Malaky opens his cell phone, exchanges words with Doc Eve at the scene, and orders the paramedics to prep three body bags and follow us.
I’m hating this more and more with every minute that passes. I don’t deserve this. I fulfilled my super’s duties by banking the checks. I was just stretching my legs before I head off to my first class at Magical Arts and Crafts. I was having a good day. A pretty good day. Except for Daniel’s phone call. And getting hit in the head by a flying pizza box. And burning my fingers on a flaming rent check. And getting poked by some invisible power on my hike up here.
An okay day, all right? This is ridiculous. This is outrageous. I’m a working student. I don’t need to get involved in a supernatural murder investigation. I don’t want to.
But I am. I am involved.
Off we trek into the forest, following the yellow crime-tape. Malaky leads the way and I go second, giving me more of an expansive view than I want of his pudgy butt. Kovac, Valdez, and the paramedics trudge behind us.
It occurs to me that Kovac, with his odd tortured limp, might have trouble hiking through the underbrush. It worries me, Kovac’s limp and that angry red aura from his knee to his toe.
It worries me so much that I stop and glance over my shoulder. Valdez is trampling down the underbrush before him, almost kneeling at his feet at times and holding out her helping hand. Whispering in a low urgent voice, her vivid red lips trembling.
And Kovac? The man isn’t buying it, her sympathy or anything else she’s offering. His eyes concealed behind the sunglasses again, he steps over the trampled underbrush and waves her hand away.
A hardhearted man? Could be.
Damaged? Brittle? Oh, yeah. And definitely in pain.
I don’t like the look of it, her face pleading, his impassive. I turn back on the path, feeling like some kind of peeper. Like I’m witnessing something I’ve got no right to see.
We arrive at the murder scene and, to my relief, my pals the crows still perch on the upturned tree roots.
Malaky claps his hands, but the crows refuse to fly away and glare at him so piercingly, he steps back, his hand searching out of habit for his holster.
“Ah, they’re just waiting for a smorgasbord,” Malaky says. “I’ve seen crows go after roadkill. Bastards will eat anything.”
Kovac ducks under the crime-scene tape and hobbles over to Doc Eve. “What do you think, Eve? Vampire bites?”
“Could be, Jack, but I can’t say for sure. Lots of passive bloodstains, hardly any spatter. We’ll know more after tox and serology, of course.”
“Time of death?”
“Around dawn. They’re in full rigor mortis.”
Kovac tells the photographer to snap shots of the crows and thrashes back through the underbrush to me.
I brace myself, crossing my arms over my chest. I’m prepared to confront whatever smackdown he’s aiming at me, but I’m unprepared for what he says.
“You’ve got power, don’t you, Ms. Teller. You used your power to find the bodies,” he says in a low, confidential voice. It isn’t a question.
“I don’t know.” He’s probably right but his assertion sets my nerves on edge. Countering the nerves, I say the first smart-ass thing that pops into my mind. “You need some kind of forensic tool that detects magic at a crime scene. A magic detector. Like a metal detector. Works on the principle of electromagnetism.”
To my surprise, he replies, “That is an excellent suggestion.” As if I’d just said something genuine instead of goofy. He scrutinizes me a second time. “You’ve got a special affinity with Nature, I think. The Earth. Flora, fauna.”
The acuity of his observation surprises me a second time, but I instinctively know it must be true. Fireflies on a summer’s eve. The psychic comfort of old trees. “I don’t know what my affinities may be. Not yet. I only just got accepted by Magical Arts and Crafts.”
“So Valdez said.”
He abruptly reaches out and presses his forefinger on my bare shoulder below the strap of my tank top. Though it’s the lightest touch, the slightest touch, I feel a jolt, electric, electrifying. Heat sizzles over me, a dazzle of power. Then nothing. The sensation ceases almost at once. No power pushes at me or pierces me. Just that jolt, that sizzle, that dazzle. Just that, and the distinct impression he’s taken some measure of me.
I am well and truly vexed. His touch feels as improper as Brand’s great big bear hug. Maybe more so, because he’s supposed to be the law. Is he playing a power game?
I meet his eyes dead-on, but his ocean-blues tell me nothing.
He’s nothing like what he pretends to be, that’s what I think.
Who is Jack Kovac?
What is he? Magician or monster?
********
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