Slowly, I stood and turned.
Two police officers stood at the end of the alley, their forms silhouetted in the dark night by the streetlights behind them. The taller, broader one was familiar in a good way. Corrigan.
The shorter, skinnier one was just as familiar, and my heart sank.
Banks.
He thought I was full of shit. Worse, he thought I was probably a killer. He’d made it his life’s work to get me for crimes I hadn’t committed. At the memories, ice chilled my veins.
A quick scan of the alley and building corners revealed none of the cameras that were so ubiquitous in London. It was one of the most heavily surveilled cities in the world, and this poor bastard had got himself killed in one without government eyes watching.
Just my luck.
It’d been purposeful on the killer’s part, I had to imagine. But now there was nothing easy and quick to clear my name.
My arms felt awkward above my head, but I didn’t lower them. “It’s not what it looks like, guys. I’m here to help, just like all the other times.”
“You’ve never been standing right over a body wearing killer’s gloves before,” Banks said.
“They’re standard issue, just like yours.”
“Except no one issued them to you, did they?” Banks was close enough that I could see the triumph in his ratty little eyes. His pale skin was sallow and his expression pinched, but he was more excited than I’d seen him in years.
No one should be that excited while standing next to a person who’d just been viciously murdered.
But Banks was right. I’d failed out of training. I was just a wannabe.
My gaze flicked to Corrigan. His warm, dark skin looked ashen, and his eyes flickered with worry. “Carrow.”
The disappointment in his words sent cold fear through me.
Shit, shit, shit.
“This looks bad, Carrow.” His deep baritone, which normally comforted me, was heavy with concern.
“Looks bad?” Banks’s voice was high with annoyance and excitement. “Bad? It looks like we caught our killer. Finally.”
The satisfaction in his voice made me want to kick him.
My heart pounded. “You know I didn’t do this, Corrigan. You know it.”
His keen eyes assessed the scene. “Then how are you here so soon before us? The body isn’t even cold yet, is it?”
How did I explain to him that I was here because I’d touched the wrong thing? A random rag thrown at me by a raccoon, in this case. It’d probably been owned by the victim at one point, though I’d seen no clues on it. One touch with my bare skin, and I’d seen it, along with a location.
I didn’t always get a location—a gut-deep knowledge of where on the planet something was happening—but this time, I had.
And I couldn’t ignore it. Even though I knew I was already so many strikes down that one more “coincidence” would get me in real trouble, I hadn’t been able to ignore the possibility that I could help this poor man. That I could help Beatrix—at least by finding justice for her.
That symbol burned into both bodies meant that a serial killer was back, and I could find them.
I gave Corrigan my most serious expression. “I’ve helped you catch so many killers, you know I could never do this.”
Corrigan’s lips twisted with regret.
He’d been a temporary lecturer when I’d gone through training, and we’d kept in touch, even after I’d failed out for insubordination and unusual methodology—my term, not theirs. He believed in my strange talent, or at least, he wasn’t willing to look a gift horse in the mouth.
He was the only one, though.
I’d helped him catch killers, but no one else believed me, so they’d assumed I got my info the bad way. The way they could understand. The way that was going to lead to my arrest.
“I’m sorry, Carrow,” Corrigan said. “Maybe we can clear this up at the station.”
More figures appeared at the end of the alley. Backup. Dozens of people would swarm the scene now, getting to work like busy ants, trying to figure out what had happened and how to stop it from happening again.
And I would be taken to the station.
Then to jail.
Banks’s eyes gleamed with excitement. He’d finally won, and he knew it.
As the handcuffs snapped onto my wrists, my head spun.
Holy crap, this was really happening.
Corrigan couldn’t meet my eyes, but Banks had no trouble. He leaned in. “I’ve got you this time.”
“You have no idea what you’re doing, you idiot.”
His jaw clenched, and he looked like he wanted to hit me. He probably did.
My eyes moved around the rest of the scene. I recognized more than half the people—had even gone to training with some of them.
Suspicion flickered in their gazes as they looked at me, and my heart sank. Memories of all the cases I’d helped them solve flashed through my mind. So many.
And now I was in handcuffs.
2
The Devil
I tucked myself into the shadows, disappearing into the darkness as I watched the police shackle the woman who’d drawn me into her visions.
Something pulled inside me, hard and fierce.
Protect her.
I rubbed a hand over my chest, confused.
What the hell was this feeling?
I hadn’t felt anything like this—much of anything, really—since I’d been turned into a vampire nearly five hundred years ago.
And yet, this human made me want to protect her?
Why?
She was beautiful, yes. Pale eyes and skin, though the colors were so muted that it was impossible to determine shade. All colors were muted for turned vampires. Taste and smell, too. It all came with the curse of immortality, which felt more like being half dead.
But this woman made me feel alive.
She thought I’d committed this murder. I hadn’t, of course. I’d killed too many people in my dark past. I wasn’t above violence now—far from it. But I didn’t crush the skulls of random men in alleys. It was beneath me.
I’d been tracking a stolen dagger—one that I thought had been used on this man. Then she had arrived, then the cops. It was too many people for me. Too many humans.
An insane vision popped into my head—me, storming the scene and taking the woman from them.
It was ridiculous.
For one, it was too dangerous. Not for me, of course. I could have them on the ground in seconds without having to resort to a weapon. But that show of speed and strength would reveal what I was, and the human world must never know what walked among them.
It would be far better if I could get her to come to me. Kidnapping her was hardly a good second impression…especially considering that our first meeting had revolved around a dead body. And I didn’t have any interest in unwilling women, no matter how much I might want her.
I settled deeper into the shadows, watching her.
Carrow
I stood in the alley, my wrists shackled and my former colleagues staring at me. I’d completely bungled this. Hadn’t been careful enough. Hadn’t given myself enough time to search the body.
I should have waited to call the cops, but I’d hoped they’d get there in time to save the victim if I couldn’t.
Corrigan shifted, moving to speak closer to my ear. “I’ll do everything I can to help you, but…”
“I know. You told me to lie low.”
“I warned you, Carrow. I begged you to stay away.”
And he had, but he didn’t know what it was like to know that someone was going to be murdered. I had to try to help them. I couldn’t ignore my visions, no matter what it meant for me.
Anyway, I was tough. I’d figure a way out of this.
“Come on,” Banks barked. “Fellows will take you to the station.”
My gaze skipped over Banks entirely, moving from Corrigan to Fellows, a younger officer that I’d never spoken to before. He watched me with cautious suspicion, as if I really were a murderer.
The body behind me was gruesome enough to make anyone afraid of me.
“Wait,” I said. “There’s no murder weapon. If I’d killed him, surely I’d have a bat or crowbar on me.”
Banks grumbled. “A clever killer like you would find a way around that.”
Bastard.
“Come on.” Fellows took my arm and led me out of the alley.
As we walked, I looked back over my shoulder at the scene. They were already inspecting the body, trying to find clues to prove I’d done this. They were going to find the burn mark and make the connection with Beatrix’s death. I’d also been at the scene of that crime—right after the murderer left and right before they showed up. Talk about bad timing.
And there was no way to show them what I’d seen in my vision: the man standing in front of the victim, tall and broad-shouldered and fanged.
Fanged.
Crazy.
But he’d had no bat, I realized.
Nowhere in my vision had I seen a weapon capable of beating a man’s head in. The man with the fangs had been wearing a long coat, though. Perhaps the weapon had been hidden beneath the folds.
The scene raced by in my mind on the drive to the station. Everything was a blur. Processing. Interviews. With every second that passed, I grew colder and colder.
This was really happening.
My life had been barreling toward this for months, but I’d ignored it. Corrigan had warned me. Show up at the scene of too many murderers, and eventually, someone is going to think you’re a murderer.
By the time Corrigan left the scene and came to talk to me in the interrogation room, I was frozen solid, a block of ice.
He looked tired as he sat down at the table across from me. There was a cup of takeaway coffee in his hands, and he set it on the table in front of him. His brows were drawn together over dark eyes that gleamed with worry and exhaustion.
I leaned forward, my voice desperate. “I didn’t do it.”
A heavy sigh escaped him. “The body had a spiral burn mark, Carrow. Just like the mark on your friend Beatrix’s body. This man and Beatrix were killed in the same way. We never released that information, which means this is a serial killer. And you were at the scene of both crimes.”