Demon's Vow: Part 2 of the Final Asylum Tales (The Asylum Tales series) by Jocelynn Drake Page A

going to make some guy an amazing girlfriend,” I murmured before sucking down a quarter of it.
    “Awww, you’re making me teary,” she sarcastically said, pulling her gaze from the three long gashes on my cheek. She kindly didn’t comment as she pulled the car out of the parking lot. “I need you focused and awake. The cops are getting edgy about letting us play in their sandbox so we’re not going to get much time to look. We’ve got one shot at this.”
    “Got it, boss,” I murmured between sips of coffee. Serah sent me a dirty look as she paused at a stop sign, but otherwise she kept her comments to herself.
    The coffee was going a long way to getting my brain functioning, but it would only last a couple hours. I needed sleep desperately, but it looked like I wasn’t going to get it since I needed to be in the parlor by noon to open up. This was going to be a really long and ugly day.
    The crime scene ended up being halfway between my apartment building and Asylum. When we arrived, the cops had the street blocked off with cars and yellow tape, keeping the few gawkers a good distance off. I scanned the people gossiping and straining to see the body, but there wasn’t anyone there who I thought could be our killer, not that I was sure what I was looking for. I just thought there might be something powerful buzzing in the air when she was close or an ugly redness to her aura. Of course, I could be wrong about that.
    When we walked under the yellow police tape, the officers were far less accommodating than the men we’d encountered outside of Kyle’s shop just a few days earlier. Either Serah hadn’t worked the day shift or these guys were just assholes by nature. I was leaning toward the latter.
    A large man in a wrinkled button-down shirt and stained brown tie glared at Serah as we approached. He hefted his large bulk in front of the mouth of the alley, a toothpick clenched between his teeth. “Moynahan,” he growled, trying his damnedest to be intimidating.
    “Curtis,” Serah replied, looking completely unmoved by the man’s attempts.
    “You know TAPSS doesn’t have any jurisdiction here. This is a police matter. You need to let the real authorities handle this.”
    “I thought the police would be smart enough to accept help from an expert since this perp has slaughtered three women and one man on your watch. Last I heard, you didn’t know shit about who was doing it.” She gave him a sweet smile that only made me think that she was looking for an opportunity to rip his eyeballs out of his fat skull.
    “Expert? Him?”
    “Gage Powell, owner of Asylum Tattoo parlor,” I introduced, not caring about the fact that the man was looking at me like I was a bug he’d just scraped off the bottom of his shoes.
    “Yeah, well the victim didn’t die from a shitty tattoo.”
    “You’d be surprised,” I muttered under my breath, already wishing that I was back in Serah’s car rather than standing in the frigid air that was already biting through my jeans.
    “Look, Curtis. It’s fucking cold and I’m sure the meat wagon would like to pack up so everyone can get out of here,” Serah broke in. “Let us have a look and then we can all get the fuck out of Dodge.”
    “Ten minutes,” the fat detective snapped before stepping out of the way of the entrance.
    Serah snarled something softly to herself that I didn’t quite catch. She was a feisty little thing who didn’t take shit from anyone, even me, which was more than a little surprising since she knew exactly what I was. I was beginning to think that Low Town had become a poorer place when she left the police force. TAPSS would never be challenging enough for her. It was just one of those moments when being a barely above five foot adorable woman was a hindrance in this world of chest-beating, hairy monsters.
    My mind quickly shifted from thoughts of Serah’s rough lot in life to the crime as we walked up on the corpse. My heart broke a little at