“Employ it.”
“Yes, sir.” Without looking at her SWAT boyfriend, sheturned to the door, reached inside her shirt, and pulled out her amulet necklace. A moment later she tossed something at the door and said a word too softly to catch.
The door tore off its hinges and rammed inside, crashing into something.
There was no explosion, no sound of a battering ram. Just a metallic-and-wood wrenching sound and then the door was gone.
From inside, nothing exploded. No magic happened. No one shot at us.
I bit my cheek to keep from reacting to the expression on Gonzales’ face.
As speedily as the slick surface allowed, FireWind and LaFleur raced to the door and inside, the new layer of snow giving traction we hadn’t had earlier. “The rest of you keep SWAT out,” Aya said softly into comms, on the dedicated channel.
T. Laine laughed. It contained a note of “they can try to get in.” Occam and she moved to the door to provide backup as FireWind and LaFleur cleared the ranch house room by room, their voices live over comms.
When I could do so without laughing, I raised my head and met Gonzales’ eyes. He looked a little mad and a lot stunned. This time I let my chuckle free and said, “The faster you figure out that Lainie has better defenses than you do, the better for your relationship. You’da made big bonus points to remember that today and to include her powers in your little seminar. May I speak frankly?”
Gonzales frowned at me. “Any way to stop you?” he demanded.
“No. So. Frankly speaking? You are acting dumb and stupid. And T. Laine is way too smart and self-sufficient to put up with you for long. You want her, you best be mending your ways and start using your brain. Assuming you got one.”
Into my earbud, FireWind said, “Location is clear. Call for coroner. PsyLED, move in.”
Calling for the coroner meant there was a dead human inside. T. Laine and Occam entered. I walked from the SWAT team to the small house and inside, through the splintered remains of the back entrance, my breath making clouds inside as well.
The back door was in pieces against the far wall, resting on top of a cheap dinette set. The house had been empty for a long time, mold on the kitchen walls, the furniture filthy, signs of rodent and raccoon scat everywhere. No human had lived here in years, not even the evidence of crack addicts I expected, or signs of squatters looking for a warm place to sleep.
I followed the voices to the front of the house.
The furniture in the living room had been shoved against two walls, and the floor in the center had been swept clean. Then splattered in blood.
In a twisted tangle of limbs and a pool of blood lay a body, male, nude, covered with wounds that were consistent with the PMs on the five homeless males. Tortured. The blood all around had frozen into scarlet crystals, flakes, and smears. It hadn’t had time to dry and turn brown, but had frozen moments after it fell. He was face down, and somehow that made it easier to study the body.
I’d been raised on a farm. I was used to seeing animals slaughtered and dressed for the cooking pot, for smoking or salting, or for being made into winter jerky. Despite the death of the animals, it had always been quick and humane. This was not. This slaughter, this draining of the man’s blood, had been slow and methodical and then swift and brutal. Not only inhumane but inhuman.
I walked around the body until I could see his face, swiveled hard to the right. Electric shivers shot through me. I knew him.
Cai. Ming’s Cai.
FireWind tapped his mic for a private channel and said into his comms, “Jones. Cold one. Single name, Cai, human primo to Ming of Glass, Master of the City of Knoxville. Request coroner’s ETA.” He studied the scene as he listened. “Copy that; fifteen minutes.”
Occam was kneeling on a clean corner of the floor. He angled his head to the room and tapped his nose to indicate he was telling by scent as well as by the frozen scarlet color. “Ain’t often I wish I had a dog’s nose, but best as I can tell, this is Soul’s blood over here. Her human blood, not her arcenciel blood.”
T. Laine braced against the far doorway and scrutinized the scene. She reached up to her throat and once again touched themoonstone necklace she wore beneath her shirt. A few seconds later she said into her mic, “Kent here.Seeingworking reveals this is not a witch circle. No signs of dark magic or the torture being a sacrifice. But over there I sense magic.” She pointed to a corner and walked over. She squatted and said, “Clothes. Hair. Stuff for CSI. Up close, it isn’t witch magic or were-magic. Maybe some charms were kept here. No sacrifice. But…” T. Laine tilted her head this way and that. She touched a strand of hair on the floor. “But it does feel familiar. Like what happens when a vampire shares blood with someone. That opening, sharing, and binding. I’m guessing they drank here. But…” She stood and backed away. “I don’t know. Something feels different.”
FireWind called our contact at the headquarters of the Dark Queen and managed to get through. He described the blood at Soul’s and the blood we had found here. He went to FaceTime and showed Alex the scene. Sharing a crime scene with an outside source was one of FireWind’s big taboos, but I kept my mouth shut and so did the others. He returned to a simple call, the cell held to his ear as he walked into the kitchen and listened.
When he ended the call, FireWind reentered the living room and said, “Confirmed information. If an arcenciel is taken in light dragon form, they can be captured in a crystal. The person who holds the crystal can then step back through time and alter the past, sometimes only in small jumps, sometimes in larger passages of time. If an arcenciel is captured in human form, they have to be forced to shift shape into a dragon to be forced into the crystal.
“Eli Younger, of the Dark Queen’s security, speculated two things. One, that they smelled the Blood Tarot on Cai and that’s why they took him from Ming’s when they burned the clan home. Two, that Soul was in her arcenciel form when vampires entered her apartment. They tried to capture her in a crystal but she was able to shift to human before they abducted her. That’s why the two forms of her blood were in her apartment. He also speculates that they forced her to watch Cai being tortured in the hope that she would change form.”
“Is there any indication that Soul and Cai knew one another?” Kent asked.
“Nothing concrete. The assistant director of PsyLED is in danger. That speculation has been agreed with by those up-line from me. It is believed that Tomás wants her to shift forms so he can ride her into the past. Reasons unknown.”
“What does heguessTorquemada would want to change in the past?” T. Laine asked.
“Eli hinted that he and his brother have material and intelligence from a researcher and information broker named Reach, who used to rival…” FireWind gave one of his rare smiles, this one wry and amused at once. “Certain other hackers in the business.” His expression said he was referring to JoJo. “Their information came from him. Eli agrees that Torquemada has, or once had, a captive arcenciel, based on the photographs of the old paintings acquired by Ingram and now in your electronic files.
