“There you are!”
Dee lifted her gaze, a smile already plastered to her face. “You’re early, Liz,” she called.
“Yeah, yeah. You’ve known me seventeen years, girlfriend. And more to the point, I’ve known you seventeen years. Do you think I can’t hear the blues in your voice?”
She glanced down at the snowball in her hand and let it fall. She sighed and lifted her shoulders. “Well…”
“Yeah, yeah. Winter’s here. I know.” Liz stepped to her side and shoved her arm into the crook of Dee’s. “You can’t control the seasons, dear.”
“I could move.”
Liz nodded. “Sure. And if I hadn’t heard you say the same thing for the last sixteen winters, I might be worried.”
“Let’s get off the path,” said Dee. “I don’t want to run into anyone.”
“This is a city of eight million people, dear. The chances of coming across anyone we know are—”
“That’s what you said the day we bumped into those creepy IT guys from work.”
Liz chuckled. “Touché. Lead on, oh intrepid explorer of wooded areas.”
Dee turned off the path and strolled underneath the boughs, kicking small drifts of snow as she went. “How’s the man?” she asked after a few moments of silence.
“Oh, you know. He’s getting ready to watch the game.”
“You mean it takes more than plunking down on the sofa and picking up the remote?”
Liz’s laughter rang through the trees. “Girl, you have no idea. He’s decided that he needs to paint his face this year.”
“Oh, he’s going to the games in person?”
“No.”
“Then…a party or something?”
Liz’s smile stretched. “No. He watched last week’s game in his boxers and his Giants jersey with a painted face.”
“And…only you saw him?”
“You’re getting the picture, now.”
“But…”
“Don’t strain your brain, Dee. It makes no sense unless you are a rabid football fan.”
Dee shook her head and grinned. She kicked another pile of snow, then looked down at it when her foot hit something solid. “Ouch.”
“Tree root?” asked Liz.
“I don’t think so…it’s smooth.” She brushed the toe of her shoe through the pile again and gasped as she exposed a weathered gray heel embedded in the damp earth.
“Is that…” Liz shivered.
Dee nodded, already calling the police.
2
Dru pulled the Crown Vic across the lane of oncoming traffic in the 102nd Street Crossing and onto the concrete path. She sighed as she put the car in park. “It’s an old body, Leery.”
“Hey, at least it isn’t an old body in the dead of the night,” said Leery. “At least there’s no fog.” He reached for his trenta of Starbucks coffee, took a sip, then got out. “Where’d they say to go?”
“Through the Springbanks Arch, then follow the crime scene tape.”
Leery grunted. “Nothing like a morning stroll through nature.” He led her down the path decorated with sprinkles of fresh snow and turned to follow another through the arch. “At least we found a parking space close by.”
“You mean the path where I parked the car?”
“Exactly, Dru. Glad you’re finally coming around to see things my way.”
She chuckled and bumped him with her shoulder.
“Before we get to the scene, Dru, let’s get something straightened out.”
“Sure, Leery.”
“I’m better now. Everyone says so.”
“Everyone, eh?”
“The feedings have done wonders. Your mother said so.”
“Ah.”
“And Luci said—”
“I’m still taking lead, Leery,” she said in a quiet, though firm, voice.
“Yeah, and I’m okay with that. What I’m saying is—”
“‘Whatever you say, Dru.’ That’s what you’re saying.”
“Um…I—”
“That sounds remarkably unlike ‘Whatever you say, Dru.’” She stopped walking and turned to face him.
“Well, the thing I wanted—”
Dru cocked her fist on her hip and tilted her head to the side.
“Uh, I’m having a hard time telling if you’re joking or not.”
She narrowed her eyes, and for a split-second, they blazed with red light.
Leery took a swig of coffee and turned his attention to the arch. “What I meant—”
She flattened her lips.
“I’m better, Dru. Not one hundred percent, I’ll give you that, but close enough. You take the lead, I’m fine with that. All I’m saying is—”
Dru stomped her foot.
“Whatever you say, Dru. That’s all I’m saying.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said with a smile. She turned and walked into the shadow of the arch. “You coming?” she called over her shoulder.
3
Five minutes later, they stood outside the area marked off by crime scene tape. A man wearing sergeant’s stripes, with a salt-and-pepper beard and wire-rim glasses had the log duty, and when he saw Leery coming, he grinned a little, then hid it with a grimace and popped his earbuds out.
“They let you out of the precinct?” asked Leery by way of a greeting.
“Yes, they wanted a real cop out here.” The sergeant had a mild English accent.
“Hey, Dru, meet Ben Aaronovitch. Never ask him for directions. He thinks this is London.”
“Don’t listen to him, my dear,” said Ben, extending his hand.
Dru lay her hand in his upturned palm. “Dru Nogan. Pleased to meet you, Sergeant Aaronovitch.”
“Did I mention he’s a wizard? Or are you still an apprentice, Ben?”
Ignoring Leery, Ben bent over her hand and brushed his lips against her knuckles. “The pleasure is all mine, and you must call me Ben.” He glanced at Leery. “Who did you piss off to draw this lout as a partner?”
“Jealousy is so ugly, Aaronovitch,” said Leery with a grin.
“Not half so ugly as you, my friend.”
Leery took the clipboard from under Ben’s arm and scrawled his name on it. “Yeah, yeah,” he murmured. “Now, if you can let go of my partner’s hand…”
“Oh, yes,” said Ben with a blush.
Dru smiled and took the clipboard. She signed her name and handed it back to him. “Thank you, Sergeant.”
“What are we walking into, Ben?” asked Leery.
Aaronovitch frowned. “Someone staked a vampire, Oriscoe. Someone planted him like a tree.”
“Staked and buried head-down in the woods?” Dru asked with a frown.
“Indeed,” Ben said. “Whoever did the deed did not want him to return.”
“That’s cold,” said Leery.
“Well, it is winter.”
“Har-har, Aaronovitch. Leave the corny jokes to a professional. Like me.”
Leery and Dru ducked under the tape and walked toward the cluster of people standing in a loose knot toward the center of the marked-off space. The technicians from the ME’s office had already exhumed the body, and a wooden stake pinned the dead vampire through the chest.
“Do you recognize him?” asked Dru, walking closer. The remains seemed mummified, desiccated. The wooden stake driven through his chest was carved and marked with runes.
“Is that LaSalle?” asked Leery.
“I think so.”
Leery pointed at the stake. “Runic magic?”
Dru glanced at him and nodded. “Yes. Some are Enochian, but I don’t recognize the others. I’ll give you odds they are specific to Dead Set rituals.”
“What, retribution for the Gatsby thing? Why? LaSalle got away with it.”
Dru shrugged. “Maybe he earned his stake for drawing too much attention to the organization.”
“I could see that, I guess,” said Leery. He squatted next to the corpse. “We’d better check his pockets.”
“If it was the Dead Set, they wouldn’t leave anything but the body behind,” said Dru.
One of the ME’s techs stepped closer. “Nothing on him,” he said. “Except for the stake.”
“Right, but that’s more in him than on him,” grunted Leery. “Send him to Liz Hendrix.”
“That will not please her,” said the tech. “She’s out of the rotation this week. Court.”
“Tell her Oriscoe sent him over,” said Leery, waving him away. “Tell her we need her report sooner than possible. Tell her I said to use her magics.” He made quote-fingers as he said the last word.
The tech arched an eyebrow. “You know that will only make her mood worse, right?”
“Nah. She loves me.” Leery made shooing motions. “Now, run along and get this stiff processed.” The tech rolled his eyes and turned away.
“Well, you haven’t lost your way with people,” said Dru.
“What? I said please.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I didn’t?”
Dru shook her head.
“Well, I meant to. That counts, right?”
“If you say so,” said Dru.
“Think if we get Hinton down here she can call up his spirit? I haven’t hassled her enough this year, and I don’t want to miss my quota.”
“No,” said Dru. “A vampire’s soul is artificially bound to his flesh. Once staked, the spirit flees, ready to move on from this life. Few wait around to see if the stake will be removed.”
“But still, she can summon—”
“No dice,” said Dru. “Vampires are creatures of magic, Leery. LaSalle may have started life as a mundane man, but he spent centuries learning, growing. No one can force a vampire back to its discarded flesh.”
“That’s pretty inconvenient,” said Leery. “You mean we’re going to have to do actual police work?”
Dru dimpled. “Looks that way.”
“That’s pretty inconvenient,” Leery repeated.
“We’ll get through it,” said Dru. “Somehow.”
They made it as far as the Springbanks Arch before Dru’s cell chirped. She pulled it out and glanced down at the phone, then stopped walking. Shaking her head, she said, “They need us back at the scene.”
“Nah, that’s just Aaronovitch. He probably wants your—”
“No, they found another one.”
“Another body?”
“Another staked vampire.”
“That’s pretty inconvenient,” Leery said with a sigh.
