“Not supernatural or paranormal. Just crow-weird.”
I flexed my hands. Plant-woman-weird. “I was serious. Orating to them. I saw a small one once. It was clearly a passing of information. A sermon. Which is why the church calls them a congregation.”
My cat-man went still, the way a cat does when it’s watching prey, though his eyes were off in the distance. “I don’t think we can just say that,” he said at last.
“We need to find better words to explain the oration part,” I said, “but I’m serious. Crows have congregations and orations. Usually deep in a forest, where no one can see or hear.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know why I should think that’s strange. I turn into a cat on the full moon. But talking birds creep me out, Nell, sugar. Especially when I found trace evidence beneath the tree the preacher bird was on.”
“What kind of trace?”
“Hairs. Dried blood. Maybe an animal death. No feathers, so not a crow. I collected it and sent it to PsyCSI. They’re gonna hate us after the last few days.”
We sighed at the same time, the way old married people do. Smiling, we went back to work.
We spent over an hour catching up on his backlog of reports, elbows touching often. By accident. And not by accident. The tedium of helping with reports didn’t bother me at all. Being with Occam was something I desperately needed after the last few days.
Tandy had sent the pic of the torn book page Occam had found at Soul’s to Alex Younger, and samples of the blood and dried slime went with PsyCSI, but no one had gotten back to us. Tandy was trying several translation programs, and midway through the crow report, his voice came over the speakers. “I finished translating the page,” he said simply.
We left our cubicles and made our way to the conference room, beating FireWind by seconds.
Tandy had the translation up on a screen. “The book could be a very old Latin prayer book, nothing important in terms of archeology, but the fact that someone deliberately destroyed it is significant.”
“How do we know someone deliberately destroyed it?” FireWind asked.
“Because on this side”—Tandy tapped a key and a mirror page appeared—“someone wrote a line in Latin. It translates as, ‘Give unto us the Tarot de Sanguis.’ The Blood Tarot. ‘You get back the draco.’ The dragon.”
My hands twitched, bones burning. I looked from the translation to my boss-boss.
FireWind’s amber-colored eyes went cold and deadly. “They know we have the Blood Tarot. We’ve had it for…less than twenty-four hours?”
“PsyLED had the deck—more or less—before we lost it in the battle,” I said. “Then Ming had it. So they…what? Covered their bases? Torquemada’s research people are good.”
“There was a little dust on the prayer book page when I found it,” Occam said. “Not as much dust as the table underneath it.” He tilted his head, thinking, remembering. “I’d guess the page had been there for two or three days. I’ll bet Ming got a similar demand that said, ‘Give us the Blood Tarot or we’ll burn your place to the ground.’ ”
“Which might explain why she called me to her clan homethat first night,” I said. “MakingsureYummy and I smelled like the deck of cards. Yummy and I were bait, just like Yummy said.”
“Torquemada,” FireWind murmured, “perhaps hoped to get us to work against Ming of Glass.”
Tandy said, “I finally heard back from Alex Younger and he verified that arcenciel blood is clear and sparkling, and they haven’t heard from Soul in weeks.”
I asked, “Isn’t her leave over?”
“The assistant director requested an open-ended leave without pay,” FireWind said, “and it was approved. She’s entitled to time off.”
“We don’tknowthat Torquemada has Soul,” Tandy said, “but the blood and the very old Latin prayer book seem to point that way.”
“Or it’s a way to point us in that direction when Torquemada wants the trackers to do something for him, without us knowing it’s something he wants,” Occam said.
FireWind, his face cold as ice, said, “All leave is canceled. Everyone is to be prepared to work through until we find the assistant director. Call in Jones PDQ. We need the Diamond Drill for this. Contact the local FBI for possible resource backup.”
“I’ve already made a dent calling Airbnbs,” Occam said, “and short-term listings that advertise inner rooms suitable for vampires. I’ll put all my efforts into that today.”
“I’ll start calling hotels that have vampire suites,” I said. Vampire suites were rooms that had steel shutters over the windows and were big enough to sleep several guests.
“Ask for Alex Younger’s assistance,” FireWind said.
“Done already,” Tandy said. “And I got him to request the Dark Queen’s authorization to behead Torquemada and his scions if necessary.” Tandy shrank under FireWind’s blazing eyes. “Sorry. I guess that was over my head.”
