I hunched over the tepid coffee in my Styrofoam cup, watching it slush from side to side when I moved gently in my chair. When you were small and had a knack for sitting with your feet pulled up on the seat of your chair and your knees by your chest, hunching up like a disgruntled bird was easy, and I was pretty sure that's what I looked like.

An agitated bird with its feathers ruffled.

The soles of my shoes were caked with forest dirt, there were burrs stuck to my cargo pants and hoodie, and I'd effectively made myself as compact a ball of half-clipped sentences and cutting glares as possible.

It wasn't that I meant to glare… I just didn't seem capable of any other expression. I was a bit too used to animals and the intense looks of focus they turned on everything to have my expression be anything else. I tried to get along with other humans, I really did.

I just wasn't very good at it.

Blessedly, no one particularly expected me to get along with them right now. Or to be in a good mood for that matter.

"You want some more coffee, Joel?" Malcore asked.

I flicked him a quick look and then stared back down into my undrunk coffee again. Shook my head. "This is fine."

Nothing about this is fine.

I could feel Malcore nodding his head from behind his desk without looking. Malcore was a decent human. He'd been in his job for as many years as I'd been alive and he was one of the few people who'd never whispered untoward things about my family behind our backs. He'd always just taken us as we were, the way he was dealing with me now.

I liked that about him.

And I knew his body language well enough without having to see it.

The FBI agent to my left, in the other chair on my side of Malcore's desk, was a different matter. I didn't know him and I wasn't happy about it. He put me off balance and I didn't like that, either.

Unknown smell, unknown reactions. It all equaled possible danger. And that was without the fact I was sure the man, Vogel, Vincent Vogel, still wanted me in a cell and not roaming the woods, hunting down bodies for the police.

I shot the undesirable factor in the room an unmeaning glare and then returned my eyes to the swaying coffee. I even thought about sipping said coffee before Malcore's voice interrupted my pondering.

"Anything else we should know about the terrain or the state of the body before we go out there, Joel?"

His name was Linkin…

"No." I shifted on my chair, making the liquid in my cup move. "If you follow Old Birch logging trail to the clearing, and then trek along the stream, you'll find Linkin right in that little depression that floods in spring. The body's basically the same as the others. Half stung up with a collection of small animal bones dangling around it."

"You sure there's nothing else you want to add on that?"

My eyes flashed up to Vogel again, and this time I felt fire in them. I had no doubt there was a dark light revolving in my ichor gaze. "No," I bit off. "There isn't."

"No speculation as to why the Ritualist is doing this, leaving bodies neatly decorated in the woods."

I growled at him and the man had the decency to flinch. Maybe he just wasn't used to nineteen year old punk kids snarling at him. Or… at least not ones who actually sounded like a feral dog. "There's nothing neat about what he's doing."

"So we both agree on the he, then."

My teeth snapped shut and I just allowed my silent glare to do its work. I really did not want to get into another debate with this man. He'd shown up right after I'd stumbled on the Ritualist's third kill and had pegged me as suspect number one. I'd spent a good week in a holding cell because of this man and I wasn't ready to forgive him yet.

Even though it was Malcore who'd actually put the cuffs on and escorted me to the cell. It'd been Vogel's idea and Malcore had said as much along with, "I don't think you're the one doing this, Joel."

Malcore's vote of confidence had been the only good thing about that week.

Vogel's continuing challenge still rankled.

I would still be in that cell if the killings hadn't gone right on like disturbing clockwork with me behind bars. Malcore had been able to get me out with the fact I had a solid alibi of being under police watch during the fourth killing and the fact there was nothing but base suspicion and prejudice connecting me to the bodies I hadn't found.

"Come on," Vogel prompted, trying his luck, "you should have something to say about the state of the bodies."

"Vincent…" Malcore warned softly, and I knew without looking he was shaking his head at the other man, telling him to back off wordlessly.

Shoulda listened, Vogel…

"He," I all but hissed, "is attempting a ritual. He is uncoordinated, haphazard. He doesn't follow the logic of any set pagan religion, only cherry picking bits and pieces according to his own convoluted wants and needs."

"A ritual," Vogel dragged the word out, ash-gray eyes hard. "What kind?"

"Fuck if I know. I don't practice those kinds of rituals, Vogel." My lips peeled back from my teeth at the last word and the man half drew away again, as if he were looking at a large dog that'd just bared its teeth at him.

"You must have some idea, though."

Pressing my buttons…

"A summoning maybe. The bodies are an attempt at sacrifice. It isn't working. He'll regret it."

"What makes you say that?"

I blinked at him like he was a dolt, surprised by the fact he'd even ask, until I remembered he was only human. He'd given up on the kind of instinct he needed here long ago. When he'd gone and done that terrible thing called "growing up."

"His sacrifices aren't accepted. The forest is as disgusted by them as we are, and if he manages to summon anything he won't like what he gets."

Vogel and I stared at each other. I hadn't read the file the man was putting together about the Ritualist but I had a good notion of what might be in it. I'd taken one look at the first body and known a few things.

The killer liked to work alone. His killings were sacred to him and he didn't want them disturbed or "polluted" by outside help. He was trying to accomplish something, to bring it into being by giving in order to get. Only he was missing a few important rules.

You couldn't give unwilling sacrifices, and all of the Ritualist's sacrifices were unwilling, couldn't practice dark magic in general and expect to get what you wanted without consequence.

He kept killing because he wasn't getting what he was after, but he wasn't getting what he was after because he was killing…

It was a vicious cycle the man couldn't grasp because he wasn't exactly thinking straight. You couldn't be thinking straight if you imagined killing one kid a week was going to get you what you wanted out of life…

On that I thought Vogel and I could agree…

Malcore making a vulgar noise and knocking a knuckle on his desk brought my attention back around to him. "Are you two done?" he queried dryly.

"Kid should be a profiler," Vogel quipped.

"Kid could use a bath and some better coffee than this," I grumbled before actually sipping the liquid I'd been staring at all this time.

"Sorry, Joel," Malcore intoned. "Sorry to have kept you so long and sorry to have had to send you out there at all."

"I offered," I grunted. "No one knows the land better than me." My eyes shot to Vogel as I said it. My teeth locked together again because I could see the wheels turning in his head.

Malcore raised a hand before the other man could say anything, though. "And we appreciate your help. Hopefully we won't need it again."

I nodded over my coffee. "I don't want to have to see you next week. Or the week after. Or ever. But if you need me, you know where to find me."

"Thank you, Joel. Go home. Get some rest."

I nodded again, then unfolded from my chair, half wondering where I could dump the coffee.

I've had mud that tasted better than this…