by S D Hegyes
Sorsha turned and leaned back against the counter, staring at Gloria’s file and spinning the butter container around in her hands. “One of these days I might tell you about it.”
“Why the secrecy?”
“Because it’s kind of embarrassing?” Sorsha lied.
Irene chuckled. “Are you trying to tell me you’re an exotic dancer?”
Sorsha rolled her eyes. “Of course your mind went there first. No. I”m not an exotic dancer. That’s more your speed. You and your previous model career.” She grinned and dropped a bagel in the toaster.
“Too many catty people. I like what I do now.”
“So do I.”
“Are you planning on adding Larz to that list of what you plan on doing?”
“Jesus, Irene! You’re insistent.” Sorsha laughed and buttered her bagel when it popped up.
“I have to be,” her friend replied. “I have a wager with Regina.”
Sorsha was glad she wasn’t drinking. She’d have spit it out. “What?”
“Don’t act so surprised. She was at Wagers last night and saw Larz. She and I made a bet about how long it’d be before you two were sleeping together. She already thought you were a couple actually.”
Somehow, that didn’t surprise her. The attraction between her and Larz was undeniable. Maybe they were right. Maybe it wasn’t a matter of if she and Larz would get together but when. “What’s the bet so far?” She took a bite of her bagel and leaned against the counter again.
“I originally gave it until today. That’s one good-looking man you’ve got living in the room beside you. Now that I see you resisting so hard, I have to change my answer.”
“And the payout?”
“We’re at a hundred.”
Sorsha laughed. “You’re horrible.”
“But you love me.” Irene fell silent. “Sorsha, what are you doing for Christmas? Have you decorated yet?”
The color drained from Sorsha’s face as she looked around the apartment. She hadn’t. Irene knew her well. She forced a smile on her face as she said, “Oh, you know me, Irene. I’m always doing something. I haven’t decorated yet though.”
The lie slipped from her lips too easily.
Holidays weren’t easy for Sorsha, and hadn’t been for ten years. It had been easier when she’d been active duty. She’d always spent holidays with Tanner when she could. She’d made a mistake after she’d been discharged from the hospital though, thinking she could spend Christmas with her family in Montana. Her father made it clear she wasn’t welcome. Returning had been a mistake she hadn’t repeated since, but it had also soured the holiday season for her.
She swallowed and sat her bagel on the counter, appetite gone. “I’ll decorate, Irene. I promise. You still coming for New Year’s?”
“Of course, girl. You know I can’t resist a good, personal B.Y.O.B.”
“Alright,” Sorsha said and she swallowed again. She needed to get off the phone before she started crying. If she were honest, she hated Christmas, had ever since her father threatened to turn her in to the police for a murder even she wasn’t convinced she didn’t do.
“Fucking Preston Barr,” Sorsha snarled under her breath.
Beside her, Larz slammed the fridge shut. Had he heard her? She doubted it.
“What was that, Sorsha?”
“I, uh, need to go, Irene. Got a bit of work to do.” She pushed the bagel away.
“Alright. You coming out tonight or staying home with your future fuck-buddy?”
“I swear.” Sorsha shook her head with a grin. “I’m staying in tonight and working. I don’t know what Larz’s plans are. I haven’t asked.”
“Alright then. See you Monday. And Sorsha?”
“Hmm?”
“Take care of yourself.”
“I usually do.”
“I know.” Irene sighed. “I’m just. . . I’m worried about you.”
Dread settled in Sorsha’s stomach. Her friend was worried about her. “I’m fine, Irene. Promise.”
“Okay.” She didn’t sound convinced though. “See you.”
“Until Monday.” Sorsha pulled the earpiece out and sat it next to her bagel. She leaned against the counter with a sigh.
“You alright?” Larz asked.
She turned her head and gave him a thin smile. “Just not as hungry as I thought,” she lied. It left the taste of ash in her mouth, as it always did. She tossed the barely-eaten bagel in the trash and sat down at the table, snapping Gloria’s folder open to study it again.
She knew she was missing something. She just had to figure out what.
As she was reading through the file, Larz announced he was heading to the store. “I have a membership card for Sam’s if you want it,” she told him without looking at him.
“Sure.”
When it was silent for a bit, Sorsha glanced up. Larz watched her without expression. He’d put on a shirt, but the image of his tatted skin still held in her mind, and she swallowed hard as heat developed between her legs.
“Yes?”
“I have no idea where your wallet is, and if you say your purse, I’m definitely not going in there.” He held up his hands with a laugh. “I have a female cousin. I learned quickly not to go through a woman’s purse.”
She laughed. “Sorry.” She went to her room, dug around in her purse, and pulled out her wallet, extracting the membership card from it. When she returned to the kitchen, she saw Larz leaning over the kitchen table, looking at Gloria’s file with a frown on his face.
“What are you doing with this?” he asked, gesturing to it and meeting her gaze.
“Research. I have files like that for all the spirits in my deck. I promised Gloria I’d find her killer. I have all the information I could get about her, her friends and family, her death and the case around it, which has already been closed. There’s no evidence of who did it.” She shook her head with a frown. “That’s unacceptable.”
Larz grinned. “Are you in the habit of finding the killer of your spirits?”
She shook her head. “No. This will be a first, and I’m not a detective. I don’t even have the right instinct to become one. This would be easier if I knew someone who could figure out who the killer was, and I just go get them afterward.”
He chuckled. “I know the feeling.” He frowned as he looked at the file again. “I take it you don’t know any of the local vampire leaders?”
She shook her head and handed him her membership card. “Until yesterday, I believed vampires were a myth. I have questions about them, but they can wait until you get back.”
“A vampire killed Gloria, Sorsha. That’s what you’re missing. You’ll need to find the vampire who did it, and there aren’t likely to be many leads.”
“No,” she agreed. “If you’re right about phantoms, it wasn’t necessarily a vampire. It could have been another kind of supernatural.”
Larz shook his head. “There’s only so many kinds, Sorsha.” He held up his hand and counted them on his fingers. “Vampires, which are separated into two sub-categories depending on their creator—Dracula or Kazal—are the best culprit based on the evidence shown in this file.”
She looked down at the file, considering his words.
“Anyway,” Larz said, clearing his throat. “I’ll leave you to it.” He gripped her arm, leaned forward, and kissed her cheek. He grinned as he pulled away. “That’s the kiss I earned this morning during our run.”
She snorted. “That doesn’t count.”
His eyes darkened with heat, darted to her lips and back up to meet her gaze. “Sorsha.” His voice sounded strangled. “If I kiss you the way I really want to, it won’t end there, and you seem pretty adamant against that.” He shrugged and pulled away. “I’m heading to the store. If you think of anything else we need, let me know.” With a wink, he was gone.
Shaking her head, Sorsha sat back before the file, trying to keep her mind open to Larz’s suggestions that the person who kil
led the child was a vampire. Thinking about it made her frown though. Larz had mentioned there were subspecies of vampires.
“Dracula’s children and Kazal’s children,” she said aloud as she sat back in her seat staring at nothing. For a few minutes, she chewed on her thoughts.
Deciding she’d had enough of looking at Gloria’s file, Sorsha stood and walked to her room, flipping through the files she kept. Something about the term “Kazal’s children” gnawed at her mind. She removed the background check on Larz and looked at his name.
“Larz Kazal,” Sorsha whispered, dropping the file back in its place with a frown.
She remembered how she thought she’d seen his eyes flicker red when she’d called herself a freak. Why was Larz pushing the vampire issue so much where Gloria was concerned? Did he know more than he said he did?
And more importantly: was Larz one of the subspecies of vampire he’d mentioned. Was he one of Kazal’s children?
13
Sorsha didn’t get a chance to grill Larz about vampires and ask if he was one himself when he got back from grocery shopping. He’d gotten called into work while loading his car. When he got back, he put the food away, not allowing Sorsha to help.
“I’m killing time,” he told her with a grin. “Just in case they change their mind.”
They didn’t, but that didn’t stop Larz from throwing a pizza into the oven while he got dressed. When he returned from his room, he was dressed as he’d been the first time Sorsha saw him. His tattoos were covered under a gray long-sleeve button-up shirt and the black slacks fit well. His boots shone with polish.
He yanked on a black jacket featuring the state’s logo and pulled on a black cap. The difference between Officer Kazal and casual Larz were as clear as night and day, and Sorsha couldn’t help but stare, which, of course, made him grin.
“See something you like?”
“You,” she told him honestly and his expression darkened with a wicked smile.
“I made pizza. Make sure you eat some. I know you haven’t eaten much today.”
Half a bagel. If that. She flinched but nodded. He was right.
He sliced up the pizza and ate a piece. Then he threw a couple slices into a container and grinned at Sorsha. “I’ll be back in the morning,” he told her.
“I’m not your mother. You don’t have to check in with me,” she told him with a teasing smile.
Larz shrugged. “Call it habit. I did live with three others once upon a time.”
“And this is the first time I’ve lived with anyone else since I left the army.” She snagged a piece of pizza. “Just cheese?”
“I didn’t know what you liked, if at all. It felt like a safe route.”
“I like everything but anchovies and pineapple on my pizza.”
He put a hand to his chest and his mouth dropped open in mock offense. “Pineapple totally belongs on pizza.”
Sorsha groaned. “Oh, no. You’re one of those people.” Then she laughed. “This is fine. Get out of here. I’ll see you when you get home.”
Larz nodded. “See you then, Sorsha.”
The two danced around each other the rest of the week, but not in an awkward way. It was the holidays, and Sorsha only had a half-week at work.
However, Larz hadn’t lied during his interview. He was gone during the night, slept most of the day, and wasn’t as cheerful a morning person as he’d seemed when they first met.
Most of the time, Sorsha still ran alone in the mornings, but on Larz’s days off, he joined her. They didn’t try to have a conversation about anything while they ran, which worked for Sorsha. The silence between them wasn’t an uneasy one.
Whenever they were in the kitchen together, they seemed to work in tandem together. They spun around each other to do their own thing without ever getting in each other’s way.
It shocked Sorsha how easy it was living with Larz. She’d heard stories about living with roommates being a disaster, but Larz was easy-going compared to everything she’d heard.
He didn’t bother her when she did her calls in the evening for Phantom Mystics, although she did give him the courtesy of taking the calls in her room rather than at the kitchen table as she used to.
And even though their schedules were almost opposite of one another, Sorsha liked that they’d text back and forth, never worrying about when the other would answer. They’d answer when they could.
When they were together, they talked about everything and anything, but on the first night they both had off, he asked if he could sit in on one of her Phantom Mystics calls. She remembered she’d invited him to, but they’d both been too busy for him to take her up on it.
When she got off the phone, he grinned at her.
“What?”
He made no answer. Only shook his head at her antics as she took a bite of the chicken he’d cooked while she was on the phone. If there was one thing she’d learned about Larz in the short time they’d lived together, it was the fact that the man loved to cook.
On more than one occasion, she’d gotten home from work to find meals in containers with her name attached via a sticky note.
It always made her smile. Larz seemed to think she didn’t eat. It wasn’t true, but she liked that he cared enough to share his meals with her. Especially when she didn’t like cooking herself.
In response, she always made sure he had clean dishes to use.
With Christmas around the corner, the clinic was busier than ever, but that didn’t stop Larz from popping in one day around the same time she and Irene usually went to lunch.
Sorsha could hear him in the front, even as she sorted and shelved files. She’d been an administrative assistant in the back the entire time she’d worked at the clinic and hardly ever saw the front once the clinic opened for the day.
When Cathy, one of the two receptionists, poked her head in the back and told Sorsha she had a visitor, she shoved the file she’d been working with in its place and put the rest of the files on her desk.
Irene met her in the hall and nudged her. “It’s that hunk of a roommate, you know.”
“Who else would it be? I never have visitors.” Still, she couldn’t hide the smile as she stepped out and saw Larz sitting in one of the chairs in the waiting area.
Of course, he drew attention. Not only was he good-looking, but there was something about him that pulled attention toward him. He tapped his foot along with the lobby music, his eyes closed as he listened to the lyrics. This was casual Larz, rully relaxed and displaying a healthy range of tattoos and piercings. She liked casual Larz over Officer Kazal any day of the week, if she were honest with herself.
“What are you doing here, Larz?” Sorsha asked. She rubbed her hands on her scrub pants.
Larz eyed her, taking in her outfit. Like Larz, she looked different than she did when she wasn’t working. Because it was a blood donation center, she wore scrubs. Her hair was also pulled up in a bun, held in place with enough hairspray that she was probably a walking fire hazard.
“That’s a different look for you. I think I like it.”
She smiled but didn’t take the bait. They’d flirted with each other off and on as easily as breathing, but she was at work. “You’re stalling.”
“I came by to see what you’re doing for lunch.”
“Irene and I usually go to a little restaurant down the street for lunch.”
“Want me to drop something off instead? I made food to take to my cousins’ and all three cancelled on me.” He winced. “I just need it out of the house.”
Sorsha laughed. She’d noticed that while Larz loved cooking, he seemed to be sensitive to the smells of the meals he cooked, and after a while he wanted nothing more than the scent of food out of the apartment. “Sure,” she told him.
His smile was like a dozen light bulbs lighting up at once. “Great. Be right back.”
He disappeared out the door before Sorsha could stop him and returned a couple minutes later carrying several
containers filled with food. She counted while he sat them on the counter. Just enough for everyone at work to have a helping. He’d remembered how many people she said worked there.
Irene nudged Sorsha again as she stood beside her. “You never said he could cook,” she told Sorsha in an accusatory tone even as she stared at the container Larz opened for Cathy.
Sorsha crossed her arms over her chest. “By the way, Irene. Larz cooks.”
Her friend snorted. “Understatement of the year. That smells devine. Is that curry?”
“Looks like.”
“Alright, it’s official. If you don’t hit that by New Years, there’s definitely something wrong with you, and I’m calling dibs.”
Sorsh grinned at her friend, but her eyes were on Larz. Had he heard Irene’s words?
The sparkle in his eyes and the quirk of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth told her he had. It only added more into her theory that he was a vampire and hiding his true nature from her. If that was the case though, the only question was: why hadn’t he killed her?
When Sorsha got off work, Larz was sitting on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table, a bowl of popcorn on his lap as he watched a movie. He didn’t even glance at her as he asked, “How was work?”
She sighed. “It was a long day. Thanks again for lunch. It was delicious.”
Shutting the TV off, Larz twisted in his seat to face her, a frown on his face. “What do you usually do for the holidays, Sorsha?”
She winced at the question, hung her keys on the hook next to the door, shucked off her jacket and hung it on the back of a kitchen chair. Irene must have asked him about her when he’d visited. She hadn’t seen the two talking, but that could be the only reason for the sudden concern.
“Stalling, Sorsha?”
“I don’t really do anything. I mean, I decorate on Christmas Eve going into Christmas. That’s about it.” It was only half a lie.
He tilted his head to the side. “How come?”
She shrugged, looking down at the table and not at him. “I’d rather not talk about it,” she said. She could feel his eyes on her back, studying her, weighing her response.
