“Oh, no ma’a—Inspector. In fact, I’d love to take you to dinner while you’re in town.”

Now that surprised me. I eyed the kid—okay, he was definitely a man, but he was a very young one. And a cute one. But he was simply too young—I’d feel guilty if I started a short affair with him. Still, I was flattered. And I had to give him credit for his nerve. He might have been uneasy about facing a magical creature, but I had walked in and taken over the scene, and he’d asked me out before he even knew my first name. Ballsy.

“Thanks but—” I stopped. The kid’s gaze had dropped from my face, but he didn’t look like he was undressing me with his eyes. It was more like he was navigating a particularly hard puzzle. I glanced at the bandolier of vials slung across my chest, each vial containing a nasty magical cocktail. Then there were a set of throwing stars as well as two sets of throwing daggers—all enchanted—and my tactical belt filled with more vials, customized spelled darts for my crossbow, more weapons I’d picked up over the years, and some basic necessity charms like a spell checker and a lie detector. And that was just what was visible where my jacket gaped open. It was part of my regular hunting attire, so I rarely thought about how unusual so many weaponized spells could appear. Which is why my weapons and gear are hidden by spells. He shouldn’t have noticed them.

Except he had.

“What do you see?”

The young officer jerked his gaze upward, as if he’d only now realized he’d been staring in the general area of my breasts. He cleared his throat, and if he’d had a lighter complexion, I would have sworn he blushed. “I, uh, I was looking at your weapons—the spelled ones. I’ve never seen a . . . display like that. But, uh, you needed the key to the cruiser.”

He held it out. I accepted the key but shook my head. “You’re not going to slip away that easy, kid.”

“Russell.”

“Huh?”

“My name, it’s Russell. Russell Lancaster.”

I nodded to acknowledge the name. A few minutes ago I wouldn’t have bothered remembering. The last two minutes had changed that. But there was still one more test. I pulled a vial from my bandolier. “What can you tell me about this?” I asked as I passed the vial to him—carefully.

“Whoa, this . . .” He made a face and moved the vial so he held it between two fingers. “It feels like fire, only hotter. More destructive.”

I didn’t try to stop the smile that tugged at my lips. It was a real one after all, and those were rare. Russell stumbled back at my expression. It may have been a real smile but it must have been one of my more predatory. The vial shook in his fingers and I grabbed it from him before he dropped it. Now that would have been a mess.

“You’re a good sensitive,” I said, taming my smile into something I hoped looked professional. I didn’t do professional often. “Are you interested in a little work on the side? I might be able to use you on this case.” Or I might not, but it was always good to have a sensitive waiting in the wings.

“Sure.” Russell leaned back, one hand moving to his belt. “Let’s swap phones and program our digits.”

Not happening. I carried only an emergency phone with me on hunts. It had one programmed number: Derrick’s. Two people call in, Derrick and my boss back at MCIB. No one else. It was a safety precaution. A phone going off at the wrong time could prove deadly in my profession.

I did have a regular cell back at the hotel, but I wasn’t about to give Russell the number. I had enough trouble with my mom calling me at all hours—she could never keep up with which time zone I was in—I did not need random calls from a rookie officer with the CYPD.

“How about you just write down your number.”

Russell’s posture deflated, but he was smart enough not to try to insist. Pulling out a small memo pad from his pocket, he scribbled his number and handed it across to me. I glanced at it long enough to ensure it was legible before tucking it away. With a nod, I ended that portion of the conversation and turned back to the task at hand.

The victims. Then the creature.

“Stick around, Russell. Your sensitivity to magic might come in useful as I examine these guys,” I said, and unlocked the cruiser door, unsure of what I’d find inside.

I stepped back from the officer who’d been in the driver’s seat of the cruiser. “I don’t see a mark on her.”

“They’re all like that,” Agent Tayler said, joining me in the street.

The female officer’s gaze didn’t lift with our words. She just continued to stare blankly at the ground. She didn’t even bother to wipe her tear-soaked cheeks, which glistened in the streetlights. She just stood there as if she were empty. The biggest response I’d received from her had been a half shrug when I’d asked where she’d been hurt.

Still, all of that was better than the two men—they were so locked away in their own heads that I hadn’t been able to talk either out of the car. I frowned, thinking about what Derrick had told me about the hospitalized victims.

“These guys are headed toward catatonic, aren’t they?”

Agent Tayler nodded in answer, and we stood in silence.

Damn, what kind of creature is haunting this town? I shook my head. I hadn’t encountered anything like this before. Of course I was getting only portions of the picture. A few more pieces and maybe I’d start recognizing something.

“You sensing anything, Officer Lancaster?” I asked, glancing at Russell.

His face filled with opposing lines as he scrunched his brow while frowning. I started to tell him not to hurt himself, but stopped before opening my mouth. He was a big boy. Surely he knew the limits of his abilities.

After a moment he huffed out a breath and stepped back. “It . . . I can’t explain exactly. It is kind of like they have magical . . . holes.” He shook his head and again stepped back. “Something was taken.”

Yeah, their will to exist. I didn’t say it aloud though. No point stating a guess. If I was wrong, that was all anyone would ever remember.

Nodding, I turned on my heels and headed toward the barricade. Agent Tayler and Officer Lancaster both hurried to keep up. Tayler I expected, but it was time for the officer to go back to the other cops unless he wanted a crash course in monster hunting. He seemed to realize that as well because his steps became shorter, slower, until several yards stretched between us.

“Hey,” he said, stopping completely, “when should I expect—”

I cut him off. “If I need a sensitive, I’ve got your number.” I turned to Agent Tayler. “I’m going behind your barricade. Will you or your fellow agents be joining me?”

Tayler’s eyes narrowed, making them small and dark in the moonlight. He’d taken the question as a challenge, which, admittedly, it was. Of course, all he saw was an average-looking woman in leather—he couldn’t see that I was armed to the teeth.

He met with his partner, exchanging words too quiet for me to hear. Then he said something into a two-way radio before turning back to me.

“Ready?” I asked, already knowing the answer before his sharp nod.

It was time to go behind the safety point. Now, just to hope their little trap had caught something.

—

Well, as I suspected from the beginning, it was a badly constructed trap. Or maybe they were just unlucky. Either way, the ABMU guys—a third had joined us from the opposite barricaded entrance—and I searched every dark inch of that street.

I held my spell checker out in front of me, focusing on the shadows. The small bead in the center didn’t light up—neither, I noticed, did the two ABMU agents’ detectors. The irony of the situation was that the spell checkers had a range of only a foot or two and could tell me nothing more than if a spell was malicious or not, but back behind the barricade was a sensitive whose range was likely several yards and who could not only sense the nature of a spell, but also what it did, if Russell was half as good as he appeared to be. As the tool was available, I was sorely tempted to use it, but I didn’t want to put the kid in danger. It wasn’t his job to hunt monsters. It was mine.

Once it became painfully clear there was nothing to find, I put away my spell checker and said good-bye to the agents. They stayed behind, still searching. And I hoped they would find something—I didn’t actually think they would, but best of luck to them. If they made any discoveries, either Derrick or I would learn of it soon enough.

I cruised the streets of Central York for an hour or two, watching the shadows. I saw nothing unusual and no more sightings were announced by the dispatcher. As late rapidly changed to early, I turned the Hummer around. This town didn’t have a hotel, so I had a ways to go before I would reach my bed. The hunt would just have to wait until tomorrow night.

This case might take longer than I’d hoped.

—

I stopped in front of the connecting door between Derrick’s and my hotel rooms. Our habit was to keep the doors open when we were awake and working a case, but his was still stubbornly closed. Considering I was the one who’d spent the last three nights out on fruitless hunts, he should have been up before me. Hell, even when I wasn’t hunting through the night he was up before me. There was only one situation in which he slept in: when he had a premonition.

Using a simple spell I carried in a ring, I unlocked the door and entered Derrick’s room. The curtains were drawn tight, casting most of the room in deep shadows. The only light poured out of the doorway where I stood; it was just enough to frame Derrick’s form in the bed. At a glance I knew I hadn’t woken him, and I stole a moment to admire the toned flesh on display. We were partners, so I’d never let him see me look at him like that, but damn, the man was gorgeous. The sheets were his—sultry red—and as usual, he slept in the buff.

He’d had a rough night if the twisted and fallen sheets were any indication. Of course that left only more—as in nearly all—of him on display. My gaze stole several moments to glide over the sleek muscles of his back, down to the half-covered outline of his ass, and then onward over the sheet until his strong legs reappeared. He was a thing of beauty—and that wasn’t just my relationship-starved hunger talking. Constantly traveling for cases wasn’t conducive to finding—or keeping—a boyfriend. With a sigh I also noted the signs of distress in my partner’s sleeping form: the way one arm covered his face, the shimmer of sweat on his skin, and the clenched fists.