“What?”

  Nash jerked his head up, a touch of pink staining the tips of his ears. “Sorry, thinking out loud. It will be easier to review the diagrams if we’re sitting on the same side of the desk.”

  “Oh, sure.” I took the one seat on this side and waited for him to figure everything else out.

  He tugged a file out of a pile on a shelf beside his desk and rolled his chair next to mine. He started to open the file and paused. “The remains from CJ’s Machine Shop. Will it bother you to review the evidence? Several officers had trouble, as did one of my assistants.”

  Relief that this wasn’t about Jameson waged a short war with surprise. I buried the relief, which would seem out of place. My eyebrows crept up. “One of your assistants? Never mind, none of my business.” Everyone had things they were sensitive to, often for personal reasons. “I’ll be fine.”

  Nash fiddled with the edge of the folder. “We don’t normally see things like this.”

  “I spent a lot of time with werelynxes growing up. Cats aren’t dainty about their meals and have an odd sense of gifts.” Like the time Drew had hid an eviscerated and partly-skinned rabbit in my bed. The next night, I had made sure his covers wound about him like a snake and hissed. We’d both ended up grounded.

  He moved his hand on top of the file, as if that could keep the horrors hidden. “He was alive for most of the injuries.”

  My stomach clenched. “I hadn’t realized.” If I’d known for sure about the pain and suffering the man had endured, I would’ve had a harder time at the crime scene.

  “Are you sure you can do this?” Nash asked gently.

  I tugged the file out from under his hand and flipped it open. “This victim deserves justice.” Inside on the left was a diagram of a humanoid body with notations around it and on the right was a page covered in text. Alive, bites, and skinned leapt out at me.

  Nash flipped through the diagrams before he found one he liked. “The overview is too crowded. This shows the head and neck. I isolated tooth and knife impressions from the neck. The knife had a smooth blade and was between four and eight inches long. The teeth marks match those of a partly-shifted werewolf. Due to the purification ritual, I had little success isolating chemicals or other trace evidence,” he finished without accusation.

  “It couldn’t be helped.” I wouldn’t apologize for preventing the spread of blood magic.

  He shrugged. “Every case has challenges. What I need is a clearer picture of the magic and how it interacts with my findings.”

  “The report is detailed.” All of mine had to be because people had a lot of misconceptions about magic. “I don’t know what else I can tell you.”

  “Indulge me.” He tapped the folder. “This person deserves our time.”

  “That he does, but I can’t tell you what I don’t know.” Either he hadn’t read the report, or he thought I was holding out. As far as this case was concerned, he was wrong.

  Nash leaned back and folded his arms across his chest while he assessed me. “You don’t draw any conclusions. Why was the blood magic centered around the body? You didn’t find it in other places.”

  Even though it was in the report, I went through it again. This time I used small words so he would understand. “Some of the spell fragments had elements of stimulant spells, likely intended to stimulate a person. Since the blood magic was concentrated around the remains, either someone purposely intended to siphon magic from the body but didn’t absorb all of it, or the stimulant spell interacted with the blood and resulted in blood magic.”

  Nash’s eyes narrowed. “That’s the part I don’t understand. How could blood and magic mixing result in blood magic? Isn’t there ritual, ceremony, and intent behind it?”

  “I haven’t made a study of blood magic,” I said sharply. “I’ve powered spells with my own blood, which isn’t the same.”

  “My apologies.” Nash rubbed his temple. “No insult intended.”

  “Only a little taken.” I took pity on him. Elves had their own abilities, but active magic wasn’t one of them. “From what I understand, the pain and suffering must be intentional, and the person drawing in the magic must derive some satisfaction from the suffering.”

  “They’re all sadists who profit by gaining magic?”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.” Though not one my childhood teachers had promoted. Their stories had centered on all the reasons we should never ever be tempted to use blood magic. “Witches stay away from blood magic. It can corrupt a witch’s power, and corrupt their morals and ethics in the process. Blood magic wants to be used, and it wants to be fed with more pain and death.”

  “Hedge-practitioners, who are usually human, are the most common blood magic users, correct?”

  I nodded. The theory was many of them were tempted by powers they didn’t have and resorted to blood magic to increase their abilities. It also reduced their life expectancies. Not many magic users were hated more than necromancers, but blood magic users qualified. “Humans, hedge-practitioners or not, or other species who want power. It’s easier for them to hide. Witches can see and feel the corruption. As close as clans are, one of us couldn’t hide something like that.”

  “Right, so not likely to be a witch.” Nash dragged his fingers on the desk as he stared past me, lost in thought.

  Thinking back to how the magic felt, I added, “Before you go too far down that path, I’m not sure we’re looking at intentional blood magic. The area was coated, so whoever created it didn’t absorb much. If you’d asked me before I saw that scene, I would’ve said it was impossible to accidentally make blood magic, but now I’m not so sure. The spells were broken and twisted, and there was so much blood.”

  Nash took the folder and flipped to another page, this one outlining everything that had happened to the body in a simple list. “Then why skin the body?”

  “To obscure the bite marks?” I mused. “I know teeth can leave impressions on bone, but not everyone grew up with werelynxes.”

  He tipped his head to the side. “They cut around several areas where I could see imprints of teeth deeper in the tissue. It’s possible, but that leaves the question of who did the biting and who did the cover-up.”

  “A werewolf with regrets or a fey missing a chunk of leg? Do you know the species of the body?” It hadn’t looked fey, but there’d been enough damage it was hard to say for sure.

  “Werewolf. We have blood from three people. One werewolf victim, one who attacked the other, and a chunk of flesh at the scene also indicates a fey was involved.”

  “Syed.” Werewolves could live through things a human couldn’t. How he must’ve suffered.

  “I hope whoever killed him ends up at Syed’s mercy.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “It was the blood loss, not the injuries to the neck and face, you know.”

  Syed wasn’t known for her mercy, though it seemed like a fitting punishment considering the crime. “We’ll find them.” I left off the part about how many more mutilated bodies we’d both see. I didn’t think this was the last, and I doubted Nash was so naive.

  “Try to leave a little more evidence behind next time, will you?” He stood up.

  “No promises. Blood magic can’t be allowed to contaminate anything.” He hadn’t grown up hearing those stories. As fast as clans killed necromancers, they killed blood magic practitioners even faster. A clan had to have its standards.

  “I’ll make you a deal.” His words stopped me on my way to the door.

  I turned back with my best blank police face. Men wanting something from me, be it a deal or a training run, hadn’t gone so well lately.

  “You let me look at things before you remove the blood magic, help me understand the magic in context, and we won’t have any more of these meetings.” He held out his hand.

  “Done.” I ignored his satisfied smile and shook his hand. “Next time, don’t take so long to get there.”

  “I won’t.” Nash opened the door for me. “I’ll see you out.”

  The walk back to the front door seemed to take more time. Maybe with the meeting out of the way I actually noticed the trip, or maybe it was the way he kept glancing at me.

  We passed the front desk, and I couldn’t take it any longer. “Is there a problem?”

  “No.” He stopped next to the door, a sunbeam gleaming off his silver hair. Nash smiled slowly, and forest green darkened the outer ring of his irises. “You do good work, Pine.”

  “And here I thought you didn’t appreciate my work.” I shoved the door open and marched out, ignoring his chuckle.

  The rest of the day passed in a blur of paperwork. Jameson’s death merited a pile of it that took up most of my day. I considered it penance for not being able to save him, and for raising him. The bright spot in my day was seeing neither hide nor hair of Floyd.

  Back at home, bills, mail, and Monique’s legacy awaited me. I’d only just walked inside when Bubble swam over to the side of the tank closest to me and swished its tail.

  I went over to the tank. “Lonely day?”

  The cold knot of power relaxed inside me, and I touched my finger to the glass. Flakes of necromancy magic drifted into the water. Bubble swished its tail again before chasing after a bit of magic.

  Not comfortable putting it off any longer, I retrieved the box and letter Monique had left me. Maybe there was some hint of how to get rid of this power.

  The letter opened easily; age hadn’t been kind to the adhesive. Inside, I found a single folded sheet of paper and a brass key. My hands shook as I unfolded it.

  * * *

  Kelsey,

  * * *

  In the event that I cannot be with you to guide you into adulthood, I hope these things will help you.

  * * *

  Mom

  * * *

  That was it? That was all she could think to write in case necromancy caused her death? Even after she all but doomed me to the same fate?

  I let the letter fall to the floor. If she’d really loved me, she wouldn’t have risked her life or mine.

  Hopefully the box would be more helpful. It took some doing, but I wiggled it out of the cardboard. Taking a deep breath, I inserted the key and turned it. The lock clicked.

  If there were any spells, I couldn’t see or feel them. The outside of the box didn’t have any visible hinge, so I grabbed it from both sides and lifted. It slid off, revealing a cloth-lined interior, black (of course, what other color would a family of necromancers use?), and a leather-bound book. Embossed in gold was a single rune: Deyr.

  Death.

  I studied the book, the way flecks of gold had worn off the embossing, cracks in the leather, and little lines of wear around the spine for what seemed like hours. As disappointing as Monique’s letter had been, I had a feeling this would have answers, just not the ones I wanted.

  The book came out of the box easily enough. The leather was cool to the touch. Inside me, the cold magic of necromancy curled up toward my finger. I choked it out before it could escape my skin. It settled down, but I could feel it lurking.

  Pointedly ignoring my necromancy, I flipped open the book. Any hope I’d had for a more personal letter from Monique was dashed by a title page written in an elegant script.

  * * *

  Deyr: The study and secrets of the dying, death, and undeath

  * * *

  By Kelsey Nekro

  * * *

  A cold shiver crept down my spine. That was my name. My first name listed with a clan name that had died with its members hundreds of years ago. Or so I’d been taught. Every one of them executed for necromancy.

  A group of witches with representatives from every clan had been tasked with carrying out the executions by the Premier of Europe. My history teacher had said the witches were given a choice: kill the Nekro or have all the races go to war against all witches. For the witches, the choice had been simple enough.

  I’d been taught that the isolated cases of necromancy which showed up from time to time were the result of individuals finding grimoires that had managed to escape the purge.

  My name on this book… that was different. Grimoires had certainly escaped, and not just in far flung libraries to be discovered years later. This grimoire proved witches who traced their power back to the Nekro had escaped the executions and done their best to hide in other clans.

  I turned the page. My eyes skimmed across the lines of runes before returning to the top. The first words hearkened back to some of my earliest lessons.

  When you honor life, when you honor the Earth, do not forget death’s place in the cycle. Just as the Earth greets you, it will welcome your cold body. A body that will soon feel the caress of cold earth if you are not of the Nekro. Your magic will twist inside you, burning you from the inside, for the secrets in here are only intended for Nekro eyes.

  Both of my magics twisted inside me, rising up.

  My eyes refused to move off the page, continuing to read rune after rune. This page was a spell, one that was activated simply by reading it, something I’d heard of in theory but not experienced.

  Burn, burn as you burned the Nekro. Burn for the betrayal of your own. Burn unless you have been touched by death.

  Starting at my toes, my magic burned through me, lighting my nerves on fire. All of my nerves but the ones in the side of my left leg. The necromancy followed behind, replacing the unbearable heat with ice. If I could’ve opened my mouth, I would’ve screamed.

  As you burn, rise. Rise and unleash the fire.

  I didn’t know if it was good or bad, but I didn’t—couldn’t stand. My magic had worked its way up to my chest, and every breath brought with it a searing pain of flames going down my throat and into my lungs.

  My necromancy charged after my magic, replacing the fire with ice that burned in its own way.

  One coherent thought broke through the pain. A mother who truly loved me would’ve left a warning.

  The cold reached my lungs, then my throat. If I made it through this, I wasn’t sure which was worse to breathe, fire or ice.

  And take our secrets to the grave.

  The flames reached my head, and if my eyes continued to read the spell, I had no idea what it said. Ice crept into the base of my skull, adding an entirely new level of pain that I’d never imagined. My brain became a battlefield, a warring line between two extremes, and I no longer had it in me to care which won. The fire was killing me, and if it didn’t, then the ice would finish the job.

  Monique hadn’t left me a grimoire, she’d cursed me and dammed me to this torment. That b—

  Chapter Nine

  Alive was good. Far better than I’d thought two hours ago.

  Alive would’ve been better if a hundred dwarves weren’t indulging in a cheerful jig in my skull.

  I shoved the box, letter from Monique, and book back in their hiding spot and got the microwave going on dinner. Leaning against the counter and rubbing my aching head, I wished I was brave enough to use a charm for the headache.

  Better judgment insisted I skip the charm. The excitement with the Deyr had left me magic-blind. Right now, I couldn’t feel either source of power, and if my head had hurt less, that would have probably concerned me more.

  The microwave beeped. Maybe after food I’d find it in me to worry about the lack of magic. While eating dinner, I wasted a few choice words on my long-dead mother, and I briefly considered raising her just to tell her how terrible of a job she’d done. Too bad she’d been cremated.

  By the time I had finished eating, the throbbing had abated enough that I could still feel both pools of magic and enjoy some entertainment. I turned on a documentary about magical plants while I sorted the mail.

  Three junk letters and two bills later, I saw it. A square envelope rather than a rectangular one, no return information, and my address printed on a label.

  This was the last thing my night needed. Another letter from him.

  Bracing myself, I peeled it open. Sunflowers bordered the stationary, just like they had in every letter.

  It began as they always did.

  * * *

  Hello, Beautiful.

  * * *

  Time, and the experience of opening these Narzel-blasted letters for six years, had dampened the revulsion, but I hoped to never hear a man call me beautiful.

  * * *

  Congratulations on making Special Agent. You deserve it, but don’t let them work you too hard. You’ve been looking tired lately. Take some time and pamper yourself. You can’t be at your best when you’re tired.

  * * *

  Yours Truly

  * * *

  Like usual, it lacked a name. That had bothered me for the first year, but now what bothered me were the details. The TBI didn’t publish their agent’s names or make announcements when someone moved from trainee to agent. How had my stalker gotten this information? One of these days, he’d make a mistake, but not today.

  For the first year, I’d dutifully reported the letters. The police had figured out he had used a variety of common printers and that he’d posted the letters from all over Nashville. Helpfully enough, my stalker hadn’t left any saliva or fingerprints behind. I’d checked for magic, and they hadn’t had that either.

  * * *

  P.S. Fabian’s steering wheel cover is starting to show its age.

  * * *

  Great. I’d be getting a package soon. It could go in the box with the other stuff he’d sent that I wasn’t willing to use.

  I tossed the letter back onto the coffee table and turned down the volume on the TV. The headache, which I blamed on Monique, hadn’t gone away. Slumping against the couch, I flipped through the channels, looking for something happy.