"Vikings?"

"Vikings."

Mel absentmindedly smeared butter on her sourdough toast as Maggie and Harry did their typical verbal dance.

"Vikings... have demons?" Maggie scoffed. "I must have missed the part about Viking exorcisms in history."

"Well, the Vikings worshipped the Norse gods, so it is actually the, er, Norse who have demons, of a sort. But it was the Vikings brought this particular spirit over the pond. It seems Mr. Paulson picked up the horn at a garage sale north of the border sometime in the last year. With the holidays coming up, perhaps he was looking to unload some specialty items for people seeking gifts." Harry paused, the next thought clearly forming on his face: "Also, do you really think your history classes told you everything there is to know about Vikings?"

"Big dudes. Long beards. Boats."

Macy had the Book open on the table and sipped orange juice with one hand as she flipped pages with the other. "Drinking horns are pretty popular with the dudebros on campus lately. It makes them feel so very manly. As if the bigness and the beards were transferrable."

Harry shrugged at no one in particular.

"So what do we do next?"

"We may be able to use the horn for divining the thing's location, but the efficacy of that method will depend on how it moves. I would also hesitate to pit you ladies against an ancient magical being without a little more information first. Maybe some reconnaissance before we, er, throw down."

The sisters variously nodded and shrugged their assent. It was a little anticlimactic.

The whitelighter smiled weakly and cleared his throat. "There is… one more thing. A bit of a curveball, as they say."

Mel glanced up mid-chew and found Harry was looking directly, pointedly, at her. "Wha?"

"It turns out that the primary homicide detective assigned to the case is an intrepid gumshoe named James Morris. And, er…"

When he didn't go on, Mel had to swallow both her toast and a flare of annoyance. "Okay?"

"Detective Morris is this timeline's partner of… a one Detective Hamada."

Oh . Mel flashed back to Stephanie's words at the party: We heard on the scanner about that murder out south. EMTs said it was unique. She cleared her throat several times and took a few gulps of water, suddenly hot under the gaze of her sisters and the whitelighter. "Well, I mean, it's not like we have to talk to the police or anything, right? We don't have to even see her… them. It's fine."

Macy's eyes narrowed to slits. "It's… fine?"

"Yes! You know… I'm with Perry now, Niko's married, it's all good."

"Niko's married ? To that Jennifer-Lawrence-in-her-blonde-times harpy?" Maggie had closed the space between the kitchen counter and the table with superhuman speed, motivated by the power of FOMO. "Have you been looking at her Facebook again?"

Before Mel could slap the phone out of her hand, Maggie had pulled up said profile. She frowned. "That's not on her public info. I don't even see wedding pictures." The furious typing began. "Not on her Instagram, either."

"It was in the paper! Public record, you know. Unemployed, lots of free time. To read the paper. Good for them, right?" Mel wasn't entirely sure why she was lying, but she felt fairly sure that she wasn't ready to tell them about her evening yet.

" Which paper?" asked Maggie, scenting blood in the water.

"The, um—Daily… Hilltowne… Press."

" Mel ." Macy's voice had that big sisterly timbre she'd been working on for months. "Remember why you cast the spell. This was about keeping Niko safe . You worked so hard to move on, and Perry seems really nice—so just… talk to us, okay? If things are… too much. There's a chance we run into her, but she's an entirely new person, new timeline. Just remember that. I don't want to see you like you were right after the spell, that's all."

Mel looked down at her plate, throat suddenly dry. She'd been prepared for suspicion and preemptive accusations, maybe some arguing, but now felt even worse for thinking her sisters would do anything but want to help and protect her. "Yeah, of course."

With the sisterly exchange over, Harry clapped his hands together at the first opportunity to exit. "I'll leave you ladies to it, then!"

Assamese. That was the mysterious language their unsub had used to write the message on the ceiling, and after a solid four hours, Niko had finally managed to translate the words. The sentences were ominous, maddenly vague, and so very random that she was having trouble processing what it might mean for the murder of Chris Paulson, if anything. If not for the Asiatic Languages department at the U, she might not have even known where to start. The thing was, the message was noncommittal, but also so dramatic that it seemed like something a very established killer would do, someone who was comfortable enough with it that they would take the time to leave such a dramatic scene. If the murderer was a serial killer, they might have to wait until their next victims turned up to find out, because nowhere in any database or search engine had she been able to find a reference to Assamese in a murder case. Maybe the script was just a red herring, meant to force the police to do exactly what Niko was doing: wasting an entire day chasing down a big fat goose egg. But if that were true, she was back at the conclusion that they were chasing an experienced, violent killer confident enough to toy with investigators… and so it went.

She groaned and tossed her pen across the library table in frustration, and a nearby student half-obscured by a mountain of books glared at her. Niko gave him a quick apology wave, and then started stuffing her notes into her bag. The origin of the three-pointed shape still eluded her, and after two weeks they had exactly no leads and forensics that went nowhere. Nobody had even come to claim Chris Paulson's body, meaning she barely had a sense of who he even was besides a fence and a thug. Jimmy really didn't need another unsolved on his plate, so she'd continue working the case with gusto for as long as it took.

Back at the front door area, a thought pricked at Niko's brain. Assamese. She'd found only three books on to it in the library, two of which were mind-numbing etymological histories of Indo-Aryan languages in general, and one that was your standard translation dictionary, which was missing pages and practically disintegrating in her hands. She walked back to the front desk and smiled at the middle aged woman behind it, peering at her nametag before the librarian looked up.

"Rhonda! Hi, um, I found a twenty dollar bill that I think someone used as a bookmark in this book and forgot. Could you maybe let me know who had it last, and I'll return it to them?"

Rhonda's smile was apologetic before she even responded: "Sorry, that's not something I can just release. Privacy, you know."

"Aw, well—I get it. I wouldn't want to break the rules. It's just, twenty bucks goes a long way these days, you know? I hope the person isn't too bad off without it, this could be a month's gas money…"

The librarian obviously saw straight through Niko's little ramble, but she still gave a resigned sigh. "Looks like the last person to check this out was a Macy Vaughn. That's all I will tell you."

"You're the best! Thank you!"

"You didn't hear it from me!" called Rhonda as Niko scurried towards the door. "I'll deny it with my dying breath!"

Niko's phone buzzed as she hit the first rush of winter air, and she scowled at the screen for a moment (she really wanted to put on her earmuffs) before answering, "Hamada."

"It's Aiko."

The detective paused at her patrol car door, recognizing the voice but not the name.

"Zelda."

"Oh! Oh, I definitely knew that." She could've sworn she heard Zelda's eyes roll, but pressed on. "What's up, you got something for me?"

"I wouldn't say I got it for you, per se," answered the tech flatly. "And I'm not sure if it's actually anything, but it's weird ."

"Weird is better than useless." Niko turned the engine and waited for her phone to connect to the BlueTooth in the car.

"...from the body, and there was animal fur in the wounds."

Niko stopped mid-way out of backing from her parking spot. "Excuse me?"

"It's hair, it's non-human, but it doesn't readily match anything easy, like a cow or a camel. The DNA could be degraded."

"So it could have come from one of the artifacts in the house. Can you test anything with fur on it?"

"You gonna talk to O'Doule about my overtime for that?"

A car honked, and Niko waved apologetically for the second time in ten minutes. "I'll even bring you french fries when I get back to the office."

May, 2016

Mel traced a fingertip along Niko's chest, along the pleasing dip down the middle of her stomach. She followed her finger with her lips and the occasional swipe of her tongue until she heard a soft chuckle from above.

"What?" she asked, turning her eyes to look up at her lover even as she continued peppering kisses across her soft lower belly.

"Tickles," whispered Niko, eyes closed.

"Mmm but your abs , babe… I think you should wear crop tops."

"A crop top?" laughed the taller woman, catching Mel's chin with her hand. "In your dreams."

"Oh yes in my dreams." Mel shouted in surprise and delight as Niko suddenly surged up, rolling them so she was pinned to the mattress. "Well hello there Officer Hotmada. Nice of you to join me."

Niko growled into her neck, "You're gonna be the death of me."

Mel leaned up and nipped her earlobe, probably a little harder than she meant, earning a head shake and pout. "What a way to go out though, huh?"

A chirping noise from the bedside table made both of them freeze, a Pavlovian response to the reminder of reality outside this moment, in the sun-drenched paradise of Mel's bedroom… to be specific, that Niko was still engaged to her partner of four years.

Mel's stomach dropped as Niko slid off her to snooze the alarm, then sat up and rested heavily on her arms. She stared at the expanse of smooth, golden skin on Niko's back and tried not to think about the way her chest clenched imaging someone else's hands there. Straying too close to that thought made her skin crawl with an icy dread, like the moment you feel a beloved birthday balloon's string slip out of your fingers. They had not talked about That yet.

As the police officer began shrugging into her patrol uniform, Mel slid to the edge of the bed and grabbed Niko's hand away from mechanically fastening buttons, and she held it until their eyes met. "Hey, um… I just wanted to say, I'm having a lot of fun with you… doing this… but I can't be the other woman forever. We promised we'd talk about this when… it seemed right."

Niko sighed and knelt between Mel's knees, taking both her hands in hers. She squeezed and relaxed her grip a few times before getting out: "I understand. Can I… do you…." The officer swallowed thickly. "I don't want this to come off the wrong way."

Rubicon crossing ahead. Proceed with caution. Mel allowed herself the time to take a deep, steadying breath. She no longer had the will or desire to deny that what started out as opportunistic fucking had transformed into something… else. It currently lived somewhere tucked away in her chest, sleeping, but present. Waiting. Growing, if left unattended. "Just… say what you need to say."

Although Mel startled when Niko's police radio crackled from across the room, the officer remained steady, thumbs rubbing slow circles over Mel's thighs as she gathered her words. "Greta and I have been in trouble for a long time, obviously. There are moments where it seems fine…. but I've just been too chickenshit to do something. It's my fault that it hasn't ended yet. And my biggest regret about that is it… People make a lot of assumptions. Judge. In situations like… this."

It took a few seconds of processing the halting words, but Mel concluded with fair confidence that this sounded like movement towards something (dot dot dot) more.

"So this ve-ry eloquent word scramble is, uh, just to be clear that… I don't expect anything of you. I know have some things to work out for myself, too, but I don't want there to be this shadow of my mistakes forever. I really, really like you, and I think we could be good together. If you want, of course. If you want me."

"And the drama?"

"And the drama."

Apparently emptied of words, Niko deflated, slumping against the shorter woman with her forehead against her shoulder. Mel gently but firmly pulled a handful of Niko's hair so her head tipped back up, and their eyes locked. "You aren't going to call off your engagement with Greta because of me. You're calling off your engagement with Greta because you need to. That's what you're saying, right?"

"Right. You're not a safe landing, you are a whole new world to me."

Mel kissed her, a little too hard, but briefly. "Prove to me that you want it. I'm not going to pressure you into doing anything, but… let's just say, if you became single again, I'd be first in line. And Niko?"

"Hmm?"

"A 'whole new world'? Really?"

"That's where we'll be-e-e… A thrilling place..." Niko sang, unabashed, chuckling as she dropped her body back onto Mel, who giggled and shrieked in delight despite the added weight in her chest, and not just from her lover pressing her into the mattress.

Whatever had burst out of that old horn, it was fast . The divination crystal swung across its chain as if the miles it represented were just the inches on the page. Other times, it would hover for hours, usually over wooded areas that would be dangerous to traipse without knowing what they might find. Sometimes, it just disappeared entirely, probably time spent in another realm. The movements didn't appear to have a pattern or cycle, but luckily, the visitor didn't appear to spend any significant amount of time near their house, mostly just incidental passes. They wanted to get it to it during the day, and as out in the open as possible. Nobody in Hilltowne had been reporting anything stranger than usual for a college town, like students climbing random structures (they would climb anything) or dumping trash in neighbors' yards.

Mel was tired of it. Two weeks with zero occasions to use magic, or not the fun kind, anyway. So she'd taken matters into her own hands and managed to schedule a block between her sisters' iCal appointments for a shot at spotting the Roadrunner-esque demon.

They were busy dumping random defense (enchanted rope, pure silver blade, salt: the usual) items into a bag when the doorbell rang, prompting confused looks between the sisters. After a quick sudden death tournament of rock, paper, scissors, Mel was the loser who had to go downstairs and answer the door.

Through the peephole, she could see a man in a black parka, blonde, mid-thirties, scruffy facial hair. His arm was raised mid-knock, and Mel opened the door slowly, peeking just her head out. "Yes?"

The mystery caller held up a police badge in his other hand, and Mel's stomach dropped before he even said: "Good afternoon, ma'am. I'm Detective Morris, and this is my partner, Detective Hamada. Is Macy Vaughn home, ma'am?"

Oh no. Mel hadn't seen Niko standing behind Morris when she looked through the peephole, but now the detective was definitely there, leaning her head around his shoulder, and she peered in the doorway for just a second before Mel could see the dots connect in her head. No no no—

"Mel?" said Niko, moving around her partner. "You live here?"

"Niko! Hi!" Mel heard herself let out a shrill, strained laughing type noise, smooth operator that she was. "Yes! I do! Nice to see you again. Macy is, uh, my sister. Remember? The cooking one?"

"We just wanna talk to her," said Jimmy, flicking his eyes between his partner and Mel. "And how do you two know each other?"

Niko was already looking past Mel at the footsteps she could hear approaching the door, and this was all getting very out of control very quickly. She answered almost absent-mindedly: "Mel is dating my friend, Perry—you know Perry, the trainer?"

Jimmy nodded as if that explained everything, and then Maggie and Macy were there and pushing Mel out of the way, ostensibly to distance her from Niko judging by the warning look Macy shot over her shoulder.

"Macy Vaughn?" asked Jimmy, one eyebrow quirked.

Macy flashed her friendliest smile, trying with subpar success to lean against the doorframe in a way that was both casual and also blocking entrance completely. "What can I do for you?"

"We're working on a case where the perpetrator appears to have left a message in a language called Assamese. Are you familiar with it?"

"Why would… that… ring a bell with me?"

Mel managed to squeeze herself between Macy and the door, wanting to intervene with a brilliant excuse that she would devise as the words left her mouth, but instead she popped out onto the stoop with an ungainly stumble that had Niko automatically catching her by the shoulders as she chuckled softly.

"Whoa there, calm down everyone," said the detective, keeping her hands on Mel until she was sure she'd recovered. "Can we come inside?"

"I'll need more information before I let some strangers just barge into our house... detectives ," replied Macy thinly. "What's this about?"

Niko stepped away from Mel, the small pivot giving the shorter woman the space she needed to breathe. Her skin practically burned where the detective's familiar hands had steadied her.

"I'm sorry ma'am, we can't give you a lot of details. I can tell you this is a murder investigation. The last person who checked out the library's Assamese-English Dictionary, 1973 edition, was you, Ms. Vaughn. I don't have anything to suggest that you're a suspect, but if you'll just let us run some things by you, then we'll get out of your hair—and we don't have to come inside. It's pretty cold out here, though."

She looked, as always, handsome and put together—a blue velvet blazer, gray slim slacks, and a white scoopneck tee that showed off just the tops of her collarbones. It would be helpful if she would stop smiling like that too, the "aw, shucks, you're a pretty lady" face Niko always pulled to get her way with women, and some men. Old ladies especially fell for this routine. Mel certainly was not immune, and even Macy looked like she swooned for a second there.

"Just come inside," snorted the eldest sister, finally stepping back.

While Macy sat with the detectives in the living room, Maggie none-too-subtly dragged Mel into the kitchen and hissed, "What the fuck? "

"What? How is this my fault?"

"I heard what she said about Perry!" Maggie pointed to the living room. "How long have you been hanging out with her? Are you insane ?"

"I'm not hanging out with her." Mel had to take a breath to calm down when her voice rose above a whisper. "It's exactly like she said, Perry's a friend of hers. I didn't know, and… you remember that dinner party a few weeks ago?"

Maggie rolled her eyes. "You're kidding me."

"I didn't think we'd see each other again, or not for awhile, and she's married , it's not like we see each other one on one, or at all. Perry doesn't hang out with them, like, all the time. I promise, I wasn't… trying anything."

After a heavy beat, Maggie sighed, and her face softened. "Fine, but we're not done talking about this. Are you okay?"

Mel decided on honesty. "I don't really have a choice, do I?"

Maggie frowned sympathetically and held out her arms, hugging her older sister tightly.

Niko's second interaction with Perry's girlfriend, Mel… didn't seem much less awkward than the first. It might've been worse, even. Then again, they were talking murder investigation in the sisters' living room. Maybe Mel's nervous energy could be forgiven, but the way she kept looking at the detective from the kitchen, eyes permanently widened—what was that? Guilt? Fear? Should she take it personally? Or the strangest, most alarming thought: Did these sisters have something to do with the murder? She'd walked in convinced that was a no, but all three of them were exchanging furtive glances about something. Best case scenario, maybe they had something illicit in the next room. The youngest, Maggie, was wearing sorority letters, after all.

Macy explained with genuine confidence that she and her sisters were antiquities buffs, going so far as to produce some strange looking artifacts they'd apparently collected as part of this… totally normal mutual hobby. Their alibis needed to be verified, but they all sounded plausible and easy to check—Macy had been working in her lab, Maggie had been in class, and Mel had been bartending, adding hurriedly that the day shift was "shit for tips" and she really wanted to get a job at the university.

Ultimately, the sisters hadn't provided so much as a whiff of a lead. Niko felt the beginning of a headache behind her eyes as she closed her notebook.

"Well, we should let you get back to your Saturday," said Jimmy when he'd run out of ideas. "Thanks for your time. Is it okay if we get your phone numbers, just in case we have more questions?"

The sisters agreed, dutifully writing down their contact information in Morris' notebook. For all intents and purposes, they seemed eager to cooperate despite their odd, nervous behavior. That could mean a lot of things. Could it be "guilty" behavior? Maybe. Everything in this case felt like a big fat "perhaps". Niko chewed her lip and watched the sisters say goodbye to Morris, then her phone lit up with O'Doule's name and his special ringtone, the Apple one that sounded like a nuclear warning alarm. "Hamada."

"There's a second victim."

Niko immediately twisted away from the sisters, moving towards the door and holding her hand over her mouth and the bottom of her phone. "Are you sure?"

"Got a funny script, same symbol, in blood this time. The old warehouse on County Road 10, mile marker 18. Get there as soon as you can."

Sighing, Niko ended the call and held the phone against her suddenly pounding forehead. She and Greta were supposed to have "a talk" in about three hours, but that would now have to be postponed. Again. And she was so looking forward to the additional mini-talk they would have now, mostly consisting of Greta railing against this job ( "How could we ever raise a baby together if these are your hours?") and Niko ending the argument by disappearing into the garage to drink beers until she was sure Greta had given up and gone to bed. Joy .

"What's up?" asked Jimmy, who'd moved closer and donned his coat.

With the sisters watching them like owls, Niko turned away to quietly answer, "Second db. We have to go." Turning back, she raised her voice to reach the homeowners: "Thank you again for your time. Mel, tell Perry I said she owes me twenty on the Thunder game."

Mel gave her a quick nod, but it was Maggie who responded: "Good luck, officers—I mean, detectives! I hope you… get that bad guy."

She'd been moving forward as she spoke, and suddenly the youngest sister's outstretched hand nearly jammed into Niko's stomach. Somewhat caught off guard, Niko accepted it, and the small woman shook for a beat or two longer than strictly necessary. She quickly did the same to Jimmy, and then finally, the detectives made it back into their department car.

"They were… interesting," he commented casually as they pulled out of the neighborhood. "I mean, you've taught me well, cops and POC and whatnot—but it was… different? I'm trying to put my finger on it."

Niko took a moment to pat herself on the back for her padawan ally, who could still use some work on his delivery, but then agreed. "This might sound weird, but did it seem like… they were nervous about me? Specifically?"

Jimmy drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "Maybe. You are pretty dreamy, Detective Hot mada. I saw you flex to get into the house. The middle one practically passed out. What is it, the half-dimple?"

"First, it was cold outside so, whatever works. Second, her name is Mel, and third, if you weren't driving, I would punch you. Just remember that for when we stop."

"Her name is Mel ," muttered Morris in a mocking, but quiet tone.

Niko absolutely socked him in the arm when they got out of the vehicle, and he took it like a man who knew he deserved it. Their jockeying quickly came to a halt when they entered the warehouse, where another macabre tableau waited. There was no religious element this time, confirming their thought that the crucifix in Paulson had been an opportunistic piece of flair, but there was the same crumpling of limbs. There was also at least one more noticeable difference.

"We looked everywhere, and there are some deputies out there still looking, but no sign of his skull so far," said Zelda with a weary sort of look.

Niko knelt next to where the man's head should have been. His neck ended a couple inches above the shoulder in a ragged, convex line.

"Doesn't look like they did this with something already in the warehouse, or if they did, they took it with 'em," narrated Jimmy, hands on hips. He added under his breath for good measure: "Jesus fucking Christ."

"It's not a clean cut, and there is some crushing damage to the flesh," said the medical examiner. "I would guess the head was removed by some sort of vice. Pressure from the top and the bottom."

"What machine could even do that?"

"Something industrial, heavy, like for metal stamping. But there's no power to this building." Zelda chewed her lip. "Could be manually powered, something that ratchets, like a woodworking clamp."

Niko's headache was becoming a thunderclap between her eyes, as if in sympathy for the victim. "ID?"

"Hank Faulk, 43. No drivers license, just a state ID in his back pocket," the tech replied.

"Hank… Faulk…" repeated Jimmy slowly, his eyes turned upward as if physically searching his brain. "Why do I know that name?"

They phoned dispatch for more information, and it turned out Morris had arrested Mr. Henry "Hank" Faulk during his first year on VICE; the guy was a notoriously violent john who often complained that women hadn't delivered "acceptable" service to get paid. He interestingly also had a history of smuggling stolen property, and that sounded like a solid enough connection to the previous victim. A case was taking shape with this overlapping information, but the plot remained fuzzy and out of reach. Hopefully, forensics would be more helpful this time.

When Zelda showed Niko the patch of concrete where another three-pointed symbol had been drawn, the detective could have punched the wall upon seeing that the message below was written in a different language, something no more recognizable than the last. This time, it looked almost like hieroglyphics, or maybe an Asian character type language… She took another picture.

"There's only one car outside, and only one set of tire marks. What, did our unsub walk here? We're pretty off the beaten path," muttered Jimmy, circling the symbols. "And got away carrying some kind of… mega murder machine and a blowtorch? Does this guy fucking fly?"

Niko straightened up, groaning at the winter ache in her bad knee, which had lost the battle with a small caliber bullet her second year on the job. "We gotta find out what these guys were trading, see if we can get inventories or sales orders, find out what's missing."

"Right, because these are the exact kinda dudes who are going to keep pristine books?" Morris held up his hands in retreat when she almost snapped at him. "Sorry, you're right. That's all we got. Are you gonna translate this too?"

"Maybe I don't have to. Remember that time we met that trio of people with a keen interest in weird languages?"

Morris rolled his eyes.

"Okay so, they totally thought we were being sketchy, and there's a second body," announced Maggie as she closed the door behind the detectives, having used the goodbye handshakes for a primary source gander at the situation. The next, she said directly to Mel: "Also… Niko likes your lips. A lot."

"Maggie ," scolded Macy.

"If I had to hear that, then you do too," she snapped back. "The old warehouse on County Road 10, mile marker 18."

"Well, we can go visit when the cops are finished with it. Do you guys still want to try for the demon? I feel a little all packed up with nowhere to go."

Maggie hesitated in the doorway, and Mel tilted her head in question. "I just... uh, nothing."

"I didn't ask you anything."

The youngest sister sighed, arms crossing tightly. "Right." And after a brief, internal struggle that was written all over her face, she added: "I didn't like what she was thinking about… Greta. It was… really sad, I guess."

Mel took a deep breath against the pull of emotion behind her eyes. She chose to press on. There was nothing to say to that. "Let's just find this demon."

They found the visitor roaming the edge of Hilltowne Park, and their subsequent plan amounted to all of running around with their phones in a group call until they caught up with it. Mel and Macy went to the park while Maggie kept the divination going, giving them updates on the demon's location as they went. Because nothing could be as easy as cornering it by the skate park, they trekked about a mile into the woods before coming across a trace of it.

Fur. A patch of black fur, to be specific. Mel spotted it hanging from a broken branch about four feet off the ground, and might not have thought much of the dark spot except for the shimmer of energy around, just enough to catch her eye. They bagged it and kept going for maybe another half mile before a noise made them both freeze in a crouch.

"Should be in front of you," said Maggie into Mel's earbuds, whispering even though she wasn't in the forest with them.

Mel tilted her head and honed in on movement ahead. She had the impression of a slow glide, but her eyes were having trouble distinguishing the edges of the shape-until she saw it, like a splash of cold water.

"What is it? What do you see?" huffed Maggie, more concerned than curious.

Macy's face lost a little color when she saw it, too: A wolf, pacing across the forest perpendicular to the sisters. Neither of them had ever seen a wolf in real life, but it didn't take an expert to see this was clearly a massive specimen. Mel couldn't decide if she felt better or worse knowing the size confirmed that this was their new, very magical foe.

"Demon wolf," whispered Mel, tugging Macy back the way they came. "Abort, abort."

"Demon wolf?!" hissed Maggie loud enough that both older sisters winced.

"Oh shit. Harry! Little help!"

The wolf had definitely seen them and was presently moving at high speed in their direction. Mel yanked her sister with her as she took off running away from it, both of them cursing and yelling at their whitelighter. When it became clear that running was just a waste of what could potentially be their last breaths, Mel turned and threw her freeze. To her relief, it worked, suspending the thing mid-air, but the sheer force that slammed against her magic nearly drove her to her knees. It only let up a little from the initial impact, and she had a flash of panic that she'd never be able to hold it. That was enough to break her concentration and set it free, but luckily Macy was ready, slamming the wolf into a tree hard .

Harry finally appeared in front of them, catching one sister in each arm, and the wolf gave one last hail mary leap before they disappeared, reappearing in their attic.

"Problem, ladies?" he asked, straightening his blazer. "Was that part of the plan or did it go wrong? It's hard to tell sometimes."

"Did you see it?" Mel was doubled over, trying to catch her breath from the life or death sprint. She didn't even have enough spare energy to take issue with his sass. "Demon wolf."

"I saw. I wish you would've let me know before your spy mission."

"Yeah, yeah," muttered Macy, hobbling to sink on a chair. "So do you know who he is?"

"No, but the wolf form will certainly narrow it down. I'll ask the Elders, and please—for me—don't go chasing the wolf until I'm back. Please."

Mel waved him off, and once he was gone with the sample of fur, she dropped to the floor. "Okay. That's enough huntswomaning for today."

Macy laughed wheezily and accepted a glass of water from Maggie. Once they had sufficiently calmed down, the sisters shared about what they'd seen, commiserating on the difficulty of controlling it.

"It's no Harbinger, but I wouldn't want to try that again without all three of us there," concluded Macy, closing the Book. "We need a really big net or a way to slow it down, weaken it enough for us to send it to Hell or kill it."

"That seems suspiciously straightforward," objected Maggie. "What does it want? Apocalypse, world domination, what?"

"It wasn't very talkative," offered the oldest sister with a shrug. "Just… toothy. Let's wait and see what the Elders say, maybe if they know who it is, they can fill in the blanks."

Both younger sisters groaned in frustration, and Macy tossed crumpled papers containing rejected spells at them making "poor baby" noises until they were laughing and heading downstairs.

Tap.

"It doesn't match any fur we found in the house. I sent a sample to a geneticist who specializes in this type of thing—"

Tap.

"—and he says that it's extinct wolf fur. Don't laugh, but it's a dire wolf."

Tap.

"Morris, I swear I will shove you in a trashcan and throw it off a waterfall if you keep doing that," snapped Niko, unable to laugh at Zelda's tinny words, when she normally would have, because: "A fucking dire wolf? Like Game of Thrones?"

"Stolen likeness," said the tech after a beat. "Wikipedia says the real things weren't that much bigger than modern wolves, just their teeth, so that's kinda disappointing. Also, you are really bad at threatening people."

"Cap sent out an email. Personal banter and threats of bodily harm should be kept PG-13 in the pen. Didn't say anything about capital punishment, though." Niko chucked a blank notebook at Morris, whacking him on the shoulder, when she saw him rear up to throw another Skittle at her. She mouthed Fuck you several times as Zelda continued, and the next projectile candy beaned her shoulder before dropping to the desk.

"Here's the thing. This fur sample is the most complete genetic sample of the dire wolf that's ever been found, by a long shot. These weren't hunted out by guns, they went extinct like 100,000 years ago. It's ludicrous that I even got to touch this fur. If it weren't part of our crime scene, the Smithsonian would be breaking into the lab."

"But what does the fur mean for our scene? Why would it be on the murder weapon?"

"I think… that is your job to figure out, no offense."

Zelda's gamble on a jibe paid off, because Niko froze, then laughed softly, a little bit of her broody energy leaving through her lungs. "Thanks, Aiko."

When they'd hung up, Niko relayed the update to her partner, whose face grew steadily less amused.

"So… the murder weapon… is a dinosaur wolf?" Morris shoved the rest of his Skittles in his mouth and groaned with annoyance as he slammed the crushed wrapper in his trashcan. "Uthe-thess."

Exhausted, frustrated, and nearing the end of a long shift, Niko abandoned her dignity and ate the Skittles that had landed on her desk as she hummed her agreement.

"And what're you two pouting about?"

Morris and Niko shot upwards from where they'd been prone over their desks, both shouting, "Sir!"

O'Doule glanced down at Niko's notebook. "The weird case?"

"Yeah… the weird case, sir," sighed Niko, turning a couple pages to illustrate the walls of text and sketches. "And it's just getting weirder."

The captain leaned down over her notes, his eyes narrowing, then he plucked his glasses from his shirt pocket. Still squinting, he held the frames in front of his face, not bothering to unfold them. "You know that's a triquetra, right?"

"A what?"

"Triquetra. Father, Son, Holy Spirit." O'Doule touched each point for each part of the Trinity. "It's not exclusively Christian, but mass is always where I saw it, you heathens. Crack the case now?"

"Sure, if the killer was Jes—"

"Don't you dare," snapped the captain, pointing at Morris. "Go back to being scared of me. And Hamada—" He swung his accusing finger to her, and Niko just barely stopped herself from scooting her seat back. "You look like shit. I can't have you carrying around your service weapon looking like you're a Running Dead extra."

" Walking Dead?"

"What did I just say, Morris?" O'Doule smirked at them when the detective nearly fell out of his chair, and then he swaggered off back to his office, muttering something like "still got it".

Morris and Niko sat in a stunned, annoyed silence for a few minutes, processing.

He spoke first: "Why is he so goddamn scary?"

"I have no idea," Niko laughed, her earlier annoyance melting away. "But I hear his voice or see him at my desk and my ass just—" She dragged two hands together in open fists.

They chuckled together for a few minutes, and then a serious look took over Morris' face. "You don't think… this is aimed at the sisters, do you? Or they might be involved in some way? Three sisters who happen to hobby in the world that these dudes do business?"

"No evidence they've done business based on both victims' phone and email records; there isn't a trace of these sisters. They've also got alibis." Niko stared down at the figure, the triquetra, as an ominous but unnamable feeling settled in her stomach. "They've helped us with the investigation."

"I mean, we haven't gotten anywhere, so… have they really been helping us?" Morris moved over to her desk, pointing to the first message. "Three." He touched the triquetra sketch. "Three." He held out his own notebook with the three women's names and numbers. "Three. And you said yourself, they've been weird. I saw it."

"Come on, they're just… You can't just say someone's a suspect because they're a three-sibling set and the number three happens to appear with strange frequency in our case. They're harmless."

Morris raised his eyebrows. "Are they?"

"Okay, Mr. Conspiracy. Well what do you want to do, haul them in, make 'em sweat? Hope they don't see right through it and just walk right back out because we have zero evidence?"

"Not yet, not yet." Morris was holding his hands up as if in defense and used his soothing voice. "Let's see what forensics come back from Faulk before we head down that road, so we don't waste these fine taxpayer dollars paying for Megan's private preschool." Morris rubbed a hand down his face, then stretched. "Time to clock out. You know that O'Doule is right, yeah?"

Niko frowned at him. "About what?"

"You look like shit." He popped up from his chair to cut off her protest, putting his palms down on her desk and waiting until she looked up at his face. "And I know how it is, and I'm a man, so I've tried to give you a little space because I would rather change a thousand diapers than have this conversation, but you… I'm worried, okay?" The last was said in a huff of masculine insecurity, but Morris' eyes were round with sincere concern. "You're a good partner, and you're my friend."

"I've been sleeping on the couch for like three weeks," murmured the younger detective, avoiding his eyes. "It's, uh, hard to sleep... on it."

"Okay. Okay. You can be like that. I got teenagers, I can do this." Morris made an exaggerated show of puffing his breaths as if gearing up for a big sonata. "Stop me if you've heard any of this before."

"What?"

He slid into the chair next to her desk, but leaned forward and lowered his voice so that she had to focus to hear him. "My first wife… We were high school sweethearts. That label carries a lot of weight, a lot of sentimentality. There was a lot of, 'Oh Jimmy and Susan, they're the dream' and 'I wish I had a relationship like you'. And when you've been together for like seven years, that's the type of thing you want to hear, right? Everyone around us insisted we had the best marriage they'd ever seen in their entire lives."

Niko's hand tightened to a fist around her pen, and she had to look away from his earnest expression. Mercifully, he kept going anyway.

"But they didn't know shit. Yeah, we loved each other, at some point, maybe for the first three years. After that, it was all just a rehearsed sitcom show in front of our friends and family, and then scorched earth once everyone left. We got married because we were bored and unhappy. We had kids because we were bored and unhappy. Lucky for you, that last part is a little easier to avoid for you than it was for me, hmm?"

"What's this got to do with me?" The fake ignorance felt crumbly and dry in her mouth, and Morris frowned.

"Hamada, it sucked, I was drunk for a year straight afterwards, did some things I'm not proud of, and… try as I might, I am not gonna be able to let you do that to yourself while I watch, unless, you know, you tell me to go fuck off because you're your own person, though I highly advise against that because I am very wise."

Niko felt herself reaching that point where holding onto righteous anger and denial bordered on petulant. Morris was a good partner and a good friend, too. She couldn't hide anything from him. And she very suddenly couldn't recall why she ever would, anyway. "Fine."

"Fine what?"

"Things are… bored and unhappy in the Hamada-Smith household. But we're not getting a divorce. We haven't even talked about that."

"You seeing a counselor?"

"Well, no, but—"

"Talking to your imam? Rabbi? Monk? Priest? Shaman?"

Niko glared at him as he smiled back down at her. "No."

"Try it, my friend. Seriously. That's why I don't hate my second wife nearly as much as I hate the first. We took all those steps they put on the mommy blogs, only to find out we really weren't the good match we thought we were. Nothing personal, except your personality."

"Mommy blogs?"

"It's a multi-billion dollar industry, Hamada. Jeez. Luddite." After a pause, he offered: "You need a place to stay?" When he saw her start to protest, he held up a hand. "Just for some space, a bed, some quiet time to think. One of my AirBnBs is empty for a couple weeks, there'll be painters during the day, but otherwise it's yours."

Niko couldn't meet his eyes. She wasn't ready. "Thanks, Jimmy. I… I'm good for now. Like I said, we haven't even... I'll let you know."

Morris nodded, the kindly smile on his usually scowling face making her chest warm, and then he dragged the strap of his laptop bag up over his shoulder. "Also, I want you to eat a fucking sandwich before you hit your couch tonight, and that is non-negotiable. Got it?"

Hanging out with Perry helped take Mel's mind off of Niko and the demon, at least for a little while. They had Thai food and stayed for dessert, sticky coconut rice topped with mango slices. Perry listened with genuine interest as Mel vented her frustration with the night shift crew at the bar, but they quickly moved on to less exhaustive topics, like Emily Blunt in the new Mary Poppins movie. Mel felt her heart relax for the first time in weeks as her girlfriend relayed a tale of her obsession with Mary Poppins as a kid, to the point that her parents bought her a separate TV and VCR so she could watch it in the basement and they could get back to their regularly scheduled programming. That story ended with a long, stormy pause, and Mel's chest twisted with an answering pang of understanding. Perry's parents had died in a car accident a few years earlier, a terrible topic which nonetheless had quickly and inevitably bonded them on their third date.

Which was why Mel wanted to tear her hair out from the guilt when she lay awake in Perry's bed that night, the trainer out cold and snoring.

Making out in the Lyft and all the way up to Perry's second floor apartment had been easy, fun, and hot . But then she'd been on her back, legs wrapped around Perry's hips as she drove into her… as she neared a desperately needed release, her vision had suddenly blurred, and when she could see clearly again, it was Niko looming over her. Niko muttering her name with eyes closed, fingers curling in that exact right spot—she came undone around Perry's hand, but she had to bite her lip to avoid sighing Niko .

Mercifully, Perry hadn't seemed to notice, collapsing as she did and nuzzling into her neck. Tears pricked at her eyes, and breathed out in silent relief that Perry couldn't see her trying to hold them back. Get it together, Vera .

Eventually, Perry murmured something into her collarbone, and Mel dabbed under her eyes to check for any strays before lifting her girlfriend's chin. "What was that?"

"I said…" Perry's eyes were hooded with impending sleep. "Nothing, it's stupid."

"Tell me." Mel wrapped her arms around her neck and kissed her temple. "But off first. You're heavy, Hulk."

The trainer made an adorable whining noise, but slid off to one side as requested, keeping one leg tangled with Mel's. "I said... I'm really happy to have you for the holidays this year."

Oh . This time, Mel couldn't do anything about the tears. Her guilt ratcheted up tenfold, colliding in a confusing morass with a sudden warm, delicate feeling for the woman in her arms. "Me too."

Her phone buzzed as Perry drifted into that sub-awake space, and she rolled to grab it from the black lacquer nightstand, accidentally knocking a glass of water to the floor.

"Shit."

"Don't worry… just water." Perry didn't even open her eyes. Mel wondered if she should take pride in so thoroughly wearing out someone whose literal job consisted weight and stamina training. She did desperately need a win of some kind for the month, so she took it without shame.

"I'm gonna get a towel." Mel swung her legs over the side of the bed, thighs immediately goose pimpling at the cold air. She wrapped a quilt around her shoulders and headed into the master bathroom, closing the door quietly behind her. Her phone was almost painfully bright in the darkened, small room.

9:02 lil sis: you missed pizza 9:17 MISSED CALL - PRIVATE NUMBER 9:23 Macy: Niko and Morris want us to see if we can translate the new murder scene message

At least nothing was on fire. Mel retrieved a towel and dropped it on the wet spot before climbing back into bed and wriggling her way into Perry's side, managing a smile when a muscular arm lifted to let her get closer. She forced herself to focus solely on her girlfriend, the way her chest gently rose and fell, the sound of her breathing, the smell of her skin—spicy, clover and orange, plus sweat and that essence that was just Perry , her sweet, handsome, clueless girlfriend, now snoring softly next to her. She could live with that. She had to, right?