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“ T hanks for calling, Mr. Vance.” I forced a polite smile at the man in the black cowboy hat and jeans.

“I thought we were on a first-name basis,” he quipped while leaning against his mate’s red Jeep. “Call me Montana.”

I approached him from my car and glanced up at Milly’s house. “I don’t feel right having you do this without accepting payment.”

He shook his head. “You want to hire me to investigate my packmate’s murder charge. I would’ve done it anyhow.”

“Yes, but then I wouldn’t be as involved. This isn’t something we normally do when the evidence stacks up, but I just need an experienced set of eyes on this. I appreciate your help.”

“Think nothing of it.” He scratched his jaw and slanted his friendly gaze toward the road.

“Anyhow, it’s better this way. I know Lucian’s been doing work for you, so you have a personal interest in him.

Nobody will question your integrity or think you’re giving him preferential treatment if I do all the asking. You and I are just… sharing info.”

“Do you think he did it?”

He scratched the burn on his left hand. It was shaped like the letter C with two vertical lines on the bottom curve that formed an H .

“Lucian’s a good guy. A jerk? Yeah, he can be that too.

But he’s not the aggressive type. I mean…

he instigates fights when someone comes at him, and sometimes he’s impulsive, but Lucian isn’t the killing type. That’s why I needed to do this.”

A few days ago, I had reached out to Montana and asked if he would review the case to see if we’d overlooked anything.

We had already notified the Mageri, who was busy tracking down Marcus’s Creator.

Until then, it only made sense to gather all the facts.

It wasn’t a secret that Montana used to work as an undercover detective, so I valued his expertise.

Maybe an unbiased third party would’ve been a better choice, but Montana was a straight shooter, and I knew from conversations with Lucian that they were pretty close.

Maybe he knew a detail in Lucian’s history that I didn’t—something that would shed light on this.

It was Montana’s idea to have Milly examine the deceased. It wasn’t customary to perform autopsies on Breed. Usually there was enough evidence to conclude the cause of death, such as in this case.

Montana removed his hat. His short brown hair was crushed from being stuffed in the hat, so he used his fingers as a makeshift comb.

“It took me a couple of days to track down all the witnesses, but their stories match up. Neither man entered the bar. Everything happened outside in the parking lot. Nobody witnessed the altercation, and they found Lucian slumped over the deceased with his face buried in his neck.”

I sighed, frustrated by another dead end.

“The one thing that didn’t make sense,” he went on, “was the tire iron. I didn’t put one in the Jeep, which I need to do, and the victim’s car had one in the trunk. Most people don’t carry two, so where did it come from?”

“That is strange. Were you the one who came by the jail asking for it?”

He put his hat back on and slowly moved toward the house, the sun shining in his eyes when he looked at me. “I wanted to borrow it to have a Sensor check it out—see what kind of energy might be on it. I couldn’t get past Captain Underpants,” he said, referring to Peter.

“We have a strict policy about guests. They have to be approved, and I guess Hiroki or Connor weren’t there.”

“No.”

“We don’t hand out evidence to anyone who asks, but I can discuss this with my colleagues. Do you still need it?”

He stepped onto the porch. “Maybe not after today. My contact isn’t a hypersensitive, and since it’s been a few days, he probably couldn’t get much from it anyhow.

I’ve kept in touch with Milly after you told her I was on the case, and she called me a little while ago.

I know you have a busy schedule, but you need to see this with your own eyes. ”

After I followed him inside Milly’s dark house, we traveled down the elevator into the underground medical facility where she treated people.

When the doors opened, Milly emerged from a room on the right. “I’m used to my patients being alive,” she remarked. “But it’s nice when they can’t complain.”

Milly was a short stick of dynamite with a strict grey bob.

Her oversized glasses often slid down her nose, and although she stood straight, the slight hunch of her back suggested osteoporosis.

Relics were near genetic matches to humans, making them susceptible to the same diseases, illnesses, and other health conditions.

Their one gift was the ability to fuse knowledge to their DNA and pass it on to their offspring, which made them invaluable to the Breed community.

Sometimes I felt a little sad that she lived out here alone.

Milly led us to a back room with a steel door. When she opened it, the smell hit me. “That’s putrefaction,” she said. “Should’ve brought him to me sooner.”

Marcus was lying on a table with a sheet draped over his groin. His face looked like someone had used it for a punching bag and made him barely recognizable.

I walked up and frowned at his chest. “Did you shave him?”

“He was too hairy,” she pointed out. “If I’m looking for external marks, I need to remove body hair. You see the red marks on his torso?”

I craned my neck. “What’s that from?”

“It looks like an energy burn—and a powerful one.”

“But he’s a Mage. They absorb energy, so a blast wouldn’t do anything.”

She stood on the other side of the table. “Curious, isn’t it? They’re burn marks nevertheless. Did the perpetrator have any weapons?”

“Just a tire iron.”

Milly lifted his arm and studied his hand and fingers.

“Cutting him open isn’t necessary, but I sampled his blood, especially around the bite wound.

” She set his hand down and then turned Marcus’s head to the side, which revealed four puncture marks.

“Now, I’m no expert in bite-mark forensics, but I appreciate your giving me a mold of the Chitah’s teeth with his fangs out. ”

It was one of the first things Milly requested, and after Montana picked up the materials and left them with Peter, we had Lucian bite into a tray to leave an impression.

She pulled out a top set of teeth and smiled at them.

“Not bad. I was able to take measurements and do comparisons this morning, but there’s almost no need.

” She held the teeth against the neck, and we all hovered to look.

“See that? They don’t line up. Not even close.

The fangs are wider apart on the victim.

But guess what else I noticed? The bottom holes pierced downward. Catch my drift?”

I leaned back. “No, I don’t think I do.”

She set the upper teeth on a table and picked up Lucian’s lower teeth.

“When a Chitah has all four fangs out, the holes mimic the direction of the teeth. I didn’t notice it at first, but the lower bite marks on the victim go downward, not upward.

” She turned the bottom teeth upside down, showing how the fangs had gone into the body in the wrong direction.

“Not only that, but you can see the marks left behind by the incisors. The bottom ones match the top, so he was bitten twice with the upper teeth. But not these teeth.”

I gave it some thought. “Maybe our suspect’s a defect who only has top fangs.”

“It gets better,” she added. “The blood analysis didn’t reveal any Chitah venom.

Not a single trace. It would’ve had to circulate through his entire body to kill him, which usually takes about a minute.

Even faster if the heart is racing. It not only causes violent pain, seizures, foaming at the mouth, and even blindness, but that venom instantly seeks out the nearest vein and makes a trip all around until it goes through the heart and brain. It’s powerful stuff.”

Montana crossed his arms. “So you’re saying another Chitah bit him without venom? And what about the burn marks?”

She shook her head. “What I’m saying is, I don’t think that impression was from a Chitah.

Is it possible a Chitah without venom bit him twice?

Sure, but what would be the point, especially if it meant getting dangerously close?

If he died from venom, everyone within a one-mile radius would have heard him screaming in agony. ”

I stared at the body. It was difficult to kill a Mage. Usually they died from beheadings, Chitah venom, or bleeding out after their core energy was drained. Aside from the physical marks on his face and chest, he looked fine.

“What do you think happened?” I asked.

She set down the teeth and untied her blue gown.

“I think those wounds on his chest are from a Stealer. You ever seen what they can do? I’m sure you know that every Mage has one or two rare gifts.

Stealers can pull core light from a Mage.

Not regular light like with juicing. You can juice a Mage all the way and still never tap into the core light.

That’s what makes them immortal, and it’s fused to them in some kind of way.

But a Stealer can pull that light out, making them human again.

Once they’re mortal, they can be killed. ”

I stared at the body. “Then how did he die?”

She adjusted her glasses. “There’s no sign of head trauma, which under certain circumstances could potentially kill a Mage.

He has petechiae marks and a fracture to the laryngeal skeleton that suggest he was strangled.

A Mage can’t die that way, but a human can.

And the only one who can make a Mage mortal again is a Stealer.

Usually they do it through the hands, but maybe your killer pulled it from his chest to hide the evidence.

People don’t usually run autopsies on Breed. That’s my unofficial opinion.”

“I appreciate it. We’ll be sure to compensate you for your trouble.”