Dead Heat (Taz Bell Book 1) Read online

  "This morning made me change my mind," George answered in a voice that sounded - if you'll excuse the expression - haunted. "Do you remember what you said to Freemont, Taz? About why Wilson killed himself instead of trying to kill you? You said Wilson realized he'd never live long enough to finish the job, so he decided to rob his former co-workers of the opportunity to arrest him. He chose to die on his own terms, and that's what he did."

  "What about it?" I asked, feeling a chill of some kind. The car's air conditioning wasn't on so high that I ought to feel chilled, but I didn't want to think about the real reason.

  "I was watching Wilson really close, Taz, and he started to pull the trigger while the gun was aimed directly at you," George said. "He started to pull the trigger, probably meaning to keep shooting until you died with him, and then he screamed. Everyone including you seemed to think that scream was a last sign of defeat before he killed himself, but I don't agree. I think he screamed because turning the gun on himself wasn't his own idea."

  Yes, that was the real reason for the chills. If I hadn't been driving I would have closed my eyes, remembering the way Sontaag had stared at Wilson's dead body.

  I didn't know how, but I would have bet everything I owned that Sontaag was the one who had made Wilson kill himself.

  Chapter Five

  "How could anyone do that?" Freemont demanded, a glance showing me that he'd gone pale. "How could anyone force someone else to kill himself?"

  "You're asking me?" George countered with a snort. "You're the one with all the answers, Freemont, so let's toss the question back in your lap."

  Freemont just shook his head, something I could see out of the corner of my eye. It shouldn't have been possible for anyone to just force Wilson to kill himself, especially without being close to him. Or without being in a dark room somewhere, using a ritual to reach across the distance between. If George was right I needed to think about something else now, a topic that could be discussed without creating nightmares.

  "I don't believe I didn't ask this sooner, but I was too relieved to get away from the Masson area," I said. "I know we're heading east, Freemont, but you haven't said where we're going in the east."

  "We're heading for Chattanooga," Freemont answered, and the relief in his voice at the change of subject was almost painful. "We'll meet the people who have hired us there, and they'll take us to the newest crime scene. Of course, they were only hoping the newest crime scene will be found by the time we get there, but I happen to know it will be."

  "The newest crime scene," I echoed, only glancing at him. "What kind of outbreak are they having that there are previous crime scenes and are about to find another?"

  "They don't know, which is why they sent for us," Freemont said. "They don't know what's doing the killing, but they know it has to be a rogue of some sort. Our clients wanted to send for rogue hunters before this, but the politicians were trying to keep the killings quiet."

  "Typical," George said with a snort from his place in the back seat. He was also letting himself be diverted, and that was less than comforting. "If it was up to me I'd take those politicians and try them for murder. Lives could be saved if those fools ever learned to forget about their own necks and started to worry about the people who put them in office."

  George went on in the same vein, and all Freemont and I did was exchange a glance while keeping quiet. It wasn't that we didn't agree with George, it was just that what he proposed was never going to happen. Politicians were never going to change or stop acting in their own best interests, and to expect anything else was just a matter of kidding yourself.

  The scenery along route 24 was mostly open land except around the major exits. You could tell a major exit by how many fast food places and gas stations and motels the signs showed before the exit. The traffic wasn't bad and moved at a steady 75, except for the occasional "careful" driver in the righthand lane or the jerk in a hurry in the left. It was a nice drive, and we even went through a section of Georgia before it became Tennessee again.

  We had to shift to route 27 before we got where we were going. We left the highway at MLK Boulevard and were in the middle of a city, and the diner we wanted wasn't far from the exit past a large hotel on the left. Freemont had used his cell phone to call our clients when I took the exit, so they were outside the diner and waiting for us when I pulled into the small parking lot.

  One of the two men was tall and thin and one was tall and heavy, both wearing jeans and T-shirts and boots. The thin one was also wearing a hat very much like a Stetson, but the other was bareheaded. They also both looked frightened, and when I pushed the button to lower my window the heavier man came over to bend and peer into the car.

  "Bell and Freemont, right?" he asked. "You made good time gettin' here."

  "Bell, Freemont and Lees," I corrected. "Our other partner is in the back seat. Which of you is Fred Dayton and which Neal Lassiter?"

  "I'm Dayton, he's Lassiter," the heavy man muttered, throwing a thumb back toward his companion in a distracted way. He was busy trying not to stare at George, but wasn't quite making it. He hadn't gone pale at seeing George, but he also wasn't all that far from it.

  "We just got word that they found the latest body," Lassiter said after coming a couple of steps closer. "We have friends on the force so we know what's goin' on, and I can tell you we don't like it. We let the politicians know that if they try to keep you folks out of it we'll go to the media with the whole story."

  "So they're goin' to let you take a look," Dayton added as he straightened up. "They're not real happy about bringin' in outsiders, but this makes the fourth body and they still don't know what's doin' the killin'. We'll lead off and you just follow along behind."

  "Right now the reward is fifty thousand dollars," Lassiter put in as Dayton headed for a dark blue Buick. "Once word gets around about this latest killing the amount will probably go up."

  And with that he turned and followed his friend toward the car.

  "That's more than usual for a bounty," Freemont said softly. "I have a feeling I'd know why if I lowered my shields all the way, but something inside doesn't want me to lower them."

  "Then take the something's advice," I said, driving over to where the Buick now waited for me at the edge of the parking lot. "We'll have the details soon enough, so save your strength - and stomach - for the hunt itself."

  Freemont sighed, and I knew from experience that it was a very complicated sigh. Freemont knew his strengths and weaknesses and usually didn't try to fight his nature, but every now and again he decided that he really ought to try to be more like George and me. The urge to be what he considered a "full partner" was coming more often lately, and one of these days Freemont was going to push himself past a point where he really ought to stop. If that happened there would be trouble, but I hadn't yet figured out a way to head the trouble off.

  The Buick led us back to a highway that turned out to be 27 again, and it wasn't long before we left the city behind. Ten minutes later there was an exit without all kinds of food and gas signs, and the exit put us on a county road with nothing but fenced in open country all around. We turned off the county road onto a fairly wide but deserted dirt road that didn't seem to have a name or a number, but a short distance up the road it stopped being deserted. Police cars and emergency vehicles said we'd reached the crime scene.

  "It looks like it's going to rain," Freemont said, glancing up through the windshield as I pulled over next to the Buick and behind the official vehicles. "If there's a trail to follow we'd better get right to it, Taz."

  "If there's a trail to follow I'll tell you all about it right away," I said, turning off the car after opening the driver's window. "If the rain starts before I get back, please use your own key to close the window again."

  "Yes, yes, all right, I'll stop telling you the obvious and you can do the same with me," he grumbled. "And don't worry, I won't leave the car unless you say I can."

  I nodded before ge
tting out of the car, pretending that I still didn't know if Freemont would be able to get closer to the body. Considering the smells already coming to beat me over the head, even some of those who were supposed to be close to the body weren't having an easy time of it. More than one person had been throwing up, and that smell added to the rest was coming close to making my own stomach twist and complain.

  Turning away from the direction of where everyone else was for a moment let me take a careful deep breath. It was the last deep breath I'd be able to take for a while, so I enjoyed it as much as possible. Most of the time I tried to pretend that I couldn't hear or smell things the people around me didn't, but that wasn't possible when it came time to work. It was part of my job to get everything I could from a work situation, and pretending to be human again had to wait until work was over.

  Dayton and Lassiter waited for George and me next to their car. Once we started walking toward the place where all the smells grew worse, the way the two men tried not to stare past the patrol cars said they had no interest in seeing what now took everyone's attention. Even the sight of George floating beside me didn't bother them as badly, and then we were up to the place where a uniformed officer waited.

  "Mort, this here is the rogue hunters we told you-all about," Lassiter said to the officer as we stopped in front of him. "Bell and … Lees. We'll go back to the car to wait on 'em."

  "Don't blame you none, Neal," the officer said to Lassiter after nodding to Dayton. Most of his attention was on me and George, though. "You sure you want to go over there, girl? It ain't a real pretty sight."

  "At least there's only one victim down," I said to the big man, needing to make him understand that I wasn't just a casual tourist. "The last rogues I caught up to had a dozen or more, but they were ghouls so their kills were neater."

  "Neater," the man echoed as he shook his head. He'd also glanced at George, and that glance helped him make up his mind. "Okay, hold on."

  He turned and called out to someone named Ed, and another, younger officer walked over. This one wasn't as big as Mort, but the steady look in his light eyes said he was just as effective at doing his job.

  "Ed, this here's the rogue hunter they said was comin'," Mort told him. "Keep her company over to Granger."

  "No problem, Mort," Ed answered, keeping his face expressionless while his glance took in every inch of me. "This way, ma'am."

  I thanked Mort with a nod before following Ed, George floating along beside me. The closer to the actual murder scene we got the heavier the stink grew, but this close up I wasn't the only one who noticed. Most of the men and women standing around were pale, that and shaky. One of the men, a detective, noticed our approach, and his stare was a lot less hostile than I'd been expecting.

  "These the rogue hunters?" the man asked my police escort, a flickering glance in George's direction after a closer inspection of me.

  "Taz Bell and George Lees," I answered after Ed simply nodded. "Our third is still in the car and won't be coming closer."

  "Granger Allen," the detective answered, offering me his hand. "A week ago I would have run you off before you messed up my investigation, but now… I just hope you can give us some help."

  I took Granger Allen's hand, and his grip would have been uncomfortable if I'd been human. He wasn't all that big, under six feet by an inch or so, but his shoulders were broad under his blue suit jacket and he had no paunch. He had sandy brown hair and dark brown eyes, and might have been attractive if he hadn't looked so drawn. He also let go of my hand pretty fast, making me believe that the strength in his grip hadn't been a challenge. Only distraction caused by worry.

  "Helping out is what we're supposed to be here for," I answered after taking my hand back. "Can we see the body now? We were on the job in New York, so I know how to keep from messing up a crime scene."

  "Good, that's good," Allen said, not quite rambling but kind of close. Then he used one hand to gesture behind him. "The body's over there."

  The fact that he didn't offer to go with us said that he probably couldn't handle another look himself. Ordinary bodies don't bother seasoned police all that much, so his reaction said that this one was bad. I found out just how bad once I'd walked the ten feet over to where someone was collecting forensics.

  The victim was male by what was left of his clothing, husky and broad and probably hadn't been all that old. It was hard to see if there was gray in his dark hair because of all the blood, and for once I was glad that people had thrown up in the area. The smell of spilled blood and ruptured intestines was very strong, but with the scent of vomit lacing through everything else there was nothing attractive about the first smells.

  And that helped me look at the body with sadness instead of hunger. The dead man's throat had been ripped open, one source of all that blood but not the only source. There was nothing left of the man's face but ribbons of skin hanging from slashed flesh, and the eyes were completely gone. Empty sockets stared sightlessly at the graying day, the mouth partially open as if in protest. The stomach had also been ripped open and most of the man's insides were gone, but the chest and thighs had no more than a bunch of deep puncture wounds which had also bled.

  "Taz, why does that body look familiar?" George asked from where he hovered to my left. "Not the body itself, but the way it was killed?"

  I'd been wondering that myself until I remembered, but the black woman crouching near the body looked up before I could answer George.

  "If the wounds look familiar it's probably because you've seen shapeshifter kills before," the woman said, her voice perfectly calm and businesslike. "I can't figure out what kind of shapeshifter, but I know damned well it's one of them."

  The woman was the one who had been collecting forensic evidence, and the fact that she didn't look pale at all made me think she might be the coroner.

  "I'm sorry to disagree with you, but I have seen these kinds of wounds before and it was no shapeshifter," I said. "You remember the time, George, about three and a half years ago. We cordoned off the area and did a house to house search, and when we finally found it we lost two uniforms before we managed to kill it."

  "Of course!" George exclaimed. "I remember now. It was a harpy."

  "A harpy?" the woman echoed, her frown intense. "It couldn't be. We don't have harpies in this country."

  "We do when someone smuggles in an egg," I countered. "That's what happened the last time, and the idiot who did the smuggling was the first victim. We found his body in the apartment after we killed the harpy, and we were lucky. The harpy was still young, so what it had eaten not long before made it sluggish. That's why we lost only two men before we killed it."

  "Are you absolutely sure about that?" Detective Allen demanded from only a few feet behind me. "That what killed this man was a harpy?"

  "If it wasn't, then it's someone trying to make it look like a harpy kill," I answered, turning to face the man. "Birds will go for the eyes first, and you can say that harpies are part bird. It might have scraped the eyes out with its talons and that's why the man's face is so messed up. You can see where the talons dug in while it ate the victim's insides. It stood on his chest and on his thighs while it fed."

  A couple of the uniforms who heard me turned and hurried away, but all Detective Allen did was pale a little more. A tough man, Granger Allen.

  "You really do see it all in the Big Apple," Allen said, his voice only a touch breathy. "No wonder you're so good at what you do. You don't look bothered even a little."

  "I'm bothered," I said, keeping my face and eyes as expressionless as possible. "I just have more experience with this kind of stuff than you guys do."

  I wasn't lying about being bothered, but what bothered me wasn't what Allen thought. I'd thrown up along with almost everyone else at that first scene, but these days mangled and shredded bodies didn't affect me in the same way. These days only that now-stronger smell of vomit was keeping me from going closer to the body to find out if it was still war
m. Yes, I'd say I was bothered.

  "Is the harpy likely to have walked away rather than flown?" Allen asked, deliberately making himself concentrate on business. "I mean, is there a chance there's a trail for a dog to follow?"

  "It would have walked only if it was hurt, I think, and there's very little chance it was hurt." I would have enjoyed giving Allen a better answer, but I didn't have one. "I don't really know that much about harpies beyond what they like to eat and how hard they are to kill, but you might check around to see who was out of the country in the last six to eight months. Or who might have gotten a fragile package around that time."

  "That's two leads I didn't have before you got here," Allen said with a smile that tried to look friendly. "I'll follow up on them right away, but I'd first like to ask if you're goin' to be around for a while. If we're goin' to find the thing we'll probably need all the help we can get."

  "Oh, I'll be around," I assured him. "There's a good chance our other partner will be able to get a feel for where the harpy is, and if he does then I'll need your help. I'm talented, Detective Allen, but not talented enough to take a harpy alone."

  "Your other partner is a sensitive?" Allen asked, his interest now increasing. "How soon do you think he'll get something?"

  "There's no telling, but it won't be around here," I answered. "There's still too much - garbage he can pick up, like details of the man's death. My partner is strong, but no sensitive is strong enough to handle something like that."

  "No, of course not," Allen agreed, then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a card. "Here are the numbers where you can contact me day or night. As soon as you get something, please let me know."

  "You can count on it," I said, taking the card and slipping it into the pocket of my slacks after glancing at it. "Now I'd appreciate it if you'd recommend a good motel in this area. Preferably a place that has a sitting room as well as beds."