Skin Deep

by Lily Luchesi

  “What the Hell was that, Wireman?” he asked, fists clenched at his sides.

  Sean widened his dark eyes and said, “What was what, Mancini?”

  “Don’t play dumb: we both know you’re not acting when you try,” Danny sneered.

  “Sticks and stones may break my bones — oh, wait. They did try to stone me. Didn’t work,” Sean shot back. “Angelica has been my closest friend for a hundred and ten years. I swear to whatever God hears me, I’ll tear you apart if you hurt her.”

  Danny was so incensed he could barely get words out. “I — are you — what the Hell did you think was going on here? I was comforting a terrified woman who may or may not be being followed by an angry minor god.”

  Sean sighed. “It was not Hermes. I don’t know the guy, but I do know he can't move that fast to get across the city. Either she was lying or seeing things. Most likely, she just wanted to have you jump at her beck and call to come and comfort her.”

  “I don’t like your tone, and definitely don’t appreciate your insinuation,” Danny said, his voice nearly a growl. “I love Angelica, damn it!”

  “Then act like it!” Sean snapped. “Listen to her, believe her, reassure her when she’s worried. She’s too proud to admit that you sticking up for Frieda stemmed from her looking like your dead human wife. She was hurt, Danny. And you didn’t even try to make shit right.”

  “Dude, you know her. I wasn’t arguing with her last night. I was waiting till she calmed down and —”

  “And nothing. You were an asshole the moment I met you, and not much has changed,” Sean spat.

  “Just because you’re jealous she chose me over you — time and time again — doesn’t mean you get to rag on me,” Danny said. “You wanna say who’s an asshole, but the last place you’ll look is in a mirror.”

  Vampiric reflexes be damned, Danny didn’t see the punch coming until his jaw was stinging and his head had whipped back.

  “And don’t even try to tell me you don't deserve that and more!” Sean said.

  People were staring now, and that wasn’t good. Danny knew it, but he couldn’t have stopped himself if he tried as he latched his fists onto Sean’s lapels and pushed him back against the glass wall of the building.

  His head bounced, but Danny knew it wasn’t that bad for a siren.

  Indeed, Sean had a lot of fight in him still. He kicked at Danny and landed another punch as Danny was preoccupied with deflecting the kick. Square in the nose, pain blossomed behind his eyes and even his teeth as blood burst from the broken bone.

  “Fuck,” he said, reaching out and landing a punch to Sean’s left eye. Not too hard, were he to use his full strength he might’ve blinded the man. Common sense told him not to, because Angelica would murder him, and that wasn’t even an exaggeration.

  Good thing this was a large city, and most people just gave them a wide berth and walked off. Danny could only imagine what would happen if the cops got called on them.

  He was a great fighter, but he wasn’t professionally trained like Sean had been when he’d been in the Army. Even is brute vampiric strength was no match for the siren’s combat skills. Because he couldn’t use his full strength, he was quickly at a disadvantage as Sean turned him around and locked his arms behind his back, pressing his face into the frost-covered glass.

  “Angelica might not need or want my protection, but you hurt her, and I won’t let that stand. And buddy, this ass kicking has been a long time coming for you. The next time you think about doubting Angie, or treating her the way you just did, remember how it felt to have to repair your shattered nose. Shape up, Mancini, and be the Emperor she deserves.”

  * * *

  Back at the PID, Hermes was in a room with a sketch artist, finishing up describing the one woman he saw face-front and Angelica was pacing in her office. First Danny had called Sean that his informant was being followed, and then Sean never called after he’d left to bring the woman to the headquarters.

  Just as she was going to call Sean, he walked into her office.

  “Hey, where is — what the Hell happened?” she cried. Sean had a black eye and bruised knuckles. “The skin changer?”

  He plopped down heavily into her guest chair and shook his head. “No. It was...personal. But the lady’s fine. No one was following her. I sent an agent to stake out her place just in case it was more than paranoia...or her baiting Danny. I think she’s one of those women that likes being a damsel in distress.”

  “Yeah, and Danny loves playing the hero,” she muttered, picking at her black nail polish. “Where is he, anyway?” And if you say with her, so help me, he’ll never be able to have sex again.

  Sean smirked. “Licking his wounds, I hope.”

  “Wait...Danny hit you?” she asked. Not that it was that hard to believe. They never liked each other, and Sean had a bad temper and tendency to be an asshole. Danny wasn’t exactly Mr. Sunshine all the time, either. “Am I going to have to put two grown men in time out?”

  Sean laughed lightly. “Nah. I said what I needed to. If that’s your kink with him, however, that’s none of my business. I dunno if he’ll come in tonight or not, but —”

  Just then, someone knocked on the door to Angelica’s office, and the door opened to reveal the very vampire they were talking about. His nose had already healed, but his white shirt was still stained with dried blood, and he hadn’t managed to get it completely out of his moustache. He looked like a dog with his tail between his legs.

  “You look like you got Tombstoned by The Undertaker,” Angelica commented. “Your little friend all safe and snug in her home now?”

  He closed his eyes, as if trying to capture some patience. Let him be pissy. She wasn’t the one who believed a stranger over her spouse, after all. “Hermes still here?”

  Angelica nodded. “Almost done with the sketch artist. Go wash your face and come back. We all need to figure out what to do with the SC once we’ve got a face.” She turned to Sean. “And you, how long is your stupid ass going to take to heal?”

  He waved a hand nonchalantly. “There’s a hot siren that works over at the Metro. As soon as I get off work I’ll go heal up.” Sirens usually had to kill to feed and survive, but Angelica had found out that two sirens could pair up for sex and receive the same result with no deaths. It had saved Sean’s life, and many others’.

  There was another knock at the door and Hermes came in, followed by the sketch artist.

  “Here we are. One evil visage for your perusal,” the artist said, handing the sketch to Angelica.

  “That’s Josephine. Like I said, I didn’t see the other face she was using,” Hermes said.

  Angelica took the paper and stared. And stared some more.

  “Uh, wanna share with the class, Cross?” Sean asked.

  Just then Danny exited the bathroom, his beard still slightly damp. He glanced sharply at Hermes and then down at Angelica.

  “Well?” he asked. “Is the face a lead?”

  “Danny...did you ever know a Josephine Pascuali? A woman who’d be dead now?” Angelica asked, not taking her eyes from the paper in front of her.

  There was a pause and then Danny said, “You know I did. Why the Hell are you doing this to me?”

  “Humor me. Who was she?”

  Danny sighed. “She was my wife, my human wife. Happy?”

  “No,” Angelica said, slapping the sketch face-up on the desk so everyone could clearly see the face of Frieda, Danny’s informant. “I am not happy, because your sentimentality just made us lose the skin changer!”

  The silence in the room was deafening, and the tension was so thick it was like pea soup.

  “Well, I’m getting the Hell out of here. Maybe take a tropical vacation. Hell, facing Hecate is preferable right now,” Hermes muttered, quietly slipping out of the room.

  The sketch artist, a young human with freckles all over her face, followed quickly.

  Angelica wanted to yell, to bitch, to say something
, but no words could possibly articulate how angry and frustrated and defeated she was feeling.

  Breaking the silence this time was a chime on Sean’s phone. He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and groaned. “Guys? There’s been another murder.”

  Angelica glared at Danny and said, “I usually love saying ‘I told you so’. Right now, I’d have given anything to have been wrong about your unhealthy emotions. Personally, I don’t think Sean kicked your ass enough.”

  * * *

  Dakota stood over the corpse of the werewolf guard, watching his blood soak into the dirty grey snow. The stolen and adjusted face of Josephine Mancini (nee Pascuali) smiled wickedly, full lips turning up on one side only, dark eyes glittering in the night.

  She had expected Angelica to find out that “Frieda” wasn’t real much sooner. It was sort of disappointing, to see that she had obviously lost her touch in her inactive years.

  She glanced up at the security camera mounted near the front of the apartment building, where she didn’t live, and gave a cheerful wave as she stepped over the corpse.

  Dakota ducked into the nearest alleyway and began to shed her skin, her body shaping and changing to fit the form she loved most. It felt wonderful to shed that awful dead woman’s visage and change into the person she had taken for herself. She wiped the blood from her new skin and donned the long winter coat again to cover herself.

  Now the real fun could begin.

  Chapter Eight

  Angelica wasn’t used to the silent treatment on either the giving or receiving end. But for once in her life she was at a loss for words to say to either fix this situation or at least understand it. So she said nothing, and neither did Danny.

  The skin changer had somehow infiltrated their database to put an altered photo of Danny’s wife for him to see, but to what end? If it was to infiltrate the PID, she had failed miserably. If it was to cause dissention between the Emperor and Empress, well...in that she had succeeded.

  Her overactive brain tried to lay blame, but she knew that there wasn’t one thing to focus on. Daniel...the skin changer...her own warring emotions...Danny’s nostalgia...it all added up to one big ball of bullshit that had bounced between them.

  Knowing they’d had the SC right there, in their grasp, drove her crazy. Not that they hadn’t had their share of admirable adversaries: Vincent, her father, had been her longest hunt, taking nearly two centuries. Fiona Guilfoyle, the witch, had taken over one century. Hell, she’d killed the original Emperor of all vampires, Augustus Caesar, with less trouble than this skin-shedding bitch was causing.

  She dove into her work, and Danny did, too. They barely saw each other, and when they did it was so uncomfortable. It was difficult to be in the same room with the person you love while holding a grudge that, technically, neither of you should have harbored in the first place.

  Of course, hating herself and beating herself up about it was doing no one any good. One of them needed to suck it up, she knew that. But knowing the two of them, it could take oh, a decade or two.

  * * *

  Danny walked down to the floor where the Grand Coven was located. This hall was overly familiar, as he remembered his training with Brighton there. The British psychic had taught him how to utilize the method of loci, separating his memories into boxes and hiding them behind walls, to better utilize his powers. He owed a lot to Brighton, and in his emotional state he missed his friend terribly.

  Brighton had died fighting a vampire, and his husband, Mark, had sacrificed himself to save the entire PID later that same year. Both of them had been far too young to die.

  Today Danny was there to serve in a similar capacity as Brighton had, despite his own powers having disappeared. He was blood, and Daniel could use familial help. Besides, he felt a little guilty about abandoning the kid and dragging him into all this shit. The least he could do was make his training easier.

  He knocked on the door and entered the white-paneled room. It was the true definition of minimalism: one table, four chairs. All also pure white. It hurt his eyes a little.

  Daniel was in one chair, a witch in the other. The witch was rubbing her temples and Daniel was glowering at the white table. Danny recognized that expression, too. When he’d been thirty, he’d had that same look at the police precinct when someone had reprimanded him.

  “Hey, how’s everything going in here?” Danny asked.

  “How’s it look, Pops?” Daniel muttered. “I feel like my brain’s been turned into mashed potatoes.”

  “Yeah, I remember that feeling,” Danny said, sitting across from Daniel and next to the witch. “But I had someone I trusted and respected to help me master my mind. We might be some form of estranged, but I want to help you in any way I can.”

  Daniel grinned. “You sure it’s not because you just don’t want to see Angelica, who’s been icing you out?”

  Danny’s smile faltered. “You can’t know that.” He hadn’t told anyone, unless Sean had told the kid.

  “You’re the only vampire I can read,” Daniel said. “Angelica is a big blank void. Comforting, actually. But you...if your emotions are intense enough I can read them. I think it’s because we’re family.”

  No, it’s not, Danny thought, remembering when he had seen into Angelica’s mind when he’d been a human. Daniel could see him because Daniel had the blood of Augustus Caesar running through his veins. He was the heir to the vampiric throne, just as Danny had been. The realization shocked him, but he immediately put his walls up. Daniel was going through enough. No reason to give him more to handle right then.

  “Yeah, it’s blood all right,” Danny agreed. “And from now on, keep your nose out of my marital problems. It’s — ” He had been about to say, “It’s grown up business,” which is what he had said to him when he’d been a kid. But now the kid was grown up, and Danny wasn’t sure what to make of it all. He’d thus far been able to avoid thinking about who Daniel really was, using Frieda as a distraction. Now there was nothing between him and his great-grandson and it was too damn strange for him.

  Daniel didn't ask what he’d cut off, but instead changed the subject. “I’m really great at reading people’s minds, their thoughts. Sometimes they’re projected like a movie for me. But that’s when they’re unprotected. When it comes to being invasive, breaking down barriers, I can’t do it. And even I know we’re running out of time here.”

  Danny nodded. “Yes, we are. I won’t lie to make you feel better: we need you to be able to sense the skin changer, and to do that you need to get stronger mentally. And I’m going to help you. You got your powers from me, and the least I can do is help you control them.”

  “A little late, aren’t you?” Daniel muttered.

  “Y’know, I could easily make her erase your memory and kick you on your ass,” Danny said, gesturing to the witch, who looked shocked and offended at him using her powers as a threat. “I didn’t choose to leave: I was dying. So it was death or vampirism, as I said before. And besides, do you think your mother would have let me back in your life if I showed up seventy years younger and drinking blood to stay alive?”

  Daniel made a sound that was somewhere between a chuckle and a scoff. “I guess that’s true. She never did like your stories about vampires and witches, did she?”

  “She told me many times to stop filling your head with nonsense,” Danny recalled.

  Daniel smirked. “That nonsense might lead to me saving a lotta lives now.”

  “Yeah, so let’s get started. You say you can see my thoughts, like now?” He projected a scene to a story he had told Daniel often as a little boy — the day he encountered Vincent in that alleyway and had his life forever changed.

  Daniel grinned, a genuine smile, and said, “Uh-huh. Wow, this is pretty cool to see it happening. I always wondered what Vincent looked like. He doesn’t look like Angelica.”

  “No,” Danny said, abruptly cutting off the memory in his mind. “She looks like her mother.”


  “Can I see her?” Daniel asked.

  “You have to work for it,” Danny replied, keeping his barrier in place.

  Daniel sat back in his seat with a frustrated sigh. “I can’t do it. I can’t break her barriers, what’s the difference with you?”

  “There might not be, but try,” the witch said. “He is your blood, after all.” She stood up and said, “If you can get his mind to open up others’, then I can finish my work with him. Let me know, Mr. Mancini.”

  “Will do,” Danny said. When the door had closed behind her, he turned back to Daniel and said, “Everyone has a different barrier. It’s common to use poetry or music, but some have physical barriers, too. The man who taught me this trick had the poem ‘Jabberwocky’ as his barrier. Trust me, that was no fun to get through!”

  Daniel laughed. “I imagine not. I hope you at least have something...saner?”

  “Well, see for yourself,” Danny said.

  Daniel closed his eyes and Danny could feel his descendant’s mind pressing against his. It was strange, having spent two decades without his powers, to now see someone who looked so much like him use those same powers on him. It was like everything had somehow come full circle.

  “Queen, huh? Never took you for a fan,” Daniel commented.

  Danny just smiled and closed his eyes as he felt the young man try to dismantle his barrier, word by word.

  “You’re too much like me for your own good,” Danny said. “Do it visually, mentally. Not physically.”

  “How come you make it sound so easy?” Daniel wanted to know.

  “Because for people like us, it is. Slow the words down, dismantle them carefully and deliberately. Ease your way in, don’t barrel through like a soldier charging in war,” Danny advised.

  And slowly, he felt Daniel doing just that. He had spent a while now not feeling any mental stimulation like this, and now it was strange to feel it but not be able to reciprocate, to push with his mind and see inside Daniel’s head.

  Daniel made a hole in his barrier, and Danny began to show him what he’d asked to see: Veronica Delarue, who would later become the wife of Vincent Cross and the mother of the woman he loved more than life.