Magick Rising (2 page)

the soccer ball he clutched with white-knuckled hands. None of the kids

she’d babysat would’ve hung around for an hour. Alone. Unless he’d seen

something.

Like a murder?

She waited for the boy to become aware of her before saying, “Sup?”

He jumped, and his gaze skittered toward the body under the sheet fifty

feet away, but he offered a shrug.

“Pretty grisly, huh?”

“Yeah.” He swallowed and turned a paler shade. “I ain’t never seen a

dead person before.”

“They’re not all this bloody.” Miko moved to block his view of the

stained sheet. The kid didn’t need to see more of the carnage. Attempting a

nonchalant air, she asked, “My name’s Miko. What’s yours?”

“Brendan,” he said, young enough to automatically answer an adult’s

question.

She cleared her throat. “Did you see it happen?”

“I saw someone coming from this direction really fast, but I—” He

swallowed again. “I didn’t see . . . it . . . happen.”

Was it possible? Could this kid have seen the Skid Row Butcher? Her

heart, already racing, kicked up to sprinter-at-the-finish-line speed. “What

did the person—a man, right?—look like? Tall? Short? Was he white? Black?

Anything familiar about him?”

“H-he was tall. A wh-white guy.” For the first time, Brendan’s

expression lightened. “And he moved fast as Spiderman.”

“Could you recognize him if you saw him again?”

Brendan’s eyes skittered to his left before giving a jerky nod. Miko

followed his gaze toward a tall man on the edge of the onlookers. Swiftly,

she summed him up: over six feet, dark chiseled good looks in a brooding

better-than-Twilight way, black hair curling slightly over his collar, and an

upscale black trench coat that billowed dramatically in the breeze. Buffy’s

Angel all tricked out.

She snorted.
Really? Mr. GQ’s the killer?

Still, who was she to say a murderer couldn’t dress well? Careful to keep

her movements subtle, she switched her camera to video and panned it from

Brendan toward the man.

Miko returned her attention to Brendan. “Is that guy in the black trench

coat the one you saw coming from the direction of the . . . uh, from back

there?”

“Yeah, that’s him.” Brendan edged farther back into the tree. “I gotta

go. My mom’s gonna k-kill me for being out after dark.”

Before Miko could grab him, before she could get his last name, he fled

down the trail, lost in the darkness within seconds. She ran a few steps in

pursuit, but he must’ve darted off the noisy gravel onto the grass.

Great, how do I find him to turn him over to Garm now?
On the heels of that

thought came another:
Who cares about the kid if I have the murderer?

Murderer: not exactly fair and impartial reporting. She had one

conversation with a nameless boy and no evidence. She rolled her shoulders.

Possible murderer. Or possible witness. Or innocent bystander. Would

Garm even believe her? Knowing she was jonesing for a story on this? She

turned back to the scene.

Dammit, make that absent murderer or witness or bystander.

She scanned the crowd—no black trench coat, no GQ good looks. She

hurried through the thinning bystanders, but he was gone.

“That’s it, folks. Clear out. Nothing to see.” Several uniform cops made

a sweep to clear the crowd.

Giving Kelly the high sign, Miko slid ahead of them to lurk on the floor

of the Jeep. If it looked empty, it might not attract Garm’s attention.

The unsolved murders had him riled up, and she seemed to be the

object of his wrath after she questioned the police department’s diligence in

pursuing a murderer who only targeted the homeless. Not that they were the

first to put such murders low on the priority list, but what if one of these

men were Nic? This was where she’d lost his trail, but he could still be here

in one of the homeless encampments or up in the mountains above town.

Miko sighed. Nic could be anywhere, but wherever he was, with PTSD in

the mix, he would be as vulnerable and as nameless and faceless as any other

homeless man.

She heard the detective wrap up his part of the investigation and leave

along with most of the cops. Finally, after Miko had jotted down all her

notes on her iPad and hunger had driven her to digging dusty breath mints

from between the seat cushions, Kelly tapped on the window.

“Remind me why I risk being fired to help a reporter?” she asked with a

grin.

“Because it’d take a super majority vote of the city council to oust you,

and they can’t agree on anything?” Miko climbed out and stretched her legs.

“And because we’re both soft-hearted fools with Don Quixote complexes.”

“True and true.” Kelly’s grin faded, and she laid a hand on Miko’s

shoulder. “Any word on your uncle?”

“No, but it’s just a matter of time and effort. Someone’s bound to

remember seeing an Asian ex-Marine.” If they could see past the homeless

exterior to the man beneath.

“If there’s anything I can do to help, all you have to do is say the word,”

Kelly said then motioned for her to follow. A crime scene tech rose, but she

waved him away as she lifted the yellow tape to let Miko through.

Miko braced herself as the M.E. lifted the sheet over the dead body.

Even as she gagged at the sight, relief rolled over her. Not Uncle Nic.

Pulling on gloves, Kelly pointed out the mutilations. “The Butcher’s

characteristic long abdominal-thoracic wound made by a sharp,

medium-length, double-bladed weapon. Then the brute force dislocation

and twisting of almost every joint in the body, including the vertebrae.” She

rolled the body over to display the hunched, contorted spine. Easing the

body back, she gently lifted each hand, deformed by knots that looked like

advanced arthritis. “And also as usual, he chose a crippled homeless man.

Sorry, homeless man with disabilities.”

“I don’t think this guy cares whether we’re PC or not.” Miko squatted

beside her friend, taking several photos of the DB’s face. Better to think of it

as a dead body instead of a mutilated old man with no one to stand up for

him. Not until she was away from the scene. Then she’d become his

champion. She’d make sure he had justice even if it was posthumously.

She stood back as Kelly and the tech loaded him onto the gurney and

into the coroner’s van. The M.E. stripped off her gloves to push her hair

from eyes that were now all business. In a low voice for Miko’s ears only, she

said, “I’ll give you a call when I have the autopsy results.”

Miko walked the perimeter while the last policemen finished up. After

scanning her camera over the scene one last time, she opened the Jeep’s

door, but a prickling at the back of her neck made her scrutinize her

surroundings. Nothing moved but the trees in the wind and the flapping

yellow crime scene tape. Even the neighborhood dogs were quiet. Still she

had that same feeling of being watched she’d had every other time she’d

come close to the Butcher’s work.

“Need something, Jones?” a street cop she knew from the
dojo
asked,

his tone tired but kind.

She looked around again and shrugged. Nerves.

“No, thanks.” She slipped behind the wheel. Keeping a constant eye on

her rearview mirror, she drove a circuitous route to her home. Nothing. No

one trailed her.

But the sensation of being watched scratched like fingernails on

chalkboard.

HADRIAN HAWKEN stepped from the overhanging canopy of a willow

tree and watched as the reporter’s apartment came to life. Firelight flickered

warm against the golden walls when she switched on the fireplace. Miko

Jones poured a glass of wine, dropped into her accustomed chair in the

living room’s big bay window and opened her laptop, then seemed to have

difficulty settling. Her gaze returned again and again to the window until

finally, she rose and turned out the room’s lamps. As she had on previous

nights, she crossed her arms over her chest as if for protection and peered

into the darkness.

Retreating into the shadows, Hadrian studied this persistent

complication. The police made a show of investigating, but Miko Jones did

much more than pretend an interest. Only
she
seemed to care about finding

the Skid Row Butcher. Thus, only
she
stood between him and his mission. A

mission begun long ago and close to completion.

From behind him, a rumbling purr announced the arrival of his

Overseer, Azrael, long white fur luminous in the gloom like a ghostly

apparition.
She disturbs you,
came the thought into Hadrian’s mind.

Hadrian glared down at the massive white cat, closer in size to a lynx

than the domestic cat shape he assumed. “She bears watching. Nothing

more.”

You have watched her a great deal of late.

“She has become a regular investigator at each cleansing.”

She is after all a reporter.

“Yes.” The woman unsettled something deep within him, stirring

memories of another. “The boy on the path—she, not the police, noticed

him. She sees things others miss.”

She sees too much?
A touch of alarm flavored the thought.

Returning his gaze to her window, Hadrian shook his head. “She is yet

an innocent.”

Azrael flicked his tail and narrowed his eyes, gleaming gold in the

darkness.
See she remains so.

RUBBING HER ARMS within the draped sleeves of Uncle Nic’s

dragon-printed silk
yukata
, Miko stared out into the night. The street was

empty, as it should be at two in the morning. The only movement was an

enormous white cat meandering across the neighbor’s yard. Still, she

couldn’t shake the sensation of being watched. Her gaze backtracked to the

trees where the cat had come from.

A chill chased fear down her spine. The doer was out there. He’d been

out there since shortly after she’d tagged him the “Skid Row Butcher.”

Wherever she went, he was there. Sometimes, she woke during the night and

sensed him, a tangible presence in the darkness outside. Watching.

Waiting.

For what?

“Leave me alone,” she whispered into the silence, wishing again that

the cracking plaster and out-of-kilter window would hold a curtain rod for

more than a couple of hours. Wishing she stayed in one place long enough

to bother fixing stuff. Wishing she could locate wayward Uncle Sinichi

Nakasima.

Her
yukata
billowed in a ghostly wind that disturbed nothing else in the

room. The long, draped sleeves settled at her elbows as if folded back, ready

for fighting as Nic had taught her. She dropped her hands, and the fabric

slipped down her arms.

Oookay, that’s creepy.

With a huff, she chastised herself for a vivid imagination then settled

into the worn leather sofa and idly soothed herself by combing the
kanzashi

through her hair while trying to ignore the humming along her spine.

Drawing her laptop to her, she connected the camera and downloaded the

latest crime scene. Gruesome viewing, but it was her job. After that, she

tackled the task of mapping out her story—one version in-depth and

comprehensive, the other short and regrettably what her editor would

publish.

Once she finished and hit Send, she returned to the crime scene video.

Her wine glass stood empty as she ran the scene over and over, pausing each

time at the man Brendan had identified as running from the area of the

murder. Why had the man remained—or returned—if he was the Skid Row

Butcher? Serial murderers were egotistical but not usually stupid. Most

seemed to make do with collecting newspaper clippings and TV news

stories, recording their YouTube coverage.

On the other hand, these victims wouldn’t have even that fleeting

notice. The rich, the powerful, the celebutante—let one of them be

murdered, and the world knew of it in endless, redundant detail as the lead

story across every media channel. However, old men with crabbed fingers,

hunched backs, and grotesquely deformed faces were lucky to grab a

ten-second blurb deep in a newscast.

“Or four lines on page ten of the Metro section.”

Chest tight, Miko pulled still photos of each of the Butcher’s victims

from her messenger bag. The first one, unidentified like all the rest, had fiery

red hair. She recalled her shock when she’d photographed the Elephant

Man-like corpse. While she hadn’t lost her cookies, she’d skipped dinner.

As she studied each photo, her resolution intensified. The police,

overworked and driven by politicians with their own agendas, simply didn’t

have the time or manpower to “waste” on the unwashed and unwanted.

One dead bum meant one less hiding under the bridges. The only shelter in