Hugh nodded absently and glanced at the ground where the dog had been. It was gone—or hidden.
A hellhound. He’d never seen one before, but what else could it be? They were rumored to be nearly uncontrollable, feared by demons and nosferatu.
Yet somehow Lilith had befriended this thing. And despite her declaration that she was determined to fulfill her bargain with Lucifer, she’d sent it to watch over him.
This time as he ran, he let himself remember their conversation from the night before instead of using the exercise to drive every thought from his head.
She’d been human once.
Why hadn’t he seen it before? His gut burned, but he forced himself to keep a steady pace instead of trying to outrun the pain his ignorance—and now knowledge—brought. How easily he’d dismissed the humanity he’d seen within her, so certain that such a thing would be impossible. Yet it made sense of everything he knew of her: her difficulty in carrying out the more horrific demonic tasks, her father’s constant disapproval, her low status in the demon strata, and the conflict he sensed within her—all the result of her human side fighting the demon within her. How Lucifer must relish Lilith’s internal dilemma, even while hating the human cause of it. Guardians had been created because their humanity assisted them, creating a bridge between humans and Above. Lucifer must have found a way to do the same with the ritual, creating a demonic version Below. Only in those circumstances, the human side would have been a disadvantage: the human propensity for empathy, love and pity warring with Lucifer’s demands that she should never feel those emotions.
Why had she accepted Lucifer’s bargain two thousand years ago?
I didn’t want to die. And yet she hadn’t seemed to care that Hugh had slain her.
His steps faltered. He knew what destroying her had done to him. He’d wanted to save her, to give her freedom—but he had lost her, and much of his humanity, in the doing.
If she managed to kill him, what would it do to her? The only choice was to convince her not to make the same mistake he had. When she tried to tempt him, he would have to wage a counterattack to halt her self-destruction. He knew her weaknesses, had refrained from exploiting them for too long for fear of his own.
Demons damned humans through temptation—perhaps a human could save a demon the same way.
Her flight to Los Angeles had taken more time than she’d anticipated, and her clothes still reeked of smog and copy-machine toner when she arrived back at her apartment.
Sir Pup waited for her; the odor of the park and Hugh lingered on his fur. He glared at her with four eyes, but refused to look at her at all from his middle head. She grinned.
“I meant police officers. You didn’t really think he might be harassed by pigs?” She dumped a pile of dry dog food into the bathtub, promised she’d bring bacon to Colin’s house for his dinner, changed into her suit and ran out the door.
An hour and a half later, she was sitting at a table centered in a small conference room, accepting a paper cup full of coffee from Detective Preston. He took a cup for himself; judging by the exhaustion lining his face, one he desperately needed.
But his pale blue eyes were alert, and though he gave nothing away in his expression, his psychic scent burned with curiosity. Strangely, it wasn’t directed toward the manila envelope and disc that lay on the table between them, but at Lilith.
Uneasy, she tried to redirect his attention. “Should I—”
“She should be here in a few. Trying to light a fire under the ME’s ass.” He leaned back in his chair, grinned. “And Andy’s the type to keep someone waiting when she thinks they might be butting in on her case.”
But Preston didn’t think so; she felt no animosity from him. She rested her elbows on the table and smiled over the rim of her cup. “If that was my intention, Detective, then I wouldn’t have told you I was coming in. I like to take over jurisdiction by surprise.”
“I know.” His grin faded. “I helped dig up Paula Roberson.”
Lilith set her cup down. “You were in Seattle.”
He nodded, scratching his whiskered jaw. “Transferred here about thirteen years ago. Couldn’t take any more of Chief Bowman; he was a real dick, and he wasn’t going anywhere, so I did.”
Her lips twitched. “I thought it was just me.”
“No.” He looked her up and down. “Though he must have been pissed when you showed up, some gorgeous young thing fresh out of Quantico, waving that profile around. And then being right, down to the last detail. Even guessing where White hid the victim’s bodies, based on some mumbo-jumbo psychology shit. No offense.”
“None taken,” she murmured.
As if struck by a memory, he chuckled and nodded to himself. “God, you nailed that bastard. I’ll never forget his face when we walked into his accounting firm and put him under arrest. Pissed his thousand dollar suit, started babbling about angels.” Preston paused, glanced back at her. “You weren’t there. You deserved to be. He was under suspicion, but we had nothing substantial on him until you showed up. He’d certainly never have given us the location of those graves.”
“My superiors decided I’d caused enough of a diplomatic problem with the locals,” she said dryly.
His brows rose. “Oh, Bowman cursed your name for at least a year. Might still be cursing it, for all I know. If you hadn’t been—what, seven years old?—when White killed the first one, he’d probably have tried to get you as an accessory, claiming that was the only way you could have known all that. If you don’t mind me saying, you’ve aged well. You don’t look a day over twenty-six or seven.” He looked her over, then down at his own solidly fat stomach.
She smiled and said, “I made a deal with the devil.”
“Heh. Anyway, between Thaddeus White pissing himself and seeing Bowman’s glory taken by a bit-of-nothing fibbie—no offense—you made my year. So when you call me and my partner up and say you’ve got something that might point us in the right direction on a murder that makes White’s slice-and-dice look pretty, I’m willing to listen.”
“You may not like what I have to show you.”
He shrugged, and every bit of humor left him. “I don’t like any of this.”
Neither did she. His compliments had taken the exhilaration out of the game; she felt no guilt in deceiving him and his partner, just as, sixteen years before, she had no compunction against writing the stack of lies that led them to Thaddeus White. It was unfortunate she couldn’t dislike Preston; then it would have been fun.
But in the face of his respect, it became something she just had to do. At least it was of her own volition, not forced by Lucifer.
Caused by him, perhaps, but not forced.
She became hopeful again when Taylor finally came in. Lilith stood, and was subjected to a flat, searching stare followed by a cool handshake.
She could dislike this woman.
Then the detective ruined it by turning to Preston and commenting, “You’re right: she could kick my ass.”
The older man flushed slightly. “I told you; she has six inches and thirty pounds on you.”
“Oh, at least forty,” Lilith said, glancing down at the detective’s wrist. It looked as fragile as a swan’s neck.
Taylor sighed. “Dammit.” She pulled her fingers through her hair, and every strand of her neat, auburn bob fell back into place. Though Lilith could feel the other woman’s weariness, hear it in the hoarseness of her voice, none of it showed on her face or in her posture. “So, Agent Milton—what have you got for us?”
“Maybe nothing,” Lilith said, and pulled a sheaf of paper from the manila envelope. “I received these in my inbox six months ago. Forensics looked over them: no prints, no DNA on the original envelope, and the paper was a brand and weight used by every major print-and-copy store in the region. I’ve been sitting on them, because though they were a curiosity, they didn’t seem to relate to anything.”
Taylor accepted the copies, unclipping them and passing half to Preston. “I
t looks like an old letter.” She flipped through the pages. Lilith waited for a moment. Taylor paused, her breath hissing through her teeth.
Preston glanced over, his eyes widening. “What the hell?”
“When I heard the . . . nature of your victim’s death, I thought of these. I see I’m not wrong in thinking they are similar.”
“Where did you hear?” Preston glanced up. “The details weren’t released.” There was no accusation in his gaze, though Taylor’s was suspicious.
“One of the agents in the Bureau has a brother who works for the ME,” Lilith said truthfully, knowing that would be enough. Cops talked to one another, and the method of this murder was a remarkable one.
Taylor nodded, and squinted down at the page. “I can’t even read this.”
“There is a typewritten transcript at the bottom of the stack. A handwriting expert has verified the letter was written by John Polidori, who wrote a popular vampire tale nearly two hundred years ago. You can see his signature on the last page. We don’t know who the ‘L’ in the salutation refers to. And we don’t have the original letter, only copies.”
“What does it say?”
“The text of the letter details a dream that he had, in which he witnessed the end of the world at the hands of huge men with fangs and pointed ears. He calls them ‘nesuferit,’ probably from a Latin word meaning ‘not to suffer.’ That drawing is his depiction of the torture they put him through in their attempt to transform him into a vampire, before they finally set him on fire.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Preston said at the same time Taylor exclaimed, “January 4, 1822?”
Lilith nodded. “The year after Polidori died.”
The detectives exchanged a look.
Taylor set the letter back on the table and folded her hands. “Is this some kind of sick joke, Agent Milton?”
“Yes. But it isn’t mine.”
Silence met her reply. Preston looked at the drawing Colin had made that morning, then at his partner, then back to Lilith. “Goddammit. Goddammit! What are we supposed to do with this?”
His outburst wasn’t directed at Lilith, but the frustration of having a relatively straightforward investigation shot to hell.
But Taylor thoughtfully tapped the jewel case beside Lilith with her forefinger. “Why would they send this letter to you?”
“I’ve made a name for myself in some circles debunking paranormal phenomena, exposing leaders of Satanic cults for fakes, that kind of thing. It’s possible whoever sent this to me did it as a challenge.”
“So you’ve become Mulder,” Preston said.
“Scully, actually,” Taylor said. Preston’s brows rose, and she added with a shrug, “She was the skeptic.” She glanced back at Lilith. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
She nodded, relieved. If Taylor was listening now, too, it made this much easier. “A club downtown—Polidori’s—burned to the ground last week. I went to KRON this morning and got footage from the newscast, including a few shots that had been edited out for the broadcast. It includes a scan of the crowd. There are men who match Polidori’s description of the nesuferit very nearly perfectly.”
“Nosferatu?” Preston said, then hastily added when both Lilith and Taylor looked at him, “Or, guys dressed up like them?”
“I wonder if Ian Rafferty frequented that club. Or if our professor is also in that footage,” Taylor mused.
If, through some coincidence, Hugh had been there, Lilith would never have given her the disc. And would probably have made the cameraman, reporter, and the news file database quietly disappear.
Preston let out a long sigh. “So you’re saying that whoever did this has a copy of the original letter, and is thinking of using it in some delusional scheme to transform himself into a vampire instead of just playing at it? Or maybe more than one plan to, like members of a cult? And setting fire to the club bearing Polidori’s name was some kind of symbolic thing?” he summed up, then groaned softly when Lilith nodded. She fought to hide her grin. It was always best when they said it; people were always more likely to believe what came out of their own mouths. “What a mess.”
“At least these guys won’t be too hard to find,” Lilith said. “When you see the tape, you’ll know what I mean.”
“Joe,” Taylor said suddenly. “Let me see the book. He never makes mention of any kind of script, but there’s lots about the nosferatu and vampires. If the original letter is in his possession, or even a copy of it, and we can prove a similarity between that book and what’s here in this letter, showing he had knowledge of it . . .”
What book? Lilith’s stomach tightened. Why did she get the feeling she had just made a critical error, and that her attempt to divert their attention from Hugh had done the opposite?
Preston reached into his jacket and withdrew a paperback. “He’d have to be the ballsiest nut ever to have published clues to his insanity ten years before he goes on his killing spree.”
Taylor opened the slim volume and began leafing through the pages.
Lilith stared at the title and author’s name for a full minute before she croaked, “May I see that?”
CHAPTER 17
It came as no surprise to Hugh when, toward the end of his last class period, Detectives Taylor and Preston entered the room though the door at the back of the lecture hall and took two of the empty seats.
That Lilith was with them did surprise him, though it shouldn’t have. When would he learn that he could never assume he knew what she would do?
The day’s lecture consisted of a discussion of Donne, and he half-expected Lilith to raise her hand and say something scandalous. But she remained still, watching him silently through the last ten minutes of class.
That alone put his guard up.
He was determined to save her, but he didn’t want to hang himself in the process.
They approached him as he began stacking his papers into his pack. The detectives’ guarded expressions told him that despite his alibi, despite their questioning last night, their suspicions had deepened.
Was Lilith the cause? He glanced at her, trying not to show undue interest or familiarity, though any man in his right mind would have stared. She’d coiled her hair neatly behind her nape, emphasizing the fierce, lush beauty of her features. Her suit jacket hung slightly open; the crisp shirt, the vest buttoned snug over her flat belly and breasts, the fall of her pants doing little to hide the strong, lithe form beneath.
It would be more suspicious not to look, he decided, and searched her features for a hint of her emotional state. He did not have to look very long: a thin red line ringed her pupils, as if she barely held back their crimson glow.
She was angry.
That was . . . unusual.
“Detectives,” he said, and gestured toward the students still remaining in the room, talking to one another or gathering their books. “Shall we take this to my office?”
Preston nodded. Hugh brushed past him without pausing to see that they followed. Outside the room, the two officers who’d been shadowing him all day long were gone. Sent home? Was he no longer under surveillance because he was no longer a suspect, or was it a temporary reprieve?
His lips twitched. Of course, the other option might be that the detectives were here to arrest him. But, as they hadn’t immediately done so, he did not think that the case.
Michael had said Lucifer would come at him though the system, using mankind’s justice against him. Was Lilith the face of that? If so, strange that she was angry. If the detectives had followed her plan to entrap him for these murders, she should be ecstatic, gloating.
Remembering how her hellhound had watched over him that morning, he shook his head. He couldn’t make sense of it, and the short walk from the classroom to his small office was not long enough to determine Lilith’s role.
Relieved to see that Sue wasn’t in the room, he laid his pack on his desk and leaned against the front. He didn’t want to sit behind
it; too easy to seem as if he was hiding behind its bulk. They were here on the offense, and he had no intention of giving them an advantage, even if it was only of position. The room was not large, and four standing adults did not fit comfortably. The detectives made no move to sit in the chairs, or to shake his hand in greeting. Their gaze quickly moved around, as if to determine if he’d changed anything from their last visit, if he’d hidden anything.
Standing behind them, Lilith did not look away from him, and he held her gaze.
As if noticing his attention, Preston said, “This is Agent Milton, of the San Francisco FBI. She’s agreed to assist us on this case.”
Milton? Hugh quirked a brow, but his voice was flat as he said, “I’d like to see your identification, Agent Milton.”
Taylor and Preston looked surprised and offended, respectively, but Lilith’s expression never changed. She approached him, flipping a wallet from the inside of her jacket, and held it open.
“Closer, please,” he said pleasantly. “I’m not wearing my spectacles.”
Her mouth tightened, but with annoyance or laughter he could not determine. Reluctantly, he dropped his gaze from her face to the ID. “Lily,” he murmured. He raised his eyes to hers again. “I like it very much.”
He said the words like a caress, so softly Taylor and Preston couldn’t have heard him. Lilith did. Her lips parted slightly, and the red faded from her eyes. Heat replaced it, was quickly banked.
She snapped the wallet closed. “Satisfied, Dr. Castleford?”
Hooking his thumbs in his pockets, he smiled. “Not yet.” Her breath hitched, but he allowed his gaze to slide past her toward the detectives, pleased for the moment that he’d disconcerted her. His voice hardened. “But I will be when you discover who killed Ian.”
“So will we, Dr. Castleford.” Taylor’s tone echoed his. “I hope you don’t mind if we ask you a few more questions.”
Hugh nodded. “I didn’t think you were here for the poetry.” Lilith backed away. She sat down at Sue’s desk as if to participate only as an observer. He could feel her studying him, and though he did not look directly at her, he could sense the slight shift in her posture, in her mood when Taylor gestured to a manila envelope Preston carried.
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