Page 36 of The Vampire and the Case of the Malevolent Mermaid

‘We’ve had a murder and the deceased was killed in the same manner as Andrew Kamluck – and I meanexactlylike Kamluck, maybe even using the same murder weapon. I thought it prudent to get you here to check for a breach in the barrier.’ That was the most Gunnar had said to Liv since the incident.

Her eyes widened slightly, though otherwise she remained completely still. If poker were a team sport, I’d want her on my side.

‘Since we reset the barrier it’s been working without incident,’ she huffed, as if she were affronted by the suggestion that it could have malfunctioned. Nevertheless, she started carefully scanning the woods around us. I got it: I’d been doing the same.

Gunnar merely stared at her and waited.

‘Fine.’ She lifted her arms, threw back her head and closed her eyes.

I felt a faint tugging in my guts and knew she was using her magic. It wasn’t a strong feeling this time so I didn’t need to back away. Finally her arms dropped and she opened her eyes. ‘The barrier is as sound as ever – I see no holes, no tears. Nothing but perfection.’ A smug smile played at her lips.

Gunnar nodded and turned his back on her. Right: it was up to me to be the diplomatic one. I guessed we were doing dourcop, good cop. ‘Thanks so much for coming, Liv.’ I was genuinely grateful, though it struck me that thanking her might count as some kind of fae-style debt. Like the fairy folk – if they were real – Liv’s help always came with a price. Hopefully this time it would only be an invoice.

‘Hey, Liv, before you go… Did you sense anything, umm, dead?’ I figured it didn’t hurt to ask if she was aware of Cadence and Casiah; she was a necromancer, after all.

She gave me a measured look. ‘Death surrounds us.’

‘I meant recently. Can you tell us anything about the scene?’

Her eyes bored into mine. ‘The body has been removed. There is a dead fox over there, and rodents and dead plant matter.’ She waved her hand over the earth. ‘Death is everywhere, all of the time.’

‘We're looking for two girls’ bodies,’ I explained. ‘Twins. They were kidnapped seven years ago and we saw their spirits around here.’

She shook her head. ‘I can sense recent death because the power lingers, but after a death the corpse turns into something else and joins the great seething mass of regeneration.’

I supposed that made sense. Liv raised her nose even higher. ‘Now, can I go or do you want me to bill you for another hour?’ There she was. No longer mystical, just cold, hard Liv.

‘That’ll be all,’ I said. ‘Thanks again.’

She glanced towards Gunnar and I saw a flash of longing before she pushed it down, then she stomped to her car. He was back toignoring her and I guessed she was growing tired of acting contrite. That probably meant a higher bill, but there we go.

I sighed and turned back to the job at hand. We wanted to gather all we could before I called Matilda because her mole-like rupture from the ground wasn’t the best way to preserve evidence. Unfortunately I didn’t have any doughnuts as an offering, only a collection of tea biscuits I’d grabbed from my stash in the break room.

We collected the little we could find, which was almost nothing. I photographed a few tracks and picked up some hair, anything that might have fingerprints, and swabbed blood from the murder weapon.

Moving the hunk of metal was incredibly hard, even for Gunnar. He managed to lift it a few inches off the ground with alotof huffing and puffing, but it was way beyond his ability to use it as a weapon. There was no way Sidnee could have used it to kill Donovan.

If Sidnee and Gunnar couldn’t shift it, then who the hell could?

We spent some time looking for Donovan’s mode of transport. He couldn’t have walked all the way up here and the blood splatter told us he’d been killed here. He could have been drugged, dumped andthenhad his head bashed in – but then the blood splatter wouldn’t be so great.

It seemed more likely that Donovan had been here for his own nefarious purposes and there’d been an altercation, perhaps with the skinny one in the crew or maybe there were other scumbagsinvolved in the sex-trafficking ring. Either way, we’d know more after Donovan’s autopsy.

We also needed to inform his wife and question her.

‘Where’s his rig?’ Gunnar finally asked in frustration.

‘It’s not here,’ I sighed – but then some tracks caught my eye. ‘Look!’ I rushed over to them: quad-bike tracks. ‘I’d bet money someone else was with him and they killed him, then they left using his quad bike!’ I mentally pulled up a picture of the tracks I’d seen at the Robertson’s house. ‘Same tracks as the ones I found at the Robertsons,’ I confirmed.

He did a slow turn. ‘Whyhere, though?’ he asked. ‘There’s nothing here.’

‘Nothing we’re seeing. It’s time to call the earthy calvary. I’m going to call Matilda.’

Gunnar frowned. ‘The hag is not trustworthy or safe.’

I shrugged. ‘I trust her.’ I was amazed to find that I did. She had no reason to lie to us and she was a girl after my own heart, willing to work for snacks. Even so, I knew I’d never feel wholly safe with her; she was an apex predator, not to mention rather odd, and she had her own motives that didn’t necessarily match those of the humanoid races.

‘Well, I don’t have a better idea,’ Gunnar admitted.

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