1856-2006.'
But as we filed in, we weren't looking at the posters. All our eyes were drawn to the granite-topped reception desk-and Philip, resting a hip on it casually, like a shot out of GQ.
'Homina,' Cinnamon said.
'I like his cologne,' Jinx said, her hand on my wrist giving a brief squeeze.
'Miss Frost, thank you for coming,' he said, winking at me. Then his gaze took in Jinx's cane, Cinnamon's headphones, and Spleen's one-good-eye fidgeting, and he actually seemed at a bit of a loss. 'So,' he began, one hand brushing his dark, evil-Spock beard, 'I, uh-'
'Special Agent Philip Davidson,' I said, 'please meet Skye 'Jinx' Anderson, my graphomancer. She's graciously agreed to come down to get this process started, and my… associates were kind enough to give us a ride.'
'I'll wait out here, if that's OK. OK? OK,' Spleen said, fidgeting harder, looking around the office, trying not to stare at the single heavy black door that went out of reception and into the back. 'You know, to watch her.' He nodded at Cinnamon, who growled.
'Y'all do that,' I said, pecking Rand on the cheek. 'I owe you one, 'Uncle Andy.''
Phil ushered us through yet another big heavy door with a big knobbly lock. 'Your cat friend,' he said in a low voice. 'That's not makeup-'
'Drop it,' I said. 'She has it hard enough as it is.'
Philip conducted us through a clean, well-lit group of offices paralleling Atlanta Homicide, and then through a darkened observation room into the same evidence room where I'd first seen… 'it.' The cadaverous man was gone, but wiry-haired old Balducci was there, scowling, leaning back from the evidence tray before him like it might bite him.
'Miss Frost, good to see you again,' he said, obviously not pleased to see me again at all. 'Agent Davidson, I'm still not sure this is a good idea.'
'We need all the help we can get,' Philip said. 'Miss Anderson, if-'
He paused, and I turned. Jinx was frozen in the door. 'Jinx, are you all right?'
She stood for a moment, then took a deep breath. 'Yes, yes, I'm fine,' she said, slowly stepping forward into the room. 'So. It is here.'
'Yes,' I said.
'Well,' she said. 'Show me.'
Balducci raised his eyebrows but said nothing as I pulled out a chair for her and guided her into it. I started to reach for the tray, but Jinx held up her hand.
'I can tell where it is,' she said, a bit sharp. 'Could I have a little room?'
Balducci's chair squeaked back as he popped to his feet, and suddenly he, Philip and I were in three corners of the room, all far from Jinx. I looked over at Balducci, then Phil. They were just as uncomfortable and sickened by the lid as I was.
Then Jinx reached for the lid-and screamed.
19. Hot Electric Shock
I felt a hot electric shock ripple through my tattoos and fell back against the wall. Jinx jerked her hand back, tumbling out of her chair, knocking it sideways onto the floor-and screaming, screaming the whole time in repeated, high pitched, full-voiced wails.
Balducci clutched himself, reaching for his heart. After a shocked moment, both Phil and I stepped forward just as Jinx's screams subsided.
'Jinx,' I said, reaching for her. 'Are you-'
'Don't touch me!' she snapped, holding out her hand, and I recoiled from the blind glare burning out from those spooky geode eyes. 'Don't help me.'
We stood back as she collected herself and straightened her glasses. She groped blindly for the chair, found it, and righted it. With one hand she lifted herself up and brushed herself off, still keeping that fixed-head stare that was so very Jinx. After a moment she bent, collected her cane, and sat down primly at the table, folding her hands in her lap before sighing.
'My, my,' she said. 'Quite a shocker you have there. May I continue?'
'Uh…' Balducci said, staring at Phil, who nodded. 'Yeah.'
She reached out a hand abruptly and put her whole palm across the lid, screaming instantly like she was pressing her hand on a hot stove. Her other hand tightened on her cane, and she twisted in her seat and screwed her face up until she stopped screaming.
'Not the first clear images I wanted to see after twenty years of darkness,' she said, voice ragged and angry and very un-Jinx. 'Not what I wanted to see at all'
'What did you see?' Phil said.
'Impressions, really,' Jinx said. 'A woman, mid-twenties, blond, naked. A sort of circular tattoo. Cut from her flesh with an athame, a ritual magic dagger-'
I looked at Balducci, who was holding his hand over his mouth cautiously, skeptically, following every word. Up till now Jinx had not told us anything she couldn't have gotten from me, a cold-reading trick typical of most of the charlatans claiming to be psychics. I couldn't blame him for being skeptical 'And then-dear goddess!-he poured salt on the wound-'
She shoved the lid away, and Phil and Balducci looked at each other and raised their eyebrows. 'The psychic record ends there. I'm pretty sure the salt was to sever any remaining magical connection to the living host.' She lowered her head. 'I can't say for certain, but I got a very strong impression that dagger wanted to end the ritual in her heart.'
'That's… consistent,' Philip said.
'That's fucking amazing is what it is,' Balducci said.
'Language, Officer Balducci,' Jinx said calmly. 'I'm afraid that touching the lid is quite… aversive… to a sensitive such as myself. With your permission, I'd like to encircle it before I begin my examination. It might serve to dampen some of the 'vibes.''
'That… that wasn't the examination?' Balducci said.
'No,' she said. 'That was a side effect.'
'Miss Anderson is a graphomancer,' Philip said. 'She's here to analyze the tattoo and give us her thoughts on why the killer may have wanted it.'
Jinx had pulled out what looked like a small makeup case from her shoulder bag and was feeling the table. 'May I draw on this?' she asked, retrieving a piece of chalk from the case.
Balduci let out his breath. 'Sure. Why the hell not?'
'Language, Officer Balducci,' Jinx said, drawing a wide circle around the evidence tray. 'I'm only doing this because I'm trying to help.'
'Uh, Philip,' I said. 'There was that matter of my… other associates-'
'Davidson,' Balducci warned. 'I appreciate you bringing APD in on this, but you're-we're letting out a lot of information about this case to a lot of people-'
'Current thinking,' Philip said, ushering me towards the observation room to talk but speaking to Balducci, 'is that if you have a known victim category, you alert them. That it's better to prevent more crimes than to nail the perpetrator.'
Balducci threw up his hands.
Philip joined me in the observation room, and the door closed with a sudden click.
There, alone together in the near darkness, I forgot what we were going to talk about. We stared at each
