in the United States Marine Corp,” she continued reading in a murmur, “six of which were spent in Forces Special Operations Command.”
Pat whistled. “No wonder this guy almost kicked your butt. Those Special Ops guys are bad ass.”
She jabbed him in the shoulder. “I didn’t say he almost kicked my butt; I said we were evenly matched,” she huffed. “And he said he was with the FBI—what’s that?”
“That’s the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Pat grunted at her blank look. “He’s like a detective that has jurisdiction over his entire country. It’s an elite human law enforcement organization for the United States.”
Her lips rose in a slow smile. “So he kind of has the human realm’s equivalent of your job. Scroll down. What else does it say?”
He tapped a key and the screen went blank. “Why are you so interested?” he asked with a smirk.
“I’m not!” she exclaimed defensively. “But I was obviously right about this guy telling the truth, so why don’t you quit wasting time and see what you can find out about a woman being murdered down the street from Doyle?” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.
Pat snorted, his smug expression making her want to smack him. He tapped another key and the screen on Agent Derrington popped back into view. Then he typed a quick command and they were looking at a summary of Derrington’s current case files.
The names of five women were highlighted in red with the word DECEASED next to them in all capital letters. The teasing look faded from Pat’s eyes as he scanned through the details of each file.
“Dragon dung,” he cursed softly. “This is bad, Letty.
Chapter 4
Bile rose in Scarlett’s throat as she read the bullet points that tied each of the five murders together. The women had all been raped and the man had strangled them to death with his bare hands. A ‘distinctive herbal odor’ had been noted at each crime scene, but no residue had been found to enable an identification of the substance.
“Let me show you something,” Pat said. He clicked on a small icon in the upper corner of the screen and the image changed before she could get into the more grisly details.
A map of the human globe appeared, with tiny red dots flashing across every land mass. He zoomed into the western hemisphere, then zoomed further down to a map of North America, and finally settled on the United States.
“What is this?” she asked, her gaze travelling over what must have been hundreds of thousands of blinking red dots scattered across the country.
“It’s a tracking program that some of the mages put together for us. Each of these dots represents a human who is aware of our realm in some way.”
Scarlett’s eyes widened. “All of these humans know we exist?”
Pat chuckled. “No, not exactly.” He clicked on Florida and the map zoomed in to an image of the state. He pointed to a cluster of red dots along the southeast coast. “Do you see a green dot in there somewhere?”
Scarlett squinted and shook her head.
He clicked twice more, finally zooming in to a map of the town of Palm Beach. And then she saw it, a lone green dot amongst all the red.
“That’s Sydney,” he said with a vague smile. “Some humans, like Sydney and Violet, are fully aware of our realm and have even visited it. But they are only a tiny percentage.
“The rest are merely aware on a subconscious level. Some are fascinated by legends of Faerie and a part of them accepts the stories as truth. Some have dabbled in spellcraft and possess the ability to become mages, whether they realize it or not. But whatever the reason, the veil between our realms is thinner for them than it is for other humans.”
“I had no idea so many of them were so close to believing in us,” Scarlett said faintly.
Pat leaned back and sighed. “It’s of grave concern to the Seelie Court. Most of them believe the balance between good and evil would be thrown into chaos if the veil were lifted for so many.”
Scarlett didn’t know what to say. She had never imagined such a thing was possible. “So what does this have to do with Agent Derrington’s investigation?”
Pat reached forward to click on another icon and all of the red dots, as well as Sydney’s single green dot, were replaced by black ones.
“What are those?” Scarlett asked, a sense of foreboding pricking at her spine.
“They represent all of the humans who once had red or green dots on the map, but who are now deceased. There’s a symbol, only viewable by someone using this system, next to each of the names of the murdered women your Agent Derrington is investigating.”
He reopened the screen with the case files and pointed out the small star-shaped emblems next to each name.
“Those symbols tell me that each one of these women is pinpointed on our map. They would have once had either red or green dots, but now they’ll have been added to the map with the black dots.”
Scarlett blinked at him. “So you’re saying that all five of them either knew about us, or were close to believing in our realm?”
Pat nodded, looking troubled.
“The woman in Key Largo was certainly fascinated by garden gnomes,” Scarlett murmured as she recalled almost tripping over one of them after her fight with Agent Derrington. “So what does this mean?” she asked. “Do you think someone from our realm is targeting human women because of your map?”
“Highly unlikely,” he said. “Only a few of us have access to it, and you’ve seen how many humans are marked on it. No, what I’m thinking is that someone from our realm is targeting human women through his own connection with them. The map simply proves that the connection exists.”
“Oh no,” Scarlett breathed, her eyes fixated on the screen.
“What?” he asked, his concerned gaze following hers.
“Another name just appeared on the list of victims.”
“Sarah Wentworth,” he read in a startled voice. “And she has a symbol by her name too. I think you’re right, Letty. I’m definitely going to have to look into this. If an immortal is committing these crimes, and using magic to subdue his victims and hide his tracks, the human police will never be able to stop him.”
“Is all of this happening right down the street from Doyle?” she asked in alarm.
Pat clicked the first name on the list. “Nashua, New Hampshire,” he murmured as he returned to the previous screen to click on the second name. “Denver, Colorado,” he continued, going back for the rest of the names. “Fort Worth, Texas...Key Largo, Florida...Woodbridge, Virginia...and...holy shite,” he cursed, turning pale.
“Palm Beach, Florida,” Scarlett finished for him.
He stood abruptly. “That’s right
