Chapter 36
Angel drove while I contemplated how to broach the topic. “So, fated mates and shifter fading?” I asked, hoping to prod him to confess. His grip on the steering wheel tightened, but that was his only reaction.
“It’s not instantaneous.”
“Uh…”
“You said yes to our bond.”
“Before I knew it could be lethal to you.”
“I know you need time. I plan on giving you as much time and space as you need.”
Which was super sweet and thoughtful but also made me wonder what sort of contact was required to keep him from fading.
My presence? Sex? A fully bonded relationship?
He barely knew me, and as Ivan had pointed out, I was a lot.
How could he be sure he wanted to keep me?
Just because some supernatural deity had decided to place some invisible tie between us?
“Ask what you want to know,” Angel said.
“Fated… it’s not a choice?”
“It’s always a choice.”
“For me. But not for you?”
“No, but yes.” He sighed. “I could have asked Sarge to switch you to another team and avoided you as soon as I knew.”
“My winning personality made you decide otherwise?”
He frowned. “Honestly, it was more how you interacted with Wade than anything else. Lots of people look at him and see a big, dumb ginger. He’s quiet and reserved around everyone but you.
” A long minute passed as we waited at a light before he continued.
“The second I touched you, I knew, but you made him laugh and smile. Then you tried to be friendly to everyone else instead of instantly judging them.”
“I’m polite, and that makes you want to give me a chance?”
“Not polite. Merrill is polite, icily so. You were friendly. You threw yourself into the job with the idea that you wanted to help, not because you were forced onto our team, but to make the best of the situation. You didn’t look at me like I was beneath you.”
“Why would I?”
“And that is why I kept you.”
“Like I’m a pet fish.”
He snorted. “You read too much manga. Fate picked you for me. I’m too old to throw that away.”
“Tell me how this thing works? We date? If you don’t see me for twenty-four hours, you turn into goo?”
“Not goo. You’d have to be gone awhile for that to happen.”
“Gone, like dead?”
His hands tightened on the wheel again, and I worried he’d break the damn thing, but he steered us through a few more lights before gliding up behind a slew of flashing lights and cop cars spread out in the field I’d only left a few hours before. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”
“Okay.”
“Can we talk about this more after we are done here?”
“Sure. Zombies to raise or whatever.”
“This is part of you,” he said. “Your power is just as much a part of you as your blond hair and blue eyes. Are you afraid to look in the mirror in the morning?”
“You’ve not seen me with wild bed hair yet.”
He huffed. “Deflection is a trauma response.”
I sighed. “I’m trying.”
“I know, and that’s why I’m giving you time. In the same vein, I want to protect you from everything. Smother you in bubble wrap and snarl at anyone who has hurt you.”
“That’s sweet, but I’m a little old for the coddling.”
“Never,” Angel said. He turned off the car and slid out. I followed, feeling like every eye suddenly turned my way, but it was Hanna who approached first.
“Sorry for the delay,” I said out of habit.
“I’d like you to walk the field with our forensics team. Tell them if you sense anything else,” she said without preamble.
“I don’t really know what I’m looking for, but sure.” Maybe if I pretended it was like a video game, sparkling bits would show up for me to investigate.
“Once we wrap up this case, I want you to spend some time with Lilith, practicing and honing your power.”
“Lilith?” I asked.
“I’ve been told you met,” Hanna said.
“At the bakery,” Angel offered.
“The woman who looked like a grown-up Wednesday Addams?”
Angel groaned.
Hanna smiled. “Exactly.”
“She’s an SV?”
“She’s a goddess of the dead,” Hanna corrected.
I blinked at her for a few seconds as the words processed. “A goddess?” I glared at Angel. Why hadn’t he said something? “Wouldn’t she be more help here?”
“Most of the higher deities rarely cross the Veil,” Hanna said.
She waved a small group over. Their vests read SED, but I didn’t recognize any of them, nor did they have glowing bands.
Not variant? Or the non-human type? “If you could walk the lot with them and point out anything you notice?” She glanced at Angel. “Angel will remain here.”
He looked like he wanted to protest, but I rushed after the team.
“You’ve done crime scenes before?” one asked. His badge said Knight.
“Yep. Former homicide detective.”
“That will make this easy then. We’ve got markers up. Don’t step on them. Move slowly. Tell us if you find something we missed.” He sounded doubtful I would, but since I agreed, I got to it.
There was a lot of trash in the lot since it was one of those empty spaces between a slew of office spaces, not big enough to build on, and yet not zoned for housing.
These sorts of places often went ignored and occasionally turned into dump sites.
Sometimes, the unhoused would find their way to a morbid end.
Other times, a crime would go unnoticed for a long time.
Joe and I had a handful of places in our zone that we checked regularly.
This had not been one of them, but we hadn’t worked this side of town either.
The mess of clothes and other camp supplies meant, at some point, there had been squatters.
This close to downtown, they often got run off to keep the businesses happy.
I slowly wove around a handful of markers, not examining what they found as much as avoiding them.
Working in the field like this meant trusting your team to do their part.
“It’s like an Easter egg hunt,” I muttered to myself.
“Except the eggs are all full of existential dread and possible zombie dust.” Finding, tagging, and bagging always went to forensics as they caught stuff most beat cops didn’t know to look for, like cigarette butts, threads, or even wrappers.
My job often began afterward with the body, and reviewing the evidence.
We walked a few lines, up and down the lot, giving me a few feet to examine as we moved, and I sensed nothing other than that it looked eerie in the early morning hours and reminded me of getting the shit beaten out of me just hours earlier.
Had Cassidy meant to kill me?
I paused mid-step as something caught my eye. The trio stopped behind me, waiting. Was that a tooth? I carefully lowered my raised foot and crouched. It could be a rock, but I hadn’t brought gloves.
“What?” Knight asked.
“Is that a tooth? Or a rock?” I asked, pointing toward the tiny bump of dirt in the squashed grass.
“Nothing but dirt,” Knight said.
I rubbed my eyes, wondering if I was seeing things and wishing I’d grabbed gloves. One of the other two, the woman whose badge said Hanes, knelt and prodded the dirt with her gloved hand.
“Jaw bone,” I murmured a few seconds later as Hanes hissed and the two others stepped back.
“Connected,” Hanes said after a moment of carefully brushing back the dirt. “We’ve got another body,” she called back toward the road.
“That was nothing but dirt,” Knight growled.
“Mark it,” Hanna commanded. “Finish walking. We’ll come back to it.”
I met Angel’s gaze. Had I used some sort of power and didn’t realize it? He scratched his nose and pointed lightly at his eyes. Fuck. My eyes were red, weren’t they?
He said not to fear this power, as it was part of me. Okay. I could do that, right? Be useful? These people needed justice. Who knew how long they’d been here, and why.
I studied the lot around us. How did this sight thing work?
Automatically on? Prodded to work? Last night, it hadn’t felt that way.
More like something bursting out of me. But as I studied the lot, I could see a handful of other spots, little more than small patches of dirt, but my gut said it was more. Instinct, or the variance?
“Sergeant Hanna?”
“Yes, Holt?”
“I think I’m seeing four other spots?”
She cursed, and everyone began to move, flooding the lot as she made me point out each one I saw, until we could mark them all and dig.
That was a lot of bodies in one tiny field.
The team made their way around as I waited for each section, finding remains in each, some further gone than others.
This had been someone’s dumping ground for a while.
Angel made his way carefully to my side, stepping around the body and studying the ground. He crouched low, pulling a pair of gloves out of his pocket. I needed to start carrying those everywhere again.
“Do they all have candle wax around them?” Angel asked Hanes, his gaze turning to the other markers near us.
“Yes. That’s one of the first things we found.”
“Do gold and red mean something?” I asked as I squatted beside Angel. While I hadn’t paid much attention as I’d passed the other markers, the wax, now that I knew what the color splotches were, added consistency. Not a dump site, then? Something else?
“Gold is for dominance,” Hanes said. “Male energy. Red is strength and determination.”
“The colors are commonly used for summoning,” Angel said. “By witches.”
“So, it’s a party filled with murderous cops and homicidal witches. I think I preferred when my cases were gang hits. Less paperwork.”