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and the Mad Hatter. It hid his eyes—but not his gleeful, vicious, satisfied grin.
    “There’s a guy creating the wind!” I shouted—and the tarp tore from my grasp. “Fuck!”
    “What?” Gibbs said, trying to look, but the corner of the tarp I’d lost snapped at his eyes. “Fuck! Frost, help me!” he said, flinching, nearly losing his corner too as the wind tore at it.
    I lunged for the end I’d lost, pinning it down so Horscht could stake it. Drifts of dust surged over the hill under the wind, whipping past us in seconds like stampeding ghosts. There was no way this was natural. A terrific gust tore away a corner, letting sunlight shine on the pooled blood at Revy’s feet. It steamed and began boiling away where the light touched it.
    I snagged a flapping edge of the tarp, cursing, but the wind roared, dragging me and two officers aside, exposing Revy completely. His pooled blood had already boiled away to a black crust of ugly tar, but under the full light of the sun, it began to smoke—and burn.
    “God damn it,” Rand said, coming to help us. “What the hell—”
    “There’s a guy manipulating the wind!” I shouted, trying to point. “We gotta stop him!”
    “Dakota?” Revenance said suddenly, raising his head, his eyes staring straight at me without seeing. “Dakota! Are you there? Can you hear me?”
    “Yeah, Revy,” I said. “Hang on, we’ll find a way—”
    “It’s already got me,” Revenance said, twisting in agony as vines drained his flesh and flames licked his feet. “Don’t let it get you or Cinnamon! You gotta take out that skateboarding fuck, but to stop him, you gotta find the Streetscribe. But whatever you do— don’t awaken it! ”
    —

    Then the wind tore the tarp away, and his body burst into flames.

Isolation Protocol

    “Nobody fucking touch nothing ,” McGough said, as we all stood in shock, watching firemen back away from the blackened corpse. Revy’s death had taken only a moment, but it had taken an eternity to put those tenacious fires out. “This just became a crime scene.”
    “Wasn’t ‘magical assault with intent to kill’ already a crime?” I said, cradling Cinnamon against me. She was crying. I hadn’t realized how much she liked Revy. “I’m sorry, baby—”
    “I liked him,” Cinnamon said bitterly. “The fang was nice to me—”
    I drew a breath. “Rand,” I said. “There was someone else on the scene, a short little prick with baggy pants, a skateboard, and a huge-ass hat—”
    “I-I saw him too,” Cinnamon said suddenly. “When I went to get the pole. Sittin’ on a wall, watchin’ it all, grinning with some nasty ol’ silver grill on his teeth—”
    “So?” McGough said, eyes sharp. “What do you think that had to do with this?”
    “I saw him right when the wind picked up,” I said.
    “I caught that too,” Gibbs said. “Just a glimpse, but I definitely saw the guy—and as soon as I looked, the wind snapped like a bitch and near ripped the tarp out of my hands.”
    “Can’t be a coincidence,” I said. “He may have been magically enhancing the wind—”
    “Oh, hell . Thanks, Frost. We’ll search the area,” McGough said, motioning to an officer. “First things first, though—this is a crime scene now. I need you to wait by your car—”
    “I wasn’t done,” I snapped. “He was pretty far off. At first I thought he was trying to watch from a safe distance, but I surveyed the ley line crossings a few years back and one goes through the Cemetery right where he was standing. He could be a technical practitioner rather than a bloodline witch, which might affect his choice of escape routes—”
    “Oh, hell, we’ve got one who thinks she can be helpful ,” McGough said, putting his hand to his to his brow. “Rand, get your pet witch and her pet cat out of my crime scene—”
    “Now just a minute,” I began hotly. “You can’t just—”
    “He can’t, but I can,” Rand said. “It’s my crime