Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [504]
It was an unfortunate choice of metaphors, even in my own head. I had to stand up. I had to walk away, blowing air out very fast and too shallow. I went to stand beside one of the trees that edged the clearing. I had to take deep breaths, but that meant the odor went down strong. That sweet, sweet smell slid along my tongue and coated the back of my throat until I couldn’t stand the thought of swallowing but didn’t know what else to do. I swallowed, and the smell slid down, and my morning coffee inched up.
I had two comforts. One, I’d managed to get outside the blood pattern to vomit. Two, I didn’t have much in my stomach to come up. Maybe this was one reason that I’ve stopped eating breakfast. I get a lot of early-morning body viewing.
I knelt in the dry leaves and felt better. I hadn’t thrown up at a crime scene in a long time. At least Zerbrowski wasn’t here to rib me about it. I wasn’t even embarrassed. Was that a sign of maturity?
Male voices behind me. Sheriff Wilkes saying, almost yelling, “She’s just a civvie. She shouldn’t be here. She isn’t even licensed for this state.”
“I’m in charge here, Sheriff. I say who stays and who goes.” Henderson wasn’t yelling, but his voice carried.
I grabbed the tree trunk to help me stand, and my arm tingled so hard it almost went numb. I stood, pushing away from the tree, nearly falling, but I kept my feet. I looked up the smooth trunk. About eight feet up was a pentagram carved into the bark of the tree. The cut had been darkened with blood. With the dried blood rubbed into it, it was almost invisible against the dark grey bark, but there was also a spell of reluctance on it. So that no one had looked, not even me. Only when I touched the tree did I sense it. Like all illusion, once you see it, you know it’s there.
I looked at the other trees and found a bloody pentagram carved into each one. It was a circle of power, of protection. A circle formed of blood and the land itself. Wiccans—witches—can use their power for evil if they’re willing to pay the price in karma. Whatever you do, good or ill, comes back to you threefold. But even a wiccan gone bad wouldn’t carve up a tree. Had the trees, the land, themselves, been invoked? That might mean an elemental. They could be nasty. But they didn’t feel evil. They felt angry if you messed with their land, but they weren’t evil, more angry-neutral. I’d gotten that whiff of evil as I passed through the circle. Evil with a capital E. There just aren’t that many preternatural critters that trip that particular wire.
“Captain Henderson,” I said. I had to say it twice before they stopped arguing and looked at me.
They both looked at me. Neither looked friendly, but at least I knew who they were mad at: each other. Local cops don’t like anybody horning in on their turf. It was normal for the local police to resent outsiders. But I knew that Wilkes had more to protect than his turf. He must be frantic having real cops here now. But now wasn’t the time to spill the beans. I had no proof. Accusing a policeman of corruption tends to upset the other cops.
“Did you see the pentagrams on the trees?”
The question was strange enough that they both stopped being angry and paid attention. I pointed the pentagrams out, and like all good illusion, once I showed them, they could see it. The emperor has no clothes.
“So?” Wilkes said.
“So, this was a circle of protection, of power. Something was called here to kill her.”
“The marks on the trees could have been here for days,” Wilkes said.
“Test the blood on the pentagrams,” I said. “It won’t be hers, but it will be fresh.”
“Why isn’t it the victim’s?” Henderson asked.
“Because they used the blood to seal the circle. They had to have the blood before the death.”
“It was a human sacrifice then,” Henderson