The scene was messy and disturbing, and not a bone in sight. These bones hadn’t been taken by sucking through the belly. This method of extraction had been far more violent.
“Are manticores definitely out of the running?” Lars asked. It was one of the questions that were thrown into a silence no one really knew how to feel.
“Yeah,” Jake answered. “This ain’t nothing but a pod-born murderer.”
Lars sighed. “Fuck.”
“Did anyone see anything?” I asked.
“Doesn’t seem to be at the moment. The victim’s girlfriend is too traumatized to say much, as you can hear.”
She was still screaming from somewhere in the square.
“No one else?” Jake asked.
“No. We’re talking to people, but it looks like it’s the same story. No one saw a thing.”
Victim number one: bones appearing to be sucked out, minimal damage to the epidermis.
Victim number two: a much more violent death.
The only thing that connected them was the bones. That wasn’t enough to go on. Waterlooplein was not far from him, so we’d have to focus on this area for further investigations. This is where Jake and I would be patrolling tonight.
“Looks like we have a serial killer on our hands,” Jake said. “Poor bastard.”
My phone howled in my pocket. “Shit!”
Jake’s phone was going off too.
It was our office alarm.
Something was going down.
The wards had been breached.
Fourteen
Jake
I pulled on the throttle, tearing up the distance between me and our place of business. There were police sirens in the air, heading the same way.
It was Tessa. It had to be.
Bring it.
This wasn’t me going off in a gung-ho moment of rage. I valued being alive. Dean was alongside me on his bike. This was about shutting shit down.
The cameras had shown Cherry’s window smashed in, then a stream of something wet going up the stairs to our office. The door was open, but we couldn’t see the perp.
Could’ve been in the toilet. That was the only place without a camera.
I leaned into a right turn as I made the final corner. There were already two police cars outside our building, keeping people away.
Leaping off my bike, I removed my helmet and approached the female officer. “Any sign of what’s inside?” I asked her in Dutch.
“No.”
“Any officers in there?” Dean asked.
“No. We’ve been waiting for you as requested.” Her baton was in her hand, ready to do some smashing if anything came out. “Witnesses say a sick-looking man threw himself into the glass. Do you need backup?”
“Wait here unless we call.”
She was human. If we were getting into a supe fight, or a pod-born one, we had better endurance.
If it was Tessa in here, why would she leave a wet trail behind her?
“We’re going in,” I told the officer and drew my spear from its holder.
I was ready to kick some arse. This pent-up fury needed to come out and play.
I ran for the main entrance, which was still closed. Dean moved over to the broken window to cover it.
I unlocked the door and pushed it open with my foot. There was nothing waiting over the threshold.
“What the hell could’ve gotten through the wards?” Nothing, that was the point. “The fuck are we dealing with?”
Dean went in through the shattered window, which wasn’t actually warded, and came out of the side door to meet me.
“Together,” he said.
We went up side by side. The wards started halfway up the stairs, and I could always feel them acknowledge us as we passed through.
They were down.
We entered the office, following that wet trail. The smell of onions stank up the air. The trail went up the next set of stairs to The Space.
Amazingly, there wasn’t actually any damage done to our desks, to our stuff. Nothing had been tampered with. Whatever this was, it wasn’t interested in our things.
A sick-looking man? Hmm …
We hurried up the stairs, then took it slow-moving through the book stacks and the shelves. Again, all were present and accounted for.
There was a heaving sound coming from the direction of the toilet as if someone was puking up last night’s booze.
Dean gestured to the door, taking point.
I rolled my eyes. Him and his being my protector bit. Yeah, it was flattering and super-hot, but still.
Nonetheless, I followed him across our storage area to the open bathroom door where a gross sight awaited.
The naked man in there was swollen, covered in boils that were glowing with radiant white light tinged with blue.
“What the actual fuck?” I said aloud.
It didn’t alert the bloke to our presence as he was already aware of us standing there. His skin was purple, covered in a pink rash, his body swelling by the minute.
“Please,” he breathed. He had a British accent—from the west county. “I didn’t want—” One of the boils split, spilling the glowing gunk down his chest. The man whimpered.
“Who are you?” Dean responded. “How did you get in here?”
“Please …”
Another boil popped. What the frig was that stuff?
“What do we do?” I asked. No way did I want to put my spear anywhere near Mr. Poppy.
“What are you doing here?” Dean asked, his tone full of menace.
“I can’t … I’m … Please. Make it stop. He … made me … need to protect …” He screamed as three more boils burst, spraying the walls. His skin was beyond overstretched, fit to go bang at any moment.
As cool as a cucumber, Dean closed the door.
“Please!” the man bellowed.
Dean held onto the handle.
A massive bang rattled the door. Wet splashes came from within, and that glowing gunk oozed out from the crack at the bottom of the door.
“Careful,” I said, pulling Dean back.
It was thick and soon slowed down, not making much headway beyond the door.
“That door doesn’t get opened until a goblin arrives,” Dean said.
Goblins were great at cleaning up messes. A team of them were working on the horror in our bathroom. They’d also corked up some samples of
