“I always remember to say 'thank you, ma'am,'” D said, “to your momma – after.”

  “Why does it not surprise me you're a necrophiliac?” Calderon asked, one eyebrow raised. “Face like that, you only get it from the dead.” He turned his attention back to Marcel. “What's your name, son?”

  “Marcel,” he said. “Marcel Jacoby.”

  “You don't have to tell him nothing,” D said, scowling again. Marcel got the feeling he was still burning over the necrophilia joke, like he'd been gotten the better of and it stung.

  “What are you, a lawyer now?” Calderon asked, beckoning over another cop, a female patrol officer. “Would you kindly take Mr. Dent here and get his statement? I need to talk to this young man absent his bad influence.” He faced down D, who was a few inches taller than him, and he didn't look like he was going to back off.

  “Pffft,” D said, waving a hand in front of him like this was not worth his time. “You ain't got to tell him nothing,” he said to Marcel, eyes heavy with warning – and Marcel got it, loud and clear. He had plenty of suspicion of cops all on his own, even without the warning.

  “Come on over here, son,” Calderon said, putting an arm around Marcel's shoulder. “You live here?”

  Marcel nodded. “Right here,” he indicated his door. “With my grandmama.”

  “Where's your grandmama?”

  “At work – sir. She's a nurse at Midtown.”

  “Oh? Maybe I've met her,” Calderon said. He had a little pad and was writing things down in a near-unintelligible scrawl. “You seen Mr. Schuler tonight? Andre, I mean?”

  “Uhm,” Marcel said, “I mean...I saw him, I guess. For a minute.”

  “You remember what time that was?” Calderon asked. His eyes were on Marcel's, and they relaxed a second. “You're not in trouble here, you know? Andre was killed just a few hours ago.” He looked over Marcel quickly, like he was scanning him. “We're just trying to catch the person who did it.”

  “I saw him when he came up the stairs,” Marcel said, rubbing his fingers over his bare forearm. “He was kinda loud, woke me up. I talked to him for a minute.”

  “'Bout what?” Calderon asked. Those eyes, they were on him, and Marcel felt like he couldn't get away.

  “Said something about–” He couldn't stop himself; Marcel was going to say it, was all set to say it–

  Something streaked down into the middle of the open-air courtyard like a meteor coming down out of the sky. It stopped in a blur of jeans and short brown hair, with a dash of pale white thrown in, and hung there over the courtyard. His eyes resolved onto the shape, and he realized it was a woman, suspended by some invisible rope.

  Sienna Nealon. She looked around, every cop and resident's eye on her. “Calderon? I'm looking for a Detective Calderon–” She came around and looked right at him for a second, then fixed her gaze on the detective next to Marcel–

  Then her eyes widened and she said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Oh, shit...it's you.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sienna

  “What is this – old flame week?” I drifted in and stepped over the balcony railing onto the second floor of the apartment complex, coming down in a short drop next to Detective Marcus Calderon and the kid he was talking to. Calderon was smirking slightly, though there seemed to be a hint of pain, a grimace mingled in with it. Way back in the day, when we'd worked a case together in Atlanta – the one where I met Augustus and Jamal – we'd slept together. Which made this reintroduction just a touch awkward.

  “Wondered if there'd be cause for our paths to cross,” Calderon said, lifting his fedora and scratching his short, stubbled head. “You running into a lot of exes this week or something?”

  “Or something,” I grunted. Between finding out I was married, then having to talk to Jeremy Hampton about whether he was my husband, then finding out my actual husband was dead – well, it had left an ashen taste in my mouth for romance. “You're the gang unit guy?”

  “I am indeed,” Calderon said. “Moved up from Atlanta and this was the job they had open, so this was the job I got.”

  I frowned. “You moved up from Atlanta for this?” He'd worked homicide in Atlanta; gang unit seemed like a step down from that.

  “Sienna Nealon, this is Marcel Jacoby,” Calderon said, indicating the skinny kid he'd been talking to when I'd dropped in out of the sky. “We were just talking about this murder victim he knew.”

  “I'm sure that's a very important case you're working,” I said. “But I'm here to talk to you about the Cool Springs Galleria.”

  It was like a mask fell over Calderon's face. “I'm sure your case is very important, too – but it's going to have to wait until I finish talking to Marcel.” And he turned right there to talk to the kid. “Now – what did you talk about with Andre?”

  “Nothing,” Marcel said. Kid's face was like carved stone. No emotion, like it had all drained out. “Game or something.”

  Calderon reacted minimally; just enough to let me know he thought that was bullshit. “Game as in a specific ballgame? Or game as in he was giving you tips for your dealings with the ladies?”

  Marcel put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Dunno,” he muttered. And that was it.

  Calderon considered him for a moment, then shook his head. “Go on, then. Go wait for your grandmama. She coming home soon?”

  “She's on graveyard,” Marcel said, and this felt like the closest to a complete sentence he'd spoken since I'd arrived. Funny enough; he wouldn't even look at me. I wondered if I'd personally offended him at some previous juncture. It wouldn't have been abnormal. I pissed off a lot of people. He looked fifteen-ish, though, younger than the sort I tended to cross.

  “One of our officers will be around when she gets home,” Calderon said. “Let her know what happened. Let her know how, ahh...helpful you weren't.”

  This landed with all the effect of a gentle breeze across Marcel's face; he didn't even blink. “Mmhm.”

  “Go,” Calderon said again, dismissing him. “Get some sleep if you can.” And he watched Marcel shuffle over to his door.

  So did I. And I watched him look at me – just for a second – before he went inside and shut the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Marcel

  He'd passed the test.

  Talked to the cops, stood there under the watching eye of the most famous cop of them all, Sienna Nealon...

  ...and he hadn't said shit.

  Marcel stood with his back against the door, leaning against it, feeling his breath returning to normal. He'd been pretty good, generally. Didn't get into shoplifting like some of his peers. Hadn't run across any trouble. He hadn't had much occasion to talk to a cop like this, but now...

  He'd passed.

  His pulse still hammering, he headed for his bedroom, the steady drum of his heart still audible in his ears.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Sienna

  “Thanks for ruining my interrogation,” Calderon said the moment the kid was safe behind his own door. He lifted his hat, mopping a bead of sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.

  “I caught the last of it,” I said, “that kid was like the sphinx. He was giving you nothing.”

  “He was giving me plenty until you came down out of the sky like a white girl meteor,” Calderon said, putting his back to the balcony rail and regarding me with smoky eyes. “I got a murder case here.”

  “I got multiples,” I said, “and they run right through your little corner of Nashville. Are you so up your own ass you don't give a shit? Or is this some kind of resentment because I didn't call you on the morning after or something?”

  “Oh ho ho,” Calderon guffawed, looking desperately amused. “We going there? This really where you want to go?”

  “No, I want to go to solving the mass murder I just got handed,” I said, “but if I have to hash over my history with the Nashville gang unit guy in order to get the help I need, I'm willing to put on the waders and plow right into that shit.”

  “Well, I'm not,” Calderon said, and his features softened a whit. “I have a job to do. And it doesn't include digging into shit that happened between us four years ago.” He adjusted his hat. “Things are different for me now. I'm a married man. Don't need some ex-fling causing me problems. Not on the job, not at home.”

  I felt my irritation die down a touch. “I just need help with my case. It's a mass murder. Come on – there was at least one kid killed. Innocent families. And it's sure sounding like a gang-related thing.”

  Calderon grimaced, flashing his teeth. “Those are the worst. You hear about 'em, I'm sure – well, I see 'em. The ones where a bullet goes through a window, hits the kid in their bed, and it's brains and blood on the Elmo doll.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Those stick with you.” He looked up at me, and his eyes were tired. “Fine. Tell me what happened.”

  “Two groups of black dudes wearing blue and red got into a rumble,” I said. “Also, Bocktown was mentioned.”

  “You make it sound like the Sharks and Jets, but you're not wrong.” He nodded slowly. “Tell you what...maybe you help me with my case for a second, then we talk about yours?” He beckoned me toward an open door at the far end of the second floor, where a police officer was already prepping the crime scene tape.

  “Sure,” I said, wondering what I could possibly do to help him on his case that would be worth a damn. Use my ghost powers, maybe; word of them had probably already leaked to the press, knowing how often they found out other shit I didn't want them to know. “If you think it'll help.”

  “I think maybe it could,” he said. We walked through the open door and right through the forensic team; I lifted half an inch off the floor out of consideration for them.

  He led me into the bedroom at the back of the apartment, where the curtains fluttered, and there was the dead body. “Someone called it in; heard a thump. Patrol gets here, does a check, this is what they find.” He squatted beside the corpse. “You've got experience with this sort of shit. What does this look like to you?”

  I looked at the victim with distaste, trying to keep my mind to the basics of what I was seeing, and ignoring the screaming alarms in my head. African-American male, around six feet in height, tattoos visible against the dark skin of his forearm and hand on his right side.

  Oh, and he didn't have a face, or much behind it, either. It was all burned away in a charring of bone and meat all the way through to the floor beneath. There wasn't even much blood; his wound had been cauterized all the way through, leaving a smooth, scorched hole right where his face had been.

  “What does it look like to me?” I asked, then slowly raised my hand in front of my face. Turning loose Chase Blanton's lightsaber power, I let the glowing red beam surge to life out of my fist, a three-foot-long glowing blade of pure, hot energy. “It looks like this.”

  There was a rough satisfaction in Calderon's eyes. “Yeah. That's what it looked like to me, too.” And I did not like the way he said that.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “You don't think I did this?” I asked, letting the metahuman lightsaber beam sticking out of my hand die before I went pissing off the detective. The wind stirred the curtains again, bringing in a night breeze that was warm as sin.

  “Well, let me turn that around and ask you something,” Calderon said, immovable as a statue. “You've already been to your scene, yes? Of the mall attack?”

  “You know I have.”

  “Seen the victims?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And one of them was an innocent child, yes?” Calderon asked. “Some poor little white girl? Alabaster skin caked in dust and blood?”

  “What about it?” I asked, feeling my hackles rise.

  “Decent person sees that kind of thing,” Calderon said, eyes watching me carefully, “they might be...enraged. Might go thinking about getting revenge, even. Pair that with someone who has a history of dealing vengeance over justice...” He paused, letting that accusation just hang.

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “Leaving aside the idea that I've got a motive for it – you're still missing means and opportunity if you want to accuse me of this. What does this guy have to do with my case? And assuming he is tied, like he's one of the bangers from the mall – how the hell would I know that?”

  “You wouldn't,” Calderon said with a shrug, way too fast for my comfort. It was like he'd been putting his suspicion out there as bait, waiting to see if I'd bite. I couldn't tell if I'd blown a hole in his theory by brainstorming aloud, or if he'd just be looking for alternate ideas, but to me it didn't feel settled. And that was...unsettling. “And I don't know that this man was tied in to your crime or not. Vic's name is Andre Schuler, by the by. He's part of the Rollin' 80's, the local crips.”

  “So he could have been involved?” I asked.

  “Coulda been,” Calderon said. “He's got his nose in some things, that's for sure. I had a shooting earlier this year that I would swear he was in on, but proving it ended up...problematic.” He lifted his hat, mopped his forehead again. “We're seeing more and more of these meta hits. Not that TBI gives a damn what goes on in the ghetto of Bocktown.”

  “Have you asked for their help?” I asked with the attitude and bearing of a mom telling a kid to be nice to their brother.

  “Did they ask for TBI's help out at that mall?” Calderon shot back. “Or did TBI just show up? And let me richen the pot on this line of inquiry, because yes, of course, TBI shows up for us – but they send one person, because they know these crimes are low danger, high effort issues that can't easily be solved. Gang murders are the most annoying kind of criminal justice matter, aren't they? I'm assuming you've at least touched one or two in your time?”

  I shook my head. “Seen more than a few. Only solved a couple, and that was working with locals.” Street gang murders were almost the worst thing you could be assigned. Witnesses, especially in the least safe neighborhoods, had a tendency not to want to talk to the police, either out of fear for their lives or an – entirely reasonable – suspicion that the case wouldn't get worked with the same intensity as, say, a mall attack out in Brentwood.

  There were reasons for that. In my mall attack, for instance, there was near-total buy-in from the community that the police were the people who could solve the crime. In these rougher neighborhoods, the natural suspicion of the police as a force for good came into play, and without cooperation, without witness statements, without motive or a cast of characters to work your way through...solving murders was hard work. Like skiing with a lame arm and leg.

  And it's not like this was confined to one particular ethnic community; those attitudes and challenges might just as easily be seen in a rural trailer park or enclave, in a Latino neighborhood – it was more of an economic phenomenon in my experience than a racial one. If a neighborhood was filled with people who felt the American dream had long since passed them by, if their place hadn't just fallen on hard times, but it had settled on them like rigor mortis on a long-dead corpse, odds were better you were going to find a putrefied attitude toward the cops there.

  Which was why Calderon was looking at me with that knowing smile. He was a grinder, working these cases that only the truly faithful would take. Because the odds of solving them was dismally low. It took a special kind of person to do that and not put forth the minimum amount of effort while coasting toward eventual retirement.

  I could respect that. Respect the hell out of it, actually.

  If he wasn't currently looking at me like I was a suspect in his murder case.

  “You really want me for this attack?” I asked. “I just got back into town, give me credit to be restrained enough to wait at least a day before murdering someone I don't even know.”

  “Hey, you straight up showed me your light blade thingie without me asking you about it,” he said, pointing at my hand. “I give you all sorts of credit. You probably didn't do this. But tell me – why is it you jumped to that laser blade being the power used here?”

  I sighed. “It's all about the scene.” And I floated to the far wall. “If it was a beam weapon, a laser blast, then by the hole in his head, it would have come out the other side, see? Like this.” And I shot a very weak eyebeam out the window.

  Calderon yelped and leapt to the side, even though he was ten feet away from the flight path of my beam. “Okay, okay. Point taken. You're saying if someone had shot him in the face with that eye laser you just used, it would have burned through the wall behind him.” He lined up the angles, then nodded. “Yep. Would have been a big hole in the wall.”

  “There's also different beams, different intensities,” I said. “The one I just used wouldn't have left a wound like this.”

  Calderon raised an eyebrow. “What would it have done?”

  “Well, mine's weaker because I didn't fully absorb the meta who had it,” I said, “but it would have just knocked him back. Maybe crushed his head if he was pinned to a wall by it. Not much in the way of burns or heat as compared to the lightsaber or other laser powers that go hard on the burn, low on the force effect.”

  Calderon shook his head. “I never did think all that stuff I learned in the police academy was going to be superseded by superpowers. They're probably rewriting that manual even now.”

  “There's something I could do to speed your investigation along if you wanted,” I said.

  Calderon looked up at me with jaded eyes. “What's that?”

  “I kinda picked up a new power this week,” I said. “I can commune with the dead.”

 

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