"That was toward the end, right?" I asked.
"Yes."
"I'm afraid by the time we got there I was sort of glazed over with too much horror porn, but I remember it vaguely."
"It is hard to watch this stuff and keep a fresh eye," Manning agreed.
"That's why we watch it over and over," Brent said, and he looked tired at the thought, "so we can be as sure as possible that we don't miss something that might help."
"They've grown more sophisticated in story, and more ambitious on the kink," Manning said.
"Don't call this kinky; it's an insult to everyone who lives an alternative lifestyle," I said.
"Like yourself?" Gillingham said.
"I didn't mean to insult you, Marshal," Manning said. She gave Gillingham a dirty look.
"What I do, or don't do, in my private life is none of your business, Agent."
"Yes, of course, I'm sorry."
"I can't tell if you're this stupid, or if it's all an act so no one sees you coming psychically," I said.
"It's both," Larry said. "She is a disaster socially sometimes, but they dressed her so she'd look like this."
"Like the favorite second-grade teacher that we never had," I said.
"Or Sunday school teacher, yeah," he said.
"Tell them it's too much. They'd do better if she was just dressed like a normal American woman of her age and socioeconomic level," I said.
"Duly noted, I'll let them know."
"Did you know that's why she was here?" I asked.
"No, I just know she can follow psychic ability like a dog on a scent. I honestly thought she was here to help us aim our talents at the bad guy on the videos."
"It only works if the feed is live," Gillingham said. "I mean, I might be able to get impressions, but to follow it back to the bad guy it has to be currently happening."
"Have you tried to follow this bastard before?"
"Yes, and it didn't work."
"Why not?"
"We're not sure, but higher-ups think maybe it's just too different from most psychic ability."
"What does that mean, too different?" I asked.
"It's like I don't understand the necromancy enough to trace it."
"Or he's better at detecting you, like Anita," Larry said.
"He doesn't feel as powerful over the computer as she does sitting here," Gillingham said.
"It's not as strong over the computer sometimes," Brent said.
"You pick it up, too?" I asked.
He nodded. "I'm not nearly as gifted as the three of you, but I actually seem to get more via electronics. One of our instructors says that he's found other computer techs who actually have more talent to feel things over the computer than in real life. They don't even have a name for it yet, but apparently it's a talent just like the others."
"That might explain why so many techies spend all their time online; they get addicted to feeling the buzz," I said.
"We think so," Brent said, smiling as if I'd said a smart thing. It just seemed logical to me.
"So what's a live feed?" I asked.
"It's real time," Brent said, "and in this case the customers can call in and suggest what they want the zombie to do. Depending on what they want, they pay more money to get their idea onscreen."
I blinked at him. "Okay, ick, but okay."
"The more odd your request, the more they charge you, and if it damages the zombie they charge a lot more."
"Damage the zombie, I don't remember them doing that."
"There's been a new film. It was never live to the general customers, but only put online once the customer who requested it saw it live." Brent's face was a little gray around the edges.
"I don't like the look on your face right now. How much worse could it be than what we've seen?" I asked.
"Technically even though they look alive, they're zombies, so it's not murder, and it's not convictable for the customers really. Now that the word has gotten out about how lifelike the zombies are, the films are attracting people who usually haunt more serial killer sites. By that I don't mean real serial killer videos, but people pretending to film things that you could only do once in real life. Pretend torture and snuff films, and some real torture with willing victims."
"Real torture, or real BDSM?" I asked.
"BDSM for the most part. I'm told other divisions have traced people who were torturing people for viewers online, and shut them down, but for the most part it's all consensual and no one gets hurt more than they've bargained for," Brent said.
"Technically, the only way we got these films to be investigated this seriously was to raise the question of, if the soul is in the body, then is it a zombie, or is it a person?"
"You got to investigate this by raising a spiritual debate at the FBI?" I asked.
She made a little shrug and wobbled her head at the same time. "Yes, no, sort of, but once a voodoo priest told us that they had to be capturing the soul at the moment of death, then we treated it like any other serial killer case with magic added."
I looked at Gillingham. "So, if I can trace this via a live feed, then what do we gain? I mean, it's not like I'll be able to trace it back to an address. At best I'll get a taste for his power."
"Would you know the feel of his talent again if you felt it?" she asked.
"If I got a good enough feel for it, yeah."
"It might not work in court, but it could help us narrow it down once we have some suspects," she said.
"Okay, when's the next live event?"
"They only announce it close to the actual event."
"So what, you keep me on speed dial, and then what?"
"We have someone undercover as a customer. You'll be in the room while he types at them."
"Is this a group live event, or one of the special customer things?"
"It's group, but if this doesn't get us the information we need, then we're trying to find something for our undercover agent to request that is different enough that they think it would work as a film."
"Do we want to know what this new video is?" Larry asked.
"Do you think what you've seen so far is awful?" Manning asked.
"Yes."
"Then you probably don't want to see the next one, because you've got about another three hours of watching the milder stuff," she said.
"If I think I'm going to throw up, I'll just leave, and come back," he said.
"I thought I was the one that threw up at crime scenes," I said, trying to lighten things up.
"I never saw you do that, but this . . . I don't think it's the sex, I think it's the terror in their eyes. This is just so wrong, no, so evil."
"I'm not sure the FBI lets us use the word evil in official reports, because it's hard to prove something, or someone, is evil in court," Manning said.
Brent added, "But what they're doing is evil."
We all just nodded, even Gillingham. "If you can stop messing with me long enough I might be able to tell you if this guy is the animator who raised the zombies, or just a client of the animator."
"I promise to behave until you tell me you've got all the information you can this afternoon."
"Okay, then let's watch this shit and try to find a clue."
Brent hit the pause button and made it go again. The zombie's scream cut through the quiet of the room. "Why is she screaming in this one, but not the others?" Larry asked.
"She's tied up," I said, "so she could struggle, or scream."
"So they ordered her to lie down, let herself be tied up, and then removed the orders, and just let her be afraid like anyone," Larry said.
"We think so," Manning said.
We went back to watching the films, and I cracked my shields again, enough to try to sense something from the videos. I looked at the films not with my eyes, but with that part of me that could see the colors of Larry and Gillingham's auras out of the corner of my eyes. The man in the corner ordered the zombie to go down on the man on the bed, and
there was a flash of something. I so wouldn't have wanted that rotted mouth on my junk, but it wasn't my kink. Either the man was a good actor, which I doubted, or it felt good. It was hard to concentrate on seeing with the corner of my eye when what my main vision was showing me was so damn disturbing. When the white stuff spilled out through a rotted hole in her cheek, Larry got up and went for the door. Leaving sounded really good, but I stayed and tried to learn something useful. But I had trouble concentrating on the man in the corner and his possible tie to the zombie, because what he was ordering the zombie to do was just so terrible and sad.
I finally got close to the screen and put my hand over the man's image. It was all I could think of to help me concentrate more on him and less on what was happening to the zombie. I felt a little silly with my hand over the screen, but when he gave an order I felt the pulse of it in my hand. I did it a few more times with different zombies, but it was there with all of them.
I had Larry try, but he couldn't sense anything through the screen. Teresa Gillingham tried, too, but she could only feel the barest energy from all of it. "It's like static to me."
"I'm eighty percent sure, maybe ninety, that this guy is the actual animator."
"Why not a hundred percent?" Manning asked.
"Because I've never tried to sense this kind of thing through a computer video, so I'm not going to say a hundred percent until we catch this guy and he really is the animator."
Manning nodded. "Okay, we'll never be able to use it in court anyway."
"We want you there for the live feed," Brent said.
"Do we, Gillingham? I mean, did I pass your little psychic test?"
She smiled and nodded, looking fresh and happy, as if she hadn't been watching the same films. Larry had come back in, looking green around the edges. Gillingham might look like a lamb, but there was something a lot scarier in there, or at least a lot stronger than she looked.
"Now what?" I asked.
"Now we wait," Brent said.
"Is there anything else we can do?" I asked.
"We have a file of stills for the man in the corner."
"Anything useful?" I asked.
"He has a tattoo on his left lower arm. It shows in two videos where his sleeves are uncuffed and rolled back enough for us to glimpse it."
"What is it a tattoo of?" I asked.
"Bring up the pictures, Brent. Maybe you can tell us."
Brent did his magic with the keyboard and two images showed side by side. It was faded and that bluish ink that some tattoos seem to fade into after a few years. We had one image of a smeared circle and another with a line through the circle. Larry and I both turned our heads trying to decipher it.
"I have no idea what that is," Larry said, at last.
"Me, either."
"There's a birthmark with a mole near it on one of the main leading men in the films, but other than that, no distinguishing marks," Manning said.
"That's not a lot to go on," I said.
"The corner man is dark complected. He could be Hispanic," Manning said.
"Or Greek, or southern Italian, or part Indian of either ethnic group," Brent said.
"The report is as helpful as they can make it from the information we have," she said. She seemed to feel like she needed to defend the FBI to us, or maybe she wasn't happy with them either.
"It looks like I'm going to be here until after the live feed, at least," Gillingham said. "So what do you do for fun in this town?" She gave me a look out of those brown eyes that didn't match the conservative clothes at all.
"I go home to spend time with my fiance," I said.
Her lower lip did a slight pout that I was betting would have been more pronounced if she hadn't been surrounded by other FBI agents.
"And boyfriends," I said.
She raised eyebrows at me. "Fiance, boyfriends, and girlfriend, if the rumors are true?" She smiled.
"Yeah, the rumors are true," I said.
Her smile brightened. "Sounds like fun."
I laughed. "I'm going home now; everybody be good while I'm gone."
Manning was watching me and Gillingham with narrowed eyes as I went for the door. Larry was telling her how great the St. Louis Zoo was, and the Arch was a great view. I agreed about the zoo, but I was pretty sure that wasn't the kind of wildlife Gillingham was wanting to see. I kept walking and didn't look back. I had all the fun I could stand, and then some, waiting for me at the Circus of the Damned.
56
I DROVE BACK home in the dark. All the little vampires were awake and starting their night. The Circus of the Damned had been just one more huge warehouse in the district when Jean-Claude had found it for the then Master of St. Louis, but the idea behind making it a permanent "traveling carnival" and one-ring circus catering to vampires, wereanimals, and other preternatural acts and businesses had been all his idea. There was a line stretching in front of the Circus past all the brightly colored posters announcing the acts and wonders inside, and down around the edge of the warehouse. It was Friday night; the weekend was always big. There were jugglers and street magicians entertaining the line to help the crowd pass the time. I caught a family with two small kids laughing at a clown, and a magician giving a paper flower to the female half of a couple as I drove past. There were also a few of our guards hovering around, just in case, though I doubted many of the laughing crowd noticed them. Our security measures weren't just for us, but for our customers. After all, nothing chases away your customers like getting mugged in line. This had been a bad section of town before the Circus moved in and brought in money, which attracted other businesses. The area had been gentrified not because of some government interference, but by good old-fashioned capitalism, which was one of Jean-Claude's favorite things.
I drove around to the employee parking lot in back and found it packed. We even had a roped-off section for valet parking, which meant our valet lot had filled up and they were moving cars back here. That didn't happen all the time, so it was a busy night indeed.
There was a man pacing in front of the back door; I thought at first it was more security, but as I parked in one of the reserved spots near the door I realized it was Cynric. His shoulders were hunched with tension, movements jerky with anger. Crap. My stomach sank to my knees, then tightened like an aching fist. I did not want to have a fight about my not being able to make the senior awards ceremony.
By the time I got out of my car I was ready to have a fight. If he couldn't understand that my job had to come before a lot of things, then he wasn't the right person for my life. I'd been hurt so badly that if I'd been just vanilla human I'd probably have needed surgery to fix some tendons or lose the use of my left arm. That was what had cost me the time to go to his school thing, and why the hell was he wanting our first public outing as a couple to be a school thing anyway? It was guaranteed to hit every issue I had.
He stopped pacing as he watched me walk toward him, and when I was close enough he said, "Good, you're as pissed at Asher as I am."
I actually said, "If you can't understand . . ." Lucky for both of us I stopped there and did an almost painful reverse in my head. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"
"You've got a serious mad on, and I just thought it was about Asher. Was I wrong?" He looked at me more closely. "Did I do something wrong?"
I laughed, smiled, and said, "No, no, it's just been . . . a day."
He offered his hand and I took it. His hands had gotten even larger since he moved to St. Louis, or maybe I just hadn't let myself see the spread of his fingers that did such a great job of holding and throwing a football. He drew me in for a kiss, and I went up on tiptoe to meet him partway, and let his lips touch mine. The kiss was gentle, his arms felt good, but the tension I'd seen when I drove up was still under there thrumming away.
I opened my eyes after the kiss, his arms still around me, and asked, "What has Asher done now?" I sounded more tired than mad.
"Nothing, Jean-Claude and the others are talk
ing to him now." That sullen look that had almost gone away crossed his handsome face and made him look younger, and not in a good way.
"Then what's wrong?" I asked.
"He sent me out of the room."
"Jean-Claude?"
"Yeah, he ordered me out of the room while they talk to Asher."
"The last time Asher had a fit . . ." I started to say.
"I know, I know, he hit me once and I was down for the count."
I hugged him tighter around the waist. "He could have broken your neck, and that can work the same as decapitation, so dead."
"Jean-Claude reminded me, and Asher stood there smirking with Kane right beside him, holding his hand." He looked down at me, face so earnest, and I realized that it was a good word for him, too. "You know how hard I've been working out in fight practice."
I hugged him and rested my chin on his chest, so I gazed up the line of his body as he looked down at me. "I know you have."
"Jean-Claude doesn't work out with us, he doesn't know how much better I am now." It was the complaint of a child wanting to be a man, no, wanting to be treated like a man. I'd spent years having the other cops treat me like the "girl" until I proved myself; even now I still had to convince officers who hadn't worked with me before that I wasn't just a zombie-raising slut fucking her way to power through the preternatural community. You think I'm being harsh? I wish. I stared up at Cynric. I could feel the extra muscle that gym work and fight practice had given him. Genetics had put him over six feet tall; in the boots he was wearing he was two inches taller than that, so that my chin rested at his diaphragm. I'd held enough men in my arms to understand the potential in his body not just for sex, but for violence, and that last included protecting himself. People treat learning to fight as if it's all about hurting people, but a lot of it is about making sure no one can hurt you, or those you love.
"Cynric," I said.
"Anita, please, tonight of all nights, call me by my name."
I took in a deep breath and said, "Sin."
He smiled, bright and happy. "Thank you, I know you don't like it."
"At least you started spelling it S-i-n, and not C-y-n."
He laughed. "No one could spell it or pronounce it the other way. I got tired of being called Cyndi, or Kenny."
"Well, Sin, let's go inside and see how Asher and Jean-Claude are holding up."
His eyes went a little wide. "Jean-Claude was very adamant about it. He even offered to have me escorted out by the guards."