Prague Murder Read Free Page B

off.
    Ingrid had caught the guy but she wasn’t strong enough to hold him up. She eased him to the ground with an, “Umph.”
    His large camera had slid off his body and Ingrid had scooped it up as she stood. Then she held her hands out in front of her. They were covered in a slick, red, substance.
    “Oh gods,” Emily said, dropping to her knees next to the guy. He was already not breathing. She found the wound in seconds. It was not small and was bleeding profusely. “Oh Hecate.”
    She felt for a pulse, but already knew she’d find nothing. This wasn’t, unfortunately, the first dead body she’d seen. She wouldn’t have expected him to die so very quickly, but the light was gone from the body. The magic. That inner something that made him— him .
    Holy gods, someone had just killed this guy. Right in front of them. How? Why?
    “Why is it always me?” Ingrid wailed, holding her bloody hands out. Cathy and Carol had gone for the leader of the tour, and he reached them a moment later, nose twitching.
    Yep, he was really a vampire. They lived off of potions. But the base of those potions was blood. Preferably magic user. If not magic user, human. If not human, predator. They also lived off of a lot of food. A lot. It didn’t happen often, but occasionally a vampire lost control and hunted people. Magic users or not.
    “What happened?” he demanded, dropping to his knees across from them.
    “I don’t know,” Ingrid said. “He fell back into me. I eased him down. He was—just—gone.”
    “Joe? Joe!” The voice came from behind them. The little birdlike woman that had caught Emily’s attention earlier flit over to them and crumpled. “Joe!”
    Her voice was a wail that seemed to pierce inside of Emily’s brain.
    “Gods, woman, tone it down,” Emily’s eyeball was twitching with the wail.
    “Everyone inside,” the tour guide said, herding people away from the body while another person emerged from the shadows to stay with the little birdlike woman and the man’s body.
    “Are you kidding me right now?” Ingrid’s voice was infuriated and panicky. “Why is it always me?”

Chapter 3
     
     
    Ingrid’s voice was an exhausted slur, but adrenaline seemed to be waking her up. “I need a sink. And all of the soap. ALL of it. Immediately,” she ordered the tour guide, who looked at her hands, swallowed—it was unclear whether he was sick to his stomach or hungry at the smell of the blood—and led Ingrid into a tiny bathroom on the edge of the wide hall. The other tour participants had lined up at the window to watch the woman cry over the body.
    Emily looked around and found Cathy and Carol standing nearby. Carol had a look on her face as she stared at the backs of everyone watching the drama unload.
    “That’s weird,” Carol said, less concerned with the death than the oddities.
    “It’s tragic and horrible,” Cathy said. Her face was white, and her lips were trembling.
    “Well…” Carol strung the word out. “He died so fast.”
    “He was stabbed,” Cathy said. “Or something like that. That means the killer must have been right there by us. We missed it. I didn’t see anything. Did you?”
    Emily shook her head, but her eyes were still on Carol.
    “He was stabbed, probably,” Carol said. “Given the blood.”
    “So?” Cathy looked around the convent and her thoughts seemed far away.
    “It takes a while to die from a stab wound. You don’t just fall down dead.”
    Emily’s head cocked and she realized that Carol was probably right. Even in the movies, it took a good half-dozen wounds to die.
    “What is going on,” Emily asked. “Why are there always bodies?”
    “Now that’s a comment that I find confusing,” Cathy said, her eyes on Emily. “What do you mean?”
    Emily wanted to punch herself in the throat. Ingrid would have been understanding. She had been covered in blood…but Emily. Emily didn’t have any reason to tell these people this was her fourth—holy