Old Fashioned_Phantom Queen_Book 3_A Temple Verse Series Read online

  And, for Christ’s sake, who killed JFK?

  Jeffries hunched forward, elbows resting on the table. “Let me start from the beginning, and then you’re more than welcome to ask the horde of questions that are written all over your face. Sound good?”

  I nodded, smirking.

  “A few years back,” Jeffries began, “a colleague of mine had an idea to establish a unit within the FBI that could respond to the growing supernatural threats we were encountering. We didn’t call them that, of course, because our fellow agents would have assumed we were crazy. Instead, we handled the investigations in-house, juggling what we knew and what we could prove—and, more importantly, explain in a manner our superiors would buy.”

  Jeffries sighed, his expression wistful. “My colleague was later discredited and kicked out of the Bureau, but not before he’d laid the foundation for S.I.C.C.O. On paper, we’re the mop-up crew. They call us in when the cases prove to be unsolvable for one reason or another. We collect the data, the samples, and anything else they feel like passing along. Of course, what they don’t know is that we have Freaks on the payroll. Our unique talents give us a leg up tracking down leads, and we survive budget cuts by closing a few cases a year.”

  Jeffries rose and moved towards the windows, admiring the view outside. “At first, we met a lot of dead ends. Once in charge, I tried to pick competent people within the Bureau, but quickly realized that, the better they were at their jobs, the sooner they realized we weren’t dealing with normal human beings—with Regulars. Most couldn’t handle that, so the turnover was pretty high. I decided that what I needed, if I wanted to do this job right, was to enlist some of the very Freaks we were hunting. So, I started recruiting. That was a couple years ago.”

  “Leo found me,” Hilde interjected, perhaps sensing her boss’ trip down memory lane was bound to be unpleasant, “through a mutual friend. He had a few good people working for him, brilliant people, with excellent deductive skills. But he needed muscle. And experience.”

  “I think you can guess,” Jeffries said, turning to me, “why I had to bring in someone like Hilde. Or, to say it another way, I think you can understand the real reason why we operate independently from the FBI, most of the time.”

  I paused to consider everything they’d said, fascinated by the idea that there was an organization working within Regular law enforcement which was responsible for handling supernatural crimes—even if the top brass had no idea. But Jeffries was right, I could see one huge flaw in their approach. In fact, I could point directly to the Constitution to expose it. “Because,” I said, “ye can’t give a Freak a fair trial.”

  I could read the conflict on Jeffries’ face, but his nod was firm and resolute. After going head-to-head with my fair share of monsters, I could empathize. Of course, as a law enforcement officer, Jeffries had a duty to uphold an individual’s right to due process—but how would you hold a trial for a vampire who’d gone on a rampage? Assuming you could capture one, what would a jury of its peers even look like? When you got right down to it, that’s why organizations like the Sanguine Council existed—to keep its members in check. But there were other creatures running around unsupervised, creatures who weren’t bound by any laws, creatures who couldn’t be caged or caught.

  Only killed.

  “Where are ye lot from? Not Boston, I’m guessin’,” I added, judging by their accents. I just hoped none of them had ties to Vegas or New York City.

  Or else I’d have a few very awkward conversations in my very near future.

  Jeffries nodded to my comment. “All over, but not Boston. We don’t technically have an official office. We just chase cases,” he admitted with a shrug.

  “What about the Academy?” I asked. “Have ye thought about bringin’ them in to help?” While the Academy and I hadn’t exactly gotten along during their last visit, I knew they were capable of apprehending the monsters—though to be honest I had no idea what the Academy did with them beyond that point.

  And I probably didn’t want to know.

  Hilde scoffed. “The Academy Justices only step in when a Freak makes a splash big enough for the Regulars to notice, to ask questions. Extortion? Theft? Murder? Happens every day. No headlines there.”

  “We take on the smaller scale stuff that isn’t on their radar,” Jeffries explained. “The less obvious crimes. But, even then, we miss a lot of them. Most Freaks have gotten really good at covering their tracks. Sometimes it takes us months before we have enough thread to pull on.”

  I suppressed a shiver as I thought about what that meant. “So, what about this one?” I asked. “What are ye chasin’ now?”

  Hilde glanced at Jeffries. “Do you want to tell her?”

  He shook his head. “Best to show her, first. Let her come up with her own conclusions.”

  Hilde—a mythical being who’d made a career out of snatching the souls of dead men off battlefields—sighed and nodded, gazing at me like an animal that’s about to be put down. “Good luck up there,” she said.

  So yeah.

  Basically, this was going to get suckier.

  Chapter 5

  Jeffries led the way, guiding me to the first door on the left at the top of the stairs. The other man he’d mentioned, Warren, was nowhere to be found. Before opening the door, Jeffries held up a finger. “There’s a trashcan right inside the door, if you feel like you need it.”

  I briefly considered why I’d even agreed to do this, but realized that—on some level—I felt it was my responsibility. Boston was my town, and if there was someone or something terrorizing it, I wanted to know.

  So, I could put an end to it, one way or the other.

  “Ready?” Jeffries asked.

  I took a deep breath, then opened the door and ducked inside before I could second guess myself—like diving headfirst into frigid water. I realized I’d shut my eyes and forced myself to open them. “Don’t be a baby,” I muttered under my breath, taking a look around the room.

  It was a bedroom. A child’s bedroom. The crib tucked against the far wall was one of those gender-neutral shades of yellow. The bed on the other side was covered in blankets and pillows, though too small for anything bigger than a kindergartner. I stepped forward, the plastic booties Hilde had given me sliding smoothly across the plush carpet. Jeffries trailed me, tracking where my eyes went.

  I studied the various placards resting on the ground, on the bed, and against the crib, wondering—and dreading—what each stood for. Jeffries handed me a stack of Manilla folders, each labeled and tabbed to correspond with the placards. But before I could peruse them, he nudged me and pointed to the wall behind us. Above the doorway, in blockish, dark brown letters:

  They are coming.

  “Who’s comin’?” I asked out loud.

  Jeffries shrugged. “Every house has a message written on one of the walls. Most, like this one, are straightforward, but vague. They are coming. No one is safe. Kill or be killed.”

  “Most?” I asked, picking up on Jeffries’ use of the conditional.

  He nodded and indicated the folders. “It’s all in there. Start with this room, though, and tell me what you think.”

  I sighed, realizing Jeffries wasn’t going to feed me information; he wanted a fresh set of eyes, and mine were more or less virginal. I flipped open the folder labeled A1. Inside were a series of photographs pinned together with a paperclip, a set of test results tucked behind. Not having the faintest clue how to read the lab results, I left them alone, handing the stack of folders back to Jeffries as I retrieved the photographs and shuffled through them. I frowned, trying to understand what I was looking at, to put the puzzle pieces together.

  Once I finally did, I realized why Jeffries had insisted on the trashcan. I closed my eyes and took a series of deep breaths, glad that all I had in front of me were a bunch of Polaroids, and not the real thing—the mutilated body of a young woman who’d been gruesomely attacked and murdered. Part of me wanted to stop th
ere, content to leave it at that—but another part of me knew that I wouldn’t be able to tell Jeffries anything unless I took a closer look. I opened my eyes and went back through the images, one at a time.

  “What’s in the other folders?” I asked, praying they didn’t contain more pictures of corpses.

  “The rest from this set are blood pattern related, mostly. Some suspicious fibers. Rumpled areas where the killer might have sat or put his hands.”

  “His?”

  Jeffries shrugged a second time. “Statistics support that conclusion.”

  I frowned. “Do your statistics take Freaks into consideration?”

  “No. We don’t have enough data for that sort of analysis, and our lab techs wouldn’t know what to do with half the shit we find at crime scenes.”

  I nodded. From a forensics perspective, tracking a Freak would be a nightmare. But deep down, I worried about the lack of data collection; it wasn’t that I thought Jeffries was wrong to assume the killer was male so much as I worried about the gap between the FBI’s profiling techniques and the crimes Freaks commit. Highly-trained Regulars analyzing and predicting human behavior made sense, but what about inhuman behavior? Could Jeffries and his team even rely on predictors?

  “So,” Jeffries said, interrupting my muddled thoughts, “what do you think?”

  “Did ye say there was more than one set of these?” I asked, waving the folder in my hand for emphasis, too distracted by the Special Agent’s previous statement to answer his immediate question.

  “I did.”

  “So, there’s another stack of folders? An A2?” I asked.

  Jeffries cocked an eyebrow. “There is. We have a stack of those…for every house on the block.”

  I felt my stomach lurch and edged toward the trashcan, praying I wouldn’t be sick. Eight houses. Which meant eight victims. All on this street. “Are they all like this?” I asked.

  Jeffries nodded. “They were all killed in similar ways, yes. Faces and genitals mutilated, entrails removed...” Jeffries drifted off, perhaps sensing my discomfort.

  “Well, if ye want to know what I t’ink, I’d say you’re lookin’ for one sick bastard…” I said, pausing for a moment to let my stomach settle; between Jeffries’ show-and-tell and my hangover, I had a feeling it was only a matter of time before I upchucked my coffee—cream and all.

  “But you’re wondering what got him on our radar?”

  I nodded, grateful that he’d anticipated my unasked question.

  “Here’s what we know so far. If anything jumps out at you, let me know. Fact number one, three days ago all eight families on this block planned a week-long vacation. They all left within hours of one another. Those we’ve been able to reach told us they didn’t even think to contact their jobs or their extended families to let them know they were planning to leave. None plan to return until their vacation is complete. They don’t even seem to care that someone found bodies in their houses.”

  I crossed my arms, frowning. That was odd. “A vampire gaze, maybe?” I guessed.

  Jeffries nodded. “We considered that.”

  “T’ing is,” I said, thinking out loud, “the Sanguine Council doesn’t have a branch here, and even rogue vamps know better than to stir up trouble in Boston.”

  “Yeah, we’ve noticed there’s a downtick in supernatural groups here. Why is that?” Jeffries said, making notations in a small notebook.

  I shook my head. I liked Jeffries, but I wasn’t about to go blabbing about the Chancery to an outsider. “You’ll have to take me word on it.”

  Jeffries’ pen stopped scratching and he peered up at me suspiciously. Thankfully, he didn’t press. “Well, moving on, then. Fact number two, each of the victims recently gave birth. Within the last month or so, according to the medical examiner.”

  Okay, I was definitely going to throw up. I shuffled a step closer to the open maw of the plastic receptacle, taking deep, soothing breaths. “Somethin’ ritualistic, maybe?” I managed, a moment later.

  “One of my people looked into that,” Jeffries replied, “I doubt it’s coincidence, but we aren’t sure either way. Fact number three, each of the victims were found in different parts of the house, accompanied by blood spatter in the room in which they were found. However, no trail could be found leading to the rooms themselves. The rest of the house, the doors, windows, floors, and what have you, were untouched. It’s like the women’s corpses dropped out of thin air.”

  I considered that for a moment. “And have ye looked into Gateways?” I asked.

  Jeffries frowned. “Into what?”

  “Gateways. It’s a wizard t’ing. They’re like doorways between one place and another.”

  Jeffries eyes widened. “You mean wizards can create rifts in space between two places whenever they want?”

  “Well, sure. Only the powerful ones, though, from what I understand.”

  “That’s…disconcerting,” Jeffries said, eyeing me as if I were pulling his leg. I realized it must be hard for the human lie detector to take me at my word—spoiled much? “So, what’s to stop a wizard from robbing a bank? Or assassinating a world leader?” Jeffries asked.

  I judiciously refrained from mentioning my recent, accidental foray in the vaults of a Vegas Casino courtesy of a Gateway created by Callie Penrose—an acquaintance from Kansas City I’d made over the weekend – a friend of Othello’s.

  No felonies to see here, folks.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said, trying to ease the Special Agent’s mind. “The really powerful wizards out there wouldn’t have a whole lot to gain from that sort of t’ing. Besides, that’s what the Justices are around for, don’t ye t’ink?”

  “I guess so,” Jeffries said, sighing. “Still, that’s an angle I hadn’t considered. Not sure what a wizard could hope to achieve from all this, but I can look into it. Maybe it has something to do with the messages he left in these houses.”

  “Ye said there were a few which stood out to ye?” I asked, curious to see the others, so long as I didn’t have to look at any more photographs of dead women in the process.

  “Just one. I don’t know what it means, but I have one of my people looking into it.” Jeffries sorted through the stack of folders until he saw the one he wanted. “Here. Check it out.”

  I opened the folder. Inside were the various messages, painted in the same manner on walls, desks, and mirrors. For the most part, Jeffries was right. Along with those he’d mentioned, I saw other apocryphal phrases like “the end is nigh,” “you will all burn,” and so on. One, however, differed significantly from the rest. I pulled it out and showed it to Jeffries, who flashed me a thumbs up. I glanced at the picture once more, trying to make sense of the words.

  “Beware the Fomorians,” Jeffries intoned, as if saying the words out loud would solve the mystery they represented. “Any clue what it means?”

  I shook my head, but in the back of my mind, where my half-remembered dreams were kept locked away, I felt something stir. The ghost of a memory, calling out…

  “Leo! Pizza’s here!” Hilde shouted from below.

  Oh, sweet Jesus. Pizza.

  Maybe God didn’t hate me after all.

  Chapter 6

  Hilde passed me a paper plate with three slices on it while I tried to ignore the eerie, empty street; now that I knew why it was abandoned, the stillness had a grating quality to it—like when you’re thirty thousand feet up and can’t get your ears to pop.

  “You alright?” Hilde asked.

  “Aye,” I replied, not wanting to talk about what Jeffries had shown me, especially while I was eating. Hilde accepted that without comment, which I appreciated; most women would have felt the need to talk it out, maybe compare notes and make each other feel better. But I’d never been one of those women; I kept my pain inside, where it could only hurt me.

  We ate outside next to the patrol car. Apparently chatting at the dining room table was fine but eating at it would have been cro
ssing the line. “Wouldn’t want to be rude,” Jeffries had said. “Bad enough they’ll have to come home to find a murder scene in their house without finding crumbs everywhere.”

  Two others had joined us initially, emerging from one of the other houses. The first, Warren, was a thin, effeminate man dressed in a tweed suit that was definitely not standard issue. I noticed he seemed inexplicably happy to see me, especially considering what Jeffries had implied earlier about his aversion to strangers. Hilde watched our brief interaction in complete and undisguised shock, her mouth hanging open long enough to let bugs in.

  The second was the young man Hilde had mentioned earlier, Lakota, a Native American kid with a round face and long, luxurious hair pulled back in a braid. He’d taken his pizza and left without a word, which hadn’t seemed to bother Hilde much, though I saw her follow the kid with her eyes as he departed, something motherly and sad lurking there.

  “So, what’d Jimmy say about me, exactly?” I asked, after practically inhaling the first slice. I’d been curious ever since Jeffries mentioned Jimmy’s involvement and figured now was as good a time as any to bring it up.

  “From what Leo said,” Hilde replied, “I don’t think Detective Collins meant to say anything at all. When we first got here we poked around a little, trying to figure out if anyone in Boston PD had worked with Freaks before. You find them here and there. Cops with sensitivities. Criminal informants with ties to the supernatural community. Whenever we go somewhere new and we need to get the lay of the land as quick as we can, we try to find someone who can feed us reliable and up-to-date info.”

  Hilde leaned back against a patrol car much the way Maria had earlier—if Maria were a fitness model who slayed monsters for a living. “Detective Collins was cagey,” she said. “Leo picked up on it right away and pressed until Collins admitted knowing someone who could give us a rundown on how Boston worked. We urged him to reach out to you, though getting the request through his superiors took some convincing.”