No Humans Involved

'What's in here?' she asked hoarsely.

Before I could answer, she threw open the curtain. A sharp intake of breath as she stared at the bondage gear. Then a shaky laugh. 'Well, that explains it.'

A pause, then she glanced at me. 'I have to- I can't do this here. Too strong. Can you get the… stuff and bring it out to me?'

I nodded.

A COUPLE of minutes later, I slipped into the cleaning closet and found Hope there, rubbing the back of her neck.

'Sorry about that,' she said. 'It was just-'

'Too much.'

A wry smile. 'Yeah. Asking me to get a sense of those-' she waved at the bags in my hand, '-while I was in that room, would be like asking a bloodhound to pick out a month-old trail in an airport terminal. Way too much else going on.'

'Are you okay?'

Nodding, she took a bag from my hand. She stared at it, but I could tell she was still watching the movie playing in her mind. A sharp shake of her head.

'Maybe you should get some air,' I said. 'I know whatever you saw couldn't have been very pleasant.'

'I'm okay. It's not… They don't disturb me.' She lifted the bag. 'Nothing here. Let's try another.'

She went through three of the half-dozen bags, then stopped on the fourth, eyes closing, eyelids flickering, like someone in the throes of a vivid dream. Her breathing accelerated. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Then her eyes flew open and she handed the bag back to me.

'Car accident.'

The next two gave her nothing.

'One accidental death, five chaos-free deaths. My sensors aren't perfect, but if all those folks were murdered for their body parts, I should have picked up something from at least one. All I got was a car accident-single- vehicle collision. Not pretty, but normal enough.'

'So they're likely morgue or cemetery pickings. Like necromancers use.'

'You guys use…?'

I nodded. 'Only we don't get the nice protective wrapping. Physical contact is a must.'

'Ah.'

'We get used to it. Like you and your visions-a nasty part of life.'

She glanced at the bags. 'So could this guy have been selling to necromancers?'

'Only without knowing it. More likely, he was just selling to humans wanting the stuff for medicine or magic. We use our own black markets, but even those are iffy. If I want quality goods, I have to go to the source.'

'You mean…'

'Grave digging. Fortunately, it's not something I have to do very often.'

Hope found one more violent death in the next batch-electrocution-but again it seemed accidental.

'So this cult draws the line at murder?' she said. 'That surprises me. You'd think if you're going to kidnap and torture your victims, you'd kill them, if only to cover your tracks.'

'Kidnap and torture?' I shook my head. 'It may seem hard to be-lieve, but they don't need unwilling victims. That bondage stuff is for the cult members. Consenting adults.'

'Maybe that's what you saw. What I saw was definitely noncon-sensual. And it was recent. I've been working on distinguishing past and current images and I have no doubt about that one.'

'What did you see?'

'Not much. I was watching it from the victim's point of view, and his or her head was covered. Not just a blindfold or leather mask either. This thing was heavy.'

'Like a metal helmet?'

She nodded. 'But it was solid-or almost solid. The person inside could barely breathe.'

I hurried back to the storage room and checked the shelf. The helmet was missing.

SUPERNATURAL CSI

HOPE PACED from one end of the storage room to the other. 'No, it's not helping. I just keep seeing the same scene. That's usually how it is. If there's some way to see more, I haven't figured it out yet. I just get a snippet, playing over and over.'

'Go through it again,' Jeremy said. 'In case I'm missing something.'

From the frustration in Hope's face, I knew she thought he meant in case she'd missed something, but she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

'Scene starts. Blackness. Can't breathe. Struggling. Restrained. First by hands, then those are gone but he still can't get away. There's a voice, but it echoes inside the helmet. Can't make out the words. Can't even tell whether it's a man or woman. Trying to scream, but can't, as if gagged, but…'

Hope opened her eyes. 'It's like the person is gagged, but I don't feel one. Same with the restraints.'

'A binding spell,' Jeremy said.

'No, I've been caught in one of those before. It's not the same. This is…' She struggled for a comparison, then said, 'Here, I'll try again.'

Eyes closed. Back into the vision.

'Not a binding spell. Not restraints. The person wants to fight, but can't. Like his body won't respond. No-' She lifted a finger. 'One more time. I'm getting it.' Eyes closed. Deep breath. 'The person is struggling. Screaming. But he's so weak, it doesn't matter.' She opened her eyes. 'That's it. Weakened. Like sedated but there's no feeling of being tired or sleepy. Just… drained.'

'Magically drained.' Jeremy said.

'I'd say so.'

'If it happened here, let's see whether I can find a trail.'

I TOOK Hope to the office, saying we should take a look, see whether fresh eyes found anything new, but really, I was just giving Jeremy privacy. There's something very undignified about getting down on your hands and knees to snuffle the ground.

After about ten minutes, Jeremy called us back. The room was thick with trails. From our excursion the night before, he had a good idea which trails belonged to group members, but picking out 'which of these doesn't belong' in the tiny closet was probably close to Hope's analogy of a bloodhound in a busy airport terminal. He'd sorted out three, maybe four scents he didn't recognize. One of them, presumably, was the victim.

'The others are probably cult members who missed last night's meeting. All the trails, though, eventually lead there.' He pointed down at the trap door, having rolled back the carpet.

'Not surprising,' I said. 'If they're going to kill someone, that's where they'd do it.'

'I'm not sure we have a murder victim. That was my first thought-that Botnick made contact with the group and they demanded proof of his loyalty.'

'Human sacrifice,' Hope said.

'But for all of the trails that go down, there's one coming back.'

'Maybe Botnick lost his nerve,' I said. 'Or it was just a test to see whether he'd go through with it. In either case-' I pulled open the hatch, '-that means I'm not going to stumble across a corpse or a ghost screaming for vengeance, so I'm good.'

'Hope?' Jeremy said. 'A lack of a corpse won't make this any easier for you.''

'I'll be fine.'

HOPE STOPPED at the bottom of the ladder, rigid, as if she'd known this vision was coming, and braced for it.