Demon Marked

“We need to find out what happened.”
    “We will.” His gaze dropped to the photo she still held, but he didn’t tell her to put it back. Perhaps he realized she wouldn’t have. “Who would have put that tape across the door?”
    The township didn’t have a police force. “The county sheriff. His office is in Duluth.”
    “We’ll head back, then. Look, you can’t go with me. There might be family, friends at the sheriff’s or the hospital. People who’d recognize Rachel. So I’ll take you to the bed-and-breakfast. I have to leave you there alone. Do you have any weapons in your cache?”
    That mental storage space. “If I do, I don’t know how to get to them.”
    “I’ll give you some, then. What can you use?” He lifted his crossbow. “This?”
    “I . . . don’t know.”
    “A sword? I have one in the car.”
    She glanced down at her hands. Could she use a sword? “I don’t know that, either.”
    His mouth tightened. “Can you fight hand-to-hand?”
    “I don’t think so. Why?”
    “Because if the Guardians were here, they are obviously looking for you.”
    “And if they knew exactly where I was, they’d already be on me. Wouldn’t they?” When he nodded, she said, “So chances are, they don’t know I’ll be at the B and B, either.”
    He must have agreed. With a nod, he said, “All right. I’ll drop you off, and you stay in our room.”
    Easy enough. “And if they do come?”
    Nicholas started for the door, his expression grim. “Can you run?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then you’d better run faster than they do.”
     
    The crime scene photos were worse than the house had been.
    Taylor closed the Boyles’ murder file and passed it to Revoire. No longer the farmer, he’d changed into the same “federal agent” suit that she wore. Appearance was always important. Not many of the smaller law enforcement agencies had heard of Special Investigations, even though they were a legitimate division within the Homeland Security Department.
    “They aren’t pretty,” Sheriff Brand said, nodding at the photos. He was the kind of cop Taylor liked: professional, courteous, damn sure of his job and how to do it. He hadn’t put up a fuss when they’d arrived and asked to look at the Boyle case, claiming that the MO matched that of a serial killer they’d been tracking. He’d simply taken a look at their credentials, checked them out, and invited them into his office.
    “No, they aren’t,” Taylor agreed. Horrific—and she knew Brand felt the same. He wasn’t interested in getting involved in a pissing contest with the feds. He reserved his anger for the man who’d done it, and his pity for the couple killed. “Did you know them?”
    Brand shook his head. “I talked with them a few times after their girl, Rachel, went missing six years back. But she was working over in London at the time, so there wasn’t much to do. A shame. Pretty girl, sharp as a tack. We looked at Steve Johnson then, just routine—she’d had some trouble with him—but they hadn’t seen each other since she left that school in Chicago.”
    Rachel Boyle. Why did that name sound familiar? Taylor couldn’t immediately recall, but she remembered the photo on the fireplace mantel at the Boyles’ house. Just the three of them.
    “No other family?”
    “Nope. It was a neighbor who spotted Steve Johnson sitting on their front porch swing holding that butcher knife. No coat, no shoes, all cleaned up and just staring off into space. She didn’t recognize him, so she called it in.” Brand shook his head. “That part of the county, we get a hunting accident now and then. A few meth heads, a few missing hikers. Nothing like this. Sick.”
    So they had Steve Johnson pretty much red-handed, and with a confession on top of it. Case closed for the locals. Taylor and Revoire wouldn’t be able to do the same so easily. They wouldn’t pursue Steve Johnson. The courts could take care of him, and influenced by a demon or not, the man had made a choice. Free will mattered. He’d made a choice to seek out the Boyles. He’d made a choice to pick up a knife. He’d made a choice to murder them. At any point, he could have chosen differently, and there was nothing the demon could have done to force him.
    But Johnson hadn’t resisted, and his actions had served the demon well. The choice Johnson had made would probably send him to Hell, too.
    Brand looked to Revoire, who’d finished flipping through photos and closed the