by TA Moore
“There was a glutted vampire in the trap house,” Took said conversationally. “Fat as a tick and didn’t even know his own name.”
The reminder quenched the flare of superiority before it could take root. Most vampires sustained themselves with a Kiss—a sip of blood from a lover’s ripe vein. Some couldn’t stop or didn’t want to and drained their lovers to dry veins as they chased the sweet-rot tang of death even as it rotted them out like hollow logs, flesh and fang preserved but whatever made them people instead of beasts sloughed off.
Human or vampire, both had members they wouldn’t hold up as the best of their species.
“So I shouldn’t look down on them,” Madoc acknowledged.
“No, you should understand why they’re angry,” Took corrected him. “And afraid, which is worse.”
“Good point,” Madoc allowed. He pulled a hip flask out of his jacket, unscrewed the cap, and poured whiskey-thinned blood into his coffee. The blood had more kick, for him, than the whiskey, but the mossy smoke taste was something he could still savor. He raised his eyebrows at Took and tipped the flask in his direction. “Do you want a shot?”
Took swallowed and swiped his tongue over his lower lip. The hunger in his eyes was for blood, but hunger wasn’t so far from lust for vampires. His eyes would dilate the same way if Madoc kissed him, and the points of his fangs dimpled the lush curve of his lower lip. Or not. Madoc roughly pinned the fantasy down and shoved it back into its place. He’d allow them in his sheets, with a warm body under him or his own cold hand on his cock, but that was all. The first time Madoc offered more than that, he’d been rejected. Took had picked chaste friendship and a breathing lover instead, and the last time he’d lost even the friendship.
That old sluggish pain sank its fangs into Madoc, but it was a welcome distraction from the heavy tug of his balls. Love, as he’d found out before, was no excuse to be a fool.
“I doubt you’ll find another willing offer in this town,” Madoc said as he withdrew the flask and recapped it. “But suit yourself. So go on. Why take the case?”
He took a drink. The coffee was hot enough to burn his tongue and scald his throat with a brief sting before the aftertaste of blood laved it away.
Took wrapped his hands around his mug and looked past Madoc’s shoulder, toward the front of the diner. “I might as well explain to you and your new partner.”
The bell over the door rattled as someone shoved it open. Madoc didn’t need to look around to know it was Lawrence. There could well be other women in town who wore Chanel perfume, but he doubted that any of them would carry the faint, sickly sweet smell of ichor on their breath. That was easy. He was more interested in how Took knew, as far as he was aware, that they hadn’t set eyes on each other in the station.
“Are you sure it’s her?” he asked.
Took absently reached up and rubbed his throat. The scar was still raised and pink from exposure to the sun—almost raw. It should have healed by now. Not just from the sun’s blisters, but the scars themselves should have faded. Vampires scarred, but even holy water would heal eventually. It just took blood and time.
“There are a few vampires who work in town,” Took said. His eyes stayed focused over Madoc’s shoulder as he talked, faster as the click of Lawrence’s heels got closer. “But they keep a low profile. Anyone they bite on the regular? They keep a lower one.”
Madoc glanced around as Lawrence reached the table. True to his advice, she still wore the low-scooped top that flashed her bite. Like any sleight of hand, it was less impressive once you knew how it was done.
“She also flashed Nick her badge,” Took added as he lifted his coffee to inhale the bitter steam. “That cinched it.”
Madoc slid to the side to give Lawrence room in the booth. She hesitated for a moment, her attention distracted by the men at the bar, and then made the same assessment that Madoc had. The local militia would drink themselves stupid before they worked up to direct action. At least they would tonight. Lawrence sat down on the edge of the bench, careful to leave room for the Holy Spirit between his thigh and hers, and nodded stiffly across the table.
“You must be Agent Bennett,” she said as she pulled the plate toward her. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Agent Bennett is just about to explain how he ended up in Appleton,” Madoc said. He took another drink of his coffee and licked his lips, just to see if Took’s gaze would flicker down. It did. “Go on. Tell us Dom Waring is innocent.”
Lawrence paused, her fork sunk tine-deep in cream, and spluttered an indignant “What?”
“She was a member of the task force that took Dom down,” Madoc said. “So was I.”
“I’m aware of that. I did read the files on the case,” Took pointed out with a flicker of irritation, but he controlled it. He reached over, picked up the salt, and unscrewed the top of it with a gritty sound. “Don’t put words in my mouth. I said that the family thinks he’s innocent, that VINE framed Dominic, not that I agreed with them.”
He added a heavy dose of salt to his coffee. “I just think that it’s possible you missed something.”
Lawrence put her fork down with a distinct click. “Dominic Waring murdered five families, breathing and not. Some of the bodies still haven’t been found, will probably never be found to be laid to rest or raised again.” She tucked her hair back behind her ear with an impatient swipe of her fingers. Her voice was clipped and sharp with resentment as she pushed on. “Do you really think we didn’t check everything, look in every dirty corner that we could find? We had forensic evidence, eyewitness sightings… we even got the Nations to agree to let a manhunt cross the borders onto their territory because the evidence against Waring was overwhelming. Or did you somehow miss all that?”
It was a good question. Until today, Madoc had assumed that Took had quarantined himself away from anything to do with VINE or kidnapping. Otherwise it was hard to imagine how a man whose life had been his work had managed to stay on the sidelines for so long.
Except, of course, he apparently hadn’t.
“You made a compelling case,” Took agreed with her. He took a drink of salt-seasoned coffee and grimaced as he choked it down. “It doesn’t mean you didn’t miss anything.”
Lawrence sniffed and sat back. “Something you’d have caught, I suppose?”
“Maybe,” Took said. “I mean, it’s something I did catch. So….”
They glared at each other.
“What?” Madoc asked.
“Sir,” Lawrence protested sharply. “We didn’t miss anything. It was a win when we put Waring under salt. I know you and Bennett worked together, but he’s not on VINE’s side right now. Don’t give him anything he can hang this ridiculous theory off.”
Took scowled at her. “VINE is there to catch bad guys, Agent Lawrence,” he said, “not cover your ass. You’re telling me that if you put the wrong man away, you’d rather let the real killer go than admit you fucked it up?”
“We didn’t,” Lawrence insisted. “Waring did it. Look, I know you’re a basket case these days—”
“That’s enough,” Madoc cut her off sharply. The smoke in his voice curled thickly enough to layer compulsion over what he’d meant to just be an order. She clenched her fists on the table and closed her mouth so hard it made her teeth click. Madoc winced guiltily at the slip, although he doubted she’d realize what he’d done. To even the score, he turned his glare on Took. If he was going to jockey for position like a junior agent, he could get dressed down like one. “What did we miss, Agent Bennett? Or is this just a fishing trip?”
Took didn’t look reprimanded. He paused as he took another drink of coffee and turned to the side, out the window at the brightly lit streets of Appleton. Despite the glare, few of the locals had risked the night. The diner was the only shop on Main Street still open.
“Appleton, the cider capital of South Carolina,” Took said. “Twelve thousand residents and, based on the census, all of them ar
e breathing. Have you ever been here before?”
The compulsion made Lawrence hold her tongue, but she snorted her impatience.
“It’s on VINE’s radar,” Madoc said. He glanced over his shoulder at the local militia, who superstitiously avoided his eyes. “But no. Why?”
Took drained his coffee and wiped his mouth on his sleeve
“Dominic Waring was here,” he said. “You missed that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I don’t intend to spend another night in Appleton, and it’s a long drive home.”
He tossed a ten on the table for his drink, got up, and left. Madoc could have stopped him. Common wisdom said that “if you love them, let them go”, but so far, it hadn’t gotten Madoc anywhere.
“MAYBE WE should have gone after him,” Lawrence said. She stood at the window of the police station, her arms crossed, and frowned at the prayer group as it reformed on the grass. “People in town still think he’s to blame for those two deputies ending up in the hospital. There could be trouble.”
Madoc looked away from the computer to study Lawrence. Her hair was clipped neatly at the back of her neck, so he had a good view of her reflection in the dark glass. Her lips were set in a tight line.
“Bennett can take care of himself,” he said. “What’s really bothering you, Lawrence?”
Her shoulders stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said dismissively. “There’s nothing wr—”
“Enough,” Madoc said. He hit Mute on the video call with Philadelphia. It had been on hold for five minutes while the agent on duty ran down Madoc’s request, but he didn’t want anyone to walk back in at an inopportune moment. “Either spit it out, Lawrence, or get over it. Your choice.”
She turned around and stared at him for a moment as she chewed her lower lip. Then she shrugged.
“Like I said, it’s nothing,” she said. Madoc waited. It didn’t take long for Lawrence to fold her arms defensively and blurt out, “I just don’t understand. Our—VINE’s—investigation in the Waring case was above reproach. There’s no question of his guilt. You know that. Bennett, well, he might have been a good agent once, but he’s obviously off the rails now. So why did you hear him out?”
The edge of suspicion in her voice was familiar. No one, so far, had been confident enough to voice it aloud, but the doubt curled through mission briefings and lurked under filed reports. People thought that Madoc’s decisions where Took was concerned were based on emotion instead of logic. After Took vanished, he’d pushed the search too hard and held on to hope they’d find him long after everyone else had given up.
It was true, but that didn’t mean that Madoc wasn’t annoyed by the veiled insinuations. He might make his decisions with his heart instead of his head, but they were still the right decisions.
“We missed something,” he said.
“Because he said so?” Lawrence asked skeptically. “Is he really that good?”
“He’s the best,” Madoc said bluntly.
“Better than me?” Lawrence asked. She flushed slightly as she caught the need in her voice, and she raised her eyebrows as she redirected the question. “Better than you?”
Madoc snorted. He spread his hand out in front of him. The brand of that old rank, of Cardinal Madoc and all his sins, on the back of it had faded years ago, but he could still feel it in his bones. When the six Haza still held court here, the cardinals had been more executioner than investigator. The boyars over the sea hadn’t cared so much for guilt, as long as those they blamed bled.
“Violence has always served me well enough,” he said. “I never had a subtle turn of mind.”
“So just me?” she cracked. Then she sighed in annoyance. “I sound like a jealous girlfriend, don’t I? It’s just… was Bennett really that good? People talk about him like he was basically a sorcerer.”
In the corner of his eye, Madoc saw Agent Rory Quick flop back into the chair and peer quizzically at the screen. He held up a finger to buy himself a second as he tried to think how to answer Lawrence’s question. Took had the mind of a con man or a cult leader, unsentimental and observant as a snake, and a moral compass someone had managed to wedge in late in the day. Lawrence might be a better VINE agent one day—anywhere but the Biters, she probably already was—but Madoc didn’t know if determination and hard work could give her the edge on the cold turn that came naturally to Took.
“He’s that good,” Madoc admitted. “I don’t think it ever made him that happy.”
Lawrence looked at him as though he’d missed something, but she just pointed at the laptop with her chin. “I guess we need to find out what we missed, then.”
Definitely a good agent. Madoc turned back around and unmuted with a tap of his finger. He caught the tail end of Quick’s absently tuneless hum before the man swallowed the rest of the melody.
“Sir,” he said as he straightened up. With one finger he pushed the glasses he hadn’t really needed for half a century up the bridge of his nose. “Did Bennett really blow up a trap house?”
The preliminary report from the county fire chief had understated the cause as “misadventure.” One of the Goats apparently had a fondness for jury-rigged booby traps and homemade explosives. In addition to a perimeter of trip wire IEDs that matched the one that took out Gatlin, there had been a stash of homemade explosives in the garage. The theory was that the fight Took started in the kitchen had caused a gas leak, caught a spark, and then everything went up.
That was the theory. Madoc would wait for VINE’s CSU techs to have a look before he called it fact.
Those were just the details, though. Quick wanted the story. He hadn’t liked Took much at first, or at least he hadn’t liked the fact Took was his superior despite that five-decade head start. In the end he’d come around. People always did. Now he wanted to take this and roll it out for the rest of the Biters. Proof that Took could still make any situation more dramatic, that he hadn’t changed.
“Looks like it,” Madoc said dryly. “What’s that make it. Four?”
“Are we counting cars too?” Quick asked with a chuckle. He sobered quickly as he glanced over Madoc’s shoulder at Lawrence. “You think this has something to do with the Waring case.”
“There might be a connection,” Madoc said.
At the same time, Lawrence said, “Bennett thinks so.”
Quick hesitated for a moment but then accepted both answers. He absently ran his hand over his cropped, salt-and-sand curls as he looked down at a notebook.
“Well, our system throws up a few red flags where Appleton is concerned, but mostly to do with pockets of support for Hunter extremists in the area,” he said. “There’s nothing to do with Waring. I just checked in with Lopez and Tsosie, who had the case before it fell under Biter jurisdiction, and it hadn’t crossed their radar either. They weren’t even sure where it was. Did Bennett have any timeline for when this place was relevant?”
“Not that he was willing to share,” Madoc said.
Quick rolled his eyes. “Some things never change, eh? So, do you need me to file a flight plan back, or….”
Everyone in the room knew it would be or, so Madoc ignored the question. “Send me everything—everything—we have on the Waring case. Get me an update on the parents as well and check how Waring has fared since we put him under The Salt.”
At the bottom of the screen, Quick’s hands were just visible as he quickly typed the instructions. He poked his tongue between his teeth in concentration, and then it disappeared back into his mouth.
“Will I get the Charleston office to send over an Eclipse sedan?” Quick asked absently.
“If we’re going to poke our nose in,” Lawrence pointed out, “we should run it past the local VINE SSA, make sure we don’t step on any toes.”
Madoc curled his mouth in a thin, sour smile. His presence had already stepped on the relevant toes. He doubted a belated effort to pretend he gave a flying fuck what SSA Crane thought of Madoc’s presence in his territory would
smooth anything over.
It was the effort that mattered, though—the acknowledgment that they all served new masters now and none of them thought wistfully of the old days of Empire. It would also mean that Madoc could make the drive to Charleston in relative comfort. He had served his time in car trunks and, before that, the scratchy beds of carts as he breathed in hay and chicken.
“You can liaise with Crane,” he told Lawrence. “Find out what he knows about Bennett being on this case while you’re at it. Quick—”
“It’ll take me a bit to chase down everything on the parents, but I’m on it,” Quick said. “The Waring file and all the associated forensic evidence is in the cloud.”
He glanced up briefly with a flash of pale amber eyes over a smirk. “Do you need me to help you get into it? Again?”
Madoc snorted and disconnected the call. He might be old, but he hadn’t started the slow calcification that took some of the elders. They weren’t senile as the living experienced it—more reluctant to knit new memories into long-term recall—but it was close enough for Quick to think his jokes were funny.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Lawrence said. “Appleton doesn’t fit as one of Waring’s hunting grounds. It would be like hunting trout in a parking lot. It might not be a dry town anymore, but no vampire is going to move here with their family, not when they have other choices.”
She wasn’t wrong. Of course a hunter didn’t just need a hunting ground. They needed a bolt-hole too.
“Get in touch with West, smooth his feathers about our involvement,” Madoc said. He stood up. The leather of his uniform had been shaped to his body by years of blood and sweat, until it was too supple to creak or pinch, but he still felt the weight of it sometimes. “I need to go and talk to the sheriff and see what story Bennett fed him.”
THE BRUISE on Anderson’s arm looked stark against tanned, weathered skin as the sheriff wearily stripped off his jacket and hung it up on the back of the door. He looked tired, with purple stains thumbed in under his eyes and deep grooves etched into the skin around his mouth. If the slurs from earlier hadn’t been fresh in Madoc’s mind, he’d have felt sorry for the man.
