"The press received a briefing. It's standard procedure to hold back a few pertinent details to facilitate a

"The press received a briefing. It's standard procedure to hold back a few pertinent details to facilitate a

"Right. Did the other girl have wounds like that, as well? Was that one of the 'pertinent details' you held

back?"

"Are we talking off the record?"

"Not a chance."

"What are you trying to do, Ginny, start a panic?"

"I'm just doing my job, Joe. She did, didn't she? And you sat on it."

"The media got a full statement—"

"Bullshit. You didn't say anything about the nature of the wounds. You just said she was stabbed. But

that wasn't what killed her, was it?"

"She lost a tremendous amount of blood—"

"What was Ramirez doing on the scene?"

"I already made a statement about that, Ginny. The girl was a student at the college. Professor Ramirez

was simply there in his capacity as a university official."

"And not as an agent of the Bureau? Then why did he sign off on the medical examiner's report?"

Loomis took a deep breath and let it out heavily. "Somebody over there's got a big mouth."

"You can't sit on something like this, Joe," she said. "Those were runic symbols carved into that girl's

chest. I took a survey course in thaumaturgy when I was in college. I don't know what those symbols

mean, but I know what they are. Those girls were both killed by black magic, weren't they?"

"Ginny, if you print that, you're going to set off mass hysteria. Every adept in town's going to be

suspected of being a serial killer."

"One of them is."

"I'm asking you, as a favor, not to print that."

"You're asking me to suppress the truth, Joe. The people have a right to know."

"You realize you're interfering in a homicide investigation."

"Oh, comeon ! Don't hand me that crap. You'll never make that stick and you know it."

"Look, it's bad enough we've got a serial killer on our hands. If you print that it's a necromancer, all hell's

going to break loose."

"Maybe. But that's not my responsibility. My responsibility is to report the news. If I don't print it, then