“Why would a demon do that?” Gyth asked her, coming to stand on Cara’s right side. “If you guys can kill with a touch, why mutilate the man?”
“To make him suffer,” Smith said, watching Cara carefully. Like a rat watching a snake that had slithered too close.
Or a very nervous human watching a dangerous demon.
“No need for that.” Cara turned her stare directly onto the ME. “We can cause as much pain as we want, without butchering a human.”
Nice to know.
She rubbed her arms, as if chilled. “It…this doesn’t make sense. A succubus wouldn’t do this. I told you, it’s a waste—of energy and power.” Her gaze met his. “This isn’t—our way. This is rage. Hate. There’s no reason to kill this way—not when a succubus could use a simple touch.”
Yeah, pretty much his thoughts.
Two different murders. A nice clean death, versus a slaughter.
Because there were two killers?
One a sex demon who could kill with the soft stroke of a hand touch and one—one who enjoyed the red splash of blood and the screams of a victim’s pain?
Ah, shit.
Two killers—a possibility he couldn’t ignore.
Chapter 11
Smith’s hands were shaking when the detectives finally left with their little guest.
Guest.
A demon.
Oh, God, but they were everywhere—and, from the sound of things, another one was out there, a crazy psycho like the one who had attacked her. Only this time, instead of ripping out throats, the killer was seducing and murdering.
She braced her elbows on her desk and lowered her head into her palms. The faint strains of jazz swirled around her. The music had once relaxed her.
But the music had been playing when that ass**le took her. He’d come into the Crypt, smiled at her, and then lunged.
She’d seen teeth. Too sharp. Claws.
Then she’d seen darkness.
Only to awake to a nightmare.
Her shoulders hunched. Every person she met. Every. Single. Person. She wondered about them. Human? Demon? Shifter?
Vampire? Something far worse?
The bodies that came in, she studied then with sharper eyes—and remembered the times bodies had been “transferred” out of her care due to a so-called overload in her department.
Had those transferred bodies been supernaturals? Were they moved so that she wouldn’t notice differences in genetics?
She suspected they had been.
The door to the Crypt squeaked open.
Smith gasped, spun around, and found Danny McNeal standing in the doorway.
She shot to her feet and demanded, “What do you want, Captain?” Their personal relationship had ended. His choice. He’d ended the best damn thing she’d ever had over six months ago. No explanations. Just a cold, hard cut.
They probably shouldn’t have ever gotten involved in the first place. They worked together. He was the captain with the bright future that everyone was always talking about.
She was the ME who carved up the dead.
But she’d wanted him.
He’d wanted her.
And late one night, when she’d gone to his office to give him a report, they’d finally given in to that need.
The passion between them had burned hard for three months.
Then he’d shut her out.
The bastard.
The worse part—he’d ripped out her heart.
Not that she’d ever let him know that.
Her chin lifted when he stepped inside the Crypt. “Do you need a case file?”
His gaze swept the room. Returned to her. Turbulent gray. “I need to talk to you.”
“Unless it’s about one of those bodies,” she pointed in the direction of the vaults, “we don’t have anything to say.” Maybe not the most adult response, but she didn’t really give a shit.
She’d been through hell the last few months, and she wasn’t in the mood to hear him ramble about crap. Besides, she had a feeling she knew what he was going to say. After the attack, he’d started looking at her kind of…funny.
With eyes too intent. Always watching.
After the way he’d kicked her aside, the jerk was probably feeling guilty. Good. He should. He—
“You need to know something about me.” McNeal stalked toward her, and yeah, stalked was the best description.
Smith tried to study him dispassionately. Really, her friends had asked her what she’d seen in the guy. He was white, for one thing, and her girls had never been into the white men. And he was older. Nine years.
And bald.
But on him, being bald, being older, even being white—it worked.
There was a hardness to him, a strength, in his face, along that stiff jaw, in those eyes. And then there was the aura of power that had always drawn her to him…
Jerk bastard.
“What do I need to know?” She snapped. “That you’re an ass**le? I know that already. That you’re sorry I got taken by that freak? Yeah, I know that, too.”
“It’s not that…” McNeal looked damn uncomfortable. “You need to know—”
Now her heart was racing too fast. “What? You’re seeing someone else? Great.” No, it wasn’t, and the pain clawing through her chest told her that. “Look, I don’t have time for this. I’ve got to finish working on the Monroe case and with all these damn monsters around I—”
“I’m one of them, Nathalia.”
Her blood iced. “One of wh-what?” But she knew. God, but she knew.
“I’m not completely human.”
Her knees threatened to buckle. “I really don’t need this now, Dan.”
He took a step toward her.
The back of her legs rammed into the desk when she instinctively moved back.
“Jesus, babe, relax, you know I’d never hurt you.”
But you did. “What are you?” Not a demon, or a shifter, please not—
A muscle flexed along his jaw. “I’m known as a charmer.”
“What? What the hell is that?” A nightmare. That was it. She was having one really wild-ass nightmare—
“My kind—”
His kind?
“—we’re highly psychic and have the ability to communicate with certain animals.”
Her eyes widened. “Your apartment. That f**king big snake—”
McNeal coughed. “That was…ah…actually my mother’s.”
This just kept getting worse. “Your mom talks to snakes?”
A quick nod.
It was unbelievable. No, it should have been unbelievable.