Syndelle studied Rico, Skye's human mate, before turning her attention to the other policeman with him. Detective Augustino. She didn't need the wolf's recognition to know that Detective Augustino was more than just human. The cock of his head when she'd walked in with Rafe, the flare of his nostrils, followed by a swift flash in his eyes when her scent had told him that she was mated to both a human and a vampire, were enough for her to know that he was a werewolf.
It surprised Syndelle to find him here. Pack members usually lived close together and worked in businesses owned by the pack.
Unless they were outcasts. Or loners. Or had been sired by one on a human female-and had not yet joined a pack.
For a moment, uneasiness rolled through Syndelle, but the wolf urged her to take Augustino's scent, to taste his flavor. When she did, she found nothing that hinted of fear or hatred, and so she relaxed.
Rafael lounged in a casual sprawl on the couch, next to Syndelle, his leg against hers, his touch comforting.
Skye joined them, sitting on Syndelle's other side and looking at Rico, her knee brushing against his and causing him to shift in his chair as his eyes went dark with arousal and the front of his pants stretched tight over an erection. Syndelle smiled, pleased for her sister, pleased at the obvious desire between Skye and her mate. Rafael snickered and Skye broke the eye contact with Rico, her attention shifting as she dropped a folder on the coffee table. "Here they are."
Augustino leaned forward in his chair, placing a folder next to Skye's. "When Rico did a run for attacks on female strippers with a particular tattoo, it hit my desk. Over the last year there have been four unsolved homicides here, all with the same victim profile-male, blond with long hair, inverted pentacle tattoo somewhere on the body." He frowned. "The first two of them had a goat's head drawn in the center of the pentagram. The second two didn't. There's a fifth victim. No tattoo on him, but the damage done to him was identical to the other four, so I think he was killed by the same perp. All five victims were roughed up, shock burns consistent with a cattle prod, sodomized-ass and mouth-with genitals removed as a final insult. Amazingly enough, the powers that be have managed to keep a lid on it. Probably because three of the men were strippers, one was a male prostitute, and the other was a drifter. Up until last month, another cop was working this case. Now I'm here and it's mine." His gaze brushed over Syndelle and Rafe to settle on Skye. "And if we catch this guy, then we play by human rules. Understood?"
Skye scowled at her mate, but agreed. Augustino gave Syndelle a piercing look and she nodded. He tapped the folder and said, "These aren't for the faint of heart," pausing for a moment before opening the folder and spreading the pictures out like cards in a horror deck.
Syndelle's heart lurched, not just for what had been done to the victims, but at how closely the men resembled Rafael. With a curse, Rafe stood and moved away, the rush of his emotion almost overwhelming Syndelle. She brushed her mind against his, silently offering to comfort him, but not pushing her presence on him.
He surprised her, opening his thoughts to her rather than closing himself off. Showing her his memories of one of the men whose photograph now lay on the table. Justin. He'd been a stripper in Los Angeles, at a club named Tinker's, just as Rafe had once been before his life had intersected with Brann's.
She felt Rafael brace himself for her reaction. It doesn't matter, she whispered in his mind before additional memories followed, of Rafe selling his body-just as Justin had done, of the two of them laughing about the men who used them, even though they were both crying-both dying a little more inside.
Unable to stop herself, she rose from the couch and joined Rafael by the window. It doesn't matter, she repeated, stroking along his spine, directing his mind to what it had been like earlier, when he'd joined her in Brann's bed-to the pleasure they'd shared, a pleasure given and received equally. He hugged her to him, accepting her comfort before giving her a kiss and leading her back to the sofa.
"You okay?" Rico's voice sounded gruff, uncomfortable, his hand toying with Skye's where it rested on his thigh.
Rafael nodded and touched one of the pictures. "I knew this guy. He was street-smart."
Augustino shrugged. "Not smart enough. Or not careful enough."
Syndelle stiffened, the wolf rising from the shadows, both of them ready to attack the detective for his insensitivity to their mate's pain. Only Rafael's rush of surprised gratitude held Syndelle to the couch long enough for his voice to whisper in a gentle caress. I'm okay. It's okay. It was a shock seeing Justin's picture, a reminder of things I don't like to remember.
Some of Rafe's old amusement returned. But if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not have to tell Brann that you're in jail and he can't fuck you or feed from you when he rises tonight. You may have avoided becoming his companion so far, but that doesn't mean he would take your absence with good grace. He's not always...pleasant...when he has to wait.
Syndelle heard his words and accepted them, but the wolf couldn't refrain from locking its gaze to Augustino's. Its stare making him sit up straighter while something dangerous moved through his eyes a second before he nodded his head slightly in acknowledgement of the wolf's warning that to mistake its mate for a weak human of no consequence would be an unpleasant, possibly fatal mistake.
The tension eased and Skye freed her hand from Rico's and leaned forward, opening the file she'd placed on the table. Syndelle recognized Big Daddy's three girls, but not the other two.
Skye separated the photographs of Big Daddy's girls from the others and told Augustino what she knew of them, before moving to the girls Syndelle didn't know and saying, "These two are independent workers as far as I can tell. Rico got a hit on them last night." Skye touched one of the photographs. "So far she's the only one I've been able to find out anything about. Goes by the name Yvonne on the streets. She used to hang out at Bangers, but no one can remember her stripping there. Had a job as a waitress at some burger joint near the strip, and sometimes turned tricks on the side. She may have left town or she may be holed up in Vegas. I haven't found her yet. The other one I'll start looking for today."
Augustino leaned forward and tapped the picture of the fifth girl. "Save yourself the trouble. She's dead. Pulled her out of a crack house a couple of weeks ago after they got a shooter in there. Hit by a stray bullet. I was close to the location when the call came in." He shifted his attention to include all the pictures. "Got dates to match the attacks?"
Skye flipped the photos over and lined them up according to when they'd been attacked. Augustino consulted his notes, adding dates to the backs of his five photographs and lining them up.
Rico grunted. "Boy, girl, boy, girl, all the way down the line. But the boys end up dead, though he doesn't carve anything into them and he doesn't try to destroy their faces. Still possible there are two perps here. The MOs are different enough." He leaned forward, shifting through the papers in Augustino's folder. "No pattern where he picks up the men, other than he's got to be seeing them somewhere he can get a look at the tattoo. Strippers are pretty obvious. The male prostitute and the drifter both had the tattoos on their chests. Could have seen them without their shirts. Could have seen the four of them without hiring them first for a quick fuck." He looked at Rafe, then Augustino. "The last guy he killed, Justin, he the one without the tattoo?" When Augustino nodded, Rico continued, "The girls are trickier. Tattoos wouldn't have been obvious on all of them. So maybe with them he goes for a certain look, gets a better one as a paying customer, then abducts them later. That would also explain why he puts a bag over their head."
Syndelle closed her eyes, recapturing the feel of the man behind the attacks, but it was Rafael who spoke for her, also remembering what he'd felt through their link. "This guy hates the women more, but he's also more frightened of them. That's why he covers their faces, so they won't see him. He's not brave enough to kill them yet, but he wants to."
"Then it's only a matter of time before he gets brave enough," Augustino said.
Syndelle opened her eyes and studied the faces of the victims. The girls all looked very similar-almost as though they were the same girl. But over time, the faces of the men had changed somewhat, as though it mattered less and less to the killer that the man he was killing be an exact match to the one in his memories. "This is the only way he can get his power back. Even when he's finally killed the female who tormented him in the past, he won't stop. And perhaps eventually the tattoos won't be what determines which woman he chooses as his next victim. He'll seek only to empower himself."
"Fuck," Rico growled.
"He'll choose a male victim next," Skye said, stiffening when both Rico and Augustino turned their attention to Rafael.
"No," Syndelle said, her heart screaming with fear as she read their thoughts on their faces.
"Yes," Rafael countered, closing his mind to her and expecting that she would honor the thin barrier. Instinctively she reached for Brann and found him alert, his thoughts and will uncharacteristically absent, though she could sense there was no barrier between him and Rafael.
"This guy does kill the men, Rafael," Skye pointed out, her tone a blend of concern and mocking humor.
Rafael shrugged, sprawling once again on the couch.
Syndelle's frown deepened and the wolf stirred restlessly. Neither of them liked the idea of Rafael being in danger. Or the thought of him exposing his body to others.
Return to the compound then. There is no need to involve yourself in this human business, Brann said and immediately Syndelle felt shamed that she'd let her resolve falter, that she'd thought only of keeping her mate safe, that she'd momentarily forgotten what she'd seen and felt when she'd touched Wren's memories. Her hand moved to Rafael's and as if sensing her need for contact and reassurance, he entwined his fingers with hers.
Augustino leaned forward, studying his notes. "I think it'll be enough if you get a tattoo, just in case that's still a trigger for the guy we're looking for, and then we'll have you troll several different clubs. We don't have time to put you in one place and wait for the perp to stumble across you."
Rafe's lips quirked upward. "Not a real tattoo. I'm not into body art."
"And not the Sigil of Baphomet," Syndelle said. "Only the pentacle."
"The Sigil is the tattoo with the goat's head?" Rico asked.
Syndelle nodded, reaching for both Brann and Rafael, finding in them the same resolve with respect to the Satanist's mark.
Augustino shrugged. "Sure. No problem. At this point, I don't think it makes any difference to the perp as long as it's inverted. I'll ask some of the guys in vice what they use. They're in and out of tattoos all the time."
Syndelle felt Rafe's dismay at the prospect of going to the police station and it lightened her heart somewhat. You volunteered for this, she reminded him.
He brushed his fingertips over the back of her hand, seeing beyond her words. It'll be okay. Trust me. Compared to some of the things and situations I've encountered since becoming Brann's companion, this is easy. And it's not as though I'm in it alone.
Syndelle nodded slightly. Skye said, "Any feel for when this guy is out looking for his male victims? Big Daddy's girls work days and nights. Same with Yvonne. So our guy could have seen them anytime."
"Anytime," Rico said, "but not just anyplace. It looks like he prefers trolling along the edge-rough places, but not so dangerous that just getting out of the car is life-threatening." He shot a look at Augustino. "You got these plotted on a map?"
"Yeah." Augustino pulled out a map and spread it across the table. "Don't get your hopes up. First thing we looked for was a pentagram pattern. Blue dots are where the victims worked or were known to hang out. Red is for the body dump."
"You mind if I pencil in where the women were taken and found?" Skye asked.
"Help yourself. Use a letter. A for abduct. B for body. I'll color-code it when I get back to the station."
Skye checked her notes and marked the map. When she leaned back, they all saw it. "A circle," Rico said, "or close enough. Probably doesn't even know he's doing it. And it still covers a lot of territory."
"Maybe not," Skye said. "He's got to find places where skin's going to show. I say he approaches the men directly, solicits them, or offers drugs so they'll go with him willingly. He's not worried about showing his face. He already knows he's going to kill them. That'll knock out some of the rougher bars where the men would kill him if they thought he was coming on to them."
Rico nodded. "Any gay bars in the circle?"
"One." Skye's mouth widened into a smile. "The Hole."
"Oh, Christ," Augustino muttered. "Couldn't they have come up with something better than that?"
Rico snickered. "Case is all yours, Augustino. Enjoy yourself."
"What about other clubs?" Syndelle asked.
"Bangers, Stingers, Quaduum, Nuggets. Those are the ones I can come up with off the top of my head," Skye said. "And they're all places our victims have been, or would have fit in at."
"Let's work from there," Augustino said. "It's as good a place as any to start with."
They spent a little while longer discussing strategy and timing, then Rico and Augustino left. "So are you hanging with Syndelle and me 'til show time?" Skye asked when Rafael made no move to get off the couch.
"Give me a remote control and point me to the TV room and I'll be happy to let you two visit without me-as long as you don't leave the house. Brann'll have my ass if Syndelle goes anywhere unguarded."
Skye smirked. "Like Brann doesn't already have your ass."
