Sliver of Silver (Blushing Death)

by Sabol, Suzanne M.

  She dangled and twisted in the wind, exposing the damage done to her body. Most of her skull was missing from the crown back and a hollow cavity where her brain had been gleamed with flashes of white. The woman’s bare skull caught the light like they’d licked the bone clean on the inside. The burning sting of bile rose in my throat. I refused to throw up.

  Sonovabitch!

  “They probably ate it,” I said in the same even tone. I’d forgotten there were still cops standing around. When I heard one of them retch and a second gasp, I shrank into myself and lowered my voice. “Are you sure it’s the same woman?” I asked, taking a step closer to him so the others wouldn’t overhear.

  “Yep,” he said. “She’s missing her right hand. The same polish, too. We’re running fingerprints but I’m pretty sure it’s the same woman,” he said, jotting something down on his notepad.

  “How long has she been dead?” I asked.

  “Sometime between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. this morning. One of the other hotel guests heard a commotion around 5 a.m.” He rattled off the facts from his notebook in short succinct words.

  “She was alive when they cut her hand off,” I whispered, horrified. “Was the room hers or theirs?” I asked, glancing back up at the broken window.

  “Hers, and when we’re done, we’ll check the security video from the hotel. We might actually have the bastards on tape,” he said with a deadly smile.

  I evaluated the scene, at the blood on the cement, at the amount of people in the alley. Even at 5 a.m., this would’ve been very, very public, especially downtown. Pearl Alley ran perpendicular to High Street, which was the main bus line. People would have been standing at the bus stop, on their way to work. Someone would have heard or seen something. These strays wanted someone to find her and quickly. What were they playing at?

  We strode into the hotel room. Derek first, with me only a step or two behind. It was what I’d expected. Blood covered all four walls in splatters that looked like they’d flung her about the room, played with her. The place was tossed, furniture overturned, and the bed destroyed. They’d taken their claws to the mattress and had started digging. The same lingering sense of magic that I’d felt in the other house tingled across the air in the hotel room, like a whisper on the wind. The magic made my hair stand on end. It was stronger, earthier, and more concentrated than the previous scene.

  The werewolves had spent more time in this room and by what Derek had said, probably a few days. Take-out containers littered the floor. I could taste the magic’s sting on my tongue, like eating a whole clove. The feel of the magic was overpowering and filled my senses, making my head throb in my skull with each beat of my heart. The quick fleeting tingles up my spine were wild and uncontrolled. The longer I was in the hotel room, the harder my head throbbed. I wanted out of that room and away from magic.

  It was another hour before we made it from the hotel room into the hotel manager’s office to review the video. The forensics team processed the hotel room as Derek, the hotel manager, a guy named—wait for it—Guy and myself squeezed into a security office designed for one. Derek and I hunched over the hotel manager as he searched the back footage for the last time the key card to Room 1003 had been used.

  The security room was cramped. The smell of garlic and cilantro oozed from the hotel manager and filled my nostrils as it seeped from his pores. The mix of the hotel manager’s scent and Derek’s cologne in such a compact space forced me to pinch my nose and try to stop breathing. I already had a headache, and they weren’t helping. Neither one seemed to notice or even mind as I held my breath.

  “Where did they get all that rope?” I choked, trying to ignore the smells bombarding my sensitive nose.

  “The hotel maintenance room,” the manager informed us as he scrolled through the computer listing.

  “The security fence that housed the rope was ripped from its hinges on the wall,” Derek said.

  “Did they need special access?” I asked, hoping there wasn’t another body somewhere.

  “No, but I’ve already called corporate to get a system installed for the future,” the manager said, heaving his garlic-laced breath in my face.

  “Little good that’ll do her now,” I huffed under my breath. The computer beeped and we all turned to gawk at it.

  “The key card was last swiped the night before last,” the manager said.

  “That would be around the time you got your little gift,” Derek said, glaring at me.

  It wasn’t my damned fault that someone was hunting me. It’s not like I put an ad in the paper.

  The manager sifted through the footage in rewind for twenty minutes before he got to the appropriate time. Evidently 6:30 p.m. in the hotel lobby was a busy time on a Saturday night. The lobby was packed full of people, checking in, heading to the bar, going in and out, or just sitting in the lobby. The footage was grainy and not very clear. I could barely make out any faces as the film moved in jarring starts and stops every second or second and a half. The cameras were mounted in the far corners of the lobby near the ceiling, not nearly close enough for me to pick out any distinguishing features from almost anyone, or anything. Why have security cameras if you aren’t going to put them in places that will aid with, I don’t know, security?

  “Wow, this is helping,” I ridiculed, glancing over the four split screens on the black and white monitor. A flicker of quick movement on the top right-hand screen caught my eye. “Wait,” I yelped. “There,” I said as I pointed at the screens. “Run this one back.”

  The manager moved the footage back in slow motion as a man and woman crossed the screen quicker than everyone else in the frame, making no attempt to hide themselves from the camera. No one seemed to notice them either, moving either too quickly or using some of that magic I kept stumbling across.

  “How’d you see that?” the hotel manager mumbled.

  “Lucky, I guess.” I shrugged off his comment as Derek glared at me over Guy’s shoulder. I focused back at the screen without another word.

  The man was tall, almost six inches taller than the man nearest him. The woman was pretty, slim and dark. Through the grainy black-and-white security footage, her hair was the color of onyx with facial features and dark skin that screamed Native American. She was petite compared to the man next to her. They walked side-by-side and he took great care, using his big body to keep her out of the camera’s eye. He didn’t seem camera shy at all, though.

  “Is there a camera in the elevator or on the tenth floor?” I asked in hurried tones, finally getting excited. My blood pressure thumped through my veins as the chase suddenly got very interesting.

  “There’s one in each elevator and on each floor,” the hotel manager said, shifting the program to the elevator cameras.

  “Follow them,” Derek ordered.

  The camera in the elevator wasn’t worth the footage. The werewolf had taken it upon himself to molest his mate in the elevator so neither of their faces were visible. The floor camera was more of the same until she opened the door and stepped inside. Once she was in the room, the male werewolf turned a sinister, smirking face at the camera before following her inside and closing the door behind him. I couldn’t be sure since the film was so grainy but I think he winked at me.

  He was attractive in a confident, predator kinda way. His hair was light and wavy. His features were softened, like he’d been chiseled out of limestone and then worn away over time by rain and winds. His eyes were hard and empty above that sneer of a smile. He had a promise in his eyes that made me shiver.

  “Why would he do that?” Derek whispered.

  “He wants us to get a really good look,” I growled as I stood up and left the office. I’d had enough taunting.

  I took a copy of the video so Jade could run it through her systems. I told Derek it was so that Patrick knew w
ho we were looking for but I wasn’t sure he believed me. Quite frankly, I didn’t care if he did or not. I was tired of playing games. I was just tired.

  I got back to work almost three hours after I’d left and hoping no one had noticed. When I walked back into the department office, the Department Chair’s office door was open. I stopped dead in my tracks as the harsh overhead light from his office filled the hallway.

  Sonovabitch!

  I opened my door as quietly as I could and slipped inside, hoping he wouldn’t notice I’d disappeared for most of the day. Again.

  “Dahlia,” he called from inside his office. His tone was quiet and restrained.

  I didn’t even have time to put my bag down before he called my name. I swallowed hard and fisted my hands to keep them from trembling as I dropped my bag into the chair next to the door. I turned with my back straight and my chin high as I circled around the corner and into his office.

  His brightly lit office smelled of old books and the geraniums in his windowsill. The scent washed over me in a comfortable, familiar wave. It reminded me of all the times I’d spent in his office laughing and joking as we pored over paperwork. The Department Chair sat behind his desk seeming just as uncomfortable as I felt.

  I swallowed again as my knees went weak. Each step I took farther into his office was wobbly and uncertain. The faded pink paisley ascot he wore was tight around his neck. He was the only man I’d ever seen that could get away with wearing an ascot without me making a Scooby joke. He wouldn’t’ve gotten the joke anyway. His dark blue double-breasted suit jacket was a bit too tight from a recent gain of fifteen pounds around his middle and seemed even tighter still with the tension filling his shoulders.

  “Can you shut the door, please?” he asked.

  Stepping inside, I closed the door behind me with shaky hands as my stomach churned. I started to sweat, noticing the moisture in the palm of my hand and on my upper lip.

  He motioned for me to sit in the seat across from him on the other side of his desk as he finally brought his bright blue eyes up to meet mine. Teetering on the edge of chair, I couldn’t relax and my right foot bounced up and down on the ball of my foot as I pressed my legs together so hard my knee caps ached and my thighs quivered. I clenched my hands together between my knees. He was quiet for a long time, watching me. The scrutiny in his dark blue eyes made my pulse rate spike and my chest tightened with each silent second as they ticked by.

  “What happened to you today?” he murmured in his posh British accent. An edge of his native Yorkshire thickened his words. He always reverted to the lower-class accent of his youth when he was angry or frustrated, which was a pretty bad sign for me.

  “I was called away.”

  “Would you care to expand on that?” he asked and his Yorkshire accent was thick now. He wasn’t just frustrated anymore, he was angry. I thought I smelled disappointment as his nerves and the confrontation made his body temperature rise.

  My stomach sank as the smell of his anger filled my nose.

  I didn’t want to disappoint him. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone and it made my stomach tighten at the thought of being less than he expected, less than anyone expected. Before I could really think about how appropriate it was, the truth was falling out of my mouth in a desperate attempt to fix the situation I found myself in.

  “I was called downtown to identify a murderer,” I blurted, my voice was rough and my throat tight with tension.

  “Now, you’re going to lie to me,” he snapped and the Yorkshire accent made his words even thicker and harder to understand. I took in a reflexive breath and almost gasped in surprise. “Dahlia, I don’t know what’s going on and I’m beyond the point of caring,” he snapped. His jaw tightened and his blue eyes were clear and focused on my quivering form. I opened my mouth to say something but he stopped me with the wave of his hand.

  I swallowed hard and was sure he’d heard it just as clearly as I had.

  He took a deep breath and the rise and fall of his chest threatened the tight fit of his dress shirt and jacket. “Dahlia,” he said. “I would like you to clear out your personal belongings. Your services are no longer needed,” he continued in a clear, concise tone. The office fell silent as our gazes met, his in determination and mine in abject disbelief.

  Sitting for what felt like hours, I stared at him, flabbergasted at what had just happened. My mind kept turning his words over and over again, trying to make sense of what they meant. He’d warned me but in my heart of hearts I didn’t really think he’d actually do it. Not really.

  Standing on wobbly knees, I wasn’t sure my legs would hold me. I thought I should be crying or begging to keep my job but nothing came out. I was in shock. I had to be in shock. I left his office without another word.

  I jerked my keys from my slacks pocket, and laid them on the desk.

  Take your personal belongings, he’d said with distaste.

  I surveyed my office and realized I had none. There was nothing of me in this office. I’d kept myself separate and closed off. Now as I gathered up my bag and shut the office door behind me, I knew why.

  I would miss having somewhere to go that was human, normal. I wouldn’t miss them, and they wouldn’t miss me. It was an easy, unemotional break as I walked out of the department offices and down the hall. I didn’t say goodbye.

  Chapter 13

  Tossing my bag on the couch, I strode into the kitchen. I was hungry. I hadn’t had time to eat lunch. It felt strange being home at three in the afternoon.

  The sound of the microwave running in the silence of my empty house was mammoth and for the first time I felt really alone. The place was empty, no guards stalking my property since I wasn’t supposed to be home; no one doing laundry, no one in the command center, and for the first time in a long time, I could take a breath and think.

  I closed my eyes and relished the silence. When the microwave beeped, I jumped at the sound and my breath caught in my throat. I carried the steaming bowl over to the kitchen table and sat down. As I stirred the spoon in the beef barley, my mind caught up with everything. I slid the soup away when the first tear fell, laying my head down on the table, and sobbed, openly. There was no one to hear me. What the fuck did I care?

  I got fired. I couldn’t handle it. I don’t have health insurance. How am I going to pay my mortgage? How am I going to eat? Where will I go? I failed.

  A large, scorching hot hand stroked my hair and I slowed my blubbering in surprise. His fingertips traced down the back of my neck in gentle lines of heat. He was like a fire filling the room with his power, surrounding me in his blanket of protection. It shouldn’t have felt so good. I should have backed away and asked him to stop. I didn’t want him to stop touching me. Ever. That voice in my head whispered, Home. I was more content in a home that included him than I had ever been in mine, alone.

  I sniffed a couple of times before I had the strength to face Dean. Turning my head, I wiped the tears on my sleeve and I rested it on my folded arms. He crouched next to me with his fingers still making long strokes through my hair. Peering deep into his warm, olive-green eyes, I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth and bit down hard so I wouldn’t cry.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. A part of me was glad he was there; another part of me was pissed as hell I’d been caught crying like a baby, again.

  “I need my truck in the morning. I stopped by to get it,” he said.

  I sniffed again.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked in a soft, deep rumble that was warm and comforting as it rippled across my skin.

  I bit down hard again on my lip. I was having a hard time focusing as his fingers played in my hair.

  “Got fired today,” I blurted out with a sloppy shrug of my shoulder. My bottom lip quivered over the words and tears filled my eyes again. I hate
d being weak and I hated having someone see it.

  He clutched me into his much larger arms with very little effort, encircling me with his warmth. He eased me to my feet and surrounded me with his muscled embrace, his power, and the Pack.

  I cried against his shoulder for a few minutes until I needed to blow my nose. Then I stepped away and grabbed a paper towel from over the sink. I blew my nose and didn’t care how disgusting it sounded. When I turned around, Dean was filling my teapot with water and placing it on the stove. He leaned against the sink next to me and folded his arms in a comfortable, noncommittal stance. I took a couple of deep breaths to steady myself and sat back down at the kitchen table.

  “You wanna tell me what happened?” he asked, watching me out of the corner of his eye as I avoided eye contact.

  “Derek called about another body and I was gone too long,” I said, waiting for him to jump on me for not mentioning the additional body bit earlier.

  “That doesn’t seem like enough to fire you,” he grumbled.

  “It was just one time too many, I guess,” I said. “My life isn’t conducive to a 9-to-5 career anyway.” I swiped a tear from my cheek with more force than was necessary.

  “Well, if money will be a problem. I’m sure Pat’ll—” He stopped when he got a glimpse of my face.

  “I can’t work for Patrick, and I won’t take his money.” Finally. Anger. Anger pushed the other, weaker, emotions away.

  “Why?” he asked.

  I thought about it for a minute before I answered. I wanted to word it so there were no misunderstandings.

  “I’m not a woman to be KEPT,” I ground out through clenched teeth. I was about to say something I hadn’t said to anyone else before or even admitted out loud. “If I work for Patrick, then I’m nothing more than a hired gun,” I said. “I need something normal.” I needed Dean to understand so I continued. “If I disappear into that world, I’m afraid . . .” I stopped, gnawing my bottom lip again.