Night Games by Crystal Jordan Read Free Book Online Page A

Tess’s gloved hand motioned to it. “Usually the fanged races can’t cast spells very well, but it could just be the darkness of the Magickal who did this.”
    “Magic can be funny that way.” And the vampire would have to be one dark SOB to leave that kind of mark behind without casting a spell. Jack tugged a pair of gloves out of his pocket and pulled them on. Stepping closer, he crouched down to get a better look at the body. The woman appeared to be in her midthirties, but age in Magickals could be deceiving.
    Aside from the dark mark, the blisters down her arms and legs were obviously from one of the Magickal allergies. Werewolves reacted this way to silver, vampires to sunlight, witches to bronze, and Fae and elves to iron. The scorched, broken flesh over her body meant she’d been worked over pretty thoroughly. A few puncture marks indicated she might have been stabbed by the metal she was allergic to.
    Her nails were broken and bloody, multiple bruises standing out on her too-pale skin. She’d put up one hell of a fight.
    “Are we looking at sexual assault?” She wore clothes, but those could have been put on postmortem.
    Tess took a breath. “I don’t think so, but I won’t have anything conclusive until I run some tests.”
    “Luca said over the phone that the FBI was called in because she’s a federal official. A bureaucrat, not a field agent, though. He didn’t give me a name. What do we know about her?” He turned to look at one of the CSUs who was dusting for prints. The man nodded and silently handed over a wallet that had been sealed inside a plastic bag. Washington State driver’s license. Credentials that said she worked for the Bureau, but he’d never met her. “Mary Winston. Age thirty-three. Or so this ID says.”
    “She’s not thirty-three, that I can tell you.” Tess scraped whatever skin cells there were out from under the victim’s fingernails. She might have clawed her attacker in the fight, which would give them some DNA to work with. “The Bureau database and the All-Magickal Council will have her real age and any other aliases they’ve issued her to cover her real identity from the mere mortals of the world.”
    Jack cast her a wry glance. “Well, this mere mortal will run down her information with the FBI and the Council later.”
    “I was a mere mortal not long ago.” The redhead flashed a small, tight grin that showed a hint of an extended werewolf canine.
    “I know.” He refocused on the body decomposing before them. “What race of Magickal is she?”
    Not one of the fanged races, he didn’t think. She would have healed too quickly to still be showing this amount of damage. Not an elf, because her ears didn’t have that subtle point to them. Since there were only five races of Magickals, that left witches and—
    “Fae.” Luca stepped into the bedroom. “I’d guess Fae. That’s what her blood smells like to me.”
    A palpable tension filled the room, as it always seemed to when Tess and Cavalli were in the same vicinity. On the one hand, Tess was the best coroner Jack had ever worked with, so he could see why Luca had insisted she be assigned to the Magickal side of the FBI rather than let her stay with the Normals. On the other hand, there was a certain level of masochism on his boss’s part that Jack didn’t even want to contemplate. As long as it didn’t affect their work—and both were too professional to let that happen—Jack tried to ignore it. The rest of the unit was doing the same, as far as he could tell.
    He didn’t even want to think about the way Peyton had been holding her on the dance floor the night before.
    Jack broke the heavy silence first. “This tells us two things. First, whoever did this knew her well enough to know she was a Magickal.” He lifted his fingers to tick off his points. “Second, he knew what kind of Magickal she was, because he used the metal she was allergic to.”
    Tess looked away from the big vampire and