CHAPTER 1
Dahlia
I was trying to have a quiet moment with my daily dose of Monster Ultra while learning as much as possible about an Elvin masquerade. Just then the scent of stale king cake hit me like a supernatural freight train. Now, I loved a good king cake, but it wasn’t anywhere close to that. This was the sad, three-day-old gas station variety that lingered in your sinuses like skunk and brimstone. The world went sideways, and I barely managed to set my drink down before dropping it.
The vision slammed into my consciousness with all the subtlety of a runaway float during Mardi Gras. The first thing I saw was a body sprawled near Jackson Square. It was positioned like some twisted carnival display. It was wearing what looked like a handmade mask. You could easily tell the mass-manufactured ones sold in stores everywhere.
Blood formed intricate patterns around the body that were definitely not standard parade route decorations. The tourists that were stumbling around finally noticed the dead woman. That was when the screaming started. Thescreeching brought me out of my head before I was ready. I didn’t get nearly enough details to try and avert this tragedy.
"Well, shit," I muttered as I reached for my drink with a shaky hand and fueled my caffeinated addiction. Yeah, some of us dealt with seeing the future through aggressive energy drink consumption. Don't judge. "We aren't going to be able to plan this party without tripping over a corpse," I informed Dre and Dani, who were going over information with me.
Both sisters looked up at the same moment my phone buzzed. It was Puich, our inside man at the morgue. Well, inside brownie. The tiny supernatural coroner's assistant had saved our butts before by alerting us to magical deaths before mundane authorities could ask too many questions. I put the call on speaker, “Hey, Puich. I’m here with Dani and Dre. What's up?”
"We've got a problem," he said without preamble. "A dead female in her early thirties was brought in an hour ago. She's got... markings on her." His swallow was audible through the speaker, and my stomach dropped. Puich wasn’t ruffled unless things had gone into seriously weird territory. "They look like ritualistic carvings. Like someone was trying to... hell, I don’t know. You need to see this. Soon. Before Detective Payne shows up for his briefing."
I winced at the mention of Detective Payne. We'd worked with him six months ago when one of Phi's graduate students had gone on a killing spree and had targeted her and her family. We'd managed to keep the magical elements under wraps during that case. He still thought the student was a psychopath rather than corrupted by a Skinwalker. But the detective wasn't stupid. He'd known we weren't telling him everything. Since we clearly weren’t involved in the deaths, he hadn’t pushed the issue. That would change if he got one whiff of something off this time.
"How long do we have?" Dre asked.
"He usually arrives by seven. It's five-thirty now," Puich responded.
"On our way. Should we call the other sisters?" I asked.
“It would be good to have you all here to see this. I’ll see you guys soon.” Puich hung up, leaving me staring at my sisters for a second.
I hopped up and sucked in a breath when I saw Lucas standing at the entrance holding my purse and keys. My mate's expression told me he’d heard the entire phone call. I wasn’t surprised, given his shifter hearing. He could hear a whispered conversation. I just hadn’t realized he was in the house.
He held out my belongings and searched my eyes. "You saw something right before you got the call, didn’t you? You mentioned something about a body." The words were gentle, but there was no point pretending he hadn't caught every detail.
"I had a vision.” I gave him and my sisters a brief rundown of what I’d seen as we headed for my car. “The woman I had seen was during the thick of Mardi Gras, so we should have a bit of time. Although, I guess this victim could be a lead up to that.”
"Let’s hope that’s not the case. We don’t need a supernatural serial killer. I’ve informed Kota, Dea, and Phi to meet us at the morgue,” Dre replied.
Lucas pressed a kiss to my lips and murmured, “Be careful. I’m going to have some of the pack meet me there just in case this is the Skinwalker setting you guys up.”
Knowing better than to argue with him when he became overprotective, I nodded. It was a good idea. One, I hadn’t considered. He handed me my energy drink before I slipped behind the wheel. This was why I loved that man. He understood that sometimes you needed both family and potentially lethal doses of caffeine to deal with supernaturalemergencies. I steeled myself for what we were going to encounter and headed out with my sisters.
Twenty minutes and several traffic violations later, I pulled into the morgue's parking lot. Kota and Phi were already there when Dani, Dre, and I parked. Dea arrived before we reached the back door.
"Anyone want to explain the size of that coffee?" I asked with a smirk. My sisters had given me shit about the number of energy drinks I’d consumed when we had dealt with the Lost Legends. And here Phi and Kota were holding cups that were roughly the size of my head.
"Don't judge. It's not even six in the morning," Kota muttered, clutching her cup tighter. "You of all people should know that sometimes mainlining caffeine is necessary."
Dani laughed. "Yet you're the one who's always giving Lia crap about her energy drinks. And she's been sticking to just one Monster a day for three days now," she pointed out.
"Baby steps," I teased, earning an eye roll from both of them.
The conversation halted as Puich appeared at the service entrance. The brownie's pristine white tennis shoes practically glowed in the pre-dawn light. They were a stark contrast to his neat blue jeans and green sweater. His wavy brown hair flopped as he gestured us inside.
"Quickly," he urged as he led us through maintenance corridors. "I've got her isolated in exam room three. There’s definitely a magical signature on this one, and it is strange."
My usual snark evaporated the moment I stepped into that exam room. The stench of death and antiseptic hit me like one of Dre's practice punches from that disaster of a week when I thought sparring with my sister was a good idea. Considering my oldest sibling had biceps that couldrival most bodybuilders, I don’t know what I was thinking. My ribs twinged at the memory.
But it wasn't the smell that had my magic doing the cha-cha under my skin. It was the mask perched on the victim's face. It looked like some twisted art piece with its gold swirls and royal purple feathers. It was the kind of thing you'd see at those fancy masquerade balls New Orleans was famous for back in the day. The ones where rich people pretended to be mysterious while sipping overpriced champagne. My stomach turned at the thought of Keryth's upcoming masquerade. With a killer who had a thing for masks on the loose, it could become the perfect hunting ground.
That wasn’t our immediate concern. My brain automatically began comparing it to the mask I'd glimpsed in my scent-o-vision earlier. Nowthathad been a work of handcrafted art. Each golden whorl had been personally etched by someone who clearly thought of leather work as foreplay. The one on this victim however, was mass-produced perfection. Did that mean it wasn’t the same killer? It was something to keep in mind.
My power coiled tight in my gut as I edged closer to the steel table. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like angry wasps. The shadows they cast danced across the mask's surface in a way that made it seem almost alive. Shaking my head, I focused on the supernatural element Puich was concerned about. Something had my magical radar pinging like a pinball machine stuck on bonus mode.
