Witch Hunt, A Paranormal/Urban Fantasy (The Maurin Kincaide Series) Read Free Page B

outside Matthison’s office was pretty quiet, despite the brutal murder that had occurred. Salem didn’t have a high murder rate and a case like this, involving any faction of the Council, didn’t usually hit a detective’s desk. I would have expected more of a commotion. Someone slammed a phone down. I looked around to see who it was. I saw Masarelli grab his coat off the back of his chair and sprint for the door. The only problem was that I was in his way. He could have gone to his right - around another desk - but chose instead to barrel straight into me. I tried to move out of his way, but he still managed to clip me with his shoulder. My hip hit the desk next to me and my mug crashed to the floor.
    “You’re an asshole!” I shouted to his back. He gave me the finger and was out the door. I looked down at the broken pieces of my coffee mug; half the witch on a broomstick that made up SPTF’s badge stared back at me from the shards of ceramic. And then it clicked. Masarelli was going to another crime scene. I looked up to find Matthison standing in his doorway.
    “You and Mahalia are coming with me.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket and walked out.
    Mahalia and I were right behind him. I was hoping that she was going to speak up and say that it wasn’t necessary for us to go to the crime scene. They weren’t really my thing. You’d think after the Triad and the whole demon army thing that a little crime scene wouldn’t bother me, but it still did. In the heat of battle, everyone feels invincible; crime scenes have the opposite effect. It’s like they remind you of your mortality, even for those of us who are supposed to be immortal. Nothing is truly immortal, there is always a way to kill it. Even the immortals. Ironic.
    There were at least half a dozen police cars, all with their lights still flashing, by the time we pulled up to the Witch Hi story Museum. I can’t recall the last time we had a serial killer in Salem. Matthison parked behind Masarelli’s unmarked Impala. Yellow police tape was everywhere. Barriers were already set up to keep the media and onlookers back. We got out and followed Matthison, since he was the only one of us with the credentials to get behind the tape.
    The body was sprawled out across the front steps of the museum. Flashes from the crime scene photographer’s camera lit up the darkening evening sky. I rubbed my eyes to get the flash burn out. As the body came back into focus, its delicate curves and small frame told me that the second victim was also a woman. Shit. A pattern was forming. My heart skipped a beat as I wondered if this time it would be a witch that I knew. ‘Please don’t let it be Amalie,’ I thought.
    Matthison was bent over the body. He looked up and waved me over. I held my breath, not because of the smell, it was too soon and too cold for that, but because I was afraid of whom it would be. As I got closer, I saw the hair and relief washed over me. Jet-black hair with red tips fanned out from the pale face. I examined her fine yet striking features, trying to figure out if I had ever met her before. I fought the urge to look away when I realized that her eyes had been sewn shut. Matthison drew my attention to her exposed chest and the carving across her stomach.
    ‘Witches deserve the heaviest punis hments above all criminals of the world’. The letters were small and neat, as if the killer had used a scalpel or something similar.
    I was struggling with the killer’s lo gic. Witches deserved the harshest punishment? Really? I could think of several people, the killer included, who were capable of worse things than any witch that I knew had done.
    Whatever the logic, the point of these messages was crystal clear. The person who was doing this hated witches. The choice in victims so far meant that the killer was attacking the coven from the bottom up. We were dealing with a fanatic - an extremist - and that worried me more than having a murderer