Immortal Distraction by Elizabeth Finn

lunatic.
    But she’d seen it. She’d watched him do … do … something she couldn’t explain. And she wasn’t even sure what that something was. It was as if he’d controlled Michael’s mind, and just like that, given it right back to him. There was no doubt in Brit’s mind that Michael was sane—as sane as she was in fact. There was also no doubt in her mind Angus had been responsible for whatever it was that had happened to Michael.
    And then she had sex with him. What the fuck … and another pulse of electric arousal coursed through her veins at nothing more than the thought.
    Was that mind control too? No, if it was it wouldn’t explain her desire to sleep with him from the moment she first met him. Would it? This was just the culmination of wanting him for too long. Wasn’t it? So, why did she do it? Being attracted to him wasn’t enough to get her in bed with the man. She was stronger than that, more controlled than that for sure. But she’d crumbled.
    The moment she felt the power behind his body as he pushed her against the wall, the turgid length of his arousal pressed harshly against her body, and the desperate need in his movements that matched her own desire, she wanted to give in, and she finally did. Brit didn’t ever want to give in. But when she was with him, it was all she ever wanted to do. She wanted to melt into his strength and turn off her hypervigilant brain. There was a safety to him that made no sense whatsoever given what she’d just witnessed.
    If he wasn’t a man, she wasn’t sure she cared.
    * * * *
    Brit’s phone rang at one in the morning. This was the part she hated the most about her job. She could never get used to being woken from a dead sleep in the middle of the night much like the mother of a newborn. Only she woke to dead bodies and not sweet crying babies. When she answered, it was dispatch. When they said teenager, Brit’s heart sank. She wasn’t immune to devastation, and children did it every time. It had destroyed her emotionally on more than one occasion for months, and she dreaded every mile that took her to the waiting crime scene in Jamaica Plain.
    The night was as cold as any, and her breath fogged and hung like a cold crystal cloud in front of her mouth as she exhaled, waiting for Humphreys to arrive. Every inhalation felt as though her nostrils might freeze shut, and the best thing she could say about a winter crime scene was there was rarely a smell associated with it. Preservation was made far easier of course, but with that came an almost indeterminable time of death unless someone happened upon the body immediately after it was dumped. But she could at least rest easy, knowing she didn’t have to smell death even if she had to look at it.
    When Humphreys finally arrived he looked the way she felt—tired, ugly, and crabby as hell. He grumbled his greeting to her, and said nothing else as they made their way down to Jamaica Pond on the well-trodden walkways. It was too cold for anyone to be out for a stroll at this time of night in the dead of winter, and yet, there was a witness.
    The man sat on a bench with an officer beside him. He looked rough. He was obviously a street punk, dope dealer, who knew. But this was his element. His eyes shifted constantly and held no one’s focus for longer than half a second. He was likely high as a kite, but he’d stuck around. She had to give him credit for that much at least.
    Crime-scene techs were already on site down by the water’s edge in the outcrop of trees that the body lay in. They made way for her and Humphreys, and the moment she was within a couple feet of the body, she was hit with it. This was a fresh kill. It didn’t reek of rotting flesh, but it had the strong, hot smell of iron. The blood had already soaked out to the surrounding snow, and it was exactly what she’d feared. Shredded.
    This body was small and young. The estimate of a teenager was likely dead-on. The clothes, what she could see