She let out a long, exasperated breath. “Fine. I’m going to sit in the AC while you sweat in the heat. Unlike Luke, I hate being hot.” She flounced off toward the car.
Which made Sorcha realize something. She was sweating. Horribly. Luke on the other hand…
“Aren’t you hot in that coat? It’s nine thousand degrees out here.”
He smirked at her. “From Hell? Remember? This is the arctic tundra to me. Why do you think I was in a boiling hot tub in the sun? Since they kicked me out of my home, I freeze all the time. It’s miserable. You’re lucky I’m not in a parka on the equator.”
“Is it really that hot in Hell?”
“I’m not sweating, am I? Because I’m used to a lot hotter than this. I cannot say this enough. Hell is hot and I like it like that.”
Terrified by what he described so casually, Sorcha drifted toward the bagged body that was being lifted onto a Gurney by the coroner. The regular LEOs—law enforcement officers—were finally clearing the scene.
Even though she could no longer see the girl, she kept her gaze averted. It was the kind of death that lingered.
In an effort to divert her thoughts, she started on the obvious. “There’s not enough blood here, given the severity of her injuries. She was obviously killed elsewhere.”
“Agreed.”
Sorcha glanced around the cemetery that was similar to the one across the street from their offices. There was a school nearby, and a lot of homes.
Granted there were trees to block some line of sight, still… “This is a very public place to dump a body.”
“Again, agreed. And while it’s nowhere near as popular a tourist attraction as Bonaventure or Colonial Cemetery, it still gets its share of looky-loos.”
Frowning, Sorcha glanced at the road not that far away. “So how did they do it without being seen?” It made no sense to her. A passing car could easily see suspicious activity and report it.
Luke shrugged. “For one of my kind, easy. Teleportation. Portaling. Hell, we could drop a body and just mind fuck anyone who saw it. Burn out the cameras. The real question is, could a human do it and not be seen?”
She turned around, looking at everything. “I don’t see how. Unless they were really lucky. But there are so many cameras nowadays, it’s getting harder and harder to commit a crime and not be seen. I can’t tell you how many crimes we solved in New Orleans with a simple Ring camera on someone’s door. What other creatures are you thinking?”
“Demons don’t usually kill their victims. Defeats the purpose of what they’re after. But if they did, they could open a portal. Jump in and out. Never be seen.”
That was a good start. “Aside from demons, who else uses portals?”
He gave her an arch stare.
“Okay. Apparently, it’s a long list. I’m just trying to understand it.” Because portals weren’t that common in her world, even as bizarre as it was.
Sighing, Sorcha went toward the grave where the body had been placed. “Hagan lot… Patrick and Mary. Died 1912 and 1921 respectively. Along with Prince the dog—he loved his master.” Extremely weird, as was the fact that the entire lot was one giant marble slab and fenced in with some impressive coping and decorations that included a very large, ornate cross, towering over the graves. “You think the dog or Hagans have anything to do with it?”
“No.”
“That your evil powers speaking?”
Luke scratched at his ear, looking less than pleased. “Don’t need my powers here. Can’t imagine anyone trying to bring back someone from that long ago. Unless it was a writer for a term paper of some kind. Anyone else would know it was pointless…and gross to try and raise a body that old. Zombie bokors go for the recent dead.”
“You’re not funny.”
“You say that, but I know the kids who go to school here. You’d be amazed what some of them have done or will do to get what they want…especially when it’s an A for a test or paper they don’t want to write or study for. There’s only so much AI can do.”
She would deny it, but there had been a time or two when she’d been willing to sacrifice the proverbial goat while in college.
And when it came to her roommate…
Maureen was very lucky Sorcha hadn’t sacrificed that boyfriend-stealing-bitch to the goddess of sanity. Had Maureen not stolen her boyfriend, Sorcha wouldn’t have ended up with Bert.
Still…
