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  “Nivaan is coming with us.”

  The hellhound glared at Vee, her expression hard at first, until she looked away, giving a silent sigh. “I guessed you’d need to find another way . . . considering I can’t be of any help.”

  Vee chuckled. “Don’t take it so personally. It’s just the way it is.”

  Syama shrugged and fell silent.

  Nivaan and Krish emerged from the house, hurrying down the steps to Vee’s car. The alpha drew up beside Vee. “Ready?”

  She nodded and got into the driver’s seat, receiving a smirk from the alpha and a dirty look from Krish. The younger shifters piled into the back of the car and Vee gunned the engine and drove off, giving the skies a quick scan for her snowy owl sidekick. He flew above the car, just behind and to her left, as if deliberately positioned so she’d see him in her side mirror.

  She glanced at Nivaan. “So now what?” she asked, waiting to hear how this was going to work.

  “We need to go to a familiar place of reference, a place that you know the killer has frequented.”

  “Will the crime scene do?”

  Nivaan nodded and Vee made a left toward the outskirts of the city. Visiting the crime scene in the dark was perhaps not the best way to study evidence but Vee wasn’t looking for anything physical.

  She glanced at Nivaan. “Will there be a problem considering the lack of an actual body?”

  He shook his head. “With the crime so recent I wouldn’t think so.”

  That was a relief.

  When they arrived at the park, Vee and Nivaan alighted and she was surprised to see the hellhound and Krish follow, with Akil making a landing on a nearby branch. He fluffed his feathers and then tucked his wings in, settling to watch them.

  The group followed the yellow tape all the way to the scene, glad that the pathway was still covered by the blue tiles.

  The tent was gone and so was everything else. Only the tiles and the little flag markers remained. Nivaan hunkered down beside the outline of the body and sniffed. A soft purring-growl shifted around her, its sound lifting the hair at the back of her neck.

  Krish stepped forward just as Nivaan got to his feet. He looked over at the younger shifter, then glanced up at Vee. “The scent is still good.”

  Vee nodded. “My team’s chasing down the identity of the victim but it’s taking a while. Still, the phone could tell us something.” Then she studied Nivaan’s face, an idea filtering to her. “He’s a jogger, so he came here on foot. Can Krish track the way you do?”

  Nivaan nodded. “His abilities are just as strong as mine. Alpha blood intensifies the power.”

  Vee glanced at Krish. Alpha blood? She studied both the men—similar bone structure, same hair and eye color—and wanted to kick herself for not realizing it earlier. They were brothers.

  She inhaled sharply. “Ok. Krish and Syama can track the jogger, you and I can look for the killer.”

  The younger pair nodded and Nivaan and Vee circled the gulley. Vee watched as Krish’s body shimmered into his lion form. Syama did the same and they both loped off, following the jogger’s path back in the direction he’d come from.

  With the other pair gone, Vee took out the bag of bone-chips and handed it to Nivaan.

  “Show, road, and all that.”

  The lion alpha gave Vee a grin, took the bag, opened the zip, and inhaled, his nostrils flaring slightly. Then he looked at her. “So how are we going to do this?” His gaze shifted down the road, as if looking off in the killer’s direction of escape.

  “What do you usually do?”

  He lifted a brow. “This isn’t on my usual to-do list.” His lips curled into a smile, and Vee got a flash of that dimple. “Usually, when I’m looking for someone, I’d shift and track them in that form. Means I’m running and if I have company I’m in a small pack.”

  Vee realized what he was trying to say. “So, how are we going to work this?” She thought for a moment. “How about you track it and if you find anything significant just tell me where to meet you so I can have a look at the auras.”

  The alpha shifter nodded and turned away, walking between the trees. He disappeared into the darkness and Vee headed back to the car, waiting only long enough for Akil to swoop down from the tree, land in human form and slide into the passenger seat. She gunned the engine and pulled into the road.

  She caught Akil up on what was happening and though he frowned, he said no more about it, instead turning his attention to the road. As Vee drove she intermittently shifted her sight from normal to aural in the vague hope of picking something up. With the forest on her left she caught a glimpse of a golden flash of aura. Was that Nivaan?

  Vee frowned and slowed to a stop on the side of the road as she focused on the blip of gold weaving through the trees leaving swirls of brilliant yellow in its wake.

  Vee found she recognized Nivaan’s aura now, and that startled her. Was she getting too close to him?

  She forced herself to focus and watched as Nivaan disappeared deeper into the dense stand of trees. She was about to slip back into the road when a semi trundled past, the shock of it making her bones go cold.

  Stupid. Pay attention.

  “Woah,” said Akil, eyes wide.

  “Sorry,” Vee apologized, shaking her head and checking the traffic before sliding onto the road.

  She followed until she came to a T-junction, watching until the shifter emerged from the trees and crossed the road. He wore a glamor that to most eyes he’d appear human, but on first glance, the eye tended to glaze, to slide off him too quickly, not remaining on him long enough to form any kind of opinion or thought.

  Over the next hour, Vee and Nivaan tracked the scent of the killer with Nivaan intermittently calling her to report his location, and Vee scanning the scene. Each time they came up with nothing.

  At last Nivaan called her from a warehousing district and when Vee drew her car up beside the pacing shifter, she wasn’t surprised at the sight of the abandoned location.

  “Trust the bad guy to find an abandoned warehouse in which to do his dirty work,” she said as she got out of the car and shut the door, leaving Akil inside.

  Nivaan shrugged, his gaze flitting around the parking lot, and beyond the iron fencing. Broken in places, it certainly wasn’t model security. “Nothing unusual. It’s quiet, unoccupied, a little on the dangerous side so you don’t have too many nosy-parkers around.”

  Vee nodded. “Right. Let me see what I can see.” She leaned against the car and shifted her sight. The area around them, though filled with pale light from the cloudy day, turned from blue-gray to black and silver. Overlaying the dark, opaque tones were streaks of brilliant color that were fresh aura signatures.

  Vee studied them all, filtering through them one at a time as she searched out that which belonged to the owner of the claws.

  She stiffened slightly as she caught sight of the lion-shifter, his aura glowing darkly, indicating some sort of stress or intensity of emotion.

  The aura hovered around the lot, moving as if the shifter had spent a bit of time, either standing and waiting there or pacing, as his path had crossed over a few times.

  Odd.

  Vee opened her eyes.

  “What did you see?”

  She flinched at the sound of Nivaan’s voice, still unused to having someone with her besides Syama.

  Vee shook her head. “He spent some time here, but the tracks stop, as if he’d been picked up by another vehicle before entering the property. Either that or they used this parking lot as a meet-up location.”

  “So that’s a dead end until we can go inside?”

  Nivaan stared through the wire fencing at the wide road that ran down the middle of the industrial business park. A dozen gigantic warehouses and plants lined the street, dark, shuttered, with peeling paint and shattered windowpanes left uncared for by owners who didn’t know or didn’t care—or both.

  “Yeah. A dead-ish end. We can’t enter now. Not in
broad daylight, especially without permission. We’ll have to come back tonight.”

  Nivaan was heading to the passenger door when Vee’s phone rang, a call from Syama blinking on the screen. Vee answered and climbed into the car, putting the call on speaker. “We tracked the victim’s scent to a loft in Manhattan. Swanky place.”

  “You went inside?” Nivaan’s eyebrow lifted, clearly impressed at the enterprising pair.

  Syama snorted. “His name is Edward Spires, he’s a Wall Street guy, looks way young for his age.”

  Vee nodded. The description matched the jogger, who to Vee, had appeared late teens to early twenties. “Family?”

  “Estranged mother and stepfather,” Krish’s voice emanated from somewhere in the room, “there’s emails from them. Some abusive.”

  Vee’s brow creased. “How did you—”

  “Apparently shifters are nerds too.” Syama’s tone reflected an eye-roll.

  Nivaan chuckled and Vee grinned in response. The man’s smile was downright infectious.

  “Okay, so we have ID and family details.” Vee tapped a finger on the steering wheel, a part of her registering the absence of the owl. “We’d need to speak to the parents. See if they know anything.”

  “Hang on,” Krish called, “that would be a little hard. The parents were killed six months ago. Holiday boating accident somewhere in the Bahamas. They left after the mother had a gigantic disagreement with the son about his money.”

  “Guess he made big bucks.”

  “Yeah. His income was impressive, but he made large withdrawals on a regular basis which left him with very little savings.”

  Vee grunted. “So we know he isn’t giving his parents money, so maybe he has a gambling habit.”

  “Could be. I’ll keep looking, but so far the money is doing a Phileas Fogg. And I haven’t been able to track it. Probably won’t either.”

  Vee smiled at the kid’s reference. “Someone’s been reading Around the World in Eighty Days,” she muttered to herself.

  Nivaan’s responding laugh told her she hadn’t been quiet enough. “So the money trail is dead?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “My tech guy may be able to help with that. They have the gadgets.”

  “Krish is nodding,” Syama said, her voice filling the car.

  Vee let out a sigh. “So no parents to interview, no living relatives, no money in the bank, untraceable transfers. It’s all looking pretty dodgy to me.” She rubbed her forehead. This case was going from bad to worse with every second. Then Vee thought of the other victim. “The girl in the alley. Victim number one. She truly was a Jane Doe. Monroe’s files suggested she was trafficked because she had no identity in our systems but some of her implants—teeth, boobs, et cetera—implied she was South American.”

  “And the plot thickens,” said Syama with exaggerated drama.

  Vee rang off with instructions for them to copy whatever information they could, take as many pictures as possible, but leave the place as they found it. She sent a message to Rossi with details of the jogger’s—Spires’—address and then glanced at Nivaan.

  “So, both victims have no friends or family to speak of, no money in the bank—the prostitute had no bank account either. What if we were to assume the girl was also giving someone money. Extortion? Blackmail?”

  “So the killer is targeting loners for their money.”

  “Or killing those who have nobody to come find them.”

  Vee sat back, tapping her lip as she considered the option. “The similarity between the victims’ profiles makes me wonder if they may have joined a cult or become involved in a similar group, who were using them for their money.”

  Vee couldn’t believe she’d arbitrarily thrown the cult story at the professor. She’d said the first thing that had come to mind, and in the end she might be right.

  Nivaan cleared his throat. “Don’t some cults require their members to hand over all their money anyway?”

  Vee nodded. “As a means of control, yes. Either give them the money or give up your job. Although they are probably smart enough to keep the higher paid people in employment.”

  “Like the two victims.”

  “The prostitute . . . how well-paid was she?”

  Vee frowned. “Her clothing was expensive. A silk shirt that would have costed a pretty penny. Manolo Blahniks, and crocodile-skin purse.”

  “Maybe a call-girl,” suggested Nivaan.

  Vee nodded. High-class call-girls would charge a hefty fee, so that could fit. The girl hadn’t appeared trashy, despite the short shirt and fishnets. She sighed and keyed the ignition. “This case is making my head hurt.”

  Nivaan laughed as Vee dove off, her tires spitting stones as she left the parking lot and headed to Manhattan to pick up their young investigators, the sight of the sirin flying above strangely comforting.

  Chapter 41

  Driving home, Vee gave Syama a quick glance.

  “Well done on the tracking of that jogger,” she said while Akil echoed her words from the backseat. He’d been silent but Vee had yet to figure out if he was upset or if that was just his way.

  Syama shrugged. “It was nothing. Besides, I got the feeling the shifter did most of the work.”

  Vee groaned, “Yeah. I know how that feels.” She punched Syama lightly on the shoulder, “Either way, that was some impressive work. At least we have something more concrete to go on.”

  “How’d your search go?” asked Syama, her gaze shifting from the scenery to Vee’s face.

  “We made it all the way to an abandoned industrial park. Lost the trail there, but we figure we’ll go back tonight and check it out.”

  “Not the best place to go searching in broad daylight,” offered Akil from the back seat.

  Syama nodded as they pulled up outside the house. The two girls and Akil alighted—with Akil taking flight in his owl form to do a quick recon—and Vee hurried to the door, thumbing the lock button on the car’s remote. Syama opened the door and Vee followed.

  As she turned to close the door, the sausage-dog-shaped doorstop caught against the edge of her foot. Ma had made the thing by hand, concerned about the space between the door and the floor, saying it let in too much cold air.

  Vee hopped aside, kicking to dislodge the wheat-stuffed dog, when a low popping sound echoed around her.

  Pain sliced through her arm, and then something large, white, and feathery full-body tackled her, sending her tumbling to the floor, while two more thud-pops reverberated inside the front hall. Vee’s neck snapped back and her skull hit the wood floor with an ear-ringing thud.

  The door slammed and Vee couldn’t decide which hurt more, her skull or her arm. She lifted her head and stared at her bloodied arm, frowning.

  “I think I just got shot.”

  “You think?” yelled Syama as she scrambled over to Vee. Mac came running down the hall and the hellhound screeched at him to get low.

  Akil groaned beside Vee and she lifted a head, spitting feathers out of her mouth. She glanced beside her and gasped at the sight of piles of bloodied white feathers strewn across the carpet. Akil lay there, his body human, while his left arm ended in a torn and bloody wing.

  Syama hesitated between the two and Vee shook her head. “Check him first,” she said, but the hellhound only listened when she saw Mac hurrying down the stairs to Vee’s side.

  “It looks clear,” he said, scanning the front rooms as he passed. “Whoever took the shot would have left by now.”

  Syama frowned as she checked Akil’s wing. “I have no idea what I’m doing here, Birdman. We need a vet or something.” Then she glared at the sirin. “That was a damned fool thing to do.”

  Akil laughed and Vee grinned, too. Akil’s cheery smile disappeared. “My lord Narasimha has given me to the Apsara, and I am at her service.”

  Syama folded her arms. “Hard to do service when you’re dead. Besides, where’s the proof? Not as if the chakra came with a serial
number to prove ownership.”

  Vee wanted to burst out laughing. Syama continued to provoke the boy, while Vee remained grateful. As a child she’d twice received guardians—at the time she’d been ignorant of their true identity—and again two more after her father’s death.

  She’d been taught to understand their value and to not doubt their purpose. She’d once questioned her mother, asking what if the guardian was from a demon.

  Her mother had laughed and said, “You are strong, Vee. Trust your instinct. The warrior within will surface should anyone, even a passerby on the street, prove to be a danger to you.”

  Still, it hadn’t meant she should be complacent.

  Now, she forced a smile on her face as Mac helped ease her jacket off her shoulder and spread the hole in her shirt open to get a better look. Vee caught sight of raw flesh and ripped fabric. And a lot of blood.

  Relieved, she let out a sigh. “A graze. That was close.”

  “Too close.”

  “Is this you being reckless, or are you in trouble?” Mac’s tone was even as he met her eyes.

  Vee glared at him. “I think I may be getting a little too close to a killer.”

  The lines on Mac’s face smoothed. “And you brought them to our door?”

  Vee sighed and Syama grunted. “Coulda been her, or me. Or even Devi. Unfortunately, they got Feathers over there.” Akil grunted but didn’t respond further.

  “Yeah, we can’t blame anyone. If I’m getting close it means they want to stop me.” Vee met Mac’s eyes. “You guys use the back entrance for the next few days.”

  Mac made a face.

  The back entrance was an underground exit from the house that led to a garage directly behind it. They’d also sublet half the back neighbor’s garage, and installed an underground passage leading directly to it. A spare car, registered to an old friend of her father’s, and clothing, money, and passports formed part of their getaway stash.

  At the time it had sounded overly dramatic, and Vee knew she’d rejected the idea more because Devi had come up with their escape strategy.

  Mac helped Vee to her feet while Syama left Akil’s side for a few seconds to peer out the side of the window. “Maybe it was a warning.” She returned to the sirin, unsure what to do.