Page 42 of A Subtle Scar
But yes, some people had died that day, and I had quite enjoyed ending the lives of those hypocritical and vile humans. No regrets.
“Well—”
Ronny said, “We wouldn’t decimate a whole village, that goes without saying. Doing something like that would be vile.” I felt a wave of his magic billow out at me, the equivalent of him slamming one of his damn heels down on my toes, hard. “And while Hermes loves idolizing youth when he sees it, that young man was already done with his apprenticeship. As I remember it, Hermes got distracted by a passing noble before he ever exchanged two sentences with either the young smith or his sister.”
Detective Rice narrowed her eyes on Ronny. “Okay,” she said. Then she turned to me. “Watch it. I may not have jurisdiction where immortals are concerned, but I have Tiamat’s number.”
Ah, yes. Lucy had been very right about making befriending Detective Rice a top priority. I just didn’t understand why it was bad to have killed the instigating villagers with all their chanting and their insults and their fucking glee at the idea of incinerating another human, nor why such an innocent kiss—there had hardly been any tongue, I was fairly sure—would be an issue. But Ronny seemed to understand, and I’d ask him about it later. Humans were so strange outside of the nice, relaxed club atmosphere.
I inclined my head. “All I meant was I despise humans torturing and burning other humans. And I despise this.” That seemed to mellow the whole situation.
“They aren’t the same,” Ronny said all of a sudden, his eyes back on the objects on the worktable.
“I was thinking that too,” Chandler said. Then his jaw visibly tensed. “Are you sure about that?” He looked up at Ronny.
“Positive.”
“What, the spells aren’t the same?” Detective Rice asked.
“The magic users who made them,” Chandler corrected. “With the rope, I can’t tell, but this marionette binding and the other two are all different.”
“That’s unexpected,” Madison said.
“Shit. No one can talk to the press about this,” Detective Rice said.
“I think it would be wise if you let me call a media manager from the FIS, Detective,” Chandler said. “And we need to look at the victims. Where they come from. How they were taken.”
Rice nodded. “That’s another thing. Deacon got us the names, minus the subway victim and the last one. They are young, all under twenty-three, that’s what the ME says. They haven’t been reported missing, and I haven’t found anyone in the database that matches them.”
“Huh,” Chandler said, his right eyebrow going up. “That is not the good kind of weird. How about you show me everything you have so far, I call someone from the FIS to help with the media, and we all head to the morgue tomorrow with Deacon?”
“Sounds good to me,” Detective Rice said.
I hoped that meant Chandler was done here. I couldn’t wait until Ronny and I got to dote on him. Hard.
Chapter Twelve
IsettleddowninRice’s office, which had a table large enough to do this kind of work on and a couch to crash on if it was ever needed. The couch looked to have seen some use.
The immortals eventually faded to background noise, apart from the few times Hermes handed me hot coffee, and not the stuff from the machine, but proper coffee shop coffee that didn’t taste burnt or too acidic.
“I wasn’t sure if you liked black, so I got a selection,” he’d said the first time. His honey eyes were luminous against the glare of the harsh overhead lights.
I gave him a hard look, but he’d definitely splurged, going by all the recyclable mugs in the cardboard box. Also, I’d been reading and re-reading witness statements, and my eyes were getting tired.
“Just black,” I’d told him.
He’d handed the rest of the coffee out to the homicide unit, and the next few times, I’d gotten straight black coffee, delivered right to within arm’s reach.
Charon had read the papers on the file in Rice’s office once, and then he’d gone outside. I tracked him through the glass wall of the office on the side that overlooked the rest of the unit.
Charon had a bit of a model walk, but without being as loud as a model as far as intentionally drawing attention to himself went. And yet, I stared. It was hard to explain other than it was difficult to take my eyes off him once he moved. Magnetic. Yes, watching him was magnetic, and as the light faded, he got only more so, unless I was imagining that.
Charon chatted to the people outside of Rice’s office, flitting from one to the other, and oddly, they all seemed to relax when he talked to them. I’d have to do research to confirm it, but I had my suspicions that wasn’t the normal reaction to an immortal talking to you.
Hermes had been reading through the evidence as well, or rather, he’d flipped through it and had then gone on to stare at the screen of his phone. If I was lucky, he’d swipe right on someone soon, and I’d be able to mark off one problem as solved.
Just when I was thinking about problems solved, my phone vibrated with an incoming email, and I put the evidence photos from the experimental wheat field aside to look at it.
