LITMIR.BIZ

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kind of hypothesis, when the world had been a sensible and straightforward place up until about a year ago.

      The answer to that, of course, was me. One Joanne Walker, reluctant shaman thrust into a life that walked half a step out of pace with the normal world. Billy’s talents had always helped him solve cases. They hadn’t brought the truly bizarre to the fore. I was the one who fought gods and tangled with demons on the department’s time. I was coming to believe that all of those things—gods, demons, witches, spirits—had always been there, slipping alongside the real world and going more or less unnoticed. Sometimes cases went unsolved, or inexplicably strange things happened in them, but it took a mirror to show most people the explanation for those incomprehensible events.

      I was that mirror. Without me, last winter’s ritual murders would have been just that, with no banshee’s head to show as a prize. Without me, no one would have seen a thunderbird battle a serpent over Lake Washington, or gone traipsing through dream worlds to share secret moments in each other’s souls. I’d come around to believing in magic, but forcing those around me to believe, too, wasn’t something I liked at all.

      I said, “I’m sorry,” very, very quietly.

      “You’re saying that too often lately, Walker.” Morrison shoved his hands into the pockets of his seaman’s coat and hunched his shoulders before letting them fall in a show of having given up the fight. “I called you two in for a reason. I shouldn’t bitch when you do what I brought you in to do. This hypothesis. Tell me how it would work.”

      To my dismay, Billy lifted his eyebrows at me. I was the slow kid in class, the one scrambling through years of make-up work. If either of us had an answer, it should be him.

      Well, really, I should have one, too. I pushed my hat off and scruffed my fingers through my hair, staring at the dead woman. “If it’s murder by magic, if somebody’s trying to capture souls, then there’s probably some kind of power circle involved.” I shot a quick glance at Billy, who looked approving, and a second one at Morrison, who looked dangerously uncomprehending. “Like people would use in a horror movie,” I said lamely. “A pentagram, for example, but it doesn’t have to be a pentagram. You can use—”

      I fumbled at my throat, flipping the thumbnail-sized pendant of my necklace above the collar of my shirt. It was a quartered cross wrapped in a circle, a symbol used by both sides of my heritage. In Ireland, it was the Celtic cross, older than Christianity’s, and for the Cherokee it was the power circle, all the directions encompassed by the universe. “You can use something like this, or probably anything else that’s meaningful to you. A peace symbol, maybe.” My attempt at a smile was met by Morrison’s steely gaze. “Anyway, you create your circle and invoke your patrons and when you’re done you have a sealed area that can either keep things in or out, depending on which you set it up for.” I’d participated in one fairly recently, or I’d have had no idea how to catch a wayward soul.

      Morrison stared at me, or possibly at my necklace, for a long moment, then made his voice very steady. “All right. This power circle. Would it leave a mark?”

      This time I got my expect-an-answer glance off first, planting it on Billy. His mouth pursed and he shook his head. “It might, but I wouldn’t be able to see it. Jo—”

      “I don’t know if I can see residue, but I can check by looking for Mel’s. But if we have murder by magic—” I liked that phrase “—going on, then whatever mark it leaves isn’t going to be anything like Melinda’s. If I can see a shadow cast by hers, maybe I can figure out how to look for its opposite, but I can’t guarantee anything.”

      “You have to,” Morrison said. “I’ve got nobody else.”

      I breathed a laugh that wasn’t. “So no pressure, then. All right. Okay. I’ll try, Captain. I’ll do my best.”

      He gave me a short nod, and I took a few steps back from the dead woman’s body. Police tape rustled against my hips and I turned to duck under it.

      Blinding light erupted in my vision, and from out of it came a microphone and a woman’s voice: “Detective Walker. Laurie Corvallis from Channel Two News. I’m sure you remember me. What a delight to find you at the heart of another grotesque crime scene. What would you like to say to our viewers?”

      CHAPTER THREE

      The first eight or twelve things that sprang to mind were not answers Morrison would approve of. I squinted into the light and managed to pull up a terse smile in lieu of what I wanted to say. By the time I made out Corvallis’s silhouette against the brilliance, I’d come up with something other than chuck you, farley, and kept my voice as pleasant as I could. “Ms. Corvallis, I don’t find it at all delightful to be in the midst of a murder scene, and I think it’s dismaying that you do. Beyond that, no comment. Sorry.”

      Truth was, I probably shouldn’t have indulged in that much commentary, but at least I got the satisfaction of seeing Corvallis’s lip curl like I’d made a palpable hit. I ducked out of the camera light, blinking furiously to readjust to the dark, and heard Morrison’s grim, “Ms. Corvallis. What do you think you’re doing here?” behind me. I turned back to watch them, glad to be out of the spotlight.

      Corvallis was just a little over five feet tall and had some kind of truly American ethnic background that had graced her with epicanthic blue eyes and café latte skin to go with very straight black hair. On TV, I thought she was gorgeous. In real life, I thought she was a pain in the ass. Even so, I had to admire how she stood up to Morrison, whose ten inches in height advantage didn’t seem to faze her at all. “I’m trying to report a news story, Captain. You wouldn’t want the story to be about the police obstructing the media, would you?”

      “I want to be able to notify the family before they see their daughter’s death as the lead story on the morning news,” Morrison snapped. “And I want you to heed the decision that came from over your head to leave this story alone until we get some kind of break on it. I understand that investigative reporting is your job,” he said over her protest, and to my surprise his voice softened. “But you know enough details on this case to understand how frightened people are going to be, and that it’s dangerous and disturbed enough without adding the possibility of copycat murderers.”

      “So you admit this morning’s victim is the last in a long line of murders by the Seattle Cannibal?”

      My mouth bypassed my brain and said, “You’re kidding. Seattle Cannibal? There’s nothing euphonious or catchy about that at all. Maybe the Seattle Slaughterer. At least that’s alliterative.” About halfway through the last word I tried stuffing my fist in my mouth to shut myself up, but it was far too late. Morrison and Corvallis both turned to me, and from Morrison’s expression I figured I could count what was left of my detecting career in a matter of hours. Possibly minutes.

      Corvallis, on the other hand, was smiling. For a pretty woman, she looked remarkably like a barracuda. “The Seattle Slaughterer,” she echoed. “I like that. Thank you, Detective Walker. Anything else you’d care to add?”

      Short of issuing an invitation to my forthcoming ritual suicide, I couldn’t think of anything. I shook my head and backed away before laser beams actually shot out of Morrison’s eyes and immolated me.

      A few steps beyond the news crew, I ran into Gary, who caught me, then thumped the side of his cab as an invitation to pull up against the hood and lean. “You’re right. ‘Slaughterer’ is better than ‘cannibal.’ Still a mouthful, though.”

      I groaned. “You’re not helping.”

      “I figure I already did my bit of helping.” He sounded less pleased than he should, and I frowned at him. He lifted a big shoulder and let it fall in a shrug that, as always, reminded me of plate tectonics. “Cops ain’t using the regular frequencies to call around about these murders, doll. Cabbies listen in on those all the time, but there’s been nothing to hear. I figure you’re using cell phones for everything.”

      “Yeah. Mostly this isn’t patrol-car stuff anyway.”

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