Mark of the Demon

  I climbed out of my car, shoving my keys into the pocket of my jeans and tucking my Beaulac PD T-shirt in. I grabbed my notebook, made sure I had a pen that worked, then took a deep breath to quell my sudden nervousness. I’d been working my ass off for so long to get to this point that it felt almost surreal to actually be here, on my first homicide investigation. And then to have it be a possible Symbol Man case … Doubly surreal.

  I adjusted the badge holder around my neck as I walked up to the scene. I’d harbored a burning curiosity about the Symbol Man murders ever since I was a street cop on the scene of one of his body dumps. I’d seen the body only from a distance, but even from a dozen feet away I could see the faint scattering of light in my othersight and feel the resonance that would be noticed only by someone who was attuned to the arcane. It had shocked and baffled me, and I’d been left with an uncomfortable certainty that the murders had something to do with the demon realm. What little I’d been able to sense of the arcane resonance felt familiar, and I’d waited with morbid eagerness for another body to turn up, determined to make any excuse necessary to get close enough to feel that resonance again.

  And then it stopped. No more bodies were found, and in the last three years I’d even begun to doubt what I’d seen and felt from that victim. I’d been promoted to detective a year after the last murder, assigned to Property Crimes, and now—finally—I was a Homicide detective. I could hardly believe that, in just a few minutes, I might have some answers.

  What I would—or could—do with those answers was another matter entirely.

  The officer by the crime-scene tape gave me a sour look as he thrust a clipboard at me. I didn’t recognize him, which meant that he’d probably been hired within the last two years—after I became a detective.

  “Is it really the same symbol?” I asked as I took the clipboard from him and signed the crime-scene entry log.

  “Beats me,” he said, a scowl drawing his mouth down. “I didn’t get a chance to look at the body too close. The suits don’t want us road cops looking around the scene.” I could see he was deeply affronted that he’d been prevented from contaminating a major crime scene. Poor baby.

  I kept a neutral smile fixed on my face. Yeah, I was a “suit,” but I’d paid my dues as a patrol cop for five years before becoming a detective. “Bummer,” I said simply as I handed the clipboard back and ducked under the tape. No point in trying to educate him about preservation of evidence at a crime scene. He didn’t seem the sort to be willing to hear what I had to say.

  It was easy enough to figure out where the body was. Halogen lamps had been set up to illuminate an area between two enormous vats. White metal staircases led up the sides of each vat, but positioned almost directly between the stairs lay a small lump surrounded by stained concrete. As I skirted the area I could see an outflung arm, dark-blond hair, and a body covered with what I thought might be some sort of net or sheer patterned fabric. I wanted to go check out the body so badly it hurt, to see if there were arcane traces, but I held myself back with a discipline born of a decade of summoning demons. This was not my scene, and I was here only because of my captain’s benevolence. I wasn’t about to risk getting kicked off before I had the chance to soak in as much experience as possible.

  I did stretch out mentally to try to see and feel with my othersight, but I was almost fifty feet away from the body and I sure as shit wasn’t sensitive enough to feel anything from that far away, even if the arcane residue had been fresh and strong.

  A petite crime-scene tech wearing dark-blue fatigue pants and a PD T-shirt came around the curve of the tank on the left, a sour look on her face as she wound up a long measuring tape.

  Her expression cleared when she saw me. “Hey, chick!” she said brightly, giving me a wide smile. “Whatcha doing out here? I thought you were still in Property Crimes.”

  I returned the smile. Crime Scene Technician Jill Faciane was not only an exceedingly cool person but she also knew what she was doing and wouldn’t screw the scene up or allow it to be screwed up. Jill had come over from New Orleans a couple of years after Katrina, bringing a wealth of experience and a sharp wit as well. A slender woman with short red hair and an elfin face, she had a determined set to her jaw, a quick smile, and keen blue eyes that were quick to notice details of scenes that escaped most others. She was also smart and sarcastic, which meant that she and I got along great.

  “I was assigned to Violent Crimes three weeks ago,” I said. “And, since I’m pretty familiar with the Symbol Man cases, the captain gave me permission to come out and help.”

  “Yeah, this is some insane shit! Here, make yourself useful,” she said, as she handed me one end of the measuring tape. “I have a bunch of measurements left, and those useless lugs over there,” she jerked her head toward a knot of people by the main building, “are too important to help get the scene processed.”

  I held the end of the tape obediently. “They’re detectives. Come on, you don’t expect them to actually work, do you?”

  “Ha!” she snapped, as she manhandled me to stand with the end of the tape near a pipe sticking out of the ground. “You’re a detective, and you work.”

  “I know.” I gave a tragic sigh. “I think it’s holding me back too.”

  She snickered, then trotted off to a point near the body, made a notation on her pad, and returned to me. “My God, you’d think the media could have come up with something more exciting than ‘Symbol Man.’”

  “Well, it was a long time ago. In fact, it was right about the time I became a cop, seven years ago. And it was the big news for a while.”

  “Stand by the fence,” she ordered, making more notes. “Well, this is seriously nasty stuff. And what’s the deal with the thing on her chest?”

  I moved to the fence, holding my end of the measuring tape as if I’d been born to do it. “You mean the symbol? I don’t know what it is”—and that bugged the crap out of me as well—“but all the victims had that same symbol somewhere on their bodies, burned or carved into the flesh. Thirteen murders in four years, all linked together by that symbol. Then suddenly it just … stopped.” I shrugged and spread my hands, causing the measuring tape to flutter and earning myself a reproving scowl from Jill.

  “Almost done,” she said, peering down at her notes. “Lemme get the distance to the gate. Have you seen a bunch of his victims?”

  “Nope,” I replied, relocating to the gate. “By the time I became a detective, he’d stopped and it was a cold case, shoved to the bottom of the stack.” I slid a glance to the body, then looked back to Jill. “Didn’t help that his victims were homeless or drug addicts.”

  Jill grimaced, rolling the tape up as she walked back to me. “So not much pressure to solve the cases.”

  She’d pegged it. “Not much,” I said. “Once upon a time there was a semblance of a task force assigned to the case, but it was a lackluster effort.” I shrugged. “Without a lot of public outcry about the murders, local and federal agencies were less inclined to spend a lot of time or money on them. You know how it is.”

  Her brow creased in annoyance. “Oh, yeah, do I.” She took the tape from me and shoved it into one of the side pockets of her fatigue pants. “So how do you know so much about the cases?”

  “Got lucky, I guess. I’m brand-spanking-new in Violent Crimes—haven’t even been assigned my first case yet—so I figured I’d see what I could learn from reading old case files. Since the Symbol Man cases are still unsolved, I decided to start with them.” I didn’t mention my own long-standing desire to get my hands on those files. Until I was transferred to Violent Crimes, I’d had no way to justify the request, and, with the convergence approaching, I’d already made up my mind that I was going to find a way to get to those files by any means necessary. Fortunately, my transfer had come through in time and I’d been spared the need to break into the file room. “And since I had some spare time—”

  “You what ?” Jill chortled. “Y’all get spare
time? Oh, man, I so need to transfer!”

  “We can trade,” I replied. “How hard can your job be? Take some pictures, measure some stuff, maybe throw some fingerprint dust around.” Her eyes widened in mock outrage, and I laughed. “Anyway, Captain Turnham handed me a large box full of files, pictures, and notes and said, ‘Knock yourself out. Don’t let any of your other cases suffer.’”

  “So you do have spare time!” she crowed.

  “Nah. I just have no personal life.” I gave a helpless shrug. “Some people date. I bone up on local serial killers.”

  “Dear God almighty,” she groaned. “You so need to get laid.” Her gaze shifted to a point behind me. “Well, here comes Crawford,” she said, before I could form a retort to her evaluation of my life.

  Not that I had any idea of how to respond—especially since she was frustratingly correct. But there really wasn’t anything I could do about it. I had too many secrets to get intimate with just anyone, and I sure as hell couldn’t risk anyone finding out about the summoning chamber in my basement. I’d simply accepted that a dearth of companionship was one of the prices I paid to be a summoner of demons.

  In my entire life I’d had only two boyfriends, and neither relationship had lasted longer than a few months—each man ending it with the complaint that I was too private and wouldn’t “open up.” I’d fabricated lies and excuses for why I was always busy on the full moon or why he couldn’t stay the night at my place, but the constant deception had been tiring. It was the same reason why I’d never had any sleepovers when I was a kid and why I’d had so few friends—none of them close—in high school. There are worse things to endure, I told myself, not for the first time. Being a summoner is worth it.

  I shoved aside the doubt that always accompanied that thought and glanced back at the man coming toward us. Jill kept her expression neutral, but I knew that she didn’t care much for Detective Cory Crawford. He was another transplant from the south shore, though he was from Jefferson Parish instead of the city. Jefferson Parish was just west of New Orleans and had almost as much crime as the city. He’d been with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office for almost fifteen years and working Homicide for over ten of those years, which meant that he had the most experience of anyone at Beaulac PD except for the captain.

  And he made sure everyone knew it.

  “Prepare to be astounded by his brilliance,” Jill said in a low voice before Crawford reached us, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing.

  Cory Crawford was a stoutly built man, not quite gone to fat though obviously battling a growing midsection. He had gray hair that he stubbornly dyed a dull brown, a neatly trimmed mustache that was dyed to match, and brown eyes that were so close to the color of his hair that many suspected he had specifically matched the two. In stark contrast to the all-consuming brown of his coloring, Crawford preferred to wear highly colorful ties, especially favoring the mildly psychedelic Jerry Garcia brand. A faint scent of wintergreen and tobacco clung to him, and I was exceedingly grateful that we were on a crime scene so I wouldn’t have to be subjected to the sight of him spitting tobacco juice onto the ground or into an empty bottle.

  Detective Crawford gave a bare nod to Jill and a slight glower to me. “I hear you’re the resident expert on the Symbol Man cases.”

  I dragged my eyes up from the wild red and blue pattern of his tie. “Expert? I’ve read the file on the old cases. That’s about it.”

  Crawford’s expression soured still further. “And that apparently makes you more of an expert than anyone else here. Or so our captain has stated.”

  It obviously pained him to admit that he wasn’t the sole fount of all knowledge. But the detective who’d been the lead on the cases before was retired and long gone, living in North Carolina. And the two other detectives who’d worked with him had both gone to work for other agencies. I knew I was pretty much the only one in the department who was up to speed on the cases, but I sure as hell hadn’t expected the captain to champion me to such a degree. “Er … I guess I am.” I ran my fingers through my hair, somewhat discomfited. No pressure. Yeesh. “So who recognized the symbol?”

  “No one has recognized it,” Crawford corrected me gruffly. “This is not yet deemed a Symbol Man case. But Captain Turnham told me to let you take a look at it.”

  Holy crap, but that had to have hacked him off. “All right. Let me take a look at it, then,” I said, feigning casualness. I wasn’t about to let him know just how badly I wanted to do this.

  Crawford’s lips tightened, then he shot a look to Jill. “Are you finished processing enough for her to go look at the body?”

  Jill nodded, maintaining an outward appearance of serene calm. “Yes, of course.”

  Crawford spun and marched off toward the body. Jill and I exchanged a glance that we both knew meant What a dick, and then we followed him, trying not to laugh.

  All thoughts of laughter died away as I got my first close look at the damage that had been done to the young woman. I sucked my breath in as my stomach clenched. “Holy shit.”

  A muscle in Crawford’s jaw twitched. “I’ve never seen anything like this, Kara. It turns my stomach, and you know that I can handle a lot.”

  There was nothing covering the body. What I had thought to be netting was actually the woman’s flesh. Precise parallel cuts had been made along the woman’s arms, legs, torso—a slice every half inch from the neck down, so perfectly placed that I could have used the cuts as a ruler. The only deviation in the meticulous spacing of the slices was the symbol that was centered between her breasts, carved into the flesh.

  I breathed shallowly as I took in the hundreds and hundreds of thin cuts. None of them was deeper than a quarter inch, but I knew that I was looking at days of torture. It was almost a relief to drag my gaze up to examine the ligature marks at her throat—deep grooves in the flesh of her neck, with her face mottled and red above it. At least the ligature had meant an end to her agony, even if it had also meant an end to her life.

  She was probably praying for an end by then.

  I struggled to remain impassive and clinical as I looked over the precisely mutilated body, but it took every ounce of my self-control. I swallowed, throat achingly dry, and crouched to get a better look. This was not a brutal hacking. This was almost elegant and artistic, even as it was thoroughly horrific. All these cuts… This was all done while she was alive. And this matched the other victims. Even decomposed, there had been evidence of significant torture on those bodies.

  I took a shuddering breath and steadied myself to look more deeply. More important than the strangulation and the mutilation were the features I could see that others couldn’t. I let my vision shift into othersight, breath catching in a mixture of relief and revulsion as the flickers of arcane light appeared. They were faded, but I could definitely see traces of arcane energies scattered on the body.

  Just like the body I’d seen three years ago.

  And now I could feel the arcane resonance—a hum of power, like a bass speaker a room away. Keeping my hand a couple of inches from actually touching the body, I spread my fingers over the symbol carved into her chest, opening myself further to that resonance. I knew that it probably looked weird as shit to anyone watching me, but I wanted to soak up as much sensation from this arcane resonance as possible.

  I pulled my hand away and glanced up at Jill and Crawford, relieved to see that they were looking at the area surrounding the body and had apparently missed my faith-healer impression. Regardless, it would have been worth it. Whoever had killed this woman had been working deeply in the arcane at the same time. Was this the arcane touch that Kehlirik had felt? He’d said it had the taint of blood and death, and there was certainly plenty of that here.

  I shifted my awareness back to normal sight. I could still feel the resonance, but at least now it didn’t feel as if my teeth were going to vibrate out of my head. “If it’s not the Symbol Man, then it’s one hell of a copycat,” I said f
or Jill’s and Crawford’s benefit, but I knew this wasn’t a copycat. Not with the symbol and the arcane traces and the timing that coincides so perfectly with the convergence of the two spheres. That’s just way too much coincidence.

  “Looks like we’re going to be busy for a while,” Crawford said as I stood. “Oh, by the way, the captain said he wanted to see you when you got here.”

  I nodded. “Is he on the scene?”

  Crawford snorted. “As if. No, he’s conferring with the chief and some of the other brass.”

  I scanned the area beyond the tape for the distinctive silhouette of the head of the detective division. Captain Turnham seldom went inside the crime-scene tape unless his presence was vitally needed. He despised being subpoenaed simply because his name had been on a crime-scene sign-in sheet and also despised seeing extraneous people on a crime scene, refusing to be one of that number. I guess he doesn’t consider me extraneous, I realized, allowing myself a brief flush of satisfaction at the thought.

  Taller than most of the others on the scene by nearly a head, the captain was easy to pick out. As expected, he was standing just beyond the perimeter of the crime-scene tape. With him were Boudreaux, Pellini, and Wetzer—the three Violent Crimes detectives other than Crawford. And how are they going to handle hearing my input in this case? Will they even take me seriously? Pretty doubtful, considering that lot. There’d been a few times when my white-collar crime cases had intersected with an armed robbery or a homicide, and they’d made it quite clear that I didn’t know dick about what they did and that any opinions I had were unwelcome and unnecessary. Crawford had a huge capacity for being an ass, but at least he was fairly good at his job and was usually willing to listen to input.