She’d begun her medical career as a midwife, and had become the first licensed female doctor in the city. Every few decades, she “retired” from one position and took another. She’d been in her mid-twenties when she’d been turned, so she didn’t stand out when she went back to school after a retirement to catch up on the latest medical advances. She’d learned to glamour and glamour well. As a result, she’d never had problems blending in or being found out.
Vivienne Sagadraco had a lot of pull in this town, and one of the ways she used it was getting supernaturals placed in strategic jobs. In addition to supernaturals in the NYPD, there were mages who, like Dr. Van Daal, could replace a glamour on a dead supernatural and hold it there until the body was turned over to the family. Or if no one claimed the body, until it was cremated or buried by the city. These mages were in the homicide divisions, medical examiner’s office, and CSI teams.
The boss had covered all the bases she could, but occasionally a corpse tried to steal home. When that happened, there was a lot of scrambling and improvising by whichever agents were closest.
Thankfully today, no one needed to scramble.
We watched from a parking spot on the street that by some miracle of maneuvering, Yasha had managed to wedge the Suburban into, without turning either the car in front or the one behind us into an accordion. I’d turned to look at something totally fascinating out my window, so Yasha wouldn’t see me cringing the entire time.
Our cozy spot was half a block from the murder scene. Ian wanted to stake it out for a while to see if any of the curious onlookers behind the police crime scene tape looked a little too curious—or pleased with themselves.
“Dr. Van Daal will get a copy of her report to Moreau, but the preliminary is the same MO as Gedeon’s murder.”
“Portal stink?” I asked.
“Including portal stink.”
“Bert won’t get a shot at this body,” I noted with no small measure of relief. “And I’m perfectly fine being half a block away from where there was a portal.” I spotted a familiar face trying to act casual as he exited the building. It was a ten-story building, and hundreds of people would have a reason to be there, but it was too much of coincidence that this individual would be one of them.
Jesin Nadisu. The apartment building manager of the Murwood, aka murder scene number one.
“Do you see—?”
Ian was out the door before I could finish.
Since Yasha was legally parked for once, he joined us.
The young goblin’s day was about to take a turn for the worse.
My day was going to be just fine. Not only did Ian not tell me to wait in the SUV, but if Jesin Nadisu ran for the closest parking garage and getaway portal, I’d have plenty of qualified backup this time.
The goblin didn’t run for the nearest parking garage. When he saw us, he just ran. Fast. If Yasha could have gone wolf, he could have been on our Olympic wannabe in three bounds and a leap. It was the middle of the day in Midtown, going furry wasn’t an option, so we had to do it the old-fashioned way.
Ian had missed out on snagging the assassin yesterday, and he wasn’t going to take second place today. Jesin Nadisu didn’t want to be caught, so he was motivated. Ian was just pissed. People were being killed, a coworker was attacked, and his partner was damned near dragged to Hell—excuse me, an anteroom—by a squid demon. As a motivating factor, anger topped fear anytime.
Shots rang out that weren’t ours, and the goblin went down.
People screamed.
We instantly went from pursuit to protect.
“Police!” Ian yelled. “Get inside.”
It wasn’t a lie; he was the police, just not the NYPD, at least not anymore.
Regardless, when Ian ordered, people obeyed.
Soon we had the section of street to ourselves—until the NYPD investigating the murder came out to join us. We needed to be gone before that happened.
With bullets flying around, I would have liked to have been one of the people obeying Ian’s order and getting the heck off the street, but instead I ran with Yasha to where the young goblin had pulled himself to the protection of a building doorway before he collapsed.
Ian ran in pursuit of the shooter, with a sharp wave to Yasha to get the car.
“Go,” I told him. “I’ve got this.”
Yasha didn’t like it, but he went. The quicker he got back, the less chance that we’d all get arrested, and it wouldn’t be for stealing a dead body; it be for taking a wounded murder suspect.
When I got to Nadisu, he was still conscious. He saw me and tried to drag himself farther away.
“Hey, we’re the good guys here. You were running from us.”
Pain kept him from talking, but from the dread in his eyes, being caught was worse than being shot.
Despite his presence at two murder scenes, I didn’t think Jesin Nadisu was a murderer, at least not the kind of murderer who’d eat souls and be partnered with a demon lord.
I’d been wrong before, but I knew I wasn’t wrong about this.
For one, other than the small magics needed for a glamour, I didn’t sense any power coming from him. The only thing a demon lord would want him for was a snack.
Blood was spreading under his suit coat on his white shirt. His hands weakly fought me as I pulled the coat back to see the damage.
A package fell out of the inner pocket. The bullet must have nicked it. An orange powder from inside dusted my hand. I highly doubted it was Tang.