Ilona Andrews - Hex Appeal

“Will do.” Melaine rang off.

Andy was watching me, and he was still holding my free hand. “You look like it’s something nasty.”

“Probably,” I said. “I’m sorry, honey. I have to go.” Normally, I would have asked him to accompany me, but if he had a potion on the stove, there was no way he could. “You did say that will smell better, right?”

“Cross my heart,” he said, and kissed me again. I stepped back and straightened my shirt, which had somehow gotten a little rumpled, then checked my office skirt and sensible low-heeled shoes. They looked approximately crime scene appropriate.

“You look just fine,” he assured me, and gave me that crooked, intimate smile that made the thrill set in much deeper. “Better out of all that getup, but—”

“Mind your manners, you roughneck heathen.”

“Yes, ma’am, I won’t embarrass you in public. But in private, I’ll be happy to make you blush all you want, anywhere you want. You just say the word.”

Oh, how I wished I could. Instead, I said, “The call was from Detective Prieto. He’s got a crime scene.”

Andy’s smile disappeared, and his body language shifted in subtle, dangerous ways. Old West gunfighter kind of ways. He suddenly looked loose-limbed, rangy, and very dangerous. “How’s that old dog?”

“Still hunting,” I said. “And I think he might have caught something bad he needs my help with.”

Andy nodded slowly, eyes gone dark and far away. “Wish I could go with you, sweetheart. I don’t like sending you off alone, something like this.”

“That’s nice, but you know, I did get along just fine for years on my own without being chaperoned by a big, strong man.”

That got me a small grin. “Still don’t like seeing women go running off into the dark unescorted,” he said. “I know it’s a more civilized time, but that don’t mean there ain’t wolves out there.”

Oh, I knew that, almost as well as he did. “Chauvinist,” I said.

“I’ll have you know I was raised Lutheran, missy.”

That made me laugh, then cough, because the smell coming from the kitchen had, if anything, intensified. “I think something’s burning,” I said, and Andy gave me another peck on the cheek and went back to his stirring.

I got out my own go-bag, which I kept stocked for emergencies. Nothing but basic supplies, because if I was asked to do any kind of full resurrection, it would take days of time and effort to complete brewing up the necessary potions anyway.

In the bottom, I had tucked a legal-to-carry Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol.

Welcome to Texas.

I had no doubt that if Andy had joined me, he’d have had guns in his bag as well. And knives. And probably high explosives. Even in Texas, though, some of that wasn’t legal to carry around, so we usually just left it as an ignorance-is-bliss kind of thing.

I was, unexpectedly, feeling a little vulnerable without him at my side.

“Holly Anne?”

He was watching me from the kitchen doorway, spoon still in his hand. He looked adorable in that apron.

I looked into his face and saw the concern. I managed a faint smile. “I’m fine,” I said. “Honest. No worries, okay?”

“All right,” he said. He didn’t sound convinced, but then, I didn’t feel too solid about it, either. Resurrection witches were not the first call from detectives on any police force, not since the laws had changed banning the testimony of the deceased. So it took something powerfully wrong for Detective Prieto to be speed-dialing me.

I was heading into something awful. I could just smell it, just like the stuff Andy was cooking on my stove.

“When you come back here, I promise, I’ll have all this cleaned up,” he said.

I kissed him again, quickly, and escaped the smell … but I had a grim feeling that it was going to be the least of my problems this evening.

The address Melaine had given me was in an industrial area of Austin; industrial areas have a certain sameness to them no matter where you are in the world. Little in the way of nature had survived here, except in the artificially maintained entrance to the business park. My headlights caught the name on the sign as we turned, and I felt a startled shock of recognition.

HIGHLAND LAKES INDUSTRIAL AND BUSINESS COMMUNITY. Yes, I’d been here before. I’d seen that dour-looking Scotsman in a kilt on the sign before. When had I …

Oh.

Yes, that was a bad feeling sinking through my chest, very bad indeed. I completed the turn and headed for where I saw a whole carnival of flashing red and blue lights in the distance, reflecting off the side of a building.

I’d been here before, all right; it was one of my most vivid, horrible memories.

Maybe it’s a coincidence, I thought.

I should have known better.

As I pulled up to the police barricade blocking off the area, I spotted Detective Prieto. He waved away the uniformed officer who was trying to stop me and leaned in the car window. Prieto had that hard, world-weary air that many detectives sported, coated with a thick outer shell of cynical realism. “So. You’re alone? Isn’t your dead boyfriend still lurking somewhere?”

“Why, does it bother you?” I asked him, and couldn’t control a chill in my tone.

“Won’t keep me up nights.”

“You asked me here, Detective. We’re not getting off to a good start.”

He shrugged. “It’s that kind of night. Drive around the corner. Park next to the meat wagon.”

As I pulled to a stop, the sense of familiarity deepened. It wasn’t just the same industrial park and building. It was the same damn spot. That was just too weird to be coincidental. I turned off the engine and sat in silence for a few seconds, thinking. I wanted to get back into the car and drive away, but the fact was, I couldn’t turn down a request from the police. Witches had a tough enough time as it was, with the Bible thumpers trying to get us hanged, burned, or drowned in a dunking chair. We needed the cops to like us. Even Prieto.

So I got out, shivering a little in the evening chill, and grabbed my bag out of the back.

Prieto caught up with me, slumped and tired but still walking fast. “Thanks for coming,” he said, not as if he in any way meant it. “According to the files, you were involved in the last one. Figured we could get your take on what was going on here.”

“Last one?”

“You’ll see.”

Up ahead, a knot of people were working—most of them crime scene technicians, collecting microscopic evidence, photographing, bagging, tagging. We stopped at the edge of the taped-off area, and Prieto waved over one of the team.

“Tell them, Greg,” he said. He made the rest of them step away to give us a clear view. Once I had it, I didn’t really need the update because illuminated by harsh floodlights, the scene told me everything.

What I faced was … monstrous.

And it was like having the worst case of déjà vu in the world … a traumatic flashback made real, flesh and blood, so much blood. I’d been here before, stood here before, seen this before.

I don’t know how I managed not to throw up, or faint, or at least turn away, but I forced myself to look at all the details, searching for something, anything, that would break me out of the nightmare.

But it was all the same.

The forensic tech studied me curiously for a second before shrugging off his questions about why he’d be talking to me at all. “Well, I’m sure you can see most of it. Victim is about eighteen years old. Pretty nasty, even for this kind of thing. You can see the mutilation from here; blood evidence tells us it was mostly done while she was still alive. She’s been dead about four hours, best we can ballpark it right now. No ID yet. Not much in the way of trace evidence, either. This is real similar to a case we had about a year ago. Same location. Same age of victim.”