Fair Game aao-3 Page 6

  She should have picked someone else. Asil. Someone. But the thought of Anna with someone else sent Brother Wolf into a fit of jealous rage.

  There is no one for me except you. Anna’s quick response reminded him that he’d chosen to leave the bond between them open. He didn’t know how much she was picking up, but it was more than time to control himself.

  Charles moved past Anna and set the carriers down on the table. Pulling out the single non-coffee for Anna, he handed it to her as he watched everyone sit perfectly still and drop their eyes except for the Cantrip agents: Anna had been educating them.

  Anna moved around to the back of the table, taking a chair with no one sitting next to her. The Cantrip agents took empty chairs on the other side of the table after he warned the younger one away from Anna with a lifted eyebrow. Charles stood behind Anna’s chair.

  ‘This is my husband, Charles,’ Anna told them, her hands folded. ‘Perhaps it would be a good thing to introduce ourselves again, now that we are all here. I’m Anna.’

  ‘Special Agent Leslie Fisher,’ said the other female in the room, a black woman with intelligent eyes and a firm voice. ‘Violent Crimes Unit, FBI.’

  ‘Special Agent Craig Goldstein,’ said a slender man in his fifties. ‘On assignment to the Boston Violent Crimes Unit because I have a background with this serial killer.’

  Charles nodded to the FBI agents. Fisher’s background he knew, because he’d done background checks on all of the Boston VCU. Goldstein he’d find out more about.

  ‘Jim Pierce,’ said the only man in the room who was smiling. He aimed it at Charles. ‘Homeland Security. They send me out to gather information.’

  He’d had a pretty good idea whom they’d send in from Homeland Security because they had only eight people specializing in preternatural matters, and he had files on them all.

  Political climber, he told Anna silently, returning Pierce’s smile. Pierce’s face became a lot less happy and he pushed his chair back a few inches. On his way to public office. Do you think I should work on my smile?

  Anna glanced back at him and frowned. Behave, said his mate, seriously enough. But he read her amusement in the little upturn of her lips.

  ‘Dr Steven Singh,’ said the second Homeland agent.

  An old-fashioned patriot, Charles informed Anna after exchanging martial arts-style nods with the doctor. He’s on record as personally classifying the fae and werewolves as domestic terrorists. Charles tended to agree with him. Neither is here because they desire to help catch a serial killer. Pierce won’t have anything to add. Singh is smart enough that he might be of use, even though he doesn’t care about the crime.

  The Cantrip agents were more interesting. He didn’t know as much about Cantrip, as it was an even newer agency than Homeland Security, having come into being when the werewolves outed themselves. Though funded and authorized by the government, their role was ‘to collect and share information about nonhuman and altered human groups and individuals,’ which left them a lot of leeway. They had two main offices, one on either coast, and otherwise seemed to travel around the country to concern themselves mostly in criminal cases that involved fae, werewolves, or anything else that looked odd to them.

  His father tended to dismiss the Cantrip agents as harmless, since they had no authority to arrest or detain anyone. Charles was less sanguine, as they were one of the government agencies required to go armed at all times – and they carried guns with silver bullets. He had files on a lot of their people, but had decided to see who they sent before refreshing his memory.

  The older of the two Cantrip agents tried (and failed) to meet his eyes, then stared rather intently at Anna, which caused Charles’s hackles to rise – and Brother Wolf didn’t like him much, either.

  ‘Patrick Morris,’ he said. ‘Cantrip, special agent.’

  ‘Formerly of the FBI,’ said Ms. Fisher with a cool disapproval that said anyone who chose to leave the FBI was a fool.

  ‘Les Heuter,’ said the younger man, and abruptly became more interesting.

  Heuter is a poster child for Cantrip, Charles told Anna. His father is a senator from Texas. If someone from Cantrip is interviewed in the press, three times out of four it is Heuter. Which was one of the reasons, Charles thought, that people tended not to take Cantrip more seriously.

  He should have recognized Heuter right away, but he looked different in person, not as stalwart, impressive, or pretty, but more earnest and likable. He smelled eager, like a hunting dog waiting for the scent. Charles wondered if it was the werewolves or the serial killer that caused the young man’s adrenaline rush.

  He had a good poker face, though. Charles doubted any of the humans in the room would detect how excited Les Heuter was to be here. Charles had never been human, but he decided it must be like walking around with earplugs and nose plugs in all the time.

  Goldstein looked around. ‘People, let’s get the ball rolling.’ He looked at Charles. ‘The man who set this meeting up tells me that three werewolves weren’t likely to be victims by happenstance. According to him, there just aren’t that many werewolves out and about. He speculated that three victims has to mean that our killer is targeting werewolves and suggested we lay out all the victims from the beginning for you, Mr Smith, and see what you think before I start asking questions. In that light, I’ll tell you what we know about this one, and would appreciate anything you can give us.’

  Charles folded his arms and leaned against the wall, his attention on Anna, telegraphing as loudly as body language could that Anna was in charge.

  This was Anna’s job – if Charles had to deal with them, they’d likely run scared and start shooting werewolves themselves.

  ‘Who did set this up?’ asked Heuter abruptly.

  Goldstein turned to look at the younger man and said blandly, ‘I have no idea. The man who called me didn’t identify himself beyond that, just suggested I take notes and his advice. As most of it seemed common sense, I did so.’

  Bran, thought Anna.

  Probably, agreed Charles. Or Adam Hauptman.

  Anna met Heuter’s gaze and shrugged. ‘I know who set up our end. I have no idea who set up yours.’

  Goldstein had taken out his laptop and hooked it up to the video system in the room. He cleared his throat. ‘Agent Fisher, would you secure the door, please? Some of these images are graphic and I would rather not startle some poor maid.’

  The door was locked and Goldstein took his glasses off and cleaned them as Agent Fisher turned off the lights. When he put the glasses back on, he donned with them the mantle of authority; the faint air of weakness, of age and harmlessness, vanished. For just an instant, Agent Goldstein was a man who hunted other men, then the aura of weakness returned like another man might don a confortable old shirt.

  ‘We call our UNSUB—’ He paused. ‘That’s FBI-speak for “unknown subject,” which seems a little more professional and less hysterical than “killer” and more grown-up than “bad guy.” This UNSUB is known as the Big Game Hunter, because for the first two decades all the kills took place during the traditional hunting season. The first kill we know of was in 1975, though, given the sophistication of the killings, it is likely that he killed earlier than that.’ He looked at Anna, who must have changed expression, and said, ‘Yes. We are absolutely certain this killer is a man.’

  He hit a button and two pictures came up on the big TV screen, side by side. The first was a school photo of a teenage Asian girl – Chinese, Charles thought. She was smiling gamely at the photographer and there was a bright orange headband in her hair. The second photo was very grainy and showed a naked body, head shrouded in shadows and a white sheet or blanket flung over her hips.

  ‘Karen Yun-Hao was fourteen. She was abducted from her bedroom on …’

  Charles let the man’s voice drift; he’d remember what Agent Goldstein said later if he needed to. For now he concentrated on the faces, looking for clues, for people he had known, for victims w
ho were pack.

  The first year their killer took four girls, each a week apart. Asian and young, none over sixteen or under twelve. He kept them and raped and tortured them until he was ready to take the next victim. The FBI thought he killed one victim just before he took the next – though there was some possible overlap. As soon as hunting season was over, he stopped. The first year was Vermont, the second was Maine, where he stayed for a few years, then Michigan, Texas, and Oklahoma.

  Organized, thought Brother Wolf, ratcheting up for the chase. A good hunter took only what he needed when he needed it, and their prey was a good hunter. The killer’s victims changed gradually through the years, Asian girls and women and then, in Texas, a teenaged boy who was also Asian. The boy was the first victim who was sodomized, but after him they all were, male and female alike. The next year after that his prey was split two and two, women and boys. Then only boys. After that he added a black teenaged girl.

  ‘It’s like he’s searching for the perfect meal,’ said Anna softly – and got an appalled glance from Dr Singh that Charles didn’t think she saw; her attention was fixed on the screen. ‘He started in ’seventy-five. Maybe he was a Vietnam vet?’

  ‘The Asian victims, yes,’ said the senior FBI agent, looking even more frail than before. ‘They weren’t all Vietnamese, or even mostly. But some people can’t see the difference, or don’t care. The police already had that theory before the first time the FBI was brought into it in the early eighties. The UNSUB wouldn’t be the only one to come out of that mess with a need to kill.’

  ‘“These are the times that try men’s souls,”’ quoted Anna in a soft voice, and Charles knew she was remembering another veteran warrior.

  ‘It took more than five years for the FBI to get involved?’ asked Heuter.

  Goldstein gave the Cantrip agent a patient look. ‘Nearer to ten. First, it took a while for the police to figure out they had a serial killer, communication being what it was. Second, the FBI is not in charge of serial-killer cases. We are support staff, not primary.’ He hit a button and a new photo came up.

  ‘Here’s where we came in, the FBI – it was before my time. I first hit this case as a rookie in 2000. In 1984, the Big Game Hunter was back in Maine. This is the first victim that year, Melissa Snow, age eighteen.’

  Charles recognized her – and she hadn’t been eighteen. The next victim was a black boy, a stranger. He didn’t know the third victim, another Asian girl. This one was ten.

  Brother Wolf decided, looking at the delicate joyful face, that they would find the killer and destroy him. Children should be protected. Charles agreed, and the ghosts of the unjustly executed who haunted him withdrew further.

  ‘Those were the only three victims that we found that year, and after this year the number of bodies we found started to vary. In 1986 and ’87, we found three bodies. In 1989, there were two. In 1990, three bodies again, and so on until 2000, when several things changed, but I’ll get there in a minute. We don’t think that he’s changed how he kills. That one week interval between the first victim and the next seems pretty set. So we think he began putting the bodies in less accessible places.’

  In the next year’s group of victims, Charles recognized two of the three. He also noted that the crime scene photos were of better quality – a sign of the FBI bringing in a better photographer, he thought, or just a combination of the advance of technology and the way time degraded color film.

  Goldstein commented, ‘In 1984, two of the victims matched our UNSUB’s previous victim choice. From 1985 on out, there are no apparent patterns to the victims. Men and women, young and old. He’s still kidnapping, raping, and torturing them for a week before going after the next victim.’ He took his time, showing them each victim’s face. Charles noticed that Goldstein never had to consult his notes for the names, and that when he did go to his notes, it was usually to confirm something he’d just said. ‘The next year he started in September.’

  Charles knew three of the victims in 1985 and all of the bodies found in 1986.

  Stop him, he told Anna, deciding that the killer’s victimology was no coincidence. This is important. Go back to that first year, the one the FBI joined in the hunt.

  ‘Wait,’ Anna said, glancing down at her notes. ‘Can you go back to the victims in 1984?’

  The fae came out about that time, Charles told Anna. Melissa Snow was fae and as close to eighteen as my father is. She wasn’t out then, I don’t think, but she was fae.

  Maybe it was an accident? Anna thought as Melissa’s face, shining and happy in a family-type snapshot, appeared on the monitor next to her gray and lifeless face. The fae aren’t exactly everywhere, but it is reasonable that he picked one up by mistake.

  She wasn’t a half-breed, he told her. If someone picked her up thinking they were getting a teenaged human, they’d never have been able to keep her. She wasn’t powerful, but she could defend herself better than a human would have.

  Can I tell them that?

  Absolutely. Then have them go to the next year. Some fae have no bodies when they die. That could be why there is no fourth victim.

  Goldstein watched Anna with sharp eyes. ‘Was she a werewolf?’

  ‘No,’ Anna said. ‘Fae.’ And then she told the feds what Charles had told her.

  ‘Fae.’ Singh frowned. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’m one of the monsters, Dr Singh,’ Anna said without a pause. ‘We tend to know each other.’ It wasn’t quite a lie. ‘The question is, how would the – what did you call him? The Big Game Hunter? How would he know what she was? If he attacked her thinking she was human, she’d have escaped.’

  ‘I knew the agent who worked this case,’ said Goldstein. ‘Melissa had parents and two siblings who were ten and seven at the time. He talked to them. She was eighteen years old.’

  No parents, Charles told Anna. Or maybe they were fae as well. Or she could have taken her appearance from a dead girl. Hard to say. But I knew her … not well, but well enough to say that she was not eighteen.

  Could the victim have been the real Melissa Snow and the fae took her identity after she died?

  Anna was just covering all the bases, but it was a good question. When had he met Melissa? Years tended to blend into one another … I knew her during Prohibition, she was working at a speakeasy in Michigan – Detroit, I think – but long before the eighties.

  ‘She was fae,’ Anna said. ‘If she had parents and siblings, I suspect they were also fae. They know how to blend with society, Agent Goldstein. Apparent age has very little to do with reality when you’re dealing with the fae.’

  ‘The other two?’ Goldstein asked, though he didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘I’m not an expert on fae,’ Anna said. ‘It’s just chance that I recognized Melissa. But there are fae among the victims every year from here on out.’

  Goldstein asked, ‘Every year?’

  That would account for the lack of bodies, Charles told her. Some of the fae just fade away when they die. If the fae lost his glamour, the other fae would make sure the body never came to light.

  ‘That I’ve seen.’

  There was a growing tightness in Goldstein’s shoulders, and an eagerness in his scent that told Brother Wolf that Goldstein was thinking, adding this to all of the bits and pieces he knew about the killer, trying to see how this changed the big picture.

  Charles considered the repercussions of a serial killer who hunted fae. Surely the Gray Lords would have noticed that someone was killing their people? But they were not Bran, who protected and loved his wolves. If a fae who was not powerful and kept his head down for safety died, would the Gray Lords who ruled the fae even notice? And if they did notice, would they do anything?

  ‘Could the killer be a fae?’ That was from Pat, the Cantrip agent. ‘If he’s been killing since 1975 and he was human, he’d be using a wheelchair by now.’

  Agent Fisher frowned. ‘I know an eighty-year-old man who could take you with on
e arm tied behind his back, Pat. And if this guy was eighteen at the end of the Vietnam War, he’d be a lot younger than eighty. But most serial killers don’t last this long. They devolve or start making mistakes.’

  ‘The Green River Killer hunted for over twenty years,’ offered Pat. ‘And when they finally found him, he was a churchgoing married man with two kids and a stable job he’d had for over thirty years.’

  Goldstein hadn’t been listening; he’d been staring at Anna without really looking at her. Thinking.

  ‘I don’t think he’s fae,’ he said. ‘Not our original killer. Why else would he have waited until the fae came out to start killing them?’

  Not our original killer, thought Charles to himself.

  ‘I don’t know all of the fae personally,’ said Anna dryly. ‘Maybe they’ve been fae all along.’

  Goldstein shook his head, and Charles agreed with him when he said, ‘No. This is an escalation of the type of prey the killer hunts.’

  He’s on the scent, said Brother Wolf, watching the older FBI agent with interest.

  ‘Hunting the enemy,’ said Singh unexpectedly. ‘Say he’s a Vietnam vet. He goes home and sees Vietnamese – or Asian, which is close enough for him – on his territory. So he goes hunting, just like he did in the war. He switches to boys. Maybe it’s because he likes sex with boys better – but let’s say that it is because he finds them tougher, better hunting. And then he finds the fae – and decides they are more worthy opponents. And, like his original victims, in his eyes they are invaders.’

  ‘He’s good and he’s smart if he’s killed this many fae,’ said Anna. ‘They tend to be harder to kill than humans. Too bad he didn’t pick the wrong one; we’d never find the pieces of his body. I wonder how he managed that.’

  ‘He’s killed werewolves,’ said Heuter, unexpectedly. Charles had quit paying attention to the Cantrip spokesperson, dismissing him. ‘Aren’t they harder to kill than the fae?’

  Anna shrugged. ‘I don’t run around killing fae, myself. But anything as old as some of them are have a few tricks up their sleeves.’