Blood Sacrifice by Maria Lima

fore. “Look, Carlton, I’ve had very little sleep and it’s hot as hell so could you just get on with it?”
    “Someone’s defaced the cemetery.”
    A chill ran through me. “Defaced how?”
    “Gravestones unseated, garbage all over the place, tags—you name it.”
    I handed the phone to Adam and closed my eyes. “Deal,” I said. I couldn’t. Not this time. I’d spent ages as a kid, keeping the place tidy, clean. Learning respect for the human dead, learning what it meant to not be human, to be a Kelly. I’d tidied, scrubbed, kept it up. Then a few months back, before I’d Changed, I’d found my cousin Daffyd there, living in a pocket of Faery closedoff from the rest of his people. He’d been watching out for me, keeping an eye on me.
    “Larsen,” Adam said, his voice neutral. “How bad is the damage?”
    I could almost see Carlton scratching his head, his brown hair cut regulation short. We’d been lovers for a while, when I was much younger and more naïve, thinking I could enjoy caring about a human. He’d wanted to get married. We’d fought and both of us left Rio Seco—him to San Antonio and the police department, me to London and the bosom of the European branch of the family. I’d met Gideon there. Met Adam. Perhaps it had all been meant. Who knew? In any case, this confluence of my former lovers and my current lover/husband/consort was getting far too insane for me.
    “Bad.” Carlton’s voice sounded bitter. “I haven’t done anything more than snap photos and try to cordon off the place as best I could. I’ve stationed a deputy there for now. I think you all need to come take a look.”
    “Tell him we’ll be…” I stopped before I could say we’d be there soon because, no, we wouldn’t—we couldn’t.
    “Thank you for the information,” Adam said. “Could you perhaps email Keira the photos? We’ll see what we can do. Do you have any leads?”
    “Not really. I’m guessing kids getting high, maybe gangs because of the tagging, but none of us here could recognize the tags. Hang on a sec.” I heard him fumbling with something and a beep or two from the phone on his end. “Texting you the pictures.”
    A moment, then there they were. Tucker and Icrowded around Adam on the bed, so we could see the small screen.
    “We received the photos,” Adam said into the receiver. “I thank you for calling.” With that, he disconnected the call and the three of us sat silent as Adam thumbed through the photos.
    Two gravestones toppled onto the dry ground, one broken in two jagged pieces. A pile of something at the base of another stone. What was that? “Is that bones?” I asked. “There, at the base of that marker.”
    “I think so,” Tucker said. “Looks like fur and bones, of some small animal.”
    “Yes.” Adam’s thumb slid across the phone screen, another photo, more vandalized gravestones. Filth smeared across most of them, a few behind the first with some sort of symbol.
    “That is no street gang tag,” Adam said, tone solemn. He pointed to a small symbol. “That’s a Sidhe spell, a warespell of some sort.”
    “Warespell?”
    “It’s meant to be a channel, a way for Sidhe to see and hear what is happening in a place. Sometimes we—they—use bespelled stones or other objects. This marking turned that whole grave marker into a ware-stone.”
    “Then did the damage come because of the Sidhe?” Tucker sounded as confused as I felt. “I guess I don’t understand the logic behind this.”
    “Nor do I,” Adam said. “Someone spelled the marker, but I do not know if this was done before the vandalism or as part of it.”
    “Could’ve been a red herring,” I said. Both men gave me a questioning look. “You know, like whensomeone fakes a robbery to hide something else they’ve done.”
    “Only a real vandalism to hide what?” Tucker asked.
    “Spells, as in plural spells.” Adam stood abruptly and tossed the phone on the bed. “Get Niko up,” he