"Not at all," Greer said. "Based on the information available to you, I'd say the response was entirely appropriate. But now there's this new information, so a different response seems indicated. And this unit seems the most suitable one to carry it out."

  "What is it you expect us to do?" a detective sitting down front asked.

  "The answer to that should come from Lieutenant McGuire," Thorwald said. "Agent Greer and I would not presume to tell you officers how to handle a case like this. Our work at Quantico's Behavioral Science Unit involves tracking down serial killers – of the human variety. We're not experienced in matters involving the… supernatural." She managed to keep most of the distaste she felt out of her voice.

  "We've requested temporary assignment to the Bureau's Scranton field office," Greer said. "We'll be available for consultation, and we want to monitor the investigation closely – without getting in the way, of course."

  Of course. Until the time came to make an arrest. Then the Feebies would be right there, claiming jurisdiction as well as the newspaper headlines. Well, they could have their fucking headlines. I wanted the sick bastards who were behind this video operation. As long as they went down, I didn't give a shit who put them there.

  After Thorwald and Greer left to go clean their weapons, or whatever it is that Feebies do in their free time, McGuire gave us our assignments.

  "Work your snitches, all of you," he said. "If one of these murders was committed here, the odds are good that they all were. The perps have no reason that I can see to travel all over the place, just to grab victims who're anonymous on the videos, anyway."

  "Why here, I wonder," Karl said, loud enough for McGuire to hear.

  "We'll know that when we nail the bastards," he said. "Maybe the wizard who's doing the summoning is based here. God knows there's no shortage of them in the Wyoming Valley."

  "They all do white magic only – supposedly." That was Sefchik, Aquilina's partner.

  "And we're all old enough to know what 'supposedly' is worth," McGuire said. "Besides, even those that stay on the right-hand path might have heard something about one of their brethren who's been walking on the wild side."

  "And it's not just the wizard," I said.

  McGuire looked at me. "What do you mean?"

  "There's other people involved, too. Somebody is operating the camera while the wizard is conjuring – we saw it move while he was still chanting."

  Aquilina brushed hair out of her eyes and said, "He could've done it himself, using a remote to move and focus."

  "In theory, yeah," I said. "But in practice, no way. Any wizard with experience – and it looks like this guy's got plenty – knows better then to split his attention during a conjuration. The cost of fucking up is just too damned high."

  "So to speak," Karl said. He's always finding puns in my speech that I didn't intend to put there.

  "So there's two of the fuckers, at least," Pearce said. His nose has been broken so many times, he looks like a dumb pug. He's neither one.

  "Two, and probably more," I said. "They're snatching people without being seen, then disposing of the bodies afterward. Could be that the wizard doesn't stoop to do that kind of work himself, so that means more guys are involved."

  "Good point," McGuire said. "And let's not forget the people on the retail end. Somebody's got to make copies of each video, and somebody's gotta sell them. You don't buy this kind of shit at Vlad-Mart."

  "Not yet, anyway," I muttered, just loud enough for Karl to hear me.

  "All right, everybody, hit the street," McGuire said, just as our PA, Louise the Tease, approached him with a sheet of paper. He read it, and his face got even tighter than usual.

  "Renfer, Markowski," he said, "Stick around a minute."

  Karl and I traded looks. It's like when the principal tells you to stay after school – it's never for anything good.

Once the other detectives were gone, McGuire said, "There's been another witch burning."

  I felt my stomach drop like a runaway elevator. "Do they have an ID?"

  "No, but if you're worried about Rachel, she's still in San Diego at that Wiccan conference. Not due back for a few more days."

  I felt better, but only a little. Rachel Proctor, the department's consulting witch, wasn't the only magic practitioner I knew, although she was the one I knew best.

  "If they don't know who she was, how do they know she was a witch?" Karl asked.

  "Looks like the same M.O. as last time," McGuire said.

  Four nights earlier, a woman had been found tied to a telephone pole in Sturgis Park – or what was left of her had been found. She'd been burned beyond recognition. But the next day, a guy named Martin Allerdyce filed a missing persons report on his wife, Brenda, who was a practicing witch. She did white magic, of course – the black kind's illegal.

  Nobody thought it would serve any useful purpose to have Allerdyce attempt an identification of the charred thing found in the park. But he did provide two items, upon request: a brush containing a good quantity of his wife's hair, and the name of her dentist.

  Both dental records and DNA analysis confirmed Brenda Allerdyce as the victim. I wasn't exactly surprised to hear that the funeral had been conducted with a closed coffin.

  One of the fire marshals said that gasoline had been used as an accelerant, and Homer Jordan at the ME's office told me that the level of free histamines in the tissues meant that Brenda Allerdyce had been alive when the fire was lit. She must've died screaming, an ugly fact that her husband was probably all too well aware of.

  And now the sick fuck responsible had done it again.

  "Where's this one?" I asked McGuire.

  He looked at me for a second before answering. "Lake Scranton," he said, and his voice contained no inflection at all.

  Next to me I heard Karl mutter, "Well, damn."

  Lake Scranton is a man-made reservoir just south-east of the city. A few months back, Karl and I, and some others, had spent a very long night in its pump house. Several people had died there, and the survivors would never be the same again. That was especially true of Karl, who'd started the night as a human and finished it well on his way to becoming a vampire.