He gave me a puzzled look. “Your shoulder? You need to be careful of it. It still needs to heal.”

I shifted so that he could see my shoulder. “No, it doesn’t. It’s already healed. There’s not even a scar.”

“Let me see,” he ordered. I twisted around to show him the unmarred skin of my shoulder. I could feel small pieces of thread and flakes of dried blood around where the wound had been—blood that I’d been too exhausted to completely clean off earlier. But there was most definitely no wound anymore. No wound, no scar, no stitches, no deviation in the flesh of any sort.

He let out a low whistle. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never believe it.”

“And I’m glad you’re a witness to it.” I flexed my arm again, still not fully believing it. “How long have I been asleep?”

He glanced at his watch. “A few hours. I’d just dozed off on the couch when I heard you yell.” His mouth twitched in a smile. “Do you always wake up yelling?”

“No,” I said with a laugh, tossing a pillow at him. “But his lordiness also left me feeling fresh and rested.”

He peered into my face. “You certainly don’t look as exhausted.”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood. “I’m not. At all. I feel like I’ve slept twelve hours.” Okay, so maybe there were some advantages to these dream visits.

Ryan yawned. “Yeah, well, I don’t. I’m gonna dig out and head back to my hotel room and hope that Garner doesn’t snore too loudly.”

I gave him a withering look. “Don’t be an idiot. I have a guest room that no one ever stays in. In fact, you will probably be the first guest to ever stay there.”

“Cool,” he said, eyes crinkling. “My whining was suitably pathetic. I’ll be more than happy to christen your guest room.”

I laughed. “Go. Next door down the hall. It’s the one with the bed in it. If you get to the room with the bathtub, you’ve gone too far.”

He flashed me a grin and left. My own smile faded as he continued on down the hall and my left hand crept up to feel the unblemished skin on my shoulder.

What was this going to cost me? Rhyzkahl’s comments about marking me as his own haunted me.

Or had I already paid the price?

CHAPTER 21

The house seemed unbearably quiet after Ryan went off to get some sleep. And after standing in the foyer for several minutes, I realized that it seemed so because, up until that point, everything had been going so quickly. I finally had a chance to breathe, but at the same time I knew that I really didn’t have the luxury of time to relax. The Symbol Man was still out there, and so far I’d failed utterly to find any of the people who were next on his list.

Except the one girl, Belle, and that had not exactly gone well. The persistent sick knot in my stomach warned me how she’d probably be found.

It was early afternoon, which meant I had at least five more hours of daylight. After the experience with the demon, I wasn’t too keen on going out without backup, and Ryan would most likely sleep for at least several hours.

But there was plenty that I could do without backup. I went and took a quick shower, scrubbing the last of the dried blood off the nonexistent wound on my shoulder, then dressed in jeans and a 16th Annual Law Enforcement Torch Run T-shirt, looping my holster through my belt. I jotted a quick note to Ryan, telling him where I was going and to call me when he woke up, then I gathered up the copies of the pictures of the victims-to-be and headed to the station.

I spent the next several hours making more copies of the pics and then passing them out to the patrol guys, giving them a brief rundown of why I needed to get in touch with these people.

“I recognize a couple of these faces,” one of the officers coming on duty said, shuffling through the pics. “But I couldn’t tell you their real names.”

“Have you ever arrested any of them?” I asked eagerly.

He shrugged. “Might have. But I’m not sure when or where.”

But that gave me an idea. I thanked the officer and then called Detective Harris.

“Harris here,” he answered on the second ring.

“Harris, it’s Kara Gillian. If I send you a composite of the pics from Cerise’s house, do you think you could pass them out to the deputies over there to see if any of your guys recognize anyone?”

He was silent for a moment, then, “That’s a damn good idea, Gillian,” he said, to my intense shock. “Use the troops. Definitely. Send them over.”

I hung up the phone, bemused, then quickly emailed the collection of pics over to Harris. Finally, it felt like I was doing something. I spent about an hour typing up some notes, then shut down my computer to head back home. Ryan would probably be awake soon, and then the two of us could continue canvassing for these people.

My phone rang just as I was locking the door to my office. “Detective Gillian,” I said.

“Hey, Detective Gillian, this is Deputy Keller with the sheriff’s office. I think we found one of your people.”

“Wow, that was fast! Where are you? Which one?”

He cleared his throat. “Well, it’s not so great, really. We’re out on Highway 1790.”

Highway 1790 was a long, empty stretch through the swamp at the north end of the parish. The sick knot in my stomach tightened. “Shit. Don’t tell me.”

He sighed. “Yeah, she’s dead. Sorry.”

“I’m on my way.”

I sent a text message to Ryan and pulled up at the scene about half an hour later, just as dusk was beginning to paint the sky in shades of purple and orange. Detective James Harris was already on the scene—which I’d expected since the body was found within his jurisdiction. But I was somewhat surprised to see Agent Zack Garner there as well, standing by his car and talking on his cell phone.

He hung up as I approached. “Ryan’s on his way. He and I were grabbing dinner when he got your text, and he said he’d meet us here.”

I caught myself in time before saying something like, Oh, I figured he’d still be asleep. That would be a sure way to give people the wrong impression.

“We’ve been discussing the case most of the afternoon,” Zack continued, absently waving a mosquito away from his face.

He must not have slept long at all, I decided. But it was probably better that he not spend too much time at my house. “Come up with anything new and interesting?” I asked.

He shook his head. “He just filled me in on what happened to you two this morning.”

“Yeah, it was pretty wild,” I said, keeping my response vague since I had no idea what Ryan had told him. Which story did he give him—the demon attack, or the one we told everyone else?

Zack’s eyes met mine. “He told me what really happened,” he clarified. The flashing red and blue lights of the patrol units reflected oddly in his eyes, making them seem for an instant as if they had a reddish cast of their own. Then he smiled and the effect was gone. “Sounds dumb, but I sure wish I’d been there to see it for myself.”

“Not dumb at all,” I said, but my gaze slid to Harris. He was deep in conversation with some of the detectives from his own department. “Does he …?”

Zack snorted. “No. Hell, he wouldn’t believe it even if he saw it with his own eyes. He’d find some way to explain it.”

“That sounds about right,” I said, relieved that Harris had not also been privy to the real story. I couldn’t explain why, but I didn’t have any worries about Zack knowing the truth. I just somehow knew that he got it.

“And here comes our prodigal son,” Zack said, looking beyond me. I turned to see a dark Crown Victoria pulling to the side of the highway behind my Taurus.

Ryan exited his car and walked up to us. I noticed that he’d found the time to shower, shave, and change clothes and still managed to look fairly rested. He gave a nod to Zack, then looked at me, expression sober. “I have a bad feeling about this one.”