Shifty Magic by Judy Teel Page B

I saw regret and a touch of sympathy in his eyes. I didn't
want him having second thoughts about including me, not with the
vamp hierarchy breathing down my neck. I shut my mouth and vowed to
keep it that way no matter how nervous I got.
    At the end of the hall, Cooper turned right.
Stepping across a fallen beam, he passed under the wide arch of
what had probably once been the entrance to the family room of the
house. As I got closer, the horrible smell of death burned my nose.
The dread I'd been feeling thickened.
    I crossed the beam, careful not to touch
anything, and walked into a room about twenty-seven feet long and
twenty feet wide. My focus went straight to the far left corner of
the room. Some part of me had been hoping there'd been an error,
that maybe Laiyla had been found unconscious or severely injured,
but was otherwise okay.
    There hadn't been any mistake.
    I'd only seen a few dead bodies in my life,
even though when I was twelve, I lived on the streets for a while
when the paranormal fighting was in full swing. There was no
mistaking some things, and even I could tell she'd been here for a
while. I pushed down my repulsion and forced myself to study the
scene before they took her away. Any detail might help us find the
killer and was worth a little discomfort. I owed Laiyla that
much.
    The body was suspended between the corner of
the walls about three feet above the floor. Bolts had been driven
into the exposed studs, two on each side, with the barbed wire from
Morrocroft secured around each bolt. The other ends of the wires
had been wrapped around Laiyla's wrists and ankles, digging into
the skin like thorns. The lifeless ruby in her protective necklace
had cracked and a chilling darkness seemed to cling to it.
    Dried blood trailed down the arms and feet,
leaving scattered splashes of rusty brown across the floor under
the body. No other mark was on her that I could see.
    Her face was frozen into a mask of complete
and utter terror, and my legs trembled with the need to run. She'd
been a powerful practitioner. Who or what could have terrified her
so completely as it killed her without leaving a scratch?
    "Look at this," Cooper said, his voice
tense.
    I dragged my attention away from the horror
and pain on that face and focused on Cooper. Balancing on the balls
of his feet, he'd squatted down to peer at the floor around the
body.
    I swallowed and forced myself to move closer
to the awful specter of Laiyla's last moments. A circle about eight
feet wide had been swept clean and strange symbols drawn on the
floor. In the center, directly under the body, a thin, sharp
triangle, like a dagger, had been painted. To the right, I noticed
a small circle of fine, white powder.
    "What do you make of this?" he asked, his
gaze tracking over the symbols.
    In high school, I'd taken a course in
ancient languages out of curiosity. I was crazy like that. "Looks
like Sumerian. Sort of." I squatted down next to him to get a
closer look at one of the markings. "I'm guessing the lab will show
that all of these symbols are written in vamp blood."
    "It is. I can smell it." His upper lip
quivered as he struggled to hold back a snarl. "About five, maybe
six hours ago, which supports Stillman's report."
    I pointed to the symbol in front of him.
"See those lines that look like a star burst? Normally I'd say that
was the symbol for God, but look how it's crossed with that other
mark. The one that looks like an open cursive Z with a dot over it?
I've never seen that before."
    I stared at the unusual symbol hoping my
subconscious would kick up a flash of understanding. As I studied
it, the lines shifted and moved and a tendril of sooty fog rose up,
curling and weaving like a snake. It turned toward me and a wave of
despair washed over me.
    I jumped back, lost my balance and landed on
my butt in the dust. I heard Cooper call my name, but the words
were muffled like he was talking to me from the bottom of a deep
hole. All I could do was stare