Old Fashioned_Phantom Queen_Book 3_A Temple Verse Series Read online

  I nodded, then frowned as I processed her timetable. “Wait, Agent Jeffries said these people left three days ago…” I said, struck by the fact that I hadn’t connected the dots until now. “But Jimmy’s been blowin’ up me phone for two weeks now.”

  “She doesn’t know about the other ones?” Warren asked, his mouth full; the words came out garbled.

  “Other ones?” I asked, remembering too late that there were probably at least two other crime scenes out there. Of course, I might have simply repressed it; it’s not like I wanted there to be more scenes like the ones Jeffries had shown me. Or, maybe it was the lingering effects of my hangover, clouding things.

  “Sorry,” Jeffries said, strolling up to us, catching the tail end of the conversation. “I figured I could wait to fill you in after lunch.”

  I hurriedly scarfed down my third slice and presented my empty plate as evidence that lunch was officially over. I wasn’t eager to hear the details from the other crime scenes, but the more I knew, the better my odds of helping them put down the son-of-a-bitch.

  Jeffries chuckled. “Alright,” he said, “for starters, we’ve been chasing this guy since December.”

  My eyes widened.

  “Exactly. And, since then, he’s left us a pile of bodies, every month, in a different city. He started in Los Angeles. Then Albuquerque, Chicago, and now here.”

  I did the math, counting out the months one finger at a time, and frowned as that left one month unaccounted for. “But it’s April, now…”

  “Indeed. The unknown subject has struck twice in Boston, which is significant deviation from his established pattern,” Warren explained, sounding much more professional without the pizza in his mouth. “However, everything else about the modus operandi is the same. Or as similar as can be expected, given the subject’s predilections.”

  “He’s been killin’ women all over the country? Why haven’t I heard anythin’ about it?” I asked.

  “Oh no, not only women. The subject is ascribing to a very particular methodology which ties directly to—”

  Jeffries held up a hand to interrupt what I imagined was about to be a very long-winded explanation on Warren’s part. “As far as we can tell, he’s mimicking another serial killer, at least in terms of the way he tortures and murders his victims. But everything else points to an obsession with a popular Christmas carol. We didn’t figure that out until Chicago, but now that we know what to look for, it’s fairly obvious.”

  “A Christmas carol?” I asked.

  “In Los Angeles, we found twelve members of a percussion band murdered and left on display in the middle of a college football stadium,” Hilde said, her tone cold. “In Albuquerque, eleven Navajo men in a hogan, with tobacco pipes in their mouths. In Chicago, ten members of the Vice Lords gang in a trampoline park. And here, in Boston, nine debutantes in a dance studio.”

  I could barely comprehend what Hilde was saying. So many people dead, and in such horrific ways. I had to lean on the hood of the patrol car when the significance of the diverse victims and their circumstances finally hit me. Twelve drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping, ten Lords a’ leaping, and nine Ladies dancing.

  “And, of course,” Warren supplied, “we have our eight mothers. Maids-a-milking, as it were.”

  I made it to the grass before puking, the pizza tasting much worse coming back up than it had going down.

  Because even if God didn’t hate me, the Devil clearly did.

  Chapter 7

  Hilde passed me a handy wipe and a tin of breath mints she’d fetched from her purse. I used the former to dab at my mouth and the latter to obscure the bilious aftertaste, then I returned to the driveway feeling marginally better. Judging from Warren’s piteous expression, I was willing to bet Jeffries had chastised him for his lack of tact.

  “Rough weekend, still recovering,” I said, playing the whole thing off. In my experience, that was the simplest solution to an embarrassing situation; pretend it doesn’t bother you and people move on pretty quickly…unless someone puts it on YouTube. Then you’re fucked. “Ye said our guy was mimickin’ another serial killer?” I asked, in a bid to change the subject to something lighter.

  You know, like graphic murder sprees.

  Jeffries encouraged Warren—who was practically shaking like a poodle in his eagerness to share—to fill me in, “Go ahead.”

  “Our unknown subject is modeling his kills after Jack the Ripper,” Warren explained. “Well, after the killings committed in the 1800s which have been ascribed to Jack the Ripper, at any rate.”

  I shot a look a Jeffries. “The Jack the Ripper? Why him?”

  Jeffries shrugged. “No clue. At the moment, all we have are questions like that. Why Jack the Ripper? Why the Twelve Days of Christmas? What prompted the move from city to city? Why hit Boston twice?”

  “I’ve got one,” I said, “how come this is the first I’ve heard of these murders? Shouldn’t the press be all over somethin’ like this?”

  Hilde and Jeffries exchanged a look.

  Eventually, Jeffries filled the silence. “Because the crimes have been so widely spread, thus far, we’ve managed to avoid media attention. Chicago was chalked up to intergang violence. The Navajo were on tribal land, where crimes rarely receive media attention.” Jeffries shook his head. “That, and none of the loved ones seem to want to step forward. It’s like they don’t even realize they’ve lost someone. It’s…disconcerting, at best.”

  I frowned, realizing the Special Agent had just admitted to keeping these murders secret from the public at large. Not that I was a fan of panic in the streets, but still, wouldn’t it help to warn people?

  “I have a theory as to the latter,” Warren interjected, before I could follow-up. He thrust a finger in the air and continued as though we’d begged him to, “I believe the unknown subject is, somehow, removing the psychic energy that surrounds his victims. Essentially cutting them off at an atomic level from the rest of us.”

  “Warren is a psychic,” Jeffries explained. “Normally he’d take one look at a crime scene like this and be able to tell us all sorts of things about the victims, about their last moments, about the killer. It’s handy, but hard on him, as you can imagine.”

  Warren glanced over at his boss in gratitude. “Residual psychic energy,” Warren said, turning to me. “I can contextualize it. It’s easier with dead people. The living give off too many signals…it’s like trying to read a book with words swimming all over the page. That’s why I’m usually so awkward around people I don’t know. Looking at them makes me nauseous.”

  “Ye seemed fine when we met,” I said, tilting my head a fraction.

  Hilde perked up at that, recalling her surprise from earlier, perhaps. Warren nodded, grinning. “Oh, absolutely. I’m not sure how you’re doing it, but you’re giving off exactly zero residual psychic energy. I’ve never seen anything like it. Not in a living person, anyway.” Warren frowned as if he’d just thought of something unpleasant.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, more than a little disturbed by that implication; I preferred to have as little in common with corpses as possible.

  “Well,” Warren said, “the only other time I’ve come across something like this is when we were put on this case. With these victims.”

  Three sets of eyes swiveled towards me.

  I held up my hands and chuckled. “I’m not the killer, I swear. Hell, I was in Vegas all weekend,” I said in my defense, then cringed. Shit. I really hoped Jeffries didn’t look into that alibi. The FBI poking around into what I’d been up to in Vegas could land me in a whole different pot of hot water.

  “But you already admitted that a powerful wizard could simply create a Gateway from one place to another,” Jeffries said, using my own words against me.

  I sighed in exasperation. “Aye, but I’m not a wizard.”

  “Then what are you?” Hilde asked, shifting her weight forward onto the balls of her feet. “You never d
id say.”

  “I don’t t’ink ye have a term for what I am,” I replied, reading Hilde’s body language and recognizing it for the threat that it was. “But I suggest ye t’ink twice before ye do somethin’ you’ll regret, Agent Sigrid. I’d hate to hurt someone who gave me a breath mint.”

  Hilde scoffed.

  Jeffries held up a hand as if to calm us all down, but I noticed the other inching towards his weapon. “I think we should all relax. Talk this out.”

  Down the street, a trashcan fell over.

  The din of it crashing against the ground startled all of us: Jeffries whirled, gun in hand, sighting down the barrel; Hilde dropped to a crouch, brandishing—I shit you not—a sword and shield, her hair magically tied back in a loose braid, her black suit and tie now a suit of black, bloodstained armor of the Heavy Metal variety.

  Warren, on the other hand, squealed and hid behind a patrol car.

  I raised both hands defensively and daydreamed about taking a real vacation. Somewhere isolated, tropical…

  Like a deserted island.

  “She’s not your killer,” Lakota said, one foot propped up against the trashcan he’d purposely kicked over. He finished the last bite of his pizza and sucked the grease off his fingers as he strolled towards us. Jeffries cursed and holstered his weapon. Hilde, however, seemed content to leave hers out.

  I appraised her new look. “That’s a cool trick. Do ye keep all that in your purse or does it appear out of thin air?”

  Hilde grunted and released her hold on the sword and shield, both winking out of existence an instant before they hit the ground. Her armor flickered before my eyes, transforming into cloth, and her hair cascaded down to her shoulders in slow motion, like a scene from Baywatch.

  Not gonna lie, it was hot—in a devil-may-care sort of way. But honestly, all I wanted to know was where she’d gotten her outfit. Because, in my experience, every girl needs a getup that turned her into friggin’ Joan of Amazonia. Saxon Fifth Avenue, maybe? Bloomingdanes? TJ Axxed?

  Totally going to find out.

  Over drinks…if she felt like sharing.

  Because nobody in their right mind picks a fight with Valhalla Barbie.

  “Don’t do that again, Lakota,” Jeffries admonished. “I could have shot you.”

  Lakota rolled his eyes. “You wouldn’t have shot me.”

  Jeffries grumbled something under his breath about respecting one’s elders and how his boss would have shot him on the spot.

  “Lakota, why isn’t she a suspect?” Hilde asked, cutting through their exchange before it devolved any further.

  “Well, she’s definitely a killer,” Lakota replied, giving me the full weight of his attention—the authority in his gaze surprisingly hefty despite our age difference. “But she’s not our killer.”

  So, I’d gone from suspect to murderer.

  And, once again, I was the center of attention.

  Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  Chapter 8

  Lakota grunted. “She’s tainted, but no more than any of us.” He squinted at me, then turned to his boss. “No innocents, as far as I can tell. She’s remarkably at peace, especially compared to you and Warren. Her energy is much closer to Hilde’s, actually. Violent. Practical. Still finding her center.”

  “Is he psychic, too?” I asked Warren, who’d poked his head up from behind the car long enough to hear Lakota’s spiel. He shook his head vehemently.

  “No, Lakota is something else,” Jeffries replied. “He—”

  “Leo,” Hilde interrupted.

  “It’s fine,” Lakota said, his eyes dancing with malice. “Tell her.” When Jeffries didn’t respond, Lakota plucked a stray hair off his suit and answered my question himself, “They don’t know what I am. I was raised in the foster system and arbitrarily named after a tribe by my first set of racially insensitive white adoptive parents. No idea where I came from. Eventually, Leo found me. He was the one who realized I was a Freak. That I could see things other people couldn’t.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Like souls. Or whatever you want to call them,” Lakota said, his anger fading away as he spoke. “I can see the stains on them. I can sense their intentions, good or bad. Doesn’t matter who or what they are, Regular or Freak. Every one of them has a soul.”

  I had a flash of insight as I studied Lakota’s face, recognizing his expression for what it was: guilt. “So that’s it,” I said, turning to Jeffries. “That’s how ye know which monsters to kill? He’s, what, your judge and jury?”

  Jeffries winced, but nodded.

  I shook my head. Lakota was an FBI agent, sure, but also young, and Jeffries used him to decide the fate of the creatures they went up against, to more or less sign their death warrants. His gift aside, it would be impossible not to doubt yourself, to fret over whether or not you’d made the right choice.

  No wonder he wasn’t exactly a people person.

  We stood there, the beautiful sky overhead, trapped in our ugly thoughts. I glanced at their faces and realized Jeffries and his team were waiting for me to pass judgment on them. To tell them what they were doing was wrong, or to demand they find a better way. I knew they’d heard it all before.

  “Can I ask ye a question?” I said to Jeffries, who wouldn’t meet my eye.

  “Sure.”

  I pointed at Lakota and Warren. “Do ye ever let these two go on vacation? Because I t’ink we could make the MIT kids who scammed Vegas look like idgits in comparison.”

  Jeffries snorted, but the two younger agents looked at each other in surprise, as if suddenly realizing the fiscal potential of their combined gifts. Hilde swatted Warren’s arm, lightly. “Don’t even think about it,” she warned. “You either.” She pointed at Lakota, who raised his hands in surrender, grinning.

  Jeffries shot me a grateful look.

  I nodded in reassurance.

  The truth is, I knew better than most that sometimes working with the monsters made you feel like one, and that taking them out came at a price. I’d spent years trying to decide if doing my job made me a bad person, struggling with the moral ambiguity of knowing the goods I sold had the potential to hurt people.

  I still struggled with it, some days.

  But that’s why God made whiskey.

  Lakota was right; I’d killed both in cold blood and in self-defense. And I was sure there were people out there who’d been killed with weapons I’d sold, strangers whose names I would never even know. And that did bother me. But the world was a cruel place full of cruel people, and I didn’t have the time or energy to make it better.

  The Sickos, on the other hand, were working day in and day out to do just that; if I could offer them a little peace of mind by reserving judgment, I would.

  They’d earned it.

  Of course, it wouldn’t hurt if they returned the favor by reserving their judgment of me.

  Chapter 9

  I left after assuring Jeffries that I would look into things on my end. He offered to give me a ride, but I declined. I needed time to process on my own. I called an Uber—my go-to method of transportation after having totaled my car a while back in an unfortunate run-in with a bridge troll whom I occasionally played poker with—and tried to order my thoughts.

  Jeffries and his team were the easiest to sort out. At first, I hadn’t been sure if I should even get involved; I’d been asked to participate in an ongoing investigation by Jimmy once before, over a year ago, and it hadn’t gone well. At the time, I figured it was one of those experiences you can’t say no to, especially if someone offers you a free ticket—like skydiving.

  Except I doubted skydiving gave you such horrific nightmares.

  The truth was—nightmares aside—I couldn’t help but be impressed with the Sickos and their mission statement. I mean, sure, being an arms dealer probably wouldn’t earn me any brownie points from the Special Agent in Charge or his band of merry misfits, but knowing there was a sancti
oned organization out there trying to make the world a safer place by taking out those Freaks who preyed on others was reassuring. Hell, helping the Sickos might even balance the scales, karmically speaking.

  I’d end up saying Our Father’s until Judgment Day, otherwise.

  Sadly, I wasn’t sure how much I could really do. The fact that there was a Freak out there torturing and killing people to the tune of a Christmas carol made my poor stomach churn. But I wasn’t a cop, or a private detective, with eyes and ears all over the city. At best, I had a few favors I could call in and—maybe—pool together some information. But if the Sickos hadn’t gotten a bead on their killer yet, I doubted I’d have better luck.

  Unless I was thinking about this all wrong. Whoever the killer was, he was probably new in town; he’d kicked this whole thing off in Los Angeles, after all. In any other city, that wouldn’t have made any difference, but this was Boston. And—if I knew anything about Boston’s Freaky underground—it’s that outsiders weren’t welcome. In fact, any Freaks moving into the area were typically subject to registry…by the Faerie Chancery.

  I sighed.

  I’d kept the Chancery’s existence from the Sickos for a reason. From what I’d seen over the last several years, the Chancery may as well have been the mob: they had a monopoly on all things Freak, imposing their own rules and applying their own punishments to those who broke them.

  I’d managed to avoid tangling with them up until now, but I had a feeling my days were numbered; I’d caused a bit of a stir recently while fighting a millennia-old monster on live television courtesy of Dorian Gray, who’d broadcasted the whole thing as a ploy to distract the rest of the supernatural community from an apocalyptic event taking place in New York City. After winning that fight—mostly through luck—I’d earned a little notoriety, though I wasn’t thrilled about it; my job was a lot easier to do from the shadows, well out of the spotlight.

  That, and I preferred not having to answer to anyone, the Chancery included. Thus far I’d managed to stay out of their crosshairs by selling to them, indirectly, as freely as I sold to anyone else—supply and demand.