Free Mortal Sins by Eileen Wilks

fracturing under pressure. But it knew—without knowing why—that to be warm again, it would have to leave this house.
    It didn’t want to go. The man was inside. The one who knew it. It wanted, needed, to wait here, wait for the man to come out the door. If it could be close to him again, maybe it would know . . .
    It no longer remembered what was missing. What it needed to know.
    The howl of anguish was silent, a shuddering despair too great for its shredded being. It quivered and lost track of doors and houses and whatever had held it in one place.
    Deep in the darkness of its fractured self, it heard The Voice.
    Maybe the calling had been there all along; maybe it was newly come. It only knew the loathing and fear and promise of The Voice.
    The call would grow louder, until it could no longer resist. It had to escape. It had to get warm again. Once it was warm, it wouldn’t hear The Voice, and then it could remember . . . surely warmth would let it remember enough. Then it could find the man who knew it. Maybe it could ask the man . . . whatever it was it needed so badly to know.
    Once it was warm again. Yes.
    It skittered away from the house, searching. Resisting the need to return to The Voice. Warmth would protect it, provide for it—yes, it remembered that much: when it was warm enough, The Voice went away.
    Once it was warm again, all would be well. Yes.
    It glided down the street—lost, fragmented, starved. Picking up speed as it went. Warmths were everywhere, but at first it found only the small warmths. Some of those would let it in, but the small warmths weren’t enough. It remembered that. It needed more.
    Come, said The Voice. Come, come, come . . .
    No! Frantic now, it hunted. It had to find a warmth, the right kind of warmth, or return to The Voice. There were warmths nearby, large warmths in the houses it glided past, but they wouldn’t work. It needed . . .
    Ah, there! A door, a door in that warmth! Not a physical door—it had forgotten physicality again, so didn’t note the distinction—but a door nonetheless. A way in.
    Walls were barriers only when it noticed the physical. It slid through one now without being aware of the passage, focused on the warmth it tracked. It eased close, found the “door” it needed, and slipped through. And into the warmth.
    The shock of heat, of self , was sweet beyond expression. Lost in the bliss of sensation—Arms, legs, skin! It had skin!—for some time it simply rode the physical without noticing the other things it had regained.
    Memory, though not its own. And words.
    Gun, it thought in surprise, remembering now what a gun was. Then, tenderly sharing the discovery with its warmth, it added more words: Gun, yes. We will get the gun and kill and kill.

EIGHT
    AT 8:22 A.M. Lily walked back into Sheriff Deacon’s office.
    “Agent Yu.” He didn’t get up and his expression didn’t tell her much, but he wasn’t thrilled to see her. He nodded at the other person in the room, who had stood when Lily entered. “This is Meacham’s attorney, Crystal Kessenblaum.”
    The PD was a tall, thin woman, thirtyish or more, with an explosion of red hair that had rained freckles all over her skin. She wore white linen slacks with a long, slitted tunic in spring green—a pretty outfit, but an odd choice for the situation. It all but screamed, “Don’t think of me as a lawyer.” She also wore glasses, little round Ben Franklins, and not a speck of makeup. She had a crisp nod for Lily, but didn’t offer to shake hands.
    So Lily did, extending one hand confidently. “Ms. Kessenblaum. I’m glad you could make it here so early.”
    Kessenblaum’s nearly invisible eyebrows shot up. She stared at Lily’s hand a second, then seemed to decide what the hell and took it. Her tone was belligerent. “Checking me out?”
    She had a decent grip, damp palms, and a little lick of magic. Fire magic, mostly—one of the more common Gifts, and one that was relatively kind to its