Demon's Vengeance The Complete - Jocelynn Drake Page 0,75
I grabbed a semi-clean shirt off the floor and a fresh pair of socks. The jeans would have to do for another day.
In the bathroom, I inspected the three long cuts on my left cheek while I brushed my teeth. Both Gideon and I had tried a number of healing spells to remove them, but nothing worked. In the end, the warlock gave me a worried look before he walked silently away. He likely suspected what had caused the cuts and that wasn’t a good thing.
A car horn beeped twice from the parking lot while I shoved my shoes on. On an impulse I grabbed my wand before pulling on my coat and heading out the door. The world was falling apart around me. It was best if I didn’t step out the front door without being armed.
As I fell into the passenger seat beside the TAPSS investigator, she held up a large cup of coffee from the gas station about a block from my apartment complex. I felt a lump grow in my throat at the sight of that glorious container of hot liquid caffeine.
“You know, you’re going to make some guy an amazing girlfriend,” I murmured before sucking down a quarter of it.
“Awww, you’re making me teary,” she sarcastically said, pulling her gaze from the three long gashes on my cheek. She kindly didn’t comment as she pulled the car out of the parking lot. “I need you focused and awake. The cops are getting edgy about letting us play in their sandbox so we’re not going to get much time to look. We’ve got one shot at this.”
“Got it, boss,” I murmured between sips of coffee. Serah sent me a dirty look as she paused at a stop sign, but otherwise she kept her comments to herself.
The coffee was going a long way to getting my brain functioning, but it would only last a couple hours. I needed sleep desperately, but it looked like I wasn’t going to get it since I needed to be in the parlor by noon to open up. This was going to be a really long and ugly day.
The crime scene ended up being halfway between my apartment building and Asylum. When we arrived, the cops had the street blocked off with cars and yellow tape, keeping the few gawkers a good distance off. I scanned the people gossiping and straining to see the body, but there wasn’t anyone there who I thought could be our killer, not that I was sure what I was looking for. I just thought there might be something powerful buzzing in the air when she was close or an ugly redness to her aura. Of course, I could be wrong about that.
When we walked under the yellow police tape, the officers were far less accommodating than the men we’d encountered outside of Kyle’s shop just a few days earlier. Either Serah hadn’t worked the day shift or these guys were just assholes by nature. I was leaning toward the latter.
A large man in a wrinkled button-down shirt and stained brown tie glared at Serah as we approached. He hefted his large bulk in front of the mouth of the alley, a toothpick clenched between his teeth. “Moynahan,” he growled, trying his damnedest to be intimidating.
“Curtis,” Serah replied, looking completely unmoved by the man’s attempts.
“You know TAPSS doesn’t have any jurisdiction here. This is a police matter. You need to let the real authorities handle this.”
“I thought the police would be smart enough to accept help from an expert since this perp has slaughtered three women and one man on your watch. Last I heard, you didn’t know shit about who was doing it.” She gave him a sweet smile that only made me think that she was looking for an opportunity to rip his eyeballs out of his fat skull.
“Expert? Him?”
“Gage Powell, owner of Asylum Tattoo parlor,” I introduced, not caring about the fact that the man was looking at me like I was a bug he’d just scraped off the bottom of his shoes.
“Yeah, well the victim didn’t die from a shitty tattoo.”
“You’d be surprised,” I muttered under my breath, already wishing that I was back in Serah’s car rather than standing in the frigid air that was already biting through my jeans.
“Look, Curtis. It’s fucking cold and I’m sure the meat wagon would like to pack up so everyone can get out of here,” Serah broke in. “Let us have a look and then