He hadn’t lied to her last night when he’d told her he still cared. But he was under no illusions. Love didn’t make the world go round. It just complicated things.
Nix donned protective gear and ducked under the yellow tape protecting yet another crime scene. Shit. Was that a dismembered hand one of the techs was bagging?
She pressed her lips together. Whoever the victim was, he or she hadn’t gone easily. She headed toward the black tarpaulin covering the newest corpse. This scene was so much more gruesome than the others. Various pieces of the victim’s body lay tagged as evidence all around the crime scene.
She caught the familiar flow of vamp pheromones and stiffened. She was not going to succumb to Tobias and his damned allure. They were professionals, co-workers. Nothing more.
As she reached the body, Tobias came from around the corner of the nearby building, his face grim. Crimson circled his irises, statement to his agitation. Determined to keep her focus on the scene and not on his delectable face and body, she caught his gaze and lifted her chin in greeting, then squatted next to the largest piece of the victim. She adjusted the shoulder strap of her workbag and pulled back the tarp, exhaling at the carnage before her.
The body was shredded. Barely recognizable as bipedal except for the stub of one partial leg. “What the hell?”
“Whoever’s doing this, they’re escalating.” Tobias hunkered down beside her. This close, the frustration at the lack of leads and the anger at such a senseless crime wafted clearly to her on a wave of lust that always seemed to accompany him.
As did the subtle scent of soap and virile male.
Nix cleared her throat. “For someone to have done all this, the murder had to be personal.”
“Maybe.” He gestured toward the building from where he’d just come. “We’ve got his spleen and what looks like part of his pancreas around the corner. One hand was over there”—he pointed toward the east side of the lot where she’d seen the tech putting the hand into an evidence bag—“and the ME says part of the victim’s spine was in the street.” He grimaced. “I found a pair of footprints over near the alley and had Mike take a cast.”
“Great.” Nix stared at the body and tried to disassociate herself from all the blood and gore around her. Peering closer at the face, she noticed bone shining through the flayed skin, and one fang protruding from what was left of the open mouth.
Getting to her feet, she drew in a deep breath and held it. She filtered out the scent of humans, pushed past the smell of motor oil on the pavement, and focused her olfactory sense to the smallest degree. There it was again, that smoky scent, the same one from the last crime scene. Only now it was much stronger.
“You smell it too, don’t you? Like burned paper.” Tobias draped the tarp over the victim, compassion evident in the careful way he did it. He rose and faced her. His expression was hard, his gaze steely. His pupils had completely expanded, obliterating the gray of his irises, and crimson had taken over the whites of his eyes. “Demons were here. It’s likely they did this.”
As much as Nix wanted to argue, she had nothing to offer up except her gut feeling. Demons didn’t sneak around. “Yes, I can smell demon scent here, too.” She looked at him. “Don’t you think there’s something different about it, though? Something…more than demon?”
He shoved one hand into the front pocket of his jeans. “You’re being a little stubborn about this, aren’t you?”
She frowned. “You can’t tell me you don’t smell that extra scent underlying the smell of demon. It’s like a mixture of different prets—a little vampire with a dash of werewolf and a twist of…” She paused and drew in another breath, trying to work out the odor that eluded her. She let out a sigh of frustration and propped her hands on her hips. “I dunno. Maybe pixie? Or brownie. They smell a lot alike. I just don’t think demons did this.” Before he could respond she waved one hand. “I know, I have no evidence to support that supposition. Yet.”
“Maybe you should check with your mother.” His lips quirked. “Sheena of the Seventh Circle knows everything that goes on with demonkind, and she wouldn’t lie to her daughter.”
“Shut up, Tobias,” she muttered, but the order was delivered without much heat. She knew he was only teasing, plus she knew he was right. If demons were behind this, her mom would know. Nix was less than enthused about going to see her, though. “You know she hates it when you call her that.”
His laugh was gravelly, rough, as if he hadn’t laughed much in the last five years. The sound stole her breath away. To cover her reaction, she turned to look at the waiting body snatchers. “There’s not much to ID the vic. Did the ME at least give a gender?”