And that’s when someone thumped on the front door.
Ilya and Natasha turned in that direction. So did Julian and Grimshaw. And I headed for the door.
And Aggie and Jozi rushed to the door, gleefully shouting, “Another trickster!”
No one at the door. No one within the reach of the lights.
A rattling sound came out of the dark, and I heard Grimshaw say, “Crap!” as he rushed toward the door.
Rattle, rattle, rattle. Then something stepped out of the dark.
I caught a glimpse of ragged feathers and a skin-over-bone crow’s head with black eye sockets.
Aggie and Jozi sucked in a breath.
A feathery hand pointed at them and a harsh voice said, “Gonna gitcha.”
Aggie and Jozi screamed and knocked me into Grimshaw as they bolted toward the kitchen. Grimshaw shoved me into Julian’s arms as he and Ilya ran out the door. But the thing I’d seen was already gone.
“Gods above and below,” one of the academics said. “I never thought I would see . . .”
He looked excited and sick, which was unnerving, but I needed to find Aggie and Jozi. And Eddie, since he seemed to have disappeared too.
Julian and I found Aggie and Jozi hiding under the kitchen table. Aggie had a skillet. Jozi had a rolling pin. They were shaking and whimpering.
I crawled under the table with them, my size for once being an advantage. “It was a scary costume,” I offered.
Jozi shook her head. “Coming to get us.”
“Who is coming to get you?” Julian asked quietly, crouching beside the table in order to see us.
Aggie looked at him, her dark eyes filled with terror—and resignation. Then she whispered, “Crowbones.”
CHAPTER 7
Grimshaw
Windsday, Grau 31
Grimshaw took two steps into the dark before Ilya grabbed his arm to stop him.
“I’ll look around,” Ilya said.
“It’s my job.”
“It’s not your territory. Jurisdiction. Is that the proper word?”
Damn lawyer. You know all the proper words as well as I do. “This place is flexible when it comes to jurisdiction.”
“Then let’s say I have a better chance of looking around and surviving than you do,” Ilya said.
Grimshaw hesitated. If the leader of the Sanguinati around Lake Silence said better chance, that was reason enough to be cautious. “Do you know what that was?” he asked quietly. “Why the Crows freaked out like that?”
“No,” Ilya replied. “I’ll look around; then we’ll both go inside and talk to Victoria. The Crowgard are more likely to tell her what frightened them than tell either of us.”
Ilya shifted to his smoke form—another sign that the vampire felt cautious about whatever else might be out there—and headed away from the access road. Headed in the direction where, a few months ago, a corrupt detective had been grabbed by an angry Elder and twisted in a way that still gave the cops and the local medical examiner nightmares.
Grimshaw stood where he was, scanning the edge between human lights and wild-country dark and listening for movement, whispers. Anything. Everything. He hadn’t heard any screams from the teenage boys, no sound of a car crashing as they tried to escape. Then again, the Elders were fast when they attacked.
Smoke drifted toward him. He braced, hoping it was Ilya and knowing he had no way to counter an attack from anything in that form.
Ilya shifted to his human form and stepped into the light. “Do you have any evidence bags in your vehicle?”
“Sure,” Grimshaw said, turning toward his cruiser. “I keep a few for—”
“Something that can hold wet evidence?”
He stopped. Turned back to study the vampire. “How wet?”
Ilya didn’t answer.
Crap. “I keep a body bag with my crime scene kit. We can use that, but I’ll have to help you carry it.”
Ilya hesitated. Then he nodded. “Very well. You should bring that big flashlight you usually keep in your car.”
“For illumination or protection?”
Ilya didn’t answer.
The evening was going pear-shaped in a hurry.
Grimshaw retrieved the flashlight and body bag. After a moment’s thought, he grabbed the small camera he also kept in the car. It wasn’t as good as the cameras used by the Crime Investigation Unit in Bristol, but whatever photos he could get of the evidence in situ tonight would have to do. He didn’t need Ilya to tell him that if he waited for CIU, there wouldn’t be anything for any of them to photograph in the morning.
He slipped the camera strap over his head, tucked the body bag under one arm, gave Ilya the flashlight, and said, “Lead the way.”
They were close to the trees but still on clear ground. In daylight, they would be in sight of anyone looking out a window on that side of the main house. Grimshaw gave thanks that all the children who had come to The Jumble tonight had been spared whatever he was about to face.
He smelled blood.
Ilya’s hand was steady, but Grimshaw still took in the scene in flashes.
A bottle of bleach on the ground. A decorative hollow gourd lying next to an arm that had been severed at the elbow. And a lump of something black and feathered.
“I need to take some pictures,” Grimshaw said quietly, setting the body bag near his feet. He pointed to the bleach and then aimed the camera. “Lighting isn’t the best, but I doubt we’ll have another chance.”
He took several shots of each piece of the tableau. Even with the light shining on it, he couldn’t make sense of the lump of feathers—and he wasn’t eager to find out what might be underneath it.
Tucking the camera between his shirt and jacket, Grimshaw opened the body bag to transport the evidence.
Rattle, rattle, rattle.
A sound like a rattlesnake’s tail, but worse. Somehow worse. And nearby.
Grimshaw looked at Ilya and tipped his head toward the building. The Sanguinati had a chance of getting away from whatever was out there, and all of Sproing’s residents needed a terra indigene leader who had a tolerance for humans.
“Chief Grimshaw,” Ilya said in a normal tone of voice, “now that we have photographed the items, the next step in investigating is to transport the evidence to the police station for analysis. Is that not true?”
“That is true,” Grimshaw agreed, understanding that he was explaining their actions to whatever watched them. “We will use these items to identify the person who played a cruel trick on the Crowgard tonight. Then the person can be properly charged and arrested for a crime.”