Eternal. V.K. Forrest

Her tone was even crisper than his. She needed to send him on his way as quickly as possible.

      “Baltimore has jurisdiction.” He repeated it as if he thought she was too stupid to understand the first time.

      It was Ian’s voice, and yet not quite his voice. The Highland burr was gone. In its place was an authoritative American antagonism.

      “I’m pretty clear on the jurisdictional lines,” she responded. She was back on her game now, knew she could think her way through this.

      Did you call the wrong phone number, Uncle Sean? Does Uncle Bill know this ass is here? Uncle Bill’s office called my office and spoke with my boss directly. “The mistake must have been made in your office.” Fia never broke eye contact with the agent. She gave him her best condescending smile. “I guess you better call in, see where the snafu in your office was. Arrangements were made before I left Philadelphia. I believe it was a special request through Senator Malley’s office.”

      Ah, now, I didn’t know what to do. Who to call. Her uncle’s thoughts were shaky. Emotional. Gair said it couldn’t be handled from inside. Not with Bobby dead in the post office. A federal building and all. Gair said we’d have to take our chances. Sean pressed the heel of his hand to his barrel chest. Jezus, I got heartburn.

      Special Agent Duncan hadn’t moved. He just stood there, frowning. She didn’t blame him for being PO’d. Had the tables been turned, she’d have been as mad as hell to have him walking in on her crime scene. But no one was getting any slack from her, not today, not ever.

      She turned her full attention to her uncle, making an event of removing a small notepad and pen from her pocket. The other agent flipped open his cell and walked away.

      “Let’s start at the beginning, Chief Kahill,” Fia said. Just answer the questions I say aloud, with verbal responses, Uncle Sean. “Who found the body?”

      I…I’ll try. “One of my officers. His…Bobby’s wife called in ’bout six this morning. Said Bobby called her around seven last night saying he was going to work late. But he never arrived home.” You know Bobby. He likes to diddle Mary Dill, Tuesday nights. They have a regular arrangement. Only he never made it there, either. I called and checked. “So I sent Patrolman Mahon Kahill over.”

      “After the call came in at the station at 6 A.M., you sent Patrolman Kahill directly to the post office?”

      “To check on Bobby, that I did.” Had no idea. Thought maybe the fool had gotten drunk, just fallen asleep or some nonsense. Missed his date with Mary.

      Again, Fia heard the emotion in her uncle’s thoughts.

      Had…had I known, I’d never have sent the kid. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t. Where to even start looking for the head.

      Looking for the head?

      She gripped her pen. She could hear the Baltimore agent talking on his cell, his voice sharp. But he was still close enough to monitor her and Uncle Sean’s conversation if he wanted to and she had to be careful.

      Looking for the head? She couldn’t shake the thought.

      She’d forgotten how challenging it could be to have a conversation with or for the benefit of a human, while carrying on a mental conversation with another vampire.

      “And…and what did Patrolman Kahill tell you he discovered when he came looking for the deceased? I assume he radioed in,” she said. Of course, Bobby had to have been decapitated. It was the only way to kill a vampire. But his head was missing? How had that information not been conveyed through her office? And where was Bobby’s head?

      “Ye want to see where it happened, do ye?” Sean pointed beyond the lobby, toward the back. I didn’t know what else to do, Fee. Didn’t even know where to start. His wife was so upset. Mary, too. Hardest visits I’ve had to make in four hundred years.

      “We can go have a look,” Fia agreed. “But I’ll still need your full statement. I can get it later, though, back at the station.” She glanced in the direction of the open door. “In the back room?”

      “Right through here. Back door into the alley was unlocked, it was, so anyone could have gotten in. Not that locks—”

      Be careful what you say, Uncle Sean. The human is listening, Fia warned.

      “…Not that locks mean much. Not these days, they don’t,” Sean bumbled.

      “You’re not serious,” the Baltimore agent barked into his phone.

      Fia glanced over her shoulder at the Ian imposter as she followed her uncle into the large, open mail-sorting room. She halted as all at once the smell of burnt human flesh filled her nostrils and the meaning hit her again. Bobby was really dead. Her stomach did a somersault. Oh, Bobby…

      There was a large charred spot on the floor. Blackened goo still puddled haphazardly, blood, tendons, sinew, muscle, and ligaments melted, burnt, and gluey. A gelatin of what had probably been paunch fat had bubbled on the floor and pooled into a translucent smudge.

      “We didn’t know whether we should clean that up, we didn’t,” her uncle apologized.

      Fia patted his arm, thinking old men shouldn’t have to deal with this. She let her gaze drift over the scattered ashes that had obviously been paper. Envelopes. Newspapers. Mail…She could smell the accelerant, gasoline probably.

      You’re sure the head isn’t here somewhere? She moved a piece of charred paper with the toe of her boot.

      I’m sure. Not the head or the feet.

      She stared at him. “His feet are missing? Sweet God—” The words were out of her mouth before she realized she was speaking out loud in response to something Sean had said silently. Glancing over her shoulder in the direction of Agent Duncan’s voice, she just hoped he wasn’t paying too close attention. She pulled her camera out of her pocket and flipped the power switch on.

      I understand the head, Uncle Sean, but why the feet?

      I can’t say, Fee.

      “So the body was discovered by Patrolman Kahill minus the head and feet, with no sign of either in the vicinity,” she said aloud, again refocusing.

      “I got all my available men out looking for the body parts or any blood trail. Pictures, I have, back at the station. Knew ye’d want to see just what things looked like before Bobby…before we removed the body,” Sean said.

      Mahon’s got one those fancy digital cameras, he does. Shows the pictures right on the computer. Didn’t think they should go to the drugstore. I never liked how those pictures came out of that machine anyway. Our faces are always kind of hazy. Why do ye think that is, Fee? Imprints of a man’s soul?

      I don’t know why, Uncle Sean!

      She didn’t mean to snap at him, but the hurt look on his face shamed her. I’m sorry, she thought. I’m as upset as you are. Let’s just get through this, OK, Uncle Sean? “I’d still like to take some of my own photographs, if you don’t mind,” she said aloud.

      She turned slowly, surveying the entire room. It was only twenty-five by thirty feet. Eight-foot tiled ceiling and pale government-green walls that appeared to have been painted recently. Everything as neat as a pin, just as in the lobby…except for the obvious.

      Fia heard Duncan snap his cell phone shut out front and footsteps followed as he approached, their echo booming in her head. She clicked the shutter, barely bothering to look at the viewing screen on the camera.

      Click, click, click. She took photographs of the charred, gory spot on the floor. The ashes of the mail. Other than an overturned mail cart, and a stool Bobby could have been sitting on, very little else looked disturbed.

      She looked up and, spotting a few drops of blood spray on the ceiling tile, she pointed the camera lens and clicked again. She expected more blood. Remembered more…

      “Looks