That wasn't me.

Not me.

Never.

7

While Robin recuperated, plotting and planning things for me that would make Hugh Hefner cry for his mommy, I ended up in an abandoned warehouse. I'll say it again. … It sounded trite, and, hell, it was, but one phone call from Promise had sent Niko and me to one. According to any mystery or cop show, these rat-infested, echoing places are a dime a dozen. They're not, but you can find one if you put your mind to it. Sawney had. How did I know?

Bones.

Chains and bloody bones.

Like wind chimes, they hung high from the rafters. But no wind would make them sing. The skeletons were held together with ligaments and thin stretches of overlooked flesh, just enough meat to keep them intact. Either Sawney had planned it that way or he hadn't been as hungry as he'd thought. And they weren't bodies of the homeless. He wasn't being careful. Not yet. He was still enjoying himself way too goddamn much.

I looked up to see a stained bike that hung beside a small skeleton. There was a silver sparkle banana seat, a basket blooming with bright plastic flowers, and shiny brown hair tied around the handles like streamers.

That had had nothing to do with hunger. That was evil, pure and simple.

"How did Promise know this was here?" I dropped my eyes to the floor and the large dried patches of brown on it. It had been hours at the very least, this morning or last night. Three sets of remains, two adults and one child. A family … a bike. It had probably been the previous evening. A mom and dad taking their little girl for a bike ride in one of the parks. Katie, Sarah, Maddie…Katie. Yeah, Katie, a tomboy with freckles and brown hair in a long ponytail.

"A friend of a friend." Niko had knelt to touch a light finger to the largest pool of dried blood as I wrenched my thoughts back to the here and now. "Arelative of a friend rather. Flay's sister told her."

Flay was a werewolf acquaintance of ours. Once an enemy, he was now…hell, I had no idea what he was now. Not an enemy, but not precisely a friend either. He was long gone from New York anyway, so it didn't much matter what label you slapped on him. He was on the run from the Kin, the werewolf version of the Mafia. If he showed his furry ass in the city again, he was dead—the kind of dead that would have the human La Cosa Nostra sitting up in admiration and taking notes like a dedicated college freshman.

"Flay has a sister?" I drifted away as I began to look for more bodies. Sawney might not have hung them all up. He might've gotten tired of playing his festive little games. "A scary proposition." Flay was many things—unbelievably strong, murderously quick, a talented fighter—but he was one homely son of a bitch. No, that wasn't true. He wasn't ugly, but he was unusual, damn unusual. Exotically strange enough to draw anyone's eye.

"Do not judge." Gray eyes mocked. "We cannot all be the vision you are." He stood. "They've been dead awhile, that is clear. What isn't as clear is where they came from."

The warehouse was near the piers. It wasn't the most likely place for little girls to ride their bikes. And transporting three bodies some distance in the city would be a trick for even a homicidally clever bastard like Sawney. He couldn't put them under his arm and shamble along. Even in this city, that would be noticed. I shook my head. "No telling." There were several islands of stacked crates, but no other bodies that I'd seen yet. "Why is Flay's sister helping us? For that matter how'd she know we needed help?"

"Promise put out the word in the community with Sangrida putting up some of the museum's money as a reward for information. They can't justify a fee for tracking down a supernatural serial killer of course, but can offer rewards for the damage done to the exhibit. Creative accounting." Nik kept scanning the area. "Some wolves stumbled across the bodies a few hours ago. Kin wolves. This is a Kin warehouse, although they only use it off and on. Delilah is Kin in good standing, unlike her brother. Once she heard what had been found, she contacted Promise. As to why?" He headed toward the other side of the interior. "Money, and we did save her nephew's life or did you forget?"

Not likely. I still had the little fuzz-butt's bite marks scarring my calf to remember him by. It did surprise me  that this Delilah would be grateful enough to act on it, but there was the money. The Kin did love their money. It was still risky for her, though. We weren't loved by the Kin any more than Flay was, but while Nik and I were considered enemies of the Kin, we didn't hold the special place in their vengeful hearts that Flay did. Flay had betrayed his Alpha to outsiders. If there were a worse crime to a wolf, I didn't know what it was.

"Kin will be back to clean up the area soon enough, so we need to be quick." The Kin didn't like their territory violated or conspicuous. And it didn't get much more conspicuous than bodies hanging from the ceiling. Niko had moved out of sight behind a far tower of crates, and seconds later he rapped out my name, "Cal."

The tone was enough to let me know he'd found something interesting. My gun was already in my hand and had been since I'd entered the building. I loped after Nik, seeing what he'd found so intriguing the moment I rounded the crates. It was a van. With its side door open and dried blood within and without, we'd discovered how Sawney had transported the bodies. It was so mundane, not to mention inexplicable. "Okay, Cyrano, riddle me this," I said. "How the hell does a Redcap from the fourteen hundreds know how to drive a goddamn van?"

He frowned under his hawkish nose. "That is an excellent question." As he clambered into the back, I opened the passenger door and leaned in the front for a whiff. Huh. Now, that was damned peculiar. "Revenant," I announced aloud. Revenants weren't what legend made them out to be … legend never got it right, but I could see how easily it had been to go wrong with these slimy pieces of shit. They weren't the dead returned to life—unpleasant, rotting life—but they did give an amazing imitation. Revenants weren't human and had never been, but they looked damn close to a man … if that man had been dug from a not-so-fresh grave. It wasn't difficult to see how someone had made the mistake. With milky white eyes, clammy slick flesh, and a black tongue, they weren't nature's prettiest or proudest moment.

"It seems Sawney is recruiting a new family." Niko finished examining the van and vaulted back out. "Logical. There are no other Redcaps in New York, and revenants, like Sawney, do not particularly care if their meals are alive, dead, or decomposing."

"And revenants can drive." They'd been around New York nearly as long as there had been people. With a coat and a hat or a hooded sweatshirt, they could pass to the casual glance through a car window. I'd seen them do it, and it was the last cab ride you were likely to take. Finding nothing in the front, I stepped back and shut the door. "I wonder why they didn't stick around here. It's not a cave, but it's empty and there's plenty of room to keep leftovers." To keep more little girls and their mommies and daddies. "Even if the revenant knew it was Kin, I can't see Sawney giving a shit. A few wolves would be a snack and rug combo to him. Dine and decorate in one shot." Something glittered by my foot and I crouched to pick it up with my left hand. It was a barrette, gold and yellow. The little girl's last touch of sun. It had the caustic humor lying like lead on my tongue.

"The revenants may have known. And they would've known that if a few Kin wolves went missing here, the rest would come en masse," Niko conjectured as he watched me put the barrette in my pocket.

"Too much light."