Jake shook his head as a swarm of black beetles crawled out of the man’s mouth. In seconds, they covered his face, then went back in through his ears, nostrils, and eyes. I turned away in horror.
The scuttling sound of the bugs went on for a moment longer, then there was a thud, followed by silence.
I glanced back. The man laid on his side, black, empty sockets where his eyes had been.
Jake and I were still staring dumbfounded at the ruined shape when patrol cars screeched to a stop outside, sirens wailing and flashing in the night.
Chapter 10
An hour after the attack, Jake and I entered the police department escorted by the two officers who drove us there.
At the counter stood a dark-skinned man in shirtsleeves, and loose tie, a hand smoothing his graying goatee. His sharp brown eyes traveled over a piece of paper, moving quickly. Noticing our approach, he set the page down and walked in our direction.
“You all right, kid?” He held me at arms’ length, scrutinizing me from head to toe. “I just heard or I would have come myself.”
Detective Tom Freeman became part of my life the night Jake and I rescued the Garner girl. He had been the detective leading the case and grilled us for hours until he was satisfied with every detail. Through the ordeal, he met my dad, and they struck up a friendship. When Dad passed away of pancreatic cancer a year ago, he asked Tom to take care of me, an assignment he took seriously. We had coffee at least once a week. He was the one who insisted I keep a gun in the office, and the one who took me to the shooting range to practice. He had also suggested kick-boxing.
He had kids of his own, but one lived in Los Angeles and the other in Denver. His wife had passed away from a heart attack before she turned fifty, and it seemed I’d become his family’s poor substitute. I loved the man to pieces.
“I’m fine,” I said.
Satisfied, he took a step back, his gaze drifting to Jake, who stood behind me.
Tom’s expression tightened. “And look who the cat dragged in.”
The words crackled with hostility. Tom’s capacity to switch from nice to mean and back again always surprised me. He could play good cop, bad cop all on his own. But even though he saw his share of bad shit and knew how to handle it, he didn’t let it darken his soul.
“Detective,” Jake greeted.
Tom turned. “Follow me.”
We went into his office and sat across from him, while he glared at us from behind his desk.
Yes, Jake and I had helped solve the Emily Garner case, but other times, we’d also stuck our noses where they didn’t belong, pissing people off. Tom had gotten us out of a few binds with his superiors. Like the time I called his boss a racist twatwaffle because he hadn’t bothered to look for a missing Leprechaun that left Elf-hame by accident and got lost in the St. Louis Galleria Mall. Excuse me, but that’s a bigass place for such a little guy. Good thing I’d found him and returned him home safely before he got too comfortable and started jumping out of toilets in the lady’s bathroom. The gates to Elf-hame were highly monitored for a reason.
“The pair of you again,” Tom said. “As if we don’t have enough problems already.”
“There’s no pair of us.” I scooted my chair away from Jake’s. “It’s just Jake over there, and me over here.”
“It’s good to see you too, detective,” Jake said, always the smart ass.
Tom rubbed his stubble making a sandpapery sound. Dark circles surrounded his eyes, which suggested things around The Hill had him burning the midnight oil.
He made a tired, come-here motion with his large hand.
“All right, tell me what happened?”
Jake opened his mouth to speak, but Tom halted him with a raised index finger. “Not you, Knight. Toni.”
I gave Jake a satisfied grin. As teenagers, Jake and I had spent many hours in this very office, mostly talking ourselves out of trouble, and Tom had always picked me first to explain things. He said I made more sense and gave him fewer urges to break someone’s neck.
Jake huffed and murmured under his breath. “Typical.”
Without embellishments, I explained everything that happened from the moment I left Rosalina outside the pizzeria to the moment the cops showed up.
“Shit,” Tom said when I was done. “Not more of this supernatural crap! Beetles? The Seelie Prince? Really? And they never said who sent them.” Tom was a Stale and hated dealing with Skew cases because they messed up his closing rate. Vanilla, human crimes were much easier to solve and kinder on his record.
I shook my head. “The first guy never had a chance and the second... I think someone put a spell on him to make sure he didn’t rat them out.”
“I’m sure that’s what they did.” Tom rubbed the back of his neck. “We’ve seen it a lot lately. It happened to a couple of eyewitnesses.”
“Eyewitnesses?” Jake asked.
Tom’s attention shifted to Jake. “It’s none of your concern.”
“It is if it has anything to do with Stephen Erickson’s kidnapping.”
Tom cocked his head to one side and steepled his fingers. “And what does that have to do with you?”
Jake reached for his wallet, pulled out a business card, and slid it across the desk. “Everything. His father hired me to find him, but more than that, Stephen’s my friend.”
He’d been hired by Ulfen? He never mentioned that tidbit.
The detective glanced down at the card. “A PI? God protect us!” He considered for a moment. “Look, I don’t need you causing trouble for us, Knight. Let us do our job.”
“I don’t want to cause trouble for anyone. All I want is to find Stephen before it’s too late.”
Tom smiled stiffly. “Then we have the same goal. I hope
