Diana Rowland - Mark of the Demon

It doesn’t matter , I finally decided. It’s still a murder investigation .

But there was one more striking similarity between Series One and Series Two. Every single victim was the type of person who had no one to miss them. Homeless, prostitute, drug addict, mentally ill. Sometimes all of the above. Black, white, Hispanic, Asian—all were represented. And the victims were chosen carefully—of that I was sure. These were not random snatches off the street. The killer studied them, followed them, and made certain they were alone and would not be missed for some time.

I sat back in my chair, drumming my pen on my chin. How did he take them? Tox screens on the victims had never come up with anything more than traces of “street” drugs, which was to be expected with the types of victims he chose. But if he was holding them for several days before killing them, then any drug he used to subdue them would probably have time to clear from their bodies, though I’d need to check with Doc for specifics. Did he gain their trust? Was there a connection? The investigator on the original case hadn’t found any link between the victims, but I had no idea how deeply he’d dug either. Somehow, the Symbol Man snatched his victims without anyone seeing it happen, then transported them to a secure location where they were heinously tortured for several days and then ritually killed, sometimes suffering for up to a week before finally being put to death. And always the arcane smudges left behind on the body, as well as that unidentified symbol.

But why? What was he doing arcanely? There were a number of things that involved death and blood, but unfortunately—or fortunately—Aunt Tessa wasn’t an expert in any of them, other than the basic knowledge of Things That Are Bad.

I picked up the picture of the girl found at the treatment plant and scrutinized the parallel cuts and the symbol carved onto her chest. That shit had to hurt like crazy . And the knife had to be insanely sharp, judging by the precision in the cuts.

I sighed and pulled out the pictures from the very first body, seven years ago. This one was a young black male in his mid-twenties who’d hit three of the four factors: homeless, prostitute, and drug addict. I flipped through the pictures quickly until I found one of the symbols. It had been meticulously burned into the inside of his left upper thigh, just below the scrotum.

I replaced that file, then grabbed up the next: a white male in his sixties, homeless, no family, mentally ill. His symbol had been seared directly onto his genitals. More torture. Not just a brand, but one that was meant to cause incredible pain as well .

But why should that surprise me? It didn’t tell me anything new about the killer. But maybe it told me something about the symbol itself. If it was an arcane marking, then maybe the pain involved in its placing was important. Somehow generating more potency?

I replaced the files, then pulled out the one on the victim I’d actually seen when I was a road cop. But I didn’t need to look at the pictures. I remembered vividly where that symbol had been. In fact, at first the detectives hadn’t believed it to be the same killer, because no symbol had been found on the body. It wasn’t until the pathologist removed the tongue and trachea during the autopsy that it was found—seared onto the base of her tongue.

I jumped at the knock on my door and bit my tongue against the yelp. “Come in,” I called, then had to work to control my expression when Cory Crawford opened the door. His flat brown eyes flicked over the files and pictures scattered around my desk, then he looked at me, a sour expression curling his mouth.

“Dr. Lanza called to say he has court in the morning, so he’s not cutting your latest until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Okay,” I replied, guarded. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

Cory’s gaze swept my office again. “You making any headway?”

“It’s … a lot to go through. I’m trying to find a link between the victims now.”

He gave a stiff nod, opened his mouth to say something, closed it, then shook his head. “Kara, I was a dick the other night. You’re going to do just fine. Sorry.”

I let my breath out. “It’s cool.”

He nodded again, then closed the door. I could hear his footsteps fading down the hall as I leaned back in the chair, feeling as if a bit of the weight on me had been lifted. Yes, all better now. Now you only have to stress about the chief thinking you’re an inadequate nutjob, Agent Kristoff thinking you’re incompetent, your one-night stand with a demon … oh, yeah, and a serial killer still on the loose . I made a face and sat up again, pulling the scene pictures to me and wishing for the millionth time that there was some way to photograph those arcane smudges.

I can’t photograph them , I thought with a growing realization, but maybe I can sneak Aunt Tessa in to look at them . If Doc wasn’t going to cut until tomorrow afternoon, that would give me the time to do it.

I chewed my lip as I mulled over the utter stupidity of such an idea. “Ah, screw it,” I muttered, grabbing my bag. “It’s only my career.”

Breaking into the morgue was painfully easy. The coroner’s office suffered from a lack of funding more than any other agency, mostly due to the fact that people didn’t like to think about death and thus didn’t want to fund it any more than absolutely necessary.

“I’ve done my share of crazy things in my day, kiddo,” Aunt Tessa remarked dryly as she watched me work the lock, “but I don’t believe I’ve ever broken into a morgue in the middle of the night.”

“Yes, this would normally be far too tame for you,” I replied as I slipped the edge of my folding knife into the doorjamb, noting with wry amusement that the jamb was already scored a dozen times over, probably from people who worked for the coroner’s office. The door clicked open and I stepped inside, wrinkling my nose at the ever-present odors—the combination of cleaner and decomposition and bleach, each struggling to overpower the others.

I quickly flicked on my key-chain LED flashlight, then stepped inside and pulled Aunt Tessa in, closing the door behind her.

“Needs incense,” I heard her mutter from behind me.

I swung the tiny flashlight in an arc, blue light reflecting eerily off the metal table and stained walls. “Let’s just hope no one gets brought in while we’re doing our little bit of breaking and entering.”

The cooler was locked, but I knew that the key was oh-so-cleverly hidden in a drawer right next to it. A wave of cold dead air rolled out as I swung the door open, and once again I pulled my aunt inside, this time propping the door slightly ajar with an office chair. I panned my flashlight around the cooler, relieved to find that there was only one stretcher with a body bag atop it. I checked the tag on the outside of the bag to be sure. Yep, this was my victim, Mark Janson.

The bag was secured with a plastic zip tie, which I sliced through with my knife. I quickly tugged on latex gloves, then unzipped the bag, exhaling as the sight of the young man struck an emotional chord once again. Then I grimaced. The arcane smudges had faded drastically, as I’d feared.

“There’s not much left of them, Aunt Tessa. Can you see anything?”

Tessa leaned over the bag, slowly scanning the body, nose wrinkling at the faint odor of sweat and blood and death. “I see what you’re talking about.” She frowned. “Turn your flashlight off, please.”

I switched the flashlight off, suppressing a shudder at the near-absolute blackness inside the cooler, broken only by the faint illumination sneaking past the propped-open door. But I could see why my aunt wanted less light. The smudges were far more visible to othersight in the dark.