Page 37 of A Subtle Scar
“Wow, that’s really lucky. It’s also a lot of corpses. Do we think whoever’s doing this is escalating?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. I do want them to make mistakes, I do not want them to hurt more people. At a first glance, there is nothing on the bodies that indicates escalation. The symbols vary, but other than that, what we know so far lines up.”
“Cause of death?” I asked.
Rice shook her head. “The ME didn’t find any trauma and no wounds that could have killed them. She says that, medically, she would guess heart failure, but given the circumstances in which we found them and that the wounds are pre- or peri-mortem, homicide is more likely.”
I said, “That is a fancy way of saying our victims were likely killed by magic.”
Rice held my gaze. “So it would seem.”
I nodded once. This would be especially bad in terms of communicating to the media and the wider public if these women really had been murdered by a magic user. I understood why Rice hadn’t slept, why she had done her best to get this resolved as fast as humanly possible.
“What did we get from the last crime scenes?”
“There are a few fibers from today’s victim, the one in the wheat field. And something else. I’ll wait till you see it before I tell you.”
The elevator arrived back on the first floor, and we walked toward the Magical Evidence Unit. I’d been here before for the case earlier this year, and the familiar walk into the linoleum-floored annex made me recall all the weirdness of that case, and the immortal involvement.
“How have you been doing on the expert front regarding the symbols?” I asked. My gut said that a non-magical expert wouldn’t be of much help, but you never knew.
Rice grinned at me. “The one good thing about this case? It turns out some people at the university don’t mind so much that we, you know, arrested a criminal with a PhD.”
“That just about restores your faith in humanity, doesn’t it?” I said.
“It truly does. So far, there is the Eye of Horus, which you and Deacon both recognized, and something that means ‘watch.’ Another sign means ‘one of seven,’ and then there’s something about constellations the expert wasn’t sure of.”
We turned the corner to the Magical Evidence Unit. Which had a guard desk in front of it so non-magic users didn’t stumble in there, a lot like with our consultant department at the FIS.
I stopped dead, and my mouth fell open. “Fucking hell.”
Hermes was doing a selfie with the tech…I searched my memory. Sherry, right. Sherry Macallan. Charon stood by and looked uncertain about the tech dressed in moss green shorts and baby blue tights with a matching blue blouse, and black platform boots, but I wasn’t sure whether he was considering the outfit or the activity of taking a selfie.
“Oh, Agent Chandler,” Sherry said. “Your boyfriends arethe sweetest.”
“Huh?” I said. It came out a little high and panicky sounding. Charon and Hermes both looked at me and smiled. I didn’t do panicky.
“Hello, darling,” Charon said.
“Hi there, baby,” Hermes said with a wink.
Rice turned to look at me. “First Hawkes and now you. It seems like all the magic users are going for the immortals these days. You’re handling two at the same time?”
Was she…what now? “No! This—no. Misunderstanding, a giant one.” I mimed. I did not do miming, and I hastily crossed my arms in front of me.
Hermes and Charon both came up to me.
“Did you get here okay?” Hermes asked, his wildflower honey eyes looking me over.
“How was the drive?” Charon asked, pushing a strand of his hair back behind an ear.
Fucking hell. Was there something like bug spray, but for immortals?
I took a slow, steadying breath. It didn’t matter. This was a professional setting, I needed to keep calm because I was not going to lose my shit like I wanted to on those two immortal idiots while Rice and Sherry were watching. I was going to be professional but clear. And firm. Firm? Fuck. It had to be the two of them being so close. I hadn’t really noticed before. Hadn’t noticed last night or at the orgy, but either they were doing magic, or one of them smelled really nice. Maybe they both smelled really nice. Cloves and cedarwood for sure, but also something stronger, more biting, like black pepper and moss.
What had three days of vacation done to me? How was I outside of an evidence unit and half-hard?
“Baby, you okay there?” Hermes asked.
