Free Last Breath by Debra Dunbar

came to the address on that paper, and I’ll admit that I got nosy. And I know a lot about this stuff. I’ve spent my whole life studying this. My father has a library full of old manuscripts, and I’ve had access to some of the oldest texts in Europe. I’m going to find out what’s going on here because that’s what I do. That’s my calling. It’s what I was born to do. I’m happy to share information with you as long as you keep an open mind, and as long as you don’t lock me in a cell. Or shoot me. I’d really like it if you didn’t shoot me.”
    He looked over my shoulder, then dug a business card out of his pocket and handed it to me. “Stay here until I speak with the techs. But just in case the dark fae spirit you away in the next five minutes, I’d like it if you call me in the morning, once you complete your research.”
    Now it was my turn to stare at him in astonishment. The man walked past me, brushing my shoulder lightly with his arm on the way. I held the card between my thumb and forefinger, watching as he spoke with the white suited, booted people. Then I tore my gaze away and looked at the card.
    Detective Justin Tremelay. My mind screeched a one-eighty. Tremelay. Bernard of Tremelay had been the Grand Master of The Temple in 1153. It was a weird coincidence that the very detective investigating this case had a last name that harkened back to our Order’s roots.
    So many of the Templar families had been exterminated after that black Friday when the King of France demanded the Pope denounce us as heretics. Our family had survived, as had many of the English and German families. Areas where the King of France had scant hold hadn’t suffered as badly as those within his reach. A few of the Italian families had also survived, sheltered by the decentralized power structure of the duchy system in that country. But the Tremelays had been wiped out—at least we’d thought. Not that it mattered. The guy thought I was high, or a crazy academic who saw the occult in everything.
    Or not. I watched as he jerked his head to look over at me, his mouth a tight line. Just as quickly he turned to face the tech and continued speaking with him. Told you so .
    A few seconds later he was jogging back over to me. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that we don’t want details of this murder to be made public at this time.”
    Or at any time , I thought. I’d promised Janice that I’d clue her in on any goings-on, but I wasn’t sure how she’d run a story like this. Breaking the news of an occult murder that police were keeping under wraps would be a huge scoop and it would also send the public into a tailspin of terror. Gang violence was a daily occurrence in this town. Ritualistic human sacrifice was not. That would be up to Janice to spin how she needed, though. A promise was a promise, and I couldn’t hold this sort of thing back from her. Especially when I might need her help. These two murders were somehow linked—Ronald Stull’s demon-related death, and this ritual. It could be a coincidence that one of the mages involved in this ritual got sloppy with a demon summoning, or it could be something more.
    And that got my brain working. Maybe Ronald hadn’t screwed up a summoning and got himself killed. Maybe the demon had been a supernatural hit man. Mages who worked death magic, especially death magic using human sacrifice, had to have secrets. If Ronald had been widely reviled as an asshole, perhaps one of his buddies had killed him.
    There might not be a direct cause and effect from one murder to the other. Not that anything I had right now was more than just theory. I needed to figure out what the bone was, what the symbols and magical parameters told me the death ritual was for, and what the sigil under a very dead Ronald indicated. Lots of unknowns.
    “What do you think about all this?”
    I jerked my attention back to the detective. He was asking my opinion? Well, that was quite the change