Page 12 of Crossing Between
Elias snorted out a laugh. "Bean juice? Coffee is life-giving. How can you say it's juice?"
"Did you know that some coffee beans are picked out of civet droppings?" I took another sip as I snickered when Elias jerked the wheel of the car making Kenji curse at him.
"You almost spilled the coffee!" Kenji grumbled at him roughly before looking at me again. "What the hell is a civet and is it really made from their shit?" He held up his cup and eyed it warily.
"Yup!" I enjoyed myself at their grimaces. "It's a small mammal that is called a civet cat here, although they're found in Asia. They partially digest the coffee beans and those are what are picked up to brew." Of course, they cleaned it but that had to be obvious.
"That's not all coffee though." Elias looked in the rearview mirror at me, our eyes meeting briefly before he looked away quickly.
I had an urge to keep looking into his eyes so I had to swallow before talking again. "No, just the world's most expensive coffee. I'll stick to my tea."
Kenji took a tiny drink from his cup. "I'm not sure I trust the bean juice any longer." His lips jerked in amusement as he eyed his partner's reaction.
Elias turned to glare at him before returning his attention to the road. "I KNEW I shouldn't have sparred with you last night. You're back to being insufferable." He gulped down his coffee as if in defiance of us and the conversation. "Let's catch Zoey up on what we know."
"Right." Kenji pulled out a folder and he opened it. "We don't have much information. The night shift sent this to us even though it doesn't fit our murders but they have a rookie who is slightly psychic and saw that we needed to look at the body based on the killer’s aura."
"What do they mean that it doesn't fit?" I leaned forward to look over Kenji's shoulder. "Aura?" Kenji held up the folder so I could get a glance at the crime scene photos. It was good I hadn't had time to eat breakfast because they made my stomach churn. "That's a body?" All I could see was blood, limbs, and organs spattered over a bright white tiled floor. "There's no head."
"No. That's the only thing that was missing from the scene. We think that's what the killer took as their souvenir this time if it is our guy." Kenji closed the folder, putting it in the space between his chair and the center console. "Every time a victim is killed, their murderer's aura sticks to their body for several hours to a day. It's nothing that the killer can hide. It's how we're able to tell when victims are related even though we haven't had many clues." His hand reached out and pushed back a few strands of my hair that had come out of my bun and was against his shoulder.
His fingers rubbed the strands together for a few seconds before placing the strands behind my right ear. The tips of his claws brushed the top of my ear and a pleasurable shock raced through my spine. I had to hold in a tiny gasp that threatened to come out. His bright blue eyes darkened while we stared at each other, it was like time paused until the car abruptly came to a halt, jerking me forward against my seat belt.
"Oops. Sorry about that." Elias did not sound sorry.
What was his problem? Was he still annoyed with me about not letting him help me with my face? What a jerk, even if he was panty dropping-licious. An image of him pounding me into the floor with his braids hanging around my face flashed through my mind. I had to take a drink of my tea and look out the window to disguise my blush.
I went a year without a relationship or sex and I was doing alright with it but now I was lusting after three men that I just met and worked with. I really needed to get my body in check.
"Okay. What we need from you, Zoey is to see if you can get the soul to come to you so we can identify them and any significant information they can provide to us." Elias parked in the back of the morgue where it was labeled for law enforcement. "After we're done here, we have some leads to follow up on. I know it's early, but would you mind hanging out with Quilith until we're done? It's earlier than lunch but I'm sure they'll be thrilled to have you to themselves for a few hours."
My hand froze on the door handle. A few hours with the person who seemed to know my secret by just looking at me? This was either going to go well or I was screwed and I was potentially dead. It wasn't like I could say no either without raising their suspicions as to why I wanted to refuse meeting with Quilith for longer than lunch. I swallowed, squared my shoulders, and stepped out of the car. "Sounds good to me."
Quilith was in the room we had been in yesterday. They were wearing even more colorful clothes than I was. They just had the perfect sense of style that I wanted to like them so badly. I hoped our conversation wouldn't end that hope.
They spun in a circle when we walked into the room. "Ah! Detectives and my new friend! You made good time." They sauntered toward us, their impossibly high heels making sharp clacks on the concrete floor. "Your victim is right here." They gestured toward a steel embalming table. "At least what is left of them. I've determined sex is female. She wasn't more than twenty-five."
Power from the dead flowed through the room that hadn't been here yesterday. I glanced around, letting my magic out a little as I tried to see where the power was coming from. I tried not to show any outward shock as I discovered that the power was coming from the shredded body parts on the table. Multiple souls, more than I could count, surrounded it. The bodies own soul was nowhere to be found.
They were reaching out to the parts, some moaning in pain, while others were quietly just staring down at it. With all of them in the same space, my magic fought me briefly to grab onto all of them. I stomped it down as fast as I could.
When my magic touched them, the souls turned as one to look at me. My fingers tingled as their power focused in on me, my magic wanted to command it. A soul in the middle of the group, an older man who wore what looked like a cardigan and slacks that hinted that he died sometime in the nineteen fifties.
"The Essencefeaster is back." He looked back down at the body. "You don't have long before it comes into its full power and thousands will die when it does."
God damnit. They knew who was killing these people and I couldn't even let the detectives know or ask them more questions. I couldn't even make my magic command this soul to meet me at my house later. At a minimum, Quilith would detect me using my necromancy magic. I couldn't risk it. Even if this soul could give me much-needed information. I felt torn between keeping myself safe and helping to save other lives.
"Zoey, my sweet little cherub!" Quilith was suddenly in front of me, breaking my concentration on the souls and I pulled my magic in quickly. "I am so excited that we get to spend more time together outside of lunch!" They grabbed my hands, pulling them up to their chest and there was a warning in their eyes. "Let's hurry this along so we can have that time start soon." Their hands squeezed mine tightly before looking back at the detectives. "Would you two like some donuts? I know how much you hunky boys enjoy your sugar."
Elias grunted. "Donuts sound good."
Kenji came to my side, took my hands out of Quiliths, and patted them as he lowered them. "Try not to overwhelm Zoey too much, Quilith. We'll go get some donuts while Zoey does her thing and be back in twenty minutes. Does that give you enough time?" He looked at me as he asked the question.
I nodded silently as they left the room.
"Now that we're alone," Quilith's energetic happy go lucky attitude abruptly shifted into seriousness as they crossed their arms. "Do you want to summon the soul now or tell me if my suspicions are correct?"
"I'll try to summon the soul." Anything to put off talking to them. The soul was gone from this plane. I wouldn't be able to summon her without showing that I was a necromancer but I could act like I was trying to summon them at least to give me a few extra minutes.
