Spirit Animals (Ritual Crime Unit Book 3)
“A breath of clean air in a landscape that shies away from putting women over forty front-and-centre. I really enjoyed it: it’s cracking fun. And Pierce is an excellent character, with great voice, in the grand tradition of cranky middle-aged detectives. Urban fantasy could use a damn sight more protagonists like her.”
Tor.com
“Some of the people are scary; the things they do are scary; the things Pierce thinks might have happened are scary. All in all I didn’t read this book at night—even with my husband at home.”
Notes from a Readerholic
“If you like crime novels that have the odd bit of supernatural weirdness in them, this may well be for you; and if you’re a fan of urban fantasy, then you’ll likely find this an excellent read. It’s dark, dramatic, and occasionally funny—a good read.”
SF&F Reviews
“This is shaping up to be an interesting series: twisty, multi-threaded and internally consistent in its use of magic. Worth checking out if you enjoy magic and mayhem.”
SF Revu
“Flashes of dark humor glint above a pulse-pounding search for an horrific murderer... My taste has been whetted for more of DCI Pierce. The delicious last-minute twist woke me from the satisfaction of the story’s conclusion and has me panting for the next book.”
Fresh Fiction
In this series
Under the Skin
Disturbed Earth
Spirit Animals
An Abaddon Books™ Publication
www.abaddonbooks.com
First published in 2016 by Abaddon Books™, Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK.
Editor-in-Chief: Jonathan Oliver
Commissioning Editor: David Moore
Cover & Design: Sam Gretton & Oz Osborne
Marketing and PR: Rob Power
Head of Books and Comics Publishing: Ben Smith
Creative Director and CEO: Jason Kingsley
Chief Technical Officer: Chris Kingsley
Copyright © 2016 Rebellion Publishing Ltd.
ISBN: 978-1-78618-026-1
Ritual Crime Unit, Abaddon Books and Abaddon Books logo are trademarks owned or used exclusively by Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited. The trademarks have been registered or protection sought in all member states of the European Union and other countries around the world. All right reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
CHAPTER ONE
“Y
OU KNOW,
I bet bloody RCU London don’t get called out to this many farms.” Pierce grimaced to herself as she squelched across the mud towards the derelict barn. Wellies might have been an idea, but they were probably beneath her dignity as DCI in charge.
Not that there was anyone around to see as she struggled across the fields after her much younger and fitter constable. The building they were headed for was clearly long-abandoned, windows now just empty holes in the crumbling stone walls, the mossy roof slates dangling like loose teeth on the verge of dropping out. The neighbours’ reports of people lighting fires ought to have been a matter for the local bobbies, but mention of caged animals being taken in had bumped it up the chain to the Ritual Crime Unit. Could be an illegal skin shop, making unlicensed shapeshifting pelts.
Or it could just be squatters with pets. Technically, as a DCI, Pierce ought to be exempt from these kind of shot-in-the-dark preliminaries, but the RCU’s northern branch had all of five officers to police an area covering half the country. In theory, they mostly consulted and let local forces do the grunt work; in practice, any case with a whiff of magic was a hot potato that no one wanted to keep in case it made a mess of the crime statistics. Even in these days of global information networks, magic remained a rare and poorly studied art, and the law was always scrambling to keep up.
Besides, Pierce had her own reasons to take a personal interest in any case that might involve shapeshifters. She stretched out her left shoulder, still feeling a twinge where the silver skinning knife had stabbed her, months before. The man who’d delivered the blow, a skinbinder she’d known as Sebastian, had supposedly died in police custody, but Pierce had her doubts. He’d had powerful friends.
Probably too powerful to have set him up in a place like this. She sighed, suspecting this wasn’t the smartest use she could have chosen to make of a frigid February morning. Staggering uphill over steep muddy fields was a job for the likes of her young constable, Gemma Freeman, a tall, athletic black woman with her hair pulled back in a bun who still looked like a schoolgirl to Pierce’s eyes.
Still had the perky attitude as well. “At least we’re out in the fresh air, guv,” she said, turning back to flash Pierce a bright smile.
“That’s debatable.” There was a reek coming off the old barn, worse than your typical farmyard manure. Animals, definitely—and not very well-kept or healthy ones, either, by the smell of them. Pierce gestured for Gemma to take up a position beside the doorway, and knocked on what was left of the precariously leaning door.
“Police! This is the Ritual Crime Unit!” she said, raising her voice. “Identify yourselves and come out of the barn.”
No sound except the wind rattling the roof. Any people inside might just be keeping quiet, but she’d expect animals to make a bit more noise if they were here. She nodded to Gemma, and the constable gave the leaning door a shove; it fell inward with a splintering crash, only loosely attached by the bottom hinge. The brittle wood crunched under Pierce’s feet as she stepped over it, squinting in the half-light within.
The stench was even worse inside, rolling off the rows of wire cages stacked up against the far wall; the smell of the animal shit that caked the bars mingling with the all-too-familiar stink of decomposition. None of the huddled lumps of fur and feather slumped inside the cages appeared to be moving.