Face Off by Mark Del Franco Read Free Book Online

it on Sinclair, other fey could smell it on her. If they hadn’t been wearing InterSec jumpsuits, no doubt someone would have called security.
    Reaching their floor, Sinclair went off to the conference room while Laura trailed down the hallway in the opposite direction. She found Cress sorting through labeled glass jars filled with what looked like dried herbs. Laura paused in the door and watched her work.
    She marveled at how such a small person could be so dangerous. Essence manipulation was not dictated by a person’s size, but the frail Cress hardly seemed like anyone’s worst nightmare. Leanansidhe were rare among the solitary fey, but not so obscure that people didn’t know what they looked like. And they all looked similar. On the occasion when Cress talked about the leanansidhe , she referred to them as her sisters, which made sense from a physical standpoint. They did have a familial resemblance, at least among the ones in the archive pictures Laura had seen. Cress was the only one she had met in person, but they were all short, with thick black hair falling in rippled waves to their shoulders. Their heart-shaped faces, with their delicate features, had lured more than one person to their deaths. Their eyes truly set them apart, though. Deepest black with no whites. Laura found that aspect disconcerting at times.
    Cress smiled without looking up from her work. “If you’re spying on me, you’re not doing a very good job.”
    Laura chuckled as she stepped into the room. “I’m sorry. I was woolgathering. What are you working on?”
    Cress held up a vial with something green floating in a clear fluid. “Today, I am a botanist. We’re trying to figure out where that panel truck from your morning mission has been, so I’m looking at the junk in the tire treads.”
    Cress worked a dual-function job with InterSec. Her primary role as a forensic investigator drew on decades of knowledge. In fact, it was her species that made her particularly adept when dealing with fey crime. Her acute sensitivity to essence allowed her to see things a druid might miss. But that responsibility had evolved out of an earlier fascination: medicine. As she made her way in the Convergent world, Cress had focused her attention on healing and became a doctor, one of the first fey to have been graduated from an American medical school. Her achievement caused a sensation in both the human and fey worlds. Humans feared the fey, and Cress’s securing a spot in a human program caused all kinds of xenophobic reactions. As she was a leanansidhe , one of the most feared beings of Faerie, the fey treated her no better.
    As Laura drew closer, Cress wrinkled her nose. “C-4?” she said.
    If there was one thing Laura had learned about leanansidhe , it was that their abilities made them more sensitive to everything, not only essence. She dropped the evidence envelope on the desk. “Exactly what I thought. I tried to get some sample without the D.C.P.D. realizing it. Can you run these gloves and see if it has any taggant?”
    Legal manufacturers of C-4 embedded idiosyncratic chemicals that served as identification markers. The taggants provided clues as to who manufactured a particular explosive as well as who the intended customer was. From there, following the chain of custody to determine where it got loose in the world would be a matter of running down paperwork. If they were lucky. Making C-4 wasn’t a mystery. It could be done illegally if someone had the right connections to buy the materials. That would be a lead since the raw materials were tracked, too.
    Cress moved the envelope to a tray. “Of course. Is this from the bomb that went off this evening?”
    “Yes. Terryn’s not happy at how it’s being handled.”
    “Are you taking the case?” Cress asked.
    She shook her head. “Not directly. We’re looking at all the attacks from a broader perspective. A number of small connections to the Legacy case we’re working on have