Clicking off the downstairs lights and about to go to bed, Demitra faintly heard her phone ringing from the kitchen outlet where it had been charging. She rushed to answer it without tripping over things in the dark. She managed to navigate everything but Seth’s shoes he had kicked off after dinner. Boys, she huffed to herself as she snatched the phone, last ring, from the charging cord. She saw from the screen it was Charlie Bennet calling.

  “Charlie?”

  “There’s been another murder tonight.”

  “Oh, no!” Demitra gasped.

  “Can you meet me here at the scene? I warn you, it’s very graphic, but if you can stand it you might pick up something while it’s fresh.”

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “Back in Yerby Park again. This time it’s near the picnic table pavilions.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Demitra hadn’t been to Yerby Park since the days when Seth played little league. Now she was there for the second time in two days. She couldn’t help but smile at the memories of days gone by in that park as she passed the baseball field. Larry had been one of the coaches for Seth’s team. Seth had been a pretty decent ball player—when he wasn’t benched by his Uncle Larry for using his powers during a game. Those other little boys never had any idea why they would suddenly lose control of their bats or have a ball they’d intentionally pitched with a specific spin suddenly right itself and land smack into Seth’s bat. But Larry knew, and he would punish Seth for the infraction. “You can’t manipulate the wind during a game, Seth!”

  Demitra had no trouble finding the crime scene. The flashing red and blue lights of the many police cars could be seen almost a half mile away in all directions. Walking across the dewy grass toward the cluster of dumbfounded professionals, Demitra was confronted by one particularly obstinate officer.

  “Ma’am, you can’t be out here. This is police business.”

  “Let her through, Johnny,” Charlie called out from nearby as he made his way to greet her.

  “This is Miss Blanchard,” Charlie said. “She has my permission to go anywhere she likes around the scene.”

  Johnny rolled his eyes, “Oh. You’re that woman. ‘Course I don’t buy any of that psychic shit.”

  “Of course, you don’t,” Demitra replied. “Just like your wife doesn’t buy your explanation of why she found those gay porn sites on your computer.”

  Demitra clasped on to Charlie’s arm as he guided her through the crumpled grass where moments before, investigators, coroners, and officials had been standing. Everyone cleared back as Demitra came through.

  “You’ve never called me out to a scene with this many people around,” she told him. “Won’t you get flack for this?”

  “I don’t care at this point. I need something to go on,” Charlie said. “You told me earlier that when you were here today, you couldn’t pick up on anything. I thought a fresher crime scene might help.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “It’s bad, Demmy,” Charlie warned. “Brace yourself for it. I’m sorry you have to see this.”

  Nothing could have prepared Demitra for the sight she would see. Blood was splattered everywhere, across the grass, against the trees, onto the nearby picnic table and bench. And the body looked almost as if someone had dipped it in blood. She shielded her eyes for a moment to steady her stomach. When she was ready, she looked back at the victim.

  It was a man. His head was twisted to the side, turned that way so ferociously by the killer that it looked to be partially torn off. He had one eye missing and deep gashes in his face underneath the bloody, hollow socket. His left leg was snapped backward into an angle it would have never bent naturally.  There were bits of bone revealed through the torn flesh. He laid on the grass, the bent leg underneath him. Two of his fingers were missing from his right hand.

  Charlie gently guided Demitra aside when he suspected she was about to vomit. She didn’t. She dry-heaved a moment, then composed herself.

  “It’s okay,” he consoled. “It’s the most gruesome slaying yet. I’m sorry you have to see it.”

  “I’ll be alright. Just tell me what you know.”

  “We think the killer, or killers, cut his eye out with a switchblade. Those marks are deep. We haven’t found the eye yet. Maybe it was taken as some kind of keepsake of the kill—a trophy.”

  “Were any body parts missing from the other victims?” she asked. “What about this man’s missing fingers? Have they been located?”

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  “He’s never taken any body parts from a victim before,” Charlie said. “We found this guy’s fingers nearby. They are bagged already.”

  Demitra was still feeling a little shaky and nauseous from the gruesome scene. Feeling a swirl of unsteadiness coming on, she automatically reached for Charlie’s arm. He helped her to a nearby tree she could lean against for a moment. Taking a series of short breaths to calm her nerves, she closed her eyes in hopes to clear her mind of the sight she had just witnessed so that her focus could move more to her other senses. Suddenly she shuddered, Charlie gripped her arms. She clutched his wrist for stabilization.

  “He was in this tree!”

  “Who?” Charlie cried. “Can you see him?”

  “No,” she answered. “I don’t have any sense of the killer. But the victim was under this tree. He’d been jogging.”

  “Yes!” Charlie confirmed. “It looks that way. We found headphones and his cell phone on the ground a few feet from here.”

  “The man stopped to send a text,” Demitra recounted, staring off into the distance at the nothingness of the dark night in order to let her mind see inward. “He heard rustling above. He started to look up, but before he could something jumped him from above.”

  “From the tree?”

  Demitra focused harder. “Yes, I think so. It came from the air. He didn’t have time to look up, so I cannot see what he saw. They wrestled. Rolled on the ground. There was a terrible noise, then pain as his neck ripped. He was losing consciousness when his body was flung to the ground. His leg snapped behind him from the impact. Oh Charlie, I can feel his fear. His agony…then nothing. He was dead.”

  “Demitra, can you tell me anything about the man at all? The killer, I mean.”

  “Nothing,” Demitra shook her head. “Charlie—I cannot connect to him. Or them. I can feel the energy all around from the victim. I am tapped into him. But there’s nothing around the killer. No feeling at all.”

  Demitra did not sleep that night. The things she witnessed and felt disturbed her far too greatly. She came down for breakfast with the family but could not bring herself to eat anything. She gave a brief report to the members of her family without descriptions of the things she saw.

  “It’s really strange that you are unable to get a link to the killer,” Artemis remarked. “That’s really a first for you.”

  “I know,” Demitra agreed. “I can’t understand it myself. But I am going back out there when I get dressed. I have to see if maybe there’s something I missed.”

  “I’ll go with you if you want, Mama,” Fable offered. “Yerby is just a few streets from my clinic. I can go with you before I go in to work.”

  Mother and daughter hurried to dress and drove out in separate cars to the picnic area of Yerby Park. The blood was still clinging to the grass where the body had been discovered. Demitra walked around quite a bit, pacing the crime scene, still unable to pick up on anything regarding the killer’s identity or emotional state.

  “It’s obvious this was the site of the murder,” Fable remarked, “unlike the other one you and Aunt Artemis went to yesterday. There is no denying this was where this one occurred. I wonder if the other took place somewhere else in the park and the killer just dumped her body in the other location.”

  “It’s possible,” Demitra replied.

  “Can you try to get a feel for that lady in this spot?” Fable suggested. “Maybe she was killed right here, too, the night before, and for some reason just got moved.”

  “Worth a try,” Demitra said.

  She closed her eyes and focused her brain on the location she had been to the day before with Artemis. She wasn’t rewarded for her effort. There were no traces of the girl. She had not been killed at this same location. But that man…that poor jogger. Demitra was being swept up in it all again. The fear, the pain. He hadn’t known what hit him. The memory of his mangled body invaded her thoughts again. The image of him was forever burned into her mind.

  “Mama, you okay?” Fable asked.

  “It was so awful, Fable,” Demitra confessed to her daughter. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget what I saw last night. And I am not being any help to Charlie at all. I cannot tell him a single thing about this murderer. I just don’t know why I can’t get a trace of him.”

  Fable opened her arms and took her mother in for a much-needed hug. Her mother wanted to be of help so much and the fact that all these killings were going on in Daihmler and Demitra—for the first time ever—wasn’t able to assist the police, was weighing on her. Fable held her for a few moments. Demitra rested her chin on her youngest child’s shoulder.

  Suddenly she tensed. Her head darted up as she looked around. Fable looked into Demitra’s eyes but didn’t see her mother looking back at her. Demitra was in trance. She was having a vision. Fable let go of her and stepped back to give her room. Demitra instantly returned to her normal state of being. Her eyes no longer glazed over in psychic state.

  “I saw it!” Demitra cried. “Felt it… but it’s gone now.”

  “Surely you can tap back into it, Mama,” Fable urged. “Try.”

  Demitra did try. But failed. It was gone. Gone before she could even see what it was, she was connecting to.

  “I can’t get it back.”

  “Relax a second,” Fable advised giving Demitra’s shoulder a squeeze. “Give it a minute and try again.”

  Suddenly Demitra seized up again. Her eyes went clear as her mental powers surged. It was dark, the wind was blowing. The moon was bright in a cloudless sky. The jogger was tired, but still had one more half mile in him. He stopped by the tree to check the time. 8:45. He had promised to pick Linda up from work at 9. He was running late. He started to text her. Then that sound. That horrible growl rang out even with the headphones in his ears. Suddenly something hit him from above, knocking him to the ground. Demitra jumped from the impact of the force she felt.

  “Mama!” Fable cried as her mother stumbled backwards. “What happened?”

  “You,” Demitra said in disbelief. “You let go and it’s gone.”

  “What?”

  “Fable, I can’t see anything. Except when you hugged me and then just now when you touched my shoulder. Give me your hand.”

  “I don’t get it?”

  “Just give your hand, Honey. Trust me.”

  Fable placed her hand in her mother’s.

  The killer pushed him to the ground, digging his claws into the joggers back. The jogger fought back, taking a blind swing behind him in an attempt to knock the killer off. The killer snapped his jaws down on the man’s hand, severing two fingers in his powerful bite. He lifted his claws to the man’s neck and separated his head from the shoulder. Then he lowered his mouth to drink. Demitra saw the snout. The teeth. The dark, dark fur. She released her daughter’s hand.

  “Oh, dear God!” Demitra exclaimed.

  “Mama, what is it?”

  “I know why I couldn’t locate him now—why I could only feel the victim and not the killer,” Demitra said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I have to be touching you in order to tap into the animal kingdom.”

  “I don’t understand,” Fable replied.

  “The killer isn’t human.”