I was suddenly insanely grateful that Crawford had remained by the body. I didn’t even want to think what his reaction would be to this. “Sir, you do remember that I have no experience with working homicides?”

“And you never will unless you work one,” he replied with calm logic.

“Well, yes, but—”

He held up his hand to cut me off. “Gillian, you’ll be fine. You’ve proven yourself with your white-collar crime cases, which is why your transfer to Violent Crimes was approved. And it’s not like you’re going to be on your own with this. Crawford and Boudreaux can help point you in the right direction, and I plan on pushing the chief about forming a task force.”

“Yes, sir.” Holy shit. He really is throwing me a Symbol Man case! I gave him my best effort at a confident smile, trying to avoid looking either cocky or nervous. I’d heard that Captain Turnham liked to throw new detectives into the deep end. I just hadn’t expected to be forced to swim so quickly.

“You’re a good detective,” he continued. “You’ll do just fine.” Then in the next breath he said, “But don’t relax too much. It’s in our jurisdiction, which means if we do get a task force, I’m going to make sure you’re the lead.”

Are you fucking serious? I thought. “I appreciate the opportunity,” I said instead, keeping my voice even and calm. It was a damn good thing that he couldn’t hear the racing of my pulse. Holy shit! I’m the fucking lead on a Symbol Man case!

Captain Turnham nodded toward the other detectives. “Tell Crawford to get you caught up. I need to go talk to the chief.”

“Sure thing, Captain.” Oh, yeah, this would be interesting.

Crawford and Jill walked up to me as soon as the captain left. “So, what’s his take on it?” Crawford asked.

I turned to him, making an extra effort to maintain a cool and professional demeanor, even though I wanted to jump up and down in excitement or do something else that would have been completely inappropriate on a murder scene. “Well, he thinks it looks enough like a Symbol Man case to treat it as such.”

He shrugged and nodded. “Okay, makes sense. I’ll need you to fill me in on details as soon as you can.”

“Yeah. About that.”

He looked at me expectantly.

“Captain Turnham said that the case is mine,” I added in a rush.

His eyes widened in shock. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Yeah, he wasn’t one to hide his emotions. “Actually, no, I’m not fucking kidding you.” I kept my tone cordial but firm. “He said I need the experience, and since I have the most knowledge of the Symbol Man cases—”

“You read through the case files a couple of weeks ago,” he exclaimed, face reddening. “That doesn’t make you a fucking expert!”

I blinked, briefly shocked by the force of his reaction. Then I recovered and narrowed my eyes. Screw cordial. I leaned forward, lowering my voice and drawing on my experience in dealing with demons to keep from losing my careful composure. “It’s not my fucking fault, Crawford,” I said, nearly snarling. “I didn’t ask for it, and if it bugs you that fucking much, then take it up with the fucking captain!”

He looked at me for several heartbeats, expression stony. “The security guard who found the body is ninety if he’s a day and is waiting to be interviewed at the front office,” he finally snapped. “You have no other witnesses. Have fun.” With that, he turned and stalked off.

I watched him go, clenching my hands to keep them from trembling.

“Okay, he’s a dick,” Jill said quietly from beside me.

“Yep,” I replied, seething. Sure, Captain. They’re just bending over backward to help me out.

Jill gave me a rueful smile. “You’ll be fine,” she continued. “If a moron like Crawford can be a reasonably competent Homicide detective, you should kick ass at this shit.”

I let out a weak laugh. “Thanks. Actually, I’m pretty excited.” I’d never in a million years imagined that the case would be handed to me, but now that the initial shock was starting to wear off, I wasn’t about to let anyone take it away. Three years ago I’d been just a road cop, working the perimeter of a body dump like this one, not knowing if I’d ever have a chance to dig into why there were arcane traces on that body. I’d even begun to doubt what I’d seen and wonder if it had been a fluke.

But now I knew. The Symbol Man was doing some sort of arcane work and, like it or not—ready or not—I really was the best person for the job.

Jill laughed. “I know that look. You’re hooked in now.”

“Yeah. I am,” I said with a grin. “I’m gonna get this fucker.”

“Good deal. You tell me if you need anything. Don’t be proud.”

“I will. I won’t.”

Jill gave me a thumbs-up, then walked off to speak to the coroner’s office personnel. I leaned against the metal building of the main office, watching as the body was carefully gathered up into a black plastic body bag.

I would definitely summon tomorrow night. There were a number of demons who could probably help me. Perhaps Rysehl? He was just a fourth-level demon, a luhrek, resembling a cross between a goat and a dog with the hindquarters of a lion. He was also a much weaker demon than Kehlirik, which meant that he would be considerably easier to summon. But Rysehl was usually a very cooperative creature and a good resource for esoteric information, despite being merely a luhrek. I could think of several questions to ask him about the kinds of arcane activities that could leave those types of traces on a body.

I pushed off the building. Screw Crawford, I thought. I am the best detective for this case, and I’m gonna prove it.

The dead bolt on the front door slid home with a soft click, the last step in my preparations for the summoning.

I’d nearly changed my mind about going through with it. After leaving the wastewater plant, I’d gone to the station for several hours to do preliminary legwork and write up my initial report, but by early afternoon I could hardly keep my eyes open—not that surprising once I realized I was operating on zero sleep.

I’d finally given up on coherent thought and headed home to grab a nap, staying awake on the drive home only by keeping the window open and singing along loudly to bad country music. By the time I’d crawled into my bed, I was seriously doubting my ability to summon again, even a minor demon. But six hours of sleeping like the dead did wonders for my energy level, and by midnight I felt ready to go.

I wandered through my house, the usual excitement twining with the usual nerves as I made certain that the house was secure. All of the various mundane tasks were complete. I’d closed the gate at the end of my driveway, checked and secured all the windows—which included nailing several boards over the broken window—then locked all the doors, double-checking everything compulsively. I’d learned the hard way last night that a locked door wouldn’t do much to keep an intruder out, so for tonight I’d added just a tweak of power around my house.

Arcane work could be pretty tiring, which was why I seldom did much outside of summonings. But, after last night’s near disaster, I had to grudgingly admit that I needed to expend the energy. I wasn’t exactly highly skilled at crafting arcane wardings, which meant that it took me nearly an hour to pull together a small protection that would cause anyone approaching the house to experience feelings ranging from mild fear to terror—an arcane version of a subsonic frequency, and hopefully just enough to make a person think twice about trying to get inside.

The house was still spotless from top to bottom from the deep scouring I’d given it before my summoning of the reyza. I wasn’t in the regular habit of keeping my house in pristine condition, but the messes and piles of clutter could harbor unwelcome pockets of energy, or so my aunt Tessa always said—though I suspected that was probably just a way for her to get me to clean the place up at least once a month. It was tough to motivate myself to tame the clutter, since I didn’t exactly encourage visitors. I kept it clean—after all, this was the South, and I’d be neck deep in bugs if I didn’t—but my dirty laundry usually ended up on the floor, and my bed got made only once a week when I changed the sheets.