Chapter One

            "Somebody's dead—and I can't decide between Boston Cream or Jelly."
            Derrick was fiddling with his messenger bag.  Something pricey with useless metal straps that he'd bought from Holts.  He pulled out a yellow form, glared at it, pulled out a green form, then muttered something under his breath and shoved both of them back into the bag.  Paperwork at mystical crime scenes could be a real bitch.
            "I want the Jelly."  I stared intently at the pastry case while the exhausted Tim Horton's employee—Francis, his nametag said—drummed bitten-down nails on the plastic countertop. 
            "So get the Jelly."  Derrick adjusted the shoulder-strap.  "We've got to go, Tess.  Selena's waiting for us, and the scene is a good six blocks from here."
            "I want the Jelly," I murmured, as if this were something existential, "but the powdered sugar is going to get all over my coat."
            "You could wear gloves."
            I beamed at him.  "That’s brilliant."  I rummaged through my purse for a moment, then drew out a pair of latex gloves.  My full kit—with tape lifters, dusting powders, forceps, and other scene paraphernalia—was in the trunk of the car, but I always carried extra materials in my purse.  I slipped on the gloves.
            "Francis, I'd like two Jellies, please."
            He stared at me.
            "And two coffees," Derrick added.  "It's almost 3:30 in the morning."
            "Of course."  I smiled at Francis.  "Two double-doubles, please, and could you put sleeves on those?  I'd rather not get a third-degree burn."
            Francis took my handful of change wordlessly, and returned with our order.  The fluorescent bulbs overhead cast odd, unnatural shadows across his face.  He was one of those guys who could be eighteen or forty-eight—pinpointing his age would be impossible.  Like trying to pinpoint time of death.  I almost smiled at the thought.
            The door to the restroom opened, and I saw a momentary glimmer of harsh, purple light.  Most cafes this close to the Downtown Eastside had installed black-lights in their restrooms to keep IV-drug users from shooting up.  The dim lighting made it too hard for them to find a vein.  A woman wearing a bright red kerchief and a black leather jacket emerged shakily from the restroom, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the drastic change in lighting.  I saw her fiddling with a fanny pack, shoving something back into it that looked like a piece of elastic tubing.  Her pupils were pinned, eyes rolling, head nodding slightly.  Obviously, the black-light hadn't stopped her. 
            Nobody reacted.  At the corner of Hastings and Heatley, only a few blocks from the heart of the Downtown Eastside, everyone was used to watching neighborhood residents fixing in bathrooms, on corners, in alleys, or in whatever space they could find.  We were on the edge right now, the uneasy intersection between Chinatown, the club district, and the recently-trendy Strathcona neighborhood where yuppies and hipsters now mingled with longtime residents, battling for affordable housing.
            We weren't headed there, though. 
            Instead, we'd be going into the heart of the yuppie urban core—the trendiest downtown real estate—flanked by the Pacific Ocean and nestled in between stately banks, rambling used bookstores, and the finest and most overpriced pub food in Gastown just a few blocks away.
            I handed Derrick his coffee.  "Ok.  Let's get walking."
            Francis didn't wave goodbye.
            It was a relief when the cold air outside smacked me in the face.  Derrick imbibed his coffee silently, chewing delicately on his doughnut, while I slurped mine, spilled some on my sleeve, cursed, then almost dropped the cup.  This was a pretty accurate tableau of our different personalities, I thought.  Two odd shadows walking down Hastings Street.  What bound us together when we were so obviously different? 
            Only we knew.
            "Where are we going again?" 
            "A residence at the corner of Hastings and Richards.  Very posh.  Building's called The Crescendo.  One of those up-in-an-instant places with marble countertops and gleaming new fixtures."
            "Yeah, until two weeks after you buy it, when you realize that the cupboards are crooked, and your bathroom's the size of a postage stamp, and your upstairs neighbor wears heels all day long." 
            We walked past the gleaming concrete towers, past Harbor Center and the Wosk Centre for Dialogue (did dialogue actually occur there?)  The pavement was a dark ribbon, backlit by lights from the buses that roared by.       
            "Selena said they might be bringing in a profiler," Derrick said.  "Some expert from Toronto."
            I frowned.  "Why?  This isn't a serial case."
            "Apparently, there've been two other murders that are similar—one in Hamilton, the other in Scarborough.  So they want to bring in an expert."
            "People are still thinking about the William Pickton case—anything that looks close to a serial murder is going to need special attention.  And the Downtown East Side is just six blocks away from this neighborhood.  The overlap is unavoidable.  These kids may be coming from rich families, but, no matter how connected they are, they're still dying uncomfortably close to the DTES—a place that's been the target of a serial killer in the recent past."
            "Does Selena think this killer might be a copycat?"  Derrick asked.  "Someone using magic to kill in the same manner?"
            "In my experience, Selena almost never assumes anything.  But after Marcus—"  I shivered involuntarily, remembering against my will how our former boss, Marcus Tremblay, had turned out to be a killer as well.  It had barely been six months since Marcus had me tied to a chair with a gun pointed at my head.
            Derrick looked at me.  "Bad memories?"
            "Just a little spooked.  I don't say his name very often."
            He rubbed my shoulder.  "You don't have to.  He's gone, Tess.  He's buried, and were safe.  As safe as we can be in our line of work, at any rate."
            I could still see his dead eyes staring at me, totally devoid of feeling, like the grey, impassive eyes of a shark.  I could feel Sabine's hand gripping my throat, her fangs exposed as she fantasized about tearing into my subclavian artery like fresh meat.  And Mia's lost expression.  Mia's pain, the light draining from her eyes as she realized that her parents were dead, that nothing would ever be the same again.

            "Safe as anyone in this neighborhood," I muttered.