Bound by Shadow Read Online Free PDF Page B

cuts on the boy were made in a classic containment pattern. When he died, his blood would have flowed in a circle around him and stayed close. Worse, his essence, his life energy, wouldn’t have been able to leave his body. Somebody could have…collected it somehow. The energy and the blood.”
    “Shit,” Cynda said.
    At the same time, Merilee said, “So the Legion didn’t just steal an object of power. They probably used it—and to collect the blood and life essence of an innocent.”
    “What the hell are they up to?” Cynda thrust her notebook forward. “The Mothers reported other child-murders, in at least fifteen countries. Probably more we don’t know about yet. They want us to double recon runs and take out as many Asmodai as we can, and pull out all the stops in trying to capture a member of the Legion. We’ve got to get more information. And, they want us to get into the Latch case, to find out every possible detail and report back as soon as we can. For some reason, this murder, our murder, troubles them the most.”
    Merilee sat up straighter. “Did they say why?”
    “Of course not.” Cynda snorted. “Do they ever?”
    Riana scratched her shorthand version of these latest instructions into her smaller, portable notebook, and numbered them for importance—Legion capture first, Latch case second, Asmodai recon and destruction third. She flipped a page, and she had started notes on a plan to lure and trap Creed Lowell when Merilee said, “I think I know why they’re so upset about this murder.”
    Riana glanced up, then put her notebook down.
    Merilee was definitely pale, and she looked both perplexed and miserable.
    Cynda tapped her pen on her own portable notebook. “Well? Spill it!”
    Merilee offered three sets of documents, one at a time. “According to the latest press releases, the main suspects in Jacob Latch’s murder were one of Latch’s employees, an assistant—and the boy’s own father, Senator Davin Latch. Then we have his wife, Raven, and Latch’s chief opponent in the senatorial race. It’s Alisa’s husband, Ri. It’s Corey James.”
    “Alisa from the North Bronx triad.” Riana didn’t miss Merilee’s subtleties, and her anxiety climbed a notch. “You said were . These were the suspects. Have they narrowed the list?”
    After a deep breath, Merilee slid a fourth set of documents across the table, this one amazingly thick. “Here’s the last dossier, the one on Alisa.”
    Riana felt the color drain from her own face. She grabbed the dossier and flipped to the first photo—well, a photo of a painting, on a blurry reproduced page. Merilee would have pulled the information from her set of master volumes. Each triad archivist had a set. In the old days, pages had been hand-copied. Now they did, at least, allow the convenience of copy machines—when they could get the stupid machines to work properly. The one in Merilee’s library always made blurry pages, but there could be no mistaking the powerful lines of Alisa’s aristocratic face.
    Merilee’s expression turned unusually sympathetic. “I know she trained with you in Russia. Graduated a few years ahead, got permission to marry about ten years ago…”
    Cynda whistled. “They’ve got a Sibyl for a suspect.”
    “She can’t be involved.” Riana’s fingers clenched on the dossier, wrinkling the pages. “A murder, for the sake of the Goddess. There’s never been a recorded case of a Sibyl participating in a perverted ritual.”
    “The police questioned the Latch’s assistant, but let him go because he was out of town. Alisa admitted to being at the house, and they matched her prints to some at the scene.” Merilee sounded like she was apologizing instead of informing. “Prints in blood, I mean. I found it in the headlines from this afternoon, and hacked this out of NYPD’s intranet.” She held up what looked like an e-mail and shook it. “They found some additional partials they couldn’t identify,