Page 15 of The Diamond in the Rough

There was blood everywhere.

Streaks on the back of the cream-colored loveseat. Pooled on the carpet where she must have died. Spattered on the ceiling, drips scattered on the carpet, the walls, the furniture.

“It’s hers?” I asked.

“Yes,” Parikh was the one who answered me.

I drew in a long breath, then let it out again. “Did you wash the necklace?” I asked, the words sticking in my throat.

“No,” came the low answer. “Why do you ask?”

I swallowed again. “Because I didn’t see her death,” I half-whispered. “So she didn’t have it on then.” I looked between Hart and Parikh. “Was she wearing it? When you found her?”

“No,” Parikh answered, exchanging a look with Hart.

I frowned. “Where did you find it?” There hadn’t been any blood on it. I knew that—because blood was something that the death witch in me would have felt.

“Fuck, kid. We should’ve been dragging you out to cases before now,” Hart remarked. “If you can put that shit together that fast.”

I blinked. “There was no blood on it,” I said softly. “But…” I gestured around the room because I didn’t have to say it out loud—there is blood everywhere else.

Parikh let out a soft grunt. “It was under the dresser.”

Low to the ground, the massive piece of furniture looked like it was trying to emulate something from the French seventeenth century. A few inches off the floor with little clawed feet, it rose up to chest height and was, like everything else in the room, spattered with blood.

“She threw it there?”

They both looked at me.Right. I took a deep breath. “Where do you want me to start?

“Will the blood interfere with your… results?” Parikh asked.

I grimaced. “It will be… distracting, but it won’t change anything about the visions.”

“Distracting how?” Parikh asked.

“I can feel the death in the blood,” I replied, knowingthat it probably didn’t make that much sense. “That is… distracting, because it pulls my attention away from the psychic impressions. Especially if they belong to different people.”

“You feel… death?” Parikh’s eyebrows went up.

“Kid’s a death witch,” Hart put in. “He can talk to dead people, too.”

“You’re also a medium?” Parikh sounded surprised.

“No,” I told him. “I’m not. There is some overlap—death witches and mediums can both see ghosts, but summoning is much more difficult for me, for us, than it would be for a medium, like Ward.”

Hart snorted. “Fucking nothing is difficult for Ward,” he said. “He’s a fucking freak of nature.”

I felt a smile tugging at my lips. “He is both a medium and a warlock,” I explained to Parikh. “That does make his abilities different—but mediums attract spirits. I’m… neutral, I suppose. I can just see the dead and speak to them if I have reason to.”

“And you can hurt people,” Hart put in. “Kill them, even.”

I met the elf’s purple eyes, knowing that he knew my story—the mostly-true version. “Yes,” I confirmed.

“You can kill people with magic?” Parikh asked. He sounded alarmed.

“Fuck, Tony," Hart scoffed. “The entire goddamn office at BTV can kill people with magic. The kid’s the same as every-fucking-body else there. Same ice cream, different fucking flavors.”

Parikh appeared to think about this for a moment, then looked at me. “Please tell me that youdon’tkill people with your magic.”