No Humans Involved

When it finished, she gave a soft sigh of relief.

'Same old, same old,' she said. 'He or she is in the helmet, can't see, can barely breathe, can't fight or scream. For chaos, it ranks about a four. Terror, but it's just fear of the unknown.'

We looked around. The cavernous, crate-lined room looked exactly as we'd left it.

'Flecks of blood,' Hope said, walking to the middle.

I followed her. 'They're from last night. The meeting.'

Her face scrunched in distaste. 'In other words, as you said, it was consensual. Which explains why I'm not getting much in the way of chaos vibes.'

Jeremy hadn't said a word. Not unusual. But when I looked over, I saw him staring out across the room, nostrils flared. He turned his head slowly, inhaling, as if trying to get a fix on a scent. Then his gaze came to rest on a wall of boxes along the wall-the wall with the embedded hooks.

'Those boxes weren't like that last night,' I said, walking toward it.

Jeremy called to me, but I was only a few feet away and by the time I realized he was trying to stop me, I could see a foot protruding from behind the stack. I backpedaled to avoid an attack. Then I saw the hook, and the chain pulled taut and, without thinking, I stepped sideways for a better view.

A man hung suspended from the hook by the chain. His feet touched the ground, knees bent, dangling. My first thought was how do you hang yourself if you can touch the ground? Then I saw the choke chain around his neck.

Jeremy put his hand on my shoulder, but didn't pull me away. If I wanted to look, that was my choice. He moved past me to examine the body.

The man's head drooped, but even before I saw his face, I knew it was Botnick. His eyes were bulging. His fingers were wrapped around the chain at his neck, as if he'd tried to pull it free.

'He couldn't get it loose,' said a soft voice behind me. Hope's. 'They took off the helmet and kicked his legs out from under him, and the chain tightened, but something kept it from loosening, even after he got his footing.'

Jeremy moved alongside the body, looking without touching. Watching him, my gaze moved down Botnick for the first time, and noticed something… unexpected.

'He's not wearing any pants. Did they… rape him?'

'Doesn't appear so,' Jeremy said. 'There's no sign of struggle. I think that was intentional-using a spell to restrain him-so there wouldn't be any marks. Nothing to indicate he didn't do this to himself. As for the pants, though…'

'That's intentional,' Hope said. 'They've set the scene for auto-erotic asphyxiation.'

I explained to Jeremy.

'Ah,' he said. 'And, given the nature of this room and the equipment upstairs, that's exactly the sort of thing the authorities would expect someone like Botnick to do.'

SO WE did have a murder. Jeremy had found a return trail because Botnick had been in and out of this basement several times in the last twenty-four hours.

Had he made contact with the group? Gotten in touch with his former lover, who'd called her former lover and they'd set up a meeting with Botnick? It wasn't the only possibility. Maybe that cult member he'd whipped last night had her 'I'm not going to take it anymore' epiphany, and had come back to kill him. Or maybe it was a customer, furious that his 'ground rhino penis' hadn't outperformed Viagra, as advertised. Guys like Botnick had their share of enemies-not all the most stable individuals.

But that would be mighty coincidental and wouldn't explain the magical weakening Hope had picked up. So we set to work playing CSI. The supernatural version. The werewolf untangled and followed scent trails. The half- demon reviewed the death vision. And the necromancer tried to contact the spirit of the deceased.

I summoned Botnick repeatedly, with no luck. Not surprising really. Rigor mortis had set in and the body had cooled, meaning he'd been dead for hours.

Newly dead spirits don't hang around long before someone whisks them off to the afterlife, and once they're gone, necromancers can't make contact until the powers-that-be decide they're ready to receive visitors. Still, I tried, in case Botnick hadn't been scooped up yet. I was about to give up when I spotted a shape slipping through a stack of boxes across the room.

'You!'

I advanced on the ghost. It was the voyeur from the night before. He started to fade.

'Don't you dare,' I said. 'Unless you want to be reported for loitering at the scene of an unauthorized occult gathering, I'd suggest you tell me what you saw.'

'I didn't-'

'Yes, you did. You're the only witness to a murder and you'd better tell me what you saw or you'll add 'failing to remain at the scene' to those charges.'

He peered at me, his eyes narrowing. I tried to look severe. Even fierce. I think I blew it when I went for fierce.

'Pfft,' he said and started to fade.

A bolt of energy sliced through the boxes and hit him in the stomach. He yelped and stumbled. Eve strode from the crate pile and kicked the man's legs out from under him. When he fell, she planted her boot on his throat.

'Feel more like talking now?' she asked.

He yowled as she ground her foot into his neck.

'Oh, stuff it. You can't feel pain, remember?' She leaned back and fixed him with a look. 'Or, considering your 'proclivities,' I'm guessing that's the tragedy of your afterlife, huh?'

His eyes narrowed to slits. 'I deliver pain, bitch. I don't receive.'

'Right. So that convention in Hawaii… eighty-nine, wasn't it? So that's not you I see wearing the grass skirt and getting… Eww. Let's stop right there.'

His face went slack and his lips parted, as if to ask how she'd known that. Then he settled for spewing invective.

'Oh, quit your bitching,' Eve said. 'I'm not here to discuss your sex life-much rather not, thank you. You're going to tell the nice lady-'

'I'm not telling either of you anything.'

She began again, in the same calm tone. 'You're going to tell-'

'You've already admitted you can't hurt me, so how are you going to-'

'Hold that thought.' Eve lifted a finger, then looked at me. 'Could you?…' She motioned with her still-raised finger, telling me to turn around.

So she didn't want me seeing how she was going to persuade the ghost to speak. I could have protested that I wasn't skittish-I'd just found a dead body and hadn't run screaming from the room. An old argument, and not worth rehashing now. So I settled for a glare, and turned my back, resisting the urge to cross my arms.

Jeremy and Hope had already figured out that I wasn't talking to myself. From behind me came a commotion of muffled cries, most of it 'bleeped' out, the rest incoherent babbling.

'-sorry, very sorry-didn't understand the situation-no offense intended-none at all-'

I waited. More babbled apologies.

Then, Eve, impatiently, 'Are you done? Because we really need to get on with this, preferably before the cops show up.'

'Yes, yes, but I just want you to know, I meant no disrespect. I-'

'-didn't understand the situation. Well, now you do. So shut up and answer our questions. Jaime?'

I started to turn around.

'Uh-uh,' Eve said. 'Gotta keep looking that way or we aren't going to get the truth out of this bastard.'

The ghost yelped in protest. 'I will. I assure you, now that I understand-'

'-the situation. Got that part. As for telling the truth, let's just say I like to be thorough. So the-' her next word was bleeped, '-stays. Got it?'

'Whatever you say, ma'am. Or, er, is there a proper form of address? I've never met-'

'Ma'am is fine. Jaime?'

The ghost-Stan, as he finally introduced himself-had been hanging around the basement last night, hoping for