Finally, I nodded at the ruined door, reluctantly impressed by the damage, and lifted both brows in question. Cam gestured for me to go first. Which I liked.
I rounded the door frame and into the living room, gun aimed at the floor, scanning the room with my gaze and the entire apartment with whatever sense it is that feels the pull of blood. That pull was still there, but not as strong as it should have been. Not as strong as it would have been if the target were in the apartment, even if he wasn’t bleeding.
Cam came in behind me and pushed the front door closed, but it swung open a couple of inches again, because of the busted lock. I heard him checking behind doors and under furniture while I opened all the kitchen cabinets big enough for a man to crawl into.
“I think it’s clear,” I said, flicking the safety on my 9mm. But I kept the gun out, just in case. “Damned if I understand it, though.”
“Maybe he just left.” Cam kicked open the bedroom door and glanced beneath the bed, then in the closet, checking both potential hiding places gun first. “He is a Traveler, right? So he probably just stepped into a shadow and out of the apartment the minute he heard us.”
Which was why tracking a Traveler could be a real bitch. The only way to catch one was to trap him in a room with no shadows big enough for him to walk through. And that’s a lot harder than it sounds. Kori was a shadow-walker, and her grandmother had given up on grounding her when she was fourteen.
But.
“That shouldn’t matter,” I said. “So long as he’s alive, his energy signature should lead to him, not to his apartment.” Which Cam would know if he were a bloodhound—name-tracking works a little differently, and Cam was no better with blood than I was with names. “But the pull still feels like it’s coming from …
here.”
“Here … where?”
I closed my eyes and clutched the sock in my pocket again, through the plastic bag. The energy signature was fainter now, as the sock continued to dry, but I could still feel it. Eyes still closed, I turned until I faced the direction of the pull, and when I opened my eyes, I found myself staring at the open bathroom door.
“There.”
Cam crossed the room in a heartbeat. He pushed the door open all the way with one hand, then scanned the interior with his gun aimed and ready. He’d had training. The same kind of training I’d had. And he was good.
For a moment, I wondered if he was a cop. Was that why Anne had wanted us to work together? Was Cam actually using his criminal-justice degree, while I’d let my B.A. in philosophy rot in a drawer?
And if not, how was he making a living?
A second later, he took two steps into the bathroom and pulled the shower curtain back in one swift movement. It rattled on the rod, but revealed an empty—if filthy—tub. There was barely space for two people in the room, but I squeezed in with him anyway, already half suspecting what I’d find.
Sure enough.
I dropped the toilet lid—the bowl was no cleaner than the tub—and sat, then pulled the wastebasket in front of me, between my boots. Inside was a pile of blood-soaked rags, tissues and bandages.
“Shen must have got him good.” Cam sank onto the edge of the tub.
“I guess. But why would he leave them here?” Every Skilled person I knew carried a bottle of ammonia—or at least bleach—in their car, and most of us had an entire collection of chemicals that would destroy blood in our homes.
Leaving blood around like this was beyond careless. If found by people with the right Skills—or people who had access to people with the right Skills—fresh blood samples could be used to track the donor, or bind him to … well, anything. At least for a while. Blood not freely given wouldn’t bind someone forever, unless the Binder was extraordinarily gifted. But it would work long enough to compel the donor to turn himself in, or keep him from going to the authorities, or whatever the Binder wrote into a contract and sealed with the stolen blood.
This wasn’t the kind of mistake anyone with Skill would make. In fact, fewer and fewer of the un Skilled were leaving viable blood samples undestroyed, as the truth of our existence persevered despite the lack of official recognition from the government. Any government.
“Something’s wrong here, Cam.” I glanced around the bathroom for something to prod the trash with, and didn’t find so much as a plunger. So I donned the latex gloves from my pocket and used them to lift bandage after bloody bandage from the trash can. They were all the same.
“Fresh …” I said, laying the first piece over the edge of the tub next to Cam. He stood to make more room. “He’s only been gone an hour. Maybe less. And you’re right, he’s hurt pretty badly.” Based on the amount of blood alone. “But why would I be drawn here, instead of drawn to him? Whoever he is?”
“Maybe he’s dead,” Cam suggested, leaning over the sink to pull open the medicine cabinet.
“If he were dead, his blood would have no pull. He’s still alive, somewhere, and leaving his own viable blood around like he wants to be found, whoever he is.”
“Eric Hunter.” Cam held a prescription pill bottle down for me to see. “Three of them, and they’re all prescribed to the same man, at this address. Antibiotics, antidepressants and anti-inflammatories.” He set the bottle back on its shelf and closed the cabinet. “Mr. Hunter, you were obviously depressed, inflamed and … biotic. But why did you kill Shen Liang?”
“My guess is that he was hired. But who would hire someone to kill a work-at-home husband and father?”
“Maybe something to do with his work?” Cam suggested. “Did Anne mention what kind of software he designs?”
I shook my head. We were no closer to the why, but the how was obvious. The killer was a Traveler—a shadow-walker, capable of stepping into one shadow and out of another one, anywhere in the world, if he were powerful enough. Certainly anywhere in the city, based on the strength of the blood sample Anne had brought.
“And why did he leave his blood …?” I thought aloud, staring at the mess he’d left. And that’s when I realized why the whole thing felt so weird, beyond the presence of so much viable blood. “It’s fading.”
“What’s fading?” Cam asked. “Is it drying already?”
“Not the blood, the power. The Skill.” I stood, stunned by what shouldn’t have been possible, but was quite obviously happening anyway. “Feel this.” I thrust a blood-soaked dish rag at Cam and he took it reluctantly in his bare hands. “Do you feel it?”
He shook his head slowly, and his blue eyes widened. “I’m not as good with blood as you are, but I should be able to feel something. If he’s Skilled.”
“Exactly.” I pulled off my gloves and laid them over the edge of the tub. “I can still feel it, but it’s nowhere near as strong as it was. As it still is, in this sample.” I pulled the bagged sock from my pocket. “But it’s definitely the same blood. Which means that somehow, his Skill was stronger when he bled on the sock than when he bandaged the wound here at home, about seventeen hours later.”
Cam ran water over his hand to rinse away the blood. “How is that possible? How can Skill fade?”
“I don’t know.” And I still couldn’t figure out why I’d be pulled to a trash can full of bloody rags, rather than to the man who’d left with even more of it in his veins.
The squeal of hinges froze us both, and Cam laid one finger over his lips, warning me to be quiet. As if I didn’t already know.
“Who’s in there?” a male voice called, and I shoved the sealed sock back into my pocket with one hand while I drew my gun with the other.
Hunter? I mouthed to