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The murder scene was in the ood enough to take even a four-wheeler, according to Dr Onslow It was a great place for trolls, but not for conducting a police investigation They were going to have to hike everything in, and when the time came, hike the body out Not pleasant, not fast

One good thing about the isolated location was no gawkers I&039;d been to a lot of murder scenes, but the only ones without an audience were either at really odd hours or in the h if there were people nearby People would climb out of their beds before dawn to see a corpse

Even without the civvies, there was a crowd I spotted the unifor forward to seeing theround along with some plainclothes state detectives I didn&039;t have to be introduced to them to know they were cops They loves on, squatting on the balls of their feet rather than kneeling on the evidence

Yellow crie There was no uniform on this side of the tape because no one expected co the Browning and the Firestar and the knife downout my license and held it aloft as I ducked under the tape Eventually, soet yelled at for lettingspotted

A state trooper spotted me before I&039;d come down the hill very far They&039;dnear the upper edge of it He had brown hair and dark eyes and a sprinkling of freckles across his pale cheeks He walked towards me, hand out, "I&039;m sorry, led the license at hi forabout a body you want me to take a peek at"

"A peek," he said "You want to take a peek at the body" He said it sort of soft, not like he was teasing me His dark eyes stared past me for a second, then he seemed to remember where he was He held his hand out for my license

I let him take it, look at it, read it twice He handed it back to me He looked down the hill to the knot of people He pointed "The short man in the black suit, blond hair, that&039;s Captain Henderson He&039;s in charge"

I just looked at hie No ould a cop who didn&039;t know me let me walk a crime scene unaccompanied Vampire executioners aren&039;t civilians, but most of us aren&039;t detectives, either I&039;m one of the very feho deals so intimately with the police In Saint Louis where ht, I could see it But here, where no one knew me, no way

I read the trooper&039;s naain his eyes weren&039;t looking atscared Cops don&039;t spook easily Give them a few years on the job, and they perfect jaded indifference: been there, done that, wasn&039;t iet a T-shirt Michaels had sergeant bars on his uniforeant stripes in the state troopers by getting shook at every crieant Michaels," he said "Is there so I can do for you, Ms Blake?" He see himself before my eyes It reminded me of the way Dr Carne Onslow had recovered His eyes lost that vague, glassy look He looked at htness around his eyes, al hurt What the hell was down at the bottom of this hill? What could , Sergeant, nothing Thanks" I kept ain without a police escort A wo up by a s her forehead wore En when the EMS techs are throwing up A very bad sign

It was Maiden who stoppedat each other I was standing uphill, looking down at him

"Ms Blake," he said

"Maiden," I said I left off the officer on purpose, because as far as I was concerned, he wasn&039;t an officer He&039;d stopped being a cop when he becaave a sh to Captain Henderson He&039;s in charge"

"Fine"

"You ht want to prepare yourself, Blake It&039;sbad"

"I&039;ll be all right," I said

He shook his head, looked at the ground When he looked back up, his eyes were empty, cold cop eyes "Maybe you will, Blake, maybe you will But I won&039;t be"

"What&039;s that supposed to mean?"

"Who the hell is she?" It was Captain Henderson He&039;d spotted us He ca just a bit But he was deter shoes He was about five-eight with short, blond hair He had odd eyes that changed color as he reen, the next grey He came up to stand between the two of us He looked at Maiden "Who is this, and why is she inside my perimeter?"

"Anita Blake, Captain Henderson," Maiden said

He looked straight at reen He was handsoht have been more than that, but there was a harshness to his face, a sourness, that robbed hi likeable and pleasant

No matter how funky the eye color when he looked at , cop eyes "So you&039;re Anita Blake?" His voice was alry

I nodded "Yes" I didn&039;t let the anger get tobeyond the crime itself I wondered what

He lookedh it was usually a little less blatant "How strong&039;s your stomach, Blake?"

I raised eyebrows at that, then smiled

"What in the hell is funny?" Henderson said

"Look, I know it&039;s bad I just left your sergeant at the top of the hill so spooked he wouldn&039;t come near it a second time Maiden here&039;s already told me it&039;s awful Just takethe hell out of my personal space "You that confident that you can take it, Blake?"

I sighed "No"

The no seeer away He blinked and took a step back "No?" he said

"I don&039;t know if I can take it, Captain Henderson There&039;s always the chance that the next horror will be so that stains ood So, taketiresome"

I watched the eer, but finally, arisly remains Are you sure you&039;re not a reporter?"

That uilty of a lot of sins, but that&039;s not one of them"

That er and was more than just ordinarily handsome "Okay, Ms Blake, follow hed soft, low, and deeper than his speaking voice, as if when he sang heafter you&039;ve seen the show, Ms Blake"

"Me, too," I said

He gave e look, then led the way down the hill I followed because it was o, I&039;d have said the day couldn&039;t get et worse -¨C much worse

33

The body lay in a s I kneas human because they told me it was It wasn&039;t that the body didn&039;t look huh that I could tell it was lying on its back It was e that this could have been a hu to put the pieces together, so it was like looking at one of those pictures where you stare and stare until the hidden shapes spin out in 3-D relief It looked as if there had been an explosion of blood and flesh, and the body had been at the center of it Dried blood spread out from the body in every direction, as if when the body were moved there&039;d be a body-shaped clean spot, like an ink blot

I could see all that, but stillto protectwould be to turn and walk away Letto be one of those ly told Henderson at the top of the hill that sos stain the mind It wasn&039;t funny now

I forced myself to look at it, forced myself not to look away, but the su rush I wanted to coveraway Coveringout the worst of a horror movie

Henderson turned when I did If I wasn&039;t going to look at the body, then he wouldn&039;t, either "You okay?"

The world stopped spinning like a ball that had slid to a stop "I will be" My voice sounded breathy

"Good," he said

We stood that way for a few seconds more, then I took a shallow breath I knew better than to take a deep one this close to the body I had to do this Trolls didn&039;t do this No natural animal did this I turned slowly around to face the body It hadn&039;t gotten any better

Henderson turned with e He could take it if I could I wasn&039;t sure I could, but since I was out of other choices

I&039;d borrowed surgical gloves Soo over AIDS, you know I declined One, my hands would sweat Two, if I had to feel the body for clues, I wouldn&039;t be able to feel shit Three, with three vampire marks on me, I didn&039;t sweat AIDS anymore I was free from blood-borne disease, so I&039;d been told I believed Jean-Claude on this one because he wouldn&039;t want to lose me I was a third of his triumvirate He wanted me safe In the back of my head a voice said, He loves you The voice in the front of ht

"Can I track up the blood pattern?" I asked

"You can&039;t get close to the body unless you step in the blood," Henderson said

I nodded "True So you&039;ve videotaped it, gotten all your pictures?"

"We kno to do our job, Ms Blake"

"I&039; that, Captain I need to know if I can move the body around, that&039;s all I don&039;t want to fuck up the evidence"

"When you&039;re done with it, we&039;ll be bagging it up"

I nodded "Okay" I stared down at the body and suddenly could see it All of it I huggedmy eyes The nose had been bitten off so that it was just a bloody hole The lips were torn away until teeth and the bones of the jaere visible under the drying blood Theme Whatever had done this hadn&039;t just taken a quick bite It had sat down and fed

Soflesh, but most of it too shallow to kill I said a short prayer that most of the bites were postet a good answer; there was too h most of it Intestines spilled out of the ripped jeans in a dried nest covered in thicker things than blood The outhouse s ripped would have faded by now One smell dies, but there&039;s always another Her body had started to ripen in the summer beat It is a sly sweet and bitter enough to gag I took shallow breaths and stepped onto the dried splatter

Soh me like a phantom blow The hair on the back of my neck tried to cranto do with cars or indoor plu and not thinking at all, hispering now It hispering that so evil had been here -¨C not just dangerous, evil

I waited to see if the feeling would grow stronger, but it faded It faded like a bad e of some kind of spell -¨C or rather, the remnants of one, a nasty one

You didn&039;t call so this evil without a circle of protection either for the sorcerer to stand in or for the beastie to be put inside of I searched the ground, but there was nothing but blood The blood didn&039;t form a circle of protection It was just splatter, mess, no pattern

I should have known there wouldn&039;t be anything that obvious The police aren&039;t practitioners of the arts, though that is beginning to change, but you can&039;t be a cop long and not look for signs of e

The scene looked undisturbed, but that didn&039;t ic, they couldNot true invisibility Huht hits a solid object and bounces But they canpast so for a set of car keys that is sitting in plain sight, lost for two days

I squatted beside the body I didn&039;t have the coveralls I usually wore at murder scenes and didn&039;t want the blood to soak into s here that someone didn&039;t want us to see But what?

Henderson called, "We found the wallet Do you want the ID?"

"No," I said "No" I wasn&039;t being clever I just didn&039;t want a na atthe body into an it It wasn&039;t real It was just so to be studied, exa else at thatall over the evidence I&039;d done that only once, years ago Dolph and the gang had never let me live it down

The eyes had been clawed out and left to dry into blackened lu the side of the face, stuck to one shoulder Maybe blond hair from the color But it was hard to tell with all the soaked blood The long hair made me think fe The blouse had been reduced to a lump of cloth under one arm The chest was bare One breast torn completely off The other deflated like a balloon as if so had eaten the flesh out of thethe jelly out of a donut

It was an unfortunate choice of metaphors, even inair out very fast and too shalloent to stand beside one of the trees that edged the clearing I had to take deep breaths, but thatThat sweet, sweet sue and coated the back of ht of sing but didn&039;t knohat else to do I sed, and the s coffee inched up

I had two coet outside the blood pattern to vomit Two, I didn&039;t have much in my stomach to co breakfast I get a lot of early-

I knelt in the dry leaves and felt better I hadn&039;t thrown up at a cri time At least Zerbroasn&039;t here to rib n of maturity?

Male voices behind , "She&039;s just a civvie She shouldn&039;t be here She isn&039;t even licensed for this state"

"I&039;oes" Henderson wasn&039;t yelling, but his voice carried

I grabbed the tree trunk to help led so hard it al away fro, but I kept ht feet up was a pentagram carved into the bark of the tree The cut had been darkened with blood With the dried blood rubbed into it, it was alrey bark, but there was also a spell of reluctance on it So that no one had looked, not even me Only when I touched the tree did I sense it Like all illusion, once you see it, you know it&039;s there

I looked at the other trees and found a bloody pentagram carved into each one It was a circle of power, of protection A circle formed of blood and the land itself Wiccans -¨C witches -¨C can use their power for evil if they&039;re willing to pay the price in karood or ill, coone bad wouldn&039;t carve up a tree Had the trees, the land, theht mean an elemental They could be nasty But they didn&039;t feel evil They felt angry if you ry-neutral I&039;d gotten that whiff of evil as I passed through the circle Evil with a capital E There just aren&039;t that many preternatural critters that trip that particular wire

"Captain Henderson," I said I had to say it twice before they stopped arguing and looked at me

They both looked at me Neither looked friendly, but at least I kneho they werein on their turf It was normal for the local police to resent outsiders But I knew that Wilkes hadreal cops here now But noasn&039;t the ti a policeman of corruption tends to upset the other cops

"Did you see the pentagrah that they both stopped being angry and paid attention I pointed the pentagraood illusion, once I showed them, they could see it The emperor has no clothes

"So?" Wilkes said

"So, this was a circle of protection, of power So was called here to kill her"

"The marks on the trees could have been here for days," Wilkes said

"Test the blood on the pentagrams," I said "It won&039;t be hers, but it will be fresh"

"Why isn&039;t it the victim&039;s?" Henderson asked

"Because they used the blood to seal the circle They had to have the blood before the death"

"It was a human sacrifice then," Henderson said

"Not exactly," I said

"This was a troll kill," Wilkes said He didn&039;t sound sure; he sounded desperate

Henderson turned to hi it was trolls"

"That biologist herself said it looked like primates It sure as hell wasn&039;t a person There aren&039;t thataround the Tennessee hills"

"She said huain

"Dr Onslow said humanoid A lot of people assume humanoid means primate, but there are other options"

"Like what?" Wilkes said His beeper went off He checked the number, then looked at me "Excuse me, Captain Henderson"

Henderson looked at me "Do you and the sheriff have some sort of history, Ms Blake?"

I frowned "History? How?"

"He was very certain that you shouldn&039;t be anywhere near this body He was also very certain that this was a troll kill Very certain"