She winked and turned to greet the doctor.
Dr. Gray personified the Hollywood version of a small-mountain-town physician. Tall and thin, his hair matched his name. His eyes, also gray, were bright and avid behind round wire-rimmed glasses.
"Never had the FBI knock on my door before," he said with the slight accent common to the border states.
"We won't take much of your time," Summer said. "Have there been any unexplained deaths in the area over the past month?"
"None."
Summer cast me a triumphant glance.
"Is there a hospital nearby?" I asked. Seemed to me that a hospital would be the place to ask questions about unexplained deaths, not the local physician.
"Not for a good sixty miles."
"So." Summer continued, "any death certificates would be signed by . .. ?"
"Me," Dr. Gray answered. "I'm the only game in town, doctorwise, so I act as the medical examiner. Bodies go right from here to the funeral home."
"No morgue?"
"No need." The doctor contemplated Summer for several seconds. "Though I doubt this would concern you, we have had a strange rash of animal attacks. People are so traumatized they can't remember anything but red eyes. Descriptions sound like a bear. Which has started people whispering about the Ozark Black Howler."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Legendary creature that wanders the hills."
I glanced at Summer; she no longer looked so cheery. In our world, legendary being meant "Nephilim," and they were real. We'd have to be on the lookout for a howler, too. Just in case.
"They're bear-sized," the doctor continued, "with black shaggy hair and horns. Cry is somewhere between a wolf's howl and an elk's call. But I've never heard of the howler biting anyone."
"People have been bitten?" My question was nothing but a lead; I'd already seen the evidence.
"Yes. Which is strange since howlers usually drop people dead in their tracks just by glancing at them."
"The wounds, Doctor?" I prompted.
"Oh, yes. The wounds are like nothing I've ever seen. Animals rip and tear. People ... well, people would leave a recognizable upper and lower demarcation in the flesh. What we have are puncture wounds. Like someone's trying to make us think there's a vampire on the loose."
I laughed, so did Summer. Dr. Gray did not.
"What's the FBI's interest in Barnaby's Gap?" he asked. "No one's been killed, so we aren't talking psycho or serial."
Summer's fingers twitched. She wanted to blast him, but she needed more information first. "Can you tell us where this creature has been sighted?"
"The caves." He walked to the window, pointed at the nearest, tree-covered peak. "West side of the ridge. Folks have been talking about going up, shooting anything that moves. I don't think that's a good idea."
I didn't, either, since shooting would probably just piss him off.
Jimmy could heal any wound, unless someone just happened to hit him with two bullets in the exact same place—and that place had to be a kill shot.
The only way for that to happen would be to get close enough to put a gun to his head or his chest and pop him twice. Jimmy might not be himself, but that didn't mean he would let anyone with a gun come near him, even me.
"Legends say that to kill a howler you have to remove the head while it's still alive." The doctor let out a short, sharp laugh. "I've been trying to figure out how—"
Jazzy floating sparkles shot past my face and rained down on Dr. Gray, stopping him mid-conjecture. He continued to stare at the distant mountains as if we were no longer there. To him, we probably weren't.
The inner door opened, and Summer flipped a hand over her shoulder, catching the assistant full in the face as he came into the room.
We slipped out without saying good-bye. I didn't think we'd be considered rude since they'd both already forgotten who we were or that they'd ever spoken to us in the first place. We made our way back to the Impala.
"You drive," Summer said.
She didn't have to tell me twice. I leaped behind the wheel, fired her up, and drove away. Summer lifted her hands over her head. Fairy dust streamed down the center of town, swirling into doorways, dancing down the chimneys and through the open windows.
"That power is very handy," I murmured.
"Forget it." Summer placed her hands in her lap, kneading her fingers as if they ached. "I don't swing that way."
For a second I didn't know what she meant. When it became clear, my face heated.
Not only was I psychometric with latent channeling abilities—I saw dead people, or at least Ruthie—I was also an empath. The common-variety empath feels what another person feels; they empathize. Of course I was not the common-variety anything. Instead I absorbed supernatural abilities through sex.
Yeah, I hadn't been too happy about it, either.
"If you want the power so badly," Summer continued, "and I can see why you might, I know someone who could help you."
"Someone..." I began.
"Male."
"A male fairy?"