Free The Cursed (The Unearthly) by Laura Thalassa Page A

managed to personally ensnare myself in a series of murders.
    “Not that it matters since you’ll be meeting one of the killers tonight.”
    I groaned. “Don’t remind me.” Already the Politia was making arrangements for my little murderous meet-and-greet this evening. We’d need to leave in another few hours to set up the recording devices and go over what I needed to say.
    They knew I’d find the card. They wanted me to find it. Whoever “they” was.
    My gaze drew down once more to the map. “Is the second murder on a ley line?” I asked. I’d assumed it was, but assuming and knowing were two very different things.
    Caleb gave me a blank look.
    I blinked. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
    “Because you’re the demonologist here.”
    I grimaced. “I hate it when you say things that make sense.” I grabbed my bag and rifled through the papers I’d Xeroxed back at Peel Academy. Several of them were maps of known ley lines in Romania.
    I pulled one of the maps out that covered the region of Bistrița-Năsăud, squinting at the smudged lines and loopy handwriting. The original map had been hand drawn, and my version was a copy of a reprint. A.k.a., the quality sucked balls. But even with the poor quality reprint I could tell that no ley lines ran through our second crime scene.
    Well hell.
    “This murder wasn’t on a ley line,” I stated, confused. I glanced up and met Caleb’s eyes. “Why would the first murder occur on a ley line, but not the second?”
    Caleb pinched his lower lip as he thought it over. “The location of the first murder could’ve been a coincidence,” he said. His eyes found mine. “Or … the location served another purpose altogether.”
    I furrowed my brows. “Like what?”
    Caleb stared at me, his eyes troubled. “Like luring Gabrielle Fiori to Romania.”

Chapter 8
    I readjusted my miked cleavage for the millionth time as Caleb and I stepped out of Grigori’s car. Club Thirst was just a few doors down.
    Grigori rolled down the window and leaned over the console. “I will be around the corner listening with the rest of the team,” he said to me. “Remember what we talked about.”
    I nodded. I’d go in, act normal until I was approached, ask the questions the Politia wanted to know, and when I was finished, I’d tuck my hair behind each ear — my cue to the undercover guards posted throughout the club to take down the murder suspect. Easy peasy.
    Yeah, right .
    Grigori paused, and I saw the moment he went from a colleague to a fatherly figure. “Don’t be a hero. The second something feels wrong, you get out of there — both of you.”
    “Of course,” I murmured.
    “Do you remember the phrase you are to use if you need help?” he asked.
    “‘I don’t think I like it here,’” I repeated from memory. It wasn’t forgetting it I was concerned with. No, I was more concerned about slipping the phrase into a conversation with the murderer suspect.
    “Good. You two keep an eye on each other.”
    “We will,” Caleb said.
    Satisfied with that, Grigori drove off, leaving us alone. I cracked my knuckles as we approached the entrance to Thirst. A long line stretched down the block, one we wouldn’t have to wait in. But before I had time to fish my badge out of my bra, the bouncer guarding the door eyed me and then stepped aside and let us through.
    “That was weird …” I said.
    Caleb shrugged and said something back to me, but the pounding music of the club swallowed his voice.
    A dozen sets of eyes clung to me as I moved through the club. Self-consciously I smoothed down the tiny red dress I’d been asked to wear. The Politia wanted me to be noticed — both so that I caught the murderer’s attention and so that I had many witnesses.
    My gaze swept over the crowd. This late in the evening, most of the club goers were drunk, and their otherness was slipping through to the surface. Slitted pupils, a flash of scales, fur . Those were the monsters in