Shadow Touch Read online

  Marilyn Bennigton was the latest: a perky blond, twenty years old. A member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. She liked to run.

  She had gone missing after one of those runs—disappeared for a full two days until the Vetters returned home from their vacation and found her body in the basement, naked and restrained. Internal injuries had killed her—that, and massive bleeding from certain orifices.

  The police had no leads, no fingerprints or DNA. All they knew for certain was that the killer was incredibly strong and cunning, a classic sociopath, using death as a means of releasing a lifetime of repressed rage toward women. A typical profile, according to the police.

  Except, Artur knew, there was nothing typical about the mind he had just listened to. Only an echo, a memory of a memory, but he had seen enough to know that the murderer was a man fueled by more than just rage and superiority. He took joy in his work. A hard, bitter joy that had less to do with women, and everything to do with pain.

  It was only midnight. The crime scene had been released that afternoon, which usually meant news media clamoring at the front door and windows for an exclusive peek at death, but this time the police had done a good job preventing leaks. Maybe tomorrow the house would be swarmed, but not yet. Tonight it was perfect and quiet, the thick trees around the old Colonial a lovely cover for benign intruders. The Vetters lived in the countrified suburbs, with few neighbors and even fewer cars on the road.

  Dean closed the back door. He pulled a handkerchief from his jeans pocket and began wiping down the brass knob. They’d worn no latex gloves to prevent fingerprints on this excursion. Dean did not normally take readings of objects, but in this case, Dirk & Steele had decided that four hands were better than two. Not that it had helped.

  Artur heard a rustling sound: dry leaves, the movement of branches. Not the wind. He reached for his gun.

  A small body sheathed in light glided from the trees. It landed on the grass with a hop, a flap of wings. The light dimmed; a crow peered up at Artur with sly golden eyes. Dean cursed. Artur understood his irritation.

  “We are trying to be subtle,” he said to the bird. The crow made a throaty noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter. Dean aimed a kick at its head and the crow jumped backward, easily, out of reach. Golden light rolled off its feathers, cold fire, and a moment later a naked man rose from the grass. Dark hair, golden eyes. The light went out.

  “Got a cigarette?” he asked, rolling his shoulders. Tattoos spun down his long, lean arms. Artur smelled smoke, leather.

  Dean shook his head. “I’m gonna kill you, Koni.”

  “Sure,” said the shape-shifter. “That’s what you always say.”

  Dean moved. Artur grabbed his shoulder.

  Koni laughed softly. “Bastard. You think I would pull that trick if anyone was around? Give me credit.”

  “Did you learn anything while we were inside?” Artur squeezed Dean’s shoulder: a warning. He did not have energy for an argument. Not now, with Marilyn still dying inside his head. And besides, he trusted Koni’s instincts for subterfuge and concealment. One did not live in modern society as a creature beyond human ken without learning the trick of secrecy.

  A year ago, Artur would have thought such tricks applied only to himself and his friends at the detective agency. Magic did not exist, except as a fallback to explanations science could not yet provide. Telepathy, telekinesis—these were infinitely rare abilities, but not beyond the realm of human possibility. At least, not to those who had reason to believe.

  And then everything had changed. The world became stranger, inexplicable, mysterious. Legends walked; Artur could no longer think of myth as simple story, amusement for a child’s bedtime. Myth breathed. It flew on black wings bathed in golden light, labored as immortal warriors cursed to enslavement, killed as madmen with fire for hands.

  It will be aliens next. Little green men.

  Or something even more bizarre. Artur, though he had never taken anything in his life for granted, had finally lost all expectations for what could be considered real and normal. Anything was possible now.

  Anything.

  “I didn’t find any clues,” Koni said, glancing around the darkened backyard. “I’ve been here all afternoon, searching. No hairs, no footprints or fibers in the grass. He didn’t come back to gloat, either.”

  “More dead ends,” Dean said. “No offense, man.”

  “None taken,” Artur said, though his failure pained him.

  “Is there any more for us to do?” Koni asked. “I need a drink.”

  So did Artur. His mouth tasted like vomit.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Go home.”

  “Wherever that is,” Dean muttered.

  Koni grinned. “I almost think you don’t trust me.” Black feathers sprouted through his skin, spreading across his shoulders and chest, liquid and rippling as golden light pierced the shadow. Dean averted his gaze, and Koni’s sharp laughter turned raucous, cawing. Artur stepped backward to avoid being smacked in the face by a hard-beating wing.

  “Smart-ass,” Dean muttered, watching their colleague fly away. Artur watched as well. Koni had been a member of the agency for almost a year now, and Artur could say with absolute certainty he knew next to nothing about the shape-shifter. Koni had taken great pains to avoid his touch.

  Artur respected that. It would have been easy for him to find some other way to learn about Koni, but knowing how the shape-shifter protected his privacy, Artur could not bring himself to do it. Perhaps he was going soft. Lazy. Or maybe he was just tired.

  Dean and Artur walked to their car, parked down the road on a small turnoff meant for school buses. They kept close to shadow, the thick stand of trees. The world was quiet. Watchful. Artur imagined eyes upon eyes, tracking his every move, sensing the echo of his passing as he did with others.

  When they were finally seated in the car, Dean glanced down at the bag of vomit in Artur’s hand and said, “So. What really happened in there?”

  Artur set the bag on the floor between his feet. He did not look at his friend. He knew what Dean was asking, but he did not feel like talking about it. Instead, he stared out the windshield, focusing on the Vetters’ distant mailbox. A nice, clean object—it was better than suffering his thieved memories.

  “Artur,” Dean said. “Tell me something.”

  Artur sighed. “The murderer has brown hair. Green eyes. Sexuality is only one of his weapons, but he has used rape in his recent killings because it has … been a while.”

  “Okay, that’s good to know. Just not what I was asking for.”

  “I know,” Artur said, but added nothing more because knowledge had begun to unfold, new tendrils of stolen thoughts surfacing from his vision. Common, for memories to reveal additional secrets after a viewing—but Artur had not expected any this time. He had felt almost completely shut out from the most private part of the murderer’s mind, without even a name or history to draw upon.

  “He has one more task,” Artur said softly. “Something important he needs to do. After that, he plans on disappearing. He believes no one will ever catch him.”

  “Cocky.”

  “No,” Artur said, the words flowing through him as though he were another person—the killer, perhaps, reciting facts. “He has protection. Someone is protecting him.” Unbidden, honest: the serial killer believed this, knew this to be the truth.

  “Who would protect that sicko?”

  “I do not know. Someone with power,” Artur murmured, touching his nose. His fingers came away red.

  “Shit,” Dean said, fumbling for the box of tissues in the backseat. He threw a handful at Artur. “This has to stop.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, distant, still trying to puzzle out that incongruous, chilling memory. He shoved the tissue against his nose. The blood did not bother him. His nose had been bleeding quite frequently for the past several months. “We will find him.”

  “I wasn’t talking about that,” Dean said. “Not really.” />
  He did not go on. Artur waited. It was clear he could no longer run from this conversation, change the subject as he had managed to do for the past month. So he listened to the engine hum, the low-volume beat of some radio rock song. He listened to Marilyn scream. He tasted blood.

  Dean squirmed, his hands playing with the steering wheel, knuckles popping. Artur had never seen him quite so uncomfortable.

  “Okay,” Dean finally said, hard, fast. “I should have told you this a long time ago, but it’s difficult. You understand, Artur? This isn’t easy for me to say. I’m not good with this kind of thing. You know … emotional stuff.”

  “Dean, stop.” Artur tried not to smile. “You know we cannot be together. Ours is a forbidden love.”

  “Fuck you,” Dean said. “This is serious.”

  Artur leaned back in his seat. “Fine. Serious. Tell me what is bothering you.”

  Dean gave him a hard look. “Don’t try to pretend with me. Your shit is fucked the hell up. This is getting to be too much for you. Hell, tonight was almost too much for me, and all I picked up were some bad vibes. You got the entire show.”

  “Yes? What is your point?” Artur felt too weary to be having this conversation. He always got the whole show—always would, until the day he died. Talking about it did not do anything but point out the obvious.

  Dean glared at him. “My point is that the last six months have scared me shitless. When we first met, you could’ve laid your hand on Charles freakin’ Manson and eaten pizza at the same time. Now—I swear to God—you’re going to have an aneurysm so big it’ll blow your head off.”

  “Heartwarming, I am sure.”

  “Don’t make jokes about this. Your reactions are getting worse. You need a break. A vacation. No more bad touching.”

  “All the touching I do is bad, Dean. I am, as they tell me in this country, a bad boy.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. Real anger hardened Dean’s face. He gunned the engine and steered the car into the street. “Fine. I’ll go to Roland.”

  Artur stared, startled. Dean was serious. A first.

  “No,” he said, concerned. “No, you cannot tell Roland.”

  Dean’s gaze flickered from the dark road. “It’s not like he’ll fire you.”

  “He will make me stop. He will assign me to other cases.”

  “And that’s bad? You like this shit? You like being inside the heads of murderers and victims, getting your craw busted open every time you have a vision? You like it that much?”

  “No,” Artur said, “but I need it. I need it like you need it. Like Koni and the others need this work.”

  Because even though it was ugly—horrifying—the work gave his abilities purpose, a reason for being. If he did not have that—if he could not make a difference—all those sacrifices, the ugliness of his life, would mean nothing. Nothing, if he did not fight with his last dying breath to make them worth something more than pain.

  There are worse ways to live, he reminded himself. Yes. Worse. At least now he had friends. At least now he did not have to stand alone. At least now he was not forced to kill for a living. Not always, anyway.

  Dean, still watching the road, said, “You’re staring at me.”

  “Yes.” Artur noted the hard lines of his friend’s mouth with a feeling of dread.

  Dean tore his gaze from the road and looked Artur straight in the eyes. “You are such a pain in the ass. The Russian people probably made it an official holiday when you left the country.”

  “Probably,” Artur said, wondering if it was too early to feel relieved.

  “Probably? Shit. You’re going to go insane, die, or lose permanent control over your bladder—probably in that order—and chances are I’ll be there when it happens.”

  “You want me dying last, Dean, not second. Think of the fun you will have if I begin pissing my pants while we are in public.”

  “I’m going to shoot you before that happens.”

  “You should begin carrying adult diapers. I promise to put them on all by myself.”

  Dean gave him the finger. Artur smiled and settled back in his seat.

  “Why are you smiling? You think you won?”

  “I think you are my friend. I think you understand my predicament.”

  “I think I understand you need serious help, and I’m not the one who can give it to you.”

  “I prefer to handle my own problems,” Artur said more firmly. “Besides, you and I both know there is no solution. I see, Dean. That is all. It cannot be stopped.”

  “It can,” Dean argued. “You just won’t make that choice.”

  “What choice? To never take my gloves off again? To never leave my home? What kind of choice is that?”

  “It’s better than dying.”

  “Dean.”

  For once, Dean took the hint. He shut his mouth and drove. Artur got out his cell phone and reluctantly dialed their boss, Roland Dirk. He did not want to speak to Roland—not now, with Dean sitting beside him, so unpredictable—but time was of the essence.

  Roland answered the phone with his customary charm. “Jesus Christ. You look like shit, Artie.”

  Artur tried not to frown. He did not like speaking to Roland on the phone. The man was one of the most psychically powerful individuals he had ever met: a clairvoyant, a telepath. All Roland needed was a connection—and in the case of his far-seeing abilities, a telephone was enough. Artur did not understand how or why. Only that it made him uncomfortable knowing his boss could see him.

  “We just left the house,” Artur said, and then hit the speaker button so that Dean could participate in the conversation. “We were not able to glean much from the crime scene except for a description of the killer and his emotional state.”

  “He has issues,” Dean said. “Big ones.”

  “Really. How very fucking nice for him. I’ve got issues, too. Agent Braun from the FBI called today. She got wind of our investigation and said she doesn’t give a rat’s ass if we were hired by one of the victims’ parents. If she catches any of us on her turf, she’s handcuffing our balls to a cell.”

  “Nice imagery. I’m so turned-on.”

  “We need access to more of the evidence,” Artur said, ignoring Dean. “Restraints, clothing from the victims, anything the murderer might have touched. Perhaps that will provide a clearer vision.”

  “Sorry. This case is too high-profile. The best we can do is slink around released crime scenes and hack into the medical examiner’s reports along with the major news channels. Strictly undercover. If we invite too much attention, people like Braun will start asking harder questions, and I don’t want to explain why I lied about us being hired on to this case.”

  “Still no explanation why this one is so important? Besides the obvious reasons, like saving lives and stuff.” Dean’s gaze lingered on the rearview mirror. Artur glanced over his shoulder. No headlights or signs of pursuit. It was good to be careful, though. Like many of his colleagues at the agency, Artur did not take anything for granted when it came to personal safety.

  Roland made a rumbling sound; Artur thought he heard pencils breaking. “When Nancy doesn’t want to answer questions, you don’t keep asking them. She’s the precog. When she says we have to be involved with something, we damn well get involved.”

  “A couple hints would be nice,” Dean muttered. Artur agreed, but he stayed silent. Nancy was the true power behind the agency, and one of its founders. Long ago, she and her husband had transformed a small secret society of psychics into something much larger and more proactive. The reverberations and influence of that one decision had crossed the world.

  Which meant that no one argued with Nancy, ever. Not even her own family, of which Roland was a distant member. An old woman approaching her eighties, and still she inspired fear. Fear, respect, and a good deal of awe.

  Something on Roland’s end beeped. He said, “I need to go. Where are you guys headed now?”

  “Home,” Dean
said, before Artur could answer. His expression was relaxed, easygoing—but Artur did not miss the hard glint in Dean’s eyes as they flickered in his direction. Artur did not dare argue with him, not in front of Roland.

  “Fine,” Roland said. “This was supposed to be your night off anyway. Get some sleep. Especially you, Artie. You look like—”

  “Shit. Yes, I know.” Artur frowned, glaring at his phone. Roland chuckled.

  “Strength, boys. You’d better rest up, ‘cause tomorrow’s gonna be hell.”

  He hung up. Artur looked at Dean. “Home?”

  “You can’t shoot me,” Dean said. “I’m driving.”

  “I am not sure I care. I think the satisfaction alone might keep me alive.”

  “Ungrateful … Besides, what else do you think you could get done tonight? Game’s up, man.”

  “We could go back to the place where Marilyn disappeared and try to take another impression.”

  “We already did that. We got nothing, remember?”

  Artur frowned. “I do not understand why this murderer is so difficult to track. Usually there is something.”

  “Hey, it’s not like you went blind or anything. We know more now than we did before. Got a description and everything. One anonymous tip to the police via our contacts, and we’ll get the ball rolling.”

  Artur supposed Dean was right. It took an hour to drive back into the city. After Dean pulled off the freeway, he headed into the quiet outskirts of downtown: the upscale residential neighborhoods filled with old town houses and lovely Victorians. A nice place to live, but tonight it felt decadent, the privilege of a man who did not deserve luxury—not when there was still so much left undone.

  “I do not like this,” Artur said. “Turn around. I want to go to the office.”

  Dean shook his head. “There has to be a line drawn somewhere. You’ve got so many memories swimming inside your head, I don’t know how you function sometimes. Just take a rest. One night won’t kill you.”

  “You did not see what that man did to Marilyn. You did not feel his enjoyment. There is no time for just ‘one night,’ Dean. Later, maybe. Not now.”