-cat on you." She finished putting on her jacket.

"Well, I did go bitchy on you first." I smiled. "Don't worry about it."

Hunter stopped in the doorway and turned back. "Thank you," she said.

"No problem."

I heard her draw in a deep breath.

"We should hang out some time."

I tilted my head. "You really think that's a good idea, considering?" I didn't get the sense she was hitting on me or flirting with me, but she was a werecat, and if she spooked as easily as I'd witnessed earlier, I was thinking a werewolf was the last person she wanted to befriend.

"As friends," she said.

"I don't know, Hunter. One, you're a client. Two, we're kind of opposite ends of the totem pole when it comes to our particular abilities."

The black markings and golden shimmer had faded from her face, but her pupils dilated, threatening to swallow her irises. That one look seemed to be saying, "I desperately need a friend."

Fucking felines and their Goddess-damned pussycat eyes.

I sighed. "We'll see, okay?"

She smiled brightly, pupils magically shrinking as if she could control it.

I had a feeling she could.

"Do you do that to your girlfriend?" I asked as she turned to leave.

"Do what?"

"The pussycat eyes."

"Yeah." She smiled widely, showing teeth that were no longer elongated. "You should see me when she opens a pack of lunchmeat."

I laughed.

Hunter left my office smiling despite the reason she'd come into it.

I returned to the seat behind my desk, wondering why I chose a line of work that ensured I inevitably ended up in someone else's mess.

CHAPTER
two

t was ten minutes until six when I decided to call it a day. I shrugged into the black pea coat and fished my keys out of the side pocket. The phone rang and I frowned.

"Whoever this is, it had better be good."

"Don't I always have something good to tell you?"

It was Detective Arthur Kingfisher. Arthur and I had worked together since before I was infected with lycanthropy. He'd recently been promoted to detective.

"Do you want me to be honest or to hold my tongue?"

"I didn't know a lesbian could hold her tongue."

"For you, I'll make an exception."

Arthur joked pretty much nonstop, about anything and everything. When he wasn't joking, I was worried, because it meant shit had hit the roof. Arthur had only gone serious on me a few times in the past several years that I'd known him. It hadn't been a pretty sight. I always thought he was light-hearted, but I'd found out that beyond the joking attitude he had more depth than he let on. He was also an excellent cop and had been since the day I'd met him, but like most cops, the preternatural wasn't his area of expertise.

"Are you busy?" he asked.

I frowned even harder. Arthur only asked me if I was busy when the police wanted to call me in on something.

"Damn it, Arthur. If you tell me there's a body, I'm going to be pissed."

"You always say that and actually, no. We don't have a body."

I sighed in relief.

"We can't find the bodies alive or…" he added.

"If you can't find them, why are you calling me?"

"Neighbor called us," he mumbled. "She hadn't heard from the couple next door since yesterday evening. Said it's unusual. I'll explain more when you get here. I sent two uniforms out to talk to her. She had a key to the house but didn't want to go in. Well, uniforms used it."

"So you have a missing person's case?" I asked. Contrary to popular belief, the police won't always wait seventy-two hours to declare a person officially missing. It really depended on circumstance and evidence. If the absence was not common or the police found any indication of violence at the scene, they'll jump in and secure it for the crime scene investigators and possibly forensics as quickly as possible.

My stomach turned. "There's violence at the scene, isn't there?" I asked.

"There appears to be."

"You suck."

"No, but I know a guy who does."

"Are you referring to your boyfriend?" I quipped.

He laughed loud enough that I had to draw the telephone away from my ear.

"Man," he said, "I love your comebacks. So you on your way?"

"Does this have anything to do with the preternatural?" I asked. "If it doesn't, Arthur, I don't have to do anything. You know the rules."

"Kass," he said, "I'm holding the crime scene photos."

"I need a better reason than that."

"You want a better reason?" He said, and sounded a little angry. Arthur never got angry with me. What the hell?

"Here's a better reason. There are symbols painted on the walls in blood. You want to know something? They look a lot like that star necklace you used to wear. The couple's bed is covered in what appears to be blood. Something happened there, Kass. I can feel it in my gut."

He was referring to my pentacle necklace. A lot of witches wear jewelry symbolic of their spirituality. Thanks to the lycanthropy and not connecting the dots…I had a permanent white scar on my chest where I'd tried to wear my necklace after being infected. Yeah, silver and lycanthropy is a big no-no.

Arthur said. "We've got the house blocked off. I want your opinion on this. Come down to the department, Kass."

I heard his hand cover the phone as he mumbled something to someone else in the room. I had supernatural hearing, but covering the phone muffled the words enough that I couldn't make them out.

A man's bass voice suddenly boomed in my ear. "Lyall, get your ass down here immediately. That's a fucking order."

The phone clicked silent. I knew the man's voice. How could I not? Captain Holbrook was my old boss and Arthur had just sicced him on me.

That rat bastard.

I turned the lights off and locked my office door on the way out. June was still at her desk.

"June," I said, and she looked up from the stack of paperwork she was sorting.

"What?"

I ignored the attitude. "Next time, would you please walk the client to my office? They have a tendency to get lost."

"How hard can it be to find your office when there's only two up there?" she asked. "Besides, your friends don't seem to have trouble finding it."

I ignored the chastising tone in her voice. June had once met Rosalin, and the time she'd met her, Rosalin had walked up to my office without June's okay. June obviously was holding a grudge about that.

"There's a difference between a friend and a client. If it's someone you don't recognize and you know they're a potential client because they have an appointment, walk them up."

"Fine." She returned to sorting through paperwork.

"Have a good evening. Lock up when you leave."

"Don't I always?"

CHAPTER 
three

parked in front of the sign that read City of Oklahoma Police Department and got out, locking the car doors with the keypad out of habit. I opened one side of the double glass doors and walked into the bright fluorescent lit room. I scanned the rows of desks looking for Arthur's face. "Miss?" A young cop stepped forward. "May I help you?"

"Where's Kingfisher?" I asked.

"Kingfisher," he mumbled. He seemed to be talking more to himself than me, scanning the rows of desks too. I didn't say anything. His face was boyish and clean and I wondered if he even had to shave. I felt a pang of pity for him. He was new. I could smell it.

"Preternatural Investigator Kassandra Lyall?" a woman's voice called out from behind new-boy. He was slim but had enough muscle and was tall enough that I had to look around him to spot her.

"I'll take you back to see
Detective
Arthur Kingfisher," she said, turning to the younger cop and making it obvious she was reminding him who Kingfisher was. Sadly, I didn't really blame her.

Berkeley Ackerman and I had met before, but she hadn't been on the force when I'd worked as a cop. She'd been one of the cops around when Arthur had taken my statement and helped clean up a pile of dead werewolf a few months ago.

The last time I'd seen her, she'd accused me of torturing Lukas Morris, Sheila Morris's sociopathic brother. Of course, I'd assured her that if I had been torturing him, or intending to torture him, I wouldn't have used a gun. Since when did torture involve guns? Last I checked, you used a gun for a quick kill, not when you're going to be hunkering down and devoting an hour and a half to inflicting intense pain. I watched her long fiery braid dance down her back as she led the way to Arthur's location. Like me, Ackerman was slender, but she was taller, longer of leg and arm, and definitely bustier. I caught up with her as we headed down the hallway, passing the interrogation room with its fading paint job. I sensed very strongly that Ackerman didn't like me. She didn't have to say it; her body language screamed it.

"I heard you were a good cop," she said, slowing her walk. It wasn't really a question.

"I like to think so," I said, slipping my hands inside the pockets of my coat.

"But you don't hesitate to take a life, do you?"

"I don't hesitate to protect innocent lives, Ackerman. I am a Paranormal Huntress. Taking out the bad guys is part of what I do."

"Taking out bad guys that are three times your size and supernaturally stronger?" She shook her head. "You don't look like much. I find it hard to believe you took down that werewolf a few months ago."

If she thought I was going to have a pissing contest with her, she was sorely mistaken.

"You were there when Arthur took my statement. I had help."

"From who?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

"Two random werewolves just decided to help you out?"

Actually, they weren't random. What I hadn't told the police was that Lenorre, Rosalin, and Carver had saved my ass. In fact, I'd completely left Lenorre out of it. The only thing the cops knew was that two wolves had showed up and helped save my life. Did I mention Lukas had kidnapped me? Did I mention I'm dating the Countess vampire of Oklahoma City? One would think kidnapping the girlfriend of a very powerful vampire is a bad idea, right? Or is that just me?

"Are you preternaturally prejudiced or something, Ackerman?"

"No…"

"What's with the twenty questions? You should know as well as I that size and physical strength don't always matter. I'm a trained professional, just like you, and when someone helps save my ass, I'm not going to bitch about it."

"More like a trained preternatural assassin," she whispered.

I stared at her, not knowing how to respond without making the situation much, much worse.

"Officer Ackerman," Arthur said and Berkeley Ackerman turned toward the sound of his voice. Arthur stood in the doorway to what I was guessing was his new office. "Detective Kingfisher," she said, "I was just escorting Ms.

Lyall to see you."

"Sounded more to me like you were chewing her ear off." He motioned with his head toward the main room. "Go back to your desk. I'll take it from here."

"Yes, sir," she said politely enough. She spared me a narrow-eyed look on her way back.

"Kass," Arthur said, holding the door open.

I walked past Arthur and into the room beyond. The room was painted off-white, and was fairly empty and plain. The wastebasket, however, was overflowing with stuff. Yep, definitely Arthur's office.

"I don't think she likes me," I said.

Arthur chuckled softly, tugging uncomfortably at his tie.

"I'd be surprised if Ackerman likes anyone."

"Ah, she's one of those?"

"A bitch?" he asked. "Yeah."

The corner of my mouth twitched. "I didn't say it."

"Nope, I did." He sat behind his desk and pushed a manila envelope across the desk, "Sit down. Take a look. It ain't pretty."

A warning wasn't enough to prepare anyone for what I was looking at. The first photograph was a wide view showing the front door. The next showed the living room. The third was from deeper in the living room, facing a hallway that led to four bedrooms.

"The point of entry is the front door?"

"No signs of breaking and entering," he said.

The next photograph was closer to the hallway, facing a dark stain in the pale gray carpet that led from the hallway.

"A body was dragged?"

"We think so."

"Did you see these?" I asked, going back to the previous photograph. "The statues on top of the entertainment center?" The first statue was of Gaia, a woman figure holding the earth in her arms. "This is Gaia," I said, "Gaia was the earth Goddess to the Ancient Greeks."

Arthur slipped his hand inside his jacket then drew a pen from his shirt pocket. He pointed at the picture with the capped end. "Who's the devil?"

"That is not the devil. That is Pan. He was the God of hunting, music, and pleasure to the Ancient Greeks. They also viewed him as a sort of shepherd."

"Looks more like he'd scare the sheep away," Arthur mumbled.

"That's not the point," I said.

"What do the statues mean?" He straightened, tapping his pen against the palm of his other hand.

"Well, to me, the statues suggest that the couple were pagan."

"They were witches?"

"Not necessarily, no."

"Explain. What's the difference between a pagan and a witch?"

I thought about it. "Pagan covers a broad spectrum of nature-based and polytheistic spiritualities. But not all pagans practice witchcraft."

"What about the pentacle?" he asked. I hadn't yet seen the pentacle in the photographs.

"I don't know," I said honestly.

"Okay, so you think our possible victims were pagan?"

"It's very likely, yes. I just don't know what flavor."

Arthur tugged uncomfortably at his light blue tie. He pushed the messy tresses of his brown hair out of his face. "Keep going," he said.

I pushed the two photographs away and scanned one of the close-ups. Crime scene photographs go in order of a full range snapshot, mid-range, and close-up. I stopped at the close-up of what I guessed was the doorway to the master bedroom. A trail of blood, like a body had been dragged, went from the door to the right and toward the camera.

"A body was dragged from the master bedroom?" I asked, going to the next photograph. A red stained symbol stood out above the couple's bed. The celestial decorated blankets on the bed appeared to be soaked in the fluid.

"That's not a pentacle," I said.

The symbol looked disturbing, no longer bright and shiny red, no longer fresh, but dried, seeping down like the wall itself had bled. It didn't appear to be that big, perhaps a little larger than my hand. In the middle of the symbol, eight elongated triangles were positioned to form what appeared to be an eight-pointed star. Each triangle harbored a small symbol. I recognized the two symbols at the top of the drawing. The first was a sickle with a line drawn through the handle.

"Do you know what it is and what it means?" Arthur asked.

"Not off the top of my head," I said, gesturing for Arthur to stand. When he stood beside my chair and leaned over, I pointed at the first symbol. "This is the symbol for the dwarf planet Ceres. In astrology, Ceres corresponds to the mother."

"The second symbol is just a circle," Arthur said.

"Yes, but what do you get when you have a circle?" I asked, thinking aloud. "The circle can represent a lot of things, the sun, the moon, wholeness, completion. This entire drawing looks like a homemade seal of some sort."

"A seal?"

"Sometimes when a witch or Wiccan is doing magical work, they'll design a seal or sigil to represent the magical working. Usually, they'd carry the seal with them, on a piece of paper or talisman to aid the energy flow, intent, and focus. They could burn it, either by engraving the symbol on a candle or by burning the paper they've inscribed it on."

I sighed. No doubt, the media was going to go ape-shit with this. Leave it to one idiot to give everyone else in a community a bad name.

"I don't know why someone would leave this kind of symbol behind."

"You think whoever drew the symbol on the wall is pagan?" he asked.

"I can't answer that," I said, "as there's no telling just by looking. I can tell you that many of these symbols I'm not familiar with. They look alchemical, which isn't limited to a person who identifies as pagan. Has someone tested the stain on the wall to confirm it's blood?"

"We sent samples to the lab."

"Tell me about the couple that lived there."

"Miranda and Landon Blevins. Married for two years. Miranda was twenty-five. Landon twenty-six. The neighbor, an elderly woman named Emma Mullins, said they were 'sweet kids.' No known enemies. Miranda often helped her with her garden. She didn't say much about Landon. But she did say that Miranda told her a few weeks ago she was infertile. She and Landon were looking to adopt." He flipped the notebook closed. "That's all I've got."

I stared back down at the picture of the bedroom. "I don't see any signs of struggle. I don't see a weapon. The room is clean; nothing is knocked over or looks out of place. There's no body. Damn it, Arthur," I said. "I think right now, forensics is your best bet."

"Why do you think you're sitting in my office?" he said. "They're out there as we speak. We'll go when we're not going to be in their way."

It didn't surprise me he wanted to go in after forensics. It was easier than tiptoeing around trying not to contaminate anything. "And if they take stuff away to take back to the lab? It's better if I see the scene whole, Arthur. Judging by the dried blood on the wall, it's already some hours cold."

"I know, Kass. I'm doing what I can. Do you think it's a cult related crime?"

"I don't know. It could be someone trying to make it look like a cult related crime. It could be a discrimination crime. There are too many possibilities and not enough evidence."

"When I get the green light, we'll go in."

"You know, even seeing the scene, I can't guarantee any results."

"None of us can," he said. "We just try our damndest to find clues."

"Damndest?" I asked, smiling. "Oh, you were so born in Oklahoma."

Arthur flashed his cheesy grin. "I know. I sound like my Gramps."

"You sound like everyone's grandfather when you say that. It's not even a word."

Arthur sat up straight like something had startled him. "I nearly forgot," he said, opening the top drawer of his desk. He pulled out a chain with a square of plastic attached to it. "We had an ID made for you so I don't have to hold your hand and walk you onto a crime scene."

I took the neck ID. The top of it had my name and title written on it. The photograph in the middle of the ID was old, from before I'd been infected with lycanthropy, before the white streak had shown up.

It wasn't a bad picture, but I looked serious and not happy about having it taken. I could see why most people had never pegged me as a cop. I looked feminine and fragile with a darker edge that might make some mistake me for Goth. The dark blue uniform looked good against my pale skin, made my eyes greener, but it didn't make me look like a cop. Arthur had once said I had a dominant look, despite my stature. Gazing at the picture on the ID tag, I didn't see it. I looked bored more than anything. Which if memory served me correctly, I had been. I'm not a big fan of being photographed.

"This picture is so fucking old."

"Yeah," he said, "but it's all we've got on file. It still looks like you, so it'll get you into the crime scenes without a police escort."

"Hopefully, because every time I flash my license and badge they don't believe me."

"They'll believe you now. Look at the bottom."

I noticed the signatures. "Damn. You got Holbrook to sign it?"

"Yep." He beamed. "I bugged the shit out of him until he did."

"Thank you, Arthur."

"No problem. You deserve to be able to walk onto a scene all by yourself."