Page 15 of Silver Claw

“Thanks, Luce.”

“Don’t worry,” she murmured. “Sam likes to disappear sometimes. He’s fine, and he’ll be back.”

I knew she was trying to convince herself more than me. We both missed the shapeshifting serial killer, but he was the love of Lucy’s life.

Sam had tried to convince Detective Moreno that he hadn’t killed the childless blonde woman—and if he was telling the truth, then someone had killed her and made it look like Sam’s work.

I didn’t believe Sam had killed her, but Rick wasn’t convinced, and he was still working the case, hoping to find evidence of a copycat.

Joe, Remy, and I were currently on our way to check out a report of supernatural activity, as Rick put it when he called me, in the Pocket. The Pocket was the nickname for an isolated dump of a village called Falton, just outside the city. The police tended to give it a wide berth when they could.

It was a dangerous, dismal place. It was also where I’d first seen Sam. Sometimes a certain type of supernatural went there to do bad shit. Demons, for instance.

“Let’s see if we can get out of Falton and to the office early enough to make Max happy,” I said, as I drove cautiously through the streets of the Pocket. Rick had given me a location that was right in the middle of the town. Not all the residents of Falton were totally against police presence in their streets, because one of them had called in the report.

“The caller said there was a crack in the curtains in the abandoned house across the street,” he’d told me. “She said it looked like someone was flying or floating through the room. She looked through her binoculars, which apparently she keeps hanging on the wall next to her shotgun and a picture of her dog. She saw a dark figure moving around the person flying—or floating—and is convinced either aliens or witches are doing human sacrifices and cooking them in cauldrons.”

I’d snorted. “She thinks a witch is flying on a broomstick through a house?”

“This is what you get when you agree to work for Jakeston DSA.” And there’d been a smile in his voice.

The JPD had recently shuffled him to a new building and given him a new title, and he’d gone without arguing.

Rick was now senior detective of the new Department of Supernatural Affairs, which boasted a whole six employees and was treated to much smirking by most of the public and nearly all of his colleagues.

But after the vampire attacks and the cover-ups that came after, someone had quietly stepped in and created the new department. No one seemed to know who was behind the DSA, but Rick had immediately been transferred over to help run it.

And he’d brought me over with him.

I still had my laminated ID with the red line which told the city that I was working for—and with—Mayor Louis Hedrick. After the first few times I’d been stopped or questioned by a cop, they’d finally just started ignoring me when they saw me at a crime scene.

Ordinarily I’d have parked my car a good distance from the Pocket, because chances of returning and finding half of it missing were good. But I wasn’t trying to hide my presence. I’d park in the driveway next to the house and between Joe, Remy, and me, we’d be able to keep an eye on the car as we walked through the house searching for broomsticks and cauldrons.

Our biggest issue would come from either residents trying to shoot us or the roving “guards” who patrolled their streets. We’d come up against both before, and they were a pain in the ass. They were also dangerous and not to be underestimated.

Relief flooded me, though, when I realized all over again that I no longer had to worry about Joe. And Remy…well, no one in the Pocket was going to take down the boogeyman.

So I wasn’t worried when I pulled into the short driveway next to the empty house.

But the second I got out of the car, my wolf growled. I chalked it up to the normal bad aura of the Pocket. The darkness was filled with unpleasant scents and my wolf’s nose was extremely sensitive.

Amongst the oil, old food, and garbage, I smelled burning wires, marijuana, and decades of tar and nicotine coating the walls. I felt the despair and fear and suspicion of the Pocket.

None of that was unusual. But then, as we neared the front door, another scent wafted through the cracks to drown out the other smells.

Fresh blood.

Rivers of fresh blood.

Chapter Six

“What is it?” Joe asked when I stiffened.

He and Remy pulled their weapons, and I opened my hand to call magic that could no longer come. After a second of disorientation and then despairing realization, I slipped my demon blade from its sheath.

It began to glow immediately, its heat warming my palm. My blade still had magic, despite cutting through the flesh of the siphoner.

“Blood,” I murmured. “Lots of it. The smell is too strong for one person. I don’t know if the killer is still inside.”