The sickening scent gets stronger the closer I get to the back of the house, and I brace myself for whatever it is I’m going to find. Still, knowing it—preparing for it—doesn’t make it any easier when I turn the corner into the kitchen and find Councilor Mei Lantasis dangling from the ceiling.
For a second, all I can do is stare at her. Her wrists are cuffed together and bound over her head to a chain embedded in the ceiling. She’s in her underwear, and instead of her having been eviscerated, her throat has been slit wide open—so wide open that her head lolls back on her neck like it’s going to snap off at any second.
My stomach turns, but I force down the nausea. I’m not going to puke, not going to give in. Not tonight. Though her death was different from Alride’s, quicker certainly, she, too, has been bled dry.
Unable to stop myself, I walk closer and stare up at her body. As I do, tears well in my eyes. I can’t help it. Of all the Councilors, Mei is the one I know best—and the only one I’ve ever really liked.
She’s been a member of the ACW for only ten years, which means she definitely wasn’t involved in the soulbinding of Declan and me. I also think it means she wasn’t involved in the plot to kill me, either, and while that might be wishful thinking, I’m going to hang on to it as long as I can. Otherwise, the betrayal might be too much to bear. After all, she’s spent years intervening between my mother and me, trying to get us to see each other’s side in our many and legendary battles.
She didn’t always succeed, but she did try—at least whenever she was around. She was a good woman and she didn’t deserve to die like this.
Not that anyone does. But I’m a hell of a lot more shaken up by her death than I was by Viktor Alride’s.
I want to cut her down. It’s another compulsion inside me, one that comes not from my magic but from my heart. But I can’t. Everything about this scene is evidence now.
I step forward and press my palm to her bare calf. She’s the first thing I’ve touched in this death trap of a house, and the second my skin makes contact with hers, the images bombard me, along with snippets of conversation.
Get out of my house.
How dare you.
Don’t touch me.
Then a scream, terrified and soul-splintering.
Please. What do you want? I’ll do anything.
Chain.
Rope.
Black-gloved hands.
A white scarf.
A silver athame with black sapphires embedded in its hilt.
Whimpers, muffled now. Unintelligible words. Pleas.
The sickening squilch as the athame is driven into her throat.
The ping ping ping of blood as it drips from the wound into a gold-plated bucket.
And those words again, spoken in an asexual voice. Close doesn’t count.
Tears gather behind my eyes, but I ignore them. Just like I ignore the painful heat radiating from her leg to my fingertips. Mei was a fire element, one of the strongest I’ve ever seen next to Declan, and remnants of that power exist within her. I can feel it sizzling along my nerve endings, burning a path through my body, but still I don’t let go. I can’t. The familiar cadence of the three words I heard last night once again holds me in its thrall.
Close doesn’t count.
Where have I heard those words before? And is it a male speaking or a female? I hate that I can’t tell. That everything else is perfectly transparent but those words, that voice, this killer, locked far away from me.
Time ticks by slowly as I sort through every impression I can gather from this room and try to fit their jagged edges together. It’s no use, though, not here and not now, when shades of Mei’s agony color everything that I feel.
Eventually, I give up. Not for good, but at least until I can get out of here and have a shot at thinking more clearly. But I can’t get out of here, can’t leave, not until Mei’s been found by someone other than me. She needs to be cut down, taken away, or I’m not going anywhere.
The only problem is I have no idea whom to call. This is Heka business, so I should call Witchcraft Investigations. Or the ACW, since she was a Councilor. But after what’s happened to me in the last twenty-four hours, neither of those things is an option. I don’t know whom I can trust in the organizations, and won’t know until I can get a better handle on this killer’s agenda.
Close doesn’t count.
I turn the words over in my head for the millionth time. What is this person close to? What does he or she want? And why doesn’t it count? Is it this person’s goal that doesn’t count or something else?
Frustrating as it is, I still can’t get a handle on it. So I do the only thing I can do in the situation. I call Nate and let him know where I am and what I’ve found.