“In a squad car out front.”
I dismiss him with a nod and leave the basement, gulping in fresh air as soon as I’m outside. I remove the coveralls and go around the house to find this lady who’s hearing voices.
There was a time when I wouldn’t have given her the slightest benefit of the doubt. If you hear voices you’re batshit crazy and should be on medication. But then I walked into an old house and lifted a thousand-year-old spell.
“Mrs. Green?” I ask when I open the car door. She has a blanket around her shoulders and looks as stricken as someone should when they discover the basement of their rental property could be the backdrop for the prom scene ofCarrie. “I’m Detective Bisset.”
Mrs. Green blinks and pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Slowly, she turns her head. “They know,” she whispers.
“Who knows?”
She shifts her gaze around, wincing as if someone just slapped her hard on the face. I’m starting to lean toward my she’s-batshit-crazy theory right now.
“The Dark Ones.” The words come out hoarse and strangled, and she looks me dead in the eye. “They know about you.”
As hard as I try, I can’t stop a chill from running down my spine.
“And what did they tell you?”
She closes her eyes. “They want the night. They say it’s theirs and they want it back.”
I exhale, head feeling fuzzy again. “Make sure you give a statement to the responding officer,” I mutter, and step away. I go around the squad car, watching flashing lights from the CSU van come down the road.
There’s no need to put any stock into this lady. If I were a betting woman, I’d put a hundred bucks on her being off her rocker, and another fifty on her being the one who staged the blood bath in the basement. And probably twenty-five on her being a compulsive cat hoarder who’s going to get arrested for animal neglect on top of her other charges.
Tipping my head up to the dark sky, I think of Thomas’s and Gilbert’s handsome faces. Of Hasan’s rippling muscles, and Jacques’s deep, sad eyes.
Keep it together, Ace.
Shaking myself, I go back to work, wrapping things up quickly since there’s not technically a body. I pull out my phone and send a text to Jac, telling him I’ll be headed home soon.
He replies right away, telling me to be careful, and adds a bunch of emojis at the end of his text. I laugh, shaking my head. I never should have shown him that, though I’m sure he would have figured it out on his own. Jacques is quite smart, and I know he’s enjoyed learning about new inventions way more than he’d ever let on.
Taking one last look at the squad car that holds Mrs. Green, I pocket my phone and take a few steps in the direction of my Charger. Something feels off, and it’s not the over-the-top crime scene in the basement.
I can’t put it into words, because it’s quite literally just a feeling. I’ve had them before, and as a cop, I know how important it is to listen to your gut. And right now, my gut is telling me to go down that dark alley two doors down from the blood house. It’s my weekend off, dammit, and I want to spend every minute of it with my guys.
But as I get closer to the alley, my head gets all muddled again, and it’s like a million people are talking all at once on a frequency only I can hear. At first it’s just a quiet whisper, like a mouth right up to my ear, breath warm on my flesh. I whirl around, fists clenched, ready to fight.
Of course, there’s no one there.
A tumult of whispers weigh down on me, and I bring my hands over my ears to drown them out. I can’t tell what they’re saying, and the bombardment is making me go on the defense. The tips of my fingers start to feel warm.
Dammit. Not now.
I bring my hands back down, balling them into fists as I try to quell the magical fire I seem to only be able to conjure up when I’m faced with certain danger. Forcing myself to take a deep breath and find my fucking zen, I shake out my hands and mentally tell the voices to go screw themselves.
I turn to go back to my car, and a flash of light catches my attention at the last moment. It came from the alley. Pulling my gun from its holster, I sprint over, gravel crunching under my boots. I come to a grinding halt, eyes wide and nostrils flaring.
“Motherfucker,” I curse, and reach for my radio. Looks like this is my crime scene after all. Before I can get a word in, something moves behind me. Gun raised, I turn on my heel.
Standing before me is a man, pale, gray, and the spitting image of the dead body lying on the ground feet from me.
2
“What the fuck?”
I blink, and the man stares right at me. I shuffle forward, finger hovering over the trigger on my gun. The man doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blink. And now I don’t think he’s staring at me so much as staringthroughme.
