“So what’s your power? I know you’re a half-demon.”

“Agito.”

Telekinesis, then. Agito was the second of the three levels, meaning he had mediocre abilities. Having dealt with a high-level Volo before, I was much more comfortable with an Agito.

His powers explained how he’d snuck past Tina. Using telekinesis, he’d caught the door before it closed. I’d have to talk to Lucas about that. Yet another argument against human tenants.

I led Jesse into the meeting room. He didn’t sit down—didn’t even take off his jacket—just strode straight to the table and pulled files from his satchel.

He set a crime-scene photo on the table. “Six months ago, two young women were murdered in Columbus, Washington, about an hour over the Oregon border. I doubt it made the Portland news. Nothing all that hinky about the killings. No sign of a serial killer or sexual sadism. Just the shooting death of two twenty-four-year-olds who led the kind of lives where you sort of figure, sooner or later”—he gestured at the photo of the two women—“this is how they’re going to end up.”

“Hookers?”

He shook his head. “Just not exactly sterling members of society.”

“Drugs?” I said. “Booze? Petty crime? All of the above?”

“You got it. Nothing you haven’t seen a million times before. I was on that path myself until Lucas got me out of some trouble and persuaded me there were legal ways to use my skills. Anyway, these girls didn’t run into a Lucas. They were high school dropouts. Never held a job more than a few months. One had a kid at sixteen. Both had short rap sheets and a string of boyfriends with longer ones.”

I lifted the photo to take a closer look. The two bodies lay on a floor. Both were fully dressed, T-shirts covered in blood, each bearing a hole. Single gunshot wounds to the chest. One was on her back, eyes open, arms akimbo, legs twisted, a pool of blood under her. The other was stretched out, arms and legs only slightly bent, eyes closed. The blood under her was smeared.

“Both shot, as you see,” Jesse said. “A through-and-through for the first, the bullet apparently lodging in the wall over there.” He pointed to the edge of the photo. “They recovered another bullet from inside the second victim. The first one died immediately. The second didn’t.”

“Doesn’t look like she tried to get away, though. Drugged?”

“I don’t have tox screens.”

“No sign of rape or torture, like you said. Looks execution style. A classic case of ‘Hey, bitch, you gonna pay for that dope or what?’ The answer, apparently, being ‘or what.’ ”

“Yep, that’s what it looks like.”

When he didn’t go on, I glanced at him. “So what’s your interest? Is one of these girls a supernatural?”

“Not as far as I know.”

He set a second photo on the table. It was another murdered young woman, also early twenties, though one glance told me this girl didn’t sell herself for dime bags.

I put the two photos side by side. All three bodies had been left in the same place.

“Basement?” I asked.

“Of an abandoned building.”

I could hear Lucas’s voice. The fact that the deceased are found in a common location may speak less to a connection than to a simple matter of convenience. Yes, Lucas really did talk that way. Drove me nuts, especially when I found myself slipping into the same speech patterns. On the plus side, I may not be an A student, but I sure as hell can sound like one.

When I told Jesse my theory—small town, not a lot of places to put a body, someone had already used this one, so the second killer followed suit—he shrugged. “Possible, but in this particular small town, there’s no shortage of abandoned buildings.”

“What’s the local murder rate?”

“You’re looking at it. This double killing last fall, then the single one ten days ago. Before that, the last homicide was a domestic incident in 1999.”

“Lot of drug activity in town?”

“It has its share, maybe a little more. You can blame that on a depressed economy, though. It’s not exactly a hotbed of gangsta activity. Mostly kids selling pot from their lockers, the laid-off guy down the road dealing out of his garage, that sort of thing.”

“Do the police think it’s the same killer for all three?”

“Yep, but only because otherwise they’d need to catch two murderers, and that’s more work than they care to contemplate.”

“You’re going to make me guess what the supernatural connection is, aren’t you?”

“I was just seeing if you’d pick it up. It’s—”

I lifted a hand to cut him off. “Is the answer here?” I asked, pointing at the photos.

He nodded.

“Give me a minute.”

two

I studied the victims for some sign they’d been killed by a supernatural—puncture wounds, gnaw marks, weird burn patterns. But the only sign of trauma was the bullet holes.

Next I looked at the background for evidence that the victims had been used ritualistically. If so, then we probably weren’t dealing with a supernatural killer. There were black art rituals involving human sacrifice—usually high-level protection spells that required a life in forfeit for a life protected—but that’s a lot more rare among witches and sorcerers than Hollywood would have people believe.

If these were indeed ritual murders, then the most likely culprit was Hollywood itself, for suggesting that it’s possible to harness the forces of darkness through sacrifice. As if a demon really gives a rat’s ass about a dead human or two.

When humans ritually kill, though, they’re rarely subtle. Pentacles in blood are a particular favorite. Apparently, if you’re going to the trouble of proving what a badass occultist you are, you want to make sure the whole world gets it.

However, even if the killer was human, that was a concern for us. The agency takes a few calls a year from supernaturals freaked out because some lowlife in their city drained a victim’s blood or left occult paraphernalia at a crime scene. I tell them to chill—most humans are smart enough to know vampires and witches and demons are the products of overactive imaginations, and the police will quickly turn their attention to more plausible explanations.