3 Back To Business!!

Andy had cropped them, removing identifying information. Only the strange markings found around the body were visible, along with the dead boy's unusual wounds- and morgue markers showing the pitifully small size of the victim.

"Same rules as always,ladies." Andy tapped the first photo with one square-tipped nail. The clear polish stood out against the lurid details of the photo." Nothing leaves this house, and I'll never put your names on a piece of paper, so you won't get called as witnesses. These came in last night, and I need you to take a good look."

Slowly, Anna's attention turned from Crook to the photos. Samantha and Riego also focused on the pictures, freeing Crook from the weight of their scrutiny.

Before he could enjoy the relief, however, the photos pulled him back to the larger, darker issues at play in the universe.

What maniac had carved up a senator's ten-year-old boy and left him to bleed to death inside a set of weird, nonsensical designs- and why?

"The FBI can't find a match for the blade pattern," Andy was saying." And nothing on the markings around the vic. Some of the symbols were drawn in blood,scratched into piles of something white and grainy. Some kind of powder."

"Sea salt," said the blond. Riego. Crook glanced at her. She had an accent, too. Something Italian or Mediterranean, and an innocent face, but her blue eyes held the detachment of a longtime scholar of death."I wonder if the salt's processed. Store-bought, or if somebody harvested it, or purchased it straight from a harvest. It's white, so it would have to be from France or Ireland, or maybe China or India. If it's fresh and from the U.S., it would have to be from Maine, or up around Cape Cod."

Crook pulled his little notepad out of his gunbelt, and he was writing furiously. He didn't look at Andy, who would have a see-i-told-you expression

When Riego stopped speaking, he glanced up, impatient, anticipating, but the blonde only shrugged." A guess. You'll know when your tests come back- but some ancient cultures used seasalt in rituals, to purify. If it's processed, then it's just some player imitating stuffs in books. If it's fresh, somebody really intended to purify that space."

Sam, the redhead, leaned forward in her chair."Purify," she mummered ,"Or keeping something pure inside the circle. Maybe use the elements to protect it." Crook noticed her decidedly lilting accent, and  that she didn't reach the photo in front of her. In fact, she seemed to be keeping her hands away from it on purpose, as if touching the pic might be dangerous. When Sam look looked up, she said," You know elements can be locked, right?"

Crook shook his head feeling useless. He felt a bit relieved to see Andy looking just as confused as he felt.

"Someone who knows what they are doing can call the energy of one of the elements, or two, or all of them, and force it into a stable pattern," Samantha said. "We call it locking, but really it's more like....stacking. Like the stones in an Irish fence." She moved her hand in a straight line across the air, making Crook think of pictures he had seen of the Irish countryside. Miles of winding stone fence, nothing more than perfectly stacked stones, held together by form alone- no mortar

He nodded, and saw Andy nodding too.

"Depending on how much elemental force is used," Sam continued," You can coat an object with a certain kind of energy- or even build a barrier as strong as an actual stone wall, though nobody can see it. She pointed to the photo of the salt patterns. "Salt could have been used to lock a really strong elemental barrier, to protect something precious."

"Protect, trap." Anna had a picture of the wounds in her lap. She spoke without looking up, she sounded infinitely sad. "Not much difference, unfortunately."

The emotion in the woman's voice surprised Crook. He'd taken her for a hard ass. Some kind of psychic/private detective/ cowboy who kicked out teeth and took stupid risks, like letting a supernatural creature into her house when she didn't fully understand it's nature.

Then he looked at her again. This time, he considered her solid, secure posture,and the way she had taunted him with her expression.

Or maybe she does understand my nature, and knows just exactly how to kill me. Fast, bloodless. Probably painful. What the hell am I doing here?

He kept his mouth shut and his pen busy, and otherwise he sat very still as the women mumbled to themselves and to each other, took sips from their soft drinks, scrounged up their own notebooks, and exchanged pictures. All but Anna. She kept that first picture in her lap. As her graceful fingers traced the edges of the dead boy's larger wounds, she took a deep, even breath, the kind Crook used to center himself.

Was she finding her center, too? Did photos like this hurt her down inside.

If they had been alone, Crook might have asked her. Andy picked up the potato chips and munched noisily. Crook grimaced. Nothing much disturbed his partner's appetite.

"Did you bring me a sample?" Anna asked quietly, still absorbed by the photo and her rhythmic tracing of the wound pattern.

"Yep." Andy stopped eating long enough to shove the other folder to her. Crook saw the corner of a plastic evidence bag slide sideways through the flaps. "The M.E. trimmed some of the smaller wounds. Here's about an inch. Is that enough?" To Crook ,she said," Down boy. He thinks I took it all up to trace- and I only lifted one edge out of a dozen. They've got plenty of skin to analyse."

Anna finally looked up, but only long enough to snag the folder containing the bag. When she extended her arm, Crook caught sight of a tattoo on the inside of her wrist. His ring heated up as he let the image sink into his mind.

A mortar, a pestle,and a broom, in triangular points around a dark crescent moon.

The woman didn't seem to notice his interest in the blue-green mark. He sketched it in a hurry, pretending to be finishing his notes.

"Give me tonight with the sample," Anna said. " I should have something for you this time tomorrow. A guess at the blade type, too."

"Aww, you're not going to show Crook the lab?" Andy's disappointment didn't keep her from cramming another handful of chips in her mouth and crunching loudly as Anna once more tore her attention away from the photos.

Her eyes fixed on Crook, and she came up with one of those sultry almost-smiles. "Not on the first date, sailor." She winked. "Maybe next time."

Crook ground his teeth and thought of his grandmother.

Andy's cell rang with the special ring Crook knew meant the captain was calling. She washed down her last load of chips and answered with a quick,"Andrea Myles." Then she frowned. "Okay. Fifteen minutes.

She was already getting to her feet as she closed the phone. " The press got a whiff of the latch case. They're mobbing the senator's house and the nearby precincts. All hands on the deck. Anne- call me if you find something urgent."

Anna stood as Crook did. Samantha and Riego stayed seated, but they nodded at Andy and Crook before taking out notebooks and beginning to scribble furiously.

It was all Crook could do to stop looking at Anna as she shifted her necklace to centeron her cashmere sweater and waited for him to follow Andy to the door. He wasn't quite sure how he separated himself from her, or how he walked across the littered floor as the wind chimes began to ring. His head was spinning from Anna's presence, from whatever real psychic talents she and her two cousins possessed, from the risk they might pose, even from the systematic way they attacked those photographs and sketched their theories.

Professionals. Seasoned. Fearless.

He had been working OCU for almost six years now, but until this moment, this day, Crook had never sensed the real workings of power, of supernatural energy outside his own. OCU crimes were committed by psychotics and psychopaths, by religiously obsessed nutjobs of every faith. He was used to that. These brownstone, these three women- they were something else entirely. Something new.

He wished he could talk to Dominic the way he used to in the good old days, when his brother had worked OCU right next to Crook.

Anna gave Andy a hug at the front doo, then turned to Crook. He offered her his hand and expected her to shake it again, but she took it and used it to pull him close instead. Before he knew what was happening, she wrapped her arms around his neck.

The shock of her warm, soft body against his, electrified him. He put his hands around her waist, reflex more than conscious action. The firm curve of her hips, the press of her breasts against his chest, that intoxicating blend of rain and lavender- the woman was killing him. She had to be doing it on purpose. She had to know. Any second now, his erection would rip through his jeans.

Instead of smiling and kissing him on the cheek as she had done with Andy, Anna stood on her toes and rubbed seductively against the hard swell of his cock. His back was to Andy as Andy headed down the outside steps, hiding the progress of Anna's hand-the one with the mysterious tattoo- as it travelled down, until her long fingers brushed the notable bulge. Her green eyes sparkled with appreciation and a deep, almost disturbing amusement.

"Nice," she said, one eyebrow raised, and gave his cock an intimate, mind-blowing squeeze. At the same time, she pressed her lips against his ear. The heat of her breath and the unbelievable feel of her hand made his gut tighten with helpless need.

Just then, her fingers moved again- this time in a sharp, painful backward thrust. His breath left in a rush and his eyes watered from the agony of her sudden forceful grip on the most tender parts of his manhood.

"I don't know what you are," she whispered sweetly, her exotic accent taking on fresh menace," But if you hurt Andy or anyone else, I'll kill you. Do you understand me?"

Crook nodded to save his life and his balls.

Over her shoulder, he saw Samantha and Riego smiling at him with that same horrifying sweetness as those infernal bronze pipes over his head, chimed and chimed.

Anna let him go, and he made himself walk slowly out of the door, which slammed behind him. He heard the distinct rattle of locks sliding into place.

When he joined Andy in the street corner, trying not to walk funny because of the miserable ache between his legs, she grinned at him.

"I think Anna might like you, partner."

"Yea," he grumbled as the light changed. Andy started into the crosswalk, and he hobbled along behind her. "She might like me, all right. Dead in a display box, with little pins through my wings."