Read Online Spirit Animals (Ritual Crime Unit Book 3) by E. E. Richardson - Free Book Online Page B

Pierce stepped back from the fence with a defeated sigh. There was no way that she’d catch her now.

 

     
    CHAPTER SEVEN
     
     
    I T TURNED OUT to be Deepan on the phone.
    “Something come up?” Pierce asked, wandering fruitlessly up the hill along the line of the railway fence, though the woman was long gone.
    “Big operation just nabbed a gang of thieves in Leeds,” Deepan told her. “Local police had a warrant to search one of their properties for stolen goods and found a shed full of ritual artefacts. I had a look and it seems pretty legit—there’s a few things that I recognise, and some of them are nasty enough that I’d rather have more educated eyeballs going through the place before we try to shift it all.”
    “All right, I’ll join you there.” It didn’t look like there was going to be a lot of point in her hanging around here. “Might be an idea to grab Cliff as well.” The RCU’s magical analysts rarely made house calls—mostly too bloody busy and more useful to the team where they were—but while she had decades of crime scene experience under her belt, Cliff was the one who’d made it his life’s work to keep up with the study of occult artefacts.
    “Mind you don’t let him wander in before you’ve checked everything for trigger runes and the like, though,” she added as an afterthought. Her experience at the barn yesterday was still fresh in her mind, and Cliff was used to getting his artefacts safely parcelled up in an evidence box after someone else had done the dirty work.
    “Will do, guv,” Deepan said. He gave her the address, and she headed back through the trees to the boarded-up house. The news team seemed to be packing up, having reached the limits of the footage they could wring out of a long-empty house and a mob of vampire wannabes. Gemma slipped unobtrusively through the crowd to join her.
    “I’ve got pictures of all the graffiti and the stuff left outside the house,” she said. “And some of the crowd. Dunno if it’s likely to be of use, though.”
    Pierce pressed her lips together. “Mm. Not convinced any of this is connected to the original killers, but they’re cocky sods, so best be thorough all the same.”
    “Did you find our mystery woman?” Gemma asked.
    “Possibly, but she did a runner. I doubt she’s going to risk coming back today, but keep an eye out for anyone else wearing a necklace in the shape of a bat.” She grimaced as she took in the primarily black-clad crowd with their lacy shawls and capes and corpse-white make-up. “I appreciate that’s probably not exactly a distinctive marker in this mob, but do your best.”
    She left Gemma with the job of canvassing the neighbours, not exactly thrilled to be leaving a constable alone in the field with no backup, but seeing little choice with the way their resources were stretched. In any case, she doubted the vampire cult were likely to try anything here while the media spotlight was on the place: they were cocky, not completely idiotic.
    Unfortunately. They’d managed to get away scot free too many times already; Pierce could only hope that this time their luck would run out.
     
     
    T HE ADDRESS D EEPAN had given her led her to a considerably more upmarket neighbourhood of big semi-detached houses with well-kept front lawns. If not for the police presence, her target wouldn’t have stood out from its neighbours: lacy net curtains, neat conifer hedge, satellite dish on the wall. The front door and side gate were both standing open; Pierce waved her warrant card at the nearest warm body. “RCU, called in for a consult on some artefacts?”
    The young PC looked blank for a moment, then gestured her towards the wooden gate. “Shed round the back. Your sergeant’s out there, I think.”
    “Cheers.” She navigated the collection of wheelie bins parked round the side of the house and passed through the gate, ducking under the overhanging strands of creeper. The back garden was less