“Thanks, man. Let me know, okay?” Greg just nodded and turned, scooping a stapler off a desk as he walked past to add it to his act. A moment later they heard him start to sing a circus tune— badly— as he went. Mack rolled his eyes and peeled off to follow.
“I’m disappointed,” Darien said.
“Why?”
“That stapler wasn’t shiny enough to be up to his usual standards,” he said, shrugging. “He’s obviously not giving it his full attention.”
“Awww, I bet he’s worried about you.” Caroline grinned. Darien just shrugged again.
This barely responsive Darien wasn’t her favorite, and Caroline was getting more worried herself. Still, grief hit everyone differently.
“Nice to have friends to rely on. Let’s get you to Medical.” Caroline stood and pushed his shoulder towards the hallway.
“All clear,” Niha the nurse said. “And you’re such a good patient you get a lollipop.” She turned and grinned at Darien who had been sitting patiently on the exam table. She held out a strawberry flavored candy and he raised an eyebrow at it.
“Really?” he said.
She twirled it between her fingers and wiggled her eyebrows.
“No thanks. I’m good.”
“Well if you don’t want it…” she unwrapped it and stuck it in her own mouth. Caroline bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying anything. If the nymph was any more obvious about her flirting, she’d be actually sprawled across Darien’s lap.
“So, I’m not poisoned?” he asked.
“Nope. Not according to this test, but I’ll send a sample up to Ollie to be sure.” She sashayed over to stand beside him and put her arm over his bandaid. “It would be awful for you to get sick. If you do, though, I can take care of you, don’t worry about a thing.”
“I’ll do my best to avoid it, thanks.” He hopped down and headed to the door. “I’ll check in with Ollie after a bit.” He hurried down the hallway leaving the nymph to watch him go. Caroline finally let her grin break out when they’d passed through the door at the end of the hallway.
“I think she likes you, D,” she said.
“Niha’s been flirting with me since I got here,” he said.
“I dunno, she’s pretty hot.” Caroline bumped her shoulder into his arm. She would have been put off by the flirting if she hadn’t heard the genuine concern for Darien in her voice, hidden behind the playful words.
“Fae have never really been my thing. She’s nice enough, I guess. Really good nurse” He shrugged. “Man, I hope Greg gets back with some good news. I didn’t eat last night. Not any of my supplements anyway, just some pizza Point shoved at me and made me eat. I wasn’t very hungry.” Caroline sobered immediately.
“I hope so too. Till then, I guess we can grab some lunch?” She glanced at the door into the reception area.
“I still have pizza left from last night, but I’ll walk with you.” Darien grabbed his jacket and her bag and they headed out. Jeanie stopped them on their way past.
“Darien, I am so sorry,” she said. Her perfect gatekeeper mask completely gone and her expression worried and sympathetic. She turned to Caroline with a sad smile. “I met Hannah that time you brought her around, when she started school. She was such a sweetheart, and so bright! I remember answering about a million questions about the law firm.” Jeanie’s eyes shimmered and she blinked a few times.
“Yeah,” Darien nodded. A small smile bloomed on his face at the memory. “She thought it was very James Bond back here, and teased me about it for a month. She got me a ‘spy kit’ watch for Christmas that year.”
Jeanie laughed softly. “That girl. If there’s anything at all that I can do, Darien, you let me know, okay? Is your family coming to town?”
No,” Darien said, with a shake of his head. “I told them to stay at home for the time being. Until we track this all down…”
“Oh sweetie. That’s smart, but so hard, I bet. Well, if you don’t have family around right now at least you have us, right Caroline?”
“Absolutely,” Caroline agreed. It was hard to watch him so unhappy, but it was good to know that the people still here seemed to have his back.
“Well, I bet you were running off to lunch, so I won’t keep you, but you make sure that you send my condolences to your family as well. And make sure that we know when the funeral is?”
Darien nodded and murmured some sort of assurance, and they headed down the elevator to the lobby.
“You’re a popular guy,” Caroline commented as they stepped out into the late summer day. It was almost easy to forget what the outside world was like when they were buried in an investigation. There were no windows to speak of in the main office, and unless you were paying attention you could easily just keep working from midmorning until dawn two days after you went in.
“Jeanie’s a sweetheart. Made Jessie a casserole when his mom died.” He sighed and grimaced. “It’s still weird to me that everyone here is so… nice. To me, I mean.”
“Awww, what’s not to love?”
“According to my most recent ex, I’m unrepentant about leaving my dirty socks on the living room floor.” Darien grinned. “And I have an insane job that keeps me working very strange hours which leaves me incapable of spending enough time with a significant other.” They both laughed, and Caroline was glad to see it. She herself didn’t have a lot of experience grieving, but from what everyone said about Hannah, the girl would definitely not want anyone wallowing in misery over her death.
“But really,” Darien said with a deep sigh. “After the whole Beckett thing, and…”
His voice trailed off in grief and sadness that seemed to come from a number of sources. This unhappiness wasn’t only about Hannah. It was older and deeper. He reached over and put his hand on her back to steer her over toward a bench near a small fountain. It was noisy enough to mask their conversation from idle eavesdroppers and shady enough to be tolerable in the summer heat.
“Beckett was a jackass,” Caroline said. “And I should know.” The ex-chief had, after all, tried to murder her and blame it on Darien.
“Yeah, but he wasn’t the first to make assumptions about me because of what I am.” Darien grimaced. “It’s sadly a common attitude in the Agency. I mean, it wasn’t very different here than it was at my old office.”
Caroline stayed quiet. He almost never talked about the first office he was assigned to in Seattle. All Caroline really knew about it was that it ended about as spectacularly as his career here could have, if Point hadn’t adamantly refused to hear anyone say a word against Darien for his part in Beckett’s downfall. How anyone could blame the victim of a frame job for being framed in the first place, she wasn’t sure, but a few people definitely tried.
Point, Greg, and a few others even testified on Darien’s behalf, going as far as getting a statement from Caroline herself to present. Then they went to work on Darien himself, convincing him to stay on the job.
“When I started out, god. I was so idealistic. I’d watched the news and I knew better, but I just had it in my brain that the cops were the good guys, you know? That we all got into law enforcement to help people.” He glanced over at her and she nodded, unwilling to break his train of thought.
“The chief in Seattle back then was a human woman who had scratched and clawed her way up the ranks. She didn’t have much magic, but she had a touch, and that was enough to get her what she wanted, but she was aiming higher. Not that I knew any of that at the time,” Darien said. He grimaced and huffed out a laugh. “I just knew that she was taking a personal interest in my career. Then she took a personal interest in me.”
Um, aren’t there rules about that?” Caroline asked. Being friends with your boss was one thing, but…
“Yeah, actually. The FPAA as a whole is fairly relaxed, you may have noticed. Office romances are discouraged, but not outright banned. Dating your direct supervisor, however? That actually is explicitly against the rules,” Darie
n said. “She was very subtle, though. A working dinner here. A walk around the park to clear our heads. Pretty soon she started hinting that she would allow me to drink from her.”
“But you don’t do that,” Caroline said. She knew her surprise was clear on her face. Yes, Darien had fed from her once, but the circumstances were about as extreme as they got. Caroline had already been bleeding pretty badly, and Darien was very likely going to die from his own injuries. Caroline had seen no excuses for refusing, and forced him to drink.
“I know. And so did she, but she was very determined,” Darien scowled. “She started trying to slip samples of her own blood into my drinks, and offering to donate frequently so I could keep a bit of her with me.” Even his air quotes seemed sneeringly sarcastic. “At the time I thought it was completely misguided but a little bit sweet. After she was arrested, I found out that she was trying to force me to develop a fondness for her taste.”
“What do you mean?” Caroline had a bad feeling she already knew the answer, but still hoped that people weren’t that awful.
“She wanted to get me addicted to her blood.”
5
“Oh my god,” Caroline gasped. “Are you kidding. How? What happened?”
Darien shrugged, but his eyes were sad again.
“She started getting pushy. I caught her fussing around my lunch in the break room fridge a few times, and hovering around my coffee mug, and got nervous about it so I stopped bringing lunch in. She started offering to bring me lunch herself, but…” Darien grimaced and took a deep breath. “It got pretty uncomfortable, and I overheard some of the other agents in the break room talking about how long it would be until I caved. They were making bets. They’d never much liked talking to me and I sort of got the feeling that they were only as friendly as they had to be in case Rachel was listening. So,” Darien took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Caroline thought that if she ever came across this Rachel person, she might try out a few of the punches Peaches had taught her.
“Well, long story short, I reported the mess to the Deputy Director’s office and asked for advice. Three weeks later Rachel and most of the agents and about half the rest of the staff were arrested for corruption and I was getting quietly transferred here. It turns out that Rachel had heard about the promising young trainee who happened to be a vampire, and thought that I’d be easy to manipulate since I was young and inexperienced, fresh out of college and training. What she wanted was a bound vampire so that she could have a dedicated henchman as she continued scheming and blackmailing her way into more power.”
“What a bitch!” Caroline growled. Then a thought popped into her head. “She was trying to lace your food with her own blood, wasn’t she?”
Darien nodded. Oh, she’d definitely have to talk to Peaches and learn some new attacks just in case this Rachel person ever came back around.
“Yeah,” Darien said. He stared at the sunlight sparkling through the fountain, and his eyes were far, far away. They sat like that for a minute, watching the water shoot up and fall prettily into the basin and listening to the sounds of people bustling around them. It wasn’t quite time for the lunch rush, but with all the heavy news of the morning, Caroline felt like it was more like quitting time.
“Anyway,” Darien said, shaking himself out of his memories. “My point is that I wasn’t shocked by Beckett and his hostility. He made no secret of his resentment, being stuck with a leech.” The slur sounded bitter and hard coming from Darien.
“Beckett and his lackeys are gone,” Caroline said firmly. “Everyone who’s left is on your team, D, even if they’re not your BFF.”
Darien flashed a small smile at her, and she knew he didn’t really believe it.
“Thanks,” he said.
Caroline shook her head and leaned over to wrap her arms around him in a fierce hug.
“There’s no need for thanks, D. I’m your friend. Greg and Point are your friends. Mack looked pissed and determined when he left. Jeanie is probably thinking of what sort of casserole to make for you. Ollie and Mitch are working their butts off trying to find a way to detect and counteract this stuff. Even Niha and the med staff are worried about you. This division is now a vampire-friendly office. You don’t have to thank us for being your friends.”
Darien hesitated a moment before he returned the hug.
“How about I thank you for being a good listener, and for not letting me slide into self-pity?” He asked.
“Well, that’s okay, I suppose,” Caroline answered with a grin. “Now come on. I don’t know about you, but all this emotional stuff has made me hungry.”
“You really should go home and sleep though. You’ve been at work since yesterday.” She opened the door of the break room. They had stopped at the small cafe that Caroline had taken a liking to, since it was perfectly on her way between the FPAA office and campus. She was glad she’d become friendly with some of the staff and they were starting to recognize her. By the time she’d gotten to the front of the line for lunch, the barista had her order half rung up already.
“What, are you saying I’m not fresh as a daisy?” Darien tried to keep his voice light and joking, and failed miserably.
“I’m saying that you need a shower and some real sleep before you fall over. Point’s office sofa is not the most relaxing thing ever created.” She sat at one of the tables and pulled out her chicken salad sandwich. That was all true, but she also thought that his pacing around the bullpen like a restless tiger was going to start making people a little crazy sooner rather than later.
“Bah. I’m perfectly fine. I just need to nuke my lunch and then I’ll finish off that paperwork I ignored yesterday. Since I’m not allowed to work on this case.” He actually looked upset about it as he moved to rummage in the fridge. His phone rang and Caroline idly listened in, unrepentant, to his side of the conversation.
“Oh hey. Yeah? Wow, all of it?” Darien blew out a long breath. “No, I’m glad you went over. No, I’m fine. Clean as a whistle it seems, but Ollie’s running a backup sample just in case. Jeez. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Went out to get Caroline lunch. Yep. No, I’m good for right now. I just finished off the last can from my old stock a couple of days ago but… Okay. Thanks man. Bye.”
“All your supplies are contaminated, huh?” She grabbed her bag and her coffee and they started the walk back.
“Yeah, but they’re bringing it back for the lab to go over. I went shopping day before yesterday when I realized I’d just polished off my pantry, so at least I hadn’t gotten to any of the new blood. Greg knows where I shop, so he’s heading there now and Mack’s going to the only other store that supplies the local community. There’s not that many of us here. More out by where Mom and Aunt Lucy and the family live near Philidelphia, but here not so much for some reason, maybe about dozen of us in Stonehaven give or take. And about half of that number are students.”
“Which actually makes it weird when you think about it.” Caroline said. “Why would someone start a poisoning plot here and not somewhere with a large population where it could make a big impact?”
“That’s a good question. Sure, this is the source for a pretty decent radius for blood supplies, mostly because this office is here. Makes inspections and licensing much more painless when you don’t have to a few days for an agent to travel to you. But even D.C. would have made more sense for a starter attack. New York would be an even better bet. Or Los Angeles. Or, oddly enough Lansing Michigan.”
“Michigan?” Caroline raised a brow at him as he held the door to the lobby open for her.
“I don’t know, I’ve never been any fo those places. Philadelphia is the densest vampire-population town I’ve been.” Darien shrugged. “Not many of us in Seattle, either, but definitely more than here.”
“I learn odd things every day around here.” Caroline laughed. “So what are you going to do?”
“Not sure.” Darien frowned. “Greg said that if they found any that looks safe, they’ll gra
b it up for me, otherwise they’re going to warn the shop keepers and follow the supply back. Shouldn’t be too tough. Fortunately, I have a can stashed here in my desk.”
“Ah yes. Your Emergency Tomato Juice.” Caroline said, closing the empty sandwich box. “That still cracks me up. And that label fools people? Really?”
“Well, it’s not like any of us take a can out to the neighborhood potluck.” He shrugged. “It’s mostly just camouflage in case someone’s nosey on our way home from shopping, or in this case, if the police search our apartment. God, poor Hannah.” His mood crashed again and he slumped in his chair. Caroline reached over and rubbed his shoulder.
“We’ll get this psycho, Darien. I promise.”
“Oh, hey! Free pastry!” Caroline chirped. She’d finally dug into the rest of her lunch a mere two hours after they’d gotten back. Meetings and phone calls were sadly a large part of her job. She also sent a text to her mom that they wouldn’t have their regularly scheduled FaceTime call because she would be staying near Darien.
Her phone rang almost immediately, and Caroline rolled her eyes as she picked up. “Hey, Mom.”
“What do you mean you want to stay close to Darien. He’s a lovely man and you know we are so grateful he’s taken you under his wing like he has, but he doesn’t outrank your own parents.” Mom’s voice was teasing, and Caroline had to grin at it.
“In the general scheme, that’s true, but it’s special circumstances. His cousin died yesterday and he’s taking it pretty hard,” Caroline said. How much, exactly, should she say? Caroline’s mother knew about the FPAA, of course, but like most humans she had no idea about how large the paranormal world actually was. The idea that Darien and his family were vampires would probably terrify the woman, regardless of her current feelings toward the man.
In the Blood Page 3
