by Laken Cane
“Actually,” she said, “he is.”
“Not in the way he wants to be.” I took the plate she handed me and lifted a slice of hot, saucy pizza. The thick cheese stretched and finally broke, and I closed my eyes as I slid the point of the slice into my mouth. “Oh,” I mumbled. “So good.”
“You can help me in the dining room,” Kristin Hoffman offered. She was one of the nonrelatives Angus hired, along with Jerome. “The tips are great tonight.”
I started on my second slice of pizza. “I’ll stay back here.”
She paused, her bright stare flitting to my scars, then away. “They don’t look that bad, Trinity. And the customers love seeing you with…” She gestured at my face. “Those, and the stakes. They love that you wear them.”
“Thanks,” I replied, a bit dryly. “I’ll stay back here.”
I wasn’t in the mood to be stared at and whispered about. Not tonight. Not when my emotions were still too near the surface. I’d gotten used to the stares and the curiosity. I was, after all, the only survivor of the Thanksgiving Day Massacre, and six years wasn’t that long. People didn’t forget. They looked at me and shuddered and clutched their stomachs uneasily, understanding it could have been any one of them.
And that I’d been driven mad, for a while, by the horror of it. Perhaps, I could almost hear them thinking, some of that madness remained.
I’d spent three months in the hospital as they’d put me back together.
My body was covered with scars that would never fade, but I’d lived. I’d survived with my mind intact.
Mostly.
“Loaded pizza for Miriam,” Derry told Harlan. “Take a picture of Clayton for me.” She waggled her eyebrows, and her brother sneered.
“You’re stupid,” he told her.
She laughed. “If you were a girl, you’d understand.”
Clayton Wilder belonged to Miriam. She’d told me a few different stories about how she’d come to possess him, and I didn’t believe any of them.
But I was fascinated as hell by both of them. I held out my hand. “I’ll deliver it.”
“Hey,” Harlan protested. “She’s the best tipper in Bay Town.”
“Maybe in all of Red Valley,” I agreed. “I’ll split it with you.”
“You’re as bossy as my dad,” he said.
I shrugged. “I’m also older than you, and you have to respect your elders.”
He dropped his eyes to my body, smiling. “You don’t look old.”
I snorted. “You are your father’s son.”
“You’re twenty-four,” Derry said. “That’s not anybody’s elder. But here. Take Miriam the pizza. You’ll owe me one.”
I snatched the large box and gave her a wink. “You are my favorite Stark.”
She preened as Harlan rolled his eyes.
“Be careful out there,” he told me. “Another human woman was murdered last night.” He leered at me and curled his fingers into claws. “By vampires.”
I frowned. That made the third woman killed in the last two weeks. The month before last one woman had been killed. The murderer was spiraling out of control.
I shuddered.
“Stop scaring her,” Derry said.
“I’m not,” he insisted. “Just telling her to watch out.”
“As if she doesn’t already know to watch out. She learned that the hard way.”
I left them to it and headed to Miriam Crow’s office, which was two doors down from the pizza store.
The night air was crisp, and sounds from the not-too-distant city infiltrated the little Bay Town. The raucous honking of angry horns, screaming sirens, revving engines. None of it belonged in Bay Town.
I closed my eyes and turned my face to the sky, then pulled the fresh, cold air deep into my lungs.
My cell rang, startling me out of the moment, and I juggled the box as I pulled the phone from my pocket. I frowned.
“Angus?”
“Stop standing there asking for trouble,” Angus said. “Get that pizza to Miriam’s before it gets cold, or come back into the store and let one of the boys do it.”
My face heated despite the cold night air, and I glanced at the camera high on the exterior wall. I saluted him with my middle finger, then ended the call, cutting off his laughter.
After another glance at the camera, I walked down the sidewalk to the necromancer’s office, rapidly cooling pizza in hand.
I knew Angus would have scoured the footage from my earlier brush with Amias. He wouldn’t have seen much. Amias knew the cameras didn’t reach far into the parking lot. Vampires learned the surveillance situation in their territories early on. They were smart that way.
I walked past the realtor’s office, glancing through the window as I passed by. The realtor was a man named Rhys Graver. Angus had told me once that selling real estate was a front for Graver’s real job, but would never say what his real job was.
Rhys was a couple inches taller than my five feet nine inches, with short, black hair, velvety brown eyes so dark they were almost the same shade as his skin, and full lips that smiled even when his eyes didn’t. I got the feeling his job wasn’t the only fake thing about him. He put on a happy attitude, friendly voice, and an easy laugh that might have fooled most people. Probably did.
But they didn’t fool me.
I saw something dark in his eyes. Something cruel, hard, and frightening. It didn’t matter how hot he was. He was scary.
I still had no idea what Rhys Graver was. Wolf, maybe.
Clayton pulled open the door just as I reached it. He said nothing, as usual.
He reached for the box, then left the door open as he turned and walked away. I couldn’t help but watch him go.
He was dressed in a black suit. The slacks and open jacket were a lighter shade than the midnight black of his pullover shirt, and he wore a black band on the ring finger of his left hand. His dark hair was parted in the middle and pushed back behind his ears. His eyes were a cold, light blue, surrounded by thick black lashes and topped by slashing dark brows.
Whatever he was, he was sexy as anything. Maybe the fact that he was so untouchable made him even more irresistible.
I followed him in, then shut the door behind me. Miriam’s space was pretty much like any other office—surprising, considering what she did.
Most of us believed Clayton was a golem, but what proof did we have? The fact that Miriam dominated him? That he followed her around, took whatever abuse she doled out and continued to stay with her? That he rarely spoke?
That deep in his blue stare was a spark of rage so fierce I could barely look into his eyes for more than a few seconds at a time?
Yeah. That seemed pretty definitive.
He was a golem. He belonged to Miriam.
And he didn’t want either of those things to be true.
“Trinity,” Miriam greeted. She was a slender, pale woman who looked around thirty, though she seemed somehow…ancient. She was all blonde sleekness and creamy skin with pink cheeks, bright blue eyes, and full, pink lips. She couldn’t have looked less like a creature of the night, but Miriam could hold her own against just about anybody. Or anything.
I’d seen her stare down an irate man determined to carve out her heart, and I’d seen her order a moaning, rotting ghoul back to its grave. I’d watched her bully her freaky-ass-sexy-as-hell golem as though he couldn’t reach down and pinch off her head.
“Miriam,” I replied. “Cold night.”
“Yes, indeed.” She tilted her head and studied me, as though I were the strangest thing in that room.
After a minute of standing still for her probing stare, I shifted from one foot to the other and cleared my throat.
“Clayton.” Miriam pushed her chair away from her desk and crossed her legs. “Pay her.”
He walked immediately to her desk, opened a drawer, and withdrew a checkbook. As he scribbled, Miriam gave me a conspiratorial smile.
I had no idea what was going
on, but the tension in the room was thick enough to chew. It had a bitter, poisonous flavor.
Still, I returned her smile, because it was the polite thing to do.
Clayton looked up at that exact second, intercepting what likely appeared as two women mocking his forced servitude. His face darkened, his eyes narrowed, and he pinned me with a look so full of anger and disgust that I could only gape and take a quick step backward.
“Clayton,” Miriam snapped. “Leave the room!” But as he started to exit through a doorway leading to the hall, she stopped him. “Clayton.”
He kept his back to us. “Yes.” There was nothing in that voice but rust. Nothing at all.
“Apologize to Trinity for scaring her.”
There was a heartbeat of silence when I thought this might be the time he decided to rebel, but his voice came, finally, forced and empty. “I apologize.”
“It’s okay,” I managed. “I’m sorry for…” I waved my hand, unsure.
He whipped his head around, surprise lighting his eyes. Miriam stiffened, and he gathered himself quickly, then strode from the room.
No, strode was the wrong word.
He slunk from the room.
And I felt like shit.
“He’s a very dangerous thing,” Miriam said. “You don’t ever need to apologize to him.”
“Why do you keep him?” I didn’t really expect an answer but she gave me one, and I believed she was being truthful. At least partially.
“Because forcing him to bend to my will gives me great pleasure.”
I couldn’t stand there another second. Next time, I’d let Harlan deliver food to the necromancer. It hadn’t been the nice distraction I’d hoped for.
“Hey,” she called, as I reached for the doorknob. “I don’t imagine the lovely Angus Stark wants to give me free food.”
I hurried back to the desk to fetch the check. “Thanks,” I murmured.
She swiveled in her chair to turn on the TV attached to her wall. I was dismissed.
I was on edge, nervous from my encounter with Amias, full of anxiety over the deaths that had begun plaguing the city. Memories I tried hard not to acknowledge were just below the surface, waiting for their chance to slip past my defenses. I had to be vigilant.
I was much too keyed up to deal with the necromancer and her golem and their many layers of crap I did not understand.
But just before I slipped back out the doorway, the local news program stopped me.
“The woman was bitten to death,” the reporter was saying, “in what authorities are calling a copy of the Thanksgiving Day Massacre six years ago—except this was one woman, not an entire family. Nearly every inch of her flesh bore bite marks, some of her fingers were missing, and…” The newscaster’s pause was subtle, but I heard it. “And her throat was torn out. Authorities do not believe this particular case is connected to the other murders that have cropped up over the past two months. This woman was savaged. Brutalized. People are being urged to be careful after dark, to be mindful of their surroundings, and to take the normal precautions as police begin their investigations into this latest murder. Police are asking—”
I practically fell out of the doorway, my chest so tight I couldn’t breathe. “No,” I whispered. “No.”
He was killing again.
“Listen to me.”
Out of habit, I pressed my palms against my ears in some sort of useless attempt to stop the voices, the memories.
And then Miriam was there, clutching my upper arms, murmuring soothing words that meant nothing. But her calmness, her support, her embrace, those meant everything.
I wasn’t alone, and I wasn’t on the street in front of my sister’s house, bleeding and traumatized while all around me people I loved died. I wasn’t there.
I concentrated on Miriam’s soft but strong, steady voice, and my heart began to slow. My mind began to clear.
“All right?” she asked. “All right now, honey?”
I nodded and pulled away, noticing only then that Clayton stood just behind Miriam, watching me.
“I’m okay,” I told her, looking away from Clayton. “I’m good.”
She peered up at me. “You’re vulnerable tonight. Be careful, Trinity. You should surround yourself with people who love you.”
I squeezed her hand, then backed away. “Goodnight, Miriam.”
She nodded. “Go back to that misogynistic Neanderthal of a horndog you work for. He and his dozens of offspring will care for you.”
I couldn’t help but smile, which I’m pretty sure was what she’d intended. I walked back to work, and I could feel both the necromancer and her golem watching me until I slipped into the building and closed the door behind me.
Chapter Three
By nine p.m. the parking lot was completely packed as the Friday night crowd descended upon Bay Town’s best—and only—pizza joint.
The crowd was mostly human, and they went to Bay Town like it was a slightly scary, very dangerous place to go for some drunken weekend fun.
They made the rounds from the Bay Town bars—there were two in the little town—to the one club to the park to have some pizza and see the hot supernats they found there. Bay Town was up all night.
Usually, the town was safe for humans. The supernaturals understood their accountability and their roles, and they were mindful when the weekend came and brought the humans—and their money—with it. When violence did happen in Bay Town, it was nearly always the visiting humans who started it.
The citizens of Red Valley loved to believe that the little Bay Town was full of danger and magic and badassery.
And they were right, but supernats knew to behave themselves when humans were around. Hurting a human would bring serious and swift retribution down on Bay Town, and the nonhumans made every attempt to maintain the safety of those humans in whose world they lived.
Even the vampires usually lay low, unwilling to draw attention to themselves and make their already dire circumstances worse—but then they’d go nuts for some reason and kill a bunch of humans, and the world would redouble its efforts to wipe them all out. But vampires were like cockroaches, and they weren’t going anywhere.
Stark Pizza opened its doors at five p.m. and closed at eleven p.m. on weeknights and four a.m. on weekends, and as I ended up waiting tables after all, I listened for gossip about the recent killings.
Causing a panic was the last thing the human authorities wanted, but it was only a matter of time before it happened. Vampires were once again attacking humans. That was no big surprise. But other humans were being killed as well. Women. And they had no idea what was killing them.
That meant the police were going to start looking at the Bay Town supernaturals.
By the time I left work, I knew the victim’s name was Carrie Alden. She’d just gone through a divorce, and she’d been out drinking and dancing the night she’d been murdered. The murder had happened behind a bar in New Gravel, a small village in Bay County, and only sixteen miles from Bay Town.
That was what Amias had wanted to talk with me about and why he’d been so distracted I’d managed to stab him in the shoulder.
In his strange, obsessive way, Amias wanted to protect me.
Angus walked me to my car, and I knew better than to argue about it. He’d do what he wanted whether I wasted my breath or not.
“The necromancer called me,” he told me, as I opened my car door. “You’re welcome to come home with me, Trin.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve made that perfectly clear.”
But he didn’t smile. “My house is bursting with people. Noisy kids for the most part,” he admitted, “but you won’t be alone there. You can bunk with one of the little ones if you don’t want to sleep alone.” The gleam in his eye suggested that he wouldn’t turn me away were I so inclined to climb into his bed, but he left that unspoken. “Or you can take the guest room.”
I climbed into my car. “I’ll be fine. I’m fine.” I sta
rted the car, then looked up at him. “I’ll take something to help me sleep.”
He nodded. “You need me, you call. I can be there in less than ten minutes. Girl like you shouldn’t live alone.”
I took a deep breath to tell him off, but inadvertently pulled the scent of him deep into my lungs. He wore a subtle, spicy cologne, and the elusive hint of that cologne mixed with the exotic scent of shifter, man, and a special scent I could never quite catch, but I knew it was one he’d been born with. And I knew it was that scent that drifted around him and made him nearly irresistible. Too bad he was such a “misogynistic Neanderthal of a horndog,” as Miriam had so aptly put it. “Goodnight, Angus.”
He slammed my door. “Go straight home.” His loud voice was only a little muffled. He waited until I’d backed out of my parking space before he strode back toward the building.
But I had no plans to start obeying Angus’s orders. I was going to New Gravel. I patted the stakes in my belt, then reached for the silver cross around my neck. I also had a Glock in the glovebox, though that was more for protection against human monsters. Guns wouldn’t do much to the supernaturals.
At least not any I’d ever met.
Excitement uncurled inside my belly, climbed to caress my heart, then dove into my brain. I craved that feeling. It made me feel alive. Even better, it made me forget the ever-present heaviness of the past that covered me like slick, putrid scum.
Going to the scene of the crime in the dead of night might not seem like a smart thing to do, but I was fully aware of the risks. I was also fully aware of the high it gave me. Just thinking about it unleashed something inside me, something closer to happiness than anything I’d ever felt. Especially in the last six years.
I needed to find those killers, and I needed to kill them. I needed to.
So I sped eagerly toward New Gravel and the scene of the murder, wide awake despite the hour. I didn’t sleep much anyway. Picking up clues at a crime scene was preferable to tossing and turning in a lonely bed in my unadorned bedroom—or in my closet, which I ended up crawling into more often than not.
When I arrived in the tiny New Gravel, I parked along the street across from Fred’s Bar and climbed out with no hesitation.
