Narzel was laughing at me.

  Or he hated me, and this was his method of revenge, one ruined night’s sleep at a time.

  Shivering in Fabian because the heat hadn’t had time to get moving, I flipped on the turn signal. Early morning calls were becoming a habit, and if it kept up for much longer, I’d have to adjust my bedtime. Though, going to bed early enough to get my full eight hours would put me firmly in the old woman sleep pattern category. That would make dating tricky. Not many guys my age were keen on an eight o’clock curfew.

  I parked along the same road as yesterday and retrieved my purification supplies before heading for the police line. After a few friendly words with the officer who’d been here yesterday too and seemed truly thrilled to be back, I headed over to Mitchell.

  From ten feet away, she growled, “Just get on with it.”

  No need to tell me twice. Not ten minutes later, I’d looked at the partly-eaten deer and purified everything. Just another day in the life.

  “Same as before?”

  “Yes.”

  Mitchell swore. “Well, I don’t think you can do much more good here. Nash will pick up this body like the others, and maybe this time we’ll have enough evidence to do something useful.”

  The three officers here with her weren’t much compared to the crowd we’d attracted yesterday, and Mitchell looked like she was ready to start sleeping standing up. “Are you sure?”

  “Go before I change my mind.”

  I turned back to the cars, stashed my stuff, and debated what to do. Going home didn’t make much sense; my alarm would go off in an hour. Resigned to being at the office early again, I headed for the highway.

  At least at five, the traffic wasn’t too bad, and I could get a prime parking spot. From there, it was me, a mostly empty building, and yet more paperwork. If anyone ever cursed me to be killed by the most tedious part of my job, I’d suffocate under a mountain of paper.

  By the time everyone else was rolling into work, I’d finished the report and had moved onto reviewing all the notes on the cases. Maybe we’d missed something, or I’d find a way to track the werewolf. There had to be information that tied all of this together.

  I clicked over to page two, and my phone rang. “Agent Pine.”

  “It’s Nash. I have something you’ll want to see.” The humor and playfulness from last night had been replaced by the serious Nash I’d grown accustomed to.

  “I’ll be there soon.” I picked up an extra-strong tea on my way over. It propped open my eyes, but it didn’t stop the fatigue that reminded me I’d lost a few of hours of sleep.

  Like before, the receptionist sent me to Nash’s office alone. This time, the door was open, and I got a smile when I knocked. The pile of file boxes had been hidden under a green blanket. It must’ve been an improvement to him, because his eyes skated right over them without wincing.

  “I have useful information.” He waved a stack of papers in the air.

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  “I’m ready.” I settled into the chair across from him.

  He frowned at the stack of papers. “I need more room. This way.”

  I followed him through a few hallways to a small break room, where one person hunched over a sandwich, eating it as if it might grow legs and run away. Nash motioned for me to sit and then took the seat next to me.

  Elbows propped on the table, I watched him carefully set the pages in a tidy line. He pointed to the first one. “The purification ritual destroyed a lot of the evidence, I think because of the spells you were eradicating. I’ve examined bodies after purification before, and their systems were unaffected. So, off the dead wolf, I found elevated levels of adrenaline, even more than I would’ve expected from a fight.”

  I nodded like I understood where this was going. The man at the other end of the table finished eating and hurried away. Our conversation probably hadn’t helped his appetite.

  “In the man from Get Magic Goods, I found the same thing. The deer, their blood work came back with high adrenaline as well. I have a request in for more hormonal analysis of the deer, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

  “Now, the fey is where it gets interesting. I sent samples yesterday with a rush. They came back with elevated levels too. But if we go back to the scene at CJ’s Machine Shop, I isolated a werewolf blood sample, not the corpse but a different werewolf. That came back with tons of elevated hormones, almost everything I expected to see from someone who’d been in a fight, but at ten times those levels.” He poked a finger at the last piece of paper. “That has to be what the spell was doing.”

  “It fits with the fragments I found, though if we ever end up having to testify, I can’t say for sure what the spell was.” My eyes settled on the last paper, like I could understand all the medical terms and results listed there. “Maybe... never mind.”

  “What? Did I miss something?”

  I ran the idea through my mind again. Maybe the tracking spells hadn’t malfunctioned, but what if it had tracked the wrong thing? “Blood is great for tracking because it has a strong connection to the person. But it also has a strong connection to itself. Since I didn’t do anything to focus the tracking spell, I think it latched onto the thing most like the sample I used to create the spell. Another blood sample from a similar time frame with a unique cocktail of hormones could produce a stronger connection than the person.”

  Nash’s eyes lit up. “You need more blood samples, so you can exclude the hormonal and spell connection.”

  “Some flesh might be better, but I can work with blood samples.” With a hunk of the werewolf, I could make a spell that would tie that piece to the whole and track him that way.

  “Don’t have any flesh samples. But I have lots of blood.” Nash scooped up the papers. “And this time you’re going to watch me create the samples so there’s no doubt about the origin.”

  I followed him back to the office. “Do we know which werewolf we’re looking for?”

  “Not officially, but unofficially, I blood typed Thomas’s parents. The remains are his. Just waiting for the DNA to confirm. The other werewolf blood sample has a blood type that couldn’t have come from those two.” Nash dropped the papers on his desk. “To autopsy.”

  That turned out to be a bit of an adventure. The lab classes I’d taken in college hadn’t required this much gear. But, here I was, decked out in a lab coat, two sets of gloves, and a weird sleeve protector, with goggles strapped to my head.

  While I stood awkwardly, he scurried around, retrieving blood and setting things up on a bench top against the wall. That might’ve occupied my attention if two of the tables weren’t occupied.

  The toe tag dangled off the man from Get Magic Goods, and the green skin of the other identified him as the fey. “I thought you’d finished with the Magic Goods autopsy.”

  “Hmm?” He twisted around. “Oh, he’s a reference to see what similarities and differences I find in the fey. Never know what could solve a case.”

  “That’s the damn truth,” I muttered.

  “Narzel… I’ll be right back. Someone forgot to restock the test tubes.” He was out the door before I could say anything, leaving me alone with two bodies.

  Necromancy flowed up from my leg until it filled my head, almost like it was looking through my eyes.

  “Sweet bones of...” I should’ve read the grimoire last night.

  The power flexed. I couldn’t tell if it had stayed in my skin or if the motes of dust in the air were really motes of necromancy.

  The fey’s bloated head turned toward me. “Mistress.”

  I couldn’t look away from the death-clouded eyes. Not here, not now. This couldn’t be happening.